Well, then I guess there are no mandatory triggers if that is their response, which is certainly fine, but they should really make that clear in the rules.

Goes against what they sent me back in February, but whatever.

Thanks for sending the question.

Well, then I guess there are no mandatory triggers if that is their response, which is certainly fine, but they should really make that clear in the rules.

Goes against what they sent me back in February, but whatever.

Thanks for sending the question.

Not really, everything thing confirmed what I have been saying all along,

You are not responsible for remembering an opponents figure, they are not yours and you may not know them as well or be wrapped in your own strategy.

If you do remember you should correct the game state, however you wont be punished if you dont say anything- this is proven how judges typically act in a real setting as it is impossible to read minds. The 'right' moral thing if you are truly interested in playing fair, is remind your opponent though. And yes, Kennedy you are doing something wrong if you know your opponent is skipping them and you let them .

Some worry this allows a 'cheater' to get away with as much as you can and say "opps I forgot too". However, since honest mistakes happen, and since we can distinguish between the two, FFG stance is not punitive and like I said before, 'it is better to let a cheater go then punish an honest mistake'. The ultimate responsibility still rests on the person playing the abilities.

Let's be real. If there is no consequence for breaking a rule, it might as well not exist. At that point, you're only punishing the honest players by letting the dishonest players have an advantage.

Now, I am getting more into morality and philosophy, so if you are only interested in getting with away with A or B or as much as you can to gain a tactical advantage please skip,

I do think DTDanix has brought up an excellent point, you are either are committed to following all of the rules given in a tournament or you are not. Your example of when can a 'rule breaker' can draw the line and your examples of, forgetting mandatory abilities, realizing your opponent rolling too few die, etc. illustrate this point well. Get away with as much as you can or play the game correctly?

When should you speak up?

I think it is respect for the game and the concept of fairness which in turn gives your victory meaning. Given the constructed framework you will do your best to applies the rules. However, this group should not really be concerned how others play, because as long as you are playing how the game should be played, this group should be satisfied that they are respecting the game and doing their best to play in the framework rather then wiggle an artificial tactical advantage. Not to say mistakes wont happen, but you are consciously doing your best that triggers and the correct game state is not missed.

Let's be real. If their is no consequence for breaking a rule, it might as well not exist. At that point, you're only punishing the honest players by letting the dishonest players have an advantage.

Yeah, I agree if I was the writer/rule maker, I would add 'may' to all positive abilities. But, that is not the case and we agree to uphold the rules as mature individuals that we dont like or that dont make sense. (Attacking unlocked doors?).

Your proposed ruling suggests that I should play like your abilities don't exist until you bring them up. Doing something like:

I kill your stormtrooper with one figure in a group. I immediately begin moving the next figure in the group in the hopes you forget about Last Stand. Of course, if you remember soon enough, that's fine and I let you have it because speedy play can't force you to skip things. If you don't remember it in time for the "you can't skip things via fast play" rule to be relevant because enough time has passed, you lose it.

Absolutely not!

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Players are expected to follow the game’s rules, remembering to perform actions and use card effects when indicated. If a player forgets to use an effect during the timing specified by that effect, he or she cannot retroactively use it without the consent of his or her opponent. Players are expected to act with respect and not intentionally distract or rush an opponent with the intent of forcing a missed opportunity.

Therefore, you would get a warning from me!

How would I get a warning from you? I just "forgot" about his ability as I was excited to make my next move. If he "reminded" me of it in time, the judge wouldn't even be called over since we would just immediately rewind whatever was necessary.

By the time enough has happened that a judge would be called, according to you, he's the one who broke the rules.

You can do even more slick things like if they're playing Blaise, you can play a command card and immediately start talking about its effects to draw your opponent's attention away from Blaise's Adapt ability.

I mean, of course you're not doing it on "purpose" though. Not that it matters, since there are no consequences.

How does a player differentiate between his opponent ignoring for example Composite Plating, Distracting, Protector/Sentinel or just calculating the results incorrectly?

If you catch an error you opponent made, the first time you are probably just correcting and letting it go, but at the second error you either deduce that the opponent can't count or tries to cheat.

So, in the end, either you trust the opponent to perform everything according to the rules, or you double-check everything . I can imagine what checking everything does to the speed of the game...

Honestly, you should be double-checking everything anyway. The rules are complicated enough that hardly anybody understands them all. At Nationals, I played a game when I was 1-0 where my opponent didn't know how difficult terrain worked (he tried to say you did not occur a penalty moving from a difficult space to another difficult space).

I never trust my opponent, especially since the tournament rules don't seem to do much to encourage them to follow the rules.

To sum this up:

overriding previous rulings about mandatory triggers. But, abilities like Last Stand, Distracting and Protector are written in a way that they do look like mandatory.

That's my concern. I just can't find anything in the rules concerning mandatory triggers. No definition, no rule, etc.. Not even in the FAQ. "they do look like" is not the best way to strengthen a case.

By the way: Even the Missed Opportunities rule in the Tournament Regulations exlpcitly DOESN'T make a difference between mandatory and non-mandatory effects here.

Therefore:

My Interpretation of the Missed Opportunities rule would be:
- You forgot one of your own rules, that would have been good for you (e.g. Sentinel): Sorry, you cannot cannot retroactively use it, go on with the game.
- You forgot one of your own rules, that would have been bad for you (e.g. Disposable): You cheated, you'll be punished (somewhere in between a warning and a disqualification).

That's how I would describe the current rules situation on tournaments.

I see myself as a gentleman gamer. Therefore, I would remind my opponent, if he'd miss something. And most people I met on tournaments would do so too.

But to call someone a cheater for not doing so is not OK. He did not break any rules, so he did not cheat.

You can do even more slick things like if they're playing Blaise, you can play a command card and immediately start talking about its effects to draw your opponent's attention away from Blaise's Adapt ability.

I mean, of course you're not doing it on "purpose" though. Not that it matters, since there are no consequences.

I never trust my opponent, especially since the tournament rules don't seem to do much to encourage them to follow the rules.

That is not correct! You have to follow all rules. If you don't, you're cheating.

There just is no such thing as a mandatory trigger on an opponents deployment card. By the rules, you are not obligated to remind your opponent of any effect on his cards.

It's not the case, that everyone else is cheating. Your interpretation of the rules is just wrong.

Well, then I guess there are no mandatory triggers if that is their response, which is certainly fine, but they should really make that clear in the rules.

Goes against what they sent me back in February, but whatever.

Thanks for sending the question.

Not really, everything thing confirmed what I have been saying all along,

You are not responsible for remembering an opponents figure, they are not yours and you may not know them as well or be wrapped in your own strategy.

And yes, Kennedy you are doing something wrong if you know your opponent is skipping them and you let them .

Some worry this allows a 'cheater' to get away with as much as you can and say "opps I forgot too". However, since honest mistakes happen, and since we can distinguish between the two, FFG stance is not punitive and like I said before, 'it is better to let a cheater go then punish an honest mistake'. The ultimate responsibility still rests on the person playing the abilities.

This makes 0% sense to me. So now you are not responsible for their figures or triggers but you are a cheater if you don't trigger then. Literally based on the examples I gave the FFG rules query I was told the opposite.

Well, then I guess there are no mandatory triggers if that is their response, which is certainly fine, but they should really make that clear in the rules.

Goes against what they sent me back in February, but whatever.

Thanks for sending the question.

Not really, everything thing confirmed what I have been saying all along,

You are not responsible for remembering an opponents figure, they are not yours and you may not know them as well or be wrapped in your own strategy.

And yes, Kennedy you are doing something wrong if you know your opponent is skipping them and you let them .

Some worry this allows a 'cheater' to get away with as much as you can and say "opps I forgot too". However, since honest mistakes happen, and since we can distinguish between the two, FFG stance is not punitive and like I said before, 'it is better to let a cheater go then punish an honest mistake'. The ultimate responsibility still rests on the person playing the abilities.

This makes 0% sense to me. So now you are not responsible for their figures or triggers but you are a cheater if you don't trigger then. Literally based on the examples I gave the FFG rules query I was told the opposite.

They did not say that at all, they simply said you are not responsible for remembering. Like I said if you want to say, 'opps I forgot too' that is your business and you can get away with it.

If you do remember, it is a different situation. It really is not that hard, you are either dedicated to playing correctly or not, clearly your not interested in this as you seem to think honest forgetting is the same as intentionally not saying anything. It doesn't matter if the example is a mandatory trigger; it could be correcting too few or a wrong color die your opponent threw, forgetting to calculating pierce or drawing an extra command card for controlling an additional terminal. If you catch an error you should say something. If your consciously letting errors go through that benefit you, yes are are a cheater. Plain and simple.

I'm just going to add you to my ignore list. You are now grasping at straws. If you ware not responsible for your opponents abilities and triggers there is no way you are cheating for not pointing them out.

Frankly in sick of your sever docuhebaggery anyways. The situations I described in my email are exactly as you state and they responded saying you were not responsible for these triggers. If that doesn't tell you it's not against the rules I don't know what will.

You can do even more slick things like if they're playing Blaise, you can play a command card and immediately start talking about its effects to draw your opponent's attention away from Blaise's Adapt ability.

I mean, of course you're not doing it on "purpose" though. Not that it matters, since there are no consequences.

Absolutely not correct! You are forcing a missed opportunity here.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Players are expected to follow the game’s rules, remembering to perform actions and use card effects when indicated. If a player forgets to use an effect during the timing specified by that effect, he or she cannot retroactively use it without the consent of his or her opponent. Players are expected to act with respect and not intentionally distract or rush an opponent with the intent of forcing a missed opportunity.

Therefore, you would get a warning from me.

This is exactly what people do to me whenever I play Blaise.

Of course, they're almost certainly doing it accidentally. But that really doesn't matter.

If you can't tell the difference, there effectively is no difference. As you've stated, there are no mind readers. So if nobody is going to enforce their opponents' mandatory triggers (purposely or not), I sure as heck am not going to.

Again, there is no way I would get a warning because as you've said, there is nothing wrong with forgetting rules on your opponents' cards.

We are running in circles here. There is a difference between not reminding the opponent and forcing a missed opportunity. As I cannot read your mind, I cannot tell, if you're just genuinely not understanding that difference, or if you're just trolling.

I can tell you, when I'm the judge, then you will get a warning for forcing a missed opportunity.

The point is that the rules are allowing players to act a certain way. Basing consequences on whether or not a certain thought was crossing their mind is useless. By allowing someone to act that way, the rule is effectively meaningless and there is no longer a reason for people to follow it (aside from being nice). You can't judge on thoughts and feelings, so it isn't worth bringing that up. You have to judge based on actions.

You still haven't explained how I'll get a warning when no judge would ever be called in this situation in the first place.

Consider my opponent playing Blaise.

Given the consensus on the rules here, I see no problem with me playing a command card and stating its effects and continuing play.

I'm trying to be as realistic as possible here, basing this on how people actually play the game.

Here is an example course of events:

I roll an attack and miss range.

I play Deadeye and say that makes the range, and that will be X damage.

I wait for my opponent to pick up the damage tokens and put them on.

I then finish the activation.

I have effectively skipped his trigger for Adapt in a way that is pretty standard play.

I'm not responsible for his Adapt ability, so nothing is requiring me to play like it exists.

Obviously if the opponent says "I'll use Adapt" at any point in this example, I say, "Sure, go ahead" and he hides a figure. It's not like I'm going to say "Nope, passed the window!" which is really what that line you keep quoting is talking about.

People do the above to me literally every time I play Blaise. Which is fine for me, because I can remember and activate all of my abilities the majority of the time.

What this means though, is that because the ability is not mandatory, the window for the Blaise player to call this out and rewind the game is much smaller. If he brings it up just a little too late, nobody will say "Right, it's mandatory so it should have been done."

Instead, it will be "Too bad, remember next time."

I decided to email FFG and step away from this thread as I was sick of being talked down to.

I did get a response, no one here is going to like it.

Hi KennedyHawk,

Thanks for getting in touch!

I’m curious where the language of “both players are responsible for maintaining the game state” can be found. If you have a moment, would you mind passing it along? I have seen similar language in the past, but cannot find it in any of our current Star Wars ™: Imperial Assault rules documents. I understand you may be pulling from the discussion you have been having with others and the wording might not be yours.

In direct answer to your concern, we do not believe the opponent is responsible for remembering a player’s triggers or abilities. No rules have changed regarding this matter.

Best Regards,

Brendan

I explained multiple situations with these mandatory triggers and asked how we are expected to enforce a rule where your opponent is responsible for reminding his opponent of these triggers etc. Brenden's response basically tells me that this is not the case.

Take it for what it's worth but this it the logical way that all other FFG games apply this rule.

Then I'd ask this guy where he got his email from and get FFG to get together and straighten it out: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/223638-is-agent-blaises-adapt-a-mandatory-trigger/page-1#entry2286568

I agree that it is unenforceable, but it is the rule, and you're not allowed to purposefully ignore mandatory triggers. Doing so is cheating. Legitimately forgetting is not cheating, but a mistake on both players' parts.

I even sent in a rules query about this:

Question:

In a competitive tournament setting, am I required to remind my opponent about certain abilities that the cards do not suggest are optional. For example, the Trandoshan Hunters and IG88 have the Relentless ability that says when you declare an attack on a target within 3 spaces, the target takes 1 strain. If the opponent declares an attack and does not mention the relentless ability, am I forced to remind him according to the rules since it is not optional. Same question for Royal Guards Vengeance ability. If the answer is no for these, are there any abilities where I am required to remind the opponent?

Answer:

The answer is yes, both players are responsible for maintaining the game state. Mandatory triggers are both players responsibility to recognize, both positive and negative.

Optional triggers however, while it is polite to ask your opponent if they want to complete a trigger that says “may” or is otherwise optional it is not required of the players to complete optional triggers.

If both players don't keep game state consistent, they should both be punished.

Your point about Bleed is a good example. A malicious player can always pretend like they forgot about Bleed and wait for you to remind them. If you don't, oh well, they forgot too, haha, oops.

I could argue with your above post saying "Well, Bleed is your opponent's ability, so it's their responsibility. If they forget to remind me of their abilities, then it's just missed, too bad."

In this scenario, what should probably happen is that you both make a best effort to carry forward the mandatory effect as much as possible (in this case, take the strain on the figure as discarded cards or damage). If the players can't agree, they should probably call a judge, see what he says, and perhaps both take a warning.

Your point about coaching is irrelevant. You're only enforcing required actions that the game deems mandatory.

I already forwarded it to him so he could send it to FFG in response to his answer. I'm curious if/how they'll respond.

There seem to be different responses from FFG on this, which needs to be ironed out quickly so players and judges know what the rules are for tournament play ASAP.

So this situation has come up in X-Wing. There is a card called Rebel Captive. It's explicitly a must ability, and it gives an enemy ship a stress token when it declares an attack on the ship that's carrying the Rebel Captive. Stress tokens in X-Wing prevent you from doing other red maneuvers. If you dial in a red maneuver anyways while stressed, your opponent gets to perform a maneuver with your ship, potentially flying it off the map and destroying it.

So player A targets player B's rebel captive ship.

The both forget or "forget" to apply the rebel captive stress token.

Next round, player A reveals a red maneuver. Player B suddenly remembers/conveniently brings up the Rebel Captive stress token that was forgotten/"forgotten".

So now we have a mess here and the game cannot be rewound to before Player A revealed the red maneuver on his dial because player B has already revealed hidden information with other ships by performing the maneuvers that were set in secret before player A's ship revealed a red maneuver.

This happened at a high level event, I forgot how it was called by the judge/worked out by the players themselves but I think you should just be responsible for your own card effects and not have to play your opponent's cards for them. If a mandatory effect is missed, it should be allowed to be performed if it's still possible to rewind the game to that step. Also, these cards should have just been optional abilities to begin with so that way this isn't such a mess.

Worth revisiting because the updated tournament regulations document reconfirm how the game should be played as there was some disagreement.

"Players are expected to follow the game’s rules, remembering to perform actions and use card effects when indicated. It is all players’ responsibility to maintain a proper game state, and to ensure that all mandatory abilities and game steps are acknowledged ."

https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/9b/12/9b124dd6-6278-4216-8bee-03013dca9064/swi_tournament_regulations_v121_high_res.pdf

That still doesn't get to the core of the issue - what do you do about it?

I seriously doubt that line in the rules is going to make people cut you some slack when you forget a mandatory trigger and they ignore it.

What are the options here really?

1) Both forgot.

2) One forgot, other noticed but didn't say anything (cheating).

In either case, a TO warning should be applicable.

We can't rewind game state because too much can have passed.

This way it'll teach the forgetter(s) to not forget, and the cheater not to cheat.

Many warnings will inevitably lead to disqualifications, but at least they'll learn...