Ruling — Skull — RuleSage

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Skullbg-92415-en-1e

1. Each player chooses a set, places their mat in front of them on the table, blank side up, and takes their 4 discs.[1]

2. To begin the round, each player secretly chooses a disc from their hand and places it facedown on their mat, with the first player waiting until all other players have placed a disc before choosing their own.[2]

3. Players take turns, starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise.[2]

4. On your turn, you can PLACE A DISC or OPEN THE BIDDING.[2]

5. To place a disc, choose 1 of your remaining discs and place it facedown on your previously played disc, offset slightly so everyone can see how many discs are in play.[2]

6. To open the bidding, announce a number of discs you will attempt to flip over without revealing a skull; this number must be greater than zero and less than or equal to the number of discs in play.[3]

7. Once the bidding has been opened, your options change to OUTBID or PASS.[2]

8. To outbid, announce a number greater than the current bid but less than or equal to the number of discs in play.[4]

9. To pass, push your mat to the center of the table to indicate you no longer wish to participate in that round of bidding.[4]

10. Play continues clockwise until all but one player have passed, leaving the remaining player as the round's Challenger.[4]

11. As the Challenger, you must flip a number of discs equal to your bid without revealing a skull.[5]

12. When flipping, you must flip discs one at a time.[5]

13. You cannot flip other players' discs until all of your own discs have been flipped.[5]

14. You can only flip the topmost facedown disc on any mat.[5]

15. Once all of your own discs are flipped, you can freely switch between player mats to flip others' discs.[5]

16. If you flip the number of discs you bid without revealing a skull, you win the round.[5]

17. If you win the round and your mat is blank side up, flip it so it is flower side up.[5]

18. If you flip a skull, you fail and must immediately stop flipping discs.[6]

19. If you reveal a skull belonging to another player, retrieve all your placed discs, shuffle them with those you did not place, and present them facedown to that player, who then takes one of your discs and returns it to the box without looking at it.[6]

20. If you reveal your own skull, take all your discs (placed and unplaced) into your hand and secretly choose one to return to the box without revealing it.[6]

21. If you lose your last disc, return your mat to the game box and you are eliminated.[6]

22. Regardless of whether the Challenger wins or fails, everyone retrieves their played discs.[7]

23. The game ends if you win a round as the Challenger and your mat is already flower side up, or if all other players have been eliminated.[7]

[1] RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook · p.3 · GOAL OF THE GAME · GAME OVERVIEW · SETUP

[2] RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook · p.4 · 1) GETTING READY · 2) DECISION MAKING · PLACE A DISC

[3] RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook · p.5 · OPEN THE BIDDING

[4] RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook · p.6 · ◉ OUTBID · ◉ PASS

[5] RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook · p.7 · 3) RESOLVE THE CHALLENGE SUCCESS

[6] RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook · p.8 · FAILURE

[7] RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook · p.9 · NEW ROUND · The game will end in one of two ways:

That's the page. Back to the table.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 125 ms · ask 4391 ms · total 11612 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 7094 ms · generation 4518 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 4, "score": 0.04866, "snippet": "To begin the round, each player secretly chooses a disc from their hand and places it facedown on their mat. The first player must wait until all other players have placed a disc before choosing their own. This choice is essential: if you place a flower, you give yourself a chance of winning the rou", "headingPath": "1) GETTING READY · 2) DECISION MAKING · PLACE A DISC", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.047875, "snippet": "To outbid, indicate that you will attempt to flip more discs without revealing a skull by announcing a number greater than the current bid (but still less than or equal to the number of discs in play). Count all the discs in play and take your best guess at how many of them are flowers. Your new bid", "headingPath": "◉ OUTBID · ◉ PASS", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.046635, "snippet": "Regardless of whether the Challenger wins or fails, everyone retrieves their played discs. If the former Challenger was not eliminated, they become the first player for the new round. Otherwise, the player whose skull eliminated the former Challenger becomes the first player. If the Challenger elimi", "headingPath": "NEW ROUND · The game will end in one of two ways:", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.045805, "snippet": "'I do like games which leave us navigating between truth and bluff. But this bluff must not be the sole key to winning. For me, it is necessary that victory feels deserved! That the winner won because they developed a better strategy than the others. My goal with Skull was to arouse feelings close t", "headingPath": "EPILOG", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.045228, "snippet": "If you cannot or simply do not want to place a disc, you can open the bidding by announcing the number of discs you will attempt to flip over without revealing a skull. This number must be less than or equal to the number of discs in play (placed on player mats), and must also be greater than zero. ", "headingPath": "OPEN THE BIDDING", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.045002, "snippet": "As the Challenger, you must flip a number of discs equal to your bid without revealing a skull. If your bid was equal to the number of discs in play, you must flip every disc. When flipping discs, follow these rules: you must flip discs one at a time. you cannot flip other players' discs until all o", "headingPath": "3) RESOLVE THE CHALLENGE SUCCESS", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Win 2 rounds or be the last player remaining after all other players are eliminated. Skull is a game of bluffing and risk-taking. On your turn, you will either place a disc facedown on your mat or bid the number of discs you think you can flip over without revealing a skull. Each player chooses a se", "headingPath": "GOAL OF THE GAME · GAME OVERVIEW · SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "As the Challenger, if you flip a skull, you fail and must immediately stop flipping discs. Retrieve all your placed discs, shuffle them with those you did not place, and present them facedown to the player whose skull you revealed. That player takes one of your discs and returns it to the box withou", "headingPath": "FAILURE", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "GOAL OF THE GAME · GAME OVERVIEW · SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1) GETTING READY · 2) DECISION MAKING · PLACE A DISC", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "OPEN THE BIDDING", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "◉ OUTBID · ◉ PASS", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "3) RESOLVE THE CHALLENGE SUCCESS", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "FAILURE", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "NEW ROUND · The game will end in one of two ways:", "sharpsignalDocId": 133}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 133 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 133 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)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.91630 of 2246 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Aug 26, 2026 12:12 UTC

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

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 Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	1) GETTING READY · 2) DECISION MAKING · PLACE A DISC	p.4	0.04866 (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 Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	◉ OUTBID · ◉ PASS	p.6	0.047875 (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 Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	NEW ROUND · The game will end in one of two ways:	p.9	0.046635 (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 Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	EPILOG	p.11	0.045805 (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 Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	OPEN THE BIDDING	p.5	0.045228 (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 Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	3) RESOLVE THE CHALLENGE SUCCESS	p.7	0.045002 (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 Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	GOAL OF THE GAME · GAME OVERVIEW · SETUP	p.3	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
#8	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	FAILURE	p.8	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

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 11 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	1) GETTING READY · 2) DECISION MAKING · PLACE A DISC	p.4	#1	0.04866 (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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	GOAL OF THE GAME · GAME OVERVIEW · SETUP	p.3	#7	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	3) RESOLVE THE CHALLENGE SUCCESS	p.7	#6	0.045002 (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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	FAILURE	p.8	#8	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	NEW ROUND · The game will end in one of two ways:	p.9	#3	0.046635 (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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	EPILOG	p.11	#4	0.045805 (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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	OPEN THE BIDDING	p.5	#5	0.045228 (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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	◉ OUTBID · ◉ PASS	p.6	#2	0.047875 (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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	GOAL OF THE GAME · GAME OVERVIEW · SETUP	p.3	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	1) GETTING READY · 2) DECISION MAKING · PLACE A DISC	p.4	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	OPEN THE BIDDING	p.5	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	◉ OUTBID · ◉ PASS	p.6	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	3) RESOLVE THE CHALLENGE SUCCESS	p.7	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	FAILURE	p.8	no quote on the wire
[7]	RULEBOOK Skull — Rulebook (corpus doc 133)	NEW ROUND · The game will end in one of two ways:	p.9	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 125 ms · first delta 1127 ms · total 11612 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 7094 ms · retrieval 125 ms · ask 4391 ms · gateway work 4518 ms · total 11612 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2096
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 680
tok/sec: 203.8 tok/sec — 680 output tokens in 3.337 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 57s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 7s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
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: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 55), 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.