Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 The_evil_dm Jul 11, 2014 9:48:41	One thing I would love to see in 5E is a bit about the costs of purchasing a business and upkeep. I dont need a detailed system just something that gives me the basics and maybe a couple of charts to roll to see if the months have been good or bad and if the business made or lost money.  I'm finding time and time again that my players want to invest in a business with their loot. why rent a room at an  inn when you can buy an inn and always have a place to stay?
#2 iserith Jul 11, 2014 12:26:15	D&D is a game about adventuring (see page 2), not about running a shop. That is probably why you don't see any rules regarding this.   That said, the basic formula for the interaction between the DM and players/characters applies:   1. The players describe their characters' goals and intent. 2. The DM places genre-appropriate obstacles in between the PCs and their goals. 3. The players work to overcome them, rolling dice and applying mechanics to determine outcomes according to the rules.   So the first step is to determine your players' goal and intent. The goal is clearly "establish a business." What's the intent? Is it to make extra money? To gain favor from the community? To have a place to safely store their valuables? Drill down on what their intent is.   Then, tell them what it's going to take to do that. If they want to make extra money, they may have to contend with nefarious competitors in league with the thieves' guild and that flesh-flaying cult they've heard about. If they want to gain favor, they do so at the expense of established traders who team up against the PCs and send thugs to smash their wares. To have a safe place to store valuables, they'll need to acquire special wards rumored to be in a dungeon somewhere outside the city. And so on.   Look to goals and intent - even something like starting a business for some extra scratch - as a way to spur PCs onto new adventures and you can't go far wrong. Once they've achieved their goals, justly reward them and ask them to set up new ones.   Aside: If they're just looking for some extra dough as their intent, consider giving them a comfortable lifestyle (pages 51-52) for free which represents their net profits. Of course, if they want to bump that up to wealthy or aristocratic, well, that's a new goal and intent which demands new adventures!
#3 Kye_Tyrad Jul 11, 2014 14:24:31	I actually had this come up with a group many years ago and we worked through some ideas, which I will try and remember for you....as I mentioned it was quite a while ago!!  It is probably more involved with a merchant campaign, but could give some ideas and concepts to utilize.   In the Dark Sun 2nd Edition, they had the Dune Trader Accessory book, which basically worked through some of the existing trade houses, but gave the option for a Trader campaign and included the Trader Class.  It introduced the concept on import/exports for each city including some variables that may come into play regarding the current supply/demand and rates that could change from one visit to the next.  It also has the option for bargaining with the merchants to get better rates.   Also the Thieves Handbook from AD&D 2nd Edition includes a campaign for starting a theives guild with montlhly income and modifiers for different cities and circumstances.   Regarding a business you could check out The Red Dragon Inn: Guide to Inns and Taverns supplement that you can get from RPGNow.  This is more of building and supplying the inn, hiring employees, etc that would appear to be more of what you are looking at.   So given these resources it would not take much to tweak the concepts and create something to fit your needs.
#4 The_evil_dm Jul 11, 2014 15:57:46	iserith wrote:
(Reply to #3) The_evil_dm	Kye_Tyrad wrote:
#6 ankiyavon Jul 11, 2014 18:08:47	You could look into ACKS; its economic rules are pretty detailed, though raw flat-out investment isn't in the core book, it was posted on the forums somewhere.   It does, however, have in the book an excellent system for arbitrage trading, moving goods from one market to another to take advantage of price differences, and players can invest their money in buying goods, then have an adventure to move them, then make a profit selling them at their new location.   It also has fantastic settlement and rulership/domain rules, and sounds in general like you would enjoy it a lot.  Since it's an OGL system, you can pretty easily just take the parts you want and drop them straight into 5E.
#7 Impalpable Jul 11, 2014 18:19:06	i thought i read somewhere that "domain management" would be covered in the dmg. would this fall under that or is that domains for clerics?
#8 ankiyavon Jul 11, 2014 18:28:24	Impalpable wrote:
#9 Be3Al2 Jul 12, 2014 6:41:25	This kind of advice is one of the things I am expecting from the DMG. There have been at least hints about similar things (e.g. domain management mentioned before) and from what I have seen on the forums "How do I allow my players to start and run a small business" is a frequently asked question. To me it would clearly make sense for them to include it in the DMG, especially considering how much detail they went into regarding trading goods and similar in Basic.   Regarding income a merchant or skilled tradesperson has a comfortable living while a highly successful merchant or owner of several small businesses has a wealthy standard of living. Personally I would probably rule that a single business can support one or two characters at a comfortable level of living.
#10 RustedKitsune Jul 12, 2014 13:02:59	Rules engineers to the rescue!   Okay, so running a business between adventures. Complicated. The simple version is to require that your business and employees need your guidance at least once a month, either via letter or personal visit; and determine your monthly income as a multiplier of a particular lifestyle expense.   Here's complicated (ok, not very) EDITED: I did my math wrong. His profit margin is a lot less than it was before, and he has to move more product, which involves hiring more workers and paying for  more supplies. Yes, it is complicated 1: Describe the business. What it sells. If it makes what it sells. For example: John the Rogue has a lock shop ("Every lock tested against picklocks!" "Sir, you picked open the entire pallet." "Well, I never mentioned if the locks passed or failed the test."). He sells locks, and makes his stock using Locksmiths Tools ("And you get a set, for one easy payment of 39.9.9! That's right, one easy payment of 39 gp, 9 sp, and 9 cc! Order today!"). He also performs repairs of locks, and illegally sells Thieves Tools. 2: Determine price of the average sale. This is based on what you stock, and what the average person needs and can afford. I suggest building an average "sale lot" if your shop has different kinds of stock. John's Lock Shop has three "Sale lots": 1-3 Locks: 30gp 2-Repair of 1 lock: 5gp 3-1 set of thieves tools: 50 gp As John makes his stock, we can tell the following: making the locks takes 6 days. Repairing a lock takes 1 day. making a set of Thieves Tools takes 10 days. Obviously, John has employees. 3: Determine Sales/Day or Sales/Week. Here's where the lots come in.  For John's shop, we'll say 2 sets of lot 1 per day, 2 sets of lot 2 per day, and 1 set of lot 3 per week. This comes out to 540gp/week, or 2314.29gp/30-day-month 4: Determine Employees. You require at least 1 person to run the sales desk, 1 manager if you're going to adventure, and enough crafters to keep your shop stocked if you craft your stock. John needs 2 people to run sales and other people during his adventures. His sales for one week come out to 54 days of crafting (Total sales/2 to find crafting expense [repairs are 1/2 of crafting price], divide by 5 to determine time in days). To insure that he keeps well stocked, he hires 11 crafters (11*5=55, 1gp/day more than he needs), so he has 13 employees. 5: Determine expenses. Crafting expenses+Payroll+Business Fees. Johns Crafting expenses are 55gp/day (For all crafting done), and his employees cost him 13gp a day. The DM decides that his shopfront has a rent of 1gp/day, and the local guild requires a 3gp/day "membership fee". All told, his expenses are 72gp/day, 504gp/week, and 2160gp/30-day-month. 6: Determine Profit: Sales Income-Expenses. John has a monthly profit of 154.29gp/month, or 5.14gp/day Enough to live Wealthy with 1.14gp extra. 7: reality ensues: we give John a wife and two kids. Normally, we would divide by 4, but the wife has to keep her mistress comfortable, and so does John (thankfully they share the same mistress). [Houserule] Non-adventurers can sustain 2 people on standard lifestyle expenses, because maintenance is expensive. So anyways, everybody decides to live Modest (1gp/day for an adventurer, 0.5gp/day per non-adventurer). With 1 adventurer and 5 wimps, this comes out to 3.5gp/day, leaving 1.64gp a day to go towards emergency expenses, buying John new equipment, and bail money (He is John the Rogue after all!)
#11 iserith Jul 12, 2014 11:29:40	You might want to factor in a cost of a monthly life insurance premium for the inevitable time when this player has John the Rogue fall repeatedly on his own dagger after realizing what a bookkeeping nightmare this is and how he should have just stuck to adventuring. It will help John's heirs cover his funeral costs with a bit to spare.
#12 ankiyavon Jul 12, 2014 12:23:09	iserith wrote:
#13 iserith Jul 12, 2014 12:36:39	I rolled for humor and got a 1 - critical fumble.
#14 Sword_of_Spirit Jul 12, 2014 12:42:22	I'm hoping the DMG will include such rules. With the demand for domain management, and given other similar high demand things that are going to be included (mass combat for one), I'm putting it at about 93% likelihood for domain management.   Business management has less demand, but is also not very difficult to do. I'm giving it about 43% chance of specific rules, but a 67% chance of being included within another system as an example, similar to how crafting and practicing a profession are included in the most basic downtime activities. I'm hoping at least for the latter, as this is something quite likely to come up in some of my campaign scenarios.
#15 ankiyavon Jul 12, 2014 12:44:09	iserith wrote:
#16 RustedKitsune Jul 12, 2014 13:07:29	iserith wrote:
#17 deadworld56 Jul 12, 2014 13:50:41	I am not a Pathfinder player, but I do flip through the books from time to time to mine for ideas. You might be able to scavenge some notions/systems from the Ultimate Campaign book while waiting for the 5e DMG. Might also be able to get something 'light' from An Echo, Resounding. Hope I haven't offended anyone in high places or otherwise for mentioning competing products.
#18 Vokarius Jul 12, 2014 15:18:55	I think it is cool u are playing D&D how u want to. Now 2nd edition, 3rd edition, and Pathfinder all have ways of building and running a business. Additionally the Birthright setting can be easily modified to fit and run business or a whole guild.