In this Medieval Shop of wonders you can buy the strangest things. From mythical companions to magical items and knightly equipment to enigmatic potions. In Odd Shop, nothing is too curious to sell, and these strange items sell like hot cakes during an exciting auction. Beware though, some items are replicas and you have limited resources to bid or trade in Odd Shop. Will you buy something top in this shop or will your purchase unfortunately turn out to be a flop?
Background
Some time ago, a friend lent me the book Legends & Lattes. This feel-good book full of fantasy is about an Orc who comes across coffee after a lot of adventures and decides to give up barbarism and become a barista. She opens a delightfully comfortable coffee shop in a typical Dungeons & Dragons esteemed town. Cinnamon rolls are baked and coffee is roasted.
Legends & Lattes gave me the idea of setting up a D&D campaign focusing on a store or cafe. Unfortunately, this idea has not been developed yet, but it got me thinking. What kind of store will I like to run? Maybe a store full of wonderful animals? A store with all the board games? A bookstore? There are plenty of stores where people can spend hours because time is no longer a factor. Stores with endless shelves of wondrous stock.
Odd Shop is a store in a fantasy setting, but perhaps not one where you can browse the various shelves at your dead leisure. After all, the various items are auctioned off, you don’t have a bottomless wallet, other shoppers try to snatch finds from you, and the store’s operator is a real Redd (Animal Crossing reference for connoisseurs), as some items don’t even appear to be authentic. From a quiet afternoon of shopping, you end up in an antique store full of curios and scalpers trying to make a (circle) run on you. Do you know how to bid on what the Odd Shop has to offer and scrape together the best collection?
Setup and gameplay
At the beginning of the game, each player receives a set of cards to bid on with varying values. Although these cards are still yours, it can happen that this wallet slowly empties during the game if you want to buy cards from others a little too enthusiastically.
The pile of objects (potions, companions, equipment and magic objects) is shuffled and a draw pile is formed with these. Depending on how many rounds players wish to play, the auction hammer is pushed into the pile after a certain number of cards. Once this number of objects has been auctioned, the game is over and the player with the most points wins.
There are also a stack of cards representing the authenticity of cards (real, fake or obscure). Each round, 5 of these cards are placed closed on the table and then 5 object cards are placed open on top of the closed cards. Players then proceed to bid on these cards. By the way, players can use credit to hire experts to look at authenticity before bidding.
The player with the most credit has the privilege of bidding last. At the beginning of the game (and also in some later rounds), each player will have equal credit, and then players bid simultaneously.
Each object will be auctioned off, and each player must bid for each object. The player with the highest bid wins the object and also receives the corresponding authenticity card to determine authenticity. Used credit cards from the winning bid are set aside and are not refreshed until the next round. For any equal bids, involved players must bid extra.
After all cards are auctioned, players may view authenticity, reveal and/or trade cards. Players may trade objects and credit freely, but used credit must actually be given to the player they make a deal with.
All collected are placed appropriately (degree of authenticity) in front of the player. At the end of the game there is a scoring process and players receive points for collected cards and sets.
Conclusion
Odd Shop is a funny bidding game with a nice fantasy theme. The different items make you imagine yourself in a real store from any D&D campaign. The bidding feels familiar, but because of the simple round structure, way of collecting and a limited amount of credit, Odd Shop is a nice smooth game.
A nice twist is the limited amount of credit that is refreshed each round unless players have traded with credit. Credit feels scarce as a result and the auctions are exciting as a result. So this game is art rather than kitsch!
