Goats & Goblins
Goats & Goblins Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Setup
To get started, everyone grabs three cards: a Push 2, a Seeing Stone, and a Vote (In/Out). Keep 'em face-up, no secrets here! Figure out who goes first and will be Cave Leader; maybe whoever saw a goat last or the person who bullies the other goblins, err, players, into letting them go first!
Next, Cave Leader randomly takes 4 Gold cards and 4 Cave-In cards and shuffles them together. They randomly select 4 from those 8 cards and place them back in the box. (No peeking!)
The other 4 cards get shuffled into a deck with the rest of the Gold cards and Cave-In cards. Place this 'Cave' deck into the middle of the table.
You are ready to delve into the cave!
Overview
Goats and Goblins is a push-your-luck game where you will attempt to collect treasures, goats, and goblins from the mysterious cave before it collapses. You will take turns leading expeditions below the surface, inviting other players to join you or stay behind. If your expedition is successful, the exploring members will gain valuable cards to divide. Failed expeditions will give cards to the players who did not explore the cave. Some cards can be played to support or hinder expeditions. When the game ends, count the gold on your unplayed cards. The goblin with the most gold wins.
Gameplay
Each turn the new Cave Leader is the person to the left of the previous Cave Leader. Each round consists of 3 phases:
Voting Phase
- Cave Leader declares a number of cards (3+) to draw from the Cave deck.
- Cave Leader cannot declare more cards than remain in the Cave deck.
- All other players secretly vote 'In' or 'Out' using their Vote card. Cave Leader is always 'In'.
- All players reveal votes simultaneously.
- Players may play Action cards at any time.
- Push cards played in this phase change the number of cards being drawn by Cave Leader.
Exploration Phase
Cave Leader draws cards one at a time from the Cave deck until the declared number or until the value of drawn Cave-Ins is 3 or more. Stop drawing immediately!
- Players can play Action cards to help or hinder the expedition (resolve newest to oldest, with interruptions allowed). Played cards are discarded.
- If 3+ Cave-Ins are drawn, the expedition fails; all played cards are discarded.
Treasure Phase
- Success (less than 3 Cave-Ins): Discard drawn Cave-In cards. Cave Leader divides drawn cards from the treasure pile (by number) among themselves and 'In' voters as evenly as possible.
- Failure (3+ Cave-Ins): Discard drawn Cave-In cards. All players who voted 'Out' will take a card from the treasure pile, one at time, starting with the player to the left of Cave Leader. Continue taking cards until no cards are left.
- Pass the Cave Leader card to the left. New turn begins.
Example
Bill pushes the Cave Leader by playing a Push 2 card. Brian doesn't want that so they play a Warding Stone to cancel the Push 2 card.
Betty wants to keep pushing and plays a Push 3 card.
Cave Leader draws 2 of the 3 cards from the Push.
Bartholomew wants to avoid a Cave-In so they play a Seeing Stone to peek at the top card interrupting the Push 3. If another card is not played, the Cave Leader then draws the 3rd card.
Game End
It's game over when the Cave deck is gone or almost gone (less than 3 cards remain).
Scoring
Everyone counts all the gold coins on the cards they've collected. Whoever has the most gold is the winner, the sneakiest goblin of them all! If there's a tie, look at who has the most Goat cards. Still tied? Then it's who has the most Goblin cards. Still, still tied? Then whoever has the fewest total cards wins. And if you're still tied after all that, then you know what? Everyone who's tied shares the victory!
And just to be clear, that Gruff the G.O.A.T. card? Yeah, that counts as a goat. Happy looting!
2-Player and Optional 3-Player Variant
In this variant, forget the Vote cards and remove any Action cards that mess with votes. There will be no voting! Cave Leader just keeps drawing until they decide to stop (Success!) or until they hit 3+ Cave-Ins (Fail!). If Cave Leader fails, all drawn cards are just gone – no sharing! Keep playing until the whole Cave deck is gone.
Action Cards
At any point, a player can play cards to either help or harm the group. There is no turn order in playing these cards except in the case of a tie - the player closest to the left of Cave Leader goes first, then continues to the left.
When a card is played, Cave Leader will resolve the card unless another player decides to interrupt and plays a card.
- Any number of players can play any number of cards.
- Once all players have stopped playing cards, Cave Leader will resolve the cards one by one from newest to oldest.
- While resolving these cards, players may play new cards.
- Again, Cave Leader will start resolving the newest cards first before resolving the older cards.
- Any cards played are discarded from the game after they are resolved.
- A Warding Stone can cancel out another Warding Stone.