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Old 06-14-2019, 05:40 AM   #1
FuelDrop
 
Join Date: Oct 2013
Default Representing a large corporate empire

So for my high point game my character is spending downtime setting up a financial empire of shell corporations, businesses ect, which are going to be "donating" money to the church my character is setting up, with themselves as the priest.

It's not exactly wealth, because even though I technically have a ton of assets I cannot easily draw upon them.

I was thinking Patron, with a very high appearance rating, +50% special power (for the social and political influence I can wield through them, and +100% for equipment they can provide.

thoughts?
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Old 06-14-2019, 07:20 AM   #2
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Representing a large corporate empire

Is it a predictable amount of money, so many $ a month? If it is, you can call it Independent Income. That's what it was designed to represent. You either cannot or will not invade you capital; you just get the income.
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Old 06-14-2019, 07:58 AM   #3
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Representing a large corporate empire

If you control the companies, it is your wealth, not an Ally or Patron. Of course, it does not matter how you hide your wealth, it is up to your GM whether or not you keep access to it. In the contemporary era, a single dedicated hacker can rip apart the finances of a company (or an individual) if they are willing to pay the consequences, and criminal organizations are quite capable of doing the same if they smell profit. The only thing that having shell companies does is that it gives hackers (or criminal organizations) the ability to steal the companies from you, given that everything is done digitally in the contemporary era.
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Old 06-14-2019, 08:15 AM   #4
Turhan's Bey Company
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: East of the moon, west of the stars, close to buses and shopping
Default Re: Representing a large corporate empire

This is likely a collection of advantages rather than just one. Patron typically operates in a limited capacity focused on your mission or job. If the character has money to throw around as they like, that's effectively Wealth. If the character has increased social clout in most or all circumstances, that's effectively Status. The character may also have Patron over and above those, but given the range and scope of what they're getting out of this deal, it sounds like a whole bundle of advantages, not just one.

By way of analogy: Bruce Wayne probably has the Wayne Corporation as a Patron. He gets to ransack their R&D, can use it as a political proxy, and so on. He also has cash to spare and personal social clout as an old-money scion of his wealthy family. And he knows talented people within the company he can use for various purposes: make gadgets, get information, and so on. This gives him Status and Wealth and probably Contacts in addition to the Patron-specific parts of his relationship with the corporation.
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Old 06-14-2019, 09:09 AM   #5
FuelDrop
 
Join Date: Oct 2013
Default Re: Representing a large corporate empire

Awesome guys, thanks.
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Old 06-14-2019, 10:08 AM   #6
The Colonel
 
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Default Re: Representing a large corporate empire

it's worth noting that having one person in charge of a corporation is quite cinematic - even the celebrity owner/founder/CEO tends to have to answer to a board "offscreen" in real life and a truly massive corporate empire is likely to be appropriately Byzantine in its higher reaches. Whilst there may be a single CEO with absolute day to day control, there will also be a CFO, CIO and suchlike, not to mention the shareholders (and I don't mean John B. Daytrader, I mean the big merchant banks that hold enough stock to fly the share price into the ground). The CEO may have the potential to do all sorts of things … but not for very long without the support of his peers.
In fact, a big enough conglomerate could well have problems telling its right hand what its left hand is doing in some circumstances - in RPG terms this can make for great plot potential.
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Old 06-14-2019, 11:50 AM   #7
Black Leviathan
 
Join Date: Sep 2018
Default Re: Representing a large corporate empire

If you're the CEO of a conglomerate large enough that it owns a church and you essentially wrote the rules of how the corporation works then it's not a patron and there isn't a significant limitation on your Wealth or Corporate/religious rank or access to high-powered allies. There is a board and share-holders but unless you're throwing away massive assets of the corporation for obviously selfish pursuits you'll have minimal consequences.
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Old 06-14-2019, 12:53 PM   #8
dcarson
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Default Re: Representing a large corporate empire

Koch Industries is 110 billion and each of the two Koch brothers owns 42%. The other 16% is a trust for the family of a earlier partner. Sp you can have large companies with few stockholders.
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