If you are familiar with DnD, you might know the different alignments of characters. It’s sort of like a grid, with one side of the grid being Good, Neutral and Evil, and the other side being Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic. Characters can be any cross-section of these characteristics to make up their personality. In Kiss the Goblin, you need to embody the characteristics you have drawn from your respective piles, and then answer a question that way.
This may sound easy in concept, but a lot of the cross-sections of these different characteristics can be confusing, especially when it comes to answering the silly and simple questions that are being stated. If you don’t already know what your friends are like when you are playing Kiss the Goblin, you might not know if they are being truly chaotic or if this is normal for them! The two characteristics they pull are random, and there is no time limit to how long it takes for them to answer their random question.
Some questions need participation from the other players, who get to pick a season or holiday or fill in some sort of blank to complete the question. That can help players out further, so it’s interesting to see what people come up with. Once the person who needs to answer the question has answered, everyone else around the table will pick the two different characteristics they think that person is acting as, and then place them face down in front of them. At the same time, everyone revels. Whoever guessed correctly gets a point and the person answering the question gets a point for each player that got it correct.
The cards themselves are simple, with white or black borders, so that you don’t end up pulling two characteristics that don’t have a cross-section. I do wish that the cards themselves had the guide of the cross-section that is presented in the rules book, or that each person had that grid as a card to reference, as we had quite a few players who were not aware of this sort of characteristic system and did need to lean heavily on the reference grid in the book.
Kiss the Goblin does feel like a really fun party game and can work as an icebreaker if nobody knows anything about anyone, because you will learn about what they consider evil, chaotic, and neutral quite quickly! The game can go until someone gets 10 points or if you all are just done playing. Scoring is optional according to the rules. We had a fun time playing this game and hearing what people came up with — and with plenty of question cards, it’s easy to play again.
You can find Kiss the Goblin on Amazon.
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