What's your setting's tax policy, /tg/?

>>52728086
The seventh son of a seventh son.

>>52728086
Last dh camping was the player Inquisitor being assigned a particularly tough planet to get to re enter the imperium's tax system. Start contributing technology, food, and soldiers.

The guard got their asses kicked by the locals and exterminating the place didn't seem called for. They weren't being heretical or chaosy, they were just being selfish and the planetary defenses are god tier because it's a snowflake world.

>>52728086
100% of what the nobility feels like taking from you.

Complain and you get eaten.

>>52728136
Fucking vampire aristocracy.

>>52728086
Depends on who you owe, honestly. Though let's just say most of the time it's bad enough that the adventuring life's habit of killing people in horrible and brutal ways doesn't stop enough peasants to make the profession unheard of.

Nobles gotta pay for the safety a city-state and its surrounding terrirories can provide somehow after all. You want financial freedom you can do it where the bandits and goblins aren't kept at arm's length.

80% of weekly semen production to fuel the soldier factories.

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I am artistically obsessed with the 'Heroic Ecosystem' of every game I play. If there is a type of supernatural or superhuman character in a setting I make it my job to know the approximation of how many exist and what effect this has on the setting.

For example, in D&D worlds I'll often set a proportion of people with Classes vs normal people, then determine the proportionate rarity of the classes vs each other, then set the proportions of Levels, and finally do detailed demography information complete with geographic areas.

From there I create the daily life of places, based on the assumption of how common the superpowered persons in question are, and if it doesn't fit the setting I'm wanting to run I toy with the proportions until it makes sense.

I do this for a couple of reasons

1. WORLDBUILDING

2. Because I like it when my PCS, or myself when I am a PC, know exactly how big of a fish they are in a game. Nothing pisses me off more then being in a game where the PCs are level 3, hired to take care of a threat to an entire city, then when we steal bread level 10 guards show up. Its like, why the fuck aren't these guys taking care of the Dragon then!? Demography saves lives.

3. It helps me decide how common helpful Leveled characters [or equivalent for other systems] are.

For instance a friend of mine is running a campaign soon, and we're working out the demography information in such a way that the world is overran with feudalism with power concentrated in the hands of the 'heroic' Elite, with most wars being fought between groups of 4-12 such persons over territory, rather then huge massed armies.

>This is not only because such armies are cannon fodder, but also because it applies the principle behind Knights [namely, that every peasant with a spear you send to his death pointlessly is money you as a Lord are not making on your fief] to superhumans.

Not quite "Tax policy" tier, but I find it fun.

>>52728086

I wouldn't mind knowing what the fiscal policy of Ned was, George. If there even was one. Actually aside from perhaps Tywin does he ever go on that? I mean, I get it's not glamorous, but apparently the coffers in King's Landing are so canonically shit that he could perhaps give some detail.

Still, well, it depends. In Fading Suns it has been a matter of debate for the noble players and NPCs, believe it or not. Li Halan decriying the fact they (kinda) have a social security net for serfs while those pesky Al-Maliks just want science and tech in a harsh capitalistic regime (which in turn IS getting society a little less medieval on their planets).
Not that the actual serfs have any say in that, but that's the beauty of political debate in every age.

>>52728220
autistically obsessed*

>>52728086
Your finest 25% every ten years.

That's finest 25% of your warriors, products, women who became fertile this year.

>>52728086
I FUCKING HATE GEORGE R.R. MARTIN. HE'S NOTHING BUT A FUCKING HACK WHO DOESN'T HAVE A SINGLE DROP OF ORIGINALITY IN HIS WRITINGS. ALL OF HIS STORIES ARE NOTHING BUT CARBON BASED COPIES OF BOOKS BY ACTUALLY GOOD, NON-RETARDED ENGLISH AND EUROPEAN WRITERS, AND WITH SLIGHT UNDERTONE OF REAL LIFE EVENTS, PARTICULARLY FROM EUROPEAN HISTORY INVOLVING CIVIL WARS BETWEEN ROYAL DYNASTIES. HIS ONLY CLAIM TO FAME IS THE FUCKING WELL ACCLAIMED tv SERIES THAT TAKES PLACE IN THE SAME UNIVERSE AS HIS BOOKS BUT EVEN THEN THAT HAS HARDLY NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS WRITING AND MORE SO WITH THE GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE AND NUMEROUS SEX SCENES.

>>52728246
So if we produce fine warrior women, how does it work?
Do we just pay 25% of our fine warrior women?
Do we have to pay 25% three times, each of the remaining quantity?
Or are you just going to jew us for 75%?

>>52728360
>fine warrior women
there's no such thing anon

>>52728399
Shh, he doesn't know that.

>>52728347
That's a weird tax policy anon.

>>52728086
all the population are either soldiers or hunters while the mages produce everything else.

This creates a lopsided mage-based class system but it also creates a self-perpetuating imperialist policy where anyone who wants "muh independence" can just go to the gov't and and exchange "martial points" (a point system that tallies your rank, how many people you kill, and treaties you made with others) for your own slice of conquered land to rule as you see fit. Mages are only interested in increments and resources that further their magic studies and will probably simply take it from you if they find it in your territory. If said resource is renewable, then they will actually start taxing you.

>>52728097
So wait, that's 14 kids right? Or do the first other sons also needs to have seven sons? And what about twins? Does that mean both of them have to have seven sons, or do they both count as a single son as far as the count goes?

And what about daughters, are they involved at all?

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>>52728220

You. You're my kind of GM.

>>52728086
Kinda depends hugely on where you are, since there are like two dozen kingdoms and a couple of empires.

>>52729115
You honor me Anon. I do the same thing in other settings too [Superhero settings, World of Darkness, etc, etc].

WoD especially, because the whole 'Masquerade' thing every single Faction has going means you have to know how many people like this are running around and whose keeping eyes on them, just to maintain suspension of disbelief.

>>52728220
>Nothing pisses me off more then being in a game where the PCs are level 3, hired to take care of a threat to an entire city, then when we steal bread level 10 guards show up.
This. If your players insist on committing crimes then they should get to go on a rampage until adventurers are paid to stop them. That's the RPG way.

>>52728086
Who gives a fuck

>>52729201
Or more accurately, the force that responds to the criminal players should be one that makes sense.

If you're being assholes in the middle of a tiny village in bumfuck nowhere, where logically for the setting everyone is a dirt farming faggot, then there shouldn't be any consequences.

Trying that same shit in more fortified and civilized areas, with their own Leveled characters in positions of power is likely to get a response, but in the form not of petty guards you can slay by the score, but rather the people whose shit you're wrecking.

Or if they're low level enough, a bunch of guards of 0th or 1st level. Outnumber the level 3 bastards.

>>52729201
I once had a group of good-at-bluff bad-at-common-sense PCs accept a quest to kill the gang of armed murderers who'd been plaguing the city. Who, unbeknownst to everybody involved, was them. Because they couldn't put two and fucking two together to figure out that the people who had murdered the people they murdered were themselves.

One of the wankers tried to turn in the rest of the party when they figured it out, but the rest of the party blamed them for everything without even realizing the truth.

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>>52728086
20% tax on the proceeds of tomb robbing.

Hearth tax of [slightly more than you can afford] per household, to pay for the king's wars.

Tax on horses, glass, helmets, boots, and silk. Additional taxes as needed, arbitrarily set.

If you're noble, you might be taxed, but you make more from taxes than you lose in paying them, so it all evens out.

And then, there's tithing. Ideally, 10% of your goods go to the Church. In practice, it's closer to 1%, but supplemented by fees and bribes for everything.

From a gaming PoV, just budget 20% of your loot money and 10% of your reward money to go to taxes. If you don't like it, get a castle and a title and tax people yourself.

>>52728086
But Gurm tells us fuck all about Westerosi tax policy. Multiple characters have "just makes money appear out of nowhere" as a major trait.

>>52729361
Actually, the extensive debts these characters accrue from their constant loans from the iron bank of Braavos is a plot point, so it's not "from nowhere", it's "Loaned from another country""

>>52729243
My preference is to put the focus on a guard captain as the main threat if the PCs start causing major trouble.

If they're level 1 nobodies in a small village, there aren't gonna be too many guys in the militia, but those half-dozen guys lead by a level 3 veteran captain who retired there and has some leadership abilities will mop the floor with them in a sensible way. But a single level 3 guy and some level 0 followers wouldn't be a match for a full cave of goblins or whatever the PCs have been hired for.

>>52729464
Same. Thats my most simple rubric

Village/Town Official: Level 3
Movers and Shakers: Level 5
Really powerful NPCs: Level 9
'Epic' Scale: Level 10-20

So a half-dozen guards and a level 3 Fighter as the Captain is about what I'd do too for that.

>>52728086
Georgism, with a small sales tax on necessities.

>>52729244
isn't this mostly the same as that one spongebob episode

>>52729589
The Party, standing in a House of Mirrors: "What do we see?"

>"The murderers are just standing there. MENACINGLY!"

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>>52728086
Pay NotRome whatever they ask this year, and you get public works and social order instead of having your fields razed and salted. Admitedly, what they ask is usually reasonable and achievable, because raising and salting fields is more expensive than doing nothing and getting paid.

>>52729361
wasn't it considered bad by Westerosi standards for King Robert to be spending gold and putting it back into the economy?

>>52728086
Doesn't have one, World is about to end so everyone more or less ignores civic engagement.

>>52729944
I believe that was because it meant (at the time so we were led to believe) the wealth the Lannisters were mining/stockpiled wasn't being deflated by money exiting the economy.

>>52729433
I think he means Littlefinger
he does have a tendency to be able to magically unravel and fix cooked books

>>52730052
but shouldn't that be the other way around? if money is leaving the economy, what is left is worth more ie., the lannisters stockpiled wealth would be the only wealth.
If money goes into the economy, the lannisters stockpile would be worth less.

>>52730634
That's what was said, the fact the money didn't leave the economy means the Lannister's dwindling wealth was worth less.

>>52730634
You're reading it wrong, it's the fact Robert spent everything he could that was the issue, IE money not leaving the economy and residing in the treasury.

>>52728086
I know he wasn't trying to give shit to Tolkien, but this fuck doesn't talk about taxes either.

For all his books/show get hyped for it's "political intrigue" it all basically amounts to the Lannisters paying people a fuck ton of people to betray other people, or Dany burning the shit out of people she disagrees with.

>>52728086
A bunch of devils are bound to keep the numberchecking running, so every year the people get a letter with the exact amount of tax they need to pay. These same devils means that money doesn't leak out through corruption, and as such taxes remain relatively low since the budget is being used at nearly maximal efficiency.
Unemployment is effectively 0, since the farmlands always need more hands and the kingdom runs caravans to take otherwise incapable people to do the only job remaining for them.

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1spook per day reanimated

>>52730892
Are people paid the reanimation or do they have to pay it? If the latter do they have to supply the dead bodies?

>>52730066
Doesn't his money come from whores?

>>52728086
The king takes 1/16th of all your yearly product. Which is cheap because he came back from his father being ousted and just murdered half the nobles and nationalized the guilds.

>>52728086
Some locations have poll tax, paid by every man, women and children are exempt from it unless they declare the will to pay them
Others have a form of income tax or VAT

>>52731711
Funding a whole kingdom through whores sounds excessive.

>>52731831
But very fun. Imagine the boon to the pox doctors!

>>52728086
It depends on country. One of the PCs actually got a spell "detect taxes".
Basically, bourgeoisie and landed nobility pay wealth tax, around 1% of the wealth owned and 4% income tax. Rest pay a flat tax.
Then, of course, there are all kinds of tolls. Road, bridge and city gate tolls are the most common. There's paper and ink tax so the poor won't read too much for their own good. There's a heavy tax on magical items.

>>52729243
Plus the fact that even if the guards can't feasibly beat them, if the PC's act like criminals, then they are going to be treated like criminals. If they get caught stealing, maybe you can't punish actively because they're too strong, but you can spread their reputation, forcing them to become criminals exclusively. Steal bread and get labeled a thief. Now your only option is to steal bread because nobody is going to do business with you legitimately. Want to go to a new town? Fuck you you can't come in, we know you're a bunch of thieving murdering cunts and we don't want you. Even if they could kill their way in, what for? The duke isn't going to give them a quest when they had to cut a bloody swathe through his duchy just to meet him.

It's good to remind PC's that most laws are simply the lessons on maintaining a functioning society written down and enforced. Committing crimes doesn't work in the long run unless you can either keep it secret or accept that you can't be a part of that society any more.

At this point the party will do one of two things. Go full evil and just become bandit kings, which is plenty fun to play. Or they realize that they don't want everyone in the world treating them like villains and start making amends. Also fun to play.

GMing isn't about beating the players, it's about tricking them into doing all the work of writing a campaign and plot for themselves to go through without them realizing that you didn't plan anything.

>>52728086
The part I'm focusing on right now is a monarchy that functions as a federation of cities (and some rural areas that don't have cities proper). Local areas are free to do as they will in regards to taxes, and the royal family collects the majority of its money through small percentages on interstate trade (4% or less). All states are obligated to maintain an emergency fund based on their wealth and resources to send to the crown in the event of a defensive war. The royal family gets away with this generally low revenue largely because (outside of wartime) they don't really do much except mediate disputes between states.

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>>52728086

>>52731831
Not him, but I've always assumed there was a combination of owed favours and blackmail involved.

>>52728086
I start with Roman and go from there. I just streamline things where I can. So taxes aren't great, but it's worth it for most of the state. And if you want to avoid certain fees, you could always gain citizenship for you and your family with 20 years military service.

The empire taxes the lords, the lords raise the taxes from whatever way they see fit. Some control the lands as kings and keep their people as serfs, others are more cosmopolitan and charge free citizens a tax of coin or grain.

The wealthiest, most populous regions can get by with 20% tax while others must send a large percentage of their dry food and soldiers to the capitol to make their quotas.

Within these lordships are small city states, most pay their lords heavily for the right to exist and trade but in the barren fringes of the empire tax collectors turn a blind eye to pirate ports and non registered towns.

>>52729361
That chopped up quote up there has precisely nothing to do with taxes specifically. It's part of a discussion where GRRM basically says that Tolkien takes a more mythic route to his setting and doesn't get bogged down with details or realism.

Aragorn is a big damn hero and he rules happily ever after as the "Good King" and everyone loves him. Contrast this with Westerosi rulers with their bloody political intrigue and you get what he's talking about.

What's more, GRRM is big Tolkien fanboy so that quote up there is basically bait.

>>52732302
In context, it's also about how people superficially ape Tolkien but don't get his style, meaning that while Tolkien doesn't need to care about Tax Policies, other writers that ought to never do.

Spider Parliament levies taxes on monsters. They are usually reasonable unless its egg laying season, when they overtax tyrannically, forcing all the monsters to raid civilized lands for gold. Also, the Spiders eat Drow.

>>52731831
I doubt Game of Thrones is 100% realistic in that department. Unless those are some really fucking good whores.

>>52736581
Its funny because thats what western countries are trying to do in a way. Whores are a high profit, service industry.

If you've got an established infrastructure and a specialized work force its tempting to base your economy on service based industries rather than primary or manufacturing roles. The problem is you still need food and power. In times of peace that can be bought and paid for with your whore money but in times of war your supply lines and allies become targets.

Can you run an economy on whores? Technically yes the same way you can base your economy entirely on banking or web services just make sure you have strong allies that will stay loyal when the bombs drop.

High enough to make the masses miserable, low enough to never have enough

>>52728086
Depends on the country.

>>52728086
Nothing.

We killed the nobles and created an anarch society. Now everyone owns everything and people work for the betterment of all.

>>52731831
>>52736718
In Free Cities you can fund a pretty good archeology with whores. You receive some rents too but whores are easier to make money.

Things like that don't matter for the games I want to run or the stories I want to tell, so I don't bother with them.

>>52737777
Lucky Seven Quads confirm.

>>52728086
25% of the persons average income.

>>52728086
My favorite country within the setting has no taxation, but rather relies on a state monopoly on several profitable industries (banking, resource extraction, and utilities) to support the military and a modest universal basic income, while the remaining economic sectors have full laissez-faire capitalism.

>>52737920
>but rather relies on a state monopoly on several proifitable industries... banking...

Wouldn't that be potentially volatile enough to either cause instability or dictate foreign policy for said nation?

>>52731901
>Want to go to a new town? Fuck you you can't come in, we know you're a bunch of thieving murdering cunts and we don't want you.

That's right sarge! We got their portraits along with descriptions on inter-city-watch magical criminal image board yesterday! You, the fat breadstealing one on the right -- disguising yourself is useless! Our anti-disguise magic detectors already compared your bone structure to the Central Criminal Archive.

>>52728136
Then the nobles run out of peasants and got nobody left to tax.

Assuming that Baron Larry von Econom of the Kingdom of Logicalia comes in with his better funded armies first and conquers them.

>>52729221
This threads got 100+ replies, them for starters.

>>52740356
>baww why do i have reputation for being a shitty murderhobo
>i shouldnt have any consequences

>>52728086
Depends on where in the setting you are, and what kind of governments/treaties you have in place. Around where we live it's mostly:
>"You pay us whatever food you can spare, and we try to keep the raiders and the mutants from slaughtering all of you"

Sure, you may say that sounds like a protection racket, but when the harvest-time raiders come, you're going to be glad our militia has an interest in keeping you alive.

>>52741018
If you want "consequences", you actually do need either an information network, long term notoriety where players would be punished so long after the deeds in question they probably wouldn't connect the incidents, or supernatural shit.

Cry if you want, but your world doesn't make a lick of fuckin' sense otherwise.

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>>52728086
A flat income tax rate of 17% for adults over 21 and corporations with no income tax for students, the elderly(65+), and families of 4 earning under 40,000 USD annually.
families count as 2 adults with dependence under 21

>>52728086
Largely unimportant to adventuring folk.

>>52741419
Unless registered under a mercenary corp or Temporary work agency they are guilty of tax evasion, organized crime, vigilantism & blasphemy.

Better get to the registrar's office or their asses are going to be serviced by a PROPER mercenary corp

None. If government wants to get money, it has to provide a service people would want to pay for and compete on the free market.
There is a successful chain of government-owned coffee shops. It pays for the military, though most people subscribe to private protection agencies.
It all works out pretty well. The neighbours are more oppressive, though.

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>>52741518
your setting sounds like a party.
I wouldn't want to live there but it's fun to visit

>>52728086
Included in list price, as it should be IRL

>>52741018
Players in my group are wanted in several cities for arson, burglary, multiple murders, conspiracy to enact a necromantic ritual and the like (some of those things they even did). It mostly means jackshit when they arrive in a remote large city because
(a) how the fuck new city officials would know about those events? There are no faxes no magical FBI databases and no interpol information exchange.

(b) players disguise themselves with magical and/or mundane means when doing stuff that may end with them breaking the law. Sure, sometimes shit happens but most of the time the description of assholes breaking and entering into a warehouse in the docks does not match with the jovial monk and his companions renting rooms in one of the most expensive inns in the city. So why would anyone deny entry to the monk again?

and finally

(c) if you have a target to hit in the city but the officials are wary of you and check for disguises on the gates, just insert yourself via other means. River gates are a fan favorite but hiding inside the merchandise, being lead in as a slave or a sacrifice or even flying over/scaling a wall at night all work splendidly. The scrutiny inside will be ten times less than on the entrance.

Well, it is expected that a >bawwwwww every non-LG act is a murderhobo and shall be punished by DM fiat moron thinks that everyone else is the same as them.

>>52728086
Did Martin ever talk about how Robert, Joffrey, Robb, Dany, etc. dealt with tax policy? The closer thing I can remember is Tyrion taxing prostitution, which was relevant only for lolsex jokes.

>>52741483
>Mercenary Corp

Goes against the ideas of heroic fantasy and would be the kind of freebooter bandits they were hacking down around level 3, try again.

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>>52741518
>There is a successful chain of government-owned coffee shops. It pays for the military,

>>52728086

Really depends from which society you're talking about.
Where the party's currently camped, residents and industries get a 5% of their income taken for taxes (plus extras depending on several factors, but overall it's a 5%).
Adventurers instead get their jobs rewards taxed, already taken in consideration within the reward result from 0 to 20% depending on the job circumstances. (so if you see that a job is worth 1000 gold, odds are that the one that put up the thing had to pay 100 gold extra for putting the announcement in the main guild)
That pays for the church organizations, and offers to everyone with a citizen permit, free electricity, internet, television, basic medicare, food and other amenities.
The church makes most of their income for other sources. It's a good place to stay in, all in all, if you don't mind that everything's run by a theocracy where a "Pope Empress" rules over all under the influence of a sea deity of commerce.

>>52729073

>you have 7 sons
>your 7th son has 7 more sons (your grandkids)
>your 7ths sons 7ths son which would be your 7th grandchild is handed over to the government.
>however if you were the 7th son of someone then your 7th son would be handed over.

But that means the avrage man is having 14 kids to get 7 sons. with the 7th being offered up providing he himself is a 7th son. He would then have 13 kids who would in turn have 14 kids each meaning you would have 182 grandkids.

That kind of system is retarded and can not be sustained.

>>52741742
>Goes against the ideas of heroic fantasy
your ideas maybe. I have a place in a campaign where that will fit right in. Aside from enriching a setting, it'll allow players to have some fun creating their band/company's identity.
>inb4 they name themselves [SomeColour] company and start adopting dumbass nicknames

>>52741742
>Heroic fantasy is only rpg genre

Mate, there are different genres than heroic fantasy.

>Experienced Mercs working for the government equal to level 3 bandits.
Try again

>>52729270

>we dident make a penny on the last 12 tomb robberies
>only a reward of *insert some token amounted here*
>looks like we only have to pay a little bit in taxes now.

Or if there was a way to track the reward then you pay your fair dues on that to avoid the fantasy IRS coming to throw you in jail and shoot your dog.

This is actually a really good question.
Does anyone have any recommendations for books/pdfs about taxes and trade in the Napoleonic Wars?

>>52731711
Nah, Littlefinger embezzled the shit out of the crowns money. He'd take the money, invest it into various goods (eg farm crops which he would on sell at different locations for higher prices) or business (brothels in particular). Then he'd return some of the investment to the crown budget to pay interest of various loans, but keep large portions of it for himself, making himself one of the richest men in westeros.

>>52741899
When you are selling a bunch of TelleKure artifacts you got from raiding the last tomb, you want the transaction to be as large, public and open as possible. Otherwise, your company will be excluded from bidding on the next tomb excavation and the Noble House that patrons your antics will drop your asses. That does not mean of course that you don't want to pawn an occasional gem or some gear you looted from corpses of another tomb-raiding company on the side though.

Not to mention that if you want your company sigil registration to be extended, it's either pay a large fee flat or contribute the same amount via taxes, your choice.

>>52728086
Nonexisting

Squeeze out as much as your apparatus can extract, and as much as your peasants will pay before revolting non-stop.

>>52728086
>Intolar
Takes basically everything, putting it towards the endless war on the border with Khavghotan. Most of the populace lives at subsistence+ levels.

>Khavghotan
Doesn't have an organized government as such. Warlords take everything they can get away with taking though, which is a lot.

>Alykandor
Reasonable taxes (maybe 15%? Don't know the precise number), which pay for governmental functions. Nothing exciting to see here.

>Orlyndol
75% of income goes to the spire's coffers. Of course, that covers room, board, work expenses, materials for experiments/artistic endeavors/etc, and all the rest of it. The remainder is given to the individual for external use, since Orlyndol only nominally uses money internally.

>Northwind
Doesn't have taxes.

>Tharkrixghantix
Doesn't have taxes, or an economy for that matter.

>Xortal
Doesn't have a government, much less taxes.

>>52732005
>And then Martin died of a heartattack
>the end
Good ending. Go suck Tolkien's and Lovecraft's dick in the afterworld. Fat Fuck.

10%
Players went apeshit.

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>>52742172

I really like the idea of a campaign where the concept of adventuring is taken to its logical conclusion, as this post implies.

If there are a bunch of tombs, crypts, and ruined fortresses around, all with a bunch of treasure in them, why wouldn't the local ruler want to gather his army together and loot the place?

A curosry inspection of medieval history will tell you half the point of going to war was for plunder. Sure, you'd have to actually put effort into going into a fortified area like that and killing the monsters, but if four or five adventurers can do it, I don't see why a small army couldn't.

And if there are all these adventurers running around, looting these places, there'd have to be some sort of system in place to accommodate them. The local ruler isn't just going to sit idly by while a bunch of dudes take money from something on his land. There'd also probably be a guild of adventurers, to resolve disputes and set standards.

The only reason the concept of adventuring is even plausible in its typical form is

> Lack of giving a shit for specifics by most people.

> The fact that adventurers are so rare. Usually you and/or your party are The Chosen Ones.

>>52728086
There is none.

>>52728360
25% of your warriors, and 25% of the none warrior women who hit puberty this year.

The warriors will join the national army, and the women will be given the sacred honor of producing the Lunar Queen's Beastman spawn. Till the next tax time, then they can return.

I fucking hate you.

>>52742742

You could handwave it with "any dungeon containing a treasure that would pay for the cost of an army, is guarded by something that can probably kill an army on its home turf".

Or the idea that these places are remote and inhospitable. Your army can't forage effectively, and that means they have to be supplied overland. Which is not just a bitch and a half when there's no good roads between your farms and your armies, but massively increases the cost of the deployment.

So lots of kings and would be kings have gotten the idea to raise an army and go loot a legendary treasure. They usually got back less than half an army and no treasure.

I can see rulers liking the idea of an adventuring guild, because it means most of the people with dreams of glory and little regard for personal safety go and die in a hole somewhere instead of starting trouble, and you get a steady trickle of gold out of the deal.

>>52741555
>IP law
>Ancap
This is such a stupid image.

>>52742852
>Beastman spawn
The people are OK with that?

>>52728220
>Because I like it when my PCS, or myself when I am a PC, know exactly how big of a fish they are in a game. Nothing pisses me off more then being in a game where the PCs are level 3, hired to take care of a threat to an entire city, then when we steal bread level 10 guards show up. Its like, why the fuck aren't these guys taking care of the Dragon then!? Demography saves lives.
I like your style. This kind of thing is something I've struggled with and seen other DMs struggle with as well. I'd love to be able to do this myself, and I think I'm getting the hang of it, but it's taking some practice.

>>52742742
You're forgetting the other biggie, which is
>You're at the edge of civilization and there is no local government that is capable of raising an army worth mentioning.

>>52743044
It's better to think of dungeons as natural resources. You wouldn't send the army to chop lumber or dig in a mine either, so you hire professional adventurers to explore the place instead. They work on a contract (lump sum + 30% of monetary value of whatever they find) and leave for the next dig when one gets depleted. They have to shoulder the costs of fighting monsters themselves, though.

What if the PCs don't agree to those terms? Not a problem, there will always be someworse off NPC who will accept the gig. Players can of course seek out a dig in the wilderness where the risks are higher but they get to keep all the loot themselves, or break into a dungeon illegally but then don't have the luxury of taking their time because then they might get discovered and face the law.

Taxes are for government thugs.

Anarchy in Westeros!

>>52743044

Or the fact that a +7 sword of giant slaying isn't worth sending an entire army just to retrieve in the context of a nation. Dungeon spelunketing is a risky investment, and usually your troops have better things to do.

>>52728086
I play an Ex-Noble in a birthright campaign and my noble friend (another PC) taxes my property at 1% a month. so 130 GP a month. It's a guild hall. Income tax isn't a thing because we are just forced into special servitude (Adventuring by order of lord guy). Which is better than joining the army. Our DM kind of railroads us, but we don't mind because we do a lot of mini rollplay things

>>52729221

Keep walking, normie. This thread is for wizards only.

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>>52741899
>looks like we only have to pay a little bit in taxes now.

Hah, in a fair and gentle world, yes. But chances are pretty good you have obligations that aren't expressed in percentages. The king demands a special levy. The local priest needs a new set of plates.

>>52742172
Tax evasion is a fine tradition, provided you don't mind the occasional disaster. By all means, bury your treasure, conceal your revenue, and bribe the tax collectors, but be aware that one day it may all go south for you.

>>52742742
If there are a bunch of tombs, crypts, and ruined fortresses around, all with a bunch of treasure in them, why wouldn't the local ruler want to gather his army together and loot the place?

1) They don't know it's there
2) It's really, really dangerous
3) There's a plague or a war on, and it's hard to spare the people to go off on weird tomb raids
4) Religious reasons
5) It's cheaper to tax adventures at 20% than it is to try for the full 100%. Adventurers also sell items at pennies on the dollar sometimes, so you can effectively make money twice, if you have capital reserves
6) Treasure is portable and dungeons are messy. Soldiers tend to desert with their loot and/or magic items and/or horrifying new infections and/or delusions of grandeur.

>>52741657
But you also have to keep in consideration the fact that in a world where people can literally just magically become other people (especially with Changelings and things like that being able to do that from a young age as an innate ability), if there is enough crime in the city they may actually have to start doing random checks and things like that in order to keep the peace.

>>52728086
Death and. Orzhov are right bastards.

>>52742742
>>52743044
>>52745829
>>52745878
There is an even better question you should be asking yourself: if there is a dungeon with a loot inside, why isn't that loot gone yet?

Usually, the answer is a combination of:
1 The dungeon is far away.
2 Nobody knows about the dungeon/or the treasure.
3 The dungeon is inaccessible for normies.
4 The region where the dungeon is located is inaccessible for normies.
5 The dungeon is very recent or is only accessible sometimes.
6 The treasure is not that valuable compared to the cost of extracting it.
etc.

In my scenario (>>52742172), the entrances to the tomb complexes are sealed and are being guarded, the licensed pillaging is a recent development to counteract the (unspecified) dark shit bubbling up from inside the tombs. The idea is to loot all valuables and if by then the source of corruption is not gone, nuke the whole place. The reason that army isn't doing it is because Emperor's House is not that strong; they cannot risk spending high-level assets and do not want a Noble House-loyal contingent to setting camp in this strategic region. Adventurer companies are easy to control on exit and are unlikely to band together under a single House lead since different Houses sponsor them and most adventurers do not trust or like each other.

So for that scenario the answers are 3 and 5. If you want dat versimilitude for 'traditional' adventuring, you gotta go in a similar direction.

>>52746736
I have a benefit of running a low-magic setting with no races with innate abilities like that. But sure, in a large enough city, there is a non-zero possibility of running into a Watch lieutenant with a Detect Minor Illusion bracelet or a Mage Guild enforcer with Detect/Pierce tattoo.

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Your firstborn child!

Or... maybe some shiny rocks.

Depends on the mood and if the King or Queen have any particular fancies.

>>52743732
Stealing someone's intellectual property is a violation of the NAP and you will be TOW missile'd

Varies based on the county.

The City of Magic has an 7.5% sales tax, and everyone, even the wealthy, is required to spend a year after they graduate from school working on public projects. An indentured workforce of young mages kept in line by grumpy older mages can get an awful lot done in a year.

>>52728086
>tfw setting doesn't have a (((central banking system))) or a (((monetary system))) and instead works off trade of raw materials and donations to the church/military forces.

>>52728086
Every NPC pays 'too much' taxes and loudly blames all of their financial woes on taxation.

One of the (not)Random Encounters I'll occasionally throw at the party as a Social Skills test is a Tax Collector who uses divination magic to determine how much each member of the party 'owes' him/whatver-country-they're-in. The fee is typically unreasonable, but during encounters like these I'll usually allow untrained knowledge checks to know about the tax code and claim loopholes. Of course, any skill that is even remotely relevant like forgery or knowledge(nobility or religion or history or whatever if you can convince me) gives a substantial bonus to this check. Lawful characters get a substantial bonus to the skillcheck and subsequent diplomacy checks, especially if they're willing to pay. The fee can be paid with 'equivalent community service' if you're knowledgeable enough about the country's woes. If you're charismatic, you might be able to charm the agent or a wealthy patron to cover for you, or if you're wise you may yet convince the agent that you've already done enough good for the community... you get the idea. It's a social encounter.

Obviously fighting and running are options (and may, indeed, be the most in-character options for some characters), but I like to lay on the consequences for those because those are boring ways to answer this test.

60-75% of the amount of rice your land produces annually based on farmable land area and equivalent costs for craft services in your province. This is about to change though, with the ghosts and spirits rising the central government will raise tax rates in an attempt to form a force capable of resisting. It won't work, and everyone will be overtaxed for no reason.

>>52728086
I don't have one because the only one that would care would be that one player that majored in economics and would likely just try to derail the campaign into some stock market manipulating bull shit only he would enjoy