I want to build a simulation of a board game that uses a bidding system. In the real game, everybody palms a certain amount of tokens and then all players open their hands simultaneously. I think I'm going to do it in Roll20 by giving everyone cards with the numbers 0-15 to play and have them all play a card face down and then reveal once all are on the table, but this is a tad clunky.
Perhaps a better system would be a set of in-built commands that allow you to make secret bids or votes via the chat. Everyone can see when somebody bids, but nobody can see what they bid until the GM uses a macro to end the bid. So the process could go like this, showing player entry and (what everybody sees):
GM: /startvote Enter your bids
(Vote started: Enter your bids)
A: /vote 5
(A has voted)
B: /vote Chuck Norris
(B has voted)
GM: /endvote
(Vote ended. Results:)
(A: 5)
(B: Chuck Norris)
This also allows the conduction of a secret ballot, which would seem very handy for a variety of games, both in the RP and BG spaces.