12) The conjuration, imprisonment, and/or torture of extra
planar beings, demi-gods, or evil outsiders is not to be done within city limits, or within 15 miles of any village, city, or mannor of any size.

The punishment you ask:

17) If any guildsmen disobeys these rules and statutes and if found guilty by his fellow guildsmen, he shall be punished through a fine of 50 gp for his first offense. His second offense shall be fine of 200 gp and a volley of magic missiles in front of the guild hall. His third offense shall be fine of 400 gp and a suspension from enfranchisement for one month. A fourth offense shall result in the expulsion of the rowdy from the guild, and possible the plane.

heheh.

It’s certainly the case that wizard organizations seem to exist in the major campaign worlds, but they often represent continent-spanning interests. You’ve got Arcanix and the Twelve in Eberron to educate arcanists, for instance, but there aren’t so many wizards that they can actually go around policing the use of magic.

A lot of the questions about the “code” will depend on how the wizard group(s) is organized. If it’s a state group, like a royal institution that is supported by the king, there probably is a set of rules the organization maintains and attempts to enforce. If it’s like a private college, there may be much less rigorous instruction in ethics.

The code might be informal even if it’s strong. For instance, in a world with no overarching wizard guild, wizards still have a strong reason to gather – to share rituals/spells. Since wizards learn new magic simply by leveling, they have every reason to get together and trade information. The power of ostracism in the world of wizards should be such that they at least give the appearance of playing by the rules, whatever they may be.

Or not. Wizards compromise the elite of the elite. They have the greatest amount of magical knowledge and they are the most intelligent, as a group, part of society. It’s quite possible that wizards dispense with notions like morality as they pursue power, putting magical learning above all else. In this kind of atmosphere, the idea of a code is simply an amusing fiction.

But published campaign settings, especially the 3.5 books on Waterdeep, Ruins of Greyhawk or Ptolus, — and using them as a baseline of sorts — do seem to indicate that there are enough wizards for the kinds of organizations we’re talking about.

Of course, your campaign world may differ.

Who knows how many wizards exist? Maybe even in the big cities there’s only a half-dozen, so there’s no body of professionals to establish a guild. Perhaps power manifests randomly in the population, without training being required, so you can’t regulate the supply of magical skill.

The real question is how easy is it to resist the information? Wanting to provide ethical guidelines is nice, but if everyone learns 2-3 spells each time they level (often every week or two in the game world), then the GM is going to have to “nerf” the wizard’s list, exempt their free spells from the restrictions, or something similar.

Given the other classes in D&D, ethical training is something a wizard could tout– but even if every wizard was restrained by training, sorcerers, warlocks, and dark clerics require no training.

I don’t know about that. Martin’s running a Mage game in which I’m a player, and the whole cabal just had the very awesome experience of crafting soul stones and creating a demesne for the first time. Our PCs went through a long debate about the implications of carving up our souls and risking madness to obtain power, but as players, we all really wanted it.

Something than can be taken from this experience is that while a code of some kind exists, it may not be a deterrent to abuse. Mage features Paradox, a penalty for using powerful magic, the severity of which can be strongly influenced by your Wisdom (a measure of magical morality). IE, if you’re “evil,” it’s harder to escape the consequences of your magic. Nonetheless, we all went for it, and three of us suffered a Wisdom loss for it.

If a player is already inclined to “play for the power,” magic having an evil origin/huge consequence may not do anything to slow them down, but it could serve as an awesome roleplaying hook. I know that I’m very much looking forward to roleplaying my mage with his new diminished morals and his struggles to reconcile his likely new behaviors with the high-minded ethics he espouses.

Lawful doesn’t mean “follows the law of the land” just that the character follows some internal code, and believes in the rule of law over force. It certainly doesn’t mean the stereotypical Paladin type who think no one lies and everyone is basically good unless they see it with their own eyes (that’s just silly).

I actually have two characters in my group, one is lawful good and one is chaotic good. They have epic arguments on how to achieve their goals because of this difference. They always agree on what the goal should be, but they can’t agree on how to achieve it. I can’t remember specific arguments now but it’s entertaining to watch them.

@Rafe: I agree with your view of the formalizing of spells, however a typical “high fantasy” setting has magic everywhere. It is fun, for me at least, to show the players that sorcerers are out there, from the garbage man to the kings councilor, to the first mate on a ship. I made the rule that anything that causes XP loss (like making magical items) actually causes you to lose memories. Therefore while magic is prevalent, magical items are uncommon in my game world.

Another spin would take the opposite side where the PCs hunt rogue magicians. You can throw in a little moral quandary where they discover that they are working for the wrong side.

As a note on the side debate: I’m currently playing as Cleric type. In my party is a 12 year old god-king (think pharoah) of a fallen tribe. The god-king is obviously outside of my pantheon. I often find myself in a bit of a quandary. As the only source of healing currently available to the party, I don’t want to be a fun-killer by refusing healing. On the other hand, there are certainly times where I’m not sure my character WOULD provide said healing. I’d love to see this topic get discussed in it’s own post.

For many, it’s an escapist chance to skulk through a dungeon and swing a sword or blast an enemy with eldritch fire. So, they don’t particularly want a rigorous legal or moral structure that limits their character’s potential actions. They just wanna be able to do stuff. They already have plenty of rules in their real lives.

Which is not to say that games *shouldn’t* have these things, of course.

You know, nothing might serve as a check on unethical behavior more than revealing that magic has a dark source. That would require mages to either cast with abandon (and be corrupted totally) or be very careful about tapping that power (and thus stay in the light as much as possible).

Male casters in the Wheel of Time face this dilemma. The more they cast, the greater their chance of going mad from a dark taint. And there are already taint and sanity mechanics out there that could serve to put this approach into play.