Ruling — Return to Dark Tower

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Return to Dark Towerbg-256680-en-1e

### Setup

**World Setup**

1. Place the game board so that each kingdom faces a different player.[1]

2. Place the Tower in the center of the game board, ensuring it has batteries installed and all 12 seals in place, then turn it on.[1]

3. Place the 16 buildings in their spaces.[1]

4. Create the supply by setting aside warrior tokens, spirit tokens, and exactly 24 skulls.[1]

5. Sort the gear cards into 6 separate face-up stacks, with each stack containing 3 copies of a single card.[1]

6. Shuffle the treasure cards together into a face-down deck, then draw the top 3 cards and place them in a face-up row to create the market.[1]

7. Shuffle the potion cards together into a face-down deck.[1]

8. Shuffle the corruption cards together into a face-down deck.[1]

9. Place the companion cards, quest markers, and haggle die near the game board.[1]

**App Setup**

1. Launch the official Return to Dark Tower game app on a device with Bluetooth and select 'start new game'.[2]

2. Follow the app prompts to sync your device to the Tower.[2]

3. Select your desired game mode, difficulty, and expansions.[2]

4. Select the number of players.[2]

5. Select your main goal and retrieve the matching companion card.[2]

6. Select your adversary and place the matching adversary card and adversary token nearby.[2]

7. Select your foes (one level 2, one level 3, and one level 4) and place the matching foe cards and tokens nearby.[2]

8. Confirm your selections by pressing 'continue' in the app.[2]

9. Follow the final setup directions in the app, such as adding skulls, spawning foes, and placing the main goal quest marker.[2]

**Hero Setup**

1. Decide which player will play which hero or assign them randomly, and choose the start player.[3]

2. Each player places their hero board in front of them.[3]

3. Place the 3 hero virtue tiles for the hero in empty slots on the hero board, inactive side up.[3]

4. Place the hero figure on the space with the citadel in the player's home kingdom.[3]

5. Place the kingdom virtue tile for the home kingdom in an empty slot on the hero board.[3]

6. Collect starting resources from the supply (7 warriors and 1 spirit).[3]

### Sequence of Play

**Monthly Progression**

1. The game is played in a series of months.[4]

2. In the first month, the first turn is taken by the start player, and play continues in clockwise order; each player takes exactly one turn in the first month.[4]

3. In following months, the first turn is taken by the player seated to the left of the player who took the final turn in the previous month, and play continues in clockwise order.[4]

4. At the start of each month (except the first), the app provides two monthly quests; read them aloud and place matching quest markers on the game board where they can be completed.[4]

5. Monthly quests must be completed by the end of the month or they fail; read the outcome aloud and resolve any effects as instructed by the app.[4]

6. The game ends if the heroes do not complete the main goal and defeat the adversary before the end of the sixth month, resulting in a loss.[4]

**Taking a Turn**

1. **Start of Turn**: You may optionally take your Banner action.[4][5] You may also resolve any other game effects that apply "at the start of your turn" in any order with your Banner action.[5] During your turn, you may also trade with heroes on your space (if all agree) by giving or taking warriors, spirit, items, and companions (but not virtues or corruptions).[5]

2. **Middle of Turn**: You may move, take a heroic action, and take a Reinforce action, in any order.[4][6] These steps are optional.[6]

* Moving: You can move up to your move value (listed on your hero board).[6] You may spend one spirit to double your move for the turn, but you must do this before you start moving.[6] Moving to an adjacent space takes one move.[6]

3. **End of Turn**: You must drop a skull into the Tower.[4]

4. **Post-Turn Events**: Events may happen at the end of most player turns as alerted by the app.[7] Read the event aloud and follow its instructions, with the player who dropped the skull into

[1] RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook · p.4 · World Setup

[2] RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook · p.7 · App Setup

[3] RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook · p.6 · Hero Setup

[4] RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook · p.12 · Sequence of Play ·  INDIVIDUAL TURNS  ·  MONTHLY QUESTS  · Taking Your Turn

[5] RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook · p.13 · 1. Start of Turn ·  MAKING TRADES  ·  SPENDING VS. LOSING 

[6] RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook · p.14 · 2. Middle of Turn ·  MOVEMENT 

[7] RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook · p.22 ·  PLACING SKULLS  ·  EVENTS 

🔧 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 94 ms · ask 6914 ms · total 7009 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 7009 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 12, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "The game is played in a series of months . If the heroes do not complete the main goal and then defeat the adversary before the end of the sixth month, they lose the game. In the first month, the first turn is taken by the start player. Then play continues in clockwise order. Each player takes exact", "headingPath": "Sequence of Play ·  INDIVIDUAL TURNS  ·  MONTHLY QUESTS  · Taking Your Turn", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.048131, "snippet": "Decide which player will play as which hero or assign them randomly. Choose who will be the start player. Each player then carries out their own setup. 1 Place your hero board in front of you. 1 2 Place the 3 hero virtue tiles for your hero in empty slots on your hero board, inactive side up. 2 3 Pl", "headingPath": "Hero Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 23, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "You lose the game immediately in any of the following situations: /rightArrow When a hero would gain their third corruption. /rightArrow When you have to take a skull from the supply and there are none. /rightArrow When the sixth month ends. If you lose the game, press the 'game lost' button on the ", "headingPath": " LOSING THE GAME  ·  WINNING THE GAME  · COMPLETING THE MAIN GOAL · DEFEATING THE ADVERSARY ·  GAME SEEDS  ·  APP ICON GUIDE ", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "In the middle of your turn, you may MOVE , take a HEROIC ACTION , and take a REINFORCE ACTION . These steps are optional, and you can perform them in any order. You can even split up your move, taking actions before, in the middle of, and after moving. Move a number of spaces up to your move value. ", "headingPath": "2. Middle of Turn ·  MOVEMENT ", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "1 Place the game board so that each kingdom faces a different player. 1 2 Make sure the Tower has batteries installed and all 12 seals in place. Turn the Tower on; it will beep and lights will pulse. Place the Tower in the center of the game board. 2 3 Place the 16 buildings in their spaces. 3 4 Set", "headingPath": "World Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Take the Battle action to battle a foe on your space and remove them from the game board. You can only take the Battle action while on a space with a foe. If more than one foe is on your space, choose one. Calculate your automatic Advantages. Open the battle screen to select a foe. Select a number o", "headingPath": "B) BATTLE · STARTING THE BATTLE · USING ADVANTAGES · APPLYING THE RESULTS ·  REMOVING FOES ", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 18, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Take the Quest action to complete a quest (including the main goal) or explore a dungeon on your space. You can only take the Quest action if you can legally perform one of these two options. Quests will require you to be in a certain location, spend certain resources, use certain Advantages, defeat", "headingPath": "C) QUEST ·  COMPLETE A QUEST  ·  COMPLETING THE MAIN GOAL ", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 22, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "3. End of Turn (cont.) Events happen at the end of most player turns. The app will alert you. Read the event aloud and follow its instructions, with the player who dropped the skull into the Tower making any choices required. Once the event is resolved, press 'confirm.' Repeat as needed for each eve", "headingPath": " PLACING SKULLS  ·  EVENTS ", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "World Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "App Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Hero Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 12, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Sequence of Play ·  INDIVIDUAL TURNS  ·  MONTHLY QUESTS  · Taking Your Turn", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 13, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1. Start of Turn ·  MAKING TRADES  ·  SPENDING VS. LOSING ", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 14, "quote": null, "headingPath": "2. Middle of Turn ·  MOVEMENT ", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 22, "quote": null, "headingPath": " PLACING SKULLS  ·  EVENTS ", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 379 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 379 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 0.89391 of 3365 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 15, 2026 04:59

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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	Sequence of Play ·  INDIVIDUAL TURNS  ·  MONTHLY QUESTS  · Taking Your Turn	p.12	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	Hero Setup	p.6	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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	 LOSING THE GAME  ·  WINNING THE GAME  · COMPLETING THE MAIN GOAL · DEFEATING THE ADVERSARY ·  GAME SEEDS  ·  APP ICON GUIDE 	p.23	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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	2. Middle of Turn ·  MOVEMENT 	p.14	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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	World Setup	p.4	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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	B) BATTLE · STARTING THE BATTLE · USING ADVANTAGES · APPLYING THE RESULTS ·  REMOVING FOES 	p.16	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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	C) QUEST ·  COMPLETE A QUEST  ·  COMPLETING THE MAIN GOAL 	p.18	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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	 PLACING SKULLS  ·  EVENTS 	p.22	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 27 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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	Sequence of Play ·  INDIVIDUAL TURNS  ·  MONTHLY QUESTS  · Taking Your Turn	p.12	#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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	World Setup	p.4	#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
#3	RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	2. Middle of Turn ·  MOVEMENT 	p.14	#4	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
#4	RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	1. Start of Turn ·  MAKING TRADES  ·  SPENDING VS. LOSING 	p.13	#15	0.013514 (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
#5	RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	 PLACING SKULLS  ·  EVENTS 	p.22	#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
#6	RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	 SPIRIT  ·  VIRTUES  ·  CORRUPTIONS 	p.9	#22	0.012346 (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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	App Setup	p.7	#11	0.014286 (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
#8	RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	Hero Setup	p.6	#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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	World Setup	p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	App Setup	p.7	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	Hero Setup	p.6	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	Sequence of Play ·  INDIVIDUAL TURNS  ·  MONTHLY QUESTS  · Taking Your Turn	p.12	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	1. Start of Turn ·  MAKING TRADES  ·  SPENDING VS. LOSING 	p.13	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	2. Middle of Turn ·  MOVEMENT 	p.14	no quote on the wire
[7]	RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379)	 PLACING SKULLS  ·  EVENTS 	p.22	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 94 ms · first delta 1952 ms · total 7009 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 94 ms · ask 6914 ms · gateway work 7009 ms · total 7009 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2835
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 1024
tok/sec: 204.4 tok/sec — 1024 output tokens in 5.010 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 16s 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 308), 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.