Growing up with a spellcasting parent

[Anymage]

I except that like for most jobs having a parent with job X increase a bit the odds of having job X.

If your parents were both career military, your connections and upbringing make it more likely that you'll go into service as well. It wouldn't be too extraordinary if you decided to skip enlisting and become a bartender, however.

If both your parents were black, it would be astronomically unlikely if you came out with blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin.

The degree to which magic is just another job vs. the degree to which it's in your genes will have a huge impact on the setting. If we assume a 3.5 setting where magic is just another job, the ubiquity of magic items would affect a child's upbringing far more than how many spell slots their parents could keep for leisure (as opposed to having to spend them on work responsibilities).

[Segev]

I think a 100% (or even 95%) foolproof method of lie detection would cause narrative problems in an RPG, which is why there is usually a way around it in the rules. If you can, with negligible effort, tell if someone tells the truth or not, then any story based on deception will not work anymore or at least will require elaborate narrative construction to explain how someone could get away with a lie.

Eh, it could, but the ways to work around it or have it work to both sides of the coin would probably balance out.

The trouble with most "truthcasting" in RPGs is that it tends to be very easy to resist. And the caster doesn't know if it was.

Let's say I cast zone of truth. You and three others enter it/are inside it when I cast it. At DC 13 (the minimum possible), it's highly likely that at least one of you, if not two or all four, will make your save. At DC 17, the odds are lower, but still nontrivial.

If it's just you I'm questioning, I only have a percentage chance - and that's assuming I can accurately guage your Will Save bonus - to know if the spell is affecting you or not. This makes it barely better than just rolling Sense Motive. For a 2nd-level spell slot, that's...pretty darned weak.

If both your parents were black, it would be astronomically unlikely if you came out with blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin.

Maybe both your parents cheated on each other at the same time!

[Aliquid]

If both your parents were black, it would be astronomically unlikely if you came out with blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin

I like how you were wise enough to say unlikely rather than impossible.

https://nypost.com/2010/07/21/blond-bombshell/amp/

[Mark Hall]

The degree to which magic is just another job vs. the degree to which it's in your genes will have a huge impact on the setting. If we assume a 3.5 setting where magic is just another job, the ubiquity of magic items would affect a child's upbringing far more than how many spell slots their parents could keep for leisure (as opposed to having to spend them on work responsibilities).

This is a very good point; if magic requires some sort of Gift (to use Ars Magica terminology), then you might wind up with the equivalent of Squibs and Free Agents (to mix fictional universes)... folks from magical families who aren't magic, and folks from non-magical families who are. And if the gift requires training, you might also wind up with folks who have magic, but never really developed it... they have a couple tricks they can do, but aren't really leveled spellcasters (insofar as that is a concept which makes sense for your system).

[Tvtyrant]

I like how you were wise enough to say unlikely rather than impossible.

https://nypost.com/2010/07/21/blond-bombshell/amp/

Even if there was no family genes for paleness, pale genes had to come from somewhere.

I think the magical family highly depends on setting assumptions. If it is Krynn they probably indoctrinate their kids into it secretly, revealing new secrets once they are sure the kid won't run around showing their friends. It is is Eberron the kid is essentially the child of scientists. Societal expectations of how mages are treated are as important as what forms magic takes.

[AceOfFools]

Even if there was no family genes for paleness, pale genes had to come from somewhere.

Albinism is a thing. Africans do have white-skinned children sometimes.

Genetics IRL is really complex, and given the scale of humanity, “very rare” things happen rather frequently. Add in magical wackiness and...

[Tvtyrant]

Albinism is a thing. Africans do have white-skinned children sometimes.

Genetics IRL is really complex, and given the scale of humanity, “very rare” things happen rather frequently. Add in magical wackiness and...

Yeah but more then that, people's skin becomes lighter in northern climates and darker in southern ones. That involves having random children with skin lighter or darker then their parents and then their children being more successful due to the balance between vitamin D production and cancer rates. I doubt we know how often that occurs, but the rate of difference shouldn't be effected by the modern population movements, it just won't effect survival like it used to.

[Sniccups]

So we've been talking about wizard-style casters as parents (magic is a trained skill - wizards, bards, artificers, possibly clerics and druids) and sorcerer-style casters as parents (magic is an inherited trait - sorcerers, magical species like fey).

What would a warlock-style caster (magic is a possibly-dangerous, permanent choice) be like as a parent?

[Tvtyrant]

So we've been talking about wizard-style casters as parents (magic is a trained skill - wizards, bards, artificers, possibly clerics and druids) and sorcerer-style casters as parents (magic is an inherited trait - sorcerers, magical species like fey).

What would a warlock-style caster (magic is a possibly-dangerous, permanent choice) be like as a parent?

Pact by Wildbow has a bit of this, as does the entire genre of cursed family horror stories. The new Sabrina show as well.

I think it would be pretty awful, assuming there is an actual reciprocity between patron and caster. "Mommy murdered the neighbors dog and ate it" or "I have to join this cult or they are going to kill me when I turn 13."

The Binder is probably the gentlest version of this trope. Your parent undergoes terrifying changes in personality, mood, behavior and looks on a daily basis but none of them compel them to murder people.

[Beleriphon]

This is an especially scary example. Basically you are saying: If I cast truth detection on someone and they say they are not guilty, they must be lying and have passed their will save. On the other side, if they say they are guilty under a spell they could claim that the spell was not actually a detection but a coercion spell. Who could prove otherwise? And finally they may have passed the will save and have lied (saying they are guilty) to protect someone else.

You're encountering the same problem that Enlightenment author Cesare Beccaria identified in On Crimes and Punishment. Torturing a man means a guilty man with a strong will can resist torture and be set free, while an innocent man with weak will cannot resist torture and thus will be punished. The same can be said for a truth spell, if it can be resisted then it is not an effective means of determining truthfulness.

[AntiAuthority]

Sometimes I think about how different people would be growing up around magic... socially, culturally, personality etc. We typically insert variations of "real world" cultures into fantasy stories, but things would likely be quite different.

One small example of something that has no parallel to the real world... having spellcasting parents.

For example, imagine a kid growing up with a parent that can magically "detect lies", or compel truth, or something like that. How would that impact the kid? Would he grow up thinking that lying is impossible, and just not lie? Would he become highly skilled at being misleading without technically lying? Would he rebel and become a compulsive liar when he isn't at home?

Bump that up to a societal level, and what if the legal system used lie detection when assessing guilt? Sure the "high level" individuals that could resist the magic would avoid this inconvenience... but what about petty crime. Would it be easy to wipe out petty crime? Or would the people that can cast those spells ignore petty crime and focus their abilities on addressing larger issues?

Hm... I'd say the kid would grow up to be incredibly rebellious, might lie just to lie after a certain point to assert that they're their own person and can say whatever they want and almost certainly resent their overly controlling parent. They might also figure out how to technically tell the truth, just not the entire truth or downplay it.

As for society... I'd imagine it would be like lie detector tests are in our world. They wouldn't be admissible in all courts if it's proven people with strong enough wills can resist them, or have enough wisdom/charisma to carefully step around the truth... Unless the area ran on a "guilty until proven innocent mindset" or something. Even then, it'll probably be an incredibly flawed system and people would swear that their enemies must have somehow resisted the spell.

Would such characters wipe out petty crime? Probably not, people would probably just get smarter as to how to do them or more careful about what they say.

Would such magic users focus on such petty crimes in the first place? I'd say that depends heavily on the caster's personality.

[Gauntlet]

I think the impact also depends a lot on how the spellcasting system works in the setting.

A mage in a D&D / Vancian casting setting - where you do the prep, and then the spell just works without much/any 'randomness' - is one where magic could be used to supplement everyday life in a lot of ways.

I've been involved in a few games of Mage:The Ascension recently. While magic in that system is far more versatile and freeform, and probably provides a lot more in the way of useful options for everyday life rather than being combat focused - it's also probably one where a mage would actually use their powers much less frequently, because every time you do so you run the risk of messing up whatever you're doing and making things far far worse.

Casting sleep is something a wizard could do daily - the spell has been researched, its effects observed over many years, and its effects and possible side effects are likely well known. Even with a 1/100 or less chance of going wrong, though, that changes dramatically - if you're incorporating it into a daily routine, a 1% chance of a botch is suddenly a real concern in a way that it isn't when you're only using effects on occasions they are actually warranted.

[AMFV]

... But in general you are thinking of a concrete sleep spell from an RPG. That may not have a side effect per the rules, but we are talking about a hypothetical "real" world which tends to be more complex than an RPG, so a sleep spell may very weill have a side effect there. I don't think that a rule like "if you cast this spell on the same target more than 1/week for more than three months, side effect X will happen" will improve any roleplaying game, so I am happy that such rules are not present (at least in the games I play).

Of note, several game systems have tobacco as something you can purchase, and none of them (to my knowledge) have rules for cancer, few of them have rules for addiction or brain damage and contain alcohol.

Edit:

I think the main thing here is the frequency of spell availability. Presumably if you're a spellcaster you need to save some percentage of slots for your job or for contingencies or whatever. So in D&D "Create Food and Water", which was mentioned is a THIRD level spell, meaning that is not readily available for anybody who is probably of even medium level, except maybe on the weekends or something. Discern Lies is a second level spell, meaning that depending on your Wisdom you can only cast it probably at most five to ten times a day, and most of those spell slots are probably taken up to actually do your job. So you might be able to use spells on kids in an emergency but outside of Orisons or Cantrips (in Pathfinder) you probably aren't going to be using them very regularly because you need to actually work or save your spells for other things. (As a general rule, there are probably exceptions).

[AntiAuthority]

I think the main thing here is the frequency of spell availability. Presumably if you're a spellcaster you need to save some percentage of slots for your job or for contingencies or whatever. So in D&D "Create Food and Water", which was mentioned is a THIRD level spell, meaning that is not readily available for anybody who is probably of even medium level, except maybe on the weekends or something. Discern Lies is a second level spell, meaning that depending on your Wisdom you can only cast it probably at most five to ten times a day, and most of those spell slots are probably taken up to actually do your job. So you might be able to use spells on kids in an emergency but outside of Orisons or Cantrips (in Pathfinder) you probably aren't going to be using them very regularly because you need to actually work or save your spells for other things. (As a general rule, there are probably exceptions).

Actually, if several casters were to create scrolls... They could essentially stockpile the spell and have a potentially limitless supply of the spell ready to go. Even sell them off to local authorities for their own spell casters to use them on people that are being questioned/interrogated. No using up a spell slot, and you get to constantly replenishing Zones of Truth (assuming you can get to someone who made more before your supply runs out).

Now I'm imagining some kind of assembly line scenario where a bunch of spell casters are being paid to manufacture scrolls of Zone of Truth to distribute to other spell casters for later use.

[AMFV]

Actually, if several casters were to create scrolls... They could essentially stockpile the spell and have a potentially limitless supply of the spell ready to go. Even sell them off to local authorities for their own spell casters to use them on people that are being questioned/interrogated. No using up a spell slot, and you get to constantly replenishing Zones of Truth (assuming you can get to someone who made more before your supply runs out).

Now I'm imagining some kind of assembly line scenario where a bunch of spell casters are being paid to manufacture scrolls of Zone of Truth to distribute to other spell casters for later use.

It isn't "potentially limitless" though it's limited by the funds to produce it and the demand and the fact that you need to have casters who both have the feat required and the inclination to spend their spell slots day after day on that which means they'll have less slots to use for other things. You could potentially make a bunch but there is plenty of cost to it, so it'd really have to be worth it. Not to mention that a lot of people, possibly powerful people would have many reasons to oppose it.

Edit: And I'm not saying that you wouldn't necessarily be able to have that, but you'd have to have people who were paid to that, since they need a place to live and the materials. So you're going to wind up needing to pay for it, and that's what might make it not something that's used in every case. And it takes time to make the scrolls.

So the most you could probably make in a given day is five scrolls, and you probably don't have spells slots enough for that, assuming that the population isn't very high leveled. So per scroll guy you might get two or three scrolls a day, and you probably have dozens of court cases a day (at least in most large cities). In the US (a country of 350 million) there's something 270,000 state court cases per day. Now this might vary, but you'd need a good chunk of people ONLY making those scrolls if you wanted to even be using them in every single court case, and you probably couldn't use them for anything else.

[Anymage]

Actually, if several casters were to create scrolls... They could essentially stockpile the spell and have a potentially limitless supply of the spell ready to go. Even sell them off to local authorities for their own spell casters to use them on people that are being questioned/interrogated. No using up a spell slot, and you get to constantly replenishing Zones of Truth (assuming you can get to someone who made more before your supply runs out).

Now I'm imagining some kind of assembly line scenario where a bunch of spell casters are being paid to manufacture scrolls of Zone of Truth to distribute to other spell casters for later use.

The spellcasters will still be spending their spell slots creating these scrolls. And as mentioned above, that's still a lot of money (and possibly XP) spent when you could just keep a caster on retainer.

Going all the way down that rabbit hole and creating hundreds of self-resetting traps of Zone of Truth in a room? At that point, you're looking at a post-scarcity magical society. The parts where it's post-scarcity and has magical "technologies" far more reliable than our real-world technologies will be far more impactful to the perspective of someone growing up there than what job their parents held down.

[AMFV]

The spellcasters will still be spending their spell slots creating these scrolls. And as mentioned above, that's still a lot of money (and possibly XP) spent when you could just keep a caster on retainer.

Going all the way down that rabbit hole and creating hundreds of self-resetting traps of Zone of Truth in a room? At that point, you're looking at a post-scarcity magical society. The parts where it's post-scarcity and has magical "technologies" far more reliable than our real-world technologies will be far more impactful to the perspective of someone growing up there than what job their parents held down.

And even a caster on retainer is unlikely to be able to keep up with every court case unless you have them doing only that and they're considerably high level (at least in most systems).

[kieza]

In the setting I run, being exposed to magic in early childhood raises the probability that you develop sorcery (the "innate" form of arcane magic) later on--being exposed in utero, much more so.

Many wizards and artificers have strained relationships with their sorcerer children, because wizardry and artifice are respected, professional, "white-collar" forms of magic, and sorcery is decidedly blue-collar: it's the equivalent of a lawyer or doctor being disappointed in their kid who wants to be a bartender.

It gets worse with warlocks: they already got power by "borrowing" it from someone else...why not borrow the font of arcane energy currently embodied in your kid? Think of a stage mom turned up to 11, or worse, someone who had a kid so that they had an organ donor ready to hand.

Sorcerers with sorcerer children tend to get along with them much better...which sometimes makes up for the fact that sorcerer families tend to be ostracized from society. Purely aside from the fact that pubescent sorcerers tend to cause a lot of property damage getting a handle on their powers, a lot of other people have twigged to the fact that concentrations of magic tend to create more sorcerers. Get a critical mass of sorcerers together, and everybody around them starts having sorcerer children, too...which is something that society at large isn't ready to deal with yet.

[noob]

In the setting I run, being exposed to magic in early childhood raises the probability that you develop sorcery (the "innate" form of arcane magic) later on--being exposed in utero, much more so.

Many wizards and artificers have strained relationships with their sorcerer children, because wizardry and artifice are respected, professional, "white-collar" forms of magic, and sorcery is decidedly blue-collar: it's the equivalent of a lawyer or doctor being disappointed in their kid who wants to be a bartender.

It gets worse with warlocks: they already got power by "borrowing" it from someone else...why not borrow the font of arcane energy currently embodied in your kid? Think of a stage mom turned up to 11, or worse, someone who had a kid so that they had an organ donor ready to hand.

Sorcerers with sorcerer children tend to get along with them much better...which sometimes makes up for the fact that sorcerer families tend to be ostracized from society. Purely aside from the fact that pubescent sorcerers tend to cause a lot of property damage getting a handle on their powers, a lot of other people have twigged to the fact that concentrations of magic tend to create more sorcerers. Get a critical mass of sorcerers together, and everybody around them starts having sorcerer children, too...which is something that society at large isn't ready to deal with yet.

Does having sorcerous powers makes learning wizardry and artifice harder in your setting?
If not you might have people with sorcerous potential that wants to do as their parents and do more ritualised magic.