Attribute Auctions

[RPGPundit]

The "should" was not in the sense of "this is how you should run the game", but rather in the sense of "this is how you would run the game to emulate the novels".  

Its like saying in Star Wars the Jedi should be meditative.  Its not to say that if you ran SW where the Jedi were not meditative, or where there were no jedi, or whatever, it would be "wrong" in the sense of gameplay; its just saying that if you're trying to emulate the genre this is what you want to do.

RPGPundit

[Otha]

Yes, well we've already established that that's not an option in this case, haven't we?

[Spike]

Spike, that's really cool.

So ... the guy with 10 attribute points only gets 2 cards but the guy with 40 gets to draw 8.

Whether they trade blind or let each other see the number might not matter -- we have to assume that the players will be somewhat fair in their trades and as long as the one guy only ends up with 2 and the other gets 8 the system should still balance itself. Player A might trade a higher card in an off-suit in order to gain another card in the suit he wants, for example.

I'll have to ponder this!

Of course, in my example, the value of the card isn't important, only it's suit, but you could mix things up a bit by playing with values, certainly. As I understand it your actual value in an attribute is rather trivial, only your relative ranking really matters. So if magically 10 points of attributes became 16 (say he drew a 9 and a 7 of clubs) it shouldn't unbalance the game unduly.  It does add a greater level of complexity and competitive trading, even in coop group play. Or should, rather.

To me, the real difficulty becomes structuring the trade system. Do you make it so that trades can't be refused?  Suggestion is: each player can initiate a trade with any one other player. I suggest keeping trade blind, but if cards have actual values then non-blind trades can be interesting too. players trade equal numbers of cards, no two players can trade twice, go around the group one time. Everyone turns over their cards at the end and determines attributes based on what they had. Note that players can look at their own cards at any time. The point is to try to build your hand so that you have the stats you want.

[SunBoy]

A "Siedlers von Catan" kinda thing, then? Like, "OK, I'll give you a ten Psyche for a Queen of Strenght". Mate, that's really great... and could be used as a char gen on it's own right, not only in Amber. I mean, it combines randomness, choice and hability to bluff. Truly great. So, there's a brain inside the BDSM fighting pet.

And, Otha, mate, I'm sorry if you got me wrong up there, I was talking -and I think the ugly piper there was too- about the original intentions of the designers, not a "duly way" of playing the game. Personally, I find that Amber would loss a lot without player versus player conflict, because I feel the system is mostly oriented that way. Of course, you could pit them against amberite-like NPCs, with comparable power and opposed intentions (actually I had to do it in the beggining of my Amber campaign, before characters started hating each other), and the system would work just as well. I wasn't trying to force anything down your, or anybody's throat.

[Otha]

A "Siedlers von Catan" kinda thing, then? Like, "OK, I'll give you a ten Psyche for a Queen of Strenght". Mate, that's really great... and could be used as a char gen on it's own right, not only in Amber. I mean, it combines randomness, choice and hability to bluff. Truly great.

Thank you.  And it doesn't have to include randomness if you don't want it to--for example, if each player started with a whole deck of cards.

[SunBoy]

Actually the lil'bit of randomness was an added value for me, but it's equally useful both ways.

[SunBoy]

Sorry, I clicked twice on the "post" thingie. :blush:

[weilide]

I'll be running a new Amber campaign within the next month or two and it looks as though I'm likely to have a small group of players, along the lines of two to three players. Perhaps four if I'm lucky. How does this affect the prospects of a successful attribute auction? If past experience is any guide, it seems that auctions with numerous players tend to be really vibrant, with many people vying for each attribute, rivalries cropping up all over the place, etc, whereas with a small group it's more difficult to reach critical mass. Does anyone have any thoughts for auction modifications or replacements that are better suited to a small number of players? (I wish Erick were still around. I would have loved to hear his advice on this one.)

[Malleus Arianorum]

I wouldn't change the bidding itself, I'd just raise expectations. Normaly I pitch the importance of a single first place ranking, and assure players that after a few sessions, they'll be rolling in character points. They'll be able to buy shapeshifting, master sorcery and walk the pattern (if they haven't already) and buy off their human and chaos attributes. The only thing they can't do is buy first place ranking. So actualy, selling down your attributes, taking on maximum badstuff and forgoing the Advanced powers isn't just a good idea, it's the most important idea!
 
With three players, I'd just raise expectations: With so few players, having first isn't good enough any more, you need to have first place in TWO attributes, otherwise you're at the mercy of the guy who has it! So yeah, obviously scrimp on everything else to get those two first place ranks. In a couple of games you'll be swimming in character points and you'll be able to buy everything else up again.

[gabriel_ss4u]

Hi, I'm still in transition, moved to Baltimore from Chicago, and have been bizzee.
BUT
I have had an auction with 1 or more NPCs that I fitted into the rankings.
By picturing the type of character you'd like, use that as an idea for a "private bidder" and act as if it is a player they may meet later, but it may be a NPC. Run against them in the bidding war, more than 1 is ok, but I wouldn't suggest more than 2 or 3 for 3-4 players. You have to be able to unattach yourself from the character though, as all good GMs should. some of my best NPCs were the ones that fitted in the bidding war in my co-GM campaign.
Anyone in Baltimore wanting to do some Amber or Chaos?

[jibbajibba]

I haven't posted for a while, Investment banking has been a bit busy of late.

I use point buy but in a blind acution... does that makes sense? What I mean is you have an auction of a set number of rounds, 3 , 5, 7 whatever depending on whether its done face to face or remotely.
After each round a player knows their bid, their realative rank and the highest score. This is not the case in the last round where the player knows nothing.

The rules are -
* You can bid any number of points in any round but you can not decrease your bid from the previous round. So even if the high bid in round 2 was 34 points in Strength you can sill bid 33 or 4 in round 3.
* You don't get to spend any more points in your attributes after the bidding auction is complete.

I also put a lot the NPCs in the pot with the players. All their generation at least.

Now you would think that this just means everyone ignore the auction ane just spends in the last round like point buy but it has never worked out that way. By using NPCs I can promote elements of the vote and set benchmarks. Note I submit all NPC bids prior to reading the player bids for each round.

I have toyed with ways to limit / restrict it but end of the day it seems to work pretty well like this.

There are 2 things I hate in the base rules. The first is that the best at something will always be the best no matter what. The second is that a cany player can shut down the rank system with an early fat bid. Basically if a player in Warfare auction bids say 75 of their 100 points and as a result no other players choose to bid there is no differentiation in the ranks of all the other players. Yes another player might choose to spend 75 points but they will still not be as good as that first player. This is a failure in the system. I know we have already discussed on here how to negate it with an ante based bidding system where bids must progress in steps but this doesn't get rid of the first problem I have.

The auction is great as it sets up rivalries so you have to keep it or a variation of it but it needs fixing.

I like that card idea with suits reprensenting stats. I think a variation on that where you split the deck into suit based piles and shuffled dealt out a card apiece then traded would eb great. No one woudl knwo if the 6 they held was the top or the bottom of the tree. But I still don;t liek the Ranks idea in its essense so I owuld need to tweak it somehome to get it to work. Defintiely good for a one off though or a tornament game where a tradtional aution woudl eb too time consuming and xp development is less important.

Good to be back

[Croaker]

I just let players make a secret first biding, where each one can bid as much as they like. This gives each player a chance to bid.

Then, I announce the highest bid, and proceed as planned in the rules.

In the end, asides from the first who knows he's the best, no one knows if he's stronger than another PC or not.

[Ivanhoe]

I see the auction as a good way of simulating the fact that the characters have grown together, knowing each other : they know their respective abilities in the same way that Corwin knows he is almost as skilled as Eric in swordsmanship, that Gerard is known for his force...

In my game I used the secret bid option. I managed to sell the points rather well by explaining that a first rank in psychee or combat is usually valued around 50 points. That allowed a character to beat Caine in a sword fight. The different players didn't know each other. Each time a new character appeared, he was a complete mystery. They tend to hide their genealogy, their powers and attributes. That is fairly interesting as well. They almost failed to mind-probe a lord of Chaos at 4 vs 1 because no one wanted to reveal his/her full psychee skill.

We also have seen two players arguing about the best strategy to launch an attack. It was not obvious what the best option was as their combat attribute remained hidden :-D (Finally the sorcerer got bored, revealed himself and cast two giant fireballs to have more data on enemies' reaction. Subtle.)

[RPGPundit]

I see the auction as a good way of simulating the fact that the characters have grown together, knowing each other : they know their respective abilities in the same way that Corwin knows he is almost as skilled as Eric in swordsmanship, that Gerard is known for his force...

Yes, exactly.  That's very much been how its worked out in my current campaign.

RPGPundit

[boulet]

Using cards as an alternate character creation tool is very interesting. I don't think it would work very well by trying to blend it with the usual 100 points creation system though. For instance the angle so far was : the players choose their powers and then use the remaining resource to bid for attributes. It's very different from the "normal" creation pattern where the auction happens first and then players buy powers/items/shadow with what's left. I love this tension of the original game design where auction frenzy could set someone to have to choose between attribute ranks and powers.

I think the character creation system would benefit of a more radical overhaul using cards. For instance I imagine a system where every players starts with say a dozen cards each. Each card color is assigned to an attribute (Spades for Warfare, Hearts for for Strentgh etc..). Players bid on one attribute by displaying as many cards of the adequate color face up on the table. So for instance if player A has used three spades for Warfare and later player B uses four spades then player B is first rank and player A is second rank. And in parallel I would assign each power a cost : Sorcery is worth a pair, Shape Shifting and Trump Artistry are worth three of a kind, Pattern Imprint is worth four of a kind... Each player would have the choice during their turn to bid on one Attribute, buy a power or discard a card and draw a new one (either one that's face up in the discard pile or a new one from the stack). When every players has bought all they could, the remaining "stranded" cards could be the currency to buy Shadows, items of Power or followers.

The thing I like very much with this line of thoughts is the simultaneity of the whole process : "shit ! player A has bought first rank on Warfare, but if I want to beat him to it I would have to loose this three of a kind I was keeping for Shape Shifting" It boosts the tactical aspect of the character creation mini game. The problem is that we loose all benefit of the original design game balance : the subtle differences of costs between the different powers for instance.