Ruling — The Initiative

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: The Initiativebg-328908-en-1e

1. Each player chooses one of the four character cards and gains the matching standee; if playing with fewer than four players, return unchosen cards to the game box.[1]

2. For the first game, take Mission 1, place it facedown without looking at the other side, and place the game board nearby on the side shown on the card.[1]

3. Place all tan clue tokens facedown on the table and randomize them, then return other colored clue tokens to the game box.[1]

4. Place clue tokens facedown on the game board in stacks in each room as indicated on the mission card.[1]

5. Place feature tokens on the game board as indicated by the icons at the top of the mission card.[1]

6. Each player places their standee in the room containing the entrance feature token.[1]

7. Flip all plastic windows on the mission console so they are facing down, lay the console down, and insert the mission card into the console without looking at its face.[1]

8. Stand up the mission console and place it by the game board.[1]

9. Place the four brown action cards next to the game board.[1][2]

10. Place the 'Discard Pile' card next to the action cards with the four time (4) resource cards on it.[1][2]

11. Shuffle the remaining 36 resource cards to form the resource deck and place it facedown within easy reach of all players.[2]

12. Each player draws four cards from the top of the deck to form their hand.[2]

13. Keep secret cards and the rest of the mission cards in the game box.[2]

14. During setup, you may be instructed to cover some passages with wall tokens or place passageway tokens over walls on the game board.[3]

[1] RULEBOOK The Initiative — Rulebook · p.1 · Setup

[2] RULEBOOK The Initiative — Rulebook · p.1 · Setup

[3] RULEBOOK The Initiative — Rulebook · p.2 · Communication · Moving · Walls and Passageways · Nearby · Revealing Clues

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 167 ms · ask 13139 ms · total 13316 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 13316 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 1, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "Pick Player Colors : Each player chooses one of the four character cards and also gains the matching standee. If playing with less than four players, each player controls one character and return the unchosen cards to the game box. Prepare Mission and Game Board: For your first game, you'll be using", "headingPath": "Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 1144}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.048652, "snippet": "After setup, the first player that volunteers to start the game will take the first turn. If you have low-value cards in your hand, it is usually a good idea for you to go first. On your turn, follow these steps: Perform one or two actions. Refill your hand to four cards by drawing from the resource", "headingPath": "Playing the Game · Performing Actions · Special Actions", "sharpsignalDocId": 1144}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.047619, "snippet": "I I I I I I T H I S I S M O R S E C O D E I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I T H I S I S M O R S E C O D E I I I I I I T H I S I S M O R S E C O D E 6 Setup Action Cards: Place the four (brown) action cards next to the game board. Place the 'Discard Pile' card next to them with the four", "headingPath": "Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 1144}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.045476, "snippet": "You can only look at your own hand of resource cards. You can discuss cards in your hand, but you cannot give information that reveals their exact values. For example, you can tell players that you have three high valued cards, but you cannot say that you have a 12. The Run action card lets you move", "headingPath": "Communication · Moving · Walls and Passageways · Nearby · Revealing Clues", "sharpsignalDocId": 1144}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "The object of the game is to answer the question asked at the top of the mission card. A Question on a Mission Card At any time, as a group you may agree to solve the mission. To do so, simply announce your answer aloud then remove the mission card from the mission console. If your guess was exactly", "headingPath": "Winning the Game · Running out of Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 1144}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "In order to solve the mission and win the game, you'll need to collect tokens from the game board. The Gather action card lets you collect up to two clue tokens from your room, one at a time . To collect a clue token, choose any faceup clue token in your room that has a glyph (black symbol) on it. R", "headingPath": "Collecting Clues · Traps", "sharpsignalDocId": 1144}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "It is the blue player's turn. He decides to resolve an Intel action to help decide if he should move this turn. There is a 4 on top of the Intel action card, so he cannot play his 1 or 3. He decides to play his 6 on top of it. He resolves the Intel action card's ability, choosing a room and revealin", "headingPath": "Turn example", "sharpsignalDocId": 1144}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "Since this glyph ( A ) is on the mission card, he collects the token. He removes the token from the game board and flips up all three windows of the mission console that have a A . The blue player resolved both of his actions, so he draws two resource cards and ends his turn. The player to his left ", "headingPath": "Turn example", "sharpsignalDocId": 1144}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 1144}, {"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 1144}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Communication · Moving · Walls and Passageways · Nearby · Revealing Clues", "sharpsignalDocId": 1144}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1144 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1144 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 0.91476 of 1314 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 20, 2026 21:00 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 The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Setup	p.1	0.048916 (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 The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Playing the Game · Performing Actions · Special Actions	p.2	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
#3	RULEBOOK The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Setup	p.1	0.047619 (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 The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Communication · Moving · Walls and Passageways · Nearby · Revealing Clues	p.2	0.045476 (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 The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Winning the Game · Running out of Cards	p.3	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
#6	RULEBOOK The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Collecting Clues · Traps	p.3	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
#7	RULEBOOK The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Turn example	p.4	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 The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Turn example	p.4	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

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 10 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 The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Setup	p.1	#1	0.048916 (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 The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Playing the Game · Performing Actions · Special Actions	p.2	#2	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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Setup	p.1	#3	0.047619 (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 The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Communication · Moving · Walls and Passageways · Nearby · Revealing Clues	p.2	#4	0.045476 (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
#5	RULEBOOK The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Winning the Game · Running out of Cards	p.3	#5	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Collecting Clues · Traps	p.3	#6	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
#7	RULEBOOK The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Turn example	p.4	#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
#8	RULEBOOK The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Turn example	p.4	#8	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Setup	p.1	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Setup	p.1	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK The Initiative — Rulebook (corpus doc 1144)	Communication · Moving · Walls and Passageways · Nearby · Revealing Clues	p.2	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 167 ms · first delta 11199 ms · total 13316 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 167 ms · ask 13139 ms · gateway work 13316 ms · total 13316 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3822
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 394
tok/sec: 194.1 tok/sec — 394 output tokens in 2.030 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 14s 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.

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 1074), 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.