mercenary company? Thieves guild? Candlemakers Guild? Farming collective? Medieval IT Company?
could you add just a bit more specifics?
Will the characters be high enough level that leadership is an option?
Hirelings are the most realistic way to go, and they are only as loyal as the coin you are paying keeps them.
May I ask if this is a campaign where this endeavor is the crucial story element? i.e the primary 'adventures' are dealing with threats to the business, intrigue in the location (I assume a city) enticing business opportunities, and pressing the interests of the company on its rivals?
I'd be interested in whatever information you can share without spoiling anything for your players who might be reading.
I'm more interested in the fluff for this than the 'rules', I'd say get some very basic framework rules that you will work within for the players and then 'wing' everything else. Too many rules to govern this will encourage them to game the system... don't let them game a story element.
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The characters will start around level 2, so they won't have leadership.
Hirelings would make sense, yes. Thanks.
That's exactly right. The concept is that they're former down and outs in a city run by a thieves guild with a puppet king and corrupt city guards. They've found a way off the streets/out of the poor house, but their ambitions are greater than that.
I think one option is using the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, which I found last night, though I'm not sure what conversion, if any, would be required.
Also, I'd like to add in upkeep. Any suggestions for a good way to do it? 5% of the build cost?
I'd throw in a little randomness there -- 5% as a base figure but, one season there's a termite problem, raising costs; the next, one of your employees has a cousin in the teamster's guild, lowering costs. Just the occasional variance on the base maintenance fee, to keep the PCs from being too complacent about budgeting.
Also, regional events can certainly impact costs: war or pestilence can raise labor costs (and materiel, too) rather sharply, droughts make food prices rise. Conversely, a lull in ongoing hostilities due to an alliance marriage, etc., could increase local prosperity and lower overall operating costs.
And figure out the frequency of maintenance costs; I tend to work ongoing expenses seasonally, m'self, but monthly or yearly can work, too. (I find yearly a little unbelievable, while monthly can be a bookkeeping headache...)
EDIT: The maintenance percentage should be 'for the year;' the ACTUAL SPENDING is what ought to get split up over the course of the year!
And don't make the cost of ownership too prohibitive. You should want them to feel proud and protective of what they are accomplishing not burdened by a virtual money pit.
I'd suggest that most of the upkeep cost should be washed out in the profit the endeavor should be making for them.
Only take their money when they feel like they are getting something for the exchange, entice them to spend to expand, don't drown them in debt*
(*unless they owe money to a Jabba the hutt like underworld figure who 'motivates' them to adventure to cover their uncomfortable debt obligation)
The standard trope that would apply here is Perpetual Poverty. In this situation, that would mean that the company would always be getting by, but only just and the players would have to keep on top of things to keep it going (so when the ogre starts rampaging near one of their routes, they will immediately change in).
Of course, while that's fairly easy to GM, that's not always the most fun to play. It's also a fairly narrativist approach.
For the simulationist, you'd probably want to keep track of a few general categories: stable income, special income, upkeep, other expenses and banked profit.
- Stable income and upkeep would stay the same, and special income and other expenses would stay 0 unless something happened.
- The PCs should invest their banked profit in raising stable income or lowering upkeep (hiring, upgrading equipment, investigating new opportunities)
- The GM would need a short list of options with costs and how each changes income and upkeep.
- The special income and other expenses would just be one-time changes that come up in an adventure (found a rare gem, had a wagon eaten by a dragon).
Ok, I'm just rambling now. Before anything else, decide which approach (gamist, simulationist, narrativist) you and your group would prefer. It'll be easier to work out the details from there.
Most groups I have been in when a situation like this occurs put all that 'behind the scenes.' All the normal day to day work is managed by the Factor. The Factor is the only company member the PC's usually interact with. (This cuts way down on the number of NPC's the GM has to keep track of.)
The PC's hire a Factor who runs the mundane aspects of the business. The PC's can concentrate on opening new markets, investigating the shipping loses, performing industrial espionage, check on the loyalty of the Factor, etc...
The GM just sets a small ~3% profit based on invested capital and adds 1% or 2% continuous profit increase or one time ~10% increase when they succeed in one of the above enterprise related missions.
However, I have to say. Without a whole lot of GM work and creativity it usually gets pretty boring for most groups pretty quickly. You usually seem to have 1 or 2 guys that are really into it and the rest are just waiting around for something interesting to happen. The way I've seen it work best is if the business is set into the background after a few adventures. They get the periodic profits. Then maybe 2 or three times in the rest of the campaign something crops up back at the business that they need to go resolve. But it is mostly no longer in the spotlight.
I once played a bard. We were set to be in town for a bout a month. I was very high level, it was our only attempt at epic level. There were 18 tavers/venues in town. We took the average of what my perform would be and figured the average I would earn from a single performance and multiplied it out over 30 days at 3 sets a night. I would simply set up a formula like that and then through in some additional randomness dealing with employees, taxes, vandalism and other such headaches.