Gobblin' Goblins

Gobblin' Goblins Rulebook

Table of Contents

How to Win

Be the greediest goblin and gobble the most food!

You get points for everything you gobble and the goblin with the most points at the end of the game wins.

How to Set Up

Choose your goblin

Take all the goblin cards out of the deck.

Each player chooses a goblin card. For a perfectly balanced game, make sure each player is a different type of goblin or there is an equal amount of goblin types (if possible)!

E.G.

Hippy, Hippy, Dodgy, Geeky = unbalanced
Hippy, Dodgy, Geeky, Snob = balanced
Hippy, Hippy, Geeky, Geeky = balanced

Goblin cards are placed in front of each player with the goblin information (Loves, Hates and Allergies) facing up. Try to make these cards as visible to other players as possible. Remove the unused goblin cards from the game.

Mix 'em up and deal 'em out

Shuffle the remaining deck and deal out a hand of cards to each player.

For 2-6 players deal out 5 cards each
For 7-9 players deal out 4 cards each
For 10-12 players deal out 3 cards each

Place the remaining cards face down in the middle of all the players to form the draw pile.

Before you start

One at a time everyone must introduce themselves as their selected goblin, stating what food they love, hate or are allergic to and what special ability their goblin has.

Once the formalities are out of the way, the game can begin! The player who last gobbled some food OR the winner of the last game goes first!

2 player game

For a better 2 player game of Gobblin' Goblins, remove all cards with the '3 player or more symbol' from the game.

How to Play

Playin' cards

On your turn you must play a card from your hand then pick one up from the draw pile.

There are two types of cards you can play on your turn, ACTION cards and FOOD cards:

To play a FOOD card, say the name of the card you're playing out loud and then place it face up in front of you. This card is now on your plate! (N.B. It is important to say the food card you're playing out loud so other goblins can listen out for the cards they love).
To play an ACTION card, read it out loud and do what it says! Then place it face up next to the deck in the discard pile. If you can only play an ACTION card and can't fulfill all it's requirements, discard it instead.

If it gets to your turn and you only have DISTRACTION cards in your hand, if there are cards left in the draw pile, take a card from the draw pile and immediately play it.

Once a card has been read out loud you must play it, even if it's disrupted by a distraction.

DISTRACTIONS!

Goblins have short attention spans and are easily distracted. DISTRACTION cards move food around and can be played at any time. The only time a DISTRACTION card can't be played is when the targetted food is in another player's hand. No snatching!

Once the DISTRACTION card has been played, pick a card up from the draw pile to replace it.

Gobblin'!

To gobble up the food on your plate you'll need to:

Collect a set of 3 food cards of the same colour OR
Collect a set of 6 different coloured food cards (N.B. if you have 7 or more players reduce this to 4 different coloured food cards)

As soon as you have a set on your plate, you must gobble them up (even if it's not your turn)! When you gobble up food, place it to one side in a face down pile. You'll only get points for food you've gobbled so get it off that plate and get it munched!

Biscuits

BISCUITS are extra delicious and count as any colour as well as giving you 2 points instead of the usual 1. Watch out for the fabled VERY TASTY BISCUIT which is worth a whopping 3 points!

Gobblin' Examples

Three green food cards (two pies or pasta dishes and a green bin spilling) = GOBBLE!
Two green food cards and a BISCUIT (which counts as any colour) = GOBBLE!
Six food cards, each a different colour (green, blue, orange, purple, yellow and red) = GOBBLE!
Or 4 different colours in 7 or more player games.

How the Game Ends

When all the cards in the middle are gone, play continues until one player is unable to take a turn (i.e. they've run out of ACTION and FOOD cards). At that point it's time for leftovers!

Leftovers go left!

Put any food cards left on your plate on the player to your left's plate. Any cards left in your hand are discarded.

Once all the cards have been passed round, gobble up any cards you've received.

How to Work Out the Winner

Work out your total points by awarding the following for gobbled cards:

For cards your goblin LOVES - add 2 points
For cards your goblin HATES - minus 2 points
For cards your goblin is ALLERGIC to - minus 1 point
For BISCUITS - add 2 points
For the VERY TASTY BISCUIT - add 3 points
For EVERYTHING ELSE - add 1 point

The player with most points is the winner! In the event of a tie, the player who gobbled the most cards wins.

How Each Goblin is Unique

Worker Goblins

Worker goblins work hard. Instead of a normal turn, they can take 2 cards from the draw pile, play one of them and then put the other back at the bottom of the draw pile. There must be at least two cards in the draw pile to use this power.

Geeky Goblins

Geeky goblins hack the system. They can draw from the top of the discard pile instead of the draw pile. They can't take a card from the discard pile if they were the goblin that played it or if the cards on the draw pile have run out.

Snob Goblins

Snob goblins are dreadfully fussy. They can refuse to gobble sets of food cards and ignore 'Eat Your Greens' action cards.

Grot Goblins

Grot goblins eat the most yuck. They can use a turn to gobble all the food on their plate (as long as they have at least 3 food cards on their plate).

Dodgy Goblins

Dodgy goblins do dodgy deals. They need one less food card to gobble a multi-coloured set of cards.

Hippy Goblins

Hippies are so zen, man. They are totally immune to being distracted. Totally. Distraction cards can't be used on them, but they can use distraction cards on themselves. If a goblin accidentally tries to distract a hippy the distraction card is returned to the goblin who played it.