Greetings!

In my Central Asian-themed campaign, the Player Characters have entered the city of Sarmaghan. The city is a huge metropolis, heavily fortified, and a wealthy trade-center for many trade routes--some heading westwards, others eastwards, with more stretching off to the south, and south-west. The city is crazy-wealthy, and highly advanced, socially, economically, and technologically. So many different kinds of craftsmen, specialty shops and tradesmen are available, and fabulous goods regularly shipped in from many different markets fill the fantastic city. The great city of Sarmaghan, however, does not simply rely on exotic imports in which to build and maintain their powerful economy. Great merchant houses within the city have been keen to sponsor and promote the growth of the city's own industries, of which the city has become wealth and well-established from, with a strong reputation for crafting many of its own fine goods, high quality products, and also expensive and exquisite luxury goods, such as clothing, perfumes, jewelry, fine tapestries, top-tier household goods, and more.

One of the guys, plays a Fighter. He wants to establish a Mercenary Company--and a Fighting School, where martial arts, weaponry, and field skills are taught, maintained, and improved upon.

Another male Player Character has began to invest in establishing a Coffee House, Tobacco Shop, and a Bookstore. He also wants to become involved with the city's Wizard's Guild.

I showed the group a series of videos to give them a visual idea of clothing styles and fashion, as well as music to immerse them better in a different culture and environment.



This is an example of the band, Kesh You.

The girls are thrilled by the clothing, the fabrics, the body oil, the perfumes, feathers and furs. Different hats, capes, tunics, and of course, silks and bright colours!

The girls want to establish a Yoga Studio, a Clothing Boutique, an exotic Bathhouse and Soap Store--and a Cosmetics Shop.

The girls, in particular, are overjoyed from the entire environment of luxury, refinement, and decadence. The guys are more reserved and cautious. Clothing! Soap! Oils! Cosmetics! The girls can hardly wait to get these business ventures up and running!

Have your Player Characters started businesses in your campaigns?

Do your Players get excited about clothing, fashion, and cosmetics?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

  I'm usually that player. And I've tried as GM to support that in my campaigns, especially reminding players that treasure comes in many forms. But it really depends on your lowest common denominator at your table.

A deeply disinterested player in all but XP grinding (& combat as the means to that XP) can really kill all the breadth and depth you want to explore at your table. At some point your table should state what you are interested in exploring and then prune the table populace to those who are at the very least neutral in engaging those ideas. Some people come for naught but a beer & pretzels Diablo run... and I've found you can lead a horse to water but cannot make it drink.

But yeah, big luxuries & comforts are big money, and big business has supply chains which means big travel & big risks, which means big adventure! In fact, big supply chains for big trades is the premise for Forgotten Realms infamous Zhentil's Keep faction, which was the impetus for a good percentage of FR adventures. You just need people who can think further than their axe and what they can hit with it.

I will roll with whatever the group finds fun. It makes players care a lot more about attacks on towns when they have their money invested in businesses there. On the other hand, spending too much time running a shop and they may realize one day that they have an exclamation point over their head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iYzleuxG9E