How much land for new Noble ?

[S'mon]

Basically, from the POV of a PC ruler it doesn't matter that much what specific figure you use for taxation, the important thing is the ratio between whatever income is given and the expenses that have to come out of it. IMC that probably just means troops & possibly fortresses, so I want a low figure that gives a sensible number of peasants per man-at-arms. To me a bad system is one where lord earns 5gp/month per head of population and pays 2gp/month per man-at-arms; no historical society could afford to keep more than 5-10% of its population as professional soldiery so unless the lord of a small manor is sitting on a large diamond mine, the figures should reflect that.

 

[gizmo33]

Again, this isn't a question of wealth. Free status indicates that you are free (or at least freer) of obligations that someone else must meet.

Yea, we agree on that. I think I'm clear on what you were saying now - that there were certain individuals that escaped taxes so that the average would not be 50%. I was thinking of the obligation of yeoman to maintain arms and armor that would balance out against their freedoms with regards to not having to work the lord's fields and such. But what you're saying is that the % paid in taxes is tied to custom and agreement rather than free/unfree status, which agrees with what I've read.

So from what I can tell, you're suggesting that manor income be derived in a sort of "backwards" way. Figure out what a manor needs to break even and figure from there. Make d20 rolls against a reeve's or bailiff's skill check. I suppose a DM needs to make a list of what he thinks are manorial expenses and figure the income from there.

I've read dozens of books about the two-three field system and the other details of medieval economics until my eyes glazed over (which is quickly). Just last night I skimmed a used book I recently purchased on "social and economic history" of medieval Europe. The chapter on the manorial system says - "we basically don't know how much money these guys made from their manors". Disappointing from a game perspective. And surprising, considering all of the "manorial rolls" that are supposedly available with this information. I've seen the information in these rolls reproduced within books, but I've never seen a "big picture" analysis of just what people were spending and what they were making. About all I know is that peasants were drinking a gallon of beer a day. Hmmm.

 

[gizmo33]

I'm a bit sceptical of the 50% taxation figure for villeins, I suspect it depends largely on how you quantify eg working on the lord's fields. I've pretty much excluded that sort of non-pecuniary feudal service from my model on the basis that at most it provides enough food to maintain the inhabitants of the castle, not a surplus that can be sold for new armour, weapons and the stuff players care about.

The "economic and social history" book I was talking about in my post above supports your position on this. The author made the claim (although I'm not completely convinced) that a lack of ability to turn surplus into cash kept manor lords from exploiting their peasants to the degree that later slave systems did in more efficient capitalist environments. His basic point was "why would a lord make his peasants work harder if he was just going to have to eat all of the produce anyway."

The 5 sp/person figure you use is similar to what I use (in my case it's based on the 1E rules - I think, it's been a long time). That figure does a pretty good job of the lord breaking even as follows:

Typical Manor (monthly totals):
Manor income: 336 gp (420 person manor; 8 sp/month/person)
Tax to overlord: -50 gp
2 mounted seargents: -30.4 gp each
3 archers: -3.8 gp each
upkeep for knight and family: -50 gp
horse upkeep: -30 gp (heavy warhorse plus some riding horses)
manor maintenance: -20 gp (ballpark figure for 1/2% of large stone building plus grounds)
reeve and officials: -36 gp
bailiff: -36 gp

This leaves 41.8 gp/mo surplus which my NPC knights fritter away on miscellaneous expenses - probably pushing their "upkeep" figure closer to 100 gp which matches one of the higher upkeep values in the 3E DMG.

I assume additional boon work, fines, etc. cover any miscellaneous expenses that I've forgotten. Comments are welcome.

 

[kigmatzomat]

The 1/6 figure I use comes AIR from ancient Greece (I did ancient history in secondary school), it gives reasonable results. I'm assuming that 1sp/day for a lone adult really is a subsistence wage as in DMG, ie people at that wage are virtually untaxable because they'd starve.

I always assumed that was post-tax as were all gear prices. Except in the most detail-oriented of games, it really doesn't matter if the pretax pay is 1gp/day or 2sp/day as long as you don't apply taxes on top of the PHB's equipment list.

I generally don't pull back the curtain on taxation until players are in the position of getting special tax dispensations in lieu of actual cash rewards. Grog the Barbarian really doesn't care or need to know how much of the 2cp a pint of beer costs is taxes. My players "earn" about 100gp/year by not paying entrance fees into the cities in their home realm. They are also building some defensive structures on their lands for "free" because their taxes are reduced by the expense.

I'm sure an economist will explain to the effects of an excessive tax base when you factor in the global economy but in an RPG where many countries operate in a partial economic vacuum (imports and exports are a tiny percentage of GDP), I don't think it matters a whole lot.

 

[gizmo33]

I always assumed that was post-tax as were all gear prices.

AFAIK two big taxes that we are used to in the modern world that are missing in the medieval are the sales tax and the payroll tax. The wagon full of goods is taxed as it comes through the town gates, and not based on each item actually sold.

Both types of taxes probably would require a level of record-keeping not known to medieval folks. Things like payroll tax are made up in other areas, forced labor for example. So instead of taxing a serf on what he's earned somewhere else, the lord simply requires that the serf work from him a few days out of the month.

Grog the Barbarian really doesn't care or need to know how much of the 2cp a pint of beer costs is taxes.

Neither does Gizmo the DM in most cases

They are also building some defensive structures on their lands for "free" because their taxes are reduced by the expense.

The rulers in your campaign must love the PCs. The right to build fortifications and private armies was very heavily regulated during historical periods. The last thing a king wants to do is have to lay siege to some super-fortress that an ambitious adventurer has created in an outlying province. And the army he would bring to the siege would be further reduced in size by the loss of the very taxes that the ruler was using to subsidize the outlaw adventurer's fortress. Well - as I said - your rulers are braver than mine. Mine typically don't trust the PCs once they're out of bowshot.

I'm sure an economist will explain to the effects of an excessive tax base when you factor in the global economy but in an RPG where many countries operate in a partial economic vacuum (imports and exports are a tiny percentage of GDP), I don't think it matters a whole lot.

I agree that it is sensible not to get in too deep. What I'm looking for with economics in general is a result that makes sense to all parties. A suit of platemail should be created in a reasonable amount of time for a reasonable amount of money. The amount of goods sold in town should have a reasonable correspondance to the taxes collected by a lord. PCs can be involved in this process at a variety of places - craft checks and collecting money from their property in the two cases I gave. I would like a sensible system that ties this all together - so that a smith doesn't make a 500 gp profit from a suit of armor, or a knight of a small manor can't field a 1000 soldier army.

 

[S'mon]

As Gizmo has noted, a medieval setting does not have the ability to levy sales tax or income tax. Taxes will be property taxes levied annually, duties on imports & exports through the city gates & docks (I hit the PCs with that when they brought some chain shirts into town to sell) and requirements for feudal service. Some modern taxes could also work, eg Inheritance Tax on the wealthy (unlikely in a feudal society) and Stamp Duty on the sale of land & buildings. Medieval towns had a narrow tax base, most tax came from a small number of property owners - burghers - who were also usually the only people counted as real 'citizens'.

 

[S'mon]

The 5 sp/person figure you use is similar to what I use (in my case it's based on the 1E rules - I think, it's been a long time).

Tried to reply to this yesterday, crappy office PC *grr*

In 1e AD&D a Fighter got 7sp/person/month (at 20sp=1gp), Cleric got 9sp/month presumably including tithes, the poor Magic-User lord only got 5sp/person/month. I find a total 2-10sp/person/month in tax works well, with minor lords in a centralised kingdom like England typically sending 20% of revenue to higher lord/king in Salt Tax. In a decentralised kingdom like medieval France they may have no obligation to the king other than military service in war time.

In my current game one PC rules a vast "Norse Empire" something like the medieval Swedish empire, but his actual retainers are few, he only has 6,000 men in his own Royal Army (costing about 180,000gp/month) while his lords/jarls are "free lords" and keep all their own revenues for themselves.

 

[S'mon]

I agree that if the GM lets the player administer his domain's finances he needs to be very careful you don't get the "minor baron with 10,000 troops" effect. The baseline IMC is 5sp/person/month for a domain and standard infantry cost 18gp/month including leaders, equipment, food & maintaining accommodation, etc. Add in cavalry and it's about 25gp/man/month, so at most you have 1 warrior per 50 population and that's assuming no major fortifications and no significant court costs. In practice mainitaining a baron's household will usually be at least 200gp/month on top, so a realm of 3000 = 1500gp/month; -200 = 1300gp for troops, makes 52 troops assuming they're a cheap configuration - 4/5 infantry & crossbowmen, 1/5 cavalry. Maintaining plate-armoured knights with heavy warhorses will cost more, around 50gp/knight/month.

 

[S'mon]

Here's a typical minor barony IMC, the Barony of Hathor. Baron Hathor's holding is on the frontier and he maintains a substantial body of men-at-arms to defend his castle.

Population: 2500 Tax income: 1250gp/month.

Baron's court: 200gp/month (includes cost of flunkies)

Cavalry:
Knights: 8 x 50gp = 400gp/month
Squires: 8 x 25 gp = 400gp/month

Infantry:
6 Artillerists - 100gp/month
23 Arbalesters - 342 gp/month

All troop costs are inclusive of the armourers, weaponsmiths etc needed to maintain them.

Total expenditure: 1242 gp/month. So the Baron is adding a cool 8gp/m to his treasury.

 

[kigmatzomat]

The rulers in your campaign must love the PCs. The right to build fortifications and private armies was very heavily regulated during historical periods. The last thing a king wants to do is have to lay siege to some super-fortress that an ambitious adventurer has created in an outlying province. And the army he would bring to the siege would be further reduced in size by the loss of the very taxes that the ruler was using to subsidize the outlaw adventurer's fortress. Well - as I said - your rulers are braver than mine. Mine typically don't trust the PCs once they're out of bowshot.

Special case. The party's lands are adjacent to a massive swamp in the heart of the kingdom filled with monsters. The swamp is too big to drain so there's a 10-15 mile "high risk" zone around the swamp that hasn't been worth inhabiting despite being quite good land. The players are on good terms with the dominant race and have been granted lands right on the border of the swamp. Assuming these new settlements don't get wiped out, the king will begin expanding into that "high risk" zone, keeping the PCs as a buffer. The PCs lands are relatively small, only about 300 acres each with roughly a third of it swamp land.

I've also only given them a "thanedom" instead of a perpetual grant, so right now the lands revert to the kingdom on their death. (And adventurers have a horrible life expectancy). The duke over the area has taken the opportunity to use this as a dumping ground for some of the more problematic peasants, alchoholics and shirkers in particular since there's no ready ale supply and there's plenty of opportunities for "accidents" when the other peasants get tired of the shirkers. It's less of an administrative headache and it's technically a "step up" since they'll be assigned larger plots.

The players are funding the road building, assarting of fields, building wells, drainage, barns, and simple fortifications on their dime. The tax discount doesn't even come into play unless they get the farms up and producing in the 5 years they have to recoup.

Tax "incentive" really is the word. I really don't think they'll recoup their initial investment in less than 5 years and most likely it will take 10 since they aren't particularly aggressive about this. (The paladin's the exception; he's the only one with the organization skills and highly focused Followers. He's going to be profitable in 3 years but it's a little easier for a Duke to sleep when there's a paladin in charge.)