The Wayward Shelf

You have taken on a second-hand bookshop. You have one year to find out whether that was a good idea, and the only evidence that will ever exist is what you write in the Daybook. Somebody walks in. They want something. You either have it or you don't — and both of those are the game. Roll the Customer Oracle to find out who came through the door, roll again for what they're actually after, and check the shelf. If the book is there, strike a spine off the Stock Tracker and take the coins into the Till . If it isn't, you write it in the wants book and carry it for months, which is usually the better story. It's a cozy setting with an ungenerous economy underneath it. Rent falls four times a year, the Occult shelf pays six coins and costs you something else, and History doesn't sell at all in July. What's in the 24 pages: A d66 Customer Oracle — thirty-six people who walk in, from a child who wants the scariest thing you have to a stranger who won't say what they need A second d66 for the ask, where the shop die is the shelf, so one throw tells you where in the shop you're standing Six shelves — Adventure, Romance, Mystery, History, Poetry, Occult — each with its own price and its own rule about how it sells A persistent Stock Tracker drawn as book spines: strike them through as they sell, ink them back in after a buying trip A running Till, rent, debts, a buying-trip oracle, and a d66 table of complications for when the shop has other ideas Four seasonal quarters — Dust, Sun, Turn and Dark — each changing one rule, ending in a Closing Night reflection Eight printable write-on sheets: the Shelves, four quarterly Daybooks, the Regulars, the Wants Book and Closing Night Two dice of different colours, a pencil, and about ten minutes a day. A4 and US Letter, both included. The Shelves sheet is built to be rubbed out and played again — a second year on the same sheet, with your Regulars still on the list and your Wants still unfilled, is a harder and much warmer game than the first. Original work: no licensed setting, no third-party system.