Do wizards bred true in your setting?

[Shostak]

In my Myriangia game world, anyone with sufficient training can cast spells.

But I have another game world (on hiatus) in which the potential for wizardry is inborn. The trait goes to seventh sons of seventh sons and third daughters of third daughters. If there is an unbroken line for seven generations for men or three generation for women, that child will make an especially powerful wizard.

[Steve Plambeck]

In my once and future settings, every child is born with the capability to do magic, but the psychic ability behind that atrophies very quickly unless formal training is begun well before puberty and continued for several consecutive years.

In meta terms, that means a player's starting character can be a wizard only if they take at least my lowest level of Wizardry Skill (talent) to represent those years of background training. Wizardry ties up at least half their IQ, taking away from other Skills (talents). A player can't change their mind after character creation -- the character is already too old and their psychic powers too faded to start learning Wizardry now.

[DeadParrot]

Ah, the old argument of Nature vs Nurture.

It does make some sense that a child of a wizard might have an advantage toward magic just due to being around it since birth. Same for the child of a farmer having an advantage toward growing things and handling animals.

There is the Mundane Talent that lets anyone(optional rule) take one talent from a list for one point. Might make sense for a similar optional rule that lets anyone take a spell for one point from a specified list of Mundane spells. Things like Light or Look Your Best.

Guess some of this depends on When the decision of Wizard vs Hero happens. At birth? At some specific age?

It really doesn't matter for a start up campaign as long as the players get to make the starting pick. If the game runs long enough for the original surviving characters to have kids, then it could become an issue. Especially if the wizard player wants to run something other then The Wizard.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by malloyd

maybe the good mages are the ones that had a lot of childhood exposure to magical radiations - which is a lot more likely if your parents use spells for daily chores than if you've never come within a mile of a wizard. How well could anybody really tell that apart from breeding anyway?

Our society does it with twin studies. To do it efficiently you'd need to hire people to kidnap one of twins and move them to a very different home environment. The scholar doing the research is annoyed how many people have decided there's something morally wrong with this. Don't they realise what a chance they are passing up, to be a part of advancing science? Would the player characters like a job? Or have they been hired to find someone's long lost twin?

I think MA Lloyd has pretty much captured my position on this, and the garbage collector example is excellent.

[Axly Suregrip]

In my world, they are born that way. Simple. Just like any other innate trait.

[EKB]

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

In my world, they are born that way. Simple. Just like any other innate trait.

What other abilities are innate traits in your world?

One could get much amusement from declaring certain abilities or talents to be innate traits.

* You can only speak the languages you were born with
* You only have the Horsemanship talent if you were born with it
* You are able to swim only if you were born that way. Otherwise (glub)

Or
* You can only become a wizard if you are an elf
* You can only become a wizard if you are male (or only if female)
* You can only become a wizard if you are a male elf or female human.

Also, if a character in your world is born with wizardry as an innate trait, is he forced to become a wizard, or can he become a mundane, no-spells swordsman instead?

[Axly Suregrip]

Originally Posted by EKB

What other abilities are innate traits in your world?

I am saying innate trait in life, not my world. Some people are tall, ugly, etc. So, it is innate. The closest in game thing is race. You're a dwarf or not. (now comes the arguements for half races) ;-)

It's simple.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by EKB

What other abilities are innate traits in your world?

Scholars serving the Dread Emperor determined that the innate ability to learn to cast spells was negatively correlated with the innate ability to learn badminton. Wooden spoon badminton players were forced into magic school or executed.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Our society does it with twin studies. To do it efficiently you'd need to hire people to kidnap one of twins and move them to a very different home environment. The scholar doing the research is annoyed how many people have decided there's something morally wrong with this. Don't they realise what a chance they are passing up, to be a part of advancing science? Would the player characters like a job? Or have they been hired to find someone's long lost twin?.

Alternatively we could gather up a few thousand women, to get a big enough statistical sample, have each of them impregnated by a wizard and a non-wizard, in random order, since birth order might matter, and compare the fraction of each cohort who become successful wizards. That sounds much safer than kidnapping one of the twin children of a bunch of wizards. Some sufficiently crazed order of wizards might even try buying or enslaving a bunch of girls and giving the experiment a try.

Alternate idea, welcome adventurers to the brothel of the Archmage Zorgo the Curious. Special discounts for wizards.

[hcobb]

Even if this is false, do some wizards think so and hence underestimate hairy mudbloods?