I need some rules on a couple things... general rules, or things I can roll, rather than 'storyguide's discretion' type things.
How long should travel take, on average, between covenants in a tribunal?
How often can redcaps visit and how long does it take one to return if, say, you trade vis and he has to return to a mercer house to get the vis you traded for?
Another problem I've been facing is players wanting to sell copies of books. The tribunal I'm running the game in doesn't have the Cow & Calf Oath mentioned in covenants in effect (though it may be added at the next Tribunal gathering), so I've multiplied the price of books by five. The problem is, the players are getting the idea that they should be able to copy and sell books for that increased price. I don't think earning massive quantities of vis should be so easy, but I don't know how to limit the players fairly.
Even just trading books for equivalent books seems unfair. With one level 20, quality 10 summa and one level 10, quality 20, and some scribes, it's just a short amount of time to make fifteen copies of each and trade them for one similar book on each art. Is that fair?
Depends on the size of the tribunal. There are great tables for computing travel time in City and guild. If you don't have Ctiy and Guild, grab a map (or ssome web tool like google earth) and figure out how far away the covenatns are then figure out travel times from there.
That varies saga to saga. I've always had redcaps stop by at least once per year. Perhaps there's more information in True Lineages.
Are we talking about books that they've authored or books that they've received in trade from others? If it is the latter, it is faily likely that someone else has already made fifteen copies of the book that have been around the tribunal enough to make the book worthless to anyone who isn't a young spring covenant.
Comodities are valued in no small part by how much work it takes to create them.
I don't see a good way or a reason to stop a player covenant from getting their hands on a low level summa in each art. MAke a story out of finding a competant scribe , bookbinder and Illumiator if you wish. (perhaps scribes keep dropping off like drummers in Spinal Tap ("What do you mean, died in a gardening accident?")
Thank you. I'm planning on getting C&G soon, so that should work.
As for books...
I suppose the question is, how easy should it be to sell a copied tractatus or summa? Covenants has guidelines for buying them, but no real guidelines for selling them; I don't know what the demand would be.
Copied tractatus probably have reduced (or no) value compared to originals, since the odds are any old tractatus have already circulated through a large portion of the Order.
Summae are worth more than one season of study, though, so they don't get old as fast. If it costs the full value to buy one, it seems like it's worth that much, so it should give full value when sold. My question is, how hard is it to sell one?
Edit: Rereading your comment, you make a good point. Even without the Cow and Calf Oath, it's probably hard to sell copied summae, since odds are all the summae in the area are available to every covenant that wants one, excepting the most recently established ones. Thanks again.
It would be a bit harder than for a new tractatus, since level restrictions will limit your audience. Furthermore, even if they don't have your specific summa, they may very well have something that is roughly equivalent, making it not really worth their while to buy another one.