Book are expensive (in-game)

[Wombat]

Wasn't the percentage of people who could read higher pre-Dark Ages? (Can't recall.)

Sorta depends on how you count it.

In the "Dark Ages" you have a forced-mixing (read: invasion, assault, running away from the other barbarians on THEIR backs, etc.) of illiterate/pre-literate germanic tribal peoples with the more-or-less literate Greco-Roman peoples. So on the one hand you have people with pretty much zero literacy and people who have full literacy, but only in certain social classes, and partial literacy, in a lower sliver of the social orders.

So, the literacy rate both lowers and raises, depending on how you look at it

 

[Ferret]

All that said, don't forget hong's law.

What's hong's law then?

 

[jester47]

To chime in on the literacy thing that Wombat is pointing out. The nature of language was such that (even today) people in northern france could not understand the vernacular of people in southern france. Thus everyone depended on latin until the vernacular could develop into written languages. Latin as a second language being the only functional literacy cuts down on the numbers of those who would otherwise be literate. And since everyone is using latin for reading and writing, no one writes down french.

There is a reason Italy was so innovative... education comes cheaper if the language you write in is what your language is derived from as opposed to some franco-germanic mish mash.

Aaron.

 

[tensen]

I just realized how expensive a book is in D&D.

Paper = 4sp/sheet x 100 = 40gp
Ink = 8gp/oz = 8gp
Binding & Cover = ?

50gp or more in just material cost for a 100-page book. With this in mind, a library looks more like a treasure trove to me now.

Quasqueton

While it is expensive, you actually priced a 200 page book.
1 sheet = 2 pages. Unless you aren't using both sides of the sheet... which for those costs I think most people would.
Of course the ~30gp+ book is still of considerable value as treasure.

 

[WizarDru]

What's hong's law then?

Hong's Law is, stated simply, "Don't think too hard about D&D and it's underlying assumptions."

If you think too hard about it...you get the 750 billion chickens (one of the many goofy equations from the DMG that you're better off just plain ignoring..and there are many).

 

[jmucchiello]

While it is expensive, you actually priced a 200 page book.
1 sheet = 2 pages. Unless you aren't using both sides of the sheet... which for those costs I think most people would.
Of course the ~30gp+ book is still of considerable value as treasure.

Depends on the quality of the paper and the potency of the ink. What if the ink in use always bleed through the paper? The other side may be unusable.

 

[J_D]

I just realized how expensive a book is in D&D.

Paper = 4sp/sheet x 100 = 40gp
Ink = 8gp/oz = 8gp
Binding & Cover = ?

50gp or more in just material cost for a 100-page book. With this in mind, a library looks more like a treasure trove to me now.

Books should be expensive, a treasure in and of themselves. The very cheapest books should be on the order of 20-40 gp for a single book, with the overall average price around 100gp and rare books being worth hundreds or perhaps even a few thousand.

If you look at the component costs, though, I do find the price of ink to be ludicrous in the extreme. That price is probably good for the most likely in-game use -- scribing spells and scrolls. Common ink, the sort used to write a mere letter or write entries in an account book, should be far cheaper than this. The materials and methods for making regular ink are common and easy. Just for a comparison, look at a flask of oil (no easier to make or less common of ingredients) -- it costs 1 sp for 16 oz! Common ink should cost copper pieces for a 1 oz vial, at most.

Personally, for common ink, I'd say that 5cp to 1sp for 16 oz of ink, and double that for common colored ink.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Paper has always been the expensive part in the written process. You have a mixture of various plant fibers and a binder agent. The understanding of the chemical process is limited, the mechanical tolerances of the tools varies significantly, and the process control is empirical. Simply rendering the plant fibers into a workable format can be a copious amount of work depending on the local resources.

The net result is that you have a select number of people able to consistently turn out quality paper who can charge a premium. IIRC, europe mainly switched to a linen-type paper because there were more fabric mills and weavers than there were paper mills so linen was cheaper for the quality.

IIRC in the PHB "paper" is the higher-quality archivist material while "parchment" will be the cruder, cheaper, locally made materials. So most people will use parchment over paper simply due to expediency.

Also historical paper is far superior to most of what we use today, at least for long-term archiving. Our papers tend to disintigrate, yellow, and age while papers made more than a century ago have several times the functional life. Part of it is the mass-production concept; we can always print more. At least, that's the belief. The reality is often different.