Obsession
You are the head of a respected but troubled family estate in mid-19th century Victorian England. After several lean decades, family fortunes are looking up! Your goal is to improve your estate so as to be in better standing with the truly influential families in Derbyshire.
Obsession is a game of 16 to 20 turns in which players build a deck of Victorian gentry (British social upper class), renovate their estate by acquiring building tiles from a centralized builders' market, and manipulate an extensive service staff of butlers, housekeepers, underbutlers, maids, valets, and footmen utilizing a novel worker placement mechanic. Successfully hosting prestigious social activities such as Fox Hunts, Music Recitals, Billiards, Political Debates, and Grand Balls increases a player's wealth, reputation, and connections among the elite.
Number of players: 2 - 4
Game duration: 36 mn
Complexity: 3 / 5
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Play Obsession and 965 other games online.
No download necessary - play directly from your web browser.
With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
Free.
Rules summary
Overview
Each player has a number of Servant meeples, a set of Improvement tiles in front of them (representing areas of their estate's house and grounds), and a hand of Gentry cards. They also have a Reputation value, starting at 1.1; an amount of Money starting at £0; and a number of Objective Cards (some of which will be discarded as the game progresses).
Your Servant meeples are:
The game consists of players taking turns to host events at locations on their estate: each event requires a number of Servants to attend, and a number of Gentry to be played from the hand as guests to it. The outcome of an event will be a gain (or loss) of Reputation and/or Money, and/or the acquisition of new Gentry cards. After hosting an event, you may optionally buy one Improvement from the Builder's Market.
When your hand is running low, you can pass your turn to pick your discard pile back up - optionally taking either £200 or refreshing the Builder's Market.
Each turn
On your turn you can either:
Take a standard turn
A standard turn consists of the following steps:
- 1. Rotate service: Move all your Servants one box to the right. (Only those in the "Available Service" box will be available for use on your turn.)
- 2. Host activity: Choose tile from your estate to use this turn. Its bottom-left number must be equal to or lower than your family's Reputation.
- 3. Invite guests: Play a number of Gentry cards from your hand that match the event.
- 4. Provide service: Expend Servants to satisfy the event's Estate tile and Gentry cards. (If you do not have sufficient servants, you must go back and choose a different Estate/Gentry combination, or give up and pass your turn.)
- 5. Enjoy favours given by the event tile and the played gentry cards. These are all compulsory, with the exception of "Dismissing".
- 6. Optionally buy an Improvement tile from Builders' Market
- 7. Clean up
Pass
When you choose to pass:
- • All of your servants move into the "available" box
- • You take your discard pile of Gentry cards back into your hand
- • You may either collect £200 or refresh the Builders' Market
- • You may optionally buy from the Builders' Market
Special rounds
Rounds 3 and 9 (Extended Game: 4, 9 and 16) are Village Fairs: players who have flipped the Study tile receive £300 and 2 Reputation at the starts of these rounds.
Round 11 (Extended Game: 13) is the Builder's Holiday: players may buy any number of Improvement tiles during this round.
Round 14 (Extended Game: 11) is a National Holiday: player Reptutation does not limit actions this round. Players may host any event and invite any guest, irrespective of their Reputation.
Rounds 4, 8, 12 and 16 (Extended Game: 5, 10, 15 and 20)are Courtship rounds. No regular turns are taken: instead, whoever has the highest score for that courtship's current Theme colour (shown by the most recent upturned card at the top of the board) may take either the Charles or Elizabeth Fairchild card into their hand, and draw a Victory Point Card. The final Courtship round is scored on the total for all four Theme colours, rather than just the fourth. (If a colour appears multiple times, it is counted multiple times.)
End Game Scoring
Add up:
- • Improvement Tile VP
- • Gentry Card VP
- • Objective Card VP
- • Service VP: 2 VP per servant
- • Wealth VP: 1 VP per £200
- • VP Cards
- • Reputation VP
Reputation
Level |
VP |
---|---|
1 | 1 |
2 | 3 |
3 | 6 |
4 | 10 |
5 | 15 |
6 | 21 |
7* | 28 |
8 | 36 |
Max | 45 |
*Maximum in Standard Play