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 ...

Tariff of Toll Rates

I just came across this interesting image:

Toll Bridge Rates on the Connecticut River between
Vermont and New Hampshire

The title of this post corresponds to the header on the sign.  Below that, it reads:

Each foot passenger = 2¢
Bicycles, each rider = 2¢
Horse and rider = 5¢
Horse, jack, muse, neat beast, sheep or swine, each = 2¢
Any vehicle drawn by one horse or beast = 10¢
Any vehicle drawn by two horses or beasts = 15¢
Any vehicle drawn by three horses or beasts = 20¢
Any vehicle drawn by four horses or beasts = 25¢
Any vehicle drawn by more than four horses or beasts; for each additional horse or beast = 5¢
Automobiles, passenger (seven passengers or less) = 15¢
Automobiles, passenger (more than seven passengers) = 25¢
Automobile trucks, less than 1 ton = 15¢
Automobile trucks, 1 ton or more = 25¢
Motorcycles, one passenger = 5¢
Motorcycles, with side car (two passengers) = 10¢
Motorcycles, with side car (more than two passengers) = 15¢

I love it when people put thought into things.

So Sick of 'If'

This sort of thing just so ... irks me:

"•Medical care. Healing/Cure/Remove Poison/Remove Disease/Regeneration Spells/Potions. Why aren't these mass produced in a manner which any local town healer, from all but the most backwater villages, can simply prescribe them to the townsfolk to remove any ailment that may afflict them. In many fantasy settings such potions are assumed for PCs. They aren't even rare or special treasure. The assumption of these items means there shouldn't be sickness in the setting at all, unless it's some sort of magical sickness that is specifically created to be ignored by these effects. So no black plague, no smallpox, no flu, no colds. Got a sniffle? Take a small dose of remove disease, and your cold will be stopped in its tracks. Body parts should be temporary except for the poor. A regeneration spell or potion existing means that rich folk never have to worry about losing limbs, because they can simply pay to regrow them. Pirates shouldn't have peg-legs. Warriors shouldn't be using prosthetic.

•Sustenance. Create Food and Water. And all items that mimic these effects. In the Pathfinder rules I can find half a dozen examples from cursory study that create food and water out of nothing. To clerics it's a third level spell. And many items that mimic it. So why are there farmers? Why is farming even a viable vocation when a family could reasonably obtain some way of creating food and water out of nothing? Shouldn't all towns have an unlimited supply of water, at the very least? A decanter of endless water (Pathfinder) is 9000 gp. Shouldn't this be a town's first priority when collecting taxes? It is literally an endless clean water supply, add in some water wheels, and you have endless energy generation as well. All but the most poorest of towns should have clean running water at all times.

•Material Creation/Transmutation. There are spells in Pathfinder that allow creation of any non-magical substance. I imagine it to be much like Full Metal Alchemist's Alchemy. You transform some matter into other matter. Easy peasy. The static gold values of creating this matter is ridiculous. Especially when you can make more gold, or diamonds, or platinum, or what have you. Why would anyone use 'real' money? A minor creation (Pathfinder) spell can replicate up to 1 sq. ft. of gold coins. Why would anyone trade in raw materials, when you can just make your own with a little preparation. Transmutation is a cheaper way to make desired materials."

The thinking demonstrated above is very much like the sort of logic politicians employ when they start to talk about incentivization. The proposal goes, "If we pay doctors per patient, they'll work harder to make sure they see more patients." Cue all the politicians acting surprised when it turns out doctors aren't seeing patients long enough to give proper diagnoses, or faking the existence of patients, or double-booking patients to make sure they're not in a situation where they can't make money because people haven't arrived in time for their appointment.

Take the question about a town getting 9,000 g.p. together in order to obtain a decanter of endless water in order to run the town's waterwheel. That's right, there it is, dangling above the waterwheel, all precious and valuable and useful, and naturally no one in town, or the environs around, see any reason to steal it. Moreover, every town in the world can get one of their own, right? There's no problem manufacturing thousands and thousands of these things, it's not like they're made of rare materials that can only be found in one small corner of the world - certainly the supply of those materials is UNLIMITED, right? Of course right. Don't be stupid. And never mind that water is FREE, and that anyone with a bit of skill and the willingness to work can build a waterwheel of their own using the completely natural flow of water that happens to be draining from the nearby mountains. Nope! When a town's got to be built, no one thinks, let's build it next to the free water and use that to run things, they think immediately, let's appeal to the high level mage and build the town in a totally random place. After all, there's nothing else to be gained from the presence of water beyond that it will run the town's water wheel. It's not like there's fish there in a mountain stream, or nearby forests supported by the stream, or animal life, or mines that need sluices and such. Hell no. We've got a water wheel run by bottle. What the hell else do we need all that other shit for?

Every now and then some roleplayer will produce a series of questions like this with the air of, "Hey, didn't think about this, did you?" As if, somehow, by asking the question they've instantly demonstrated the silly preconceptions we have about magic or its influence on economics, politics, health, etc., etc. It matches the occasional question some fanboy asks in the IMDb user review session, where they think they've discovered some plot hole, but in fact they just weren't paying attention.

Take that first one. Of course the town healer can manage the whole town, right? Heck, I don't know anything about Pathfinder, so I'm just going to assume from this that in that system the healer can heal all day long, continuously, no matter what the problem or issue the residents might conceivably have. "Cut your finger? Sure, come one, we'll take a look. My, looks like you've broken your arm. No problem. Lazy eye - sure, get that fixed up for you. Oops, kidney failure. No worries, lay down. That looks like a pretty serious case of being dead. Heck, easy as pie. No, no worries, come one, come all, I've got healing to spare, every kind of healing, no maladies too weird or difficult for me!" And what the doctor can't cure, why he's got a shelf just chock full of unlimited potions of every kind, 'cause those suckers aren't made with rare materials either.

Sometimes I think that role-players think a town of 400 people describes the whole population. "Yep, that's right, there's the town, and ten feet beyond the town, there's NOTHING. No camps, no farms, no cottagers out there in the woods, no hunters or woodsmen or people eeking out a living hunting and gathering. Everyone around HERE lives in town, ain't no other way to live. What's that you say? Roor-ral? What the fuck is that? Ain't nobody roorral. We don't believe in it. A man would have to be an idiot to build a cabin out in the woods, by themselves, where there weren't no taxes, laws, restrictions on space, rent, vagabonds, thieves or elders to tell him what for. Why, that'd be like living in a free country! Where's the damn sense in that?"

So naturally, there's no roorral people to fill up the healers time, never mind that the roorral population made up 90% of the total during the Medieval period. And every 'backwater village' can afford a healer, they've got nothing better to do - we know from our OWN experience that doctors LOVE living in butt-fuck nowhere and attending to every town with 100 or less people. That's the real life, none of this in the city living for them. And the potions they need to fix up the locals - why, those roll in on carts that are just full of them, thousands of potions a month, piled so high that's there's no need for anyone to think about stealing them. Why, if someone really wants potions of their own, they can plant a potion tree in their back yard and be fixed up for life!

Yep, sure can't be any of them nasty pestilences, no sirree! More than enough potions and healers to manage the swell of 25 million dead that Europe had to suffer. That ain't nuthin to healers in Pathfinder, uh uh. Why, as soon as a rat with fleas even lives with a family in the local ghetto, the healer snaps awake in the night, knows instantly where the danger is and flies on a magic carpet (heck, everyone's got one!) to the soon-to-be diseased house and puts a stop to that nonsense. In its goddamn tracks. Right you are!

Yep, there's anything you want, just for the asking. Makes you wonder why players go out to fight monsters. Why, we can build theatres and conjure up the monsters right here, let you smack em around for the local people, who don't have even have to pay to see it. No one's employing any of those modern practices of phony scarcity. This is the middle ages! That shit hasn't been invented yet! There's food enough for all, money enough for all, raw materials of every variety for all, and an entire magic using slave class to provide As Much As We Want. No charge, no expectations, no serious remuneration, just plenty to go around. And if some town gets it into their mind they're going to make people pay for stuff, why them wizards just turn up, pour material wealth on the population and end that local economy right off! We ain't having none of that shit here, not in a Pathfinder game.

There's a bunch of ways I could have written this. Like, I could have mentioned that being able to produce gold doesn't necessarily mean being able to produce coins of perfect weight, size, artistic merit, etc., or getting the alloy balance right - since, as the author plainly doesn't know, gold coins are not made of 'gold.' Pure gold is soft and useless for coins, and the metal stamp defining its wealth would quickly be destroyed by the coins bouncing together in a sack. The whole artistic thing, though - it has always seemed to me that magically created food isn't necessarily 'great' or that magically created flutes possess perfect pitch. Just because one can conjure a painting doesn't make the mage Matisse. There's more to the production of finery than the conception of finery, and those out there who cannot understand the difference have clearly never tried to make something they've conceived. It is always better in the mind that it in in reality ... and I see no reason why a wizard shouldn't be as subject to this rule as anyone else.

But rather than beat that point home, I have tried instead to interject a bit of silliness here. There will forever be masters of the fanboy mechanic who will dismiss the actual structures of human behavior and economics, or the lessons of history or politics, in order to pronounce their extraordinary genius in cracking the 'science' of what-would-the-world-be-like-if. The practice, if the reader must know, is perhaps the worst sort of masturbation in the internet community. It has the appeal that anyone can bullshit their way along with it, without there ever being any danger of being proved right or wrong - it is the perfect angels on the head of a pin argument. I'll stick to Occam's Razor, thank you. The simplest answer - that in fact, nothing would be changed, because we would all still be human - seems best to me.

I'm sure if the world really could be made better for the existence of magic, we'd find a way to fuck it up.

Fridge Logic & Dungeons

While we're on the subject of dungeons and treasure, as we were on the last post, I might as well bring up a salient point.

Why would monsters have coins at all?  This is a serious question.  The coins aren't worth anything to them of themselves.  They can't be eaten; they serve no immediate function so long as they retain the shape of coins.  If the monsters were intelligent enough and liked the metal, surely they would have hammered down the gold into shapes of convenience or delight to them, as our very distant ancestors did with the gold nuggets found in streambeds.

Think.  You're an orc, you've got a strong hate on with the world - that depiction of 'evil' we take for granted - and you can recognize that the figure on the coin is that of a HUMAN.  In effect, something that sickens you to look at.  At the very least you would use your hard metal weapon, or two heavy rocks, to pound out an image that disgusts you.  It would be like keeping an image of Hitler or Lady Gaga (obviously the logical reincarnation) in your pocket (if you like, insert anyone who truly, honestly disgusts you).

Now, you might tolerate it if it were worth something.  If you were in Saudi Arabia, say, and still felt sensitive about the destruction of the Two Towers, you might not like the images on the money there ... but you'd go on keeping it because it IS money.  You need it to buy things.  But an orc doesn't need that coin to buy anything.  It can't go to the market ten miles away, plunk down its coin and buy a sack of green leafy food ... the sort it can't get at home.  (Arguably, an orc might be allergic to green leafy food - who knows?)

Once the image is ruined, so too is the coin.  No reputable clerk would take it from you.  The point of the image on a coin is to prove that the item has the value it says it has.  A lump of hammered 'gold' could be anything.  It could be 90% copper.  No one would accept it for trade as a 'coin'!

More to the point, how is it presumed the orc gets the gold coins in the first place?  It steals them.  Yes, that's right, the orc and his buddies roll into the local village, kill a few peasants and guards, plunder the gatehouse and ... march off with 40 lbs. of heavy metal that serves no purpose for them.

Um, logical?  No, not logical.  At the very least, they'd probably be more interested in the copper than the gold, since it serves to make good pots and other kitchen utensils.  But gold?  Well, its pretty, but if it comes down to a sack of gold or a haunch of horsemeat, I think we can figure out what the orcs really want.

It gets even less logical for creatures further down the dungeon scale.  Maybe the orcs might want the gold to pay off a group of local bandits who, in the daytime, roust anyone approaching the dungeon entrance.  But what is the troll four levels down keeping it for?  My best argument might be that the troll uses the money to pay off parties, in the sense of "Take my money, leave me alone."  The strategy has a long history of success with kings and princes.  Apart from that ... we're back to the fact that it would be hammered into shapes unrecognizeable ... pieces of jewelry that the trolls might enjoy but which people back in town probably would not.

Yesterday I made a joke in the comments field, in reference to the many desperate suggestions to explain why wealth would not all be found at the bottom of the dungeon.  I said, why not just assume there are fountains of gold at every level?  I'm stunned that no one jumped in to yell at me that gold and silver mines are exactly fountains of the kind I suggested.

But what reason would any creature have for mining gold and silver, if they had no contact with a trading economy?  The Dwarves of Moria would probably have the option of dealing their gold and gems with the surface cultures of Middle Earth, though they might hate to let go of their gold - which makes no sense, culturally, since the only purpose to having gold in large quantities is to get rid of it for things that keep you alive.  Granted, I have no idea how a dwarf's mind works.  Or a dwarf's biology.  It's a mystery to me that they don't all die of rickets and scurvy long before the arrows get them.

If you're a troll or an ogre, however, or something more fearsome like a beholder ... what the hell is the point in all this coin?  I might grasp a ghost or a lich, keeping this hoard of gold out of a twisted sense of nostalgia ... but for races that just keep the gold out of sheer hatred for the surface creatures, why keep it in pristine fashion, so that without any modification AT ALL the surface people can come pick it up one day and spend it at the Medieval Mall the next?  Does that make any sense?  Wouldn't it be more satisfying to transform all the gold coin into paper thin squares and hammer it onto the walls of the cave, as many religions have done throughout history with gold that actually meant something to them?  Imagine a party being told that yes, there's the gold of 50,000 coins here ... but it is all less than a tenth of a millimeter thick covering all the walls of the gnoll's cave, and it will take several lifetimes to scratch even a third of it off.

There might be some kind of spell that would make it easier.

In short, I'm saying that if you really think about it, even the 'coin' that sinks to the bottom - along with a lot of other treasure, using these same distinctions (what purpose would a beholder have for a gem?), would simply cease to be.

I know that someone's going to say that adventurers would drag their ass into caves, die there and leave behind piles of treasure that could be found by later parties ... since the monsters wouldn't have any reason to disturb it.  Yes, but you see, they would have reason.  If there WERE creatures roaming around in the underworld, eventually all the gold and iron there would have been consumed by the things that eat gold and iron; the gems would be picked up, skipped on ponds and lost; or collected by gooey things that dragged them along for months before pooping them into a crevice or a river; or deliberately smashed by not-so-intelligent but hateful creatures.  Destruction is much more fun than treasuring something, and if you're arguing these creatures are EVIL, then destruction is de rigueur.

Unless they're not evil ... in which case, why wouldn't a trader do business with them, and bring peace to the world?  Come to think of it, even if they ARE evil.  Why wouldn't a trader do business with them?  Have you met a successful trader?

(Please, for the love of heaven, don' t think that justifies monsters keeping coins.  It would only mean that a monster's lair wasn't any more coin-heavy than a peasant's hut).

Leaks Like A Sieve

Suppose we start with the following proposal.

A group of monsters roaming around the outside of your world stumbles across a "dungeon" that is completely empty of treasure-hoarding creatures.  Oh, there are probably beasties there already, but let's say nothing intelligent.  If you like, this is hundreds and hundreds of years ago, long before your party shows up to plunder the place.

Let's further imagine that these monsters are carrying only 100 g.p. with them.  We can envision them as a few orcs, goblins, whatever you like - but not some enormous band.  They settle down into the top level of the dungeon, near the surface, and for a year they do little or nothing.

Now, these creatures don't have much purpose for the coin they have; they're not going out to the local market or anything.  But they like the coin, its shiny and it has pretty pictures on it.  They give it to their children to play with.  And now and then, some of it is dropped, some of it is stolen by the little beasties in the dungeon, and so on.  Call it 'spoilage.'

At the same time, these creatures are occasionally going out into the world and snatching more treasure from other things, but not much - just enough to say that in a year, they steal about 100 g.p. worth of hard, valuable, endurable treasure.

Now, I'm a great fan of the 1% per month maintenance rule in the DMG, and I've argued in the past that this could be read as general loss.  So for the purpose of our proposal, let's say that 12% of whatever treasure our 1st Level dungeon creatures have is lost ... it drifts down deeper into the caverns, where it is picked up by gelatinous cubes, wandering troglodytes, giant rats and so on.

Suppose that once every three years, a group of somebodies - a party, a local constabulary, what you will - comes along and clears out the upper level of the dungeon, taking all the treasure that is there.  And still, the caves are comfortable, so let's say that something else moves in, and in the process brings in some of a hundred gold pieces, depending on how long they've been there that first year.  We can roll a hundred sided die to see how much precisely.  And the new creatures go on accumulating a hundred gold a year.  For centuries.

And let's add that of whatever drifts into the 2nd Level, 12% of that drifts into the 3rd Level ... and 12% of that drifts into the 4th Level, and so on.  Only the 2nd Level is only plundered 1 in 9 years.  The 3rd Level, only 1 in 27.  And the 4th Level, only 1 in 81.  And so on.

Now what would that look like?

Here's what you do.

On Row A of your excel sheet, in Box B1, Write "Year".

In boxes A3 going down, write "Level 1" "Level 2" "Level 3" and so on.

In box B2, write "1"

In box B3, write "100"

In box B4 going down, write "0" for as many levels as you want.

In box C3 going down, write "=RANDBETWEEN(1,3)".    You might want to make this column a different color, so that you know these are random numbers and NOT your results.

In box D2 write "=B2+1".  This will serve to duplicate itself and count the years for you.

In box D3 write "=IF(C3=1,RANDBETWEEN(1,100),(B3*0.88)+100)".  All that says is that if the random number generated is a 1, the first level of the dungeon was cleaned out.  If it wasn't cleaned out, then 12% is gone (spoilage) and the rest is added to the 100 g.p. the creatures on that level gathered that year.  It also says that if the dungeon was plundered, 1 to 100 g.p. is accumulated in on the first level AFTER the plundering.

In box D4 write "=IF(C4+C3=2,0,(B3*0.12)+(B4*0.88))".  Which says that if the dungeon above was cleared out, and the roll for this level was also a 1, then this level was cleaned out too.  Spoilage from Level 1 pours into Level 2, and we minus the spoilage from Level 2 into Level 3.

In box D5 write "=IF(SUM(C3:C5)=3,0,(B4*0.12)+(B5*0.88))".  Level 3 is only cleaned out if the two levels above it are, so the sum of all three random numbers must be 1 x3 = 3.

In box D6 write "=IF(SUM(C3:C6)=4,0,(B5*0.12)+(B6*0.88))"

In box D7 write "=IF(SUM(C3:C7)=5,0,(B6*0.12)+(B7*0.88))"

And so on, remembering to adjust the sum for each number.

Now, you can copy everything in column C and D into columns E and F.  That will give you the results for year 3.

In fact, you can now copy as far into the future as you wish.  The numbers get quite interesting as you get past 80 years or so.

If you've done it right, you should have something that looks like this:

I've colored the random numbers in coral, so that the actual results in g.p. are in white. 

Yes, I know, it does not look very impressive for Level 5.  What is particularly interesting about this generator is that no matter how you fool with the numbers, you're going to find your dungeon pouring out its gold into the bottom.  You have to define one of the levels as THE bottom level ... and that one level will pile up gold impressively ... but none of the ones between the top and the bottom will.

You can reduce the number of times a level is plundered, but that only makes it drain more gold through.  You can reduce the amount of "spoilage" ... but that only makes it harder for the bottom levels to accumulate gold.  Reducing the likelihood of plunder down to 1 in 6, and decreasing the spoilage to only 2%, it generally took more than a hundred years of dungeon just to get the gold on the 5th Level up to 100.

In other words, I'm saying that if anyone else in the world is plundering dungeons, the idea that the space between the top of the dungeon and the bottom are filled with treasure just doesn't fit mathematically.  And if no one is plundering these dungeons, then they must be very remote - which begs the question, where are they getting the gold from?

Please, don't argue that the people below are robbing the people above - that just makes the dungeon sieve move faster.

I'm not saying I'd run a dungeon differently ... but one has to recognize that, economically, the process CAN'T work like you think it works.