If my opponent can perform some cool magic tricks while doing his wacky rolling, he can roll any way he wants to. I play this game for entertainment purposes after-all.

So... if I were to roll 100% crits and evades... you'd be fine with because, hey, fun!

If someone cheats - or attempts to cheat in any way, they should be kicked out. They're ruining the fun for everyone else.

Regardless of the rolling method, I doubt anyone could roll 100% crits and evades. Also, unless you happen to be playing in a casino in Vegas, I doubt you'd be able to prove that someone was cheating with their rolling anyway.

I think the amount of people who do have mysterious rolling techniques and CAN roll really well (still not 100% though) are so few in number that statistically I would never run into one. And even if I did, I would just chalk it up to them having an incredibly lucky game. So, chances are...it would never happen. But if it did, they better do some **** good magic tricks.

Whats the whole point of rolling dice then, if you can "beat" the odds by trick rolling.

Do you play poker with someone who can shuffle the cards and pull out 4 aces?

Same logic!

"Ability to roll dice" can be considered one of the skills tested in any game that uses them, that the level of skilled needed to make the results distinguishable from luck is almost superhuman just means those few lucky folks that can are that much more impressive.

Now using modified dice or doing something that's not actually rolling, no, bad player. But a spin or flick that gets them results? More power to them.

Lets not get this paranoid. If anything these are ritualistic nonsense combined with a lucky roll. If it happens for every game somebody has for an extended period of time then talk about it. But otherwise, they're probably trying to be funny.

I actually use fear and conditioning to get better results from my dice. Everytime a die fails a game-critical roll it gets sacrificed to the Dice Gods by fire, in front of all my other dice. Blank results have gone down by 75%!

So last two tournaments I went to, I noticed a couple of odd behaviors from players. Being a magician has helped me spot cheaters from all kinds of games.

without explaining the techniques, Ill explain loosely how it was done.

First tourny I went to, I noticed a guy was flicking his dice (he would leave his hand a few inches above the table and quickly turn over his hand -close to the method Khyros tried to show me... I gave the guy the benefit that he wasnt consciously cheating, but his poor maneuvering cost him the game (his dice rolling were always amazing though had low agility ships). There were reasons I felt I could not talk to the TO about this player.

The second guy, had more of a questionable method then full out cheating. He would set his dice in his hand so all evades would face a certain direction, or all hits would face another direction. he was in effect presetting the faces of the dice in his hand, which in my opinion will effect the out come of the dice. I at first did not notice this fellow doing this (I didnt get to play him) but my gf pointed him out to me, and his dice prepping). I had already reported a guy to the TO about stalling (10+minutes per round) so again, I didnt report, not to mention my mind was dead and I couldnt stay any longer.

So the second guy was doing a deliberate action to improve his odds, is it cheating?

Of course it's cheating to use any method to try to get results that aren't random from your dice.

I'm more concerned with "there were reasons I felt I could not talk to the TO about this player." If you think someone is cheating, you should tell the TO. I'm assuming the TO and the player were friends? The TO should be ready to check out anyone's die rolling technique, regardless of personal relationships.

Is there a good method to make this type of manipulation impossible? Rolling against a hard surface, like bouncing the dice off of a table wall in craps, for example? I played against someone at GenCon who asked me to roll inside a felt octogon box: it meant the dice weren't bouncing into minis and asteroids, and probably cut down on any dice rolling shenanigans. I was thinking it'd be neat to have something like that.

Paul

Is there a good method to make this type of manipulation impossible?

Use a dice cup. Force you opponent to use a dice cup. Ask the TO to force all players to use dice cups.

I actually use fear and conditioning to get better results from my dice. Everytime a die fails a game-critical roll it gets sacrificed to the Dice Gods by fire, in front of all my other dice. Blank results have gone down by 75%!

LMAO, i hear you. I've had dice wiz passed me with a few chanting words that I don't think were english back in my game days.

So last two tournaments I went to, I noticed a couple of odd behaviors from players. Being a magician has helped me spot cheaters from all kinds of games.

without explaining the techniques, Ill explain loosely how it was done.

First tourny I went to, I noticed a guy was flicking his dice (he would leave his hand a few inches above the table and quickly turn over his hand -close to the method Khyros tried to show me... I gave the guy the benefit that he wasnt consciously cheating, but his poor maneuvering cost him the game (his dice rolling were always amazing though had low agility ships). There were reasons I felt I could not talk to the TO about this player.

The second guy, had more of a questionable method then full out cheating. He would set his dice in his hand so all evades would face a certain direction, or all hits would face another direction. he was in effect presetting the faces of the dice in his hand, which in my opinion will effect the out come of the dice. I at first did not notice this fellow doing this (I didnt get to play him) but my gf pointed him out to me, and his dice prepping). I had already reported a guy to the TO about stalling (10+minutes per round) so again, I didnt report, not to mention my mind was dead and I couldnt stay any longer.

So the second guy was doing a deliberate action to improve his odds, is it cheating?

Of course it's cheating to use any method to try to get results that aren't random from your dice.

I'm more concerned with "there were reasons I felt I could not talk to the TO about this player." If you think someone is cheating, you should tell the TO. I'm assuming the TO and the player were friends? The TO should be ready to check out anyone's die rolling technique, regardless of personal relationships.

Is there a good method to make this type of manipulation impossible? Rolling against a hard surface, like bouncing the dice off of a table wall in craps, for example? I played against someone at GenCon who asked me to roll inside a felt octogon box: it meant the dice weren't bouncing into minis and asteroids, and probably cut down on any dice rolling shenanigans. I was thinking it'd be neat to have something like that.

Paul

You can indeed influence dice by certain methods of rolling them. You don't have to have it be 100% effective in order to use the method, in face you don't want it to be (or you would be quickly discovered). Any attempt to fix dice is cheating, no matter how you cut it, and should not be tolerated.

If you doubt, check out dice setting or dice control. The techniques are pretty widely known, and a guy presetting "evades" in his hand is almost certainly using them.

You can absolutely cheat rolling dice. The one I find the most common (other than the various sleight of hand techniques here) is inconsistency with what is or is not a cocked dice. Even one of my good friends has an extremely liberal cocked dice policy when comes to blanks that suddenly becomes less so when a hit or crit is shown. I usually use a dice box and shake the dice liberally in cupped hands to ensure randomness. Frankly, if you have to cheat at a miniature game that is self-described as "casual," you're just a d-bag and should be called on it.

The dice exist to inject randomness. If you notice questionable behavior and the dice are rolling well outside of their odds, I would consider it to be potential cheating and speak with the TO. If you notice questionable behavior and the dice are rolling inside of their odds then no harm, no foul.

If it's a critical roll (and I suppose there's room here to consider all rolls as critical) then I probably wouldn't tolerate any shenanigans at all. Again, the dice are there to be random. Neither player should be trying anything, superstition or not, to influence the rolls.

The dice exist to inject randomness. If you notice questionable behavior and the dice are rolling well outside of their odds, I would consider it to be potential cheating and speak with the TO. If you notice questionable behavior and the dice are rolling inside of their odds then no harm, no foul.

If it's a critical roll (and I suppose there's room here to consider all rolls as critical) then I probably wouldn't tolerate any shenanigans at all. Again, the dice are there to be random. Neither player should be trying anything, superstition or not, to influence the rolls.

My point of view is, if there is a roll all is fine, but if there is some type of slam or placement, I would say something.

In Las Vegas craps tables there are players that have very precise ways to pick the dice and place them in their hand to throw. If Vegas can live with this, so can I....

Cheers!

You would seriously call shenanigans on a dice ritual? I call foul on that play. Lighten up, it's a game and even if magic exists nobody would use it on Xwing. They'd be somewhere where the money is.

I would if I reasonably felt it was influencing the outcome. To each their own, of course. If neither player has a problem then do whatever you wish. My point is simply that the dice are intended to be completely random and neither player has a right to try to influence their outcome.

You've convinced me that the next time I organize a Tournament, I'll have a few dice towers available, and if cheat-rolling is accused, force their use.

I believe we're all in agreement that dice cheating is bad sportsmanship.

And now I kind of want a pachinko board style dice tower.... Thanks for that thought process.

R2-D2 is perfect model subject I mean, he prequel-written cool rockets boosters then lost them, might as well let him dump dice too

When Jim Blakely rolls them...

A roll is a roll is a roll. I don't care what they do with the dice before they toss them, as long as they don't try to play with them after they leave my opponent's hand. Unless the dice are loaded, there is absolutely no way they can affect the outcome.

would you say this if I could roll 3 dice 50 times, and have them all land hits 45 times?

You counted this?

I actually use fear and conditioning to get better results from my dice. Everytime a die fails a game-critical roll it gets sacrificed to the Dice Gods by fire, in front of all my other dice. Blank results have gone down by 75%!

i use a similar technique on my dice, but my the method of discipline is a 3lb lump hammer

I still maintain that not all the dice are made equally. The translucent dice just further my case. You can see air bubbles in the middle of the dice, meaning that the translucent dice aren't solid, and therefore the center of mass is not the center of the die... meaning that there will be one side that shows up more frequently than it's supposed to. This doesn't necessarily mean it will roll more hits/evades... it could be blanks that show up more often. But that does mean to me that some people will roll above average while others will roll below average, regardless of whether they're "cheating" or not.

If someone had one of these FFG legal dice that was sooo messed up that it was rolling hits 62.5% of the time instead of 37.5%, would you call him out for "cheating" because his dice that FFG supplied to him were not fair and equal? I think not. Furthermore, I would like to point out some Vegas Dice http://www.amazon.com/Trademark-Poker-Grade-Serialized-Casino/dp/B000RQ0GLU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1400607235&sr=8-2&keywords=las+vegas+dice

Note: These are still not to the level of dice that are used at LV as there does appear to be quite a bit of variability in the size of the dice, and the LV dice are about $50 for a set of 6 new. But you can still notice the differences in the dice... specifically, note the sharp edges, and that the pips are painted on instead of hollowed out... The fact that the FFG dice have rounded edges and hollowed out symbols means that the dice WILL NOT represent the true probabilities. If you don't believe me, research why a 6 sided die doesn't have an equal distribution. Theoretically though, this would bias all dice FFG made (the more material taken out of a crit side due to it being a larger picture would mean the CG would be lowest when the crit was faced up, making it statistically more likely to land a crit than anything other face)... But that wouldn't affect individual dice.

But the dice are injection molded, and poorly done at that. The mold has a gas trap, thus there are air bubbles in the translucent dice. This bubble is NOT a controlled feature. As such, it will vary from die to die. Then there's the fact that a d8 dice is inherently a bad design. It is basically two pyramids put together base to base... which means its much easier to roll from one pyramid to the other than it is to change faces on the same pyramid. So, it would be possible to orientate the dice in ones hand to make it more likely to stay on one half of the die (and for the evade dice, this would mean a 50% evade vs. a 50% blank on the other side).

As a closing comment, in craps you're required to hit the back wall and have it bounce off if it because there are ways to overcome the odds of rolling as you do it naturally. But even that can be faked. A team (er, pair) of folks spent the better part of a year practicing rolling dice at a craps table to the point where they developed a technique to increase their win % by THREE PERCENT. Not saying that's not statistically significant, especially in vegas where you're typically just on the wrong side of the 50% return, but I'm just saying it's the difference between an extra 2 hit/evade over the course of a game, and well within the margin of error.

TL:DR - not all dice are equal, d8 dice are poorly designed, and a player can influence the outcome, but not to the point where you should get mad at them and call them on cheating (unless they're blatantly cheating by not "rolling" the dice)

Accept that those kind of players with their "cheat rolls", blocking, or 12 fly arounds, are just in it for the wins.

Let me rephrase my original comment.

A roll is a roll is a roll. A slam or a spin is not a roll.

Got a dice tower the other day. Is it acceptable to use these at tourneys?

Got this one - cheap, has some X-Wing graphics, and does the job: https://www.etsy.com/listing/182652866/dice-towerroller-star-wars-design?ref=related-0