You actually don't need 1% fantastic authors, just 1% reaching sound Quality. Here's an earlier analysis I wrote, though there is a 50-year/90-year issue I created when trying to deal with things from two ends (oops). Still, the basis is pretty sound. Just have each book copied three or four times instead of twice to balance out any issues; that's probably a reasonable amount of copying.
So note that with 1% sound (on average, so some of these are below Q10.5, too) (and note that I'm working with roughly 1/10 of what Mark is) each covenant would expect to have roughly 4 sound tractatus on each subject.
A lot of those solid teacher/authors are going to be weak in their arts, or comprehensible, or die young, or not have time for a myriad other reasons, even if they have the good Com and virtues. I bet that at least half of the tractati and summae that get written are by enthusiastic and skilled practitioners with mediocre communication skills, and that the good authors that are also powerful magi are more along the lines of 1% of 1%. Sure, they get copied and traded a lot - but that only compensates for some of the rarity. More of the books should be of more middling quality, I think. I propose abandoning a linear bp cost for books and introducing a progressive cost.
Alternative, we could just not pick only maxed out books for our allotments. Temperance can work if everyone is willing to cooperate.
A lot of those solid teacher/authors are going to be weak in their arts, or comprehensible, or die young, or not have time for a myriad other reasons, even if they have the good Com and virtues. I bet that at least half of the tractati and summae that get written are by enthusiastic and skilled practitioners with mediocre communication skills, and that the good authors that are also powerful magi are more along the lines of 1% of 1%. Sure, they get copied and traded a lot - but that only compensates for some of the rarity. More of the books should be of more middling quality, I think. I propose abandoning a linear bp cost for books and introducing a progressive cost.
Alternative, we could just not pick only maxed out books for our allotments. Temperance can work if everyone is willing to cooperate.
Alternatively, we could not retroactively houserule gimping build points that are already long since spent.
If you think your personal build point allocation is too much, you're free to not use them, without having to try and impose your own opinion on everyone else.
Doesn't matter. If you have an Art at 6 you can write two tractatus in that Art. Let's say you have 15 Arts at 6. (Manageable straight out of apprenticeship, I believe, though likely to take a few more years.) That's 30 tractatus right there already, and our writer is weak in all of the Arts, just a little beyond strong enough to train an apprentice. And the writer could still write at least two tractatus on Magic Theory and probably plenty more without being very skilled at all. 10 years out of Gauntlet any magus with weak Arts should be able to write 45 tractatus or so. They pretty much only have to live to be able to write more.
Already handled by the odds assumptions.
Already handled with average lifetimes. Really, someone who just cares about reading and writing should have no trouble affording a great longevity ritual and will never risk Final Twilight. It should not be surprising to find someone like this who live to a Hermetic age of 150. This balances out the magus who died quite young.
This is why I didn't have them writing a book every season. They're only writing 1/6 seasons. This could be covenant service and nothing else. Such a Tremere would probably be required to write 1/4 seasons. Others probably less often. 1/6 seasons when this is a primary source of income, a primary claim to fame, etc. is really not a lot of time invested.
This doesn't change it at all. 90% of them could be like this, but their books won't be reproduced as much and won't change the number of good authors. Look at the published values on real books. You'll see they average reasonably high values on average, and that's without the ability to fairly easily add at least one point via Resonances.
That's not how it works in the real world. For a quick example, look at theses and look at bookstores. You'll very quickly see that most authors don't get published, even without looking at aspiring professional writers. JK Rowling has probably had more copies of Harry Potter books made and bought than all the theses written have had copies made. Yet there are far more different theses printed than there are varieties of Harry Potter books. The majority of the different printed books/booklets are of one sort, but the trading/popularity issue utterly destroys any comparability between the rarity in terms of type and the availability.
Personally, I would look at things in a different way. Sure, there should be a lot more low-quality books in a covenant, especially an old covenant. The covenant would probably have a book or two written by each of many of its past members. To reasonably reflect the Order's books, such a library should probably be given 4-10x the points of books it has, at least half of these being poor books. A lot more good books would finish making the Order more consistent.
Fine, then. I believe this means that civilized discussion of game balance is not appreciated equally by all. Mine were just suggestions, not dictates. I will withdraw from the Saga and continue working on my own.
PS. We were talking about the (new) sister covenant; it would not have affected the current one, as far as i can tell.
And why exactly do you assume that? Vellum is expensive in the 13th century. Really quite expensive. Chances are you're not going to waste either the vellum or the oak gall to write down something no one wants to read.
I think he thought you were trying to get the library reworked. As for my post, I was just trying to address the points and show that the canon average "sound" tractatus is actually quite reasonable based on the rest of the numbers in the system. No need to run off.
I thought magi did that all the time. For example, laboratory notes for Familiar enchantments. I figured, while expensive, it was relatively inexpensive on the scale of magi.
When you are writing, you HAVE to be convinced you're putting down something someone wants to read, whether it's true or not. Otherwise you just put down the pen in disgust.
(Why yes, I AM speaking from personal experience. )
Magi, possessing above average intelligence, will be more likely to realize when they should put down the quill and step away, than the rest of us Maga Stephania Maior would have been ousted from House Jerbiton if she tried to pollute the world with that vampire rubbish.
a) you are debating hypotheticals that have only slight bearing on the story at hand
b) I did not consider stat boosting rituals or other abnormalities
c) the thing does get screwy when you compare the average of a specific group to an average amongst a specific subset.
d) let us presume that half of all magi who ever lived did not have a negative Com score. We are only concerned with these prospective authors. Now say one in ten has exceptional writing attributes, such as a (naturally) high Com score or the Good Teacher Virtue. Now say only one in ten of them publishes something noteworth. Starting with 5000 as the potential number of magi who have ever lived since the founding of the order, that gives you 25 authors of exeptional works, covering every art and many abilities. Now, not every covenant is going to have these, naturally. But they do exist somewhere.
e) I cannot condone or have compassion for someone who just storms off at the lightest percieved offense. No defense or debate or counterpoint or protest or appeal to the SG. You may be oversensitive or I may be undersensitive, but I feel I am owed the courtesy of an appeal to the SG, such as "Hey, I feel that (player X) was out of line and that makes me feel uncomfortable etceteras". Give me a chance to try and mediate or adjudicate. If you give me no chance, I give you no sympathy. I am saddened to see a potential player leave with hurt feelings, and do think that the instinct for a sharp tongue should be mitigated by a more diplomatic voice. And I also think that it was a bad suggestion and was a natural target for protest and discontent. But I never had a chance to say any of this until after the fact, and I can only fault the individual who chose to storm off for this condition.
f) Let us move onward to more enjoyable and agreeable topics. Less on the hypotheticals and more for the actuals.
This reminds me of the fermi paradox, save that we've got little to compare it to.
I think this is deliberate, since it allows so much tailoring, between the "Good teacher is prevalent, rituals heavily used, magi write a lot and trade freely" sagas and the "good teacher is very rare, rituals unknown save to the cult of heroes, magi seldom write, book trade is inexistant" ones. This allow for a wide range of different sagas and power levels, without any being (IMO) irrealistic, which is, still IMO, a good thing
I seem to recall reading somewhere that these points don't always represent the actual library, but rather what is available to PCs, especially in summer/winter covenants. I may be wrong, mind you.
And above average ego Intelligence doesn't mean modesty, especially when it goes along with power, and one may argue that being surrounded by less intelligent persons (grogs...) doesn't make one humble. One may want to make a parallel with politicians and banksters
Speaking of actuals, who's coming along with Gardaitis to actually talk to this thing?
I took a look at various characters' stats. The only ones with Faerie Lore are Carmen and Vocis. Since I'm assuming Marco doesn't particularly want to talk to himself, that would make Vocis the only candidate. So at the moment it looks like Vocis, Vibria, and Gardaitis. Both Vocis and Vibria know Occitan, so either one can memorize and recite the nursery rhyme. (Gardaitis can speak Occitan if he's talking to an Occitan speaker due to Gift of Tongues, but I'm pretty sure he couldn't memorize a rhyme and keep it in mind between conversations.)
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Maga Stephania Maior would have been ousted from House Jerbiton if she tried to pollute the world with that vampire rubbish.
Intelligence doesn't mean modesty, especially when it goes along with power, and one may argue that being surrounded by less intelligent persons (grogs...) doesn't make one humble. One may want to make a parallel with politicians and banksters 
