Does magic belong in the hands of anyone who can use it...

Does magic belong in the hands of anyone who can use it, or should it be restricted only to licensed agents of the state (or members of a guild with rules, a hierarchy, and restrictions on study) and otherwise criminalized and expunged?

I'm working on a homebrew setting for my next 5e game and could use Veeky Forums's input.

I dunno.
How does magic work in your setting?

To take from existing D&D settings, you could look at how Forgotten Realms implies that in theory anyone can learn magic, but because very few people are talented and have potential enough to self-teach, it kind of creates a sense of elitism among the people who developed their magical abilities, and as such they only pass on their knowledge to those they desire to.

That then goes into deeper examples of just a mage who picks a young apprentice after seeing the potential within him, the nation of Cormyr having heavily regulated arcane magic users (including a secret police to keep them regulated), and a joke in one of the books about Raven's Bluff about how the next generation of wizards guild leaders are going to be mostly women, because when you have a guild composed of lonely old men, they tend to prefer taking female apprentices.

While a counter example would include places like Halruaa where life is made far easier by simple magics to keep homes cool in the summer, food from spoiling, etc, and even kids know basic cantrips for making illusions and lights for different games and activities.

But that is a setting where magic is a key part of the universe and those who live in it. And its manipulation is not inherently dangerous, but its abuse can cause some weird effects and destructive magics and summoning magics tend to weaken the walls of reality.

In my experience it depends entirely on just how easy it is to open a portal to hell in your setting

DnD 5e. That's how magic works in my setting.

Well, if you're talking 5e, then without banning classes, a lot of people can use magic.

The main class where I think you could restrict it the most easily is Wizard, as the sale and creation of spellbooks is easier to control.

You won't easily be able to stop gods from granting power to the faithful, hippies drawing power from nature, random dragon-blooded kids from cropping up, or people selling their souls. You could certainly make some of those things illegal or require registry, but you're going to run into a sort of X-men situation.

If that's the type of game you want to run, go for it, although consider that in 5e basically any character can easily pick up spellcasting. Every class has at least some access to magic from various subclasses, and anyone can take a feat for it.

Your players will very likely be forced to join up or become criminals, and unless you're prepared for both you'll have a bad time.

Personally, I think you could restrict Warlocks to being the main unlawful form of magic. Unlike others, Warlocks are the biggest wild-cards in terms of origins and motives, and due to drawing from strange powers work best with that theme of witch hunts and illegal magic.

Well I could understand at least some warlocks being frowned upon since the basic idea is you bartered for power with some sort of spooky force

5e I'd consider kind of borderline in that there's a few reasons a nation might want to regulate magic, but the consequences of not doing it would probably just cancel themselves out at some point unless you get a really dickish and powerful necromancer, conjurer or enchanter

SHALL

NOT

BE

INFRINGED

Well, regulating magic is difficult for the reasons I listed. There are so many different types of magic that someone can just isolate themselves somewhere and master the secrets of the universe in a myriad of ways.

What I think works better is having a state-sponsored league of mages or something similar. Some group that the guard can call upon for magical expertise, and who can help prevent a single mid-level caster from just walking all over the town.

For example, if you just had a typical city without any magic users, a level 7 Enchanter could easily have everyone bending to their will within a month if they were careful about it.

If there's a half dozen level 1 and 2 mages present? That becomes a lot more difficult to do, especially if they're working for the government.

It's not the sort of thing that needs strict regulation, but more just awareness and specialists on hand to deal with it.

As for Warlocks, I think most of them would be frowned upon. Feylocks might get a pass, but Fiend and Aberrant ones are bartering with really nasty entities. I would think the majority of warlocks would be despised, aside from those who use their powers for good or otherwise convince people. Think along the lines of Tieflings, but worse, since they actively sought it out.

We need to ban assault wands.

You don't need a 50 charge wand to hunt.

In a thread on witches a few days ago somebody mentioned that "Wizard" refereed to people who do magic professionally, like a doctor or a lawyer. A has a licence to practice magic and has to promise not to use magic in any way that would offend the gods or threaten the authority of the monarchy. I suppose since Warlock means oath breaker, a warlock would be a disgraced wizard who's lost his or her licence.

Sorcerer was technically a generic term for any magic user, but magic users preferring to call themselves sorcerers tended to resent having artificial limitations on their power. Fuck the king and fuck the gods.

Mage was a generic word for spellcaster, but it originally came from Magi, which were an aristocratic caste of magical aristocrats.

In all fairness 50 charges is way too many

Please, we all know that legislation is aimed at "scary" staves and wands to appease liberals. My black oak skulltopped staff was perfectly fine when I inherited it from my grandpa, now they want me to replace it with some faggy ash rod with a crystal on the end. They can take my staff when they pry it from my cold, undead hands, and until then I'm happily going to keep casting Animate Dead with it on my own property and give them the finger from atop my foreboding tower.

Were you born a cuck or did someone cast Cuck Transformation on you?

You can't say that, cuck is insulting to actual cuckolds now.

It always was. I've existed in a state of more or less constant triggermode online for awhile now. It's fucking insulting the way people misuses the word: it mocks my identity as a cuckold.

>triggermode
>a literal cuck

Please be joking. Come on, man, have some dignity.

I'm joking. It's Poe's law in full effect. But regardless, you didn't pick up on my identity politic aspect. I am, as a proud funposter, frankly triggered.

He says he's joking, but we all know whose wife has a thing for being "kidnapped" by every dragon that flaps by

Man, let me tell you. Those dragons who kidnap princesses? The most massive cucks of them all.

They do it just so a knight can come and "slay" them and rescue the princess.

Now cuck knights are letting cuck dragons kidnap princesses and no ones getting laid.

It's really starting to piss off all the horny princesses.

That is why tentacle monsters/armor is a thing.

>Now cuck knights are letting cuck dragons kidnap princesses and no ones getting laid.

Even the tentacle monsters are limp, uhh, tentacled faggots.

Surprisingly cute doujin.

FUCKS SAKE, NO ONES GETTING RAPED

Shall not be infringed

Well, that would depend from where the magic comes from, if anyone can use or only those of a special bloodline can have access.

If the gods in your setting are dicks they might grant high level magic to peasants just to fuck with you.

They don't care about the "scary" want. They're just throwing tacticool wands under the bus so it'll be that much easier to take them all away in the future.

>should it be restricted only to licensed agents of the state

GOD DAMN KING OBAMA TRYING TO CONTROL THE PEOPLE'S MAGIC. WELL, HE'LL TAKE MY WAND FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS!

It, of course, depends on setting, but for my money, the simple truth is that magic is hideously dangerous.
In the hands of a sufficiently skilled caster, magic can be used to create reusable weapons of mass destruction, to alter the face of reality, and to control the destiny of people, cities, countries or even worlds.

Magic is, ultimately, an Existential Threat to any world which has enough of it for these kinds of users to flourish, and in any given fantasy setting any past of future apocalypse-scale events were probably caused by magic.

As such, it's just sensible that this level of power can only be entrusted to be used by people who, for the most part, know that it must only be used as a last resort, ala Discworld Wizards.
So, in all such settings I run, there will arise a cabal (Shadowy or Official, Bureaucratic or Brutal, or any other form you might imagine) that dedicates itself to curtailing the worst excesses possible due to magic.
At the same time, this Cabal will get no respect, because no matter what you have to deal with Murderhoboes who will become frighteningly potent and morally unhinged with alarming speed.

Bloody Adventurers.