August 29, 2025 • 13 mins
Today’s episode looks at something players never expect but kings and lords never forget: taxes. From coins and gems to tolls and property, I’ll cover how to add taxes into your game, why it makes the world feel more real, and how to turn them into adventure hooks instead of paperwork.
#ADnD #OldSchoolDnD #OSR
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:18):
Hey, welcome back to the podcastEvil Dungeon Master Universe
Podcast. I'm your host, Evil Dungeon
Master Vince, it is Friday. It's time for another podcast.
The weekend is upon us. Hopefully you'll have a game
going on out there. If not, hopefully you're doing
something in gaming, if not planning or reading or
something. As long as you're doing
something as far as AD and D or your favorite game, then you're
(00:38):
pretty much doing something. And that sounds silly anyway.
Ask the DM at the evil dm.com. theevildm.com is my website.
patreon.com/the Evil DM if you'dlike to support my efforts and
throw a few bucks that way. I appreciate it.
That's about it.youtube.com/evildmrumble.com/evil DM.
(01:01):
Alright, I think I'm done. Anyway, today we're going to
talk a little bit about something that most DMS kind of,
you know, forget about. And I found a really cool
article in an old Polyhedron magazine number.
I believe it's 30. Let me flip back here. 38.
(01:21):
Yeah. Yeah.
Listed as #38 and that is the role of taxes in your campaign.
Now a lot of D Ms. kind of forget about the whole tax
situation and it's also I know with with the whole training and
everything that's the way to getthe gold away from the players.
(01:42):
I understand that not a lot of people I know with you play with
the training aspect for levelingup, which is fine.
Your, your campaign, your rules,you do what you want.
But there has to be a taxation system with society.
There is a taxation system. I do a taxation system in my
games with the monthly tax thinggoing on.
(02:06):
That's listed inside the ADDDMS guide.
But there is another one in polyhedron #38 called The Role
of Taxes by Rodney J Paddock. Paddock, I don't know, pronounce
the last name. And this is the example that
they give you right in the beginning.
And I'll just I'll read that andgo over this kind of briefly and
(02:27):
I'll include the screenshot of this one page in the notes for
this show on my website. So you can kind of look it over
yourself but it says DM after counting the last of your
treasure you find you have 10,000 gold pieces and upon
receiving your reward it will total 15,000 gold pieces.
Party good, we go to the king and ask for our reward.
(02:51):
DM. The king deducts 15% tax from
your reward and gives you the remainder party taxes.
What are you talking about? So one of the puzzling things
about campaigns in the last. In fact parties or mercenaries
go through light whatever at paying a copper in tax prices it
(03:13):
says here. And why is this?
This article answers the questions and provides a system
for taxing PCs. So why have a taxation system?
This is what it lists. Throughout literature and
history, people have taxed in one form or another.
Kingdoms and baronies are expensive to operate.
For any king, the money is needed for the upkeep of an
(03:36):
army, food, land, or gain through taxation.
However, some kings take things one step too far and overtax
their people. Over taxation can however prove
fatal for some monarchs. This is 1 factor of taxation
which may give players the room for some unique and ingenious
(03:56):
role-playing. And it goes about how you can
implement a tax system, how you can use it.
Taxing gold and coins, gems and jewelry, furs are even magical
items. There are some ways to exempt
certain things and you can make up the laws and rules for that.
(04:16):
And then that gives you another way for increasing taxes and
reasons why you increase tax maybe because of war or food or
shortage, supplies of supplies. And then obviously corruption is
the big one. So there are different ways that
you can implement taxes into your campaign.
And obviously the King's cut like I read in the beginning is
(04:38):
a big one. But I was thinking a way as how
you can implement it in your campaign.
You can have the tax collector MPC introduce an MPC tax
cluster. He may be fair and honest, or
maybe he skims off the top. Either way, he becomes a
familiar face at the end of eachquest asking for a little bit of
tax. Now I have a running joke in my
(05:02):
basic fantasy campaign where every time the paladin goes to
the church, the collection platecomes out and they kind of go
and slide the plate in front of the paladin.
So he has to donate something. And it's just it, it's more of
just a running joke. And he usually puts a gold piece
in there and that's all it is. But it it's just a running joke
(05:26):
of how silly tax and collecting could be when it comes to these
situations. Another one is a toll bridge, a
river crossing a heavily guardedbridge.
To pass, each Venturer must pay a set fee or hand over a gem.
The toll goes to fund the local army, or maybe straight into the
captain's pockets. That is a perfect way to
(05:48):
implement some type of tax on land area.
You have this bridge that goes over this giant Canyon.
You want to use said bridge. Well, you can use the bridge,
but you got to pay some taxes toget over that bridge.
Why you got to pay taxes? Well, the bridge needs
maintenance and it has to have people guarding it so people
don't cut it down. And you know, this is a good
(06:09):
choke off point in case, you know, evil people try to run
across it or good people depending.
So yeah, that's the reason why you would have a toll bridge.
Toll bridge have armies that will take advantage of this.
So why not? I don't know any Baron, king,
count, whatever in the area thatwould not take advantage of a
(06:31):
bridge that crosses over throughthe land that he is on.
He would definitely use that as a taxation area.
The goods tax. If the players sell the treasure
in town, the Guild master informs them there is a 10%
sales tax. This could spark some
role-playing negotiation. Do they pay?
Do they smuggle? Do they bribe?
(06:53):
Do they go to the black market? I don't know.
So there's always that. I mean, you know, you could do
that. Sales tax is one of the most
common things that you could do.I don't know about 10%, maybe a
little bit lower than that, but 10% is pretty high.
The church's share, like we werediscussing before with the
paladin in my campaign with the joke, the temple demands A
(07:14):
tithe, payments on recovered gold, claiming divine ownership.
Refusing might mean the loss of healing or blessing.
Pain could earn future favors. So while the paladin in my
campaign is doing that is just basically kind of a silly joke
that we've all laughed at, this could be something serious.
You know, maybe there is a town that they're using as a kind of
(07:37):
a base of operations and they'regoing on quests and finding, I
don't know, maybe they're finding gold in old temples or
crypts or something. Well, the church has decided
that you know that is that is define gold that you found
there. So you must tie some of that
back to the church. You can have your share for
(07:57):
finding it, but the church needsits money back.
So and then the property tax hook the players buy, keep a
tower or land. Property taxes kick in.
Missing payments lead to guards or bounty hunters at the door or
a rival noble seizing the land. In my basic fantasy fantasy
(08:19):
campaign, I've implemented this system as well.
When it comes to there's a Guildhall.
They have their Guild hall inside the town where their base
of operations is and they pay a land tax once a month.
And I was using the rules based out in the AD and the Dungeon
Masters Guide. So there are some ways how you
can implement tax in there as far as on items and gold and
(08:44):
stuff like that. So looking at the article, it's
not that big of an article, it'sjust going to give you some
ideas how to move forward with taxation in the campaign.
And I think it's it's something you may want to try when it
comes to your campaign. It may not be the best idea, but
you know what? It does make sense because
(09:06):
campaigns have taxation. I mean, worlds, fantasy worlds
do in some cases have taxation and I've seen it in various
fantasy novels. Now, it may not be the focus.
It might be a background thing. Let's say that they're paying
their taxes or they're giving money to certain people for
certain reasons. But we all know various TV shows
(09:28):
that we've seen with the have a fantasy basis with it or a
cartoon or something. A lot of times it does deal with
taxation and things like that with evil kings over taxing or
evil barons, whatever you want to call it, or people owning
land. And remember Robin Hood, men in
tights, they they stole his entire castle because he didn't
pay taxes for all those years. So yeah, I don't know.
(09:53):
Tell me what you think about taxation in your campaign.
Do you follow any rules? Like you follow the AD and DD
miss guide when it comes to taxation and, and rent and stuff
like that. Once a month fees that you
should charge your players. I'm just curious if that's
something that you've looked upon and, and use in your
campaign. I, I like to use it not to, to
(10:16):
steal gold from the players because the, I'm not after doing
that, but it, it makes the worldfeel a little more realistic as
far as being grounded onto the world.
And I, I like that because I don't, I when I try to do worlds
and I tried to build a campaign,I want the players, when they
(10:40):
play their characters to feel like they're in the world and
the world is actually living andbreathing.
In the past, I was just kind of like, Leh, you know what?
Here's a town, Here's the guy that runs the town.
Yeah, there's a king somewhere who cares.
And those campaigns, while they were probably a lot of fun,
didn't feel like the world was alive.
(11:02):
And I'm trying to, I noticed as I'm, I'm getting further into
gaming in my, my life, my career, my life, I want worlds
to feel more realistic and alive.
Now I'm going to talk about realistic is in real life.
Realistic is in it feels and lives and breathes and a
taxation system. While most people probably think
(11:23):
it's dumb, I think it's an interesting idea and it makes it
does. It just makes the world feel
like it's alive and the players are actually part of it and
making decisions as far as theircharacters are concerned versus
the world. So I'll, I'll throw the
screenshot in there. The role of taxes on the website
theevildm.com, my website with this posting.
(11:47):
And don't forget to yeah, head over to Spotify if you want to
comment, you can. There's a full blown comment
system there. Now you can comment on YouTube
when this eventually gets up on YouTube as well.
I know that's been having the feed has been having so many
issues lately and YouTube is just being a royal pain in the
(12:07):
tuchus when it comes to trying to get it fixed and they don't.
The people that instant help support basically read off of
scripts and give canned answers.So that does nothing to help me.
So I've been trying to tackle iton my own.
So if you see the video for the feed go private and then back to
public and then private again. It's not me doing it.
(12:29):
It's YouTube doing it because there's something messed up in
their feed system and they just won't admit it.
Anyway, I'm going to head out. That's it for today.
Hope you have a great weekend. Keep original, keep it old
school. Goodnight, God bless it.
Hey, welcome back to the podcastEvil Dungeon Master Universe
Podcast. I'm your host, Evil Dungeon
Master Vince, it is Friday. It's time for another podcast.
The weekend is upon us. Hopefully you'll have a game
going on out there. If not, hopefully you're doing
something in gaming, if not planning or reading or
something. As long as you're doing
something as far as AD and D or your favorite game, then you're
(00:38):
pretty much doing something. And that sounds silly anyway.
Ask the DM at the evil dm.com. theevildm.com is my website.
patreon.com/the Evil DM if you'dlike to support my efforts and
throw a few bucks that way. I appreciate it.
That's about it.youtube.com/evildmrumble.com/evil DM.
(01:01):
Alright, I think I'm done. Anyway, today we're going to
talk a little bit about something that most DMS kind of,
you know, forget about. And I found a really cool
article in an old Polyhedron magazine number.
I believe it's 30. Let me flip back here. 38.
(01:21):
Yeah. Yeah.
Listed as #38 and that is the role of taxes in your campaign.
Now a lot of D Ms. kind of forget about the whole tax
situation and it's also I know with with the whole training and
everything that's the way to getthe gold away from the players.
(01:42):
I understand that not a lot of people I know with you play with
the training aspect for levelingup, which is fine.
Your, your campaign, your rules,you do what you want.
But there has to be a taxation system with society.
There is a taxation system. I do a taxation system in my
games with the monthly tax thinggoing on.
(02:06):
That's listed inside the ADDDMS guide.
But there is another one in polyhedron #38 called The Role
of Taxes by Rodney J Paddock. Paddock, I don't know, pronounce
the last name. And this is the example that
they give you right in the beginning.
And I'll just I'll read that andgo over this kind of briefly and
(02:27):
I'll include the screenshot of this one page in the notes for
this show on my website. So you can kind of look it over
yourself but it says DM after counting the last of your
treasure you find you have 10,000 gold pieces and upon
receiving your reward it will total 15,000 gold pieces.
Party good, we go to the king and ask for our reward.
(02:51):
DM. The king deducts 15% tax from
your reward and gives you the remainder party taxes.
What are you talking about? So one of the puzzling things
about campaigns in the last. In fact parties or mercenaries
go through light whatever at paying a copper in tax prices it
(03:13):
says here. And why is this?
This article answers the questions and provides a system
for taxing PCs. So why have a taxation system?
This is what it lists. Throughout literature and
history, people have taxed in one form or another.
Kingdoms and baronies are expensive to operate.
For any king, the money is needed for the upkeep of an
(03:36):
army, food, land, or gain through taxation.
However, some kings take things one step too far and overtax
their people. Over taxation can however prove
fatal for some monarchs. This is 1 factor of taxation
which may give players the room for some unique and ingenious
(03:56):
role-playing. And it goes about how you can
implement a tax system, how you can use it.
Taxing gold and coins, gems and jewelry, furs are even magical
items. There are some ways to exempt
certain things and you can make up the laws and rules for that.
(04:16):
And then that gives you another way for increasing taxes and
reasons why you increase tax maybe because of war or food or
shortage, supplies of supplies. And then obviously corruption is
the big one. So there are different ways that
you can implement taxes into your campaign.
And obviously the King's cut like I read in the beginning is
(04:38):
a big one. But I was thinking a way as how
you can implement it in your campaign.
You can have the tax collector MPC introduce an MPC tax
cluster. He may be fair and honest, or
maybe he skims off the top. Either way, he becomes a
familiar face at the end of eachquest asking for a little bit of
tax. Now I have a running joke in my
(05:02):
basic fantasy campaign where every time the paladin goes to
the church, the collection platecomes out and they kind of go
and slide the plate in front of the paladin.
So he has to donate something. And it's just it, it's more of
just a running joke. And he usually puts a gold piece
in there and that's all it is. But it it's just a running joke
(05:26):
of how silly tax and collecting could be when it comes to these
situations. Another one is a toll bridge, a
river crossing a heavily guardedbridge.
To pass, each Venturer must pay a set fee or hand over a gem.
The toll goes to fund the local army, or maybe straight into the
captain's pockets. That is a perfect way to
(05:48):
implement some type of tax on land area.
You have this bridge that goes over this giant Canyon.
You want to use said bridge. Well, you can use the bridge,
but you got to pay some taxes toget over that bridge.
Why you got to pay taxes? Well, the bridge needs
maintenance and it has to have people guarding it so people
don't cut it down. And you know, this is a good
(06:09):
choke off point in case, you know, evil people try to run
across it or good people depending.
So yeah, that's the reason why you would have a toll bridge.
Toll bridge have armies that will take advantage of this.
So why not? I don't know any Baron, king,
count, whatever in the area thatwould not take advantage of a
(06:31):
bridge that crosses over throughthe land that he is on.
He would definitely use that as a taxation area.
The goods tax. If the players sell the treasure
in town, the Guild master informs them there is a 10%
sales tax. This could spark some
role-playing negotiation. Do they pay?
Do they smuggle? Do they bribe?
(06:53):
Do they go to the black market? I don't know.
So there's always that. I mean, you know, you could do
that. Sales tax is one of the most
common things that you could do.I don't know about 10%, maybe a
little bit lower than that, but 10% is pretty high.
The church's share, like we werediscussing before with the
paladin in my campaign with the joke, the temple demands A
(07:14):
tithe, payments on recovered gold, claiming divine ownership.
Refusing might mean the loss of healing or blessing.
Pain could earn future favors. So while the paladin in my
campaign is doing that is just basically kind of a silly joke
that we've all laughed at, this could be something serious.
You know, maybe there is a town that they're using as a kind of
(07:37):
a base of operations and they'regoing on quests and finding, I
don't know, maybe they're finding gold in old temples or
crypts or something. Well, the church has decided
that you know that is that is define gold that you found
there. So you must tie some of that
back to the church. You can have your share for
(07:57):
finding it, but the church needsits money back.
So and then the property tax hook the players buy, keep a
tower or land. Property taxes kick in.
Missing payments lead to guards or bounty hunters at the door or
a rival noble seizing the land. In my basic fantasy fantasy
(08:19):
campaign, I've implemented this system as well.
When it comes to there's a Guildhall.
They have their Guild hall inside the town where their base
of operations is and they pay a land tax once a month.
And I was using the rules based out in the AD and the Dungeon
Masters Guide. So there are some ways how you
can implement tax in there as far as on items and gold and
(08:44):
stuff like that. So looking at the article, it's
not that big of an article, it'sjust going to give you some
ideas how to move forward with taxation in the campaign.
And I think it's it's something you may want to try when it
comes to your campaign. It may not be the best idea, but
you know what? It does make sense because
(09:06):
campaigns have taxation. I mean, worlds, fantasy worlds
do in some cases have taxation and I've seen it in various
fantasy novels. Now, it may not be the focus.
It might be a background thing. Let's say that they're paying
their taxes or they're giving money to certain people for
certain reasons. But we all know various TV shows
(09:28):
that we've seen with the have a fantasy basis with it or a
cartoon or something. A lot of times it does deal with
taxation and things like that with evil kings over taxing or
evil barons, whatever you want to call it, or people owning
land. And remember Robin Hood, men in
tights, they they stole his entire castle because he didn't
pay taxes for all those years. So yeah, I don't know.
(09:53):
Tell me what you think about taxation in your campaign.
Do you follow any rules? Like you follow the AD and DD
miss guide when it comes to taxation and, and rent and stuff
like that. Once a month fees that you
should charge your players. I'm just curious if that's
something that you've looked upon and, and use in your
campaign. I, I like to use it not to, to
(10:16):
steal gold from the players because the, I'm not after doing
that, but it, it makes the worldfeel a little more realistic as
far as being grounded onto the world.
And I, I like that because I don't, I when I try to do worlds
and I tried to build a campaign,I want the players, when they
(10:40):
play their characters to feel like they're in the world and
the world is actually living andbreathing.
In the past, I was just kind of like, Leh, you know what?
Here's a town, Here's the guy that runs the town.
Yeah, there's a king somewhere who cares.
And those campaigns, while they were probably a lot of fun,
didn't feel like the world was alive.
(11:02):
And I'm trying to, I noticed as I'm, I'm getting further into
gaming in my, my life, my career, my life, I want worlds
to feel more realistic and alive.
Now I'm going to talk about realistic is in real life.
Realistic is in it feels and lives and breathes and a
taxation system. While most people probably think
(11:23):
it's dumb, I think it's an interesting idea and it makes it
does. It just makes the world feel
like it's alive and the players are actually part of it and
making decisions as far as theircharacters are concerned versus
the world. So I'll, I'll throw the
screenshot in there. The role of taxes on the website
theevildm.com, my website with this posting.
(11:47):
And don't forget to yeah, head over to Spotify if you want to
comment, you can. There's a full blown comment
system there. Now you can comment on YouTube
when this eventually gets up on YouTube as well.
I know that's been having the feed has been having so many
issues lately and YouTube is just being a royal pain in the
(12:07):
tuchus when it comes to trying to get it fixed and they don't.
The people that instant help support basically read off of
scripts and give canned answers.So that does nothing to help me.
So I've been trying to tackle iton my own.
So if you see the video for the feed go private and then back to
public and then private again. It's not me doing it.
(12:29):
It's YouTube doing it because there's something messed up in
their feed system and they just won't admit it.
Anyway, I'm going to head out. That's it for today.
Hope you have a great weekend. Keep original, keep it old
school. Goodnight, God bless it.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders
Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders takes you back to 1983, when two teenagers were found murdered, execution-style, on a quiet Texas hill. What followed was decades of rumors, false leads, and a case that law enforcement could never seem to close. Now, veteran investigative journalist M. William Phelps reopens the file — uncovering new witnesses, hidden evidence, and a shocking web of deaths that may all be connected. Over nine gripping episodes, Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders unravels a story 42 years in the making… and asks the question: who’s really been hiding the truth?
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com