Regarding Library Reading--Okay, but the only thing about that is I think if the libraries charge for checkouts, you're gonna have a lot of people who don't want to read, or who decide to cheat and have one person copy the text and post it somewhere. (I somehow think NEWS doesn't get used as much in Lusternia because people are cheap and don't want to spend IC money.)

Regarding submissions, I was just thinking it would be easier for somebody to /deposit/ a book rather than hand-deliver them to the librarians--just a possible feature so the librarian doesn't go insane. Maybe a section called "unsorted books" or something.

Regarding artwork: I'd probably use little descriptions in brackets myself, or write a script. For instance, while this is hard to pull off, if Tully submitted the comic "Captain Furrikin"--(mild mannered furrikin Lilly Wagnon who says the name SIRVELARLFT! and becomes a mighty Tae'Dae Vernal God, champion of the Basin and the Furry way)--You'd probably want to present that in script format, such as "Panel 1: Description, then Dialog".

I guess brackets would be okay for most other stuff.

ASCII art for Maps? Hmm.

While it would break character I wonder if Web Addresses would be okay for images, especially if they point to an official Lusternian Artisan work stored on Lusternia's site.

I guess what I am asking is for some ideas or guidelines so things don't get rejected or worse, rolepoints deducted.

I am also wondering if there would be a way to combine art with books, so that both come into play--maybe a book needs an artist, and you could embed a sketch, portrait, or painting into a book. Just an idea.

Well how much are libraries charging to checkout? If its too high, then yes, that's rather prohibitive and no one will read. If its low (25 gp?), then I doubt there'd be much of a barrier to checking out books. For popular books, librarians can also order extra copies. Librarians also set how long they can be checked out for.

All libraries will waive the fee of an author checking out his own book. The author will also get the original and not one of the copies.

BTW, public libraries aren't meant to make money. They're a public service that is pretty much a monetary black hole.

Both bookbinding and libraries seem to operate on the assumption that players will want to physically hold a book rather than simply read it once and move on.

I'd like to see that aspect investigated.

I can point you to a hundreds of posts of players asking (sometimes demanding) books/libraries.

If libraries and books are not used after all the work we've put into it, you can bet this'll be the last time we listen to players and implement a feature that allegedly will 'advance RP'!

(If you don't physically hold a book, you might as well just use the news or org-help files.)

I would like to see guilds move away from helpfiles and towards libraries. >.>

Sorry, I didn't mean to give the impression I was at all unhappy with the work you've done. The system is beautiful and intricate, don't ever let me imply otherwise.

I was just thinking about furniture (also demanded by players and also able to be replaced simply by room descriptions), which even though it is purely to 'advance RP' has definite material benefits to encourage extended and widespread use.

i've heard that idea somewhere before.

and librarys would be cool, Discworld has a system for book publishing and newpapers and players are more than happy to pay for them.

anyway i have to ask... can we publish fiction(not lusternia related) as well as non-fiction? it would mean that we could have a better vairiety and that the first library to write books on lusternia subjects (studies of the basin, studies of guilds/skill etc) would have to compete with the (evil) creative people out there. i'm fairly sure there are well written help scrolls and the like around that people could quickly write into books for the culture points.(sorry if i'm misunderstanding anything)

You can write informational "non-fiction" books as well as "fiction" books but I'm pretty sure they have to be on Lusternia-related subjects. You can't write a story on something that doesn't exist. Well, you can, but then people think you're crazy.

Someone mentioned way back on the first page that Culture ministers have nothing to do.

Lies!

They actually run the arenas. As well as any RP cultural events a city/commune may wish to hold.

If a librarian hasn't told you, there are two major categories, literary and scholarly (we didn't go with fiction and non-fiction because that seemed too narrow). Short stories, poems, etc. would be classified as Literary while essays and whatnot should be classified as Scholarly.

So do the librarians set the gold cost for checking out books or is it hard-coded? If its set by the librarians then they should be able to monitor the price and make checking out books affordable yet profitable.

I was also wondering if it costs a set amount to check out a book, or will be based on the size of the book, or availibility of the book.

For example: scrolls cost 5gp while omnibus's cost 30gp, or if there is only 1 copy of a certain book, it would be considered 'rare' and cost like 50gp to check out, where another book that has 100 copies in the library would cost like 5gp to check out.

I think either of those would be an interesting twist on check-out costs, although a set price is definately easier to deal with.

Just some random thoughts.

Customizable subcategories whose checkout prices could be set individually would be nice.

Awesome stuff. Wish you hadn't done it yesterday, I was stuck underground and my internet was broken. But yay!

(And no, Tsu, no GMs as ministers, sorry. Two of our GMs are librarians though...so unfair :/)

I'd love that too, though the logistics might not be so great.

And it could be too confusing for novices.

It really depends what you put into books and what you leave as helpfiles. Obviously you wouldn't remove help guildnovices yourguild, or things of that sort, but as I was starting to do in the ur'guard before I lost my mind and got shrubby, was taking the non-essencial help scrolls and moving them into scrolls/textbooks for the guild library.

Also was working on an ur'guard specific textbook for novices to read to help them learn how to fight/adventure/influence/bash as an ur'guard.

I'm sure many guilds have stuff that should remain in help scrolls and many things such as guild history that would be better suited for a library shelf.

A good way would be to have a GHELP FILE that list requirements. One of the requirements could be finding a book within the library and reading it and reporting back on what they read.

ok, so books are going to outdo ghelp files, so wouldn't there be a BOOK telling you to read books

the poor confused novices...


No really, I think this is awsome, it's another non-violent part of Lusternia that's now getting an upgrade (loved the changed to influence )

In summary:
Libraries=cool
Estarra telling you that you now owe her 25 million = not cool, funny though

Eek! She made fun of me so bad!

Estarra, the Eternal says, "Everying working alright? Any questions."

You say, "I had one."


******I took too long to ask it*****


Estarra, the Eternal says, "Is it a secret question?"



Estarra, the Eternal puts on Her helm of telepathy.

Someone in one of the guilds handed my novice a book about stuff. I kinda looked at the screen funny for a bit, put it in my pack and consequently forgot about it. (Sorry.)

GHELP/CHELPs are kinda like the IC equivalent of the Internet - everything's at the tip of your fingers (though you'll find a lot less irrelevant stuff in the HELPs )

I still use the library, but I infinitely prefer the internet.