DM Advice and Ideas Needed

[Manbearcat]

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!

You've been given a lot of great ideas on how to handle this within the framework of 4e infrastructure and outside of it. My advice would firmly be to handle it within 4e established infrastructure and make sure that your players understand how this all works at the metagame level. Be transparent.

One question I would want clarified with your players is: "Are they expecting to break the established wealth by level framework with their entrepreneurial efforts?"

If the answer is yes, then I would definitely suggest that you guys pursue a different system that (a) supports that goal and (b) works toward a play framework that is more about sim merchants and artisans because 4e is all about big action and big adventure.

If the answer is no, then what they're telling you is "we want this to be the primary medium and feedback mechanism that supports our action and adventure."

So here is probably what I would do:

1) Come up with a stable of 3 relevant hireling NPCs for each market the PCs are looking to tap into. Assign Skill training and a primary ability score modifier to one hireling, and no training but a primary ability score modifier for the other two. Each will represent those NPCs' specialty and their immediate subordinates. Here are a few examples below:

Mining and prospecting: Athletics (U), Dungeoneering (T), Endurance (U)

Trailblazing and road prospecting: Athletics (U), Nature (T), Perception (U)

Inn and tavern proprieting: Diplmacy (U), Insight (U), Streetwise (T)

Building and engineering: Endurance (U), History (T), Nature (U)

etc, etc.

You can have Jack the Geologist, Tamara the Tavern Winch, Sam the Scout (etc). The players can establish relationships with these folks (and relevant members of their crews/sub-contractors) throughout the course of play.

2) Let the PCs establish their own Minor or Major Quests that correspond to each goal they wish to accomplish. For instance, "Establish a thriving Mine in McBobberton and a route to move supplies and goods to and from Bobville to the Mines of McBobberton." Each of these should require two or more successful Skill Challenges to accomplish.

3) The conflict of each exploration of a project or the weekly routine business operations/upkeep is placed in a Skill Challenge framework, complexity at your discretion. Whatever is at stake and the goal of the conflict is defined at the outset.

4) Each Extended Rest for the PCs, roll a Goup Check at whatever DC it calls for (within the RC guidelines of SCs) for each conflict that is currently underway.

For instance, for the above Quest outlined in 2, we would have two concurrent, discreet conflicts; The trailblazing and establishment of the route and the prospecting and running of the mine. Each fot these would be their own discrete Skill Challenge. Let us focus on the former.

The PCs would roll a Group Check for the trailblazing and road prospecting (Athletics, Nature, Perception). If 2 or more succeed in the Group Check, they would earn a success in their challenge and the effort would progress with a fitting narrative. On day 2, if they earn a failure (2 or more failures in the Group Check), complications would ensue. Perhaps the PCs would need to involve themsleves? Perhaps successful PC intervention is the equivalent of a Secondary Skill expenditure (+ 2 to following Primary Check). Ultimate success in the challenge would lead to fitting rewards (XP from Quests, alternate advancement treasure, coin for Rituals, etc). Ultimate failure would earn appropriate fallout that could be either a temporary setback (such as a trailblazing group getting lost) or something that has more longevity (such as a protracted war with a thieves guild or bandits) or even permanence (such as the death of a prospecting squad). Failure and Fallout is your natural feedback for the game as it would inherently lead to PC intervention and further Minor and Major Quests.

I personally wouldn't waste the mental overhead and table handling time on trying to sort out the cut for each contractor/specialist/laborer. Just assume they're getting their cut out of whatever profit is earned and the PCs are getting their own cut that maps to the wealth/level expectations built into the system. Again, you're looking for Big Action and Big Adventure that is spurred on by the feedback of mercantilism that the players have expressed that they want to be central to play. If the players are looking for an economy simulator, my advice would be to look at other systems.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Yeah, I think all of these are mutually inclusive. When I say "don't do anything" I mean it in terms of "you don't really need new rules or procedures". Something like the "sage who is a lair item" or actual lair items, etc are all naturally very fun things. I gave one of my groups a tower that has the magical door item for its outer door. This lead to a lot of funny RP because the door has its own (as you might guess rather curmudgeonly) personality and fights with the PCs, etc.

The whole thing is of course a HUGE plot generator. I just think personally that you don't need to do accounting of any sort in terms of money made/spent, etc. Just let it all flow through the treasure system. The only weakness being that as the PCs level up more and more either the 'business' will evolve to levels of much higher monetary value, or it will become logistically trivial (which presumably would happen anyway if you use accounting).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I personally wouldn't waste the mental overhead and table handling time on trying to sort out the cut for each contractor/specialist/laborer. Just assume they're getting their cut out of whatever profit is earned and the PCs are getting their own cut that maps to the wealth/level expectations built into the system. Again, you're looking for Big Action and Big Adventure that is spurred on by the feedback of mercantilism that the players have expressed that they want to be central to play. If the players are looking for an economy simulator, my advice would be to look at other systems.

Yeah, I'd stay clean away from anything that smells like accounting at any level. NPCs and other operating expenses of the business are assumed to be handled. If you succeed in an SC then you paid them all off and have a 'parcel' left over. If you failed in some SC then its really up to the DM to decide if it was a 'break even' situation and NPCs were paid, or if its a disaster and you went bust and they are looking for back wages.

I'd operate the whole thing more on a 'wagering' type of basis. Imagine the PCs as investors. They put in their cash and expertise and hope for the best. This would open up some fun things like "upping the ante" where the DM can say "Oh, that's a third failure, the king refuses a royal license to open a mine." However, you know from your contacts at the Exchequer (an auxiliary skill check) that the king is short cash and if you offered to buy a license for 3000gp.... Now the failure is erased, the SC goes on, but the 3,000 gp 'stake' is made. OTOH the king is now a partner, all of a sudden the royal geologist shows up with a better map, but you'll also owe an extra 10% in royalties to the exchequer. Do you take the risk or fail and go on to something else?

 

[Manbearcat]

This would open up some fun things like "upping the ante"...

<snip>

Do you take the risk or fail and go on to something else?

Yup. One of the things I love about the Skill Challenge system (and most conflict resolution systems) is that "sees", "raises", and "offers" abound if the GMs and players properly understand the nature and value of the fungible, open-descriptor assets of the system (such as surges and PC wealth in 4e). Those things are a considerable strength for an effort like the OP is undertaking.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yup. One of the things I love about the Skill Challenge system (and most conflict resolution systems) is that "sees", "raises", and "offers" abound if the GMs and players properly understand the nature and value of the fungible, open-descriptor assets of the system (such as surges and PC wealth in 4e). Those things are a considerable strength for an effort like the OP is undertaking.

Yeah, its not really a bad system for this kind of thing, amusingly enough. I'm sure we could invent something better that focused just on this sort of narrative, but SC is kind of nice because you can slide right from "I scope out the next door shop's prices" to "I pour poison in their water barrel!" without really needing to shift gears much. Probably not a bad idea to cop some ideas from Leverage though

 

[MarkB]

Yeah, Skill Challenges are definitely good for handling a lot of this. I'd structure each major endeavour as its own skill challenge, generally consisting of an initial investment followed by a set of checks to deploy that investment to best effect.

Instead of being pass/fail, structure it so that straight success with no failures garners a nicely profitable result, but each failure reduces the return on the investment, with it turning into an overall loss after 3 failures. The players will need to keep trying to succeed, otherwise they lose their entire capital investment, not just the profit.

The other advantage of using skill challenges is that they are XP-earning encounters and will contribute to level advancement, so awarding 'treasure' in the form of profits doesn't have to mean breaking the wealth-by-level guidelines.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, Skill Challenges are definitely good for handling a lot of this. I'd structure each major endeavour as its own skill challenge, generally consisting of an initial investment followed by a set of checks to deploy that investment to best effect.

Instead of being pass/fail, structure it so that straight success with no failures garners a nicely profitable result, but each failure reduces the return on the investment, with it turning into an overall loss after 3 failures. The players will need to keep trying to succeed, otherwise they lose their entire capital investment, not just the profit.

The other advantage of using skill challenges is that they are XP-earning encounters and will contribute to level advancement, so awarding 'treasure' in the form of profits doesn't have to mean breaking the wealth-by-level guidelines.

Exactly, you're just doing a different sort of 'adventuring'. Its also of course possible to have things work out in different ways. For instance you may actually want the PCs to make a profit for story reasons, so the SC could determine other things, like what enemies you make or something like that.

You can also do sub-challenges, so the main SC can have 'checks' that are themselves entire encounters of whatever sort (SC or potentially combat).

 

[fba827]

If you do not want to deal with the micromanaging, you can assume it in broad strokes by ....

Every month ....
Roll 1d6
3or less loss
4 or more profit
And use modifiers of +\- 1 or 2 for every major activity they did to affect business.
So opening a new trade route seems like a big deal so +2, but not being home to help deal with a water shortage while off opening the new trade route would be a -1, and so on. And maybe it was a bad weather month so another -1.
Then once you know if it was profit or loss, roll d20 multiplied by 100 to find the amount.


Or whatever. My point being, it let's the characters actions play a part ( determining modifiers for profit or loss) but it otherwise assumes that capable managers are doing the day to day decisions and micromanaging.

You could also make a npc ( Jarvis or whatever) who is the 'face' of the middle managers and gives the pics the monthly reports and plot hook ideas