What are these rules I remember for running a PC-owned business?

Question

One of my players wants to start a small business from a wagon to earn a little coin on the side. I can remember having seen rules for this, but I can't remember where.

It contained a table where you cross reference your business' location with the venue to determine the base costs/earnings and had to perform a business roll every week. The result determined your profits/losses based on the base earnings. The roll would be modified by things like the amount of hours you were personally present at your shop.

It even had rules for criminal organisations and the risks that come with it (running a 'protection' business in a large city was highly profitable but also very risky for instance).

There was a also a table for random events and a list of ideas for interesting plot hooks.

I can't even remember if it was a d20 or percentile based game, but if this rings a bell for anyone, what was it?

Answer 1

I'm not sure if it's exactly what you saw, but I've found that the Reign Company Rules found in the Reign Enchiridion are a good way to structure business in any system.

In the system you create an company/organization with it's own stats (such as finances, member loyalty, and productivity) which can take a certain number of actions in a given time period. Actions include things along the lines of hostile take overs, spying on competitors, and dealing with suppliers/buyers. You can even have an army if you want!

However, Reign is a really big and complex system, if you are looking for something a bit simpler the DND 5e DMG provides tables for purchasing buildings, maintenance costs for business, and even a percentile table to see if (and by how much) the business profits (DND 5e DMG pgs. 126-129). With a little bit of work you could probably adapt it to any RPG system as well as add flavor to the percentile success table (ex. "00-20 | You must pay one and a half times the business's maintenance cost for those days" you could say that the you had a robbery of supplies or that you had a fire in the stock room, etc.)