Is tithing bad?

[Jon_Dahl]

For years I've tried to have all sorts of PCs to tithe, to churches mainly, but the results have been poor. The problem seems to be twofold: greed and laziness. Players can't be bothered to keep track of what they earn so they don't know what to tithe. I haven't been too happy about this, because I think tithing is really medieval and I would even say "cool", so it's unfortunate that they my efforts have been in vain.

What do you think about tithing in general? Any tips how to make it work?

[ryu]

For years I've tried to have all sorts of PCs to tithe, to churches mainly, but the results have been poor. The problem seems to be twofold: greed and laziness. Players can't be bothered to keep track of what they earn so they don't know what to tithe. I haven't been too happy about this, because I think tithing is really medieval and I would even say "cool", so it's unfortunate that they my efforts have been in vain.

What do you think about tithing in general? Any tips how to make it work?

Well for starters are your PCs even followers of the church in question? If not why on earth would you expect them to throw money at an organization not aligned with them? Even if so keep in mind that churches have actual legitimate services to offer (Read spellcasting) which will earn them more money than extorting the masses for copper pieces ever will.

Also in a world with provably real deities, each with differing personalities and stances on all manner of issues, why would you assume tithes are universal?

[Kelb_Panthera]

I've always just flufffed it that any time they buy an item or spellcasting service from a church that the payment is a tithe to the church.

As for a more traditional, "give it because you can and the church does good works," motivation for tithing, maybe a more pious character might go that way but you can't really expect secular characters to tithe to one of the -myriad- churches in a D&D setting under most circumstances, especially if the players aren't particularly religious.

This is also one area where the 'pseudo' part of 'pseudo-medieval' really gets cranked to eleven. There's not just one church in power servicing all of the people's spiritual well-being and "asking" for tithes as suitable recompense for services rendered. Instead you have a very competetive, polytheistic set of interlocking religions. A typical commoner would be more inclined to leave offerings at shrines to various gods, depending on what they do and what the god represents, whenever a holiday rolls around or an event tied to that gods portfolio comes up. Only in theocratic settlements will you see things centralized to one church that's taxing its residents and calling it "tithing."

[A.A.King]

One of the great things about being a PC is that you are mostly immune to things like blackmail and extortion. The NPCs might be prone to a protection racket but players are unlikely to fall for the "pay me money or something bad might happen to you" scam being played by the local shady organisation on the unsuspecting population. Send a man in a funny outfit to a group of adventures asking for money, taxing them for 'services rendered' and claiming that 'we can't be held accountable for things that happen if you don't pay' then the players are likely to think 'Plot Hook!' and start thinking of a way to free the town (which will start by killing the man of the cloth you send to him)

The other thing is of course the fact that 1/10 is quite a lot of money. Somebody roleplaying a really pious person might be willing to throw away some of his hard earned gold pieces to Pope Alus Caponus III but it will still be an insignificant amount compared to his actual earnings. Most PCs, even the super pious ones (excluding the 'vow of poverty'-kind of pious ones), will hear your request to give away 1/10th of your earnings (or an amount close to that which can be considered 'quite significant' to the player) and all he/she will think: "I'm screwing myself out of that very cool magic item I want". This is especially true when some party members are definitetly not going to pay this protection money. It takes just one outlaw freespirted rogue unwilling to pay the money for the Pious PCs to go: "Well, paying this much money will seriously screw with my character's WBL"

No, if you really want Tithing to be a part of the game you'll have to force it as part of the campaign. Only if you simply tell your players: "In this campaign there is a single unified church you have to Tithe, so you can't make any characters who wouldn't do such a thing" will they be willing to pay up because they'll assume you're making sure they still end up with enough to get the stuff they need/want.

Of course you players may like that for one campaign but I would imagine eventually players would tire of the concept. There is a reason that other concepts of medieval society (like proper tax) isn't something PCs are expected to do either..\

[Florian]

For years I've tried to have all sorts of PCs to tithe, to churches mainly, but the results have been poor. The problem seems to be twofold: greed and laziness. Players can't be bothered to keep track of what they earn so they don't know what to tithe. I haven't been too happy about this, because I think tithing is really medieval and I would even say "cool", so it's unfortunate that they my efforts have been in vain.

What do you think about tithing in general? Any tips how to make it work?

Tithing, or taxes for that matter, doesn´t really make any sense because characters are simply playing pieces in a game and don´t act as part of the local population, therefore have no real ties at all to the greater society at hand.
Second, loot/money, especially WBL are parts tied to playing a game and don´t have anything to do with what happens in-game at all, reducing this by taxes or tithing alters the rules for the game and have "the fluff" impact on "the crunch" without any special meaning.

[Lacco]

If we consider that positive motivation is the way to go, there are several tools at your disposal:

Marketing tithing = pay your tithes to receive free bless at every mass or free healing once per week at any church from our network!

XPtithing = offer small, but considerable sum of roleplaying XP to the person who tithes - especially if they listed a deity they "worship".

XPtithing extended = provide a modifier to gained XP if they paid the tithes and will smite disbelievers/evil scum/goody scum (depending on the deity they select). Pay your tithes and you will receive 1.25x XP for the rest of the year.

"Get out of hell free" card = use the ancient and well-working method: if PC pays his tithes, some of his sins just go awaaaay.

If you select the XPtithing/XPtithing extended, you should offer similar bonus to other PCs, re-fluffed to their respective character (e.g. membership in fighters guild will provide him with free training and advice, giving him the same modifier).

[Starbuck_II]

If we consider that positive motivation is the way to go, there are several tools at your disposal:

Marketing tithing = pay your tithes to receive free bless at every mass or free healing once per week at any church from our network!

XPtithing = offer small, but considerable sum of roleplaying XP to the person who tithes - especially if they listed a deity they "worship".

XPtithing extended = provide a modifier to gained XP if they paid the tithes and will smite disbelievers/evil scum/goody scum (depending on the deity they select). Pay your tithes and you will receive 1.25x XP for the rest of the year.

"Get out of hell free" card = use the ancient and well-working method: if PC pays his tithes, some of his sins just go awaaaay.

If you select the XPtithing/XPtithing extended, you should offer similar bonus to other PCs, re-fluffed to their respective character (e.g. membership in fighters guild will provide him with free training and advice, giving him the same modifier).

See this is better.
Because in real life we tithe because we want to do good (and tithing is good plus we are promised rewards from our deity), but in D&D we can actively do good (adventuring) so less need to tithe.

And since Deities have an active role in D&D, they should active offer blessings.

[fishyfishyfishy]

In addition to what others have said I must express surprise that your players don't track their wealth more closely. That's the exact opposite of every group I've played in/DMed for.

[Geddy2112]

At my table, when players play religious classes(cleric, inquisitor, paladin...) there is never a shortage of a PC "tithing" to their deity.

But a tithe takes many many forms. Not all deities have grand cathedrals where PC's can just go dump extra gold. And while gold is good, most deities prefer other offerings, or actions. A deity of healing can be tithed to for pro bono healing on behalf of the deity. Likewise, a deity of assassination can be tithed to by performing a hit for the church, pro bono. Giving a masterwork or rare example of the deity's favored weapon has more impact than just giving the weapons value in gold. Money is good, but doing the work of the deity is much better.



"Get out of hell free" card = use the ancient and well-working method: if PC pays his tithes, some of his sins just go awaaaay.
We use this to some extent at my table. Giving to a church(money, favor, items, or otherwise) can be tracked in monetary value that would pay for atonement to forgive a gross transgression against the deity. Or it can be used as goodwill with that branch of the church, or other branches of the same faith(they all seem to know the particularly pious who have given back to the organization).

[Flickerdart]

If you want them to tithe, they have to receive some kind of benefit. "Goodwill of the church" is a benefit only if you make it one.

Imagine two guys - Petey Paladin and Rufus Rogue. Petey regularly tithes money to Good churches, performs quests for them, and generally makes himself known and available. He develops a reputation as a generous and honourable man.

Rufus spends all his money on progressively better swords.

One day, Petey and Rufus are in town when orcs attack. They are both wounded, and both need healing. Who do you think the church is going to help? Even if Rufus happens to have a huge bag of gold ready, Petey's reputation and contributions to the church make him a VIP patient. Even if Petey has no money, the church knows that a) he's given them a ton in the past and b) he will give them a ton in the future, provided that he lives. They will probably never see Rufus again, so if Rufus has no money, he's out of luck.

If you have a coherent world where churches are regional actors, the PCs also want these churches in their good graces whenever they need anything done. Send clerics to heal a king's daughter? Consecrate an area so that the Evil Lich can't keep raising undead in his castle of evil? Track down the 17th level super-hermit capable of casting true resurrection? The church will happily do these things for patrons, but not for random murderhobos.

Make these benefits clear to the PCs and they'll have a reason to pay.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

What do you think about tithing in general? Any tips how to make it work?Gods don't need money. If they want their followers to be prosperous, they'll use their powers to ensure that it happens. If they want their followers to be poor, that's what will happen.

In most worlds, it's pretty obvious just how little gods actually care about mortals.

So in other words, tithing is a scam by "churches" (read: well-dressed con-artists and thugs) to steal money from gullible and/or powerless people who are more than likely already poor.


One day, Petey and Rufus are in town when orcs attack. They are both wounded, and both need healing. Who do you think the church is going to help? Even if Rufus happens to have a huge bag of gold ready, Petey's reputation and contributions to the church make him a VIP patient. Even if Petey has no money, the church knows that a) he's given them a ton in the past and b) he will give them a ton in the future, provided that he lives. They will probably never see Rufus again, so if Rufus has no money, he's out of luck.Unfortunately for Petey, Rufus is far less likely to actually be injured (and can afford the resources to help himself if he does run into trouble), so Petey's the one who is forced to beg for help, while Rufus just goes about his business, wondering why he joined forces with such a weak and useless sidekick.

[Gallowglass]

Tithing, or taxes for that matter, doesn´t really make any sense because characters are simply playing pieces in a game and don´t act as part of the local population, therefore have no real ties at all to the greater society at hand.

You know how I know you are roll-playing instead of role-playing?

In character, your PC should have some ties to society, whether they have a job or a family or other obligations. Tithing should come into play for PCs that have strong religious overtones or ties... IF you the DM have decided that the faith(s) they are strongly tied to have tithing as an aspect of being a follower of the faith.

Which, unless your church is also running a business on the side, if they are modelled after real world faiths, they will have tithing.

I've played committed athiests and agnostics, and I've playing committed religious zealots and, yeah, I've played in between where I go to church on Sundays. I will say that every time I've played a priest or paladin, I've dutifully earmarked 10% or more to go to the church's coffers. But then again, role-playing wise, I've always tried to make the church an important part of what My character is doing. I think if I was playing a priest and I DIDN'T make my church an important part of my character... well I guess I'd be playing a piece in a game rather than a part of greater society. ;)

Only one time when I played a non-priest, did I tithe and that was because the DM had very strongly written expectations for the faith I belonged to. I never tithed outside of that

[Gnaeus]

See this is better.
Because in real life we tithe because we want to do good (and tithing is good plus we are promised rewards from our deity), but in D&D we can actively do good (adventuring) so less need to tithe.

And since Deities have an active role in D&D, they should active offer blessings.

Mostly this. Even the most devout paladin is likely to see that the 10% of his WBL, in his hands as a magic weapon or item, is actually doing good for the community by helping him to survive and stop more threats to good people everywhere. Sure, when he retires, he might donate anywhere from 10-90+% to charity, but right now, making his greatsword holy for better demon smiting also seems like a good-aligned choice. It isn't even like it is losing value. When he is done adventuring, he can give it to some young paladin who just completed his first quest, thereby passing the good on to the next generation.

Alternately, in a lawful aligned church, who says that the PC's WBL is even income? Sure, the paladin acquired treasure worth 100k gp last year. But most of that was reinvested into magical gear as a cost of doing business. The rest was mostly eaten by travel costs, depreciation, party communal fund to pay for injuries incurred adventuring and group items, and that fort he built to keep the orc hordes away. He did pay himself a princely 500 gp salary, and dutifully tithed 10% of that.

[Telonius]

If you want them to tithe, they have to receive some kind of benefit. "Goodwill of the church" is a benefit only if you make it one.

Imagine two guys - Petey Paladin and Rufus Rogue. Petey regularly tithes money to Good churches, performs quests for them, and generally makes himself known and available. He develops a reputation as a generous and honourable man.

Rufus spends all his money on progressively better swords.

One day, Petey and Rufus are in town when orcs attack. They are both wounded, and both need healing. Who do you think the church is going to help? Even if Rufus happens to have a huge bag of gold ready, Petey's reputation and contributions to the church make him a VIP patient. Even if Petey has no money, the church knows that a) he's given them a ton in the past and b) he will give them a ton in the future, provided that he lives. They will probably never see Rufus again, so if Rufus has no money, he's out of luck.

If you have a coherent world where churches are regional actors, the PCs also want these churches in their good graces whenever they need anything done. Send clerics to heal a king's daughter? Consecrate an area so that the Evil Lich can't keep raising undead in his castle of evil? Track down the 17th level super-hermit capable of casting true resurrection? The church will happily do these things for patrons, but not for random murderhobos.

Make these benefits clear to the PCs and they'll have a reason to pay.

Seconding this. If tithing is a big part of your gaming world, you have to make it a big part of the gaming world. If it's just something that particularly holy people are supposed to do, your typical PCs are not going to do it. Unless they're planning on playing an Exalted character, it's just not what most PCs are about.

I'd suggest you decide just how important it is in the setting. Are there going to be social, legal, or other consequences for not tithing? Not just carrots, sticks too. A well-placed fire-and-brimstone sermon can put some shopkeepers in an unfriendly mood if they see the PCs. It might affect negotiations with the King (or whatever quest-giver) if Bishop Moneybags mentions the famous adventurers who seem to have no regard for the gods. If there's a Cleric in the party, make sure they know that failure to tithe is a major thing, and part of that deity's code of conduct; repeatedly "forgetting" might require an Atonement spell.

If all else fails, drop a few divine hints based on the deity they have written on their character sheet. Nothing big or mechanical, more like omens of a god's displeasure. If they're Pelor worshipers, make it a point that cloudy days happen whenever they're around. Olidammara? They seem to have bad luck and bad wine. Yondalla? They seem to get the worst seats in the tavern, or the kitchen is out of their first choice of food. Nothing too mechanically harmful, just some little nudges.

[Fouredged Sword]

My suggestion would be to be very careful to NOT MAKE IT A PUNISHMENT. Players get finicky about WBL and keeping their hands on every last scrap of wealth they can. If you want your players to tithe, give extra gold and let them know you are giving extra gold (and roughly the amount) so they can engage in Roleplay opportunities involving the communities they interact with. Let the rogue finance a tavern opening up and send him rumors from the barkeep. Let the fighter start a guild and put friendly faces in every guardpost. Let the wizard romance that pretty lady he has his eyes on.

Make it feel worth it to the player. Always give SOMETHING in return for their investment.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Why not divorce magic items and adventuring gear from the gp economy? Give standard WBL in non-gold resources, and give the players gold to do RP stuff with. Tell them that this is what you're doing specifically.

If players want to tithe, they can tithe. If they want to build a keep, they can do that. If they want to start a demon-hunting business named Exorcisms 'R Us, then that's what they can do.

And then they won't have to worry about reducing their in-game resources by having some RP fun. If they get any personal benefits from it, have it be in social standing and similar resources they can call upon outside of a fight.

[Florian]

You know how I know you are roll-playing instead of role-playing?

And you´re wrong there. I play D&D/PF for high adventure, dungeon, risk-taking and high-fantasy fights.
I simply accept that some parts of it are tied to a mechanical framework that has nothing to do with how the world itself works but is purely concerned about the game balance.
Those parts I do deliberately keep away from the ongoing game as much as possible because who ever wants to be distracted from roleplaying by pure mechanics? Heck, I don´t even do shopping during a session because the ludicrous amounts of gold tend to break any kind of verisimilitude/immersion that can be reached.

Therefore, stuff like tipping, tithing, throwing a round in the tavern are all not deduced from WBL and done for the pure joy of roleplaying it. I just don´t mix it up with the mechanically necessary parts.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Not tithing, but import taxes. In my current game, the GM dropped a phat stack of lootz on us at a very low level (something in the range of a couple million coins) but didn't expect us to get them back to town to liquidate (they were in the form of identical magic swords. One was useful for the one person with a Longsword proficiency, but the rest were vendor trash). He expected us to not make it back to town without being robbed (tons of magic swords= huge magic beacon of steal my stuff) and since we were low level, it should have been easy to pilfer them. Admittedly, this plan was kind of douchey on his part, but he didn't take into account my personal hammerspace power, which I stuffed to capacity (7 swords total, over 100k value). We were able to sneak them into town, paying the import tax on just 1 sword (which was the entirety of our actual gold at the time), liquidated the remaining swords.

Of course, our buyer snitched and the only way we kept the proceeds was to pay the import taxes and a bribe to not be jailed. It lowered our WBL from 'stupidly way too much' to 'too much.'

The point of hte story, taxes and tithes and the like can be a way of IG reducing WBL back to appropriate levels, so long as the players are aware of this. Otherwise its just a jerk move.

[Duke of Urrel]

… The other thing is of course the fact that 1/10 is quite a lot of money.


But a tithe takes many many forms. Not all deities have grand cathedrals where PC's can just go dump extra gold. And while gold is good, most deities prefer other offerings, or actions. A deity of healing can be tithed to for pro bono healing on behalf of the deity. Likewise, a deity of assassination can be tithed to by performing a hit for the church, pro bono. Giving a masterwork or rare example of the deity's favored weapon has more impact than just giving the weapons value in gold. Money is good, but doing the work of the deity is much better.


If you want them to tithe, they have to receive some kind of benefit. "Goodwill of the church" is a benefit only if you make it one.

If you have a coherent world where churches are regional actors, the PCs also want these churches in their good graces whenever they need anything done. Send clerics to heal a king's daughter? Consecrate an area so that the Evil Lich can't keep raising undead in his castle of evil? Track down the 17th level super-hermit capable of casting true resurrection? The church will happily do these things for patrons, but not for random murderhobos.

Make these benefits clear to the PCs and they'll have a reason to pay.

Yes and "amen" to all of the above.

As A.A.King said, a tithe of 10% is a lot of money. I believe it is unrealistic for any religious organization that is not also part of the State with the authority to use the power of the State to impose a universal tax. On the other hand, PCs are likely to have much more money than ordinary NPCs, and if PCs don't spend their money generously in their community, starting with the local temples dedicated to popular deities (those that care for the poor), they won't be much loved by the commonfolk.

In a world in which people are free to choose which religious organization to join, or free to choose none at all, offerings will be voluntary, sporadic, and low. But many people will still give them, for the reasons that Flickerdart mentioned: there are tangible benefits.

When I'm the dungeon master, giving to any temple that belongs to the local consortium of State-approved religions entitles you to a token of membership, which you can redeem for spellcasting services at reduced cost or for free at any temple that belongs to the consortium.

Since clerics and other divine spellcasters get more benefits from their religion, it is easy to make it a divine requirement* that these characters, at least, MUST tithe to their religious organizations. If you don't give, you fall out of favor with your deity and lose your magical powers, and that's that. Of course, being a divine spellcaster with membership in a religious organization should come with many benefits not available even to the most generous laypersons.

_____________________
*Do the gods care whether believers give to religious organizations? You bet they do! The gods care about believers, and these organizations foster belief. The only exceptions are gods of nature that don't favor "institutional" religion. But these gods invariably will demand in-kind or in-service contributions in place of money, as Geddy has pointed out.

[Jon_Dahl]

A few comments:
Dealing with WBL is problematic. Basically the more the PCs spend, more they gain. So I always try to keep WBL in balance, no matter how much they spend. I might make some exceptions, but I wouldn't make one with tithing. I think my players don't understand this, and I will never tell them that I do this. That would be crazy.

I have designed everything concerning tithing, but it simply doesn't work. Let me give you a breakdown.

Good things about tithing:
+ A vast majority of established and easy-to-find clergies only provide services for their followers regardless of their wealth and power. Most clergies concern themselves with having lots of followers and not so much with those random guys who pop in only to use the holy men as spell-o-matics. The players know this and they are in constant need of clerical spells, but they refuse to tithe in order to access the NPC clerics' spells.
+ "Get out of hell free" card = use the ancient and well-working method: if PC pays his tithes, some of his sins just go awaaaay. <= This does exist.
+ More adventures.

Bad things about tithing:
- The clergies want followers that are genuinely interested in their cause. The guys who are just willing to do things in order to get their services are not ideal. They won't try to persuade the PCs and that's exactly what the PCs require before they would consider joining up and tithing.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Don't worry about making your players throw away their money. Instead, focus on things that are important to them. If they need healing but nobody wants to play a healbot, give them a few reusable healing items. Even a wand of lesser vigor works really well, if someone has UMD available. If they don't, give out healing belts.

If you just can't get past the idea of trying to inject religion into your game, try giving them a cleric follower whose church is central to a few of the subplots. He can heal, help with getting the PCs in good with the organization, and if you do it right, they'll appreciate his company and maybe reward him. Then he can throw his money away on their behalf.

[Florian]

@Jon Dahl:

WBL isn´t problematic once you begin handling it off screen. You know, not giving out GP as treasure, just handing out consumables and "unique" items during an adventure and having your players deal with WBL when at home, sending you their shopping lists.

It´s fairly easy to wear half a million in equipment, own an estate and just have 10 gp in pocket change to use in play to not break the setting reality.

[Kelb_Panthera]

A few comments:
Dealing with WBL is problematic. Basically the more the PCs spend, more they gain. So I always try to keep WBL in balance, no matter how much they spend. I might make some exceptions, but I wouldn't make one with tithing. I think my players don't understand this, and I will never tell them that I do this. That would be crazy.

I have designed everything concerning tithing, but it simply doesn't work. Let me give you a breakdown.

Good things about tithing:
+ A vast majority of established and easy-to-find clergies only provide services for their followers regardless of their wealth and power. Most clergies concern themselves with having lots of followers and not so much with those random guys who pop in only to use the holy men as spell-o-matics. The players know this and they are in constant need of clerical spells, but they refuse to tithe in order to access the NPC clerics' spells.
+ "Get out of hell free" card = use the ancient and well-working method: if PC pays his tithes, some of his sins just go awaaaay. <= This does exist.
+ More adventures.

Bad things about tithing:
- The clergies want followers that are genuinely interested in their cause. The guys who are just willing to do things in order to get their services are not ideal. They won't try to persuade the PCs and that's exactly what the PCs require before they would consider joining up and tithing.

Oooohhhh. I see what's happening here.

You can't fix stupid.

If the only way to get cleical aid is to either have one in the party or tithe the church and they refuse to do either of these things even though they're regularly in need of such aid, that's just dumb. There's nothing you can do about that.

Question: even the churches of gods of commerce and trade refuse to sell their services to non-members?

[Grytorm]

Well what must be understood is that tithing often is part of the magic item creation process. An 1i8th level paladin doesn't just walk into a temple with 2000 pounds of gold and order a Holy Avenger. Instead he goes on a two month pilgrimage distributing his wealth and making donations to the church. Eventually reaching the Tomb of Aroden near the Starstone. Here the paladin kneels before the new high priest of Iomedae who blesses the Champion, declaring him defender of the Inner Sea and scourge of the damned. The fortune is exchanged and after a month of contemplation the Paladin is gifted a sword which supposedly forged from Aroden's mail attached to a hilt carved from Iomedea's fifth leg. Totally not from dragon bone, just like how the High Priests snazzy new red robe was woven from Iomedea's hair and not the underscales of the dragon whose wealth is paying all this.

[5ColouredWalker]

Mostly this. Even the most devout paladin is likely to see that the 10% of his WBL, in his hands as a magic weapon or item, is actually doing good for the community by helping him to survive and stop more threats to good people everywhere. Sure, when he retires, he might donate anywhere from 10-90+% to charity, but right now, making his greatsword holy for better demon smiting also seems like a good-aligned choice. It isn't even like it is losing value. When he is done adventuring, he can give it to some young paladin who just completed his first quest, thereby passing the good on to the next generation.


^^^^THIS^^^^

Between the above and the pantheistic nature of most games, any adventurers being accosted for tithes have my support in laughing at the priest.

[bahamut920]

Allow me to throw my hat in with the people who suggest offering some advantage for tithing. It doesn't need to be huge, or even mechanical. Free healing spells or the opportunity for a quest hook or two every so often is fine. Roleplaying XP or some sort of boon from the organization is better. But if you just make the church or local lord or whatever a money sink, the players are going to see a drain on their effectiveness. Only the truly dedicated role-players would voluntarily throw money at an organization regularly with no chance of return on investment, and that would usually be players playing divine classes whose backstory includes an attachment to a church.

[Jon_Dahl]

Question: even the churches of gods of commerce and trade refuse to sell their services to non-members?

That's a very good question. The answer is "yes, they refuse". They are still holy men. It's a little bit complex to explain and I'm sure that I will contradict myself, but the basic idea is that the gods of commerce still need worshippers, not a few clerics that are filthy rich. The power of the deity is measured purely in souls (and all souls are equal), which of course is irritating to the deities that say that getting rich is the key in life. This 'souls = power' deal is not straightforward, so it's possible to have almost forgotten greater deities and popular demigods, but I feel that that's out of this thread's scope. I hope this answered your question.

[ryu]

That's a very good question. The answer is "yes, they refuse". They are still holy men. It's a little bit complex to explain and I'm sure that I will contradict myself, but the basic idea is that the gods of commerce still need worshippers, not a few clerics that are filthy rich. The power of the deity is measured purely in souls (and all souls are equal), which of course is irritating to the deities that say that getting rich is the key in life. This 'souls = power' deal is not straightforward, so it's possible to have almost forgotten greater deities and popular demigods, but I feel that that's out of this thread's scope. I hope this answered your question.

That's the thing though. As a deity you don't need to have people pay tithes to have claim on their souls in the afterlife and count them as worshipers in life. It can literally be as simple on the part of the worshiper as declaration of a given deity as your deity with no equivalent or stronger actions made for other deities for the rest of your life. If all you need is worshipers the ideal strategy isn't to demand tithes.

Literally scatter as many low level clerics with healing and health benefits enough to remove most worry of disease, injury, or curses from a given small town. Bonus points if you can provide food too. Get the populace eating out of your hand on those grounds while constantly promising an ideal afterlife for worshipers.

As an added bonus go on to promise clerical or similar to any with the talent to use it and connection to the wider network of churches in exchange for agreeing to fill a similar role. Congratulations. You've just learned the power of missionaries with actual divine power and a lack of need for general assistance.

Use higher level clerics to directly defend your flock and train lower level clerics. I mean there's other classes you can make use of I guess, but any follower with at least an 11 Wis is going to do more for cause in cleric than most any other divine class.

[Coidzor]

What do you think about tithing in general? Any tips how to make it work?

Pointless, aside from a background detail, unless you actually make it have a point somehow.

I don't see a reason to want to do so, 9 times out of 10.

Your players clearly don't like this idea and don't think it's cool like you do. Pick your battles.

[Florian]

That's a very good question. The answer is "yes, they refuse". They are still holy men. It's a little bit complex to explain and I'm sure that I will contradict myself, but the basic idea is that the gods of commerce still need worshippers, not a few clerics that are filthy rich. The power of the deity is measured purely in souls (and all souls are equal), which of course is irritating to the deities that say that getting rich is the key in life. This 'souls = power' deal is not straightforward, so it's possible to have almost forgotten greater deities and popular demigods, but I feel that that's out of this thread's scope. I hope this answered your question.

No, not at all. With the Souls = Power deal going, deities don´t need any show of obeisance from their worshippers beyond that. They have absolute proof of who is a true believer and who is a deceiver, so to say. A cult can also be pretty independent of wealth, because it has an actual spell- and wish-granting deity at its back, you know, unlike the real world.

[Jon_Dahl]

No, not at all. With the Souls = Power deal going, deities don´t need any show of obeisance from their worshippers beyond that. They have absolute proof of who is a true believer and who is a deceiver, so to say. A cult can also be pretty independent of wealth, because it has an actual spell- and wish-granting deity at its back, you know, unlike the real world.

Yes, but in order to attract followers, rich churches have more means at their disposal. Of course the PCs can join up a cult that requires no tithes (I have those in my game too), but generally being affiliated to a church means that you have to or you should pay something. I'm not an expert, but generally religions work like this. For me, the general idea of "access to powerful clerical spells"+"the church wants to build 20 new shrines and 2 new temples"+"worshipper loyalty to their deity must be tested and verified" = tithes seems like reasonable math.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

If you want them to tithe, they have to receive some kind of benefit. "Goodwill of the church" is a benefit only if you make it one.

*snip*This made me think of a medieval DocWagon-style church subscription service, with clerics showing up mid-dungeon to Revivify poor Rufus because he paid the low, low cost of 100 gp per week.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Yes, but in order to attract followers, rich churches have more means at their disposal. Of course the PCs can join up a cult that requires no tithes (I have those in my game too), but generally being affiliated to a church means that you have to or you should pay something. I'm not an expert, but generally religions work like this. For me, the general idea of "access to powerful clerical spells"+"the church wants to build 20 new shrines and 2 new temples"+"worshipper loyalty to their deity must be tested and verified" = tithes seems like reasonable math.

This directly contradicts your answer about Churches of trade and commerce. Selling spellcasting services is one of the most profitable endeavors a character can undergo and turning those profits around into spreading the church's influence; through public works, charities, and reputable business investments; draws more worshipers and increases the church's temporal power.

The cleric simply keeping the money would represent a corruption of political power, a betrayal against the faith and its adherents, and a failure of his peers to keep the faith.

[Coidzor]

You probably need to go back to the drawing board, OP, and revisit why you're so deadset on this as well as making it more coherent if you do decide you want to be this gungho about it.

[ryu]

If the goal of your church is money it's far more efficient to set people with actual divine power to the task of making it. Even selling spells, which is the baseline method, is more efficient than demanding tithes. It's also much easier to attract swaths of willing commoners if you don't have them pay a subscription service.

To put this in perspective a single cleric capable of casting genesis can create a demiplane made entirely of platinum and completely obviate the money making abilities of the entire non-magical world. What amount of tithing is supposed to equal that?

[Jon_Dahl]

This directly contradicts your answer about Churches of trade and commerce. Selling spellcasting services is one of the most profitable endeavors a character can undergo and turning those profits around into spreading the church's influence; through public works, charities, and reputable business investments; draws more worshipers and increases the church's temporal power.

The cleric simply keeping the money would represent a corruption of political power, a betrayal against the faith and its adherents, and a failure of his peers to keep the faith.

You have a point. The clerics of commerce in game are exclusively lawful, so in any case they resent being spell-o-matics. In general, almost any solution that doesn't begin with a stranger barging to the temple and offering lots of gold for reviving another stranger is doable.

[ryu]

You have a point. The clerics of commerce in game are exclusively lawful, so in any case they resent being spell-o-matics. In general, almost any solution that doesn't begin with a stranger barging to the temple and offering lots of gold for reviving another stranger is doable.

Why? That is literally how commerce for services works. The only difference is that in our world we don't have access to the service of reviving people. You bet your bottom dollar if we did it would sell like gods damned hotcakes. Bonus points if we get reincarnate to set you to a younger age.

[Florian]

Yes, but in order to attract followers, rich churches have more means at their disposal. Of course the PCs can join up a cult that requires no tithes (I have those in my game too), but generally being affiliated to a church means that you have to or you should pay something. I'm not an expert, but generally religions work like this. For me, the general idea of "access to powerful clerical spells"+"the church wants to build 20 new shrines and 2 new temples"+"worshipper loyalty to their deity must be tested and verified" = tithes seems like reasonable math.

You know that, unlike the real world, the clergy of a real deity can perform miracles on a routine base, right? Stuff like healing the lame/blind, feeding the masses by multiplying a fish by 100 are routine things even a lowly adept of the faith can pull of. You don´t need to awe people with your structures, rituals and elaborate robes when you wield actual divine power.

Now being more deity-specific, when a deity is linked to a portfolio (commerce, weather, light, night) it would make absolutely no sense to not do what is part of the portfolio, like blessing the fields for free, having the the-sun-raises-in-the-east ritual each morning, trading spells for gold, and so on.

[Larsen]

To make tithing/offering count, I thought of the following:
- keep track of the sum each player payed to each church/god
- When you feel like it, grant the player the effect of a spell of one of the gods domains, deducting the spell casting cost from the amount payed.

It allows divine intervention, potentially saving a character or giving him a boost to succeed in a task.

You can also have it 50% chance to happen when in dire need, to avoid a garanted life insurance without the player resenting you from not using the divine intervention.

[Amphetryon]

OP, it may help you to decide whether - in your game's universe - gaining more worshipers is something the deity needs (in which case tithes are superfluous), or something the clergy needs (in which case tithes may be necessary due to economic constraints on expansion). Defaulting to a particular understanding of a real-world model, as it would appear is your preference, is fine, but needs to be clearly communicated at your table. An additional factor that might need explanation is why the deities in question desire/allow this particular model to function if it does not actually suit their needs.

From a game mechanics POV, remember that enforcing tithes directly impacts WBL, which is supposed to be a built-in factor in encounter difficulty. If you don't account for the discrepancy, you're requiring that the game is played on Hard mode.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

You have a point. The clerics of commerce in game are exclusively lawful, so in any case they resent being spell-o-matics. In general, almost any solution that doesn't begin with a stranger barging to the temple and offering lots of gold for reviving another stranger is doable.They're Lawful. The most Lawful of the planes (Mechanus) is all about being "good little cogs in the machine."

Honestly, you seem to want to go out of your way to push your players into wasting their resources and, furthermore, punish them for doing so, and in a way that goes completely against logical sense, considering how their world works, just so that you're roughly emulating a world that works completely differently.

Something's gotta give, because what you're doing now won't work.

[Jon_Dahl]

I was thinking about defending the tithing thing, especially in the case of the clerics of commerce, a bit more, but I see that it's futile. I respect your point of view, I hope you respect mine too.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I was thinking about defending the tithing thing, especially in the case of the clerics of commerce, a bit more, but I see that it's futile. I respect your point of view, I hope you respect mine too.Maybe you could take our reasoning as similar to that of your players? If we don't want to tithe because of the reasons we're stating, why wouldn't your players have similar views, especially since they're reacting in a similar way?

If we're telling you, "yes, tithing is bad, and here's why" and giving you the answers to the questions you're asking, and you're refusing to acknowledge them because they're not the answers you want, then why ask the questions in the first place?

[Jon_Dahl]

Maybe you could take our reasoning as similar to that of your players? If we don't want to tithe because of the reasons we're stating, why wouldn't your players have similar views, since they're reacting in a similar way?

If we're telling you, "yes, tithing is bad, and here's why" and giving you the answers to the questions you're asking, and you're refusing to acknowledge them because they're not the answers you want, then why ask the questions in the first place?

First of all, I was asking for your views. For some reason I ended up debating, which I just stopped. Now we can continue normally.

Secondly, I wanted to know how to make tithing work.

Everything is going just ok.

[A.A.King]

The thing is that some mechanics/ideas only work if the players really want them to work. From a character's perspectucs tithing is either plain and simple extortion OR the right thing to do and it all depends on how devout the character is. The only way to make this work is the standard way: ask your players.
"Hey Guys, I want our next campaign to be in a world where tithing is the norm so I want you to make characters who are okay with that, alright?"
That really is the best if not the only way. If you start giving simple benefits based on how much you tith there will be plenty of players who would rather spend their money on other benefits. If you make it the obviously optimal thing to do (based on benefit to hold ratio) you will still have players who view tithing as 'uncool' and 'not something my character would do' and they'll see it as just an unfair punishment on the nondevout characters but they will not change their way and simply accept the challenge. Finally, if you find a way to make it basically mandatory to do but without consulting your players then players will just get upset.

The answer to "How do I make tithing work" is simple: "Ask your players to help make it work"

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I was thinking about defending the tithing thing, especially in the case of the clerics of commerce, a bit more, but I see that it's futile. I respect your point of view, I hope you respect mine too.It's basic mathematics. You can have a parish priest demanding tithes of 1 copper piece a week per family (because even that is damaging a commoner's ability to buy food, considering how little they make) from the ten families in his parish, or he can donate most of his spells to keeping his parish healthy and sell a single cure light wounds a week to the wealthy but fairly amoral (but not immoral) local lord to help keep his debauchery-induced syphillis under control for a hundred times that amount. And keep in mind, that's just one spell slot per week. He has quite a lot more than that available every day.

[Jon_Dahl]

I'm just going to bite my tongue here.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I'm just going to bite my tongue here.Probably for the best, especially considering that most gods don't care about the aforementioned debauchery (so long as it doesn't impinge on their portfolios or alignments), and so their priests would likely not care, either.

[Elder_Basilisk]

In the current campaign, I'm running, the requirements for magical services are set by law.

The followers of the god of commerce are not modern free marketers, but old-school monopolists (modern fascist/socialist). They see selling their services as an important revenue generator and resented other temples undercutting their prices just because the peasants "couldn't afford it" or "we want to support this important quest." So, they waited until the local ruler needed some money (yeah, I know. it wasn't a long wait) and made him an offer he couldn't refuse. The state was to set minimum prices for all spellcasting. That way, all the temples wouldn't be bankrupted by out of control competition. (That's usually the excuse for that kind of thing).

Now, the other temples in the land had quite a bit of influence and while they couldn't head off the law entirely, they got a couple exceptions written in for them:
1. If the priest is not connected to a fixed temple and is not a member of the local hierarchy, the minimum prices do not apply. (After all, how will you confiscate property he doesn't have or punish an organization he's not connected to?) This satisfied the local god of war and chivalry. Questing knight clerics can cast whatever they want and not worry about the law. (Conveniently, it also works as an exemption for spellcasting PCs who might otherwise be breaking the law).
2. If the supplicant is an officially recorded dues paying member of the temple, the standard prices need not apply and the temple can charge (or not charge) whatever it wants. This satisfied the local neutral good god's temple because they can set income based dues and still provide their members with reduced cost or free services.

The net effect of the laws is that:
A. The is an in-game reason to just use the PHB formula for determining how much a spell costs--it's the law.
B. If a PC is a member of the church, they can pay a portion of their income instead and get spells at just over material component cost.

[Fouredged Sword]

For a wandering adventurer? Yeah, the temple ether cuts itself off from serving people from outside the community entirely or opens itself up to a stranger walking in, preforming the correct rituals of greeting and supplication, throwing down a stack of gold, and requesting spellcasting services.

There is no viable way for a temple of low level clerics to verify that someone has payed their tithe unless they know that person.

Besides that, the temples are in competition with one another. There is a temple for rogues, for murderers, for travelers... Someone works with every community. A necromancer may not be able to walk into a temple of Palor and get spellcasting, but a temple of a darker god, sure!

If all souls are equal then it makes a great deal of sense to have a two tiered system. You can A) show up and listen to a one time sermon and pay a LARGE stack of cash to get spellcasting services the same or (in casr the spell isn't preped) next day, or B show up every week for the scheduled sermon and post sermon free or discounted spellcasting. It's about getting butts in seats so you can get your message out. It's about ensuring that people come to YOU, not the other guy down the street.

The people who work and live in your community and are active members of your church are given GOOD reason to stay active. That guy who wandered in from outside of town? He's going to pay and sound like a worshiper and probably stay for a sermon to make sure your god's message is planted.

With the options of many churches people will go to the church that most agrees with their own faith and thus those they more most susceptible to the preaching of. The only exception is when one church has a cleric with higher level spell access and thus a partial or complete monopoly on some spells. They can then ensure that everyone is forced to give them money and let them try to convince them to switch faiths.

Taking money for spellcasting is a no-lose situation for the church. You get money to convert people and get a chance to convert those who may or may not share your faith.

[Gildedragon]

If the tithe brings divine favor then have each amount they pay be turned into Action Points or Hero Points. Each 300gp they spend on the church they get 1 hero point, they can have no more that 3 at a time... But they'll use them up. Being able to reroll a d20, act out of turn, or get a +8 to a skill, are all very useful things

You can also have churches function as organizations: join and do your part and get benefits. Clerics might go "You know, you don't have to be of a priestly vocation to join the temple. [Deity] is always on the lookout for a good sword/spell arm to do good deeds... You'd get a sizeable discount to these visits..." Or "You know, the Temple of Boccob has the largest Grimoiretheque in the known world, but it is only accesible to the Faithful." Have the clerics proselytize.
Heck design [Healing] incantations that take a minute to cast. Spell slots are for emergencies.
And remember tithes can be paid in kind: farmers might offer part of their harvest, adventurers can do quests. Heck, asking an Erudite to turn their oil lamps into Perpetual Flames is all but free for the Erudite and saves the church money on lamp oil forever. Asking the bard to play the church's lyre of building to get the cathedral built faster...

[Hecuba]

Tithing generally represents a nonstandard, if not particularly novel, world building decision that inherently had mechanical implications (you're asking the players to literally give away power).

It can work, but you need to have a firm idea of what you want the result to be, both narratively and mechanically.

In 3.5, the ready-made support for the idea is limited: the closest is likely Vow of Poverty, which is both more extreme than you likely want for a simple tithe and not actually well balanced (you effectively need to have been planning on giving away all your treasure anyway to make it a sound mechanical choice).

There has been support for it in prior editions, however. Paladins tithed in earlier editions, as did Knights of Solomia in Dragonlance. The key was that the resulting power difference was baked into the XP tables, along with a lot of other things. That won't work with the standardized XP tables of 3rd and later, but the fact that it existed is a good demonstration that it can work it you balance it properly.

[Vogie]

Yeah, You have to really flesh it out for it to be viewed as anything other than a tax. Some ways to get around that...

There's a pantheon, and each player chooses whom they tithe to. There could be tithes of coin, of service, of blood, of gems, of wine, of bones, et cetera; each with a benefit, which could be anything from "free healing" to "free blacksmithing" or "weapon insurance" or "cheap consumables". It's not just "because reasons", it's just built into the system that gives them meaningful choices.

Make it a genuine game mechanic. You don't pay the tithe, suddenly the clerics become hateful (Spanish?) inquisitors in the night. Basically, they're a higher-level-then expected dungeon in broad daylight that you can buy your way out of, with the low low cost of not knowing that ahead of time.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Make it a genuine game mechanic. You don't pay the tithe, suddenly the clerics become hateful (Spanish?) inquisitors in the night. Basically, they're a higher-level-then expected dungeon in broad daylight that you can buy your way out of, with the low low cost of not knowing that ahead of time.You know what one of my characters would have said to this?

"Ooh. You mean I don't have to throw money down the outhouse and I get free loot and experience? This even saves me the trouble of going to them! It's a win/win!"

He was a very powerful and very bloodthirsty LE antitheist.

[Gildedragon]

Make it a genuine game mechanic. You don't pay the tithe, suddenly the clerics become hateful (Spanish?) inquisitors in the night. Basically, they're a higher-level-then expected dungeon in broad daylight that you can buy your way out of, with the low low cost of not knowing that ahead of time.
That's bad advice. Have them attack the PCs only if attacked, or are the PCs already known to be evil? Or are the Churches protection rackets?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

That's bad advice. Have them attack the PCs only if attacked, or are the PCs already known to be evil? Or are the Churches protection rackets?It's a fully acceptable strategy, especially for Evil churches.

[Shpadoinkle]

For years I've tried to have all sorts of PCs to tithe, to churches mainly, but the results have been poor. The problem seems to be twofold: greed and laziness. Players can't be bothered to keep track of what they earn so they don't know what to tithe. I haven't been too happy about this, because I think tithing is really medieval and I would even say "cool", so it's unfortunate that they my efforts have been in vain.

What do you think about tithing in general? Any tips how to make it work?

Well, first I think you need to answer two questions.

1: Why do you want your PCs to tithe? Because you haven't presented any reason for them to.

2: What do they get out of it? Again you haven't given any reason to do it, and second, as a player, I'd be asking "Why should I be giving 10% of my money to these *******s? I'm the one who risked my ass for it, they can earn their own damn money."

[daremetoidareyo]

I am of the opinion that tithing is bad. It is no fun. Heck, it is anti-fun.

"Great! we get all of this treasure, except that we don't."

Treasure, mind you, isn't even taxed if you find it in the real world. The government and churches can't track the existence of treasure in the way that they can track goods that have receipts. So it is a case of finders keepers.

The particularly pious can tithe if they want to, but demanding tithes as a DM from all players is lame. Especially if the the benefits of this behavior are not mechanical in nature. I play d&D to avoid having to think about taxes.

If I was in a campaign like this, I would most assuredly not pay my tithes, and may even plot schemes to steal or skim the tithing agencies, seeing as how their finances aren't likely to have very good records. Even if they did have good records, at some point any system instated by people has a step that requires trust, and that is the weak link to attack to get the easy money. A few gather informations later, and I'm rolling in other peoples cash.

I would then use that money to produce power and allies that demand additional tithes or we'll smash their stupid faces. Smashing faces is super easy compared to actually earning money. Guilt tripping people as a part of a church is just as easy.

[Mr Adventurer]

If your players are so against tithing that they won't even do it to secure their characters' access to essential services, then you might want to re-examine what you want to get out of your game, let alone the act of trying to get them to tithe.

[Vogie]

That's bad advice. Have them attack the PCs only if attacked, or are the PCs already known to be evil? Or are the Churches protection rackets?

Hardly. You think the only good advice is that the church can only self-defend or only attack the game-defined evil? You're thinking of "Lets make it exactly the same as it's always been".

Let's step outside that box, methinks.

A wonderful example would be from Fullmetal Alchemist, Father Cornello in the town of Liore/Reole (or, you know, the actual Spanish inquisition, or Salem Witch 'trials'). Your merry band of self-righteous murderhobos just wander in, thinking it's great that the people are happy and beer is cheap, so most of them pay the tithe for free things. The antitheists don't, and they happily let it go.

Nightfall occurs, everyone's resting and hark! the antitheists are kidnapped! They're to be hanged/defenestrated/decapitated/burned like the steak for their crime of not tithing (or some other crime of your choice)

Maybe the rest of the party wakes at the sound of the mob and have to save their own. Maybe the antitheists have to figure it out on their own. Maybe they are alone and perish... but it was only a nightmare (or a warning!).

This is a wonderful pile of levers and opportunity for a story teller.

[Gildedragon]

Hardly. You think the only good advice is that the church can only self-defend or only attack the game-defined evil? You're thinking of "Lets make it exactly the same as it's always been".

Let's step outside that box, methinks.

A wonderful example would be from Fullmetal Alchemist, Father Cornello in the town of Liore/Reole (or, you know, the actual Spanish inquisition, or Salem Witch 'trials'). Your merry band of self-righteous murderhobos just wander in, thinking it's great that the people are happy and beer is cheap, so most of them pay the tithe for free things. The antitheists don't, and they happily let it go.

Nightfall occurs, everyone's resting and hark! the antitheists are kidnapped! They're to be hanged/defenestrated/decapitated/burned like the steak for their crime of not tithing (or some other crime of your choice)

Maybe the rest of the party wakes at the sound of the mob and have to save their own. Maybe the antitheists have to figure it out on their own. Maybe they are alone and perish... but it was only a nightmare (or a warning!).

This is a wonderful pile of levers and opportunity for a story teller.

Not tithing is not the same as being antitheistic.
Nor is not tithing heretical. (Also ixnay on the real world religions-ay.)

Simply put: such a violent reaction to the refusal to participate is strange, to say the least, and lacking versimilitude. They are passers-by, it is unreasonable to expect them to participate in the local tax. It's not like you have the tax man coming into the in and taxing the PCs that are just going through the town. There are and have been mentioned the town entry taxes that saw to travellers doing that. Spellcasting prices acting as the cleric-y equivalent of that make sense, with locals that tithe paying much less for spells.

And Mr Cornetto wasn't what one's call a good or faithful priest. He was a con artist and simoniac. In dnd land he'd be an urpriest or a non divine caster (factotum or chameleon or UMD rogue/expert too) that runs the parish like a protection racket. "You pay or... something might happen; something bad"

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I am of the opinion that tithing is bad. It is no fun. Heck, it is anti-fun.

"Great! we get all of this treasure, except that we don't."That's patently ridiculous. Who doesn't like tax season?

[Sahleb]

RE the title: Yes, tithing is bad. It takes away stuff, and doesn't give anything back. Do you know how angry people get with governments when they pay taxes, and don't feel the government is spending it properly? It definitely makes the top five list of most common real-life reasons for revolution, when combined with periods of scarcity.

Why would anyone want to subject their players to that? I really don't get it.

It'd be something else if they got something out of it, but if the various religions are basically just protection rackets that go 'pay us money or we'll attack you!', then of course no-one thinks its a good idea.

Besides, even historically, the tithe only really applied cleanly to peasants who earned stuff at harvest and slaughter. In the towns, everyone lied about how much coin they had on hand, so most places, townships as a whole had the responsibility of paying a set amount of money, not a percentage, once or twice a year.

In short, if you're trying to make a percentage thing, that didn't even work out in real life.

By the same token, Loot isn't always money, so figuring out how much of your stuff a 5% value represents is annoying. Very few people like the aspects of d&d that resemble doing your taxes in real life, so any sort of houserule that makes them do that is going to annoy them.

Also, tithes were enforceable because the government had a big sodding army. Adventurers are notoriously good at killing stuff, and notoriously without respect for the sanctity of life.

These facts combined will lead to a fairly predictable scenario.

[Telok]

It depends on the setting and the assumptions. If, like most people around here, you assume inactive gods, church organizations based on modern religion, gods requiring a constant income of souls to survive, slavish adherence to the idea of WBL, modern regulated free market economics, free access to spellcasting, and other stuff... Then you get pages of arguments.

For my setting I threw out those assumptions and started from scratch.
1) Gods. The gods are modeled on the ancient Greek myths. Powerful, independent, egotistical, active. They don't care about most mortals. Heroes, temples, cities, and respect are what they care about. They screw with and intercede for heroes that they like. Temples are focal points for worship so the gods don't have to bother trying to deal with boring mortal trivia. If a god sponsors a city then everyone in there pays tribute to the god. It's a prestige thing, godly bragging rights. If people disrespect a god bad things happen. Mortals are bugs, gods have insecticide.
2) Temples. One logical result of of 1 is that the gods don't care about organized religion. The mortals can organize or not, as long as the temple is well kept and the sacrifices and respect keep up the god is happy. So I can have temples that run like businesses, others are cults, and some can be a single rich priest. Whatever I, as DM, need can happen.
3) Heroes. Gods have distinct personalities and care about heroes. Heroes are cool, funny, barganing chips, bragging rights, and a lot like cats chasing a laser pointer. Sometimes the hero gets a treat, sometimes they get saved from harm, sometimes they get the squirt bottle. Some gods want sacrifices of gold,, others want blood, or good deeds, or magic items, or zombies. Mechanically the character can dedicate themselves to a god. Please the god and get rewarded, annoy and get punished. As DM I keep track of piety points, they represent divine good will and can be used for positive benefits in game. If they go negative the god starts sending bad mojo down. It's possible for a character to rack up positive or negative piety with a god they don't follow but that's difficult to do outside of desecrating temples and usually doesn't have much effect.

So tithing? Well some gods like sacrifices of money. Some temples run like businesses, others may run like charities. Sometimes a priest has something you want and needs some money. It depends on the characters and the circumstances.

When I sat down to make my setting I chose what to have that would fit the setting, be easy to DM, be interesting for the game and story, and wouldn't force players to do things that they didn't want to. I also ditched the WBL idea and the default magic item pricing in favor of consistency and verisimilitude.

[Coidzor]

Hardly. You think the only good advice is that the church can only self-defend or only attack the game-defined evil? You're thinking of "Lets make it exactly the same as it's always been".

Let's step outside that box, methinks.

A wonderful example would be from Fullmetal Alchemist, Father Cornello in the town of Liore/Reole (or, you know, the actual Spanish inquisition, or Salem Witch 'trials'). Your merry band of self-righteous murderhobos just wander in, thinking it's great that the people are happy and beer is cheap, so most of them pay the tithe for free things. The antitheists don't, and they happily let it go.

Nightfall occurs, everyone's resting and hark! the antitheists are kidnapped! They're to be hanged/defenestrated/decapitated/burned like the steak for their crime of not tithing (or some other crime of your choice)

Maybe the rest of the party wakes at the sound of the mob and have to save their own. Maybe the antitheists have to figure it out on their own. Maybe they are alone and perish... but it was only a nightmare (or a warning!).

This is a wonderful pile of levers and opportunity for a story teller.

Do you want murderhobos? Because that's how you get murderhobos. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU0GYSA1POs)


Also, tithes were enforceable because the government had a big sodding army. Adventurers are notoriously good at killing stuff, and notoriously without respect for the sanctity of life.

These facts combined will lead to a fairly predictable scenario.

You know what happens when the legal churches get murderhobo'd? The same thing that happens to everything else. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0yKSNq-oLg)

[Sahleb]

<Long post full of well though out stuff>

That's fair. If you want to use tithes, this is a good way to do it. Slapping tithes onto a non-interventionist, multipantheon 'standard' d&d game is still not a good idea, though.

It sounds like OP is modelling this after the big monotheistic historical religions. Those relied heavily on having a monopoly on your afterlife - if you don't pay up, you're literally tortured for eternity. Mostly.

Of course, in D&D, no religion has that monopoly, so an entirely appropriate response to 'Come join my religion and pay us for your SalvationTM!' is 'Blow me.'

Worst case scenario, your soul will just sort of wink out of existence after you die. No biggie.

[Mystral]

Why would you tithe when you are in the buisness of saving the world (or just generally doing good deeds)?

[Kelb_Panthera]

It depends on the setting and the assumptions. If, like most people around here, you assume inactive gods, church organizations based on modern religion, gods requiring a constant income of souls to survive, slavish adherence to the idea of WBL, modern regulated free market economics, free access to spellcasting, and other stuff... Then you get pages of arguments.

Some of these are the base assumptions of the default setting. If you want to talk about different settings you have to outline the differences.

The default is that the gods are -moderately- active in an indirect fashion. They -rarely- visit individuals amongst the faithful and sometimes send heralds to high clergy. They make their will known but try to avoid directly acting in the world because doing so leaves them vulnerable to attack by opposed gods and gods doing direct battle with one another woud ruin the wold they -all- need to generate mortal souls to fuel the great wheel.

Church organizations vary drastically from one god to the next and even within sects of individual gods if their following is large enough. You get everything from authoritarian, dogma focused types like the followers of St Cuthbert to hippy, nature-loving, live and let live types like ehlonna's faithful to blood-thirsty reavers with nothing but the belief they're doing their god's will as they slaughter like the cults of erythnull. To presume that all churches behave similarly in any regard other than trying to spread their faith as best they're able is to err.

The default setting doesn't require gods to have worshippers to live but they do require them to fuel their divine power (divine rank is determined by following by default) and to further their cause in the cosmos. Forgotten realms -does- require their gods to be worshipped to avoid going dormant or dying. Dragonlance gods divinity is completely unrelated to their following.

WBL is part of the game's balancing mechanics. Those mechanics aren't exactly smoothly operable and bug free but they do exist and, if you're not a primary spellcaster, the lack of appropriate wealth becomes more and more of a burden as your level increases unless the DM ignores CR altogether (something often advised, unfortunately) and carefully cherry-picks foes for his PC's to face. On the other hand, drowning in gear, monty-haul style, has the reverse effect of putting characters way ahead of where their level suggests their power should be. I can't tell you how many threads I've seen that amount to "Player is way too weak/strong compared to spellcaster ally/enemies presented," and it turns out the problem is the DM having discarded WBL without examining its purpose first.

Market forces don't care about laws. You can legislate methods of -trying- to control such forces and nudge them in a direction you want them to go but it's like trying to bottle a hurricane. Scarcity, supply, and demand will -always- interact in the ways they always have. In a pseudo-medieval setting, where the power of the various governments only extends as far as their agents can reach, the market forces are so overwhelmingly powerful that the best you can really hope for is to tax large-scale trade and that the black-market won't grow too powerful or restless to keep in the background.

Spellcasting and magic item trade are presumed to be freely available because they're covered in the abstraction of economy that is presented by settlement size and GP limits rather than a detailed economy system. Maybe you're just going to honest merchants, maybe you're going to the black-market, maybe you're going to magic-mart; your one stop magic shopping center. It doesn't really matter because if the players want a thing, they'll find a way to get the thing and nothing short of DM fiat and/or an utter failure to understand economics will stop them; maybe not even the latter of those.

Again, a DM is free to change any of these things but it'd be awfully helpful if they -say so- when asking for help in regards to such matters.
_________________________________________________

On the OP's topic:

It's important to remember that there -is- a differene between tithing and taxation, even if the historic difference was largely academic rather than factual.

A tax is drawn by the government to fund the government. It is not, even in theory, voluntary. If you are a citizen of the state, you owe the state some form of support that it -must- have in order to serve its supposed purpose of protecting the populace from outside aggression and internal criminal activity. A fair and just government will levy that as a monetary tax that is not so onerous as to harm the citizenry. A more tyrannical government will levy taxes to feed boondogles and conscript citizens into service. Even a loose, weak, voluntary government will -ask- for voluntary donations so that it can operate, though those aren't a proper tax.

A tithe, on the other hand, is voluntary, by definition, and is intended to be a show of faith and virtue signal to others of your faith. It is not levied but requested because the church(es) need funding if they are to be influential beyond the simple (if potentially quite powerful) gratitude of their parish.

Historically, the state was subserviant to religion and while a tithe was nominally voluntary, the faithful were expected to pay tithes to the church to such an extent that it was sometimes (arguably often) coerced during the medieval period.

Because the states of a D&D world -aren't- typically beholden to a specific religion (outside of the odd theocracy), this important difference is important to remember.

[Telok]

Some of these are the base assumptions of the default setting. If you want to talk about different settings you have to outline the differences.
Kelb man, you're awesome and I really respect you. But you can take a pass on the knee jerk balance/assumption rant. The stuff I posted was what directly related to the concept of tithing in my setting. The big tldr of it is that I looked at how the game worked and the assumptions behind the default setting, threw those out, and built something that worked better for me. That thing was gods with personalities and powers not domains and divine rank rules. A god/church division that allows for different competing sects and different interpretations. And a setup that rewards players for having their characters be as religious as the rest of the NPC population and not treat priests as spell vending machines. That's what was relevant and what I posted about, but it's not everything.

The other stuff you talked about isn't an issue in my games, it's a good warning for newer GMs who want to start changing things though. The first thing to do when changing stuff up is to try and understand the principals and assumptions behind the current setup, what they reward and the emergent play that stems from them. Then figure out the difference in the results that you want. After that you start trying to change the assumptions and bases in ways that should lead to the results you want. That's what I've done, and I'm still finding small issues and fixing them but my game is closer to what I'd like it to be now.

We can delve into what I consider to be the WBL fallacy and the magic item/economy issues in the basic setup if you want to. But I solved all that in my game and it's not related to the tithing thing.

The tithing 'issue' can be solved very simply. First, reward it. Second, make sure the players know that WBL isn't at stake. Third, churches and priests can't be Vend-A-Heal Inc. fast spells joints with people saying "Would you like a Detect Poison with your Cure Critical Wounds today?"

Tho ya' know... Vend-A-Heal could be an interesting twist in some games.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Kelb man, you're awesome and I really respect you. But you can take a pass on the knee jerk balance/assumption rant. The stuff I posted was what directly related to the concept of tithing in my setting. The big tldr of it is that I looked at how the game worked and the assumptions behind the default setting, threw those out, and built something that worked better for me. That thing was gods with personalities and powers not domains and divine rank rules. A god/church division that allows for different competing sects and different interpretations. And a setup that rewards players for having their characters be as religious as the rest of the NPC population and not treat priests as spell vending machines. That's what was relevant and what I posted about, but it's not everything.

I get that you were talking about your own setting but this is a public forum. It's important that everyone be on the same page when discussing things. My -primary- concern was getting accross to whomever read my post, not just you, that it's important to keep that in mind and explicitly mention any departures from the common sources we're all presumably drawing from otherwise.

There actually -is- lore regarding the deities available if you do a little looking around and there's very little about how churches are structured outside of a paragraph here and there for each god. There's -way- more than enough room for nuance, sectarianism, and internecene strife in the default religions. Signs can be misinterpreted and -direct- divine decree is exceedingly rare. I'm just not seeing where you're getting the idea that the gods are one dimensional or that their churches are cookie-cutter. I generally only assume that clergy of trade and commerce deities are mostly indiscriminate with selling their services because it makes sense for them. Other guardians of the faith can be as selective as the current plot requires and may or may not insist on service over cash for payment; this seemed so obvious a course to me that I didn't think to even mention it before now.


The other stuff you talked about isn't an issue in my games, it's a good warning for newer GMs who want to start changing things though. The first thing to do when changing stuff up is to try and understand the principals and assumptions behind the current setup, what they reward and the emergent play that stems from them. Then figure out the difference in the results that you want. After that you start trying to change the assumptions and bases in ways that should lead to the results you want. That's what I've done, and I'm still finding small issues and fixing them but my game is closer to what I'd like it to be now.

This is an excellent way to approach the system and I can certainly offer you my respect on this count.

It always bugs me when DM's try to limit available wealth without putting forward a good explanation for -why- they're doing so and how they justify it in-game. That latter gets particularly irksome when they give me, "Such trade is outlawed," and think that's enough. The former downright pisses me off when it's, "I'm going for low magic," and they place no limits on spellcasters, as is -far- too often the case. I'm not suggesting you do these things. Just expressing a general thought.


We can delve into what I consider to be the WBL fallacy and the magic item/economy issues in the basic setup if you want to. But I solved all that in my game and it's not related to the tithing thing.

I -am- curious and it may well relate to the tithing issue in the OP's game.


The tithing 'issue' can be solved very simply. First, reward it. Second, make sure the players know that WBL isn't at stake. Third, churches and priests can't be Vend-A-Heal Inc. fast spells joints with people saying "Would you like a Detect Poison with your Cure Critical Wounds today?"

That feels a bit exaggerated but I can see where you're coming from. Some people want to treat magic as something special and they often feel that it cheapens magic if it's traded as a commodity much the same as wheat or pork-bellies. I, personally, disagree with that sentiment but I do understand that it's a thing.


Tho ya' know... Vend-A-Heal could be an interesting twist in some games.

Generally, if you don't have a cure-dispenser with you in the field, you can just relax in town for a few days to heal naturally. "Tithing" a church in exchange for spellcasting services is more for curse and disease removal or healing ability and level drain.

[Telok]

I get that you were talking about your own setting but this is a public forum. It's important that everyone be on the same page when discussing things. My -primary- concern was getting accross to whomever read my post, not just you, that it's important to keep that in mind and explicitly mention any departures from the common sources we're all presumably drawing from otherwise.

Alright, cool. I just feel that the default dieties in the PH are presented as really boring. Since I don't have all the books, and none of the setting specific books, the PH stuff is like 90% of diety information outside of the divine rank mechanics and such. Plus most DMs don't put any emphasis on religion outside the temples and NPC clerics, so D&D religions tend (in play, in my area, in the groups I've experienced) to get treated like modern religions or background noise. Neither of those options fits well with active, miracle working, spell granting, gods. Heck, the default rules promote atheist clerics or clerics who worship the ideal of killing things and taking their stuff.

So what I call the 'WBL fallacy' is pretty much as followsIf you're going with the default rules then the WBL table is a guideline on how much wealth the PCs ought to have at particular levels. That's fine. What everyone constantly whines and moans about are things like sundering enemy weapons, disjunction, rust monsters, etc. etc. The stuff that destroys gear. The complaint is two fold. First that martials cannot play the game without gear, especially magical gear at non-low levels. Second that not having piles of magic items makes the characters too weak to play because the monsters and encounters assume that they have the gear.

The first bit is where I feel most of the fallacy lies. If the DM is going by WBL then anything sundered, disjoined, rusted, stolen, or tithed isn't part of your WBL. It's simply not wealth that you have for your character, and the DM will keep adding treasure untill you're at the necessary wealth level. If the DM is setting up the game with a static amount of lootable wealth and not caring if it's lost, never discovered, or given away then the DM isn't using WBL and needs to recognize that.

I don't use WBL in my games, and I recognize that. I run a mix of guidelines to ensure that the characters have the gear they need. This includes quest lines that result in minor artifact weapons and armor after level 10 for the melee guys, divine boons as part of the piety system, NPC magic workers who can be comissioned to make stuff, opportunities to learn about foes and hazards so the party can prepare, and other things. I also limit the monsters that I use, this makes bookkeeping easier on me and lets me ensure that the PCs have access to the gear they need when they need it.

The magic economy bit is a whole different rant. And it really is a personal rant.
In 3.5 D&D (in fact in all the WotC D&D versions) magic is technology. It's not like technology, it is technology. Anyone can use it, it's reliable, it's ubiquitous outside of lots of handwavium faux-medievalism, and it's essentially currency. I've been in games where the base unit of currency becomes +1 swords, rings, and amulets after 12th level. To me, in my opinion, it loses a great deal of the 'fantasy' in fantasy roleplaying.

It's the combination of set prices and formulas, generic +1 +2 etc. items, and the magic-mart style shopping that make up the base 'economy' in the books. That just sucks the fantasy element out of game for me.

I don't run a low wealth, or low magic game. What I run is more like a "wealth is not equal to strong magic items" plus "no boring magic items" plus "rare, powerful, and amazing magic" game.

Essentially outside of lower level expendable stuff like potions, lower level scrolls, low level wands, and other small expendable items the cost in money of making a magic item doubled, the time is increased five fold, and the selling price is whatever the market will bear (and the market will bear a lot). Additionally the feats to make cheaper and faster magic items were taken out behind the barn and shot. So making a real permanent magic item stopped being trivial.

There are powerful and monopolizing guilds in my setting, just like there were historically, because powerful casters can enforce these sorts of things easily. They keep a constant flow of minor expendable items and services going (apprentice projects) and can enable the comissioning of powerful stuff. But there aren't 12th level wizards sitting around making +5 rings of jumping to sell in a market stall for 2500 gp, they have better things to do. There are also shady dealers and black markets, which are even more expensive than the guilds and risky to do business with. So when a +1 dagger takes 2300 gp and 15 days to make... nobody makes them. You just go buy a masterwork dagger and a few Oil of Magic Weapon potions and get the same effect for much less money.

There are few or no caster aligned magic items in my games, the guilds don't sell power-ups to competition and guild mages don't go adventuring (generally, and especially not at high levels, better things to do). So the magic item distribution tends to look much more like the old AD&D stuff, lots of weapons and armor, some utility items, lots of potions and scrolls, and a limited number of high power semi- and demi-artifacts. Very little for the casters, they have to get by on their spells (and they tend to get by just fine).

Now my house rules also buff mundane classes, put some limits on high powered caster classes, and give everyone several more skill points per level. But providing more magic items for mundanes, fewer for casters, strangling the magic-mart shopping style, and providing incentives for questing to get high powered magic had a pretty good effect for my game. Temples, guilds, and nobility had plenty of magic and kept it out of the commoners hands instead of having 2% of the entire population being able to cast Cure Light Wounds (seriously, you can math out the DMG population and wealth tables to see what the default really is). Characters either quest, adventure in the wilderness, or get into politics in order to secure magic items. People who are not clerics are interested in religion and will seek to adhere to the tenets of their faith.

Best of all my group can and does trust that I don't run games where non-casters get left behind and they'll never utter the phrase "unload these fifteen +1 Rings of Protection so I can upgrade my armor another +1."

[Kelb_Panthera]

Alright, cool. I just feel that the default dieties in the PH are presented as really boring. Since I don't have all the books, and none of the setting specific books, the PH stuff is like 90% of diety information outside of the divine rank mechanics and such. Plus most DMs don't put any emphasis on religion outside the temples and NPC clerics, so D&D religions tend (in play, in my area, in the groups I've experienced) to get treated like modern religions or background noise. Neither of those options fits well with active, miracle working, spell granting, gods. Heck, the default rules promote atheist clerics or clerics who worship the ideal of killing things and taking their stuff.

I see now. Yeah, the PHB's little one paragraph blurbs don't really tell you much of anything useful about the gods. When you go digging into the actual books; Complete Divine, Deities and Demigods, Defenders of the Faith (really unique stuff there), Complete Champion, and all the Races of <X> ; a much clearer picture starts to form.

The default rules don't necessarily promote non-deity clerics but they certainly don't do anything to encourage choosing a deity either. I handle this issue by simply enforcing the ex-cleric clause in the class' description; if you hit a crisis of faith or violate the tennets of the faith, you lose your spellcasting. If you don't have any clerics of your faith to cast atonement (you atheist or idealist, you :smallamused:) then you can't get your spellcasting back until/unless you convert to the faith of a god who -does- have clerics that can cast atonement on your behalf. Greater flexibility in domain choices is mirrored by greater risk of permanently losing everything.


So what I call the 'WBL fallacy' is pretty much as follows: If you're going with the default rules then the WBL table is a guideline on how much wealth the PCs ought to have at particular levels. That's fine. What everyone constantly whines and moans about are things like sundering enemy weapons, disjunction, rust monsters, etc. etc. The stuff that destroys gear. The complaint is two fold. First that martials cannot play the game without gear, especially magical gear at non-low levels. Second that not having piles of magic items makes the characters too weak to play because the monsters and encounters assume that they have the gear.

The loss of kit -does- get progressively more damning with each passing level but you're right, people only ever look at this one way; "The DM took ma stuff! Derp!" Because WBL is a rough guidline, taking away gear should be done with care but to never do so at all is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. A good DM will take your stuff away either because you're too far ahead of the curve or as a -temporary- hurdle to be overcome. Yes, it sucks. It's -supposed- to suck. Sometimes bad stuff happens and you show your mettle by taking it in stride and overcoming.

I blame the "everyone gets a trophy" culture that started when I was a kid. Thankfully, it never really took root in my area.


The first bit is where I feel most of the fallacy lies. If the DM is going by WBL then anything sundered, disjoined, rusted, stolen, or tithed isn't part of your WBL. It's simply not wealth that you have for your character, and the DM will keep adding treasure untill you're at the necessary wealth level. If the DM is setting up the game with a static amount of lootable wealth and not caring if it's lost, never discovered, or given away then the DM isn't using WBL and needs to recognize that.

I don't see how this relates to your previous statement but I do agree. Given what WBL is supposed to measure, I don't even track liquid assets or consumables (within reason on the latter). If it doesn't contribute directly to your ability to overcome encounters and/or will be gone after just one use, it -shouldn't- be assessed in measuring your power, IMO.

Anyway, the average treasure generated during encounter planning yields an excess over what is needed to match WBL progression. This excess is presumed to be lost to raising the dead, buying consumables, and (wait for it) replacing stolen or destroyed kit. You're absolutely right that someone who doesn't account for this -isn't- playing by RAW and isn't using WBL correctly.


I don't use WBL in my games, and I recognize that. I run a mix of guidelines to ensure that the characters have the gear they need. This includes quest lines that result in minor artifact weapons and armor after level 10 for the melee guys, divine boons as part of the piety system, NPC magic workers who can be comissioned to make stuff, opportunities to learn about foes and hazards so the party can prepare, and other things. I also limit the monsters that I use, this makes bookkeeping easier on me and lets me ensure that the PCs have access to the gear they need when they need it.

If it works for you and your group, more power to ya. I stick pretty close to what's printed, myself. I was able to come up with what I consider reasonable explanations for the abstractions and only rarely dig into those details for a plot-hook or challenge for the PC's.


The magic economy bit is a whole different rant. And it really is a personal rant.
In 3.5 D&D (in fact in all the WotC D&D versions) magic is technology. It's not like technology, it is technology. Anyone can use it, it's reliable, it's ubiquitous outside of lots of handwavium faux-medievalism, and it's essentially currency. I've been in games where the base unit of currency becomes +1 swords, rings, and amulets after 12th level. To me, in my opinion, it loses a great deal of the 'fantasy' in fantasy roleplaying.

It's the combination of set prices and formulas, generic +1 +2 etc. items, and the magic-mart style shopping that make up the base 'economy' in the books. That just sucks the fantasy element out of game for me.

I don't run a low wealth, or low magic game. What I run is more like a "wealth is not equal to strong magic items" plus "no boring magic items" plus "rare, powerful, and amazing magic" game.

Essentially outside of lower level expendable stuff like potions, lower level scrolls, low level wands, and other small expendable items the cost in money of making a magic item doubled, the time is increased five fold, and the selling price is whatever the market will bear (and the market will bear a lot). Additionally the feats to make cheaper and faster magic items were taken out behind the barn and shot. So making a real permanent magic item stopped being trivial.

There are powerful and monopolizing guilds in my setting, just like there were historically, because powerful casters can enforce these sorts of things easily. They keep a constant flow of minor expendable items and services going (apprentice projects) and can enable the comissioning of powerful stuff. But there aren't 12th level wizards sitting around making +5 rings of jumping to sell in a market stall for 2500 gp, they have better things to do. There are also shady dealers and black markets, which are even more expensive than the guilds and risky to do business with. So when a +1 dagger takes 2300 gp and 15 days to make... nobody makes them. You just go buy a masterwork dagger and a few Oil of Magic Weapon potions and get the same effect for much less money.

There are few or no caster aligned magic items in my games, the guilds don't sell power-ups to competition and guild mages don't go adventuring (generally, and especially not at high levels, better things to do). So the magic item distribution tends to look much more like the old AD&D stuff, lots of weapons and armor, some utility items, lots of potions and scrolls, and a limited number of high power semi- and demi-artifacts. Very little for the casters, they have to get by on their spells (and they tend to get by just fine).

Now my house rules also buff mundane classes, put some limits on high powered caster classes, and give everyone several more skill points per level. But providing more magic items for mundanes, fewer for casters, strangling the magic-mart shopping style, and providing incentives for questing to get high powered magic had a pretty good effect for my game. Temples, guilds, and nobility had plenty of magic and kept it out of the commoners hands instead of having 2% of the entire population being able to cast Cure Light Wounds (seriously, you can math out the DMG population and wealth tables to see what the default really is). Characters either quest, adventure in the wilderness, or get into politics in order to secure magic items. People who are not clerics are interested in religion and will seek to adhere to the tenets of their faith.

Best of all my group can and does trust that I don't run games where non-casters get left behind and they'll never utter the phrase "unload these fifteen +1 Rings of Protection so I can upgrade my armor another +1."

This is just a taste thing. I have no problem with magic as technology (colloquially) because it -is- technology (formally). It's no different from language or the scientific method or crop rotation in that regard.

It only makes sense that if magic behaves in ways that are recognizable and predictable, as is clearly the case when you consider how arcane writings and the spellcraft skill work, then it's only natural to approach it with the scientific method to put it to its greatest potential uses. That this comes in the form of spellcasters and magic items is simply a quirk of -how- magic works.

If I want things to be mysterious, then I'll run an adventure in a retooling of my setting designed to make it more mysterious in the same way I would with making sci-fi tech mysterious; set the 'modern' culture to one -way- behind the culture that produces these things, read: magic works largely the same but available items and classes are restricted as emerging techniques that aren't wide-spread enough to be freely available yet. Spellcraft DC's get a significant DC hike and players may not freely play PC class spellcasters, e.g. no bard, sorcerer, wizard, cleric, or druid; at least at first. Because I'm a gamist, I largely won't use NPC's of spellcasting PC classes either except -maybe- as a BBEG that has discovered the new technique in a very limited fashion (heavily thematic rather than optimized) or as a mentor to a PC, again, in a very limited fashion.

[Dimmet]

Long story short: Yes, tithing is bad unless you are using tithing as a purely RP experience. Perhaps assuming that the actual GP PCs have on hand is their 'spendable' allowance and they tithe out of funds not on their character sheet.

But as it stands you seem frustrated that your players don't want to just make 10% of their WBL disappear. WBL is an integral part of the already patchy/shoddy balance of this game, ESPECIALLY if your players are being well-behaved and not trying to abuse the WBL. Then you're punishing them for not all rolling Artificers, and in order to counteract your punishment they might begin to try and find ways to gain more gold in ways you can't prevent without Rule 0 and pissing off all your players.

You may want them to tithe, but remember that the point is that the players are having a fun experience and you get to tell a story to enable and enhance that. That's D&D. If you want to introduce something for personal reasons that makes the players unhappy, then what you want to introduce is harming the entire point of the game being played: Enjoyment. The game can have its ups and downs in regards to that, but at the end of the session people want to have had fun at least at some point.

Just taking away their hard-won loot for no reason is a mean thing to do, and if you don't find a way to make it up to them in a way they are happy with, you will have unhappy and potentially uncooperative players. It's not just us you need to talk to, you need to bring this up to them and ask what THEY want. You may be the DM but the screen has to come down sometime - not all decisions can be made out of sight of the party, since you can't read the players' minds.

Just remember, everyone needs to be enjoying themselves at least most of the time. If they aren't, do what you need to in order to at least try to fix it. If that means adding something or not adding something, then that's what it takes. They've entrusted their table time to you, reward them with challenges and vibrant RP, but don't harm one of the few things they have explicit control over. The more you encroach in that area the more non-interactive the game can feel.

That's about all the advice that comes to mind for the moment. Hope you get this fixed and have a good time with your group!

[Jon_Dahl]

But as it stands you seem frustrated that your players don't want to just make 10% of their WBL disappear.

I just want to mention that even if they tithe, or even if they triple-tithe, I would make sure that their WBL stays normal. I will not, under any circumstances, tell this to them, so what you're saying stands.

[Âmesang]

The last time I played a paladin I had my character tithe, and if I ever do so again I was even thinking of following the paladin guidelines that restricted equipment… just as a bit of self challenge, I suppose.

That's the only example I can think of, though; my last cleric was attempting to start her own church and you can't really tithe to yourself. If anything most of the groups I played with hardly roleplayed so the concept never presented itself.

[Florian]

I just want to mention that even if they tithe, or even if they triple-tithe, I would make sure that their WBL stays normal. I will not, under any circumstances, tell this to them, so what you're saying stands.

We´re back to what I wrote earlier: If you disconnect in-game happenings and underlying mechanics (like the tithing not touching WBL in any way), then all is good and well. Then you have a fluff things done for fluff reasons.

But: If you don´t tell your players there is a disconnect here, how should they know and act accordingly?

[Templarkommando]

I think forcing tithing is a dangerous thing, however if we remember, D&D is a cooperative action of the players and the DM telling a story together. There are all kinds of characters, and players need to be free to express their character's needs, desires, etc.

Religion generally is a good way to express conflict and relationship between the PCs and something greater than themselves. For some characters religion is a sore spot - but other characters will want to express the piety of their character. The job of the DM is to foster an environment for them to do that in a creative and fun way.

First I want to deal with it as conflict. Some of your players have personal reasons to dislike religion. As a DM, you don't have to get involved in those reasons, but it can be fun to give your players an outlet for their frustrations. For this reason, it is (sometimes) a good idea to create a campaign world that features some of the classic sins of the clergy. This is not to necessarily force anything on your players, but it is effective to give some players a foil that they have personal reasons to hate. Who doesn't like the story of a man against the gods? I can think of a few ideas just off the top of my head here:

A corrupt monastery that gives special treatment to monks that have connections to money and power. All the other monks get crappy cells to sleep in on straw mats. The favored ones get high positions, prized morsels for supper, a giant room with a hot tub, an awesome view of the pool, and a secret door to sneak chicks in with. This of course creates conflict in a situation that is supposed to be based on personal asceticism and piety. In the real world this practice was called Simony. I have no idea why, but that's what it was called. A pious character has reason to hate these corrupt clergy because they give good clergy a bad name. A cynical character has reasons to hate these sorts of monks because they see the trouble that it causes for everyone else.

If you've read the Safehold series by David Weber, there's a situation where the established church exists for the sake of its own benefit and lets all the peasantry starve and freeze out in the cold. It can certainly be very cool to allow your characters an opportunity to play the part of a reformer.

I remember in Baldur's Gate II, there's a quest chain where your character breaks in to one of the temples in Athkatla and steals a precious holy symbol necklace thing... while this is a very simple gather quest, it's a good way to express some of your characters' opinions on religion.

Now let's deal with relationship:

Let's go back to BG for a minute. One of the obvious ways to express piety is by taking your character to a temple and making a donation. Depending on how much you donate in BG your reputation stat will change. You can also change reputation through actions as well. That reputation stat will effect the way that people treat you. Shop keepers make good deals to upstanding members of society (Think "I'm Commander Shepherd and this is my favorite store on the Citadel"). Guards will treat your characters with more or less suspicion. It effects the way that certain NPCs behave with the main character. If you have a low score Khalid, Jaheira and Minsc will stay with the party, but that causes headaches for Xzar and Montaron.

In one of the previous campaigns that I was a player in, there was a good representation from several different world views. The DM had put together an interesting pantheon, and so it became something of a contest to prove which character was the most pious. There was of course tithing as a possibility, but there are other ways to show piety. Several of the PCs served a god of mischief and chaos, so it was - again - something of a game to prove who could do the silliest things to prove their faithfulness to their deity.

Frequently,(in this campaign from the previous paragraph) there was a thing that characters would do called a "God Call." This would essentially request a miracle for a deity to provide. Take out a d100 and on a roll of 1, your request is granted. This chance would be effected if your character was in the good graces of the deity, and also if the request aligned with the deity's interests. This was monitored a little, so you couldn't cheat the system by just making a series of god calls all day. You might get one or two god calls a week tops, and the chance could dip below 1%.

In addition, to God calls, if a character remained in the good graces of the deity, as they gained levels they would be given "Granted Powers." In effect this was not a game breaking thing, but my fighter that followed a healing deity eventually got the ability to cast cure light wounds once per day. This was extremely handy - and again, not game breaking. These granted powers would be based on the character and portfolio of the deity, and frequently we would meet and fight villains that had received granted powers from their deities. This gave the game a certain flavor that I feel wouldn't have been there if it had been omitted.





As a DM, I want to create a world that feels believable and exciting. So, one of the considerations is how the church(es) effect(s) the world at large. The deities need to feel real, and their relationships and conflicts with the PCs need to be meaningful. Maybe the church owns bishoprics and can enforce tolls and tithes in that domain as if it were a baron or a count. Maybe the church funds an order of clerics or paladins. Maybe the church is a source of knowledge and funds a cadre of astronomers or wizards. Maybe the church is evil and subsidizes the kidnapping of travelers for sacrifice. Maybe the church sells indulgences and guilts people into paying extortionate fees. Any and all of these could be the means for you as the DM to hand your players an adventure.

The only other piece of advice that I have here is to be sensitive to the feelings of your players. Some games are going to have to find adventure some other way - and that's fine. The trick is to find out if this is a good method to introduce FUN into your game.

[Deadline]

I will not, under any circumstances, tell this to them

... Why? Or did I miss the answer to this upthread?

[Kelb_Panthera]

... Why? Or did I miss the answer to this upthread?

This is a fair question and I, too, am curious.