During the Rocketeer quest, you can play dice to ensure that the Sasau Monestary master builder has no money to pay wages for workers to get Konrad Kyeser out of Sasau. But instead I played against the trader at the tavern during the day (before evening, when master builder is said to go there) and once I won one game against him, a dialogue with the master builder started with him shouting how he lost all his money, and I gave him the money back if Konrad can leave with me to Talmberg, skipping the entire quest to the end.
Yeah, I think you can pickpocket him too. This game has a few quests like that; it’s prety neat. For instance, when searching for the counterfeiters, you can walk up to Rapota directly and interrogate him without doing the “Damsel in Distress” quest. You can even skip the entire quest by wandering into the correct mineshaft south of Skalitz!