The D&D Dungeon Masters Guide is out now, and it’s a very cool resource filled with lots of new rules for treasure, magic items, world building, new downtime activities, and optional rules! Also, my name is in the play-tester credits, so that’s pretty fun :).
Anyway, instead of doing something ridiculous, like review an entire book, I’d like to focus on one specific element I found interesting, the rules for running a business during your downtime!
The idea of running a business and making extra money during downtime is pretty appealing. It’s a great way to engage with the campaign world, a fun “simulationist” way to make money, and it opens up some cool adventure hooks for the DM. For example, maybe some mysterious cloaked figures show up at your Inn, clearly wounded and seeking shelter for the night, OR maybe a group of bumbling first level adventures meet up for the first time, planning a raid on a dragon lair that will surely result in their deaths!
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In defence of the 5e DMG 'the DMG is only good for magic items.' Of the three core rulebooks, the DMG is clearly the least important. But I've still found it incredibly useful while running my homebrew campaign. It sets out how to get started for new DMs, and gives more advanced DMs the tools to tinker with the rules. Treasure in beholder city is mostly art, see DMG 5e for tables to roll for treasure. The Hive will have treasure stolen from slaves, the DM can pick these however (s)he pleases. Mac cc cleaner. If the party kills the Matriarch, they will be given epic boons by the beholder mages. Spell Sheet; Monster List; Magic Items; Encounter Size Calculator; Initiative Tracker; Random Generator; Random Dungeon Generator; Random Encounter Generator; Random Magic Shop Generator; Random Treasure Generator; Weird Fiction. Weird Name Generator; Random Generator; Science Fiction. SciFi Name Generator. The Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Player’s Handbook includes the awesome Appendix B that provides deities for running your game in the multiverse worlds of the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Eberron. It also provides the Celtic, Greek, Egyptian and Norse pantheons of antiquity. This can be a big help since creating a religion for your world can be lots of work.
Aiseesoft mac cleaner. However, running a business is a tricky mechanic to get right. You probably don’t want it to be TOO profitable, or else your PCs will be scratching their heads, wondering why they ever go on adventures. Conversely, if it doesn’t really make you any money, why even bother? Sure, running an Inn sounds cool, but if it’s not profitable, maybe you’re better off spending your character’s time elsewhere.
The folks at Wizards of the Coast gave running a business a decent shot that may work for casual play, but unfortunately it suffers from a few serious flaws when you dig into it:
With all that in mind, I put together the following house rules:
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If you crunch the numbers on these house rules, you’ll find that, absent any other factors, all businesses are profitable even without direct management. A farm makes about 1GP a week on average absent any management, and a rural Inn makes between 15-20GP a week on average. Of course, one wrong turn can send a business spiraling into the red. A single -10 modifier from an unpaid debt or unfortunate turn of events (perhaps goblins are attacking nearby trade routes) will turn a marginally profitable business into an unprofitable one, so PCs must remain vigilant to protect against any threats that arise through the course of play (or the DM’s whim).
If PCs are buying their businesses outright instead of, say, inheriting an Inn, they’ll find that absent direct management, they’ll recoup their investment within 4-5 years, which feels about right and isn’t too far from what you’d expect running a 7-11 in the real world! If they run the business non-stop or secure bonuses in other ways (such as lucrative trade deals), they can easily cut this time in half. In D&D terms, this may seem rather slow, but hey, there is SOME prestige to owning your own Inn or Trade-post, and you can always sell the property at a later date to get your money back (assuming you can find a buyer).
These rules can also be applied to running a barony or even an entire kingdom. As long as the manors and castles the PCs build or acquire come with the lands and rights to taxation appropriate to their station, you can factor in their upkeep and treat them like running any other business. Obviously, this doesn’t mean the PCs can spend 500K GP to build a palace in the wilderness and suddenly expect to start raking in the cash, but if the PCs are granted land or spend much of the campaign carving out their own little kingdom, I think it would be quite appropriate and a lot of fun. Bonuses and penalties to rolls take on a new meaning at this scale; suddenly a -10 negative represents a blight across the land or a war with a powerful kingdom that is taking its toll on the populace. A +10 bonus might represent a recent discovery of gold in mountains within the kingdom’s domain or a recent trade agreement with an exotic and faraway land.
This system is quite abstract, but I think it gives most DMs and Players the flexibility they need to fit it to a variety of different businesses and situations, including plenty of room for game events and PC actions to affect the development of the business. It’s also quite easy to manage, requiring one roll per game week and keeping track of a handful of modifiers (at most) and the current profit or debt of the business. I’m really excited to try it out in my campaign. I’d love to hear how it works for you, dear reader!
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