Ruling — Arkham Horror: The Card Game

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Arkham Horror: The Card Gamebg-205637-en-1e

To play the game, follow these steps:

**Setup**

1. Each player chooses a different investigator and places that investigator's card in their play area.[1]

2. In campaign play, each player places damage equal to their physical trauma, and horror equal to their mental trauma, on their investigator card.[1]

3. Choose a lead investigator; that player takes the lead investigator token.[1]

4. Each player chooses either their investigator mini-card or investigator token to represent their position on the map during the game.[1]

5. Assemble and shuffle investigator decks.[1]

6. Assemble the token pool, placing damage, horror, clue/doom, resource, and connector tokens within reach of all players.[1]

7. Assemble the chaos bag by placing chaos tokens as indicated by campaign setup instructions (return other tokens to the box).[1]

8. Each investigator gains 5 resources from the token pool.[1]

9. Each player draws an opening hand of 5 cards; players may mulligan any cards in their opening hand once (weakness cards drawn during this step are set aside and then shuffled back into the owner's deck).[1]

10. Read the scenario introduction in the campaign guide.[1]

11. Perform scenario setup instructions from the campaign guide, which includes gathering encounter sets, placing locations, placing investigator tokens/mini-cards at starting locations, setting aside listed cards, and shuffling remaining encounter cards to form the encounter deck.[1]

12. Assemble the agenda deck in sequential order with the art side faceup, so 'agenda 1a' is on top, and read its story text.[1]

13. Assemble the act deck in sequential order with the art side faceup, so 'act 1a' is on top, and read its story text.[1]

14. Place the scenario reference card next to the agenda deck.[1]

**Game Flow and Turns**

1. The game proceeds through rounds, continuing until a scenario resolution is reached.[2]

2. After the mythos phase is resolved, play proceeds to the investigation phase.[2]

3. During their turn, each investigator may take up to three actions.[3]

4. Available actions include:

* Draw: Draw 1 card.[4][3]

* Resource: Gain 1 resource.[4][3]

* Activate: Activate an ability on a card.[4][3]

* Play: Select an asset or event card in hand and pay its resource cost by moving resources from the investigator's pool to the general token pool.[4][3][5] (Note: cards with the 'fast' keyword do not cost an action to play).[3][5]

* Move: Move to a connecting location.[4][3]

* Investigate: Investigate your location.[4][3]

* Engage: Engage an enemy at your current location.[4][3]

* Evade: Attempt to evade an engaged enemy at your location.[4][3]

* Fight: Fight an engaged enemy at your location.[4][3]

* Parley: Parley an enemy at your location using a card ability.[4][3]

* Resign: Remove your investigator from the game using a card ability.[4][3]

5. Note that if you are engaged with one or more ready enemies, taking any action other than Evade, Fight, or activating a Parley or Resign ability provokes an attack of opportunity from each ready enemy engaged with you.[3]

**Winning and Losing**

1. A scenario typically ends by advancing the final act in the act deck or the final agenda in the agenda deck.[6]

2. Advancing the act deck often results in a favorable resolution (a "win").[6]

3. Advancing the agenda deck likely results in less favorable resolutions that may worsen future odds for a positive ending.[6]

[1] RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook · p.20 · Setting Up a Game

[2] RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook · p.20 · What's Next?

[3] RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook · p.3

[4] RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook · p.48 · Action Types

[5] RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook · p.12 · Play · Equipment Slots

[6] RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook · p.4

🔧 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 76 ms · ask 9510 ms · total 26170 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 16583 ms · generation 9587 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 12, "score": 0.047619, "snippet": "Play is an action. An investigator using this action selects an asset or event card in their hand, pays its resource cost, and plays it. A card's resource cost and cardtype are found in its upper left corner. To pay a resource cost, the investigator playing the card must move a number of resources e", "headingPath": "Play · Equipment Slots", "sharpsignalDocId": 259}, {"page": 42, "score": 0.046898, "snippet": "The cards that a player controls in their play area are considered in play. The current act, the current agenda, the scenario reference card, each location in the play space, and each encounter card in an investigator's threat area or at a location are all considered in play. Cards in a player's han", "headingPath": "In Play and Out of Play · Keywords", "sharpsignalDocId": 259}, {"page": 48, "score": 0.04119, "snippet": "Fight (  ). Fight an engaged enemy at your location, using  . Evade (  ). Evade an engaged enemy at your location, using  . Investigate (  ). Investigate your location using  . Engage . Engage an enemy at your current location. Draw . Draw 1 card. Move. Move to a connecting location. Resource ", "headingPath": "Action Types", "sharpsignalDocId": 259}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.041054, "snippet": "When the game begins, investigators are searching for their friend at Miskatonic University. How should they proceed? In this situation, some actions are be er than others. If an investigator has asset cards in hand that seem useful, that investigator should consider using the Play action to play on", "headingPath": "First Scenario Tip", "sharpsignalDocId": 259}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.040195, "snippet": "Read the story text on agenda 1a. Set act deck. Assemble the act deck in sequential order, with the art side faceup, so that 'act 1a' is on top. Read the story text on act 1a. Place the scenario reference card next to the agenda deck. The game is now afoot! There are no action windows during setup. ", "headingPath": "Setting Up a Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 259}, {"page": 21, "score": 0.039737, "snippet": "A campaign is a long-form story set in the foreboding universe of Lovecraft's Mythos, and unfolds over a series of interrelated scenarios. As a campaign progresses, each investigator gains experience and trauma which is reflected by changes in their deck. Decisions, victories, and losses are recorde", "headingPath": "Campaign Play · The Campaign Log · 'Record in your Campaign Log…' · 'Remember that…'", "sharpsignalDocId": 259}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.037164, "snippet": "In the investigation phase, the investigators take center stage. What they choose to do depends on the circumstances and the investigator in question. During this phase, each investigator takes a separate turn. When the phase begins, the investigators, as a group, choose which investigator takes the", "headingPath": "The Investigation Phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 259}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Move is a basic action. An investigator using this action moves to a connecting location. Move that investigator's token or mini-card to any location marked as a connection on the investigator's current location. A location's connections are indicated by the icons at the bottom of the location card,", "headingPath": "Move · Engage", "sharpsignalDocId": 259}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 20, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setting Up a Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 259}, {"page": 20, "quote": null, "headingPath": "What's Next?", "sharpsignalDocId": 259}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 259}, {"page": 48, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Action Types", "sharpsignalDocId": 259}, {"page": 12, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Play · Equipment Slots", "sharpsignalDocId": 259}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 259}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 259 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 259 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 0.89106 of 2864 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 13, 2026 13:31

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 Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	Play · Equipment Slots	p.12	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
#2	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	In Play and Out of Play · Keywords	p.42	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
#3	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	Action Types	p.48	0.04119 (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: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	First Scenario Tip	p.11	0.041054 (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: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	Setting Up a Game	p.20	0.040195 (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: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	Campaign Play · The Campaign Log · 'Record in your Campaign Log…' · 'Remember that…'	p.21	0.039737 (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: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	The Investigation Phase	p.11	0.037164 (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: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	Move · Engage	p.13	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 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 80 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 Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	Action Types	p.48	#3	0.04119 (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 Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	In Play and Out of Play · Keywords	p.42	#2	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
#3	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	What's Next?	p.20	#18	0.02381 (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: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	First Scenario Tip	p.11	#4	0.041054 (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 Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)		p.4	#29	0.021545 (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
#6	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)		p.3	#34	0.020753 (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
#7	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	Setting Up a Game	p.20	#10	0.027397 (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
#8	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	Play · Equipment Slots	p.12	#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))	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 Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	Setting Up a Game	p.20	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	What's Next?	p.20	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)		p.3	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	Action Types	p.48	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)	Play · Equipment Slots	p.12	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 259)		p.4	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 76 ms · first delta 3442 ms · total 26170 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 16583 ms · retrieval 76 ms · ask 9510 ms · gateway work 9587 ms · total 26170 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3443
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 856
tok/sec: 140.5 tok/sec — 856 output tokens in 6.094 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 38s 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: 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 187), 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.