Robin Hood: Hero of the People Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Set-Up
• Objectives
• Character Cards
• Game Play
  • Active Hero Phase
  • Rob the Rich Phase
  • Action Phase
  • Story Phase

Components

The component list below is taken from the cover page, which prints it without a heading.

• 7 x Character cards: Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Little John, Will Scarlett, Friar Tuck, Alan A Dale, Much the Miller
• 50 x Loot cards: 10 x Archery cards, 10 x Sword cards, 10 x Gold cards, 10 x Strength cards, 10 x Influence cards
• 3 x King Richard cards
• 5 x Sherwood Forest cards
• 11 x Story 1 cards
• 12 x Story 2 cards
• 1 x Bounty Track
• 1 x Bounty Token

Set-Up

The source prints the set-up as continuous page text under a running "GAME PLAY" header, with no "Set-Up" heading; the heading and step numbers here are added for structure. The wording is verbatim.

Before the main game set-up, separate all the cards and group them together into their respective piles: Character cards, Loot cards, King Richard cards, Sherwood Forest cards, Story 1 cards and Story 2 cards.

1. Shuffle the Story 2 cards and randomly remove ONE card and put it back in the box without looking at it. Place the remaining Story 2 cards in the top left-hand corner of the play area.
2. Shuffle the Story 1 cards and randomly remove TWO cards and put them back in the box without looking at them. Place the Story 1 cards on top of the Story 2 cards to form the Story deck.
3. Shuffle the Loot cards and place these in the top centre of the play area to form the Loot deck.
4. Remove Robin Hood from the Character cards. Lay out the rest of the Character cards by spreading them face-down across the top right-hand corner of the play area. You should be able to see the Recruit cost of each character in this way.
5. Place the Robin Hood card in front of you face-up. This is the active hero that you start the game with — the active hero can later change during the game to a recruited character.
6. Place the THREE King Richard cards by spreading them out face-down under the Character card area. Place the Sherwood Forest cards in a face-down pile under the King Richard card area.
7. Place the Bounty Tracker in the bottom left corner of your play area. Place the Bounty Token on a tracker space to set your desired difficulty — GREEN for easy, YELLOW for normal and RED for hard.
8. Finally, draw the top THREE Loot cards from the Loot deck as your beginning hand. You are now ready to play.

Objectives

The goal of the game is to recruit all SIX Merry Men and have the Bounty on your head at under 500 gold. As soon as this happens, the game ends immediately and you win!

If at any time the Bounty Track reaches 1000 gold, the game ends immediately and you lose.

Character Cards

On each Character card you will find both Skills and a Special Ability. Skills are permanent resources that each character has, acting as a discount when acquiring cards or reacting to Story cards. These Skill resources are combined with Loot card resources and can be used to complete actions and/or overcome setbacks within the game.

For example: Robin Hood has 3 Archery Skills. If he needs 5 Archery Skills to overcome a Story card, he can use the 3 Archery Skills on his Character card and 2 Archery Loot cards to overcome the Story card effect.

Each character (except for Robin Hood) also has a Special Ability. Each Special Ability can be used during one of the game phases and each allows you to do something outside of the basic rules. Special Abilities that occur during the Action Phase will count as your 1 action for that phase. See the individual Character cards for each of the Special Abilities and when they can take effect.

You can only use the Skills and Special Ability of whoever is the active hero.

Game Play

Robin Hood: Hero of the People is played in four phases in the following order:

1. The Active Hero Phase
2. The Rob the Rich Phase
3. The Action Phase
4. The Story Phase

Active Hero Phase

If you have recruited any of the Merry Men, you can change your active hero to any Character card that you have face-up. Simply swap the active hero card with a character face-up in the Character card area. Once this phase ends, you have to wait until the next round begins before you can change the active hero again.

Rob the Rich Phase

First, draw three cards from the Loot deck and add them to your hand. These are in addition to the three cards for the set-up hand.

Next, play up to three Loot cards from your hand into your inventory by placing them face-up in the empty spaces above the active hero card.

Only cards in your inventory can be used in the Action Phase, but they are at risk in the Story Phase. Cards in your hand are safe from the Story Phase, but they can't be used to perform actions.

Only three cards can be drawn and played each round unless a character Special Ability says otherwise. There is no limit to the amount of cards that you can hold in your inventory. The maximum amount of cards you can have in your hand at a time is FIVE.

Discard any excess cards at the end of the Rob the Rich Phase.

Once Loot cards have been played for resources, they are placed into the Loot card discard area face-up. If at any time the Loot deck runs out, reshuffle the discarded Loot cards and continue play.

Action Phase

In this phase, use a combination of resources from skill discounts and Loot cards to do one of the following actions:

Recruit or Rescue characters:

On the back of each of the Merry Men Character cards is the resource combination needed to Recruit them (under the Recruit heading). Once a character has been recruited, turn the Character card face-up. They can become the active hero later if you choose.

If during the Story Phase a character is jailed or captured, turn the card face-down. The character will need to be rescued to become available again. To Rescue a character, spend the combination of resources (under the Rescue heading) during the Action Phase.

Acquire/Use King Richard Cards:

King Richard cards grant Special Abilities to use during the game. You may acquire them by paying the resources on the back of each card.

Two of the cards offer a one-time use ability — either doubling the price of gold cards or lowering the Bounty by 200 gold. Once acquired, these cards can be kept until played during the Action Phase. Once the card has been used, it is returned face-down to the King Richard card area and may later be reacquired and used again.

The third King Richard card gives you an ability that remains active for the rest of the game. It allows you to see the next Story card in the Story deck. Once acquired, the card ability takes effect immediately. Take the next Story card from the deck and place it face-up next to the deck. During the Story Phase when the face-up Story card has been resolved, discard it and immediately place the next Story card face-up next to the deck. In effect, this lets you be aware of which Story card is coming up next so that you can better prepare for it.

Build:

Sherwood Forest cards allow you to build Robin Hood's camp in Sherwood Forest as a safe space for your Merry Men. For 2 Strength Skills, you can acquire ONE Sherwood Forest card. Each card will protect a particular character from being jailed by a Story card. Once acquired, place the Sherwood Forest card next to the Sherwood Forest deck. If you have purchased more than one Sherwood Forest card, lay them out face-up so that the effects of each card can be seen.

Once all five Sherwood Forest cards have been acquired, your camp has been completed. This has the additional effect to immediately lower the Bounty on you by 200 gold.

If Sherwood Forest is attacked during the Story Phase and you do not defend it, discard all face-up Sherwood Forest cards you have by placing them face-down under the current Sherwood Forest deck (or if you're discarding of the all Sherwood Forest cards, discard them all face-down as the Sherwood Forest deck). You lose the abilities of any Sherwood Forest cards you had in this way. You can purchase any cards returned to the Sherwood Forest deck in a later Action Phase.

Lower the Bounty:

The Bounty Tracker gauges how much of a reward is on offer for the capture of Robin Hood. If it gets too high, Robin Hood will be turned in to the Sheriff of Nottingham and you lose the game.

The tracker also sets the difficulty level of each game. You can spend 3 Influence Skills to lower the Bounty by 100 gold per round, unless a Special Ability says otherwise.

For example: During a turn you cannot spend 6 Influence Loot cards to lower the Bounty by 200 gold.

[Editor's note: the example above is printed as "you cannot spend 6 Influence Loot cards"; it is transcribed as printed. The sentence reads as if "cannot" were intended to be "can", but the printed text is unchanged here.]

You can only perform 1 action per Action Phase unless a character Special Ability specifies otherwise. If you cannot perform any action, or choose not to, you must raise the Bounty on the tracker by 100 gold.

Story Phase

The Story Phase is where the story of Robin Hood: Hero of the People plays out. You do this by drawing Story cards, each which represents some sort of challenge or effect. Some cards will give you a choice as to how you resolve a card.

In this phase, draw one Story card from the deck. Follow the instructions on the card to resolve it.

For example: You draw the Sherwood Forest Is Invaded card. It says you can save it for 5 Archery Skills and 2 Sword Skills or discard all Sherwood Forest cards. To resolve this Story card, discard 5 Archery cards and 2 Sword cards, though you can also use your character Skill discounts.

If you can't, or choose not to, pay the resource cost then discard all of your gained Sherwood Forest cards. Robin Hood has 3 Archery Skills and 2 Sword Skills, so he will only need to discard 2 Archery cards to resolve the Sherwood Forest Is Invaded card and his Skill discounts will make up the rest.

Once the Story card has been resolved, you may now start the next round.

Continue playing rounds until either the victory condition or lose condition has been met.

If the Story deck runs out of cards before the victory condition is met, the game ends and you also lose the game.