A complex question for you gaming-gurus out there...

[Kalle Palander]

Don't bother about all the math, just let it cost so much that it hurts a little.

Let her enjoy herself, it seems that she's more after the fame and fun over owning a coffee shop and a plantation. it seems quite cool, just remember too let something happen to her coffee once in a while to keep up her interest, if it goes too smooth it aint fun. If she's been a good girl, she makes quite some money, she doesn't seem like the player who runs of using all her money on munchkin stuff, she'll probably use it too expand her little "empire"

Let the girl have her fun

 

[Arravis]

Part is fame... but mostly it's just that the group is constantly broke. Epic items are EXTREMELY expensive to create... and Epic Spells... they are even worse.

And Electric Dragon... your view seems unrealisticly harsh. Businesses can be very difficult to maintain and for them to be proffitable... but if you know whom to hire and are able to invest enough, you can make tons of money. The main issue is that in real life... few of us know whom to hire and have the capital to undertake these investments. She isn't planning to run the plantation herself, but she does plan to hire the very best, including druids, economic planners, etc. She can afford to buy these experts, why should I doom her business simply because she doesn't plan to sit in the plantation herself and be the micro-management decision maker? Seems unecessarily harsh to me.

 

[Cedric]

As a side note, if she gets too much pressure in Waterdeep...her best bet may be to approach one of the larger merchants/hotel owners and sell them a small interest (20%) in the Coffee House business.

Then she gets the weight of their clout to throw around in Waterdeep to squash the opposition.

It's likely that she could put the steps in motion to completely re-invent the merchants and services business over the course of the next 25 years.

Cedric

 

[Voadam]

Does she have appropriate profession skills?

Rich people who want to hire the best no expenses spared can send good money after bad.

Businesses are a good way to make money (that's there point) but many do fail. Just throwing in money alone is risky.

 

[pawned79]

If you wanted to know what I concidered to be a "detailed gamer," well Cedric is grade A number one. If you don't think D&D can be set up to do something like a coffee plantation, then maybe the DM doesn't have enough imagination or doesn't have access to a board full of wonderfully picky people like Arravis, Cedric and myself. Ahhh... roleplaying...

Patrick

 

[Arravis]

This does not count bribes to guilds, etc... only taxes and costs of running the business normally. Well, here's what I got so far.


Coffee Plantation:

Cost (this includes 200 acres, housing for 30-40 workers and their families, equipment, etc.): 250,00 gp (Can be bargained down to 175,000 gp)

Return on Investment:

1d100:
1-2: Catastrophe
3-5: Loss
6-7: No Profit
8-99: Profit
100: Double profits

Catastrophe: Weather, brigands, rivals, etc.
Loss: d10x1000gp loss.
No Profit: Break even, whatever is made is used to maintain the Plantation.
Profit: Roll the proper business skill check. This amount includes the loss of beans sent to the Coffee House.

Profit DC:
10: 500 gp
15: d2x1000 gp
20: d4x1000 gp
25: d8x1000 gp
30: d10+2x1000 gp
35: 2d10+2x1000 gp
40: 2d10+5x1000 gp
45: 2d10+10x1000 gp
50: 2d10+15x1000 gp

Harvest:
Harvest season is from October to January, wherein an average of 21 tons of coffee willl be harvested.
Average Total Harvest:
20 tons: Regula beans. (Sells for 1 gp/lb, total: 40,000 gp)
1 ton: Special reserve beans. (Sells for 5 gp/lb, total: 5,000 gp)
100 lbs: Plantation select beans. (50 gp/lb, total: 5,000)


-----


Coffee House:

On an average year the Coffee House will use 5 tons of regular coffee, 500 lbs of Special Reserve and 25 lbs of Plantation Select.

Coffee leaves plantation to export: Taxed upon leaving port, 10%
Coffee arrives in Waterdeep: Taxed upon entering, 5%
Coffee House is taxed: 10

Return on Investment:

1d100:
1: Catastrophe
2-5: Loss
6-7: No Profit
8-99: Profit
100: Double profits

Catastrophe: Out of favor, rivals, etc.
Loss: d10x1000gp loss.
No Profit: Break even, whatever is made is used to maintain the Plantation.
Profit: Roll the proper business skill check. This amount includes the loss of beans sent to the Coffee House.

Profit DC:
10: 1d4x1000 gp
15: 1d8+5x1000 gp
20: 2d8+5x1000 gp
25: 2d10+5x1000 gp
30: 3d10+5x1000 gp
35: 4d10+5x1000 gp
40: 4d10+10x1000 gp
45: 4d10+15x1000 gp
50: 4d10+20x1000 gp

 

[Cedric]

I very much believe in GM'ing the level of detail the players want.

If she wanted a quick and easy coffee business with some clout and decent earnings. I'd say alright, it seems to be doing good...and we'd have the occassional plot element regarding it. (pirates jacking her shipments, rival grower stealing some of her plants to graft with his own, another plantation owner hiring away her master grower [only to find out they "charmed" him instead of hiring him], etc).

On the other hand, if you want to get down and dirty with the details...then roll up your sleeves Lady, cause we're counting the beans now! ...Ok, maybe not that bad. But if it's important to the player to get that kind of detail, then this is something we can do.

You'll just have to keep it in check enough to make sure it doesn't take away too much from the gaming sessions themselves...but most of this can be done "off camera".

Cedric

p.s. Thanks for the compliment *blush*

 

[Cedric]

100: Double profits

Nice, sounds like things are coming together. The only thing you might consider changing is changing the 100 roll to just a generic *something special happens.

You know...a plantation worker could fall in a hole and find a gold mine, who knows.

But if it's going to theoretcially be a 1 in 100 years occurrence, make it rare and special.

Cedric

 

[ElectricDragon]

Harsh? Not a chance. If you want to hand her the world on a silver platter, be my guest. If you want to challenge her, make her work for every little thing. Epic level characters do not live in a vacuum. There should be (and are in FR there are) epic NPC's all around. Who's to say that the merchant's guild hasn't got one or two on their side. A face-to-face battle over profits is very realistic. The fact that you say she will win a physical confrontation hands down just means you have not developed peers for her. Contemporaries in power and magic who do not always agree with what she thinks should happen will be lurking everywhere.

Being made of money doesn't automatically mean your business works fine. Throwing money at a problem seldom fixes it. Your "experts" will all have their own agenda. These agendas usually interfere with profits. Unless she plans on casting geas on everyone who works for her, she will get screwed in business. There are no fool-proof plans. Hiring the best, usually means you get forced out of the business because you don't understand everything that is going on. The best, by the way, does not have anything to do with alignment. The "best" foreman, who is also CE can cause a lot of problems: both with profits and with her reputation.

I take it you have challenged the party with epic level monsters? What about an epic level business rival? Now, there's a challenge. If economics and politics is the way you want to go: good; but realize that there should be more powerful forces out there just waiting to chew up a new business. Both direct and indirect threats to the business should crop up all the time. If her hirllings are dealing with the day-to-day problems and she just jumps in to handle the big ones; the hirelings are going to feel (rightly or wrongly) they deserve more. They have many options for getting more (embezzlement, theft, ask for raise, creative bookkeeping, selling info to rivals, etc.).

Return on Investment:
1d100:
1-2: Catastrophe
3-5: Loss
6-7: No Profit
8-99: Profit
100: Double profits

This is unrealistic, 5% chance of a loss when she ignores it most of the time? 93% chance of profit? Are you playing a game where loss is possible? If this is going to be a source of income, you need to make her work for it. Money does not fall out of the sky.

Epic level fighters can miss distressingly often in battle; but neophyte business-owners always make a profit? How often does an epic wizard miss his spell penetration roll? If he doesn't, then you are not challenging your party. The same rule applies here.

Again, it is your game, play it how you like. Remember, challenges make the game fun. If the party is not challenged, there is no fun.

Dave

 

[Cedric]

This is unrealistic, 5% chance of a loss when she ignores it most of the time? 93% chance of profit? Are you playing a game where loss is possible? If this is going to be a source of income, you need to make her work for it. Money does not fall out of the sky.

Trade in rare commodities, especially in a quasi-medieval time period, almost never results in a loss. These items (spices, pepper, salt, honey, sugar, wine, fabrics) became the staple by which empires, fortunes and countries were made.

With a significant up front investment, the player should be able to buy and expand on a pre-existing business and do very well with it.

This is a time period when actual large businesses simply did not fail. The middle class was almost unheard of, limited to a few artisans and merchants. You were mostly either rich or poor. And if you had a plantation like this...you were rich.

Cedric