Libraries in your game

[Victim]

People don't remove books from the library of Nessus (not the layer of hell). Considering the other punishments the city uses, and the fact that the city's ruler likes magic, only bad things can happen to people who mess with the library. I don't even know if it's public access; our characters ended up having connections to the ruler.

The Arcane Order now defunct, but they used to have the greatest library. Access would have been members only and with restricted areas. You can't have young wizards' heads exploding if they stumble onto high level spells - that can ruin the books. They probably did things with massive wards, extra dimensional sections of the library for extra security and the like. All that security, plus reputation, plus they'd have high level wizards tracking down offenders for free. "You stole Bigby's Theory of Evocative Force Lattice Structure and have thus delayed my spell research for the 5 whole minutes it took to track you down. You certainly picked an annoying method of commiting suicide." Lending out a book would be a special favor they'd trade for something big. Borrowing a book might cost a wizard a unique submitted to the Order, or some of the wizard's own research.

 

[deltadave]

In my game there are no libraries per se, just private collections of books. Thus the level of paranoia ranges widely. At one extreme, the person wishing to peruse a book must pay a scribe to transcribe the pages they wish to see, never even seeing the book itself. The cost for this can be between 1 and 10 gp per page for mundane books depending on how munificent the owner wants to be. At the other extreme a book owner may grant the characters full access to his whole collection of tomes... not too likely as books are expensive and nearly impossible to replace if damaged or stolen.

 

[reanjr]

No, you cannot check a book out. That would be insanity on the library's part, in my opinion. You view the book while you are in the library. And not just anyone gets to enter. The library is a secured place, similar to how the royal treasury would be (it may, in fact, be part of the royal treasury).

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Medieval libraries were high security places. Books were often chained up and people were searched coming in and going out to make sure they hadn't taken individual pages. It was unheard of to lend books out before the the advent of printing unless the loans were between friends or institutional loans between libraries.

Heh, as you might guess, my games are closer to 19th century than 12th... In one of them there are even spellbooks that are mass produced. Each covering a single school, with no spells over 1st level, but it makes it much easier for the students to graduate...

The Auld Grump

 

[The Shaman]

Are the books magicall returned when they are due? Or is there some sort of SUper fighting squad that goes an retrives the books for the library?

With a mighty crash the door to the tavern bursts inward, revealing a shadowy figure whose bulk fills the doorway.

The adventurers, stunned, fumble for their weapons and wands, the rogue stealing away into the shadows in the corner of the common room.

From the shadowy figure emanates a deep voice. "Mythros the Magician?" it intones.

The wizard peers down the length of the wand at the end of his outstretched arm. "Yes?"

The shadowy figure steps forward into the room, massive muscles moving with cat-like grace. It's a man of the plains, clad only in a loincloth and high leather boots, a necklace of puma teeth girdling his neck - in his hands are a massive sword, pointed at the shaking magic-user's chest.

"I am Conan the Librarian," the figure says, "and I am here for your books!"

 

[Turjan]

Well, I have something like the 'Library of Bletherad' from the Palladium book of this name, though not so gigantic . Most books have to be copied if someone wants to get the information out of the library. Professional scribes are available within the library and in the village nearby.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

My question is, in your game, are they allwed to "check" them out, and because adventurers adventure so much, how do the librarians keep the books within the confine of their city?

The few libraries in my world are for the rich and powerful. You need to be a Peer to even be allowed to enter, and even Peers don't take books from the library. Those who want to study, study in the library.

Of course, money and power can get others inside, but that's the way of most worlds, I think.

 

[Ron]

In my homebrew there are no public libraries available to the players. The main organized religion has some libraries but they are open to their clerics. A few people has personal libraries but access would depend of contact. A large private library is about 40-60 books.

 

[julius27]

Lord Pendragon really hit the proverbial nail on the head with the comment about money and power. One should always remember the Golden Rule: If you have enough gold, you can break any rule. Even if you are not landed gentry, if you are more wealthy than most of the lords in Parliament, you automatically gain some privilige.

 

[S'mon]

Okay, so most fantasy worlds have the archetypal big library filled with lots of books that adventurers often end up perusing. My question is, in your game, are they allwed to "check" them out

No, of course not.

IRL the late-medieval Bodleian academic library in Oxford started off letting people 'check out' books, naturally within a few years they had no books. So they instituted a no-check-out rule which I believe still holds today, hundreds of years later. In a medieval epoch letting people 'borrow' your books is crazy, they're far too valuable.