How do you handle players wanting to start a business / their own city ?

[Satinavian]

Even if your example, the assumption is that there must be some difference between each round of die rolling to make the gambling interesting. If the entire game is merely "bet your tokens, roll the dice, collect winnings until you stop or are out of tokens", you have a problem. If the average odds per die roll is negative (meaning you'll lose more often than you win), then over time you will *always* lose, until you run out of tokens. If the average is positive, you will *always* win. Over time (short term outcomes can vary, of course). The fun can only be if there's some specific risk also added to each roll (outside of token winning), that tilts the odds from "average over time" to "do I get lucky this one time". So, yes, having said tokens associated with other outcomes and rolling means that you maybe won some things and lost other things, and we're just calculating which things you won or lost. But if the only measure of success is number of tokens, then the rules clearly state whether you will win or lose over time.

I know many people think of cards when talking about gambling. But those investment rules actually mirror roulette instead. In roulette the only important decision you make is between high and low risk and accompaning rewards by choosing sets of numbers. You are very well allowed to bet on anything from a single number to the majority of the numbers. But the odds are that in long term the house always wins. There is no strategy, no hidden knowledge, involved beyond that and the starting situation is always the same.
Now, some people do indeed find roulette exciting and fun, but others don't.

Now we don't have the information how many accountents are needed and what there wages are in relation to buissness (accountant per employee does not help us if we don't know how many employees we need), so can't calculate their effect. But it is likely that the accountant cost is linear to the investment cost so the size of the operation is irrelevant. But with accountants giving a constant bonus it is certain that safe investments benefit more from accountants than risky one, potentially pushing them in the profitable zone.

[gbaji]

Yup. I was actually thinking of roulette as well. I think the issue is that players know that in the long run the house has the advantage. So it fits into "short term experience" gaming. You are hoping to get lucky and win, then get out with your winnings. The other aspect of this form of gambling is the social aspect. It can be a lot of fun standing around a gambling table, with lots of other people cheering, getting comped drinks, whatever. The losses to the house can simply be looked at as a cost for the enjoyable experience (and that's probably the most healthy way to look at it). Heck. I've been known to plop myself down at a casino bar, put some cash into a video blackjack machine, drop a nice tip into the bartender's jar to start the comped drinks flowing and just hang out for a couple hours drinking, chatting with friends, and people watching. Whether I'm up or down at the end of the day doesn't matter. It's about the experience (and I've yet to not come out ahead when the cost of the free drinks is calculated).

Those social aspects can (and often are) also present in a RPG. But again, only in "short term" gambling choices. You choose to have your character risk something on the roll of the dice, the players look on anxiously awaiting the result, the die is rolled... and... OMG! you won! yay. Fun had by all. Or, oh no! you lost. Still exciting.

This doesn't work so well for side-table stuff like investments and businesses. Those are usually managed at a regular pace as a more or less accounting aspect of the game. Good for an occasional comment from player to player about how "Oh wow, my business gained 5% value this year", or "Oh darn, I lost one of my businesses." followed by some adjustments to the wealth record of the character. That's record keeping stuff. While interesting, it's not exactly exciting from a play perspective. From a social perspective, you're already hanging out chatting with your friends (players at the table), already have whatever drinks/snacks at hand, etc. So there's no increase in social interaction from this sort of play.

Again, I can't preclude the possibility of the entire table being extremely interested and excited to see what choices someone makes about the distribution of their business portfolio this quarter, and breathlessly await the results of the die rolls to see how well things went. I guess. Maybe? I may be a bit old school, but I suspect most players would far more breathlessly await the die roll results of a combat in which the party knight is attempting to withstand the onslaught of the evil dragon's breath attack with the assistance of the party mage bolstering their defenses, while the party rogue sneaks around to another side to distract said dragon, while the archer slings dragon slaying arrows at it's flank. But that's just me.

[Ashiel]

I know for a fact that at least one of my player will want to start is own business, or rule is own domain.
And the others will probably love the idea and want to follow.

I would be glad to know if :

1. You have any guideline to avoid a situation where this kind of things becomes game breaking ? (aka they suddenly have a little army or henchmen that can go dungeonning in their place and/or they make too much money).

2. You can share any rules/systems/homebrew/experiences that can make my life easier to handle this sort of things.

I'm not planning to let this be the center of the campaign. But what if they really like it and genuinely wants to continu improving it ?
IMO it would be dumb as a DM to "crush" them by making their business just "POOF" into bankruptcy or their village undergo raids after raids after raids.
But then, how to combine their pursuit of the evil Necromancer and their passion for capitalism ?
(Of course the Necromancer, if left unchecked, would cause problems for them =p)

Recently made this post and this post, helping another player with something similar. Maybe they might help?

[MaryPoppinsYall]

There's not THAT much players can do with their gold. I'd let them do it, but businesses take a long time to turn real profit. You can start a business. Likely only going to make a few gold a day though just like any normal operation.