[UA] Short Cons

[Royal Minister of Stuff]

There's lots of other really nifty short cons you can
work into games, as well.  I've only conned a few
people in my life and I swear I rectified it
afterward.  I'm not that great at this bunk.

Anyway, if anyone out there is interested in inserting
a few quick cons in their games, I recommend M. Allen
Henderson's "How Con Games Work." (My copy is only
slightly marred by the fact chapter 6 was bound in
upside down.)  It has a great list of cons, including
famous cons, religious cons, short cons and boiler
room scams.  It lists the names of famous con artists
and even talks about AbScam (which would be kind of a
neat UA or CoC campaign set-up:  you're portraying
oil-rich Arabs and their attaches trying to catch
dangerous cultists or ghoulish refugees from the
Nameless City.)

There also used to be a great site out there on
cons,but I can't find it anymore. 

I stole this short con from the Association of Retired
Federal Employee's website.  It seemed very UA-able in
two ways:  One, you could use it to make players more
paranoid or just throw it in at an inopportune moment
when players who have been bragging about how likely
they would be to catch con artists aren't looking:
This swindle depends upon the victim's willingness to
help his neighbor. A person dressed as a delivery man
arrives at the
victim's door with a package addressed to a neighbor.
He explains that the neighbor is not home and asks the
victim to accept
the package. By paying the $12.95 C.O.D. charge and
accepting the package, the victim will save his
neighbor from waiting in
long lines at the post office. When the neighbor
arrives home and the package is opened, it is
discovered that the victim has paid
$12.95 for a three-pound brick.

It's both insulting and cheap, like any good con
should be.

All of Cassady Toles' crimes here are what police
describe as "Block Hustles." They usually only work
once on a given person.  Most short cons only work
once on any given mark. I'll call up my friends in San
Francisco and ask what the statute of limitations is
on these babies.

--- Cassady Toles <Con_Job at excite.com> wrote:
> If you're looking for good short con ideas, the
> secret is in selling people
> shit that no one wants or needs for little enough
> money that they think of
> themselves as stupid for falling for it.  My best
> example of this was the $5
> elevator passes I used to sell to freshmen in a high
> school with no two
> story buildings.
> 
> I also ran an illegal football pool out of a series
> of lockers, but wound
> that down because the logistics were getting mind
> boggling.
> 


=====
-- Rp Bowman, Royal Minister of Stuff
The Electronic Nation of Yokeltania:
http://www.geocities.com/yokeltania/

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