The realm of reason was incompatible with the setting as a whole since it made no sense (ah, the irony) in a world where magic and the supernatural is real.
It was not irony. In spite of all the problems RoR may have had, none of these problems would be related to any Cow and Calf.
Personally, I don't think the RoR was that bad. Weird, I agree, but still playable. It turned Reason into a supernatural power, which does not really contradict the rest of the supernatural world, but it contradicts itself very much.
Playable, but I certainly do not miss it.
Cow and Calf is just a means for powerful covenants (those with lots of high quality books) to maintain power. The authors of quality books probably want to sell their books, but it's a far bigger ego (and reputation) boost to have your books spread as far and wide as possible, and they're in a position to make the highest possible quality copies, given they have made the book in the first place.
So ironically, cow and calf might be applied a lot more often when the author is actually dead and his covenant controls access to their book(s). The only people swearing Cow and Calf would be the impoverished starting covenants, as it puts more control in the hands of the older covenants that allowed them copying rights. The new covenants get books cheaply, but cannot engage in copy exchanges with other covenants without permission.
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this seems like a reasonable interpretation and a fun plot point.
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the realm of reason was misnamed, it should have been the realm of skepticism. Beyond that it was an attempt to tie ars magica into the world of darkness, which was itself a bad idea, because the idea that the supernatural was getting weaker over time meant you couldn't possibly pay balance vampires against 20th century technology and 13th century wizards and maintain the underling premise.
"Cow and calf" comes about from arguments about book copying. The life of St Columba provides a source for sixth-century monks arguing about copyright. Columba copied a psalter, and wanted to take it away. Finnian argued the copy belonged to him, the book's owner. This argument spilled over into warfare, and the king got involved and declared "To every cow belongs its calf; to every book its copy."
See: here and here for versions of the story.
(As an aside, there's no argument that a calf belongs to the cow - if you want to borrow or rent a cow for milking purposes, the cow only produces milk if it's had a calf, so you have to keep breeding your milk cows. However, if everyone you rented or loaned a milk-cow to kept any female calves born, they would soon have enough cows they wouldn't need yours. Therefore it was commonly agreed that if you borrow someone's female animals, any babies they have belong to the original owner unless you've already made a deal to purchase any offspring)
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however, the king did not rule that the copy could not be sold and itself copied by a new owner, any more than a grand calf belongs to its grandcow despite being sold.
So we have historical evidence for Cow and Calf applying when a book is borrowed (including used in place during scribal hospitality). Swearing Cow and Calf upon purchase still appers to be an anachronism.
Not only an anachronism, Cow and Calf on purchase is extremely hard to police, in most cases extremely hard to prove when discovered, and in many cases of dubious validity when books change hand decades later.
Let me jump in, going back to the "model" behind the Quality/Level numbers in Covenants. In my opinion, they are quite reasonable.
Ars Magica 5th edition makes some assumptions on how powerful"standard" NPCs can become, which provide consistency across the line. Note that these do not apply to PCs, and in fact, a PC who sets his mind on breaking these limits can do so with some effort (which is great game design, in my opinion).
Two "core" assumptions are:
- except for a rare few exceptions, magi are active in the Order for up to 120 years after gauntlet.
- the highest Art score of a dedicated specialist is approximately 10+1/4years after gauntlet.
This translates in the highest score in an Art being about 40, and the highest Summa Level of about 20 -- which is the best the core book allows you to purchase at covenant creation.
As for Communication, it seems that the assumption is that a couple of magi get up to +5 (including bonuses such as the +3 from Good Teacher). Again, in the corebook this is the maximum you can find in books purchased at covenant creation "no questions asked": Tractatus of Quality 11=6+5 and Summae of Quality 11+(20-Level) capped at 22=11x2.
These book scores are exactly the (top) scores for "sound" books in Covenants; with Resonance rules perhaps allowing them at slightly lower Communication scores. I have the impression (e.g. from the "Exceptional Book" Boon) that a +1 Resonance is what is considered average for "good" books, meaning that sound Summae are assumed written by specialists with Art scores of 40, Communication (+Good Teacher) bonuses of +1 to +4, and 1 point of Resonance bonus.
This makes a lot of sense to me. Remember, a single author can teach hundreds of magi through his books. Thus, most books are written by very good writers. Books written by a magi of average, or slightly above average, writing ability are vanity books, because they are significantly inferior to other books in circulation.
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The only problem with the 'sound summae' rules is that almost everybody produces vain summae until they're at least 24 in an Art.
Even the best case author: +5 Communication, Good Teacher, +2 Resonance (+3 makes trade difficult) writes at the following Art levels
Art 10: Summae L5 Q16 (vain!)
Art 16: Summae L8 Q16 (still vain!)
Art 20: Summae L10 Q16 (not quite sound)
Art 22: Summae L11 Q16 (not quite sound)
Art 24: Summae L12 Q16 (sound!) or L6 Q22 (again, sound)
The guy with 'no particular talent' - let's give him +1 Communication and +2 Resonance for Q9 obviously has it a lot rougher:
Art 30: Summae L15 Q9 (vain)
Art 36: Summae L18 Q9 (almost sound)
Art 38: Summae L19 Q9 (sound)
Basically your average magi has no business writing summae until they're 40-ish in an Art. The best possible writers in the Order shouldn't bother until they're 24 in an Art - which to be fair, isn't that high, but then again we're talking about a character that has made an investment in writing/teaching. on the order of a Major Virtue.
Putting the benchmark for 'sound' summae at L+Q=28 seems a bit too high, from the perspective of having player characters authoring books, especially summae. If the bottom end of sound summae was around 24 it would probably be more engaging, as the average magus with a 30 in an art could consider outputting a sound summae with a couple bonus resonance points.
The only problem with the 'sound summae' rules is that almost everybody produces vain summae until they're at least 24 in an Art.
That's not a problem in my view. It's a feature. Writing summae is for archmagi, because an Art summa is supposed to be a comprehensive guide to everything within the Art (unlike a tractatus, that focuses on a narrow subtopic). Hence, writing a summa heavily rewards experienced authors, particularly among good communicators. In modern terms, think of tractatus as scientific articles, many of which are authored by students; and of summae as textbooks, virtually none of which is authored by a student.
Note this has nothing to do with where you set the vanity boundary. Instead, it has to do with the basic rules for the Quality of a summa: an author with an Art score of 40, all else being equal and unless capped by low Communication, will always produce summae that are 8 points higher Quality than an author with a score of 24. That's always a very large gap.
From a gaming point of view, I do not think it's such a bad deal for PCs. A PC author who invests in just 3 minor Virtues (Great Communication x2, Good Teacher) can reap fantastic rewards in terms of fame, wealth etc. by writing exceptional tractatus, right out of apprenticeship. Writing an exceptional summa is a long-term goal, like becoming an archmagus.
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It's fine to have the archmagi writing the L20 summae, after all you need level 40 just to write one. But the way the rules are written and the goalposts for what is 'vain' or 'sound' means that you can't write a 'sound' summae of any level before you have an Art score of around 40. Then all of the sudden you can write sound summae of any level, there's zero granularity.
That's not a problem with the book writing rules, that's a problem with the definition of 'sound summae'.
Ultimately this is meaningless in some cases, as there are definite breakpoints, especially at the lower end of the book scale. For example:
L5 Q15 = all you need to go from 0xp to level 5 in an art, despite being vain. Here, 'sound' quality is meaningless, if it's Q15 it's good enough for apprentices.
L6 Q21 = all you need to go from 0 to 6. Better than vain but still not sound.
L9 Q15 = 0 to L9 in 3 seasons despite being vain. Doing it in 2 seasons takes Q23, which falls into excellent book range. So there's not much reason to get a sound L9 summae unless you've got an Affinity or have some XP already.
L15 Q12 = almost sound quality but 10 seasons to max out from zero. L15 Q15 shaves off a couple seasons but the price of the book in trading will be monumentally more.
Given the above breakpoints you can see how useful Q15 is for books, but Q12 hits a lot of good breakpoints as well. Personally I tend to consider Q12 to be sound and Q15 to be excellent regardless of the Level of the summae - but everyone acknowledges that low level summae will be higher quality in general and high level summae will be lower quality.
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I agree. It's a definition issue.
I can see a large covenant with lots of apprentices making the primer Summae John mentioned, and these primers being reproduced and sold cheaply. It's not worth spending resources getting the low level, high quality books.
It could even be a sort of joke. Robertus was a great communicator and a generalist who wrote a L5 Q 15 Summae book for all techniques and forms. He had scribes make copies of the entire library and they are always sold as a set. Their formal title is "Robertus's foundation of ...." while informally they are knows as "A dummies guide to ...."
I think Summaes are one of those issues that the SG should tweak to what works for them. Any munchkin out there could design a mage who had one purpose. A monomaniacal focus on writing the best Summae ever . A combined total of 41 is easily achievable for this one goal person (I've not written the virtues and maths, but I can if someone asks). A L25/Q16 top end book, a L18/Q23 intermediate book, and a L11/Q30 beginner book would be a great legacy to leave behind.
If the SG wants to assume a bunch of those magi have existed in the last few centuries and scribes have made heaps of copies, that game could have sound summae be considered weak.
If the SG wants to think mages with the goal to leave a book legacy are incredibly rare, and those that do jealously guard their book and rarely make copies, they could even have sound Summaes be rare, and more "vain" Summaes about, as they are useful for low skill mages.
This is really a question of what the archmagi have actually written.
If the sole goal of the archmagi is to write the single opus on the art in depth, say the L20Q11 books, then there is obviously a big market for «vain» L10Q15 and L14Q12 books, and these books should also be classed as sound.
If, however, the archmagi think it worthwhile to write primers too, there would be L9Q22 and L14Q17 books around, and they would easily outshine the roots typically suggested in the fan forums. In this case the definition of «sound» is sound.
So, how much do archmagi want to write in your saga?
BTW. I want to the optional resonnance rule out of this, since the system should be meaningful without optional rules and when this has come up in my troupes, the conclusion is always that it is too much bookkeeping.
OTOH. I quite like the 3ed increased undestanding virtue (can't remember the name) allowing you to write to 2/3 your score. Possibly not as a starting virtue, but as a twilight effect and maybe as a mystery.
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I think this is why the Tremere famously support the Cow and Calf Oath so strongly: they're the House most likely to dedicate the resources to the development of specialists writing the best books. A magae recognized early as having the right set of capabilities and interests (i.e. the most useful virtues for the job) might be tasked from the very beginning of her career to push the boundaries of a single art or ability with the full intent of getting a truly superior summa out of it - plus numerous tractae and at least one excellent apprentice - with the full support of the House behind the effort. The chosen researcher would, barring only the occasional missions for the House necessary to develop and maintain the well-rounded skills required of any Tremere, spend the entirety of their time improving their skills in the chosen field, with an endless supply of sound tractatus provided season after season in order to acquire the massive xp required.
After centuries of this ongoing effort, the Tremere would likely have created a full set of their own Roots of the Arts, a complete core collection of 15 L8 Q28 summae that they absolutely would have locked down under the Oath. Recognition for their scholars is nice, but the House wants paid for their efforts. Building off such an excellent start, future Tremere scholars would find it even easier to reach unknown heights and then write even better books.
The Tremere likely would also support mundane specialists in fields such as Teaching, Finesse, Concentration, various Lores, and perhaps even Magic Theory. Trading a longevity ritual, spells to increase Communication to 5, and outstanding housing and pay for a (long) lifetime of laboring without mundane recognition in order to write books for a bunch of creepy magi is a pretty attractive proposition, especially for scholars who have already screwed up their original lives badly enough to need a new start. After all, hiring mundanes costs mere silver. The Tremere may not have the brilliance of the Bonisagus, but they are both methodical and relentless, little black ants marching. Over time that effort builds on itself.
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This sounds very plausible.
Except for one thing. Why doesn't the Great Library of Transylvania outshine Durenmar?
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In my view this is a very good description of how it should work, and I think the system nicely supports that ambition. High quality tractatus are perhaps not worth as much as a single high-quality high-level summa, but they are still very useful. In addition a single author can write many tractatus on the same subject especially if they are specialists in that subject.
Tractatus are also much easier to trade as the price for an individual tractatus is low enough that most of the interested parties will have the resources available and there is already a culture of selling tractatus. According the GotF very good summae are not supposed to be traded, and even when they are, the price is so high that the sale usually takes a long time between negotiating a price, actually accumulating all that vis and transporting both the vis and the book safely.
I think it is only fair that very good summae are incredibly difficult to make and the conditions for someone to write them are rare. having very high level/high quality summae that fit the criteria for being in high end of sound summae will break the xp economy to a very significant degree. I know that 30 xp per year is already at the low end of what player characters realistically accumulate but with widespread access to L25/Q16 or L18/Q23 summae this limit will be broken even for the very poorest NPC magi. Thats not necessarily a bad thing but to me it seems that the core wants to avoid that scenario.
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Exactly. I was contemplating a goal for my character of writing a Summae, so I chose some logical virtues did the maths, and concluded 2 things. One, 28 isn't that amazing, Two, A Summae writer would make for a boring character to play. "I choose to study with vis", or, "I read another tractatus", I'm sure gets dull by the 10th time, let alone the 80th.
I think the fanatic Summae writer would be rare, and if those Summaes were widespread, the SG should probably give a few more points at character generation and accept magi are even stronger than RAW.
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I am playing just such a character at the moment, or rather one that has book writing as part of my character goal. Being just 8 years of of gauntlet I am not going to be writing summae anytime soon for reasons that have been explored above in great detail. However my character writes pretty decent tractatus and I am going to be writing a few of those soon to try to sell them off and establish a reputation as a good writer and I am considering using the other benefit of the good teacher virtue to sell classes on various topics. I think that is how you make it fun to play a character who writes books.
It is also important to keep in mind that just because your summa may not be "sound" it can still be worthwhile to write a summa if it is significantly better than what your covenant already has. Sure an L12Q12 summa might be vain but if your covenant only has an L5Q15 or L6Q21 summa on that art your covenant-mates will probably appreciate your effort nonetheless. Similarly I think it is fair to assume that those high-end summae that are technically possible to write are not in wide circulation in the core setting, and seeing how the best summae in Semita errabunda are L15Q16 I would assume that writing books at that level would still be proftiable simply because you can sell your book off by underbidding the current seller of that book. I would be willing to buy a L15Q15 book in the core setting under most circumstances, especially if it is cheaper/more available than the L25Q16 book that Durenmar guards like a dragon does gold.
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Hear, hear.
This just means that «vain» is not the right word to describe the mediocre works of the order. They are not written out of vanity but out of local and immediate utility.
Vain books may exist too, but that's a different matter.
I note that there is an intermediate category which remains unnamed, of summa worth 26-27BP and tractatus Q8-9 (where vain and sound are rather loosely defined). Maybe the vanity threshold for summæ should be put a little lower to resolve the issue? And maybe «sound» is a better word for this useful intermediate category!?
Now, vain books are probably not usually put under cow and calf, because vanity asks for maximum distribution, and that would have quite some impact on availabilty, but it contradicts the assumptions [Cov] makes in the discussion of Prices.
And you still have to resolve the issue of how Cow and Calf applies and whether it can apply to books purchased. Maybe we should just rewrite [Cov] rules completely, so that the better books are rarely gifted and never sold, but frequently rented under Cow and Calf. That sounds more medieval to me.
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