Glossing Texts

[PaulM]

Well as the rules for this very common practice don't exist and the old 4th Edition ones well were a bit too easy to abuse I thought I would toss out an idea of some 5th edition rules for this.

1. The book can if designed have up to 4 glosses, if not designed for glossing it can have only 1. Justification: Books were printed with extra space for glossing if it was intended but otherwise you are writing in the margin.

2. A book is rated LvlxQyGaGbGcGd or LvlxQyGa in this case.

3. The gloss value (Ga, Gb, Gc, Gd) is equal to the glosser's Communication plus any relevant virtues or flaws. This value can infact be negative.

4. A gloss can be written by anyone who has gained a level in an ability or art from reading the book.

5. A subsquent reader adjusts the books quality by the value of the gloss.

6. In the case of several glosses they are ordered by hightest to lowest and each subsquent glosses value is reduced for quality enhancement purposes by -1*number of previous glosses. No gloss beyond the highest level gloss can reduce the quality of the book however.

7. Glosses do not apply ot authorities.

8. It take 1 season to write a gloss per 10 lvls in the arts the book has, and per 3 levels in ability it has. In all cases round upwards.

9. Time spent writing a gloss is worth 1 xp in the subject of the book and practice xp in profession (scribe).

Ex: Book "On Making Pefection Tangable"
Summae Creo Lvl10Q5

Lets say it was glossed by a Com: 3, Good Teacher Mage
Result: Creo Lvl10Q5G6 giving a learning source of 11.
Lets say it was glossed by a Com: -1 Good Teacher Mage
Result: Creo Lvl10Q5G2 giving a learning source of 7.
Lets say it was glossed by a Com: 3, 1, 1, 1 set of Mages.
Result: Creo Lvl10Q5G3G1G1G1 giving a learning source of 5+3+0+0+0 or 8.
Lets say it was glossed by Com: -1, -2, 1+incomprehensible Mages
Result: Creo Lvl10Q5G-1G-2G0 giving a learning source of:
5+0 (as it is the highest gloss quality)+ 0 (the bad glosses do not contribute) or 5.
Lets say it was glossed by a Com: -2 Mage
Result: Creo Lvl10Q5G-2 giving a learning source of 3.
Lets take an extreme case of glossed by 4 Com: 3 Good teacher mages
Result: Lvl10Q5G6G6G6G6 giving a learning source of 5+6+5+4+3 or 23.

That is a might bit rude especially when read by a "book learner" so the concept of multiple glosses might need to be looked at. In the case you feel that you want to limit the effectiveness I would suggest having no more than 4 glosses and using only the best of them.

Comments?

[William]

I'd like to say thanks for the info. Here are my comments on the house rule.

1. The book can if designed have up to 4 glosses, if not designed for glossing it can have only 1. Justification: Books were printed with extra space for glossing if it was intended but otherwise you are writing in the margin.

I would not limit to 4. I would simply says the book needs to be created with the idea to have up to x Glosses.

2. A book is rated LvlxQyGaGbGcGd or LvlxQyGa in this case.

okay.

3. The gloss value (Ga, Gb, Gc, Gd) is equal to the glosser's Communication plus any relevant virtues or flaws. This value can infact be negative.

I would say that negative would mean 0. The Value of the glosse could also be calculated this way:

Communication + virtues/flaws + difference inbetween the level of the book & the ability/art of the writter (If the book is of higher level than the ability/art of the writter).

4. A gloss can be written by anyone who has gained a level in an ability or art from reading the book.

I would change it to :

4. A gloss can only be written by someone who has gained atleast level in an ability or art from reading the book

5. A subsquent reader adjusts the books quality by the value of the gloss.

Okay.

6. In the case of several glosses they are ordered by hightest to lowest and each subsquent glosses value is reduced for quality enhancement purposes by -1*number of previous glosses. No gloss beyond the highest level gloss can reduce the quality of the book however.

I would say that any additionnal glosse adds +1 to the quality only if the quality adjustment would have been higher than any other prior positive glossing.

7. Glosses do not apply ot authorities.

Autorities do not really exist in 5th ed but if they did, i would still allow the to be glossed... unless there is a major curse of which I am not aware of that would prevent it form beeing done

8. It take 1 season to write a gloss per 10 lvls in the arts the book has, and per 3 levels in ability it has. In all cases round upwards.

I would use existing rules for tractatus.

9. Time spent writing a gloss is worth 1 xp in the subject of the book and practice xp in profession (scribe).

I would also use standard XP rules for this

10. Final quality cannot exceed twice the value of the original quality.

Ex: Book "On Making Pefection Tangable"
Summae Creo Lvl10Q5

Lets say it was glossed by a Com: 3, Good Teacher Mage Cr5
Result: Creo Lvl10Q5G1 giving a learning source of 6

Lets say it was glossed by a Com: 3, Good Teacher Mage Cr15
Result: Creo Lvl10Q5G6 giving a learning source of 11

Lets say it was glossed by a Com: -1 Good Teacher Mage Cr15
Result: Creo Lvl10Q5G2 giving a learning source of 7.

Lets say it was glossed by a Com: 3, 1, 1, 1 set of Mages. ( Cr 5/5/5/15)
Result: Creo Lvl10Q5G0G0G0G1 giving a learning source of 5+0+0+0+1 or 6.

Lets say it was glossed by Com: -1, -2, 1+incomprehensible Mages (Cr 15/15/15)
Result: Creo Lvl10Q5G0G0G0 giving a learning source of:
5+0 (as it is the highest gloss quality)+ 0 (the bad glosses do not contribute) or 5.

Lets say it was glossed by a Com: -2 Mage (Cr 5)
Result: Creo Lvl10Q5G0 giving a learning source of 5

Lets take an extreme case of glossed by 4 Com: 3 Good teacher mages (Cr 5/6/15/15)
Result: Lvl10Q5G2G1G1G0 giving a learning source of 5+2+1+1+0 or 9.

Lets take an extreme case of glossed by 4 Com: 3 Good teacher mages (Cr 15/15/15/15)
Result: Lvl10Q5G7G1G0G0 giving a learning source of 5+7+1+0+0 or 13 (10).

Lets take an extreme case of glossed by 4 Com: 3 Good teacher mages (Cr 7/8/9/10)
Result: Lvl10Q5G3G1G1G1 giving a learning source of 5+3+1+1+1 or 11(10).

Just my taughts on the matter...

[Decallom]

I think these rules are just as abuse-prone as 4th edition physical quality rules were (at least with them you always had the possibility of lowering the book quality due to damage, etc.). But that's just my opinion, if it works for you, use it.

However, if I did use something similar, I probably wouldn't allow Good Teacher adding its full +3 bonus, maybe only +1 from it. Though actually just using 4th edition guidelines for glossing isn't quite as bad as it used to be, as the written text's qualities are closer to each other nowadays.

Couple of other points:

4. Gaining a level from the book makes it much easier to gloss Art books than Ability books. Maybe just having read it for a season?

5. Smart to limit what the multiple glosses add. However, I wouldn't limit them to 0 quality. I have seen books in real life with so many markings that they do end up lowering the learning from the book itself - or at least making it much slower.

6. All your rules and examples only seem to apply to summae, not tractatus, for example, the writing speed example doesn't work for the tractatus.
   Of course, considering what the glosses are, you might consider that the glossing could be done while actually reading the book in question, but then appropriately reducing the Advancement Total for glossing simultaneously.

Jan