You know there is a dark side to this conversation, and I'll bring it up ( fond of the darkside as I am ). That dark side is, sometimes, it is the dice, some people do have very bad luck. Now if you believe in luck or not, that makes a difference on if you find anything absurd. For instance and this happens to me all the time I play, I'll set up nice traps and baits, and constantly be thwarted by poor dice.

One situation, lure my enemy into a poor action to try and guess where I'll go, he chooses poorly, but predictably, I have 3 ships in easy arc at range 2, he has no arc to me. 2 of the ships are target locked the other is focused as he couldn't TL. Firing three dice at him, from all ships and him rolling 3 evade dice, 3 times, net gain zero damage, not even a shield lost, no need to even spend his evade. Then he manages to just barely clip my squint with that ships arc next round, with 2 attack dice, and a focus ( focus once more un needed ) As he hits and crits the squint, which is, of course, a direct hit crit. It all went down hill from there.

That is just one situation, I've got countless more. If I make a move or action error, I take that one on me, as people should. When I did well and keep getting the beatdown, I will voice my displeasure.

Yes, sometimes players do tend to blame dice, rather then themselves and such is wrong. However it is also wrong to demand luck plays not a factor at all in it, and discounting those times your opponent played well, and just fubared all his rolls. Is it that people just want to feel superior to their losing opponent and they always beat them by sheer raw skill ? That smacks of being a poor winner.

We could and should, focus on all the issues and point out when a move was good, when a roll was poor, what really lead to death, poor rolls, poor decisions, or a combination of the two.

I played a couple games of X wing, where I got zero hits, all game, with TL used and ample chances, I've had more where I've rolled perfectly, but my opponent did so as well and still leads to zero damage.

I played a 40k game with marines, where I rolled not more then 5 wounds, all game, and failed every single 3+ save I had to make, even from gets hot, every plasma weapon just over heated and killed its bearer. My last unit alive was a Dev Squad ( for those who know 40k ) the last plasma cannon rolled gets hot, killed himself, at that point I quit and said good game, worst game ever. However my opponent couldn't even say that was skill, and if he did I may have laughed, loudly.

I'll argue till the end of time that luck plays a factor in game ( and HobeJebus knows I'm no stranger to lose causes ) so demanding each win is simply by great skills vs lack of skill is poppy cock. People are prone to thinking luck is all to blame, but not every win is simply by skill alone.

In the same token, does it matter why you won ? Does it matter if your opponent steals your thunder by blaming luck ? Does he need to except his shame, like the samurais of old and clean his stained honor with self sacrifice ? Does the win matter that much more then the experience ?

In closing, I'll quote Napolean ( The General and Emperor and not the Kid from middle America ) in saying I'd rather be lucky then good. He was an Emperor after all and all us Empire players love Emperors.

But even then, it is IMO poor sport to blame the dice, at least in front of the other guy.

I do it all the time. But then again, blaming the dice, exaggerated displays of rage and unsportsmanlike conduct in general is pretty much a running joke in my area.

Sometimes I miss Ribann, too...

Perceived oddness in dice outcomes is just simple randomness. There is no such thing as luck. The dice may seem hot or cold but it is just patterns in random events that are retroactively seen as "lucky". It is hard for me to fathom someone arguing that some people are luckier than others.

There have been studies done that show that the brain remembers losing random chance events much more than winning, thereby enforcing some folks belief that they are unlucky.

As someone said, play enough games and the dice even out, for everyone.

So yes, there are absolutely situations in which dice are to blame.

Sure, I don't think anyone would say there's never a case where the dice just completely fail them. The game where you roll 1 evade out of every 10-12 dice rolled, it's rare but it does happen.

But even then, it is IMO poor sport to blame the dice, at least in front of the other guy.

What about when it happens consistently enough that my opponents are regularly apologizing to me for how bad my dice are?

Like this past Sunday. Wedge rolls up, range 1 shot backed by predator and a focus; 1 hit, 3 blanks, reroll a blank to a blank. So goes most of the rest of my shooting accompanied by not being able to roll any evades, game ends quickly with an unharmed Rexlar Brath and a Decimator with 9-10 hull left on the table(which bounced a Pilot crit through determination on one of the occasions I did get damage through).

Or the tournament game where every single attack roll my opponent made was either a natural max (3 or 4) hits or focusable to it, against my TIEs which both couldn't land hits against B-wings or roll green dice to any effect.

Of course I've been on the opposite end of this kind of thing before, like one-shotting a stealth deviced Howlrunner at range 3 through a rock in one shot, but I can recognize the difference between poor flying on my part, and will admit as much, and when I can't even roll average for an entire game and just get rolled because despite focusing fire, with focus tokens and predator rerolls, I can't do any damage.

I have the same problem for some reason in 40k. My tactical marines are adept at not being able to make their 3+ armor saves. I'm notorious for it in both games at my store.

If I fly well, and my opponent flies well and maybe he gets some key rolls or I get skunked on a few key rolls of course i'll 'blame the dice'. This game is not chess, it relies upon dice and shuffled damage cards to vary the outcomes. I think we've all been there, in this game or maybe another where the dice were simply just against us.....even if only at that key moment.

What about when it happens consistently enough that my opponents are regularly apologizing to me for how bad my dice are?

If it truly does happen consistently... you've kept track of your rolls and you're really rolling below avg over the course of say 100+ rolls. Then it may be that you have defective dice.

Ideally the dice are going to roll on the bell curve like they should. But they're also subject to manufacturing defects and tolerances, so you will get some that don't. If you think that might be the case for you, ask to use someone elses dice, or maybe get the FFG dice app.

Blaming the dice is a part of this game and I love it. This way I always win through my mad skills and lose to bad luck.

It is sweet to have mad skills.

To quote my good friend who goes by the moniker - on most forums - of "Magnusthejust"...

"Dice are traitorous plastic polyhedron bastards and should never be trusted."

And I don't. Ever. And I blame my dice if when they betray me. Which they only do ONCE...

I DO try to take into account the fact that I may (WILL) roll badly and do my best to mitigate that as much as possible depending on the situation and my strategy at the moment.

After rolling 17 1's in a row, across multiple d20's and the improbable failure that is all my dice rolling, I assuredly CAN blame the dice.

I calls BS. A million monkeys rolling for a million years couldn't pull that off.

Don't look at the statistics of it happening to you. Think of it as a probability of it happen to someone, somewhere, at some time. Its actually highly improbable for it not to happen, multiple times.

Often it's more the timing of the dice, then the overall luck.

For instance, someone rolling 1 hit at you and you roll 2 evades, then the next ship rolls 2 hits at you and you roll none. Your defensive dice average out, but the timing was bad. You wasted an evade on the first attack, then got none for the second.

After rolling 17 1's in a row, across multiple d20's and the improbable failure that is all my dice rolling, I assuredly CAN blame the dice.

I calls BS. A million monkeys rolling for a million years couldn't pull that off.

Don't look at the statistics of it happening to you. Think of it as a probability of it happen to someone, somewhere, at some time. Its actually highly improbable for it not to happen, multiple times.

Here's a link to a program that does dice probability.

http://anydice.com/program/4dfc

If I roll 17 D 20s 10,000,000 times. I will never get a total of 17.

Is it statistically possible, yes. Do I believe the above poster that it ever happened, no. You're more likely to be struck by lighting while shagging a leprechaun on the back of a unicorn while Harry Potter plays 'I Feel Like Makin Love' on the didgeridoo.

The problem is that people take a string of poor dice rules and use it as anecdotal evidence to believe the dice are out to get them. It's complete malarkey. And those of you who know better but are joking about it might consider stopping since there seen to be some people for whom this is an absolute truth.

While "luck" cannot exist empirically, we have to remember that the sample size of games per week is generally limited to a number that isn't in the double digits. Given the limited number of games, it's pretty easy to get discouraged when horrible rolls screw over an otherwise beautiful set of maneuvers and ruin a moment of opportunity.

Given the number of times this seems regularly to occur, especially in my personal experience, it's very acceptable to blame dice (especially the little green bastards). It's kind of like in Hearthstone, where every **** warrior just automatically starts with a fiery war-axe in hand. Sometimes, you just can't beat the rng.

Last night i won 2 games.

My opponent had a 3 Phantom list with Whisper and 2 Sigmas. First game i whiffed every single green die and my reds weren't exactly hot either. I even flew Dash of the board with 1 HP. But my opponent didn't rollmuch green either, and often i got the few rolled hits through against 4 or 5 green dice and sonetimes an evade token. In the end Han was totally untouched, nobody had even fired at him the whole game. I think we were equally unlucky and my list was slightly better. Also i didn't do any major mistakes. Flying Dash off the board was a risk i took, but i had everyone following him, so Han was repositioning. At that time i expected getting off a last shot and die, or just fly off, which is what happened.

In the rematch i ran Corran, Farlander, Farrel (which i really recommend... Kitted out right they are a nightmare to fly against). That time i destroyed him really hard. Corran blew Whisper up sky high. Farlander did his share of damage and the A-Wing was literally outmaneuvering the Phantoms at will (didn't expect that honestly). Corran is a good anti-Phantom option but the rest of my list was not tailored against them really. Horn killed all 3 in the end without even needing to double tap. And that time i really blame my opponents green dice. I would probably have won even if he evaded some, as i was outmaneuvering them quite good. But not that hard! He didn't even get to shoot back at Corran who had VI a single time!

But well i would not like X-Wing to be a game of chess. Sometimes you are also on the receiving end of bad luck and while losing is never great, if you lose and can say that you probably made no mistakes, i prefer it to winning while having misplayed the whole match and got gifted the win by lady luck!

Wow, Hejas is just like me. When I lose, the dice were with me. When I win, it was ALL me! I'm just that badass.

This is what we all want to believe. It's the lies we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better. We do that in so many avenues of life. I know that when I'm cranky, the inanimate objects in my life are just out to get me. It certainly wouldn't be a function of me being clumsy, because that would hurt my ego, and I just can't handle that when I'm cranky. Or before I've had coffee.

Speaking of which: I need some more coffee.

Dice are the reason that I didn't play Risk for years. No matter how great your strategy in placing your troops, the eggs could destroy you. It wasn't until they introduced 'wave warfare' that I began playing again. Yeah, dice in this game can really turn a game in a direction that we never wanted to see, but I see that as pilot's luck, if you will.

"Dice are traitorous plastic polyhedron bastards and should never be trusted."

I added that quote to my favorite quotes on facebook

It is a simple truth that in any game where dice are involved there will be games where luck a.k.a. dice trumps skill.

I agree that dice do not single handedly win the game. However, a single critical roll can completely change the rest of the game (as well as how both players should play the rest of the game out). In my prior description of my game, Etahn died really early in the game due to unlucky green dice. Yes, there are purists out there that will say "oh, well if your opponent was more skilled, you wouldn't have a shot on him." To which I answer - has anyone ever played a full game without getting shot at once?

All it took were two shots to kill him. It's not unreasonable to say that a F+E E wing should be able to survive a R3 shot, or at most take 1 damage. But when he died after the second shot, it completely changed the dynamic of the game. If he rolled nothing but evades (which he was close to doing, i think he was something like 4 of 5) with his two remaining B wings, the dice would average out overall. But with the opening salvo killing off his main threat, he had to play very aggressively to claw his way out of a huge deficit. I don't particularly think he pursued the rest of the game aggressively enough, but then again, I was taking it very passive as I knew I had a lead and didn't need to take any risks (this included flying Wedge 3RB + Boost, denying everyone a shot, Wedge included, instead of flying 1LB and exchanging R1 shots with the Bs) in order to win the game.

But... It's not fair to call him a bad player and that he lost solely because his Etahn didn't get out of everyone's arc.

Edit: Also, in my Gencon game against Paul, dice completely screwed me at ONE critical moment. Yes, you can put part of it on me, as my Blackmoon was 2mm out of R3 of Roark, so I could not PS12 him, but after weathering Han's attack (at R1) my Blackmoon had 1shield and 2 hull (and a Focus token) remaining. His PS4 Tala shot at R3 on my PS3 Blackmoon, hit crit, and I come up with 4 blanks, lose a shield and draw a direct hit. Now, not to say that I would have won the game otherwise, but Han had 2 hull left, Biggs had 3 hull, and the Tala was untouched. I had a Bandit and Roark untouched as well. Had I taken my TL R1 shot at Han, I should have at least stripped C3PO and the Evade, allowing the Bandit to finish him off. At which point, it's Bandit + Roark vs. Half health Biggs + Tala. However, by getting precisely 4 blanks, I lost the game because the Bandit + Roark could not seal the deal against Han. Note: Roark only did a 1 straight (away from the E), so I could not reduce his movement to keep him closer to the E, so the change to keep Roark at R3 of the E would have had to have been made several turns in advance, so an unfeasible change to make regarding a 3mm difference 3 turns down the road, especially since the E wing's position is predicated by where Han goes.

Edit #2: Also, I don't mean to take anything away from Paul's victory by the above statement. It was a very close game that he was leading the entire way and deserved to win, but it was that roll that knocked me out of contention.

I agree that dice do not single handedly win the game. However, a single critical roll can completely change the rest of the game (as well as how both players should play the rest of the game out). In my prior description of my game, Etahn died really early in the game due to unlucky green dice. Yes, there are purists out there that will say "oh, well if your opponent was more skilled, you wouldn't have a shot on him." To which I answer - has anyone ever played a full game without getting shot at once?

All it took were two shots to kill him. It's not unreasonable to say that a F+E E wing should be able to survive a R3 shot, or at most take 1 damage. But when he died after the second shot, it completely changed the dynamic of the game. If he rolled nothing but evades (which he was close to doing, i think he was something like 4 of 5) with his two remaining B wings, the dice would average out overall. But with the opening salvo killing off his main threat, he had to play very aggressively to claw his way out of a huge deficit. I don't particularly think he pursued the rest of the game aggressively enough, but then again, I was taking it very passive as I knew I had a lead and didn't need to take any risks (this included flying Wedge 3RB + Boost, denying everyone a shot, Wedge included, instead of flying 1LB and exchanging R1 shots with the Bs) in order to win the game.

But... It's not fair to call him a bad player and that he lost solely because his Etahn didn't get out of everyone's arc.

I don't disagree with your overall point. I just hate when people refer to is as luck. It's statistics. Statistically speaking you're supposed to get rolls like that. It sucks that it happened at an inopportune moment.

I just hate when people refer to is as luck. It's statistics. Statistically speaking you're supposed to get rolls like that. It sucks that it happened at an inopportune moment.

I agree. IMO bad luck is quite often, just us trying to claim we have some sort of control over random chance. That there's some sort of force out there trying to get us.

The issue is that we remember the bad more so than we do the good. We also tend to miss the little things that put us in a situation that caused that roll to become critical. That's not true every time, but is true more often than not.

But more importantly I think it's a poor sport to blame the dice, because that does little more than cheapen the win for the other person, even if it is true. Because I'm sure there's times someone flew flawlessly but still lost due to a few bad rolls.

Yes Khyro, in a close game a dice roll can decide a game. I had a game against a chewbie, where i had a Bwing at range 1. He had 2 hull points and C3PO (no evade token), i already had target lock. If i rolled average, he would be out, if not, he would get another turn where i would be poorly positioned from my other ships and i had not deal with his escorts yet. So if i missed the game would be uphill battle for me, if i rolled averagely, i would had been in a strong leading position.

I rolled above average and got four hits, and from there i had a commanding position that i didn't lose the grip later on. He was rolling insanely well with his X-wing tho, and it came down to a Z + B against an X + Z, but since my ships were placed better at that stage, i forced him to chase one B-wing so he could finish it off while i maneuvered my other ships to be able to come from 2 perpendicular angles, so whomever he decided to chase, i would had a ship with dice modification shooting every turn withouth the need to K-turn for awhile.

But it was really really close. Average rolls can perfectly fail you.

For example, if you rolled 2D6, and you needed a 4+, the distribution would be something along the lines of a 50% of 1 hit, 25% 0 hits, 25% 2 hits. It's 1/4 chances to fail, that's actually not unlikely to happen at all, it just less likely than the other results.

Same with a 4 attack dice with no dice modification, and the reason why green dice aren't reliable at all. It's the variance in the rolls. That's why dice modification is so important, and Fat Han and howlrunner swarms were such reliables lists to play.

If you want to get better, don't ever blame luck. That's true of everything.

It isn't that luck doesn't happen, or that it can't utterly change things, but rather: luck isn't something you can control. Luck is arbitrary. If you want to get better, figure out what is in your control. What you can directly do. Figure out where you made mistakes, and what the general shape of those mistakes is.

Sometimes we do things perfectly, but catch an unlucky several breaks anyway. Nothing can be done about that. But until we sit down and figure out what went wrong, we can never know what luck did to us.

The converse is also true. Let's figure out where we were unreasonably lucky. Maybe we dodged a bullet we didn't even know was there. It's really useful to know where we got wins we didn't "earn".

People have a tendency to blame things they cannot control and negative events register in the brain more than positive events, so most people do blame the dice.

It's okay, it's human nature.