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Today's L&L article goes over the arcane caster trio, but there is a string bias of opinion there
www.wizards.com/Dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4...
So for the sake of fairness, here is how everyone else views the Wizard

Sorcerers, hunted by the Wizards: 

Any self-respecting Sorcerer will tell you that wizards are at best dangerous to themselves, at worse a dire threat to those around them (no sorcerer ever thought putting an owl's head on a bear's body was a good idea). Wizards think by reading some books and attending school for a few years they can bend the cosmic forces of the universe to their own amoral ends. Sorcerers know better. Like a bird flies naturally with its wings, a Sorcerer was born with the gift of magic and developes it over a lifetime, but even with such careful practice they are not so foolish to so quickly declare themselves masters of the arcane. 

Wizards view the natural talent of Sorcers with scornful jealousy. They believe sorcerers must be controlled and studied so that whatever power they hold can be harnessed and put to 'better use' (by Wizards). Evil wizards have no compunction with capturing sorcerers, experimenting on them, and eventually harvesting their organs for magical potions and other items.
 

Warlocks, persecuted by the Wizards: 

If wizards are jealous of sorcerers, they simply scoff at warlocks. Warlocks have found a means to access arcane magic different than wizards, and to the intolerant wizards anything not their way is the wrong way. Wizards look down on warlocks as meddlers, thieves, and dangerous renegades, they practice magic outside the institutions established by wizards. Some wizardly academies go so far as to seek out and horde the books that warlocks seek. There are some secrets, a wizard may tell you, that are better off kept secret... and that secret is only for wizards to know.



 

Aug 20, 2012 -- 12:41AM, OgreBattle wrote:

Today's L&L article goes over the arcane caster trio, but there is a string bias of opinion there
www.wizards.com/Dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4...
So for the sake of fairness, here is how everyone else views the Wizard

Sorcerers, hunted by the Wizards: 

Any self-respecting Sorcerer will tell you that wizards are at best dangerous to themselves, at worse a dire threat to those around them. Wizards think by reading some books and attending school for a few years they can bend the cosmic forces of the universe to their own amoral ends. Sorcerers know better. Like a bird flies naturally with its wings, a Sorcerer was born with the gift of magic and developes it over a lifetime, but even with such careful practice they are not so foolish to so quickly declare themselves masters of the arcane. 

Wizards view the natural talent of Sorcers with scornful jealousy. They believe sorcerers must be controlled and studied so that whatever power they hold can be harnessed and put to 'better use' (by Wizards). Evil wizards have no compunction with capturing sorcerers, experimenting on them, and eventually harvesting their organs for magical potions and other items.

Or to give an even more nuanced viewpoint: Sorcerers believe that one is either born with magical blood or not, and that those born without magical blood will never know the true power of the arcane; Wizards are jealous and fearful of supposedly untrained practioners playing with the raw forces of the universe, but they also hold with a more democratic philosophy that anyone can learn the ways of magic with enough study, and to hell with the idea of "bloodright."

So you have a gang of persecuted elitists who recklessly spend magical energies they only understand on an instinctual basis, and a cabal of amoral meritocrats oppressing a racial minority in the name of saving reality. Who's the good guy? Who's the bad guy?

Warlocks, persecuted by the Wizards: 

If wizards are jealous of sorcerers, they simply scoff at warlocks. Warlocks have found a means to access arcane magic different than wizards, and to the intolerant wizards anything not their way is the wrong way. Wizards look down on warlocks as meddlers, thieves, and dangerous renegades, they practice magic outside the institutions established by wizards. Some wizardly academies go so far as to seek out and horde the books that warlocks seek. There are some secrets, a wizard may tell you, that are better off kept secret... for anyone that's not a Wizard.

On the same vein: Warlocks see Wizards as selfish hoarders of magical power who insist on forcing people to spend decades and decades studying magic (with no thought about what class of people can afford to spend decades poring over books without having to earn a living, and certainly no discussion of what sort of people are admitted into their apprenticeships and academies). Anyone can get magical power, simply by learning the truth that Wizards are trying to hide from the masses and there are so many allies out there who want to liberate the common man from his oppression. Wizards are rather aristocratic/meritocratic and have good reason to fear totally untrained dabblers who are servants of otherworldy forces who want to invade our world and turn humanity/the sapient races into their slaves. 

So we have scrappy auto-didacts seeking to democratize power and knowledge up, but who have literally sold their souls to masters that are beyond the ken of mortals, up against aloof snobs who are deliberately holding back civilizational progress, but who are also fighting to keep humanity/the sapient races free from cthonic darkness. 

given the magical nature of sorcerors versus wizards, I find it odd that elves are generally described as wizards and not sorcerors in the game.  As I read the class/race descriptions, I would think that Elves would be sorceerors first, then warlocks (making pacts in the fey court) and wizards last - because who has time to read all those books when there is a great big world to explore and play in?

I thought elves lived under ground and were ruled by queens that worshiped a spider.

I actually find this thread catalyst for some very interesting roleplay.