So my current group, with me as the Imperial player, has pretty much fallen off the wheels (which, unfortunately, appears to be a common occurrence with this game). We are 5 missions in with a tally of 4 Imperial victories and 1 Rebel victory. One player now refuses to play anymore because they think that the game is broken and unbalanced in favor of the Imperial player. Prior to starting IA, this same group of players and I completed a Descent 2E campaign, again with me playing the role of the Overlord. Similar sentiments came up from this same player during that campaign as well after they lost a couple of scenarios, but they ultimately won that campaign. However, I pretty much ran the final two scenarios on super easy mode for the heroes in order to avoid any further strife (i.e., I didn't reinforce monster groups when I could and didn't implement some of the rules that added additional challenges). I have thought about doing the same for the current IA campaign, but there isn't much more I can do to "dumb" it down before it just become un-fun for everyone (including me). Plus, doing so ultimately defeats the purpose of even playing to begin with. If I allowed the heroes to win every mission every time, then we would just keep playing the same campaign missions over and over again during every play though of a campaign. I keep trying to tell the rebel players that they should look at a loss as an opportunity to experience the game a different way the next time, but they just don't see that. Most of the missions have come down to very narrow victories for the Empire, and if the rebels played the same mission again, they would probably win the second and subsequent times though. I have GM'ed plenty of Star Wars RPG sessions, but I just don't see this as a sort of game where the Imperial player should play like a GM...it's meant to be a challenge for ALL players with loss being a perfectly acceptable outcome. Plus, the Rebels could loose EVERY mission other than the final one and still win the campaign. However, the one player doesn't see it this way and just thinks the game is overall un-fun (which was not their final opinion of Descent 2E).

Anyway....what do the rest of you do in this situation and is there any way to salvage it (apart from just replacing the dissatisfied player with someone else)?

If it's just that one player, it may be the best bet.

Throwing them a bone once in awhile isn't a bad idea. An occasional win will give them hope and they may rally.

This is a game that really requires pretty equal skill levels in players, and if you as the Imperial player trumps your groups experience and ability with games, it does give you a bit of an unfair advantage.

Perhaps playing less than optimal teams? Going more thematic with groups to give you a built in handicap.

If they are open to suggestions, you could review the match after you complete it and show them what went wrong, and how they could have done it differently.

1. General consensus is that a campaign should always have 4 Rebel heroes. Extra activations tend to sway certain missions in favour of the Rebels. Try handing out a “Heroic” reward card to help out the Rebel group and see what happens.

2. What Imperial class deck are you using? Many users agree that Subversive tactics can result in a tough time for new players to the IA campaign.

3. Always remind Rebel players to focus on objectives instead of eliminating troops.

4. Continue to emphasize that many matches were close. I don’t understand how a player can get upset if it comes down the wire.

Most of the missions have come down to very narrow victories for the Empire, and if the rebels played the same mission again, they would probably win the second and subsequent times though.

If the game is so broken in favor of the imperial player/OL let that player be the imperial player for a couple of missions or the rest of the campaign.

2 examples:

Someone in my group thought the same of Descent 2E, even though the players won. I think I had a winning record up to the final. I keep reminding people that you cannot win the game on any other mission then the final. In fact the campaigns are usually designed so that if a player wins more the finale is slanted to mitigate the rewards he might get. Anyways she is the OL in our LOR campaign and guess what the heroes have won every mission. Not as easy as it looks.

The other example is I have a guy in my play group who is not satisfied with winning, he has to be the mvp destroyer of all and objective completer or to him the game is broken. Of course becasue he's so black and white with broken vs totally dominating we tend to dismiss his comments naturally.

I have been doing several things with my gaming group at the moment.

1. if the alpha gamer on the rebel team is playing 3 turns ahead, counting squares and strain in their head and saying 'there is no way we can win, we have lost.'

- then I encourage the team to pick up crates to help boost their Credits.

2. if i can see the if the game is too much for them and they are about to lose, I might give them an alternative goal. eg. boba fett, ig88 or another villain is on the field i will encourage them to battle him. and give them either a credit boost or 1xp boost for defeating the villain . this way they at least accomplished taking down a boss.

3. I am an experienced player, and if i have seen the best way to defeat the heroes, and my players are friends that want to have fun, I might not reinforce a group, or focus damage.

- i might spread my damage out, not pick the obvious target. it does get more players rolling dice.

Eg. instead of reinforcing a royal guard team that was stunning all the heroes in the corner, i deployed a heavy trooper squad because i wanted to have fun trying to get their blast damage off from long range.

Eg, have a Nexu turn on an imperial officer or trooper, or a Tusken attack my own imperial units.

4. make a man of the match award, it could just be mentioning what they did or giving them some bonus credits

its about cinematic gameplay and fun story telling, i write down the adventures on the back of campaign log and read it back to my rebels at the end of the game. win or lose they enjoy it.

We had a player like this when we first started playing this game. He would complain how the games wicked imbalanced, and the Rebels can never win, and how it's the "worst game ever." Famous usual Bgame quote from him. Anyways, we just gave him the boot. Started playing every Tuesday night and replaced him with a different player.

Lets face it, this game is amazing, but no game is for everyone. If someone is not enjoying it, welp, cya later. Let the others play his character and continue to try and get better. The reality is, the game is quite balanced in my experience with 3 campaigns and one mini campaign. However, in the beginning when the Rebel players are new and don't really quite understand the tactics, what to target, when to attack, when not to, how to build there characters....in this scenario is feels hard for the Rebels, but they will get better, and they will learn a lot by the end of the game. I really think you just have a classic scenario (discussed many times here and on BGG) of you as an Imperial player are just way more tactically advanced than the team you are playing against.

Lastly, you could explain to the group that the campaign is divided into 3 separate stages and they all play out slightly different. Early campaign, its really tough to kill stuff for the Rebels, Mid campaign depending on the Imperial class deck they are playing Rebels can really shine, and late campaign the Rebels will be dealing out so many actions stormies become flies on the wall.

I wish ya luck on getting your group to continue playing, I know how frustrating that can be when you really enjoy a game like this!

Thanks everyone for the great tips.

Can't remember the name of the class deck that I am using off the top of my head, but it's the one that primarily boosts Trooper type units (Superior Technology?). Also, I have rarely used any agenda cards other than to throw in a side mission.

The types of deployment cards that I try to choose are for basic units if at all possible. I haven't fielded any special characters yet that I have access to (like IG-88), mostly because I can't afford them at the current threat level. However, I notice that some of the missions call for a large allotment of units on the Imperial Side and, in some cases, I am using just about every figure that is in the core set for a single mission (I do have all of the expansions and add-on packs that have been released so far, but I was waiting until the next campaign play-though before I integrated those). Of the units that I do use, the one the Heroes struggle with the most is the Nexu, particularly with their pounce action (which I have dialed back the use of). The concept of occasionally having creature units randomly attack other Imperial units is intriguing. I actually considered this concept earlier in the campaign but was mixed on how it would actually play out.

I wouldn't say I am a "better" player than the other 4 who are playing. Again, we all played Descent together, and while I did win a few scenarios as the Overlord, they won at least 60% of the time (and that's when I was TRYING to win). One of them is a hardcore Warmachine tournament player, so it's not like they are unfamiliar with tactical miniature game play. I would say that I play competently, but I am not trying to use every advantage that I have nor am I always looking for optimal positioning of the figures. I just want to give them a fair fight that challenges them to think before they act (which is what I would want if I was in their shoes). The biggest issue, that I see, is that when things start to go bad for them (as in, not succeeding on a die roll), the one player I mentioned in my previous post, just "checks-out", much to the dismay of his teammates and me. So while the other three are focusing and trying to come up with strategies, he isn't being helpful to them because in his mind the situation is hopeless (at the very least they will go around and collect crates but this is seen as a desperation measure). in the last mission we played, which involved freeing a rebel operative from a prison, this player opened the door and then ran away because they felt there was no chance that they could get the prisoner out of the facility (and this mission doesn't have a time limit on it).

As it is, we have basically been on a one month hiatus from the game. It got so bad that the one player had to take a break from the game so they didn't show up to our game night until recently even though we switched to playing other games in the meantime. They also say they will never play it again while the other three (and me) are willing to finish out the campaign. The player who doesn't want to play is willing to be replaced, but this would essentially mean that they wouldn't be able to join us at our regular game night for the foreseeable future and none of us want that. As it stands, we are looking at finding another player to replace them and then playing IA separately on a different day.

Thanks again everyone for hearing out my frustrations. No game in our group has been as divisive as this one. For all but one of us in our group, we are enjoying this game and it would be a shame if we all had to stop playing it because one of us was not approaching it from the same way the rest of us are.

1. If this is your first play through, I would recommend triple reading the RRG and the other rule books. Perhaps there is a rule or an instance that the group is misreading that is swinging the missions towards the Imperial.

I also come from a background of decades of table gaming, and I also thought we were doing things correctly on our first run through,... but every other session we'd find some rule we were misunderstanding or just plain doing wrong. (Though, admittedly, most of these mistakes helped the Rebels).

There is a post on here about frequently overlooked rules and common misconceptions and I would recommend reading that.

2. Start reading ALL of the mission scenario to the Rebels. On the first playthrough, those missions have some wild gotcha moments. That is the reason the Rebels lose so much on the first campaign, they simply don't know what's going on. while there is a measure of fun in finding out what's going to happen the first time through, the game's balance is so precarious with the threat and round counter, that timing becomes critical. ... and if you don't know what you're really after it can be difficult to be efficient in that.

3. Tell that one player that they are being a child about things, tell them to improve their attitude or just don't show. In your posts, while I understand you are ranting a bit, and as such it's hard to include qualities, but your problem player doesn't seem to bring much to the table.

My first campaign, I was the Imperial, and it was crushing for the Rebels. Not knowing the missions, not really knowing the equipment, not really seeing how some of the class cards work. ... they got killed. We are all experienced players in our 40s. I think they won 2 missions, I never played an Agenda card until "Desperate Hour", and it wasn't even close. Military Might!

Then we played again, and they did far better. Then again with someone else as the Empire. Then again. We have a blast with how much replay value there is in just the core set.

Personally, yes, I think the game favors the Imperials, even without the hidden knowledge. But marginally. The better tactician will win, but the Rebels more chances to make mistakes, and theirs are more difficult to recover from, but it's hardly a foregone conclusion.

Summary: Tell your player to grow up and play for fun and the company of others, and don't bring everyone's fun crashing down by whining when they don't get their way.

Thanks again for the tips. Coming from Descent, one of the things we do like (well, four of us at least) is that there is a bit of hidden knowledge and triggered events instead of knowing exactly what is going to happen and when from the very start.

As a bit of an update, we ended up playing The Undercity last night, which is somewhat in the same vein as Descent/IA (i.e., dungeon crawler) expect for being fully co-op. The one player that hates IA loved The Undercity...precisely because there was no opposing player and they felt that their character was able to easily dispatch the enemies (not having a character that could take out enemies with a single attack was one of their major gripes in IA). So, as with most things in life, you can't please everyone...

Seems like that IA (and Descent) is not for your "problem player". Last Descent Shadow Rune campaign we had a rough start but then (after second or third mission) rolled over the minions. It got boring. We only finished it because we wanted a clean end.

We are playing atm the IA campaign. Every side has won 2 mission. I am the IP and after 2 or 3 missions, they figured it out and respect doors and other stuff to interact with. They are now paranoid, that after each interaction something bad happens. In the earlier mission they sometimes screamed "That's totally unfair!". But not in a bad manner. I play with the Subversive Tactics deck, but they have no problem with that. It's more the mission surprises, that they getting to them. I chose the ST deck, because i know that they are maximizing all their options and have a good understanding carried over from Descent. I wanted to contain some of the abilities and strain movement, because those made the Descent campaign really easy in the end.

TLDR: If someone don't have fun, he/she should not play this game. And destroy the fun for the others. When they want to play OP super heroes and don't want to earn their victories, they should not play IA.