Players own a tavern now, what do i do?

[poolio]

Greetings all, so recently my players acquired the deed to their favorite watering hole, and unfortunately they are really into the idea of keeping it, and want all the information and details needed to run it, they wanted to eventually get some management for it so they can continue to run around and do adventuring stuff, so basically i need help figuring out how much this bar should make vs how much it will cost to operate, and now that there is going to be a resource management aspect to the game, what are typical living expenses (it has a large enough back room that they could all live there comfortably, oh! and in addition to costs like taxes for owning the land and all that, they have their big bad, a young green dragon who is extorting 1000 gold a month from them, i already figured out why a dragon is able to do that to a tavern within city limits, but yeah, just something i thought i'd mention.

so i guess all i'm looking for is, how would you run something like this for your table? it's looking like it'll be a big focus and reason for adventuring for my players now, while still looting dungeons for extra cash when ends don't meet at the end of the month or looking for ancient texts describing legendary ale recipes and the like, sorry if i'm rambling, i've had a long couple weeks and with trying to figure out how i'm gonna run this now, i think i'm getting a tad run down lol anyway, any help or insight would be greatly apricated, and i'm happy to answer any questions i can that i didn't address here, thanks in advance folks, hope everyone has a happy new year!

[Asisreo1]

I'd use the DMG's table for running a business and maintaining a tavern (inn). It costs 10gp a day to maintain a tavern and the tavern's maintenance cost - profit is already established in the 10gp a day. Its an expense more than a money generator.

The players can spend downtime to start making a profit on the tavern OR they can hire an NPC to manage the business.

They can then start making a profit without spending actual downtime. It would be more expensive, however.

They can gain several things from owning a tavern. The most valuable of which is rumors. They can get their next plot hook easily by patrons casually talking to them or their workers.

[Grek]

5e DMG 127 has the bits about how running a tavern during downtime works: it costs 5gp a day (150 a month) in operating costs (unless you're somewhere rural, in which case it costs more), including everything from food to drink to lighting to taxes along with the salaries for one skilled hireling and 5 unskilled hirelings required to run the place while the PCs are away. Give those NPCs names, personalities, dreams, desires. Endear them to the PCs. Alternatively, have one of them be a slacker or a problem case who the PCs will want to recruit a replacement for. They're going to get invested in these characters regardless since it's their tavern, so get some people for them to latch onto. It'll be useful later for plot hooks, probably.

A couple pages later there's the 'Running a Business' rules which want you to roll 1d100 + Days of Downtime Spent on a chart, with results usually covering the maintenance and then some based on how well they roll. If you assume that the profit results on that table are all daily (as you probably should) instead of 'per downtime' (which produces absurd results) and that the PCs manage to work at least 30 days a month between them (a safe assumption, that's basically a week's work per PC per month), the tavern produces an average of 960gp per month - a little shy of what the dragon demands of them, even before accounting for the fact that there will be slow months and busy months for the business. Feel free to add modifiers to the business roll based on the PC's reputations, especially if they do something like get posters with their faces, a dead dragon and directions to their tavern put up all over the city.

[Waterdeep Merch]

It'll be more work on you, but I'd shy away from using the DMG business rules. The players have communicated to you that they like the idea of owning and operating this tavern; the DMG rules for doing so are punitive, frustrating, and even outright stupid (rolling once per day is mathematically superior in every way). They're liable to gravely disappoint your players.

If they're being extorted by 1,000 gp, use that as a basis for how much the place ought to be making. If the dragon in question can't be feasibly dealt with by the players, it should make far more than this. If they can, maybe only a bit over this. Come up with a list of possible enhancements that can add static modifiers to how much money they make, too. Let them invest and reap benefits as they see fit.

And definitely lean into the rumor and reputation enhancements this place might bring them. They'll be locally famous, with lots of good leads on future quests!

[Amnestic]

As noted, there are rules in the DMG (127+129) for this.

If you ran it strictly by those rules it's a 5gp/day expenditure which covers everything - taxes, supplies, salaries, etc. - and comes with a steward who presumably runs the day-to-day stuff while they're off adventuring. If they spend zero downtime days dealing with it they've got a 40% chance to lose money, 20% chance to break even and 40% chance for a modest profit (maxing out at 3d10 x 5gp, average ~77gp/month) and that's...you know, fine, I guess. The chance of profit and avoiding loss increases for each downtime day spent running the place.

At 5gp/day, even if it had catastrophic losses and never made a profit, you're looking at 225gp/month to keep it afloat which is probably not that hard to come by for adventurers once they're into tier 2 gameplay. Since it's an established business, they're presumably already pretty successful and have staff who know what they're doing so that's...eh, it strains believability somewhat.

If it were me, I'd be bumping up both costs and profit potential to make it a bit more swingy and make the figures matter more to them. I'd also be having regular events/problems (some might call them 'quests') that the steward wants the party to deal with. Rat infestation which is actually a wererat infestation, a street gang pushing for protection money, some rowdy pirates have been staying and making a ruckus, scaring away your normal customers, maybe a legal challenge of ownership by someone with another copy of the land deed. Failing to address the events - either because they're absent or because they're busy - means the tavern suffers or even could be lost.

(One thing I'm unclear on is why a city inn requires 1 skilled hireling and 5 untrained, while a rural inn requires 5 skilled hirelings and 10 untrained? Shouldn't a city inn, presumably larger, busier, etc. need more staff, not less?

Also the maintenance costs seem incorrect on a rural inn - a skilled hireling costs 2gp/day to hire, while an unskilled hireling costs 2sp. That should mean a daily operating cost - just for salaries - of 12gp / day for the rural inn, nevermind costs to maintain the building, taxes, supplies, etc.)

[Asisreo1]

Also the maintenance costs seem incorrect on a rural inn - a skilled hireling costs 2gp/day to hire, while an unskilled hireling costs 2sp. That should mean a daily operating cost - just for salaries - of 12gp / day for the rural inn, nevermind costs to maintain the building, taxes, supplies, etc.)
The inn itself makes a profit offset by the maintenance cost. Once all the expenses(taxes, supplies, hirelings, etc.) are added, the profit is then mixed in and the total is the maintenance cost. The cost is an semi-arbitrary thing, though, and no formula is consistent among them.

[Grek]

One thing I'm unclear on is why a city inn requires 1 skilled hireling and 5 untrained, while a rural inn requires 5 skilled hirelings and 10 untrained? Shouldn't a city inn, presumably larger, busier, etc. need more staff, not less?

The extra hirelings are warriors to protect the place from monsters/bandits and porters to actually bring ale and candles and flour out to your rural rest stop.

[Amnestic]

The extra hirelings are warriors to protect the place from monsters/bandits and porters to actually bring ale and candles and flour out to your rural rest stop.

I gotta hire bouncers for my city inn though. Can't trust the guards, they're never around when you need 'em...


The inn itself makes a profit offset by the maintenance cost. Once all the expenses(taxes, supplies, hirelings, etc.) are added, the profit is then mixed in and the total is the maintenance cost. The cost is an semi-arbitrary thing, though, and no formula is consistent among them.

I thought the table on pg. 129 meant that it isn't covered by profit, necessarily, and that's just the costs in general pre-profit. Whether they're then covered by profit is up to how much time you spend on it and how well you roll? Eh, this is confusing + poorly explained. >:(

To take a different tack, or offer a different set of rules, Matt Colville's Stronghold and Followers book has some things for this. An inn would be classed an an 'establishment' rather than a keep or tower.

His buildings are split into 5 levels, so you'd want to work out if the tavern is only a level 1 tavern (WEAK, PUNY), or a level 5 tavern (STRONG, AMAZING, WOW!). Upgrading an establishment costs cash-money (2k, 4k, 6k, 8k) and takes time (30, 60, 90, 120 days). Every 3 months your establishment generates 1kgp per establishment level in profit, with no chance of losses.

You can spend money to get rumours which might give you useful or less-than-useful intelligence, spending more money to get a better result on the gather intelligence check, albeit limited by establishment level. This basically lets the DM give hints, drop quest hooks or even just provide information that the party is after in a way the DM wants.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Every 3 months your establishment generates 1kgp per establishment level in profit, with no chance of losses.

I'm about 90% sure you meant to space that out as 1k gp, but the kilogold is now my favorite coin value and I'm going to start saying this until my players throw something at me.

[Osuniev]

I faced a very similar situation whilst running "Waterdeep : Dragon Heist", and I found this a wonderful resource :
https://dndudes.obsidianportal.com/wiki_pages/trollskull-manor-renovations

[Asisreo1]

I thought the table on pg. 129 meant that it isn't covered by profit, necessarily, and that's just the costs in general pre-profit. Whether they're then covered by profit is up to how much time you spend on it and how well you roll? Eh, this is confusing + poorly explained. >:(

Unfortunately not.



The cost includes everything it takes to maintain the property and keep things running smoothly, including the salaries of hirelings. If the property earns money that can offset maintenance costs (by charging fees, collecting tithes or donations, or selling goods), that is taken into account in the table.
What's happening when the player themselves run the business is that their managerial oversight increases the profit of the property, making it possible for it to actually give you, the owner, a net profit.

You may be wondering what the point of owning a business if leaving it alone doesn't net you any profit but usually owners have to manage their businesses to keep them afloat too. Without you, the boss, the workers will make less efficient decisions and could cause the business to cost more to maintain. Its why business owners aren't off doing unrelated things too often.

[ThatoneGuy84]

Either give them a modest profit margin with the occasional quest to solve a problem going on with the inn.

Or give them a "Gamble" Profit margin and allow the dice to decide if they make money.

A profit of 5 GP a day after expenses only really nets them 150 a month, which isnt much in the way of adventureres, with the occasional small side quest to keep them interested in the Inn and coming back on a regular basis.

[NecessaryWeevil]

I faced a very similar situation whilst running "Waterdeep : Dragon Heist", and I found this a wonderful resource :
https://dndudes.obsidianportal.com/wiki_pages/trollskull-manor-renovations

So, Dragon Heist has tavern ownership as a fairly major plot point but doesn't give you any rules for it?

[Alcore]

I particularly dislike the downtime rules of 5e. As someone who favors downtime as much (if not more so) than adventure time the rules are so sparce. I recommend PF's downtime system.

Pathfinder not your thing? That's fine.


I still recommend you take a short look at the events section. Specifically the tavern events, the house/mansion events (if they live in it) and caster's tower events (if party wizard does his research on premisis). Roll monthly (or roll for chance per week).

It doesn't matter if they are there for it; it'll give the employees something to talk about. You can generate (instead) events for the surrounding buildings and have them gossip. Build a short in town adventure off one result.

[Osuniev]

So, Dragon Heist has tavern ownership as a fairly major plot point but doesn't give you any rules for it?
only the DMG rules which are unsatisfying.

[poolio]

As some of you have pointed out, yes, the DMG's rules for tavern/business ownership are less the helpful in this situation, see i run a homebrew campaign where my players can do whatever they want, and as such the tavern is looking to be what they're going to turn they attention to the most, so it's not exactly going to be something that just kinda runs in the background where they can use their down time days, cause they don't really have them, what i pictured so far is them spending game time trying to make connections with NPC's that can provide superior food/drink for their patrons, but also get it to the point where it will be okay on it's own should they decide to go do some traditional dungeon delving for whatever reason, they are adventurers after all still and seek to grow their characters own personal goals, i want it to be able to make them money, just not so much at a time that it deters them from adventuring, money is a big factor for a lot of players after all, so i'm just not sure how i would math out, or how i should roll, to determine how much they make in a night, and what kind of activities should provide what kinds of modifiers to these rolls, i'm not looking to force them to roleplay every single night, hour by hour of said night, just some rolls or ideas for an "encounter" chart to help me narrate an evening at their tavern.

thanks to everyone who's been participating in this thread by the way, this has already helped me kind move things around in my head and help me articulate what i've been trying to accomplish with this :smallsmile:

[sayaijin]

I still recommend you take a short look at the events section. Specifically the tavern events, the house/mansion events (if they live in it) and caster's tower events (if party wizard does his research on premisis). Roll monthly (or roll for chance per week).

It doesn't matter if they are there for it; it'll give the employees something to talk about. You can generate (instead) events for the surrounding buildings and have them gossip. Build a short in town adventure off one result.

I was hoping someone would mention the obvious: have a group of adventurers meet up in their tavern, and make sure your players are aware of some menial task in town that's such low level that they don't feel like doing it. (rats in the basement)

Then hopefully your players will give these adventures their first mission!

[jojosskul]

I was hoping someone would mention the obvious: have a group of adventurers meet up in their tavern, and make sure your players are aware of some menial task in town that's such low level that they don't feel like doing it. (rats in the basement)

Then hopefully your players will give these adventures their first mission!

Realize as they return that they have a lot more money to throw around than anyone else who comes into your tavern, and find more and more "quests" for them accomplish. This begins to attract more adventurers, but oh no! There's not that many more adventures for you to send them on! Find an abandoned ruin, if you can dig a tunnel leading from it to your tavern all the better. Populate said ruin with traps/mercenaries/monsters with rewards for how deep they go. Get in too deep by making some deals with fiends to increase the dungeon difficulty, get a divine healer on hand from all of the profit you're making to keep the adventurers going (and in debt to you) and make sure that anyone who suspects you're the one actually running the dungeon that brings in all this adventurer business never lives to spread word.

Congrats! Your party gets to run a tavern, AND run a dungeon, AND be the BBEG for the scrappy set of heroes that killed those first rats in the cellar!

[Nod_Hero]

As the characters grow in power and reputation, they might acquire even more property.
Our table was very dissatisfied with the DMG rules for such. We've been using some Walrock Homebrew books for years now and have very much enjoyed the results.

{WH} Fortresses, Temples, & Strongholds, rules for building and customizing player-owned structures!
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/207377/

{WH} Traders & Merchants! Inventories for 30 different types of merchants!
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/209113/

[Waterdeep Merch]

As the characters grow in power and reputation, they might acquire even more property.
Our table was very dissatisfied with the DMG rules for such. We've been using some Walrock Homebrew books for years now and have very much enjoyed the results.

{WH} Fortresses, Temples, & Strongholds, rules for building and customizing player-owned structures!
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/207377/

{WH} Traders & Merchants! Inventories for 30 different types of merchants!
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/209113/
Ooh, I didn't know he released a mercantile system. I'm a big fan of that stronghold system, and so are my players. I need to check this out.

[blackjack50]

Greetings all, so recently my players acquired the deed to their favorite watering hole, and unfortunately they are really into the idea of keeping it, and want all the information and details needed to run it, they wanted to eventually get some management for it so they can continue to run around and do adventuring stuff, so basically i need help figuring out how much this bar should make vs how much it will cost to operate, and now that there is going to be a resource management aspect to the game, what are typical living expenses (it has a large enough back room that they could all live there comfortably, oh! and in addition to costs like taxes for owning the land and all that, they have their big bad, a young green dragon who is extorting 1000 gold a month from them, i already figured out why a dragon is able to do that to a tavern within city limits, but yeah, just something i thought i'd mention.

so i guess all i'm looking for is, how would you run something like this for your table? it's looking like it'll be a big focus and reason for adventuring for my players now, while still looting dungeons for extra cash when ends don't meet at the end of the month or looking for ancient texts describing legendary ale recipes and the like, sorry if i'm rambling, i've had a long couple weeks and with trying to figure out how i'm gonna run this now, i think i'm getting a tad run down lol anyway, any help or insight would be greatly apricated, and i'm happy to answer any questions i can that i didn't address here, thanks in advance folks, hope everyone has a happy new year!

Ok. So a few things.

1) A bar isn’t a gold mine. It works on supply and demand. It has profit margins. Cost of upkeep is expensive. The more expensive that is? The less the player makes. If you Read up on real bars?They make their money on alcohol (duh!), but you can only make that if people are buying. And what they are buying has to be properly priced. A typical establishment will make up to 300% profit on liquor. So their sales? It is about 35% beer and 35% liquor. Then 10% food and the rest is entertainment/covers. You as the DM should come up with some baseline of income for them (and don’t always give them that per month). And then anytime something happens in (or to or near) the bar? It should have a positive or negative impact on the $. So what does this mean for your players? They should be managing their bar. They should notice that their profits tanked by 50% and it has a lot to do with them getting out priced by another bar, or maybe they don’t have any bouncers and a rough crowd is chasing out customers? Or maybe the cost of purchasing ale or spirits doubled because a pesky green dragon keeps stealing carts?

2) Licenses. They need to pay fees to a government of some kind to legally operate. Or maybe some organized crime boss? Just depends on where you are at. Perhaps throw a quest at them where someone tries to jeopardize their license? Or someone tries to extort them? Or they can try and extort an official to get a cheaper license? Or a rival bar tries to get their license revoked?

3) Why do people show up at YOUR bar? I played a game where we tried to help a bar owner. My character was a monk. So we got licenses for boxing matches and had sanctioned fights to draw in a crowd. We took a portion of the proceeds. Our DM loved it and worked with us on it. Plus it was an easy way to give us combat encounters. So have your players brainstorm methods. Do they do a ladies night? Dwarves drink free (ok that is probably a bad idea)? Live music? 5 copper wing night? Happy hours exists for a reason...to bring people in to pay money when nobody is usually drinking. If you go to real bars? You know what I mean. We have a local place that is an arcade and bar with all kinds of cool gimmicks.

Conclusion? Supply and demand. Revenue (intake of money) and profit (actual money made after expenses). Quests can all be tied to these concepts because many things can impact these and your players will notice if they get 25% of their normal intake. Basically? You as the DM don’t need to come up with the ideas of how to run the bar. That is on the payer. You might bring in an “advisor” to suggest things to them...for a price. You as the DM should be throwing incidents at them that change how much they make (good or bad) based on how they manage their bar.

[Alcore]

I was hoping someone would mention the obvious: have a group of adventurers meet up in their tavern, and make sure your players are aware of some menial task in town that's such low level that they don't feel like doing it. (rats in the basement)

Then hopefully your players will give these adventures their first mission!

I am glad you mentioned it for i have not. Though the likelyhood of an event on the table(s) i mentioned being just that is quite possible.



and seek to grow their characters own personal goals, i want it to be able to make them money, just not so much at a time that it deters them from adventuring, money is a big factor for a lot of players after all, so i'm just not sure how i would math out, or how i should roll, to determine how much they make in a night, and what kind of activities should provide what kinds of modifiers to these rolls, i'm not looking to force them to roleplay every single night, hour by hour of said night, just some rolls or ideas for an "encounter" chart to help me narrate an evening at their tavern.even if you don't use the entire downtime stystem. (Which, due to poor editing i don't recommend til you playtest by yourself or with one other) Let me help you a bit;


]A typical tavern has the following;
1 Bar (10), 1 Common Room (7), 1 Lavatory, 1 Office, 1 Storage (2)

If it has rooms (and thus counts as an inn);
1 Bar (10), 1 Bath (3), 1 Bedroom* (3), 1 Common Room (7), 1 Kitchen (4), 1 Lavatory, 1 Lodging* (12), 1 Stall (8), 1 Storefront (5)

*the first provides room for 1-2 and the other is a collection of the more tiny rooms you expect a hotel to have (up to 5-10). Total capacity depends on how snuggly everyone is feeling.


The numbers represent the modifier to the profession roll to generate gold. Your employees might add +2 to the total. The result of the roll is devided by 10 and that is how much gold you make; 16 becomes 1.6. The main problem with the system is a lack of upkeep as once built you never have to pay it again and it was designed with PCs able to roll higher due to higher mods. But then the system assumes expenses are taken out first anyways.

Still a level 1 PC in 5e can roll between 1-20 with 10 wis and you can't actually fail. With a typical tavern it becomes 21-42 if the employees add more. If the other players help the bartender by promoting the businness you can get up towards +10 to the check per player for a number of days.

There is an upgrade that puts a +5 on each room if bought for each room. Only the rooms used in the day to daupy operations count. Add, or subtract, rooms til the number of rooms resemble the map if you have one.

The system itself;
http://legacy.aonprd.com/ultimateCampaign/downtime.html

Event tables;
http://legacy.aonprd.com/ultimateCampaign/downtime/downtimeEvents.html

i do recommend using a system found in 5e. 3.5 and PF are not good systems for those who want something lighter. A 3rd party will have something lighter than this yet heavier than core.

[Delph]

I'v played Dragonheist And se use Durnan's guide to tavernkeeping. You can find it on internet.

[Izodonia]

As a DM, this is one of those things I'd just rule by fiat, and make up whatever sums I feel like; maybe have them roll some ability checks and adjust them accordingly.

"The bar's making money. Here's 500 gp."
"The bar's losing 100 gp a week. Do you want to go on an adventure to cover your debts?"
"Someone's trying to burn the bar down. Roll initiative."

If you want, you can pretend you're consulting some tables behind your DM screen. What the players don't know can't hurt them, right? And if they complain, blame the invisible hand of the market.