Book Trades

Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Light of Andorra
41

I am looking for what he can get. Right now all we know is what he has. We can't actually make any decisions without knowing what he can get. Until we have a list of books available (or at least a hand waving to say what sorts of books would be available), we're in a Never Never Land where we can't move forward.

The most important thing, I guess is what really good books are available. There will be a much shorter list of those. We can probably hand wave about the lesser books, and just say in general what's available. But we'll need someone to come up with a list of what might be available on the high side.

42

Writing out that list of books seems an exorbitant amount of work for a small aspect of the wider game; as we're all stretched for time IRL. A lot of the creative energy in writing a named and detailed list will be lost as not all the books will be not chosen for trade. Darn wonderful game flavor though.

In terms of hand-waving, with a degree of "game" - could the chance of success be based upon a skill roll, which also had a degree of variability in the result (Taking what Fixer wrote on the %s in use a little further). I'm pondering something like the Extraordinary Results Chart for Experimentation, but for selling and buying books.

i.e. Setup a basic check for each book which is desired and also a sale probability for each being sold, add a factor for how how many books are being sold, how many books are being purchased, the level of the book (measured in qpv). Also allow abilities and stats to affect the outcome (Com or Pres, Bargain, etc), allow the method of sale to be a base (traveling and personally asking, just messages to Harco, hiring a Red Cap). Allow time to factor into the success (1 week at each source, 5 source locations). Have the QPV of the texts is a base measure of the book.

The more I think about this "problem" the closer I get to writing pseudo-code of a simple program. Let me know if you'd like me to draft what I'm hinting at.

43

I wasn't saying that anyone should make up an exhaustive list, or go into any great detail. All I was thinking was something like this:

General
Any summa with a cost of 20 or less
Any 5 Art summae with a cost of 25 or below
Any 3 General/Martial summae with a cost of 25 or below
Any 5 Academic/Arcane summae with a cost of 30 or below
3 tractatus of level 12
5 tractatus of level 11
8 tractatus of level 10
Any tractatus of level 9
Any spell, except Mutantes spells
Any spell mastery tractatus (within reason)

Special Books
Imaginem summa, L15/Q16
Muto summa, L14/Q15
Animal summa, L12/Q17
Aquam summa, L13/Q15
Rego Tr, Q13
Corpus Tr, Q13
Vim Tr, Q13
Intrigue Summa, L5/Q16
Parma Magica summa, L7/Q16
Spell: Object of Increased Size [Boosted, Harnessed, Tethered]

(I just picked good values for books and then used some 1d15 to figure out the available Arts.)

44

Let me start by saying that this is totally made up by me. It should not be considered official or anything like that. I made it up out of whole cloth to slap something up against the wall to give us a starting point and to see if it was too much for people. Please don't anyone get upset by this list. It's just for discussion purposes.

I made some guestimates, rolled some d15's, assumed a few "premium" books, and further assumed that we would pick the best of the available "regular" books. The numbers I came up with are commensurate with what's in the library already. And by sheer luck on my part, I got them to add up to 762 qpv on the first try. So here's just one possibility of what 762 qpv of books would look like:

Art Books
Perdo Su, L10/Q15
Animal Su, L12/Q17
Aquam Su, L13/Q15
Corpus Su, L10/Q15
Imaginem Su, L15/Q16
Mentem Su, L12/Q13
Creo Tr, Q11
Muto Tr, Q12
Rego Tr, Q13
Rego Tr, Q12
Aurum Tr, Q11
Corpus Tr, Q13
Ignem Tr, Q12
Vim Tr, Q13

General Ability Books
Charm Su, L5/Q14
Intrigue Su, L5/Q15
Leadership Su, L5/Q15

Academic/Arcane Books
Parma Magica Su, L7/Q16
Ancient Greek Su, L5/Q15
Hebrew Su, L5/Q14
Teaching Su, L5/Q15

Spells
Spell: MuVi20 Wizard's Reach (Mentem)
Spell: ReVi50r Aegis of the Hearth
Spell: InVi20 Numbness of the Gift
Spell: InVi20 Piercing the Faerie Veil
Spell: InVi20 Piercing the Infernal Veil
Spell: InVi20 Piercing the Magical Veil
Spell: ReMe40 The Face in the Mirror
Spell: InAu20 Sailor’s Foretaste of the Morrow
Spell: ReIm30 Image from the Wizard Torn
Spell: InVi20 Numbness of the Gift
Spell: PeVi30r Disenchant
Spell: PeVi30 Unraveling the Fabric of Vim
Spell: PeVi20 Unraveling the Fabric of Herbam
Spell: PeVi20 Unraveling the Fabric of Ignem
Spell: PeVi20 Unraveling the Fabric of Terram
Spell: ReVi15 Gather the Essence of the Beast
Spell: MuTe15 Object of Increased Size (boosted, harnessed, tethered)

Spell Mastery Tractatus
Spell Mastery for Leap of Homecoming Tr, Q11
Spell Mastery for Crystal Dart Tr, Q11
Spell Mastery for Veil of Invisibility Tr, Q10
Spell Mastery for Wizard's Sidestep Tr, Q10
Spell Mastery for Seven League Stride Tr, Q10

45

This looks good to me.

46

A question - Spell: InVi20 Numbness of the Gift is there twice, but I think it was on the request list twice. Perhaps replace with some of the lab texts?

47

Oops, so it is. I just copied and pasted the request list. I think you're right, it should just be replaced with another level 20 spell. How about InVi20 Piercing the Magical Veil?

48

good question - just helping, not going to request anything for a while - my current character will be an apprentice - so he's a decade or so away from all that malarky making enough sense. At present it's all handwaving, latin grunting, and bad facial expressions...from priests. :slight_smile:

49

Ok for me too!

50

have we decided on which books were actually traded for which books?

51

I assumed that we were able to trade all of the books that were available to trade. I didn't track a book-for-book trade, though.

If this book list is approved (we're waiting to hear from Marko, PoB, and Peregrine), then the trade would be all the available books in 1237 for the list above.

52

I have no problem with the list.

53

The list has been up for a week, and I've only had positive responses. Can I take this as accepted and go about modifying the wiki?

54

I'm gonna be a bit of a bitch here, mostly since I should have brought this up about 4 pages ago: isn't the price when selling without any effort much less than when buying with little effort? 40% specifically? You get one pawn (4 qp) per 10qp? I think that would probably be a more reasonable way to do it.

Feel free to ignore this post.

55

My initial impression was that this was going to be a story. Honestly "We got everything we wanted in exchange for everything we could spare" seems a bit contrived, but as the person working library development if everyone else is cool with it...

56

Well, yes, it would have been nicer if you'd raised the issue four pages ago. But we'll work with it as best we can.

First, I wouldn't say it's without any effort. Lucas is spending a precious season doing horse trading instead of doing something in the lab or studying a book. (I'm not sure what other measurement of effort we really have in ArM.) And I did assume a loss, though it was only 10%. After all, we do have some very choice texts that we're offering. My thought was that most covenants have something in the way of books to trade, even if they're waiting for the right time (like a Tribunal meeting) to do the horse trading. Lucas just made things much easier for the dozen plus covenants in Provencal by coming to their doorstep. Really, they are the ones who are selling without any effort. No one in any of those covenants had to spend more than a few hours to effect a trade.

Also, we're not trying to force any trades, and we're not desperate to get rid of the books we've copied. We're just trying to get buyer and seller together in what might be an otherwise difficult market. Also, I would assume that it isn't like these trades all happen right away. Many of them are probably arranged for seasons or years in advance. For example, say Laguna Sententia is interested in one of our books. They might list a number of books that they would be able to copy in exchange for it. Lucas picks one that fits Andorra's needs and over the course of the next year, Laguna Sententia copies the book and arranges for a book swap a year after Lucas visits.

When you say that we should suffer a 60% loss on what we trade, you're saying that the other side would get a 250% gain. 100 qpv would get them 250 qpv. Simply put, we wouldn't accept that and would walk away. As I said. we're not desperate. If no one wants our books at a reasonable price, then that's fine. We can wait. But I'm not sure what we'd be waiting for. Must we wait for them to come to us? In that case should we expect to get a 60% discount? (They'd probably never sell to us under those terms.)

Book trades happen when librarians get together. In this case, Lucas is doing all the work to facilitate such meetings. They're bound to result in some sort of deal. After all, it's unrealistic to say that no one wants to make a trade at a fair price (heck I'm assuming only 90% value, so everyone is getting a 10% discount). What's more, Lucas is traveling to 12+ covenants. Granted, the chance of finding a given book is small in a single covenant. But as you expand your scope, the chances become much higher.

So, quibble over what books we get. Argue that we should find fewer books available. But I think it's unreasonable to say that we'd suffer a 60% price cut on what we sold. If that were the case, Lucas would simply come home having found no one at all in the entirety of a Tribunal who was willing to enter into a fair trade. We'd have our books and we'd just have to wait for ... something ... to sell them.

57

We could certainly do an exemplary visit in a story if someone wanted to run it. But playing out 12+ visits would seem a bit excessive.

This was the kind of comment I was expecting when I posted the initial list. But then everyone said they were okay with it, so I went along with that.

58

I'll SG a few of the visits if you wish. I'd like to offer more to the group and it might be a nice niche area to start.
Let me know. Good practice for me too.

59

I'm game for that. How well do you know the Provencal Tribunal?

60

Hardly know it. I own and read the books. Never had a saga that got upset by following too close to the cannon.
I'm not afraid of doing planning to setup context for the sites and encounters. Within that then I'll do the Rp interaction, insert a few challenges, sketch the npcs, perhaps a few odd aspects, even segways for later.
Does that suit?

Edit: I don't have Faith and Flame, as it's not released in Pdf yet. So this might be a non start. Damn.