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Old 05-07-2014, 11:23 AM   #11
Rocket Man
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Location: Longmont, CO
Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Accounting

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Originally Posted by Dalillama View Post
While I've not had Accounting come up in a game, it comes up a lot in (well-written) fiction involving mercenary groups, and is likely to be equally useful for PCs who are in/running such groups.
It was even a subplot in one of Robert Asprin's Phule's Company books, where the captain's Jeeves-like butler (as skilled in Accounting as in anything else) had to fend off the sci-fi version of the IRS and keep the captain out of prison while the troops handled the crisis of the week. With, of course, the classic punchline:

Bewildered IRS agent: "Captain ... near as far as I can tell ... we owe you a g.d refund!"
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Old 05-07-2014, 11:37 AM   #12
Vynticator
 
Join Date: Jul 2012
Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Accounting

A character running a large company discovered one of the young lads he had employed was fraudulently cooking the books via Accounting skill (the cooking, and the discovery). He was doing it so skilfullly, the character promoted the lad to a more significant role (like employing a hacker as an anti-virus software writer) and the company thrived as never before.

Nice little bit of side plot.
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Old 05-07-2014, 06:26 PM   #13
sgtcallistan
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Chatham, Kent, England
Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Accounting

Have played in a short Wild West campaign, and as a joke, only I knew why, I played 'Pete Favor, frontier accountant'.

The GM was good at his job:
We aided a near-illiterate deputy to discover who stole what,
aided someone to gain (legally) the kit of house parts that were being held by the railroad company (illegally),
and eventually was part of a surveyor's team that plotted a railroad route through difficult lands, ideally avoiding an Indian war, without going over budget.

A lot of fun, we only had two gunfights, and we got to improvise diving gear and recover gold from a riverbed. ;)
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Old 05-07-2014, 07:07 PM   #14
Otaku
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Accounting

Accounting might be able to be used "offensively", though probably not alone. Didn't think of it before reading this thread, but if you can cook the books for yourself, investigate someone else's fraudulent records for fun and profit (and maybe even justice)... couldn't someone with the Accountant skill use it to frame someone?

If it is appropriate to the level of detail, varying how much of a player's Wealth is available as discretionary income could vary according to a skill like Accounting; players that aren't as good at tracking their money may tie up or "waste" more of it.
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Old 06-17-2014, 12:56 PM   #15
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Accounting

How come nobody has mentioned Al Capone yet?
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Old 06-17-2014, 04:33 PM   #16
Phantasm
 
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Join Date: Jun 2006
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Accounting

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Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
How come nobody has mentioned Al Capone yet?
You just did. :)

Seriously, though, it seems a little sad that after all the things he did, the only charge they could get to stick was tax evasion based on auditing his accountants' books.
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