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Forums: Index > Help desk > Help making a player-run shop.



Hi all,

I had a question regarding ideas for the economy behind a player run shop. In our group we have someone interested in purchasing store front property, hiring an attendant, and making money. I love the idea, but am not sure how to implement it without incredibly tedious record keeping. We're using 4e and I'd like to implement a situation where perhaps the shop levels as the player does, and then they do a skill challenge to add a modifier?

Anyway, help or direction to a similar topic would be appreciated!

4e isn't really built to do this. If you'd said 3e, I'd have been able to help you, but for 4e you're making something up and messing with the way the game works.
Some of the stuff in the Dungeonomicon might still be relevant. Basically, a business is a way of getting your money before you go adventuring.
If you want to play with no impact on the 4e rules, the business makes only enough money to pay for itself most of the time. Occasionally, it generates a treasure parcel, too. Occasionally something bad happens and you have to fight/skill challenge (not recommended, the Skill Challenge rules are a fractal of failure) to keep your business afloat. The encounters generated and the treasure parcels then only have to balance out.
I don't recommend doing things that way, though, specifically because that makes running a shop no different from not running a shop. The stuff on shop running in the Dungeonomicon is edition-independent enough that you can update it without writing something entirely new, though. But be advised that if you make a shop that generates money for downtime, you're breaking the treasure parcel system where the party gets a finite amount of wealth ever. Also that the shop needs to multiply in value by (IIRC) about five every five levels, otherwise they'll stop caring about it unless their downtime increases. Finally, if you give them a machine for turning downtime into money and an infinite amount of downtime, they might decide to just do that instead for an arbitrary length of time. So the campaign has to move while they're running their shop. --IGTN 22:11, May 5, 2010 (UTC)
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