You asked
How do I set up the game?
Answered counted as answeredAsked with: Alchemistsbg-161970-en-1e
To set up the game, follow these steps: 1. Choose whether to play as masters or apprentices (the apprentice variant is recommended for your first game) [1][2]. 2. Use the side of the board designated for two, three, or four players (use the other side for a four-player game) [1][2]. 3. Shuffle the adventurer tiles face down and randomly remove one from the game, then turn up the top adventurer and set the stack by the adventurer space [1][2]. 4. Place the conference tiles into the adventurer stack: place the tile marked with a specific icon under the top two adventurers and the tile marked with another specific icon above the bottom adventurer [1][2]. 5. Divide the cards into decks (the sources mention three decks) [3]. 6. Shuffle each deck independently [3]. 7. Draw 3 cards at random from the artifact deck and place them in the artifact row [3]. 8. Draw 3 cards at random from the other two decks and place them in rows beside the game board, ensuring these artifacts are face up [3]. 9. Return any remaining artifact cards to the box [3]. 10. Shuffle the ingredients and deal 5 face up to the ingredients row, leaving the rest of the deck on the board face down [3]. 11. Each player sets one flask on the designated space to use as an order marker [3]. 12. For the master variant, each player puts one flask on the 10 space to mark initial reputation; for the apprentice variant, leave these in the box [4]. 13. Launch the app, select the master or apprentice variant, and tap the button to assign ingredients their alchemical properties [4]. 14. Write down the four-letter randomization code provided by the app [4]. 15. Give the starting player token to the player who was most recently in a laboratory [4].
🔧 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 273 ms · ask 13682 ms · total 341519 ms
- single-flight (PR-5)
- queued 327554 ms · generation 13965 ms
- retrieval refs (raw)
- [{"page": 4, "score": 0.046432, "snippet": "4 SetupSetup Master or Master or Apprentice? Apprentice? You can play Alchemists either as masters or apprentices. For your first game, we recommend you play the apprentice variant. A few of the rules are simpler, and the academic conferences are more forgiving. Even so, it offers the full range of ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 325}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.045262, "snippet": "To be a successful alchemist, you need to keep an orderly notebook. The results triangle is for recording the results of your experiment. Take a token and put it at the intersection of mushroom and toad. The deduction grid is for recording what your experiment tells you. Your experiment eliminates 4", "headingPath": "Deduction · The Gamemaster Board", "sharpsignalDocId": 325}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Arrange them as shown. Each player puts one flask on the 10 space to mark initial reputation. Used only in the master variant. For the apprentice variant, leave these in the box. At the start of the game, launch the app, select the master or apprentice variant, and tap the button. The app will rando", "headingPath": "grants · reputation markers · alchemical tokens · Initializing the Card Reader · Starting Player Token", "sharpsignalDocId": 325}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "If any ingredient cards are left in the ingredients row, remove them. Deal 5 new ingredients to the row. If the deck runs out (during setup or at any other time) shuffle the discard pile to make a new deck. Move all the order markers off the order spaces. (Except for any that were put on the paralys", "headingPath": "Setup For Next Round", "sharpsignalDocId": 325}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "The game is played in six rounds. At the beginning of each round, players choose their play order. Then players declare all their actions for the round. During the round, actions are evaluated in order, clockwise around the board. You start your day with a leisurely walk through the forest, looking ", "headingPath": "The Round · Choosing Play Order · Drawing Ingredients · Drawing Favor Cards · Favor Cards · Getting Nothing", "sharpsignalDocId": 325}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Sometimes you don't even have time to make breakfast. Instead, you buy fresh rolls from the baker and eat them on your way through town. To choose this space, you must pay 1 gold piece. If you don't have the gold, you can't choose this space. On this space you draw no cards, but you are guaranteed t", "headingPath": "Paying Gold · Play Order · Declaring Actions · Example:", "sharpsignalDocId": 325}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Mixing a potion for an adventurer is similar to mixing a potion for an experiment. You set up 2 ingredient cards in your cauldron and tap the button. The card reader will display the six effective potions. Tap the one the adventurer wants you to make. (Even if you know your ingredients make a differ", "headingPath": "Mixing the Potion", "sharpsignalDocId": 325}, {"page": 18, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "Illustration: David Cochard Additional Art: Jakub Politzer Graphic Design: Filip Murmak Additional Design: František Horálek Translation: Jason Holt Lead Tester: Petr Murmak Testers: Vladimír Brummer, Jiřina Mertová, Aleš Vítek, Marcela, Vítek, dilli, Vytick, Jája, Martin, Lukáš, Křupin, Rumun, Kuba", "headingPath": "A Game By Matúš Kotry", "sharpsignalDocId": 325}]
- citations (raw)
- [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 325}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Web-Based Card Reader · adventurer tiles · conference tiles · Master or Apprentice? · Two, Three, or Four Players?", "sharpsignalDocId": 325}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "artifact cards · order space · order markers · ingredient cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 325}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "grants · reputation markers · alchemical tokens · Initializing the Card Reader · Starting Player Token", "sharpsignalDocId": 325}]
- boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
-
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 325 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 325 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 14:13
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 Alchemists — Rulebook (corpus doc 325) | p.4 | 0.046432 (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 Alchemists — Rulebook (corpus doc 325) | Deduction · The Gamemaster Board | p.3 | 0.045262 (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 Alchemists — Rulebook (corpus doc 325) | grants · reputation markers · alchemical tokens · Initializing the Card Reader · Starting Player Token | p.7 | 0.032787 (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 Alchemists — Rulebook (corpus doc 325) | Setup For Next Round | p.16 | 0.032258 (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 Alchemists — Rulebook (corpus doc 325) | The Round · Choosing Play Order · Drawing Ingredients · Drawing Favor Cards · Favor Cards · Getting Nothing | p.8 | 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 |
| #6 | RULEBOOK Alchemists — Rulebook (corpus doc 325) | Paying Gold · Play Order · Declaring Actions · Example: | p.8 | 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 |
| #7 | RULEBOOK Alchemists — Rulebook (corpus doc 325) | Mixing the Potion | p.11 | 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 Alchemists — Rulebook (corpus doc 325) | A Game By Matúš Kotry | p.18 | 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
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.
| # | document | heading | page | quote chars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | RULEBOOK Alchemists — Rulebook (corpus doc 325) | p.4 | no quote on the wire | |
| [2] | RULEBOOK Alchemists — Rulebook (corpus doc 325) | Web-Based Card Reader · adventurer tiles · conference tiles · Master or Apprentice? · Two, Three, or Four Players? | p.4 | no quote on the wire |
| [3] | RULEBOOK Alchemists — Rulebook (corpus doc 325) | artifact cards · order space · order markers · ingredient cards | p.5 | no quote on the wire |
| [4] | RULEBOOK Alchemists — Rulebook (corpus doc 325) | grants · reputation markers · alchemical tokens · Initializing the Card Reader · Starting Player Token | p.7 | no quote on the wire |
generation — timing and the path taken
- timing split
- retrieval 273 ms · first delta 10877 ms · total 341519 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
- full breakdown
- queued 327554 ms · retrieval 273 ms · ask 13682 ms · gateway work 13965 ms · total 341519 ms
- tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
- 3490
- tokens out (what the answerer generated)
- 415
- tok/sec
- 137.1 tok/sec — 415 output tokens in 3.028 s of generation
- live seat (read from the running child)
- answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 16s 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 253), 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.