Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Tax Farming the Megadungeon

Here is a quick alternative to the usual "the King takes 10%" approach to taxing the PCs. Something I'm generally opposed to, anyway, as adding limited reality for concrete annoyance.

The idea, basically, is like tax farming. Instead of the government exploiting a population via taxes, they sell the right to collect taxes to private concerns. The government gets its cash up front, the private concerns get what they can.

The Romans did a lot of this with mines, for example, and it's how paying up the chain worked in at least one episode of The Sopranos, too - not a percentage a week, but a flat rate to the guy above you. You come by that money however you need to - but you owe a specific amount.

It's a potentially amusing way to explain why dungeons full of loot are left to private adventurers and aren't just surrounded by the army and systematically leveled like The Black Company and friends did to the Barrowland (a classic 15-minute workday approach, actually, but I digress.)

You pay X, and get the right to exploit a given area.

It would explain the utter hostility of adventurers to each other in the dungeons.

It'll explain NPC tax collecting types.

It'll explain why you are adventurers, but those guys in room 2-14 are bandits - you paid, they're claim jumping.

It would also work well enough for groups splitting treasure - you buy in to the concern, and then take out your share. You've already paid what the government gets, and the rest is yours. And it matters not a whit to The King or the Lord Mayor or the local Shah if you die in a pit on level 2, because your profits are of no concern.

Charging a relatively large fee for exclusive rights would make sense if the government can enforce that (the army is around, say, or there are legal punishments to claim-jumping). Charging a relatively small fee for non-exclusive exploitation rights makes sense if the rate of return is somewhat low (lots of dead, a few rich types) or if they can't enforce the rules. Or have an excess population to bleed off. It's an approach that makes more sense in a settled world (lots of people, too many unemployed youths in the cities and countryside and not enough fund to draft them) and less so in a "points of light" game.

It might be a fun explanation of why the PCs get to keep their whole take, and why "strip it of everything I can take" is such an important strategy.

Oh, and you can make it a yearly thing - pay and exploit, or don't and don't. You'd probably see a lot of expeditions rarin' to go during the Spring start of the looting year, and some desperate types in late Winter trying to get in the last trips they can afford and finally hit paydirt . . .

14 comments:

  1. Interesting post.I had similar ideas a while back: http://eyerayofthebeholder.blogspot.ca/2013/03/the-dungeon-broker.html
    This kind of thing (dealing with shares, taxes, who should get paid and who shouldn't) is certainly something that would encourage role-play and politics in a campaign.

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  2. I've done the same sort of thing with "chartered companies" of adventurers, who are sponsored by a given lord, have a piece of paper with a lot of official-looking seals they wave around, and are able to get away with a lot more because of it. I like the idea of doing the same thing, but tied to a specific locale.

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    1. The "chartered company" approach - making folks privateers, basically - is also a good one. But I figured I hadn't seen too much posted on the idea of tax farming/location based fees.

      You have to figure with most dungeon delvers, the charter writer is laughing all the way to the bank. It's people paying money to go off and die.

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  3. Entry fees are ok too.

    I mean you have that now.

    I think a Warhammer Felix and Gotrek story had the same thing in a famous dungeon.

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  4. I like this kind of stuff a lot. It makes the town part of the adventure more realistic to contrast with the craziness of the dungeon. I really like the town to make some sort of sense and to give a medieval feel.

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  5. You'd probably see a lot of expeditions rarin' to go during the Spring start of the looting year, and some desperate types in late Winter trying to get in the last trips they can afford and finally hit paydirt . . .

    Alternatively, if the dungeon is fairly accessible even in bad weather, it might make a good winter activity for mercenary-types who'd be campaigning the rest of the year.

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    1. That's a good point - I was thinking more of an expiring one-year deal, and people rushing to get in one last delve before the lease runs out and they have to re-up or earn enough to re-up the deal.

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  6. From Braveheart: " . . . estates in Yorkshire, including hereditary title, from which you will pay- from which you will pay him an annual duty-"

    So you're on solid ground here!

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    1. Believe it or not, I never saw Braveheart.

      But yeah, I know the history support "fixed payments" not "percentage income tax." It's a economically sound way to operate - you take your money up front in return for letting someone else take the risk. Dungeneering Futures Trading, almost.

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  7. When you mentioned the 15-minute workday I immediately thought of this classic Yamara strip.

    From the perspective of the government, if they're doing this to stop the dungeon denizens coming up and eating honest folk, the incentives don't quite work: the fewer people go for it, the less money they have to pay for the army that they'll need because of all those un-slaughtered monsters.

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  8. This is great. This and the treasure series.

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    1. Thank you. That's high praise from someone who's written so much good stuff on the subject of treasure.

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