Obsession: Characters ►►► One of the most thematic euros games in the BGG top100 goes co-op!

0:00 Hey everybody. Today Roto runs through Obsession Characters Expansion. But before we begin, please turn on your subtitles to the Cllingon channel so that when I have an oops moment, you'll know about it. All right, everybody, Kimberly here, and I'm really excited to share with you my experience and run through of obsession characters, the expansion that includes the cooperative play against the Sneeed family. So, in this run through, I'm going to have two players. Louis is going to play as the paw andbees and then I'm going to play as the Cavendish family and both of us are essentially teaming up against the Sneeed family along with some of the character expansion content. So, if you want to jump ahead and just look at my final thoughts, hear what I have to say about this expansion and the cooperative play, just jump ahead in that uh chapter system or click that link in the description below. But let's jump into the run through. So, I had done a lot of setup here and what I'll do is try to explain those moments where things have been set up ahead of time when I come across it as opposed to frontloading a lot of that information. But I do want to give you the lay of the land. Lewis is over here with P andB. He starts the game with a starting marker. He also begins with 300 extra pounds. I'm playing Caendish right here. My bonus is my reputation is instead of a 1, I begin at a 14. Um, so that's going to be my bonus here. We also have some tiles that we get as part of this cooperative play with the characters expansion. And players get to essentially decide, do

1:31 you want the servants hall or pony and trap? So, we've determined that as well. And then over here, I've got the Sneeds. They begin at reputation 14. Uh, they also have a couple dice and some scandal markers. They begin the game with $1,200. They have a business room that already has 200 bucks on it and a servants hall with a footman that comes with it. Oliver Sneed is the head of the family. He's over here with their two objective cards that will be scored at the end of the game. And then there are two family members up here, Filamina Rummage and Adakus Rummage that are placed into the uh area where there could be guest favors for in this uh game for the Smees. There's also one random prestigious uh guest who shows up and it was just randomly uh Crisen Vic count and he goes right there and they are lowest to highest. This is going to be our elderly hall round marker that has our round one where we start theme cards, VP cards, the two fair childs that you can win in the courtship phase after uh uh round three at the very end of the first season. Out here is the market where you got your servants for higher objective cards, the builder's market, the two different cards for the floors, the one and the two, and then the uh cash money. So, this is a new board over here. This is going to be the character sideboard player with Reverend Grantley, Higgby, Eccentric Dowager, and the Constable uh bucket. I'm going to look at those when a player decides to

3:03 pass. It is a brand new phase in the passing phase. So, let's just get into it. We're going to start with the first player going. This is Lewis. We go clockwise through the players and they are working together. But again, the uh Sneeed family will be run by AI, the players themselves, but will be in the player turn order. So, all we need to do is look at our order of play. Rotate service. This is done at the same time for all players at the table, not the Sneeed family. So going from servants quarters to the uh available service and then going from expended to servants. But we all start with our servants available at this time. We take a look at the round marker. Do we have any special event? No. Then we're going to take a look at the monuments and the servants hall. Now, in this case, Lewis has the servants hall, but it can be played during the enjoy favors phase of the cooperative play against the Sneeed family so that he can determine what he wants to do with it because there are two options for the servants hall. And so, we're going to wait on that until the enjoy favors phase. He is going to host an activity by taking one of his tiles that's in his available play area that matches the level of his reputation and he is going to add in uh guests and provide service as need be. So, let's take a look at his cards. He's got four family members and then he drew two starter uh members. So, I'm going to put those guys face up right here. But, I do

4:35 want to show you that there is a brand new feature to this game and this is part of the upgrade. This is called distinguished family members. And Louis has two distinguished family members in a two-player game. Both of us got to upgrade two of our families to the specialty side. And you'll see here it says C for characters. This is his pause and be family. He's got Mabel and Lady Margaret. So they are going to give these brand new opportunities. Some of them do have the asterisk, which means that if you do this, then you get this. But the really cool thing is you've got a brand new symbol here in this game. This allows you to take a card from your discard pile and put it back into your active hand. And in this case, it's a family member only. Really, really cool. This one says that you do not have to have a servant uh for one guest attending with the lady. That's her special bonus ability. So, dynamite cards that he's got here. And he's got to figure out of these guests, what event is he going to host and why. So, the thing he's got to figure out at this point is what event is he hosting? Now that I've got all my tiles on the basic side, I think you'll have noticed over here that the uh Sneed family actually begins with all of their tiles upgraded with the benefits on the previous side, the favors already enjoyed, which is a dynamite beginning for the SNES, but we do not get to begin with those uh opportunities. So, is he going to essentially do the village fair planning knowing that village fair will activate at the beginning of the third round?

6:06 Does he need to hire some more servants? Does he want to get money, reputation, or a prestigious guest? Um, I think he essentially wants to look out here and see what are some of these building opportunities and does he have an objective that allows him to go for something. Ah. Ah, look at this. He's got the barn and the barn is right there at $300 minus 100 or pound. I'll probably say dollars every time. So, know I know that I mean pounds. So, this one says he needs the barn and the useful man. And this one says he needs the barn and the brushing room. So, perhaps he needs to get started going with the uh servants with the um service tile. But we also need to take a look at at the beginning of every season, you flip over a theme card and you discover what theme you're going for, who's going to essentially win in the courtship phase at the end of your third um uh round before you get to the new season.

7:05 So, we're looking for prestige this time. And the retiring room is really, really captivating because if he grabs the retiring room, then he can keep it from going to the SMEs. Or he might say to me, "Are you going to be able to get the retiring room? Can you get $200 together?" Because it's 400 minus 2. But if he buys this one knowing he wants to get the barn for the uh blue rooms, then it makes that one even cheaper for me. So, as a team, we're talking together saying, "Yes, we pretty much want to go for those two right there and hope that we can accomplish it." So, let's say he needs $200 minimum and he wants to send out, let's see here. This woman doesn't require a personal servant. So perhaps he's going to pair his Mabel with one of the two starter guests to save usage of a valet or a ladies maid. And that would be really really good. And she also gets you more people. So let's have let's have them I guess there's not really a a requirement here. So do we want reputation or a little bit of both?

8:17 Let's go with a little bit of both. We're going to send these two women out. And these two women are going to either go to ladies for wist. They're going to do gentry for 300 or for the floors. I think because they're both women, let's send them out for wis. So again, Lewis is doing the host and activity. This does require that you send a housekeeper. And my folks are laying down right now, but that's okay. It's just so it's easier for you to see. If you um give uh any of these servants to fellow players in the co-op, you can share and assist players. I'll put them on their side like this so that it's easier to know that you send that person back to your fellow player. You can uh assist with uh people essentially um uh guests. You can share guests. Um you can share money and you can share um your servants. There are some uh restrictions for the first two though. So more on that whenever we share this is going to happen. These two women don't have to have any service because she says that one personal servants not required for any guest attending. So no ladies made for Lady Mary. And we're just going to enjoy the next stage. So invite guests, provide service, enjoy favors starting with money. $100. Yes, there we go for pause and be good job Lewis. Um the next step is uh reputation. So 1 2 3 4 reputation going all the way around to

9:47 1.5 almost to that two. Really really good first move. And then she gets to do one or the other. She can dismiss a guest or and it's a one floor guest essentially just a casual one. Or she can draw two and then pick one. She's going to do the draw two and pick one. So, she's going to draw this one and this one from the one floor. Oh, fantastic. Look at this scoundrel. This is brilliant. So, he's uh Lewis is going to put this scoundrel. You'll notice that there's all this negative yucky stuff up here. That's important because this card is going to go on the discard pile. And if the Sneeeds ever draw a one floor guest, casual guest, they will draw from the discard pile and they will essentially be getting these points negatively as they put them in the discard pile. So he is going to be taking this Lady Maryanne Turner. That's a really really good move. So we're going to put this over here. Notice that there's already one up there. This is the discard pile. And they will you start with one that's a negative consequence in the randomly from the pile. And that's part of setup. And he gains this particular guest into his hand. So we did this, we did this, we did either or and the benefit plus that.

11:05 So we are going to be done. And then the next step is buy from the market. He wants this barn for $200. So he's going to take this barn, put it in his uh service area, pay $200, and that's going to be the tile that he purchases, and we're going to essentially clear the board. So, the first thing is take your expended service. But I will say now is the chance enjoying favors. He should have done this before buying a tile, but there was nothing revealed. So, we're going to essentially do this guy. And I think what might happen is there's a one of these each. Let's send the cook for now. We're going to send this cook down to the rumor mill and place a It says place any servant to gossip about local derbisher family. Steal one reputation.

11:52 So, he's going to steal one, bumping him up into the two from the Sneeed family. And this is how you keep the Sneeed's reputation down low is because you gossip about them, they're going to gossip about you because they've got a servants hall, too. So, now this figure is going to go to expended service. This tile is going to come back and you're going to flip it over to the rose side, taking it generally from fewer like negative points to um more points, which is positive points. These are going to be put in the discard pile. Those are going to be the characters or the guests that were used. And um yeah, the new barn says groundskeeping staff is expanded. All estate activities, which is your pinks, um generate one more um reputation. So that would be really good this next turn to maybe do the mang gazebo for him because then he would get one more reputation for that. Super cool. This is going to shift down and we are going to draw a new tile to replace that. And it's going to be my turn.

12:56 We're going to go in clockwise order. We're going to go like this. My clock essentially looks like this. So, it's going to be here, then me. And then we're going to end with the seme. So, I'm going to draw in here. Let's grab this one. French garden. Gosh darn it, that's really big. That is a massive six tile. Oh boy. So, now it's mine. I look out here and I go rotate service, which we already did as a collective group. Um, round track, monument, service hall. I have none. So, now we're going to host an activity. I, on the other hand, am looking for some Oh, tennis courts. This is interesting. So, I'm looking for tennis courts with my objective card. I'm also looking for some prestige tiles, which is really good. And that's also the one I'm going for. This is good. This is good because I'm trying to essentially keep it from be getting into the hands of the sneezes. So, I definitely want to get that retiring room for $100. So, what event can I do that would allow me to do that? Now, I can't do Pony and Trap cuz it's a reputation three and I'm still at one. But, I do need to get money or I need to gain money because of my characters, my guests. Do I want ladies? Do I want money? Do I need this? I really feel like I should send two family members to do a planning event because I would love to get the benefits of the village fair.

14:22 I think I might actually start there. So, I'm going to send private study village fair planning. I'm going to send two family members. Here is one family member that I get $200 or two reputation for. And then I'm going to send another family member and I want them Oh, my earl. Maybe I send my men. I'm going to send both my men. Why not? These are both my upgraded men. Check this out. So, this requires that I send a butler, two family members, and these are my two family members. And I'm going to receive either 200 or two reputation and $300 for both of these figures. So, that's really good. And nobody needs any kind of service. So, I don't expend any of my um my valet or anything like that. So, I did my host, invite guest, provide service, enjoy favors. So, $300 minimum.

15:20 And I think I might want to move my marker up to reputation. I think I do. So, I'm going to go one, two, and now I'm up here into level two reputation. And then there's no benefit up here, but that's going to be essentially it. So, my cards are going to come to my expended area. And now I'm going to buy from the market. I want this retiring room. 300 minus 200 is just one. And I put that right here into my prestige area, which is super good. And it's still a level one. So, I can build it next turn if I want to. Expended service. This tile always flips over as per the regular game. And then you'll see here any future village fairs are going to get me $300 plus two reputation. A really nice long-term investment. I move the dot tiles down and I'm going to refill the board and it will finally be the Sneeed family's turn. And they essentially run down an order of play track just like we do. Oh, a breakfast room up. It goes right on top of the other breakfast room. And now I'm going to draw another one. And we got P fenced paddic. Oo, interesting. A lot of uh pinks out there. Okay, so let's take a look at their round track.

16:43 Do we have any special activated thing? We don't. So then they're going to move to the business room. This is a return on their investment in which they gain $200 every turn and that's it. They never flip it over to gain the money. This just stays on there and it counts towards their money at the end of the game for the victory points. So that just stacks up cash and cash on cash and it just keeps on going forever. We take a look at monuments. Monuments are going to give any bonuses. They don't have any right now. We'll skip down to servants hall. Place any servant to gossip about a local derby family. Steal one. They already have one on there. This footman stays on here forever and constantly activates this action. So they're going to steal one. What they do is you take a look at your fellow players and you look and see who has the highest. Well, in this case, we both have 2.1. So, we are going to decide amongst ourselves who takes the hit. So, um, who has a level two? Nobody has a level two just yet.

17:43 I'm wondering what I'm wondering if there's anything. No. Oh, a level two. Lady Maryanne Turner. Let's say we keep it from Lewis and I take it because then Lewis will be able to play a level two person from his hand and I don't have a level two person. So let's say me. I go down and I move back down to one and then they gain one. That's going to be servants hall. Enjoy guest favors. Now here's where you look at this display up here. Now this is the two figures. We've got Filyamina Rummage and um Attekus um Ian Rummage I think is what it is. These are going to be part of the Sneeed family and you draw one from here and you place it in order lowest to highest and you will resolve up to three of these prestigious guests as long as you meet their basic uh number which is in this case two is the lowest for Filamina. So they had to have a reputation of two and you'll see this little raven. This is going to be the symbol that helps you keep track of the Sneeed family. It's also got the C for the characters expansion. So, this person would be resolved gaining all the favors or being hurt by the favors and then put them into your discard pile over here next to Oliver. Oliver is the family, the head of the family, and he is essentially going to just sit over here and and court uh Lady Elizabeth pretty much the whole time or Miss Elizabeth. And uh that's not going to be

19:13 good. that's not going to be good for us. So, right now the reputation is one. They cannot complete any of these favors. They can't enjoy them. They can't essentially entertain their guests. They don't have high enough reputation. So, we will skip that phase until it happens. But, it will happen. You can do up to three and there are five spaces for those guests up here. Step step six is acquire from the market. You roll this 20s cider and you're going to look on this chart right here to see which uh tile or tiles they take. An eight says um 1 through eight value tile. And this is what I was afraid of. So the very first thing they want is a courtship tile. Is there a prestige tile out here? There's not. So they move to the next one. Is there a monument tile out here? No. Is there a prestige? No, we just checked. Then they go to estate. there is a pink. So now they're going to look at the pink tiles and they're essentially going to take the one that is going to give them the most things. So they look at the cost for each of these and that's worth $600.

20:20 This one cost $900 and this one cost $700. So they're going to take the French garden and they're going to take everything that's on the tile and then flip it over and add it to their area face up. So, they are going to have they're going to take two of the specialty guests. Oh, good grief. And then they flip it over. So, now it's worth seven victory points at the end of the game. And they take this guest, which is a level six, that goes to this side. And then they take this guest, which is a level three, and we're going to slide them into the right of any same number spaces. And this means there are all these guests lined up waiting just excited to enjoy favors from the Smees as long as they can meet their reputation requirement. Wow, that was rough. But that's done. And now there is some impropriety. You get the D6 die. And there's going to be an impropriety chart here. Let's see what we get. Two, a number two of birds of a feather. Ooh, this is the most exciting. You essentially will take a card from the discard pile here of a level uh one floor, which is going to be your casual guests. They take this person, and they will put them into their discard pile, and they just go whoop, and they put it down just like that, which means they're going to lose those victory points.

21:49 which is why we want to stack the deck over here with all the negative nasty people so that they take the cards and they put them over there and it really clogs up their victory point deck. So now with that impropriety effect done, that's the end of the phase. We're going to slide this down, grab essentially a new tile to fill that up. And that's going to be the end of our round one. Ooh, we got the brushing room. Gosh, if that could get all the way down, he needs that for his um tile, his objective card. He wants the barn and the brushing room for six victory points. Ah boy, boy. I really h It's so expensive though. It's 600. It's 800 minus two. Ooh. So now we're going to move down. It is round two. This is going to move uh counterclockwise. So we're going to go essentially backwards around this way. And now we start clockwise play. So, we get to do the sneeze again, which is really, really tough. Okay. Oh, and he's going to hit the reputation. Oh, he's going to knock it down. Our plan to keep Louiswis up at two just failed. But that's okay.

22:58 He was going to hit us twice in a row anyway. So, round track. Nothing is going to happen. Business room. They're going to get $200. Let's add it to their pile. Yay. They got a big old stack right here. And then they're going to do monuments. They don't have any monuments. Then they're going to do servants hall. They're going to gain a reputation and take one from the person who has the most, which is Lewis. And that's why I was frustrated cuz now we're both back down to one. We tried. It's really tough to work against this servants hall, especially when the turn order changes. Okay, so enjoy guest favors. They are not at level two yet. They will not be able to enjoy that favor until they get up there. We're going to do acquire from market with the die and then the impropriety effect. So, let's roll this d20 six. Oh my gosh, not again. So, it's the value tile. Is there a courtship?

23:55 There's no purple. Is there a monument? There's no monument. Is there prestige, which is purple again? No. Estate? This is 600. This is 600. At this point, if there's still a tie, which there is, you're going to take the tile that has the highest cost modifier. And so, usually it's the leftmost. And in this case, it is because this one has a negative. It has a deduction. This one doesn't. They're going to take the flower room, which is really nice. They Oh, they get Okay, so here's how this works. I'm sorry. I got frustrated and bang my table. They are going to gain the uh favors on the the tile which is a two floors. This is going to be their prestigious guest. Now they have only space for five. So at this point on they are going to be gaining these people face down. We never see who they gain and we don't know what they just won.

24:49 And they don't get the favors in the corner but they will be gaining the victory points. So it's a mystery. So I'm going to put this flowers right here. Now, I got the estate improvement tile to remind us of what the different uh, you know, colors are, but I'm simply going to put this up here so that we can see all their tiles. So, you flip it over again to the flower side. And that's just really gosh darn it. And now they're in propriety effect. And six, six is the best. Scandal. Scandal. Choose a scandal and place a marker. So, we can do corruption, a fiery sermon. Fiery sermons are up here in Reverend Grantley's pile and they go to a player and you essentially get to protect a tile that you really want to keep the sne from getting. There is a disgrace for a three reputation hit.

25:40 There is a bribery for $500 taken out of their money. Now, if they need money, they can't go to the business room and take it. They essentially start having to pay um in other ways. So, disgrace is so tempting. Disgrace is incredibly tempting. Let me catch let me look at this fiery sermon though. So the fiery sermon says roller roll market dice must select a different tile. So protects whatever they did pick. You go, oh no, no, no, no, no. Fiery sermon. And then you play it. Oh, it's so tempting to take that. It's so tempting to take the fiery sermon. Do I really want some of these? I want that tennis court, but it's going to be my turn next. So, let's do hit. One, two, three. Hit. I'm going to hit their reputation so hard that they can't start scoring these people because then they're going to get them at the top and their favors. If they just keep going to the discard pile, they're not getting their favors. So, it really is advantageous to do it that way. That's it, though. That's going to be the end of their round. We're going to move these tiles down. We're going to replace it and then we're going to go in turn order which means it's going to be Louis next. So let's grab a new tile and it's a long galler. Shoot. There's no way we're going to buy this tile. We tried so hard to keep them from purples and we just couldn't keep them from purples, you know, cuz that's the

27:10 prestige. I'm just so frustrated. Dang it. Okay. Well, we will we'll see. So Lewis is up. It is now going to be his turn to rotate service. We're all rotating service at the same time together as all the players. And now he gets to host an activity cuz there isn't a round event. So his activity he's hosting. He needs to buy something. He wants me to buy the tennis courts, I think. And that means that he wants to buy the breakfast room. The brushing room is still $500, but it's it's within reason. He could maybe get the brushing room. And he wants the brushing room in the barn. Maybe he should just go for it. Maybe he should just go for it and and spend all the money. And then his footmen can be valet. Then he can go and get more footmen. That could be something really good. So maybe he wants to do Bowling Green. Let's have him do this and just get a whole bunch of money. We'll see if he wants to actually spend it later. He sends out his footman. He needs two gentry. He does have enough to essentially get this figure, but he can't play her because she is a level two. So, let's put her face down.

28:26 Otherwise, I'm going to pick her by accident. And then she pause and be family lets her pull back one of her family members. Um gosh, gosh, gosh, gosh. What do I want? It's going to be this guy. He needs to have some service. And then this guy to get more money. Yep. Let's do this. Okay. So, we're going to send out these two. It's the Earl. Uh, and this guy. Done. Done. Done. Provide service. Enjoy favors. Money. $200. 300. Total of $500. Then it's going to be a reputation. So, it's going to be two, one, two. Bringing it around this way. And while it's favor time, we are going to send out Let's send out. Is it going to be the ladies maid? I think it's going to be the ladies maid to gossip to steal a reputation from another family. Notice how we've kept them back down here. It is super important to really keep their reputation down cuz they get so much from the tiles and the cards are going to keep coming in. Oh boy. So then buy from market. This is $500 for him to get the brushing room, but I think it's what he needs for a couple things. this one and also for having a tableau bonus most service and essentials tiles. So, it's really good.

29:46 But this one says the north dining room and the cook. There is no north dining room. Otherwise, I would have snatched that up really fast. So, I think he wants to have that. I think he's going to pay all the way up. He's going to pay $500. Or he could pay he has seven that costs nine just to keep it from them. I just don't think it's possible. I just don't think it's possible. Okay, he's going to pay the five and he's going to get the brushing room. Um, we're going to put this tile kind of to the side here for now. It's still in the same column again. I just want to be able to see. Um, yeah, this is going to go here. We're going to have expended service. We're going to bring the bowling green back flipped over to its row side. Put our service folks new cards over here. This and that right there. So now the brushing room footmen on staff are now trained to serve as valetss when needed. Nice. This is going to come down and become cheaper for nobody to buy because the sneezes are just going to buy it. So frustrating. But oh the drawing room. Oh man, all these purple tiles keep coming out. And normally as a game player competitively, I'd be so excited, but they're just going to eat them up.

31:02 They're so expensive. They're so expensive. Okay, so all of our service has been rotated. This is the only servant that uh Lewis is able to essentially give. Now, I want to show you right now the different things. So, here's our assisting allies. This is what you get to do in the game whenever you want to essentially share. So, you can give uh your allies can give you up to $200 total on your turn. 200 from one or one from two. Um, allies can give you family members or starter guests with this symbol and you can uh play with them and then give them back to their owner in their discard pile. And they can also share any number of servants with you and they come back to you expended. And you also do not get to use them in their capacity if you don't have the upgrade yourself. So right now, if I borrowed a footman from him, I would not be able to essentially use them in my capacity as a valet because he's got that bonus for them.

32:02 So, okay. So, that's now I got to figure out what am I doing to host my activity. Who do I have left? I've got some women. I've got one guy. Can I buy anything? I want that tennis court. I'm pretty sure I want the tennis court. I do love prestige tiles, but I got tennis court, cricket, and croquet is one possible VP for 13 for one card. We only get to score three total. So, I think that's a really valuable one. Yeah, maybe I should get the tennis courts. It's a really good tile, too. So, I want to go and grab the tennis courts. I need to get $300. I have two, which is good. So, let's go. Let's go. Um, bowling. I already did my village fair. Let's do gazebo. No, front parlor.

32:54 It gives me three reputation. I can really catch up with Louiswis. And we can keep getting big and then they could stay small. I could get one and just send a lady, one lady. Get a pick of somebody and then next time I can do something else with Yeah, let's do that. Let's do the Well, I have a lot of servants here. Maybe I should do the front parlor w. Well, what about this? No, let's do this one. Let's do front parlor. We're going to do wist as well. So, there's my um uh housekeeper. And I'm going to send two ladies. So, I probably want to send her. And she's pretty good, too. So, let's send two ladies. Oh, this gives me another person. Yeah, let's send both of these. These are both my upgraded. Uh, no, these are my not my upgraded people. Neither need any service though.

33:50 So, I hosted invited guests, provide service, enjoy favors. So, no money for me. I'm Oh, I need money. I need a money. She has to go. H, she has to go. Okay, I'm going to send her instead. I have to do that. I need the money otherwise I can't buy the tennis courts. So, I'm going to get my money for $300. Now, my fellow player could have gotten me in a pinch and said, "Oh, whoa, whoa. I got you here." And they could give me money. Well, let's do it for the first time. Let's do it for the first time. I'm going to do it. Uh, just to show you what it looks like, cuz that's what friends are for. So, here we go. No money for me. Um, and I'm going to essentially get my um reputation. I go one, two, three, and I'm all the way around. And then I will get my bonuses here. The first thing is I can draw from the top and just take the top one. Uh, and I need to choose my order because then the other one says I can take two and then pick one and discard it. So perhaps I'm going to take the top two, see if I want to discard because I definitely don't want to dismiss anybody. And I hope I get someone with the red reputation. I didn't. I did not. One gives me a reputation bonus right here. And then this one over here, Miss Anne gives me money. She is easier to play because she's one of those starter characters. That's a level two, but I just got to level two. So, let's give them zero. I'm going to give them

35:21 zero victory points. If they draw this instead of the top one on the other hand, then they're going to get that. And I'm going to get this. Um, and that was this one. And now my second ability is just take the top one. And of course, it's the negative points. Why didn't I do that the other way around? You know, I really thought about it and I said it matters, but I just I just didn't know which one was right. So, I get that guy. Unfortunately, I couldn't have the two awesome ladies. Okay. So, then I'm going to buy from the market. I want the tennis courts for $300. Oh, no. I can't have it. Friends, can you help me out? Louis is going to give me 100. I get a max of two. So, here's my $300. I get the tennis courts. I'm going to put them right down here. And uh this is going to be my discard pile on the side right here between the two of us. And yay.

36:12 Exciting. I go down. I go down. I go down. And then I'm going to draw up. Let's see what I get. More purples. We'll see. I really thought I had a chance at courtship. Courtship is really hard to win in this game. North Library. That is one I think that Lewis wants. I think that's a really good one. So, cleaning up. Put my characters into their piles here. Expended service. Flip this one over. Yeah, that's it. So, got our cards right here. That's going to be the end. We got to this turn order right here. So, we are essentially going to move down here. We are interrupted by the village fair, but we will essentially move our marker. We're going to go essentially continue back in time. So, we're going to go um back in turn order because we're going this way. Um so, it's going to be counterclockwise. Okay. Golly G. Golly G. So, we have an event and because we start here with both of us, we move and then we move all of our service and then I'm going to look and say yes, I have a village fair. I will get $300 plus two reputation. And that is going to be my private study that Lewis does not have. He did not upgrade his uh village fair. Okay. Host activity. I'm going to host an activity. Who do I have in my hand? I've got a bunch of requirements

37:43 for valet. I've got a ladies maid. I am level two. So, I can get a bunch of reputation and another folk, another person into my hand and essentially not be buying anything this round because I am poor. I could be flipping over my bowling green and get the breakfast room. Maybe I should do that. Maybe I should do that. Well, I'm going to send these two people out and I'm going to be spending a lot of my folks. So, I'm going to send out this person and that person. They both need special special people. Now, I can send out one of these or this one. This one gives me two floors. $300. Let's do Oh, this one has a negative three on it. So, let's do the Bowling Greens first. So, I'm going to send that up here to that. I've got my footman.

38:36 So, now I've got all my hosting, inviting, providing, and now I enjoy favors. Money, $300. Let's get $300 more. Then I'm going to enjoy reputation is 1 2 3. So, I go 1 2 3. And now I am at three. Pretty cool. I'm moving up fast on reputation. And then I get the one floor here for the card. So I get to draw one. Um. Ooh, look at this guy. Kenneth. Hello. Level two. Great stuff going on. Not too bad. I got to go get some valets. I've got a lot of men in my gentry at this point. But that's going to be it. I'm going to buy from the market. this case, I've got $600. I could buy the paddic uh fenced paddic for $400. I don't know. Do I want that?

39:31 Dismiss a guest. I just got an unsavory person in my hand. Maybe I do want to dismiss, get a new one, and then dismiss another guest. Yeah, let's pay 400 and get this cool card. There is this really fantastic heritage guest suite. I I think this is dynamite, but I want to buy this one. So, I'm spending 400 to gain this card into my play area. Okay, fantastic. We're going to move this down. Down. I'm going to draw a new card or a new tile. Main library. Not just the north library, but the main library. A lot of brown tiles out there right now. My expended service comes here. My Bowling Greens come back flipped over and my two people go into my discard pile. That's my turn. Now we're going to go to the Sneeds round track. They have a private study, so they're going to gain $300 into their pool and they gain two reputation markers. They go to the business room, which we um are going to add two to their stack. Really tall stack there.

40:41 Um, they have no monuments. They're going to go to the servants hall. They're going to take a reputation from me, me, me. I have a lot of reputation, so that kind of hurt, but I'm still at level three. Shocking. Enjoy guest favors. They are still not at level two to enjoy Filamina. So, we are going to say no guest favors. Let's have them acquire a tile and hope it's not these two. Oh, let's hope three. God, they just three is their value tile. They want their courtship tile and they want this tile is plus 100. This is six. This one has a higher modifier. So, they take this one and get four reputation. And not just that, they're going to win the courtship at the end of this phase. And they're going to have seven victory points on the other side of this tile because I rolled a three. One, two, three, four.

41:39 Deep sigh. Deep sigh, people. Here we go. This goes down. Oh, great. I guess they could have gotten this one. Oh, well, they're all purple now. And they're going to uh enjoy their impropriety effect. It is a two. A two is birds of a feather. No, they take this woman instead of that scoundrel instead of that industrialist and they put her, but she is worth zero. I did say I wanted that, but that's a minus two. So, they take this person, put them right there on top of their discard pile. They're going to count that at the end, but they don't gain the favors. That's going to be the end of their turn. And so, we are continuing clockwise. So, Lewis is going to be last to go. He's got to do something here, but he doesn't get his village, right? We're doing village fair. He's not going to get that um for the round service. Host activity. Let's have him host something if he can. Uh maybe he wants to choose to pass this turn. This might be a great time to to pass and see the benefits or the bonuses of the uh the pass. I mean, he's got two ladies. He's got some f he can take a family member back into his hand and gain a specialty person. seems really tough at level two, but it's possible he could do two gentry, two gentry, mang gazebo. Let's have him just gain a bunch of people. He's got a really small hand

43:10 here, so he's going to do Mang Gazebo. He's going for afternoon tea. He's going to send to Gentry. He can. He's at level two, so he can send her and he can send the family member. Oh, but he doesn't have a footman. Hey, Kim, can I have a footman? And I'm like, sure, you can have a footman. So then I send this footman over and I send him on his super duper side so that we know to give it back to me when he's expended. So he can now go to afternoon tea. She requires uh lady Maryanne requires uh um a purple and it says here ah ladies maid and do we have a housekeeper provides activity services and may serve as a backup ladies maid. So I'm pretty sure that the housekeeper can serve as yes she can just serve as the backup.

44:07 So, I'm going to send her down to serve as a backup, the housekeeper, as her uh servant requirement. A lot of fun little wiggle room we got going on here. So, everything's done. We're going to enjoy favors. Money first. There's no money. The next thing is reputation. She doesn't have the um if a male prestige guest accompanies her, so she's not going to qualify for her admirer bonus. We're going to move over to floors. So the uh and the hand the little pick them hands. So a family member is going to come back into um his hand and it's going to be either this guy which is getting more guests which is the Mabel or the uh Theodore which is gaining $200. I think it's going to be mama. I think it's going to be Mama Mabel. I mean money is good but I think we're going to get Mama Mabel back.

45:01 Okay. Done. Here is two floors and two floors. So, we're going to take the top two cards and just add them. Oh gosh, they're both fives. He's never going to be able to play these. I knew it. Oh my gosh, they're so good. Oh, look at these. Oh, rats. Well, he's probably going to have to discard and uh do do the pass next time because of this. I thought that that was a big gamble to go for those prestigious guests so early on. But anyway, we are going to be done. Can he buy anything for $100? He can't. So, he's going to pass unless I give him my $200 to buy the breakfast room, which may not be the worst thing. He would have four gentry the next time he played and then he could play a bunch of people. It's interesting. Maybe I should. Do I want any of these tiles for the next time? The prestigious tiles are really good. That drawing room is really good for me. Maybe I don't give him the $200, but he did give me that one one time. So, here we go. $200.

46:06 Aha. And then 300 to grab one of those two breakfast rooms. We're going to add it to the brown space right here. Um, does he want to spend his cook to do the favors? I think he does. So, he's going to nab a point and then take a point back. And these are all going to go to the expended service. This one comes back to me because it was on its side. And then these are going to go guests into the expended area. Gazebo comes back and it is flipped over. So now we have come back to me and we are going to move into our first courtship. So the courtship at this phase. Oh yeah, we didn't have any replace because we didn't do that. But the courtship, we're going to start that courtship phase and we are going to determine who has the most victory points in the color that's needed, which is prestige. Lewis has two. I have two. They have 2 + 7, which is nine. Unfortunately, they're going to win. Not only are they going to win for Oh, we leave the card right there.

47:11 They're going to take Elizabeth. and Elizabeth is going to pair with Oliver and they're going to gain all of their benefits. So, it's going to be $200, a prestigious guest, and then two reputation. And they also are going to gain a victory point card just like any player would. We're going to put that right here in their area face down. So, $200 into their account. They get two reputation. Getting their way around to three. The next time they do enjoy favors, it's probably going to be pretty bad. Then they gain this prestige guest straight to the top of their discard pile. We don't know what it is, but they're going to be gaining the victory points in the top corner. That was rough. I really, really tried super hard to keep those. And if the purple just had stopped coming out after and then I'd flipped over my retiring room instead, maybe we could have prevented it. But that was um that was pretty rough. So, Elizabeth is going to stay out here with him. Um, not taking up any space in the area here until we have another courtship. Okay. So, two things that happen here. We're going to begin our service tile reserve. So, if there are any service tiles, they go here after season 1. Um, we do take everything here and we flush it and we draw a new stack for all of our uh builder market. Yep. Yep. Yep. So, we got these

48:41 guys, a saloon, a queen suite, we got West Terrace, north dining room, and oh, we got a barn. So, that's going to go into our service tile. Then we've got a drawing room. So, I've got 90. I've got 80. I've got what is this? 120 130 105 135. So, they're all in order now. They got that um down there. We now are going to look at what our second theme is now that we're starting a new season and it's service tiles. And Louis is doing really good on that. Gosh, if he he's going to not be able to get the barn because it's going to be a duplicate. You can't get duplicates. But hopefully some of these tiles will come over and he can get that because no, they're just going to have more. Unless he flips over his butler's room, which would be really, really good. So, we move our marker counterclockwise. We're in round five. We also discard one of our objective cards. So, at this point, I'm looking at this um gentleman's group that requires the billiard's room, the kennels, and the um cabinet of curiosities. That's just not going to happen. I'm not going to be able to get that objective card. Lewis is looking at his. He's got the barn and the brushing room, which is good. He's got service tiles. He needs a useful man. He also has a cook. And so, maybe he's going to get rid of the servant bonus because

50:11 it's the least amount of victory points. And again, we're only doing the collective three that score us the most because then we're going to draw up objective cards here. And the great thing about this is it's open drafting essentially. So you will be picking the ones that you think are best for you and your game. But it's all open information much like the setup is. So that's going to be essentially our three rounds and our courtship. And we start the next one. We go here, do our clockwise turn. And you better believe that the SNA sneeeds are going to be essentially gaining those guest favors starting with Filamina and maybe up to our next two at reputation three if they can work it which is devastating. So let me just show you one more thing. This is going to be uh how you will score at the end of the game.

51:04 So, after we get to the very end round, depending on if you're standard or extended play, you're going to average your VP for your improvement tiles, average your gentry points. You're going to score just your three objectives. They're going to do their two, and of course, they're going to be scoring up theirs. This is the only one that's a little different. you're going to do the lowest reputation score, not the average, which prevents a player from tanking their score um just because it's going to be average. It's going to be lowest reputation. They're going to score from reputation. And then you do your average for your servants, money, and VP cards. And then that's going to total. That's how you're going to score the end of the game. And as I said before, whenever you pass to gain all your cards back into your hand, your played cards, you also get your servants back. You have a choice between three things to do, which is collect $200, refresh your builder market, or hire servants. Before that happens, you're able to place an active footman that you have over into the uh space for the characters. This is the character expansion board. So, the sideboard. You can also get Reverend Grantley, Consible Bucket, or um Eccentric uh Dowager. And so there's that added play, but I did not pass. Early on in the game, you try to play as many cards and keep gaining more cards into your hand until you can't play anymore. And look for that advantageous time to pass because it is your entire turn for that particular uh

52:35 round on the map. So that's going to be it for me this time. Stay tuned for my final thoughts cuz they're coming up right now. Thanks for joining me in my final thoughts of Obsession Characters Expansion. Now what I want to do first is just separate this uh final take into two different sections. The first one is the cooperative play against this mean family and the other includes all the other upgrades and the characters that you get in this box. So the first thing is you can finally play obsession cooperatively and not just competitively. So two or more players will essentially battle together against this other family that shows up. out there, the Sneeed family, and they are very formidable, I will say. And if there are opportunities for you to essentially make the game just a little bit easier, you might want to take those opportunities. And there are some variance and some suggestions in the rule book for that play. And I think that's perfectly fine to take because they are challenging. And what they're going to do every single time it's their turn is they take a turn in player order with everyone else every round. They will essentially look at the round track and maybe gain a bonus like it's the village fair um or it's the which one do they also celebrate? I have two I have three rule books by the way that this uh new expansion came with. Um but they essentially get to celebrate those particular events. Village fair. They ignore objective cards. They do get to

54:07 take advantage of the builder's holiday. um they ignore the national holiday and they definitely compete with you uh in the courtship which is gosh it's so hard to do. So they are going to be a part of the game much like the players but they run as an AI and it's pretty straightforward I will say because they're going to gain money in their business room which just counts towards the money that they get to score at the end of the game. They will then score their monuments and their priority in value tiles when they gain a tile from the builder's market is in order first of courtship. So when you have those theme cards that show up and they say we want I mean you can barely see this card. It's the tiniest thing you've ever seen. Essentials this is the brown tile. They are going to find a tile out there of the most value of victory points and take that and they just get to take things for free. They don't have to pay the money or the cost or nothing.

55:02 So they just take it. So the first thing is they want to do the courtship. Then the second thing is if there's a monument they'll take a monument. If there's not a monument they'll go for just prestige. They will look for something that's going to give them uh prestige. Then it's going to be which is the um purple. Then it's going to be your estate which is pink. Then it's going to be sporting which is green. That essentials is brown. And then service is blue. So they're going to value those tiles in that particular order. And then they have a servants hall every single turn. Now, this is where I think the game gets super interesting because a servants hall is a rumor mill and they will essentially steal a reputation from the player who has the highest reputation at the table and take one for themselves. So, it's not just taking one away, it's stealing it. And so, their reputation, they always are trying to get a higher reputation. So, the players at the table have to work really hard to fight against that. And one player is going to be given the servants hall at the beginning of the game, too. And they will be kind of fighting and combating against that. So, work hard to make sure their reputation stays down, but you're always fighting to keep yours up, which is super, super interesting. They enjoy guest favors in a really interesting way. So, their reputation number goes up the same as ours. So, you have a one with the 1 2 3 4 5. And then once you cross over into a new one again, you flip it over to two. and you're only allowed to essentially enjoy favors from level two or lower. And so they have

56:35 these special guests, their prestige guests, the two floor guests that they line up in a space that includes five placeholders and they will go from low to high and they will enjoy favors from those folks as long as their reputation matches their number in the top left corner. And if they do, they get their favors in the bottom, take their card, put it on their discard pile face down, and they'll be gaining the victory points in the corner at the end of the game. Now, they get to do this up to three times as long as they can meet the reputation level. And if they can't, they don't. So, early on in the game, you're trying to keep their um uh reputation down really low so that they can't get those favors and they can't get those folks. But it ramps up and it gets really really icky after a while.

57:24 They might start getting a lot of favors and of course banking those particular guests in their victory point stack. They will then acquire a tile from the market or more than one because you roll a dieice. It's a d20 die and there is a scale on your market selection for tiles that they take and things that they do. And so you'll roll the dice, look at the chart, take the tile, put it on the flower side, which is the upgraded side immediately, which gives them the best victory point bang. And it's just so hard to deal with their ability to gain tiles and then upgrade those tiles essentially right away. And then the last thing, which is really fun, is you have this impropriety effect and you roll the dice and then they have an impropriety effect. they essentially are going to have a scandal, uh, corruption, disgrace or bribery. They're going to have, um, embarrassment or birds of a feather. And so you will roll the dieice and then it will hurt them in some way.

58:23 And it kind of is the best part of their turn because as players, you're banding together. So that's essentially what they do on their turn. And players are essentially playing their turns as usual. This is a very, you know, streamline. This is obsession. You're you're essentially doing your rotate service. Then you're doing a host an activity, invite guests, provide service to guests, enjoy their favors and the favors from the tile. And then you're buying from the market, and then you're essentially putting your cards in your discard pile, expended service, putting your tile, flip it over, put it in your play area. So, you're doing that, but you get to, as cooperative players, you get to do sharing. So, you can assist each other. You can share money and your allies may give you up to $200 on your turn. So your turn you need 200 bucks total. You can take 100 from two different people, 200 from one person. That's a great way to essentially get money to buy something or to do something on your turn. You can also borrow family or starter guests from other players, which is fantastic. And then it goes to their discard pile um whenever you're done.

59:33 You can also share servants, any number of servants from their available service. They come to you, you use them, you give them back to the players, and they are expended. So, fantastic way to assist each other in the game. Now, at the very end of the game, after you've gone through either a standard play or extended play, whatever your choice is and whatever expansions you have as part of your game, you will then average together your score with the fellow players against the total score of the SNES. And the one exception to this is you will only be selecting three total objectives among the players. And so you'll say, well, you know, I had this one that was worth 14, but you have another one worth 12. And then our second best or our third best is seven victory points that we qualified for. So you only get to score three. They have two that they come with. They have two that they're going to score for their objectives. So that might be a leg up that we have on them depending on how well they accomplish their personal objectives. Um you also will not average your reputation tracks. You will look at the lowest reputation track of the player and that's going to be your score for the reputation. So, you don't average those together. You can't tank someone's score. And of course, designer notes say that it prevents people from again tanking one of the player scores to get stuff um because you don't average it. You just use the lowest one.

1:00:57 Everything else is averaged together the way you would normally score out obsession. And I will probably just say right now, you'll you'll lose your first game, but you will learn really how to push back the Sneeed family and to play together in a more cooperative fashion than you're used to with the regular game. Now, I will say playing Obsession on any level by myself with other players, cooperatively with any of the expansions is always a delight. I mean, I'm a massive fan. That's one reason why I was very excited to get the character expansion myself. Like I just I bought the characters expansion because I love it. Um and I was really excited about the cooperative play. I think that I would play the game anytime now. Will I play cooperative over competitive? I don't know. I'm kind of on the edge. I'm kind of on the border. Um there's a lot of business you have to do with the Sneeeds, but it's not that bad. It's not that tricky. It's not that complex.

1:02:00 Their turns can get really fast once you get into a machine of like, "Nope, they can't do that. Nope, they do this. Here's their $200. Here's their this. Let's roll the dieice, grab a tile, roll the dieice, do a scandal." And you can do them pretty fast, but again, they're really, really challenging and you have to change your strategy just enough as players to assist each other to work together. And I think that that's a real challenge. And to me, perhaps I just want to stay in my own space. And I think playing competitively allows me to really just focus on my own game and it's just enough because there's a lot going on here. There's a lot. So maybe again I'm kind of like h but I will play in any iteration 100%. Um so the one thing I will say that there is an upgraded Charles Fairchild card that you get and that's interesting to give Charles competition in the courtship with Elizabeth who's always been the favorite. I think everyone mostly picks Elizabeth. Anyway, now I want to move on to some of the other elements that this uh characters expansion offers. It's not part of you can play with the cooperative, but it's not necessarily part of the Sneeed family. So, the first thing is you get distinguished family members. And these are upgraded family members for all the families except for the Howards. And you will essentially trade out your basic family members with distinguished family members at the start of the game based on how many players you have in the game. And that's so cool. I love the distinguished family members. I will always be playing with the distinguished

1:03:31 family members going forward in any game that I play. It's so good. They just make them that much better to really get your engine going that much faster. So, two thumbs up for distinguished family members. Love them. Now, there's another board that kind of makes the passing in the game that much more interesting. So, not only do you get to whenever you pass pick between three choices now instead of just two with the original game, you can essentially hire servants, refresh the builder market, or collect $200. But before you do that, if you have um a footman, you can place a footman out on the characters board and gain one of the special figures to activate at the start of the next turn.

1:04:19 And you can pick from Reverend Grantley. You can pick from Higgby, uh, Eccentric Dow, um, Dowager, and then Constable Bucket. And they let you do really, really cool things that you normally wouldn't get to do. So, you place them out there, and then they come back expended. But with your Reverend Grantley, he lets you switch objective cards during the game, but requires a donation to the church. So, none of these things come without a little bit of a cost. Constable bucket gives you ways to ignore negative favors on gentry and guests and they let you dismiss any number of bad local guests of course for a little cost of reputation. The eccentric dowager gives access to a selection of eccentric exiles who have expensive taste but provide major benefits like getting more prestigious guests. I think that's really cool. And then the second chance servants for the Higgby second chance domestics allows you to um essentially hire them on any turn as an extra action but uh use them to serve certain guests may cost you reputation. So really really cool that you can essentially pay for these figures with your footmen as part of the passing phase. So the passing phase has now gotten like really really big. You can see how like crazy dynamic and interesting it is. and you've got your here's the explanation of all your different inviting a character. So, the new characters are really cool and you're also going to see new um cards

1:05:50 essentially your new floors, the one and the two, the casual and the prestigious guests. You're going to get um brand new cards that are just part of the sea that characters expansion. You're going to see those in the uh right corner underneath their victory point label. There's going to be new building tiles. You're going to use a brand new stack of objective cards. they just say replace the objective cards with this brand new stack and use this one only from here on out which includes all the expansions and everything in it. So yeah, it's really really nice. It's very full. It's got the characters are fascinating and I love that the passing feature has now become so big that it doesn't feel like a half turn. It feels like you're still getting quite a bit of opportunity and quite a bit of turn because there is going to be a time or two during this game depending on which u play you have standard or expanded that you've got to take all the cards back from your discard pile into your hand so you can play them again. And so you've got to make sure you plan that strategically.

1:06:46 But now you get to have all these different opportunities. And of course all your different service, you know, all the expended service goes all the way to your available service for the very next turn. So it's really really cool. I like what comes with the characters expansion. I'm a big fan. I've got again all the expansions. My box is now too tall. Um it's really nice that everything comes in these little boxes inside of boxes so that it kind of fits in uh Tetris style inside of your big game box. But um it's worth it. I really like it. And if you think the cooperative play sounds really fun to you, that you like obsession, but you also might find the competitive too competitive, too cutthroat, um, play against the sneeze because now there's this common enemy and I think that that is really, really cool. So, a lot to like here, but again, I'm playing obsession. Um, no matter what, I do think there's a lot of good stuff here in the characters expansion. So, I mean, again, distinguished family members, my favorite aspect, my favorite element of the upgrade is that. And, uh, yeah, can't say enough good things about it.

1:07:49 So, tons of fun. Make sure you've got a player here with you that can always double check to make sure that you're doing things correctly because it's easy. But that's just with the base game obsession to miss one little thing here or one little step there, even though you know what the rules are. That's just what happens with games that have a lot of stages per turn. But that's going to be it for me this time. I'm going to keep on playing and I will see you later, folks. Bye.