I am not happy after a discusion, but yesterday I enjoyed one.

Holidays... Monday, free time to do some walking and purchase Decimator number two. Some games running at my local LGS. Lets take a look..

20-25 years old die hard gamers... Ey, something different

Two kids deploying their models, obviously inexperienced players, unboxing their brand new toys. Y 1300, Y 2400, A, B... 90 bucks, not small money if you are aprox. 12 years old.

Their opponent, a 30-35 years old veteran player, and a fine player

After a few moves, he start to execute ilegal moves. Change his dial because " it was loose ", select 3 straight and move with the 4 straight ruler...

He wanted to WIN. To win vs two kids who were upset because a tall, overweight adult is cheating them...

So we started a little talk. Not a pleasant one. They re started the game, and of course he won, but quite small margin. Those kids will play again, for sure.

Stupid people that plays TO WIN at all costs.

I know the kind but for the life of me I can never figure out just why they're getting off on winning that way. Hell I normally help the younglings even if they're playing the opposing side so they can learn the game(s...not just X-Wing) and have a positive experience which will get them to play again and spread the word.

Sad sobs like mentioned above should just be banned from playing at local stores by the owners.

I know some people play at stores because they dont have a gaming circle but I find the lack of any 'social' norms needed to get pick up games at a store or club lets this sort of thing happen.

Its why i think im lucky to have around 20 friends who play and we all play at each others houses or occasionally meet to play people we know at the store.

No one pulls jerk moves because we're friends. No one takes a 'no fun' list because we're friends, no one argues to the nth degree about the wording of a rule because we're friends and we'd all like to be able to continue going to each others houses.

I've played some games against people ive met on here, had a few pms and then met at the store or my house and *became* friends but i cant see the attraction in playing some total stranger in a store who may well turn out to be a total git... sure they might be great but i just dont have the time to waste finding out or playing an hour long game with an idiot.

These people are as old as gaming itself. They suck and should go home, playing only by themselves.

If you gotta cheat you've already lost.

The only time i purposely cheated in a game was to teach someone a lesson.

Back in the 90s i had a mate who played 40k

He never bought the rules or core set, just the codex for the army he wanted.

Nothing wrong with that in principle

The problem was he used to interpret rules very freely and make up 'home brew' units with ridiculous stats (toughness 7 imperial guardsman anyone? Thats like 2 points over space marine maximum and tougher than a concrete wall!)

I used to say to him all the time, 'you have got the rules and you've read them yeah?' and rather than saying 'no, can i loan yours' he'd lie and say 'of course i have!'. I'd keep saying 'there's a second hand copy in the games shop quite cheap etc'

But he kept doing the same stuff and claiming he owned the rules

So i played him once and just made it up as i went along...

He never noticed.

The only reason i played him at games a lot is we lived in a large village/small town and there were about five of us that played warhammer (there may have been more but it was pre internet so you only knew the people from school who played) and the nearest games shop was about 30 miles away and none of us could drive

I acidentaly cheated in a game of dice masters a few weeks ago. I found a combo that seemed to good to be true. I checked to see if any of the cards had erata. Didn't read anything on the forums that said it wouldn't work, so I played it against my oponent and won the first game easily but the 2n and 3d games were a lot closer as he found ways to metegate my combo. So despite his losses they wer close enough that eh still enjoyed himself. When I was reading trough the rulebook for another deck/pool i stumbled across one tiny line of text that proved my combo wouldn't work quiet the way I intended (it's untill end of turn rather than permanent) the combo still works, but it's not as broken. So the next time I met the guy, I immediatly told him about it and basically said "my bad" and that for all I care those wins belonged to him now.

After all it was no big deal, and I already have an idea for another deadly combo!

I play with a friend who doesn't purposely cheat, but does rules lawyer and play RAW against RAI all the **** time. In 40K as you know, this is a huge ass problem. In X-wing not so much.

In x-wing it leads to some brutal games. In 40K. Well, I just don't play 40K until some of the unbalances have been ironed out. I've enough to do in the meantime, I can wait forever if I have to.

I don't get cheating. I want to become better, that is the fun I have playing games. The goal of course is to win, but losing is absolutely fine and often has more worth to me, since it makes identifying mistakes easier.

I did however accidently cheat in a tournament once. Forgot about simultaneous fire which gave me a win, where the game should most likely have been a draw. That felt horrible, luckily we got to play again another time and he rightfully won.

Yeah I never understood it either.

My friend James and I (rules lawyer) always have an after action on our games. What went wrong, what went right, what could have been done etc.

In my opinion it was always the best part of the game. What's that old phrase, when you lose, make sure you never lose the lesson?

That makes me want to put a real effort into getting more games in, not had a chance to since moving house.

I was going to play xwing tonight

then the lego modular bank set arrived about an hour ago... i can't touch it yet or the wife will kill me but as soon as she's home we're reverting to 13 year old mode and building it.

There is a guy who made calculations for every possible move in Britannia. Then, when it suited him, he gave advice to newbies. He won game after game, gloating and all.

He started creating a new set for Hispania.

So, next game, me and a friend made an agreement; whatever happened, he was not going to win. Either one of us or the new guy, who was the fourth player. But not him. Everytime he gave advice we attacked him, every time we could think of a weird reason we attacked him. (You attacked the Galicians! They are pink! How dare you attack a small population coloured pink?)

In the first phases of the game the new guy thought we were being nasty for ganging up on one player, especially as the player in question gave him such friendly advice. Before halfway through, he realized why we did it. And joined us.

Outside, next to a tall, bright, warm campfire, beer in hand, several friends listened to angry ravings about us playing illogically, uncalculated, weird, evil, monstrous, and the like.

And had a great laugh!

I remember way WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY back then, when Dune2000 came out we ran a little server in college, the rest of the group did this to me. God dammit. (To be fair they had to, I was the best, I knew it, so they made a point, I could overwhelm one person at once, not three).

Of course, since my circle of friends has it's fair share of extreme rules lawyers (mental note, get new friends...). Ganging up tends to happen.

As does DM assisted(not cheating, just... enabling) backstabbing in D20...

... As does sudden team changing in COD...

...AS does friendly fire in... most games...

We're dicks to each other.

you mean; the fun of gaming with good friends!

Added with betrayel came the effect of every conflict becomming total war. Whatever the game was.

Of course. And the backstabbing. The constant backstabbing.

Constant backstabbing and the promise this time it really won't happen!

When I first got space engineers, I rammed a fighter into my friends ships hangar, my other friend rammed his ship through my station.... This was (THANKFULLY!) before guns were a thing..

My nephew loves the game. Alas, he's 9 and not very good at it.

I sometimes sneakily reverse cheat to give him the edge. For example, i 'forget' to include my extra red/green when attacking/defending at R1/R3. On few occasions I've executed a slightly different turn to land my ship in front of his.

When he tells stories of the game to my sister, it's never about who won or lost .. It's always about the ship that got a perfect shot on another, or how he sandwiched me and blew me up. I find more joy in seeing him happy than getting the victory.

Ah Betrayal: Even better when it's suposidly co-op: My group and I were playing the D&D adventure boardgame:

And it's your usual band of adventurers vs the dungeonmaster fare. Except I'm the cleric wich mean I will hang back an entire board piece and let everybody else do the dungeoneering, because when they get hurt/die, I can patch 'em up. If I die, they are soon to follow. (right? ) Then our rogue is more intrested in opening treasure chests rather than backing up our fighter. Kinda in character for that class but our fighter is complaining he has to do all the work (tank and draw agro). A situation wich didn't improve during game two in wich i got my hands on a magical horn (not like that you pervs! )

Said magical horn had the power to summon one of the other players' character piece on an adjacent space. Que me walking up to a closed door and then summon our fighter on the other side of it * Thereby revealing the room and any monsters (3 orcs) therin. Now bear in mind, It costs an action to open a door, I had no actions left, and it was the dungeonmasters turn next. Meaning i had (purposfully) stranded our fighter in a locked room with some orcs looking to kick his ass.

Now I don't see what the problem was: After all he has to draw out the monsters and I can heal him, right? I'm just glad it wasn't me on the other side of that door. Moewhahhahaa

* Also worked real well in Morrowind.

My nephew loves the game. Alas, he's 9 and not very good at it.

I sometimes sneakily reverse cheat to give him the edge. For example, i 'forget' to include my extra red/green when attacking/defending at R1/R3. On few occasions I've executed a slightly different turn to land my ship in front of his.

When he tells stories of the game to my sister, it's never about who won or lost .. It's always about the ship that got a perfect shot on another, or how he sandwiched me and blew me up. I find more joy in seeing him happy than getting the victory.

I have that with magic the gathering: You are teaching a new guy, and he has only one (crap) deck and all you have are your good decks and you wanna go easy* on him... and every game you draw a perfect opening hand with all your best cards.

* trying new stuff and try to win without using your best cards. Wich in itself quite good training as you might not always have those cards when you need them.

My nephew loves the game. Alas, he's 9 and not very good at it.

I sometimes sneakily reverse cheat to give him the edge. For example, i 'forget' to include my extra red/green when attacking/defending at R1/R3. On few occasions I've executed a slightly different turn to land my ship in front of his.

When he tells stories of the game to my sister, it's never about who won or lost .. It's always about the ship that got a perfect shot on another, or how he sandwiched me and blew me up. I find more joy in seeing him happy than getting the victory.

That's the kind of cheating I can get behind. I've done similar things when teaching new people to play, so it's not an all-out slaughterfest

Ah Betrayal: Even better when it's suposidly co-op: My group and I were playing the D&D adventure boardgame:

And it's your usual band of adventurers vs the dungeonmaster fare. Except I'm the cleric wich mean I will hang back an entire board piece and let everybody else do the dungeoneering, because when they get hurt/die, I can patch 'em up. If I die, they are soon to follow. (right? ) Then our rogue is more intrested in opening treasure chests rather than backing up our fighter. Kinda in character for that class but our fighter is complaining he has to do all the work (tank and draw agro). A situation wich didn't improve during game two in wich i got my hands on a magical horn (not like that you pervs! )

Said magical horn had the power to summon one of the other players' character piece on an adjacent space. Que me walking up to a closed door and then summon our fighter on the other side of it * Thereby revealing the room and any monsters (3 orcs) therin. Now bear in mind, It costs an action to open a door, I had no actions left, and it was the dungeonmasters turn next. Meaning i had (purposfully) stranded our fighter in a locked room with some orcs looking to kick his ass.

Now I don't see what the problem was: After all he has to draw out the monsters and I can heal him, right? I'm just glad it wasn't me on the other side of that door. Moewhahhahaa

* Also worked real well in Morrowind.

Oh wow that game gives me some memories, bought a copy in a charity shop a few years ago and even painted a couple of the minis, bloody hard to make look half decent haha!

Oh wow that game gives me some memories, bought a copy in a charity shop a few years ago and even painted a couple of the minis, bloody hard to make look half decent haha!

Yeah, it somehow feels cheap, like a knock off Heroquest, but hey, it's D&D and it had some funky dice. I bought it when it came out and even then it wasn't expensive.

I know the kind but for the life of me I can never figure out just why they're getting off on winning that way. Hell I normally help the younglings even if they're playing the opposing side so they can learn the game(s...not just X-Wing) and have a positive experience which will get them to play again and spread the word.

Sad sobs like mentioned above should just be banned from playing at local stores by the owners.

Same reason why people cheat in online games.

Their fragile egos cannot stand the thought of losing to anyone, and this combined with the fact that they have no faith in their own abilities will make them cheat to win.

Personally, I always play to win. Whether it's a kid or an adult, doesn't matter.

I work with kids, and I play tons of games with kids.

And you know what?

The kids always want to play against me, out of all the staff there.

Because I always play fair, but I play to win. I never "let" them win to be nice. If they win, they earned it.

And that's a badge they love to wear

(and it also teaches the kids who can't stand losing, how to learn from losses and get better instead of just getting upset and throwing a temper tantrum.)

My nephew loves the game. Alas, he's 9 and not very good at it.

I sometimes sneakily reverse cheat to give him the edge. For example, i 'forget' to include my extra red/green when attacking/defending at R1/R3. On few occasions I've executed a slightly different turn to land my ship in front of his.

When he tells stories of the game to my sister, it's never about who won or lost .. It's always about the ship that got a perfect shot on another, or how he sandwiched me and blew me up. I find more joy in seeing him happy than getting the victory.

I have that with magic the gathering: You are teaching a new guy, and he has only one (crap) deck and all you have are your good decks and you wanna go easy* on him... and every game you draw a perfect opening hand with all your best cards.

* trying new stuff and try to win without using your best cards. Wich in itself quite good training as you might not always have those cards when you need them.

The drawing the perfect hand kind of stuff is annoying. I've played teaching games in other systems where you're trying to teach them and take it somewhat easy and the dice blow up in their face.