Bront said:
Store must have some sort of cash reserve, which is some multiple of the profits recieved per week. This simulates the store's ability to buy the initial stock or create the initial item. Obviously, this value will technicaly vary from day to day, but this is an abstraction, so it won't be perfect. This accomplishes a limiting factor by making sure that a rich merchant is constantly putting money back into his business, so while he may be very rich, he doesn't have access to all of it without sacrificing his profits.
If this is the weekly profits then it sounds ok, but I don't think it should effect the sale or purchase of rare items. We don't want to make a storefront a
less attractive option than just selling in the RDI. Also in my character's case this is handled by the item crafting rules.
Bront said:
Store profits accumulated while adventuring are inaccessable unless there is a reasonable ability to access them (IE, the adventure is in or very near Orussus or wherever the shop is placed).
Resonable and somewhat obvious even, but it does need to be explicitly stated.
Bront said:
Taxes, loss, and other overhead. You can assign a monthly or yearly tax/loss to a shop. This could either be a small percentage of profits made by the shop (Which the owner would have to keep track of), or could be a flat out fee, that may vary depending on the size of the shop. Or simply roll all the other things into one, but I like calling it a "Tax".
I was thinking this is already covered by the 500gp startup price. It's quite a bit of money which you aren't going to earn back quickly. (something like 10 weeks for the current job system proposal)
Bront said:
Shops may be of variable sizes. The 500 to buy the shop may only give you a shop that can buy/sell up to 2000 GP. It may cost you another 2000 to get a shop that lets you buy/sell up to 10000gp, ect. Again, this forces the player to invest his money, and is somewhat realistic in that the size of your shop limits it. If done with the taxes, this also helps allow for smaller shops to make money from PCs and NPCs and not be out priced by a larger shop, just out sold on pure transactional value.
Once again this is a limitation that does not exist for someone without a shop, so it would make it harder to do busness with a shop than without one. You can't buy anything worth over Xgp from a NPC, and having a shop doesn't change this. (I've seen 2,000gp and 20,000gp, don't know which is correct, doesn't really matter) Nothing regulates buying/selling between PCs, so there is no need to add it.
Bront said:
Theft is an idea, and I like a PC organizing a robery of a PC's store, other than the fact that given the nature of the boards, it's technicaly easy to find out who did it, and does encourage PvP in some way. However, this may be a required risk merchants must run. It should be limited in some way though so that you don't get a shop war going (two competing shops constantly hiring people to rob the other one) and so a shop robery doesn't distroy a PC or make another PC exceedingly wealthy.
I'm not really happy with the idea of theft from a shop, there are a few ways to run it, and I don't like any of them. It basically comes down to who is running the PCs.
1. Player runs shopkeeper, player runs thief
This is obviously out since it is PvP.
2. DM runs Shopkeeper, Player runs thief.
I personally would not agree to this since it borderline pvp and I lose control of my character and have to live with the consequences.
3. Player runs shopkeeper, DM runs thief.
This is potentially ok, but the player has no incentive to take part in it.
4. DM runs shopkeeper, DM runs thief.
Put this in for completeness, silly.
Bront said:
We should be carefull when trading. Joe charged 5%, and we don't want to create an atmosphere where Joe is being cercomvented simply because it's cheeper to trade elsewhere. Of course, given that we haven't had a large ammount of gear thrust upon people, it's hard to trade, as well, we also have issues because it is a rarity to have most people in the tavern at the same time, and therefore even able to trade.
Why not circumvent Joe? I don't understand how this is an issue. I see the 5% charge as an incentive to go do trading elsewhere, not a global tax on all trading.
I think the primary thing to consider here is that the shop itself doesn't create that much of an opportunity for making profit, it's just something nice from a rp point of view. At the best it saves the 5% fee from trading through Joe's board, which isn't that big of a deal.