The Objective

Work with your partner to score as many points as possible in 45 minutes. You’ll score points by finding books that fit your cards.

When there are 3 or more teams, you can also score additional points in the Storytelling Round if you have the best stories, as voted on by the group.

Quick Start

Get matched with a partner (see below).

Grab a deck of 50 Oldies But Goodies cards, draw 10 and choose 5 to keep. Set your timer for 45 minutes. When the game master says go, head out into the bookstore to find 5 books that match your cards.

Once you’ve found your first 5, come back and draw another 5 cards - you have to take at least 2 of the cards, but you can take all 5.

You have to be back to the game master when the 45 minutes ends, or else all the cards you’re currently holding count for negative points.

Scoring

Scoring is pretty simple:

• +1 point for every card you complete during the 45 minute Search Round.
• -1 point for every card you’re still holding when the 45 minutes ends.
• +5 points for every Story Category that you win.

All the Glorious Details

Oldies But Goodies is a scavenger hunt & storytelling game that takes place in a used bookstore. Players are matched with a partner, and they draw cards, find books that fit the cards, and tell each other the story of why that book fits.

There are 4 rounds to the game (3 if you’re playing with fewer than 3 teams):

• Round 1: Partnering & Planning - to match up partners, have all players line up based on how far away from the bookstore they were born. The gamemaster will check to make sure they’re lined up correctly, and then pair them up. If there’s an odd number of players, there will be 1 team of 3. Once matched, each set of partners gets their own Oldies But Goodies card deck. They have 5 minutes to shuffle the deck, draw 10 cards, decide which 5 to keep (shuffle the rest back into the deck), and make their plan of attack.
  • The only exception is anyone who came on a first date. They automatically get partnered together.
• Round 2: Searching - at the beginning of the Search round, each team sets a 45 minute timer and starts it when the gamemaster says go. Teams then have 45 minutes to complete as many cards as possible. To complete a card, find a book that one partner thinks fits a card. That partner explains to the other why it fits. Then put the card in the book as a bookmark. When you’ve completed all the cards in your hand, bring your books back to the gamemaster to score them, then draw 5 more cards from your deck and keep at least 2 of them to take back into the search. Teams must be back with the gamemaster when the timer goes off, or else they lose points for every card in their current hand.
• Round 3: Storytelling (only with 3 or more teams) - after the buying round, the group relocates to a cafe. In the storytelling round, there are 3 categories: the most hilarious story, the most interesting story, the most unexpected story. Each team can tell one story about something one partner learned about the other partner. At the end of each category, the group votes on the best. For every category, the winning team gets 5 bonus points.

Once all rounds are complete, the gamemaster reveals each team’s score for the first time. The team with the most points wins and gets to add a card to the deck for future games of Oldies But Goodies.