Role-played Auction Idea

Lord and Tailor Auction House, SE Luna, Malas, Chesapeake (PaxLair Times) – July 21, 2012 – by Winfield – Oh my! Not another Auction!  Well, we have ideas that this one will be unique from all the rest.  You see, we are not selling items to get rich. We are selling items for the fun of selling them.  “What?” you say.

This is a purely [Role-Played] auction.  We don’t put an item on the table and have people look at it briefly, and then call out the bids.

We place the item gently on the table.  The auctioneer describes the item in detail like its origin, quality, and history.  Then he carefully leads the bidding.  You can even auction your own item as a guest auctioneer too.

We don’t want 1M gold bids or speed through the items faster than killing mongbats.  We want to savor each item on display, ask questions about its authenticity or design, and then carefully bid.

Here’s how a typical bidding could go.

  • Auctioneer: We have an old cloak in fair condition from the Britain War many years ago.
  • Auctioneer: It was worn by Sir George up until his death during the last attacks.
  • Auctioneer: The cloak was discovered on the old battlefield north of Britain last year,
  • Auctioneer: along with a few of his other items, like a rusted dagger auctioned earlier.
  • Man: How do you know it’s Sir George’s?
  • Auctioneer: *holds up the cloak and displays the embroidered crest of the George family*
  • Audience: ah! Wow, it is really Sir George’s!
  • Auctioneer: This cloak is one of a kind of course
  • Auctioneer: and extremely rare in this condition for the Britain War period.
  • Auctioneer: I start the bidding at 3000 gold.
  • Man: 3000!
  • Auctioneer: 3000 to the man in green, do I hear 3500? 3500? come now, 3500!
  • Woman: 3500!! *smiling and jumping up and down*
  • Auctioneer: 3500 to the frantic lady in the blue dress! Great! Now we are getting somewhere.
  • Auctioneer: How about 4500! Do I hear 4500! Come now, it’s a piece of war history!
  • Young Man: *casually stands up and says* 5500!
  • Audience: *ooh* *ah* *my goodness*
  • Auctioneer: *blinks* did you say 5500?
  • Young Man: *nods*
  • Auctioneer: 5500 by the lumberjack over there in the corner!  Do I hear 6000!!
  • Man: *starts to fidget looking at his banker next to him and nods*
  • Man: *raises a single fore-finger high* 6000!
  • Man: *starts to sweat and breathe heavily*
  • Auctioneer: 6000! Great! do I have 6500!
  • Young Man: *reaches into empty pocket and shakes head*
  • Woman: *wishes she had more gold tonight*
  • Auctioneer: 6500? Anyone?
  • Auctioneer: Well then, 6000 going once.
  • Auctioneer: Twice!
  • Auctioneer: SOLD to the man in green for 6000 gold!
  • Auctioneer: Come on down to the table to pay and receive the Cloak of Sir George.
  • Man: *gets up carefully and tries not to step on anyone*
  • Auctioneer: Next we have a guest auctioneer with a very unique item for sale!….
  • … continues.

Obviously, it’s more about the dialogue and interaction than the actual bidding.  We may only get through 5 or 10 items in an hour.  The idea is to see how creative we can be, how funny, how serious, what history we can make up, how people might come to blows and fight over an item.  It’s not about uber items and rare things worth millions.

Anyway, we can try this out at the Lord and Tailor Auction House in Luna to see how it can work. Thanks for listening!

Lord and Tailor Auction House in Luna

About Winfield

I am the Governor of the PaxLair Statehood. Our Statehood has four cities on the Chesapeake Shard: Dragons Watch, Nidaros, PaxLair City, and PaxOku. I'm an old mage and fisherman who's been around since the beginning of the Realm [1997].
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