I Need A Good Scam... (and the Wicked Men to Perpetrate It...)

[Palanan]

So, I need to run a fine little scam....

I'm trying to design a quick intro session for a new player in my campaign. I've already got the hook: he finds a body, which leads him to a confidence game.

The scam idea came from a great suggestion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14366405&postcount=3) by BowStreetRunner, and I'd like to flesh it out, but I'm just not the best person to design a scam. So, I could really use some help with a plot to ensnare the new PC. Here's the deal:


1. The character is a fifth-level beguiler who's disguised as a wandering bard. We're in the Moonshaes, so there are no large cities; rural settlements in the wilderness are the rule.

2. In the Moonshaes, bards are lionized (and sometimes tigerized) but other arcane casters are fiercely persecuted. Whatever the beguiler gets himself into, he has to solve it without revealing that he's not really a bard....

So, I really need help with this. Any ideas? How do you fleece those countryfolk?
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[Threadnaught]

He finds the body, turns out it's a begger the cons picked up off the street, cleaned and dressed up all nice, before killing. The shmuck doesn't know this though.

Some shmuck finds the corpse and finds some insignia on an amulet or something. Turns out the begger is now a very rich man, who has no heir. Because of this the shmuck is now entitled to his estate, everything he had, the begger of course, was very rich but never kept his home in good condition, so for a small fee the cons will hire workers to make all the necessary repairs while the shmuck claims his fortune. Shmuck pays and cons disappear while he's standing around in an empty house wondering when people are coming to fix his new home, nobody comes to make any repairs, guards arrive to arrest him for being an arcane caster.


How's that one?

[Lord Il Palazzo]

Does anyone know Magic Aura? You could use it to make some random item look very magical and sell it. If you know anyone who can cast Identify, you could find a chump with more gold than sense and offer to sell him a "magic" coin (or hat, or whatever). Offer to sell him the "magic" coin, take him to the local tavern (the one where all the advenurers meet at the starts of campaigns) and ask if anyone can identify the magic item. Your buddy (who the chump doesn't know is your buddy, of course) volenteers. You give him the pearl he needs to cast Identify and buy the chump a drink while you wait for him to finish the spell. Once the item's been certified by your "impartial third party", pay the "third party" for his spell casting services and start talking price. You don't need to get much out of the chump; anything over the cost of the pearl (100 gp) and the drinks (a couple silver if you tip generously) is profit. Try to set your price according to what the chump looks like he can pay, but don't be afraid to be haggled down a little.

(This could work without the Identify guy, but you'd have to ask a lower price since the item hasn't been "certified".)

You don't even have to reveal to the chump that you can cast spells and the "impartial third party" only casts one spell that's on the bards' list.

[Story]

There'd probably be a Spot check to notice the body is actually a begger. At the very least, a noble is going to have soft hands, nicer teeth, and the like.

[Threadnaught]

There'd probably be a Spot check to notice the body is actually a begger. At the very least, a noble is going to have soft hands, nicer teeth, and the like.

I did say they cleaned him up a bit, plus it's implied he's a bit of a miser. Which is why his home is the old ruined house just outside town. So any checks involved with discovering his true identity, using the body alone would be quite difficult, especially when the cons take the body away for framing the shmuck a proper burial.

Any more problems? Anyone who asks how the cons knew the Bard wasn't really a Bard, will be arrested for being Arcane Casters. So I can escape with their money. :smalltongue:

Even if they're just some poor Commoner. :smallamused:

To sweeten the deal, they could plant some magical looking item somewhere, something that appears to be part of some necromantic ritual, in the house for the guards to find.


This con suffers from good Sense Motive checks on part of the shmuck and any interaction between the shmuck and people who aren't in on the con. The cons would obviously want to convince the shmuck to stay away from those not involved once they've filled his head with the stories they want him to hear. Granted, the cons could benefit from showing off the insignia for a week or two beforehand to get people to point a shmuck in their direction.

[Palanan]

Interesting ideas here, thanks--although some of them might need a more populated area. I'm thinking the spot will be a crossroads tavern with a couple outlying cottages, not much more. There are assarts and tiny hamlets scattered within walking or riding distance, all in the midst of wilderness.

Something to do with a deed of land, perhaps? Most of the people here can't read, so a deed to an old assart would be valuable, but it would need to be verified....

[Hyde]

the problems with scams in a rural setting is assumed intimacy. If you're the new guy in a town where everyone knows everyone and something goes missing or wrong, you're the guy they're gonna point to.

No, the best bet is to scam an entire village, especially some with some otherwise priceless but not really religious artifact, that sort of thing.

A lot of these are setting specific. Are you scamming the player, or is the player doing the scamming?

[Jerthanis]

Two best cons I've heard of, both of them I've gotten from Fantasy novels:

1.) You walk into a bar/diner/whatever with an instrument, order food and eat. When you go to pay, reach for your wallet and realize you have no cash. Insist you leave the instrument with them as collateral and that you'll return with money. After you leave, have your backup ask to see the instrument and declare that it is a priceless masterwork piece, worth easily 50 times what it's actually worth, and that if your backup wasn't on his way out of town immediately, he'd scrounge up the money to buy it or whatever. Leave the guy to consider for a while and when you come back with the money for your meal, let the guy offer to buy the instrument from you, thinking he's ripping you off.

2.) Offer some guy a ridiculously good investment opportunity, then have your backup pretend to be a special investigator looking to trap you (the conman) and send you to jail, and that to nab you and your accomplices, they just need to be able to follow the money, and so they need to keep giving you (the conman) further money. This supposed special investigator guarantees they will get all their money back in a matter of days, it just needs to go into your pockets first. They'll be only too happy to keep giving out the money, since they think they're contributing towards catching you.

[mattie_p]

Oldies are goodies. Have the scam artists sell magic beans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_and_the_Beanstalk). Are they real? Up to you - whatever is better for the story.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Hyde
Are you scamming the player, or is the player doing the scamming?

The idea is that the PC will walk into a scam in progress, and he can either join the scam or work to subvert it. I'm just having a bear of a time coming up with a scam.

[Hyde]

So something a little more long term than penny grifts.

Hmm, something like a reverse salting scam would work.

The cons have convinced the local townsfolk that there's gold in the mountains after bringing back some raw ore and have begun selling claims to the area, along with supplies, etc. for the townspeople to dig themselves, because there's just too much gold for them to handle on their own. And, don't tell anyone else I told you this, but we have a special super-secret and totally not fake map of the best spots, for a small premium...

The character finds evidence, or the body of someone who figured it out, whatever. He turns the characters in, or... he flips the scam on them. He buys a claim and goes through the motions, and just so happens to "find" his own raw ore. As a PC, he probably has some way of generating a good enough fake to fool commoners, and even the grifters, or maybe he has to make a small investment.

Either way, the reason he's had such success is because he has developed new mining techniques and tools, which he's willing to share... for a price.


At this point, he can turn a small profit just by using the set-up the true cons have provided, or he can take it further.
plant "successes" among the other miners. word of this reaches back to the cons, and suddenly they're the rubes. Who knew there was actually gold on the mountain? What's this guy know? We've got enough plots left, maybe we should mine them ourselves... and that's when you have them.

You sell them the rest of the very rare and expensive materials required to reproduce your "work" for a handsome sum and skedadle.


..is one possibility.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You know, given that Bards are somewhat lionized here, the Music Man scenario comes powerfully to mind...

You know, selling instruments to children's parents for ridiculously outrageous prices, claiming that there is an enchantment on the instruments which will help their children learn to play with the same skill as a master bard!

The body he finds is the low-level sorcerer they got to put Magic Aura on the instruments so they would actually register as being enchanted, but then got greedy and tried to blackmail them, with a shiv for his efforts.

Now, the clock is ticking. The cons know that they need to make their sales and get gone before the spell wears off (days/level).

At this point, the player has several options. The first is to denounce them as frauds, clearly being an authentic bard, with no self-interest involved at all. He might even try to play one, fail horribly at his perform check, and declare that they are actually cursed, or at least maliciously enchanted to prevent anyone who uses it to be able to do so with proficiency.

Or, he might ask for a cut of the take in exchange for his endorsement. After all, what sells better than useless crap with some star's signature on it? With his endorsement as a 'bard', he could easily make the rest of the instruments sell like hotcakes. Heck, he's got Glibness available to him, so he could easily fast-talk with the best of 'em, and even be able to bypass compel truth/detect lies/zone of truth. Yes my friends, you've got trouble right here in River City...

Of course, he would be wise to use Alter Self to assume a different face so that when the instruments turn out to be false, he isn't burned at the stake. But hey, that's for HIM to figure out.

A third option for him would be to stall them until the Magic Aura spells wear off, or even shake down the con men, saying either they pay him a cut of the take, or he stalls them until the Magic Aura spells wear off.

[Threadnaught]

I think Shneekey has the best idea. My idea would be decent, but it uses the PC as the mark. Or as I call them, shmuck.

[Ashtagon]

He finds a body, which has an inheritance deed to claim a country villa, and coincidentally looks just like one of the PCs. The villa doesn't exist. It was a trap set to capture the dead guy. Dead guy was on his way to collect the fake inheritance but was waylaid en route by random wandering monsters. The fake inheritance was there to capture the guy, who was being hunted as a necromancer. If the PCs try to claim the fake inheritance, they will be forever known as necromancers.

Classic campaign hook.

[Palanan]

Thanks to everyone for the great ideas; there's a lot of good options here. Choices, choices. :smalltongue:

Shneekey's option is hilarious, and it's actually perfect for another PC in my campaign, who's an actual bard. It's a great scenario, and I think I'll be using it as a side-plot later on, because it fits the other PC so well. It's not quite appropriate here, because it requires parents who can afford to buy instruments for their children, which is a little out of reach for the local economy.

For right now, I think I'll be going with Hyde's option, since it involves gold and wilderness, which fits ideally with the setting. I'll take a page from Shneekey on this one, though: the body is a local ranger who decided to check out the site for himself, realized it was a setup, and then tried to confront the scam artist on his own...without realizing the con had a partner.

So, the con is selling information about the site, somewhere up in the forested hills. Here's his story:

He tried to make a go at it himself (he says), but injured his leg and can't make it back up there, not before the word gets all around. So, he's willing to take a loss--a heavy loss, mind you--and sell his deed to the assart for a fraction--an absolute fraction!--of its true value.

One of the "travellers" asks him a few pointed questions, and the con admits he could probably travel to the nearest large town and negotiate a higher price for the deed there...but it's a difficult overland journey, and with his injured leg he might not make it. By the same token, he can't simply guide a prospective partner to the site; he'd only be a terrible burden and slow them down, and speed is essential if we're going to stake our claim.

The "traveller" agrees, and retires with the con to do a little "negotiating," since the con has several good spots marked out, and he's ready to sell his discounted claims--at a loss, a tremendous loss to himself, but what can you do?--to anyone who's ready to invest in a sure thing. And not a day's walk away, at least for a healthy young fellow. Who's interested?

I'm thinking the con is a rogue 1/bard 1, while his "traveller" friend is a rogue 1; they're not likely to be any higher than that. The con maximizes Bluff and related skills, while his accomplice is as much of a backstabber as possible in a first-level build. Any ideas on their details?