D&D 5E Income

[Darkwing Duck]

Other than being a thug with good publicists (i.e. killing things and taking their stuff) which is rather gauche, how can PCs make a living as adventurers? Gaining a patron comes to mind and building a community (if they can get enough gold to build it in the first place) come to mind, but how else?

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Establish a business, whether that is a means to get paid to adventure (i.e. hired to recover stolen goods, retrieve a kidnap victim, escort precious cargo, etc.), or as something to do to support yourself until the next adventure comes along (i.e. a bakery, a tavern, a training facility of some sort, etc.).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Treasure hunting. Not everything belongs to someone. There's a lot of wealth to be found just lying around, abandoned in ancient cities where the inhabitants fled from a dragon or were overcome by creatures who came through a magical rift.

Failing that, you have legitimate archaeology. Some of that old junk is worth something for its historic value, rather than what it's made of, though you might well need a patron to make it worth your while.

 

[Sunseeker]

I allow my party to start businesses, or work in them at low levels. I mean honestly aren't a lot of low level quests essentially "jobs"? Go kill some wolves that are threatening our sheep, go deliver these fruits which bandits have been raiding, etc...etc...?

But I do allow my players to run, or work in businesses, based on their trade. When they're not around they need someone trustworthy to run it, or have to shut it down for the time. I usually say they earn at 1/4 what they normally would if they were running it themselves. It's also a good use for games with multiples characters per player.

Typically though the idea is that an adventurer is someone who left home to fight monsters because they couldn't make it at home, or enjoy the sort of life an adventurer has. What do you need a regular income for when you're not paying taxes or regularly buying goods and services? Honestly the further and longer games I'm in stay away from cities and towns, the more I enjoy them. Adventurers are supposed to typically be broke guys who leave town for "adventure" because they heard they might get rich!

I've run the patron idea a couple times, the biggest problem is that players have the urge to haggle or walk if they don't like the deal they're being offered. Well okay but I'm not going to create an infinite number of patrons until you find one you like. It requires some buy-in that the players want to work for someone and don't think they're better off on their own.

In a nutshell though, I feel like the idea of earning a regular income is rather contrary to being an adventurer.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

[MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION], in some settings adventurers are required to pay taxes (Mystara, at the very least).

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Ummm...keep adventuring? If you are thinking in terms of some wierd "business venture" thing...maybe starting an "Adventurers Guild" or "Adventuring Company". Get a 'guild hall', hire some accountants, recruiters and info-gatherers, start charging dues, send out teams of adventurers to do tasks, etc. *shrug* Why an adventurer would pay another adventurer to go adventuring doesn't make much sense, however.

Now, some kind of "adventure information broker"...that could work. Adventurers who's main goal is to find info on lost dungeons, ruined castles, extra-planar treasure cache's, brewing conflicts between two groups, etc...and then selling that info to the highest bidder. That might be workable (and believable).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Curmudjinn]

I've done this a few times with differing success. The same couple players in each game fought the idea in-character or derailed it with bad roleplay. Demanding the Baelnorn patron sell them ancient family relics for cheap was one such demand. Pfft.

It really depends on your players, but it can work, and I find steady 'work' makes the game more enjoyable over lengthy campaigns as they constantly earn their way to higher levels and fame.

 

[ccs]

In one game, set in fantasy Rome, my fighter is a civil engineer.
He makes his actual day--to-day living designing/supervising the building of roads, aquaducts, etc.
Prior to that he served in 8th Legion as a siege specialist.
Both have taken him all over the empire.

My current 1e character, a deep gnome, is a miner & gem cutter.

My Pathfinder character, a Chelexian Hellknight? His job is essentially adventuring. His task is enforcement of his countries laws & elimination of any threats to the realm.

 

[Sunseeker]

[MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION], in some settings adventurers are required to pay taxes (Mystara, at the very least).

I can understand why, from a kingdom perspective, but it still strikes me as a little silly. I would certainly have my adventurers pay taxes if they owned property.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

It varies a lot depending on the economic situation you have to work with.

Honestly, owning land and squeezing peasants with free labor can be pretty profitable, and it's independent of any actual economies in the setting because you're basically building your own country.