Obsession

A standard game has four seasons, each with three player rounds and one courtship event: 16 track spaces but 12 turns per player. Extended play has four player rounds per season: 20 spaces and 16 turns. Courtship spaces grant no player turns or service rotation.

The four base families have different starting bonuses: Asquith gains the Dowager Countess card; Cavendish starts at reputation level 1, position 4; Ponsonby gains £300; York gains a footman. Ordinary family cards have no prestige rating or personal service needs, although their activity tile may still require staff.

Choose either hosting or passing. To host, use an owned activity tile, play the exact required number and types of gentry, and meet prestige ratings and service needs. Reputation determines which tiles and cards can be played, rather than which can be bought or acquired.

Before hosting, rotate service: Servants’ Quarters to Available Service, then Expended Service to Servants’ Quarters, moving each servant only once; check track events and ongoing effects. At cleanup, played gentry enter your discard pile and used servants enter Expended Service, so all staff do not automatically recover next turn.

Enjoy activity and gentry favours, then normally buy at most one improvement. Ordinary activity tiles must upgrade after first use and remain upgraded thereafter. Hybrid tiles flip after each use, changing their active category.

Passing fully refreshes servants, returns discarded gentry to hand, resolves track and ongoing effects, then grants a base passing benefit of £200 or a market refresh; you may still buy an improvement. Hiring when passing is optional in a base-only game.

Discard one secret objective at every courtship. Ties in the first three courtships give each tied player a VP card but no Fairchild; final courtship uses reputation level to break a theme-score tie. Under the current compendium, refresh the market after each of the first three seasons: Service tiles enter the Reserve after season one, except the Largest Wine Cellar monument, and PR1 tiles after season two.

The first three courtships compare tiles matching that season’s theme; final courtship totals all four themes, counting repeated categories again. Final scoring adds improvements, gentry, objectives, reputation, unused VP cards, 2 VP per servant and 1 VP per £200 rounded down, including negative tile and guest values.