As a DM, it is commonplace to get all sorts of interesting requests from our players: Some want special abilities, some want to influence certain events, and some even want to live out their own unique fantasies with one of the NPCs. Recently, I was given a request for something a little less exciting from one of my players—they wanted to start a business. But if they wanted to live out the exciting life of gaining capital, hiring employees, and doing their yearly taxes, who was I to deny them?

Now, the Dungeon Master’s Guide already has a set of rules for players running their own businesses; I suppose all nerds think alike after all. However, I found these rules to be lacking in several ways and caused the players’ businesses to scale in unbelievable ways; more importantly, they scaled in unhelpful ways. Wanting to give my players the ultimate in business fantasies, I decided to design my own mechanics. I believe that these are not only more realistic but offer a far more rewarding system for all my budding entrepreneurs.

Business Level and Business Checks

Each business has a level, 1 through 5. Most businesses will generally start at level 1, though an existing business that was taken over from an NPC may start at a higher level. This level allows the players to make a business check: a d20 modified by their business level; a business owner makes this check with proficiency. (e.g., a level 1 character with a level 1 business would have a +3 modifier.)

Each level has an initial cost, a weekly cost, and a minimum number of weeks at that level before it can be upgraded to the next level. Characters must pay the initial cost at the creation of the business or when leveling it up. The weekly minimum is to prevent characters from leveling their business too quickly if they get a windfall; time spent by previous owners at the current level does count towards this requirement.

Weekly Income

This system assumes that the characters have hired the appropriate number of personnel to operate the business while they are away. The weekly cost is an abstract cost that represents the price of employing their personnel along with any other normal business maintenance.

For each week of in-game time that passes, players must make a business check on the weekly income table. In certain circumstances, this check may have other modifiers, such as a festival (granting +2), or the business being under debt (resulting in a -2 penalty). They then multiply the table result and the weekly cost to find out how they did for the week; negative values represent weeks where the income did not exceed the costs, and the result must be paid by the characters. The characters may be away from town for weeks at a time. In these cases, make all the checks for the time they are away once they return to town; not only does this simplify the record-keeping but it is also more realistic, as the characters would not be able to benefit from their proceeds until they return to town to collect them.

Projects

Lastly, the players may wish to use downtime weeks towards their business. Players accrue downtime when their character is available to the business, as opposed to out adventuring. Oftentimes, this comes between major adventures, but it could also be provided when a character is playing only one of several characters or when a player is absent from a session and their character stays in town to work on projects.

These rules are for crafting an item, though they could also be adapted into other forms of business-related projects. The first thing they will need to decide is what they are crafting; this will often come in the form of a commission. As these downtime weeks accrue, they can be banked towards a particular project (there may be multiple simultaneous projects at any given moment, but a single week can only be applied to a single project).

Variant: To prevent progress towards very difficult projects early on, they must make the appropriate artisan‘s tools check for each week they wish to bank; only weeks with successful checks may be banked.

Crafting

Once there are enough weeks banked, and the characters have the necessary capital, they may make the final crafting rolls. To do this, they must make 3 checks: a business check, a check to try to read or manipulate their customers (likely insight, persuasion, or deception), and a check with an appropriate set of artisan‘s tools. Prior to making this check, they may choose to bank an additional 25% of weeks in order to make any one of these checks a second time, for a possible 4 total successes. Consult the crafting table to determine the multiplier. Multiply this by the project value to determine the total result of work.

Example Projects

Jeweler

Photo by Rohan Reddy.