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6 months ago ::
Dec 17, 2012 - 1:41AM
#11
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I have a simple solution for this: beer money.
That's how our gaming group deals with the hundreds of weapons, shields, trinkets, and mundane items we gather: it is where we get the money that our characters live on between adventures.
What kind of profit should they get?
What kind of expenses?
Well, if they want to retire and spend all their time as merchants, that's fine.
If all they want is coin and profit, that would depend on their risks.
Sounds like a basic question of are they adventurers or are they merchant sailors.
One ship-wreck can end their investment.
I still like the old Spelljammer system.
To me, really, ferrying cargo from one place to another is just a vehicle for the adventures--pays for the expenses of travel and maintenance of the ship, as well as the crew.
Do they need something else?
10-100gp per level of character per month (that's month of game time).
Or enough that they can buy a lvl16 item they want instead of the just the lvl15 item--floating discretionary fund.
OK, it's late, and I'm less than coherent. I think I've suggested 3 or 4 ways to handle this.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 17, 2012 - 5:39AM
#12
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Date Joined:
Mar 31, 2010
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I would give them a range of things:
A - You haul wheat/corn/potatoes/salted pork/etc. Zero risk of attacks. You gain your level x 5 in gold a week/player
B - You haul cotton/spice/rum/etc. 20% risk of attack. Players make saving throws (rp them as actions of the crew to evade being sunk). If you get to 3 fails before you get 5 successes, the ship sinks. Level x 10 in gold.
C - You haul iron/coal/weapons/money/etc. 50% risk of attack. Players make saving throws, 5 successes before 3 fails. Level x 20 in gold.
I would allow them to buy 'upgrades' that basically resulted in lowering the risk of attack and/or raising the likelihood of making the saving throw.
Places you could *upgrade: lookout/crow's nest, navigation, hull design, rudder, sail size, crew ability, captain's ability, etc.
Every session, at the start of the session I would make a roll to see if the ship got attacked. If all works out, players get the extra gold.
And finally, I might give the captain some *magical means of transporting your heroes to the ship. Should the attack be particularly brutal the captain can summon them to help repel boarders, etc. Then the rest of the session is spent on a water voyage getting the ship back to a safe harbor.
*These should all cost significant bank.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 17, 2012 - 11:05AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Apr 27, 2010
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3.5's Arms and Equipment guide had stuff for boats/vehicles, as well as mercenaries and other hirelings. It's a little extra bit on top of 4e's stuff, if you're interested.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 17, 2012 - 12:07PM
#14
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Date Joined:
Jul 21, 2004
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Money on the level of a shipping business is really just a McGuffin in adventure stories, or really in any story. The issue should be whether they can keep their ship, keep their freedom, and keep their business.
Other than that, I recommend picking up some Traveller books, which have a good system for determining trade, including mark-ups and price fluctuations. It's a sci-fi game, but is itself based on the Age of Sail. In general, don't make it about the trade, though. Describe that, and the trappings of it, enough to keep things interesting, but don't get bogged down in any details.
[N]o difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions. - L. Tolstoy
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6 months ago ::
Dec 19, 2012 - 3:25PM
#15
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Date Joined:
May 14, 2012
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How long time in-game should it take to get return on investment? How long are the voyages? How hard is it to sell the things they ship? If they do short voyages with easy-to-sell goods and you as a DM want them to get return on investment in two years in-game, then give them a monthly (in-game) income of 1/24 of the value of the ship. Are they doing long voyages with stuff that is hard to sell? Give them half the ship's value per voyage, but do it one year in-game apart.
For 4e I think that the article about strongholds in Dragon Magazine 395 and I think I have seen an article (possibly around Dragon 405) about having ships in the adventure. It included a number of items you could add to the ship (such as an alchemy lab). Since you have DDI: look for the "Mariner" theme and find the source. That should have a lot of inspiration for you I think.
Lastly I think Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium has a table of the values of different goods and the rules for hirelings from Dragon 397. The table from the emporium might be available in the Compendium as well.
This won't help with the kind of things that might happen to the ship, the hooks or the risk. But it might give some inspiration as to how you want to reason about getting the money back from the ship.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 19, 2012 - 3:32PM
#16
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Date Joined:
Jul 21, 2004
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The profit they make, after upkeep, could just be normal treasure parcels.
They could come away with a major haul, in story, and then the next "episode" finds them down on their luck again, with nothing more than their expected wealth for their level.
[N]o difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions. - L. Tolstoy
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6 months ago ::
Dec 19, 2012 - 8:35PM
#17
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Date Joined:
Sep 30, 2006
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Its always fun to build your own merchant empire or kingdowm. Transportation isn't a high return business. It generally requires a large investment for the ship and crew with people hiring shippers at the lowest possible cost. They will turn over a lot of money but profit margins are very slim. Owners are typically emplying themselves to work at a regular job. Unless they are doing some really exotic jobs or hunting down pirates they are likely struggling to keep there heads above water. I would just say that any profits are taken up by losses and expenses that come along. or there is relatively modest return. Considering how lucrative adventuring tends to be they likely won't be making a killing
Now if the ship was a stepping off point for adventures they encounter along the way thats probably where there money is going to come from
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6 months ago ::
Dec 19, 2012 - 8:50PM
#18
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Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2009
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They have a ship captain and crew and general item cost for the one ship. And they plan to add more ships to their business when they have the opprotunity. Of course, they specified that they wanted only the best of the best crew, so that would run them a pretty gold piece. But I don't know what kinda profits they'd be making off one ship.
How about one plot hook per week?
I guess the way I would handle it would be to have an agreement with the players that the money they earn shipping will all be put into increasing their fleet into an empire. Make it a completely self-contained venture that doesn't bleed over into their own treasure allocations. The only direct benefits the PCs would get would be power, influence, and increasingly profitable adventure hooks.
Basically, this is D&D, not Frigate Tycoon. That doesn't mean they can't make some money, but more importantly it should make adventure. Full disclosure - I'm the kind of guy who leaves the dragons to ravage Skyrim while I'm off picking flowers and mushrooms to level my alchemy to 100. So I understand the fun of mostly-unrelated sidequest kind of stuff, but I also know how it can distract from the reason I'm playing the game in the first place.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 20, 2012 - 1:18PM
#19
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The profit they make, after upkeep, could just be normal treasure parcels.
They could come away with a major haul, in story, and then the next "episode" finds them down on their luck again, with nothing more than their expected wealth for their level.
This - It turns out that monsters don't carry a lot of coin on them, but while the adventurers were taking care of that orc problem, their ship made a profitable trade for some +1 armor and a pair of rushing cleats.
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