Proposed New Business System

The current business system is imho too complex and the one described in the Eastern Bank has no depth. After some thought I have come up with the Business Building Rules V3. I'm not going to implement them just yet, I'd rather let everyone have a read of them and see what you think of them.

Each business is treated more like a character and uses the stats, XP system, trainings and skills as used to play people in the Brutal Engine system. Each business should have its own character sheet.

Returns on Business each week
Each week the business makes a returns roll. It is based on a Stat + Skill with bonuses for market conditions, agent trainings, etc. The stat and skill used is based on the business and is decided on business creation.
The profit made that week for the business owner is: Level of business x XS x 100 credits
Note: A failed roll causes the business owner to lose money as the XS is a negative number.

If an agent has bonuses to their businesses for any reason (e.g. trainings, profession, being E.I) these only apply if they spend a minor/major action (of any kind) with the business to show they are involved.

Business Creation
To create a business takes a major action and a successful (Intelligence + Business) roll in downtime. The XS of this roll is awarded to the new business as XP.

Base Stats: 5,4,3,3,3,2,2 distributed as desired. They represent abstract concepts, such as intelligence of employees, ability to withstand damage, speed to react to market changes.

Base Skills: 5,4,4,3,3,3,2,2,2,1,1,1,1 distributed as desired. These are the skills that the business draws upon and that can help the character.

Trainings: Select one non-combat training. This can provide a benefit to the business or access to a training the owner does not have during downtimes.

Business Level: Business level is calculated like agent level. For every 10XP earned the business will go up a level.

Training Businesses
A business can be trained like an A.I:

Management - A major action can be spent by the owner to improve the business by rolling Int + Business. If the roll is a success the business earns XP equal to the roll's XS, minus the level of the business.
Natural Growth - This results from a successful business return roll. Each successful business returns roll earns +1XP for the business.
Investment - Rapid growth can be performed by spending 1,000,000 10^(Business Level + 1) credits per XP, to a maximum of the investor's Business skill per week. This enables outside parties to make a business grow by investing in addition to the owner, but this can be less efficient than effective management.

Using Businesses for Non-Business Activities
Businesses can be used during downtime to grant bonuses to action rolls and access to trainings that the owner does not have.

Trainings
A character can perform an action as if they had a training which the business has. For example, if the business has the Underground Ops training then the owner can use the black market and look for contacts as if they had the training, provided that they go through the business to do so.

If both the user and the business have a training then actions using that training gain +4 to rolls. For example, if the character and the business have the xeno-technology training then they can get a +4 bonus to reverse engineering xeno-technology while using business facilities and staff.

Business Skill Checks
A business can use some of its resources to help a character, at the cost of reducing its business return roll that week. The amount of resources used can change depending on the exact situation and form of assistance, but generally you can ask for Menial, Minor and Major Assistance:

• Helping with Menial actions are free, and do not affect the business in a significant way unless the actions are illegal, dangerous or in someway important. For example, getting an intern to do some very simple research or go on a simple shopping trip for you. This doesn't usually grant any bonus, but can free up time for the character in charge.
  
• Minor Assistance takes an important business asset away for several hours or days. It can grant a bonus up to the business's skill in the relevant field, but earns a penalty of the same number on that week's business returns roll. For example, you could assign an important researcher to work for a day on your personal project instead of the company's next big product.
  
• Major Assistance represents yelling "Everybody get in here!" and having your employees drop their normal business to help you. This can cause serious problems for the weekly business return roll, but can mobilise a scary amount of resources for an important task.
  The business can grant up to the relevant (Stat + Skill) as a bonus to the rolls for a task, at the cost of taking this as a penalty for the week's business returns roll.
  

Can you spend money, or other resources, to get a boost to setting up a business? I was thinking of stuff like an Ad campaign, or a huge opening event.

I really like the system, and think it could work well in other games. The only carvat would be the investment system; 1,000,000 per xp is a lot, even by Oracle standards, and would probably need to be adjusted in a less high income game, but other than that, I like it.

How would this affect established businesses which have already had a LOT of investment and time poured into them, for example Phoenix or Reflexion?

Fenris wrote:Can you spend money, or other resources, to get a boost to setting up a business? I was thinking of stuff like an Ad campaign, or a huge opening event.

This would be a boost to a business returns roll rather than setting it up. Starting the business could be made easier by hiring a business consultant to do it for you.

Darya wrote:I really like the system, and think it could work well in other games. The only carvat would be the investment system; 1,000,000 per xp is a lot, even by Oracle standards, and would probably need to be adjusted in a less high income game, but other than that, I like it.

Yeah, I think it needs a scaling system so it costs exponentially more to improve a business at higher levels but much less at low levels. Maybe 10^(Business Level + 1) credits per XP instead? That way small businesses can be built up quickly but large businesses just need more time.

HanJi wrote:How would this affect established businesses which have already had a LOT of investment and time poured into them, for example Phoenix or Reflexion?

The long-winded way of working with them would be to add up all the money spent on the businesses so far and see what level they come out to, then spend the XP and stuff. Failing that we can make something up to approximate the business. Things like NPCs, buildings and things are unaffected by the change.

I really like this subsytem, it seems like a very elegant way to have more complex businesses.