Ruling — Mansions of Madness: Second Edition

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Mansions of Madness: Second Editionbg-205059-en-1e

A game of Mansions of Madness is played over a series of rounds.[1][2] Each round consists of two phases: the investigator phase and the mythos phase.[1][2]

**Setup**

1. Separate Investigator cards from all other cards.[3]

2. Separate all other cards into decks by card type.[3]

3. Shuffle the Damage and Horror decks individually and place them facedown in the central play area.[3]

4. Organize the cards in the Common Item, Unique Item, Spell, and Condition decks alphabetically and place them faceup within reach of all players.[3]

5. Gather all map tiles and organize them by tile size.[3]

6. Ensure each monster figure has a matching token slotted into its base.[3]

7. Separate all non-monster tokens into pools by token type.[3]

8. Run the Mansoden of Madness app.[3]

9. From the app's main menu, select "More" and then "My Collection" to ensure all desired products and expansions are enabled.[3]

10. From the main menu, select "New Game".[3]

11. As a group, decide which story to play and input the selection in the app.[3]

12. Each player chooses an investigator, taking the corresponding card and figure, and inputs the selection in the app (a single player chooses two investigators and controls both).[3]

13. As instructed by the app, investigators as a group gain specific Common Items, Spells, or other possessions, which they may distribute among themselves as they decide.[3]

**The Investigator Phase**

During this phase, investigators each take one turn in the order of their choice.[1] During an investigator's turn, that investigator performs up to two actions.[1] Possible actions include:

* **Move Action:** Move up to two spaces; movement can be interrupted to perform other actions.[1]

* **Search Action:** Investigate a Search token in your space by using the app.[1] An investigator must spend an action to select an option with a search icon and must occupy the same space as the token.[4][1]

* **Explore Action:** Investigate an Explore token in your space by using the app.[1]

* **Interact Action:** Interact with a Person or Interact token in your space by using the app.[1] An investigator can only interact with a Person if they occupy the same space as that Person.[5]

* **Attack Action:** Attack a monster in your space with a melee weapon or a monster within range with a ranged weapon by using the app.[1]

* **Trade Action:** Trade possessions with other investigators in your space, or pick up and drop possessions in your space.[1]

* **Push Action:** Push a monster or carry another investigator.[1]

* **Set Fire Action:** Set fire to your space or an adjacent space, provided the investigator has a Light Source.[1]

* **Steal Action:** Steal possessions from another investigator.[1]

* **Component Actions:** Perform actions allowed by specific components or effects, such as "Barricade a Door" to prevent movement.[1]

**The Mythos Phase**

The mythos phase is broken into three steps, during which the app generates instructions for the investigators to resolve:[1]

1. **Event step:** The app generates one or more mythos events to be resolved.[1]

2. **Monster step:** The app generates instructions for activating each monster.[1]

3. **Horror step:** The app generates instructions to be resolved.[1]

**Ending the Game**

Players continue resolving rounds until they have won or lost the game.[2]

[1] RULEBOOK Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.24 · QUick RefeRence · invesTigaToR phase · commonly Used acTions · RaRely Used acTions · componenT acTions · myThos phase · …

[2] RULEBOOK Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.15 · RoUnd · saniTy · Range · Remove fRom The boaRd

[3] RULEBOOK Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.3 · conflicTs · 1. cReaTe caRd decks · 2. oRganize map Tiles · 3. oRganize monsTeRs · 4. cReaTe Token pools · 5. UpdaTe collecTion · …

[4] RULEBOOK Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.16 · save & QUiT · seaRch acTion · seaRch Token · secReT passage · seT fiRe acTion

[5] RULEBOOK Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.14 · objecTive · oUTdooR · peRson · pick Up · place · possessions

🔧 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 98 ms · ask 6619 ms · total 6719 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 6719 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 2, "score": 0.047875, "snippet": "This document is intended as a reference for all rules queries. Unlike the Learn to Play booklet, this reference does not teach players how to play the game. Players should first read the Learn to Play booklet in its entirety, then use this reference as needed when playing the game. This Rules Refer", "headingPath": "Using This RefeRence · Table of conTenTs · seTUp.............................................. p age 3 · glossaRy ....................................... p age 4 · app scReen anaTomy ............... p age 20 · monsTeR figURe RefeRence .... p age 22 · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 277}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.047643, "snippet": "Before playing each game, perform the following steps in order. Separate the Investigator cards from all other cards. They will be used later during setup. Then separate all other cards into decks by card type. ^ Shuffle the Damage and Horror decks individually and place them facedown in the central", "headingPath": "conflicTs · 1. cReaTe caRd decks · 2. oRganize map Tiles · 3. oRganize monsTeRs · 4. cReaTe Token pools · 5. UpdaTe collecTion · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 277}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.046544, "snippet": "During the game, players will primarily interact with the in-game user interface. Map: The majority of the screen is the map. As players explore the scenario location and reveal more of the map, those tiles and the tokens on them will be displayed in the central area of the screen. Only those tokens", "headingPath": "in-game inTeRface", "sharpsignalDocId": 277}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.046394, "snippet": "During the game, investigators can view their objective by accessing the in-game menu in the app. ^ The objective indicates what the investigator should be doing and/or how they can win the game. ^ The app will track only the basic objectives that investigators must accomplish to finish the scenario", "headingPath": "objecTive · oUTdooR · peRson · pick Up · place · possessions", "sharpsignalDocId": 277}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.044776, "snippet": "Some effects in the app allow an investigator to attempt a puzzle; each such effect indicates the skill the investigator uses to attempt the puzzle. When an investigator attempts a puzzle, he performs the following steps: Determine Puzzle Steps: The investigator determines the maximum number of puzz", "headingPath": "pUzzle · pUzzle sTep · Random · Room", "sharpsignalDocId": 277}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.043905, "snippet": "Players can save the progress of the current scenario and quit to the main menu. They can resume playing during another session. ^ A player can save and quit by selecting the option from the in-game menu in the app. ^ If players intend to resume the game at a later time, they should record their pos", "headingPath": "save & QUiT · seaRch acTion · seaRch Token · secReT passage · seT fiRe acTion", "sharpsignalDocId": 277}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Perform the following steps to complete setup: Read aloud the scenario's prologue as shown by the app. The story's prologue may provide hints at what is to come. Place the starting map tile or tiles and the investigators' figures as instructed by the app. Place features, Search tokens, and Explore t", "headingPath": "9. Read pRologUe and Reveal enTRance", "sharpsignalDocId": 277}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "During setup, players select a scenario that determines what the investigators need to do to win the game. However, this objective is hidden information. ^ During the game, the investigators must unravel the mystery and discover their ultimate goal. The investigators can do so by listening carefully", "headingPath": "winning & losing", "sharpsignalDocId": 277}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 24, "quote": null, "headingPath": "QUick RefeRence · invesTigaToR phase · commonly Used acTions · RaRely Used acTions · componenT acTions · myThos phase · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 277}, {"page": 15, "quote": null, "headingPath": "RoUnd · saniTy · Range · Remove fRom The boaRd", "sharpsignalDocId": 277}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "conflicTs · 1. cReaTe caRd decks · 2. oRganize map Tiles · 3. oRganize monsTeRs · 4. cReaTe Token pools · 5. UpdaTe collecTion · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 277}, {"page": 16, "quote": null, "headingPath": "save & QUiT · seaRch acTion · seaRch Token · secReT passage · seT fiRe acTion", "sharpsignalDocId": 277}, {"page": 14, "quote": null, "headingPath": "objecTive · oUTdooR · peRson · pick Up · place · possessions", "sharpsignalDocId": 277}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 277 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 277 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 0.89075 of 2801 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 15, 2026 09:17

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 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	Using This RefeRence · Table of conTenTs · seTUp.............................................. p age 3 · glossaRy ....................................... p age 4 · app scReen anaTomy ............... p age 20 · monsTeR figURe RefeRence .... p age 22 · …	p.2	0.047875 (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 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	conflicTs · 1. cReaTe caRd decks · 2. oRganize map Tiles · 3. oRganize monsTeRs · 4. cReaTe Token pools · 5. UpdaTe collecTion · …	p.3	0.047643 (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 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	in-game inTeRface	p.20	0.046544 (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 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	objecTive · oUTdooR · peRson · pick Up · place · possessions	p.14	0.046394 (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 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	pUzzle · pUzzle sTep · Random · Room	p.15	0.044776 (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 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	save & QUiT · seaRch acTion · seaRch Token · secReT passage · seT fiRe acTion	p.16	0.043905 (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 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	9. Read pRologUe and Reveal enTRance	p.3	0.032787 (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 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	winning & losing	p.19	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

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 44 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 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	in-game inTeRface	p.20	#3	0.046544 (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 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	objecTive · oUTdooR · peRson · pick Up · place · possessions	p.14	#4	0.046394 (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 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	save & QUiT · seaRch acTion · seaRch Token · secReT passage · seT fiRe acTion	p.16	#6	0.043905 (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 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	QUick RefeRence · invesTigaToR phase · commonly Used acTions · RaRely Used acTions · componenT acTions · myThos phase · …	p.24	#13	0.025937 (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
#5	RULEBOOK Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	pUzzle · pUzzle sTep · Random · Room	p.15	#5	0.044776 (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
#6	RULEBOOK Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	Using This RefeRence · Table of conTenTs · seTUp.............................................. p age 3 · glossaRy ....................................... p age 4 · app scReen anaTomy ............... p age 20 · monsTeR figURe RefeRence .... p age 22 · …	p.2	#1	0.047875 (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
#7	RULEBOOK Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	RoUnd · saniTy · Range · Remove fRom The boaRd	p.15	#10	0.027364 (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 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	conflicTs · 1. cReaTe caRd decks · 2. oRganize map Tiles · 3. oRganize monsTeRs · 4. cReaTe Token pools · 5. UpdaTe collecTion · …	p.3	#2	0.047643 (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 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	QUick RefeRence · invesTigaToR phase · commonly Used acTions · RaRely Used acTions · componenT acTions · myThos phase · …	p.24	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	RoUnd · saniTy · Range · Remove fRom The boaRd	p.15	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	conflicTs · 1. cReaTe caRd decks · 2. oRganize map Tiles · 3. oRganize monsTeRs · 4. cReaTe Token pools · 5. UpdaTe collecTion · …	p.3	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	save & QUiT · seaRch acTion · seaRch Token · secReT passage · seT fiRe acTion	p.16	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Mansions of Madness: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 277)	objecTive · oUTdooR · peRson · pick Up · place · possessions	p.14	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 98 ms · first delta 2838 ms · total 6719 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 98 ms · ask 6619 ms · gateway work 6719 ms · total 6719 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3826
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 786
tok/sec: 204.8 tok/sec — 786 output tokens in 3.837 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 28s 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 205), 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.