In a well-developed campaign, some of
the most satisfying and enjoyable episodes
can occur outside the dungeon, within the
adventure-filled wards and winding city
streets designed by the DM. Here, the
characters can receive as much challenge
and pleasure in the interaction of creative
role-play with the crafty NPCs of the area
as with a foray into the dungeon to relieve
various monsters of their treasure.

Rosznar

The most fulfilling campaigns I have
participated in have been those where
well-thought-out characters have come
alive and become more than mere statistics on a sheet of paper. Part of this process has involved characters purchasing
land, building houses, towers, and castles,
and generally putting down roots within
an area to take an active interest in the
world around them apart from rumors on
where the new dungeon is.

Thann

One aspect of world-building that grew
out of this process was the active involvement of some of the characters in starting
and successfully operating a business
compatible with the character?s talents,
interests and personality.

Urmbrusk

A school for rangers was the first such
experiment, quickly followed by a magic
shop, an inn, a jewelry store, and a tavern.
As the campaign progressed, we became
more creative with our businesses, formulating goals and plans for them the same
way we did with our characters: a halfling
thief with skill as a trader began organizing caravans into little-known territory,
opening up new trade routes and markets
for exotic and hitherto unknown items
(which provided the impetus for an exciting series of outdoor adventures); a cleric
opened a winery to help finance the building of a temple and a street mission to
minister to the poor; and an ambitious
assassin began forming a merchants? guild
around her various business enterprises,
with an eye toward eventually controlling
the economy of the area. As a result, the
emphasis of the campaign has lifted from
the dungeon depths and centered on the
city and area the PCs reside in.

To be sure, we have not given up adventuring in order to sit back and run our
businesses, but the accent on play has
shifted from killing to building.
A number of questions come to mind
regarding the subject of player-character
businesses. This article attempts to answer
most of them, beginning with the one that
is perhaps the most obvious:

In a world of action and high adventure,
why would a PC want to become involved
in something as mundane as running a
business?

Well, consider this. What magic-user
would sneer at the thought of a potentially
steady source of income to assist in costly
spell research and the acquisition of rare
and valuable reference materials? What
front-line fighter who's ever been energy
drained by a spectre cavalierly hands over
tens of thousands for a
restoration without feeling the strain? The
above are just two examples of how a
player character can potentially benefit
from the wise investment of hard-earned
treasure in a modest business.

Going hand in hand with a well-conceived
campaign are financial responsibilities,
raning from taxation to the
lamented but often unavoidable costs of
resurrections, restorations, regenerations,
etc. A PC business owner who is short of
liquid asets at least has something to fall
back on in the eventtha the needs a spell
from the local temple -- land && business
holdings, which the temple may hold title
to in lieu of immediate payment or at the
veyr least, a loan obtained from some of
the less unscrupulous moneylendersw, since
the character in question can demonstrate
ownership of legitimate collateral.

The businesses of good-aligned characters
can set an example in the community
by offering honest good or services at
honest prices, gaining for the PC a modest
profit which cn be used in a number of
ways to BENEFIT society -- extra tithes to
good temples, jobs for the otherwise unemployed,
and perhaps a small percentage
of the profit given out as alms to the poor
in the name of the PC's deity.

Evil characters can USE their busineses
as a power base to increase their influence
and position in society, as well as to finance
clandestine operations for furthering
their own goals.
 

How does the campaign BENEFIT from the
introduction of PC businesses?

1st and foremost, the characters will
TAKE a far greater interest in the world
around them -- the drought that's been
plaguing a local winemaking region
nearby becomes much more noticeable
and important when a PC hobbit's vineyard
is in the affected AREA -- and the
party will be much more anxious to set off
on a quest in SEARCH of the disgruntled
faerie dragon responsible for the problem.

2nd, the players desirous of exploring
this new aspect of the campaign may
find themselves fired up with a new enthusiasm
for THE CAMPAIGN and for otherwise
mediocre characters.  As an example,
1 player in my Game possessed a fighter
whose highest ability score was A 14, but <PHB.9: min. of two 15s>
had the skills of a masterful jeweler.  As an
experiment, the fighter opened a jewelry
store, where he did some custom work
during the winter months, while his party
sat out the bad weather in town until
spring, living off treasure obtained in fair-weather
months.  Word got around regarding
the quality of the character's work,
and finally he fuond himself summoned
before the local monarch, who commissioned
him to fashion a signet ring.  When
the job was completed, the duke was
greatly pleased with the item and ordered
that henceforth all royal jewelry commissions
would be handled through Rox's
jewelry shop.  As the duke's personal jeweler
and favored visitor at court, Rox, who
before had been the butt of frequent jokes
because of his mediocrity, Now became a
valued member of the party.  And his access
to the duke has helped other members
of his group more than once.  So a
character who in the dungeon had little to
offer in talent became invaluable outside
the dungeon and eventually became the
player's favorite character.

The linking of one or more of the PCs'
business projects to an adventure can
provide a new spark of enthusiasm and
excitement in The Game.  Some months
back, one of the DMs in our group ran the
excellent little module from DRAGON
issue #75. <Can Seapoint Be Saved?>
Our introduction to it came
through the loss of one of my character's
merchant ships to the pirates.  Needless to
say, I was very anxious to deal with the
situation and got a great amount of personal
satisfaction at the completion of the
quest, despite the fact that the loss of my
ship cost me more than 10,000 gp that I
did not recover.  And as mentioned earlier,
when a hobbit PC in my campaign started
up a caravan service, it provided an excellent
opportunity for me to design (and for
the player to carry out) a series of outdoor
adventures.  Since the purpose of the
quest was for the aid and BENEFIT of one of
their own characters, the players took The
Game more seriously than usual and a
splendid Time was had by all despite the
fact that the treasure and experience
given out was minimal.
 

What character classes may own businesses?
 

Ultimately, this is up to the DM.  However,
some guidelines can be advanced.

The Players Handbook and common
sense to indicate that monks
and paladins, neither of whom may retain
more than a modest portion of wealth,
would be excluded from owning a business.

Cavaliers would probably be uninterested
in participating in the mundane
world of business, while barbarians would
lack the cultural background.

Druids, a class of character that usually
avoids continuous exposure to non-natural
environments, would be unlikely to be
motivated toward either owning property
or owning or running a business.

Clerics would have to be very careful in
their motivation for opening a business.
Certainly in our own world, the organized
church has dabbled in business since time
immemorial, and there is no reason why a
cleric in the game cannot do the same as
long as this will somehow further the ends
of his deity. As noted previously, a cleric
who had reached sufficient level to build a
temple found that the several hundred
thousand gold pieces the project would
take were beyond his ability to acquire
through "normal" means. His solution was
to obtain permission from his superiors to
purchase a winery to augment his income.
The cleric faithfully used the proceeds
from the winery to outfit his temple, and
in time also a street mission, where the
underprivileged could receive free meals
and shelter -- which resulted in a respectful
number of converts to the cleric's deity.

Fighters, free of the restrictions inhibiting
some of the more technical classes,
make excellent prospects for investing
some of their wealth in business pursuits
and should not be restricted from doing
so.

Rangers are a slightly different matter. It
has already been noted that our first experiment
in PC business was a ranger
school, which provided instruction in
ranger abilities and served as an outlet for
rangers to obtain equipment useful to the
class. And while the Players Handbook
would seem to indicate that owning a
business in an urban environment would
be anathema to a devoted ranger, it was a
fact that the campaign at that time centered
on an urban area and some surrounding
forests. While the DM wrestled
with whether or not it would be possible
for a ranger to open a school (in light of
the fact that a ranger can theoretically
own only what he can carry on his horse),
it was pointed out that rangers may construct
a stronghold -- certainly something
the ranger's faithful mount would have a
difficult time carrying. Ultimately, the
favorable' decision was made based on the
ranger's motivations for opening the
school: It was her desire to promote an
understanding and appreciation of the
outdoors among city-dwellers and to advance
the worship of her god. This desire
-- not personal gain -- was the motivation
of the character, and the DM ruled that a
small school could be opened for this
purpose. In general, though, rangers
would probably be excluded from the
business world.

Magic-users would have much to gain by
investment. The demands of the class are
such that income from any source is always
welcomed in a balanced campaign.

Finally, thieves and assassins can do
much with a small business ? they make
great fronts for illegal or not-quite-legal
activities. Characters of these classes can
form thieves' or assassins' guilds around
their inns or warehouse storage buildings
(when they reach proper levels); and the
knowledge surreptitiously gained by using
a passkey into a sleeping caravan master?s
room to examine his ledgers has netted
more than one successful waylay of goods
on the road.

A fighter with armorer skill can use the
benefit of his battle experience to open an
armory and fashion new types of armor or
weapons; a thief can open a teamster
service to ship stolen goods to fences out
of town; an assassin can start up a private
security service to screen the operation of
a guild. All of these endeavors are examples
of creative play properly using a
character's skills and attributes. To achieve
the same sort of success in your campaign,
let several questions guide you to a decision
when a player expresses a desire for
his character to branch out into some sort
of business enterprise:

1. Are the character's motives consistent
with the character's alignment and past
behavior, and with the general nature of
the character class?

2. Is the character going to be putting to
use skills possessed or knowledge acquired
in the course of adventuring?

3. Will the character?s class be reflected
in some aspect of the business?

4. Does the player possess at least a
rudimentary knowledge of the field of
business he desires his character to participate
in?
 

If the answer to each of these questions
is yes, then the DM should consider allowing
the player to write out a description of
the proposed business enterprise, afterward
discussing with the player the costs,
limitations and obligations the character
will incur. If the answer to one or more of
these questions is no, the DM should insist
that the player provide reasonable justification
for his character's desire to become
involved with a field foreign to him (in the
case of questions 1-3) or require the player
to spend an afternoon or two at the local
library researching the field (in the case of
question 4).

How does the business get started?

The character must first locate a competent
overseer to serve as general manager
of the business, since the PC must of
course be assumed to be spending the
bulk of his time engaged in his primary
profession -- adventuring. The overseer
may be obtained by the methods given in
the Dungeon Masters Guide for the location
of henchmen, though the overseer
himself should be considered an expert
hireling.

The salary of the overseer should be
expressed as a percentage of the gross
sales of the establishment, and should be
in the neighborhood of 10%. In this way
the overseer is encouraged to provide
maximum effort in running the business,
since his wages are directly tied to how
well he and the operation perform.

Once the overseer has been secured,
suitable grounds and buildings must be
obtained for the establishment, whether
through the purchase of an existing complex
or the erection of a new structure. In
the former case, the DM can determine
the cost of the land and building(s) and
then assess whatever costs are deemed
reasonable for the renovation of the existing
structure. In the latter case, buying a
plot of land and building a tailor-made
structure can be the more time-consuming
method, but can be very useful in bringing
the ideas of the player to reality.

In either event, the value of the land
must be determined first. The list below is
a suggested starting point, giving the price
for a 10 × 10-foot parcel of land in a certain
urban area, based on the population
of the entire area:
 

More than 100,000	100 gp
50,001 to 100,000	75 gp
25,001 to 50,000	60 gp
10,001 to 25,000	50 gp
6,001 to 10,000	30 gp
3,001 to 6,000	20 gp
500 to 3,000	10 gp
Less than 500	1 gp

The above figures are representative of
the base land cost; at the DM's discretion,
various modifiers may either add to or
subtract from the base figure. For example,
a 30 gp plot of land in a large town
may be entitled to a reduction of up to
75% from the listed cost if the plot of land
happens to be within a less desirable por-
tion of town, such as the thieves? quarter.
Conversely, if the plot of land is located in
a highly desirable area, such as on or near
a major street or marketplace, the base
cost could increase by 75% or more.

Once the land has been obtained, a
building or buildings may be built using
the guidelines for construction provided in
the DMG. During this period of construction,
the PC will be responsible for the
room and board of the overseer, who
presumably is contributing his input to the
construction engineer on the requirements
of the building(s).

A final word about overseers: An occasion
may arise when a PC wants to open
several businesses, perhaps not all in the
same area. In this event a special overseer
will be required, whose full-time duty will
be to keep records on all holdings, travel
constantly to visit his liege's various enterprises,
collect profit revenues, and pay all
related taxes. A good example of this type
of overseer is the character of Simonides
from the novel Ben Hur. As a normal overseer,
this individual is entitled to a 10%
commission on gross revenues ? but this
commission is taken on each and every
business under his stewardship, increasing
the overseer deduction to 20% for these
businesses. This type of overseer should
be considered a henchman and treated
accordingly.

How are business revenues determined?

This is where the imagination of the DM
comes into play. As a suggested method of
arriving at the proper numbers, determine
these facts:

1. How many sales were made during
the day?

2. What was the average amount of
money taken in during each sale?

3. What was the wholesale cost to the
business owner?

4. What additional percentage for labor,
taxes, and miscellaneous expenses must be
deducted from the gross?

Once these factors are known, the result
left after the necessary subtractions is the
net profit to the owner.

How many sales were made is determined
by assigning a number, indicating
the greatest number of purchases that
customers might make from the business
on a good day, and then setting up a dice
roil that has that number as its maximum
result. For instance, if a business can have
100 customers on its best day, the range
might be set up as 10-100 (1d10 × 10).

The average amount of each sale is
derived from the average cost of the services
or merchandise available from the
business. This number, like the previous
one, is ultimately determined by the DM
or else it can be dictated by the prices the
character wants to charge. If the character
is running a weapon shop carrying
high-quality and high-priced merchandise,
the average amount of each sale will be
somewhat higher than the cost of a
normal-quality weapon of the same sort
(using the prices in the Players Handbook
as a guide). Of course, such a shop might
also have fewer customers in a day than a
shop that sells lower-priced items.

The wholesale cost of materials to the
business owner is set at 50% of the gross
receipts ? a safe figure, which includes a
little extra to cover worn tools, damaged
goods, etc.

The last figure is one the DM must arbitrarily
assign based on his knowledge of
the world he has created.

Below is a sample of deductions to the
gross receipts used in my campaign:
 

-10%	Salary of overseer
-5%	Salaries of additional labor
-50%	Wholesale cost of goods
-10%	Lawful taxation

Total: -75% <?>

The 25% of the gross remaining is the
profit left to the owner of the business.

Should experience be awarded on earnings
from investments?

This is up to the DM. I have yet to award
any experience to a PC for having a profitable
business enterprise on the side, unless
the business was somehow tied in
with the adventure, as in the case of the
outdoor quest for a safe caravan route.
Generally, though, any profit the PC gains
from investments on the side is reward
enough.

How does one determine the ultimate
success or failure of a business?

It would be a simple matter to provide a
table that indicates with one dice roll
whether or not the character's monetary
investment and months of effort on the
part of his overseer result in a successful
business venture. But really, this is something
the DM should determine based on
his observations of the campaign. If the
enterprise in question is providing the
player or players (if it is a group venture)
with entertainment and if the campaign is
enriched by this new variant to normal
play, there is no reason to spoil things by
causing the business to fail just because a
dice roll indicates it. On the other hand, if
the player or players begin taking things
for granted, the GM can always liven
things up a bit by having a merchant ship
be lost to pirates, or by having some of the
spirits that usually reside in the catacomb
complex that just happens to lie beneath
the PC's inn pop up for a visit. And if a
case arises where, for some reason, the
game is beginning to get out of balance by
an all-too-easy flow of money, any Dungeon
Master can think of a number of
ways to make ownership of the business(
es) in question much more of a liability
than an asset.

The Inn of the Seven Deadly Sins
Time and experience have shown that
inns and taverns seem to be the most
popular enterprises desired by the players.
What follows is an example of a typical
inn run by the principles shown
earlier.

The proud owner of this inn is Silverdirk,
a halfling thief who, upon reaching
the 8th level of experience, announced to
the rest of his party that he was building
an inn he resolutely decided would be
named Silverdirk's Inn of the Seven Deadly
Sins. He chose the medium-sized city of
Serpenalik to build it in, which results in a
base land cost of 60 gp per 10 × 10-foot
section. Since the lot the inn sits on is 100
× 60 feet in size, it contains sixty 10 × 10.
foot sections, which were purchased for a
grand total of 3,600 gp. Construction costs
for the inn itself were fixed at about 5,000
gp (including all furnishings and a cellar),
amounting to a total cost of 8,600 gp for
the inn and land.

After 238 days of construction time,
Silverdirk?' overseer officially opened the
establishment, and the character was now
allowed to keep track of the income generated
by the business.

Making money
Theoretically, the inn is open 24 hours a
day; it was decided for simplicity, however,
to base all receipts on four 3-hour
shifts running from dusk to dawn, and to
break the inn into several sections to
determine a daily gross for the establishment.

The kitchen plays no part in the figuring
of the night's receipts and can be ignored
for this purpose.

The dining area contains 20 tables. We
must first know how many of the tables
were occupied during the three shifts, so
we roll 1d20 for each shift, obtaining
results of 16, 13, 8, and 5 for a total of 42
times a table was occupied during the
business day. Next we discover by rolling
1d4 how many people on average were
sitting at the tables. The result is a 2;
therefore, we know that 84 customers
ordered meals that night from that section.
The meals vary in price from 1 sp to
10 sp, and so we arbitrarily fix the average
price of a meal at 6 sp, including beverages.
Multiplying this times the 84 meals
served, we end up with total gross receipts
of 504 sp for that section.

The bar is 30 feet long. A bar patron
enjoying a drink can be assumed to take
up three feet of space. Therefore, the
maximum number of people at the bar at
one time is 10. We roll 1d10 four times
(once for each shift), resulting in a total of
22. We next roll 1d4 to determine how
many drinks on average each patron enjoyed,
coming up with a 3. And so we
know that 66 drinks were purchased that
night. Silverdirk?s inn sells libations as
cheaply as 5 copper for beer up to 10
silver for good wine. Arbitrarily fixing the
average beverage price at 2 silver, we do
some multiplication and find that 132 sp
was grossed by the bar this night.

The other section of the inn is a gambling
area containing four tables, where
drinks only are served. Rolling 4d6, we
find the tables were in use 14 times during
the night. We now roll a d3 plus 1 to see
how many gamblers on average sat at the
tables, getting a result of 2. We assume the
patrons in this section would tend to drink
a bit less than the patrons at the bar and
so we only roll a d3 to find how many
drinks each patron had. The result is a 2,
and so we know that this area grossed 112
sp in beverages (2 drinks times 28 patrons
times 2 sp).

It remains to be determined how many
of the inn's rooms were rented for the
evening and what Silverdirk made from
them.

One section of rooms is a flop area,
where for 1 sp an individual can bunk for
the night in a common room that has
space for 24 sleepers. We roll 4d6, finding
that a total of 12 spaces were rented and
thus another 12 sp is added to the business
's receipts.

The six rooms in the next best section
are rather plain and rent for 10 sp per
night. Rolling a 6 on 1d6, we find that six
of these rooms were rented for a gross of
60 sp.

The third section has the best rooms,
each of the twelve featuring locks on the
doors and a large bed, closet, and dresser
in each room. The price for this luxury
and security is a mere 30 sp. Rolling 1d12,
we find that six of these rooms were
rented, grossing 180 sp.

All of this arithmetic brings the total
gross receipts of the inn to exactly 1,000
silver for this evening. Subtracting 75% of
the gross for normal expenses, we find
that Silverdirk?s net profit comes out to
250 sp, or a little more than 12 gp. If
Silverdirk does at least as well as this
every night, it will still take close to 3
years from the beginning of construction
for Silverdirk to regain his original investment
-- showing that a business owned by
a player character need not be a gratuitous
path to instant wealth, as long as a
little common sense is used by the DM.
Also, tailoring the scope of the business to
the size of the population and the relative
usefulness of the enterprise to the community
will go a long way toward keeping a
reasonable balance. An inn such as Silverdirk
's can reasonably fill 26 tables and 18
rooms when set in a major trading center
of 50,000 people. An inn this size placed in
a village of 200 inhabitants, on the other
hand, will hardly ever make a dime.
 

The operation of a business by a player
character opens up all sorts of opportunities
for new aspects of role-playing as PCs
deal with protection-money rackets, corrupt
city officials, orcs raiding their caravans,
assassination attempts by competitors
? and who knows what else?

SEPTEMBER 28, 1986