The Tale

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"Never play a man for the short con when you can play 'em for the long one."

—Frank Fontaine, BioShock

The Tale is the plot of a confidence game. It defines the ways in which The Mark will be duped. A con-man crew usually includes a team member called the Roper, whose job is to ingratiate himself with the mark and tell them "the tale" of how the Get Rich Quick Scheme supposedly works, thus "roping him in". The terms Long Con and Short Con are related to the complexity of the tale. The slang term for these is a "gag."