In a modern-day game, I'd expect taxes to just be rolled into the cost of items and your lifestyle; it's something my character can worry about on their own time. Using the wrong tax rate would be an instant immersion killer.

For a fantasy game, it's never came up.

I don't bother with them in modern games, assuming them part of the prices. In fantasy/medieval/sci - fi games however...well, they are that one certain thing alongside death .

I take a bit of delight to emulate all this mess that were pre - Industrial  taxation systems as well, going so that taxes practically change from city to city, and you don't want to pass through unstable lands, because there every inch of the road has it's own robber baron, taxing your arse for carrying goods through his prerogative. Of course, at the same time, I usually focus on taxes that concern the players (though I invent some for NPCs as well, to explain why for example the village isn't extraordinarily rich, so to speak) - so they are unlikely to pay a census or "chimney  tax", unless they are caught by a tax collector.

Taxes on income and property and tithes (for Catholics) are assessed each year for characters in Flashing Blades. There's an incentive toward gaining a title or pursuing a career in the Church or the military, all of whom pay less or no taxes.

In Traveller I assumed they were included in the prices of the items or cargo - in fact, a poor roll on the Actual Value table for speculative cargo could be explained as an import tax, while a good roll could be explained as finding a loophole to that same tax code.

Alright, I run Renaissance-tech fantasy.  Sales taxes do exist, if in so far as taxes assessed to merchants, but there's no reason for the PCs to see that if they're not themselves merchants -- that's just part of the price they pay for things.

As far as being exempt from taxes generally?  Of course not.  Now, yes, there are parts of my world which are lawless, but I don't care how "powerful" they think themselves, the monarchs and their forces are always more powerful ... that's why they *are* the authorities.  Whacking out the tax collectors makes you an outlaw, and bad things happen to outlaws in the end.  My PCs pay the tolls to cross bridges and go through gates, and they pay the fees to get licenses to enchant or have retinues, and they pay the taxes on property they own, and they pay the fines for violating various sumptuary laws.  Not too many of them have chosen to be poor or outlaws.

Just re-played Power Behind the Throne a few months back.

The cleric got hit with a 700 gp tax...the party was nearly ready to attack the entire city at the outrage.

So no, generally, I don't have taxes, although I used to use them in the 80s. Players just can't handle it anymore.

Quote from: Doom;681893Players just can't handle it anymore.

Some players are fucking crybabies.

O.K., so focusing on a more specific example.

Lets say with an an island, let's call it Hispaniola for ease of reference. There are three major ports on Hispaniola , Tortuga with has no tax (because Pirates!), Port-au-Prince which has around the normal sales tax for the world (lets say about 10%) and Santo Domingo that has a sales tax that is double that of most ports in the world (so around 20%).

How would you handle that set up in your games?

Quote from: jadrax;682005O.K., so focusing on a more specific example.

Lets say with an an island, let's call it Hispaniola for ease of reference. There are three major ports on Hispaniola , Tortuga with has no tax (because Pirates!), Port-au-Prince which has around the normal sales tax for the world (lets say about 10%) and Santo Domingo that has a sales tax that is double that of most ports in the world (so around 20%).

How would you handle that set up in your games?

Most people are going to go to trade and buy things at Port-au-Prince. There would have to be a really strong set of incentives to bother going to Santo Domingo. I would expect the PCs to want to go to Tortuga though, because Pirates!

I think Santo Domingo needs something going for it, because as it is it would get a lot less business. Maybe it's a lot easier to find business contacts because it's a large city or something.

Also, with this setup, I'd expect a few more powerful pirates or enterprising merchants to start doing business in Tortuga at around 5% off the total value. Remember that it wasn't quite a lawless hive of scum and villainy but had its own rules and elite.

So you should balance good with the bad. Santo Domingo gets the most taxes off top but best service times and buyer credibility. Port-au-Prince is the middle option. And Tortuga will buy your stuff cheaper some of the time, alter terms mid-transaction other times and occasionally just dump your corpse into the bay and abscond with the ship and goods.

Since you can't exactly go and browse things on eBay, every trip costs time and money and you'll have to choose one based on risk, profitability and past experiences.

If the players get a big haul out of a dungeon, they tend to meet a taxman when they get to the next big city. He generally takes a small chunk of their money (but nothing outrageous).

I follow the advice in the AD&D DMG and use tax as a way to whittle down the piles of treasure acquired by PCs. So if they're seen to be hauling lots of loot out of a dungeon and into a nearby city, the local lord will step in and demand his cut - usually 10%. I'm very much a fan of the 'now you have all that phat loot, but how are you going to remove, transport, and safeguard it' approach to treasure. It leads to all sorts of amusing roleplaying scenarios.

Sales tax is just one sort of tax, regressive, and if unusually high or low generally indicative of a shift of tax burden from one sector to the cost of living sphere.

So Tortuga is just ridiculously dangerous. Sure you won't get taxed, but your treasure lasts only as long as you can keep it. Thieves and brigands and organized corruption conspire to empty you out ASAP. Then you are just another equal where you steal from every other pirate to survive! Jolly good fun. Contraband, ill gotten luxuries, and illegal contacts abound.

Santo Domingo at 20% sales tax might be a land fortuitous to land holders, or is going through an extremely hot inflationary money rush. As the tax burden has shifted to cost of living, it likely has a colonial outlook on the economy there. Likely rum and sugar is king, landowners are making out like bandits, and to hold inflation in check and curb migration of mainland poor people 20% sales tax is installed. It would be the best place to buy a title, tract of land, go "legit" and flip a treasure haul into a dynasty. Luxury goods and gov't connections abound.

Port-au-Prince with 10% sales tax would be normal commercially and likely placed to attract the unambitious masses. That means they are looking for settlers as functionaries. There'd be a decent spread of goods, few luxuries, middling contacts in either direction (legit v. underworld) and generally the safest place of the three.

That's how I'd read that tax data.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;681926Some players are fucking crybabies.

+1.  If I ever had a group so sunk in an entitlement mentality that they wanted to take on an entire city because they were (sob!) Forced To Pay Taxes, well ... I'd let them.  Maybe they'd be lucky enough to die in battle instead of being taken to swing or to be galley slaves.

As far as Jadrax's hypothetical, while other folks have made good comments, I've a couple thoughts:

* Beyond other comments on tax-free, piratical Tortuga, a place that's genuinely lawless doesn't have law-abiding businesses.  Each and every business is going to be in the pocket of one ganglord or another, and it's NOT going to be cheaper than Santo Domingo or Port-au-Prince -- it's going to be more expensive, because trade is a lot less likely to happen, the ganglords have monopolies, the pirates have nowhere else to go, and the sheer inflationary pressure of the loot will drive prices sky-high.  If any pirate coming right off of the dock into a wharfside tavern has a pocket full of gold doubloons, then a flagon of wine is going to cost one of those doubloons, and the pretty doxy over there a good bit more than that.  The only way this would change is if one pirate lord -- or a consortium of pirate lords -- took control of the port ... at which point they'd levy taxes.

* Consider how wealthy many RPG parties are.  Is 20% really that large a bite?  I wouldn't think so.  I'd think you'd have to go +50% or more to really turn a party off.

Good posts all around on that little example .

Quote from: jadrax;682005O.K., so focusing on a more specific example.

Lets say with an an island, let's call it Hispaniola for ease of reference. There are three major ports on Hispaniola , Tortuga with has no tax (because Pirates!), Port-au-Prince which has around the normal sales tax for the world (lets say about 10%) and Santo Domingo that has a sales tax that is double that of most ports in the world (so around 20%).

How would you handle that set up in your games?

Actually Santo Domingo'd have a huge trade going on. Sadly, it'd exist only on paper, as exploitive merchants'd create fake invoices of purchases in Santo Domingo, then "export" the fictional goods to their partners in Port - au - Prince, then demand Sales Tax Returns from Crown of Spain.




Jokes aside (and a cool scenario hook, you must admit, though I think VAT Returns on exports are a modern invention - that said, they may be not, truth be told pre - Industrial/Smithian Economics taxation was a gargantuan mess).

First questions we need to ask ourselves in this setup, is why and how it works.

So why is this tax difference so high? Is owner of Santa Domingo collecting war taxes? Is he funding social works? Is perhaps PaP's economy so good that they can afford tax cuts? Or is PaP trying to bankrupt SD economically, by stealing it's trade away from it?

10% difference in sales tax is a huge thing, so it'd seem like an obvious thing that people'd be massively emigrating to PaP. Well, it's also the difference between VAT in Cyprus and Sweden, and you don't really see Swedes massively emigrating (except to spend retirement in place with a cheaper cost of living) to Cyprus. So Santo Domingo may still actually have a good influx of immigrants, if the living quality there is better, and/or if it provides work with pay that nullifies the greater tax in the long run. If the wages & quality (and safety - this may also change due to warfare, as people'll flee to avoid draft/war taxes/pllaging) of life are similar or even better for PaP over SD, you will experience massive migration from SD to PaP - some people will remain of course, either because they are simply content, lack money or skills to move, or perhaps because rulers of SD controls migration by means of force.

It's worthy also to remember that while sales tax is an ancient invention, it was, for the most time, exchanged for head taxes and various services/land usage taxes, as they were simply easier to collect, in times where barter was still quite often a basis of economy for most people in lower classes.

As for the trade itself - it'd appear that in general, commerce'd flow more heavily in PaP and Tortuga, especially when it comes to exports. However, a saving grace for SD may be if it's:

A) Manages to produce things cheaper than on PaP, due to advantage in production technology (I think this one's pretty much off given the vibe of this example, but hey - maybe magic?)
or
B) Produces something that's PaP and Tortuga are simply incapable of producing, either because of technological specialisation again (in Medieval times, it was pretty common for, for example, glass specialists to be practically kept prisoners, so valuable was their trade), or because of land specifics (as Opajr's suggested, sugar and tobacco perhaps).

Last of all, the case of Tortuga. There's actually an interesting scenario to also consider here - is there really no tax? I'd imagine some local warlords/big fish racketeering off people there, running a protection racket that'd be effectively taxation. Plus, as noted before - the problem is that safety of merchant practice there is very, very much non - existent. That is, of course, for the Pirates! scenario.

Quote from: Rincewind1;682397First questions we need to ask ourselves in this setup, is why and how it works.

Arguably it did not actually work. Trade clearly diminished in the Spanish Colonies due to this.

[/Quote]
So why is this tax difference so high? Is owner of Santa Domingo collecting war taxes? Is he funding social works? Is perhaps PaP's economy so good that they can afford tax cuts? Or is PaP trying to bankrupt SD economically, by stealing it's trade away from it? [/Quote]

It was Spanish policy at the time that its colonies would have to fund their own defense and this is historically part of how they went about it. The double normal rate (actually it was closer to 20% on imports and 40% on exports but I simplified it) was imposed across all their colonies, but Hispaniola was the only one that had major competition on the same island.

The Spanish also did not do much production, Port-au-Prince was heavily surrounded by French sugar plantations to make money. In Santo Domingo they did not even bother cutting the jungle back.

But world building aside (which is very interesting in its own right) I am still interested how people would model this kind of thing *In Game*. For example, would you charge people 10% more in Santo Domingo and 10% less in Tortuga? Would you only do that on bulk purchases or bulk sales? Would you just gloss over it and rely on description to set the scene?