We've just let one of our experienced Hero players take a stab at being the Imperial player, from here on referred to as GM, for the Return to Hoth campaign.

Our GM decided to give us the options to pick our side mission, one of which was Means of Production. This is basically us just preventing him from getting a decent reward card (Imperial Industry). So we chose that mission in order to prevent him from getting it.

However he either misread or didn't read the mission completely and used as many 'blue' tokens as he wanted, even though the missions states to set aside only two of each color. This, in my opinion lead him to a very unfair advantage and a victory. We've now forgone one of our side missions to prevent him from getting a good reward which was achrived unfairly.

Any thoughts on a resolution? It would be fine if he didn't get such a nice reward, if it were a regular story mission I wouldn't be as salty.

I mean, stuff like this is always tough.

Some things to consider:

1) Is this the player's first side mission as the Empire?

2) Did this advantage directly lead to Imperial victory? It's easy to say "he cheated and also happened to win", but if this didn't make or break his game then I'm not sure it's really fair to retcon the victory simply because you're salty he won.

3) I get that you're upset at having burned a side mission for nothing, but remember that the Empire also spent threat on that mission. So simply taking it entirely away from him may not be fair either, especially since he's a new Imperial player. People make mistakes sometimes.

4) Also, as far as I know, the Special setup is hidden information, so you can't really blame your rebels for not correcting him, since they couldn't have known either.

Maybe a fair solution would be for the Imperial player to choose one of your side missions, and the Rebels can gain the reward from that mission. That way, everybody's happy and no one had to actually lose anything.

2 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

Maybe a fair solution would be for the Imperial player to choose one of your side missions, and the Rebels can gain the reward from that mission. That way, everybody's happy and no one had to actually lose anything.

If it were me, I'd go for this option. Keeps the peace, but gives the rebels something too

4 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

1) Is this the player's first side mission as the Empire?

2) Did this advantage directly lead to Imperial victory? It's easy to say "he cheated and also happened to win", but if this didn't make or break his game then I'm not sure it's really fair to retcon the victory simply because you're salty he won.

Maybe a fair solution would be for the Imperial player to choose one of your side missions, and the Rebels can gain the reward from that mission. That way, everybody's happy and no one had to actually lose anything.

1) Yes

2) Impossible to say definitively, but he did stack 4 blue tokens on the doors (2 on 2 of the doors) giving two doors an extra 16 health. That means two of the doors were 24 health. This being like our third mission this campaign it's tough to do that much damage in in the 5 turn limit.

I like that solution

12 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

Maybe a fair solution would be for the Imperial player to choose one of your side missions, and the Rebels can gain the reward from that mission. That way, everybody's happy and no one had to actually lose anything.

This is an elegant solution. Giving both sides a reward will keep everyone happy ?

13 hours ago, Mrsoupy said:

Our GM decided to give us the options to pick our side mission,

Not sure if this is just a wording issue, but as far as I know the rebels always pick the side mission, unless it is a forced mission!

13 hours ago, Mrsoupy said:

one of which was Means of Production. This is basically us just preventing him from getting a decent reward card (Imperial Industry).

At the risk of fanning the flames, I'd say it's more than just "decent" ?

13 hours ago, Mrsoupy said:

However he either misread or didn't read the mission completely and used as many 'blue' tokens as he wanted, even though the missions states to set aside only two of each color

I make a point of reading the entire "deployment and setup" box to the rebels, omitting any information that could be a surprise. A little transparency goes a long way, and would have cleared this up from the beginning of the mission. Not sure if all IPs do this though.

12 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

4) Also, as far as I know, the Special setup is hidden information, so you can't really blame your rebels for not correcting him, since they couldn't have known either.

I usually read it to them and omit info that is meant to be hidden (e.g., reserved groups). I don't see anything in the RRG that says that information box must be hidden from the rebs, but I could be wrong ?

23 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

I mean, stuff like this is always tough.

Some things to consider:

1) Is this the player's first side mission as the Empire?

2) Did this advantage directly lead to Imperial victory? It's easy to say "he cheated and also happened to win", but if this didn't make or break his game then I'm not sure it's really fair to retcon the victory simply because you're salty he won.

3) I get that you're upset at having burned a side mission for nothing, but remember that the Empire also spent threat on that mission. So simply taking it entirely away from him may not be fair either, especially since he's a new Imperial player. People make mistakes sometimes.

4) Also, as far as I know, the Special setup is hidden information, so you can't really blame your rebels for not correcting him, since they couldn't have known either.

Maybe a fair solution would be for the Imperial player to choose one of your side missions, and the Rebels can gain the reward from that mission. That way, everybody's happy and no one had to actually lose anything.

Never realized special setup is hidden information. I usually, at an absolute minimum say what my threat is with special setup. Because if I didn’t spend it all on my optional deployment, it’s unusual to already have threat at the start of round one. This way there is no surprise/dispute when threat level is 3 (for example) yet I have more than anticipated during the deploy reinforce step in the end of round.

I have only seen a few missions where Special Setup includes information that would not seem right for the rebels to hear.

So, I omit those parts in those missions and read/write everything else otherwise.

(I don't think there is any explicit rule about the secrecy of special setup.)

Interesting, I was curious about that @a1bert .

Definitely seems like it's a best judgment scenario, which is strange for this game.

Usually, I only tell the Rebels what they need to hear. For instance, if they're playing a mission where Han shows up in as a free ally, and the special instructions say "Rebels cannot bring Han Solo to this mission as an ally", I only reveal that information if they've earned Han and try to deploy him (and obviously give them the opportunity to deploy a different ally if they have one).

That way, the surprise of Han showing up isn't ruined.

In this case though... not sure what would've been right. Obviously in this specific scenario it may have helped the mission not flub, but in general I'm not sure if it's needed for the Rebels to know that the Empire has set aside mission tokens or tiles.

Especially tiles, really. I think missions where other sections of map or whole other boards are added would really be ruined if the Rebels knew it was coming.