In any Renaissance campaign, one of the trickiest aspects is finance. Real-life rulers faced growing expenses with insufficient revenue and outdated financial devices. Whole economies were being dramatically redefined. Revenue was erratic and variable in the extreme. Rather than calculate every tax, rent, port duty, court fee, wardship, loan, and colonial investment, most wargamers simply choose to roll a die, letting the pips account for income variation. While I won't go into every financial device used, I would recommend one that can be played out, as a game-within-the-game, and is great fun in a running campaign. That device is the Subsidy. A Subsidy is an allotment of cash, granted by the Estates (or Parliament or Cortes or whatever) of a major city, to a ruler, when that ruler comes asking, hat in hand. The ruler's planning, personal character, outside events, and willingness to grant concessions (or bribe!) will make the difference between meeting expenses for the campaign, or starting a tax revolt! For our campaign games, a ruler may call the Estates in any major city once per year. Most of our nations have only one Major City, but a very few extremely rich ones may have a few more. If the nation has multiple Major cities, we limit the number he can call, and the time required between them. We let each Subsidy equal the value of one year's taxation on that city. So depending on your finance rules, a subsidy can be a HUGE windfall for cash-strapped sovereigns! The following steps are used for Subsidy voting: 1. A ruler must summon the Estates to convene within 30 days. 2. The ruler must physically go to the city and present himself before the Estates Assembled while it sits. If a representative is sent instead, REGARDLESS OF RANK, a big automatic negative modifier is applied (see below). 3. The Estates convene only in a Major city, and only one city per year. Smaller cities were usually just squeezed for forced loans (a different set of rules!). Only major cities had the potential clout behind their wealth. You may hoose to modify this rule based on your nation's culture, custom, etc. 4. The Personality of your ruler is EXTREMELY important to the success of the vote. We give each ruler a personality for life, with Primary and Secondary traits, based on a heavily modified system from Tony Bath's 'Setting up a Wargame's Campaign'. Not all traits affect subsidy votes. The ones that do are - GOOD/BAD TEMPER, WISE, STUPID, CHARM, PERSONALITY, and ARROGANT. CHARM is the best trait. It means a courtly, skilled ability to handle official formal court functions, including the manipulation of the estates! It also helps in diplomacy, and meeting other nobles and rulers. PERSONALITY means the ruler is popular with the masses - 'the people love him!' Not as effective as charm, but positive. It helps in rallying the masses and leading armies. GOOD/BAD TEMPER, WISE, STUPID and ARROGANT are self- explanatory. 5. After the appropriate ceremonies and opening remarks, the ruler rolls one six-sided die. The result is modified as listed below. On a roll of 4, the ruler receives 1 subsidy. On a roll of 5, he/she receives 2 subsidies. On a roll of 6, the grant is 3 subsidies. Rolls modified over 6 are treated as 6. Modifiers: +1 At War +1 Invaded (used in addition to At War) +1 Good Temper, Wise or Personality (each +1) +2 Charm (hey, some people are good at this stuff!) +1 haven't requested a subsidy in last 5 years (NOT cumulative!) -1 Bad Temper, Stupid, Arrogant (each -1) -1 Each subsidy granted over the last two years, cumulative. (we're broke!) -1 Tax Revolt last year (regardless of how graciously it was handled) -1 Each REALLY Bad thing done, at umpire's discretion (rare or critical stuff, like assassination, blatant extortion of a popular leading commercial citizen - see, this stuff comes back to haunt you!). -3 Ruler didn't bother to come in person. If this occurs, do NOT count the personality factors of the ruler above. Instead, either count no personality modifiers, or (if your representative has a rolled up character too) count the rep's personality with the modifiers below: -1 Bad temper, Stupid -2 Arrogant +0 Good temper, Wise, Personality +1 Charm Other modifiers count as above. 6. If the 'natural' die roll was a 1, we usually create a new character, in the Estates, who organized the opposition to the royal request. He can be a noble or a commoner, but is assumed to be a fiery speaker (automatic Personality or Charm trait), troublemaker, and general thorn in your royal backside! After the Estates is dismissed, he can linger, or you can imprison him, assassinate him, lure him to your side (or try, anyway), or just leave him be to potentially pop up again - he's a great character for a possible future rebellion! 7. If the modified roll is a negative number, a TAX REVOLT occurs. We don't allow concessions to avoid revolts (see Concessions below). If the negative roll occurs against a representative, you can treat it as an objection to that minister, not outright rebellion (they just toss your MINISTER out the window!). It still counts as a requested subsidy, though. 8. CONCESSIONS. The best part. To get a roll of 1, 2 or 3 up to the required 4, a ruler can ask the Estates what concessions it would accept to grant the subsidy. Each concession asked and granted ups the total by one. Therefore, a modified roll of 2 would require granting two concessions to get a subsidy. No more than one subsidy can be granted when using concessions - the roll cannot be adjusted above 4. Concessions are playing with fire. The ruler is saying, in essence, 'tell me what you want'. A die is rolled for each concession asked, ONE AT A TIME. The table below is consulted. Rulers cannot bypass a concession request, i.e., re-roll for a less onerous one. Grant it or the voting stops there and you lose - period. A ruler is never required to ask for concessions - he can just go away broke! Once a ruler denies a concession request, the Estates is effectively over and is dismissed. However, once the ruler grants enough concessions to raise the total to 4 (1 subsidy), the ruler graciously thanks the Estates, dismisses it, and must act on the concessions granted (we don't let the estates sit for long periods). If the ruler fails to act upon any granted concession, he runs the risk of severe penalties noted in the Penalty Table below. Note: if a ruler granted one, then turned down another, and the total never reached enough to get a subsidy, the 'granted' concession is NOT held against him - it was never in force. Even if the ruler turned down a concession, and dismissed the Estates, it may come back to haunt him. The Estates will 'remember' a refused concession. The next time the ruler calls that Estates, and needs a concession for a subsidy, roll a die. 1-3, the old denied concession request is raised again, 4-6, roll on the table as usual. This represents a 'lingering' issue the Estates will not readily forget. The only exception is when the concession is no longer possible (the minister is dead, the war already over, etc.). When a totally new ruler comes to the throne, however, 'lingering' issues are not carried over in the new reign. It is assumed each ruler gets a clean slate on which to create his/her own troubles. CONCESSION TABLE (roll 2 6-sided dice) 2- Grant the Estates the right to control all taxation! (the kiss of death to kings!) 3- Declare Peace now! (or umpire's discretion) 4- No more abuse by royal courts - disband them! (reformed courts produce no revenue for you) 5- Grant religious tolerance/official religious status to somebody (umpire's discretion) 6- No more subsidy requests from us for x years. (roll 1 die) 7- Remove a minister/favorite/administrator from office (see below for how deeply he is hated!) 8- No tolls (or port duties) for x years. (roll 1 die) 9- Organize a crackdown on a religion/dissidents (umpire's discretion) 10- We want consultation on all tolls, duties and merchant matters (a subsidy-like vote required for every income area, plus a potentially long sitting Estates!) 11- Declare War immediately or Break that Alliance! (stepping on royal prerogative) 12- We want consultation on the right of Succession! (or rewrite the constitution, or vote out the king, or some deep-seated threat to monarchical order). If a 7 is rolled, roll again to see how badly the estates demands the rogue be treated. 1-2, he is dismissed from his position and/or the court, 3-4 he is sent to the tower (or equivalent) for investigation of alleged crimes (should be a fun trial to stage!), or 5-6 they want him executed! These parts of the concessions must be granted like any others. If a ruler wishes instead to 'allow' the minister to flee the country ('oops, he got away!'), a roll must be made to see if the deception fooled the people. If the people smell a rat, treat as a broken concession. PENALTY TABLE ('They sayeth hys werde keepeth not Trewe') roll 1 6-sided die 1- no subsidies EVER from that city until the original broken concession is granted (or is no longer possible). 2- Permanent -1 modifier for that city for the rest of the reign. 3- Permanent -2 modifier for that city for the rest of the reign. 4- No subsidy voting will occur in that city EVER AGAIN until a '6' is rolled (1st roll during the estates). 5- Permanent -1 modifier, PLUS concessions can NEVER be used by this ruler again. 6- roll again: on a 1-3, as #5 above, plus ARMED CONFLICT arises over the issue ( The Estates might sit themselves, or merchants take up arms, or potential Civil War); on a 4-6, lots of grumbling, but you got away with it, no penalties, congratulations. 9. BRIBES. You might include the act bribing key members of the Estates with royal offices, titles, or even cash (roll a d6 to decide which). If your culture allows them, bribes count as only one concession, and can be made only once during the Estates. A bribe can only be used to raise the total to a 4 (one subsidy), never to increase the number of subsidies. This represents the ruler using his/her influence to swing the few key votes necessary to get the needed cash. Bribes only succeed on a roll of 5-6. If they fail, no title/office is granted, but any cash incentive offered is spent and lost. This can result in the creation of new noble families and ministers, further enriching the campaign. NOTES: This is a fun little game-within-the-game. Most of the time you will find, with a little cleverness, a ruler can get a subsidy. Sometimes it's a forgone conclusion - that's life! The randomness reflects the instability of representative bodies. Each new summons could bring different representatives, reflecting deaths, new elections or royal tampering and manipulation. This is why a ruler can still get away from an ungranted concession next year. Happy voting!! Back to The Gauntlet No. 11 Table of Contents Back to The Gauntlet List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by Craig Martelle Publications This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com