A bid mechanic for another day

I thought of a tweak to the current draft/bid mechanic from the temple that probably would be too slow to work as a temple system, but it is potentially interesting.


The problem with the draft is the problem with every draft, the seat order problem: who gets to draft first, and in what order do we resolve?  If it's furthest forward in the temple, that could lead to a runaway leader problem; furthest back, inadequate incentive to bid aggressively.  And what about when players are on the same space?  All of these can be worked out, but I had a thought for a different but similar mechanic that sidesteps some of them.


Before each bid, several penalty cards are laid out, each specifying a particular type of penalty. 


Go around in clockwise order.  On your turn, either add a cube to a penalty card of your choice, or fold.  When you fold, claim any penalty card, and incur the penalty shown on the card in an amount equal to the cubes on the card.  The number of cubes on your card are your initial bid.  Continue until everyone folds.


This is then supplemented with cards in hand that match the current peril, in the usual way.  Highest total bid moves furthest, and then down the line, in the usual way.


I like the potential brinksmanship of this system.  You're sort of playing multiple games of chicken with the other players simultaneously.  In the current system, you're taking the card of those that are left that you can best tolerate, and are trying to stick the players after you with a card that's bad for them.  In this system you're trying to poison the penalty you can best tolerate for all players but yourself, and/or are trying to poison the suits they are going to pick so they don't get off scot-free, except doing so strengthens their bids, and also you don't want to poison your preferred suit too much, but oh by the way the more pain you take the higher your bid and you want to bid high.  I think it could be a fun challenge. 


(A different take:  there could be a penalty card between each pair of players, and you can add to any card that touches you, so you're literally playing chicken against one specific player with each card; when you fold, the other player who shared that card with you has one less option).

My concern is that this would be too slow, but maybe it speeds up if each round of bidding you must place an additional cube.  (So one in the 1st round, 2 in the second, and so on).


I could see an entire game being built around this idea but I'm not sure what it should be about; key would be to have something interesting that you're bidding for, and some interesting but asymmetric penalty currencies.  Otherwise it's just resources you're losing, but if one currency was "how many cards you can hold" and another was "how many cubes you can play", and so on, losing different things would feel painful in different ways.  The penalty currencies in Lost Adventures have this, fortunately, and each penalty you take is fairly painful, or at least risky.