Investments, Business Ventures, and getting the players involved with the world.

To my surprise, several players in my game have independently decided to open businesses.

LotFP has rules for investments, but apparently that's too hands-off for players who will give me a list of the wagon prices, wages, and other sundry costs they're paying per month for their speculative mining business.

And thus, this.

Grab the pdf here and the word doc here.

As per LotFP, you choose (or if you don't know, the DM chooses) a level of risk.

Choose between Stable, Risky and Wild. This table might help.

Risk	Maximum Monthly Growth	Risk Dice
Stable	10%	3d6
Risky	20%	2d6
Wild	100%	1d6

Hey woah, what are risk dice?

The idea is that more dice skew towards the middle result or whatever.

On 1d6 you've got an even chance of every result oh no.

On 3d6 you're likely getting a 9-12.

So here's the risk table.

Safe (3d6)	Risky (2d6)	Wild (1d6)	Risk Table
-	-	1	Bankrupt! Lose every last copper piece.
-	2	2	Terrible Catastrophe. -1d20% value.
3-4	3	3	Major Calamity. -1d10% value.
5-6	4	-	Mild Setback. -1d6% value.
7-8	5	-	Bad Omens. -1d4% value. -2 to next risk roll.
9-12	6-8	-	Business as usual. +1% value.
13-14	9	-	Encouraging Signs. +1d4% value. +2 to next risk roll.
15-16	10	-	Good Fortune. +1d6% value
17-18	11	4	Excellent Luck. +1d10% value.
-	12	5	Massive Windfall. +1d20% value.
-	-	6	Huge Profits! +1d100% value.

As per LotFP, an accountant gives you an extra +1d10% profit, but takes 5% of money handled as payment.
Damn accountants always know exactly how much to charge.

Isn't this still hands-off, just laid out in a different way?
Ahah! Not quite. The big advantage of this versus regular LotFP rules is that I can give people bonuses or penalties to this risk table based on their actions.

So if someone's failed career is pie making, they'll get a +1 to their pie business.

If someone dies and transfers their holdings to their successor character, a change in management is going to mean a -2 or whatever.

If there are zombies everywhere they'll get a penalty until it's sorted out. If a competitor's business mysteriously collapses, they'll get a bonus.

Just play it by ear, you're good at this shit.

If your business venture is Wild you've got way more risk but your actions will have way more impact, and vice versa for a Safe investment.

The other change from LotFP investment rules is that the investment matures every month, not every year. My campaign doesn't usually move quick enough for yearly stuff to matter, but a month tends to be every few sessions so it works out fine!