What's stopping magic being regulated and concentrated in the hands of the military, and police?

What's stopping magic being regulated and concentrated in the hands of the military, and police?

In the magical world, a pleb might have the magic equivalent of a hand gun. But the state, and corporations (guilds if you will) would have the magic equivalent of stealth bombers and nukes.

First of all, magic doesn't work.

Second of all, there is nothing to prevent in-fighting and coups.

>magic doesn't work.

>says every fighter until the wizard saves his ass by raining down meteors

The big spells REQUIRE a military's worth of trained dude/ttes to pull off the big stuff.

Anything else belongs in an anime.

>The big spells REQUIRE a military's worth of trained dude/ttes to pull off the big stuff.
Or unlicensed sorcerer covens.

That's why you have military orders busting into hidden dungeons and writing them up.

I tried testing this theory once. Had my 4 players roll up level 20 characters with double the starting money for that level. I started them in opposite corners in a 200 by 200 foot arena.
after a harrowing battle, the rogue ended up wining using only dust of disappearance and a very powerful dagger.

>What's stopping magic being regulated and concentrated in the hands of the military, and police?

Because magic is more like the war on drugs or gangs than anything else.

Everybody thinks they can just neat and tidly round up all the magic users and either make them stop or convert them into law-abiding citizens, but that is and never has been how magic operates on.

At any given time a disenfranchized farmer can go fuck off into the woods and a satyr or a dryad can be all like, "Hey, hey farmer Bonyeck.. Sorry about your crops, but I'VE always loved how you farmed.. You interested in being a Druid?" Bam, 5 months later he's summoning insects, turning livestock into dire animals, growing brambles.

Anybody at any time regardless of birth or position can arbitrarily get magic powers from countless sources out of the control of any establishment or government.

Another day you could have a 14 year old look too deep into the flame and have the fire look back at him- next thing you know he's naked, knows rudimentary pyromancy, and is engaged to a fire elemental.

Shit's bananas.

>engaged to a fire elemental
You almost got that magical realm shit past me, but not today

>Sometimes Sorcerers are just born with a nuke in their pants.
>Sometimes Warlocks bargain to get a nuke faster than anyone else.
>Sometimes Witches don't have a nuke, but you don't know that for sure.

Really, the issue is that in some settings an individual can easily get enough power to fight all of the state sponsored mages at once. The gun metaphor doesn't hold up for very long when you've got highly trained and experienced military forces that can be BFTO by some faggot whose dad fucked a fairy.

>he wouldn't fuck fire if he could

Oh, I'm pretty sure he would.

What is warhammer fantasy?

>What is warhammer fantasy?

Full of angry magic users and demons and demons created by angry magic users??

And dwarves.

>What's stopping magic being regulated and concentrated in the hands of the military, and police?
It would really depend on the source of magic, as a lot of other Anons have stated it can be nearly impossible to control magic if it can be gifted.

On the other hand, if you make magic something that some people can do, but in order to learn the powerful spells takes years of intensive study and training under a master magician, you could work up a setting where the majority of powerful magics were nearly totally contained by the state. Sure the farm girl down the road can conjure up a flame in her palm, but without proper study she has zero chance of ever being able to throw a fireball.

Even then you'd never know for sure that outlaw magic sects didn't exist, and didn't train their own secret magics. Maybe they are the remains of the state magic school of a fallen nation.

Just read Shadow Ops.
Its a book where the appearance of magic causes the USA to go Full Marvel and all magic users end up getting conscripted into the Military.
However if you manifest as a mage of a 'forbidden school' then you are either shot on sight or get forcibly recruited into black ops suicide squad.

It's not a good book

Magic in the empire is controlled by the colleges of magic and witch hunters.

>Magic in the empire is controlled

>Controlled
>>Controlled
>>>Controlled.

I mean, you're not wrong, but "controlled" isn't the word I'd use exactly.

Is he helping that man or is it haha jaded military man being a faggot "muh trauma muh loss of feeling powerfull"?

Because in-world the player characters are literally special snowflakes, they are the only ones who get powerful.

Meanwhile everyone else is stuck with conjuring flamethrowers out of their hands while a wizard who wants to teleport and thousands with one spell are so rare you barely see them in the same millennia.

Crime is controlled by the police just as well. What's the word you'd use?

>Because in-world the player characters are literally special snowflakes, they are the only ones who get powerful.
Too many people forget that that is the central conceit of more than half of all RPGs, the players are the super-badass once in a generation destined heroes who are better at their respective jobs than 98% of the population
In most RPGs, especially modern D&D and it's derivatives, you basically play superheroes
That's why I hate when guys try to play the "Average Joe"

Being able to scry out and geas any politician that gets stupid ideas, for one.

That man is literally a corpse.

I've actually been musing on a setting where magic is regulated by a mage's college, backed up by the authority of the reigning empire, and there's a legion of battlemages tasked with keeping down hedge-wizards, mage-mercs and spell-thieves.

If a player wants to be a mage, they can either be one of said battlemages, with all the duties and responsibilites that entails, or they can be a criminal who needs to keep their abilities secret, lest they end up hunted by people whose job it is to fuck them up.