Modern day wizards

>not reading Dresden Files
>not pretty much just doing that

I've only read the one book. How consistent is the writing? Because I really liked what I read.

I ran one guy who had been a combat engineer sort of person before getting dragged into magic shit. He was a shitty sorcerer-one of the worst his foes had ever seen-but the best artificer on the face of the planet.

Basically became "Wizard with a shotgun". He'd troll, trick, and finagle his way through problems, usually with the help of some domestic terrorism approaches. Remember kids, the real magic is a good pipebomb. The demon-banishing sword helps.

McGyver is pretty close imo
>wanders the world mildly carefree
>doesnt use a weapon, only mundane items
>uses chemistry, physics and other shit to get himself out of jams

Pretty much anyone who uses science or the like to their advantage in everyday life, considering most wizards are portrayed as scientist-like beings in most fantasy

The Taxi Monks

Through deep meditation and training, these monks learn to feel the flow of roads and streets, and in doing so, find routes through busy traffic that lesser men couldn't even fathom. They use this ability to transport passengers across cities at extremely high speeds, finding divinity and enlightenment through serivce to others. When they are deep in the flow, they become almost invisible - the human mind blanks them out, as it does for so much else in the urban landscape.

If one desires the Monks' service, every Monk in the city already knows. Stand on the curb and hold out your thumb, and a Monk shall already be there. Just make sure to pay your fare; the Monks never serve freeloaders twice.

Those sound exactly like good Unknown Armies NPCs.

your pic is good

his comic series anyway

Hellblazer
the one under the Vertigo print label

Wizard who still has to use the old ways, becuase as much as people would like to think otherwise, Magic didn't fucking move forwards with the rest of us.

Don't have eye of newt? Your spell's not going to fly, fuckface.

Oh, that creature went extinct, well fan fucking tastic, that source of lesser pink spotted cockatoo bladders are gone for good. Pity too as that spell cured cancer.

Summoning circle made out of chalk? I hope you've had a long and full life becuase that demon's going to chew on your throat.

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What are summoning circles traditionally made out of? I didn't know there was more to the magic than the shape.

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The writing improves pretty consistently, but the second book was my least favorite.

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Salt or Chalk of some kind, if I remember correctly.
The circle's both for the summoning and protection against the thing summoned.

I mean, chalk can be used but I think salt is a much more interesting option.

Except it's you know, actually pretty fucking good. It does indulge in a lot of "HEE HEE CLEVER CLEVER" and "LOOOKIT THE MAGIC!", but then, it's also not as soul crushing to read as Phillip Marlowe can be. That shit is brutal. Or say, Blood Meridian or the Road. But then those are intended to be red eyed, hell on earth looks into the abyss of the human spirit akin to Heart of Darkness.

Harry has some bad times, but not that bad and they pass.

The overall tone and outcome of the Road make Mad Max look like Mr. Rogers.

It's a struggle getting through the first two.
Then his writing starts to pick up.
But book 4 it's exceptional.

He gets pretty powerful towards the most recent books though, but as you can see where he's come from and all the shit he's had his ass kicked by, it's not that bad.

He's still nowhere near the mojo of many other casters.

That is fucking dope

holy shit i love this character art. like words cant describe how much i want to play this dude

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>I sold my soul. . . FOR THIS?!

Not exactly a wizard, but I think it's close enough to be relevant.

I ran a mage who was a wizardaboo basically.

He was a loser college student failing science while making some living money tutoring rich high school students in physics and chemistry, putting his spare time towards trying to get real arcane tomes (What he got barely qualified), and putting together sweet wizard gear (All he managed was a really tall blue beanie with stars on it and a really long cotton jacket).

Refused to join an order in the consilium on the basis that you could tell just from looking at their clothes (IE completely normal clothes) that they were clearly not serious about being wizards and were just there to have petty personal drama and use magic to get rich.

with the advent of modern technology, wizards started to be less sought after, eventually fading into obscurity. modern wizards, due to having led a life of paranoia for fear of ending up in a government lab experimented on, are solitary and selfish creatures that use their magic to make their lives easier. with their reclusion over the years, they have formed intense bonds with each other, sharing in the experience that is unique to them.

wizards eventually all end up sterile, weather though choice or happenstance. some think it is fate, others think that it is a result of magic and it's effects on the body.

Just put fantasy wizards in a modern setting.
And make no one bat an eye about it.
(Presumably because magic.)

Have you read The Injection by Warren Ellis?

Robin Morel from the Injection is basically this. For a start, he doesn't even have any magical spells: He's a folklore expert (A "Cunning Man") the British government keeps on retainer just in case.

Of course, shit gets crazy and so do the lines between what is and is not magic.

It's a weird series.

Power through the first few and shit gets epic fast once he hits his stride.

Also, I recommend dresden as well if you want a good modern wizard. Constantine works too, though they are pretry different archetypes of wizard.

this. I feel like a wizard every day. Like wizard. Not a sorcerer. Important difference when it comes to IT related stuff

Working with deamons, exploring the internet, defending your own network, hunting for forgotten libraries and tomes (*.dlls + documentation), having a bitch fight with the admin of another network about arcane concepts.

And always remember if you're a bad, then the deamons send you off to the googlag to mine bitcoins.

That show was cool as shit, even what they did with Chas. I enjoyed the shit out of it, sad it didn't get renewed. The comic too, made even more awesome because I'm originally from Newcastle.

Yes, I didn't see an episode until after cancellation but that coal episode sold me.

There wasn't a bad episode, the one with the fallen angel trapped in the barn with running water was the best.

Ink and the Storytellers:youtube.com/watch?v=eKyj0QfgDxY

Has probably the best urban fantasy/fey/wizard stuff going on that I've ever seen.

The antagonists are genuinely unsettling. The plot is very carefully crafted. For an amateur film, the acting, dialogue, and special effects are excellent. And the soundtrack...

Well, take a look.

Depends on the setti-, I mean, on the region.

I recently started playing a Magical Mercenary of sorts whose contact was bought out for the next 100 years by a shadowy group that hunts monsters. He's very much a soldier type kinda guy, except with magic instead of guns.

a time travelling wizard

he's been to the future

Too bad that it's Trips.
Claimin' dat

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Except, you know, that you've really got juvenile taste.

I'm sure there's girls out there who think that Twilight is a deep, well-written, and truly romantic story about a really healthy relationship.

How is it childish?
Tell us all, wise Veeky Forums master.

That !NotConstantine here.

youtube.com/watch?v=tPqXIHPnsrI

>that cigarette lighting
muh dick
i love magic use for really mundane shit, adds a layer of realism to the world in a way

>Technomagic sword
Reminds me of the game Hellgate London.

As an IT guy, I always mangle Clarke to cover this, "You can convince me that your magic is actually sufficiently advanced technology, but the guy who makes it work is still a goddamn wizard."

The MMO TSW (The Secret World) covers that them pretty decently, Illuminati being my favorite version of the idea.

Running a modern mage as a CIA operative could potentially be really cool, if you grounded it in real world blackops, "active measures" and plausibly deniable nation state skullfuckery.

Go in with a SEAL team to merc some cultits or supernatural creature.

Deploy with some SF and operate invisibly for a while to support some rebels, overthrow a government, or try to secure some important artifact or temple in the middle of Syria.

Maybe the new incredibly virulent strain of "ebola" is an egregore rapidly gaining power and sentience.

Perhaps the leading presidential candidate is a goddamn liche, but you cant just whack him because he's constantly on TV and followed by Secret Service 24/7.

Try to accomplish this while avoiding media scrutiny, dealing with FBI cockblocking, foreign intelligence agencies and the knowledge that if things go south, that stealth bomber overhead might get the order to thermoberic bomb the whole area. At least your family will get a nice, prewritten letter about how you were killed in an accidental helicopter crash.

That's the Librarian, right? Anyone watch the TV series?

God, I would have loved Secret World so much if they just made a proper single-player RPG and not more MMO shit. The setting got urban magic right, you can count on one hand all the other video games that can say the same.

I'd imagine realistic modern wizards would work similar to the characters in Heroes.

You would get those going full Superman and doing good, some that would subtly use their magic for their own purposes and the occasional psycho that has a mission statement to wipe out all other magic users to learn their secrets.

Dresden Files is very much a beer & pretzels books series. It's not deep, it's rarely clever, but it's very tongue-in-cheek and never fails to be very entertaining. I love it.

Kudos for it being 15 goddamn books in and not succumbing to power creep, too.

Bending a bit the Delta Green background with a tad less "doomed from the start" might get you just there.

Overly consistent. The books are enjoyable but you'll start noticing the formula real quick.

It makes me sad that the modern wizard trope is getting infected by Dresden. Those books take a likable idea and then just makes it awful, kind of like how Buffy started out as a fun "What if?" and then fell apart after its first season, turning into just a list of terrible re-interpretations of fantasy cliches combined with poorly written drama intermixed with jokes that you can point at but can hardly laugh at.

Not that user, but all the stuff I've read of his seemed really straightforward. Is there anything in particular that seemed objectionable to you? (To be fair, translation issues are absolutely a possibility.)

I'm writing a novel about a drug addicted wizard in Appalachia who's basically been enslaved to a family of drug dealers. Think Jesse Pinkman meets John Constantine.

He ends up tracking down one of his old associates, who wants nothing to do with him, and has begun to live a seemingly milquetoast life as an insurance claims adjuster...but secretly uses his magic to cheat at Cowboy Action Shooting competitions.

>The setting got urban magic right, you can count on one hand all the other video games that can say the same.
Except for that stupid, immersion-breaking fast travel dimension. They got that so, so wrong.

Any and all iterations of:
>Aleister Crowley
>Sam LM Mathers
>Austin Osman Spare
>Grant Morrison
>Alan Moore
>Andrew Chumbley
Etc.

In what ways are the Dresden Files books awful?

>Englishmen
Absolutely disgusting.jpg

It's like a long list of how not to write.

We've got characters without any charisma being lumped together to compose sometimes downright idiotic dialogue, along with a "got to get out of this corner I painted myself into" magic system that's as lazy as a writer could possibly get with it, and by-the-numbers plots that only surprise you by how stupid they end up thanks to masturbatory antics that fall short of being self-aware parodies and just end up being genuinely mind-blowingly nonsensical and poorly conceived.

Butcher also can't write a fight scene or sex scene without making them either awkward to the point of being unreadable or unintentionally humorous through sheer ineptitude.

Add that to a lazy setting filled with awful reinterpretations of fantasy fiction staples, and just generally poor writing, and we've got something you might secretly enjoy as an extremely guilty almost-pleasure, but is hardly worth recommending. These are books you read because you're starving for a modern-day wizard, and don't care if the meal is poisoned or rotten.

Fucking thank you, Jesus, I thought I was the only one who didn't like that crap. It's like being surrounded by crazy people.

De gustibus non est disputandum

Personally, I like the series. It has its limitations, but I wouldn't be nearly as critical as you've put immense effort into being. Frankly, I almost feel as if you're being intentionally in an attempt to get replies, but it still leaves me curious as to what could have possibly left you so bitter about the series. For my curiousity, what about Butcher's writing do you hate so much?

Are you retarded? It's okay if you are. That was traditional myth, you little shit.

I loved the idea of the dragon but they were so poorly executed. It would have been so much better if your contact for the faction had been a crazy homeless guy or, like, a TV in a mostly-empty warehouse, with pile of VCR tapes. Having the mission-complete messages be telemarters and broken clips from newscasts and talkshows, all ominously related to your quest. Sort of a Hotline:Miami style faction, mysterious, counter intuitive and very hands off. Proper chaos.

Instead we got a bitchy asian lady.

What is hard to understand?
They're poorly written. That's hardly a matter worth debating.

You can certainly enjoy it as much as you like, but it's hardly a matter of taste to call it bad writing, especially when even most fans of the series acknowledge this. To call it the male Twilight is perhaps a bit unfair, because in the case of Dresden fans they at least understand that what they're reading is not the work of any great writer but an amateur who happens to be catering to their tastes. But, you seem to really be gung-ho about establishing the fans to be as senseless as the young girls and women who call Meyer not only a competent writer, but a great one.

Butcher writes bad books that appeal to adolescent males. If that's your personal vice, by all means, live with that sin, but don't pretend anyone with a lick of sense has to call it good writing just because it has some rabid fans that may include yourself.

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>Alan Moore
So a rapemage?

There are two types of narrativistic storytelling: Character driven Narrativism and Story driven Narrativism. The chief difference is how a character is identified. In Story driven narratives, a character is a device of a story, and exists for the sole purpose of driving a story further towards its conclusion. A good example of a story based narrator in popular fiction is J.R.R. Tolkien. In his book, The Hobbit, the titular hobbit, Bilbo, exists as a narrative object for the purpose of aiding the dwarves in securing their treasure. Though his character is developed in a manner congruent with a character driven narrative (the mark of a great author is probably their ability to hybridize the two styles), his purpose is to solve problems which would keep the story from being concluded. The weakness of the Story driven Narrative, especially as illustrated in the Hobbit, is the fact that a character may seem expendable or interchangeable. If the character is no more than a device, than he can be safely replaced with any other suitable device that gets the job done. This can lead to a lack of interaction between the author and the character and a consequent lack of immersion.

Jack Parsons: All American Wizard or bust

By contrast, in a Character driven Narrative, a story is merely a medium for developing a character. Although Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files are a good example of Character driven Narrative, I'll use Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky as an example to avoid conflict. Tunnel in the Sky is, like most but not all Character driven Narratives, told in the first person and relates the evolution of the main character through an adventure. As a bit of "coming of age" fiction, the adventure in question is unimportant, so long as it results in the developement of the character, in this case from being a Boy to being a Man. The weakness of Character driven Narrative, especially when told in the first person, is the interface between the character and the reader is largely dependent on the reader himself. Because a person views themselves in the first person, a reader is likely to relate to a first person related character through self insertion, which can result in values dissonance when the character deviates from the reader's view of himself. If the character is successful or developed to become succesful, a reader with a low self esteem may find himself irrationally repulsed by the character, not because he dislikes success, but because he tried to envision himself as succesful and failed. In this circumstance, a reader may come to dislike the author and his associated works, going so far as to formulate academic arguments to cover for the dislike caused by his own subconcious self-loathing.

The only realistic measurement for the success of a storyteller in relating a character driven narrative is his ability to clearly related the conditions surrounding a character and the characters actions regarding same. The burden of comprehension and enjoyment falls completely on the reader.

An alcoholic whose magic powers only work because he's too drunk to know reality shouldn't bend the way he makes it.

Check out Unknown Armies and/or Tim Powers. As far as "plausible" modern magic goes they've pretty much nailed it.

But, what I'm struggling to comprehend is what measure you are using to label writing "bad". Is it poor grammar or an incomplete understanding of the language involved? Is it a reliance on cliche or the repetition of a formula? Or is it merely a storyline that you find unlikely?

My point is that you can't call something "bad writing" without giving me an example of what is bad about it.

Now, does this argument matter? No. It's an argument on the internet. By definition it will not resolve anything. But it's my day off, and I like arguing, so please oblige me. What is it, specifically, that makes you say it's bad?

If I were a modern wizard my summoning circle would be iron, sunk flush with the floor with a small section I could unlock and raise open if I wanted.

Basically the entire plot of Supernatural season 3 and onwards is that things get blocked with chalk or salt until something blows it away/smudges it/ disturbs it/whatever.

>iron
Clever girl.

To quote tvtropes:
Hary Dresden isn't a memetic badass, because he's actually TWICE as badass as you think he is.

That sounds fucking horrible.

Not the guy you're talking to but holy shit user, you do realize you can dislike something without being an enormous cunt about it, right?

>The Dresden Files are a good example of Character driven Narrative

What? How did you manage to err so badly?
Each book is written according to the standard detective model, poorly disguised and with its backwards-first process leading to a mess of a story thanks to Butcher's failure at understanding the purpose behind it.

The story exists around the main character, but he is just as much as a prop as the rest, used only to make the plot move forward. Even if the end result is just to add another feat to the main character's list of meaningless accomplishments, it's still a plot-first, character-second construction.

>The burden of comprehension and enjoyment falls completely on the reader.

That's one hefty excuse. It doesn't even make sense if you take the moment to try and apply it as the basis for any kind of literary criticism.
In the end, all it ends up doing is making the question of "comprehension and enjoyment" not even a consideration when discussing an author, which is probably the last thing you actually want to do when trying to defend a bad one.

Of course it is.
It's from tvtropes, that's like the club house for the biggest autists of every fandom.

Yes. It's great. Showrunner is the guy who wrote the D&D comic everyone here loves.

Bonus points for suspending it over a pit or sicking it in the bottom of said pit.

Like OK, you want to shake my house and blow shit around my living room, that's cute. Let's just lower you down there and pour some cement in, see you in a month when you're feeling more reasonable.

>poorly written
That's not saying much, m8.
How is it poorly written?

At risking of being a faggot, which comic is this?

>Realistic
Magic existing would mean modern society would never happen.
Unless it's so weak and useless that it's hardly magic at all the effects would be too big, like violating thermodynamics ( making perpetual motion machines possible ) or from sheer inconsistency of physics baffling scientists forever.

By good example, I mean it represents the narrative approach. I make no judgements on quality. In my opinion, the only measurement for the quality of an author's work is how well they communicated the events of the story.

In the work in question, the stories are used to develop the character of harry dresden and the innumerable side characters (some of whom I find more likeable than the MC).

When I say the burden of comprehension and enjoyment rests on the reader, I do not mean that it is your job to enjoy what you do not enjoy or comprehend what you do not comprehend. Just as it is the author's intent to communicate and entertain, it is your intent (I hope) when picking up a book to understand and be entertained. If you find a book dull, it is not the inherent quality of the book to be dull, but your interaction with the book that fails to satisfy your desires.

As I said, the only objective measure of a good book is based on how effectively the author communicated the events of the story in question.

It's just called "Dungeons and Dragons", it's really great and ends way, way too soon. Published by IDW, and the main characters are Fell's Five if you need more to find extra info about it.

>Is it poor grammar or an incomplete understanding of the language involved?
At times, yes. Thank god for editors, but even a few times through the editing mill can't fix the mess of sophomoric prose that is typical of writers with more confidence than ability. He writes like he's still in college.

> Is it a reliance on cliche or the repetition of a formula?
Very much so.

>Or is it merely a storyline that you find unlikely?
When the character's motivations and the nature of laws/physics/magic are typically just "what the plot needs", it's hard to call it "unlikely" and more "this world is a hollow shell where anything can happen and it is all equally weightless."

It's practically on the level of porn writing, except instead of everything just setting up the scene for some bizarre interpretation of sex, it's all setting up the scene for some bizarre interpretation of someone being a badass.

Huh, see, I provided those prompts in the vain hope of evoking a response containing examples of the work in question. However, it very much sounds as if you're having the mental disconnect between Character and Story driven narratives. That feeling of the "Hollow Earth" wherein the world is only experienced through the characters interactions is very characteristic of Character Driven narratives. Have you considered that the laws of the narrative do not follow the character's actions so much as the character's actions are guided or restricted to those selfsame natural laws?

According to Butcher himself the first book was written as a result of him getting pissed off at a creative writing teacher and setting out to write the most cliched, formulaic story imaginable. I'm not sure whether somewhere along the way he started taking it seriously or whether it's still all just for fun.

>Huh, see, I provided those prompts in the vain hope of evoking a response containing examples of the work in question.

If we want to talk about a specific example, I'd almost want to lead you through a fantastic example of everything wrong with the Dresden Files, all nicely summarized with a man riding a zombie t-rex with the aid of a comic relief character beating time in a polka-suit while exploiting a loophole in a law written specifically for him to exploit.

Going through that scene, piece by piece, is an exploration of why we can't have a sensible discussion about the Dresden files, because it is not a series intended for sensible discussions.

It is a series for you to say "HOLY SHIT, EPIC! FUCKING EPIC!", while the rest of the world goes "Why can't Harry ever have a line of dialogue that doesn't sound like he's exaggerating for the sake of an imaginary audience? Does Butcher not even want to pretend that Harry is anything except a stand-in prop?"