So my best friend and I ended up both being rogues in our homebrew campaign. We are both human, she is a woman and I am a man. We want to come up with a few cons we could run in various situations to earn some gold or just to have fun. So we have been trying to look at existing (real life) scams and write a variation but I figured that someone might have already done so. Does anyone out there have any cons (single or two people) that can be run in the general D&D world setting?
(I know in Critical Role, Nott and Caleb have a few pre-established cons. Looking for something similar to theirs but more street-wise.)
Maybe the women goes to a tavern pretending to have marital issues, and then ends up taking some wealthy merchant back to her room in an inn. She goes to "freshen up" and while she's gone, the man comes barging in with a dagger or something and accuses the dude of having an affair with his wife. Make the guy scared enough to offer monetary compensation to get out of the trouble. Take his coin purse, let him run away, boom, money.
You could always go snake oil salesmen. Proficiency in performance/deception and disguise kit could allow one member selling a "miracle cure" while the other is a plant in the audience whose physical ailment (read: makeup) is cured by the product.
In my current campaign I am playing a Soulknife Rogue and plan to work alongside our sorceress to do all kinds of cons. Recently, we entered a city and my character spent some time learning about the gods of the city before marking a vendor as a target. I coordinated with our sorceress to utilize prestidigitation alongside my Psychic Whispers. Together, we were able to speak in the vendor's head pretending to be a god while having holy symbols flashing in front of the god's "chosen champion", another one of our party members. With threats from a god occurring in the vendor's head to give freely to his champion, we were able to get some great loot for cheap!
I've always liked the idea of selling mundane items as fancier then they are. And using the location where you got something as the tell to your partner which con you are pulling.
"I think we got this ancient artifact dagger in a cult lair in a dungeon within Shadowfell (it's 'magical' and has 'hidden' powers)?" "No dear we got that dagger in cloud giant's treasure trove in the mountains of Moria (it glows blue when goblins are near)."
So you can coordinate which lie you are both telling and can choose something that might sell better based on who you are selling it to. Like magical and hidden powers might sell better to a guard or mercenary, but glows blue when goblins are near might sell better to a farmer who is just looking to defend his farm.
I had a rogue-ish Artificer snake oil saleman, who during a trek through the desert snuck around at night emptying the party's water canteens and then sold them back the water he had in his wagon. I wouldn't do that now as an older player who doesnt like working against the party but its still kinda funny.
I've always liked the idea of selling mundane items as fancier then they are. And using the location where you got something as the tell to your partner which con you are pulling.
"I think we got this ancient artifact dagger in a cult lair in a dungeon within Shadowfell (it's 'magical' and has 'hidden' powers)?" "No dear we got that dagger in cloud giant's treasure trove in the mountains of Moria (it glows blue when goblins are near)."
So you can coordinate which lie you are both telling and can choose something that might sell better based on who you are selling it to. Like magical and hidden powers might sell better to a guard or mercenary, but glows blue when goblins are near might sell better to a farmer who is just looking to defend his farm.
The quintessential two-man con is the violin scam: one person convincing a mark something is valuable and they will pay a lot of money for it and the other, who has the the item in their possession, allowing the mark to convince them to part with the item for a "fair" sum - more than the item is fact worth, less than what the mark thinks the first con man will pay for it; for this to work the mark obviously can't realize the two con artists know each other.
In American Gods (the book, not the series) Mr Wednesday explains how it works using the nominal violin, in Zombieland sisters Wichita and Little Rock use a wedding ring instead.
(very minor spoilers for American Gods (the book) and Zombieland (the movie) in case you're not familiar with them - if you aren't, I recommend both)
It can work as a solo grift as well, but the single con artist has to be able to sell it - as a two-man con it works better because you're leading the mark to believe he's conning you instead of vice versa; solo you have to convince them you're willing to knowingly make a bad deal they can profit from. Most of the confidence tricks on this list - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_confidence_tricks - are variations on this theme.
Better call saul has quite a few scenes with those kind of schemes.. With the main character being quite the con-man and schemer. I'd give it a watch for inspiration.. It's worth a watch anyway ^^
You'd need help from a spell caster, but do a sending to someone that you've met but doesn't know the caster and say something like "Hello, just letting you know, someone put a bounty out on you. Some people are coming to talk to you about clearing that bounty."
Basically sending scam calls. You can do the same thing if either of you can get some sort of telepathy or something like the message cantrip. It could be fun to telepathically threaten people to leave money on the table and they get to walk away with their lives.
Me and my mate both have weapon bond as eldritch knights, so we weapon bond two weapons each and then i cast disguise self and sell them to a vendor. Then at night we summon them back, change appearance and do it again 🤣
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So my best friend and I ended up both being rogues in our homebrew campaign. We are both human, she is a woman and I am a man. We want to come up with a few cons we could run in various situations to earn some gold or just to have fun. So we have been trying to look at existing (real life) scams and write a variation but I figured that someone might have already done so. Does anyone out there have any cons (single or two people) that can be run in the general D&D world setting?
(I know in Critical Role, Nott and Caleb have a few pre-established cons. Looking for something similar to theirs but more street-wise.)
Thanks guys!
Maybe the women goes to a tavern pretending to have marital issues, and then ends up taking some wealthy merchant back to her room in an inn. She goes to "freshen up" and while she's gone, the man comes barging in with a dagger or something and accuses the dude of having an affair with his wife. Make the guy scared enough to offer monetary compensation to get out of the trouble. Take his coin purse, let him run away, boom, money.
Selling shoddy knockoffs is always fun.
Hombrew: Way of Wresting, Circle of Sacrifice
We already have someone in our group who does that. Its his whole thing so I wouldn't want to copy. Good idea though.
Love it!!!
You could always go snake oil salesmen. Proficiency in performance/deception and disguise kit could allow one member selling a "miracle cure" while the other is a plant in the audience whose physical ailment (read: makeup) is cured by the product.
pirelli's mircale elixir
In my current campaign I am playing a Soulknife Rogue and plan to work alongside our sorceress to do all kinds of cons. Recently, we entered a city and my character spent some time learning about the gods of the city before marking a vendor as a target. I coordinated with our sorceress to utilize prestidigitation alongside my Psychic Whispers. Together, we were able to speak in the vendor's head pretending to be a god while having holy symbols flashing in front of the god's "chosen champion", another one of our party members. With threats from a god occurring in the vendor's head to give freely to his champion, we were able to get some great loot for cheap!
I've always liked the idea of selling mundane items as fancier then they are. And using the location where you got something as the tell to your partner which con you are pulling.
"I think we got this ancient artifact dagger in a cult lair in a dungeon within Shadowfell (it's 'magical' and has 'hidden' powers)?"
"No dear we got that dagger in cloud giant's treasure trove in the mountains of Moria (it glows blue when goblins are near)."
So you can coordinate which lie you are both telling and can choose something that might sell better based on who you are selling it to. Like magical and hidden powers might sell better to a guard or mercenary, but glows blue when goblins are near might sell better to a farmer who is just looking to defend his farm.
I had a rogue-ish Artificer snake oil saleman, who during a trek through the desert snuck around at night emptying the party's water canteens and then sold them back the water he had in his wagon. I wouldn't do that now as an older player who doesnt like working against the party but its still kinda funny.
The quintessential two-man con is the violin scam: one person convincing a mark something is valuable and they will pay a lot of money for it and the other, who has the the item in their possession, allowing the mark to convince them to part with the item for a "fair" sum - more than the item is fact worth, less than what the mark thinks the first con man will pay for it; for this to work the mark obviously can't realize the two con artists know each other.
In American Gods (the book, not the series) Mr Wednesday explains how it works using the nominal violin, in Zombieland sisters Wichita and Little Rock use a wedding ring instead.
(very minor spoilers for American Gods (the book) and Zombieland (the movie) in case you're not familiar with them - if you aren't, I recommend both)
It can work as a solo grift as well, but the single con artist has to be able to sell it - as a two-man con it works better because you're leading the mark to believe he's conning you instead of vice versa; solo you have to convince them you're willing to knowingly make a bad deal they can profit from. Most of the confidence tricks on this list - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_confidence_tricks - are variations on this theme.
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Better call saul has quite a few scenes with those kind of schemes.. With the main character being quite the con-man and schemer. I'd give it a watch for inspiration.. It's worth a watch anyway ^^
You'd need help from a spell caster, but do a sending to someone that you've met but doesn't know the caster and say something like "Hello, just letting you know, someone put a bounty out on you. Some people are coming to talk to you about clearing that bounty."
Basically sending scam calls. You can do the same thing if either of you can get some sort of telepathy or something like the message cantrip. It could be fun to telepathically threaten people to leave money on the table and they get to walk away with their lives.
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Me and my mate both have weapon bond as eldritch knights, so we weapon bond two weapons each and then i cast disguise self and sell them to a vendor. Then at night we summon them back, change appearance and do it again 🤣