How does the "upkeep" phase work?

[holiday_hawk]

Sorry if this is the wrong section, this is my first post. Alright, so I have a player who wants to open up his own store (multiple businesses actually), so I'm looking over the rules to see how it functions. From what I see, the only expense to add into upkeep is any employees he has hired. So is there no way to lose money from a business, assuming you keep few enough employees on hand?

[Lathiira]

Well, first you untap all your permanents in the untap phase. Then you...oh, wait, wrong game :)

[Philip Knowsley]

Hiya,

In the actual KM kingdom building rules, there aren't any for the situation
you're trying to describe.

There are a separate set of rules in the Campaign(?) guide, which you will need
to run separately from the kingdom building per se.

(well - at least I think so, as I haven't read all of the rule sets for a while,
so it may have crept in there somewhere...
If so - disregard my comments above.)

Happy hunting.

Cheers

[Mackenzie Kavanaugh]

Basically, yes. The only expenses other than any building manager(s) a character may have hired to maintain their business in their absence are those expenses you as the GM rule they must pay. In Kingmaker, however, most such potential expenses simply don't make sense. Taxes would be paid essentially to yourself, the land isn't owned by some other lord who wants a regular cut, and if the kingdom's Spymaster is doing an even half-decent job, there's no need to pay protection money to the local thieves' guild.

It IS possible to lose stuff to attrition and events, but the first is only an issue if the character is absent for extended periods of time and/or has a disloyal building manager, and the second is generally offset in the long run by positive events. Do note that a building manager IS important in Kingmaker, as the character will be too busy to run their business for at least one week each month, and will often be absent for 1-3 weeks at a time when going exploring.

As a further note, the Downtime rules from Ultimate Campaign assume that you are rolling every single day, and that's just plain ridiculous. Condense everything into weekly rolls, dividing by 2 instead of 10 for income, and just assume that one event takes place every week and roll randomly to see what it is. That means four downtime periods per month, one of which is guaranteed to be spent on kingdom management, but the players' businesses can still earn income that week if managed by an NPC or cohort.

[shadowkras]

On downtime system (which can be run separatedly from kingdom building), the upkeep phase is important if you hired managers (people to boss your minions around), because thats when you must pay them. They must be paid daily, or in advance. Otherwise they are gone.
Managers can keep your business running for longer in your absence. They also have certain skills that could be useful to your character.

Also, every 7 days away, something will happen to decrease the value of your business:

Quote:

For every 7 days you were away from the settlement (whether downtime days or normal days), reduce your Goods, Influence, Labor, and Magic by 1 each (minimum 0). This decrease represents spoilage, theft, allies moving on or having higher priorities, workers finding other employment, and so on.

Hiring a manager delays that 7-day period to 14-days.