11-15-2019, 02:18 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Oct 2014
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Superbill questions
Hello everyone!
So, these are a few questions about Superbills. According to the Basic set, a critical success on a a counterfeiting skill check produce a batch of counterfeit "as good as the real deal", which, while talking about money, is commonly referred to as a (batch of) Superbill. Rules wise, would it break something if any critical success or success by more than 10 creates a Superbill, instead of only a critical success? It is mentioned that rogue states may try their hands at making counterfeit money to destabilize their target's economy. Just how effective is it really? What would theoretically be the best Superbills to make if you were actively trying to destabilize the US/Euro/any other major states' economy, as opposed to a purely mercenary motive? How would a non-state actor with a lot of resources trying to covertly take over the world through getting their people in high places, blackmailing highly ranked state officials, and engaging in various deniable black ops to try to take over actual states could take advantage of tanking the economies in question? Speaking of that whole "making Superbills with the express goal of destabilizing the target's economies", if actual paranormal powers including Psionics, Magery and Divine Investiture exists but aren't widely known or even believed in except for select agencies (CIA, NSA, and other similar No Such Agencies across the world), non-state actors that specialize in it, and conspiracy theorists who notice screwy stuff but don't really understand it to the point they blame every paranormal occurrences on "Project MKULTRA", KGB research, or any combination thereof, what sort of avenues does it open for the aforementioned non-state actor? What about mature Magitek TL 9 (technically TL 8+1), where the highest state actors have achieved is TL 8 with some emerging TL 9 tech? |
11-15-2019, 02:28 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Superbill questions
I would think that for a large modern economy, any remotely covert injection of currency isn't going to be an effective way to disrupt the economy. The money supply is really big and mostly not paper.
It might be a more interesting possibility for medieval-ish eras, where spiking a rival's money supply with counterfeits might detract from their ability to raise funds by a currency debasement, and would let you more or less collect seigniorage on minting without expanding your domestic money supply.
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11-16-2019, 09:13 AM | #3 | |||
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Superbill questions
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11-16-2019, 10:06 AM | #4 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Superbill questions
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There were other examples: the British accidentally discovered during WWII that most of the large printing businesses in Germany had fonts of their own, and the Monotype versions of them had been made by the UK branch of the Monotype Corporation, which still had the masters. Coupling that with the ability to order paper made to precise specifications in secret meant that a wide variety of documents could be made to "superbill" standards, being actually as good as the originals.
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11-16-2019, 01:03 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Superbill questions
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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11-16-2019, 01:43 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Superbill questions
Hypothetically, you are correct. In the case of a US $1 coin, it costs around $0.10 to make and, even if it cost twice as much for an unlicensed producer to make a perfect copy, it would represent a 400% profit. Even if you just exchanged them at a currency trader, you would still make a 300% profit.
Of course, bills represent a much larger markup, but they are much harder to copy (superbills require a massive criminal infrastructure to make cheaply enough to make even a 100% profit). No one uses a US $1 coin, so new looking ones would actually be less suspicious. They also do not have serial numbers, holograms, and other anti-counterfeit features that make superbills so expensive to make. |
11-16-2019, 02:24 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Oct 2007
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Re: Superbill questions
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A properly counterfeit coin will look and weigh the same as a properly minted one, so there's little your merchancts can do to filter out counterfeits they may receive as payment in the field. |
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11-16-2019, 02:46 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Superbill questions
And the target government might start debasing their currency at a higher rate that the counterfeits from your government, so you might start exporting valuable metals rather than importing them. Ironically, they might even blame foreign merchants for the debasement, as the target government would probably want to shift blame.
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11-16-2019, 03:35 PM | #9 | |||
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Superbill questions
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11-16-2019, 04:28 PM | #10 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Superbill questions
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The ideal time to make this play would be just as the target performs a debasement on their own currency. You get to leech their debasement profits while amplifying the economic disruption and inflation it causes for them.
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