Ruling — Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition)

← Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition)

You asked

What does each player take, and what goes in the middle, before we begin?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition)bg-104162-en-1e

Each hero player takes: 1. One Activation card [1] 2. Hero tokens of the corresponding color [1] 3. One Hero sheet [1] 4. The corresponding hero figure [1] 5. A Class deck matching his chosen hero's archetype icon [1] Before the game begins, the following are placed: 1. Any doors used in the quest are placed as indicated in the Quest Guide [2] 2. All damage, fatigue, hero, and condition tokens are sorted into piles by type and placed within easy reach of all players [2] 3. The Search deck (all Search cards shuffled together) is placed facedown within easy reach of the hero players [2] 4. Condition cards are placed in separate piles based on their type, within easy reach of all players [2]

[1] RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook · p.5 · Hero Setup

[2] RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook · p.4 · General Setup · Hero Archetypes

🔧 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 365 ms · ask 13656 ms · total 14030 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 14030 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 19, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "To start a new campaign, the players must assign roles for the campaign. One player takes the role of the overlord. The other players take the roles of the heroes. This process is identical to the rules described in 'Setup' on page 4, with exceptions as noted here. It's important to note that the ch", "headingPath": "Starting a New Campaign · THE SHOP ITEM DECK · MONSTERS & LIEUTENANTS · CAMPAIGN MAP · Quests in a Campaign", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "After completing General Setup, the hero players continue setup as follows. The overlord player then performs Overlord Setup (see 'Overlord Setup'). Take Activation Cards and Hero Tokens: Each hero player chooses one Activation card and takes the hero tokens of the corresponding color. Choose Heroes", "headingPath": "Hero Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 21, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "After spending experience points and shopping, players now select the next quest. In most cases, the winner of the previous quest will choose the next quest from among those available to them (see 'Record-Keeping and Storage' on page 21). Quests are divided into Act I and Act II quests, and the play", "headingPath": "CHOOSE NEXT QUEST", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Monsters are the overlord's primary weapon against heroes and the tools used to complete his objective. Each type of monster has a Monster card associated with that monster type. Monsters are placed and activated in GROUPS . The size of the monster group is determined by the number of heroes in the ", "headingPath": "Monsters", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition is played over a number of game rounds. A round consists of each player taking one turn, beginning with one of the heroes. Each player completes his entire turn before another player begins his turn. Each round, the hero players decide as a group the orde", "headingPath": "Playing the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Map: The map is set up in the center of the play area with the hero and monster figures, search tokens, and any objective tokens placed in the appropriate spaces described in the Quest Guide. Hero Sheets: Hero players place their Hero sheets faceup in front of them. Class Cards: Hero players place t", "headingPath": "Setup Diagram (Four-player Game)", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "During each hero turn, the active hero player performs the following steps in order. Start of Turn: During this step, any effects affecting the active hero that last 'until the start of your next turn' end. Also, the hero player may use any abilities that trigger 'at the start of your turn.' Then th", "headingPath": "Hero Turn Summary", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "After each quest of a campaign, there is a Campaign phase during which players may make decisions on how to upgrade their heroes and prepare for the next quest. It is important to note that most quests have two encounters and the Campaign phase does not take place until the entire quest is finished.", "headingPath": "The Campaign Phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Hero Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "General Setup · Hero Archetypes", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 369 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 369 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 18:19

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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Starting a New Campaign · THE SHOP ITEM DECK · MONSTERS & LIEUTENANTS · CAMPAIGN MAP · Quests in a Campaign	p.19	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
#2	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Hero Setup	p.5	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
#3	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	CHOOSE NEXT QUEST	p.21	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
#4	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Monsters	p.16	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
#5	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Playing the Game	p.7	0.030769 (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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Setup Diagram (Four-player Game)	p.6	0.030303 (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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Hero Turn Summary	p.7	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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	The Campaign Phase	p.20	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

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Hero Setup	p.5	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	General Setup · Hero Archetypes	p.4	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 365 ms · first delta 12779 ms · total 14030 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 365 ms · ask 13656 ms · gateway work 14030 ms · total 14030 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3875
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 175
tok/sec: 148.1 tok/sec — 175 output tokens in 1.182 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: BEGIN — "begin" / "beginning"
matched words (in the normalized question): begin

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 298), 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.