Dragon Heist: Trollskull Alley Tavern Profitability

[Merudo]

In the adventure Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, the adventurers have the opportunity to repair a Tavern at the cost of 1250 gp.

Once repaired & opened, the players roll a d100 every tenday to see if the tavern earn any profit. The section "Running a Business" on page 129 of the DMG describes the outcome. They add 10 to the die, plus 1 for every 1gp spent on advertisement for the tavern.

I was wondering the optimal amount to spend for advertisement. I've done the computation and made this graph showing the expected profit for a given amount of gp spent promoting the tavern: https://i.imgur.com/KMtMliK.jpg

The optimal amount to spend is 30gp, which provides an expected profit of 19.25gp per tenday. In comparison, not spending anything in advertisement gives an expected profit of 6.5gp per tenday.

Note that if the optimal amount is spent in advertisement, it will take on average about 65 tendays to recoup the 1250gp cost, which is 650 days, or about 1.8 years.

So unless the characters plan to settle in Waterdeep for quite a while, the Tavern is a dubious investment.

[ProsecutorGodot]

My retired character from Dragonheist is a warforged so he can run the tavern 24/7 while the new party delves into undermountain where the real money is made. It also is an established adventuring company in the city where he does recruitment with his massive insight score.

I like that I have the opportunity to make a mark in the city's history. The profitability is a secondary thing.

[Unoriginal]

How much you get from the tavern is determined by 1d100+ circumstencial mod. When you get the highest scores, you get back all the money you've spent for the tavern this week + a profit.

One of the easiest way to increase the mod is to invest money on advertisement and other extras to attract more custommers, gaining +1 for each gold coin spent.

In other words, if you spend (100-other mods) gold coins, you automatically get the highest score, and so get your investment back (which you reinvest next week) + the profit.

[Beechgnome]

I haven't run the numbers but another mod you could add would be in relation to your rival... Should he say have to close down his tavern due to, uh, unfortunate circumstances, perhaps your fortunes might improve marginally, say by 5 per roll?

But having both taverns be popular might be the best way to ensure feet on the street. Perhaps if he were replaced by a more component and agreeable owner, perhaps that might be worth another boost?

I could see a side caper to make him think HIS bar is haunted (anyone playing a hexblade?) might allow the party to engineer a replacement and ensure they have the run of the alley.

[Vogie]

One of the things that you can hide, is a series of encounters where you are saving random citizens, or denizens of local other bars. Specifically, those who can't give you gold at the completion of said quests.
Even though they can't actually pay you anything they can:
pledge to spread the word about the tavern, increasing revenues.
work there for free for a period of time, reducing recurring costs.
Contribute to the restoration of the bar, reducing initial costs, or giving the players magic utilities in the bar (altar of identification, a seized teleportation circle) that they'd normally never be able to afford at that level.
Bards, either in the party or that you've befriended along the way, can spread the word around and migrate to the tavern, bringing their fans with them. Add their bardic inspiration Dice to the income streams.

[Merudo]

How much you get from the tavern is determined by 1d100+ circumstencial mod. When you get the highest scores, you get back all the money you've spent for the tavern this week + a profit.

One of the easiest way to increase the mod is to invest money on advertisement and other extras to attract more custommers, gaining +1 for each gold coin spent.

In other words, if you spend (100-other mods) gold coins, you automatically get the highest score, and so get your investment back (which you reinvest next week) + the profit.

You don't get the money spent on advertisement back - you only get the maintenance costs back. If you spend 90gp on advertisement you'll only get on average 82.5gp back - for a deficit of 8.25gp.

[Foxhound438]

I feel like the actual best option would be to fix it up and flip it. That way you would see a reasonable return on investment in a matter of time that's less than the campaign's length 7 or 8 times over (at least).



*pledge to spread the word about the tavern, increasing revenues.
*work there for free for a period of time, reducing recurring costs.
*Contribute to the restoration of the bar, reducing initial costs, or giving the players magic utilities in the bar (altar of identification, a seized teleportation circle) that they'd normally never be able to afford at that level.
*Bards, either in the party or that you've befriended along the way, can spread the word around and migrate to the tavern, bringing their fans with them. Add their bardic inspiration Dice to the income streams.

these are all cool ideas that I'd be willing to implement as a DM, but are they written in as options? some people, especially people running AL games with the module, aren't willing to go even an inch off script with stuff like this.

[Unoriginal]

You don't get the money spent on advertisement back - you only get the maintenance costs back. If you spend 90gp on advertisement you'll only get on average 82.5gp back - for a deficit of 8.25gp.

I quote:


If the characters spent coin on promoting their business during that tenday, add 1 to the roll for each 1 gp they spent. If the characters have unpaid expenses, subtract 1 from the roll for each 1 gp they owe.

[...]

91-110 You covered your business costs and earned a profit of 3d10 × 5 gp.


"Business costs" isn't "maintenance cost".



these are all cool ideas that I'd be willing to implement as a DM, but are they written in as options? some people, especially people running AL games with the module, aren't willing to go even an inch off script with stuff like this.

The book give at least one event that, if the PCs succeed, increase the popularity of their tavern and so the business modifier.

AL DMs are literally not allowed to go off-script if they can avoid it, though, so AL is really not the place for it.

[Envyus]

Something I should point out is that you should multiply the result you get by 10. The chart you are rolling on is daily, but you roll once for 10 days worth of work. So you can actually make quite a bit of money.

[Merudo]

Original - the text of my book differs from yours! We may be using two different editions of the DMG. My version reads as follow:



91 or higher: The business covers its own maintenance cost for each of the days. It earns a profit of 3d10 x 5 gp


I'm not sure which version is the correct one. The errata doesn't list any change to the "Running a Business" rules, which I find odd.


Something I should point out is that you should multiply the result you get by 10. The chart you are rolling on is daily, but you roll once for 10 days worth of work. So you can actually make quite a bit of money.

I don't think the chart is meant to be daily.

In the DMG, the rules state,


A character rolls percentile dice and adds the number of days spent on this downtime activity (maximum 30), then compares the total to the Running a Business table to determine what happens.

So the chart is meant to be only rolled once every time period (in this case, every tendays)

[Tanarii]

I don't think the chart is meant to be daily.

In the DMG, the rules state,


So the chart is meant to be only rolled once every time period (in this case, every tendays)
It's not. But the DMG running a business model is incredibly broken if players are allowed to choose the time period to be used. The best thing you can do to turn a larger profit is roll daily with no bonuses.

Edit: my DMG matches yours, you only earn back maintenance cost. If it the adventure fixes the roll at 1d100+10 per tenday, but you can adventertise at a cost that can't be recuperated, that certainly introduces an interesting element of player choice on how much to spend.