City Resources?

[Neberu]

Since my fellow RPPR listeners were so helpful with my last problem I thought I'll come to you all again with another conundrum I'm having. In its most basic form this issue is really a simple case of the DM just getting what he asks for. My players have now reached a somewhat respectable level of power and prestige and have, as a group, latched on to the idea of planting some roots in a city. Using the majority of their saved gold and an impressive use of their combined abilities they have acquired a sizable complex in a major city and decided that they want to open a training school of sorts. Basically a place where they can teach others the skills they possess.

A PC Class school in essence. This is wonderful and all and I'm excited by the roleplaying avenues this opens up and that my players are willing to commit themselves to the setting this much and focus their efforts and income on more than just buying magic swords and slaughtering dragons. (They still want to do this too though, don't get me wrong they want to go adventure too sometimes).

The trouble I'm having is adjudicating the mechanical aspects of owning, operating and reaping a profit from their little enterprise. The players are intelligent and include a business major who sees this effort, at least in part, as an investment that will eventually turn a profit for the players. I understand this and don't want to punish my players for being creative with their efforts and money, but I can't for the life of me find any good rules in the books for running a business.

Does anyone know of any good sources, Offical or Fan-created, on running this aspect of urban roleplaying? I own cityscape and it has some interesting ideas on adventures centered around their business and how much it would cost to buy the property but nothing really on the day to day running.

[clockworkjoe]

First off, take a look at this http://forum.cartographersguild.com//showthread.php?t=2844

Then if business is your primary angle you need to figure out the business environment they are in - are you going to base it on a historical era? Business was different in medieval era than in ancient Roman than in the Renaissance. You get the idea.

You don't want to get bogged down in accounting details so don't try to simulate the day to day - instead present challenges that offer adventuring solutions - for example the players find out that they could make a fortune if they could find a trade route to another kingdom - they explore and find it is guarded by ogres - so they have to secure a trade route in order to expand their business.

I would just describe the city and business environment and see what ideas the players come up with to capitalize on it and then work with those ideas.

[malyss]

Definitely challenge them with role-playing, not accounting and microeconomics.

How are they going to get students? (advertise their feats of prowess - hire a bard to write stories about them and sing their praises... but that may lead old enemies to them disguised as students... etc.)

Did they buy good buildings or shoddy ones? What is the rent like? Miss a few payments on the taxes and things can get interesting...

How often to schools get broken into and robbed? Now you need to find your magic sword that was stolen from the locker room...

Are they affiliated with any other schools in other regions? What about some school rivalry? I heard your fighters suck anyway, and your wizards can only cast illusions of grandeur...

And little Johnny's dad isn't going to pay since he thinks you didn't teach his moron child properly.

And why didn't they tell you the west wing of the school was haunted? What do you mean you didn't have an inspection? Oh, and what were you planning on doing with the devil still chained in the summoning chamber in the second basement? You did know about the second basement right?

Oh, and the king's messenger came by this morning with the order to supply free classes to the town guard, and he expects you to rise to the town's defense to help out with the encroaching ogre tribe.
And he wants you to give his son the princess a position teaching... knitting or something...

And you were aware it is illegal to actually teach necromancy...

If they accomplish the tasks you set, give them equivalent treasure. If they don't, take something from them (small - don't punish them, but make it seem like they will have to do something to earn the money needed to pay the bills)

[Neberu]

Great suggestions everyone, and thats a wonderful list of plot hooks there Malyss, thanks for that.

My main issue however is not with plot hooks centered around the school, they've got things to do, but actually with micromanagement and accounting parts of it, sort of.

I don't want to turn our sessions into business classes but I do need a fair system of figuring out how much profit the school makes each week/month for the players. They started the school primarily as a method of making money and establishing fame and such so I need a way to generate those numbers of Gold peices (other than just like rolling a d20 and multiplying by 100 or something).

This is why I was asking about any sources or anything home brewed that people have done cuz I'd really like to satisfy my players in this arena without completely destroying the wealth:XP ratio of the game.

I mean I could just take away a ton of their money through taxes and BS reasons but that will get old with my players quickly which would lead to them abandoning this enterprise (which I don't want cuz I'm excited about them taking this sort of initiative)

Also I should note that all my players are newbies with this campaign being the first time they have ever roleplayed.

[malyss]

I still suggest not using a system as such - it leaves too much room for manipulation from the players which can only lead to disappointment.

And sometimes, wealth is ok if it becomes hard to spend it.

From the sounds of it, your players want to get rich without adventuring for it. They want some additional reward. If you are confortable managing wealthy characters, go ahead. Just because PC's are rich doesn't mean they are more powerful or have more magic items. Maybe they end up buying really nice wine and living the good life?

I just think systems for managing wealth is for computer games - not role playing games.

[clockworkjoe]

you want an in-depth fantasy business simulation? Don't. As stated above, that shit will get you into trouble. A game like that would take a long time to develop and playtest so that it is fun and balanced.

Just use treasure parcels and base adventures on the challenges of running a business in a chaotic fantasy world.

As an example, in the New World 4E Actual Play game, the players started a business to provide the colony with fresh water through magical rituals that would conjure vast quantities of it. So, I would just base their adventures on the complications resulting from that and give the parcels as their profits.

[Neberu]

What are treasure parcels? (is that a 4ed thing?)

So what do I tell my players? "Yes you spent several tens of thousands of gold setting up the school and its being successful but I'm not going to give you anything extra for your efforts. You can go solve this adventure based around your school and when you finish it you'll get the same treasure that you would have gotten if you had just done the adventure anyway?"

Seems kinda lame and destroys the suspension of disbelief in my book.

Like I said these are brand new players so its not like they're doing the iron pot D&D trick or something they just wanted to set up a cool school and expect it to turn some sort of profit.

[clockworkjoe]

What are treasure parcels? (is that a 4ed thing?)

So what do I tell my players? "Yes you spent several tens of thousands of gold setting up the school and its being successful but I'm not going to give you anything extra for your efforts. You can go solve this adventure based around your school and when you finish it you'll get the same treasure that you would have gotten if you had just done the adventure anyway?"

Seems kinda lame and destroys the suspension of disbelief in my book.

Like I said these are brand new players so its not like they're doing the iron pot D&D trick or something they just wanted to set up a cool school and expect it to turn some sort of profit.

Treasure parcels are in the DMG. If you want, you could boost the amount of treasure per parcel.

The thing is you can't make up a detailed rules set to simulate running a fantasy business that follows all of the following criteria:
Created in a short amount of time
Reasonably complex to make it interesting to play
Balanced

These things take time and I don't know of ANY rpg that really has good rules for running a business. You should try to frame it within the rules of the system you're playing in. Skill challenges, milestones, etc.

However you make a good point about the investment of gold -to give the players a bonus for investing their money you might give them several benefits

For example an investor PC could get all of the following
A +2 bonus to all social skills made against people of the city - they are important people now
Free mundane equipment and services - bribes from parents and students, school assets the PCs can use etc
A utility encounter or daily power based on their role in the school

A teacher could get
Do as I say Not as I Do
"No, no no. You're doing it wrong! Correct for windage!"
Daily - Ranged 10 - immediate interrupt
The character points out an error in an ally's attack and tells them how to correct the error
effect: One ally within range may reroll a failed attack roll. The ally must keep the second roll.

A manager/superintendent/investor could get
"We run things around here"
Plutocrat's Confidence
Aura 5
All allied characters within range gain a +1 bonus to their Will defense.

[Neberu]

I guess that makes sense. I guess the best thing to due would be to make managing the school from month to month be some sort of interesting extended challenge or fold it into a light hearted gofer style encounter or something.

As an aside we're playing pathfinder not 4th ED so many of your examples (Treasure Parcels?, Powers, etc...) are strange and foreign to me and therefore must be shunned with all prejudice. Although they do give some ideas of other tings to do...

I'm just sad that there no book out there that already has all this sort of stuff in it. I figured they'd made a 3.0/.5 book about everything

[malyss]

For pathfinder consider giving them an additional trait and then just say they recoup a percentage of their investment based on the success of their adventures.

I will tell you one thing though - running a real business does not result in immediate gratification. Maybe you should give them that life lesson first. Many businesses do not see black ink for over 5 years. And then there are the businesses that fail completely. Don't bother looking at statistics - it will only make you want to stick to dungeons...

[clockworkjoe]

Now that I think about it, there are video games that simulate that kind of thing I think - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guild_2