My group will be arriving in Almas soon, I am hoping in about and month or month and a half if they do not screw around to much. Though I doubt
I am that lucky. They have been stuck in little town so they have a lot of gold to spend and for level 8 they are rather limited items. I mentioned a auction and they seemed rather interested. So since I like happy players and it could be fun I want to set up an auction house. But I have never done this before so I need some ideas.
What I want is some ideas of the types of items that would be found there. Magical items, art, maps, animals?
Also some of the kinds of people that would go to these events. Other adventures or maybe some merchants. I need some personalities that could be there.
Oh and if anyone has any ideas for some encounters that might happen there that would be greats. Good or bad encounters are very welcome.
What level of security should I have there?
And if there is anything else that might be fun to add please let me know.
Thank you in advance
DAA
You could have a guy who always bids high on everything, but doesn't actually have any money, so the item always goes to the person who bid previously. They could discover this with some snooping, and know not to try and get into a bidding war with him.
They could learn of a crew of thieves planning a heist of the auction, and either stop them so they can participate, or join the thieves.
You could have some kind of Mcguffin be up for auction to tie it into a story.
There could be a shady group who participate in the auction on behalf of some "Wealthy Patron who is extremely interested in the auction."
You could have the auctioneer speak incredibly slowly, as a flip on the typical lightning-fast auctioneer. I plan to use this one myself.
Security should be decent to nearly foolproof, depending on what you want to happen.
You could have the auction be attacked by bandits halfway through.
All of the items in the auction could be bizarre. Things like horses with fives legs, swords bent at right angles, broken vases, but all the auction-goers treat it like incredible treasure. The party could find out that there's mind affecting magic at play, or it's just a bunch of weird people.
They are more likely to try to stop the bandits, but that could be fun. I like the slow talking option. That is rather amusing. Thank you for some fun suggestions Tyinyk.
The last one could defiantly be fun. If they enjoy the auction then that will come up later in a different city.
I did a mount auction once. You wouldn't believe how much they spent on a horse. At the end the party was out of money but were riding some pretty great mounts. One thing I made sure to do was make it seem like the better mounts were later but would be more pricey. IE: start with a horse, end with a drake. I then threw in a few oddballs like a llama covered in gold paint praised as the vorpal llama of destiny
Consider having some sealed bid auctions (write a bunch of bids down as the PCs discuss theirs, close to the actual value). The winner pays the next-highest bid after their own. It's interesting because it encourages honest bidding- the optimal strategy is placing a bid for the most you want to pay.
It's a good chance to try different types of auctions, making the whole thing seem bigger.
Abadarites might have some magic at the expensive auctions checking if anybody is bidding beyond their means.
Hehe, vorpal llama of destiny. I rather like that one.
I like the sealed bidding.And yes to the magical ways of knowing about cheating. Any suggestions on what would work?
Bibbidi bobbidy boo. As a dm you literally just say the wizard did it. Or if you really want to explain it in context of real world; explain a wizard researched a spell and sold it for money like most math majors wish they could do with their algorithms.
There is an auction at the beginning of Entombed with the Pharaohs. I've played in the game but haven't read it, so I don't know how much guidance the module gives the GM or how much detail it goes into.
Dastis it is a personal preference to no hand wavy thing outside of what I have the Deities do.
Joana I do happen to have the module but sadly it is rather spare on the actual auction.
I would not be able to do that in Almas but when they get to Taldor then that sounds like a really fun idea :)