In the trick-taking game Shock! Knights & Poisons, players are attempting to collect the most jewels and escape before being poisoned twice with the same type of poison (or allergy).

The cards consist of ranks 1 through 11 in four suits. The base game uses 3 types of poisons, and 4 optional cards add a fifth. Some cards have jewels, and some have medicine. Other cards have no special feature.

After each trick, the winner of the trick collects, in front of themselves, any jewels shown on the cards played and any poison or medicine cards played. Next, before the following trick proceeds, a card is revealed from a different deck of cards. Some of these cards have poisons on them, and others only jewels.

At any time a player has a chance to play a card, they can instead play a card face down to indicate that they are withdrawing from the round. They move any jewels they have collected from this round into their bag, and while they continue to play cards, they will not win any further jewels.

The player with the most jewels after 5 rounds wins.