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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sejs" data-source="post: 3356489" data-attributes="member: 4910">Taxing adventurers is doable, it just takes a certain degree of finesse.  You do not hire people to resolve dangerous situations with cunning and violence, only to tell them when they come out "now give me a chunk of what you recovered or I'll #$%^ing spank you".  You hired these people to be cunning and violent; threaten them and you run the risk of them becoming cunning and violent towards you.  You don't want that.Brute taxation requires two things: accountability and enforceable penalty.  Difficult when it comes to adventurers.  You don't have the information structure in place to have external accountability - you'd pretty much have to rely on them declaring what they got (...but they're cunning).  And we all know how enforceable penalty goes (...and violent).  That's where the finesse comes in.You don't tax adventurers on a raw percentage of treasure gained. You tax them in more subtle ways.Provide patronage, lisencing and marque.  Nominally this provides them with more flexible rights when it comes to certain laws, ensures the adventurers a degree of support and hospitality, etc.  A guild hall where they can rest up if they don't mind sleeping in dormatories, 10% discount for certain services such as armor repair at associated trades guild smithy, etc.  In return, this costs the adventurer an annual fee.  Possibly make it a tiered system if you're feeling fancy.  Put it to the tune of something along the lines of 10 gold per quarter, and you're already looking at a decent tax income per head.  Much better than a peasant'll generate, and they're itching to pay it because they think its to their benefit.Second thing you can do: grant title, especially to underdeveloped or frontier lands.  These cunning and violent people will pump their own money into developing your kingdom, and will gladly turn over taxes on their lands when the time comes.  Make them an asset.Ultimately, don't be adversarial and it's easy to tax adventurers.  Just don't make it look like you're doing it, that's all it takes.</blockquote>

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