Sheriff of Nottingham

You are a merchant smuggling goods past the city gate, and the sheriff is one of your friends. Each round one player wears the badge while the rest fill a cloth bag with cards and declare what is inside. Apples, cheese, bread and chickens are legal goods you may declare honestly, or not; crossbows and silk are contraband, worth far more and never declared. After everyone has been sheriff twice, you total your gold. The sheriff opens any bag or waves it past. Open an honest bag and the sheriff pays the merchant; open a lying one and the contraband is seized and the merchant pays. Before any decision, coins slide across the table as bribes, and half the game is that conversation. Our go-to bluffing game for a table of five that likes to talk. Nothing is hard to learn, and it pairs well with Codenames afterwards.