Running an April 1st Hustle

Last year our regular D&D game fell on April 1^st, so I decided to try and see if I could con my player’s characters out of some gold.

I’d been reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, a worthwhile read which features a number of con tricks. The book inspired me to head off to the internet and research the art of hustling. This is what I came up with, I hope it inspires you to do something similar this year!

Missing, One Glass Eye

The Glim Dropper is similar to the  more famous Pigeon Drop, or Fiddle Game cons, and relies on the mark being convinced that something of no value has much greater value. In this case a glass eye.

My players were travelling around the archipelagos of The Luquin Sea, finishing some delivery jobs for the captain whose ship they had rescued from Goblin wreckers. This had led them to the beautiful seaside port of Freetown.

Whilst they were waiting for a contact to turn up they were sitting down drinking in a local inn. It was mid morning and there were very few customers. A richly dressed elderly gentleman entered and walked to the bar. He was wearing a jewel encrusted eye-patch over his left eye.

He spoke to the barmaid, telling her that he had mislaid a glass eye whilst out drinking last night. It didn’t take much prompting from the barmaid for the PCs and other customers to be on their hands and knees, crawling around looking for a glass eye.

The eye was nowhere to be seen. The elderly gentleman lamented its loss, it being a very precious family heirloom. It belonged to his grandfather who lost his eye defending his ship from pirates. It was now a symbol of the head of his family trading empire, considered so symbolic that the head of the family gouges out his own eye when he attains the leadership. Just so he can wear the glass one.

He went on to say there was a reward of 5,000 gp, and gave the name of his ship, The Greenfin, where he could be found all this week. He then left.

My players were hooked by this, the reward would triple the party funds. They began to discuss other possible places he could have lost it, planning to go and check other inns or ask around in town a bit. They were distracted by their contact turning up, and had no time to consider the missing eye until later.

By early evening they had returned to the inn, to have another look around, and to wait for a split party member to rejoin them. Whilst they were there a Cleric of Pelor came in. He spoke to the landlord, but very quietly. At their request I allowed the players to make perception checks to eavesdrop, a great technique for convincing the players they have gained some forbidden knowledge that you really wanted them to have.

The Cleric was looking for the barmaid from the morning shift, he had you see found a glass eye, and a member of his congregation had mentioned that he’d been in this inn this morning when a gentleman offered a reward for its return. As the parishioner could not recall the name of the gentleman’s ship, perhaps the barmaid might?

It was at this point that the PCs jumped in. They knew the name of the ship and would happily return the glass eye to its rightful owner.

The priest wasn’t going to give it over that easily though, he’d heard there was a reward, although he didn’t no know how much, but his church needed any gold.

The PCs offered him a reward instead, and promised they would return the eye to their “good friend” themselves. Apparently they knew him personally now?! In the end the Cleric finally gave in and accepted 1,500 gp in exchange for the eye, almost all the party funds.

The players were very pleased with their profit of 3,500 gp and after resolving their initial reason for being in town they went off to the docks to claim their reward from the owner of the Greenfin.

Needless to say, there was no Greenfin at the docks, it had reportedly left hours ago, bound for Tradetown. The PCs were a bit pissed off, and 1,500 gp poorer.

Is this kind of DM manipulation fair play?

Well they didn’t have to go for it, but I did push and pull them in the right direction. I know my players and their characters and the whole thing relied on one particular player that I knew wouldn’t be able to resist.

My players enjoyed it immensely and it turned out to be one of the more memorable moments from the campaign. It also generated some plot hooks; there were now two men and their ship, The Greenfin, to exact revenge upon. They caught up with them a number of weeks later.

They rescued them from a bounty hunter. They threw one overboard because he’d asked them to drop him off when they could! The other they tortured, gouging his eye and replacing it with the glass one he had sold them, before dumping him on a desert island.

Ideas for your own game this April

Why not run a con yourself this April 1st. Here’s some ideas:

Get rich quick schemes

It’s been said that if it’s too good to be true then it isn’t, but this being a game players will take more risks, especially your Powergamers and Killer types, who tend to like cold hard cash.

You can pull off things such as, The Wire Game, as featured in that classic movie The Sting. This relies on the mark believing you have inside knowledge into something, proven with small stakes building up to a final large stake that you run off with.

Or you could simply salt a mine with gems or gold and get PCs to invest in shares.

Another favourite is the Spanish Prisoner con, an early precursor to the Nigerian advanced fee scams.

Romance scams

These are easy to pull off with your Story-teller or Actor player types, who tend to be ready to fall for any romance you can add to your game. Just dream up a reason the lover needs some cash quick, an ill relative is always a good start, especially if it’s the relative that will be giving permission for the marriage. Start small and keep increasing the amounts of cash the lover asks for.

Extortion or false injury tricks

A good example is The Melon Drop where a mark is blamed for breaking a valued item when the con man walks into them deliberately.

Another would be any coerced compromising situation that the mark can be forced to pay their way out of. Works well on Paladins!

False reward scams

The Glim Dropper as retold above is an example. Others would be the pigeon drop and other varieties.

Conclusion

I hope that this encourages you to devilishly trick your players this April 1st, as well as giving your some ideas of possible hustles.

If you plan to, or do run a con then let us know in the comments!

Since the dark days of the late '70s, Iain has been playing and running RPGs of one type or another. When not with his wife and children or working as a software engineer/Photoshop monkey he spends spare time either shooting pointy sticks at pointless paper targets or spending time enjoying the varied worlds of role playing.

Tags: Articles, DMing, Player Choice