Ruling — Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set)

← Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set)

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set)bg-359609-en-1e

To set up the first game, perform these steps in order: 1. Choose Investigator(s): Each player chooses an investigator and takes that investigator's pack of cards [1]. 2. Gather Decks: Each player opens their investigator's pack of cards (which includes an investigator card and a starter deck), places the investigator card faceup in their play area, sets the investigator card aside, and shuffles the starter deck [1]. 3. Choose Lead Investigator: Choose one investigator to be the lead investigator, and give that player the lead investigator token and the Campaign Guide [1]. 4. Gather Scenario Cards: Open the pack labeled “The Gathering” [2]. (If already opened, consult the sidebar for a list of all cards needed) [2]. 5. Set Agenda Deck: Assemble the agenda deck by stacking the agenda cards from The Gathering’s encounter set in sequential order so that “1a” is on top, “2a” is next, etc [2]. 6. Set Act Deck: Assemble the act deck by stacking the act cards from The Gathering’s encounter set in sequential order so that “1a” is on top, “<0xC2>larca” is next, etc [2]. 7. Place Reference Card: Place the scenario reference card for “The Gathering” (card 104a) next to the agenda deck [3]. 8. Place Locations: Put the Study into play (card 111), entering play with its unrevealed side faceup, and set aside all remaining locations [3]. 9. Assemble Encounter Deck: Set aside the Ghoul Priest (card 116) and Lita Chantler (card 117), then shuffle the remaining encounter cards together to create the encounter deck [3]. 10. Read Scenario Introduction: Read the scenario introduction for “The Gathering” followed by the text on the faceup agenda and act cards (“What’s Going On?!” and “Trapped”) [3]. 11. Place Investigators: Each investigator begins play in the Study; place each investigator's mini-card next to the Study to represent their current location, which reveals the Study and allows for placing clue tokens equal to its clue value [3]. 12. Assemble Token Pool: Place all damage, horror, clue/doom, and resource tokens within easy reach of all investigators [4]. 13. Assemble the Chaos Bag: Place the 16 chaos tokens shown to the right into the chaos bag and return the rest to the game box [4]. 14. Take Starting Resources: Each investigator takes five resources from the token pool and places them near their investigator card [4]. 15. Draw Opening Hand: Each investigator draws five cards from their deck; if a weakness card is drawn, set it aside and draw an additional card [4]. Players may take a single mulligan by setting aside up to five of the drawn cards and drawing an equivalent number of cards (setting aside weaknesses as normal) [4]. All set-aside cards are then shuffled back into the investigator's deck [4].

[1] RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook · p.6 · First Game Setup · Roland Banks · Daisy Walker · Agnes Baker · Wendy Adams

[2] RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook · p.8 ·

[3] RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook · p.9 ·

[4] RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook · p.7 · Wendy Adams

🔧 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 270 ms · ask 13248 ms · total 13527 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 13527 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 6, "score": 0.048652, "snippet": "To set up the first game, perform the following steps in order. The game is best learned with one or two players. 1 Choose Investigator(s): Each player chooses an investigator and takes that investigator's pack of cards. If playing solo, Roland Banks is the recommended investigator choice. Roland is", "headingPath": "First Game Setup · Roland Banks · Daisy Walker · Agnes Baker · Wendy Adams", "sharpsignalDocId": 295}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.048412, "snippet": "Scenario Setup The remaining setup steps contain scenario-specific information for the first scenario in the Night of the Zealot campaign. Open the Campaign Guide to page 2 and follow along with the setup instructions for “The Gathering” while performing these steps. These instructions are written a", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 295}, {"page": 18, "score": 0.047379, "snippet": "After the mythos phase is resolved, play proceeds to the investigator phase as usual. Continue resolving game rounds until players reach the scenario's resolution (see 'Winning and Losing' on page 4). After you've completed the game, you may wish to continue the campaign. To do so, read 'Expanded Ca", "headingPath": "What's Next? · Custom Deckbuilding · Why Build a Custom Deck?", "sharpsignalDocId": 295}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.046642, "snippet": "4 Assemble Token Pool: Place all of the damage tokens, horror tokens, clue/ doom tokens, and resource tokens within easy reach of all investigators. The token pool is the repository for all tokens that are not in play. 5 Assemble the Chaos Bag: Place the 16 chaos tokens shown to the right into the c", "headingPath": "Wendy Adams", "sharpsignalDocId": 295}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.044388, "snippet": "The lead investigator (chosen during setup) is the player who breaks ties and makes decisions for the group whenever there is a conflict. The lead investigator is identified by the lead investigator token, which they place in their play area. If the players are required to make a choice among two or", "headingPath": "Lead Investigator · 'In Player Order' · Per Investigator (  ) · Locations", "sharpsignalDocId": 295}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.043905, "snippet": "A location enters play with its unrevealed side faceup. When an investigator enters a location for the first time, it is revealed (turned to its revealed side), and clues equal to that location’s clue value are placed on that location (from the token pool). A location card may be revealed during set", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 295}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "11 Place Reference Card: Place the scenario reference card for “The Gathering” (card 104a) next to the agenda deck. The unrevealed side of a location can be identified by the presence of a keyhole symbol below its title. 12 Place Locations: Following the setup instructions on page 2 of the Campaign ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 295}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "At the beginning of the game, the investigators are trapped in the Study. How should they proceed? In this situation, some actions are better than others. If an investigator has asset cards in hand that seem as if they might be useful, that investigator should consider using the Play action to play ", "headingPath": "Tutorial Tip", "sharpsignalDocId": 295}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "First Game Setup · Roland Banks · Daisy Walker · Agnes Baker · Wendy Adams", "sharpsignalDocId": 295}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 295}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 295}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Wendy Adams", "sharpsignalDocId": 295}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 295 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 295 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 17:22

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 Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook (corpus doc 295)	First Game Setup · Roland Banks · Daisy Walker · Agnes Baker · Wendy Adams	p.6	0.048652 (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 Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook (corpus doc 295)		p.8	0.048412 (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 Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook (corpus doc 295)	What's Next? · Custom Deckbuilding · Why Build a Custom Deck?	p.18	0.047379 (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 Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook (corpus doc 295)	Wendy Adams	p.7	0.046642 (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 Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook (corpus doc 295)	Lead Investigator · 'In Player Order' · Per Investigator (  ) · Locations	p.4	0.044388 (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 Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook (corpus doc 295)		p.5	0.043905 (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 Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook (corpus doc 295)		p.9	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
#8	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook (corpus doc 295)	Tutorial Tip	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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook (corpus doc 295)	First Game Setup · Roland Banks · Daisy Walker · Agnes Baker · Wendy Adams	p.6	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook (corpus doc 295)		p.8	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook (corpus doc 295)		p.9	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Core Set) — Rulebook (corpus doc 295)	Wendy Adams	p.7	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 270 ms · first delta 8688 ms · total 13527 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 270 ms · ask 13248 ms · gateway work 13527 ms · total 13527 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3884
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 649
tok/sec: 135.6 tok/sec — 649 output tokens in 4.785 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 47s 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): setup

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 223), 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.