A Throne War         Special Rules
Hosted by Franklin W. Cain

Initial Bids

  1. You must buy at least the "Basic" level of a Power during the Initial Round of the auction if you want your character to have any form of that Power. For example, if Franklin forgets to spend at least 40 points on Trump when submitting his initial bids, he will not be able to bid for Trump Artistry later in the game.

  2. The minimum bid for an Advanced Power is the "book" price (or, 25 pts. in the case of Adv. Sorcery, and 35 pts. in the case of Adv. Conjuration, as these are not "standard" Powers from the book).

  3. After collecting the Initial Bids for Attributes and Powers, the GM will calculate everyone's Modifiers for bids on Positions and Items. After returning these Modifiers, the GM will then collect the Initial Bids for Positions and Items.

  4. After collecting the Initial Bids, if the GM discovers that no one has bid on a particular Position or Item, then that Position or Item is immediately removed from the Auction (and given to a totally impartial NPC whose "loyalty" as an Ally is completely unavailable).

Modifiers

  1. Note that the Effective Bid, the value that will be used to determine rankings, is the sum of the Actual Bid plus the associated Modifier.

    1. Furthermore, the minimum value for both the Effective Bid and the Actual Bid is one (1) point. (In other words, if you want to win a particular Position or Item, you must bid at least one point, and if the Modifier is a negative number, you must bid more points than the penalty.)

    2. There is one exception to this minimum. For the Jewel of Judgement, the minimum for the Actual Bid is ten (10) points.

  2. For those who care, here are the rules for calculating the various Modifiers:

    1. (For the Marshal Position): This Modifier is a bonus equal to one third (rounded to the nearest whole number) of the sum of the player's Initial Bids for Strength and Warfare.

    2. (For the Admiral(s) Position): This Modifier is a bonus equal to one third (rounded to the nearest whole number) of the sum of the player's Initial Bids for Endurance and Warfare.

    3. (For the Captain Position): This Modifier is a bonus equal to one third (rounded to the nearest whole number) of the sum of the player's Initial Bids for Strength and Warfare.

    4. (For the Prince(ss) Position): This Modifier is a bonus equal to one third (rounded to the nearest whole number) of the sum of the player's Initial Bids for Psyche and Endurance.

    5. (For the Pattern-Sword(s) Item): This Modifier is a bonus equal to one third (rounded to the nearest whole number) of the sum of the player's Initial Bids for Warfare and Pattern.

    6. (For the Jewel of Judgement Item): This Modifier is the sum of the following:

      1. A bonus equal to one third (rounded to the nearest whole number) of the sum of the player's Initial Bids for Psyche and Pattern.

      2. A penalty equal to one third (rounded to the nearest whole number) of the sum of the player's Initial Bids for Logrus and Shape Shifting. (We do not want the Serpent to regain its missing Eye, thank you very much!)

    7. (For the Trump Deck(s) Item): This Modifier is a penalty equal to one third (rounded to the nearest whole number) of the sum of the player's Initial Bids for Psyche and Trump.

Auction

  1. We will conduct the Auction in the following order:

    1. Attributes
    2. Powers
    3. Positions
    4. Items

  2. The winner of the Auction for a particular Advanced Power is the only player character with all of the "benefits" of that Advanced Power. Everyone else will be treated as if they have a "partial power" (based, of course, on the final Rank Structure for that Advanced Power). Note that the ability of building and empowering a Construct is, in my cosmology, a use of the Advanced form of the associated Power(s).

  3. For Positions and Items:

    1. In the case of two (or more) players having the same Effective Bids on a particular Position or Item, then their Actual Bids will be used as a tie-breaker.

    2. For those Positions or Items where there is a choice involved (e.g., Admiral, Pattern-Sword, Trump Deck), the first-place winner has first pick. If applicable, the second-place winner will have the next pick, and so on.

    3. Non-winning bids on Positions and Items are refunded, and may be spent elsewhere as deisred.

      Exception:
      Non-winning bids on the Jewel of Judgement are only partially refunded. Ten points must still be payed for Attunement to the Jewel, but the remainder of the points bid are refunded.)

    4. Each player can win only one Position. Any player with the winning bids for more than one Position must immediately choose which Position to keep, and forfeits the other winning bids (but does get refunded the points, as if he had not won those other Positions).

  4. All results of this Auction are considered "public knowledge". In other words, everyone knows who has which Pattern-Sword, everyone knows who is the Admiral of which Fleet, and so on.

After the Auction

You can spend whatever points you have remaining on the usual "extras":

Option         Too Few Players

If we have less than six players, I'll remove certain Positions and Items from the Auction (to speed up the Auction, and to preserve a source of competition).

  1. For the Marshal, Admiral, and Captain Positions:

    1. If we have less than six players, then these Positions will be auctioned collectively (using a modifier based on Warfare and Pattern).

    2. If we have only two or three players, then one and only one (1) of these Positions is available (winner's choice).

    3. If we have only four players, then only two (2) of these Positions are available (winners' choice, with first place choosing first).

    4. If we have five players, then only three (3) of these Positions are available (winners' choice, with first place choosing first, etc.).

    5. If, after collecting the Initial Bids from all Players, we have fewer bids on these Positions then the number of Positions available, then the GM will lower the number of Positions available to this lower number. (For example, if we have five Players, we have a maximum of three Positions available. If, after Initial Bids, we have only one Bid on these Positions, then we will have only one Position available, not three.)

  2. (The Rebma Position is unaffected by these circumstances.)

  3. For the Pattern Sword Item:

      If we have less than six players, then one and only one (1) of the Pattern Swords is available (winner's choice).

  4. (The Jewel of Judgement Item is unaffected by these circumstances.)

  5. For the Trump Deck Item:

    1. If we have only two or three players, then one and only one (1) of the Trump Decks is available (winner's choice).

    2. If we have only four or five players, then only two (2) of the Trump Decks are available (winners' choice, with first place choosing first).