How to play Sheriff of Nottingham #
Easy and fast way to learn how to play Sheriff of Nottingham board game. We cover the essential rules and get your game started quickly.
What is the goal? #
- Players are merchants, who on each turn, attempt to bring their goods to the market for trading
- They take turns to be the sheriff who inspects the merchant\’s bags
- Players who are merchants must persuade the sheriff to let their goods through
- Players gain wealth by getting their goods into the market
- Player with most wealth wins
Game setup #
Each player takes a Merchant bag and stand of matching colour. One player is chosen to be banker and distributes 50 gold to each player (including him or herself).
In the Basic Game setup,
- remove Royal Goods cards (12 cards and return to box)
- shuffle remaining cards and deal 6 to each player
- leftover cards are placed in draw pile
Create 2 discard piles by drawing 5 cards from draw pile to form 1st discard pile and drawing 5 cards again to form 2nd discard pile.
Finally, randomly select a player as the sheriff
Gameplay #
- Game is played over a series of rounds. Each round has 5 phases:
Phase 1: Market #
The player who is sheriff does not take part in this phase.
Starting from the player on the left of the sheriff, in a clockwise manner, each player takes a turn to:
- Put up to 5 cards from their hand face down
- Draw cards one at a time from either discard pile or the draw pile or both
- Any player can view the cards in the discard piles at any time
- A player must draw from the discard pile first, before drawing from the draw pile
- Each time a player draws from the discard pile, they must allow other players (including SHERIFF!) to view it
- Draw till they have 6 cards on hand
- Once the player has 6 cards, the cards faced down (in step 1) are placed face up (in any order) on either discard pile (choose one)
If discard pile is empty, it remains empty until a player discards cards into it.
Phase 2: Load Merchant Bag #
- All merchant players place the goods (cards) they want to take to the market AT THE SAME TIME
- Merchant bag has to have at least 1 good and not more than 5 goods (cards)
- Don’t let others or the SHERIFF see what you put in your bag
- Once decided, snap and close bag. No change of mind is allowed!
Phase 3: Declaration #
Starting from the player on the left of the sheriff, each player must:
- Tell the sheriff what goods they are bringing to the market by:
- stating the number of goods (cards) in the bag (this has to match the number of goods in the bag)
- declaring one kind of LEGAL good in the bag (you can lie here and have other types of goods in your bag)
- note: players can only declare a LEGAL good to the sheriff
- Once declared, the player hands the bag to the sheriff
- The sheriff is not allowed to look into the bag yet
Phase 4: Sheriff Inspection #
In this phase, Sheriff decides whether to inspect a bag and catch a lying merchant
Sheriff can:
- inspect any number of bags
- choose not to inspect any bags
What happens when a sheriff inspects:
- Catch a lying player who has CONTRABAND (illegal) goods (cards) and the player has to pay the sheriff a fine
- If the player was honest, the sheriff has to pay the player a penalty
Influence Sheriff by Bribing or Negotiating
#
- Merchants (players) can offer bribes to avoid inspection or to encourage sheriff to inspect other merchants
- Everyone can negotiate and counter offer bribes / Sheriff has the final say
- The bribe can be anything (except for cards in players hands) and any combination:
- Gold / Goods (Legal and Contraband) / Future favours / Goods in your bag
- Future favours that involve actions in future rounds are not binding – so beware!
Sheriff’s decides what to do with bribes and bags
#
- For each bag, sheriff chooses the following
- if offered a bribe, decide whether to accept
- if accepted, return the bag to merchant owner and perform any actions in the round that were agreed in the deal
- if rejected, choose to unsnap and inspect the bag
- if not offered a bribe, choose to inspect or not inspect
- if offered a bribe, decide whether to accept
If sheriff lets a player’s bag pass: #
- Legal goods placed on matching spaces on Merchant Stand. (All players can see these cards)
- Keep contraband goods (cards) secret. Keep face down on top of Merchant Stand
If sheriff inspects a player’s bag: #
- If the player was telling the truth:
- Sheriff pays Gold equal to the Penalty on every legal good in the bag
- Legal goods are placed on player’s Merchant Stand
- If the player was lying:
- Truthfully declared goods are allowed into the market and placed on player’s Merchant Stand
- Goods not declared (legal or contraband) are confiscated and placed on any discard pile and in any order
- The player pays fine for confiscated goods (equal to penalty found at the bottom of each card)
Phase 5: End of Round #
If all players have been sheriff twice (or 3 times in 3 player game), the game ends IMMEDIATELY.
If the game has not ended,
- Pass Sheriff Marker to the player on the left. That player will be sheriff in next round
- All players draw cards from the DRAW PILE until they have 6 cards in hand
- The sheriff should already have 6 cards and hence, does not need to draw
- End the round and start the next round.
How do you win? #
At the end of the last round (every player has been sheriff twice or 3 times for 3 player game),
- Discard all cards on hand (these cards have no points)
- Reveal Contraband cards and count total score. Total score equals:
- value of all goods on Merchant Stand (legal and contraband)
- gold coins
- bonuses for being \’king\’ or \’queen\’ for a type of good
- player who has delivered the most or second most of a type of good gets bonuses
- tie for King, add King and Queen bonuses together and split among the tied players (round down). No bonuses for second
- if tied for Queen bonuses. Divide it among tied players (round down)
- player who has delivered the most or second most of a type of good gets bonuses
- Player with most points wins
Useful References #
What are the Optional Rules for Sheriff of Nottingham? #
Royal Goods Cards #
Add these cards when you have gotten used to the game.
4+ marked cards are only used for 4 or more players and are removed from 3 player games.
Rules for Royal Goods Cards:
- treated like contraband
- when inspected, they are confiscated and one pays the fine listed on the card
- if they make it through to the market, they are placed face down on the Merchant Stand
- at the end of the game, added to the legal goods and are worth the amount listed on the card