Players want to start (and maintain) a guild.

[Apophis775]

So, their plan is to invest a bunch of money into starting and running a guild. Their plan, is to buy a large guild hall, hire some people to manage and advertise it, and then take "jobs" from people and have the guild assign out members. Members would play a monthly fee, an 10% of a contracts payout in gold.

I'm looking to go off the runs in DMG II but I was wondering if there was anything to determine profits and such?

I remember one book had stuff about profits for businesses (Maybe Cityscape I think?) but I can't remember which book.


Anyway, if anyone has any guidance or suggests for this, I'd appreciate it.

[barakaka]

This is mostly from memory, but one of the Faerun books has a Prestige Class focused on building a business, called Alliance Merchant. A warning though, the DMG II rules are rather painful, and the PCs will be lucky to make any return on investment. This can change given a number of years game time, but that's kind of slow for a bunch of heroes.

This is a poorly fleshed out character I planned on making long ago, but this gives you an idea of how tough it is to make a living using DMG II rules :smallsigh:. I poured a ton of resources into it and was high enough level that, were I only in Eberron campaign setting, I could conquer several countries on the main continent; but I wouldn't have gotten back the full return on investment in a year of my guild selling potions.


wizard 6 /alchemist savant 5 /alliance merchant 1

traits:
specialized in craft alchemy

feats:
otyugh pits) iron will
human) mercantile background
flaw) grenadier
flaw) magical artisan
1) favored in house
wizard bonus) scribe scroll
3) item familiar
wizard bonus) brew potion
6) combat casting
9) mad alchemist
12) quickdraw


STR: 10
DEX: 10
CON: 12
INT: 19
WIS: 10
CHA: 10

Items:
masterwork artisan's tools
alchemy lab
otyugh pits magical location to get iron will feat(2,000)
Gemma's Cauldron (5,000, EtU p.217) half creation time, scroll to pot, cure light 1/day
potion shop (33,000, DMG p.183) includes metropolis and house

profit check:
10: taking 10
10: skill ranks in profession:shopkeeping
20: 10 specialists with specialized skill being business primary skill
20: those specialists aiding another
2: familiar aiding another
14: scroll of divine insight every month
1: owner is associated with a guild
4: business is in a metropolis
1: low resource business
-25 for the final profit modifier
57
profitMod*50gp - 1000 for specialists = 1,850gp/month = 22,200/year


spells:
magecraft (+5 craft alchemy)

This is also before any natural disasters or other issues that crop up, such as fire or bandit attacks. A character can supplement the business's income with selling products of their own making, just as my character would have sold his own potions as well.

As well, this link may help:
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=12223.0
The suggested build there is even more geared toward making a business than my build.

If you are to use these rules, then consider providing them government reimbursements and tax exemptions and such. Anything to make them feel more like influential traders and merchants. Get them to take a huge loan out, and when the loan sharks forge the PCs signatures on another document and inflate the interest, have the party somehow best them in a battle of counter-forgery and trading skill.

[Scorponok]

This is actually a neat idea and I've done this in one of the campaigns I was running.

It doesn't really have to be complicated unless you've got a player who wants to micromanage everything in the guild and even then, you could have a guild member telling him to back off.

I think when players say they want to open a guild, what they are looking for at the core is a way for one of their businesses to prosper without having them have to be there to do everything themselves. They also most likely want a base of operations they can go to and sleep at without having to worry about how safe or secure the local inn is.

To make it simple, just say they gain a certain amount of gold per week/month. You can use the amounts found in the PHB and DMG for professions and have several expert craftsman do rolls and add this amount to the party loot every time they come back into town. You can also use these amounts as a template to see how much an adventurer guild member brings in in terms of gold each week.

It also serves as a great way to introduce new story elements and develop NPCs that the PCs can help protect. When the PCs get stuck on what to do next, you could have the guild discover a new piece of information that'll give them a clue. Or a villain could kidnap one of the craftsmen to further advance his agenda. Or an NPC guild member can find a mystery artifact on one of their hunts and need the PCs to help them find out the origins of it. If needed, the warrior type NPC guild members can also serve as a deux ex machina to rescue the PCs if they ever get in slightly over their heads in terms of fighting enemies.

[dascarletm]

See what sort of campaign investment the players have in mind. If they want to hand-wave and have it boil down to some roles, go with that. I however finished a 2 player campaign where they were heavily invested into their guild, and it became the focus of the campaign. The whole thing was detailed out, to the members they had, and what jobs they got. It was a lot of work on my end, but it was worth it.

[Theobod]

I would definitely talk to your players and find out how much playtime they want to invest, if a little I would have them get their charter from the town mayor, engage in some gather information and diplomacy for some initial members and staff and front an upfront fee. Then assume the guild makes a Profession check of 10+2/member+best party wisdom score each month against DC 10 (raising by 10 whenever they get to another threshold) and supplement them the gold over their standard WBL whenever they go back to town, then just use it as a backdrop and handy dispenser of plot points, backup etc.

Scale complexity up from there if your players want more micromanagement up to the maximum you feel like actually running and expect to be fun.