Chris - Archon’s intern & a player in my White Sandbox - wanted to see a table of events that might make a mini-game out of the process of being a shop owner in a city. Both he and another player in our campaign have done this as part of carousing, so I can attest there’s interest in it! Here is the table he drafted:
1 City is growing rapidly
2 Cities growth has stagnated
3 Abundance of guilds in need of your merchandice
4 Flourishing trademarket
5 Stagnant trademarket
6 Abundance of natural resources
7 Lack of natural resources
8 High trade taxes
9 Low trading taxes
10 High shipping fees
11 Low shipping fees
12 High import/export fees
13 Low Import/export fees
14 Must payoff local thugs for “protection”
15 Payoff local law enforcement
16 Receive endorsement from respected citizens
17 Received endorsements from irreputable citizens
18 Unfaithful production/supply line
19 Very reliable supply/production line
20 Questionable quality of Materials
21 High quality materials
22 Lots of Competition
23 No Competition
24 Political/racial/economic strife splits customer base
25 Neighborhood is becoming dangerous
26 Neighborhood is getting better
27 Unpredictable weather forces you to close shop and/or slows the amount of customers
28 Good weather, shop is open more, more customers around
This table will either be used once when setting up shop in a city or monthly to see how your shop is doing.