![]() So I quickly decided to deliver as many goods as possible, and jam in as much contraband as I could. I didn’t really have a solid game plan in the beginning, and I soon noticed that I wouldn’t make it into the running for the “King” and “Queen” goods bonus at the end of the game. Somehow it’s enormously fulfilling to watch the Sheriff get duped, even though that means your neighboring merchant is getting ahead. There’s the thrill and suspense of trying not to get caught, the hilarious table talk as the Sheriff threatens to inspect the players’ market bags, and the surprise when you find out which of your fellow merchants were lying or telling the truth. The first thing I noticed when we played Sheriff of Nottingham was that everyone was laughing, every round! We loved every minute of it. ![]() Between legal goods and contraband, there are definitely some different layers of strategy going on here. ![]() ![]() At the end of the game, there’s a victory point bonus for the players who delivered the highest and the second-highest quantity of each legal good. The Sheriff must also be careful not to over-inspect, because he must pay a penalty if he inspects a bag and finds it was declared truthfully. “Why, yes, those are 5 bushels of apples, Sheriff.” Contraband goods (such as mead or crossbows) are worth more if you can deliver them, but they carry a heavier penalty if discovered. Bluffing is absolutely required to sneak in any other cards you wish to deliver. The trouble is that everyone claims to be carrying a bag of legal goods! Being a Merchant: bringing legal (“ahem”) goods to market…Īs a merchant, you can only declare one type of legal good each round – apples, bread, cheese, or chickens. As Sheriff, it’s your duty to admit only reputable merchants, while catching all the smugglers and preventing them from carrying contraband into the marketplace. In this upcoming game from Arcane Wonders, players take turns acting as the Sheriff of Nottingham. Robin Hood doesn’t even leave the comfort of his forest these days, so what are you stuck with? Day in and day out of monitoring the city gates, checking merchants’ bags for contraband, enforcing market regulations, and of course, threatening the populace and collecting fines & bribes (what you do best!) It's one of the main ways to win the game, especially against people playing a primarily honest game.You know, being the Sheriff of Nottingham is really one of those thankless jobs. Sometimes it won't work, but often they'll be so uncertain they won't check you when they should or vice versa and you'll get a big haul from it! The more you can keep people guessing wrong, the more you can take advantage of their assumptions to get big hauls, the more you win! If they challenge you, congratulations - you got the Sheriff to open your bag with totally legal goods! If they don't challenge you, then you start doing things where you take two contraband, claim three cheese, but actually put the contraband in your bag, and you got a ton of points! Once they start doubting you because you always pull in contraband, then you play honest, and they start opening your bag and paying penalties - also good for you!īasically, whatever people are going to assume, do something that makes them question that assumption. Like - if there's always tons of contraband in the piles, what if you actively take some contraband? Take two contraband from the discard pile so you look super-suspicious, then put three cheese in your bag, claim three cheese, and dare them to contradict you. I find the answer in this game is usually - if it's really settled among the group that in some circumstance everybody would always do X or nobody would ever do Y, then your question is how can you take advantage of that to unsettle things and mix them up!
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