Cool Mini or Not, the publisher of miniatures games like last year’s Kickstarter success, Blood Rage, as well as other games as Arcadia Quest has gone and expanded their product portfolio by acquiring the worldwide rights to the decidedly non-miniatures game Sheriff of Nottingham. The key word here id “worldwide” since Arcane Wonders will still be responsible for the English language version of Sheriff of Nottingham.

This new addition represents a shift away from miniatures games for Cool Mini or Not since it will be one of their few games that won’t come with miniatures. Sheriff of Nottingham is a social bluffing game for 2-5 in which players take turns becoming the Sheriff of Nottingham while other players are merchants/smugglers.

The chief mechanic in Sheriff of Nottingham is bluffing: other players who aren’t the Sheriff will try to smuggle goods past the current Sheriff by placing various goods in bags. When these bags are examined, the merchant/smuggler has the option to lie about what goods they have in their bags or can try to bribe the Sheriff into not opening their bags. If the merchant/smuggler is found out to be lying, they’ll have to pay a fine to the Sheriff, but if the Sheriff looks in their bags and finds out they’re telling the truth, the Sheriff must pay restitution to the very truthful merchant/smuggler.

Sheriff of Nottingham has gotten all kinds of plaudits, including being part of the Dice Tower Essentials games, a line of games that are enjoyable but are out of print that the folks at the Dice Tower have persuaded into getting people to reprint those games. Having played this, I’d say that this is a fun game for those who like bluffing games.

If you want to learn more about the arrangement, you can read Cool Mini or Not’s press release.