ParanetOnline
The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Jett on February 26, 2011, 08:57:07 PM
-
Sorry if these have been posted before, but I'm brand new both to the forums and to the game. I'm looking for your opinions on a couple of issues.
First off, how common is magic among humans? My first guess is that wizards of Harry's caliber are about 1 in two to three million. (Chicago could have one or two, New York would have two or three.) But that would mean that there are more than three thousand worldwide. Does that sound right? I further suppose that Focused Practitioners and Minor Talents would be about one thousand times more common (but of course, many of these would never develop their abilities). Even so, that would mean that there are three or four million worldwide, and a big city like Chicago would have one or two thousand. Does this seem to high?
Secondly, how is the Paranet organized? When reading the novels, I got the general impression that it was very organized, something along the lines of clandestine cells where each member would know a couple of others at their own organizational level, one or two at a lower level, and one at a higher level. This level of organization would require considerable management, however. The more I think about it, the more it seems likely that it's much less organized, maybe something like the informal network of a garden club or a church. What do you think? Further, to what degree can minor talents use the internet? (Cause if there are as many practitioners as I suppose, magical chat rooms are gonna be all over the internet. And while we're on the subject, to what degree are minor talents aware of the White Council and the wider magical world?
Thanks for your time, Jett.
-
It's more like one in every 6-10 million people can be a true wizard. There's only about 1000 in the world all told. Well, that's ignoring the people they don't find and hence don't teach. Lesser talents could well be 100-1000 times more common. I definitely think it is a lot more than 10 times as common given what we see in the books. Lesser talents vary a lot in how powerful they are, of course.
As for Paranet, I don't think they are organized like terrorist cells. Every member needs to be able to contact a wizard or the like if there's a problem. It does seem, IIRC, like Harry has some names he calls to warn of danger and I assume they call others. I imagine any of them could call him if there was trouble, but to ease the calling burden they have certain members responsible for calling others -- ideally they'd have some redundancy so that if one of those members was compromised then the people under them would still get called by someone else, but I don't think they have that.
-
My question to you would be how will you use this information? How is it pertinent to your story. Seems to me that there are many possible answers. Your estimation on the numbers seems right, and I think that it's fair to assume that at least half of the minor talents are aware of the white council (or at least the image of the white council they have, I.E. wardens). But if you want to have thousands of wizards fighting each other why wouldn't you? If you want to play a minor talent with no knowledge (or complete knowledge) of the white council what's to stop you?
I only make this statement because often these kind of questions are used to limit the story or to limit others within it, and that's generally not in everyone's best interest.
-
Exact wizard level talent numbers have been kept vague on purpose
So whatever works for your game go for it
Same for the paranet
Use what works for your game and the forum for ideas of course
-
It is around one in one million from what is given. Drachasor, the White Council is bigger then one thousand, and there are wizard level talents who aren't a part of the Council (i.e. Elaine, high powered warlocks, and anybody they don't find).
As far as the Paranet organization goes, I see it as chapterhouses that can communicate to each other, give each other support if they have the muscle. Harry's goal was to get them to support themselves, not just be a wizard phone service. You may be getting a more prescise answer when the first supplement comes out.
-
It is around one in one million from what is given. Drachasor, the White Council is bigger then one thousand, and there are wizard level talents who aren't a part of the Council (i.e. Elaine, high powered warlocks, and anybody they don't find).
It is only slightly bigger than 1000. It is smaller than 1500 from what I remember of the books. I think it is far less than 1 in a million since that means there are 5-6 times as many people out of the council as there are in it. That seems like way too many wizard-level talents.
-
It is only slightly bigger than 1000. It is smaller than 1500 from what I remember of the books. I think it is far less than 1 in a million since that means there are 5-6 times as many people out of the council as there are in it. That seems like way too many wizard-level talents.
1/1mil might be high as a standing population number, but likely less so as a frequency of appearance
ie. Warlocks tend not to last very long, and so artificially deflate the numbers
-
The White council has to be considerably larger than 1000 wizards. There were around 400 wardens before Dead Beat, and assuming that 5% of the council were wardens, that puts them at around 8000 wizards. Something like 5000 people is probably the smallest possible White Council, otherwise the Wardens take up too much of the population.
Here's (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,22618.0.html) my earlier thoughts about the number of wizards in the world.
-
Also don't forget that wizards live longer than normal people, and thus the number of wizards isn't a straight function of the current population numbers, but is instead an additive function based upon the populations of the last few centuries.
-
The White council has to be considerably larger than 1000 wizards. There were around 400 wardens before Dead Beat, and assuming that 5% of the council were wardens, that puts them at around 8000 wizards. Something like 5000 people is probably the smallest possible White Council, otherwise the Wardens take up too much of the population.
Here's (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,22618.0.html) my earlier thoughts about the number of wizards in the world.
Why assume the Wardens are 5% of the council? I don't believe that's the case at all. I will look through the books, but I thought somewhere they gave a comment about one group and how it related to the council overall. Thats' where I was getting my "a bit over 1000" figure -- I thought it was something like 1200. I don't see how 30% of the White Council being Wardens is "too much." It isn't like they don't need a lot of warriors.
-
Do you need to be a White Council wizard before you can be a Warden? Would being an apprentice be enough? Because reading the books, I get the idea that being a wizard takes jumping through quite a few hoops, but they seem to be running kids through Warden boot camp as fast as they can. Are the new kid Wardens like Jedi Commanders, as in they are really only apprentices?
-
Mostly from percentages of a population that can be kept 'under arms' constantly. Around 10% is an absolute maximum for any period of time, with most nations/groups putting 2-3% of the population under arms. The 10% under arms is for places like North Korea and Sparta too, and the council doesn't seem that military. So somewhere between 1-5% of the population at large as Wardens seems reasonable. Also, the fact that the wardens can be 'replaced' by newly drafted recruits also shows that the White Council has a considerably larger population.
-
Mostly from percentages of a population that can be kept 'under arms' constantly. Around 10% is an absolute maximum for any period of time, with most nations/groups putting 2-3% of the population under arms. The 10% under arms is for places like North Korea and Sparta too, and the council doesn't seem that military. So somewhere between 1-5% of the population at large as Wardens seems reasonable. Also, the fact that the wardens can be 'replaced' by newly drafted recruits also shows that the White Council has a considerably larger population.
You are treating the white council like a nation or a polis, when it would be more accurate to look at it as a Diaspora it has a fairly small population spread across a multiplicity of states and relies upon those states welfare and infastructure to a large extent. The only real limit to how many wardens the white council can have is the wizard population and money and the White Council is very wealthy.
-
You are treating the white council like a nation or a polis, when it would be more accurate to look at it as a Diaspora it has a fairly small population spread across a multiplicity of states and relies upon those states welfare and infastructure to a large extent. The only real limit to how many wardens the white council can have is the wizard population and money and the White Council is very wealthy.
Indeed. It isn't like they need wizard farmers, merchants, etc. They aren't a nation.
Imagine all mathematicians were in some secret organization. Further, imagine there are other secret groups and threats that might try to kill any one of them at any moment. This isn't a nation and you aren't going to see the same sort of job spread that a nation might have. If anything, they are much more like a military organization. Wardens are just the front-line troops. Logistics, healing, and so forth are handled by others. Remember, when Kemmler was stopped it was the ENTIRE White Council going after him. Also remember that the main reason Harry gives for the fact there aren't a bunch more Wardens is that not every Wizard is cut out to do combat magic. They clearly have pretty much everyone capable of combat magic as a Warden -- Harry was an exception because he broke the first law. That's why when they are trying to get more Wardens together, they are rush-training a bunch of kids rather than having older members sign up or get trained; the older people that aren't Wardens just don't have the talent to do it.
I'd add that as for money, the books indicate they White Council is pretty crazy-rich due to simple things like interest over very long lives.
More debatable is how many people with wizard-level talent get missed. I think Victor Sells was probably a wizard-level talent (he just didn't seem to have the sight, but I assume that could be trained). Harry doesn't really run into anyone else with that level of talent in all the books, as best I remember. Apart from the Elaine (who was thought dead, so the Council found her) and the Black Council members. The latter isn't going to be a big group as best I can tell, nor are people like Elaine likely to be very large. Still, it's an open question how many potential wizards are lost and never discovered by the Council. They really are sloppy and should have had something like Paranet put in place years ago (that's a system that can identify potential wizard-level talents pretty well, ideally). However, I have to admit that an organization run by people who might find cars and phones to be a new-fangled contraptions would probably have a hard time shifting to a system where they organized and included lesser talents in any way (so I don't think Butcher handled this badly).
-
I would assume that the majority of "potential wizards" never get training, and thus end up like focused practitioners and minor talents and whatnot.
-
It occurs to me that there was something in the books (novels not RPG) about the white council missing a decent number of practitioners lately due to the war.
In addition (and I'm not totally sure where I got this idea) I seem to recall the difference between wizards and focused practitioners/minor talents is actually power, not training.
-
More debatable is how many people with wizard-level talent get missed. I think Victor Sells was probably a wizard-level talent (he just didn't seem to have the sight, but I assume that could be trained). Harry doesn't really run into anyone else with that level of talent in all the books, as best I remember.
Demon-summoning Warlock in events leading up to Grave Peril
Young kid warlock at the start of...Proven Guilty, is it?
-
In addition (and I'm not totally sure where I got this idea) I seem to recall the difference between wizards and focused practitioners/minor talents is actually power, not training.
Binder seems to have plenty of power, but doesn't seem to be able to do more than one trick with it. Doesn't seem like it is an issue of training from how people talk about him. They do talk here and there about how most people with talent only have a knack for a specific thing.
Demon-summoning Warlock in events leading up to Grave Peril
Young kid warlock at the start of...Proven Guilty, is it?
Ahh, yes, possibly the demon-summoning warlock. Though, it is hard to say whether he could do more than summon demons and some thaumaturgy. Kid Warlock at the start of proven guilty? The guy could manipulate minds, but there's no reason to think that somehow means he could be a full-fledged wizard. Like Harry says, even a focused practitioner can be deadly. Honestly we can't tell if these guys are much more advanced than someone like Binder, who while deadly can't be a full wizard.
-
Ahh, yes, possibly the demon-summoning warlock. Though, it is hard to say whether he could do more than summon demons and some thaumaturgy. Kid Warlock at the start of proven guilty? The guy could manipulate minds, but there's no reason to think that somehow means he could be a full-fledged wizard. Like Harry says, even a focused practitioner can be deadly. Honestly we can't tell if these guys are much more advanced than someone like Binder, who while deadly can't be a full wizard.
The demon-summoner was described as a Sorcerer in Harry's little dream-reenactment, good at the flashy-destructive magic far more than anything else. That's why Harry's job was to lock him down. So we have evidence of him pulling off substantially complex thaumaturgy, and being capable of pulling off substantially potent evocation. I think that's sufficient to say that he likely could have been a wizard with the proper training (and early intervention)
as for the kid, we have very little evidence of what he was capable of, but enough, I think, to list him as having been a potential candidate, had he received training (and intervention) in time
-
The demon-summoner was described as a Sorcerer in Harry's little dream-reenactment, good at the flashy-destructive magic far more than anything else. That's why Harry's job was to lock him down. So we have evidence of him pulling off substantially complex thaumaturgy, and being capable of pulling off substantially potent evocation. I think that's sufficient to say that he likely could have been a wizard with the proper training (and early intervention)
as for the kid, we have very little evidence of what he was capable of, but enough, I think, to list him as having been a potential candidate, had he received training (and intervention) in time
I'll grant the Sorcerer, but the kid we only have him as a one-talent wonder. No reason to think he's any better than Binder, especially when Harry says most people that have some supernatural ability can't be wizards (but that doesn't mean they are pushovers).
-
The kid is far from a definitive example of a potential wizard, but remember, that's essentially all the talent that exhibited before her training
An entirely untrained one-trick wonder can quite reasonably be assumed to have greater potential if they were to receive meaningful training
again, I'd list him as a potential candidate, a 'maybe'
-
The kid is far from a definitive example of a potential wizard, but remember, that's essentially all the talent that exhibited before her training
An entirely untrained one-trick wonder can quite reasonably be assumed to have greater potential if they were to receive meaningful training
again, I'd list him as a potential candidate, a 'maybe'
You don't have to point spoiler tags there (just saying).
Anyhow, I guess we are arguing over semantics. Point is, wizard-like power that isn't connected to the Council is pretty rare to come across. Dresden encounters it no more than 3 times over the course of a decade or more, possibly only twice -- Elaine and the Black Council don't count in this regard, as they've been connected to the White Council is some form.
-
I tend to use spoiler tags or the like any time I make anything like a definitive revelation regarding a significant, book-spanning character, regardless of what book it's from. It's mostly just a courtesy.
Wizard-like power is relatively rare to notice when you're not particularly looking for it. But then, the Council as a whole doesn't do much to search these people out, even in the best of times, unless they're causing trouble, and Harry isn't a whole lot better (yeah, sure, he has pamphlets in his office, and he's in the yellowpages, and he makes himself known in the community, but he doesn't do a whole lot actually to search them out until the Paranet gets set up to help do that for the Council)
Dresden, without expending any particular effort to find such individuals, encounters them possibly FOUR times ( really should count here, and possibly even , since we have no clues as to how powerful she actually was) over about a decade
-
There's as many Wizards as you need for your campaign.
Being a Warden requires more than wizard-level talent and being a member of the White Council. The impression I got was that many wizards didn't qualify to be Wardens, because they had the wrong mind-set. Perfectly honest and capable Wizards...but not suitable to confront warlocks and other threats. So, Wardens were a small sub-set of White Council wizards who were up to the task of enforcing the Laws.
All members of the White Council are technically required to aid and assist Wardens in the performance of their duties; but I can see Wardens giving a pass to the wizard in the small town who does potion research and whose idea of a threat is an angry bull. He might be a nice guy; but probably would fall completely apart when confronted with a life-threatening emergency.
-
Assumption is the mother of all foulups
-
In Death Beat, when Harry goes to McAnally's to warn the others that "big stuff is going tonight - get ye behind a threshold" the book mention the "sorry, you can't be on the council because you don't have enough" type folk there.
Let me see if I can paste from an ebook:
The tavern was crowded with members of the supernatural community of Chicago. They weren't wizards. Most of them had only a pocketful of ability. One dark-bearded man had enough skill at kinetomancy to alter the spin on any dice he happened to throw. An elderly woman at another table had an unusually strong rapport with animals, and was active in municipal animal shelter charities. A pair of dark-haired sisters who shared an uncanny mental bond played chess at one of the tables, which seemed kind of masturbatory, somehow. In one of the corners, five or six wizened old practitioners—not strong enough to have joined the Council, but competent enough in their own right—huddled together over mugs of ale, speaking in low tones.
Richard
-
In Death Beat, when Harry goes to McAnally's to warn the others that "big stuff is going tonight - get ye behind a threshold" the book mention the "sorry, you can't be on the council because you don't have enough" type folk there.
Let me see if I can paste from an ebook:
The tavern was crowded with members of the supernatural community of Chicago. They weren't wizards. Most of them had only a pocketful of ability. One dark-bearded man had enough skill at kinetomancy to alter the spin on any dice he happened to throw. An elderly woman at another table had an unusually strong rapport with animals, and was active in municipal animal shelter charities. A pair of dark-haired sisters who shared an uncanny mental bond played chess at one of the tables, which seemed kind of masturbatory, somehow. In one of the corners, five or six wizened old practitioners—not strong enough to have joined the Council, but competent enough in their own right—huddled together over mugs of ale, speaking in low tones.
Richard
Yeah, I think it is pretty safe to say there are well more than 10 times as many people who have power, but not wizard-level potential. Seems like it might be as high as 20-50 times as many, but that's hard to call. I think there probably isn't 100 non-wizards for every wizard though (as far as practitioners of some sort go).
-
In Death Beat, when Harry goes to McAnally's to warn the others that "big stuff is going tonight - get ye behind a threshold" the book mention the "sorry, you can't be on the council because you don't have enough" type folk there.
Let me see if I can paste from an ebook:
The tavern was crowded with members of the supernatural community of Chicago. They weren't wizards. Most of them had only a pocketful of ability. One dark-bearded man had enough skill at kinetomancy to alter the spin on any dice he happened to throw. An elderly woman at another table had an unusually strong rapport with animals, and was active in municipal animal shelter charities. A pair of dark-haired sisters who shared an uncanny mental bond played chess at one of the tables, which seemed kind of masturbatory, somehow. In one of the corners, five or six wizened old practitioners—not strong enough to have joined the Council, but competent enough in their own right—huddled together over mugs of ale, speaking in low tones.
That still doesn't answer the "nature versus nurture" debate over wizardly power though. If those old practitioners had been taken aside as youths and apprenticed to a white council wizard instead of learning on their own would they have been able to become white council wizards themselves?
-
There's no clear answer to that. Again, the impression I have gotten is that it's a combination of talent and training. Excellent training can bolster a mediocre talent to acceptable wizard levels; powerful Talent can eventually overcome an obstacle of poor (or no) training. But no amount of training can actually provide Talent; if you lack the raw ability to handle the full range of magics, then training can't make you a wizard.
There is also an elitist strain in the White Council, which implies that there are a few wizards (in terms of talent) who are not acknowledged as such, because they've never received 'proper' training. In general, though, minor Talents are just that. No matter how much training they receive, they can't ever become full Wizards.
-
Oh, I agree with all of that. I just think given how little the White Council seems to put towards finding and training potential recruits (especially outside of North America and Europe) that the majority of "potential White Council wizards" never receive enough training to get to that power level.
-
Oh, I agree with all of that. I just think given how little the White Council seems to put towards finding and training potential recruits (especially outside of North America and Europe) that the majority of "potential White Council wizards" never receive enough training to get to that power level.
Until the Red War. Then you see all sorts of new recruits that appeared to be going straight into Warden training. They aren't clear on where these recruits were coming from, but I get the impression that anyone they knew about that met certain minimal talent requirements were offered a deal to became White-Council-certified by completing Warden training.
-
Political intent (keeping those deemed 'undesirable' out of the Council and away from power) collided with political reality (we need more Wizards, and fast).
And there's no mention of being able to remove a Wizard from the Council other than through trial and execution...which means the Council is getting a lot of new blood which really doesn't owe that much to the current regime. Awkward...
-
the Council is getting a lot of new blood which really doesn't owe that much to the current regime. Awkward...
Rather the opposite, in fact. A lot of this new blood may end up displaying a (no doubt legitimate) sense of entitlement owing to their military service, to having come in from the cold and saved the White Council's bacon. "Starship Troopers" will probably get quoted a lot.
-
Jim might be taking a page from Glen Cook's Black Company. In those books the wizard's ability is determined by a mixture of Talent and training. Great Talent with no training leaves a frustrated wannabe, but all the training in the world won't be able to take you above the top level you can reach.
Spotting a young top Talent will bring a smile to the face of most Great Wizards...
Richard