Long term living expenses and treasure placement.

[Yora]

Because, who doesn't like paying bills and accounting ledgers? :smallbiggrin:

For my next campaign I am planning of having the adventures being stretched out over many years, with the PCs returning to their homes over the winter to await the next Adventuring Season in the spring. While they are gone for a few months to far away places, they will quickly become the strongest and also richest people in the place they set down their home base. This will lead to them being looked to whenever trouble is stirring in the area during the Winter Phase. If the players get invested in their home, it can also be a great source for hooks to go on more expeditions for artifacts that can improve their home base or their town, or to deal with rival domains that try to steal their resources or threaten their home in other ways.

For such a campaign, I think it makes real sense to use the rules for living expenses and maintenance costs for their home base.

A PC living modestly will need only around 360 gp per year, which really isn't much. But if they want to have a fancy villa it will cost them 3,600 gp per year and if they were to take over a captured keep you're at 36,000 gp per year. 36,000 isn't that huge a sum, especially when everyone pools together. But when you have to pay this amount after every adventure, you can burn through your hoard pretty quickly. Which is great, because it's a fantastic motivation to not slouch around in their keep and go on another expedition to an ancient ruin and come back loaded with gold.

But this raises a question: How much money should I make available for the players during their adventures? This is probably extremely subjective. To complicate things, I want to run the campaign quite sandboxy, giving the players freedom to chose what expeditions they want to plan, and leaving it up to them how much they are willing to risk for treasure that is so close they can smell it.

This all sounds very fun, but how would I manage treasure placement as the GM? Since there is relatively little amount of adventuring being done over the course of a year, maintenance cost will be relatively high compared to most campaign I assume. Can I assume that players will be able to spend almost their entire money on an estate and lifestyle, or are there actually other things they might want to do with it when there are no magic item stores?

[Asmotherion]

i just wanted to post to say that you lost me when you wrote "paying bills". :P

[stoutstien]

I have a few players who love keeps logs, ledgers, and such and others who are happy writing, "bag of stuffed worth some gold. Sell asap." So this style game play will bore some to tears. Offer an out for them at least.

[Yora]

Well, the accounting part would actually be very easy: Simply multiply the daily cost of a building by the number of days they owned it for the current year and substract that amount from the owner's money at the end of the year.

[Unoriginal]

Because, who doesn't like paying bills and accounting ledgers? :smallbiggrin:

For my next campaign I am planning of having the adventures being stretched out over many years, with the PCs returning to their homes over the winter to await the next Adventuring Season in the spring. While they are gone for a few months to far away places, they will quickly become the strongest and also richest people in the place they set down their home base. This will lead to them being looked to whenever trouble is stirring in the area during the Winter Phase. If the players get invested in their home, it can also be a great source for hooks to go on more expeditions for artifacts that can improve their home base or their town, or to deal with rival domains that try to steal their resources or threaten their home in other ways.

For such a campaign, I think it makes real sense to use the rules for living expenses and maintenance costs for their home base.

A PC living modestly will need only around 360 gp per year, which really isn't much. But if they want to have a fancy villa it will cost them 3,600 gp per year and if they were to take over a captured keep you're at 36,000 gp per year. 36,000 isn't that huge a sum, especially when everyone pools together. But when you have to pay this amount after every adventure, you can burn through your hoard pretty quickly. Which is great, because it's a fantastic motivation to not slouch around in their keep and go on another expedition to an ancient ruin and come back loaded with gold.

But this raises a question: How much money should I make available for the players during their adventures? This is probably extremely subjective. To complicate things, I want to run the campaign quite sandboxy, giving the players freedom to chose what expeditions they want to plan, and leaving it up to them how much they are willing to risk for treasure that is so close they can smell it.

This all sounds very fun, but how would I manage treasure placement as the GM? Since there is relatively little amount of adventuring being done over the course of a year, maintenance cost will be relatively high compared to most campaign I assume. Can I assume that players will be able to spend almost their entire money on an estate and lifestyle, or are there actually other things they might want to do with it when there are no magic item stores?

If they adventure to get money, won't they just go where the biggest treasures are rumored to be?

You can just place the treasures where it makes sense for them to be (ex: rich monarch died, got buried with their gold, but then a monster broke in and stole all the the treasure), and trust your players to search for the loot.

Also, keep in mind that if they're not adventuring, the PCs can do other, wealth-generating activities. For starter, being the owner of a keep generally come with benefits, like land to lend to farmers and the like.

[Slipperychicken]

The PCs could just get jobs and sustain themselves that way.

So I'd say, don't worry about wealth placement. Put wealth where it makes sense to you, and the PCs' success can be measured in part by their ability to ferret out the treasure and take it. If they need to tighten their belts or do undignified labor for some winters to get by (someone's gotta clean the latrines and wash all the mugs at the tavern), then so be it, that's part of their story.

[opaopajr]

Carrot. :smallsmile: Stick. :smalltongue:
Think in those terms, it'll help.

Why invest UP in lifestyle?
Carrot = Better $$$$ adventures. More prestige. A chance to reshape where your PC lives. Institutions can help you.
Stick = Better supplied opponents. Tougher games of conspiracy. Exposure. Institutions can oppose you.

Why degrade DOWN in lifestyle?
Carrot = More rough & tumble adventures by volume. Lower profile. Less well-heeled opponents. Institutions can overlook you.
Stick = Suffer wear & tear, theft & loss. Infinite sob stories, infinite temptation. Low $ stakes. Institutions can abuse you.

Does that help get the creative juices flowing? :smallsmile:

[Bubzors]

I am currently doing almost exactly this in my campaign and it is working out great. Same thing where they basically return home during winter to rest and rule their small fief. The campaign has been running for like 4 in game years. Using a stronghold pdf I found on DMs guild to allow them to build and expand on their home base.

Also you can have some of their costs offset by benefits of whatever they choose for their home base. If they build a tavern or something to base themselves out of, they could get a discount or even cover the expenses of living through the tavern business. If they build a castle they should either legally become local lords or just de facto lords that can collect taxes from those they protect.

This also allows great roleplaying opportunities and recurring NPCs. They have a wizard on staff that they saved on one of their adventures. He's more of a bookish wizard, not a fighter, so he was happy to move in and help with arcane lore and minor potion making in exchange for a warm bed and resources to study.

Other notable NPCs include captain of guard, their personal butler/castellan that runs things in their absence, the gruff blacksmith and the mayor of the up and coming town built in the shadow of their castle walls. Great adventure hooks can include:

-Holding court over disputes/crimes committed
-encroaching bandits/monsters that are threatening the safety of your home
-visiting dignitaries from other areas. The party must throw a ball or feast and try to avoid insulting the neighbors
-strange rumors of ghosts and Fey creatures wandering around the edges of your domain
-mishaps due to wizard experimentation causing damage and chaos

[Temperjoke]

It's really going to depend on what sort of housing and role they fill in the town. See, if they're the lords, so to speak, then the expenses of owning the keep and property will be offset by the revenue generated. The advantage to you with this is you just need to decide how much extra you want them to earn to cover the gap. The downside of them taking that sort of position though is that technically it'll be harder for them to leave, since someone has to run the day-to-day stuff.

On the other hand, if they land they own has a bad year, they're incentivized to seek out a bigger treasure to help compensate, or clear an abandoned mine, etc. to solve the problem. That gives you regular story hooks to fall back on as needed.