Oh lord.
This reminds me of sitting in meetings with junior financial analysts who throw around software acronyms as if they understand what they mean.
Clearly you don't want to consider what I'm describing, which is fine. Nobody is forcing you to. I just think it raises an interesting question that might lead to an interesting mechanic.
Thanks for the comparison, but I do understand the terms just fine. I'll use small words and directly respond to your points individually so no one gets lost.
I think maybe the point I'm trying to explore is being completely missed. Sure, you can always make up story reasons why a particular NPC wizard won't let a player copy spells, but it doesn't solve the problem (which has honestly never occurred to me until this thread) that from an Econ 101 standpoint under the current rules the cost of simply buying new spells should be 25gp/level plus some kind of profit margin, because there's nothing intrinsic to spells that keeps them from being copied an unlimited number of times.
Although whole book is composed of a bunch of 25 gp/level spells, the book is worth less to any prospective buyer because (a) some spells duplicate what they already know, (b) some spells are of no interest to a prospective buyer, and (c) the admittedly small chance of trap or trick buried in its pages.
You can wave your hands and say, "Well, no Wizard is going to do that just to make a few extra gold pieces." But imagine what would happen if an NPC offered 25 gp/spell level to copy a player's spellbook. Wouldn't most players, especially most low-level players, jump at this chance?
In my experience, no. Players tend to be somewhat paranoid when it comes to losing their spellcasting capability. They are often willing to let another PC copy a few spells, but they don't want to give their spell book over to someone to use for much of the day in case
something happens: attempted theft, willful destruction, accidental destruction, or something happens to the owner and he's forced to abandon the books from unexpected adventure rearing its head. What I have seen happen, is the PC will charge either a much higher fee for access or offer to write the spell out (with commensurate pay for time and materials) and let the purchaser copy from that. The PCs feel, quite rightly I think, that the loss of their spell book would substantially harm their PC. That second option is often the start of the creation of a backup spell book for the PC, in fact.
And if they would, so would NPCs. Which means logically all they would have to do is find some low level Wizards and make an offer. The DM is free to make up reasons why they wouldn't accept the offer, but it's pretty clear to the player that the DM just doesn't want them to get spells that easily.
I'm happy for the PCs to gain spells. It's not like I can stop them: with 2 automatic spells per level, the RBDM trick of never including spells for the arcanist to learn thankfully is quashed. PCs will reasonably frequently find spell books and discover their worth on the open market is lower than the cost of creation AND buyers can be difficult to find BECAUSE spells are reasonably easy to locate for those with inclination and cash. But an unknown quantity won't be let near a spell book without a large incentive. Even a known associate will be restricted because there is always the chance of something going wrong. The personal cost of a disaster to too high.
All I'm saying is that some kind of mechanic that imposes risk/limits on spell copying would make the current difficulty of acquiring new spells more believable.
I don't disagree. I just don't discount the risks already in place in the game world. I have never seen a player specifically take the time to create multiple books for the express purpose of selling access to copies to prospective buyers and yes, buyers do approach the PCs occasionally to copy from their books. Typically, they are rebuffed because the PC has better things to do.
