Tricks to Con PCs and NPCs.

[Reprimand]

Hi, I'm trying to make a con man npc who making money with nothing but social skills and craft checks.

I was hoping to get some ideas from fellow players by telling stories of how they got conned by their DM or fellow player! Try to use exact wording or a scenerio.

Let me start:

The drinking game you can't lose!

Involves 3 large mugs of any type of alcohol you can drink without passing out and a shot glass filled for the opponent and a large sum of money. The idea is to goad the person into taking your bet.

the rules are: You cannot touch the other persons glass, use any powers or spells of any kind during the match, or move shake otherwise disrupt the game, outsiders cannot help you.

You must drink 3 mugs of whatever before they can drink the shot glass but they have to give you a two drink head start
after you finish the first glass.

You place the empty glass over the shot glass so they cannot touch their glass. The drink the rest of the booze at your own pace and collect your loot from the poor mook.

This may result in a tavern brawl, so call the guards and and explain the situation to the guards (DIPLOMACY CHECK!!!) and if you pass collect your loot and be on your way.

A DM did this to me before I even knew the rules for social interaction.

tell me what happened to you!

[Gwazi Magnum]

Sadly I don't know of any good tricks in that regard.

Though I was alerted recently to a background feat called Mercantile Background so you can sell things for 75% of their value rather than for 50%

So if you're looking to simply make more gold off of your loot than that's something you can do.

[koboldish]

Involved a bit of magic, but I have been conned into buying several items of Nystuls Magic Aura (I know I spelled the name wrong).

[Mutazoia]

Hi, I'm trying to make a con man npc who making money with nothing but social skills and craft checks.

I was hoping to get some ideas from fellow players by telling stories of how they got conned by their DM or fellow player! Try to use exact wording or a scenerio.

Let me start:

The drinking game you can't lose!

Involves 3 large mugs of any type of alcohol you can drink without passing out and a shot glass filled for the opponent and a large sum of money. The idea is to goad the person into taking your bet.

the rules are: You cannot touch the other persons glass, use any powers or spells of any kind during the match, or move shake otherwise disrupt the game, outsiders cannot help you.

You must drink 3 mugs of whatever before they can drink the shot glass but they have to give you a two drink head start
after you finish the first glass.

You place the empty glass over the shot glass so they cannot touch their glass. The drink the rest of the booze at your own pace and collect your loot from the poor mook.

This may result in a tavern brawl, so call the guards and and explain the situation to the guards (DIPLOMACY CHECK!!!) and if you pass collect your loot and be on your way.

A DM did this to me before I even knew the rules for social interaction.

tell me what happened to you!

I'll tell you one I pulled on a DM:

During an obligatory stop over at a tavern, our party fighter decided to get into a boxing match with a half-Ogre. Every one started placing bets on the match, naturally all the NPCs were betting on the local boy. I bet quite heavily (1000gp) on our fighter. The DM gave me 100-1 odds against our boy, counting on the half-ogre's superior strength and HP to carry the day. Once the boxing matche started my character (Cleric/Thief) stood at the edge of the cleared out space waiting for the fighter to knock the Half-Ogre back into the crowd. When he did I pushed him back into the "ring" saying "come on you ugly oaf LOSE!" casting "sugestion" just as I said LOSE. Naturally with no save the oaf immediately took a dive and I cashed in BIG time.

Or the time we took a standard Longsword, cast magic aura and continual light on it and set my Bard up in a small stall in the market to sell it...as he's dickering about the price with the mark two of the other pc's come over and "whisper" just loud enough to over hear that this "idiot" (my Bard) is selling a holy avenger for cheap...he obviously doesn't know what he's got, and as soon as this guy passes up the sword they'll buy if for the 500gp asking price and make out like bandits. The mark paid the 500gp for some crappy longsword we picked up off a dead bandit.

[Lightlawbliss]

convince the fighter to buy a sword without seeing it just based on the enchantments and sign a peace of paper for it making it so he can't force the guy to refund him without knowing what he was doing (diplo check) and the sword turns out to be impossible to lift (make it out of the heaviest material you can find and enchant it so it has some form of increased weight). to seal the deal, have it in a location that if it moves at all, it will cause damage to your shop(which u can sue for more then the cost to fix it).

[Flickerdart]

You place the empty glass over the shot glass so they cannot touch their glass. The drink the rest of the booze at your own pace and collect your loot from the poor mook.
http://penny-arcade.smugmug.com/photos/i-Pc5hjMv/0/950x10000/i-Pc5hjMv-950x10000.jpg



I'll tell you one I pulled on a DM:

During an obligatory stop over at a tavern, our party fighter decided to get into a boxing match with a half-Ogre. Every one started placing bets on the match, naturally all the NPCs were betting on the local boy. I bet quite heavily (1000gp) on our fighter. The DM gave me 100-1 odds against our boy, counting on the half-ogre's superior strength and HP to carry the day. Once the boxing matche started my character (Cleric/Thief) stood at the edge of the cleared out space waiting for the fighter to knock the Half-Ogre back into the crowd. When he did I pushed him back into the "ring" saying "come on you ugly oaf LOSE!" casting "sugestion" just as I said LOSE. Naturally with no save the oaf immediately took a dive and I cashed in BIG time.
What part of "lose the fight" is "worded in such a manner as to make the activity sound reasonable"?

[Mutazoia]

What part of "lose the fight" is "worded in such a manner as to make the activity sound reasonable"?

This was 2e..so it was basicly a 1 word command that the subject had to obey (so if you told the person to "DIE" they wouldn't die but would lay down and pretend to be dead or fall asleep...actual example in the PHB btw). So commanding him to LOSE....he lost...he dropped his guard, let the fighter land a haymaker on his jaw faked a KO.

[BowStreetRunner]

As a rule, any good confidence game (con if you prefer) that is performed in a setting where the usual interaction between PCs and NPCs seems to always involve someone killing someone else, must involve duping the mark in such a manner that he does not actually realize that you were responsible for conning him at all. If he does, then you might as well have tried to straight up rob him at sword's-end, because it will still come down to who kills the other guy.

Here are a couple of decent cons that might work in a D&D setting:

Salting a mine - 1) acquire ownership of a mine or other such property; 2) 'salt' the property with a few valuable gemstones; 3) create a situation in which a mark wealthy enough to purchase the property finds the salted stones; 4) allow the mark to purchase the land (at a price well above its actual worth) without allowing them to become aware that you know anything about the gems. Even when the property turns out to have no more than a few precious stones, the mark should never realize the stones were planted by you in the first place, thus they will simply believe the mine didn't pay out, not that they were duped.

Curing a curse - 1) find a mark who has recently experienced some misfortune; 2) bring the mark into contact with a 'fortune teller' who will inform the mark that he/she is the victim of a curse; 3) direct the mark to a 'curse breaker' who will lift the curse for them (this is either done for a high price, or the mark is led to believe that some valuable must be sacrificed for the curse to be broken). When this con is complete, the mark will be free of any curse (since there was no curse to begin with) so should not be aware he/she has been duped.