Obsession
179 questions players ask about Obsession. Pick one for the answer. See also the full rulebook.
Updated 2026-11-02.
Components and Setup
- How many Casual Guest cards are in the base game: 30 or 35?
- How many £100 coins come with the game: 30 or 35?
- Is the service requirement on the Duke of Hazelton card a misprint?
- Does the base game contain the Wessex (or other) family components, or are the family boxes just empty storage?
- How many copies of each improvement tile are there?
- How many VP do the front and back of a tile carry?
- Can we leave out the Servants' Hall and the gossip (attack) cards?
- Should I use only a few promo tiles and guests per game?
- Is the purple-looking servant icon on a guest card a Lady's Maid or a Butler?
- How many Theme cards are there and how many are used in a game?
Seasons, Rounds and Objective Cards
- How often do I discard an objective card, and how many do I score at the end?
- Do I score all four objective cards in an extended game?
- Where do discarded or unchosen objective cards go?
- If a favour or the Main Library gives me an extra objective card, do I have to discard one, and does it score?
- What rules changed between the first and second printing?
- When does the first-player marker pass, and in which direction?
- In a 2-player game, does someone take two turns in a row?
- What counts as a round, and how many rounds are in a game?
- Is there a round of play after the final courtship, and what is the wedding bells space?
Hosting Activities and Guests
- Does my reputation have to stay high enough for the tile and guests all turn, or only when I start hosting?
- Can reputation from monuments, the Servants' Hall or a VP card be used to meet a higher prestige requirement for this turn's activity?
- Can I invite a guest or host a tile whose prestige rating is above my reputation? Do family cards have a limit?
- Must I invite exactly the number and type of guests the tile calls for? What if I cannot?
- Does a family member have to attend every activity?
- Do guests at a ball have to be paired up to dance?
- Do family members count as guests or gentry for activity requirements, and can an activity be hosted with family alone?
- Can I invite a guest who costs money, such as a pauper, if I cannot pay the full cost?
- Can reputation gained from this activity's favours count toward a guest's reputation requirement?
Servants and Service
- Can the Housekeeper stand in for a Lady's Maid, and when?
- When can a Footman stand in for a Valet?
- How does the Servants' Hall work, and can it be used when I am at maximum reputation?
- What can I do with the Butler's Room: hire or recruit servants, and from where?
- What happens when the supply of a servant type for hire is empty?
- What are the reminder tiles for?
- Does each servant requirement need its own servant, or can one servant do double duty?
- Which servants can stand in for others, and can the Butler cover a Footman?
- How many of each servant can I have, and does the Butler's Pantry give an Underbutler every turn?
- Where do servants go after an activity, and where do hired or gained servants go?
Favours, Gossip and Dismissals
- Do I have to take favours in the order money, reputation, then invitations?
- Are favours optional or either/or? For example, do I get both favours on the Fenced Paddock?
- Can I dismiss a guest I just played or drew, and do I still take that guest's favours?
- Where does the rejected card go when I look at two casual guests and keep one?
- Can I play a guest with a reputation penalty when my reputation is already at or near the minimum?
- What happens if a gossip guest has no Attack favour, and can an Attack be split?
- Do favours net out, so that the order I take them in does not matter?
- How does the Admirer Bonus work?
- How many guests can a dismissal remove, and where do dismissed guests go?
Special Actions and Money
- When reputation is at Max, do I keep gaining reputation up to the 5 spot, and is anything wasted?
- Do I get the Max reputation tile (28 VP) as soon as I reach reputation 6?
- When can I take special actions, and are there limits?
- How much reputation does refreshing the Builders' Market cost: 2 or 4?
- Which servants can the Refresh Servant special action make available?
- Does refreshing the Builders' Market when passing cost reputation, and can I also use the refresh special action that turn?
- Do I ever have to repay money borrowed with the Borrow special action?
- What is the difference between passing's service refresh, rotating, and the Service Help special action?
- Can I take a special action if I would have to go below reputation 1-1 to pay for it?
Builders' Market and Tiles
- How does the Lionheart Suite work: does the guest need service, and can it be someone from my deck?
- How does the Queen's Suite doubling work, and do I gain reputation when it flips?
- Do suites double penalties and money losses, and where does the Lionheart guest go?
- How many tiles can I buy from the Builders' Market per turn, and is buying optional?
- When do market tiles get sorted by Tile Sorting Number?
- How exactly do I refresh the Builders' Market?
- When does a monument start giving reputation, and does it pay on a pass?
- When does the Barn give reputation?
- Which service tiles are played as an activity?
- How many times can I refresh the Builders' Market in one turn, and can I refresh after buying a tile?
Passing and Round Track Events
- When exactly is the Village Fair bonus resolved on my turn?
- On a pass turn, is service refreshed before or after the round track events and monuments?
- When I pass, do the round track, monuments, Servants' Hall and other passive tile effects still happen?
- On Builders' Holiday, can I buy several tiles if I pass?
- How does the Private Study pay at the Village Fair?
- How do my played guests come back to my hand?
- What is the order of steps on a pass turn?
- Does passing mean I lose a turn?
Courtship and the Fairchilds
- What is the difference between open, closed and variable courtship, and which is the default?
- What happens if players tie in a courtship, including a tie at zero or with negative totals?
- Do monuments count as tiles in their category when deciding a courtship?
- Does courtship tile VP count toward my final score?
- How does the final courtship work: is a fourth theme revealed and scored by itself?
- When does the Fairchild card go back, and can one player hold both Fairchilds?
Solitaire
- How do I set up a solo game, and is solo courtship open or closed?
- How do solo AI tile purchases work: can it take a tile it owns, and what happens to tiles it takes?
- In solo play, how does the -5 roll modifier work, and can the result go below 1?
- How are solo courtship ties and the first-player marker handled?
- How is the solo opponent's score worked out, and do monuments the AI scavenges count?
- Which solo opponents and game length do I use?
- How does the Dynamic AI choose tiles in solo play?
End Game Scoring
- How are reputation points scored at the end: do I count the position of the marker, and how is Max scored?
- Do the individual reputation positions (such as 7.2 versus 7.1) break a tie in the final courtship or the game?
- Do gentry in my discard pile or hand score at the end, and do guests with a prestige rating above my reputation?
- Do I need my tiles flipped, or in a particular orientation, to count for an objective card?
- Can the same tile, servant or guest count toward more than one objective card?
- Does a Footman acting as a Valet, or an Underbutler standing in, count for a servant objective?
- For objectives, do the Fairchild and family cards count as prestige guests?
- Do servants score 2 VP wherever they are, including Upstairs, Downstairs servants?
- Can I use a VP card's favour at the end, just before final scoring?
Variants
Obsession: Upstairs, DownstairsExpansion
- Should I use the Upstairs, Downstairs hire-on-pass rule or its servants when playing solo against base opponents?
- How does hiring servants on a pass turn work, and is it required?
- Is there any point playing the Butler's Room on a turn that is not a pass, and which servants can it recruit?
- How many Cooks, Hall Boys, Head Housemaids and Useful Men can I have?
- How does the Upstairs, Downstairs servant draft work?
- How does the Hall Boy's money bonus work?
- How does the Head Housemaid screen guests?
- What does the Cook do, and can she be used on a pass?
- When can the Useful Man use his abilities?
- If the Useful Man fetches a tile from the bag while a reserve is active, where does it go?
Obsession: Characters ExpansionExpansion
- Which objective deck do I use with Characters, and where do discarded objectives go?
- Which objective cards do I remove, and what changes at each courtship, when playing Characters solo?
- How do the Estate and Sporting majority objectives, such as Country Living Estate, work?
- How do Second Chance Servants work?
- How does the Eccentric Dowager's extra guest work?
- How does Constable Bucket's reputation cost work, and can I call him with no reputation?
- How does Aston Webb work, and can he take a monument?
- What do I need for the cooperative mode, and what changed in its rules?
- How do the Sneyds spend money, handle reputation and gossip in the cooperative game?
Obsession: Promotional TilesExpansion
- Do the promotional tiles require Upstairs, Downstairs servants, and which promos can I use?
- How does the Still Room work: when is a servant placed, and what can it do?
- Can I use the Still Room on a pass turn?
- Does the Service version of the Music Room count for the Ladies Group objective?
- Are promo tiles balanced for solo opponents and the cooperative game?
- Do promotional service tiles go to the Service Tile Reserve?
- Can the Useful Man reduce the prestige rating of the Garden Observatory?
- What happens to the Alderley Hall costume ball tile if the market refreshes?