Rent for player housing in V3?

[Acacea]

This makes sense, IC and for money sinks (saying this as the player of a character who is either consistently broke or has money in the bank that isn't hers...which is the same thing). Players should really consider what their characters are having to do post-house purchase. If you think that's not how your character works or something they'd be interested in, then consider if they really should have one at all? It takes upkeep. In some places they would be taxed, others are more isolated but would still require maintenance costs or more local "help us out" funds.

Yeah, we don't charge adventurers for having kids even they should be broke and frazzled (hehe), but as this is something you actively have to go out and handle both mechanically in roleplaying...ly I think it should be acknowledged.

Potential arguments I see are the danger of hurting the small pocketed in order to drain the rich who barely feel it, and as already mentioned people have lives and don't want to mimic a prompt OOC tax schedule.  

I strongly suggest complicating this as little as possible. More complication is more potential to glitch, more hassle for people who can't afford the money to pay for glitches and the team that can't afford the time to handle them. Overhauling systems to do this isn't worth it, to me, especially when I don't think we'd be able to guarantee the stability of the result.

Simple is good. Just tweak the door (its already the thing stuff is attached to, also saves an OOC feeling "talk to an agent or banker" method for those who live in isolated forests etc) to add an option to pay for maintenance/taxes (too specific makes it out of character for some areas) without bringing everything else into it. The only complication that I feel is necessary is Lonn's point, the ability to deposit ahead of time or go into negatives or other such things, to give a lot of leniency to people who have actual lives, lack of funds for promptness, play procrastinators, or have RL emergencies that would take them away. They happen.

If you want to be reimbursed for portal usage, either charge rent or don't give out keys.

Please don't make it too government-oriented, in a world where there are still pockets that are less under the sway of one. It would be fitting for some (Prantz), but it should be a global option to avoid unnecessary complication, and therefore vague enough to account for all IC options.

(I wouldn't shed a tear if it wasn't introduced, but if it is, simple is good.)

[Leanthar]

"....Simple is good. Just tweak the door (its already the thing stuff is attached to, also saves an OOC feeling "talk to an agent or banker" method for those who live in isolated forests etc) to add an option to pay for maintenance/taxes (too specific makes it out of character for some areas) without bringing everything else into it. The only complication that I feel is necessary is Lonn's point, the ability to deposit ahead of time or go into negatives or other such things, to give a lot of leniency to people who have actual lives, lack of funds for promptness, play procrastinators, or have RL emergencies that would take them away. They happen. ...."

IF (if) we do this that is exactly how I have plans to do it.

[Ozy_Llewellyn]

Thus far I have been truly hesitant of making a comment upon this thread. However for the sake of the argument I’ve always considered things like Taxes in effect. Why they have never been collected in game is easily justified that our characters do things when we are not online. They pay taxes, go out and see theater, read books, practice their weapons and spells, tend to groves, eat, sleep, take care of children, and have a menial form of income.

In example, Joe_the_Fighter is level three and lives in the Wild Surge Inn. When not being played by Random_Person he is working as a part time guard or cleaning stables. Hardly glorious, literally peasant work but it pays the bar-tab and for his room till he can get with some friends and do something profitable.

Twelve levels later Joe_The_Fighter owns a small dwelling and during his time between adventures and monster bashing he enjoys some well deserved Rest and Relaxation. Of course that tends to hurt the pocket and he being now a fairly renowned individual serves as a very professional prestigious bodyguard to a local merchant prince. His expenses and profits may not exactly sync but it will probably be to close to care.

Adventurers’ by their very nature have highly marketable skills. It is hardly a stretch of the imagination to think of a ‘my character does this while I’m logged off.’ People might argue that individuals like druids or rangers wouldn’t make much money. On the same token they probably don’t spend much either and could easily sell trinkets to cover it. There are lists of suggested professions in the players handbook for the various classes and I can’t be bothered to list them here.

So when someone says ‘can’t we have professions’ I wonder ‘why don’t we have taxes?’ Now of course it is in reverse, since the idea of taxes come into play, can we not have added income for our offline times based upon our characters skills and hobbies. Not to mention certain classes have currently unused abilities, *cough* bard performances *cough*, that creates income.

Although there is the mentionable argument that such things are developing and effecting the character, and thus are best left in the realms of character development quests. The counter argument in that is that DM’s have limited time and standing guard for eight in game hours doing nothing is a waste of every ones time. Or emoting every single brushstroke if your character happens to be a hobbyist painter.

There is of course one massive-huge problem with this, the inevitable micromanage spiral. The higher level characters could defiantly make a lot more without effort then the lower level. If based upon only a limited number of factors the rich get richer the poor get poorer. So you would have to add in more expenses. Which would result in more requested benefits, fueled with the same explanations and arguments you used to justify what opened the can of worms and keeps it open. Even if you could actually manage all of this, you have added many megabits to the module sizes, countless extra systems, and finally spent hundreds of man-hours.

For that amount of time you would of gained no extra worth to the server that makes it better or sets it apart. Quite possibly you have driven away some players, or at least annoyed others. Finally you have sacrificed new areas and balancing of old ones not to mention countless very good systems that will now never get built do to constraints of module size. Also a half way method could of course backfire horribly in the RP channels increasing the pressure to ‘monster-grind’ if not very carefully done.

I personally detest laissez-fair, but I thought I would point out lots of road hazards to be considered and digested before a new system was seriously considered. Might be easier to reconsider how money is dropped in v3 to work with the economy. Like say having money be deposited on characters with the XP or something every time at a much smaller value.

So folks, that is my ten paragraphs of unnecessary commentary which I imagine everyone here ran through in their heads before making their posts. At the very least this will make a decent reference point next time ‘character professions’ comes up in the suggestions forum.

Sigh Edit:
It seems someone else brought up the whole player occupation thing. Oh well I’m not going to try and restructure this entire post because a valid point is already made.

[Ravemore]

If there are going to be taxes, why not just have a set period of time during the year where players pay their taxes and eliminate the monthly thing? I agree nothing is free in real life, and for that matter in Layonara...but is there really anyone here who pays taxes on their property every month? I have owned my house for 11 years and I don't, and I even live in California for gosh sake. :-) This would even give the DM team the opportunity to attach supplemental taxes for various improvements or projects...and eliminate a headache for players. And by the way...I don't pay the government to repair my house either. Mainteneance is something I am capable of doing myself. Do we need to get that detailed???

[Laldiien]

@Ozy...Thank you.  Well thought and well said.

[Gulnyr]

Ravemore - 12/8/2006  4:48 PM

And by the way...I don't pay the government to repair my house either. Mainteneance is something I am capable of doing myself. Do we need to get that detailed???

As Acacea pointed out, it wouldn't have to be called anything specific.  You could imagine it to be taxes, or maintenance, or both, or whatever.  

In addition, when you do your own maintenance, do you make all the supplies yourself?  If you have to reshingle the roof, do you make the shingles and the nails?  If you need to replace a pipe, do you make your own pipes?  Almost certainly not.  One way or another, you buy the stuff you need.  Any maintenance cost in Layonara wouldn't necessarily be paying someone else, but could just be seen as buying the supplies to do it yourself.  

[Weeblie]

Announcement of a new craft: House Builder!

[owatonnahacker]

How about putting the portal behind a pay-door... X true opens the door... or master key-A... that way the owner of the house (owner of masterkey-A) gets free access to his portal, and everyone else has to pay per use.

[Ioskeha]

Honora - 12/8/2006  3:21 AM

Against it.  Perhaps the perception is there that homeowners are rich, but as someone who is scraping up every gold she can to buy her house, and will be dead broke when she does, and spends much more time writing for the team than playing...

As others have said.  It's a fantasy world.  I have no desire to see taxes intrude here, or whatnot.  Deal with that enough every day.

Agreed.  My PC has maybe 2k in the bank.  Not every home owner is rich.  Even sometihng like 2.5k True is had for me to get.

[Skywatcher]

Against it.  If you want to have a huge money sink that would fairly affect all players just have the computer track the daily balance of players bank accounts and then at the end of every month deduct 10% of that amount from the bank.  People who keep huge bank balances would soon lose it over time and people without much in the bank wouldn't lose much.  That would be a true automatic tax.  You could even send them a PM showing the amount in the bank and the amount taxed.  Then people would start carrying all of their money around with them and if they died they'd lose 1/2.  I guess the only way around this would be to spend the money (also a money sink) or to put it in chests.  Maybe chests could be limited to hold only a certain amount of money or make chest really expensive (also a money sink).  This would lead to a real world situation where people would start finding tax shelters and ways to manage their bank balances to avoid taxes and all sorts of economic activity.  Someone might buy all of the houses in the world and then sell them as they needed money or something like that.  You could have all sort of schemes by shady characters.  Anyway just some thoughts.  Kinda serious, kinda for fun but just some thoughts.

[merlin34baseball]

Yep I am totally against it. I had to borrow 65, 000 Trues to buy my house and I was stressed trying to pay it back, and now you want to tax it? No thanks, I have enough problems in RL without worrying about my Layo tax bill...
  If you want to tax people then tax everyone, an automatic tax every time you deposit coins into your bank account. Even that I think is... ridiculous.
  Everyone please remember this is a FANTASY game...

[DiegoBastet]

I think that they should be taxed. Don't want to be taxed? Don't buy a house, well. There are MANY charachters out there who would not whine about buying a house and having to pay monthly. If someone with a house is whining about it paying montlhy to keep it, then don't have it. I'm retty SURE there's a LINE of people who are couting their coins with big smiles and waiting to a house become avaible, even if they have to pay monthly...

[Laldiien]

DiegoBastet - 3/3/2007 2:57 AM I think that they should be taxed. Don't want to be taxed? Don't buy a house, well. There are MANY charachters out there who would not whine about buying a house and having to pay monthly. If someone with a house is whining about it paying montlhy to keep it, then don't have it. I'm retty SURE there's a LINE of people who are couting their coins with big smiles and waiting to a house become avaible, even if they have to pay monthly...

 Who was whining? If the players want houses, they would have bought them. There were about a dozen of Dregar awhile ago. (By 'a while', I'm thinking since early/late December) Now, they are gone. There are serveral that I know of where the home owner has not logged in over 6 months. I haven't seen any posts about reclaiming them; if you wanted to compile a list of possible repossesions, feel free.
  I mean, you are, in effect, suggesting that people have their houses taken away. Why not make the list yourself? Who knows, you may end up with a house out of it.

[Gulnyr]

merlin34baseball - 3/3/2007  2:51 AM

Everyone please remember this is a FANTASY game...

The thing of it to me is that very few choices have any real negative consequences.  Not just the choice of whether to buy a house or not, but nearly any choice a character makes.  Sometimes it happens on quests, but I recall several times that a DM has decided not to follow through with the full range of 'bad' that should have come from character actions.  I'm not faulting the DMs; I'm just saying there is a lot more "win" than "lose," and it's not necessarily because we play smart.

Part of the fun in roleplaying, to me, is having to make choices and live with the consequences, good and bad.  It adds drama and makes things interesting, and everything we do in-game is supposed to be RP, including buying a house.  There just aren't any negative consequences at all to buying a house, and housing is a big deal.  If it weren't, there wouldn't be so many posts about it.  Buying a house is a complete win with no chance of anything even slightly 'bad' happening.  

Really, I'm not all that interested in paying taxes on the housing.  I'd just like to see a little more "this or that" rather than having everything be "this and that," and posting everywhere it's applicable just seems like a good way to get the idea out there.

[Leanthar]

"....I'm just saying there is a lot more "win" than "lose," and it's not necessarily because we play smart.

Part of the fun in roleplaying, to me, is having to make choices and live with the consequences, good and bad. It adds drama and makes things interesting, and everything we do in-game is supposed to be RP, including buying a house. There just aren't any negative consequences at all to buying a house, and housing is a big deal. If it weren't, there wouldn't be so many posts about it. Buying a house is a complete win with no chance of anything even slightly 'bad' happening......"

Here here! Totally agree.

[hawklen]

Hmm, pay taxes on a house I own, near a city Im not allowed to enter. *casts his vote to nay*

[pejsaboy]

I think there should be a tax system put in, but it shouldn't be an automatic withdrawal or anything. That leaves the less than lawful characters the option of not paying. I'm not sure how you could try to enforce it, but it could be fun trying to evade arrest or something for not paying taxes. *shrugs*

[allneal]

asumein this is a med-evil world they did not have HOuse tax?  there was lond taxes yes but that was only for large tracks of land not a house? so teh realism of taxes nad upkeep don't entirely fit into a med-evil world

[darkstorme]

Well, in medieval England, Henry II introduced a property tax - granted, this was mainly on vassals, but one experienced a "trickle-down" effect, in that to raise the tax money, the vassals would tax those who lived or worked on the land they owned.  If you owned a house, this increased the value of the land you lived on - and therefore the fees you had to pay to your local lord would as well.  Likewise, if you were rich enough to own a well-made house (or ARE rich enough, in-game), it's reasonably safe to assume that you're not going to re-thatch it yourself, or handle repairs to plumbing.  Ergo, property taxes in the medieval period were not unheard of, nor are maintenance fees unreasonable.

While I would prefer not to have property taxes, myself.. I just can't see Broegar, or even the new kingdoms, not levying such a tax.  It also opens up the crime of tax evasion as an encounter hook.

[DMOE]

Not all characters go out bashing every week. While my house owning character at present has a healthy bank balance....A few of the right items come up for sale and she won't. At most I think I've added around 1.5k of gold to her bank account in the last 3 months that hasn't come off a quest.
  If we introduce taxes then people with houses who don't have massive bank accounts....and those people exist, will probably have to go out and bash to keep their house regardless of if they want to or not.
  I'd not sure risking the possibility of dictating peoples style of play just to pay something that adds 'realism' is the right move.