Found it. A few posts seem to have been lost, but the general concepts are in some of the later posts.
A little hard to follow, but yeah, that's exactly it!
D&D 5E (2014) Character Creation- How to Apply Auction Techniques
- Thread starter Snarf Zagyg
- Start date
A little hard to follow, but yeah, that's exactly it!
TwoSix
Everyone's literal second-favorite poster
I'm participating in @el-remmen's thread with a fantasy draft, and I have to say it's really fun, enough so that I want to adapt it for my next game, but fuse it with some of the ideas from the older thread.
I'm thinking of having something like (players*7) choices. All stats start at 8. About 2/3 of the choices will be stuff like "Str 15" or "Con 12" or things like that, but the remaining third will be some different choices like "Str is 6, but you get free gauntlets of ogre strength" or "+4 to any one stat, but your Con cannot be higher than 10".
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
The Amber Diceless Roleplay system used bidding to determine rank of the four attributes, and then any left over points could be used for other perks. In the Amber books the princes and princesses of Amber pretty much knew who was the best fighter, the one with the most stamina, etc. So you were ranked 1-4, with 4 meaning "you're in the pack". And it was bidding among the players for the various positions.
I remember playing in a group during a week long camp out where we had 9 players, so the GM changed the bidding slightly. Basically everyone bid secretly (which I think is how the game does it), but then once the top four were determined the y had a second round of bidding where they could up their bids. Though the plan of sinking one attribute and judicious bidding, I was the #1 rank in everything else.
Which as a late teen seemed cool. But to my current RP self kind of turns the stomach at how much of a spotlight hog it could turn into.
Instead of an actual bidding process, where long term I am causing distress to fellow players at my table at not being able to play what they want, I'd rather see something like the old Shadowrun priority system. I might rank ability scores #1, connections #2, gear #3 (which gets me an uncommon-max item not picked by those with ranks #1 or #2), and wealth #4. Or however I want to do them. This was I'm not denying anything to anyone else, and you still have it all on the table.
I remember playing in a group during a week long camp out where we had 9 players, so the GM changed the bidding slightly. Basically everyone bid secretly (which I think is how the game does it), but then once the top four were determined the y had a second round of bidding where they could up their bids. Though the plan of sinking one attribute and judicious bidding, I was the #1 rank in everything else.
Which as a late teen seemed cool. But to my current RP self kind of turns the stomach at how much of a spotlight hog it could turn into.
Instead of an actual bidding process, where long term I am causing distress to fellow players at my table at not being able to play what they want, I'd rather see something like the old Shadowrun priority system. I might rank ability scores #1, connections #2, gear #3 (which gets me an uncommon-max item not picked by those with ranks #1 or #2), and wealth #4. Or however I want to do them. This was I'm not denying anything to anyone else, and you still have it all on the table.
MGibster
Legend
I once participated in an Amber campaign where four other players all wanted the highest Psyche and I was happy with my Zero. This resulted in me being #1 in Strength, Endurance, and Warfare. We ended up not playing that campaign after character generation.
I don't know if I'd want to bid for stats in D&D. It's kind of an interesting idea....but I don't if the benefits of such a system is worth the complexity.
Nikosandros
Golden Procrastinator
Bill Zebub
“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
Why fake? Use real money and you may have just solved the DM shortage problem.
FrozenNorth
Hero
The examples you are drawing from: fantasy drafts and certain board games, are inherently competitive: if I choose Brett Favre, no one else can.Yes. I mean, that's the whole point of it!
People often refer to the chargen game- well, this makes it an actual, fun game. Depending on what you find fun, of course.
I don’t think an auction makes sense in an inherently cooperative game.
Why would players bid against each other? Let’s take the example of two players, and the biddable scores being 17, 16, 15, 14. If I move first and bid on the 17, why would player 2 try to outbid me on the 17? Why would I bid at all on the 16? Aren’t I better off in my teammate has a +3 in their main stat than having a +3 on my secondary?
TwoSix
Everyone's literal second-favorite poster
At its core, you have to have a group that finds making someone play a 9 Con fighter funny, and that any player who got that character would laugh and enjoy it.
I have tables that definitely lean that way, and others that don’t. You have to know your audience.
Yeah ... weird to see this thread necro'd, but I think that there may be people who don't understand the point. I am not suggesting that this is used as the default method for all of D&D.
Instead, I am saying that this might be a fun way for a group of friends to get together and gamify the character creation process into an enjoyable activity.
Not sure if they've participated in auctions with friends before, but usually they are about having a good time and some laughs. Fun is good, right?
CreamCloud0
Hero
it got linked in a thread while stat generation methods were being discussed.
