Running a business in the game

[Minigiant]

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.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Oh yeah!

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.

 

[haakon1]

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.

 

[greatamericanfolkher]

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.

 

[Mark Hope]

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...

 

[Jhaelen]

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.

 

[Melba Toast]

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.

 

[Mark Hope]

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.

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.

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...

 

[Minigiant]

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

(5 rolls later)

DM: Tiamat kills them all.
Us: &*$%!

 

[Treebore]

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.