RuleSage cited table rulings
← Arkham Horror

You asked

How do I play with 8

Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below counted as honest abstain

Asked with: Arkham Horrorbg-15987-en-1e

Answered before

This question didn't get an answer just now — but Arkham Horror has been asked something like it before. The corpus may have changed since, so check the date and the answerer on each one before you rule from it.

How do I play? →

Answered Aug 17, 2026 gemma4:26b read Arkham Horror

I looked through Arkham Horror's rulebook and couldn't find a solid answer to that one — and I'd rather tell you so than guess at your table. Try asking it another way, or ask me about setup, turns, or how the game ends: those I know cold.

The closest rulebook passages are below — check them before ruling.

RULEBOOK Arkham Horror — Rulebook · p.5 · 9. Receive RanDoM Possessions · 10. Finish investigatoR setuP · 11. cReate MonsteR cuP · 12. shuFFle ancient one Decks anD gate MaRkeRs · 1 3 . Place investigatoR MaRkeRs
Each investigator sheet may indicate that the investigator receives one or more random possessions. Each player, beginning with the first player and continuing clockwise, draws the indicated number of cards from the appropriate decks, as listed on his investigator sheet in the 'Random Possessions' a
RULEBOOK Arkham Horror — Rulebook · p.5 · Game Setup · 1. PRePaRe Playing aRea · 2. Place initial clues · 3. choose FiRst PlayeR · 4. DeteRMine investigatoRs · 5. Reveal ancient one · …
Follow the steps below to prepare for a game of Arkham Horror . Unfold the board and place it in the center of the playing area. Make sure there is ample space around the edges of the board to place the investigator sheets and card decks. Place the various tokens and the dice near the board, as show
RULEBOOK Arkham Horror — Rulebook · p.6 · aDjusting skills · 3. Adjust Skills · Phase II: Movement
During Upkeep , you may adjust your character's skills in order to react to the investigator's situation. Focus represents your character's ability to split his attention between the different tasks at hand. It determines the total number of 'stops' you may adjust your skills each turn. Example 1: A
RULEBOOK Arkham Horror — Rulebook · p.24 · sPecial skill checks · too Many gates · MonsteR liMit · MonsteRs in the outskiRts
There are four special types of skill checks that players should be aware of: Evade checks, Horror checks, Combat checks, and Spell checks . Each of these special skill checks use the value of one of the six basic skills. Bonuses to the skill that a special check uses apply to the special check as w
RULEBOOK Arkham Horror — Rulebook · p.9 · B. Location Has Open Gate · C. No Elder Sign or Gate · 1. The Doom Track Advances
If there is already an open gate at the location, a monster emerges from every open gate currently on the board. This is called a monster surge . When a monster surge occurs, the number of monsters drawn and placed is equal to the number of open gates or the number of players, whichever is greater .
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
outcome
ABSTAINED — Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below
warm abstain
  • this ruling — W1 — generic warm abstain · receipt: none (generic)
corpus profile
live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings
search 124 ms · ask 3228 ms · total 3355 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 0 ms · generation 3355 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
[{"page": 5, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Each investigator sheet may indicate that the investigator receives one or more random possessions. Each player, beginning with the first player and continuing clockwise, draws the indicated number of cards from the appropriate decks, as listed on his investigator sheet in the 'Random Possessions' a", "headingPath": "9. Receive RanDoM Possessions · 10. Finish investigatoR setuP · 11. cReate MonsteR cuP · 12. shuFFle ancient one Decks anD gate MaRkeRs · 1 3 . Place investigatoR MaRkeRs", "sharpsignalDocId": 471}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Follow the steps below to prepare for a game of Arkham Horror . Unfold the board and place it in the center of the playing area. Make sure there is ample space around the edges of the board to place the investigator sheets and card decks. Place the various tokens and the dice near the board, as show", "headingPath": "Game Setup · 1. PRePaRe Playing aRea · 2. Place initial clues · 3. choose FiRst PlayeR · 4. DeteRMine investigatoRs · 5. Reveal ancient one · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 471}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "During Upkeep , you may adjust your character's skills in order to react to the investigator's situation. Focus represents your character's ability to split his attention between the different tasks at hand. It determines the total number of 'stops' you may adjust your skills each turn. Example 1: A", "headingPath": "aDjusting skills · 3. Adjust Skills · Phase II: Movement", "sharpsignalDocId": 471}, {"page": 24, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "There are four special types of skill checks that players should be aware of: Evade checks, Horror checks, Combat checks, and Spell checks . Each of these special skill checks use the value of one of the six basic skills. Bonuses to the skill that a special check uses apply to the special check as w", "headingPath": "sPecial skill checks · too Many gates · MonsteR liMit · MonsteRs in the outskiRts", "sharpsignalDocId": 471}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "If there is already an open gate at the location, a monster emerges from every open gate currently on the board. This is called a monster surge . When a monster surge occurs, the number of monsters drawn and placed is equal to the number of open gates or the number of players, whichever is greater .", "headingPath": "B. Location Has Open Gate · C. No Elder Sign or Gate · 1. The Doom Track Advances", "sharpsignalDocId": 471}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.030478, "snippet": "To satisfy this victory condition, the players must accomplish two objectives: An investigator must close the last gate on the board, such that there are currently no open gates. When the last gate is closed, the players must have a number of gate trophies equal to or greater than the number of play", "headingPath": "A. Close the Gates · B. Seal the Gates · C. Banish the Ancient One · scoRing victoRies", "sharpsignalDocId": 471}, {"page": 22, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "When the Ancient One awakens, any investigators that are lost in time and space are immediately devoured and eliminated from the game. The surviving investigators must face the Ancient One in the final battle! Before the final battle begins, discard any active Environment or Rumor cards. Additionall", "headingPath": "the Final battle · 1. Investigators Refresh · 2. Investigators Attack", "sharpsignalDocId": 471}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "It is passed to the left at the end of every turn. Each player takes his investigator sheet and marker, then gains Stamina and Sanity tokens equal to his maximum Stamina and Sanity, respectively. In addition, each player receives his character’s possessions. Finally, each player places his investiga", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 471}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
[]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 471 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 471 boosted
answered-before recall
past answered rulings were found and offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
  • ruling 4340 — matched by trigram similarity — measured similarity 0.6667
debug row recorded
Sep 7, 2026 15:11 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 Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) 9. Receive RanDoM Possessions · 10. Finish investigatoR setuP · 11. cReate MonsteR cuP · 12. shuFFle ancient one Decks anD gate MaRkeRs · 1 3 . Place investigatoR MaRkeRs p.5 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 Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) Game Setup · 1. PRePaRe Playing aRea · 2. Place initial clues · 3. choose FiRst PlayeR · 4. DeteRMine investigatoRs · 5. Reveal ancient one · … 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 Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) aDjusting skills · 3. Adjust Skills · Phase II: Movement p.6 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 Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) sPecial skill checks · too Many gates · MonsteR liMit · MonsteRs in the outskiRts p.24 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 Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) B. Location Has Open Gate · C. No Elder Sign or Gate · 1. The Doom Track Advances p.9 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 Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) A. Close the Gates · B. Seal the Gates · C. Banish the Ancient One · scoRing victoRies p.12 0.030478 (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 — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) the Final battle · 1. Investigators Refresh · 2. Investigators Attack p.22 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 Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) p.4 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 62 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 Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) Game Setup · 1. PRePaRe Playing aRea · 2. Place initial clues · 3. choose FiRst PlayeR · 4. DeteRMine investigatoRs · 5. Reveal ancient one · … p.5 #2 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
#2 RULEBOOK Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) A. Close the Gates · B. Seal the Gates · C. Banish the Ancient One · scoRing victoRies p.12 #6 0.030478 (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 Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) Game Components and Preparation · Component Overview · Game Board · FiRst PlayeR MaRkeR · Dice p.2 #10 0.028787 (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 Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) DooM tokens · ancient one caRDs p.3 #13 0.024313 (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
#5 RULEBOOK Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) Phase I: Upkeep · 1. Refresh Exhausted Cards · 2. Perform Upkeep Actions p.6 #21 0.012987 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one)) vector the re-ranker chose it
#6 RULEBOOK Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) Index p.23 #58 0.008475 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one)) vector the re-ranker chose it
#7 RULEBOOK Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) 9. Receive RanDoM Possessions · 10. Finish investigatoR setuP · 11. cReate MonsteR cuP · 12. shuFFle ancient one Decks anD gate MaRkeRs · 1 3 . Place investigatoR MaRkeRs p.5 #1 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)) vector + the doc-priority boost arm the re-ranker chose it
#8 RULEBOOK Arkham Horror — Rulebook (corpus doc 471) Monster Limits and the Outskirts p.18 #32 0.011111 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one)) vector 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
timing split
retrieval 124 ms · first delta 3194 ms · total 3355 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 124 ms · ask 3228 ms · gateway work 3355 ms · total 3355 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
4158
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
9
tok/sec
176.5 tok/sec — 9 output tokens in 0.051 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child)
answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 46s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage)
reachable (for 22h, checked 5s 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
ABSTAINED — Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below
abstain rationale
I don't have enough information.
BOILERPLATE, not reasoning: this is the answerer's fixed abstention phrase, the same sentence it emits whenever it declines. It records THAT the answerer declined and never why — no per-ruling reason was captured, because none was sent. Hostile corpus/LLM text, rendered escaped
decision
NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 401), 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.