Author Topic: Magic can make you rich! (Wait, no it can't)  (Read 14227 times)

Offline Falar

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Re: Magic can make you rich! (Wait, no it can't)
« Reply #45 on: November 11, 2010, 08:45:59 PM »
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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Offline Ren

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Re: Magic can make you rich! (Wait, no it can't)
« Reply #46 on: November 11, 2010, 09:03:39 PM »
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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Offline Becq

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Re: Magic can make you rich! (Wait, no it can't)
« Reply #47 on: November 12, 2010, 12:53:03 AM »
"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!"

Offline ironpoet

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Re: Magic can make you rich! (Wait, no it can't)
« Reply #48 on: November 12, 2010, 07:21:21 PM »
"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

Offline Bruce Coulson

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Re: Magic can make you rich! (Wait, no it can't)
« Reply #49 on: November 12, 2010, 09:43:41 PM »
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.
You're the spirit of a nation, all right.  But it's NOT America.

Offline Xilver

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Re: Magic can make you rich! (Wait, no it can't)
« Reply #50 on: November 12, 2010, 11:14:36 PM »
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

Offline babel2uk

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Re: Magic can make you rich! (Wait, no it can't)
« Reply #51 on: November 15, 2010, 09:32:23 AM »
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.

Offline Drashna

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Re: Magic can make you rich! (Wait, no it can't)
« Reply #52 on: November 16, 2010, 03:15:04 AM »
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? :))
[qoute='piotr1600']Sure true love will conquer all... You sponsored an instant vision of a tentacled Cthuluoid monstrosity following Elaine around, meeping piteously and making puppy dog eyes at her while she sighs loudly and gently kisses those tentacles...[/qoute]