Blind Gavel

A Victorian auction house built on deception. Bluff, bid, and survive the vote.

A Victorian theater. A locked glass case. One player has the gavel and the one honest number in the room: what the item is actually worth. Everyone else bids blindly on a letter read from the podium, a letter the auctioneer may be reading faithfully or inventing on the spot.

The bidders in the dark include his partners. They know who they are, and unlike everyone else in the room, they know the true value of everything that comes up. They bid like they are guessing at it. They’re not.

Four to eight players, online or LAN, with in-game voice chat. This game is an argument, and it needs voices. Empty seats fill with bots that bluff, accuse, and run the gauntlet.

• The rite

  Backstage a black box is loaded with the night’s items. The auctioneer reaches in and pulls one out at random, with both hands, in front of everyone, and leaves it in the glass protector. Then he reads the letter. The page is only visible to him.

• You can see for yourself

  The item is behind glass, but you are not left to read the letter and hope. Click the glass to look at it close up: the cracks, the wrong stitching, the details that do not match what the auctioneer just told the room.

• The floor is yours

  The paddles go up. Every bid is public, a number flashed for the whole room to see, and everyone begins the night with the same budget.

• The gavel falls where he wants

  He does not have to sell to the highest bid. He can sell a treasure to a partner for a pittance, or sell the loudest skeptic in the room a beautiful forgery at full price.

• Open detective

  Any buyer can accuse someone of being the partner, and the room heads to the detective room to decide. All buyers vote; the auctioneer does not. The loser faces the elimination minigame, and nobody knows the truth yet.

• Your death is cast in the room

  The room votes on which minigame decides an eliminated player’s fate, and the other buyers play their part in it. The dead ride along with the living and watch the con through to the end.

• The side with the most money wins

  Profit is truth minus price. Buy a masterpiece cheap and you are rich. Overpay for a fake and that budget is gone, spent on nothing and unusable on every lot after it. When the gavel drops for the final time the books close, the partners are unmasked, and the winning side is named.