ParanetOnline
The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: ironpoet on November 01, 2010, 03:33:53 PM
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This thread was inpsired by the comments in this post: http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,22095.0.html (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,22095.0.html)
It started off with a caveat from Ryan_Singer:
This looks about right. I'd add the caveat that in the Dresdenverse, no one has ever gotten rich using magic. Even the senior council relies on traditional finance with centuries of compounded interest. Turning lead into gold is possible, but never costs less than gold on the open market.
That lead into a series of suggestions about how magic can be used to make you rich:
...A wizard can become very, very wealthy without the need to conjure money;
1) Thaumaturgy divination, to predict the moves of the stock market in the day. That would be solving a problem with the contacts or resources or scholarship skill. Even the most skilled mortals in financial science in the world would get a base of superb +5 plus +2 from a stunt in this. A wizard using divination could easily get a complexity of 10 with a two-minute ritual. Fancy getting the maximum benefit of the stock market every day? 20% rate of interest per day would be about the best possible. In ten days you'd have 6 TIMES the money you started with. In one month you could start with $4.000 and end up with $ 1 million.
2) Thaumaturgy divination, to search for minerals - gold, oil, gems. Similarly to the above use, even the weakest wizard could get better results in minutes than world-class prospectors could get in days or months of searching.
3) How about buying and selling land? A wizard could influence the weather or conjure attacks by vermin with only minor complexity or even do power outages and the like to really drop property values. Then he'd buy the land for a ridiculous price and sell some months later at a much higher price.
4) Invest in a company then destroy the company's competitors. You don't really need black magic or any direct spells; any modern company can be destroyed by simply hexing it. Even better, manipulate the stock market like that.
5) Steal a bank. Hex the bank at night, sneak in under a thaumaturgy veil, put the guards to sleep, melt the vault door and grab the money. Even better, use summoned creatures to steal the money for you. No Laws broken whatsoever and the police will have no evidence at all; no modern security can resist hexing and any trace evidence left by summoned creatures melts away in minutes (and isn't human to begin with.
Or, you can do it faster by opening a Gate from the Nevernever directly into the bank vault.
6) Insurance fraud. Lots of insurance fraud. Fires, power failure, equipment failure, wizards can do it untraceably and seemingly naturally.
7) Arms Dealing. How much would an assassin or a terrorist pay for an invisibility potion? How about a mercenary for an invulnerability potion or a healing potion? Any kind of armed forces for a grenade-like potion that does 8 shifts of hexing in one zone, destroying every kind of technological item from alarms to firearms and mines to armored vehicles? How about lasting thaumaturgy veils for secret facilities and bunkers? And NONE of the above violate the Laws of Magic.
That led to a series of arguments about how that wouldn't work. Conflict leads to story ideas, so I thought I would make a new post to capture it all!
I'd like to invite people to post three types of things here:
METHOD TO GET RICH: [Some way of getting rich using magic]
WHY IT WON'T WORK: [A reason why it wouldn't work. This could be a mechanical reason, a thematic Dresdenverse reason, or a made up reason.]
STORY IDEA: [A quick description of a story idea that a GM could run, using this conflict]
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Here's the trivial version:
METHOD TO GET RICH: Magic can do anything. Use it to get rich!
WHY IT WON'T WORK: Magic is "Who You Are". If you are the type of person who would use magic as a vehicle to "Get Rich Quick", then you are also the type of person who will be tempted by Fae bargains and the lure of the Denarians. Enjoy your Free Will while it lasts!
STORY IDEA: An unknown businessman becomes a multi-billionaire overnight. The White Council sends the PCs to investigate, but they discover that the businessman has already been corrupted by the Denarians. Can the PCs prevail against a foe with unlimited Resources and the power of Hellfire?
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METHOD TO GET RICH: Thaumaturgy divination, to predict the moves of the stock market in the day. That would be solving a problem with the contacts or resources or scholarship skill. Even the most skilled mortals in financial science in the world would get a base of superb +5 plus +2 from a stunt in this. A wizard using divination could easily get a complexity of 10 with a two-minute ritual. Fancy getting the maximum benefit of the stock market every day? 20% rate of interest per day would be about the best possible. In ten days you'd have 6 TIMES the money you started with. In one month you could start with $4.000 and end up with $ 1 million.
WHY IT WON'T WORK #1: Okay, maybe you're not technically breaking the Laws of Magic. You're not peeking into the future, and you're not reading people's minds to see whether they will Buy or Sell. But try explaining that to the White Council Wardens at your door. I'm sure they'll be happy to give you the benefit of the doubt!
STORY IDEA #1: Marty Johnson, a Slick Stockbroker, is making a killing in the stock market. The White Council sends the PCs to make sure the Laws of Magic are being broken. How can you be sure? Can you afford to let him go if you're wrong?
STORY IDEA #2: The PC's used completely legitimate magic to get rich using the Stock Market. Unfortunately, Aeric Thomason, an Old School Warden, doesn't believe you. Can the PCs convince the White Council of their innocence before Aeric can play judge, jury, and executioner?
WHY IT WON'T WORK #2: You think demons don't already control the Stock Market? You think the White Court dedicated to Despair didn't request the recent Stock Market crash? Good luck rigging a game that is already rigged!
STORY IDEA #3: The PCs discover that demons control the Stock Market. Can the PCs remove this demonic influence without crashing the Stock Market again?
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WHY IT WON'T WORK #2: You think demons don't already control the Stock Market? You think the White Court dedicated to Despair didn't request the recent Stock Market crash? Good luck rigging a game that is already rigged!
[
haha epic LULZ :D
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METHOD TO GET RICH: Start a religion. Summon creatures and call them angels, cast spells and call them miracles, etc. Once the masses believe in you, take their money.
WHY IT WON'T WORK: You would not believe the size of the target that you paint onto yourself by doing this. Everyone from the Church to the White Council will be breathing down your neck. Like it or not, you will make enemies.
STORY IDEA: Henry Mirtan, a greedy sorcerer, realized a few years ago how easy it would be to expand his cult into something bigger. He formed a sect of Christianity called the Bearers Of The Words Of Christ and set himself up as Jesus reborn. It worked until he was approached by House Lantill, a small group of White Court Vampires who feed on worship. They put him under their psychic control and took over the religion. A disillusioned former cultist approaches the PCs and begs them to do something about this sick and twisted situation.
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It worked until he was approached by House Lantill, a small group of White Court Vampires who feed on worship.
Ok, that's freaking awesome as ideas go. One small thing I would like to add though: Worship isn't really a negative emotion... what about Obsession?
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Good point. Obsession-eating vampires would actually create a number of interesting plot hooks. Maybe another branch of House Lantill, not involved with this cult, feeds off of fangirls at Twilight conventions.
So yeah. Let's say that House Lantill feeds on obsession, and that it's only a part of the House that uses worship to create that obsession.
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METHOD TO GET RICH
Smuggle via the NN. Guns, drugs, slaves, etc. Every country has those pesky border crossings in order to block or tax incoming goodies.
Example:
A pound of pure cocaine is worth $20,000-$50,000 in the US, depending on quality. You can buy the same quantity for under $1000 in certain places in South America.
Find the correct Ways, and you can make your millions in moments
WHY IT WONT WORK
How do you think the Red Court are financing all their operations? Any Wizard trying to work in South America will get his "staff" fed to him. Also, finding buyers/sellers is not so simple. Gangs are involved, etc.
STORY IDEA
Diego Barnella is by all accounts a bad person. He has been a drug-dealing Wizard for the last 30 years (it was guns, explosives and slaves beforehand). He has his own gang that peddles his stuff for him, and even owns some field in Ecuador.
Recently, his interests have been hammered by Red Court drug dealers, and a price has been put on his head. Unfortunately, his personal wealth and connections, and especially his knowledge of the Ways are very important for the war, so the White Council needs to protect him...
...He might even be a "hero".
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All I can say to that is: High Concept: Stephanie Meyer - Elder of House Lantill. Other Aspects: Go Team Whampires!
That is awesome though. I think I might have to borrow them for my game!
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The Idea: Supernatural Blackmailer or Locator
Use divination to spy on people, then blackmail the crap out of them. Or, find Osama Bin Laden and get a reward.
Why it won't work: Blackmail is illegal, dawg. Plus, it makes people wanna gank you. And do you think Osama isn't being hidden by magic? Really?
Story Idea: The group is hired or ordered to find and confront someone accused of using divination to blackmail people. Try catching someone who uses divination to figure out you're coming...
additionally, the PCs uncover some pretty dark secrets about the people they are trying to protect from blackmailing. Now it's a moral dilemma: what do you do when you find out the blackmail was about a 13 year old who broke the "no killing with magic" law on accident, because no one ever taught her how to handle magic properly?
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How about conjuring cocaine rather than smuggling it?
Example: Conjuring some coke and selling it wholesale to someone who will cut it and retail it for you.
Why it won't work:
Conjured things have a duration. No one is going put a massive number of shifts to conjured something that will be snorted. Odds are the drugs will be used before the duration runs out, but if they aren't then they fade away to nothing. Then there's the competition in the drug business: your customers used to buy from someone else and that someone isn't going to be happy about losing those sales. Oh, and it's illegal. The guy you're selling to might need to sell you out to the narcs - or the narcs might target you.
Story Idea:
Gangs sell and trade drugs between them, and a gang war breaks out when the coke that one gang sold the other turns out to be nothing but baby powder. It tested fine on the day of the sale, but now (a mere week later) it's crap and the buyers want their money back. Of course the first gang knows that those were good drugs. Harsh words became blows which led to bullets and now the bodies are piling up.
The police are doing what they can about the war while investing the new player in the underworld... Meanwhile there's a very scared wizard who isn't good at dodging bullets who is crying for help, help that the players might give.
Richard
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METHOD TO GET RICH
Become a private detective. Use magic to solve the cases brought to your attention. Cheating spouse? Missing persons? Lost items? Paranormal investigations? Love potions? Endless purses?
WHY IT WONT WORK
I can't think of any possible reason this scenario could possibly fail to make millions practically over night!
STORY IDEA
Hm. You know, come to think of it I can't see any way to make this sort of story in any way appealing to anyone. Damn. Any thoughts?
:)
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Not to be rude, Becq, but that just isn't a very interesting idea. There aren't any good stories to be told about it.
Seriously, that isn't the kind of story that people want to read about or play games around. It's too humdrum, too lacking in impact on the world at large.
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Not to be rude, Becq, but that just isn't a very interesting idea. There aren't any good stories to be told about it.
Seriously, that isn't the kind of story that people want to read about or play games around. It's too humdrum, too lacking in impact on the world at large.
Yeah. Now I'm embarrassed that I even hit the 'Post' button. Ah, well.
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METHOD TO GET RICH
Two words: Male Enhancement ;D ;D ;D
It's not against the Laws of Magic if it is not against their will (they are paying for it...)
WHY IT WONT WORK
IT REALLY DOES! ;D ;D ;D
Seriously though,
Manmeet Agarwal is a 150-year-old wizard who for some reason has spent the last 100+ years working on a robust spell that is guaranteed to "do the deed", finally succeeding about 5 years ago. His problem was with marketing. Being a little naive about the modern world, he read about the internet, and decided that mass e-mails, ALL IN CAPS would get all the rich men in the world flocking to his door...
STORY IDEA
1) Manmeet "the Hammer" Agarwal (he legally changed his name) want to hire the PCs to market a new life-improving medical procedure. He's used up all his savings in some internet scheme, so all he can offer in payment is a free procedure.
2) Someone stole Manmeet's procedure (White Court?) and he hires the PCs for revenge/steal back the formula.
3) Someone is killing internet spammers with black magic (their noses grow until they explode). The ferocity of the attacks clearly points toward someone trying to get revenge. Should the PCs stop the rampaging wizard, or help him eliminate a scourge from the Earth?
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Two reasons why the above won't work:
1) All that blood has to come from somewhere ... the subject has a -1 to all mental skills for the duration.
2) "If you have an erection than lasts more than four hours, contact your Wizard immediately to schedule a Counterspell..."
:p
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Two reasons why the above won't work:
1) All that blood has to come from somewhere ... the subject has a -1 to all mental skills for the duration.
2) "If you have an erection than lasts more than four hours, contact your Wizard immediately to schedule a Counterspell..."
:p
year one i'm sorry all the blood from my brain was in my boner epic LULZ!!!
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METHOD TO GET RICH: Insurance fraud. Nobody will ever be able to trace that fire back to you...
WHY IT WON'T WORK: The insurance companies play as dirty as you do. Even if they aren't in the know, they'll use every imaginable (and unimaginable) trick to avoid paying. If they are in the know, expect a visit from some bound demons soon.
STORY IDEA: The players are contacted by an insurance company that wants them to help the company get out of paying compensation for a series of incredibly bizzare and unlikely accidents that have befallen their ratepayers. The company is partly clued in and suspects that there is some sort of magic stuff going on. What they don't know is that the accidents are all the work of Myron Antrovick, a disgruntled former employee and entropomancer. Even if the players catch Myron and defeat him, they'll still need to find a way to compensate the innocent victims for their accidents without putting an honest insurance company out of business.
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Sanctaphrax: another variation to the insurance fraud, is a company that hires wizards to ward the houses/objects insured. That's lots of premiums with none or little payout. (and yes, the idea is from sookie stackhouse/southern mystery/true blood series).
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Method to get Rich: manipulating dice and other games at casinos. using ectoplasm to change your appearance so you look like deferent people every time.
Why it wont Work: The WCV's that feed on greed are already there and they are rigging the odds
Story: that you happen to be changing, welcome to the darkside, your the new recruit in the operation or you die. now bring the rest of the party in for some fun and games :'(
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METHOD TO GET RICH: Thaumaturgy divination, to search for minerals - gold, oil, gems. Even the weakest wizard could get better results in minutes than world-class prospectors could get in days or months of searching.
WHY IT WON'T WORK:
1) you don't own the land its own duh!
2) You don't have the equipment or skill to get your ill gotten good out of the earth
3) Tracking it down would mean you're in a few miles (Harry thought he couldn't track someone out side a Chicago proper at one point) and have a 'piece' to link yourself to or go scavenge up information some other way....and likely own someone something....
4) Great increase of these objects would lower their value, good old supply and demand.
5) You find oil/minerals the people who have a strangle hold over that market, who've made LOTS of money, aren't likely happy about an independent popping up, sell or else.
6) wow, finding this stuff was easy, why hasn't anyone else done this before?.... ohh.... oil elementals.....
STORY IDEA:
1) PC are asked to clear a mine of beings so mining can begin. It is an area the nevernever is close to and domain of Summer....
2) PC inherits a plot of land teaming with oil.... big oil wants it and you'd better not say no.
3) Gold has been popping up all over the place, devaluing the US reserves, is another recession coming?
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Another why it won't work for divining for wealth: those dwarves (fae) or other such creatures are now pissed that you STOLE their stuff. Maybe they're nice enough to lay a small curse on you till you've returned all of it... but you've already sold it off!
(oh and I wouldn't say *another*, I'd say the current just gets worse enough to be an *official* Depression)
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Or, included on top of that, you find something that was buried away with good reason, think Balrog or Pandora's box kind of bad.
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Method to Get Rich: Art Theft/Recovery.
Means: A large amount of artwork has been lost/stolen throughout history; World War II and the Nazis are only the best remembered. Getting accurate picture/descriptions is easy. Even allowing for 'supernaturally' held collections, that still leaves a lot of stray items to be 'found'. And if it's in private mundane hands...well, thieves can hardly complain about having something stolen!
Why it Won't Work: Collectors are obsessive. Anyone who has the kind of artwork worth stealing has enough money to hire professionals to get it back. And if the wizard has any enemies, they may be willing to work for cheap...
Story Idea: It seemed like a good idea: 'recover' lost artwork, sell at Sothebys, = profit. Now a very junior White Council Wizard has some very heavy hitters on his/her tail. Seems the collector was just holding the artwork for someone...and that Someone now wants more than just the artwork back. Your job? Save this wizard, and find out why this obscure piece of artwork is so valuable to Someone in the supernatural community...
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Two reasons why the above won't work:
1) All that blood has to come from somewhere ... the subject has a -1 to all mental skills for the duration.
2) "If you have an erection than lasts more than four hours, contact your Wizard immediately to schedule a Counterspell..."
Now you've gotten me thinking about a new concept:
Mark by Power or Envoy of a Power - with the power being the Roman god Priapus, from whose condition they derived the medical name priapism.
Richard
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METHOD TO GET RICH: Go public as a wizard. Become the biggest celebrity the world has ever seen.
WHY IT WON'T WORK: This is another one of those ideas that will make you more enemies than you can count. Expect to be made into an example.
STORY IDEA: Some sleazy little minor talent is planning to sell his story to a news network in order to pay his gambling debts. Go kill him, and do it brutally as a warning to other people with the same idea. Or if you're some kind of bleeding heart pacifist, you could try to find a non-murderous solution. You pansy.
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METHOD TO GET RICH: Go public as a wizard. Become the biggest celebrity the world has ever seen.
that could produce a nice dumbass-magician knowing nothing about the world or the hidden struggles, neither really caring for it, like that drake stone character from sorcerer's apprentice. i somewhat liked that guy because he didn't care for all the mystical struggles until the film happens. just a narcistic self-absorbed chris angel type of magician, oblivious to the rest of the world.
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METHOD TO GET RICH: Go public as a wizard. Become the biggest celebrity the world has ever seen.
WHY IT WON'T WORK: This is another one of those ideas that will make you more enemies than you can count. Expect to be made into an example.
STORY IDEA: Some sleazy little minor talent is planning to sell his story to a news network in order to pay his gambling debts. Go kill him, and do it brutally as a warning to other people with the same idea. Or if you're some kind of bleeding heart pacifist, you could try to find a non-murderous solution. You pansy.
something about that reminds me of the Geicko comercial witht the drill sargent as a therepist :D
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A stunt I pulled two sessions ago.
METHOD TO GET RICH: Resurrect people suffering from brain death. Use necromancy to rebind the spirit of the original owner of the body back into their brain with a duration of mortal lifetime. The body already has a heartbeat, so no need for an artificial one.
Become the most expensive doctor in the world.
WHY IT WON'T WORK: They can't get wet.
STORY IDEA: Alistaire Grey is a wizard with a talent for reaching across the barrier between life and death, but has never used it to hurt anyone or bind a human spirit. He encountered a man who had been dosed with a massive amount of MPTP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPTP In trying to track down the culprit who administered the drug, Alistaire theorizes that he may be able to temporarily restore some semblance of movement to the man by binding his soul back into his body. When he does so, and procures an identity of the culprit, he can't bear the disappointment of the man when he tells him that the cure is only temporary. So he sets up a ritual to extend it for his lifetime, and tells him he can't ever take a shower. "Shave your head and use baby wipes."
There's so many ways that this can go wrong, it would be impossible to list them all. But here are some ways. I would be fine with my GM using one or more of these.
White Council finds out about this EXTREMELY grey area. (Kinda boring, but pretty likely.)
Alistaire starts hanging out in hospitals ready to shove trauma victim's spirits back into dead tissue.
A living subject suffers a heart attack, and in the absence of the controlling heart beat eats their spouse/children.
Unscrupulous Necromancers find out about this technique...
What else?
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METHOD TO GET RICH
Two words: Male Enhancement ;D ;D ;D
It's not against the Laws of Magic if it is not against their will (they are paying for it...)
Careful with that, it might be Transforming another... lawbreaker!
One of my group members does just this, only he sells them potions so that he can argue that they took the potion themselves, thus giving them the "choice"... so they transformed themselves. He also makes it temporary (lasting a week I think?) so they have to keep paying him.. and so it isn't permanent. I ruled it a grey area (due to it not being a full transformation), but really just because I know that character is going lawbreaker anyways...I don't need to be tough on the rules there lol
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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..."
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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. :)
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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!!!!"
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"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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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Ah, but see, the drug dealing is like any corporate world - pay your dues, do your work and you might be able to move up and play with the big dogs. Sure, you don't make squat on the ground floor, but once you get promoted (if you live that long), you'll be rollin' fat stacks.
Steve Levin's Freakanomics has a lot of good information about it.
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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 is funny, and kind of a cool way to make the idiots think at least a little. He should write something up that can be posted around the cities; "The real cost of selling drugs vs how much you can mak vs the amount of time you will do when you are cuaght."
On another note; the plastic surgeon route would work, if the customer is willing to undergo the transformation and if it was permanent. Not yet familiar enough with the system to figure out how that would work. But how WOULD the White Council react? What if he went to the Council and said something like "I would like permission to use my magic to alter the bodies of people who are willing to undergo the work, but only to use it in the case of those who have been born deformed and disfigured or become so by accident. And I would like to use any monies gained from donations to aid others in need. Or if further granted permission can be granted, offer my services to the rich and powerful in exchnage for money to be used for the good of the council and favors to help our own interests."? Raises an interesting point, not using it for personal gain, but coulds still stand to make a fair amount of need. The second part would obviously be more volatile because it could amount to the Council meddling wiht Mortal Politics which they try to avoid doing, but should they? The Vampire courts obviously have a grip on politics, why shouldn't the Council? Or am I getting that wrong?
Sorry for the tangent but the thought kinda grabbed me...8P
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"Dude! I just found an awesome new way to make money! Screw that drug shit, let me tell you about this place called 'McDonalds' that's gonna make us rich!"
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"Dude! I just found an awesome new way to make money! Screw that drug shit, let me tell you about this place called 'McDonalds' that's gonna make us rich!"
I'm not sure I should start mixing different magic-themed RPG's, but this seemed too appropriate to skip over:
http://www.amazon.com/Break-Today-Armies-Greg-Stolze/dp/1589780167 (http://www.amazon.com/Break-Today-Armies-Greg-Stolze/dp/1589780167)
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This is probably a fundamental truth in the Dresdenverse (it's close to it in the real world).
You can't get rich quick without causing harm to someone.
Now, that doesn't mean you can't get rich; just that you have to work at it, and it takes time. This is the real reason Harry has never gotten rich; he's never spent enough time trying to make money. (And being who he is, he won't take short-cuts.) Other wizards may have spent time working at getting wealthy enough so that they could research magic in peace; Harry's never had that luxury.
So, actually, magic, properly applied, CAN make you rich. But not quickly, and not easily. If you try, you're taking a short-cut and someone is getting the short end of things.
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Well, any hedge wizard can make Diamonds out of Charcoal and Peanut Butter. No? Check out these guys...http://blog.gusnyc.com/2008/07/04/how-to-make-diamonds-at-home.aspx (http://blog.gusnyc.com/2008/07/04/how-to-make-diamonds-at-home.aspx)
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METHOD TO GET RICH:
Transmute base metals to gold, or conjure gold out of thin air.
WHY IT WON'T WORK:
As with the other conjurations/transmutations everything has a duration. While it's not impossible for someone to conjure up gold or transmute another metal into gold, sooner or later that gold will return to the base metal or vanish into thin air.
Another reason - and it's pure speculation - conjured/transmuted gold isn't as effective in magical applications as the real thing.
STORY IDEA: NB This is more of a background idea than a specific storyline. Someone has already conjured up a huge amount of gold. A staggering amount in fact, possibly conjured to pay for Napoleon's empire building. Unfortunately the wizard in question died just after Waterloo. This in and of itself, is not the problem. The problem lies in what happened to the conjured gold. The conjuration was very well done, designed to last many mortal lifetimes. And over the past three centuries the gold has been dispersed across the globe. While some of it was crafted into plates, chalices, jewelery etc, much of it was in the form of coins and bullion. Coins and bullion that has since been passed around, melted down and used for a variety of other purposes, including electronic componants in aircraft, missiles and satellites. And the duration has just come to an end. What starts off as a series of mysterious electronic failures in aircraft, escalates as several key satellites begin to fail. Museums and private collectors report thefts of valuable gold artifacts from the Napoleonic wars.
For a more specific storyline, perhaps the wizard in question linked his conjured gold to an item (kind of a sympathetic link for his entire gold conjuration). Some nasty enemy warlocks have gotten their hands on the item and have ascertained that they can make key sections of one country's defence network stop working if they can dispel the magic on the key item.
The item in question was in the hands of the apprentice to the original wizard (himself now a wizard of some repute) and he's been regularly maintianing the spell because he knows what the gold has been used for. Unfortunately he's never been able to duplicate his former master's expertise and his own enchantments can only maintain it for a few years at a time. The PCs are asked to investigate his murder (or maybe he's a friend to them and they decide on their own to find his killers), and discover the item to have been stolen. Now they have to work out who has it and why.
If you use the idea of the gold being transmuted rather than conjured from nothing, and don't want to explore the possibilities of the gold having been used in electronics, then you have the option of the PCs being brought in to investigate several high profile gold artifact thefts, where the artifact has been replaced by an exact duplicate in lead. In this scenario you can ignore the apprentice and the key item, but you can explore what happens when a large amount gold in one of the world's bullion stores is suddenly found to have been replaced by lead.
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Sorry to be a nit picker, but theoretically anything that's "permanently" transmuted... is permanent. Send enough shifts in complexity and it's done. However, in the case of said gold, if it was all transmuted at the same time, would there not be a sympathetic link to every other piece of gold? And could you not use *one* piece of it to start effecting EVERY OTHER PIECE?! :)
(And at this point, would it not just be a matter of schematics in your example? :))