So, how do you guys feel about printing presses in WOG? Workable, unworkable, a major mistake? IMC , I am considering having them show up somewhere like Dyvers and then spread outward from there. No, it won't have anything to do with gnomes.
I think presses are doable. Greyhawk is full of literature and in many instances they are referred to as copies. That is of course mundane works. Where you get into the sticky territory is magic tomes and scrolls. Such technology could not replace the handwritten method.
I believe that printing presses are already in place. Sterich is known for its "Sterich Stationeers". These folks are renowned for their work and produce the most demanded stationery in the Sheldomar Valley. My source is the "Valley of the Mage" module/sourcebook. This is the extent of the reference. Not having it directly in front of me, I cannot cite a page number or provide an exact quote, but I'm sure that this is close. This does not provide absolute proof, but the fact that such a business is mentioned provides the possibility.
IMC printing presses have just now come into existence. The one in Sterich is a decade older than the time frame established in the "Valley of the Mage" module. This innovation has not spread far due to the numerous giant incursions over the years in the area.
I'm probably overthinking this but Dyvers makes sense because 1) It's a major trade center, and 2) One of its resources is cloth (the LGG says "clothing" but that's probably a typo). Block printing on cloth preceded printing on paper in both Europe and Asia so some enterprising citizen of Dyvers could easily get the idea to print on paper if cloth printing had already been developed.
The size and number of the libraries, both public and private, in GH material makes it quite likely that some form of printing press exists. Its possible that they are all stocked with handcopied books, but that certainly implies a very large industry of scribes instead. That, or the libraries are exaggerated in the source material.
What the printing press cannot do is make spellbooks and scrolls, as these are magical writings that can only be produced by a spellcaster (and with highly esoteric inks). So 'mundane' knowledges and perhaps even books of arcane theory can be printed, but there is still a need for handwritten manuscripts.
You can certainly run the Flanaess without printing, but it seems to me that its more sensible to have it. Dyvers and Greyhawk City are good places to have them. And certainly they shouldn't have anything to do with gnomes, as GH gnomes are not generally considered to be of the 'tinker gnome/Gondian gnome' mad scientist route taken by DL and the FR. Since gnomes are traditionally magically active (as are elves), they are unlikely to be overly impressed with the press, as so much of their works are magical in some fashion.
The number of libraries does not mean that there are lots of quality books in there. Paper is also thicker than what we have in the modern real world. Books have fewer pages in them, but are huge. Plus, scribes and illuminators do have a function, which is to copy EVEYTHING that they can. The churches of gods of knowledge probably have monks who copy works as Medieval monks did, let alone other groups of employed scribes who do such work. If the copying is just verbatim text then that can be done very quickly. Not every book needs to be the Book of Kells mind you.
Still, this ought to account for all of the contents of the libraries, let alone the private collections of the privileged. I am more of the mind that with regards to printing there would be wood cut prints(giant stamps basically) and at the height of things a roller method of printing, which is just a wooden cylinder with grooves cut into it lengthwise, into which slide wooden tiles with letters embossed on them in reverse. The cylinder is inked and then rolled over paper to print the text. Simple enough, but each page of a book can be printed that way en masse, and then assembled once all of the pages are done. That is the level of tech I have in my campaign. So, printing yes, but no grandiose machines. Besides, there have been spells that copy writing too, which adds another dimension to the copying of books, scrolls, whatever. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
Yes, I know about the size and nature of medieval texts. But it is rather obvious that most of the folks describing libraries and books in GH source material are not overly familiar with the subject. Or with the size of most medieval libraries, particularly the private collections....
Admittedly, part of the problem could ultimately tie back to the population shortage in the Flanaess. But it certainly *seems* like there must be a heck of lot larger percentage of the population of the Flanaess involved in copying than was the case in medieval europe if all that is being done by hand. I wouldn't think that there were as many clergy of Delleb, Lydia, etc as there were catholic monks, even if you disregard the putative lower population of the Flanaess.
Anyway, yeah, you don't need a super fancy advanced printing press to exist. There are alot of stages of printing 'technology' that can be employed.
Yes, there could be magical anything..... But if the transcription requires a mage of some skill, then that's an even greater limit on the supply.
There aren't *that* many mages out there there and only some of them would know the spells/techniques for magical transcription. And only some of those would be doing so for anyone else's benefit.
Nothing about Greyhawk's setting shows that there are enough wizards around to start substituting magic for technology on a meaningful scale.
Vormaerin wrote "Nothing about Greyhawk's setting shows that there are enough wizards around to start substituting magic for technology on a meaningful scale."
Which is one of the things I like about Greyhawk. And one of the reasons I'm not keen on Ebberron. I like my magic to be, well, magical. Rare, frightening and a road to awesome power for those willing to make the necessary sacrifices.[/quote]
I've been playing this game since '78/'79 and one of the great things about it IS the magic. That said I haven't been attracted to any of the other settings, including Faerun with all it's setting-specific extensions, so I agree that the lower magic setting suits me as well.
Consider though that a little magical utility for a mundane task like text transcription could be an interesting subset of spells & items for the more scholarly classes that are already around, and could at least make some NPCs quite useful.
How about a printing press that could do it's own typesetting based on an original document?
How about a quill and lens combo to make copies? Something like this could perhaps preserve a scroll while adding it to a spellbook.
Scribes with a magical penchant?
Or plot hooks like The Infernal Press of Dogma?
Besides, some of this has been thought about before. Anyone remember the Write spell?
Oh, there is definitely magic to aid in writing. Of that I am certain. But its probably not some sort of magical photocopier. Most of the writing based magics in the PHB involve altering existing text and are mid level already. Creating finished goods from raw materials is a 5th lvl spell. So creating a book and duplicating all the text therein so that it is legible and intelligible does not seem to be something the common sort of wizard would be capable of. Even copying a text into a pre existing book doesn't seem especially easy. And the spell would need to let you do large chunks of text per casting if it was going to significantly change the economics of book printing in the Flanaess, considering the limited number of uses per day wizards have on their spells.
As for scrolls and spellbooks, I think its pretty clear that those are magical texts and couldn't be created by printing presses or magical copying. In every edition of the rules, the making of scrolls has been a restricted art: Only high level casters in 1/2e, only a caster with a particular feat in 3. I don't see how you could create a device that has the Scribe Scroll feat.
A printing press or other non magical machine shouldn't be able to make something a non magical craftsman couldn't make. And I think magical copying has the same sort of limits. After all, you can't use Fabricate to make a magical longsword or Create Liquid to make a magical potion. Same sort of issues involved.
It wouldn't surprise me to see a major university (Greyhawk, Dyvers, Rel Mord, Chendl, etc) some power groups (the silent ones, Church of Delleb, Sagious Society, etc), or even just some clever mage, inventor, or merchant taking the time to invest into the creation a Wondrous Magical Item that combines the mechanics of the printing press with the magic of a 3.5 version of the old Copy spell or even a limited Fabricate spell. Working something like that photocopier to some degree or another. Put a page with writing on it, then a bunch of blank pages in and out comes a bunch of pages all with the same writing on it. Repeat and then bind. You could even make the machine powerful enough that you just dump an entire book into it and it keeps spitting out perfect Fabricated copies until you tell it to stop.
Of course I'm not sure how much of the common population is literate. I would imagine that, like Medieval Europe, it is only a small faction is in which case printing presses would be more of a novelty than being practical: there just isn't the demand to support a printing industry. In 3.5 game mechanics everyone but barbarians are automatically literate, even the rudest farm hand or street urchin, so there would be a great demand for books and you'd probably have printing presses (mundane and/or magical) all over. Adding illiteracy as a class feature to all the npc base classes (commoner, expert, warrior, etc) like the barbarian has would probably give us a more medieval like literacy rate.
In 3.5 game mechanics everyone but barbarians are automatically literate, even the rudest farm hand or street urchin, so there would be a great demand for books and you'd probably have printing presses (mundane and/or magical) all over. Adding illiteracy as a class feature to all the npc base classes (commoner, expert, warrior, etc) like the barbarian has would probably give us a more medieval like literacy rate.
I assume that this referred only to pc classes being automatically literate. They are as a rule pretty exceptional people and would break the normal rule for the majority of the population, including most npc classes, being illiterate -- except for Barbarians, who are automatically filthy illiterate savages . This is just my interpretation though.
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. This is just my interpretation though.