Magic can make you rich! (Wait, no it can't)

[Becq]

The information on the Second Law seems entirely geared around total transformation, and the resulting impact on the victim's psyche and therefore free will.  That is, if you turn someone into a cat, they will think like a cat, not a person.  And if you try to fit human thoughts into the cat body, you end up with a different set of problems.  Nowhere does it mention more modest transformations, such as ... ahem, personal enhancement, or maybe clawed hands or some such.  Those sorts of changes are much more asthetic than pervasive, and other than perhaps opening up new vistas in ones personal life, it doesn't seem as though it would have any significant impact on the victim's free will.

Bottom line -- if it doesn't destroy the victim's "self" or remove free will ... is it a 2nd Law violation?

[stocke2]

in one of the books it is noted that you can get rich using your magic and others have, i think the question is put to harry as to why he never did, when he could have.

[bibliophile20]

Remember that cosmetic alterations to people don't seem to fall under the purview of the laws; remember Harry made weight-loss potions "to get through a slow month" and Bob immediately bugged him about making breast-augmentation potions.  Harry's negative response was based on the sleeziness of the suggestion, not the potential it had for Lawbreaking.  Thus, IMHO, being a wizard plastic surgeon is legal, but it'd be easy to start down the slippery slope and play god. 

[Ren]

METHOD TO GET RICH: Make money from thin air. Make good old US money, totally fake but you can make non-sequentila serial numbers etc. Wear a GOOD disguise (But make the materials yourself or use magic) and buy metal jewlery (Gold, Copper etc; but NO Gems as they have serial numbers) from pawnshops and such, melt them down into another form and resell them some time later in differing amounts so they can't be traced. Note; make sure to mix in enough real money so the amounts purchased versus th emoney taken in for the night won't match. By then the fake money will have long since evaporated and leave nothing to investigate. As long as you are smart when you resell and don't deposit all of the cash at once and deposit it into umarked acocunts then it will make you almost impossible to catch. Don't buy or sell from/to the same location twice or even in the same area; need to spread out the purchases over a period of time and when you have a suitable stake, use the divination to play the stock market small-scale and again over  a period of time. Oh and be sure to hex any security gear as well.

WHY IT WON'T WORK: I'm not sure why it really wouldn't work. If the character is smart enough it should be virtually untraceable.  Oh to be sure someone will eventually twig to large amounts of dissapearing money. Buy if played smart and with patience the wealth will eventually accumulate. The only catch point is the way most big mobsters are caught; Taxes. Find a good way to launder any incoming money and bingo; rich!

STORY IDEA: The Characters are approached by a friend who works at a pawnshop. He has gotten in trouble because a large amount of money dissapeared from the shop the night he was working. He is semi clued-in and noticed there was a slightly damp residue in the cash drawer so he suspects some kind of mojo is responsible especially since all of the security cameras went poof within that time period. tracking the culprit however will be extremely difficult unless they can find something they cna use for a tracking spell or any othe rclues they can find.

[knnn]

Make money from thin air.

I not sure that actually creating matter is too easy.  I don't recall off the top of my head any examples where anyone creates something ex-nihilo, certainly not something as delicate as money. 

Consider all the anti-forgery precautions added to any modern currency.  Messing up duplicating any one of them would make the attempt a complete failure for large-scale purchases (where they take their security checks seriously).  Besides, buying anything over a value of say $10,000 with cash rather than plastic is an immediate "red flag" these days. 

For smaller amounts, I think it would be simpler to rob a store.

[Bruce Coulson]

Counterfeiting.

WHY IT WON'T WORK: Vanishing money attracts attention.  Federal attention.  Scary, Secret Serviceman attention.  Although if you use it for smalll purchases, you can get away with it for a long while (cf 'Mr. 880') eventually someone is going to put the pieces together.

Not to mention clerks who get stiffed with vanishing money (who do you think is going to get blamed for the missing money?) are going to get angry.  And talk.

If you make the duration long enough to last until the money hits the banks....well, suddenly those 'small amounts' are going to add up real fast.  Bank examiners will notice, and start looking.

In the Dresdenverse, there has to be a reason why the Fey and Changelings haven't made modern economies and money useless.  Perhaps there's a magical branch of the Secret Service?

Story Idea:  It happens more often than you'd think.  Someone thought of counterfeiting money magically.  Problem is, the Secret Service has its own talents on call.  They're leaning on everyone who might be able to magic up money, and they're not going away until the have the perp.  Can you find out who's responsible for the heat?

[Becq]

Note to self: if I ever have a magic-wielding character who owns a business, I'm going to have a special ward set up to detect conjured money.

"No shirts, no shoes, no service.  If the money is goo, the client will be too..."

[Drashna]

Becq, that's an awesome motto!

stocke2: the reason that Harry doesn't use magic to make money is that he doesn't believe that it should be. That magic is meant to help and create, not to con people.  In the Dresdenverse, magic *is* what you believe. If you don't believe in something, you can't do it.  And considering the type of person that would use magic to gain money... well is doing it to gain power. Well, those types generally have a short shelf life when they're spellslingers.... It tends to be only a matter of time before you violate a law, or piss somebody off. Duels are notoriously one sided, and if you're the offending party... usually not in their favor.

As for conjuring cash, bills specifically, it is indeed dirt easy.  I mean 6 shifts would be plenty for the one day to create a very realistic fake.

[ralexs1991]

Thus, IMHO, being a wizard plastic surgeon is legal, but it'd be easy to start down the slippery slope and play god. 

"I am the nose job god!!!!"

[bibliophile20]

"I am the nose job god!!!!"

Hey, remember that you can't do magic that you don't believe in.  That means that you believe that it's right to use your magic for vanity's sake.  That's a dangerous line of thinking.  Or, alternatively, a very funny one.  Depends on the GM and depends on the character. 

[ralexs1991]

Hey, remember that you can't do magic that you don't believe in.  That means that you believe that it's right to use your magic for vanity's sake.  That's a dangerous line of thinking.  Or, alternatively, a very funny one.  Depends on the GM and depends on the character. 

haha I am the GM!!!!! and i would run this very funny

[Richard_Chilton]

Another look at the problems of counterfeiting:

Almost no one uses large amount of cash any more.  You go into into stores and buy hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise and pay with cash and people are likely to remember you.  If someone brought a $12,000 gold chain with cash and then $12,000 worth of cash went missing the police would start issuing bulletins about this new con job that is happening.  And if you aren't buying big ticket items then you're spending all of your time conjuring cash and spending it.

Which leaves the only people who regularly handle large amounts of cash - criminals.  Of course, that has it own problems since you will be dealing with (and ripping off) criminals.  You would be better off conjuring a couple of pounds of coke (or smack) and selling that for cash (see above for why that doesn't work).

Alternatively you could counterfeit gems and jewelery and the like, but there are fewer buyers for that sort of thing and the legal ones tend to be nervous about cash deals.

There might be a way around this - if you devoted enough shifts to duration then it would be a year or more before the counterfeit item vanished, but that seems like a lot of work for a get rich quick scheme.

Richard

[devonapple]

There might be a way around this - if you devoted enough shifts to duration then it would be a year or more before the counterfeit item vanished, but that seems like a lot of work for a get rich quick scheme.

Ironically, that's the whole point of many a get-rich-quick scheme. Many criminals and con men could have put their time and effort into actual, legitimate labor for an honest paycheck that would have supported them, without risk of prosecution. But they don't.

[Bruce Coulson]

A good friend of mine who was on our local City Police department used to have fun by asking drug dealers he'd arrested, "So, how much did you make tonight?"

"What!?"

"Oh calm down.  I haven't read you your rights; none of this is admissable.  So, how much?"

At first, they'd try to impress him with how much their take was.  Then he'd break down how much they had to pay for their dope, how long they were standing outside waiting for customers...

Turns out most of them made less than if they'd gotten a job flipping burgers.  But they were 'beating the system' and 'Giving it to the Man', so they were winning.

Right.

[ralexs1991]

A good friend of mine who was on our local City Police department used to have fun by asking drug dealers he'd arrested, "So, how much did you make tonight?"

"What!?"

"Oh calm down.  I haven't read you your rights; none of this is admissable.  So, how much?"

At first, they'd try to impress him with how much their take was.  Then he'd break down how much they had to pay for their dope, how long they were standing outside waiting for customers...

Turns out most of them made less than if they'd gotten a job flipping burgers.  But they were 'beating the system' and 'Giving it to the Man', so they were winning.

Right.

that's so epic lulz

crime fail haha