RuleSage cited table rulings
← Vantage

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Vantagebg-420033-en-1e

Before your first game, punch out all skill tokens and coins, and unwrap all cards except for the spoiler pack.[1][2] Keep cards in numerical order with numbers facing upwards.[1][2]
To setup the game:
1. Place the game box on the table next to a player in charge of finding and returning cards (this player uses cards 1709-1714 as placeholders).[3]
2. Tilt the three big stacks of large cards out of their flat-packed position.[3]
3. Place the board (the 'center') in the middle of the table with time, morale, and health trackers nearby.[3]
4. Place all skill tokens, coins, boost tokens (cubes), skill dice, and the storybooks in a general supply near the game board.[3]
5. Seed the challenge dice pool with 8 challenge dice plus 2 per player, then return the remaining challenge dice to the box.[3]
6. Give each player a location card holder.[3]
7. Randomly select a first player.[3]
8. Place the Book of Vantages on the table with the back cover facing up to display location 000.[3]
9. Follow the instructions on location 000 to complete setup, using skill dice for randomization; this is where each player independently gains their character and starting stats.[3]
[1] RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook · p.1 · AN OPEN-WORLD ADVENTURE · Initial Setup · IMPORTANT: · OVERVIEW AND GOAL
[2] RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook · p.1
[3] RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook · p.3 · SETUP

One rule clearer, zero feelings hurt.

🔧 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 311 ms · ask 4260 ms · total 4572 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 0 ms · generation 4572 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
[{"page": 3, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "1 Place the game box on the table next to a player in charge of finding and returning cards (they gain placeholder cards 1709-1714 ); this is more efficient than passing the box around the table. Tilt the three big stacks of large cards out of their flat-packed position. 2 Place the board (the 'cent", "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 384}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.048131, "snippet": "For your first game we recommend using the 'daring' starting level for time, morale, and health and avoiding difficult crash locations. These settings are found on location 000 and on the escape pod locations. Make bold choices while playing, as the first time a player's time, morale, or health is r", "headingPath": "BEFORE YOUR FIRST GAME", "sharpsignalDocId": 384}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.046898, "snippet": "The game consists of players taking turns clockwise around the table. Each player performs 1 action per turn (unless indicated otherwise), using skills contributed by any player to decrease the action cost; rolling challenge dice based on that cost to determine any complications encountered; and pla", "headingPath": "GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW · Universal Rule of Thematic Fun · Sharing Information", "sharpsignalDocId": 384}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "12 CARD GRID Whenever you gain a vertical card (same size as your character card), place it in any open space in your 3x3 grid: a tableau of up to 9 cards with your character in the middle. You may not reposition cards in your grid. The first time a player completes their grid, place destiny 1705 in", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 384}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "A game can end in several different ways, and the storybooks will give you the option (or the requirement) to end the game when: You complete the mission (completing a mission will give you a choice between ending the game and continuing to pursue a destiny). You complete a destiny (and then choose ", "headingPath": "END OF GAME", "sharpsignalDocId": 384}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.030622, "snippet": "1 AN OPEN-WORLD ADVENTURE designed by Jamey Stegmaier art by Valentina Filić, Sören Meding, and Emilien Rotival 1–6 players · 120–180 minutes · ages 14+ · cooperative OVERVIEW AND GOAL You begin each game of Vantage on an intergalactic vessel heading towards the same uncharted planet with 1 of 21 mi", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 384}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "271 On your turn, perform one action by following a few steps in order (these steps are also shown in a flowchart on the backs of storybooks). You will always succeed when performing an action; the challenge is to avoid losing time, morale, or health. After your turn, play proceeds clockwise to the ", "headingPath": "HOW TO TAKE A TURN (PAGES 7-11) 272", "sharpsignalDocId": 384}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Whenever you gain a vertical card (same size as your character card), place it in any open space in your 3x3 grid: a tableau of up to 9 cards with your character in the middle. You may not reposition cards in your grid. The first time a player completes their grid, place destiny 1705 in the center. ", "headingPath": "CARD GRID · Reserve · Supply · CARD ANATOMY", "sharpsignalDocId": 384}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
[{"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "AN OPEN-WORLD ADVENTURE · Initial Setup · IMPORTANT: · OVERVIEW AND GOAL", "sharpsignalDocId": 384}, {"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 384}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 384}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 384 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 384 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 0.89128 of 975 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded
Sep 7, 2026 03:47 UTC

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 rankdocumentheadingpage fused RRF scoresnippet chars
#1 RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) SETUP p.3 0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1) 300
#2 RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) BEFORE YOUR FIRST GAME p.13 0.048131 (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 Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW · Universal Rule of Thematic Fun · Sharing Information p.4 0.046898 (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 Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) p.12 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 Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) END OF GAME p.13 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 Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) p.1 0.030622 (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 Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) HOW TO TAKE A TURN (PAGES 7-11) 272 p.7 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
#8 RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) CARD GRID · Reserve · Supply · CARD ANATOMY p.12 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

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 38 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 atdocumentheadingpage fused rankfused RRF scorecarried byhow it got its slot
#1 RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) SETUP p.3 #1 0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1) vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm the re-ranker chose it
#2 RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) AN OPEN-WORLD ADVENTURE · Initial Setup · IMPORTANT: · OVERVIEW AND GOAL p.1 #10 0.029274 (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 re-ranker chose it
#3 RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) p.1 #11 0.026736 (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 re-ranker chose it
#4 RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) HOW TO TAKE A TURN (PAGES 7-11) 272 p.7 #7 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)) vector + the doc-priority boost arm the re-ranker chose it
#5 RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) END OF GAME p.13 #5 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
#6 RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) BEFORE YOUR FIRST GAME p.13 #2 0.048131 (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 Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW · Universal Rule of Thematic Fun · Sharing Information p.4 #3 0.046898 (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 Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) p.1 #6 0.030622 (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 re-ranker chose it

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.

#documentheadingpagequote chars
[1] RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) AN OPEN-WORLD ADVENTURE · Initial Setup · IMPORTANT: · OVERVIEW AND GOAL p.1 no quote on the wire
[2] RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) p.1 no quote on the wire
[3] RULEBOOK Vantage — Rulebook (corpus doc 384) SETUP p.3 no quote on the wire
timing split
retrieval 311 ms · first delta 3007 ms · total 4572 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 311 ms · ask 4260 ms · gateway work 4572 ms · total 4572 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
3689
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
298
tok/sec
198.0 tok/sec — 298 output tokens in 1.505 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child)
answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 44s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage)
reachable (for 22h, checked 3s 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.
outcome
ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered)
answered — no abstain rationale applies
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

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 313), 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.