DM Advice and Ideas Needed

[chrisplant]

I've been DM'ing for a few years in 4th edition, but recently started DM'ing a new campaign with a new group and these guys are pretty ambitious. They've negotiated as a price for helping save a city to OWN a portion of the city upon completion of their task. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but the last few sessions they've discussed ideas about building shops, inns, and even a gladiator-style arena. I think all of this sounds like a great idea and provides me with a bunch of built in adventure hooks (establishing trade routes, finding and hiring a well-renowned blacksmith to draw customers to their city, even capturing monsters for their gladiator arena).

What I need help/advice with is how to handle the monetary aspect of all of this. Obviously their idea is to make money with all of these shops and everything, so how should I handle:
-Salaries of the merchants and innkeepers
-Prices to demolish and build different styles of buildings
-Establishing a customer base to decide how much income they will be getting and how often

Also if anybody has ideas for other story hooks, I'm open to suggestions. Thanks!

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

My first question: are the players expecting this to be a mini-game within D&D or are they happy with it being something that is largely hand-waved?

If they want something that is more of a simulation, um, try Pathfinder's Ultimate Campaign or something like that. Or read up on medieval economics.

In short, urgh.

Here's how I would do it. Any investment generates an annual return of, say, 5% after all costs are taken into account. That's your baseline and remind them that the money they invest is tied up in these assets and businesses: it cannot be used to purchase new magic items and fund their nascent corporate empire.

Assuming you all agree with 5% as the rate of return, payable in cash say, once per quarter, you can have things start to affect that rate of return. Forging a new trade route might add 1-5% but cost time and money. A new thieves' guild starts causing losses until it is stopped. The city increases taxes and that cuts into earnings but maybe the PCs can install new leadership.

So you have a base that makes sense (historically stock markets, for example, average 6% returns per generation or so) and then you can tinker with it in the context of generating adventure hooks. The beauty of this is that you don't really need any bookkeeping beyond keeping track of the total invested.

If you want to make it a little more complicated, you could have different types of investments produce different returns, some of which may even be random.

Anyway, for the sake of your sanity, don't delve into the minutiae of salaries. Work out a reasonable rate of return and go from there. (Personally, I would probably start with 2%.)

 

[GMMichael]

What I need help/advice with is how to handle the monetary aspect of all of this. Obviously their idea is to make money with all of these shops and everything, so how should I handle:
-Salaries of the merchants and innkeepers
-Prices to demolish and build different styles of buildings
-Establishing a customer base to decide how much income they will be getting and how often

Don't put a lot of work into it unless the players want to stop being adventurers. Logistics and finance are for bureaucrats. I'm doubting that any of your PCs have that as a class.

Just come up with a lump sum that makes the PCs say, "well, I guess I couldn't have afforded that two levels ago." And then come up with a max income and max loss that the PCs will have each month. Roll on that spectrum for each month.

For example:
Max income (less expenses): 500 gold
Max loss (barring disaster): 200 gold

Roll 1d8-1, multiply by 100, and add that to -200. That's how much their chunk of the city earns them each month.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

What I need help/advice with is how to handle the monetary aspect of all of this. Obviously their idea is to make money with all of these shops and everything, so how should I handle:
-Salaries of the merchants and innkeepers
-Prices to demolish and build different styles of buildings
-Establishing a customer base to decide how much income they will be getting and how often

Did your players say that their goal is to make money? From what you described earlier, it sounded like they just wanted to have a city to call their own, with the gladiator arena and whatnot.

Regardless, keep in mind that the income of a city is a very different thing than a treasure horde in a dragon's lair. If your players expect to make money hand over fist, to fund their wild-eyed schemes or +5 magic items, I would not hesitate to throw plenty of monkey wrenches into their plan. Any time there's easy money, someone else wants a cut, whether it's corrupt officials, ambitious nobles, emboldened thieves' guilds, or the barbarians outside the walls.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I love this sort of thing, incidentally...! I think Scrivener of Doom has it about right - find out how much work your players want to put into this, and keep it as fast and loose as possible so that things don't bog down. I also like the idea of a target return of 5% based on the amount the PC's invest; if they don't invest cash, they won't get any return.

Make sure you nail down exactly how much authority they have - will they literally be 100% independent (perhaps like an independent mercantile city in the Middle Ages), or will they be essentially inserting themselves into the feudal structure of the city/nation? Few rulers would want to (or be able to) grant full independence. The rulers of the city might have higher authority to report to and can only grant a certain level of power. Will they provide the constables for their area? Just make sure that whatever they choose, it's equally simple either way so that they're not picking based on whether they think they (the players) will be bored if they choose one option over another.

Don't forget to build in opportunities for both adventuring and roleplaying; if the PC's don't want to do the bookkeeping themselves, who do they hire? Let them do some interviewing of suitably odd or untrustworthy accountant types, and let them pick out the ones they can trust. They may need to make some judgements, ala King Solomon. Maybe dire rats start threatening the markets where people buy their food, and the PC's need to deal with that, or a vampire moves in and starts draining the citizenry. Their investments may start failing until they figure out what is behind it all...

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6778463]chrisplant[/MENTION]
Welcome to ENWorld!

Good advice above. Officially, the Strongholds article (Dragon 395) and Henchmen & Hirelings article (Dragon 397 also Mordenkainen's Magic Emporium p136) can be quite helpful for what you've got in mind.

I would link to them but WOTC's website renovation killed my old links there. And both articles require DDi subscription to access.

 

[Jhaelen]

Don't put a lot of work into it unless the players want to stop being adventurers. Logistics and finance are for bureaucrats. I'm doubting that any of your PCs have that as a class.

Basically this. Unless your players plan to retire their characters, starting a business should never allow them to make a profit. Instead it should be used as a source for new adventure hooks.

 

[Balesir]

As others have said, how you handle this should depend on how your players want to play. My own inclination, though, would be to use the structures in the 4E game rules where possible. Like this:

- Treat the investments/gifts as one or more magic items. They have a cost/value as per magic items and can be sold as per magic items etc. Give them a level/levels appropriate to the reward they represent.

- The "Power" of the item is to generate one "consumable" of the same level as the "item" per milestone/encounter/adventure. This might take the form of hirelings or consumable items (qv), or it might be cash payout (in which case be stingy over timing - consumable items could be one per encounter, cash once per milestone or per 3-5 encounters, maybe).

This sort of structure could represent a range of cases; shops, fortified bases, businesses etc. The gladiator arena might allow captured monsters to be "sold" as magic items of their level, as another "variant" example.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Don't "do" anything. Simply continue operating as you normally would in 4e. This is why 4e has no rules for this sort of thing, none are needed. If the PCs are going to turn a profit from their business, then they will have to overcome challenges (IE encounters of one form or another) just like usual. The rewards will simply come in the form of profit instead of finding treasure parcels in the usual way. This concept work whether the PCs are initiating some new business move or reacting to some competitive challenge. You can use SCs to resolve the less bloody aspects, and you can even create "long term" SCs that span potentially years of game time if you wish (this might be appropriate if you decide to do a compressed time montage type of thing). DMG2 has some good advice on this sort of 'story building' using flashbacks and other sorts of 'out of the flow of action' sequences.

 

[LostSoul]

My thoughts echo most of the above.

* Strategic resources: stat them up as magic items (probably Artifacts that grow in power as the PCs do specific things). e.g. One of the powers for the inn is that a sage rents out a room as his residence and you can use it to add a bonus on Arcana/Religion/whatever checks. If you get him some books then the bonus increases.

* Adventure hooks: they are adventure-generating hooks for the PCs. e.g. When cleaning the cellar you find old ruins down there. Negotiate a deal for preferential trade routes. A competitor or guild wants to strong-arm your PC's new business.

Obviously this can work with the above, or you can award treasure parcels normally.

* Side-campaigns: you can use the current PCs as employers to a new group of PCs who take care of some lower-level quests. That might be fun, letting the players explore some new PCs while tying it to the current campaign.