One is occasionally in need of some ideas for additional ways to help the Player Characters part with some of their hard-earned Treasure. I am a firm believer that one of the more frustrating ways this can be found in the form of fickle fines or tricky types of taxation. I have seldom seen Players get more incensed at the very notion, and therefore supremely motivated to try and weasel out of these sorts of financial obligations. The desire to avoid paying them often leads to additional Adventure or interesting complications.
I do think it’s best to use these rather sparingly, and to signpost them thoroughly. I’ll often include Gossip about them on my Rumor Tables or drop details about them in conversations with NPCs so they don’t quite seem to spring from “out of the blue.” But they can also be a good way to add some local laws to a specific Settlement or apply some unusual customs to a Kingdom. As always, feel free to season any surcharges to taste for your table and the factors you see fit.
There's a special kind of rage only a GM's tax collector can produce, and you're right that it's incredibly useful at the table. My group will haggle over a single copper of hard-earned Treasure for twenty minutes of play, yet the same players treat a dragon's hoard as a shopping list — so fickle fines and tricky taxation hit a nerve that monsters never do. The best part is exactly what you point out: getting incensed at the very notion makes them supremely motivated to weasel out of it, and that's where the actual roleplaying happens. Half my favorite session memories are schemes to dodge some petty fee. A d100 of these is dangerous in the best way, and I'm already bracing for what the sumptuary statutes do to my players' fashion choices.
ReplyDelete