The Mysterious Mage vs. Pew Pew

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

I think a major point that's missed here is how XP is awarded. In 1st Edition, XP was awarded for gaining wealth, not defeating enemies in combat. How you awarded XP changed in almost every edition, each time shifting more towards XP for defeating monsters through physical prowess. You can't overstate how profound this change is. How you reward play in your game heavily influences that play.

Furthermore, in 1st edition all the classes were not combat specialist. Indeed, the only combat specialist was the Fighter. Wizards, Theives, and Clerics all shined, but they shined in different ways. Fighters were brought along in case the other three classes failed and you needed some meat to throw in front of the ogre.

Now, no one wants to force you into not having fun. If playing a 1st edition caster isn't your taste (or if Vancian magic isn't your taste), early edition DnD may not be your cup of tea. You shouldn't bear the mark of Cain because of this (but you should check out Mage and World of Darkness for alternate magic systems).

Personally, I think 1st edition Wizard has a certain charm about it. Carefully selecting your spells, learning new spells, and selecting when to use your spells to apply force at the right time appeals to me. Yeah, you do suck at level 1, but those are the breaks.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

The wizard with cool "I win the encounter" powers who spend most of the night's encounters plinking away fairly uselessly with their crossbow? That's not really fun to play because it does not feel "wizardly" or "cool".

This is an excellent point and the designers of 4th really went out of their way to make sure a Wizard always did a Wizard action. The wizard At-Will was a great idea to make sure that they never resorted to martial actions (like shooting a crossbow).

Oddly, some classes didn't need at-wills (primarily the Martial Classes). I think the Essential updates of Fighter and Rogue are excellent changes to the class. These changes move both of the classes back towards their more classic design.

 

[LostSoul]

My guess would be that, somewhere in the 2E era, the game wasn't presented as "adventure for loot in a dangerous dungeon, relying on your wits to survive" but instead "play a hero in a story." You take that + your 1st level wizard with no martial prowess to speak of and 1 spell per day and you get people wanting to change it.

That's just a wild guess though.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The wizard with cool "I win the encounter" powers who spend most of the night's encounters plinking away fairly uselessly with their crossbow? That's not really fun to play because it does not feel "wizardly" or "cool".

I like that wizards are given a low level spell they can use all day long. Mechanically, it's not much different than plinking away with the crossbow, but it feels a heck of a lot more like you're playing someone magical and not just a placeholder.

See, I think that it's just the opposite. If you can do it all day long, it doesn't feel magical. As you said, It's just like plinking away with a crossbow. Magic, should be rare, mysterious, and coveted. If not, the classes become homogenized and the lines between them begin to blur.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I think it's a lot of factors, but it boils down to "boredom".

Hiding behind the fighter and throwing darts isn't a whole lot of fun. In 3.x, wizards had the worst of both worlds (in terms of game balance). You were squishy and could only cast a few spells a day at low levels, but at high levels you could dominate play with frankly overpowered defensive spells using fiddly mechanics (Greater Invisibility, I'm looking at you) while dishing out somewhat chancy spells at your victim's worst obvious save in order to take 'em out in round one or two. Not only was magic not mysterious, it could not be, in order to give the wizard's opponents a chance.

This is an excellent point and the designers of 4th really went out of their way to make sure a Wizard always did a Wizard action. The wizard At-Will was a great idea to make sure that they never resorted to martial actions (like shooting a crossbow).

Oddly, some classes didn't need at-wills (primarily the Martial Classes). I think the Essential updates of Fighter and Rogue are excellent changes to the class. These changes move both of the classes back towards their more classic design.

Essentials fighters and rogues still have at-wills, they just work a little differently (having at-will stances rather than at-will powers). A knight using hammer hands works the same way as a fighter using tide of iron, only a little better as it works on opportunity attacks and battle guardian.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Essentials fighters and rogues still have at-wills, they just work a little differently (having at-will stances rather than at-will powers). A knight using hammer hands works the same way as a fighter using tide of iron, only a little better as it works on opportunity attacks and battle guardian.

Maybe that simple change (from an At-Will attack to a Stance) made all the difference to me (it's the small things ). I do know I like the flavor of the essential fighter (Knight and Slayer) more then the 4E fighter.

 

[Mort]

What prompted this change? Was it something in media, was it an aspect of video games, books, anime or certain movies or just the evolving mindset of gamers? Where did this "entitlement" of mundane magic come from?

I think a move away from Vancian magic (3e mages had much more access to spells than before and even 2e+ wa a lot more than Vancian influence would dictate even though the cast-forget mechanic remained) was part of it.

But a bigger part was the evolving mindset of players, as mentioned by Umbran upthread.

One problem is that in earlier edditions casters and noncasters tended to have inverse power curves. Fighters were great to start with but flattened out by higher levels. Mages were lousy to start with (except for brief moments of extreme power) but downright awsome by higher levels. This curve led to some strange player dynamics.

And of course, has it helped to remove the "mystery" of magic and ruined some of the fun or has it made the game better for players (and DMs)?

I'd argue that PC D&D mages never had any mystery to begin with. A mage memorizes spell x and when he casts it y is the known result - every time. Sure there are a few spells with some randomness (teleport, polymorph in early edditions) but they are outliers. Further, other than losing the spell, there are no consequences - there is generaly 0 mystery when the spell is cast as to what will happen or how it will affect the mage.

 

[pemerton]

If you can do it all day long, it doesn't feel magical. As you said, It's just like plinking away with a crossbow. Magic, should be rare, mysterious, and coveted.

Dr Strange can use magic all day long. But (at least to me) Dr Strange's magic seems nothing like plinking away with a crossbow. nd it seems more mysterious, rare and coveted than does the magic of a classic D&D wizard.

 

[S'mon]

My guess would be that, somewhere in the 2E era, the game wasn't presented as "adventure for loot in a dangerous dungeon, relying on your wits to survive" but instead "play a hero in a story." You take that + your 1st level wizard with no martial prowess to speak of and 1 spell per day and you get people wanting to change it.

That's just a wild guess though.

Sounds plausible. OTOH I can't think of any other RPG at all where starter PCs are as weak & fragile as 1st level PCs in OD&D-BX-BECMI, even in the BFRP Runequest/Call of Cthulu line you can start with high skill levels, and most other FRPGs started PCs pretty badass, even back in the early-mid '80s. A Dragon Warriors 1st rank Knight (ATT 12 DEF 9), for instance, is much better than an orc (ATT 12 DEF 5) or normal man (ATT 11 DEF 5), whereas an OD&D Ftr-1 (THAC0 20, 1d8 hp) is functionally identical except maybe for better AC, and the other classes are *worse*!

So I think there was demand very early on for PCs who could kick some butt right from the start, with a good chance of not dying.

 

[S'mon]

In general I like wizard at-wills. They can be problematic out of combat though, eg I ran Forge of Fury converted to 4e, there was some kind of deadly mould, so the wizard just cast an area fire attack at it until it was all incinerated. I'm not sure area-effect attacks should be at-will.