That's your choice. Perhaps some reading up on real people who have had great power and used it for good might help? Or look to fiction for examples. Honor Harrington comes to mind, but pick one that resonates with you, not with me.I don't see why any such code would survive learning how to bend the multiverse to your will.
Oh I get it. But it's your view that the ability to bend the multiverse must be used for evil, or that there is no "good" use for such power. There are plenty of ways to use such power for good. Such as; feeding the poor, providing sanitation for a town, ridding the X of evil Y.And, they don't all start selfish, in fact I've gone out of my way to give them reasons not to be but... dude, there's a multiverse out there! Also I can make copies of myself without free will to do things for me. And, of course, undead labor. See also: fireballs as war crimes. And how do we think the spirits we summon to die for us feel about it?
It didn't take long for someone to get bent out of shape.That's your choice. Perhaps some reading up on real people who have had great power and used it for good might help? Or look to fiction for examples. Honor Harrington comes to mind, but pick one that resonates with you, not with me.
Oh I get it. But it's your view that the ability to bend the multiverse must be used for evil, or that there is no "good" use for such power. There are plenty of ways to use such power for good. Such as; feeding the poor, providing sanitation for a town, ridding the X of evil Y.
I can drive 130 mph on the street near me, but I don't. I can go into a convenience store, kill the clerk and rob the place, but I don't. It's a choice you make to play your wizard as turning evil. If you don't want that, then expand your viewIf you do want it, then go for it if it's within your group's acceptable play styles.
EDIT: poor? examples. They are an attempt to show that power does not need to be used, and it does not need to be used for selfish reasons.
Nope, not me.It didn't take long for someone to get bent out of shape.
Again, you don't get my point. If you don't want to play a wizard who turns evil because of (any reason you want). Then don't. It's totally in your control, if you chose to.Anyway, none of those examples are really at the same level of inter-planar earthbending power. A small bit of power would only beget a small bit of "evil", or corruption, or selfishness. PCs exhibit that all the time.
Lets say I consider PCs to be constrained, only that Wizards can throw off the yoke of law. Without law, Bellum omnium contra omnes.
I have zero problems with it, as I've said several times already in this thread, and of course my characters are entirely in my control.Nope, not me.
Again, you don't get my point. If you don't want to play a wizard who turns evil because of (any reason you want). Then don't. It's totally in your control, if you chose to.
I mean, Cincinnatus was probably a real dude (or, at least, that's the consensus among historians). Some details of his life may have been mythologized, but he almost certainly did actually serve as dictator twice, and we have no reason to believe he did not behave as described in the stories told about him.I think power without corruption is a fantasy, and one that breaks verisimilitude for me.
You go to sleep for 8 hours and wake up to your name being taken in vain!Perhaps I should explain, and I love the “I’m the Sword” references btw!
@TheSword and I have been part of a face-to-face group for many years, with he and I sharing the DM-ing.
He’s an awesome DM and player, but we have a running joke that his spellcaster characters always start as decent enough, but always slide inexorably towards the sinister. The incident with the blanket springs to mind or the cutting off of the thumb or Gaunty in general.
Whilst my own characters are, of course, noble, decent, upstanding and honest, and I have a bridge to sell you!
Let’s be honest you’ve just described Rick Sanchez’ life arc!Where evil is the selfish me-first sort of evil.
So, set entirely aside the problem of backstabbing the party. I never do that - that's not fun (unless that's the point of the entire campaign), and I have never and will never turn mid-fight or steal resources or anything like that. D&D is a group game, and I as a player fully recognize that and have and will always abide by it.
Ok, that aside - whenever I play a pure wizard, the higher they get in levels the more capital-E Evil they become (although never chaotic stupid or extreme murder hobo, but often very, very selfish). And, come to think of it this is really just wizards, never when I have played a warlock or sorcerer, although warlocks can easily trend morally grey/neutral - and multiclassed or dual classed characters never really have the same sort of trajectory. At some point it just becomes blue and orange morality, but it goes through me-first "evil" before it gets there.
It starts, often, with a bit of necromancy - because of course it does. Then come the fiends, and before too long its all about extending life and acquiring more power to extend that life - vampirism, the unholy lich-grail, deals with ruinous powers, etc. More spells, more spell books, more powerful items. Once you can hop the planes, the local matters on whichever planet you happened to hail from seem trivial. Oh? That city will be wiped away? Oh well, can't win em all. Maybe you'll help the party out because it feels a little bit like a family/class reunion of sorts, but then it's back to planewalking. Some of it is how much Jack Vance is still in the wizard spell list - even today, and some of it is just old tropes; hero to Raistlin in just 15 or so levels, right? Along the way they stop agreeing (if they ever agreed) to do things for free, and of course "for the experience" isn't really a motivator with much verisimilitude.
Because of how wizards acquire their powers, this seems like the natural progression for most of them, and the more power they acquire the less the small things seem to matter for them. Other classes don't seem to progress in quite the same way, and I am having trouble putting my finger on why. It's been a long time since I have played a sorcerer, but being so good at the social game makes them more embedded in social structures to my mind - plus the spells known problem makes some of the more bizarre stuff wizards can do too costly in terms of resources. Warlocks are flat out constrained by their list, as are Bards to a certain extent; although a particular kind of murderclowngod bard could very much go down this route, too.
This is such a common turn of events I try to plan against it with backstories and so on, but it never lasts. Some time around levels 9 or 11, they start turning to the dark side. And, again, this is really only wizards. Warlocks? No problem at all. I'm starting to think I should set a "become evil NPC by" date for them when I make them up.
@ph0rk
I think, perhaps, that the problem may lie in the way you view the relationship between the wizard and their power? That is, it seems to me that you start off with the perspective, "A Wizard desires power, and thus pursues Wizardly ways because those are an excellent investment."
Would you describe any of your Wizards as the kind of people who investigate puzzles or enigmas solely because they are unsolved,
I mean, Cincinnatus was probably a real dude (or, at least, that's the consensus among historians). Some details of his life may have been mythologized, but he almost certainly did actually serve as dictator twice, and we have no reason to believe he did not behave as described in the stories told about him.
Some people really can be given nigh-absolute power and no (external) reason not to use it...and still just walk away.
Let’s be honest you’ve just described Rick Sanchez’ life arc!
Three things that alter that curve.
- Guilt
- A family
- Both
Find something that matters more to you than power. Either something you’ve lost that mattered to you (like your surgeons hands for instance) or something that you need to protect (like a grandson).
Incidentally there are plenty of ways of extending life aside from drinking blood or drinking poison and secreting your soul in a box.
I dm’d a game where the wizard had ‘retired’ from wizardry and had settled down on a farm with a wife and kids to live a simple life.No, because that is nearly all of my other characters, save for the ones that are fools. Solving problems just because they are there is something I have to deliberately write out of a character because that's my natural tendency. That said, an ambitious wizard might still solve such a puzzle because that's where they would hide the good stuff.
Even if we grant that such a thing is possible (and I'm not sure I do), it certainly isn't the norm. I'm sure there were decisions he may have made that pissed people off enough for them to describe them as amoral. Almost no one revered as a pinnacle of virtue really was one, and there are questions about the legendary account of Cincinnatus (but I'm not a historian). And, of course, immortality was unattainable for Cincinnatus.
Also I think I've left out Psions because it's been an age since I've thought about them, but they tended to follow a similar path, though at times more directly manipulative. And I don't think sorcerers would be precluded from following it, it would simply be more difficult because of the spells known problem. 15 spells known keep you grounded, as it is a check on power.
Oh, sure - but vampirism and lichdom have other benefits and are great solutions. Who needs the sun or skin? Sequester can do a lot for you but it doesn't really extend your life, just a poor form of time travel. That said, a few 1000-year sequesters and who are you attached to, anymore?
Once such a long life becomes a possibility, I don't see the sorts of attachments that result in guilt being a factor much more - perhaps if your start point is a 1000 year lifespan. Rick's arc is the way it is because that makes it an approachable show for the simple audience that can't planewalk; we end up seeing him through his family.
Take a Rhialto for example; he tolerates his wizard peers only because he must; any attachments he had to things other than his manse are long dead.
Other fictional comparisons might be Hari Seldon or Dr. Frankenstein. Ambition and a long view, coupled with the fact that by Tier 3 some truly reality warping power becomes available - so the game rules themselves are providing a lot of this structure; which is in part why I don't see Warlocks really going that route in the same way. They'd always be also-rans, and with smaller minds focused on smaller problems; they lack the focus required, anyway.
Wizards that never make it past level 7? Not an issue, they don't have a chance to do much more than dip a toe in the pool of evil.
Because of how wizards acquire their powers, this seems like the natural progression for most of them, and the more power they acquire the less the small things seem to matter for them. Other classes don't seem to progress in quite the same way, and I am having trouble putting my finger on why. It's been a long time since I have played a sorcerer, but being so good at the social game makes them more embedded in social structures to my mind - plus the spells known problem makes some of the more bizarre stuff wizards can do too costly in terms of resources. Warlocks are flat out constrained by their list, as are Bards to a certain extent; although a particular kind of murderclowngod bard could very much go down this route, too.
please elaborate.Perhaps you need to re-read some of the old source material. LotR. the books of earthsea.
that was probably more directed at ph0rk than youplease elaborate.