Ruling — Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed)

You asked

How do I set up the game?

Answered counted as answered

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

1. Each player takes a Merchant Stand and a Merchant Bag of the same color and places them in front of them [1]. 2. Choose one player to act as the Banker [1]. 3. The Banker gives each player (including themselves) 50 Gold, keeping the rest of the Gold close at hand to provide change [1]. 4. Before shuffling the Goods cards, remove all cards that have the icon and return them to the box, which includes: 36 Bread, 4 Pepper, 5 Mead, and 3 Silk cards [1]. 5. If playing with Royal Goods, also remove 1 Golden Apple, 1 Blue Cheese, 2 Rye Bread, 1 Pumpernickel Bread, and 1 Royal Rooster cards prior to shuffling [1]. 6. Shuffle all the Goods cards together and place the deck in a facedown draw pile [1]. 7. The player with the highest amount of actual money on them becomes the first Sheriff and is given the Sheriff standee [1].

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

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 222 ms · ask 7652 ms · total 2044001 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 2036118 ms · generation 7883 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 6, "score": 0.04866, "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": 2, "score": 0.048139, "snippet": "CREDITS ........................................................................................2 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................3 GAME COMPONENTS ...............................................................4 THE GOODS CARDS .................", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.047883, "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": 11, "score": 0.03125, "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": 2, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Jason Medina, Colin Meller, Bryan Pope, Benjamin Pope, and Tom Vasel Art Direction: Mathieu Harlaut Graphic Design: Louise Combal (lead), Fabio de Castro (lead), and Gabriel Burghi Illustration: Davide Tosello Production: Marcela Fabreti (lead), Safuan Tay (lead), Thiago Aranha, Raquel Fukuda, Guilh", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 240}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.030303, "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": 14, "score": 0.029851, "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": 3, "score": 0.029412, "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}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETTING UP THE GAME · /orn.0283 PLAYER GAME/orn.029", "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)
debug row retained until: Nov 6, 2026 14:44

retrieval — what the search arm returned

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)	SETTING UP THE GAME · /orn.0283 PLAYER GAME/orn.029	p.6	0.04866 (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
#2	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)		p.2	0.048139 (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)	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	0.047883 (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	0.03125 (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
#5	RULEBOOK Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Ed) — Rulebook (corpus doc 240)		p.2	0.030769 (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)	end of the gaMe · BLACK MARKET · /orn.028SETUP/orn.029 · /orn.028GAMEPLAY/orn.029	p.15	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)	/orn.028GAMEPLAY/orn.029 · inspection	p.14	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)	Game Design by Sergio Halaban and André Zatz	p.3	0.029412 (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

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

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 222 ms · first delta 6263 ms · total 2044001 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 2036118 ms · retrieval 222 ms · ask 7652 ms · gateway work 7883 ms · total 2044001 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3141
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 215
tok/sec: 136.8 tok/sec — 215 output tokens in 1.572 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 1s 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: NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched: SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question): set up

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.