Out of Sorts Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components and Setup
• What's Going On?
• Round Overview
  • 1. Prepare
  • 2. Find & Sort
  • 3. System Check
• End of Round
• Running out of time
• Game End
• Challenges
• Two Player Mode

Components and Setup

• 45 Books
• 45 Index Cards
• 9 Round Cards
• 7 Categories
• 1 Librarian & Book

1. Choose one player to be the Sorter (most experienced or whoever read the rules). Everyone else is a Finder. The Sorter should sit opposite the Finders.
2. Shuffle the Index Cards and place them face down to the Sorter's right. This is the Lost Stack.
3. For your first game, use the Categories shown below. Otherwise, shuffle them, draw three and return the rest to the box. Choose what side and order you want and place them in a line in front of the Sorter.
4. Shuffle the Books and divide them roughly evenly between the Finders. These are the Finders' hands.
5. Sort the Round Cards into a face-up stack from highest on the bottom to lowest on the top.
6. Place the Librarian's Book sideways on top of the Librarian so it covers up to the top of the bookshelf.

When you're ready to begin, start a 20 minute timer. The game ends when time runs out.

(Changes for two player mode are on the last page)

What's Going On?

As a team, you'll work together to come up with your own version of a Dewey Decimal System, except for books with strange symbols that you don't understand. Any system is good, as long as it helps you remember where you put things. The Category Cards represent the sections of the library your shelving and will help your system get started. As the game goes on, you'll end up shelving a lot of Books, so your sorting system will need to adapt and grow.

We'll get to specifics later, but as a quick example, here's a way you could sort these symbols so later you'll be able to remember what order you put them in:

Example: the Categories "Cats", "Reptiles" and "Monsters" are placed in a line. Under "Cats" are the sub-categories "cat" and "fish"; under "Reptiles" is "snake" and "spine"; under "Monsters" is "friendly > scary". The Sorter's Hand is shown as six Books in that order.

In more detail, as a team, your goal is to get all the books from the Finders' hands sorted into the Sorter's hand. The Books and Index Cards each have the same set of symbols on them. Each round, the Finders will get a few of those Index Cards and they'll try to find the matching Books in their hands. Then they'll give those matching Books to the Sorter who'll organize them into their hand. To pass each round, the Finders must prove they know how the Books in the Sorter's hand are sorted. The catch though is that only the Sorter can see the Books in their hand. This is why you'll need that sorting system, so the Finders can have an easy time remembering the order the Sorter put all those books in.

Make it through all 9 rounds before time runs out to win!

Round Overview

In a round you'll: Prepare, Find & Sort, and System Check.

1. Prepare

Take 5 Index Cards from the top of the Lost Stack and place them face-down within reach of the Finders. These are the Active Cards for the round.

2. Find & Sort

The Finders will try to find the Books matching the Active Cards so the Sorter can sort them. Once all the Active Cards are found and sorted, move on to the next phase. (The steps in this phase can be done simultaneously, but for your first game we recommend you do them in order)

2.1 If you're a Finder:

• Draw: If you don't have an Index Card in your hand, draw one from the Active Cards in the middle.
• Search: Find the Book matching your Index Card. You can only look at the Books in your own hand. If it's not in your hand, you can describe, but not show it, to the other Finders. They can reveal one Book at a time from their hand to see if it's a match.
• Hand Off: When you find the matching Book, put the Index Card face-down on the Found Stack to the Sorter's left and put the Book face-up in front of everyone (wait if someone else is currently doing this).

2.2 If you're the Sorter:

As the Sorter, you can never show your hand to the other players (this includes during the other phases).

• Discuss & Collect: Whenever a Finder puts a Book in the middle of the table, take a moment to discuss with all the players how to sort it. When you're ready, sort it into your hand.
• Sort: Organize the Book cards in your hand according to the Categories and whatever other system you all come up with. You can rearrange as much as you like (just make sure to communicate).
• Coordinate: The Finders are going to be busy, so it's your job to keep everyone coordinated.

Illustration (speech bubbles): the Finder says "I found this fish looking thing! Cats eat fish…"; the Sorter replies "Yeah, lets put that in the cat section".

3. System Check

Before you can go on to the next round, the Librarian will want to make sure your sorting system works. The Finders will get a set of Index Cards from all the ones they've found so far, and they'll need to put them in the correct relative order. Do this successfully enough times to pass the round. During this phase, the Sorter cannot talk or rearrange their hand.

1. Reveal: Shuffle the Found Stack (which includes all the found Index Cards from this and previous rounds) and reveal the number shown in the bottom left of the current round card.

This round there are 4 Index Cards per check.

2. Sort: The Finders now try to put these Index Cards in the same relative order as the corresponding Books in the Sorter's hand.

3. Check: The Sorter verifies if the order of the Index Cards matches the order in their hand.

   • Success? Place the Index Cards you just sorted next to the Round Deck to track your successes.
   • Fail? The Sorter puts the Index Cards in the correct order. Then shuffle them back into the Found Stack and move the Librarian's Book down one space. If it moves to the bottom, you've disappointed the Librarian and the game ends.

4. Repeat: If you have the enough successful checks (shown in the bottom right of the current round card), you've passed! If not, keep doing System Checks until you do.

This round you would need 2 successful checks (shown as "Successes Required" on the round card).

End of Round

Once you've completed enough successful checks, the round is over. Put all the Index Cards from the successful checks back into the Found Stack.

Discard the top Round Card and start a new round.

Next round you'll be adding more Books to the ones you've already found and sorted, so try not to lose track of it all!

(If any of the Finders are running low on Books, redivide the remaining books so all the Finders have roughly the same number)

Running out of time

When the timer runs out, if you're in Prepare or Find & Sort, the game ends.

Otherwise, if you're in the middle of System Check, you get a last chance to pass the round. Keep doing Checks, but if you get any wrong, you fail the round and the game ends. If you succeed at enough Checks, you pass the round and then the game ends.

Game End

If you successfully pass the last round, you've won! Either way, once the game is over, add up all your stars and see how you did on the chart below. You'll find your stars on: the trophy of the last Round Card you completed, your Categories and any Challenges you took. You lose the number of stars revealed on the Librarian.

Stars	Result	Stars	Result
0	Out of Sorts	15	Systematic
3	Muddled	20	Orderly
5	Disheveled	25	Unambiguous
10	Coherent	30	Perfect

Challenges

If you've successfully sorted the whole shelf (or you just want to make things interesting) here are some challenges to try (mix and match as many as you like):

• Tricky Categories: Use the more difficult categories that have one or two stars in the bottom right corner.
• Fewer Categories: Rely more on your own system.
  • Two Categories: 2 stars
  • One Category: 4 stars
  • No Categories: 7 stars
• Quick Sort: When a Finder finds the matching Book, give it straight to the Sorter without showing it to the other players: 3 stars
• Full Sort: Once the game is over, the Finders can try to sort every Found Index Card. You get one try and stars equal to: round number - 1 for each card in the wrong spot (to a minimum of zero).

Two Player Mode

With two players, there are a few changes to the game:

• During Prepare, the Sorter takes all 5 Active Cards into their own hand. This means the Finder won't be doing the "Draw" action during "Find & Sort".
• During Find & Sort
  • the Sorter will describe the Index Cards and the Finder will try to find them.
  • If you're having trouble, the Sorter can move the Librarian's Book down a space to reveal one Index Card from their hand to the Finder.