I've been running a 5e Eberron Campaign for over a year and my players have amassed quite a bit of money. Their home base is in Sharn and most of them have already purchased homes. They have expressed interest in investing in different businesses around the city and while I have a few ideas on how to do it, I know its not a great system.
So far I've used the information in the Sharn book on starting a business to get the value of it, and then ask them to invest a percentage of gold based on my die roll. I'm not sure how to handled returns.
Well, it really depends on how much micro managing you want to do.
Easy: Tell them they get 50% of the profit from sales in the shop. Roll up randomly 2d10 times the number of days they've been gone to figure out how much gold they've acquired divide it by 2, this will cover any taxes, purchases, deliveries, etc. that might be had for maintaining the business. The remainder is their gains, do this every time they go to check in.
Hard: Requires having a list of inventory that the players have in their shop. They then maintain inventory by going out and adventuring to stock the shelves, otherwise they have to purchase goods to stock the shelves or acquire the services of crafters to make the goods. Whenever they check in on their shop go through the process of randomly figuring out what's sold and how much was earned, and remove overhead and taxes. They then have to continue to maintain the inventory and shop, making it a potential side quest generator and integral part of their day to day adventuring.
I wouldn't recommend using the rules in the DMG without modification, but this article does a good job of fixing that system so that PCs can make a modest profit. Absent direct management on their part, it might take 4-5 years to recoup their investment, which feels pretty realistic. It also doesn't require too many rolls or much micromanagement.
If your players and their characters are looking to make shorter term or riskier investments, all you'd need to do is apply a penalty to the weekly roll for each business while increasing the potential payouts.
I'm curious though, what is your players' end goal in making these investments? Is it just to make money, or is there something they would actually like to buy? I would suggest offering some perks to the PCs depending on what business they invest in or give them something to spend the money on that might help them in their adventures.
Do you want them to invest for more gold only or does this push your campaign or story forward? Having a bit more gold can be fun, but it will probably not impact your players as much compared to their PCs finding out that the operation they got a few months back suddenly to their surprise is the hotspot for the current intrigues they are involved in.
The less it’s about the gold, the more you need to push it in game and have the PCs get involved so what happens with the venture has a meaning.
Another option is thinking about using the venture directly as an adventure. For example the great gambles that exotic foreign trade used to be. Funding a caravan for far off lands to hopefully return a year later for ten times the amount in profit can be a fun lotto ticket, but is it as fun to go with them? And if the caravan is lost, stranding the PCs in an exciting new environment might be more fun than just losing gold. Another example could be a mining operation that delves deep and comes across ancients horrors an old foe uses against them. Not only do the PCs need to do a dungeon crawl in their own mine, a hated old villain oops back up.
Ventures can be a lot of fun in my view in a long campaign and I think it’s a bit of a waste, story wise, if it’s jaut about gold. :)
I can't attest to the motivation of my players, but the majority of the characters in my game have families to support. And let's face it, the adventuring life, while potentially profitable, is not the safest. The characters are looking toward their future.
I can't attest to the motivation of my players, but the majority of the characters in my game have families to support. And let's face it, the adventuring life, while potentially profitable, is not the safest. The characters are looking toward their future.
In other words: the classic movie setup of retired heroes that just wish to provide for their families, then the adventures pull them right back in. Most likely with their family at peril. ;)
There are a lot of different ways to go about this. The easiest, obviously, is to just say that it earns <gold> per day, and the players will thus, based on the investment get <gold> per day. However, this could feel a little underwhelming. To beef it up, try adding ways the players can edit this. Maybe they could allow the owner to declare them investors, and this could attract more business (assuming they are high level.) You could also add an events system: The business burned down, bad investment! The business became famous, good investment! This investment idea is really cool, though, and I'll think about using it in a game I'm starting to run.
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For god's sake. Find a hobby or something. Sheesh. Please stop using this font.
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I've been running a 5e Eberron Campaign for over a year and my players have amassed quite a bit of money. Their home base is in Sharn and most of them have already purchased homes. They have expressed interest in investing in different businesses around the city and while I have a few ideas on how to do it, I know its not a great system.
So far I've used the information in the Sharn book on starting a business to get the value of it, and then ask them to invest a percentage of gold based on my die roll. I'm not sure how to handled returns.
Any ideas from my fellow DMs?
Well, it really depends on how much micro managing you want to do.
Easy: Tell them they get 50% of the profit from sales in the shop. Roll up randomly 2d10 times the number of days they've been gone to figure out how much gold they've acquired divide it by 2, this will cover any taxes, purchases, deliveries, etc. that might be had for maintaining the business. The remainder is their gains, do this every time they go to check in.
Hard: Requires having a list of inventory that the players have in their shop. They then maintain inventory by going out and adventuring to stock the shelves, otherwise they have to purchase goods to stock the shelves or acquire the services of crafters to make the goods. Whenever they check in on their shop go through the process of randomly figuring out what's sold and how much was earned, and remove overhead and taxes. They then have to continue to maintain the inventory and shop, making it a potential side quest generator and integral part of their day to day adventuring.
That's not exactly what my players are looking for. They're not going to be managing or buying the businesses in anyway, just investing in them.
Wouldn't the "Running a Business" from the DM's Guide about downtime activity work?
I wouldn't recommend using the rules in the DMG without modification, but this article does a good job of fixing that system so that PCs can make a modest profit. Absent direct management on their part, it might take 4-5 years to recoup their investment, which feels pretty realistic. It also doesn't require too many rolls or much micromanagement.
If your players and their characters are looking to make shorter term or riskier investments, all you'd need to do is apply a penalty to the weekly roll for each business while increasing the potential payouts.
I'm curious though, what is your players' end goal in making these investments? Is it just to make money, or is there something they would actually like to buy? I would suggest offering some perks to the PCs depending on what business they invest in or give them something to spend the money on that might help them in their adventures.
Nice link!
Do you want them to invest for more gold only or does this push your campaign or story forward? Having a bit more gold can be fun, but it will probably not impact your players as much compared to their PCs finding out that the operation they got a few months back suddenly to their surprise is the hotspot for the current intrigues they are involved in.
The less it’s about the gold, the more you need to push it in game and have the PCs get involved so what happens with the venture has a meaning.
Another option is thinking about using the venture directly as an adventure. For example the great gambles that exotic foreign trade used to be. Funding a caravan for far off lands to hopefully return a year later for ten times the amount in profit can be a fun lotto ticket, but is it as fun to go with them? And if the caravan is lost, stranding the PCs in an exciting new environment might be more fun than just losing gold. Another example could be a mining operation that delves deep and comes across ancients horrors an old foe uses against them. Not only do the PCs need to do a dungeon crawl in their own mine, a hated old villain oops back up.
Ventures can be a lot of fun in my view in a long campaign and I think it’s a bit of a waste, story wise, if it’s jaut about gold. :)
I can't attest to the motivation of my players, but the majority of the characters in my game have families to support. And let's face it, the adventuring life, while potentially profitable, is not the safest. The characters are looking toward their future.
There are a lot of different ways to go about this. The easiest, obviously, is to just say that it earns <gold> per day, and the players will thus, based on the investment get <gold> per day. However, this could feel a little underwhelming. To beef it up, try adding ways the players can edit this. Maybe they could allow the owner to declare them investors, and this could attract more business (assuming they are high level.) You could also add an events system: The business burned down, bad investment! The business became famous, good investment! This investment idea is really cool, though, and I'll think about using it in a game I'm starting to run.