Friday, September 24, 2021

Random Roll: DMG, p. 90

I've written a previous post in this series about page 90 of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, which discusses economics, broadly defined. One of the sections on this page bears the lengthy title "Duties, Excises, Fees, Tariffs, Taxes, Tithes, and Tolls." Despite the seeming dryness of that title, the section contains some interesting details that, I think, offer us a few insights into Gary Gygax's conception of the game and campaign play. 

He begins this section by asking

What society can exist without revenues? What better means of assuring revenues than taxation, and all the names used in the title of this section are synonymous with taxes – but if it is called something different perhaps the populace won't take too much umbrage at having to pay and pay and pay . . .

Joking aside, he then wastes no time to explain why he's actually including this section in the DMG.

It is important in most campaigns to take excess monies away from player characters, and taxation is one of the better means of accomplishing this end.

I really like Gygax's directness on this point. If you take a look back at the earlier post linked above, you'll see that he mentions by name "mythical heroes such as Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Kothar, [and] Elric." These names were well chosen, since an important element in the stories of these characters is their regular need for influxes of cash. The books mentioned in Appendix N might well have been simply those that Gygax most liked, but that's not all they are. AD&D in Gygax's mind is reflective of the content of those books, including the impecuniousness of the characters.

The form and frequency of taxation depends upon the locale and the social structure. Duties are typically paid on goods brought into a country or subdivision thereof, so any furs, tapestries, etc. brought into a town for sale will probably be subject to duty. Excises are typically sums paid to belong to a particular profession or practice a certain calling; in addition, an excise can be levied against a foreign currency, for example, in order to change it into the less remarkable coin of the realm …

Gygax goes on at great length, defining each of the types of taxes mentioned in the section's title, along with the circumstances in which player characters might encounter them. I won't reproduce everything he says here, in the interests of space, but the section I just quoted should suffice to give a sense of what he intends. The whole paragraph is genuinely useful to the referee, if only because it demonstrates the wide variety of options available to him when it comes to extracting money from characters. I think it's also worth noting that Gygax reminds us that "the form and frequency of taxation depends upon the local and the social structure." It's a helpful reminder of the necessity for such details in any campaign setting.

If the Gentle Reader thinks that the taxation that he or she currently undergoes is a trifle strenuous for his or her income, pity the typical European populace of the Middle Ages. They paid all of the above, tolls being very frequent, with those trying to escape them by use of a byway being subject to confiscation of all goods with a fine and imprisonment possible also. Every petty noble made an extraction, municipalities taxed, and the sovereign was the worst of all.

I am no historian, but I think Gygax exaggerates slightly here – or at least he errs in treating the real medieval economy, which was largely agricultural in nature, with later cash-based economies. Even so, his large point stands that there were a considerable number of different taxes to which medieval folk were subject. He then offers an example of how he might use medieval-style taxation in an AD&D campaign.

As you can see, Gygax is quite inventive here – but also quite tedious. I completely agree with the notion that the referee ought to use taxes and similar levies to separate the characters from their wealth, but the system he puts forward here, though perhaps simpler than that at use in the actual Middle Ages, would be a pain to adjudicate in a campaign. I simply can't imagine making use of this more than a couple of times before I decided to give up, but perhaps I simply lack the necessary intestinal fortitude to be a properly Gygaxian AD&D DM.

Much more intriguing to me is what Gygax says about foreign currency and money changers.
The town does not encourage the use of foreign currency. Merchants and other business people must pay a fine of 5% of the value of any foreign coins within their possession plus face certain confiscation of the coins so they will typically not accept them. Upon entering the town non-residents are instructed to go to the Street of the Money Changers in order to trade their foreign money for the copper "cons," silver "nobs," gold "orbs," and platinum "royals".

I find this section interesting for a couple of reasons. First, I've long been a fan of the idea that there ought to be specific currency for each kingdom. In my old Emaindor setting, I took great pains to elucidate the currencies of every realm, along with their value in the standard AD&D monetary system. I never used generic "silver pieces" or "gold pieces" in my games after a certain point and I'm glad to see that Gygax suggests something similar here. The second thing I find interesting is the list of names Gygax offers for the various local coins. These are, so far as I know, unique to the DMG and don't reflect, say, the coins of the Free City of Greyhawk. I suppose they might be the names adopted in some other locations on Oerth, but, if so, I can't place them. Anyone with greater knowledge of the setting should feel free to school me in the comments.

14 comments:

  1. I have read the first two Greyhawk novels penned by Gygax. He did indeed use the term “gold orbs.” However I believe the other terms were platinum “plates”, electrum “luckies,” silver “nobles,” and copper “commons.” He also had a smaller coin “brass bits” IIRC.

    I suppose “nob” would be short for noble and “con” short for common.

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    1. Thanks for this. I only vaguely recalled the coin names from the Gord novels, so it was helpful to be reminded of them.

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    2. Copper "con" might be short for "conductor" if you've got enough scientifically-minded types and/or lightning wizards around. :)

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  2. In response to your point that this section is tedious in its detail, my mind immediately envisioned a 1000+ word blog post on someone's "taxation system" that they just invented. It was so visceral, I wondered if I had already seen one.

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  3. I'm no huge fan of Palladium, but I have to concede their unimaginatively-named Palladium Fantasy RPG has the best "fantasy coinage" section I've ever seen in a game, bar none. All sorts of coins for different nationalities with distinctive names, mostly illustrated (and some are pretty fancy), and many even have different denominations rather than the common trope of just one type of each material (gold, silver, etc) started by D&D. Nothing generic there. Quite inspirational.

    13th Age has some interesting ideas about coinage too. Canonically Dwarven coins are cubes that stack together into little towers and elven coins are often mixed alloys to reflect the mixed high/wood/dark elf types united under the Elf Queen. The Dragon Empire's coinage is Romanesque with the current Emperor's portrait on one side, and older ones are often worth more as antiques...and the Lich King's followers often ritually deface them to emphasize their master's claims to the throne.

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  4. BITD, we never seemed to progress past about level 5. by then, the GM had gotten tired of it, and either handed it off to other players, or switched systems. Teenagers are flakey.

    But because of this, we never had extra cash. always in hock for resurrections, cure diseases, information, repairs. Taxes? on what? I have a level 5 character in front of me, and he has 16 gp total. a couple of magic items, and a potion of fly. big whoop.

    this reminds me of Sons of Anarchy. if you watched it, they were almost never successful. I pointed out to my wife that Opie restores that bike, and sells it, and it is, up to that date, the most successful thing we had seen. otherwise, losers. then they get a porn studio, and the writers kill it, partially cause who wants them to just sit and watch porn be made, but also, being poor makes them interesting. Rich people just hand over money for problems to go away, poor people have to boost treasure and steal things. much much more fun to watch and to play.

    I don't know if I paid taxes twice the entire time I played. partially because of lack of success, but also who wants to roleplay an accountant?

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  5. Also, if you are playing xp for gp, then how does paying taxes assist your character? blow cash on a new sword, or carousing, spell research,etc, sure, but how does making sure the local sheriff checks over your wagon, and assesses the stuff in it, make you a better mage?

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    1. I really don't understand your question... PCs earned XP for treasure GAINED, not treasure SPENT. You wouldn't gain XP from paying taxes, no, but neither would you gain XP for buying a sword nor for paying for spell research.

      Gygax was recommending to use taxes to remove cash from PCs in order to keep them lean and hungry and always on the lookout for more adventure so as to acquire MORE cash... which the DM was to then unburden them of in more devious ways. The DMG even recommended an automatic deduction of 100gp per character level per week to represent the "fact" that adventuring PCs were spendthrifts who eagerly pissed away their money on wine, women, song, and assorted debaucheries. No sitting on giant piles of loot allowed. This was all just to ensure that PCs always had a damn good reason to go out adventuring again and again just to get more plunder.

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  6. I don't think Gygax does exaggerate regarding medieval taxes, though taxes were paid in kind rather than in cash, as you allude to by saying it was an agricultural economy. The average peasant in France not only paid an annual rent to the landlord for the land, but owed the church a percentage of crops and produce (even if the church wasn't the landlord), and also was responsible for a bewildering host of other taxes to the lord, such as a percentage of all produce (which differed from place to place), an inheritance tax whenever the head of the family died, and a different tax if they sold their tenancy (which wasn't always allowed anyway). There was also often a tax for marrying your daughter to someone who lived on another lord's lands. They were also usually required to bake their bread, press their grapes, and grind their grain at the seigneur's oven, press or mill, and had to pay (in kind) for the service. They also paid for grazing rights on commons, and owed the lord a certain number of days' unpaid labor per month or year. In some places only the lord was allowed to own a bull or other male animal and the peasants had to pay for his services as well. These were all taxes paid to the local lord and/or church; once the king started taxing the peasants directly during the Hundred Years' War things were even more onerous. There was also a salt tax which the central government collected by having a monopoly on salt and then forcing everyone (commoners) to buy a certain amount per year. People who sought to evade any of these fees faced stiff punishments, assuming they got caught. Most of these continued right up to 1789. Towns and cities had their own system of taxation, which were equally arbitrary and numerous. Even the British government taxed paper, soap and windows, for example, well into the 19th century.

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    1. well, do note, France got a revolution after that. Yes, indeed, France was a nasty monkey on the average persons back. and it did not let off in bad times, altho if you had a bad harvest, you paid a smaller amount (same %). but a lot of the other fees (note the origin of the word) were static, so a bad year, you could end up with nothing.

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  7. I played AD&D from 1980 through about 1986, and loved it. I will say, however, that Gygax is basically telling DM's to be a d!ck and nickle and dime the players, because he created as system where you need hundreds of thousands of gold pieces to level up.

    "The game requires you to steal, loot, or otherwise acquire hundreds of thousands of gold pieces to increase in ability. But, since players having hundreds of thousands of gold pieces at their disposal is a dis-insentive to go adventuring, or at the least, allows them to buy their way out of too many problems, here is a system to take away all that money from them that you just gave them....."

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    1. +1

      All that needed to be done was to make the ratio 1gp = 2xp and reduce the loot accordingly.

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  8. OD&D required PCs pay 1% of their current experience point total each game MONTH as upkeep until they established their own territory. This handles a number of issues in a simple, elegant way.

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    1. In AD&D it was 100/level/week, unless I am mistaken (maybe per month?) to represent general hardcore carousing.

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