Books... why so expensive?

[Bellayana]

Could this be what Candlekeep could become?

[Isaldur]

Candlekeep has a very difficult process of gaining access. Namely donating a very rare book or tome that they don't have yet or want a copy of.

I can see a long quest to gain access to a library as extensive as candlekeep, but what about player run libraries for those that go through the effort of keeping a large collection (And maybe also a collection in good condition) where they can decide reasons, rates, etc for those that want to join.

[Bellayana]

That sounds like a great idea Isaldur, a library player ran. Having to pay a entry fee each time you want to go research something. Or gain knowledge, could there perhaps be a quest to gain access to advances in geography or other types of lore? I personally know that I would pay to get into a library to read books on subjects. This also could motivate bards to write books on quests in the game, or history that has happened. I know a few bards are already roleplaying getting books in the works on some events, this could allow for some great roleplay to try and get a player to hunt down a bard to pay for their book to be available at the library.

Also, if possible each time the book is checked out to read within the building it could transfer some coin to the bards bank? Im not sure how the bank code works here.

[Elke]

I think it's mostly a sense of a great deal of effort made in writing the books going to waste because actually getting to read them is so very hard. The free book tokens were an idea to encourage new players to at least look around the bookshops and perhaps make one or two of the quests where you need to buy a new (expensive) book a little easier.

Yay, libraries!

[Isolrem]

I'd just like to reinstate my original assertion that making books high cost and inaccessible does not reward the authors in any way. As an author I would much, much rather just have more people read what I wrote.

Building a library is, of course, a good solution. It's just that we already have a number of large scale projects going on and I am hesitant to propose any more of this nature.

[Lathlain]

Cheaper books is something I agree with entirely. Most books currently have an object apply that increases their worth by 3000 copper, so it should easy enough to reverse that in theory!

Book writers get no money from purchases - just a little payment when they submit their book the first time. While we can't equate the FK economy to the 'real' Faerunian one, I'm pretty sure we can agree that a book shouldn't cost a mini fortune

[Vantaniael]

I would be more in favour of scaling the pricing to reflect content. I would not call the pricing as it is anything I disagree with, more so I prefer it, as both a contributor and a consumer. Reducing the prices too much would actually, for me at least, be a bit dispiriting, as on at least some level I draw a connection between pricing and intangible value to what I am purchasing. What I would like to see is a cost scheme in place to closer reflect something like the number of pages and over all quality of a work. Maybe a hand full of gold for a single page, but two to four pages I could easily pay two platinum for. Five to seven pages, four platinum, and anything about that, (eight, nine, ten, twelve,) six platinum easy. I could pay all the way up to nine platinum if the work were long enough and truly deserving. But heck, I realize I am probably in the minority with this view, mayhap even singular, but that's my thoughts anyway.

I would encourage the notion of player run or otherwise libraries, more book related quests, or even some Oghman related event for a book swap/meet.

[Ruilwyn]

The way I see it, we've raised several separate issues:
A. Books are expensive to read (causing various difficulties for younger characters, discouraging learning, etc.)
B. Price realism
C. Characters' published books often aren't read

I'll address A and B together: I think books should be expensive - with exceptions. What FK represents as a textbook on magic theory of 10 pages would in a more lifelike depiction of the setting probably be a large leather-bound tome with several hundred or thousand pages. Of course not all books fit the same category; we have many with single stories or poems, and even one or two with just a verse. Price should probably scale with length and content (with the average around 1-2 platinum?)

I don't think lowering the price further would fix C. FK is full of bookstores, publishing houses, vellum-laden priests, and so forth. People are here for the RP, not the books, and not many will have the patience to look around and shop extensively with the current system (or at least, honestly, I don't think I would if my characters had the money.) I like the idea of coded libraries and secondhand stores: read a lot of books and then decide which you keep. Everyone profits except the publishing houses, and we never cared about them anyway.

[Elke]

One of the reasons I would encourage cheaper books is because the setting, divergent from Forgotten Realms though it is, still has a very rich tapestry of history, background and knowledge. I think it might improve rp if more characters could read more about, and find out more about, the setting and background - one of the reasons I really liked the religion books. Not to say that this couldn't just be gleaned by reading published material, of course.

[Lerytha]

Firstly, I have to declare two interests!

1. Lerytha did have a Travelling Library set up some time ago. Unfortunately her player's Word documents with all the names of members was lost. When she has less to do IC (which hopefully will be soon!) she will start this up again, so watch this space! But basically, player-run libraries are really easy to set up. Get people to donate books, and really, your supplies build up very quickly. I used to say, membership is free, but any donations of any sort are greatly appreciated. Most people (I think everyone, actually), gave two or three books, and lots of people gave hefty sums of platinum. It worked very well, I feel. If anyone wants to set another one up, its easier than it looks. Just get a cart, a decent horse, and start getting donations. Maybe you can even charge for membership, if donations are harder to obtain.

2. Miriel does have a dwelling, but (and this is something I love), even she has had to decide carefully on what to buy. I stress, even a very wealthy and fairly high-level character with dwelling space has not got every book in the game. Not even close! In fact, this is my argument against lowering the price too much.

It is great that you have to choose between certain books! Why do we make it out to be a bad thing? Excuse me whilst I sound callous: your character can't buy every book in the game. So what? Your character can't learn every skill in the game, either. One of my characters might have a lot of poetry and books on love. Another character might choose more esoteric books on magic, demons, planar lore, and natural world books. Yet another character might choose books on ethics, paladins, law, city life, etc. Yes, all three of my main characters have different "subjects" they are interested in. And not one of my characters has every book, wants every book (or indeed, could buy every book).

Saying that, Isaldur's suggestions about qualities of books are good. But what I really don't want to see, is when your books cease to mean anything. Books should be expensive, just like they are today (obviously as a ratio of income, they are far cheaper nowadays!). If I could buy every book I wanted IRL, I wouldn't value them. I think we are overlooking the point that most of us have alts. And that these alts will allow us to read most books in the game, if they are sufficiently different.

What I really hate (but secretly enjoy) is when my character's interests occasionally and unfortunately overlap, and I have to buy a book on magic on both Miriel and Lerytha. Most of the time though, all three of my characters live in happy bliss, without every duplicating their book supplies.

And that's fun. Do we want every skill in the game? Nah. So let's keep books a bit rare, so that fighters of Tyr choose not to buy Takket's Apprentice Guide. But that wizards of Mystra whip that guide up hungrily, but do not by Isolrem's books about pages, or Andreas' books about morality. I honestly think it gives variety to our characters.

Just my two pennies!

[Elke]

Excuse me whilst I sound callous: your character can't buy every book in the game

I'm a little confused as to when this was ever suggested. Not even Elke would buy every book in the game - although she'd love to, to bar realistic factors such as cost. (In fact, she doesn't own many at all, mostly due to the difficulty in carrying them all...) The problem is that they are just too expensive, especially for low-level characters without much coin. As a result, what I think we completely agree on here,

But what I really don't want to see, is when your books cease to mean anything.

is as far as I can see what is actually happening. Characters cannot afford books and so start to ignore their existence altogether, rather than regularly buying them. And so the bookstores stand empty and the books remain unread.

A lot of my opinion on this is influenced by prior experience in other MUDs and other games in general where the existence of books is used as a tool to drive and enhance roleplay. For example - books as loot. It was entirely possible to find out about other quests, gain a new quest or even just read about interesting back-plot by looting a bookcase.

Think The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion here. Books were findable, lootable, purchasable, sellable, and each and every story added a depth and richness to the fantasy world the character was in. Often they would offer slight guidance and clues for when you came to a specific quest point, say.

Now whilst I appreciate that there needs to be a balance between value and cheapness (as in, if you can get a book free by repeatedly visiting that bookcase it's going to be treated as trash, dropped on the street etc - how many characters actually retained their freebie adventurer journals, I wonder?...) I do think that as is, the balance is seriously skewed in favour of far too expensive, rather than cheap-almanac-to-hang-in-privy disposability.

I very much enjoy quests and areas which hand out books, and would love to see more of these. Other books, such as perhaps class related books (the wizards manuals, discussions on shapechanging etc) should indeed be far more expensive. Books of poetry or prose probably should be priced by the writer - you can charge very highly for your poetry, maintaining exclusivity and trying to appeal to the wealthy, or you could just be writing that trashy Cormyrean romance that everyone talks - and giggles - about. (Not that I'm saying anyone has actually written one in-game yet as far as I know! but the concept of it has come up ICly...) In which case, you're selling your work priced cheaply because you want your name to get known and hope to profit by a small margin on many books, rather than a huge margin on a few...

[Enig]

I definitely agree with Elke and the 'cheaper book' crowd on this one.

If we're going to be comparing a desire for cheaper books to a powergamer's urge to have every skill, though, I think I should point out that although skills offer a solid, coded, competitive advantage against other players and mobs alike books offer nothing of the sort. They're conduits for the transfer of ideas from PC to PC, which is really the same function as the say and smote commands, parchment, or any number of note boards scattered about. In the same way that all PC-PC interaction is encouraged, then, I honestly don't see any compelling reason why we'd choose to arbitrarily limit the spread of books in order to imitate the expenses of ancient printing methods (ie. scribes) when, as has been mentioned, there are clear IC ways to accelerate and cheapen the process (ie. magical scribes).

It's great if people value their books, but, hey; some people don't. Regardless of the cost I think it's safe to say that some people are rich enough that they could use books as kindling and get away with it just fine. Having exhorbitant prices for some books (perhaps to indicate rarity) might be something worth considering if you want to cultivate a sense of value in them but having a blanket price of ~5 platinum for every book in existence does, I think, mostly keep them out of the hands of new players.

Although it's not an issue of great importance I honestly don't see how there can be two sides to this. Lowering the prices of books will simply allow for more players to read more of the great and interesting things that their fellow players have thought up. Even if it's kind of passive it's still a form of interaction and putting a limit on it to satisfy some need for realism or 'the value of luxury items' in a world where you can go out, klonk goblins on the head for a few hours, and earn enough to buy just about anything you could want seems kind of misguided to me.