The printing press

[EP]

Since people can read, that implies that they HAVE something to read. An insane assumption in a world with no printing press analogue that doesn't list scribes as the most numerous profession, but there you go again.

Just another one of those politically correct things they changed with the new edition, like how male and female characters have the same stats. Or to have for the sake of simplicity so no one had to keep track of which languages they could read/write or not.

Or how elves can live dozens of times longer than humans, but still only start out at 1st level when they're 50 years older (or however much difference the minimum age of an elf is in the game).

 

[DMH]

As far as I can tell, the only thing that would happen if you put a printing press into D&D society is that a lot more forests would be chopped down.

Wood based paper is relatively new. Before that rags and hemp were the choice materials (and they still last longer than wood based paper).

That brings up what is the written word printed on. Dwarves and mountain dwellers could use magically treated rock like slate to be more flexable and change the color.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Dwarves and mountain dwellers could use magically treated rock like slate to be more flexable and change the color.

This is a much cooler concept IMO. If you're in a fantasy world, start with the real world item and think about magic flowing from it.

How about ink that self-edits? (Assuming that there's a dictionary and style manual.) More likely, ink that shifts colors to the preferred palate of the reader.

Then there's talking books. What if you could print those? Do you reproduce the text, the personality, or both?

Elves, in contrast to dwarves, might actually grow trees that eventually produce book "leaves" instead of wasting ink and paper.

 

[SpiderMonkey]

I would think that in a relatively short time it would drastically change the implied (read psuedo-feudal) political climate of the default D&D world. Pamphlets and their ilk helped bring about the American Revolution. Information is liberation!

Well...maybe.

 

[NewJeffCT]

That's exactly why it's not going to matter. Everyone apparently already has the benefits the printing press brought.

There's no good explanation for it, but there you go.

Since people can read, that implies that they HAVE something to read. An insane assumption in a world with no printing press analogue that doesn't list scribes as the most numerous profession, but there you go again.

So, people can read, and do read. They obviously find value in it, or they wouldn't go to the trouble, so books and/or complicated accounting must already be in circulation. Given the nature of even mundane tasks according to d20 rules, I'm going with complicated accounting as the driving force, but YMMV.

Well, the default PC is literate. Does that mean everybody in "D&D world" is literate, or just those lucky enough to become adventurers, and a select few others?

 

[delericho]

Well, the default PC is literate. Does that mean everybody in "D&D world" is literate, or just those lucky enough to become adventurers, and a select few others?

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

Assuming, however, that everyone is literate, then I suspect the major beneficiaries of the printing press would probably be Wizards. Instead of painstakingly compiling their spellbooks one spell at a time, taking up huge numbers of pages and writing with absurdly expensive inks, I expect they would start buying "Bigby's Primer on Practical Magic", "Mordenkainen's Secrets of Wizardry", "Necromancy for Dummies", and similar books.

Whereupon, of course, new and unusual spells suddenly become much more valuable - once the common spells are really common, anything outside the norm gains value. And so we'll see universities (and Wizardly entrepreneurs) researching new spells all the time to make names for themselves, other Wizards hoarding their secrets to themselves, and a special class of adventurers cropping up whose major purpose is to infiltrate Wizard's towers and steal the secrets of their research.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Well, the default PC is literate. Does that mean everybody in "D&D world" is literate, or just those lucky enough to become adventurers, and a select few others?

That's the problem really, the default assumption is that folks are literate unless they possess the "illiterate" class "feature".

It'd be easy enough to simply add "literate" as a class feature to most of the PC classes and assume everyone else is Illiterate unless they spend the 2 Skill Points.

 

[Vocenoctum]

One thing is you just KNOW some gnome wizard somewhere would figure out a way to mass-produce spell scrolls by the dozens. He'd spend X amount of XP to, instead of write a scroll, to instead create the spell plate for the press, and then just churn out scroll after scroll, until everyone and their dog with ranks in Use Magic Device is flinging magic missiles around like they're rocks. (insert deity here) only knows how that would be written as a mechanic, but the invention of one could, and should, logically lead to the advent of the other.

There's already a pen that writes out scrolls, you still have to pay the XP cost. Just like having to include XP costs for spells that require them, if you made a Printing Press of Magic Missiles, you'd have say, 50 charges and pay all the XP for the 50.

It might still help in that you could simply wander off to adventure and come back to a pile of scrolls, but that's about it. (And, there's also a Homonculis in Eberron for that anyhow.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That's the problem really, the default assumption is that folks are literate unless they possess the "illiterate" class "feature".

It'd be easy enough to simply add "literate" as a class feature to most of the PC classes and assume everyone else is Illiterate unless they spend the 2 Skill Points.

I hadn't thought about it, but there's no good reason for commoners, warriors, experts or even adepts to be literate.

Aristocrats probably should be, and experts should have the option to buy literacy instead of one of their class skill choices.

Just explicitly doing that should make big difference in some of these default assumptions.

 

[IanB]

I hadn't thought about it, but there's no good reason for commoners, warriors, experts or even adepts to be literate.

Aristocrats probably should be, and experts should have the option to buy literacy instead of one of their class skill choices.

Just explicitly doing that should make big difference in some of these default assumptions.

The house rules of my never-to-be-finished homebrew include no automatic literacy for most classes. It will make it harder to leave plot hooks in the form of journals, notes, etc., but that's ok.