Ruling — Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed)

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed)bg-298638-en-1e

### Setup

1. Each player takes a Merchant Stand and a Merchant Bag of the same color and places them in front of them.[1]

2. One player is chosen to be the Banker, who gives each player (including themselves) 50 Gold and keeps the remaining Gold nearby to provide change.[1]

3. Remove specific cards from the Goods cards before shuffling: 36 Bread, 4 Pepper, 5 Mead, and 3 Silk (and if playing with Royal Goods, 1 Golden Apple, 1 Blue Cheese, 2 Rye Bread, 1 Pumpernickel Bread, and 1 Royal Rooster).[1]

4. Shuffle all Goods cards together and place the deck in a facedown draw pile.[1]

5. The player with the highest amount of actual money on them becomes the first Sheriff and receives the Sheriff standee.[1]

### Gameplay

The game is played over a series of rounds.[2] Each round, 2 players act as Deputies and 4 players act as Merchants.[3] The round consists of five phases played in order: Market, Load Merchant Bag, Declaration, Inspection, and End of Round.[3]

**1. Market**

* Going clockwise from the starting player, each Merchant takes a turn.[2]

* On a turn, a Merchant may set aside up of 5 cards from their hand faceup, then draw cards from the Goods deck until they have 6 cards in hand.[2]

* The Sheriff does not play during this phase and cannot exchange Goods cards.[2]

* After all players have taken their turns, the Sheriff collects all set-aside cards to form a faceup discard pile.[2]

**2. Load Merchant Bag**

* All Merchant players simultaneously place 1 to 5 Goods cards in their Merchant Bags.[4][5]

* Merchants must not let the Sheriff or other Merchants see their choices.[4][5]

* Once the bag is closed, the contents cannot be changed.[4][5]

**3. Declaration**

* Starting with the player to the Sheriff's left and proceeding clockwise, each Merchant declares what Goods they are delivering to the Market and hands their bag to the Sheriff.[4][5]

* The bag cannot be opened during this phase.[4][5]

* Merchants must declare the exact number of Goods in their bag and can only announce one type of Legal Good (they cannot declare Contraband or mixed Legal Goods).[4][5]

**4. Inspection**

* The Deputies work as a team (or individually) to inspect the Merchants' Bags.[3]

* There are three possible outcomes:

* Both Deputies agree to let a Merchant pass: The Merchant organizes their Goods, and if a bribe was paid, it is placed on the Booty tile.[3]

* Both Deputies agree to open the bag: If the Merchant told the truth, Deputies pay half the Penalty to the Merchant using their own Gold; if the Merchant lied, the money received is placed on the Booty tile.[3]

* Only one Deputy wants to inspect: That Deputy acts alone, handling any bribes or penalties on their own.[3]

* At the end of the Inspection phase, the two Deputies evenly share all Gold and Goods cards placed on the Booty tile (any leftovers are discarded unless the Deputies agree otherwise).[3]

**5. End of Round**

* All players discard any cards in their hand; these cards are worth no points.[6]

* The player with the Sheriff standee passes it to the player on their left, who becomes the Sheriff for the next round.[7][2]

* All players draw from the draw pile until they have 6 cards in hand.[7]

* A new round begins by drawing 2 top cards from the Deputy deck to select the new Deputies.[8]

### Winning the Game

The game ends immediately if all players have been Sheriff 3 times (in a 3-player game) or twice (in a 4 or 5-player game).[7] At the end of the last round, players reveal their Contraband cards and count their score based on:

* The Value of all Goods in their Merchant Stand (Legal and Contraband).[6]

* Any Gold coins they have.[6]

* King and Queen Bonus.[6]

[1] RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook · p.6 · SETTING UP THE GAME · /orn.0283 PLAYER GAME/orn.029

[2] RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook · p.7 · GAME PHASES · 2. Load Merchant Bag · In this phase, Merchant players may discard unwanted cards and draw new ones, hoping to get a set of Goods to take to the Market.

[3] RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook · p.14 · /orn.028GAMEPLAY/orn.029 · inspection

[4] RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook · p.8

[5] RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook · p.8 · In this phase, Merchant players place the Goods cards they want to take to market in their Merchant Bags. · /orn.028PHASE 3/orn.029 Declaration · IMPORTANT: The bag cannot be opened during this phase!

[6] RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook · p.11 · WINNING THE GAME

[7] RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook · p.11 · Normally, all deals made must be honored! However, there are a couple of exceptions. · /orn.028PHASE 5/orn.029 End of Round · /orn.002 reshuffLing cards

[8] RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook · p.14 · end of round

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 86 ms · ask 7158 ms · total 7246 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 7246 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 7, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "The game is played over a series of rounds. During each round, one player will act as the Sheriff while the other players act as Merchants. Each round is divided into five phases, which must be played in order: decLaration inspection end of round At the end of each round, the player with the Sheriff", "headingPath": "GAME PHASES · 2. Load Merchant Bag · In this phase, Merchant players may discard unwanted cards and draw new ones, hoping to get a set of Goods to take to the Market.", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.048387, "snippet": "Each player takes a Merchant Stand along with the Merchant Bag of the same color and places those items in front of them. Choose 1 player to act as the Banker. They will give each player (including themselves) 50 Gold, and will keep the rest of the Gold close at hand to provide change to the players", "headingPath": "SETTING UP THE GAME · /orn.0283 PLAYER GAME/orn.029", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.045921, "snippet": "The game ends when the Deputy deck has run out for the 3 rd time. Points and Bonuses are counted following the core game rules. The rumors about smugglers are all over Nottingham's alleys. A Black Market has formed in the dark corners of the city, full of special demands waiting for those brave enou", "headingPath": "end of the gaMe · BLACK MARKET · /orn.028SETUP/orn.029 · /orn.028GAMEPLAY/orn.029", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "At the end of the last round, all players discard any cards they have in their hand. Those cards are not worth any Points! Then, reveal your Contraband cards and count your score. You earn Points equal to: ◆ The Value of all Goods you have in your Merchant Stand (Legal and Contraband) ◆ Any Gold coi", "headingPath": "WINNING THE GAME", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "An exciting game of bluffing, bribery, and smuggling for 3 to 6 players. P rince John's lust for gold has finally gone too far! He has made it impossible for a Merchant to make a living, being taxed as much as we are. Now he's got the greedy Sheriff of Nottingham checking everyone who comes through ", "headingPath": "Game Design by Sergio Halaban and André Zatz", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "The Sheriff of Nottingham is recruiting and training new Deputies. Each round, 2 players will act as Deputies and 4 players will act as Merchants. Shuffle the Deputy cards and draw 2 from the top. Give 1 Deputy standee to each of the selected players. They will be the Deputies for this round. The ro", "headingPath": "/orn.028GAMEPLAY/orn.029 · inspection", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "All Merchant players will place Goods cards in their bag at the same time. They must place 1 to 5 Goods cards in their bag. They should be careful to not let the Sheriff or the other Merchants see which cards they're choosing! When you are satisfied with the Goods in your bag, snap it closed and pla", "headingPath": "In this phase, Merchant players place the Goods cards they want to take to market in their Merchant Bags. · /orn.028PHASE 3/orn.029 Declaration · IMPORTANT: The bag cannot be opened during this phase!", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.029469, "snippet": "Royal Goods are the finest quality Goods in the Kingdom. Prince John has declared that these Goods can only be used by himself and his most loyal cronies. So, all Goods marked with the Royal Goods icon are considered Contraband! Add the 12 Royal Goods cards to the Goods deck before you shuffle at th", "headingPath": "CONTRABAND · /orn.028INSPECTION TIME LIMIT/orn.029 · /orn.028REMOVING CARDS BEFORE THE GAME/orn.029 · /orn.028SEVEN CARD HAND/orn.029", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETTING UP THE GAME · /orn.0283 PLAYER GAME/orn.029", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "GAME PHASES · 2. Load Merchant Bag · In this phase, Merchant players may discard unwanted cards and draw new ones, hoping to get a set of Goods to take to the Market.", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 14, "quote": null, "headingPath": "/orn.028GAMEPLAY/orn.029 · inspection", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "In this phase, Merchant players place the Goods cards they want to take to market in their Merchant Bags. · /orn.028PHASE 3/orn.029 Declaration · IMPORTANT: The bag cannot be opened during this phase!", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 11, "quote": null, "headingPath": "WINNING THE GAME", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 11, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Normally, all deals made must be honored! However, there are a couple of exceptions. · /orn.028PHASE 5/orn.029 End of Round · /orn.002 reshuffLing cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 14, "quote": null, "headingPath": "end of round", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 240 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 240 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.90099 of 3020 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 15, 2026 07:48

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	GAME PHASES · 2. Load Merchant Bag · In this phase, Merchant players may discard unwanted cards and draw new ones, hoping to get a set of Goods to take to the Market.	p.7	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	SETTING UP THE GAME · /orn.0283 PLAYER GAME/orn.029	p.6	0.048387 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	end of the gaMe · BLACK MARKET · /orn.028SETUP/orn.029 · /orn.028GAMEPLAY/orn.029	p.15	0.045921 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	WINNING THE GAME	p.11	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	Game Design by Sergio Halaban and André Zatz	p.3	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	/orn.028GAMEPLAY/orn.029 · inspection	p.14	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	In this phase, Merchant players place the Goods cards they want to take to market in their Merchant Bags. · /orn.028PHASE 3/orn.029 Declaration · IMPORTANT: The bag cannot be opened during this phase!	p.8	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	CONTRABAND · /orn.028INSPECTION TIME LIMIT/orn.029 · /orn.028REMOVING CARDS BEFORE THE GAME/orn.029 · /orn.028SEVEN CARD HAND/orn.029	p.13	0.029469 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 28 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	SETTING UP THE GAME · /orn.0283 PLAYER GAME/orn.029	p.6	#2	0.048387 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	WINNING THE GAME	p.11	#4	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	/orn.028GAMEPLAY/orn.029 · inspection	p.14	#6	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	end of round	p.14	#12	0.014493 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	Normally, all deals made must be honored! However, there are a couple of exceptions. · /orn.028PHASE 5/orn.029 End of Round · /orn.002 reshuffLing cards	p.11	#10	0.029324 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)		p.8	#13	0.014286 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	In this phase, Merchant players place the Goods cards they want to take to market in their Merchant Bags. · /orn.028PHASE 3/orn.029 Declaration · IMPORTANT: The bag cannot be opened during this phase!	p.8	#7	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	GAME PHASES · 2. Load Merchant Bag · In this phase, Merchant players may discard unwanted cards and draw new ones, hoping to get a set of Goods to take to the Market.	p.7	#1	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	SETTING UP THE GAME · /orn.0283 PLAYER GAME/orn.029	p.6	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	GAME PHASES · 2. Load Merchant Bag · In this phase, Merchant players may discard unwanted cards and draw new ones, hoping to get a set of Goods to take to the Market.	p.7	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	/orn.028GAMEPLAY/orn.029 · inspection	p.14	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)		p.8	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	In this phase, Merchant players place the Goods cards they want to take to market in their Merchant Bags. · /orn.028PHASE 3/orn.029 Declaration · IMPORTANT: The bag cannot be opened during this phase!	p.8	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	WINNING THE GAME	p.11	no quote on the wire
[7]	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	Normally, all deals made must be honored! However, there are a couple of exceptions. · /orn.028PHASE 5/orn.029 End of Round · /orn.002 reshuffLing cards	p.11	no quote on the wire
[8]	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)	end of round	p.14	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 86 ms · first delta 2539 ms · total 7246 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 86 ms · ask 7158 ms · gateway work 7246 ms · total 7246 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3391
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 949
tok/sec: 203.7 tok/sec — 949 output tokens in 4.659 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 3s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 166), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.