Hey folks...

Just a confirmation here. Victoria's Protegee - Forced Response, when she enters play, return a Hastur character to your hand.

My opponent is using that to return a Hastur character from the discard pile to hand. We both think it's legit but since it seems a little weird, we figured we'd get your take.

Never mind, found it in the FAQ:

For example: The Thing Behind You
(Summons of the Deep F110) has the
ability: “Action: Pay 2 and return a ]
character to your hand to put The Thing
Behind You into play from your hand.”
This ability could not bring a character
from a player’s discard pile to his hand,
because the card does not specifically
state that the player can take cards from
their discard pile.

Yeah, the way you guys were playing it was kind of a reach on the rules, though another example of shoddy writing / rules-wording on FFG's part. It would have been simple for them to add "return a Hastur character, that is currently in play , to your hand". . . but they rarely seem to make the wordings iron-clad simple and without ambiguity, so one can't really blame your pal for thinking he might be able to use her as he was.

Actually, I think it's better the way it is written. If the rule is out there that you can't do stuff like that, then you don't have to print "in play" on every card with an effect like that and then have to errata something when you miss one.

In the case where the protegee is the first hastur character played in a game, does it return itself to the owner's hand?

Yes - you dont want to play the Protege first because she will return herself to hand.

Well, I thought there was something in the rules that said you can only target stuffs that are in play, except for the cards that précisely mention they target something on the discard pile ..

Vic's protege's ability is a forced response which says "After Vic's Protege comes into play, return 1 hastur character to its owner's hand". So the ability kicks after she's in play, so she's a legal target to bounce. Also, you could use her to bounce your opponent's hastur character.