Adventuring Is All Business for 5E D&D with Acquisitions Incorporated

July 3, 2021

Acquisitions Incorporated/ Dungeons & Dragons/ Previews

The other writers and I enjoyed covering Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft in deep detail so much we decided to do it again. The campaign setting books for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons do a masterful job providing all the tools and resources players need to create unique experiences within each particular environment including tremendous inspiration, encouragement and guidance for developing your own ideas. Now we’re turning our attention to my favorite book of the bunch — Acquisitions Incorporated. Let’s get into it.

Dark office comedy for 5E D&D

The preface to Acquisitions Incorporated presents a special message from the founder of the fantasy organization Ominifus Hereward Dran. The longtime D&D character of Penny Arcade co-creator Jerry Holkins came about for a one shot adventure aimed to demonstrate 4E D&D prior to the edition’s release and I was hooked immediately way back then when watching or listening to D&D games for entertainment wasn’t even a thing yet.

The gist of an Acquisitions Incorporated game is adventure for profit. The eponymous group of adventurers took the naming of their adventuring company quite literally. Over the years as the characters grew and developed so too did their business, evolving into a truly unique style of play. Thanks to the Acquisitions Incorporated book 5E D&D players everywhere can guide their characters towards acquiring not only fantastic powers but also expert business acumen through dark office comedy in a world of swords, sorcery and of course dungeons and dragons.

It’s Just Business

New franchise members begin orientation for their future fantasy business endeavors with details on how to start a game and play 5E D&D in the Acquisitions Incorporated style. I am on record many times as an advocate for incorporating relatable real world concepts into games so the idea of considering adventure villains as rivals in the resource and economic arena is a homerun in my eyes.

In a lot of ways this style is an updated version of D&D’s earliest roots with hirelings and a focus on gaining wealth. Framing these and similar concepts within the structure of an actual functioning business within the game’s setting creates a powerful connection between the characters in the party who might very well be wildly different people. By becoming franchise operators together they share an important and powerful bond.

The conceit of Acquisitions Incorporated is the party are a newly formed franchise of the titular organization with all the benefits and drawbacks this entails. But like the rest of the terrific campaign setting books for 5E D&D there’s plenty of awesome material to pick apart and use as a group sees fit whether they create their own brand new business with no connection or mention to Acquisitions Incorporated or they go all in with the rich and robust people, places and objects described in the book and various media featuring the original group.

“Our integrated Intern Success Pathway is a robust, unparalleled system for reliable growth year-on-year while maximizing your downstream.” — Omin Dran, from a sidebar in Acquisitions Incorporated

A Corporate Prospectus

Acquisitions Incorporated does a wonderful job contextualizing the metaplot created by the players over the years within the game space. The book even touches on the progression of typical low level adventures escalating to greater threats and opportunities for growth both as a business and on an individual basis. Essentially a campaign in this vein is not much different than standard 5E D&D adventures. The difference is primarily in how adventure opportunities are presenting and the motivations of the characters involved. (At least so far — things get quite interesting as you’ll discover in later posts.)

The structure for this sort of campaign does offer a fantastic hook on which any 5E D&D can hang their adventuring hat due to the premise of running a bonafide business. As long as the characters in the group understand the profit motivation as a collective then everything else remains pretty much the same. From a DM perspective this makes incorporating any sort of quest really simple by attaching a lucrative business opportunity. Likewise the rest of the players have no trouble justifying why their characters would pursue these quests — the money!

acquisitions incorporated franchise 5E D&D

With its roots set firmly in heroic fantasy, D&D might feel out of sync with modern-day business dealings. But the game and its settings are actually a perfect fit for such tropes. What better way to think of the big bad monster at the center of a web of even bigger and badder plans than as the CEO of a megacorporation, using every resource to dominate the market? What is an adventuring party but a limited-liability corporation, with each member contributing specialized skills to growing the brand and expanding a power base? — From Acquisitions Incorporated chapter 1: It’s Just Business [Image courtesy Wizards of the Coast]

Fast Franchise Generator

This is where an Acquisitions Incorporated campaign starts to come together in a much more concrete way. A series of tables provide suggestions for various aspects of the group’s business as well as any rival organizations they might encounter. My longrunning 5E D&D Spelljammer game was already deep into the campaign when this book came out so the group already came up with a lot of these details organically. I found this book very useful and helpful for developing similar organizations for them to interact with though.

The following tables are self-explanatory for what sort of information they provide so for fun I’ll roll on each one and share the results. Perhaps the outcome can become an adventuring company in your own games. There’s a distinct tongue-in-cheek quality to these tables and the quirky results serve as engagements points for players.

Franchise Logos or Livery. The silhouette of a catoblepas. I’m already thinking this company corners the market on Death Cheese!
Headquarters Locations. A multicolor waterproof canvas stretched over a succession of jutting stone columns. Within, it always appears to be late spring.
Headquarters Quirks. One staircase leads to two different places somehow.
Memorable Majordomos. A sinister figure who sticks to the shadows and respond always to requests with, “Yes, master.”
Reliable Connections. “Mustard” Micah: Famous for being able to get goods and people past any blockade. Provided you don’t mind said goods or people smelling strongly of mustard for the next month.

Factions and Rivals

Competition breeds excellence and in the world of fantasy dark office comedy adventure an array of adversaries keeps characters driven to succeed. Acquisitions Incorporated presents several of these organizations straight from the various arcs played by the Penny Arcade team including the titular group of heroes, of which the book presumes a group of players forms a franchise. These are not fleshed out the same way as a faction described in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. There’s no renown tiers or benefits from rising through the ranks. Coming up with those details could certainly add a whole new layer to this style of campaign but as you’ll see in later posts there’s a wholly distinct advancement track and in my experience players love it.

Acquisitions Incorporated. The premiere adventuring business it’s no surprise they consistently push the envelope of what’s possible for this approach to questing.
Dran Enterprises. The primary rival to Acquisitions Incorporated this powerful organization includes deep connections to that business and seeks to better them in both the dungeon and the boardroom.
The Noble Knife. I’m not familiar with this one in terms of whether it came up during Penny Arcade’s games or not but my takeaway is they’re sort of like the League of Shadows from Christopher Nolan’s Batman movie trilogy. The organization takes its name from a unique kind of magical weapon they employ to go about their zealous work.
The Silver Sliver. Another one I hadn’t heard of outside the book this organization operates in stark contrast to the general premise of these adventures — they’ve got no profit motivation! This makes them an interesting faction to include because their perspective is a complete reversal of campaign goals making them totally unpredictable.
The Six. I really appreciate how each of these sample factions is truly different in perspective. The concept here is a very on the nose reference to Spider-Man’s enemies the Sinister Six. Basically a loose collection of individuals wronged by the protagonists along the way they band together to create a stronger oppositional force.

This’ll wrap up our first foray into Acquisitions Incorporated as a preview of the general concepts and ideas presented in the 5E D&D book created in collaboration with Penny Arcade. Keep an eye out for other posts where we’ll take a close look at the character options in the book including a new layer of features tied to Company Positions, methods for Franchise Advancement, the monsters and vehicles unique to this campaign style and the terrific adventure inside the book. You’ll be able to navigate these posts using the Acquisitions Incorporated link above the post’s title.

*Featured image — Ominifis Hereward Dran, CEO of Acquisitions Incorporated, leads an assault on an illithid lair in this vibrant piece. Acquisitions Incorporated has made every legal, moral and arcane attempt to ensure the safety of the information contained in the book. That being said should an employee meet their end in the service of Acquisitions Incorporated they do reserve the right to reanimate the employee to perform light office tasks. Maybe they should read the contracts more carefully. [Art by Mike Krahulik]