Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Charke 03-22-07, 12:50 PM	Has anyone ever created a finance system for d20? Half the players I encounter want to start guilds, become a merchant or have a job on the side. The paltry income from crafting or the broken income from magic item creation just isn't doing the job, and not everyone is a spellcaster. Mark Charke
DM-Scott 03-22-07, 04:15 PM	Off Subject, Slightly ----------- Well as rediciulas as it might seem (and perhaps equally broken), I found out how to gain pretty much infinite in game money a while back, though it's easily squashed by the DM. The basic concept involves opening a guild / smithy / whatever, supplying tools and what-not, then paying the appropriet hirelings (see DMG) their usual wages and taking half of their average craft check result each week (craftsmen taking 10). You easily generate a profit this way, and quite litterally the more people you have working for you, the more money you will make. It may not be realistic, but nothing's against it, and I've played in and GMed games which it was ok to do (from droid workers in star wars, to smithing factories in D&D). It's easily squashed by the DM simply saying "no" or "there's only X craftsmen in this town". Not terribly abuseable. :rolleyes: ----------- Back on subject, I do know what you mean however. I don't recall seeing any rules I liked on the subject matter, and my current party seems to be heading in that direction alot (perhaps inspired by the Knights Templar), as they are trying to use portions of their adventure treasure to start banks here and there, and help make small towns more prosperous (including initiating trade routes between merchants as they travel around the world). I'll definately need to find a good set of rules to handle this, or I'll write some up (which would probably be fun, I think). :D If no one else comes up with anything for you, I'll try and post any ideas and/or mechanics later. This truely is why message boards and such a community is so great, no? :D
Weretiger 04-06-07, 09:25 AM	This sort of thing happened once in a future game I ran... PCs needed a ship and didn't have the cash. Given my players, I'm surprised that they didn't try to steal one, but it was an interesting turn. They ended up running a small oil refinery, a steel mill, and a couple of automated mines... I came up with values for products based on the local economy and area (eg. refined petroleum distillate fuels worth more in spraceport than in small farming village), amounts produced at each facility per day, and and from those the net gain per day. And the characters adventured a little on the side, but mostly it was "Have our prospectors found a uranium ore vein yet?" As for banking and guilding... that'd be a bit more complicated. Don't know how I'd do that (good thing none of my players thought of it...). Merchantry is not so bad; you just have to establish that things have different prices at different places. So once the players find somewhere with a low price on a certain product and somewhere else with a high price, they can start running things back and forth (as adventuring allows, of course). Or they hire someone else to run it back and forth (which is what my players did with the oil; they hired one guy to drive it from the oil well to the refinery, and another to take it from the refinery to the city. And loaned tham armored personnal carriers in case of raiders.).
CadeShadow 04-10-07, 03:31 PM	The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook has monthly wages for staff, and several other stuff that might help out a business. Given that, if you run a service that if you run a service that sells the services of cooks, it'd be best with 27gp profit per cook. Think about all the rich nobles who would be glad to pay as little as 30gp a month for a cook, Adventurers make more than that in a day! I would be interested in whatever finance systems people bring up as well.
Fgarber 04-10-07, 05:49 PM	Has anyone ever created a finance system for d20? Half the players I encounter want to start guilds, become a merchant or have a job on the side. The paltry income from crafting or the broken income from magic item creation just isn't doing the job, and not everyone is a spellcaster. Mark Charke The question you want to ask them is: why? I can see a couple of obvious answers, which might solve the problem with a lot less work than designing a new financial system. 1. Adventurers are supposed to assume great risk in order to get the vast sums of money that they need to keep adventuring. If your players want the cash without the danger, don't let them do it. D20 is a game of adventures. 2. Do they feel that they don't have enough reward to survive based on the risks they are assuming? For example, I had a halfling cleric that preferred to scout an orc army than cleanse a castle of undead. Why? "Skeletons don't have pockets" (and, indeed, undead do have the worst treasure tables). The tangible rewards of treasure weren't enough to compensate him for the risk. If the PCs feel that they are assuming big risks and are continually scraping by, then unless that's the feel you want for the game, consider giving them more treasure, arbitrarily. D20 is also a game of fantasy, and players don't want to have to experience crappy pay and being broke in their fantasy life. 3. Do they want the plot hooks from being in a guild, or a merchant carrying goods, etc? The local City finds a dead merchant and confiscates his wagon and goods, as he had no heirs. The PCs get the wagon as a reward. Congrats, they're in the merchant business. 4. Characters want a passive sort of income to support them in their "old age," and the players are just roleplaying well. In this case, as long as there isn't too much crazy in the idea (Is their idea economically sound? Is it illegal, or dangerous?), I'd grant it to the PC after a little dramatic session. In summary, the economy for D20 is broken, because the PCs are exceptions. They're supposed to go and get huge sums of cash from monsters, and dump it into the local economy, and then die trying to do it twice. Any economic system designed will have to be balanced for playability, but still treat the PCs as rich exceptions, rather than the average income.
CadeShadow 04-10-07, 06:58 PM	Well said, I agree.
Charke 04-12-07, 04:13 PM	Some people have posted some fanatic ideas on this topic. Others insist it isn't nessesary. Well I dearly appologize to all the people who can't raise their level of gaming above a hard core session of DOOM. Version 3.0 took AD&D and added a complex set of skills to the game clearly indicating a step away from pure combat and introducing more roleplaying to create a blend of elements. Not everyone only wants to just "kick the door in, loot the room" repeat until high level and bored. killplayers could reduce Lord of the Rings to kill-Orcs, kill-more-orcs, kill-lots-of-orcs, kill-wring-wraith, kill-army-of-orcs, kill-mutant-halfling, kill-evil-wizard, save game. The otherside works too. Without the violence, Lord of the Rings would have been a stroll across middle earth, a quiet documentary - interesting but hardly exciting adventure. Both are required. Many areas of the rules could use work. The basic combat system could even be attacked. It's not very accurate - however it does work and it's much faster than more accurate systems that get overly complicated. Would a d20 Finance System book ruin you game? Somehow I doubt it. Those who don't want that wouldn't buy it. The argument against it shows a level of fear - worry that new rules would be a problem. I would rather that rules existed for every activity a character could perform. d20 already covers a huge swath of teritory (if you want to fuss over simple actions, simple skill checks can be invoked). Finances seem to have been quietly left out. It would be a hard book to write. You'd need to balance the system based around the player finances curve using a skill system that is a straight line without letting the players become too much more powerful than lower level tycoons and nobility. Actually, I think writing it would be boring. It would be a number's crunch and the goal would be to find a way to make it interesting. Mark Charke