Questions Regarding an inn

We purchased an inn from a city for a steal. (the owner thought the city was going to be sacked and burned so he sold it for almost nothing). Now that we’ve saved it we’re trying to figure out how to price it out. If we wanted to staff it and just collect revenue how would we figure out the average take of an inn say every month? If we wanted to sell it how would one figure out the cost of an inn + the various pieces of equipment in there?

It’s pretty abstract and not specific to inns, but this thread may be useful to you:

http://www.autarch.co/forums/general-discussion/mercantile-investments

Hm. I think everything you’d need is in ACKS.

Value of the structure would be determined from it’s construction, drawn from the stronghold building rules in ACKS or D@W. Sale price ought to be drawn from some combination of a market class modifier and what the expected profits from the place would be, which you could take out of the mercantile investments thread.

To fully model an inn, however, off the top of my head and not at all fleshed out:

  1. Determine construction of inn via stronghold building rules - that gives you your maintenance costs on the building.

  2. Determine capacity. I’m not sure myself yet, but I bet starting with D@W’s unit capacity rules can tell us something, but I’m pretty sure that’d have to be cut in 3/4 or 1/2 to make some breathing room for people.

  3. Determine average customer load. We know from the Mercantile Ventures section how many merchants come into the market at any given month - if we pretend for the purposes of this exercise they’re all travelling, and some may stay at your inn. If we further posit that “merchant” is codeword for the Man, Merchant monster entry, we know how many guards and assorted hangers-on are traveling with them, so we have a travelling customer base to draw from.

We furthermore know the numbers of mercenaries each month in a market from D@W, and specialists & henchmen from ACKS, there’s more customers, under the assumption the random results represent those people traveling through.

  1. Reputation! There’s optional Rep rules over in the downloads area. The inn should have a CHA score, and those rep rules plus reaction rolls should determine who comes to stay at your inn. People who have pleasant experiences will have a bonus to this roll in the future (which is why my wife insists on Holiday Inn Exp. when we’re roadtrippin’, despite inconvenient highway exit locations/distances) and the higher your rep the better chance people new to the town will stay there.

  2. Once you know who your customers are for the month, you know what to charge them for meals and rooms from the Equipment section.

  3. Labor costs. Most of these will be laborers at 3/gp month, maids, waitresses, cooks if you’re not fancy enough (there’s probably some breakpoint on meal quality where a Craft(Chef) is required). Without doing the math, there’s probably a trick to be done dividing the upkeep costs of the building between the monthly labor costs to get how many people it takes to run the joint. You’d probably also hire out a Profession(Innkeep) specialist to run the place.

So at the end of each month, (Food + Room Rent) - (Labor + Upkeep).

That being said, the quickest way to make a million dollars is to start with 2 million dollars and open a restaurant. Dragons are much easier to deal with than that business.

Realistically, running a restaurant is a tough business.

ACKS’ economy is so realistic, all the adventurers are retired innkeepers.

Ba-dump bump.

Your waitstaff are under-employed bards waiting for their big break into Hollyburg. Your line cooks are surly ex-fighters and barbarians who all rolled badly on the Mortal Wounds table, except that f’n roundsman who’s all high and mighty with his ranks in Alchemy, like it matters during the breakfast rush when we need eggs, not potions. Then there’s that one hostess who’s an apprentice at the local mage tower who can’t keep her schedule to save her life.

And you swear the legumier moonlights as an assassin. Carrots don’t need to be cut with a garrote, but you’ll be damned if he doesn’t seem to manage to get a crinkle on that cut anyway.

“When the forces of the underworld rise up, the only man who stands a chance is one who knows the inns and outs of the culinary business. Along the way he’ll be braised and battered, but he’ll make the cut. Hells Kitchen: A new campaign for ACKS: (Adventurer Conqueror Kitchen System.) coming next summer.”

Just want to remind everyone that ACKS does already have rules for this. “Restaurateur” is one of the example professions listed under the Profession proficiency on pg. 63. Just in case you were doubting Alex’s mad genius.