Why shouldn't he?
D&D 5E Those poor farmers!
Why shouldn't he?
Ahrimon
Bourbon and Dice
Because, like I stated in my last post, he is an NPC who's fortunes rise and fall based on the DM's whim. The rules in the DMG are a guideline for PCs to run a side business in addition to adventuring. Those rules can be extrapolated for a PC to become a merchant prince, but I don't think any player would be ok with their fortunes coming down to a few dice rolls. At that point were talking about a major sub-module. The Merchants & Masters add-on may be a great ad-on for your campaign, but it's not what the rules in the DMG are there for.
Grainger
Explorer
Boring answer: the vast majority of medieval farmers didn't make much, if any, money; it wasn't really a cash economy for them. They hoped to produce enough food to feed themselves and, if they were lucky, have a bit left over to sell. This doesn't explain why innkeepers or shopkeepers - or any town-based tradespeople - wouldn't make money, though.
Fanaelialae
Legend
In fairness, on DMG pg 127 under Businesses, it specifically calls out that these are rules for an "adventurer-owned business".
Still, it could work if you simply allow the merchant prince to hire a manager for each store he opens. These managers handle the actual day-to-day running of each shop while sharing the profits with the merchant prince. With enough shops, that merchant prince could easily rake in the gp.
So why can't the PCs do the same?
Fanaelialae
Legend
There's nothing stopping them, if the DM allows it. I assume that the designers made the rules work as is because they didn't want it to just be a way for the PCs to play the stock market, so to speak. (Buy a store, assign a manager, and then collect dividends for the rest of the campaign without ever looking at the store again.)
If the DM is willing to involve the PCs in other ways, there shouldn't be a problem with letting the store "manage itself". Perhaps a gang tries extorting the business for "protection money", or the profits have been a bit light for a while and the PC begins to suspect that the manager may be skimming profits. While it probably wouldn't be game breaking to let the players make free money, it would be kind of lame (IMO).
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aramis erak
Legend
Technically, most peasant families managed to make about 5/4 of their familial needs most of the time, but then 10% each went to the church and the lord. Plus, usually, 20 to 40 days of service to the Lord and 60-70 days of church participation taking 1/2 the day each time. Most of them had plenty of spare time, tho', too. A typical temperate subsistence farm is limited more by the harvest and sowing phases (which need to be done in about a week each) than by the actual fieldwork the rest of the time. As in, the 12-15 hour days during planting and harvesting for a week or two, excepting the half day of church weekly, are the limit. Rest of the time, it's 2-4 hours a day of farm tasks, and 1-4 hours of household tasks. (Mind you, hunter-gatherers spend about 1-4 hours per day to support themselves, but can't support a larger population due to limits on prey.)
Ed_Laprade
Adventurer
As stated, the rules for making money are for PCs only. So, according to the RAW, NPCs can never make money by owning land, a business, or whatever.
Not that this is an actual complaint, mind you. As a home brewer from way back, I'm well aware of how easy it is to miss something simple like this. My real question is, did they leave out a line somewhere due to space limitations, or did they just not notice? (Or not care.)
Also, as others have pointed out, its something that the GM can 'fix' at his/her convenience, should the matter come up.
Not that this is an actual complaint, mind you. As a home brewer from way back, I'm well aware of how easy it is to miss something simple like this. My real question is, did they leave out a line somewhere due to space limitations, or did they just not notice? (Or not care.)
Also, as others have pointed out, its something that the GM can 'fix' at his/her convenience, should the matter come up.
Fanaelialae
Legend
This edition seems less about a "rule for everything" and more about "here are the rules you're most likely to need, the DM can make up the rest". So I would guess they just didn't feel there was a need for a rule on how NPCs make money.
Really, I can't think of any NPC-only rules in 5e.
