Ruling — Lords of Waterdeep

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Lords of Waterdeepbg-110327-en-1e · Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullportbg-134342-en-1e

This game has a human-approved setup checklist. A person approved it even though the entailment judge didn't pass every step, so parts of it rest on a human's call rather than the judge's.

Open the setup checklist for Lords of Waterdeep →

This checklist covers Lords of Waterdeep's rulebook. It does not cover Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport.

approved Aug 8, 2026 · baked by gemma4:12b · prompt checklist-structurer-v4

**Standard Game Setup**

1. Unfold and place the game board in the center of the play area within easy reach of all players.[1]

2. Each player chooses a color and takes a number of that color's Agents based on the number of players: 4 agents for 2 players, 3 agents for 3 players, and 2 agents for 4 or 5 players.[2][1]

3. Each player places 1 additional Agent of their color near the Round 5 space of the rounds track.[2][1]

4. Each player places their score marker on the scoring track at the position labeled '0'.[2][1]

5. Place the Adventurer cubes and Gold within easy reach of all players.[2]

6. Place the Building stack, Quest deck, and Intrigue deck in the appropriate spaces of the gameboard.[2]

7. Draw 3 Building tiles and place them face up in each of the 3 spaces in Builder's Hall.[2]

8. Each player takes a player mat.[2]

9. Deal 1 Lord card face down to each player.[2]

10. Deal 2 Quest cards face up to each player.[2]

11. Place 1 face-up Quest card in each of the 4 spaces of Cliffwatch Inn.[2]

12. Deal 2 Intrigue cards face down to each player.[2]

13. Place 3 VP tokens on each space of the rounds track.[2][3]

14. Determine the starting player: the player who has most recently been to another city goes first and receives the First Player marker.[2]

15. The starting player gets 4 Gold; each subsequent player receives 1 more Gold than the player to their right until all players have received starting Gold.[2]

**Undermountain Module Setup**

1. Randomly remove 25 Intrigue cards, 30 Quest cards, and 12 Building tiles from the Lords of Waterdeep base game.[4][5]

2. Shuffle each type of card from the Undermountain module with those from the base Lords of Waterdefap game, and shuffle the Buildings from the Undermountain module with those from the base game.[6]

3. Shuffle the Undermountain module's components with the corresponding components of the Lords of Waterdeep base game.[4]

4. Place the Undermountain game board near the main Lords of Waterdefap game board, within easy reach of all players.[4][6]

5. Proceed with setup as normal.[4]

**Skullport Module Setup**

1. Randomly remove 25 Intrigue cards, 30 Quest cards, and 12 Building tiles from the Lords of Waterdefap base game.[4][5]

2. Shuffle each type of card from the Skullport module with those from the base Lords of Waterdefap game, and shuffle the Buildings from the Skullport module with those from the base game.[7]

3. Shuffle the Skullport module's components with the corresponding components of the Lords of Waterdefap base game.[4]

4. Place the two Skullport game boards near the main Lords of Waterdefap game board, within easy reach of all players.[4][7]

5. Prepare the Corruption track by placing 1 Corruption token on the '-1' space and 3 tokens on all other spaces (specifically '-2' through '-9').[4][7]

6. Proceed with setup as normal.[4]

[1] RULEBOOK Lords of Waterdeep — Rulebook · p.3 · Game ComponenTs · How To win · seTup · Game boaRd · aGenTs · sCoRe maRkeRs

[2] RULEBOOK Lords of Waterdeep — Rulebook · p.13 · seTup · seQuenCe of play · Rules RefeRenCe · aCTions in a TuRn

[3] RULEBOOK Lords of Waterdeep — Rulebook · p.5 · sTaRT play · seQuenCe of play · sTaRT of Round · aCTions in a TuRn

[4] RULEBOOK Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport — Rulebook · p.16 · RULES REFERENCE · SETUP · CORRUPTION · FINAL SCORING · OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES

[5] RULEBOOK Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport — Rulebook · p.5 · PLACING RESOURCES ON ACTION SPACES · ADVENTURER CARAVANS · SIX-PLAYER GAMES · OPTIONAL RULE: LONG GAME · LONG GAME · OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES

[6] RULEBOOK Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport — Rulebook · p.6 · OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES · SETUP

[7] RULEBOOK Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport — Rulebook · p.7 · SETUP · THE CORRUPTION TRACK

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 330 ms · ask 17907 ms · total 18259 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 18259 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 13, "score": 0.048172, "snippet": "Lay out the game board. Each player chooses a color and takes a number of that color's Agents that depends on the number of players. | Number of Players | Agents per Player | | 2 | 4 | | 3 | 3 | | 4 | 2 | | 5 | 2 | Each player also places 1 more Agent of his or her color near the Round 5 space of th", "headingPath": "seTup · seQuenCe of play · Rules RefeRenCe · aCTions in a TuRn", "sharpsignalDocId": 127}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.046751, "snippet": "8 The Lords of Waterdeep game is played in rounds . During each round, players take turns in which they assign their Agents to various tasks. The game ends after 8 rounds have passed. The player with the most VP at the end of the eighth round is the winner. The rounds track on the game board starts ", "headingPath": "sTaRT play · seQuenCe of play · sTaRT of Round · aCTions in a TuRn", "sharpsignalDocId": 127}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.04646, "snippet": "4 The Lords of Waterdeep ™ game is played in eight rounds . The player with the most Victory Points at the end of the final round is the winner. Before you can start playing, you'll need to spend a bit of time setting up the game. The game board represents the various Wards of the city of Waterdeep.", "headingPath": "Game ComponenTs · How To win · seTup · Game boaRd · aGenTs · sCoRe maRkeRs", "sharpsignalDocId": 127}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.032266, "snippet": "These instructions summarize the rules for the Undermountain and Skullport modules. Each player chooses a color and takes a number of that color's Agents according to the number of players. If you decide to play the long game, take the number of Agents shown in that column. | Number of Players | Nor", "headingPath": "RULES REFERENCE · SETUP · CORRUPTION · FINAL SCORING · OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES", "sharpsignalDocId": 116}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.031498, "snippet": "6 The rumored wealth of Undermountain entices adventurers to brave the mysteries and monsters beneath the City of Splendors. The risks and the rewards are greater for undertaking Quests that require more Gold and Adventurers. Shuffle each type of card from the Undermountain module with those from th", "headingPath": "OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES · SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 116}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.031258, "snippet": "Intrigue cards let you secretly manipulate others to advance your ends. But be careful-your fellow Lords of Waterdeep are also skilled in intrigue! Shuffle the Intrigue cards and deal 2 cards face down to each player. Keep these cards hidden from your opponents. See 'Play Intrigue Card' on page 9 fo", "headingPath": "inTRiGue CaRds · sTaRT play", "sharpsignalDocId": 127}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.030777, "snippet": "Corruption Symbol The Skullport module includes a new resource: Corruption. Unlike Adventurers and Gold, having Corruption in your tavern penalizes you at the end of the game. Corruption is represented by the icon on cards and Buildings, and by skull-shaped wooden tokens on the Corruption track. Eac", "headingPath": "SETUP · THE CORRUPTION TRACK", "sharpsignalDocId": 116}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.030077, "snippet": "Jennifer assigns an Agent to Builder's Hall, which has 2 Gold on its action space. She first collects the 2 Gold, then continues the Builder's Hall action. This set includes sixteen Adventurer Caravan tokens, four of each kind, which can be used with either module. Each token represents 5 Adventurer", "headingPath": "PLACING RESOURCES ON ACTION SPACES · ADVENTURER CARAVANS · SIX-PLAYER GAMES · OPTIONAL RULE: LONG GAME · LONG GAME · OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES", "sharpsignalDocId": 116}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Game ComponenTs · How To win · seTup · Game boaRd · aGenTs · sCoRe maRkeRs", "sharpsignalDocId": 127}, {"page": 13, "quote": null, "headingPath": "seTup · seQuenCe of play · Rules RefeRenCe · aCTions in a TuRn", "sharpsignalDocId": 127}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "sTaRT play · seQuenCe of play · sTaRT of Round · aCTions in a TuRn", "sharpsignalDocId": 127}, {"page": 16, "quote": null, "headingPath": "RULES REFERENCE · SETUP · CORRUPTION · FINAL SCORING · OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES", "sharpsignalDocId": 116}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "PLACING RESOURCES ON ACTION SPACES · ADVENTURER CARAVANS · SIX-PLAYER GAMES · OPTIONAL RULE: LONG GAME · LONG GAME · OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES", "sharpsignalDocId": 116}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES · SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 116}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP · THE CORRUPTION TRACK", "sharpsignalDocId": 116}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 127 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 127 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)
debug row retained until: Nov 2, 2026 08:35

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. How much wider that pool was is set gateway-side and is NOT REPORTED for this ruling, and neither are the answerer's final rows — so rulesage has nothing of its own to show beside these.

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 Lords of Waterdeep — Rulebook (corpus doc 127)	seTup · seQuenCe of play · Rules RefeRenCe · aCTions in a TuRn	p.13	0.048172 (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 Lords of Waterdeep — Rulebook (corpus doc 127)	sTaRT play · seQuenCe of play · sTaRT of Round · aCTions in a TuRn	p.5	0.046751 (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 Lords of Waterdeep — Rulebook (corpus doc 127)	Game ComponenTs · How To win · seTup · Game boaRd · aGenTs · sCoRe maRkeRs	p.3	0.04646 (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 Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport — Rulebook (corpus doc 116)	RULES REFERENCE · SETUP · CORRUPTION · FINAL SCORING · OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES	p.16	0.032266 (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 Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport — Rulebook (corpus doc 116)	OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES · SETUP	p.6	0.031498 (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 Lords of Waterdeep — Rulebook (corpus doc 127)	inTRiGue CaRds · sTaRT play	p.4	0.031258 (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 Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport — Rulebook (corpus doc 116)	SETUP · THE CORRUPTION TRACK	p.7	0.030777 (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 Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport — Rulebook (corpus doc 116)	PLACING RESOURCES ON ACTION SPACES · ADVENTURER CARAVANS · SIX-PLAYER GAMES · OPTIONAL RULE: LONG GAME · LONG GAME · OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES	p.5	0.030077 (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.

the passages the answerer read: NOT RECORDED for this ruling. Any of three things leaves this empty, and they are all different from the answerer having had nothing to read: this ask may never have reached a gateway at all; a multi-book ask keeps each book's own context on that book's own page rather than here; or the gateway build that answered may simply not report it. What this NEVER means is that the answerer read nothing — an answer was composed from passages either way, and their absence here is a gap in what we were told, not in what it read.

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Lords of Waterdeep — Rulebook (corpus doc 127)	Game ComponenTs · How To win · seTup · Game boaRd · aGenTs · sCoRe maRkeRs	p.3	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Lords of Waterdeep — Rulebook (corpus doc 127)	seTup · seQuenCe of play · Rules RefeRenCe · aCTions in a TuRn	p.13	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Lords of Waterdeep — Rulebook (corpus doc 127)	sTaRT play · seQuenCe of play · sTaRT of Round · aCTions in a TuRn	p.5	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport — Rulebook (corpus doc 116)	RULES REFERENCE · SETUP · CORRUPTION · FINAL SCORING · OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES	p.16	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport — Rulebook (corpus doc 116)	PLACING RESOURCES ON ACTION SPACES · ADVENTURER CARAVANS · SIX-PLAYER GAMES · OPTIONAL RULE: LONG GAME · LONG GAME · OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES	p.5	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport — Rulebook (corpus doc 116)	OPTIONAL RULE: USING TWO MODULES · SETUP	p.6	no quote on the wire
[7]	RULEBOOK Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport — Rulebook (corpus doc 116)	SETUP · THE CORRUPTION TRACK	p.7	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 330 ms · first delta 12712 ms · total 18259 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 330 ms · ask 17907 ms · gateway work 18259 ms · total 18259 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3439
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 761
tok/sec: 138.3 tok/sec — 761 output tokens in 5.504 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 9s 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: SERVED — setup-shaped and this game's approved setup checklist is offered above
pattern that matched: SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question): setup

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 49), 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.