To me, allowing some citizens to be trained in magic and then letting them loose to pursue their own ideas and goals is like placing all your citizens in a line and then handing out MiniGuns to some and pitchforks to others and saying: "Good luck!"
A society, in which magic is not common (almost any but the elves') and only (in my estimates) about 0.1 percent of the population can wield arcane powers, would that society not expect something from its 'best and brightest'?
IMO spellcasters would be natural recruits for any intelligence agency, such as the DDC and the Karameikan Secret Service. And if a government knows a person is a spellcaster it would seem intelligent to me to draft such persons into service for a period of time to make government use of their skills?
Some might argue that keeping track of magic-users will be difficult but I say no more difficult than forcing adventurers to cough up money for taxes when they return from their wilderness expeditions.
And what about types of magic? We know most nations except Glantri abhore Necromancy and the usefulness of Divination is universally recognized. But what about e.g. Enchantment/Charm? If I was trying to govern a society, the first thing I would outlaw was the use of Charm Person spells. That spell holds enormous potential for fraud, espionage and general mayhem.
IMO spellcaster can, and should be, taxed - especially if they cast spells for a fee.
What do you think?
:-) Jesper
IMO, this will usually be handled by the city's Wizard's Guild. Most people won't know enough about magic to pass too many laws regulating it. Instead, they will probably pass those decisions onto some wizards they trust (the fools
), and let them be the Wizard's Guild and regulate themselves. In practical terms, this will probably in most cases mean that Guild Members can do anything they want aslong as they don't give the Guild a bad rep, while non Guild members are not allowed to use magic at all.The Guild will be expected to handle trouble-makers internally, and are given the authority to do that in any way they see fit.
The Guild will probaly require a small fee of their members (depending on the size of the city) and may require their members to wear something that identifies them as Guild Wizards; robes of a certain color, a special amulet, ring or other ornament etc.
Just a thought
Havard
A spellcaster declares at the start of each year what spells he will pay tax on. These are then freely able to be used. If he needs to, he can use any other spell at all, and then pay a retrospective tax at a higher rate. The rate is such that if he uses it more than about three or four times a year, it would have been cheaper to declare it.
This works in Glantri because the tax inspectors have a lot of divination magic.
The justification is that if a crime is committed (a guard is charmed, say) the authorities know where to start asking questions.
Tax evasion is of course a very serious offence of itself.
Almost by definition, governments are going to try to contol anything, and spellcasting would not be an exception. The neat thing about it is the way each nation goes about doing it; slightly different in every country. Laws in regard to spellcasting would be made by the rulers, with influential members of the Wizard's Guild scheming to get the results they are interested in.
OTOH, once laws are created and the guilds established, the guilds themselves have tremendous control over their craft. They also have considerable freedom to ensure things stay proper and in dealing with rogue wizards and trouble-makers.
As an after-thought that just came to me, I wonder if the guild would be responsible for collecting spellcasting related taxes on behalf of the government and as a benifit, the guild is granted a cut of collection. I guess it would be on a nation by nation case, but what do you think?