profit from the best tavern/inn in Waterdeep

[Ketiara]

I need some help, a player of mine has in the downtime from our tabletop sessions via mail accomplished making his inn the best in waterdeep. How much would a large inn filled to the brim with people everyday make in profit? He has been working hard at it, and Id like to award him with a +gold balance/day. (he is a level 17 char, so dont worry about giving him too much to make it imbalanced, everything he has owned so far is invested in the inn.)

oh, by the way, he has an agreement with the realms best bard, and he is taking 50% profit each day he manages to keep the inn filled all night, which is every night so far.

[Kurt Kurageous]

How much would a large inn filled to the brim with people everyday make in profit?
Depends.

Depends on your clientele. I would use the cost of living standards as a start. Say half of that is the average bill of a guest. Add a premium (maybe up to 200%?) because it is the best, has buzz, is the place to see and be seen, etc.

Depends on the cost of goods sold. Cost should be around half to a third of the bill before the premium is added. An ingredient still costs the same, and a 100% margin is not at all unusual for a restaurant.

Depends on capacity. The number of seats/tables/space in the place determines how many can be served at a time. Multiply that by how many times that spaces is used per evening (four? five?), and you have the number to multiply by the that average bill.

Lastly, depends on fixed costs to operate. Use the DMG as an estimate, but adjust upward because it's built to be the best.

Comfortable lifestyle PHB 157 = 2 gp/day, half 1 gp

Cost of goods sold 50%:-5 sp = 5 sp

Premium because it's the best 200%= 1.5 gp

Capacity 80 seats times 4x turnover is 320 x 1.5 gp = 480. But will you see 320 guests a day indefinitely? How big a city is this?

Fixed cost/day of city inn DMG 127 is -5gp x 4 cause it's the place= -20gp.

The max net profit/day I've come up with is around 460gp for a comfortable clientele served by an 80 seat venue staffed by 3-4 skilled hirelings and some 20 serving boys/wenches.

[unwise]

Some non-gold benefits would be good too. If it is a high class place, then he has access to all the important people in town and advantage on first impressions. If it is shady, he gets advantage on all Streetwise checks and often is given good info about upcoming plots before they happen.

Around level 16-20 we tend to start abstracting gold a little. IMC we would say "lots and lots of gold" and leave it at that. He could draw down from the inn to make a major purchase every 1 or 2 months. So a town house, a somewhat rare magic item, a huge bribe to a Lord of Waterdeep. It is more 1/month ability than an actual gold calculation. My players have always been happy with this. They want to build a castle, how many buildings or major halls etc do they want in it? It costs them that many months of profit.

At the end of Lost Mines of Phandelver, we carried those PCs across to PotA. We said that they no longer have to pay middle-class life style upkeep for the rest of their life due to the incoming profits from the mine they were now part owners in. This was a quick and easy abstraction that let us keep track of gold coming in from adventuring, without having to worry about incoming gold or them ever having to pay basic supplies again.

<edit> For actual gold calculations, we use the Ladder Standard (tm), we look at how much it costs to buy a ladder these days IRL and the GP cost of a ladder in the game. Look at how much you would expect the best bar in your city to make in profit for the owner in a year, maybe $300k? Just divide it by the cost of a RL ladder and multiply it by the cost of an ingame ladder. I'm half asleep, but you probably get the idea. We do the same for buying property in game. In other game systems we use a 1cp = $1 IRL basis for working out prices.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Some non-gold benefits would be good too.

Absolutely. And all kinds of unwanted things as well.

Like other business owners asking for partnerships or loans, agents coming in trying to sell you things, charities asking for charity, the thieves guild asking for protection money, and of course the city elders wanting to use your banquet hall for their social season rent free. Or would you rather have the tax assessor ask? Or the public health inspector?

Next thing you may be asking is how to calculate the selling price of that best inn in Waterdeep...:smallsmile:

[JNAProductions]

Absolutely. And all kinds of unwanted things as well.

Like other business owners asking for partnerships or loans, agents coming in trying to sell you things, charities asking for charity, the thieves guild asking for protection money, and of course the city elders wanting to use your banquet hall for their social season rent free. Or would you rather have the tax assessor ask? Or the public health inspector?

Next thing you may be asking is how to calculate the selling price of that best inn in Waterdeep...:smallsmile:

Only do that if it makes the game more fun. Do your players enjoy new complications and unexpected obstacles? Then do what Kurt suggests.

On the other hand, does this player want something he's sunk most all his money into to just be successful, and mostly hassle-free? Then let him have it.

Also, I second Unwise's suggestion to just abstract the gold.

[Cybren]

Only do that if it makes the game more fun. Do your players enjoy new complications and unexpected obstacles? Then do what Kurt suggests.

On the other hand, does this player want something he's sunk most all his money into to just be successful, and mostly hassle-free? Then let him have it.

Also, I second Unwise's suggestion to just abstract the gold.

I tend to take the tack that if they payed for it with a character-building resource (class levels, character points, however the system works), it's got plot armor and can only be taken away/harmed as a direct result of player action, whereas if they payed for it with an in-game resource, too bad it's fair game. Complications from a thing isn't an unreasonable suggestion, so long as you aren't being a real jerk about it

[Daishain]

Bah, heresy

The yawning portal shall always be Waterdeep's best. How can anything else beat eating, drinking, and fighting around a gaping hole to the underdark?


Seriously though, don't forget to use the inn as a plot device. Running a popular inn is an excellent way to gather information. So long as your willing to accept that most of said info is going to be a mixture of half truths, exaggerations, and outright lies.