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[cog disso]

With all those story hooks in Legends, wouldn't it be awesome to perhaps have a choice to flesh them out a little? I propose a new job: Scholar. Scholars would basically create books to expand upon the Legends entries, which would then be put into libraries. A library in a fort would wildly increase the actual value of the fort itself, and attract more skilled artisans depending on what is in the library.

Manufacturing a book would involve a special workshop to turn wood into paper or leather into parchment. Manuscripts would then be sub-artifacts... they couldn't leave the fortress, but you could build a secondary workshop called a "scriptorium", where the scribes could make copies of the manuscripts for sale.

Books on warfare would attract soldiers, books on artifacts would attract craftsmen, books on monsters and creatures would attract doctors and hunters. Having books on your given subject would also be useful for training purposes.

Naturally, keeping a library would be extremely low priority until a military presence is on hand, which would make building an extensive library a sort of end-goal that would be a rather peaceful way to dominate the landscape and politics of the generated world.

This could also give the Philosopher something to do... as the guiding hand of morality in the fortress, he can mandate the writing (or destruction) of certain kinds of books. If you get a benevolent and wise Philosopher, scholarship flourishes and the fortress becomes the highlight of civilization. If you get a dumb, or worse, EVIL Philosopher, expect mass book burnings, blacklists and possible Tomes Of Forbidden Horror.

[therahedwig]

♪Before you suggest something around those lines
Search the forums
Search the forums
This idea is good, but you are amongst similar minds!
Search the forums
Search the forums
And this has been suggested a thousand-billion times!♪

[thijser]

Yhea it has already been suggested quite a few times.
I think that there should be several things that determine how good a book is.
One skill that is descibed in the book if you don't know anything about it then you are going to have trouble writing about it.
two quality of paper or parchment or clay tablets: well if you don't have anything good to work with it's going to be worthless in the end this is the primery stat for value.
writing: how well can you write? It determines how long it takes to write a book and somewhat affects value and learning abilitties.

Another skill would be reading this determines how fast a dwarf can read.

[cog disso]

♪Before you suggest something around those lines
Search the forums
Search the forums
This idea is good, but you are amongst similar minds!
Search the forums
Search the forums
And this has been suggested a thousand-billion times!♪

♪Let's get on the internet and be a dick
be a dick
be a dick
Let's get on the internet and be a dick
Because how else will anybody know about our emotionally crippling abused childhood

[Aquillion]

That wasn't that dickish.  I mean, it said it was a good idea and everything.  Besides, it was amusing.  We need Oompa-Loompas on these forums, I think.

Now I'm picturing Toady as Willy Wonka, careless to the brutal crushings and rendings and disembowlings that happen to all the players touring his game with him.

[logismo]

Never seen this before so I will ignore that it was posted before!

I think the books would be more interesting if they actually affected the dwarf population. Books = dwarf media.

The content of the books would influence the preferences and personalities of dwarves that are literate. Education would be needed for literacy and then a noble would be in charge of censoring certain destructive but wildly popular books. Dwarves that are literate may decide to read books that interest them in their free time and so on. Books made from paper, made from pulp, made from wood. Anyone with author skills may be in a creative mood and write a book or something. More author skills = more interesting book. The author could tell a story based on its experiences and thoughts. It could criticize or praise the fortress, tell tales of war, or create a cook book.

[cog disso]

That wasn't that dickish.  I mean, it said it was a good idea and everything.  Besides, it was amusing.  We need Oompa-Loompas on these forums, I think.

Now I'm picturing Toady as Willy Wonka, careless to the brutal crushings and rendings and disembowlings that happen to all the players touring his game with him.

Basically, it's ME talking, NOW, so why the hell do I care about searching the forums, especially when it's NOT on the most recent five pages? Irrelevant internet dickery to demand I do extra work to talk about a dumb hobby.

[thijser]

Be nice all of you. Let's just say that he didn't want to necromance and therefore made a new topic. The topic now exists so let's just talk about books and df.

Maybe someone could start to think of some formulas?

[Andeerz]

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=46550.msg1110361#msg1110361

This is my fave thread on libraries.  If we are going to discuss stuff here, I might as well throw out my idea from that thread.  I'll spoiler my two posts on that thread to make this post a bit easier on the eyes.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Libraries would be awesome, and I wholeheartedly agree with the implementation of writing in game.  However, I believe that the factors that necessitate writing should be better fleshed out in the game first before writing is introduced.  I think it is helpful to do some research on the history of writing to get an idea of these factors...
 
Seriously, read this!  It's a very enlightening take on the original purposes of writing, though not the only one!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing#History_of_writing

Basically, from what I gather, writing likely arose from the necessity of recording things like wages of workers, taxes, stockpiles of resources, contracts, laws, royal decrees/legal stuff, history, religious stuff, and recipes (alchemical, "magical", cooking, etc.) among other things.  The basic framework for these necessities already exists in the game for the most part, but needs further development to really make writing something that is indeed useful and needed in the DF world.

In addition, this needs to be developed before writing: Bloat27, ABSTRACT KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM, (Future): Implement a more abstract "knowledge" system. Right now it tracks what items a civilization uses and what creatures it has seen, but there could be general things like how good their crossbow making knowledge is or even points of philosophy and law, etc. Knowledge could be transferred, lost and rediscovered.

Also, I agree that perhaps books shouldn't provide skill boosts...  However, I do think that they should be a way for dwarfs to learn how to do certain reactions at a basic level at workshops if they don't have the luxury of word of mouth and apprenticeship to teach them or a huge amount of time for trial and error.  Basically, I think there should be a knowledge requirement for a dwarf to be able to do a reaction at a workshop, and a book should be able to provide the knowledge to a literate dwarf, but not the skill.

...books should be a vessel for knowledge in the game, able to pass down information through generations and across cultures.  But I also think that books should also be vital for tasks such as record keeping of stockpiles, wages, and government related stuff, as I think that's a big part of why writing came about in the first place.  Basically, writing should serve as it does in real life as a technology or tool to help one to "remember" something they otherwise couldn't efficiently, like large amounts of mind-boggling numbers in mathematical operations, data during experimentation, code of laws when administering justice, histories of entire civilizations, etc.

I would use books as a balancer.  Low level dwarves wouldn't be able to do everything instantly (as right now even a dwarf with no experience in a skill can do everything in the skill, if shoddily), but books could could be an easy and quick way of boosting a dwarf to, say, level 3 in a skill, where he could now do everything related to that skill.  For example, if you put a cow in front of me, I would have no idea how to milk it, but if I looked it up on the internet first, at least I would know how to start.

So, I like this idea as well, but I don't like the idea of books providing a skill boost, or only a skill boost (which I understand may not be exactly what you are suggesting).  What I would like is for books in DF to do what they do in real life (or at least as much as possible) which is present and transfer (through reading) a bit of knowledge to the reader; not just a skill point in, say, soap making, but the knowledge (and through it the ability) to use lye and other ingredients in the right procedure to produce soap, and the ability to disseminate this bit of knowledge to other entities.  Without this knowledge the person would be left to figure out the process on his or her own or be shown the process by someone else.

Knowledge transfer would lead to OODLES of emergent-behavior awesome!!!

Also, with regard to record-keeping and books.  I think that books should be the medium of storage of such information as stockpile info, wealth, criminal records, and trade agreements, in addition to the other things mentioned and that if they are destroyed or lost, the data should be lost with them.  So, for example, if a fire broke out in the library and stockpile records were stored there, one would no longer be able to access accurate stockpile information if the books were burnt up.  The same would go for historical documents and the like...  Knowledge could be lost in a convincing and realistic manner in this way!  Maybe having records written down could also allow the player to monitor trends in production output and the like if a record keeper was told to record such data.  I dunno.  I think that would be cool.  :3

tl;dr?  Here's a summary:

Bloat27, ABSTRACT KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM needs to happen.  Then writing could be in the game as a technology to help knowledge be carried on from generation to generation.  Books would be vessels of knowledge.  Through this, knowledge can be preserved or lost, and can vary from population to population depending on what books they have.  It would also set a platform for tech development and transfer (see previous posts for more detail... I can elaborate further, too... especially about the tech stuff).

Writing and books should also be used for one of the main reasons writing probably came around in the first place: record keeping (treaties, wages, stockpiles, taxes, etc.)  It could be a tool for organizers/record keepers/etc, especially if there is a provision in the abstract knowledge system for dwarves forgetting stuff or not being able to remember stuff...  Remember, writing is a tool first and foremost to allow someone to record details they or others otherwise wouldn't be able to recall later on.     

Also, even if you don't want to necro an old thread, it's great to read these old threads for inspiration and build off of older ideas.  It can make one's contributions to the forum all the more meaningful!   

[therahedwig]

That wasn't that dickish.  I mean, it said it was a good idea and everything.  Besides, it was amusing.  We need Oompa-Loompas on these forums, I think.

Now I'm picturing Toady as Willy Wonka, careless to the brutal crushings and rendings and disembowlings that happen to all the players touring his game with him.

Basically, it's ME talking, NOW, so why the hell do I care about searching the forums, especially when it's NOT on the most recent five pages? Irrelevant internet dickery to demand I do extra work to talk about a dumb hobby.

Everyone who posts an old suggestion is told that it is an old suggestion and that they should search the forums first. This is to prevent 5000+ topics with 'I think we should have pottery/magic/more machine-parts' because that causes all the important discussion to be spread, while it would be much better to have one topic covering everything needed and all discussion so that it can be implemented easily. (Plus it prevents from the same old chestnuts being discussed... like feces, or in the case of books, learning from books and balancing issues)

I wonder how you would've reacted to the standard way of informing(which includes keywords and previously posted topics).

But alas, I'll leave it at that.

[Rowanas]

I think it's nice to have it done in song this time. I've done a "search first" in Haiku form, now I've seen song form. Perhaps someone might put up a link to a recording of them telling the person to search first and where the previous threads can be found.

[thijser]

Could we please focus on the topic? Maybe we could create a new topic disussing how we should react to people not using search. I don't think it is such a big deal as long as the other topics are not in the last 3 pages of treads.

[Fancy Admiral]

Do dwarves write books, or read them?  I mean, does that sound dwarvenly?

Humans certainly do and should.  Elves would have an analog in scrolls.  But dwarves work with the stone.

Not shooting down the idea of books or written communication in general, but flavor-wise, it doesn't do much for me.  Though, having extra zones to implement in maturing fortresses to entertain and occupy your population is good, in general.

Literacy is an interesting concept, though.  Literate dwarves could engrave quotes, poems, and the like on masterwork decorations based on their personality, etc.  Procedurally generated dwarven poetry has been mulled over a few dozen times, I think, but it's a fun idea, and that would be a way of expressing it.

It could also be used to interpret works from other cultures, and/or a way for "Intellectual" dwarves to unwind.  Reading Human books or Elven scrolls might provide infantessimal growth in skills related to those cultures -- though since this blurs the line of what makes each race unique, I don't know how it can be implemented effectively.

Would Literacy be better expressed as a Skill (which could be learned and improved through use), or an Attribute (Urist McDwarf can't read or write. / Urist has a profound understanding of the written word)?

[Andeerz]

I guess what is considered "dwarvenly" will differ from person to person. 

I feel writing and libraries and books are all within the flavor of the game, regardless of what race is being played.  As this game is supposed to be a fantasy world generator/simulator, and Toady would like to see an abstract knowledge system in the game, it only makes sense that one of the key technologies that led to the development of civilization (writing) be included in the game. 

Any creature that has language, develops agriculture, and achieves specialization of labor, I think, will inevitably develop writing out of need (though this is TOTALLY speculation... also keep in mind I have a very strict definition of what constitutes language).  Check out the origins of writing in the wikipedia article about writing.

If an abstract knowledge system gets in this game that has provisions for dissemination of knowledge between individuals, and the ability of entities to forget or not be able to keep track of large numbers of things ( numbers when tallying up stuff, wages, stockpiles), or have to have physical proof of a treaty or something, writing would have to be in the game, I think, for the game to be able to simulate stuff important to running a city/town/fort/civ with social stratification, specialization of labor, government, etc. 

Without writing, I think a population would be hard pressed to develop past scattered stone-age villages.  Dwarves would be no exception.  Agh... crap I gotta go.  Otherwise I'd explain this a bit more succinctly...   

[Fancy Admiral]

Sure sure.  I understand your point, and agree.  Even in a fantasy setting written language is an important aspect of cultural advancement.  Dwarfs have a language, and it has umlauts, so I expect that they write it occasionally.  But the question I was raising was do they write books, or are their written knowledge stores in stone?  What feels right to more people, and what would be interesting in the game?  What does a dwarfish library look like?

I can't imagine the entire industry of grinding wood and plant fibers to pulp, spreading them thin with a binding agent, drying this mixture on a flat surface, taking these dried sheets and sewing them to bound stacks, perhaps binding the stack in a tanned hide and then taking ink (another creation process, though perhaps dyes could substitute the need?), and pens (quills, what ever, at least maybe feathers would be useful for something) just for the sake of recordong their histories, records, laws, instructions, and other salient information down.  Stories and fictions and poems are secondary to these basics.  I can't imagine this, because they carve everything to rock already, and have the tools needed to do so.

I don't yet have a proposal for it.  Stone tablets might work, but feel antiquated for the period.  Stone carvings on the walls and floor already exist, but are a pain to look at (it adds clutter to an already detail-intensive screen) and are mostly pictorial.  Perhaps that would be a good angle to start, though.  Have engravings be written texts, either at the dwarfs' inspiration, or as an option.