How does tithing work?

[Jon_Dahl]

You pay 10% of your monthly income to the church. Sounds simple, right? Well, I've found this quite difficult actually.

Adventuring paladin gains very modest amount of gold but also powerful magical items from his slain opponents. Should he pay tithe according to the value of the items? How about other valuable items such as art objects or gems?

Is it possible to "trick" tithing by sharing the treasure in a clever way? Tithing characters only take those items that are exempted (such as magical items) and non-tithing characters take gold and silver which would count in tithing. How about saying that you don't own something and you only "borrow" it?

How does the church even know if the character paid the right sum of tithe?

If someone could give me some all-encompassing and smart solution how to resolve tithing, I'd be much obliged.

If a CN rogue joins the local church, the clergy must have some smart way how to stop the rogue from messing with their system. Or do they have one?

 

[Yora]

It's basically cheating on your income tax. All the tricks used there should work in this situation as well.

 

[Dioltach]

And surely a LG Paladin should not be thinking of tricks to get out from under his obligations?

Anyway, I'd say that most organisations that levy any form of tax will have someone who is familiar with all the tricks.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Is it possible to "trick" tithing by sharing the treasure in a clever way?

The paladin I'm currently playing would be aghast at the very idea of trying to game his moral obligation.

But he's spending a significant portion of the adventuring 'down-time' at present running a soup kitchen, so he's right down one end of the 'charitable' spectrum.

My (very broad) generalisation would be that most Good churches would rely on donor honesty; LN churches would have a lot of paperwork and a verification process; CN churches wouldn't have a regular 10% tithe, but would rather shake down their congregants for donations on an ad-hoc basis when money ran short, and Evil churches would take what they wanted and you'd damned well not complain.

-Hyp.

 

[BriarMonkey]

For the most part, I'd think it's the honor system.

If you are tithing 10% of your wealth, then that means your wealth - it doesn't discriminate between liquid funds (gold and silver pieces) and other forms of wealth (magic and land and property). Thus, if you hauled in 100gp and 1000gp worth of art and property, you would owe the church 110gp in tithes.

However, that isn't to say that all churches must work the same way. The church of "The Sparkly Holy Guy" may require their tithes from all acquired gold, silver, gems, and jewels accumulated during the month; whereas the church of "The Legless Frog God" only asks that all copper accumulated during the month be tithed; and yet another church is well supported by the noble class, so they ask of their adventurer members that they tithe a total of three items of magical healing per year.

As for enforcement, that would really depend on the church, deity, and whatever other resources they have access to. For instance, if a church is well to do, they may be able to afford enchantments for things like detecting lies. Thus, when a tither offers their monthly dues, the tithing box may be so enchanted and the attendant clergyman asks the thither about their dues (which may or may not be asked in such a way as to provoke suspicion from the tither).

A poor church however, may just have to rely on the tither's honesty. But, if a clergyman is out and about and sees said tither in sparkly new plate armor, while astride their new heavy warhorse with new plate barding, yet their last tithe was only 10 copper, yeah, they will probably ask questions and try to extract their proper tithe.

The church's relation with the local nobles, or other centers of power, can also have an impact. If a tither is found to be a cheat, the church may be able to have that tither declared an outlaw, or have other legal (or other) actions taken against them through the nobles' abilities (given that the nobles [or other power centers] are the ones that make and effect enforcement of the laws).

Given that the rules leave the whole tithing thing pretty basic, you really have a lot of room to do what you want with it.

Heck, you could even make it such that churches assume adventurers to be rich and automatically require a flat tithe of 250gp per level per month. This could actually force some to go adventuring just to meet the tithe!

 

[Alan Shutko]

My answers:

• Adventuring paladin gains very modest amount of gold but also powerful magical items from his slain opponents. Should he pay tithe according to the value of the items? YES.
• How about other valuable items such as art objects or gems? YES.
• Is it possible to "trick" tithing by sharing the treasure in a clever way? I don't think it's possible to trick your god, though you might be able to trick the church.
• Tithing characters only take those items that are exempted (such as magical items) and non-tithing characters take gold and silver which would count in tithing. Nothing is exempt, so that's not a way to cheat.
• How about saying that you don't own something and you only "borrow" it? If that's really the truth, I think it's ok. If you're doing it to get out of the burden, I think your god will eventually have problems with it.
• How does the church even know if the character paid the right sum of tithe? It trusts you. You're a paladin.

In the paladin or cleric case, it should be very simple. If you are cheating the system, eventually your god will notice, and you'll lose your powers. Might take a while, but it will happen.

In the example of a CN rogue joining the church, I'd treat it as any other taxation thing. You can cheat, and since you're a lay member of the church, your god isn't paying much attention to you... You aren't getting powers after all. If you're a Sunday worshipper of Pelor and don't ask for much from your church, the clergy probably doesn't care how honest you are on your tithing. If you're asking for stuff on a regular basis but don't appear to be donating your fair share, they're going to start asking some hard questions about how it is that you seem to be wearing nice clothing, spending the nights up late in the tavern, and partying it up without making any money.

 

[MarkB]

Tithing is something that's usually applied to a person or company's legal earnings, and is generally carried out upon establishments or people of fixed abode. I'm not sure how, or even if, it would be applied to the "adventurer economy", any more than normal taxation.

One simple option would be for the church to record the character's current net worth, as represented by their wealth, gear and properties. Then, next time they come to visit, repeat the assessment, and base the tithe on the difference between the two values.

Loophole abuse might be discouraged via use of the church clerics' divination spells - not necessarily on every occasion, but via 'spot audits' either at random or wherever suspicion arises.

 

[GSHamster]

Adventurers are also not really the norm. Most churches tithes are probably centered around more about normal life.

Like a church tithe might be 10% of the harvest for farmers, and the harvest stands in for your total income. Or if you operate a shop, it's strictly 10% of sales.

For adventurers, I rather think that most churches would just work on their honesty and fear of the afterlife. Remember that rich people often gave more than their required tithe to church, to solidify political alliances, to ensure forgiveness of sins, and just because it was expected of them. A rich person usually helped pay for major renovations to the church, and often paid the wage of local priest.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Agreed with most of the above, but with this caveat: if you worship a god associated with thievery, not only might cheating on your tithe be expected, there may be church operatives whose job it is to steal from the faithful just to try to balance things out.

(and they may do a little skimming themselves...)

 

[Slander]

At face value, I'd agree with the main consensus above. It's easy to remember, implement, and be done with it.

However, you have to remember that PC Wealth is typically a game mechanic used to limit character power, and not an economic simulator. So you need to consider whether docking the Paladin 10% of his mechanical power is on par with the fictional expectations of his church. A flat fee for PCs may be more appropriate. Or not