So if I rub my stomach and pat my head before every roll because I think it's going to provide a favorable outcome I'm trying to cheat? You ever watch people playing craps? If the casino's haven't banned them then I have to assume they aren't cheating.

"I __________ so that I roll 6s intead of 1s."

It doesn't matter what you fill the blank in with. If you take any action that you believe will alter the random nature of a die roll where that random nature is a part of a game, then you are attempting to cheat. It isn't a quesyion of your opinion or how stupid the player who is trying to manipulate the dice is, just like someone who points a gun at another's head and pulls the trigger not knowing that the gun isn't loaded is guilty of attempted murder, that player is guilty of attempting to cheat.

You might want to brush up on the definition of random. If I flip a coin a dozen times and it lands heads up a dozen times am I cheating or is this not a random occurrence? If you say it's not random or I'm somehow cheating you'd be wrong on both counts.

I don't know how that relates or what prompted it, but the nuture of the way that an outcome was generated determines whether it is random, not the outcome itself.

The current tournament rulebook allows for any player to request the use of a single set of range rulers and/or maneuver templates (in the Range Rulers and Maneuver Templates section). I cannot think of an instance where a rational TO would have just cause to reject a player's request that that rule be extended to include attack and defense dice, especially if the TO is already suspicious of your opponent's dice.

I guess that is the answer I was looking for I should have requested a single set of dice be used during that game. I thank you all for your input.

If I havent tested or modified my dice and I get to a tournament with 10 dice and roll them all and pool the hits and crits into a pile of 6 and I use those 6 and put away the 4 blanks, did I just cheat. No, I am just a superstitious bugger.

So if I rub my stomach and pat my head before every roll because I think it's going to provide a favorable outcome I'm trying to cheat? You ever watch people playing craps? If the casino's haven't banned them then I have to assume they aren't cheating.

Yes. Obviously. I don't see why this is giving you trouble.

"I __________ so that I roll 6s intead of 1s."

It doesn't matter what you fill the blank in with. If you take any action that you believe will alter the random nature of a die roll where that random nature is a part of a game, then you are attempting to cheat. It isn't a quesyion of your opinion or how stupid the player who is trying to manipulate the dice is, just like someone who points a gun at another's head and pulls the trigger not knowing that the gun isn't loaded is guilty of attempted murder, that player is guilty of attempting to cheat.

You might want to brush up on the definition of random. If I flip a coin a dozen times and it lands heads up a dozen times am I cheating or is this not a random occurrence? If you say it's not random or I'm somehow cheating you'd be wrong on both counts.

I don't know how that relates or what prompted it, but the nuture of the way that an outcome was generated determines whether it is random, not the outcome itself.

Can you stop calling half the people on the boards stupid because they believe sometime you can't prove to be untrue.

If I havent tested or modified my dice and I get to a tournament with 10 dice and roll them all and pool the hits and crits into a pile of 6 and I use those 6 and put away the 4 blanks, did I just cheat. No, I am just a superstitious bugger.

Once, probably not.

100 times at home, yes.

Doubly so if you then take the one that only ever rolled eyes and blanks and only ever use it when you go over obstacles.

I don't completely disagree with Rapture, but the bar for cheating has to be higher than simple intent, it has to be both intent and ability.

If I have a die that will land with <hit> up 75% of the time, but I don't actually know that, because I've never tested it, and don't have it marked in some way. I'm not cheating even if I roll that die every time.

...

I'm not so sure that a cheater needs the ability so much as the intent but it can be impossible to prove intent which leaves ability as the determination.

Now how will you know if you have a die that rolls hits 75% of the time unless it is tested. In this case "testing" may be a simple as repeatedly using it although if you haven't specifically identified the die it may be hard to know for certain. I know confirmation bias is a real thing but if you have four dice that you regularly use and get above average performance out of them I believe there is some justification calling you a 'cheat' unless you figure out why you are performing above (or below) expected.

Going back to the OPs example where I believe a good argument for cheating comes in when mentioning the die as being marked. I'm not sure how obvious it was but that certain would be a tipping point to me.

If I havent tested or modified my dice and I get to a tournament with 10 dice and roll them all and pool the hits and crits into a pile of 6 and I use those 6 and put away the 4 blanks, did I just cheat. No, I am just a superstitious bugger.

Once, probably not.

100 times at home, yes.

Doubly so if you then take the one that only ever rolled eyes and blanks and only ever use it when you go over obstacles.

Even 100 times. Probability does not equal outcome. Ever flipped a coin 100 times. Surprised when it doesnt come up 50 /50...

I roll my regional dice when I want to hits or evades and my normal dice when I want a miss. I did not alter them in any way nor have I bothered to roll them several hundred times to check the stats (quite frankly, I have better things to do). I just have fond memories of the regionals whenever I roll them and it makes me smile.

I also have this weird belief that I "feed" my dice whenever I ion a target to death, allowing my IGs to collect the bounty. The higher PS my target is, the better (I feel richer).

The real question now is this: who is the craziest? Me for indulging a fantasy or someone else for taking them seriously?... also while keeping in mind that the guy next to me is making "pew, pew, pew!" sounds because he thinks he hits harder this way?

Now how will you know if you have a die that rolls hits 75% of the time unless it is tested.

That's the point, I could have a die that rolls that well and not actually know it. Especially given how uniform X-Wing dice seem to be. The point being, that it's hard and IMO unfair to accuse someone of cheating if they had no way of knowing that their die was defective. So intent has to exist to some degree.

Let's say in theory, there was someone who seemed to have better then normal luck with dice, and someone finally tested those dice and found out one or more of them was defective... Can we accuse that person of cheating if they had no idea?

But on the other hand, if intent is the only thing that matters, and as you point out intent can be hard to prove, than anything no matter how silly that is intended to affect the roll is cheating. If someone gets a good roll and says 'Ahh I see my lucky hat is working today!' then by that standard they should be DQ'ed from the game and perhaps the tournament.

Sorry if this has already been asked, I didn't read every post, but did the dice appear to have been smoothed down on one side or is it just the paint has fallen off?

If the paint has just fallen off, I wouldn't think it would make any difference on the end result of the roll. Paint is heavy, but I don't think there is enough paint on a side of these dice to change roll results.

I like everyone else have rolled different dice just because I got a lot of blanks, but it doesn't make a difference. What does is.. how much tumbling they get. A little handshake or a let's get serious and shake these things up and roll them around handshake. And I think rolling surfaces matter too. Live dice roll or a dead roll- thud. But it maybe wishful thinking.

Can you stop calling half the people on the boards stupid because they believe sometime you can't prove to be untrue.

Now how will you know if you have a die that rolls hits 75% of the time unless it is tested.

That's the point, I could have a die that rolls that well and not actually know it. Especially given how uniform X-Wing dice seem to be. The point being, that it's hard and IMO unfair to accuse someone of cheating if they had no way of knowing that their die was defective. So intent has to exist to some degree.

Let's say in theory, there was someone who seemed to have better then normal luck with dice, and someone finally tested those dice and found out one or more of them was defective... Can we accuse that person of cheating if they had no idea?

But on the other hand, if intent is the only thing that matters, and as you point out intent can be hard to prove, than anything no matter how silly that is intended to affect the roll is cheating. If someone gets a good roll and says 'Ahh I see my lucky hat is working today!' then by that standard they should be DQ'ed from the game and perhaps the tournament.

Can we accuse someone of cheating if they had no idea? YES. Now asking if they should be convicted of cheating is another story.

If we move away from X-Wing at look at various laws and such you can be found guilty of violating laws (ie cheating) despite never actually knowing the law. Similarly, you could get sued for something you thought was fine but which turned out not to be. If your dice roll better than average maybe you don't consciously want to recognize that because if you did you'd need to admit that something is wrong at which time continuing could be considered cheating.

I may agree that intent without a means is hard to call cheating but when you're throwing dice there are plenty of things that can provide that means. Here we may be looking at that "special" die but I know we've previously talked about various rolling methods on how they can be considered methods that can be used to cheat. You know your "lucky hat" certainly could provide a means to cheat; maybe not so much here but how about in Baseball where it may be used by a pitcher in some nefarious ways.

Now StarWars does have a history of cheaters in dice. Maybe everyone hates it but TPM is pretty clear about some kind of cheating going on to determine Anakin's fate before the pod race. If some player has telekinetic abilities and uses them to manipulate dice would that be cheating assuming no one else had those powers or even knew about them? I guess a little precognition to know what your opponent's dials were going to be set at wouldn't be cheating either although with a good player it may seem they are already using that ability.

I can't say for certain if the OP's opponent was cheating, attempting to cheat, or whatever although if the die was suspicious then perhaps it should have been investigated. I know how nasty that gut feeling that something isn't quite right can be and it happens in far more places than just X-Wing.

If your dice roll better than average maybe you don't consciously want to recognize that because if you did you'd need to admit that something is wrong at which time continuing could be considered cheating.

If you take and roll all your dice 100 times and mark and pick out the ones that roll better/worse then normal. Then yes you have an issue. But unless you can show that the person somehow knowingly used a given die because it rolled better there's no real way you can say they were cheating even if that die was better then normal.

Because if we want to drag the law into it, intent does in fact matter in some cases. There are some cases where you have to show intent, even if it's only inferred, and if you're unable to show intent then nothing happens.

But otoh, how many people have been arrested and convicted for saying 'I want to kill you!'. They may have intent but unless they actually act on it, have they committed a crime?

but how about in Baseball where it may be used by a pitcher in some nefarious ways.

That would be no different than testing your dice.

I can't say for certain if the OP's opponent was cheating, attempting to cheat

As a TO I'd of said something. I'd make him use a different die and I wouldn't let people throw dice that were marked in someway.

I don't completely disagree with Rapture, but the bar for cheating has to be higher than simple intent, it has to be both intent and ability.

Close. "Intent and feasibility."

But otoh, how many people have been arrested and convicted for saying 'I want to kill you!'. They may have intent but unless they actually act on it, have they committed a crime?

There is a difference between "I'm going to kill you," and "I want to kill you." Or even "I wish you were dead."

Threats, like the first, are in fact criminal offenses.

Can you stop calling half the people on the boards stupid because they believe sometime you can't prove to be untrue.

What can't I prove? That intent constitutes an attempt regardless of one's ability to acheive the desired result? That is an objective fact. Or is it that people who believe that their unwashed tshirt or rolling their dice after shaking them three times will result in move favorable outcomes than a different outfit or different rolling style? I don't have to prove anything about that. It has been have tested many times and disproven, so, anyone who does believe that something like that will makes a difference and doesn't have evidence to support their claim is uniltelligent. I don't know what else to tell you.

That the people that believe are stupid. Not a direct correlation to intelligence at all. Repeatedly calling people stupid is unecessarily rude just to make a point about a game where you fly little plastic ships around a table.

That the people that believe are stupid. Not a direct correlation to intelligence at all.

Do you have a citation for that? I find it very difficult to believe that intelligence and "lack of superstition" aren't correlated. It may not be a particularly strong correlation, but I'd be willing to bet it's there. Just as one very major example, atheism and intelligence are definitely correlated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence

There seems to be a lot riding on a particular point in this debate. That being if you believe your dice are going to produce a certain result must be cheating. This theory just doesn't hold at all. I can believe I'm not going to roll blanks, but it doesn't alter the fact, that they're going to come up anyway, regardless of what I believed .

If, however, you know , as a matter of proven fact , that your dice are going to produce certain results, then there's no doubt that you're cheating. If somebody else can pick up your dice and get those same certain results, then it's pretty obvious that there's something fishy with those dice and they aren't performing to the manufacturer's specifications.

You can believe in lucky hats, lucky underwear, lucky talismans or whatever, all you want. That is never going to constitute cheating. But if you have knowledge about a die's non-random outcomes, then that's a different story.

Take another look at the OP's posts. He was suspicious about a die that was lacking it's normal marking on one face. But the way the opponent kept it carefully separated from the rest, in it's very own compartment, AND only used it for rolling when he was on an obstacle just sets off all sorts of alarm bells. Why does this guy go to such measures? If I was TO at this event, I'd be doing more than just taking a picture of this die. And if I were to be playing this guy, I'd absolutely demand this die be checked out thoroughly and/or not used during the match. I'd demand one set of dice only, even if they're donated by different player. This guy clearly has knowledge that this die is different from the rest. When asked about it, he said "it always rolls terrible".

The other thing that strikes me is, even if that one die wasn't skewed or weighted in any manner, you would still have to observe it more carefully when it's the only die being used to roll for obstacles. I know with my (far from fantastic) eyesight, I'd have a hard time seeing if the result was a blank over a worn off focus. He may for all intents and purposes be keeping it separate in order to avoid confusion with regular attack dice rolls. Regardless of the reasons, I think it should be sent to FFG for replacement, or sent to the nearest trash can ( whichever happens to be closer ).

If you believe a die is going to produce certain results, it's not the same as knowing it's going to produce certain results. Don't get those two confused when trying to lay an accusation of cheating , because you've got to be able to prove one of them, and proving belief is harder than proving knowledge .

Once again, the issue is not a division between "belief" and "fact."

The issue is a division between "feasibility" and "non-feasibility."

If your intent is to affect the dice by trying to never roll blanks, we do not yet have enough information to determine if you are cheating.

If your intent is to affect the dice by willing them to not roll blanks, you are not cheating . It does not matter whether you believe it's working, or has worked, or will work ... it is not feasible, even arguably (except on The X-Files ), therefore it's only goofy, it's not cheating.

If your intent is to cheat by mechanically rolling the dice in such a way that blanks will never come up, you are cheating . It does not matter if you are actually able to do it, or that you only believe that you can do it. That's irrelevant. The question is whether, given your intent to affect the dice rolls, it is feasible for you to do so.

If it is, even arguably, you are cheating.

Cheating does not have, as an "element of the crime," success at affecting what you're trying to affect. Cheating is only whether you are trying to have an affect, outside the rules, and whether it is feasible that you could. If both of those are true, you're cheating.

Because of the shape of the dice it's only feasible to measure across the points and the sides that separate the pyramidal sections. This will only tell you if the die measures up to other dice. These measurements should vary by less than 0.001". So it's kind of difficult to measure dice to see if they been altered.

Regarding the paint being worn off one of the icons. All 18 of my dice travel in the same compartment in my Flambeau case and for whatever reason, some are showing paint wear on one face. Why? No idea.

Not sure if it was on this web site or another one but an X-Wing player had his dice CT scanned. The scan showed several of his dice had small internal voids. I thought that was interesting. Seems like an extreme move just to check dice.

Finally, the dice manufacturer may weigh the dice after molding and recycle those that are out of spec. In this case being too light. As the molding dies wear, the weight of the dice will drift farther from nominal. As the game ages we can expect to see dice that don't measure up to dice manufactured early in the game's life.

Done

Cheating is only whether you are trying to have an affect, outside the rules, and whether it is feasible that you could. If both of those are true, you're cheating.

That is not right. There is a difference between attempting to cheat and actually cheating. Lets say that Player A brings loaded dice to a tournament and accidentally switches his dice with Player B before the first round starts. A and B play through the tournament with A using regular dice and B using the loaded dice. A attempted to cheat but was not successful. B did not intend to cheat, but cheated regardless of intent.

Cheating is only whether you are trying to have an affect, outside the rules, and whether it is feasible that you could. If both of those are true, you're cheating.

That is not right. There is a difference between attempting to cheat and actually cheating. Lets say that Player A brings loaded dice to a tournament and accidentally switches his dice with Player B before the first round starts. A and B play through the tournament with A using regular dice and B using the loaded dice. A attempted to cheat but was not successful. B did not intend to cheat, but cheated regardless of intent.

In any cheating scenario, there's only one cheat and one victim ( per game ). Due to Player A's ineptitude, he has unwittingly become the cheat and the victim. He's still a cheat because he brought loaded dice to a tournament with the intention of using them to create known results. You really can't call Player B a cheat, as he had no knowledge that he was using loaded dice and he had no intent to cheat, even though he unknowingly had the advantage of the loaded dice. How do you think the scenario would have gone down when A accused B of using loaded dice, and B replied with " but these are actually your dice. "

A player must have the intention to break the rules in order to be a cheat.

That the people that believe are stupid. Not a direct correlation to intelligence at all.

Do you have a citation for that? I find it very difficult to believe that intelligence and "lack of superstition" aren't correlated. It may not be a particularly strong correlation, but I'd be willing to bet it's there. Just as one very major example, atheism and intelligence are definitely correlated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence

It's funny, you pointed to an article that correlates church visits with education level in western cultures and found a positive correlation with religiosity and intelligence in African cultures. This has much less to do with this side argument and more to do with insulting those who disagree with you from behind the anonymity of your computer monitor or phone. Unless, you walk around daily telling people they are stupid to their faces, in which case, you must be a joy to play x-wing with.

That the people that believe are stupid. Not a direct correlation to intelligence at all.

Do you have a citation for that? I find it very difficult to believe that intelligence and "lack of superstition" aren't correlated. It may not be a particularly strong correlation, but I'd be willing to bet it's there. Just as one very major example, atheism and intelligence are definitely correlated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence

I read some of the studies that you provided the link to and while I found them interesting the one thing that bothers me about them is trying to quantify "religiosity". Putting a numerical value to one's beliefs and then comparing that to IQ then coming up with a correlation seems to me to be a little weak. Depending on how the questions were phrased would have an impact on the results to quantify religiosity.

Also the leaning of the researchers and or pollers could skew the results. I believe it was Benjamin Disraeli that was quoted as saying there are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics.

Even studies which deal with experimental facts can be effed up. Studies on the effects of coffee done decades ago were wrong in supporting the researchers' claims about coffee raising cholesterol because they failed to account for something as simple as a coffee filter. If the studies dealing with tangible quantities can be wrong imagine the errors introduced when trying to deal with intangibles and trying to quantify them.

Until a better way is found to quantify intangibles, I'll believe in God and roll my dice knowing I'm ahead of the referenced IQ curve.