New wizards and spells

[bighara]

I'm sure this must have been covered somewhere, but my search-fu failed.

How do people handle a new wizard gaining spells once he leaves the 0-level funnel? Does he just "conveniently stumble" upon a grimoire? I like the idea of questing for magic in general, but a level 1 wizard not having any spells out of the gate seems rough.

[NJPDX]

I leave it up to the player to decide how his wizard came into his spells (maybe that weirdly notched rune-staff that his grandpa handed down to him all those years ago actually contains formulae and only now did it all come into focus).

Also I tend to let some time pass between the funnel and where they pick up at first level, so I can sort of hand-wave some of those questions away ... or sometimes players have come up with some cool fill-in-the-blanks material that helps me create hooks.

I wouldn't get too hung up on the particulars unless needing a logical answer is eating away at you.

In short, let your imagination run wild I guess.

[Zargon]

I am really intrigued by the idea of the young wizard who has had secrets of the arcane among his possessions all along, only to ascend in consciousness and reveal that which was always there. I think that is a really great way to integrate spell knowledge with the player character. Admittedly, the 'sudden' arrival of a grimoire is all too convenient, seems about as prearranged as a drive-thru experience, not that any player I know has complained.
If it was something we could reference from history, in all likelihood the wizard would have spent every passing year since age 4 or 5 in the tutelage of a mentor, or in the company of other such exceptional peers of a selective academy of sorts. Such tremendous swaths of time practically demand the proverbial 'hand wave' in order to incorporate them into the game. This sort of wafting always seems to stir the air with a type of ennui, leaving a faint and lingering wish to stroll this historical path previewed in the theater of my mind, just the player and I. In fact, some of the most delightful sessions I have judged have been played at a table of two.