The third version of the auction removes the party from both the guard rota and the burglary plan. Each player arrives as a representative: perhaps a trusted agent, perhaps a hired sword with a letter of credit, perhaps the only person their absent patron trusts not to embarrass them in public.
I call this version Dialling It In. The name is deliberately a little silly, but the idea behind it is serious. A proxy has two loyalties: the people in the room and the person who sent them there. That tension is enough to make the auction itself an adventure rather than a scene between adventures.
Money is only one kind of leverage
Every representative needs a private brief. One patron wants an item at any cost; another wants to stop a rival buying it; a third is there to learn who is funding the sale. A player can be given a budget, a reputation to protect and one instruction that becomes awkward once they meet the other guests.
I would avoid making an auction a long spreadsheet of rising numbers. A bid can instead be a moment of social pressure. Who looks confident? Who is bluffing? Who can call in a favour, expose a weakness or persuade the room that an apparently desirable lot is trouble? A light social mechanic can help when the table wants it, but roleplay should always be able to carry the scene.
The best outcome is not necessarily taking the prize home. A representative who loses an object but wins an ally, uncovers a patron’s identity or prevents the wrong buyer from succeeding has still played a good game.
A cinematic starting point
One inspiration for the atmosphere is the auction sequence in Hellboy II: The Golden Army. It begins with the reassuring grammar of a formal sale: invited guests, an auctioneer, attendants moving lots and a room organised around wealth and ceremony. The tension comes from the fact that the sale is not the whole story. A claimant with a competing idea of ownership, and a plan already underway beyond the sales room, turns a civilised event into a crisis.
I am not trying to import that scene’s plot or its spectacular violence into the game. What I want to borrow is its contrast. The public auction tells everyone where to look, while private instructions, access and old claims tell the players where the real game is. For Dialling It In, that suggests each proxy needs more than a maximum bid: they need a reason to watch a particular lot, guest or exit, and a decision to make when the formal proceedings fail to contain what is happening.
Why it suits a small parlour L(A)RP
This is also the version that most naturally becomes a parlour Live Action Role Play (L(A)RP). One dressed room, a few clearly labelled props, invitations and short private briefs can create a great deal of play. The public auction provides a rhythm; the conversations in the corners provide the plot.
I would keep a first event small and make the boundaries explicit. Guests need to know whether the game permits physical contact, theft of props, private conversation, alcohol and any form of conflict. My default would be no physical combat, no real valuables in play and a simple way to pause or step out of a scene. A Session Zero-style briefing is just as useful for a one-evening L(A)RP as it is for a campaign.
Costume and food are atmosphere, not entry requirements. A table of mock lots, name cards and a confident auctioneer will do more than asking people to spend money on an outfit. The important prop is the private instruction that makes two friendly people suddenly need incompatible things.
The development lesson
An auction gives a GM or organiser a useful public structure. Everybody knows when the next lot will be called. Everybody is free between lots to scheme, trade information and make promises they may not keep. It is an excellent frame for players who enjoy character interaction but still want the evening to move somewhere.
Next week I will look at the same building for characters who no longer need a patron’s credit note: powerful adventurers invited to the sale in their own right.
This is an unofficial design response to The Dwarven Auction, written and illustrated by Nimrod Cortés and published by OR15 Publishing. The original remains its publisher’s property; no original text, artwork or map is reproduced here. The one-page approach is also acknowledged with thanks to the One Page Dungeon Contest.
The auction-scene discussion also refers to Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), directed by Guillermo del Toro. It is commentary on the scene’s structure and atmosphere, not a reproduction of its screenplay.