Spaceship Debt in Dragon Barony
This is the topic that is brewing in my head for months. Maybe years. It was ignited recently when I read something about Traveller and then dusted off Coins and Scroll posts about medieval taxation https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2017/06/osr-death-taxes-and-death-taxes.html and it hit me.
Government and Social Class
In Traveller each solar system has a world and each of those worlds is governed by a type of government and has a law level that explains how strict are laws (for example towards weapons, or medicines or even information) and cultural quirk. If you land on the world to trade, refuel or just visit you'll deal with those, each world with different set.
Every character has also a Social Standing statistic informing about their station in larger society, which may or may not be relevant in every situation but in terms of grand space empire it does. Thanks to high social class you may have it easier to get into noble careers or even qualify automatically.
And I think lack of governmental oversight or social entanglements is kinda the trouble I've always had with my games set in pre-modern times. You always end up being this outsider-adventurer character who dines with peasants and at the same day dines with nobles. It doesn't matter how you look, what you do, where you are, you just wander around with everything you own in a backpack and you can be invited to a private meeting with the king while LOADED with king-murdering gear. Social class is nothing and society is modern individualism.
Debt, Taxes and Pressure
In Traveller you have to adventure and trade and get in all sorts of trouble. Because you have a spaceship. And a spaceship costs exorbitant amount of money that a bank has lent to you. And you have to pay the debt or the big men with large guns will come and take it back from your vaporised hands.
Coins and Scrolls post tells about medieval taxes. You pay them according to your station. If you are a noble your liege takes a 100% and gives you back some. You are obliged to give them all because if not they can lawfully attack you. And they are obliged to give you some of it back, because if not you are expected to fight or scheme against them. Also you have to pay the church remaining 10% of what you got back. If you are tied to the Church (a priest or monk) you give your bishop 80%. If you are part of the lawful citizens then nobles owe you nothing. You found a dungeon and got some treasures back? Well, you give them everything or they hang you. If you are outlaw if they find you with big sum of money they can hang you on the spot. You are out of law after all.
Debt is Taxes is Pressure
And so the taxes from Coins and Scrolls basically work like a spaceship debt in Traveller. It anchors the game in the game world. You may have fully paid spaceship in Traveller. With it you can do what you want, just earn enough for upkeep and go. In any tense situation you can just bail, jump away to another world and start over from there. It is a game but it is different than debt fueled action packed fighting for survival.
Fantasy adventurers who are not anchored in the world can travel anywhere and do anything. In a taxed fantasy game you avoid it because characters have obligations and need to operate within the system and try to exploit it. If they get tired of paying most of their money to some noble twat they may even organically leave to the borderlands in order to be their own bosses. Or they scheme to take boss' position.
This tax based tension is the same thing that closed city with a dangerous wasteland outside is for characters of games like Blades in the Dark. If not for it then a gang could just skip town and lay low outside the walls. But they cannot. They don't have strict social class or a huge debt but the because they are in closed space with other gangs and have to fight with every move builds the same tension. And that is why I think pre-modern fantasy game should have these oppressive taxes.
Missing the Picture?
Adventurers without social system lead to pretty weird results. Like being full armed force and just walking into random town or village. In history it was strictly enforced that you couldn't walk in a city with weapons of war - like spears or big swords - and only nobles could walk around with a sword. No armour too. You couldn't be equipped better than local guards, which makes perfect sense, but it doesn't work in fantasy hero stories.
Why not huge debt instead of taxation? Well, I think in space setting where you live under large space empire this debt seems like inevitability, especially with whole setup as is in Traveller. Banks and corporations can stalk you over the cosmos, you cannot easily hide and pretend to be someone else in high tech reality. Unless you leave your precious spaceship behind but the point of the game is to have it.
But in pre-modern setting there are a lot of outlaws, there are people forgotten, neighbouring countries to escape to or you could just make up a new identity and wiggle yourself into low society somewhere. That's why taxes are better. Everybody pays taxes. Every lord and lady will hunt you for not paying. You can become a bandit but militia and adventurers may be hired to fight you. You might skip town and go somewhere else but you'll need to pay your new taxes too. The point of pressure is for it to be very tough to escape. Like city walls in a gangster city. Or debt in space empire. And taxes in your local fantasy barony.
So what to do?
I don't know, really. I imagine this setting, where you have your social and financial obligations and live in a world where you have to deal with places laws and governments. I'd like to be able to make a game or just a setting that would magnify importance of taxes, social station and tie adventurers to itself but I do have a lot on my plate at the moment. So what I am going to do about it is publish this blogpost and hope someone better picks it up. Or I'll start it, considering my current pace and planned stuff, in three years or more. Actually four and only if I'm lucky. XD