PC owned businesses

[Lupine]

One of my (very rich) PCs decided to set up a trading caravan to create a disguise for himself. Now, he has set up a who structure for the thing to run itself when he isn't there, so that he can continue on the party mission. Outside of the session, he's mentioned to me that he would like it if the caravan were to become a more continuous part of the campaign, perhaps being a rumor mill, for example. Ok fair enough. I like that idea.

But the problem is that I have no idea how to have the caravan actually make money for him on a semi-regular basis. Nor, for that matter, how much money he should get from it.

Thoughts?

Please don't say to use the "running a business" downtime in the DMG. That's a downtime activity, and not really applicable here. Although, if you can think of a way to alter it for use, I'm all ears.

PCs are level 12

[Sorinth]

One of my (very rich) PCs decided to set up a trading caravan to create a disguise for himself. Now, he has set up a who structure for the thing to run itself when he isn't there, so that he can continue on the party mission. Outside of the session, he's mentioned to me that he would like it if the caravan were to become a more continuous part of the campaign, perhaps being a rumor mill, for example. Ok fair enough. I like that idea.

But the problem is that I have no idea how to have the caravan actually make money for him on a semi-regular basis. Nor, for that matter, how much money he should get from it.

Thoughts?

Please don't say to use the "running a business" downtime in the DMG. That's a downtime activity, and not really applicable here. Although, if you can think of a way to alter it for use, I'm all ears.

PCs are level 12

There's no reason you can't use the running a business rules. All you have to do is set the frequency at which you roll on the table, maybe every month or two.

Really the only problem with those rules is that the profits are a fixed value rather then based on the size of the business. So if you own 1 merchant ship or 20 ships you still max out at 3d10x5 gp of profit. So I would be tempted to change the profit entries to become you earn 50%, 100%, 150% of the maintenance costs as profit.

Set a caravan to be the equivalent of a Trading Post in terms of maintenance costs, so 10gp per day or 300gp per month/roll. Without the player spending time the business is going to basically on average not make money and not losing money, though being lucky/unlucky with the dice will impact that. The more time the player spends on the business the more profitable it becomes which can be good roleplay wise.

On top of that I would add special modifiers that the player was able to negotiates as part of a quest reward. So if they do something for King, maybe as a reward he gets a royal charter for exclusive trading rights for some type of good. Now he gets +10 modifier for the caravan when trading with that Kingdom, etc...

[MarkVIIIMarc]

It really depends on the player and his partymates. There are a TON of opportunities for story hooks with this one. An employee steals a little and it leads to either the employee being up to something SERIOUSLY no good or maybe a Lich extorting a town.

For how the caravan functions it will depend on how time passes in your game. A dungeon crawl might take a week, if the weather has been good maybe the caravan turns a tidy profit. Maybe bad weather slows the speed of things.

You could let the player roll some D100's somewhat randomly and generally if he makes reasonable decisions it goes well.

[nickl_2000]

Does Dragonheist have some good rules built into the written module, or did my DM make up the rules? Mane worth taking a look

[Christew]

One of my (very rich) PCs decided to set up a trading caravan to create a disguise for himself. Now, he has set up a who structure for the thing to run itself when he isn't there, so that he can continue on the party mission. Outside of the session, he's mentioned to me that he would like it if the caravan were to become a more continuous part of the campaign, perhaps being a rumor mill, for example. Ok fair enough. I like that idea.

But the problem is that I have no idea how to have the caravan actually make money for him on a semi-regular basis. Nor, for that matter, how much money he should get from it.

Thoughts?

Please don't say to use the "running a business" downtime in the DMG. That's a downtime activity, and not really applicable here. Although, if you can think of a way to alter it for use, I'm all ears.

PCs are level 12
Color me ignorant, but what do you mean by:
1) "set up a trading caravan to create a disguise for himself" and
2) "set up a who structure for the thing"
Genuinely confused.

[Lupine]

Color me ignorant, but what do you mean by:
1) "set up a trading caravan to create a disguise for himself" and
2) "set up a who structure for the thing"
Genuinely confused.

He first set it up to function as a disguise for himself. After the party succeeded in the mission that required the disguise, the PC chose to keep the caravan, rather than disbanding it. He then re-structured the caravan so that he was no longer required for it to function effectively (so that it could still be earning him money, and allow him to continue missions with the party)

[Christew]

Gotcha.

I'd decide on a reasonable gold per caravan trip metric that includes overhead (wagon repairs, retainer costs, etc) then have some sort of table for percentile rolls that can introduce gains (a grain shortage at the destination means higher sale prices) and losses (caravan raided by orcs, lose one wagon).

If you wanted to go deeper, you could introduce a mechanic for how far the caravan plans to travel (longer trips being more lucrative) or even a trade map that indicates what cities have/want what resources.

[Doug Lampert]

The chance that a business run by a random NPC will make enough of a profit to be noticed by a level 12 PC strikes me as minimal.

Whoever is running the business will expect to keep a fair chunk of the profit as he's taking the risks and doing the work, and any recently established business is likely to be reinvesting gobs of money back into the business (even if you bought stuff for startup, you always find you need more X once you get going), and if caravans were all that profitable, then in a medieveloid style world, they'd be a government monopoly (old time governments were not at all shy about claiming outrageous tolls or monopoly rights on trade routes).

The exception would be if the trade route is so dangerous that the profits have to be huge to get anyone to risk it (or to get high level adventurers to do it), and in that case there's even less likely to be a profit unless the PCs are personally involved.

Additionally, the timeline for noticeable profits from a vaguely realistic business is a year or more.

Basically, I'd treat it as a rumor mill/plot hook source and simply claim that the revenue (if any) is going back into the business until the PC wants to retire, at which point his retirement income is partially covered. The game is not Papers and Paychecks after all, I've always found the PCs who want to own a business mostly just want it as part of their ongoing story, not because they expect it to be anything like as profitable as adventuring.

[Keravath]

It should work fine. Profits really depend on how much reinvestment there is in the business. Do they buy another wagon, start a second caravan, hire more guards ... these all affect both capital costs and operating costs. Maintaining store fronts/offices and warehouses at the end points of the route or routes also add costs. The caravan company could continue to build assets without generating all that much in terms of actual profits for quite a long time. Kind of up to the DM.

In addition, the PC has to find someone trustworthy to run it. However, even if they do, that person may well be vulnerable to extortion or blackmail ... competitors threaten the person's family ... do they work so save the PCs money or the lives of their family? Most D&D worlds don't have the same extent or type of legal systems as we do. The person placed in charge might have quite a bit of freedom to run the company and thus also to redirect funds or make decisions for their benefit rather than the absentee owner.

Anyway, as long as the player isn't expecting immense profits to enhance their fortunes, you'll probably be fine using it as a plot tool and cool extra rather than a source of revenue.

[Chronos]

Dragon Heist just refers back to the table in the DMG. The only thing it adds is to roll every tenday.

[Mikal]

I recommend Matt colvilles strongholds and followers book. Has some nice basic ideas on different types of things PCs can build and generate income and other things from. One of them is an establishment that specifically acts like a rumor mill

[BloodSnake'sCha]

I recommend a profit of 5-10% for each interval of time(half a year, year, month).

No one is building a business that have no profit so have a lower or equal to 50% chance to get profit sounds not real(in case the PC did build a functioning business).

Have a chance to lose is fine but it can't be too high because if it is too high it means the business should have not existed from the start.

[Chronos]

One thing that's easy to overlook in the DMG table is that you add the number of days you're spending managing the business to the d100 roll. So if you're actually making it your business to run your business, then you'll make a profit pretty consistently.

[Sigreid]

Perhaps a bit of a cheat but you could get hold of the old 3.x strongholds book. There's a section in there for investing in a profit making asset as part of your stronghold. And since I would think for this to work he would have to set up a home base (stronghold) I think it fits.

[Ymir_Remembered]

The Acquisitions Incorporated book also has some details about running a business. It's not too dissimilar from the DMG stuff, but instead of having flat losses/returns, it instead uses franchise rank(which tier your party is in) and how much money the business is worth to determine what happens on a month to month basis. You can get bonuses for being more involved in the business or by doing things like restructuring/"marketeering"/ or engaging in shady business practices. While it might be a bit more involved than just hand waving the details, it could be worth looking into if you want to make the business an important part of adventures to come.