General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
Has any of your characters or parties ever ran a business in the game? Run a bakery to stash your loot? Create a thieves guild? Or take over the local criminal organization?
Once I had a group created a bank with the stuff we got from slaying a very rich dragon. We then gave loans to various groups so they could build armies to kill each other other with. Bad things happened and the DM railroaded us into a near TPK trying to raise money by killing a rich demigod.
A past ranger of mine sold life insurance to fellow adventurers. Always trying to stop wars to keep his clients from dying.
I have a PC (dating back to 1986 or so) who established (OK, took over) a Thieves' Guild but the "mere thieves" are now just the outer shell of the organization. The Guild's inner structure and true purpose is a spy network. He's a major force in info gathering in our "epic" campaign.
One campaign, our party started off as most do- random strangers meeting in a bar- but soon organized our party into a business partnership. We hunted monsters and dungeon delved explicitly to obtain alchemical and magical ingredients for powerful NPCs and organizations. We did it all for the GP, and left the world-saving stuff to heroes.
In Boot Hill, the PC's found a lost gold mine, got a bank loan to re-start it, and hired a bunch of refugees from a Mexican revolution to start production.
Pretty interesting center-piece for a campaign, I think.
Also, I've always wanted to have a PC run a store for supplies in a back like the World's Largest Dungeon.
The players in my current game are starting a colony to support the pirating efforts. They basically offered villagers from a nation that was constantly under siege safety if they would move and become the farmers and craftsman on their asteroid.
I've seen it a couple of times. The business rules in DMG II (iirc) came in very handy.
The characters in my last Dark Sun game started up their own trading house and were doing quite well for themselves. Then they took a trip to the ruins of Kalidnay and everything went horribly wrong...
The characters in my current Dark Sun game have just decided to start their own trading house with the sponsorship of a larger house. However, they are also currently planning a trip to the ruins of Giustenal. I see a pattern developing here...
__________________ The name that can be named is not the true name. Darker Days - a World of Darkness podcast. Email Darker Days.
I've seen it a couple of times. The business rules in DMG II (iirc) came in very handy.
Really? I thought those were terrible. Basically it was impossible using these rules to have a business that was profitable. All the rules did was provide yet another money sink for the pcs and maybe the occasional adventure hook.
Really? I thought those were terrible. Basically it was impossible using these rules to have a business that was profitable. All the rules did was provide yet another money sink for the pcs and maybe the occasional adventure hook.
I played in a game where my character stumbled into possession of a whore house. It lead to an entertaining subplot about competition with a rival whore house. Soon after, the campaign collapsed into farce.
I'm of the opinion that, if your players establish a business, the GM is probably being too soft on them. He's giving out too much loot, and allowing them to become too comfortable. (How did they get all that loot in the first place? If they found "the mother load" in some dungeon, how did they carry it all out?). I think the GM is setting a precident which will eventually kill the campaign. Unless the business venture is short lived.
If a PC or PCs are intent on starting a business, the business should be HARD and require a lot of effort. If it's an individual PC, his job should routinely prevent him from traveling with the adventuring party. If the whole group is involved, they should have constant challenges related to the business.
I would stress the mundane aspects of business operation. Again, where do they keep their money? How does a group with 20,000gp in assets effect the local economy: i.e. inflation! Adventurers should not make good businessmen. Let them try to sort out management issues, like dealing with interpersonal conflict between workers, labour strikes, supply shortages, zoning violations, etc. Eventually, their volatile tendencies will get them into trouble and make their business unpopular and unsuccessful. The adventurers will cut their losses, burn the place down, and return to the life less ordinary.
As for owning a theive's guild, that's slightly different from owning a business. It's actually a very good way to introduce adventure hooks. But, like a business, it shouldn't be easy to run a theive's guild. It would probably be the hardest job imaginable, because you can't trust anybody. The leader of the theive's guild probably wouldn't be able to sleep at night for fear of a knife to his throat. And, ah, he will probably get it in the end.
Personally, I have a preference for desperate, low-magic, low-wealth, Dark Ages-style campaign settings where things like this could never happen. I don't like big glistening fantasy cities with law and order and all that. I think finding food should be a struggle.
Really? I thought those were terrible. Basically it was impossible using these rules to have a business that was profitable. All the rules did was provide yet another money sink for the pcs and maybe the occasional adventure hook.
Impossible for adventurers, yes. Unless your character is focussed on running the business, most PCs won't have skills high enough to make it worthwhile. Which is as it should be, imho.
The characters in the Dark Sun game hired a couple of NPCs to run the business side of things for them (Experts with maxed out business skills and levels in DS-specific trader prestige classes). The PCs generally used their trade caravans as cover for infiltrating hostile cities and growing a small, but steady profit. Large profits only came from actually risky gambits. Profits generated by the NPCs (via the DMG II system) were enough to keep the house ticking over and slowly growing. Ths is as it should be, because it keeps the focus of the game where it belongs and relegates the day-to-day drudgery of running the business to the background. There's no way it could replace adventuring as a way of making money.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Melba Toast
I'm of the opinion that, if your players establish a business, the GM is probably being too soft on them. He's giving out too much loot, and allowing them to become too comfortable. (How did they get all that loot in the first place? If they found "the mother load" in some dungeon, how did they carry it all out?). I think the GM is setting a precident which will eventually kill the campaign. Unless the business venture is short lived.
In this DS game, the PCs were involved in a government cover-up of the assassination of the city's sorcerer-king. They framed a trading house from an enemy city and were rewarded with some of that house's assets (a building, some livestock, transport and a small amount of trade goods). Incidentally, this counted against their "wealth per character level", which was rather amusing ("No, you can't have a magical steel sword - here is a house and 30 kanks instead. Quit grumbling.")
Far from killing the campaign, it gave the PCs something to care about and to lose, tied them into the local setting more closely, and rewarded their nefarious actions in a suitably cynical fashion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Melba Toast
If a PC or PCs are intent on starting a business, the business should be HARD and require a lot of effort. If it's an individual PC, his job should routinely prevent him from traveling with the adventuring party. If the whole group is involved, they should have constant challenges related to the business.
I agree completely. They soon realised that they needed to have someone else do the running of the business for them. Had the party not come to a nasty end in Kalidnay, I was intending to have their trusted employees embezzle most of the funds and ruin the business in their protracted absence.
Oh well, there's always the new game to try that in...
__________________ The name that can be named is not the true name. Darker Days - a World of Darkness podcast. Email Darker Days.
Well my group created a bank because we feared walking around with all that money. So we created a bank and let most of the citizen of the nearby towns and cities make accounts. The locals made protected the bank holding their money and we stayed safe from crazy theives. Then we travelled to far off lands to offer huge loans to powerful kings, businessmen, aventurers, and warlords. We kept track of how much their borrowed, their montly payments, and the worth of the items we'd get if they didn't pay up. Their payment came as a d20 roll vs their Income DC. If the borrower went through bad times the DC rose.
Most of our fights composed of us trying to get what's left of foreclosed kingdoms, get items from a dead adventurers who borrowed money for their equipment back from the monster who killed him, or trying to stop cities from destroying themselves.
DM: Oran the Destroyer die last month.
Us: Crap. He spent his money on epic weapons and epic plate armor. Who killed him?
DM: Tiamat.
Us: &*$%. Let's offer the Archmage, The Northern Church of Light, and the OrcKing a lower rate if they recover the equipment
I've frequently had PC's become business people. Becoming landed is instant "business" person, even if its just farming. I have had them become Inn/Tavern owners, start up magic shops, become cross country traders/delivery men, gold miners, silver miners, gem stone miners, iron miners, etc...
Such things give characters reason to retire. Why adventure when you can sit back and make lots of gold pretty safely?
Then again, maybe they decide they need to adventure in order to protect their wealth/business from people, creatures, guilds, etc... that are more powerful than they are.
Like I had one group in Faerun discover a nice rich gold vein after fighting an Aurumvorax (sp?), which I think was part of a Dungeon adventure (had a Red Knight in it?) and they set up a mine. They were making money hand over fist! Then a certain group (Zhentarim) found out about the mine and decided they wanted it in order to fund their activities. Over 10 levels of adventuring in order to protect their interests ensued. Great campaign! Now there is a group of 17th level (or thereabouts) adventurers, retired, wealthy, gold miners, and known to have nearly destroyed the Zhentarim, in my campaign history.
__________________ It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules, which is important. NEVER hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule book upon you, IF it goes against the obvious intent of the game. As you hew the line with respect to conformity to major systems and uniformity of play in general, also be certain the game is mastered by you and not by your players. Within the broad parameters give in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Volumes, YOU are creator and final arbiter. By ordering things as they should be, the game as a WHOLE first, your CAMPAIGN next, and your participants thereafter, you will be playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons as it was meant to be. May you find as much pleasure in so doing as the rest of us do.
My current campaign had the players given an option to have a "rum running" business. What sounded cool initially was quickly overtaken by a much better macro plot that left the rum runners to the background NPCs and the adventurers doing much greater and grander deeds. All for the better, of course, though if we wanted a session or two playing at it I woulda whipped up some rules.
If I had to, I'd just run it like a skill challenge. Solicit some ideas to increase profits, let them use some skills to see how it goes. Make some choices available (either spend your time doing X OR Y with two possible results) and setup some risks that could end up as some combat encounters with some enemies (either the law if running through town or some creatures if sneaking in the forest).
The problem is... a single extended skill challenge shouldn't generate that much money or you'll end up having that give the players tons of cash compared to adventurering. I'd suggest avoiding assigning monetary values to it and assume near 100% reinvestment into the business operation with the success of the skill challenge a more tangible goal:
-Gain entry into a local guild to gain access to NPCs
-Outcompete enemy evil business to save the town
-Uncover some artifact through trade/business integral to the plot
-Learn new plot hooks that sets off adventurering
-Use the profits to strengthen a local army or rebel group
Keep in mind with any skill challenge you'll want something for all characters to do... it isn't fun for the muscle of the group to sit back to a string of perception, insight, diplomacy and history rolls or whatever you pick.
__________________ MapTool - Play Online, Face-to-Face, Anywhere! Open Source, Multi-system, Community Driven, Multi-platform, Free!
Our current party of characters (I'm the DM) is running a business out of the duergar trading post in the Seven Pillared Hall in Thunderspire Labyrinth. It seems every person they save ends up working there.
At first I wasn't really prepared but now, as the adventures move on, I have to keep in mind what's going on. Lately its been a bit of an economic power struggle between Shieldbashers Meats and Metals (the PC's business) and Grendar's Curios and Relics (an NPC business run by a dark elf).
It's actually a lot of fun for both of us. It's sort of turning into Deadwood. People love it.
Right now the party is in the Pyramid of Shadows. I have an idea what's going on back in the business but it might be surprising even to me.
Minigiant... I'm curious, did you give much thought to "the bank" and how it would work within the game world?
Typically, in Medieval Europe, assets were held by the state or church, with the majority of people entrusting their small savings to the church. The roman catholic church was the largest bank in the world until the emergence of economic theory and the banking industry in the 1700's.
The other major asset holders were the mob, though they were the least trustworthy for obvious reasons. European Jews, having neither official state nor church recognition, started up their own banks, but those were arguably mob organizations. The jewish people's reluctance to invest their money in official state and church institutions was one of the reasons the Jewish people were subject to the hurtful and anti-semetic propaganda that still persists today.
My point is this: once a person has acquired a certain level of asset control, they should expect to attract the attentions of the existing banking authorities. Both the church and the state will start asking questions and demanding concessions. "The walls of our city protect your gold, therefore you should protect the walls of this city by giving us your money. Now pony up!" and "Why wouldn't you place your trust in the church? Don't you have faith in our god? Perhaps you worship other gods? Selfish gods? Evil gods?"
Overly wealthy PCs might just find themselves suddenly at odds with their sovereign nation, at the center of a war, or marginalized as troublemakers and infidels.
Last edited by Melba Toast; 9th December 2008 at 02:31 AM..
my wizard is on the verge of setting up a canal business running from hommlett to verbobonc. there was a recent greater flow of water in the river, due to recent seismic activity (the obliteration of the temple of elemental evil both there and in the volcano from RTTTOEE.) the extra water made canal travel posssible, as long as someone is willing to clear out the shallow spots and make it navigable all the way thru. my wizard with e spells move earthth and dig, and a work crew should be able to clear it in a monh or two. with a license fee to the ruler of verbobonc, i should get an exclusive livense. after setup costs, i have an exclusive contract, which ought to generate me some income. enough for funding magical research, and to extend my base of networks and contacts through better funding, so as to be a better player in the regional politics. traditionally canals were the cheapest mode of transport, bar none. so i ought to make some decent money. if it wasn't for that massive uprising in the pomarj and the recent takeover of narwell and safeton by the orcs of the pomarj, i would be more comfortable with the investment...
any 3pp resources on trade and commerce in dnd?
__________________ ~Joe
If you like what I said, throw me some XP. I was a goblin sharpshooter for far too long.
The model for adventuring while running a business is perfectly comprehensible. It's the Deep Space Nine adventure model (the adventure and intrigue comes to us) rather than the Star Trek adventure model (we go to the adventure and deal with local intrigue). Not hard at all.
And, yes, the DMGII model looks impossible for all but 8-10th level characters. As soon as they introduced it, all of WotC's innkeepers in their adventures instantly became impoverished, because virtually none of them are of sufficient level to turn a profit. The random business encounter table, however, was helpful.
__________________ All role playing advice is given without knowledge of you and your group. Only you and your group knows what is fun for you. What you are doing is not badwrongfun. My advice is offered based on what I think might be fun for you to try.
"Art is the demonstration that the ordinary is extraordinary." - Amedee Ozenfant, Foundations of Modern Art
"I already have a place where I can get little recognition for my accomplishments, advance at a very slow pace, and have to work hard to eke out minimum rewards for my efforts. It's called work." - toberane.
Minigiant... I'm curious, did you give much thought to "the bank" and how it would work within the game world?
Typically, in Medieval Europe, assets were held by the state or church, with the majority of people entrusting their small savings to the church. The roman catholic church was the largest bank in the world until the emergence of economic theory and the banking industry in the 1700's.
The other major asset holders were the mob, though they were the least trustworthy for obvious reasons. European Jews, having neither official state nor church recognition, started up their own banks, but those were arguably mob organizations. The jewish people's reluctance to invest their money in official state and church institutions was one of the reasons the Jewish people were subject to the hurtful and anti-semetic propaganda that still persists today.
My point is this: once a person has acquired a certain level of asset control, they should expect to attract the attentions of the existing banking authorities. Both the church and the state will start asking questions and demanding concessions. "The walls of our city protect your gold, therefore you should protect the walls of this city by giving us your money. Now pony up!" and "Why wouldn't you place your trust in the church? Don't you have faith in our god? Perhaps you worship other gods? Selfish gods? Evil gods?"
Overly wealthy PCs might just find themselves suddenly at odds with their sovereign nation, at the center of a war, or marginalized as troublemakers and infidels.
Well before we could even set up the bank, the DM sent a bunch of dragons after us and our gold. It was easy to convince local lord and church leaders that giving them the money directly would cost them too much. Also those churches and local lords got the best rates.
Basically we "gave" money to the locals, funded advneturers to protect good nations, and forced the evil people to attack each other. We only made money on adventuters. Everyone else was a loss.
I like- no, I LOVE- old-style banks as substitutes for bars, guilds and the like as the center of a campaign.
An institution centered entirely around handling money in a FRPG world would need some intelligent workers...and some really good strongarms as well. The Pinkertons were quite feared in their day- why not have PCs as their FRPG equivalent.
If your world's monetary system is as sophisticated as old money-men of Venice, your world would have not just the traditional gold and gems, but certain forms of valuable papers. Not paper money, but things like promissory notes and the like.
Venitian "banks" in those days were already using documents like letters of credit and so forth to minimize the need to ship actual money between cities. Instead, Bank A would issue letters that would instruct Bank B to pay the holder's debts in that new city up to a certain amount. And Bank B's clients would benefit from similar treatment in Bank A's city. At the end of the month, there would be an accounting to see how much of each other's clients' debts were covered by the other bank. Then, instead of several coin shipments- one or more per client, each with its inherent delays and risks- there would be 1 shipment of coins to correct whatever imbalance existed between the banks' accounts.
Such a caravan could be a fine substitute for the traditional kind- it would be smaller but more heavily protected...and just as tempting a target.
If a PC or PCs are intent on starting a business, the business should be HARD and require a lot of effort. If it's an individual PC, his job should routinely prevent him from traveling with the adventuring party. If the whole group is involved, they should have constant challenges related to the business.
I think it depends on what the players and DM want the business to be in the context of the game - I had a cleric of Bes (god of luck) who opened a casino. The running of the casino was fairly simple - I had him roll a couple of skill checks a month. I didn't mess with the casino too much, though it figured into a fair number of battles and a couple of plot twists - like when their contact in the Thieves Guild (who was responsible for letting them run a gambling house without paying protection money) got killed and the cleric framed for it...
__________________ "I hurt Firewing." is not something a huge number of people can say. "He dropped a parking garage on me," on the other hand, a lot of people can say. -Kazan, my Champions GM.
Linear Mode
And yet another word from our sponsors
