How do you make wizards interesting and mysterious again?

It's worth keeping in mind that even Gandalf mostly avoids using overt magic except as an absolute last fucking resort.

He focuses almost all of his efforts on statecraft/politics and crafting long-term personal relationships, and that is the true nature of his power.

That's not interesting, mysterious, or unique.

That has been done to death.

Don't let anyone know what they're thinking about.

So maybe instead of giving your wizards shitloads of spells, most of what they have is contacts in strange places, both high and low.

Definitely not by giving them chromed capes

And more seriously - you can't just make that for the entire setting, not to mention settings. Things are interesting when they are NOT common. What's the point of giving unique traits to all wizards, when, duh, all wizards will be the same?

So either treat each of them as an idividual and or create some "basic set" and then strenghten it with individual elements.
Say you've got Magic Council and mages trained in official schools. Now make sure there is such institution as court mage and mage-resident, so every bigger feudal lord got his advisor and every more important city can pride itself by having mage.
Now make sure the whole thing is decentralised, so each mage is more or less working on his or her own, doing things as they suit them. Maybe one guy is just sitting in some rural area and doing research about peasants and their traditions. Maybe one chick is hell-bent on controlling local market for commodity X. Maybe another mage is a slacker that is taking a massive grant for astronomical and astrological research, which he spends on hookers and huge mansion, while doing no research at all. Maybe someone is planting carrots in his garden and trying different techniques to increase their yeld and growth? Maybe another is obsessed about perfect golems, believing he could sell them later to local guild as workers. And so on and forth.
Either you make them all individuals, or you will end up with samey characters each time.

Not trolling, not using bait. Literally everyone sucks at something, and everyone sucks at something when they first start it and/or don't try to get better at it.
I started literally this exact same thread four years ago and basically got no helpful answers, so instead I just read up on working in descriptive language, worked with my group to create an atmosphere that they could enjoy, generally worked my ass off to improve and it fixed pretty much the entire problem.
I STILL am constantly trying to improve my GM game when I can because nobody is ever perfect at anything and learning new tricks for GMing and listening to other's stories is a great way to learn things.

I'm betting one or more of you on this thread told a story or two I listened to and learned from and tried to apply the lesson when I GM even.

An RPG requires the rules to be explained to be playable as a game, so RPG wizardry must be comprehensible and hence non-mysterious under most circumstances, if players can be wizards

Magic in any kind of storytelling is usually an allegory for something - knowledge, virtue, power in general

If as usual magic is allegorical science then wizards are allegorical scientists, for example - and scientists are not really that mysterious, kind of the opposite for the most part, seeing as science is all about illuminating mysteries

What's something you and your group find legitimately mysterious in real life? Your magic is an allegory for that thing, and your wizard is someone who knows all about that thing and gains power from hoarding that knowledge

user he's just asking for cool wizard ideas.

Modern fantasy puts too much emphasis on fleshed-out, well-explained magic systems. This kinda takes a lot of the mystery since you know exactly what the wizard is capable of. Take the rules, the training wheels, all the clamps off of magic, and show it as dangerous and crazy as you possibly can.

Not the user, but there is NO recipe for instantly awesome NPCs. It's always complex and laborous to create NPCs that vary and in the same time are interesting.

Oh. Hmm....
How about making a Wizard look like literally anything OTHER then a Wizard? Maybe a fat bearded guy with fancy clothes who looks and acts like a banker? Or a heavily muscled bald guy who looks more like a blacksmith?

You've lost me somewhere around
>Take the rules, the training wheels, all the clamps off of magic

You could simply go for folklore, you mong, making things ten times as interesting and still reasonable. By your path it's basically "lolsrandom wizards roam the countryside, powerful as fuck"

Fuck off

>Not slapping rules on magic = lolsorandum

go back to your mistborn novels

Magic isn't even clearly defined in middle earth

The elves and dwarves can just...do stuff

It's not particularly strange or supernatural, like any artist or craftsman just building something cool.

Gandalf is a fuggin angel in disguise.

In literature, most sorcerers are politicians first and foremost. It's really weird that in gaming, they are almost pure murderhobo. I wonder how that came to pass...

let me use this thread as an opportunity to ask a very ignorant retarded question you guys probably know the answer to

how were pre-Tolkien wizards from actual ancient myths and legends and shit actually portrayed? like did they carry staffs? long beards and the robes with pointy hats? did they shoot fireballs and lightning? summon monsters? what's the origin of the wizards we have today really? Merlin? Moses?

>mistborn novels

First you would have to explain the fuck are those. I'm simply making a statement about how you need at least SOME rules in the setting. Magic working on principle of "wizard did this" is the worst thing that can ever happend to the setting. And you are basically advocating for that.

Poor setting design. There's really no excuse for mundane kings to exist when there are highly intelligent dragons or family lines of sorcerers. The incredibly powerful don't just let the world happen around them.

>how were pre-Tolkien wizards from actual ancient myths and legends and shit actually portrayed?
Depends on where, but mostly Tolkien was doing his own thing. Wizards and sorcerers had abilities that pretty much relied on doing whatever the plot required them to do in myths because myths are used as a way of telling a story or explaining an aspect of the world you don't understand, not making an RPG system.
>like did they carry staffs?
Moses did. But mostly that's Tolkien's wizards. Odin might have had a staff in some artwork.
>long beards and the robes with pointy hats?
All Gandalf.
>did they shoot fireballs and lightning?
Not really, and Gandalf did neither.
>summon monsters?
No.
>what's the origin of the wizards we have today really? Merlin? Moses?
Jack Vance as filtered through Gary Gygax and Dave Arnesson.
Don't underestimate how much influence D&D had on literally an entire generation of fantasy authors.

Merlin, certainly.

Faust springs to mind as well.

Before that, I have no idea. Probably at least some of the mythos originates in the mid- and far-east.

>>long beards and the robes with pointy hats?
>All Gandalf.

Not really desu

If you're not creative enough to work with a lack of rules that's on you, pal. Even in LOTR the codifier for wizards doesn't really have a lot beyond "it's magic and I don't have to explain a thing to you BECAUSE it's magic"

Merlin's main power was prophecy and foresight. He did cast a sleeping spell however like you would see a wizard do in a game today. Also he did carry a staff in some sources (not medieval but still before Tolkien) like Tennyson and Pyle. In the latter actually the sleeping spell was facilitated by beating the recipient on the head with the staff which is how a real wizard does it of course.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circe
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xian_(Taoism)#Textual_references
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Völva#Early_accounts

Merlin pretty much. He was usually portrayed with stereotypical wizard hat. Aleister Crowley was also (and is) big influence that came later.

Except they did have codifiers and you're just too plebshit to have read or even read ABOUT the Silmarillion.
Wizards are angels, and by that matter have access to the divine powers of universe-shaping. However since they're for the most part following the rules of the totally-not-christian-god, they have to put on their robe and wizard hat and stay low-key.
Other magic in LotR tends to follow the theme of 'singing to the universe', since all reality was created by the song of the creator & friends. It's a narrative explanation for magic, but it is AN explanation beyond "lol shit happens"

Because in real I would much rather murder every wizard who tried to play kingmaker than wizards who just fuck with people for the hell of it.

I'd rather chaos than be a puppet.

>In the latter actually the sleeping spell was facilitated by beating the recipient on the head with the staff which is how a real wizard does it of course.

Now I kinda want to play as a fraud wizard that does shit like that now. Like his "spell" to blind people is just throwing dirt in peoples eyes. His fireball spell is just him shooting a firework at somebody.

>Even in LOTR the codifier for wizards doesn't really have a lot beyond "it's magic and I don't have to explain a thing to you BECAUSE it's m
Which works because magic is fucking rare during timeline LoTR is set.

Besides if you want to make magic mysterious you have to go for "can't explain shit" (and make it preferably rare, so that it doesn't feel stupid) type of a deal, if you explain it you end with fantasy technology/science like is the case with most RPG settings.

Don't let them be player characters. Seriously.

I never ever let my players see enemy stat blocks, because as soon as you quantify something then all of a sudden it's a known value to be exploited.

If you want magic users to be mysterious and mystical, don't let your players know what they actually are able to do. It's probably too late for D&D, but if you have an alternative system where magic works differently then it might work.

he also fucking transported Stonehenge from Ireland to England

Play a rogue with a ton of Bluff and Sleight of Hand and tell people you're a wizard, ie be a real life stage magician

Pretty amusing gimmick character I've seen a couple of times

Its simple, you don't allow them as player classes.
As soon as you do magic needs to be defined and have rules to maintain balance, which then sets a standard for the NPCs. By disallowing PC wizards magic can become free form and mysterious, you can obviously do this anyway but there will typically be a whine from players or an attempt to explain the wizards magic with their own spells.

Alternatively just do as DCC does and have magic be risky and powerful, a bargain with another being that may get you in more trouble than its worth and can have very unforseen results.

>Abuhbuhbuh you didn't read the salmonellacon

Not a thing you just said disagreed with me and the fact that you're getting so angry about it is pretty funny

Look at "real" magic that is folk/pagan things and stories about witches. Basically plenty of complicated rituals with things like chanting and rare ingredients. Have it work mysteriously ie. don't make it work explicitly, but make it so that there could be mundane explanation or maybe it's magic.

Also, check and read occult things like Aleister Crowley, H. P. Blavatsky etc.

RPM with full sephirot bullshit and no adepts.

Roll an illusionist.

Alternatively grease everything

>salmonellacon
Thank you for providing me with the name of the next evil parchment on my campaign, user

>not playing in moderntimes and making SCIENCE!wizards wielding the powers of physics or biology or chemistry to great effects.

Modern fantasy also focuses on magic as a active agent, instead of magic as outsider force that is rarely used.
The wizard will in many cases not be powerful, because he has nothing to compare the art with.

Folklore wizards would ask for something, then they would send agents, then they would influence, and finally they would use magic.
Modern wizard will ask, then magic.

Circe just sort of poofed people into animals, so it's not really so binary. There are also modern books where magicians treat with higher powers to get shit done like Amulet of Samarkand.

This. 100%.

Bring out the elaborate ritual circles, chants, symbolisms and sacrifices.

"A Trip to the Moon" which predates "The Hobbit" by over 30 years, a movie that came out when Tolkien 10 years old, had long bearded scholars in pointy hats and extravagant robes, so there is clearly a deeper historical basis to those three things, and their association with wisdom, than Tolkien or Méliès.

>none mentions Odin
Veeky Forums pls

Scholasticism

Less destructive power, more divination. Direct combat advantages are what make wizards boring. Politics influenced by seeing are far more interesting.

make them more then an archer that shoots elements instead of arrows.

That's not mysterious though and it's fairly common.

So instead of 'lol wizard did it' LOTR has 'lol wizard sang to it'? That's...not different, at all.

youtube.com/watch?v=q2ArIg1Btp8

Just be the grand wizard.

Honestly, 'It's magic - I ain't gotta explain shit' is going to be responsible for EVEN MORE bullshit than 'this magic system has been over-codified to the point that wizards are glorified electricians'.

I'm going to try and actually be helpful. When I run a game and want magic users feel mysterious I don't say that my party can't play magic users. I ask them when they make their character how their character thinks magic works. Then I make every other magic user do magic differently (of course you have to account for backstory things depending on if they learned it from somewhere or was just born with it.)it let's the party casters feel special and still keeps a feeling of mystery about the nature of magic. The first time I did it my party was shocked when one of the only wizards in the story treated their caster like he could explode at any minute.

I do agree with making it rare though. (Sorry about spelling and format I'm on my phone)

That's why you limit it to NPCs and make it rare. Correct way of approach is to portray it like paranormal phenomena in real life. Might exist or might not and isn't something that has crazy effects.

Mages in World of Darkness are pretty subtle and mysterious by necessity. They're capable of throwing fireballs around, but flashy magic like that can make reality backlash against them. So most of the time when they use magic it doesn't look like they did anything at all. Things just seem to coincidentally work out in their favor.

>How do you make wizards interesting and mysterious again?

By removing them as playable characters. As soon as a player rolls a wizard you have to worry about making magic super predictable and rules-bound to work as a class, and you have to worry about retards who flip the table if magic is more flexible or powerful than hitting things with a sword.

Magic users are cool when magic is something strange and terrifying, or when you don't really know how it works or where it comes from. When it's practiced by reclusive weirdos who talk to strange beings on moonlit nights and are rumored to perform strange rituals.

As soon as you turn them into fireball dispensers and game pieces the magic is gone, no matter how thick the chapter about it in the rulebook is.

The origin of the word "mage" comes from persian.

The Magi were pseudo-historical figures, who were scolars (i think) and had magic powers, ut at least they were statesmen.

As common in myth, it wasn't clearly defined what they could do. What they did however (according to Herodotos) was to usurp the throne of Persia (think skeletor or sauron. Classic world domination bullshit.). Some brave dudes went in and dun fucked them up and restored Persia from termoil. Kind of.

Make them have natural born powers or something else difficult to achieve. If so many people can be a wizard, that many people will be wizards.

Make each wizard a really interesting and totally insane nutjob. No two wizards should ever be alike, and everyone who isn't a magic user should be scared shitless of them.

Of course, you would have to make them extremely rare too, but that's an improvement anyway.

The biggest problem with mysterious magic is that it fucks up suspension of disbelief when they don't operate on any sort of logic or restrictions but use it all the time to solve problems. When there's no rules and it's "mysterious", constant use leads to scenes where they forget old abilities, suddenly develop the perfect one to deus ex magicka out of a problem, etc. It just doesn't work...

If they're a big, active part of the plot. If they're not player-controlled, if they have some reason they aren't active in the plots of the world, then it doesn't matter if they operate on rules because they're never going to break the story by existing.

Come on pham, you can do better than half ass your answers.
>>did they shoot fireballs and lightning?
>Not really, and Gandalf did neither.
I remember reading stories of druids from way back when trying to defend the city, Lugh or someone with a weird name was rallying the townsfolk. He asked what the druids could do, and they said something along the lines of "We can shoot fireballs at them".
>>summon monsters?
>No.
There are so many medieval grimoires about summoning that it's not funny.

While they didn't don the title "wizard", a magic-user is a magic-user.

"Magic" in mythology is tied in with whatever religion it concerns. The magician as some kind of scientist tapping into the powers of the universe is mostly a modern invention, it's more commone to see things like making pacts with gods or getting powers from the same sources as the gods, or interpreting signs from the gods etc.

Merlin, is pretty much the granddaddy of the modern wizard stereotype and a big inspiration for Gandalf, but if you look at the earlier versions of the legend of King Arthur, Merlin was actually a Druid. Druids oversaw sacrifices, divined the future and and so on, but were just religious leaders to their contemporaries. Their practices was labeled as evil and so on by the romans who wanted to get rid of the druids since the druids had a lot of influence over the celtic tribes they were trying to subdue.

The stereotype of the helpful wizard who, some times in disguise aids or guides the hero in a story borrows from sources such as norse mythology, where gods, like Odin, would frequently appear to or interact with mortals, often in different forms or disguises to hide their actions from their fellow gods, or from mortals.

Then you get the later influence from christian shenanigans in muslim countries, like the crusades, where they encountered scholars who weren't christian, and disiplines such as art, medicine or science got smudged by ideas of demon worship or anti-christianism.

So really, the wizard in the pointy hat, the mentor wizard and the evil villain wizard all borrows from wildly different cultural sources, but they're all linked to religion or faith in their respective periods.

As to the hats, staves, robes etc, it's pretty universal stuff. If you popped a Bishop or orthodox priest down in a random fantasy setting everyone would take one look at them and go "totally a wizard"

The separation of magic and religion is largely a legacy of the dominant religions trying to stamp out folk religion or older religions.

There's no such thing as magic. There's no psionics, no incarnum, no ley lines, no power of the elements, no "forces" you can tap into in general. There is one means of doing anything vaguely supernatural: contacting creatures who are Totally Not Demons I Swear and bartering with them. Maybe they are actually demons. Maybe they're alien trolls doing it for the lulz. Maybe they're extradimensional energy beings with incomprehensible desires like only speaking through properly prepared pentagrams. Who knows, they're not talking, they know damn well they'd be exploited if they revealed their secrets.

So, wizard wants to divine the future? Wizard has to call up Ubein-Lnaa and ask what Ubein-Lnaa wants for next week's lottery numbers.

Wizard wants his enemy's house to spontaneously combust? Wizard has to call up Anur-Shub and ask Anur-Shub to please go set that house on fire.

Wizard wants to teleport? Hey, Adurnac, I have some frequent flyer miles and a fractal I'd like to cash in, take me to Seattle, willya?

Or just...
> Make all of them fae, catboys optional.

>The magician as some kind of scientist tapping into the powers of the universe is mostly a modern invention
You're full of shit. It was Chinese alchemists searching for immortality who invented gunpowder.

I think "scientist magician" stereotype comes from alchemy because it was basically magical pseudoscience.

And thus, ironically, had their lifespans combust.

Western alchemy that had thing with elements, homonculi and turning lead into gold was quite magical too.

A lot of what we think of as "magic", the believers saw as "science". For example, one might ward off evil spirits with a circle of salt, because salt is a purifying substance. It seems supernatural to us because it's different from what we know, but to them it was just how the world worked.

Now, it's true that much of this was attributed to gods and spirits doing certain things when you did certain things, but this too was seen as how the world worked. People tended to think that "the Powers That Be" would act at least somewhat consistently, not too far off from the laws of physics, such that you could do a certain thing and expect a result.

Except they had very little influence on the modern wizard stereotype, and a different cultural context.

The archetypical western fantasy separation of magic vs religion has nothing to do with chinese alchemists.

You can find specific examples of all kinds of things in history and religion without it meaning that that specific thing is related to a modern thing that resembles it. I'm talking about how the stereotype came about.

Alchemists did not consider themselves magicians though. They were philosophers and protoscientists.

Also, western alchemy basically started with the translation of "The composition of Alchemy" in the twelfth century, putting it far later than the other cultural influences for the stereotype, like the Druids etc.

There are no references to homunculi prior to the 16th century and they were very much a fictional thing, inspired by earlier folk traditions.

>magicians as scientists is totally new even though it's old as shit because the east doesn't count
This nigga serious?

Why do they need to be?

That's a pretty mangled version of Persian history.

The Magi were a group (possibly a distinct clan or tribe within Persia) of priests and mystics. While there is debate about the nature of their religion (Personally I think the evidence strongly suggests they originally worshiped deities such as Anahita and Mithra, and fused them with "pure" Zoroastrianism as under-gods to Ahura Mazda) they certainly did exist. They presided over sacrifices, preforming rituals and incantations. As with most Middle-Eastern religions at the time there was a strong astrological component which is very magical, hence the Bibical Magi following the Star. They also practised other forms of divination and acted as court advisors, dream interpretations were very important.

The story you mentioned is the tale spread by Darius I to legitimise his conspiracy to overthrow of the previous king and found his own dynasty. Supposedly a Magi (Gaumata) disguised himself as Bardiya/Smerdis after the real prince was killed by his brother King Cambyses, and then overthrew Cambyses to become the new King. But Darius and co. discover the deception and assasinate the Magi, with Darius assuming the throne.

Totally not a cock and bull story made up to excuse assasinating the son of the founder of the Persian Empire so you can take over. The Magi get a lot of stick for this, but it was mostly this one guy and not a grand Magi plot.

Apuleius of Madaura wrote on the education of Persian princes; "One teaches the magic of Zoroaster, son of Oromazes, which is the worship of the gods". As far as the Romans were concerned these astrologer priest-wizards had a strong claim to be the inventors of a lot of magic.

It's really simple: you make magic interesting and mysterious. The best part is that you can do it purely through fluff. Write up some mystic metaphysical bullshit rules of magic in your setting, and then don't give anyone your crib notes, just describe the SENSATION of magic, the more alien or weird the better. Rename ALL the spells in the book with some gibberish nonsense, and if they want to use the spell, they have to find the NAME of the spell in character first. If you're building a magic system on your own, build spell rolls around an opaque, dedicated stat like MAGIC, or if you want to be more specific, RED MAGIC and BLUE MAGIC and GREEN MAGIC. What makes magic boring is making it scientific, like mages have a clear perception on how magic works and knows how it feels when it works every time. Therefore, you have to make it seem wild and inconsistent so they never know what to expect next. Don't be afraid to use DM Fiat to enforce this. Every once in a random while, tell them their spell failed (though never when they needed it most, just when it's most embarrassing for the character) or give them double damage on their magic missile for no reason.

Now, once you've made magic strange and alien, your wizards will follow suit. Your paranoid players will look terrified of their spell failing at your beheads, or pleadingly to get a bit more extra damage on that fireball. Every discovery of the Jizzerbuttz spell or the Toodeloo incantation will feel like a windfall, and your wizards will become more obtuse and unhinged as they get into their characters.

You can do it user, you just have to flex those fluff muscles and put in the work. Remember, a wizard is only as interesting and mysterious as his magic, and the less he knows about it, the more it will reflect on him.

>Being this tier retarded
user, lack of rules works ONLY in very low magic settings. The moment every single old dude is a wizard and every single village got their own seer, your setting will literally grind into halt, because this shit simply MUST have some codified rules, otherwise it wouldn't be so widespread. It's simple action and reaction. Even if you explain it by "some people can manipulate the Force" it's still a codification. No need for midichlorians, which would be over-codification, but nontheless it's codified.

>By removing them as playable characters

This.

So simple, so effective.

You are at least semi-aware this is already grinded to the ground since at least early 80s, right?

>To solve the problem you must solve the problem
T-thanks!

Yes it it--by definition, mysterious.

Lol U=Mad.

...

This

>This
>About a post that solves nothing and goes nowhere, but instead waxes for almost 2k signs how easy it is to fix the issue by fixing it

Teens...

>You're full of shit. It was Chinese alchemists searching for immortality who invented gunpowder.

chinese alchemy was rooted in taoism tho

Sure, and the father of genetics was a monk. The idea that religion and science can't be friends is the new one, not that magic and science can't be.

>inb4 fedora memes

>T-thanks!
You're welcome! Make sure to read past the first sentence to all the suggestions I made to solving the problem in your game. You might not quite know what I mean by "solving the problem" otherwise!

>"The post says nothing"
>Post states specific suggestions from the directions of fluff, mechanics, and play.
>tl;dr lol

user, it's not how long the post is, but how it gives nothing in the end. It can basically be boiled down to "You must be creative and not share your creation with players. Also - be shit GM who avoids questions". Wow, fucking brilliant, solved everything in a blink of an eye! Especially the part whe it's one of the worst things to give players answers in the vibe of "You can't know that" or arbitrarly declare how they've actions ended.

Mysticism simply doesn't fucking work when you have fucking crunch to run the game, since the crunch by default means there are sure-fire rules behind everything. This post simply says how you should dump all of that, play your very special snowflake homebrew and whenever people ask genuine questions how this shit works, smile to them with smug superiority instead of answering.

So yeah, fucking brilliant "solution".

The real answer to deal with magic and being mystical is taking it completely away from players and reserving it for NPCs. Otherwise you fucking MUST have specific rules, or the people will call you out for shitty GMing and they will have every right to do so.

My answer is here , but I can shorten it for you, if you like:
Fuck your shitty advice that is one of the easiest ways to end up as shit-tier GM.

If you are interested about details, go ahead, read the whole post

Wizards are an NPC class.

user, Crunch is statistics. A sense of mystery and wonder is not statistical, it's based in Fluff. Do you give a PC a story-relevant sword and call it "Salamandra, the Sword of Asgard", or do you call it +5 fire longsword? Giving context and fluff to an item changes the relationship to the character and as such, the player. Likewise, Wizards only as NPCs doesn't give any fresh interest or mystery to wizards unless you fluff them to be mysterious and interesting. If your NPC Wizards are all Gandalf in different hats, or just comical villains, they don't suddenly become interesting and fresh.

But that's besides the point, because withholding information is a DM's job. It's just yet another form of Bear Lore if you want to get into it, information that is functionally useless, but somehow very difficult to get ahold of. When you tell a player "No, you can't know how magic works in this universe" you're not telling him "No, you can't cast Magic Missile (or whatever you've renamed it to)" You're just telling him that he can't know HOW he cast magic missile, it just worked. People for centuries have used effective folk remedies not knowing how the fuck they worked, they just did. God did it, don't have to 'splain shit. There wasn't a knowledge roll they could make to get over those barriers, just like there's not a knowledge roll your Wizard can make to know how magic works. And if a character doesn't know, THE PLAYER SHOULDN'T KNOW EITHER. Or are you a shitty DM that would feed his players metaknowledge that could easily tie into the end game? Doesn't mean you change the crunch, or the spells per level, or spell lists, just you have a different understanding of the fluff.

And players whose wizard characters don't know how they're doing it, just that they're doing it will reflect that in their character, you know, if they're not grognards, but at that point all they care about is the stats, so you wouldn't get an interesting character out of them anyway.

Abso-fucking-lutely. Just straight up give the player who's playing a magic user the Lesser Key of Solomon.