So I love the idea of "make the rules fit the seating" instead of "make the seating fit the rules"!
I did get a little stumped on the second one, where I put together the rule "At least one goblin next to elf". The "VERIFY" result seems to show the second row not working when it's "goblin - elf - goblin", but that row does indeed have at least one goblin (in fact, two) next to every elf in it. What is it that's wrong with that solution?
EDIT: I'm not entirely clear on the grammar of the rules. Does "at least one goblin next to elf" mean there's at least one goblin next to every elf, or that there's at least one goblin next to some elf?
The other thing that's not clear is that I think I'm gathering that the rules have to uniquely determine the row, and not just allow the row to be satisfied? That would explain why "At least one elf seated" isn't valid in the second puzzle (even though it's perfectly satisfiable, with either "goblin - elf - elf" and "goblin - elf - goblin"). I think that probably wants to be more explicit. Even with that, though, I don't know why "At least one goblin next to elf" fails on the second row, since "goblin - elf - elf" doesn't have at least one goblin next to each elf.