Taxation

On page 90 of the original DMG, Gygax spent more than half a page going over the use of taxes to bilk the player characters of their income.  I've always appreciated that page ... not for its fleecing opportunities, but because its a rare glimpse into the campaign world as a functional society.  This was unusual even at the time ... later on, as D&D morphed into the player-minion that it's become, guidelines such as these vanished entirely.

In some manner, I've included taxes, fees, tolls and tariffs in my game world ... but recent work on the wiki has expanded the possibility of how these things can be incorporated.

The coin symbol table I proposed a week ago included a dead link for "taxation."  That's been removed and replaced with "socage," as well as 13 new links for additional kinds of taxes added to the player's world.  And it must be said that whatever players might think about encumbrance, I think we can be certain they like the idea of taxes being introduced into D&D a lot less.

But ... as the page shown argues, the value of taxes in the game is not as Gygax conceived, but rather as an enticement for players to buy land, clear forests, build up properties, achieve local status and set themselves up as landlords.  The players are naturally rich, and taxes FAVOUR the rich.  Taxes do not exist to make the rich poorer, as Gygax foolishly imagined, but to make rich people richer.  We have plenty of evidence of that.

In this regard, taxes are a great opportunity for building game adventures.  We can start with taxes as a plot device, such as was done in the Blues Brothers, pushing the players to take extreme actions to raise enough money quickly, in order to save an orphanage ... or whatever they can be induced to care about.  In a grander sense, however, there are opportunities for players to increase their reputations by paying the taxes of other people.  There's always a noble family down on their luck, who need a mere 40,000 gold pieces to save their family's reputation.  There's always hundreds of ordinary land owners who have to get through the season somehow, who would be tremendously grateful to the party for coming forward and being generous.

Remember that one of the reasons murder hobos like Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde and others were looked upon graciously by a rural population is because these crooks were generous with the wealth they stole.  They poured out money to all sorts of people, who were then willing to lie copiously to ensure these murderers got away scot-free.  The murder-hobo players can take a lesson from this.  Not only does it help with narrow escapes, it builds up fame and opportunities in other ways ... developing an army, for example, as was done by numerous rebels in the 15th and 16th centuries.

DMs, of course, often hate this sort of thing.  DMs hate it when the party is rightfully popular, or if the party cares less about greed and more about invulnerability.  DMs count on NPCs to tattle-tale on parties ... it sucks when the NPCs are tattling on the good guys.  So if you're a player trying this gambit, count on the DM pretending that Jesse James' notariety was never "a thing."

If you a DM, however, keep in mind how much fun this can be for the players.  And how much fun they can have building their own tax farms and paying corporations, giving them something more to fight for than just another dungeon.

There's one other possibility as well:  taxes are a good way to pull at a decent player's heartstrings.  True, if your players are the sort to slaughter all the orc children as well as their parents, because "no one gets out alive," you won't get far with this ... but many of the rules associated with pre-17th century taxation is grisly to say the least.  Bad year on the farm?  Too bad.  Still taking all your food.  And making you a slave for ten years.  And selling your ass to someone who'll make you work on a plantation in the tropics until you die of diptheria.  Tough luck.  Don't worry, we'll sell your children too.  Into prostitution.  Because we can.

When this becomes the players ... when the players see that their actions perpetrate this kind of system ... the discomfort is rather consuming.  Nor is it a matter of losing money they don't take from their own people, because they'd rather not charge taxes if it means making their tenants destitute.  It's the other nobles coming forward and challenging the party for NOT being cruel, vicious bastards, encouraging the party's tenants to talk about their wonderful overlords, reminding other peasants what shit heels the other overlords are.  This kind of thing starts a national crisis.  Next thing you know, all the peasants will rise up.  Then where will the rich be?

Some games don't have room for this kind of "adventure."  Mine certainly does.  I rather enjoy forcing the players to confront the question of what's more important to them ... defending a status quo they hate, or risking a national crisis that they'll be responsible for starting.

Decisions, decisions ...