Hello again! I have a couple of new questions regarding how different GM's handle additional income outside of the normal adventure sessions you play through with your groups.

As of right now my team has about 40k in credits stored away, a new Wayfarer cargo ship (they traded their yt-1300 for it), and they started a homestead on Ryloth outside of New Meen where LAotH took place.

They "liberated" the compound that was being held by the goons that were messing with the people of New Meen, and then bought the land from the Ryloth government along with the buildings on it. So far they have a barracks, a cantina, they have built an enclosed hanger bay for their ship, and are building a store so they can provide general items to the people of New Meen as well as sell some things they find.

My questions revolve around the following:

1. How much should they earn per month with the Cantina/Store & how do you go about calculating that (dice roll?)
2. How much should they be paying the employees who work at these places and the cost to restock
3. Since they have liked this idea of building up a constant stream of income...how would I be able to limit what they make so they don't get too much money and become too wealthy for what kind of adventures/missions they are asked to do because they think it's below them

And my last question is a multiple part question:

4. They want to start using their new larger ship for a "legit" shipping business, I had one PC say "Well we can do at least 1 run per day, and if we don't meet for 2 weeks then we have roughly 13-14 deliveries we can charge for...right?"....and on that thought I figured they might be able to run a couple of these types of side-missions in-between games but...
a) how many are too many?
b) How much would these pay out?
c) Should I make them buy the "Fly Casual" source book to get more info as to how much each type of mission pays before allowing it to go forward?

Any help with these questions would be greatly appreciated!

Best rule of thumb is that off-session income is matched with off-session expenses. Sure, they do those runs but that's not extra money, its what keeps the consumables stocked and pays the employees.

Hello again! I have a couple of new questions regarding how different GM's handle additional income outside of the normal adventure sessions you play through with your groups.

As of right now my team has about 40k in credits stored away, a new Wayfarer cargo ship (they traded their yt-1300 for it), and they started a homestead on Ryloth outside of New Meen where LAotH took place.

They "liberated" the compound that was being held by the goons that were messing with the people of New Meen, and then bought the land from the Ryloth government along with the buildings on it. So far they have a barracks, a cantina, they have built an enclosed hanger bay for their ship, and are building a store so they can provide general items to the people of New Meen as well as sell some things they find.

My questions revolve around the following:

1. How much should they earn per month with the Cantina/Store & how do you go about calculating that (dice roll?)

2. How much should they be paying the employees who work at these places and the cost to restock

3. Since they have liked this idea of building up a constant stream of income...how would I be able to limit what they make so they don't get too much money and become too wealthy for what kind of adventures/missions they are asked to do because they think it's below them

And my last question is a multiple part question:

4. They want to start using their new larger ship for a "legit" shipping business, I had one PC say "Well we can do at least 1 run per day, and if we don't meet for 2 weeks then we have roughly 13-14 deliveries we can charge for...right?"....and on that thought I figured they might be able to run a couple of these types of side-missions in-between games but...

a) how many are too many?

b) How much would these pay out?

c) Should I make them buy the "Fly Casual" source book to get more info as to how much each type of mission pays before allowing it to go forward?

Any help with these questions would be greatly appreciated!

I'm just starting my campaign, so as a GM I don't have much experience there.

However, as a player I like to setup "renewable" sources of income as well as ways to gain unique equipment and be able to modify gear to make it better.

Just curious, have you looked at the Sourcebook Far Horizons? That has some of the rules for setting up businesses/homesteads.

A better question from my perspective is what are the PCs going to for New Meen and other settlements?

The big problem with the runs is that it isn't necessarily going to be from the New Meen settlement, which will have limited trade. They'll be going to either the Ryloth capitol or do runs for the Hutts or other criminals. Unfortunately, depending on how they do things, that means they could be making enemies as well. These enemies will get wind of the base and New Meen, which will put a big target on the NPCs.

At least, this is something I would consider as a player.

And my last question is a multiple part question:

4. They want to start using their new larger ship for a "legit" shipping business, I had one PC say "Well we can do at least 1 run per day, and if we don't meet for 2 weeks then we have roughly 13-14 deliveries we can charge for...right?"....and on that thought I figured they might be able to run a couple of these types of side-missions in-between games but...

a) how many are too many?

b) How much would these pay out?

c) Should I make them buy the "Fly Casual" source book to get more info as to how much each type of mission pays before allowing it to go forward?

Any help with these questions would be greatly appreciated!

These are my thoughts:

If they want to use the larger ship for a legit shipping business, any runs made during the time span between sessions should be considered break even, just like HappyDaze says. Now if they want to make some serious money with the shipping business, consider devoting at least part of a session doing the job. If they want more money, they have to work for it. Have them take the ship out to move a large and rather valuable cargo and give them problems and encounters. Enough for a mini-session but don't make it a whole session unless that is what they would like to see.

if they have really dedicated to this new mercantile lifestyle, you may need to change your planned campaign to adjust to what the players want to see, Some big business deals, corprate espionage, hostile takeovers, pirate raids...etc.

A good way to curb some of that "we get infinate money!" mentality is to actually make them roleplay out all that stuff they want to do to get that money. they don't just "do a run", they have to find some cargo, find a buyer, astorgation checks, possible pirate raids, backstabbing customers, and all that.

1. How much should they earn per month with the Cantina/Store & how do you go about calculating that (dice roll?)

I don't have my book with me, but there's guidelines in the Colonists book that goes in on how much profit a business makes. Honestly, it's not all that much - after buying all the add-ons, they'll make about a thousand a month per player, plus a bit more if you have a Master Merchant working the books.

2. How much should they be paying the employees who work at these places and the cost to restock

That thousand a month? That's all profit. Paying the employees, restocking goods, covering business licenses and fees, other miscellaneous expense - that all comes out before the players get their cut.

If you absolutely have to have a roll, have someone roll their Negation skill once a month. They still get paid regardless, but lots of success means they have a good month, while a bad roll means that it was kind of a lean month, profits are down slightly.

3. Since they have liked this idea of building up a constant stream of income...how would I be able to limit what they make so they don't get too much money and become too wealthy for what kind of adventures/missions they are asked to do because they think it's below them

Why do that? If the players have managed to put in a lot of time, effort, planning, Experience Points (if someone picked up Entrepreneur) and 'screen time' into making a successful business - and the GM comes along and takes that away from them because "You need to stay hungry", that's a dickish move on the part of the GM. F' that - let them reap the benefits of their hard work. Tailor your games to work with where the players want to go. Let the universe evolve instead of trying to keep it static.

Just because they have money doesn't mean that their problems go away. That just means that they have all new problems!

The main thing to go along with this is time in-game =/= time in real life. For instance, let's say the group is mainly doing transport/smuggling jobs. An adventure where they run into pirates, or a rival smuggling operation, or have something go wrong with the ship (think "Out of Gas" if you're a Firefly fan), is going to be a lot more fun and interesting than "FedEx: the RPG". The time spent on a fun adventure may only be a few hours or a couple days for the characters in-universe, but the adventure may last over a few sessions, taking weeks of real-time for the players.

If your game is episodic, think of it like Firefly or a similar TV show. You don't see the number of jobs that go off without a hitch, because that would be boring. The players want to play through the interesting bits, and then days or even weeks go by between "adventures". If several sessions go by and the PCs have only made a small sum because they only completed one or two jobs while in-session, the players may feel that their characters are stalled and they'll never reach their goals.

This is where side-jobs and downtime come in for my group. The PCs get paid for the uninteresting bits as a real business in-universe, with payment associated with the time that has passed from the characters' perspective. The players only play through the interesting bits, which is a fraction of the time the characters are actually working. This way, the players aren't bored by roleplaying through uneventful jobs, but they still feel like they're progressing with respect to time in real life.

Best rule of thumb is that off-session income is matched with off-session expenses. Sure, they do those runs but that's not extra money, its what keeps the consumables stocked and pays the employees.

This is how we do it too. Living on the fringe is a zero sum gain. If they are actually making money in their off-session activities then we role play it away with things that don't impact the game. Expanding the shipping fleet, buying better quality stuff (food, booze, clothing, ect), having and furnishing living spaces, investments towards retirement, and things like that. The only credits the characters in the games I play in get to use for adventuring (buying new ships, weapons, ect) are the credits acquired during adventuring. Note that we also assume that the credits earned during adventuring is actually greater than what the players get, it's just that everything else is eaten up by overhead and living expenses so we just don't talk about it. We're playing Star Wars, not Star Accounting.