Advice for running an auction in game

[the clumsy bard]

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.

[JeenLeen]

Sounds tricky and like it could tick off the players if prices wind up too high (or they buy some junk thinking it's magical), but it's a cool concept I could see giving them a sense of reward and good fortune. Personally, I wouldn't like it, but I can see others really enjoying it, especially if magic items are rare in your campaign.

I would set at least 3 rules, based off the percentage of the item's value.
1. Start the bidding at, say, 50%. An NPC will bid until the item is at least 80%.

2. Between 80% and 120%, roll a die to determine if an NPC will continue to bid. (This lets the players get lucky or unlucky.)

3. No NPC will bid if the item is selling for more than 120%.

The percentages can change to whatever you think works, and you could add something in like 'crowd excitement' where they are trying to outbid one another, leading to prices going even higher.

As a plot hook, having an item that is valued by related to the plot could be interesting. Perhaps it encourages the player's for a bidding war to keep it out of an enemy's hand?
You could also add some tension in that the players don't know how many things to buy early-on, since they don't know what will be for sale later (or at least how much those items will end up costing. I think most auction houses let you see or at least see a list of items for sale before the bidding starts, but my experience is very limited. And an auction house that is basically money laundering to avoid bounty laws probably is more reluctant to let anyone examine the items.)

Do the PCs sell stuff through this auction house such that they would be friendly with the owners? Is the house reputable, i.e., is it known to sell stuff as magical that might not be magical? The answers to those questions could influence the knowledge the PCs can get about the items before going into the actual sell.

[the clumsy bard]

This is the first interaction the party is having with this "auction house".

Some of the items have been viewed prior to the actual auction because the party paid some extra gold to see some of the items that would be up for auction.

They actually recovered some of a new party members things this way by trading an evil ring they found for some of his missing equipment.

They have debated it, but not settled on doing this yet.

I am open to the idea of them selling things of course.

The auction house is more of a mobile operation. They go from town to town with a few caravans full of stuff with a retinue of guards and other protection. They set up a stage and chairs etc when they are planning on having an auction in a town or location. The party has heard certain things, but nobody has made any checks yet (surprisingly!)

[hymer]

I made an auction once.
First there was a list of things that would be up for auction, which the players looked over and decided what they wanted to bid on. Then for each, I started the price at a certain percentage (lower for things hard to sell, higher for things easy to sell), and randomly rolled on a table for some pregenerated bidders who also wanted the item. These then went to the other players, who RPed them (keeping them secret from the player actually bidding). I was the auctioneer.
One bidder would bid confidently up to a certain percentage and then stop. Another would make a high bid early, trying to scare others off. Another would bid only up to a very low number, and grumble loudly and walk out when the price went over that amount. One would bid by mistake, and then have to go through a retraction. One was just waiting for the next item to come on and didn't bid at all. And so on.
That way, if the players were lucky, they wouldn't face any serious bidders. If they were unfortunate, they wouldn't be able to get it at any decent price. At any rate, they could pull out of the bidding any time they wanted.

[inexorabletruth]

Coming up with items would be easier if I knew which system you're running. Gear is a bit different from system to system.

In D&D 3.X, I'd crack open two books:

Arms & Equipment Guide
Magic Item Compendium


Then let the dice decide. I also would let the dice decide if a magic item was cursed or not, to keep things fair.

For backstories… a simple one-paragraph blurb will do. Once you figure out what kind of weapon, armor, or item your selling, the story will kind of tell itself.

For instance, if it's grains, livestock, or some other trade good, it's most likely from a merchant or farmer who fell behind on their taxes.

If it's a simple weapon, it could be from a common thug or peasant who got on the wrong side of the law and finally got caught.

If it's armor or advanced weaponry, it could be a traitor to the ruler of the territory (king, governor, mayor, what-have-you) or a highwayman, or even an enemy soldier.

If it's rare magical goods or alchemical items, it could be from a wealthy local's estate and who died without an heir or was imprisoned for some kind of conspiracy or organized criminal activity. Or it simply could be from a generous donation by some monk or priest that took a vow of poverty and therefore can't own such extravagances.

[the clumsy bard]

Sorry the system I am using is pathfinder.

I was more hoping to have some random criminal backgrounds / names / reasons to have a bounty / having been caught stories from people.

I have a few, but after a while its hard not to seem repetitive when writing it.

[ElenionAncalima]

For running the auction, I would figure out how low and high you are willing give them items, then assign % values to a chart for a d20, d12 or d10. For example:

1 - 130%
2 - 120%
3 - 110%
4 - 100%
5 - 90%
6 - 80%
7 - 75%
8 - 70%
9 - 65%
10 - 60%

If you roll a 8 for the item have NPCs bid until you reach 70% of the item's value.

[Subaru Kujo]

Sorry the system I am using is pathfinder.

I was more hoping to have some random criminal backgrounds / names / reasons to have a bounty / having been caught stories from people.

I have a few, but after a while its hard not to seem repetitive when writing it.

Well, part of them could be the remnants of a slaver ring. The rest of the ring is dead.

Always the murderer that loves his knife that seems to drink the blood from its victims.

[inexorabletruth]

They don't all have to be exciting crimes. I did a quick google search for common crimes, and narrowed the search to a list of 100, so that you could roll a d100 for it, and let randomness ensue.

Here's what I found. (http://lang.presstelegram.com/caspio/commoncrimes.asp)

You'll have to adapt some of the crimes to the setting, but you get the idea.

To further keep things random, thereby keeping the ideas fresh, I use a system for NPC generation that you may find usable. I play D&D. By my understanding, it has a lot of similarities with Pathfinder, so this should work.

d2: Male or Female
d3: Political Alignment (Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic)
d3: Moral Alignment (Good, Neutral, Evil)
d4: Young, Middle-Aged, Old, Venerable
d6: Adept, Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert, Warrior, PC class.
d8: Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Halfling, Monster Race
d100: Personality Trait (the DMG has a pretty good one, but you can look here (http://anthonyowens.wordpress.com/2007/10/17/100-character-quirks-you-can-steal-from-me/) too, and roll a d50 instead.

If the character requires a human name, I use a chart of 100 to roll up the first name, then the last name. If not, I pick a standard name from the appropriate racial list, or use anagrams of common human names. With goblins, however, I prefer to just make names up… like Gruk, or Bubyub, because they're fun to come up with. ^_^

Common first names can be found with a google search for Top 100 baby name list. Just pick a list from whichever nationality you wish to represent.

Following this system will give you more character depth than you could possibly need for an NPC that the PC will never even meet, but you can take from my system what you need and toss the rest.