...Going around looking for, what is essentially broken equipment to play your games with in order to give you an advantage, is indeed very much against the rules.

Sure, it might not say so specifically in the rulebook.

I'm really sorry for being pedantic, but if it's not illegal in the rules, it's not illegal.

X-Wing has had more than it's fair share of FAQs where it could have addressed this issue. The fact that it hasn't means that it isn't seen as a problem.

That and self contradiction?

Cheers

Baaa

A: It doesn't matter how many FAQ's they've had, if this has not been brought up as a problem before.

B: The fact that it hasn't been seen as a problem before, doesn't mean it isn't a problem. (For example, most cheats aren't a problem until someone starts using them)

C: You seem to be a rules-lawyer. If it's not explicitly in the rules, then it's fair game to you. However, there's plenty of things that are not in the rules that are still not allowed. For example, it states nowhere in the rules that I'm not allowed to tear your cards up, but I'm sure I'd be disqualified if I did so during a match.

It also doesn't state any of the following actions as being against the rules:

Flipping the table mid-battle.

Taking a great big dump on your opponents cards.

Shooting your opponent with a paintball gun while playing.

Bumping the table when your opponent is rolling the dice.

Hitting your opponent in the head with a hammer (although that one is illegal in general, but still... not in the rulebook).

But I'm sure if I asked any official on FFG about any of those things, he'd say they're not allowed (or at least generally frowned upon), despite not being in the rulebook.

So yeah, not everything is in the rulebook, but that's because most of those things are covered by common sense.

That includes playing with loaded dice.

See if you're opponent will let you roll them...

If he won't, they're loaded.

By FFG tournament rules, he MUST allow you to use his dice if you request to. Same goes for range rulers and maneuver templates.

Oh, so there IS precedence for this and it HAS been adressed before...

Hence it HAS been seen as a problem...

Interesting

check the firing pin indicator and or slide the breech back!!!

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/201055-question-about-dice-in-store-championship/page-4

Wow, there's whole recent thread on this and no-one thought to mention it.

Cheating requires intent.

Therefore, the idea that this superstitious selection of dice is cheating is, frankly, idiotic.

Again, the depends on the definition being used. But, if someone honestly believes that their dice, whether it is because they put the in a microwave for 1 second or because they believe that some force is going to assist them, what do their choice to use that perceived advantage say about what they believe is fair? I ask because intent is an element of your test for cheating.

Whatever. I read that other thread just then, as well as this one, and you are clearly deluded. You can define cheat however you want, but if you call me a cheat because of an unintentional mistake, and disrespect my honesty, I shall refrain from busting you one upside the head and gather my little plastic toys and never play you again. Easily fixed. The rest of the world will continue to define cheating as having intent. 20 years of science has taught me how to look up words and understand their meaning.

This one you are clearly fixated on, even though other definitions are better. "to break a rule or law usually to gain an advantage at something"

The point you have clearly missed (by focussing on "usually") is that "to" is a preposition, and in this case it clearly means this.

Dictionary.com

(used for expressing aim, purpose, or intention):

going to the rescue.

Now please stop. You're just embarrassing yourself, by having such a simple word explained to you.

Good day sir.

Also, that 'usually' does not necessarily mean there is no intent if it is not the 'usual' situation. One could cheat (break a rule with deliberate intent) for reasons other than gaining an advantage, e.g. to disadvantage someone else. For example, you could cheat to deliberately lose to a friend (by deliberately breaking rules to your disadvantage such as saying you're in range of their attack when you know you are not, or ignoring a mandatory effect to your detriment) to benefit them rather than yourself, or to disadvantage someone else (e.g. replacing someone else's dice with bad loaded dice in a game you are not playing in because you don't like them). In other words, you can easily read that definition as saying that you can cheat for reasons other than to gain an advantage rather than saying it implies no intent.

And I just checked the MW website and you are quoting the MW simple definition of cheat. Right below it is their full definition, which cleary defines the intent others have been speaking about:

Full Definition of cheat

transitive verb

1

: to deprive of something valuable by the use of deceit or fraud

2

: to influence or lead by deceit, trick, or artifice

3

: to elude or thwart by or as if by outwitting <cheat death>

Just to add fuel to the fire here, what's the difference between buying/creating loaded dice, and searching through (potentially thousands) of dice packs to find dice that are unbalanced and roll high statistically more often than not?

In other words, would you consider it just as much cheating if someone tested store-bought dice for thousands of rolls to find the ones that give unnaturally high crit rolls as if that person tampered with the dice to get the same results?

Good luck to them. Literally.

Let's say that they can roll them them 10K times and get one with say 60% bias.

Roll it 10K more times and see if it's still biased. Do it 100K more times? Where do you draw the line?

Assuming the dice weight is within a couple of percent of each other, a decent shake in the hand and a decent drop, each roll is an independent entity. Chaos takes care of the rest.

I have a very very accurate balance at work. I'll check my 30 dice. It may be a while as I have field work coming up, but if I remember, I'll give it a go.

I've (partially) already addressed that one further up the thread from my perspective - if it actually resulted in them using dice that noticably affected the results beyond what I believed was pure chance (e.g. rather than just eliminating 'unlucky' dice they had stumbled on to one with a manufacturing defect that caused it to roll unfairly) and in a tournament situation the TO agreed with me, then I would request that they change dice.

If someone conducted thorough (and it would have to be thorough to identify actual 'faulty' dice reliably) testing to deliberately and scientifically identify dice that rolled consistently unfairly with the intent of using that to their advantage that is cheating.

If they just did the old 'roll 20 dice, get rid of all the misses, reroll, get rid of all the misses etc.' that's just superstition and if they found a mismanufactured die with that probability it's pure luck.

Again, I think that if most people who follow such dice superstitions actually found they were using dice that had manufacturing faults rather than just being lucky they would swap them out without hesitation. The dice most people perceive as lucky are due to them rolling well 'just when they needed them' - I believe that most people (other than deliberate cheaters) who found a dice that rolled a crit every other roll consistently would realise it's not lucky but faulty and choose not to use it.

Just to add fuel to the fire here, what's the difference between buying/creating loaded dice, and searching through (potentially thousands) of dice packs to find dice that are unbalanced and roll high statistically more often than not?

In other words, would you consider it just as much cheating if someone tested store-bought dice for thousands of rolls to find the ones that give unnaturally high crit rolls as if that person tampered with the dice to get the same results?

Not intentionally loaded dice, but dice that someone has spent time selecting.

If someone wants to spend their time doing that, it's not cheating.

And as for your sudden realisation that both players can use the same templates or dice, it's been in the rules since the game started.

Cheers

Baaa

If they spent the time and amazing effort to select a die that verifiably, confirmably and reliably delivered unfair results and deliberately used that to gain an unfair advantage, that is cheating.

Further, if caught in a tournament situation using such a die the TO is completely within their rights to make them use alternative dice.

Just to add fuel to the fire here, what's the difference between buying/creating loaded dice, and searching through (potentially thousands) of dice packs to find dice that are unbalanced and roll high statistically more often than not?

In other words, would you consider it just as much cheating if someone tested store-bought dice for thousands of rolls to find the ones that give unnaturally high crit rolls as if that person tampered with the dice to get the same results?

If you'd actually read what I wrote instead of just skimming over what I wrote, you'd see that this is the scenario I'm talking about.

Not intentionally loaded dice, but dice that someone has spent time selecting.

If someone wants to spend their time doing that, it's not cheating.

And as for your sudden realisation that both players can use the same templates or dice, it's been in the rules since the game started.

Cheers

Baaa

So what you're saying is that as long as you're not tampering with the gear yourself, but instead just going out of your way to find gear that's broken, that's not cheating.

Oh and it's not that both players can use the same templates or dice, but rather that one player can demand to use the opponents dice.

And that points to this being considered an actual issue.

But I suspect you're just a belligerent troll, so I fully expect you to say something along the lines of "but it's actually not printed in the rules, and thus not illegal" (also, conveniently ignoring my previous post about how some things aren't printed in the rules, but still very much not allowed).

It's pretty clear that using equipment that is, essentially, malfunctioning, to give yourself an advantage is cheating.

But, as always, there's bound to be some rules lawyer that evokes the holy "I'm not technically breaking the rules, because this outlier scenario is not printed in the rules" speech.

If you're using loaded dice, you're cheating.

Doesn't matter if you made those loaded dice yourself, paid someone else to make them or looked through thousands of dice packs to find malfunctioning ones.

They're still not random dice in a game based around dice being random.

But this does bring up an intersting question.

Would you consider it cheating if your opponent was using a range ruler that was misprinted and actually 5% longer than the usual one?

Or using ships bases that were slightly larger than they were supposed to be?

Or misprinted dice with one more dodge icon than it usually has?

Or if his base cards had firing arcs that were slightly wider than they should be?

Especially since the last one is not something you could demand to "share" during the battle to even out the advantage given.

And, keep in mind, it doesn't state anywhere in the rules that a misprinted base card is invalid (at least not that I could find)

PS. the post you quoted wasn't directed at you (I'm fully aware of your views on the subject), but rather to the others in the thread.

Good luck to them. Literally.

Let's say that they can roll them them 10K times and get one with say 60% bias.

Roll it 10K more times and see if it's still biased. Do it 100K more times? Where do you draw the line?

Assuming the dice weight is within a couple of percent of each other, a decent shake in the hand and a decent drop, each roll is an independent entity. Chaos takes care of the rest.

I have a very very accurate balance at work. I'll check my 30 dice. It may be a while as I have field work coming up, but if I remember, I'll give it a go.

I'm not talking about finding that one dice that has a 1% higher chance of rolling a crit.

I'm talking about finding dice that rolls crits so often that it can't be anything else than a factory mistake.

You wouldn't have to roll a dice like that 10k times to see that it's broken.

(for example, the OP talks about dice that rolls hits/crits 90-95% of the time, no matter who is rolling them)

For me, whether it's cheating is down to whether it was deliberately done with the intent to gain an unfair advantage. So, if I see someone's ruler compared to mine and think 'hold on, that doesn't look quite right', compared it to mine and found one was a different size to the other, I'd want to:

a) Check it's not my ruler that's too short - possibly a more likely scenario due to wear - and if so swap it out

b) Point this out to the other person, who I would expect to swap it out for a fair ruler

I'd certainly give the other person the benefit of the doubt and assume it was an innocent error rather that cheating unless I had good reason to believe the latter.

P.S. re. incorrect components, such as with misprinted firing arcs, too large/small bases, or dice that roll crits every other roll consistently and provably, the tournament rules contain the following that allows the TO to deal with this:

"During tournament play, each player is required to use the components included in official X-Wing products (see “Legal Products” on page 5).

The head judge is the final authority on any component’s eligibility in the tournament. If a component is ruled ineligible and the player cannot locate a replacement for it, that player is disqualfied from the tournament."

P.S. re. incorrect components, such as with misprinted firing arcs, too large/small bases, or dice that roll crits every other roll consistently and provably, the tournament rules contain the following that allows the TO to deal with this:

"During tournament play, each player is required to use the components included in official X-Wing products (see “Legal Products” on page 5).

The head judge is the final authority on any component’s eligibility in the tournament. If a component is ruled ineligible and the player cannot locate a replacement for it, that player is disqualfied from the tournament."

In other words, it is considered cheating (if used on purpose) by FFG.

Otherwise they wouldn't have that rule.

And I fully agree with you on intent. It's only cheating if you're doing it on purpose.

And looking at the OP's post, I'd say this fellow is certainly doing it on purpose since he seems to be aware of his dice rolling unusually high hit/crit rolls no matter who is rolling them.

If I was the OP, I'd simply demand that the player in question not use his own dice, but instead share his opponents die.

Good luck to them. Literally.

Let's say that they can roll them them 10K times and get one with say 60% bias.

Roll it 10K more times and see if it's still biased. Do it 100K more times? Where do you draw the line?

Assuming the dice weight is within a couple of percent of each other, a decent shake in the hand and a decent drop, each roll is an independent entity. Chaos takes care of the rest.

I have a very very accurate balance at work. I'll check my 30 dice. It may be a while as I have field work coming up, but if I remember, I'll give it a go.

I'm not talking about finding that one dice that has a 1% higher chance of rolling a crit.

I'm talking about finding dice that rolls crits so often that it can't be anything else than a factory mistake.

You wouldn't have to roll a dice like that 10k times to see that it's broken.

(for example, the OP talks about dice that rolls hits/crits 90-95% of the time, no matter who is rolling them)

A "couple" of people rolled them "several" times. I must write a paper on this lickety split and submit it Science! My Noble Prize in physics will be in the mail by Christmas.

*edit* and by that sarcastic remark, I mean the test is not statistically significant.

Anyway, If I had real suspicions, I'd weigh the dice individually and compare to other dice (not his) to start with, and look at them under a dissecting microscope for a telltale plug hole obscured by paint. Should do the trick.

Putting myself in a TO's shoes, and presuming a lack of scientific measuring equipment at the venue, I'd take the following tack if a player approached me believing another player's dice were rolling unfairly:

a) Ask the player with the 'offending' dice if they minded swapping them out (I would expect 95% of the time they will be happy to do so, problem solved).

b) if they are not willing to do so, test roll the offending die a reasonable number of times (easy enough to roll a die twenty or so times quickly) and assess if there seems to be a bias e.g. with an attack die it should be missing 50% of the time; if I saw 70% plus hits I'd get suspicious and test again. According to a quick probability calculator I found, the chance of getting 15 hits on 20 rolls is about 2% so that seems reasonable in the situation

c) If no problem is apparent, play on; if it looks like the die may be problematic, direct the player to swap it out.

Good luck to them. Literally.

Let's say that they can roll them them 10K times and get one with say 60% bias.

Roll it 10K more times and see if it's still biased. Do it 100K more times? Where do you draw the line?

Assuming the dice weight is within a couple of percent of each other, a decent shake in the hand and a decent drop, each roll is an independent entity. Chaos takes care of the rest.

I have a very very accurate balance at work. I'll check my 30 dice. It may be a while as I have field work coming up, but if I remember, I'll give it a go.

I'm not talking about finding that one dice that has a 1% higher chance of rolling a crit.

I'm talking about finding dice that rolls crits so often that it can't be anything else than a factory mistake.

You wouldn't have to roll a dice like that 10k times to see that it's broken.

(for example, the OP talks about dice that rolls hits/crits 90-95% of the time, no matter who is rolling them)

A "couple" of people rolled them "several" times. I must write a paper on this lickety split and submit it Science! My Noble Prize in physics will be in the mail by Christmas.

*edit* and by that sarcastic remark, I mean the test is not statistically significant.

Anyway, If I had real suspicions, I'd weigh the dice individually and compare to other dice (not his) to start with, and look at them under a dissecting microscope for a telltale plug hole obscured by paint. Should do the trick.

Read what the OP is writing, before making spiteful comments.

As far as the 90-95% data goes. One of our members is a mathematical genius, he does work at a nuclear power station not far from here. He sat and watched this guy play several games over a month time frame, and recorded his rolls (he did it under the guise of writing a blog on tactics, which he did), he said that the probability of the number of hits/crits/evades this guy rolls is near impossible.

I like the idea of just telling him that we as a group are uncomfortable playing him with his current dice set, and that we feel that his dice may have manufacturing issues. He'll I'll even purchase a couple dice sets for him to replace his current ones.

He's been pretty gracious about letting us check out his dice, so there is a good chance he's not a cheater.

Unfortuantely nothing said, which statistical procedure was used to identify the bias (if any). But at least there is an extensvie data sample which looks suspiciuous.

Edit: Added last sentence.

Good luck to them. Literally.

Let's say that they can roll them them 10K times and get one with say 60% bias.

Roll it 10K more times and see if it's still biased. Do it 100K more times? Where do you draw the line?

Assuming the dice weight is within a couple of percent of each other, a decent shake in the hand and a decent drop, each roll is an independent entity. Chaos takes care of the rest.

I have a very very accurate balance at work. I'll check my 30 dice. It may be a while as I have field work coming up, but if I remember, I'll give it a go.

I'm not talking about finding that one dice that has a 1% higher chance of rolling a crit.

I'm talking about finding dice that rolls crits so often that it can't be anything else than a factory mistake.

You wouldn't have to roll a dice like that 10k times to see that it's broken.

(for example, the OP talks about dice that rolls hits/crits 90-95% of the time, no matter who is rolling them)

A "couple" of people rolled them "several" times. I must write a paper on this lickety split and submit it Science! My Noble Prize in physics will be in the mail by Christmas.

*edit* and by that sarcastic remark, I mean the test is not statistically significant.

Anyway, If I had real suspicions, I'd weigh the dice individually and compare to other dice (not his) to start with, and look at them under a dissecting microscope for a telltale plug hole obscured by paint. Should do the trick.

Of course it wasn't scientific.

But it rules out him being simply super-lucky or anything like that.

And it wasn't just for one match. The OP notes that he does this all the time. So much so, that people have asked to test his dice and gotten similar results.

I'd also do an extensive test of the dice, but that's not what I was talking about in that post.

As far as the 90-95% data goes. One of our members is a mathematical genius, he does work at a nuclear power station not far from here. He sat and watched this guy play several games over a month time frame, and recorded his rolls (he did it under the guise of writing a blog on tactics, which he did), he said that the probability of the number of hits/crits/evades this guy rolls is near impossible.

I like the idea of just telling him that we as a group are uncomfortable playing him with his current dice set, and that we feel that his dice may have manufacturing issues. He'll I'll even purchase a couple dice sets for him to replace his current ones.

He's been pretty gracious about letting us check out his dice, so there is a good chance he's not a cheater.

I'd do exactly that. I'd offer to either buy him new dice or simply insist on using his dice whenever I was facing him (ie. sharing the dice with him, not switching the dice sets).

If he is genuinely not cheating or purposely taking advantage of this (which some seem to think isn't cheating), he wouldn't object to either of those solutions.

Homer Simpson also works at a nuclear power plant ;-)

Just kidding - in this case, it sounds like the guy is pretty open, letting folks check out his dice etc. Did someone try rolling them a good number of times to see if there was an apparent bias? For the number of hits/crits/evades to be near impossible, I'd expect to see a significant deviation from the expected norm. Please note: I am not a statistician, the following is based on what I've learned from looking into probability. I'm sure we do have statisticians on this forum who will set me straight if I have misinterpreted!

Having observed and recorded dice rolls over several games, I'd expect the OP's friend has records of a hundred plus attack die rolls (choosing those over evade dice as they have a 50% miss rate so the calculations are more straihtforward). Lets say there is a record of 100 rols for ease of calculation. On 100 attack die rolls at 50% miss chance, the standard deviation (one sigma) is 5. The maths say that 68% of the time the results will fall within one sigma of the mean (45-55% miss rate miss). 95% of cases will fall within 2 sigma (40-60% miss rate) and 99.7% within 3 sigma (35-65% miss rate). 3 sigma is generally considered the scientific minimum for confidence (5 is generally preferred). For 'near impossible' I'd have thought the OP's friend would be seeing closer to four sigma (less than 35% or more than 65% miss rate on 100 rolls), the odds of which are approximately 1 in 16,000 - to put that in context. if you were talking about the chance for an event to occur on a given day at this odds, it would occur about twice in an average lifetime (which I think is close enough for a working definition of 'near impossible' in the context of a few months of games).

If something's showing that big a deviation on the basis of 100 rolls, a few minutes spent rolling the die in question should soon reveal that it's rolling unreasonably far away from the mean.

When I first started playing 40k way back in the '90s, there was this guy who would go around and curse other people's dice. Like full on Voodoo style cursing.

Anybody he did it to would roll mostly 1's that game.

We just all thought it was just bad luck.

Now we're not so sure.

Especially since the guy went missing in the swamps of Louisiana....