Page "Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game" Paragraph 16

A character's ability scores are purchased during character creation in an auction ; players get 100 character points, and bid on each attribute in turn.

The character who bids the most for an attribute is " ranked " first and is considered superior to all other characters in that attribute.

Unlike conventional auctions, bids are non-refundable ; if one player bids 65 for psyche and another wins with a bid of 66, then the character with 66 is " superior " to the character with 65 even though there is only one bid difference.

Instead, lower bidding characters are ranked in ascending order according to how much they have bid, the characters becoming progressively weaker in that attribute as they pay less for it.

After the auction, players can secretly pay extra points to raise their ranks, but they can only pay to raise their scores to an existing rank.

Further, a character with a bid-for rank is considered to have a slight advantage over character with a bought-up rank.