Ruling — Letters from Whitechapel

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Letters from Whitechapelbg-59959-en-1e

The game of Letters from Whitechapel™ is divided into four nights: August 31st, 1888; September 8th, 1888; September 30th, 1888 (the 'double event'); and November 9th, 1888.[1] Each night is divided into two parts, and each part is composed of different phases.[1]

**Setup**

1. Place the game board at the center of the table.[2]

2. One player becomes Jack the Ripper (the most experienced player is a good choice) and the other players become the detectives.[2]

3. The detectives distribute the five policeman pawns among themselves as they agree.[2]

4. Jack takes a fresh move track sheet and places it in his Jack the Ripper screen.[2]

5. Jack places a black Jack pawn on the first night space of the game board’s night track.[2]

6. Jack secretly chooses a numbered circle (any except a red numbered circle) as his Hideout and writes its number on his move track sheet.[2]

7. The head of the investigation decides how to place the policemen on the game board.[2]

**Gameplay**

The game consists of two parts: "HeLL" and "HUntinG".[1]

**Part 1: HeLL**

The phases include:

* Jack the Ripper: preparing the scene [1]

* Jack the Ripper: the targets are identified [1]

* Police: patrolling the streets [1]

* Jack the ripper: the victims are chosen [1]

* Jack the ripper: Blood on the streets [1]

* Police: suspense grows [1]

* Jack the ripper: Ready to kill [1]

* Jack the ripper: a corpse on the sidewalk [1]

* Police: alarm whistles [1]

* Jack the ripper: escape in the night [1]

* Police: hunting the monster [1]

* Police: clues and suspicion [1]

During the "Police: patrolling the streets" phase, on the second, third, and fourth nights, Jack can use one of "Jack's letters" to change the position of police patrols after the patrol tokens have been placed.[3] Three letters (Dear Boss, Saucy Jack, and From Hell) are played during the hell phase "police: patrolling the streets".[3]

**Part 2: HUntinG**

The phases include:

1. Jack the ripper: escape in the night: Jack moves from his current location to an adjacent numbered circle, following dotted lines, recording his new location, and advancing his pawn on the move track.[4]

2. Police: Hunting the Monster: each detective moves his own policeman pawn(s), starting with the head of the investigation and proceeding clockwise.[4]

3. Police: Clues and suspicion: starting with the head of investigation and proceeding clockwise, each policeman pawn takes an action, either looking for clues or executing an arrest.[4]

When looking for clues, a detective announces the number of an adjacent numbered circle to inspect; if the number appears on Jack's sheet for the current night, Jack places a clue marker there and the action ends; if not, the detective announces another adjacent circle until a clue is found or no more adjacent circles remain.[5]

The letter "Goulston Street" is played during the hunting phase, immediately after Jack moves in phase 1 but before the policemen move in phase 2.[6]

**Goal and Winning**

* Jack the Ripper wins if he kills five victims without being caught and returns safely to his hideout at the end of all four nights.[7][3]

* The police detectives win if they catch Jack or prevent him from reaching his hideout within the permitted number of moves.[7][3]

[1] RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook · p.8 · new components · 9 How to Play 9 · First Part: HeLL · second Part: HUntinG

[2] RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook · p.6

[3] RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook · p.22 · 9 The Third Night: The Double Event 9 · sUGGestions And tiPs · The End of the Game i · Jack's Letters · ' Dear Boss' · ' Saucy Jacky' · …

[4] RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook · p.24 · second Part: HUntinG

[5] RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook · p.17 · Police: Clues and suspicion · Looking for Clues

[6] RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook · p.22 · 'Goulston Street'

[7] RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook · p.3 · 9 Goal of the Game 9 · 9 Contents of the Box 9

🔧 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 91 ms · ask 6480 ms · total 6574 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 6574 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 6, "score": 0.04866, "snippet": "Letters from Whitechapel - 6 - place the game board representing whitechapel at the time of Jack the Ripper at the center of the table. it is marked with 195 numbered circles linked together by dotted lines. during play, Jack the Ripper, the policemen, and the wretched are moved along the dotted lin", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.045921, "snippet": "* 8. Jack the ripper: A Corpse on the sidewalk using his pencil, Jack records on his sheet, in the space corresponding to the Roman numeral currently marked by the time of the crime token, and on the row corresponding to the current night, the number from the numbered circle that's marked by the cri", "headingPath": "SEPTEMBER 1888", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}, {"page": 18, "score": 0.045228, "snippet": "optional rules: if the False clue rule is being used, Jack receives a False clue marker every time he reveals five clue markers in the same night. see 'False clues,' page 23, for more information. to execute an arrest , the detective announces the number of one (and only one!) numbered circle that i", "headingPath": "Looking for Clues · executing an Arrest · the end of the Hunting", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "-6. Police: suspense Grows First, the time of the crime token is moved on to the next yellow Roman numeral in ascending order. then, the head of the investigation must move each of the wretched pawns on the game board. each one must move along dotted lines to an adjacent, unoccupied numbered circle.", "headingPath": "SEPTEMBER 1888", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}, {"page": 23, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "during hunting, phase 3, 'police: clues and suspicion' each detective, starting with the head of the investigation and proceeding clockwise, has a third option to choose from for his action: rushing . rushing: a detective chooses a policeman pawn that can still act and moves it to an adjacent crossi", "headingPath": "rushing · Area Arrests · Catch Me, if You Can · i Know Your Address · 9 To Help the Police 9 · WHiteCHAPeL ™ HideoUt GenerAtor", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "The Policeman pawns enter the game, replacing the color-coded Police Patrol tokens. Unmarked Police Patrol tokens are simply removed from the game board. Now the police must be quick to stop the monster! Jack the Ripper is somewhere on the streets, and must be caught before he disappears again! * 1.", "headingPath": "SEPTEMBER 1888 · 9 Second Part: Hunting 9 · DECEMBER 1888", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}, {"page": 22, "score": 0.030282, "snippet": "9 Choose the most expert player of the group for the role of Jack. Jack the Ripper should use the coach and alley tokens wisely, in order to have them when he really needs them. Jack the Ripper should not overestimate the number of moves he has left for the night. the detectives might force him into", "headingPath": "9 The Third Night: The Double Event 9 · sUGGestions And tiPs · The End of the Game i · Jack's Letters · ' Dear Boss' · ' Saucy Jacky' · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Alley: Jack can use an alley to cross a block of houses, moving from one numbered circle on that block's perimeter to any other numbered circle on that perimeter. a block of houses is an area of the game board that's completely bounded, but not interrupted, by dotted lines. when Jack uses an alley, ", "headingPath": "9 Special Movements 9", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "new components · 9 How to Play 9 · First Part: HeLL · second Part: HUntinG", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}, {"page": 22, "quote": null, "headingPath": "9 The Third Night: The Double Event 9 · sUGGestions And tiPs · The End of the Game i · Jack's Letters · ' Dear Boss' · ' Saucy Jacky' · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}, {"page": 24, "quote": null, "headingPath": "second Part: HUntinG", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}, {"page": 17, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Police: Clues and suspicion · Looking for Clues", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}, {"page": 22, "quote": null, "headingPath": "'Goulston Street'", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "9 Goal of the Game 9 · 9 Contents of the Box 9", "sharpsignalDocId": 498}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 498 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 498 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 0.89700 of 2699 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 15, 2026 08:13

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 Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)		p.6	0.04866 (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 Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	SEPTEMBER 1888	p.14	0.045921 (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 Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	Looking for Clues · executing an Arrest · the end of the Hunting	p.18	0.045228 (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 Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	SEPTEMBER 1888	p.13	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
#5	RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	rushing · Area Arrests · Catch Me, if You Can · i Know Your Address · 9 To Help the Police 9 · WHiteCHAPeL ™ HideoUt GenerAtor	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
#6	RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	SEPTEMBER 1888 · 9 Second Part: Hunting 9 · DECEMBER 1888	p.15	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
#7	RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	9 The Third Night: The Double Event 9 · sUGGestions And tiPs · The End of the Game i · Jack's Letters · ' Dear Boss' · ' Saucy Jacky' · …	p.22	0.030282 (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 Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	9 Special Movements 9	p.20	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 30 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 Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	new components · 9 How to Play 9 · First Part: HeLL · second Part: HUntinG	p.8	#11	0.028543 (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
#2	RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	9 Special Movements 9	p.20	#8	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
#3	RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	9 Goal of the Game 9 · 9 Contents of the Box 9	p.3	#9	0.029462 (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 Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	Police: Clues and suspicion · Looking for Clues	p.17	#20	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
#5	RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	9 The Third Night: The Double Event 9 · sUGGestions And tiPs · The End of the Game i · Jack's Letters · ' Dear Boss' · ' Saucy Jacky' · …	p.22	#7	0.030282 (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 Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	second Part: HUntinG	p.24	#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 Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	'Goulston Street'	p.22	#14	0.026944 (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 Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)		p.6	#1	0.04866 (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 Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	new components · 9 How to Play 9 · First Part: HeLL · second Part: HUntinG	p.8	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)		p.6	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	9 The Third Night: The Double Event 9 · sUGGestions And tiPs · The End of the Game i · Jack's Letters · ' Dear Boss' · ' Saucy Jacky' · …	p.22	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	second Part: HUntinG	p.24	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	Police: Clues and suspicion · Looking for Clues	p.17	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	'Goulston Street'	p.22	no quote on the wire
[7]	RULEBOOK Letters from Whitechapel — Rulebook (corpus doc 498)	9 Goal of the Game 9 · 9 Contents of the Box 9	p.3	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 91 ms · first delta 2455 ms · total 6574 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 91 ms · ask 6480 ms · gateway work 6574 ms · total 6574 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3059
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 830
tok/sec: 204.0 tok/sec — 830 output tokens in 4.068 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 31s 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 429), 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.