D&D General I can't help it - every pure wizard I ever make has turned or will turn "evil" (even if only in my own mind).

[TheSword]

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.

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.

 

[ph0rk]

@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,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

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.

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.

Events forced him out of retirement in order to protect his family and his simple, quiet life.

It was interesting to see how he strove to be an example to his children, even when they weren’t there (to be the father they’d be proud of) and the altruism he showed to the simple people who lived the life he valued and was protecting. It became the rock in the chaotic storm that grounded him to his values and kept him from losing his humanity.

 

[Gammadoodler]

It seems to me that it might help focusing on what your character wants to accomplish. Power is a tool and tools have a purpose.

If the goal is "live forever", then sliding toward evil does seem inevitable. But there are other goals: "eliminate suffering", "bring back a loved one", "solve an ancient mystery", etc. where you still need power, but it's not for you.

Maybe you still end up on "the dark side" pursuing those goals, the road to hell and good intentions and all that. But at that point it should be about your character ignoring the good thing they are trying to accomplish, or sacrificing other good things so they can accomplish it, rather than.."Well I guess I'll just make an undead slave army because I can"

 

[Stormonu]

Very few people can handle the equivalent of Superman's powers without devolving into a supervillian, but we do occasionally see such characters in literature (Superman, King Arthur come to mind) - and much, much less historically. I think we've all see how in our lifetimes how accumulation of power - and the desire to accumulate more can twist an otherwise moral individual into acts that onlookers would easily describe as immoral at best, and evil in most cases.

 

[Li Shenron]

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.

First of all, if that's your frequent character concept preference, nothing wrong with that.

I am somewhat not surprised that it doesn't happen when you play Warlocks, because each of their archetype already comes with a moral connotation. It is not mandatory to follow it strictly and even possible to roleplay against it, but I suppose in most cases it directs the player towards a certain alignment or ethics, which is not evil for all Warlock archetypes.

I am a bit more surprised instead that it doesn't happen to Sorcerers... I would think that between them and Wizards there is the same unspecified/open morality from the class description. I hadn't thought that being high-Cha could actually steer a character towards good. If anything, my typical mental image of a "Sorcerer" is actually darker and shadier than Wizard. First image that comes to my mind saying Wizard is a joyful grey-haired old person in starry robes and pointy hat swinging a sparkling wand to make children laugh, and saying Sorcerer is a crooked-faced gnarly-handed person looking over their shoulder while attending a boiling cauldron in a shadowy lair

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

It's not like 'evil wizard' is the only stereotype. White Wizards are a common trope. With that in mind, think of the goals and aspirations of a White Wizard. Arguably, Gandalf had Universe Changing power but he never used it selfishly.

It's a shame that 5e separated wizard by school instead of by actual archetype.

A White wizard could have many helpful spells such as curing the sick and healing people. As it is, you'd need to multi-class to get that. Or play a bard reskinned as a wizard.

 

[Ancalagon]

Perhaps you need to re-read some of the old source material. LotR. the books of earthsea.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Perhaps you need to re-read some of the old source material. LotR. the books of earthsea.

please elaborate.

 

[CreamCloud0]

please elaborate.

that was probably more directed at ph0rk than you