What to do when something was forgotten?

By Thormind, in X-Wing Rules Questions

Player 1 has a ship with a crit that gives a stress on white maneuver. During a turn both players completely forget about the crit for a whole turn and it's only while selecting the dial for the next turn that they realize Player 1 made a mistake.

Because of that mistake, Player 1 dropped a rigged cargo chute and boosted. Player 2 made a maneuver that brought his ship on the debris cloud and lost his action. Player 2 ship got destroyed and he said it's because he was not able to take an evade for his action. Instead of replaying the whole round, player 2 suggest to cancel the boost and debris of player 1 and bring back his ship with only 1 health. The his ship would be able to take 1 attack on Player 1 ship (that was misplayed) at range 1 with a tractor beam.

Player 1 lost his ship, and eventually the game, because of the way that mistake was resolved. What would have been the correct way to correct the mistake? If a round is already over when en error is found, is it possible to backtrack and change the way that round was played?

Another question: If 2 ships were not touching at the beginning of the round and after a maneuver a ship end up just touching another ship, is it considered bumping? I asked because before moving it's ship, my opponent verified if it would overlap. It was clearly the case but when he did move, somehow his ship ended up in another position... He then said his ship was just touching with no bump. He then proceeded to take an action and attack the ship he was "touching".

2 minutes ago, Thormind said:

If a round is already over when en error is found, is it possible to backtrack and change the way that round was played?

In this case the best thing to do is let the mistake stand and fix it later. Both sides forgot, so the best thing to do is just carry on rather than trying to rewind the game. My rule of thumb is if a ship has moved it's most likely to late to fix a mistake.

2 minutes ago, Thormind said:

Another question: If 2 ships were not touching at the beginning of the round and after a maneuver a ship end up just touching another ship, is it considered bumping?

It is possible to be so close to another ship that the bases are in contact, but aren't actually touching. To be touching per the the rules you have to overlap the base of that ship.

However if moving a ship back due to an overlap causes you to overlap another ship, you move it back until it is Touching that other ship. At which point it would be touching that ship, not able to shoot it or take actions. But it wouldn't be touching the first ship.

I'm not sure I'm completely following your example. But it sounds like he backtracked to where he wasn't overlapping the first ship but was overlapping and therefore touching the second one.

Just now, VanorDM said:

In this case the best thing to do is let the mistake stand and fix it later. Both sides forgot, so the best thing to do is just carry on rather than trying to rewind the game. My rule of thumb is if a ship has moved it's most likely to late to fix a mistake.

Is that how a judge would rule it in a tournament?

1 minute ago, Thormind said:

Is that how a judge would rule it in a tournament?

It is how a judge "could" rule it. Judges try to give out fair rulings, but the definition of "fair" can vary.

58 minutes ago, Thormind said:

Is that how a judge would rule it in a tournament?

It's how I'd rule if I were a judge. At some point every judge is going to say "You just have to carry on with the game as is" because it gets harder and harder to properly fix the game state.

If for example a ship was supposed to get stress but didn't. If it's caught before any dials are set, then it's easy to fix. Give the ship a stress and set the dials. If however dials are already set and you start to reveal them, then it's harder, because to be fair if the person set a red maneuver on that ship it's now illegal. But if that players dial(s) have been revealed, then you could likely let them change that dial without any major issue, but even then he has more information then he should.

If however the other player had revealed a dial, now you can't let the first player change his, because he know where at least one ship has gone. But it's also hard to justify making him perform an illegal maneuver when there wasn't a stress token on that ship when he set the dial.

If it's noticed after that ship has moved, it's really hard to backtrack because so much has happened based on a gamestate that isn't actually correct. At this point it's most likely best to either forget the stress, or maybe put it on the ship now and have it count for next turn. But adding it now is somewhat unfair since the player may of picked a green maneuver or done something to get rid of the stress, but didn't since it wasn't there.

So again it really all depends on the current situation, sometimes it will be easy to rewind and fix the issue, sometimes it will be impossible, like say wanting to go back 3 turns to add a stress to a ship that should of had it.

1: THat sort of thing is down to the judges to call if the players can't agree a solution they're both satisfied with. It's not something that the rules deal with, so it's up to the players to agree a solution, or the judge to adjudicate as they see fit if they cannot. It's both players' responsibility to make sure that mandatory effects are not forgotten.

2: Touching is a keyword in x-wing - a word with a rules definition that differs from natural language. Specifically, Touching is the state that exists ONLY after a ship has been unable to complete its manoeuvre and collided with another ship. Touching can also be maintained if neither ship concerned moves (e.g. as a result of Stop manoeuvres, or a bump without moving such as a ship trying to perform a 1 straight when another ship is bumped head-on into it), or when a ship bumps and the ship it bumps into manoeuvres such that the Touching state is maintained (e.g. ship A bumps into the side of ship B, and ship B performs a straight manoeuvre and bumps into a ship in front of it). If a ship can complete its manoeuvre wihtout its base landing on the base of the other ship, but its base is in physical contact with the other ship, it is not Touching the other ship.

1. A VERY unfortunate case of "missed opportunities" that should have never been missed in the first place.

Now I'd normally say you should try to "undo" such a gross failure of a non-optional activity even if it means backing up the state of the game. I'm not sure what else was going on but to me that means "undoing" the boost and cargo chute and replacing B's ship on the board in the state it should have been in and then playing from there. It's one thing when an unintentional (or was it?) rule violation has an easy to fix solution but here that missed stress allowed TWO actions to take place which shouldn't have happened which quickly snowballed into something worse.

What REALLY upsets me about situations like this is that the person who "accidentally" forgot to do the REQUIRED things can get away with murder just because the opponent also missed it and didn't call him on it. I don't like it when someone fails to remind the other player of some mandatory effect the other player controls because it is in his "best interest" but this seems like trying to sneak in a fast one and hope it doesn't get caught.

2. If there is no actual overlap then there is no "touching" established. If the ship fits then there is no overlap/bump/touching so actions and attacks can fly. What gets me is how was it "verified" that an overlap would clearly occur yet "somehow" it ended up in a place where there was no overlap? Was there some sloppy maneuvering going on here where the templates wasn't placed where it was supposed to be? If this is the same player who accidently forgot he was supposed to take a stress after performing a maneuver and then went ahead and performed TWO actions afterwards anyway only to "realize" the mistake long after it was easy to fix I'd question how badly I wanted to play against that person.

7 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

2: Touching is a keyword in x-wing - a word with a rules definition that differs from natural language. Specifically, Touching is the state that exists ONLY after a ship has been unable to complete its manoeuvre and collided with another ship. Touching can also be maintained if neither ship concerned moves (e.g. as a result of Stop manoeuvres, or a bump without moving such as a ship trying to perform a 1 straight when another ship is bumped head-on into it), or when a ship bumps and the ship it bumps into manoeuvres such that the Touching state is maintained (e.g. ship A bumps into the side of ship B, and ship B performs a straight manoeuvre and bumps into a ship in front of it). If a ship can complete its manoeuvre wihtout its base landing on the base of the other ship, but its base is in physical contact with the other ship, it is not Touching the other ship.

Although touching is only started because of an overlap BREAKING that condition must actually require ships moving away from each other. To mean that clearly means that when neither ship moves touching remains however it seems that it actually DOES allow ships to move yet remain touching. You run into the side of a ship one turn and it has room to slide forward a little ways BEFORE getting blocked the touching remains despite the ship moving. Even more extreme a small ship could actually COMPLETE a 1 straight parallel to the edge of a large ship and stay touching.

Although maybe not relevant here having "touching" continue into the next round does NOT automatically prevent the touching ship(s) from taking its Perform Action step. Often the circumstances that keep touching in play will prevent actions but that is not because of the touching itself.

Missing things like this happens at all levels of play. If you watch the Hoth Open match between Nathaniel Bacon and Nathan Eide, during the final turns, Nathaniel dials in hard turns when he had a damaged engine crit. He didn't take stress from them and he took actions as well. Had either player remembered that crit, the game could have gone very differently.

Unfortunately, fixing the game state is something that is too difficult to do after a certain point (they aren't going to go back and retroactively change the outcome of that match because of that mistake). Normally, its best to just play on, so long as it's not habitual (if players "forget" about their crits a bit too often for example). In a case like this, if the players are into the combat phase but no shooting has happened, and they remember and the action taken was a focus action for example, then game state would allow me to take the focus and apply a stress token instead without much else being effected. It's rarely going to be clean like that though.

Edited by Raven19528

There is a point at which you can no longer rewind the game state.

There is a difference between forgetting to roll a stealth device die and retroactively adding it to the roll, and rewinding a whole turn.

However, I think the situation you describe was recoverable, and the players resolved it well.

It was both players' responsibility to make sure that the mandatory triggers happen, so IMO they should both get a warning/pre-warning should the situation have been non-recoverable.

Since this game has no floor rules, there is an incentivize to conveniently "forget" mandatory effects that negatively impact you. Just always "forget" your opponent's Rebel Captive, if he's not remembering he's just as at fault as you, and there is zero evidence that you're intentionally not saying anything.

Situations like this are exactly why everyone should be using those critical hit marker tokens whenever there's an ongoing crit on a ship.

Almost no one does (myself included usually) but it would prevent a lot of these situations.

41 minutes ago, Turbo Toker said:

Since this game has no floor rules, there is an incentivize to conveniently "forget" mandatory effects that negatively impact you. Just always "forget" your opponent's Rebel Captive, if he's not remembering he's just as at fault as you, and there is zero evidence that you're intentionally not saying anything.

And of course if he DOES happen to notice you didn't take your Stress and mentions it right after something else happens (say he shoots with his next ship) that same player may "casually" mention the "lost opportunity" rule despite it being a mandatory effect that is easily rectified.

At least with the damage based effect it may be something that neither player is really expecting but I maintain that both sides should acknowledge ALL triggers, even any "optional" ones, to make sure better strategy/tactics/luck win.

Why can't I delete the double post myself?

Edited by StevenO
darn Double post.

Casual play, rewind the best you can. Roll an extra dice, undo your move, take the stress, etc. If it is caught in the activation phase, you can usually back it up enough to matter but it is a pain. Tournament play, missed opportunity all day.

As a TO/Judge my first question would be: Did you place a Critical Hit token next to the ship to remind about the effect?
If the answer is no, whatever ruling I dish out will penalise that player one way or another.
The rule about critical tokens are there for a reason. Use them.