RuleSage cited table rulings
← Dinosaur Island

You asked

How do I play?

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

Asked with: Dinosaur Islandbg-221194-en-1e

I looked through Dinosaur Island'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 Dinosaur Island — Rulebook · p.17
• Instead of the standard objective cards, use the solo objective cards. Shuffle all 16, then draw 10. Of those 10, choose 7 that will be in play this game, and place them face- up. Take the 3 cards that were not chosen and shuffle them together with the 6 that were not drawn, giving you a face-down
RULEBOOK Dinosaur Island — Rulebook · p.15
If a given stack is empty, shuffle the corresponding discard pile to form a new stack. (Note: Do not rearrange the attractions in order of cost; that only occurs during initial setup.) Reveal New Dino Recipes Check each stack of dino recipe tiles on the research center board. Turn the top tile of ea
RULEBOOK Dinosaur Island — Rulebook · p.6
remaining worker on the turn order track. Lastly, put your 3 scientists just above your lab; this is your research pool. 33 Gain Starting DNA Place a limit cube at “4” on each of the basic DNA tracks (i.e., blue, pink, purple) and at “2” on each of the advanced DNA tracks (i.e., green, red, orange)
RULEBOOK Dinosaur Island — Rulebook · p.19
In addition, if you were able to avoid discarding any objective cards during the game, score a 10 VP bonus. Hint: To score the 10 VP bonus, you need to score exactly one objective in each round, which is why you might decide not to score multiple completed objectives in the same round. VARIANTSVARIA
RULEBOOK Dinosaur Island — Rulebook · p.6
RESEARCH PHASE To begin this phase, the first player rolls all dice in the DNA dice pool and places those rolled dice along the top of the research center, so that there is one die per slot. (It doesn’t matter which die is in which slot.) Then, in turn order, each player assigns one of their scienti
🔧 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 72 ms · ask 2445 ms · total 2518 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 0 ms · generation 2518 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
[{"page": 17, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "• Instead of the standard objective cards, use the solo objective cards. Shuffle all 16, then draw 10. Of those 10, choose 7 that will be in play this game, and place them face- up. Take the 3 cards that were not chosen and shuffle them together with the 6 that were not drawn, giving you a face-down", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 391}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.046875, "snippet": "If a given stack is empty, shuffle the corresponding discard pile to form a new stack. (Note: Do not rearrange the attractions in order of cost; that only occurs during initial setup.) Reveal New Dino Recipes Check each stack of dino recipe tiles on the research center board. Turn the top tile of ea", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 391}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.046642, "snippet": "remaining worker on the turn order track. Lastly, put your 3 scientists just above your lab; this is your research pool. 33 Gain Starting DNA Place a limit cube at “4” on each of the basic DNA tracks (i.e., blue, pink, purple) and at “2” on each of the advanced DNA tracks (i.e., green, red, orange) ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 391}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.046452, "snippet": "In addition, if you were able to avoid discarding any objective cards during the game, score a 10 VP bonus. Hint: To score the 10 VP bonus, you need to score exactly one objective in each round, which is why you might decide not to score multiple completed objectives in the same round. VARIANTSVARIA", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 391}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "RESEARCH PHASE To begin this phase, the first player rolls all dice in the DNA dice pool and places those rolled dice along the top of the research center, so that there is one die per slot. (It doesn’t matter which die is in which slot.) Then, in turn order, each player assigns one of their scienti", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 391}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Shuffle all 11 plot twist cards facedown, then draw 2 at random and place them face-up. The rules on these cards are now in effect for the remainder of the game. (If the second plot twist card would contradict the first, discard the second and redraw.) Return the other plot twist cards to the box. E", "headingPath": "7 Prepare the Plot Twists · Distribute Player Pieces", "sharpsignalDocId": 391}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "1 Map Out the Game's Footprint Position the marketplace board , research center board , and track board centrally, within reach of all players. Be sure to leave plenty of room along the edges for each player's individual area. Off to the side, pile all 81 income tokens ; this is the bank . Next to t", "headingPath": "MAIN GAME SETUP<< · 2 Establish the Dice Pool · 3 Place the Market Stacks · 4 Seed the Market Rows · 5 Place the Research Stacks · 6 Reveal End-Game Objectives", "sharpsignalDocId": 391}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.029437, "snippet": "Game Design: Jonathan Gilmour (@JonGilmour) Brian Lewis (@brianlewisgames) Game Development: Nathan McNair (@Pandasaurusgame) Molly Wardlaw Illustration: Kwanchai Moriya (@kwanchaimoriya) Graphic Design: Peter Wocken (@PeterWocken) 3D Architectural Modeling: Anthony Wocken (@anthonywocken) Rulebook:", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 391}]
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 391 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 391 boosted
answered-before recall
no past answered ruling for this game matched closely enough
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until
Nov 14, 2026 11:12

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 Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) p.17 0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1) 300
#2 RULEBOOK Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) p.15 0.046875 (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 Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) p.6 0.046642 (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 Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) p.19 0.046452 (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 Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) p.6 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
#6 RULEBOOK Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) 7 Prepare the Plot Twists · Distribute Player Pieces 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
#7 RULEBOOK Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) MAIN GAME SETUP<< · 2 Establish the Dice Pool · 3 Place the Market Stacks · 4 Seed the Market Rows · 5 Place the Research Stacks · 6 Reveal End-Game Objectives 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
#8 RULEBOOK Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) p.19 0.029437 (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 37 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 Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) p.17 #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 Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) p.15 #2 0.046875 (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 Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) MAIN GAME SETUP<< · 2 Establish the Dice Pool · 3 Place the Market Stacks · 4 Seed the Market Rows · 5 Place the Research Stacks · 6 Reveal End-Game Objectives p.4 #7 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)) vector + the doc-priority boost arm the re-ranker chose it
#4 RULEBOOK Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) p.19 #4 0.046452 (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 Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) p.8 #18 0.013889 (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 Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) p.5 #16 0.014493 (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 Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) 7 Prepare the Plot Twists · Distribute Player Pieces p.4 #6 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 Dinosaur Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 391) p.6 #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)) vector + the doc-priority boost arm 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 72 ms · first delta 2424 ms · total 2518 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 72 ms · ask 2445 ms · gateway work 2518 ms · total 2518 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
3116
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
9
tok/sec
204.5 tok/sec — 9 output tokens in 0.044 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child)
answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 33s 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.
outcome
ABSTAINED — Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below
abstain rationale
I don't have enough information.
the answerer's own words, verbatim — hostile corpus/LLM text, rendered escaped
decision
NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 320), 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.