Confidence Man

Every Ponzi scheme collapses. Yours is no exception.

1924. You have an office, a letterhead, and a promise nobody should believe: guaranteed returns, paid monthly, in cash.
There is no investment. There never was. Every dollar you pay out comes from whoever walked in behind. It works — right up until it doesn't.

Investors are cards. Cards have names.

27 investor cards, each one a person with a deposit, a nerve, and a habit. The widow who will never ask questions. The whale whose money keeps you afloat and whose panic takes you down with it. The true believer who never withdraws — but makes you stand up and give a speech every quarter. The reporter, sitting quietly in the back, counting, who will print what they have unless you buy them dinner first.

The interest rate is the trigger.

Every month you set what you promise: 5%, 10%, 20%, 40%. A higher rate pulls money in faster — and inflates next month's bill, and raises the suspicion that eventually walks a prosecutor through your door.
Every run is the same argument with yourself, over and over: it held last month. It will hold once more.

You can leave whenever you want. Laundering takes two months.

Declare your exit and 40% of the pot moves into the getaway case each month. Payments still come due. Suspicion climbs hard. Survive the wash and you walk. Collapse mid-wash and you keep half of what made it.
There is no safe month to run. There is only the month you chose.

Draft a scheme, not just a deck.

16 operating methods, offered three at a time — the pulpit that turns your believers into cover, the fast boat that cuts laundering to a single month, the friendly D.A. who makes bribery risk-free, the double books that skim 10% into your vault every month whether you want it or not.

Five faces, bought with notoriety.

You start as The Nobody, with nothing but your hands. Ruin enough people and you unlock The Preacher, The Fixer, The Socialite, The Ghost — each one changing which lies come naturally to you.

Features

• 27 investor cards, 14 action cards, 16 draftable schemes
  
• 10 monthly events plus a 5-boss cycle that escalates every run: audit season, bank-run rumors, the whale's wedding, the prosecutor's file, the federal agent
  
• Three endings — Collapse, Escape, and one almost nobody reaches
  
• 15–20 minute runs with meta progression between them
  
• Fully localized in 31 languages
  
• Original 1920s banknote-engraving art, every card hand-composed