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I wasn't overly sure where to put this, so decided to put it on the general discussion board. If I am wrong for putting this here I apologize in advance.
In any case in a recent game session my players have arrived at an outpost where there is an auction every 3 months in game.
The players have never been able to arrive when the auction was happening because they are generally concerned with the story arc or adventures or misadventure they have become involved with and lost track of time in the the game world and miss the auction.
This time though the characters (by accident) arrived back at this outpost a day before the auction.
The premise for the auction is that their are several small cities and town a week or so away from this outpost. These settlements deal with their harder to catch criminals by outsourcing the problem to bounty hunters through a third party who pays the bounty hunters and collects a small percentage of the bounties.
The auction is held far enough away in this fairly remote location because many of the bounties require that the bounty hunters give in all of the items found on the bounties when they collect their money. To make more money they started stockpiling some of the items they found on the bounties and are selling them through a small mobile auction house that sets up every third month to auction off some of the more lucrative items. The items range from small trinkets to weapons and everything in between.
I was wondering if people could help me come up with some interesting items. They can be mundane or magical. I was hoping to get some random ideas for backstories for criminals who's items are being auctioned off to give the world some depth and make it seem more real.
I was also wondering if people have ever ran auctions in game and if they have any advice on how to run it smoothly.
It depends on what the players are trying to do at the auction. If they're bargain hunting, the appraise skill would be important. If they're trying to manipulate the bidding, Bluff and Sense Motive.
Or are you looking for something else ?
hm, well I don't know if you've been to a real auction, but if not, you may not know that if one person has bid say, $100 on an item, the auctioneer is not going to just let somebody bid $100.01 and be the lead bidder, so don't let your PCs do that. The price has to go up in fairly non-trival amounts. In that example, the auctioneer might ask for $120, and if he gets no bids, ask for $110 before selling it for $100.
Personally, I would not sell non-magical items. For the sort of thing you described, in my mind it just wouldn't make sense. If an auction is selling any magical items, the amount they make off of those magic items is so much it vastly outclasses any profit from mundane items. In other words, it's simply not worth their time to pay their employees to auction off items that are only going to sell for a handful of gp.
Mechanically I guess I'd say start at 75% of the item's list price, and roll a d100. NPCS bid at a 50% chance, +X% where X is the amount lower the item is than the base price. So for the example above, it would be a 75% chance that an NPC would bid on the item. Once it got up to the items base price, only a 50% chance that an NPC would bid on the item. Roll each time a new bid is entered.
Mechanically I guess I'd say start at 75% of the item's list price, and roll a d100. NPCS bid at a 50% chance, +X% where X is the amount lower the item is than the base price. So for the example above, it would be a 75% chance that an NPC would bid on the item. Once it got up to the items base price, only a 50% chance that an NPC would bid on the item. Roll each time a new bid is entered.
That's sounds solid. I would do that and add maybe 3-6 npcs. Give them maximum pools of money. and a will save if the pcs want to do some equivalent of dazzling display. Oh and the npc with the most money could even be an agent for the bbeg. I may actually do that now. :)
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Hmmm that is good advice. I like the randomness of the dice rolls to determine if the items are bid on. It is actually perfect for me. That way the party will only slightly blame me and blame my dice rolls more!
I've never been to an auction myself, but seen enough of them to know how they work. Generally the bids raises itself in increments based on a percentage of the perceived value or starting bid of the item.
I should probably come up with a set of rules, so my players don't kill me when they get to bidding.
I wasn't overly planning on having tons of mundane items. They were going to be more flashy looking mundane items, such as ornate swords or clothes. Red herrings if you will that Players and non players alike might waste money on thinking they were magical etc... that and things people might want just because they look neat.
As I said though I plan on not adding too many of those, enough for flavor and for anybody (NPC wise) that wants to collect random curiosities.
Auctions are usually a limited amount of people for a limited amount of time. Other than high-end, unique items like a Van Gogh, the price would usually be less than market value. If they could just make it themselves or go order it from the wizard, why would they pay extra for it?
You can surely have artwork and jewels that reach the value of some magic items.
As to the mechanics, here is what I would do:
1) Start at 70% of market value.
2) See if the PCs want it, if not, move on as it already doesn't matter who gets it.
3) If they do, start the bidding. Let every player in on it by rolling for a NPC. If you have 3 players, 3 NPCs are interested in each item. Alternately, roll 2d4 (or whatever works for your game) to see how many NPCs are interested in the item.
4) An NPC bids if the total roll is over the value %.
5) Each round of bidding has the bid go up 5% of base value.
6) The rounds are as follows:
Round 1: 70% NPCs Roll 1d100+1d20
Round 2: 75% NPCs Roll 1d100+1d12
Round 3: 80% NPCs Roll 1d100+1d10
Round 4: 85% NPCs Roll 1d100+1d8
Round 5: 90% NPCs Roll 1d100+1d6
Round 6: 95% NPCs Roll 1d100+1d4
7) If a bidder fails to make a bid, he doesn't bid any more for this item.
8) If the value gets to 100% give it to the PCs, unless you have a story reason to keep going. If that is the case, the story will dictate the bidding.
This might be a cool way for the PCs to play around with getting some stuff at less than it would normally cost, but at more than they could make it for.
On the flip side, let them sell something at auction too! Each auction they can put in one item. The auctioneer takes 25% of the base value, not the sale value. So this way, there is risk to the PCs, but also a chance at a reward.
Story/RP options: If the PCs are bidding, they want less bidders. Let them intimidate or convince or RP to get 1 or 2 prospective bidders to not bid.
If they are selling, let them try to get 1 or 2 more people to bid. Maybe use some diplomacy or perform checks to get people interested.
I really like your idea and think it might be a lot of fun to do every once in a while! I am going to add it to my game!
For the random mundane items can be like donkey or a horse because the bad guys that got caught had to be traveling some how oh and a random boat or two (this made me think of police auctions they almost always have a boat and couple cars/donkeys/horses/elephants)