Ruling — Merlin

You asked

How do I take my turn?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Merlinbg-230933-en-1e

1. The active player selects one die from their castle board and places it in the center of the game board without changing the number of pips.[1]

2. A player must select one die, place it in the center of the game board, and move the appropriate figure.[2]

3. Depending on the selected die, the player proceeds as follows:

- If moving their knight: The player advances their knight on the action rondel by the same number of spaces as pips on their die, in a clockwise direction.[1]

- If moving Merlin: The player advances Merlin on the action rondel a number of spaces equal to the pips shown on the Merlin die, in the direction of their choice (clockwise or counter-clockwise).[1]

4. The player may expend an apple from their castle board to change the facing of the selected die to any side (1-6) and move the corresponding figure by that new number of spaces.[1]

5. After movement, the player performs the action of the space where the movement ends.[1]

6. If the player moved Merlin, they may choose to expend one of their Merlin's staff tokens, removing it from their castle board and returning it to the game box, to repeat their action for the turn immediately.[2]

7. A player may complete up to one of their mission cards per turn.[2] (Note: A player may resolve up to one mission card at any time during their turn,[3] and if using flags, they may resolve 2 mission cards during their turn [4]).

8. The player's turn ends after they have completed their action (or forfeited it).[2]

[1] RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook · p.4 · Playing the Game · Details of a game round: · One of the player's personal dice · The apples · The white Merlin die

[2] RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook · p.4 · The staffs of Merlin

[3] RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook · p.7 · Mission Cards:

[4] RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook · p.12 · Special actions allowed by flags · Repel traitors · Missions · Backwards · Turn one die · Different action · …

So says the rulebook. So plays the table.

🔧 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 118 ms · ask 3255 ms · total 3374 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 3374 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 4, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "A game of Merlin is played over 6 game rounds. Each game round begins with the First Player taking a turn, followed by the other players in a clockwise direction. During their turn, the active player selects one of their dice and moves their knight, or Merlin, a number of spaces on the action rondel", "headingPath": "Playing the Game · Details of a game round: · One of the player's personal dice · The apples · The white Merlin die", "sharpsignalDocId": 1155}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.048387, "snippet": "If the player moved Merlin, they may choose to expend one of their Merlin's staff tokens, removing it from their castle board and returning it to the game box. If they do so, they can then repeat their action for the turn immediately. Additionally, a player may complete up to one of their mission ca", "headingPath": "The staffs of Merlin", "sharpsignalDocId": 1155}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.046898, "snippet": "After all players have had four turns, the game round ends. All of the dice should be in the center of the game board at this time. The number of played game rounds determines what happens next. After the… first game round: second game round: & third game round: fourth game round: & fifth game round", "headingPath": "End of a game round: · Preparing the next game round: · Scoring:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1155}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.046642, "snippet": "The active player may resolve up to one of their mission cards at any time during their turn. Each mission card depicts the requirements needed on the upper left-hand side of the card. If the player meets all requirements of a card, they gain the victory points as shown in the shield in the upper ri", "headingPath": "Mission Cards:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1155}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "King Arthur is looking for a worthy successor to his throne. Together with Merlin, he seeks the best candidate from among the Knights of the Round Table. Each player assumes the role of a Knight of the Round Table and attempts to win King Arthur's favor. By using their dice, the players move Merlin ", "headingPath": "Game Concept and Object of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 1155}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "First, the players need to repel the traitors in front of them. A traitor is repelled by returning the appropriate shield (as depicted on the traitor) from the player's castle board to the corresponding principality. The traitor is discarded. A player loses 3 victory points for each traitor they cou", "headingPath": "1 st Category: Traitors", "sharpsignalDocId": 1155}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "After the player has chosen an ability, they place one of their seals on it. This indicates that the ability is activated for the rest of the game. Once a player has activated 4 abilities on their extra board, they can't activate any more. Relocating seals that have already been placed is not allowe", "headingPath": "The player learns an ability, depending on the card: · +1 victory point (x4) · Deployment to any principality (x4) · Builder: Build two manors · Flag-bearer: Victory points for any elements · Shield-bearer: Repel traitor · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1155}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.02967, "snippet": "Builder: The player claims one piece of construction material from that principality, if available, and stores it on their castle board. Note: Construction material is needed to build manors in the environs. Flag-bearer: The player claims one flag from that principality, if available, and attaches i", "headingPath": "Depending on which henchman the player has chosen, she or he now ' does their duty ' :", "sharpsignalDocId": 1155}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Playing the Game · Details of a game round: · One of the player's personal dice · The apples · The white Merlin die", "sharpsignalDocId": 1155}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "The staffs of Merlin", "sharpsignalDocId": 1155}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Mission Cards:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1155}, {"page": 12, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Special actions allowed by flags · Repel traitors · Missions · Backwards · Turn one die · Different action · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1155}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1155 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1155 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 0.92584 of 1227 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 28, 2026 12:14 UTC

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 Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	Playing the Game · Details of a game round: · One of the player's personal dice · The apples · The white Merlin die	p.4	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	The staffs of Merlin	p.4	0.048387 (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 Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	End of a game round: · Preparing the next game round: · Scoring:	p.8	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
#4	RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	Mission Cards:	p.7	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
#5	RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	Game Concept and Object of the Game	p.3	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
#6	RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	1 st Category: Traitors	p.8	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 Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	The player learns an ability, depending on the card: · +1 victory point (x4) · Deployment to any principality (x4) · Builder: Build two manors · Flag-bearer: Victory points for any elements · Shield-bearer: Repel traitor · …	p.11	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 Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	Depending on which henchman the player has chosen, she or he now ' does their duty ' :	p.5	0.02967 (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 17 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 Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	The staffs of Merlin	p.4	#2	0.048387 (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 Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	Special actions allowed by flags · Repel traitors · Missions · Backwards · Turn one die · Different action · …	p.12	#9	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
#3	RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	End of a game round: · Preparing the next game round: · Scoring:	p.8	#3	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
#4	RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	Game Concept and Object of the Game	p.3	#5	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
#5	RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	1 st Category: Traitors	p.8	#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
#6	RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	Depending on which henchman the player has chosen, she or he now ' does their duty ' :	p.5	#8	0.02967 (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 Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	Mission Cards:	p.7	#4	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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	Playing the Game · Details of a game round: · One of the player's personal dice · The apples · The white Merlin die	p.4	#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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	Playing the Game · Details of a game round: · One of the player's personal dice · The apples · The white Merlin die	p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	The staffs of Merlin	p.4	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	Mission Cards:	p.7	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Merlin — Rulebook (corpus doc 1155)	Special actions allowed by flags · Repel traitors · Missions · Backwards · Turn one die · Different action · …	p.12	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 118 ms · first delta 1573 ms · total 3374 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 118 ms · ask 3255 ms · gateway work 3374 ms · total 3374 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2980
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 354
tok/sec: 201.7 tok/sec — 354 output tokens in 1.755 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 57s ago)
gateway schema (read from the running child): schema head 0042_definer_search_path (live revision not readable by this principal)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 60h, checked 2s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
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 1085), 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.