I'm hoping to put together another market sometime soon, but there are a couple details I need to nail down first. Last time we had a problem with realistic caches/bidding and this time I want to make it more fair and a little more reasonable. I have a couple ideas in mind and I'm going to list them below.

GEMS FOR BIDS
My first suggestion is that we assign a gem value to a single bid. Meaning an IC bid would OOC cost the player a certain amount of gems. For the purpose of this hypothetical we'll say 50 gems per bid. IC instead of having a char say something like "I bid 5 rabbits and a partridge in a pear tree" they would now just raise their paw and we as outside observers would pretend that the auctioneer acknowledged that bid. No actual post from the auctioneer would be needed for the bidding to continue (although auctioneers ARE welcome to step in should it be warranted IC). Each bid would add 50 gems to the total 'pot' so if you were the third person to bid you would be bidding 150 gems and if you won the auction as the sixth bidder you would pay 300 gems for that auction. The auction would expire 3 days after the last bid was placed and the auctioneer would close it out IC by declaring a winner.

Where would all the gems go? To the auctioneers! Mostly! I have no intention of ever, ever, ever doing this by myself again, ever. Ever. So I'm going to pay people to help me. I'm also toying around with the idea of paying participating packs for some sort of protection agreement, say, agreeing to first, start NO drama over anything that happens at the market (no vendettas, no freedom fights on behalf of slaves, to be 'muscle' and defend the auctioneers, etc) and second, to agree to raid any pack that does start shit over the market. I'm thinking one raid by each of the participating packs. In exchange Fireside will allow temporarily allied packs to join in all of the festivities as well as agree to release any captives they take issue with - as long as there's a good reason. "That one makes me sad" is not a good reason and will earn you a laugh but "that's my brother" will begrudgingly do the trick. Depending on the amount of gems collected for the whole event I may or may not set aside a certain amount for Fireside to keep, likely to buy accessories for pack members, but I'm not going to waste too much time thinking about that until after I know whether or not the 'gems for bids' idea is the winner. Rest assured the gem breakdown WILL be set in stone before bids are collected. You will know where your gems went.

Leaves a lot of questions, no? Like, do we make people declare how many bids they want to buy before any auctions begin or do we let people buy new bids throughout the whole market? What would participating packs have to raid for if they're sicced on someone? How much will auctioneers make? My answer to all of these questions right now is...I have no idea and I want to talk about it.

FAKEY FAKERSON BIDS
For this idea all potential bids definitely have to be declared before any auctions start since there's nothing to 'lose' by just declaring more and more stuff as the auctions go on. Each participating player will have to give me a list of items their characters are bringing to the market and I will approve or reject them based on realism. Once approved they are tallied somewhere and crossed off as they're used IC. I'll have to be given a list for each character and any bid sharing or item swapping will have to be approved OOC before it can be used IC - if it even ends up being allowed at all. For simplicity's sake I might not allow it. Like the 'gems for bids' idea the auction would expire after 3 days of no bids. Bids would be placed much like they were last year with bidders making a declaration like "2 rabbits and my prized iguana, Sheldon" back and forth until no more bids are taken.

While the bids themselves won't cost anything, I'll probably collect an entry fee for each character participating in order to cover paying the auctioneers. Again, I'm not auctioneering all by myself again. Ever. Also possibly the protection agreement doohickey if people like that idea.

The questions here are...what is considered reasonable? When deciding what bids are okay and what aren't do I need to look at who is a rogue and who is a pack wolf? Does the alpha have more at her disposal than a member? What happens if someone's bids are all tied up in a live auction and they want to bid in another one? How many rabbits is worth a single buffalo hide? Is a mink coat more valuable than set of bone knives? Do you see where I'm going with this?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyway, vote in the poll and leave questions and comments down below. Please, if you pick 'other' give me an idea to work with because I just don't know what else to do. After a clear winner is reached I'll do more polls or something to fill in details.

Personally I like the gems for bids idea. It's an event that people have been asking for, plus paying for it would held weed out those that think a slave is a good idea at the time, but don't really have plans or muse for it after. Keeps plots from dying. No point in going through all of the trouble if the person being sold as a slave is just hung out to dry.

Gems. Yes. -Nod-

The idea of paying a pack for protection is a neat one too. It'll keep things clean as long as all going into the auction agree that that's what the pack is there for and that they can't make a public scene. Or something along those lines anyway.

I lied, i meant to vote for "other" I'm not really into the gems thing but what if we did rolls for highest bidder? Like after you have enough fakey fake bids for intellect points we could have a dice roll out the winner.

oop i changed my mind. I second koalas points, she's far more articulate than I am

I don't like the idea of gems, I'm sure I'm not the only active member hovering around less than 100 right now so I disagree that it would be a good gauge on who would have the drive/time/etc to actually take care of said slave. If it's a gem auction I pretty much cannot participate, my gems are held up for future purchases and characters and I know Lunar is in a similar boat, for one more 'active' member example.

Another reasoning *away* from gems, is that the biggest drama on site to have come from the last market was Winterfell's bid for Kai. If that was a simple gem purchase Acere wouldn't have put his pack forward for raiding, two less raids would have been done, people wouldn't be so jaded ICly, all in all I'm happy with how it all turned out and I don't want it to turn into just a boring "whoever has the most gems accumulated in wait" OOC auction instead of an IC one.

I voted fakey fakerton bids, but i think there would be ways to keep people fair about it. If enough notice is given before slave market you could always make people do a percentage of their bids ICly - Say, you want to come prepared with a moose and a squirrel and some trinkets, they need to have at least 1 IC thread gathering those items so people don't just start throwing out "I bid 10 polar bears!!!"

Alternatively you could do some fake fakerton gems, like a currency just invented for this purpose where everyone who enters gets X amount. Ie: Alphas get 300, Loners get 100, pack wolves get 200, and allow people to submit hunt/gather/craft threads for extra currencies before it starts. So if someone decides they want to spend 2 weeks ICly slaughtering every one of Ardent's large prey animals then they could be 'richer' for the auction. Which also I think would satisfy the gem reasoning of 'we want these people to actually USE the slaves they buy and not make plots dead' because they'd have still had to work for these ficticious currencies. People/packs could pool their currencies if they wanted to if bids got too high. I'd still want a way for people to be creative with their actual bids though, so my only worry with even this alternative is that it would stop people from bidding theirselves/their packs/whatever other creativities someone might be able to think of like from the last auction. Those IMO were the most interesting bids to me, way better then "i raise your rabbit to a elk'

I'll edit this with more opinions later (I think I like Koala's but only skimmed - silly work thing)

I just wanted to say before I forgot - perhaps anyone with merchant specialty should get an edge in this somehow?

Here's another thought regarding the protection pact: what if participating packs had to send a wolf or two as muscle or an auctioneer? Would also let anyone with intellect earn some serious points as auctioneers would technically be helping to organize a festival! ;D

I like where koala is going, everyone is maybe given a certain number of bids, but the fake currency idea is good too but maybe more disparity between loners and alphas. However i do like the idea of how creative things got last time. some of it was a litttle ridiculous though so if we do that perhaps after X number of bids it goes to a dice roll. (gonna get dice in here somehow) loners roll 0-25, tier 3-6 pack wolves roll 10-30 and alphas/tier 2 maybe 15-30 or something like that. If that was used we'd have to go back to limiting the amount of bids or auctions someone is allowed in.

and venom would 100% send in some ashen

Loooove Koala's idea. It also makes me think of the IC inventory Fox was getting about a while ago for trading which would also encourage more activity IC. So fake bids, just more thought out / proof of items or something.

I voted for the Fakey bids, but I would like to see at least some sort of thread or reason for a wolf to have the items. Like, they don't necessarily need to have a thread where they're skinning a bear but as long as they have a fight thread with a bear I think its reasonable for them to say they have a bear skin, but they can't go saying I have 50 bear skins to give you! If so I better see 50 bear fights.

I did some quick skimming and I also like RK's idea regarding a currency for this specific purpose with the extra being able to use crafting threads for trades.

I'm also open to things going to dice roll if necessary.

I'm going with majority here.

Fakey-fake is the way to go.
I also like hunting threads against predator or prey to help decide what you get
for some fun instead of just the skins it could be things like bear claws or other 'trinkets' some might want for crafting
Deer antlers are super sturdy and good for armor so those might be good for bidding also besides a deer hide.

I still like to suggest those with merchant specialty starting with a bit more when bidding as it seems a spot specialty would make a lot of sense.

It could also be after everyone had x-number of chances for bidding war that it went to that 'silent auction' state - everyone quietly tells thse auctioneer (or other helper) how much they will raise the price and it becomes a game of how high will you bid that will beat the other wolves without paying too much over.

I'm inclined to say let fake bids roll, but decide via. dice roll rather than any artificial value placed on items.

I'm all for fake bids with limitations. Maybe packs need to meet and say "ok at most what do we have to give?" and idk loners can gather things etc. I don't think gems is accurate of who's active cause many active players spend their gems.

Okay, fake bids and fake currency it is! Below is what I'm thinking. I'm still up for tweaking if anyone has any suggestions, but I think this is the gist of it now.

* All wolves start off with 200 credits. Those credits can be divided up and used anyway the player likes.
* All claimable skill threads (3+ rounds) that end in the acquisition of something and were completed in the last 3 months can be used.
* Auctions have a max of 5 days to end on their own. The last to post to an auction wins it. Auctions expire 12 hours after the last bid.
* If the 5 day limit is reached in the auction all characters who responded in the last 12 hours will get a chance to win via dice roll.
* All items must be registered with the auction house before the official start of the market. When I have a start date I'll add it here.
* Characters with IC ties to one another can share their credits.
* To maximize the claimable threads, predator fights don't need to have a IC kill in them. I'm willing to do similar things for the other skills if anyone has any ideas.
* Auctions will advance by a minimum of 5 credits. The starting bid will be an item worth 5 credits and every bid from then on must top the previous bid by at least 5.
* Items can only be used in 1 auction at a time and must be linked in each post.


Item Worth:
5 credits
* Small animal pelt
* Feathers, bones, animal parts not intended for consumption
* Simple trinkets such as leather necklaces, bangles, wooden game pieces, etc.
* Simple weapons such as wooden spears, bone daggers, stone daggers, etc.
* Small quantities of preserved meat
* Dried herbs
* Bandages, tisanes, etc.
* Small amounts of alcohol
* Paint

10 credits
* Medium animal pelts
* Jewelry that would need to be bought with a large accessory pass if bought IC
* Small metal weapons such as knives
* Pottery (1 bowl, cup, jar, etc.)
* Snare kits
* 2 containers of alcohol
* First solo events for yearlings (herb collecting and hunting. if you want to make a case for exploration I'm open for suggestions)
* All navigation related crafting since they're limited on claimable threads.

15 credits
* Large animal pelts
* Large accessories such as bags, blankets, clothing
* Pottery set (2+ items crafted in the same thread)
* Large quantities of preserved meat
* Battle accessories such as helmets and armor

20 credits
* Large quantity collecting/crafting events. I'll judge these on a case by case basis as I have no idea what they even look like, I just want the option.
* Craft + hunt event

Thread Exchange Rate for 'Big' Items:
* Both the small animal hunts and small predator fights are worth 5 credits total.
* Both the medium animal hunts and medium predator fights are worth 10 credits total and can either be claimed as two 5 credit bids or one 10 credit bid. Meaning you can claim either the pelt (or something comparable), two portions of dried meat, or a combination of things like a portion of dried meat and a dagger made out of the animal's thigh bone.
* Both the large game hunts and large predator fights are worth 20 credits total. Same as above.
* Lessons that involve making something, fighting a predator or killing prey but have less than 3 participants are worth 10 credits.
* Lessons that involve making something, fighting a predator or killing prey and have 3+ participants are worth 15 credits.


Auction Example:
Auctioneer asks for a 5 credit item. "Who wants to start the bidding? A small animal pelt? Anyone?"
Bidder 1 offers a small animal pelt.
Bidder 2 then has the option of a single 10 credit item or two 5 credit items and opts for offering a stone knife (5) and a small animal pelt.
Bidder 1 offers a small animal pelt (5) and and a snare kit (10)
Bidder 3 offers a large animal pelt (15) and a small animal pelt (5)
And so on!

This is not a complete list of acceptable items. You're welcome to make suggestions for me to add to my list + there will be an option for you to make a case for threads that aren't covered in this list when I start registering credits.