How to fleece money from the party through dodgy accounting practices

[SpamCreateWater]

Note that this has been cleared with the DM.
Please no posts that this is badwrongfun. Thank you.

My character is slowly working their way into the hearts of the party members. Unfortunately for them, he is a con man. Luckily for them, he is not a particularly good one (he will, inevitably, be found out due to his past catching up to him, or getting too greedy).
His latest scheme will be to become the quartermaster and self-proclaimed accountant of the party.
He will keep two ledgers. One will have the amount of money found and split between the "general party fund" (paying for party supplies) and each individual's share. His second book will show how much he has actually given each to the party fund or each individual member and, therefore, how much money he has taken.

This game is face to face. To make it more interesting I will give out pouches containing coins and a bit of paper on it that shows how much they have received. Obviously, this presents a problem for the plan if they go and show one another how much they get. So, how do I make it more difficult for them to clue on to my plan - even in the off chance they do show one another their slips of paper?

We have no goody-goody up-tights in the party as evidenced by the fact that we travel with a homicidal nutter (yes, this is a PC calling another PC a homicidal nutter) that no one has thought to hand over to the authorities. However, I only think one of them would be happy with assisting me in my endeavours; and he is not to be trusted with anything that is sharper than a tennis ball or sturdier than a piece of lint.

For the less moral characters I can:
Start by giving them the money that is fleeced, hopefully buying their silence.
Periodically give them a bonus for whatever their end goal is.
Tell another party member how much they have in the pouch, and then give the less moral character a larger amount.

For the strongly religious characters:
Tell them I have tithed the non-believers for the services that the church/religion has given us via their presence - my character has been introduced as a religious person himself.

For general piece of mind:
Purchase trade goods/gems and give them in amongst the money I hand over, making it more difficult to track exactly how much they have been given. This works extra well if I have my own stock of non-perishable goods that I purchase on the cheap in one town, but get a higher sell price in another.
Give differing amounts of gold, silver, copper, etc. Have a reason for doing it - perhaps the copper pieces go to those who like to gamble within the party. In this example they should be happy I'm looking out for them and encouraging them to gamble away less of their money.

So, any more ideas? I will use my funds, initially, to trade between towns - or, with the consent of the party, use the party funds that would usually be set aside for accommodation. This will confuse the situation even more as they will be unaware of the amount of money generated by this.

[Hrugner]

Having done this accidentally, I can say you're on the right track. I found the most beneficial way to keep the funding situation ambiguous was to keep the cash in scrolls and to stash hordes without going through them immediately only pulling the horde out of a bag of holding when it was time to turn it all into scrolls. Ask the players what they're saving the money for and talk to the players about letting go of some of their share early in order to buy players things they need earlier than if each individual was saving on their own. At a certain point the question will be "how much money do we have on hand" rather than about each player's specific wealth, and at that point you have complete control over the funds. Specific questions can be answered with how many scrolls you have versus how many you'll need for each purchase so you can set goals and state progress without giving clear amounts of gold at any time.

Doing this accidentally meant at about level 13 being able to tell the party that 10 levels of shrewd savings and trading had brought us enough wealth to buy up several expensive magic items the DM had placed in a store window to tease us with.

[Corran]

Give them their proper share, and steal from the party's trust fund (convince them to accept a big enough sum of gold for the party's trust fund, as this way you will be able to steal more, and it wont show that easily). Try to justify more expenses than you actually made for starters. If you want to go even further, then take even more from the trust fund, so that it will be actually less than its theoritical (and false, if you follow my previous suggestion) value. If you are confronted about this, say you invested some of the party's funds so you can double/tripple/etc it. They wont be happy, but it more likely that they will not kill you, if you manage to comvince them that you can get it back (or better, if you convince them that they will be benefited from this; have a make-up story about the investment at the ready). If that last one happens, then at the first opportunity....... RUN!!!!!!

[Azgeroth]

firstly, this IS badwrongfun!!

secondly, in no way do i condone, or agree with this kind of behaviour..

that said, this is how you do it..

accountancy!

double book keeping..

first book, all ins and outs, money earned, treasure gained, assets, etc..

all moneys, treasure, services and assets recorded in the book with a brief descriptor of where it came from and the time date time it was acquired, and sold/spent/lost. (its good to categorise these, food and board, equipment fitting/maintenance, equipment, high value currency, low value currency, gems, metals, etc etc.)

second book, you 'average' the incoming and outgoing over a period.. example, you just spent 1000gp on plate for the paladin, but that plate is going to last at least a year, so actually its on the books at 100gp pcm. you stay at an inn, it costs u 1gp, but on average your stays cost you 5gp, so it goes down at 5gp (also the stays that cost 10gp, go down at 5gp)

through this, you have one book with actual sums and statics, in the other, you have a total available capital, which you can manipulate very very easily, allowing for some... breathing room... in your finances.. this is all yours, and if you do it right, it will take a forensic accountant to figure it out.

so your actual money says you have 2000gp, but your second book says you have 4000gp available, this is normal, due to the pala armour example. this way, none of the players will be able to discern what money you actually have.

your welcome..

[Glorthindel]

I've done this before (although in hindsight after the campaign ended, a couple did say they wondered how my mage was getting such a massive library and alchemical lab!).

My secret was to make things as convoluted and complex as possible - the more numbers, divisions, additions, and subtractions, the less easy it was for people without the paperwork in front of them to be entirely sure how much they should be receiving.

Basically, I took in all gold, magic item, gems, and liquidised everything that wasn't being kept. We had a standard rule that "role-specific equipment" wasn't deducted from a persons share, so being the party wizard, I already had a slightly sneaky outlet by being a bit loose over what defined a "spell component" (most gems appear as a spell component somewhere). Then the trick was to ensure as many "shares" existed as possible, and if at all possible, make it a difficult number (anyone can split an amount of money in to 4/5/10 shares, but splitting something in to 17 shares, of which each player gets 3, makes figuring out in your head what you should be expecting much more difficult).

You do this by assigning different "expense" accounts for shared party costs, with different proportions depending on the deemed expense (ie: the accommodation account will see more uses, but needs considerably less banked into it than the ressurrection fund, while the tithe and bribery accounts need somewhere between the two, so you can't just make all shares equal), and if the party has NPC hirelings (with classes and levels, I'm not talking about the torchbearer here), sitting them on a percentage rather than a fixed fee further complicates matters, since the percentage needs to be taken out before share splits... unless they will benefit from the accommodation or ressurection accounts, then those shares need to come out first, then the percentages, and only then the player character shares. Good luck to any suspicious character trying to follow your financial trail then :smallamused:

[JAL_1138]

Since plenty of others have already suggested shady accounting and bookeeping practices, I'll suggest working on a bit of fast talking, bluffing, obfuscating, and confusion-fu.

Abbott (http://youtu.be/f7pMYHn-1yA) and Costello (http://youtu.be/MS2aEfbEi7s) demonstrate a few techniques...

[SpamCreateWater]

Thank you for your replies so far!

Edit: Added responses to Hrugner and Corran


Having done this accidentally, I can say you're on the right track. I found the most beneficial way to keep the funding situation ambiguous was to keep the cash in scrolls and to stash hordes without going through them immediately only pulling the horde out of a bag of holding when it was time to turn it all into scrolls. Ask the players what they're saving the money for and talk to the players about letting go of some of their share early in order to buy players things they need earlier than if each individual was saving on their own. At a certain point the question will be "how much money do we have on hand" rather than about each player's specific wealth, and at that point you have complete control over the funds. Specific questions can be answered with how many scrolls you have versus how many you'll need for each purchase so you can set goals and state progress without giving clear amounts of gold at any time.

Doing this accidentally meant at about level 13 being able to tell the party that 10 levels of shrewd savings and trading had brought us enough wealth to buy up several expensive magic items the DM had placed in a store window to tease us with.
Interesting. So, in part, be horrible at accounting too by leaving everything until it's all a mess :smallbiggrin: That sounds exactly like my character.



Give them their proper share, and steal from the party's trust fund (convince them to accept a big enough sum of gold for the party's trust fund, as this way you will be able to steal more, and it wont show that easily). Try to justify more expenses than you actually made for starters. If you want to go even further, then take even more from the trust fund, so that it will be actually less than its theoritical (and false, if you follow my previous suggestion) value. If you are confronted about this, say you invested some of the party's funds so you can double/tripple/etc it. They wont be happy, but it more likely that they will not kill you, if you manage to comvince them that you can get it back (or better, if you convince them that they will be benefited from this; have a make-up story about the investment at the ready). If that last one happens, then at the first opportunity....... RUN!!!!!!
The 'RUN!!!' opportunity will, hopefully, be much later in the game. I still have a ways until I feel my character is complete enough to give to the DM - there is a lot more havoc to create, and some to fix. But it's a strong end possibility for my character and has been talked over with the DM.
The 'trust fund' is definitely a target, and ambiguity in expenses is a must. I can only hope that if I'm found out that it's by the one I cannot trust - because I can trust him to be a part of it, and I can always blame him if others find out :smallbiggrin:



firstly, this IS badwrongfun!!

secondly, in no way do i condone, or agree with this kind of behaviour..

that said, this is how you do it..

accountancy!

double book keeping..

first book, all ins and outs, money earned, treasure gained, assets, etc..

all moneys, treasure, services and assets recorded in the book with a brief descriptor of where it came from and the time date time it was acquired, and sold/spent/lost. (its good to categorise these, food and board, equipment fitting/maintenance, equipment, high value currency, low value currency, gems, metals, etc etc.)

second book, you 'average' the incoming and outgoing over a period.. example, you just spent 1000gp on plate for the paladin, but that plate is going to last at least a year, so actually its on the books at 100gp pcm. you stay at an inn, it costs u 1gp, but on average your stays cost you 5gp, so it goes down at 5gp (also the stays that cost 10gp, go down at 5gp)

through this, you have one book with actual sums and statics, in the other, you have a total available capital, which you can manipulate very very easily, allowing for some... breathing room... in your finances.. this is all yours, and if you do it right, it will take a forensic accountant to figure it out.

so your actual money says you have 2000gp, but your second book says you have 4000gp available, this is normal, due to the pala armour example. this way, none of the players will be able to discern what money you actually have.

your welcome..
I'll be honest, I don't think this approach will work. If they want to see the book, they'll want to see the book that has the exact amounts - they will not care about the other book. And I'm not so versed in accounting jargon that I can sufficiently confuse them so that they believe the amount of money we have isn't the amount of money we have.



I've done this before (although in hindsight after the campaign ended, a couple did say they wondered how my mage was getting such a massive library and alchemical lab!).

My secret was to make things as convoluted and complex as possible - the more numbers, divisions, additions, and subtractions, the less easy it was for people without the paperwork in front of them to be entirely sure how much they should be receiving.

Basically, I took in all gold, magic item, gems, and liquidised everything that wasn't being kept. We had a standard rule that "role-specific equipment" wasn't deducted from a persons share, so being the party wizard, I already had a slightly sneaky outlet by being a bit loose over what defined a "spell component" (most gems appear as a spell component somewhere). Then the trick was to ensure as many "shares" existed as possible, and if at all possible, make it a difficult number (anyone can split an amount of money in to 4/5/10 shares, but splitting something in to 17 shares, of which each player gets 3, makes figuring out in your head what you should be expecting much more difficult).

You do this by assigning different "expense" accounts for shared party costs, with different proportions depending on the deemed expense (ie: the accommodation account will see more uses, but needs considerably less banked into it than the ressurrection fund, while the tithe and bribery accounts need somewhere between the two, so you can't just make all shares equal), and if the party has NPC hirelings (with classes and levels, I'm not talking about the torchbearer here), sitting them on a percentage rather than a fixed fee further complicates matters, since the percentage needs to be taken out before share splits... unless they will benefit from the accommodation or ressurection accounts, then those shares need to come out first, then the percentages, and only then the player character shares. Good luck to any suspicious character trying to follow your financial trail then :smallamused:

Ugh. But that means I have to keep track of everything :smallsigh: Hmm. The complexity may actually help certain peculiarities of my character and enforce beliefs others have of him. So I'll make as many steps as possible, alternating between flat amounts and percentages.

I will need to bring in some patter about equality and fairness. The fighting characters have their armour and weapon maintenance costs, and the cleric has their spell components and religious expenses/tithes. Once they agree, my trap is set. I, being a horrible "munchkin", (will) have 3 different casting classes AND be on the front lines.* This would mean I have armour and weapon maintenance, religious expenses, wizard books, and spell components from 3 different classes amongst other things.

*My relative power level is already taking a dive compared to everyone else - I won't get 3rd level spells until ~11th and damn do I do a small fraction of the damage the melees do.



Since plenty of others have already suggested shady accounting and bookeeping practices, I'll suggest working on a bit of fast talking, bluffing, obfuscating, and confusion-fu.

Abbott (http://youtu.be/f7pMYHn-1yA) and Costello (http://youtu.be/MS2aEfbEi7s) demonstrate a few techniques...
I initially thought you were referencing Tony Abbott and Peter Costello, two Australian politicians :smallbiggrin:
I will have to see how I can work these in. My character is, currently, a man of very few words; which is, in part, why he was such a horrible con man.

[Christian]

One method that any con artist would know is the short-change scam. Look it up for some examples of how it works ... You'd kick it off with something like, "This bag of party funds is getting awful heavy--too much silver and copper in it. Can one of you guys change some of it for gold or platinum?" A couple of reasonable sounding exchanges later, they've traded two GP for 101 CP, and no clue what just happened. A bit easier to get away with, at least temporarily, than the Bud Abbot version--even Costello picked up on it pretty fast.

Although a bad con man might try it anyway. "Hey, can you give me two golds for an electrum?"

[JAL_1138]

Something that might be fun could be to try to get some of it (quasi-)legitimately. Learn some IRL "bar bet" tricks, and wager with the rest of the party for in-game currency instead of cash.

[SpamCreateWater]

One method that any con artist would know is the short-change scam. Look it up for some examples of how it works ... You'd kick it off with something like, "This bag of party funds is getting awful heavy--too much silver and copper in it. Can one of you guys change some of it for gold or platinum?" A couple of reasonable sounding exchanges later, they've traded two GP for 101 CP, and no clue what just happened. A bit easier to get away with, at least temporarily, than the Bud Abbot version--even Costello picked up on it pretty fast.

Although a bad con man might try it anyway. "Hey, can you give me two golds for an electrum?"
This would be difficult as there is no way to get away with this both OOC and IC. I should have mentioned this, but I want it to be a surprise for both the players AND the characters. Most of them are new to RP and there's really only one person that I may consider able to keep OOC and IC knowledge separate.



Something that might be fun could be to try to get some of it (quasi-)legitimately. Learn some IRL "bar bet" tricks, and wager with the rest of the party for in-game currency instead of cash.
I will, eventually, have levels in Sorcerer for the odd Subtle Spell. I plan to use this as often as possible to hoodwink them :smallbiggrin: Gambling is a well established way to pass the time with this group, so it should not be too much trouble.

[Saeviomage]

Just make sure that it's clear that it's your character in control of the party funds, and not you, the player. I know that in a lot of games I play, a player is responsible, and it's assumed that the player will be honest with this sort of stuff, regardless of the character that they're playing. It's about making the most of game time playing the game instead of having to do accounting, not about our characters being blase about their cut of loot. If someone were to take that role as a player, and then try to say they had ripped us off, it wouldn't fly: just because the player volunteered to do the sums, doesn't mean their character is actually looking after all the money.

[GorogIrongut]

Be overt, without being too blatant, at the beginning of this con about your honesty. Find a few instances where you show your party members that not only are you willing to put in the energy of keeping track of the funds, but that you're also willing to be honest to your detriment. By doing this at the beginning... you may lose out on some gold and some gems... but you will gain their trust and have freer rein to pilfer later on. They will consider you so trustworthy that it's not worth their time to look over your shoulder.

If you don't already have a specific deity, choose to 'act' like you worship a deity who champions balance, equity, justice, etc. Hope your DM doesn't decide to actually have you meet that deity (this could lead to incredible roleplaying fun). Make a lot of your non financial actions adhere to the rules of said god. If you are strict about making sure that only criminals are punished/killed, then your group will think you're equally as venal in other aspects of your life.

Be charitable. I know it sounds counterintuitive to give money away in this scenario, but by being charitable you accomplish a few things. You:
-convince your party that wealth means little to you. You would rather use it to help others than be a thieving pikey.
-create an in built excuse. If someone does notice the funds are low, you can apologize and say that you'd mistakenly given away more funds than intended. Players get grumpy when they're stolen from. Players are more forgiving when it's an accident that benefits charity.
-create one of the key pillars of money management. You need to be able to 'launder' money. Be a champion for charity and not only do you have fluidity but you can begin soliciting funds from others. If you start taking in funds for causes from nobles, etc. then you've got a relatively large source of funds both in and out of party. Pretty soon not only are you laundering funds, but you're able to skim off the top of everyone. Take a small percentage and no one will ever notice.
Best of all, you're considered a paragon of virtue. You get invited to all the parties. Your name becomes synonymous with good deeds... People begin to value your opinion. All while you're getting rich.

So to summarize. You have to spend money to earn money. And don't forget to think big.

[Contrast]

To make it more interesting I will give out pouches containing coins and a bit of paper on it that shows how much they have received. Obviously, this presents a problem for the plan if they go and show one another how much they get. So, how do I make it more difficult for them to clue on to my plan - even in the off chance they do show one another their slips of paper?

I think you're trying to take the wrong approach here.

Trying to give people different amounts or directly lie to people about how much they should be getting leaves you wide open to getting challenged/caught and its going to be difficult to argue your way out once they don't trust you anymore.

What you need to do is set up a system so you are responsible for managing the party funds, buying items and selling items. Maybe come back after a few shopping trips bragging about how you made a good deal on something and made a profit - be known as the guy who has the contacts to get things (actually doing so is irrelevant). So if the fighter needs a new suit of armour, he comes to you, you go off and return with a new suit of armour and deduct the appropriate amount from his share. You find a load of gems, you go off and come back with the cash you exchanged for the gems. If the DM is in on it one way of encouraging this behaviour would be to enforce money weights which discourage people from just carrying around all their own money. Then you simply always over/under report. Sold the gems for 10g each? Say you sold them for 8g each and pocket the difference. Armour cost 50g, say it cost 60g and pocket the difference.

Everyone thinks they're getting their fair share and as long as you don't gouge any particular trade too much you can probably just wave any queries away by saying the merchant was greedy or over/under supplied and wouldn't haggle. This of course requires your DM to agree to play along to a certain extent - you may want to do the actual buying and selling between sessions so you don't tip the other players off. It also requires your DM to put some wiggle room on the prices in the rulebook as if everything is always the exact price stated except when you're involved its obvious something weird is going on.


That all said, if as you say the other players are new and aren't good at separating character and player actions, I would suggest dropping a number of sizable hints that your character is not to be trusted sooner rather than later (I would suggest before you even start the scheme). Trying and failing to scam the party is just as much of a character arc as scamming the party and without the potential hurt feelings :smalltongue:

[SpamCreateWater]

Just make sure that it's clear that it's your character in control of the party funds, and not you, the player. I know that in a lot of games I play, a player is responsible, and it's assumed that the player will be honest with this sort of stuff, regardless of the character that they're playing. It's about making the most of game time playing the game instead of having to do accounting, not about our characters being blase about their cut of loot. If someone were to take that role as a player, and then try to say they had ripped us off, it wouldn't fly: just because the player volunteered to do the sums, doesn't mean their character is actually looking after all the money.
This is a good idea, thanks. Especially because it seems to have fallen on me mostly due to out of game actions and has migrated to an in game thing.



Be overt, without being too blatant, at the beginning of this con about your honesty. Find a few instances where you show your party members that not only are you willing to put in the energy of keeping track of the funds, but that you're also willing to be honest to your detriment. By doing this at the beginning... you may lose out on some gold and some gems... but you will gain their trust and have freer rein to pilfer later on. They will consider you so trustworthy that it's not worth their time to look over your shoulder.

If you don't already have a specific deity, choose to 'act' like you worship a deity who champions balance, equity, justice, etc. Hope your DM doesn't decide to actually have you meet that deity (this could lead to incredible roleplaying fun). Make a lot of your non financial actions adhere to the rules of said god. If you are strict about making sure that only criminals are punished/killed, then your group will think you're equally as venal in other aspects of your life.

Be charitable. I know it sounds counterintuitive to give money away in this scenario, but by being charitable you accomplish a few things. You:
-convince your party that wealth means little to you. You would rather use it to help others than be a thieving pikey.
-create an in built excuse. If someone does notice the funds are low, you can apologize and say that you'd mistakenly given away more funds than intended. Players get grumpy when they're stolen from. Players are more forgiving when it's an accident that benefits charity.
-create one of the key pillars of money management. You need to be able to 'launder' money. Be a champion for charity and not only do you have fluidity but you can begin soliciting funds from others. If you start taking in funds for causes from nobles, etc. then you've got a relatively large source of funds both in and out of party. Pretty soon not only are you laundering funds, but you're able to skim off the top of everyone. Take a small percentage and no one will ever notice.
Best of all, you're considered a paragon of virtue. You get invited to all the parties. Your name becomes synonymous with good deeds... People begin to value your opinion. All while you're getting rich.

So to summarize. You have to spend money to earn money. And don't forget to think big.
Oh yes, I will start off being a paragon of fairness and equality. But, eventually, the ability to exploit the trust will be too big of a draw for him. I plan to make this a long term issue for him and the party - discussions with the DM have led to the idea that the character could be cursed. A spirit/demon will appear to my character when others are not around and play on his weak morals - this ties in with the trail of destruction he's left behind him in his back story.



I think you're trying to take the wrong approach here.

Trying to give people different amounts or directly lie to people about how much they should be getting leaves you wide open to getting challenged/caught and its going to be difficult to argue your way out once they don't trust you anymore.

What you need to do is set up a system so you are responsible for managing the party funds, buying items and selling items. Maybe come back after a few shopping trips bragging about how you made a good deal on something and made a profit - be known as the guy who has the contacts to get things (actually doing so is irrelevant). So if the fighter needs a new suit of armour, he comes to you, you go off and return with a new suit of armour and deduct the appropriate amount from his share. You find a load of gems, you go off and come back with the cash you exchanged for the gems. If the DM is in on it one way of encouraging this behaviour would be to enforce money weights which discourage people from just carrying around all their own money. Then you simply always over/under report. Sold the gems for 10g each? Say you sold them for 8g each and pocket the difference. Armour cost 50g, say it cost 60g and pocket the difference.

Everyone thinks they're getting their fair share and as long as you don't gouge any particular trade too much you can probably just wave any queries away by saying the merchant was greedy or over/under supplied and wouldn't haggle. This of course requires your DM to agree to play along to a certain extent - you may want to do the actual buying and selling between sessions so you don't tip the other players off. It also requires your DM to put some wiggle room on the prices in the rulebook as if everything is always the exact price stated except when you're involved its obvious something weird is going on.


That all said, if as you say the other players are new and aren't good at separating character and player actions, I would suggest dropping a number of sizable hints that your character is not to be trusted sooner rather than later (I would suggest before you even start the scheme). Trying and failing to scam the party is just as much of a character arc as scamming the party and without the potential hurt feelings :smalltongue:
That's fair, however, the idea of giving people differing amounts is one of the ways I'd like my character to eventually be found out - at the very least (if done right, which is the way I'd like to do it) it'll create interesting interactions between members. That being said, it could be one of the last ways I can use to make it more and more obvious that my character is dodgy.
As far as trustworthiness... most of the places that we end up visiting will give out hints that my character has caused a LOT of havoc in almost every place he's been - intentionally or otherwise :smallbiggrin:

[Coidzor]

Step 1. Insure that this will not result in losing any friends or dissolving the group.

Step 2. Insure that this will not result in anyone breaking your face over jerking them around.

When splitting the party pot, agree to give the party pot a half share.

Keep the additional half share for yourself.

But that's easily caught if any of the other players pays any amount of attention.

Also, make rounding errors and pocket the difference.