Keep a Clear Budget Ledger in a Party Auction

Track winning payments and remaining fictional credits, publish tie priority and keep a party-auction record checkable.

Read the game's payment rule first

Auction games do not all charge bidders in the same way. Before making a ledger, identify who pays, when the balance changes, and whether a losing bid costs anything. The shared-budget auction uses fictional credits for an imaginary community event. Only the winning team pays its own winning bid; other teams keep their balances. This guide explains the record for that version. It is not a guide to real auctions, spending, or financial decisions. Borrowing a familiar payment rule from another game would change the choices players are making here.

Give every team a visible starting balance

The starter has two to four teams with four to sixteen participants altogether. Each team begins with twenty credits. Write team labels and those opening balances on the host ledger before offering the first project. The six projects and their order are public, as are the three functions the eventual plan must cover: welcome, rest, and explore. Keep a column for each team's balance beside the project rows. A team should not have to reconstruct its budget from memory while trying to decide whether the current card is useful.

Check a bid against the current balance

For each project, teams submit whole-number bids from zero through their remaining credits. Zero means passing. The printed setup gives forty-five seconds to agree and record the bid. An over-budget or unreadable entry is treated as a pass after the host checks it with the team. Do not quietly give a team extra credit because it misunderstood its remaining balance. Show the ledger before the next project so the same error does not keep recurring. The secret-choice guide covers folded slips and locking the decisions before the reveal.

Record the winning deduction once

Suppose team A has fourteen credits and team B has sixteen. A bids six and B bids four. A receives the project and its balance becomes eight; B stays at sixteen. Do not subtract four from B merely because that team wrote it down. Record the winning bid and the new balance on the same row, then ask the teams to confirm the arithmetic. If A later wins another project for three, its balance becomes five. Keeping each deduction visible makes an accidental double subtraction easier to locate and correct before another decision depends on it.

Publish tie priority beside the project order

Equal highest positive bids need the announced rotating priority, not an improvised host preference. With three teams, a possible published cycle is A, then B, then C having first priority in successive rounds, repeating across the six projects. Within a round, use the full stated order to resolve ties among whichever teams are tied. The winner still pays its own bid. With two teams, alternate first priority. If every team bids zero, leave the project unallocated and leave every balance unchanged. Do not award it free to the team that happened to speak first.

Correct arithmetic without reopening every choice

When a ledger entry is wrong, stop and identify the last agreed balance and the recorded winning bid. Recalculate those values where everyone can see them. If later bids relied on the incorrect balance, explain the problem and agree how to restart the affected part before making further awards. Do not silently alter a past bid to make the sheet balance. Keep the correction about the record rather than a guest's maths ability. A designated reader and a different recorder can help share the work, while teammates retain the choice of what to bid.

Separate remaining credits from a workable plan

After all six projects have been offered, the kit asks teams to arrange their acquired cards and explain how the printed functions cover the event. The largest unspent balance alone does not show that a plan works. Do not add outside services to a project card because its title sounds flexible; use the functions actually printed on it. Keep awards, payments, and remaining credits distinct during the final discussion. For another fictional-point mechanism, split or claim has its own payoff table. Start a fresh record for it instead of carrying auction balances into a different game.