Best way to revitalize the economy of a town in D&D

Popular methods from history....

1) Declare an opposing faith illegal, than take all their lands and gold.

2) Declare a particular race (I suggest gnomes) enemies of the state and take all their business, and set them to work in forced labour camps.

Oh course if you have a paladin in the party you might have trouble with option 2, but on the other hand it could make option 1 easier. :confused:

Of course you might find yourself at war with your neighbours soon after. So plenty of opportunities for looting.
 

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First off, I'm with Bagpuss. Get all this modern politics and economics out of your head. The next question is: what on earth is costing the town so much money? Is all your labour wage labour? I'm guessing that's probably the problem. A good medieval economy transacts a large portion of its business outside a cash economy. You should have plenty of other stuff to pay people with like lands and mining rights. More importantly, you can levy a labour tax (ie. payment in the form of guard duty, street cleaning, etc.) on guilds, individuals, etc. for the privileges they enjoy in the city.

Anyway, if you could give us a rough breakdown of what items your revenues and expenditures are made up of, that would be a help.
 

And if the orcs are "out there" then there is somebody behind you who isn't paying their fair share of keeping the border safe. Make it clear, either they cough up or you make your own truce with the orcs, maybe even granting them safe passage in return for a share of the loot. It may even be necessary to stir up a fake Great Orc Crusade to get these funds a coming.

Borrow too, but be sure the lenders fall into one of Bagpuss' two categories - you get the benefits today and can delay the trials for another day.

See what it would cost to hire some of the orcs, either individually or by tribal tribute. They'll likely be cheaper than your guards, and by dividing the orcish forces you will face a smaller foe. Beware of being sucked into intertribal civil wars though. This method was the foundation of foreign policy of the Roman and British empires and has a long track record.

Put the mining reputation of your region to good work. Announce major gold finds in the orcish regions and tax the hordes who come looking for it.

Start minting your own coin and specie with low precious metal content. Stamp it with something old or orcish and claim you found it in a treasure hord somewhere.
 

Thanks for the ideas, guys. I've already requested the financial information on our expenditures from the DM, just waiting for them to come back.

I'd like to keep our solutions on the up and up for the most part. We're generally good (with neutral tendencies), and actually want to help out the town legitimately.

No attacking other towns, we're part of a kingdom and the king's troops outnumber ours probably 1000:1 (doesn't help that our army got devastated by a combined orc/dragon horde a couple months ago).

I'm not sure we can hire orcs, they've been attacking us for a long time, and there was even an assassination attempt by them on the new lord of the city. Besides, I don't think orcish guards would be likely to induce people to want to move to our town.

Party is a bard/cleric of boccob (lord of the city), fighter/rogue/swashbuckler (captain of the guard, me), soon to be loremaster wizard (court wizard), straight fighter crossbowman (commander of the soldiers defending the city walls), and a soon to be assassin ranger (official huntmaster/bounty hunter). We're all high 6th or low 7th level. Human except for the Wood Elf ranger (originally human, got reincarnated) and the Githyanki wizard (also reincarnated from human, but under special circumstances).

We're probably among the highest level people in the town. There are a dozen or so NPCs about our level that have positions of power within the town, but no 25th level wizards :) We do have a juvenile silver dragon living with us. We rescued her from being killed by a bunch of brigands (also got an airship out of the deal, though it needs some serious repairs before it can be used, and our wizard can't do them himself).

I'm sure we could establish trade routes, assuming we can find something to trade. The city is on a river with a modicum of fishermen. Once the mine's back up, we can trade the copper. I like the idea of trading with tribesmen to the north. There must be non-orcs around, and setting up good relations with them could be very useful.

-The Souljourner
 
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Would it be reasonable for you to make the copper mine city property? If the revenue from that flowed directly into your coffers instead of indirectly through taxes, you might be in much better shape, cash-flow wise.

The dragon also intrigues me. There has to be a way to make use of that. Have you pumped it for contacts? Perhaps it has parents in the area that could be induced to keep an eye on the town, greatly reducing the threat of orc attacks. Plus, I know I'd be much more inclined to immigrate to someplace that had a couple of friendly and fully-grown silvers nearby.
 

Too bad you don't have a druid.

Plant Growth, and Repel Insects would be able to help local farmers have a better yield of crops.

It would only help short term, and relatively small scale. If done long term, or large scale then food prices would adjust (supply and demand), but if you want to "increase your tax base" in a couple of months then it should work.
 

Don't forget that most medieval societies don't have large amounts of coin. Consider that most commerce went through a barter system. Things have value besides coin and gems.

Also, I recall reading somewhere that people requesting healing services from churches can buy them "in advance" and be given a note of purchase. The owner of said note can use this item like currency and turn it in to other churches for healing, or trade it for other goods. Pay cash, get paper in return. Could be good for business.
 

Herobizkit said:
Don't forget that most medieval societies don't have large amounts of coin. Consider that most commerce went through a barter system. Things have value besides coin and gems.

Also, I recall reading somewhere that people requesting healing services from churches can buy them "in advance" and be given a note of purchase. The owner of said note can use this item like currency and turn it in to other churches for healing, or trade it for other goods. Pay cash, get paper in return. Could be good for business.

Yiggity-Yoink! Thats a killer idea.

Back on topic: What if you did like a state/city run university for wizards? You have a wizard in the group; establish a Wizards Academy and have an entrance fee/yearly dues. The whole thing is run by the party (aka: the city government) and that way all the tuition and dues go right back to you.

Another thing that happend back in the old medieval days is debt liquidation. When a new ruler took power in a town/city/state, to get on the 'good side' of the populace, often times the ruler would void all previous outstanding debts citizens of the city had (as well as the debts the city government had with others). You could pretty much re-write the tax system ground up in your favor this way.

Lastly: If it's possible, go to war with the orcs. You mentioned they had some dragon support... but sometimes it pays to do war. Make them orcs pay tribute to your might city!
 

To get the mine back up and running, allow wealthy nobles in the town to pay for shares of the mine. For each share they buy, they get a percentage of the profits and you can take your share by taxing the exports. How lawful is your group? The bard might be able to skim some of the money invested by the nobles off the top and put it into the city's coffers. A bad way to start your reign of the city, but so long as the orcs are repelled, who's going to question it? The city lord's also a cleric correct? He could tour the city's churchs giving sermons and encourage the people to give back to the fine city that raised them and the churchs that help cloth the poor. With people donating money to helpful orginizations within the city, there's less burden on the government to fund things.

I think that each of the player characters need to have a "take charge" attiude about governing the city and get down and dirty with the people they rule over. The bard needs to give lecture tours to inspire pride in one's town and roots, if possible, he needs to be on the front lines using inspire courage on his troops when the fight the orcs and healing them during/after the battle. The wizard should take one a select number of pupils to tutor them in local history, teach them very basic magic (such as cantrips) and perform very basic spellcasting services to the noble families of the city. Your fighter/rogue and ranger should be both teaching the guard how to fight and develop a very rigid practice regimint for the troops. If there's a constant threat of invasion, they should be practicing their sword play and the ranger should be honing the scouting techniques of your away teams.

What has the silver dragon been up to? Is it possible for her to help with the repairs of the airship?

Once you have come control of the city and the mine's up and running, you could use the airship for two things. One, its a very quick way to get around. It can either haul copper from town to town to sell and return back with the cash. You can sell seats to noble families to give them a tour of their homes by way of the air; they'd also pay a lot of money to travel by air. I point you towards Eberron's CS book for more info on that. In addition, it can be used as a scouting tool to see what those orcs are up to. If might get a chance or two to strikeat them very quickly and quietly by using it.
 

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