Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 senko Nov 26, 2008 20:48:39	SECTION 1: INCOME I've been looking for something suitable for my players who want to start up their own company. Something thats simple enough to manage that they aren't going to be spending more time dealing with it than with the normal adventuring but that will work as a a believable company. I think I've found it in the Noble's Handbook as the noble house there can very easily be adapated to a corporation from start up home business to multinational corporation with opponents. It doesn't take much ingame maintainence but adds roleplaying and financial elements as well as potential plothooks (Somethings causing problems at your docks warehouses, is it corporate sabotage or something more sinister thats soon going to spread to other seaside industries?). However there is one thing that needs to change and that's how income is managed. In the original book you add up all ranks your followers (yes it assumes you'll take the leadership feat to get the most out of it, having a noble house is also meant to require a feat but since noble's get leadership for free I figured I'd let the players start up a corporation without a specific feat since if they want to get the most out of it they need to take leadership, in 3.x not modern as well so I need to figure out if there'll be an increase in the number of followers you get or leave it as is see next section for this.) have and then make a single check using that modifier each week. So if your followers included 13 people with profession carpentry rank 2 you'd make a single weekly check with a +23 modifer for carpentry, if you also had 3 people with blacksmithing 3 you'd make two checks one a carpentry one at +23 and one a blacksmithing one at +9 and then halve the result (I'm not sure if you halve the check result or the income result). However in D20 modern there's just a single profession skill that essentially assumes every adult will have at least one rank in it since it represents your ability to make money. I therefore was thinking I'd modify this method of determining income as follows. 1) Work out the overall total number of ranks you (and any followers) have in the profession skill e.g. you have 5, your cohort has 3 and you have 2 first level followers (smart hero employee's) who have a rank of 1 in it for your home web-design business. This gives you a total modifier of +10. 2) Every 4 months (ingame) make a single profession check using that modifier (obviously if you/they level up and put ranks in profession the modifier will increase). E.g. you roll and get a 1 this gives you a result of 11. 3) Your companies assets start at 0 and you work out profit (some months you take a loss, others you make money, this reprents how your doing overall each quarter). So after this first check you get a result of 11 which is more than 0 so you add +1, its 11 more than zero so add 2 giving a total quarterly result of +3. You then reduce this by half (more if I adopt the leadership changes detailed below). Which means after the first quarter your home business has shown a profit of +1 not much sure but it was a lousy dice roll i.e. a lousy month and your barely making enough to live on. The halved result is to represent general expenses (maintainenece, wages, bills etc), specifcic i.e. irregular expenses (purchasing retail space, upgrading hardware, a company retreat or natural disaster damage) can be assigned by the GM and need to be payed for with your company assets i.e its wealth bonus. 4) If your starting a character above first level make 1 check for each level you gain. SECTION 2: LEADERSHIP There isn't to my knowledge an equivilent of the leadership feat in D20 modern although some classes get followers/pets/robots/your pick. There are two main problems with the leadership feat for being used for the purposes I have in mind (representing corporate employees). The first problem is that if I want it to represent employee's even at high levels your going to be a small business employing at most 1 to 2 hundred people which isn't much on a global scale especially given the worlds increased population and ease of communication compared to the era its set in. Secondly if I increase the number of followers you get e.g. by replacing the normal leadership progress with the one from the epic handbook (problem ridden that it is) with a leadership score of 1 you get a 17th level cohort and over a hundred first level followers and this will start generating ridiculous amounts of corporate income for a startup business. What I was considering doing and want to know if people think its a viable approach is this. For regular purposes i.e. followers you can call out (maybe they're a private security firm or some especially loyal followers, maybe they just represent people who you've formed an especially strong bond with they aren't just employees they're people completely loyal to your "noble house" and in return receive support and care from you for their ENTIRE lives and their childrens and childrens children etc.) it works as normal. For pusposes of your company you multiply the numbers given by your score. For example if you were 13th level and a good leader you might have a leadership score of 17. So your followers (members of your noble house) would include a 12th level cohort, 30 first level followers, 3 2nd level followers, 1 3rd level follower and 1 fourth level follower (these followers can be assigned as normal e.g. maybe a couple are scientists, anothers a football player, two are local law enforcement officers, the fourth level ones your chief exective officer running the companies day to day affairs etc). Outside of this number you have 17 times that amount of employees i.e. 240 first level, 21 second level, 7 3rd level and 7 4th level. These "Employee's" are different to regular followers in that they are only used one way and that is they have 1 rank in profession for each level they have and are only used in the determining of corporate income. You can't call on them in any other way e.g. as replacements if one of your followers dies, to aid you in a mission, nothing. They are only there to help represent your corporation. If this method's adopted the corporate income check would be reduced to 1/10 of the result rather than one half (9/10ths is going on regular expenses like wages, bills, maintainence etc). For example you have a total profession modifier (for your corporate assets) of 368 + a die roll of 7 = 375. You would then reduce this by 1/10 to 37.5 giving you a quarterly income of 8 (its more than zero and it had 7 lots of 5 over zero). Next quarter say you role a 6 you'd get 374 (37.4) and increase your assets by 6 (more than 7, and has 5 lots of 5) for a total of 13. Then next quarter you roll a 4 (my dice hates me) giving you a total increase of 5. Finally (last quarter) you roll a 7 giving you an increase of 4. So at the end of the first year (gametime) after starting your corpration has gained assets totalling a wealth bonus of +22 (fast startup I guess, however these assets can only be used for the company not your regular expenses e.g. buying a house. a company/noble house gives you other perks however). You'll also notice as the corporations assets increase the rate of increase slows and these were calculated using a 13th level character who had every leadership bonus there is. Does this sound reasonable to people?
#2 tema69 Nov 27, 2008 3:13:45	About the corporation issue: If they are employees, they are employed, and thus receive money/get paid. So if you want a company, you're gonna need to hire the employees. Pay for 'em. Second, if you still want to go the Leadership-feat-way, there are plenty of feats like "Extra Followers" etc... in D&D that allows you to gain more followers, I'd recommend you look into that.
#3 senko Dec 03, 2008 22:31:06	First off sorry about the delay my computer got damaged shortly after posting the original message and I haven't had it since then. Secondly employee payment is covered in the general ongoing expenses that reduce the check result for the corporate assets. As for the extra feats the only thing I know of to add followers is the epic level handbook which book are these feats in please? On topic I've been thinking about it this past week and I'm considering ignoring employee's altogether (for this alteration) and just letting them be an abstract concept. I'd need to find something to replace the skill focus the noble house gives your followers (who aren't represented in the corporation for roleplaying purposes) and I'll probably just have the player make a 2nd check for corporate assets in addition to their regular one for wealth.
#4 tema69 Dec 04, 2008 1:54:31	I believe the feats I'm talking about are in the Heroes of Battle book, but can be found on ze internetz in any of the compiled feat lists. As for making it abstract, just make sure that you use a system that both you and the PCs care to use. I know for example, that I'd rarely bother with the specs if the PCs got a corporation, and I don't think any of them would miss specs at all. But that's entirely up to you (as in you and your PCs) - if you enjoy corporation politics, sure go ahead. My PCs and I would just rather like to know that their corporation is there, and keep it freeform. ^(I do not mean to be arrogant, so sorry if I sound like it)^ We have different taste, that's all.
#5 senko Dec 04, 2008 2:59:33	That would explain it then I haven't seen that book guess I'll have to look for the compiled lists. As for keeping it abstract I'm trying to do that while still having something concrete enough to point at as it were. For example the PC with the feat would have some justification for the GM giving them an invite to a prrivate event or to go to the docks and investigate their warehouse thefts. I mainly got thinking about this because I have one player who enjoy's business (in the sense of making more money) but none of them are the types to play the charisma based classes prefering to hit things. Thanks for the help.
#6 tema69 Dec 04, 2008 8:02:37	Allright. I can upload or email you the feat list if you can't find it. You're welcome, anytime.