Resolving disputes based on dice results annoys me. Me and a player I was against in a tournament came to a disagreement, the disagreement is unimportant because that is not what annoys me, what annoys me is the fact that what resolved our disagreement was the judge basing his decisions solely on the result of a dice roll.

The story is that the judge was called over by the other player and we both made our case about the disagreement. The judge heard us out and then asked if it was okay if he roll the dice to make a decision since the dice is impartial. At this point I said "no its not okay for you to roll the dice, the whole reason you where called over is because you are supposed to be a impartial person to judge and then make a decision one way or the other." I also added that I would be fine with whatever decision he made but not one made with a dice result. At this point the judge asked the other player whether he wanted hits or misses on the dice result, rolled the dice and based his decision on that.

This to me seems unfair and waste of of everyones time. It would have been better, but still in no way satisfactory, for the judge to just have come to the table, told everyone to shutup, rolled the dice, then say "I decided he is correct," and then just pointed at someone.

Im not sure how everyone else fells about dice roll dispute resolution or if this is common in tournaments? I would like to hear from tournament judges and hear their thoughts on basing their decisions on dice results? I would like to caveat that I understand that it is difficult to judge a tourney and that some judgments can be clear and easily made while other judgments might not be. I'm more interested in what would be a better way to make a judgement where no clear side is wrong or right without rolling the dice.

And the dispute was about...???

I need to second Hexdot here.

Without knowing what the dispute was about there is really no way of knowing what is going on. There certain can be times when you may call a judge over yet he will have no clear answer and if required to choose a "winner" then doing so randomly works. If you're calling some type of play the judge may not have an answer but by calling him you should be putting up a notice that can be used to establish a pattern which could lead to a clear decision.

If you say your opponent is illegally moving his ship but he says he's not how is a judge supposed to rule? Because of how it is stated we all know who is cheating but the judge may not have proof of it and watching doesn't see it happen again. Now it may not benefit you to call the judge in this case it may benefit the next player the opponent faces who sees the same thing happening. Now the judge has more information and can probably make a much better ruling.

I came across a similar situation. I was asked if it would be OK to resolve the situation by resolving it with a dice role. I said "no, we need a judge." There is a rules reference and faq for a reason. My opponient tried to guilt me into doing the die roll, I was correct in the ruling.i also do not blame my opponent for trying.

Sounds to me like you have a careless official, a rookie one who is unsure of themselves, or the judge personally knows your opponient and was helping them out. In my opinion.

When push comes to shove, stand up for yourself, be respectful and try to still have fun.

It's kind of important to give the context of why the judge was called over in this case. There's a lot of corner cases in this game where a decision is literally 50/50. Neither player right, nor wrong. A TO arriving, hearing both sides, and then deciding there's no good answer to the situation may well decide to toss a coin or roll a dice. It happens.

If it was one of those cases, I can't blame the TO for doing exactly what he did (although, it sounds like he should have made his position on it more clear to you). If it was something far more clear cut, then you have a grievance, but you really need to provide context to argue that.

And the dispute was about...???

It was about whether or not a ship was in range or not the argument being that the ship was in arc but not in range. The dispute arose because two ships where facing each other and had parallel edges and one of them had a higher pilot skill so that ship shot first and it was decided then between me and the other player that their was no shoot but when it got to the ships turn with lower pilot skill their was suddenly a argument to be made that their was a shoot and that the ship was indeed in range (I was the player with the higher pilot skill). like i said the argument was unimportant to me and i would have been fine with any decision the judge made as long as it was not one made with a dice roll.

If it's a rules issue where there's something in print in either the rulebook or FAW then, yeah, the dice rolling doesn't make sense in a proper Championship. There have been times where no one can honestly say whether a ship's in arc, for example. And if 3 people can't call it... well, you've got to make a decision somehow. Elections have been won and lost on drawing lots, it happens.

fwiw, I think the practice comes from the Warhammer scene, where GW's rules are often open to a variety of interpretations. So a die as as good as anything to decide between two povs. Better than stopping play for a long time to have a discussion on semantics.

I presume efforts were made by the TO to actually measure the distances and mark the arcs, rather than just eyeballing the scenario and deciding to throw a dice?

There are of times where there's no "right" answer in the circumstances, at which times I ahve no problem with using a dice result to pick which way it goes. It's times when there's a definite right or wrong that dice shouldn't be used. In the OPs situation, if they were truly parallel, then either they both had shots or neither did, so if they agreed at the first chance that there was no shot, then the second ship shouldn't have gotten to either (or if they want to dispute it, the first ship should have gotten to take a shot as a result).

And the dispute was about...???

It was about whether or not a ship was in range or not the argument being that the ship was in arc but not in range. The dispute arose because two ships where facing each other and had parallel edges and one of them had a higher pilot skill so that ship shot first and it was decided then between me and the other player that their was no shoot but when it got to the ships turn with lower pilot skill their was suddenly a argument to be made that their was a shoot and that the ship was indeed in range (I was the player with the higher pilot skill). like i said the argument was unimportant to me and i would have been fine with any decision the judge made as long as it was not one made with a dice roll.

Sounds like a simple case, there was a shot from the higher PS to the lower PS, therefore there should be an opportunity for the lower PS ship to return fire. That was a clear cut decision that should have been made by the judge.

However...there are times when it simply comes down to 50/50, neither party is right or wrong and it is up to the judge to make a call, in that situation the judge can decide to resolve the dispute via a dice roll so that the result is completely impartial and cannot be called into question later by anyone, not just the players.

It's a bit like where I play, I know the store owner and TO very well, I would be concerned that in a situation like that, if he sided with me, other people may imply it was down to me and him being friends that he gave me an advantage. I would rather the decision in that circumstance be completely impartial.

I presume efforts were made by the TO to actually measure the distances and mark the arcs, rather than just eyeballing the scenario and deciding to throw a dice?

Yes.

And the dispute was about...???

It was about whether or not a ship was in range or not the argument being that the ship was in arc but not in range. The dispute arose because two ships where facing each other and had parallel edges and one of them had a higher pilot skill so that ship shot first and it was decided then between me and the other player that their was no shoot but when it got to the ships turn with lower pilot skill their was suddenly a argument to be made that their was a shoot and that the ship was indeed in range (I was the player with the higher pilot skill). like i said the argument was unimportant to me and i would have been fine with any decision the judge made as long as it was not one made with a dice roll.

Sounds like a simple case, there was a shot from the higher PS to the lower PS, therefore there should be an opportunity for the lower PS ship to return fire. That was a clear cut decision that should have been made by the judge.

He said when it was the higher PS ships turn (his in this case), they agreed there WASN'T a shot, then when it came to the other guy's turn he all of a sudden decided there was a shot after all. Still a clearcut decision, just in the opposite direction.

The TO should just make a choice. Rolling a dice is not something that should be happening at an event. Part of being a TO is resolving a dispute, having players roll dice is not resolving that dispute it's a cop out.

And the dispute was about...???

I guess that's the question here.

If it's about a rules interaction, the judge needs to be able to make a call one way or the other. There are situations where even experienced players don't have ananswer. That is the judges one job that he is there for, so if he can't answer or check it up at least and instead needs to roll a die, then he should just not be a judge!

If the dispute was about an illegal play, that he didn't see, spectators need to be asked, and if there are none, or none impartial enough to be asked, i guess a die roll is appropriate to make a call.

If it's about an arc that can't be verified or if a ship was unintentionally moved and arcs have potentially changed, (and i have seen quite a lot of these situations as both judge and player), i would always rule in favor of the player that did not unintentionally move it, and in case of the in or out if arc dispute in favor of the defending player. If it can't be verified who moved the game piece i would go ahead and roll a die as there is no better method of judging then!

And the dispute was about...???

It was about whether or not a ship was in range or not the argument being that the ship was in arc but not in range. The dispute arose because two ships where facing each other and had parallel edges and one of them had a higher pilot skill so that ship shot first and it was decided then between me and the other player that their was no shoot but when it got to the ships turn with lower pilot skill their was suddenly a argument to be made that their was a shoot and that the ship was indeed in range (I was the player with the higher pilot skill). like i said the argument was unimportant to me and i would have been fine with any decision the judge made as long as it was not one made with a dice roll.

Sounds like a simple case, there was a shot from the higher PS to the lower PS, therefore there should be an opportunity for the lower PS ship to return fire. That was a clear cut decision that should have been made by the judge.

He said when it was the higher PS ships turn (his in this case), they agreed there WASN'T a shot, then when it came to the other guy's turn he all of a sudden decided there was a shot after all. Still a clearcut decision, just in the opposite direction.

Either it is ruled as a missed opportunity, in which case the lower ps ship could shoot if it was indeed in range while the higher ps ship would have missed it's opportunity. This would be a perfectly fine call by the rules. On the other side it would not at allbe fair toward the higher PS ship player. So if i was the judge i would have taken option B.

If there was an agreement over the fact that two parallel ships didn't have a shot because they were out of range when the higher PS ship's turn was to shoot, i would just assume that one of the ships must have been accidentally moved in between, and that the initial compromise of no shot in both directions has to be respected.

Either way the OP is right. If you are a judge you need to have the balls to make a call here. Why roll a die here when you can avoid it.

I've seen edge case situations where one ship is in range, but the return shot isn't, simply by virtue of position relative to arc, but if it was parallel and clearly agreed the first shot wasn't, I can't imagine why the second shot was unless the TO ruled both shots were in range, and classed yours a missed opportunity (in which case, the dice roll was possibly an attempt at being fair, assuming you'd fired elsewhere already).

I think the dodgy part here is actually the opponents claim. If you'd both agreed your parallel shots were out of range, it's bad form to suddenly decide they're not. I think the TO should certainly have acknowledged that.

I'm actually in favor of this approach. One of my opponents recently lost about 60% of his facial hair in a dispute and I asked for the resolution be decided on the role of a dice but I was kicked out instead.

But, at least I had a full set of unslashed tires to drive home on.

To me a dice roll decision is the choice of not choosing anything. I have had TO's not roll dice on decisions that have gone against me and have been far less upset than this. I couldn't believe the disregard he gave to my opinion that he not base his decision on dice even after I had told him that I would go with whatever he decided. In reading some responses I realize that it could have been possible that the judge may have known the other player and rolled dice to remain impartial but that seems unlikely. I think the next time this happens to me if it happens again I'm just going to ask the TO for my money back a be done with the tournament.

To me a dice roll decision is the choice of not choosing anything. I have had TO's not roll dice on decisions that have gone against me and have been far less upset than this. I couldn't believe the disregard he gave to my opinion that he not base his decision on dice even after I had told him that I would go with whatever he decided. In reading some responses I realize that it could have been possible that the judge may have known the other player and rolled dice to remain impartial but that seems unlikely. I think the next time this happens to me if it happens again I'm just going to ask the TO for my money back a be done with the tournament.

If it's a rules question then a dice roll is probably not an acceptable way to resolve the issues.

If it is a range measurement issue or some sort of movement, placement, board edge issue then a dice roll ti resolve something that is too close to call is commonplace and completely acceptable.

In this case if you and your opponent had earlier agreed that both ships in question (one of yours and one of his) did not have a shot against one another then the TO later allowing the lower pilot skill ship to make an attack I think a strong case could be made for game to be paused to allow the higher PS ship an opportunity to attack first before resuming from the point you are at.

All of that being said certain situations do arise where opposing ships are trying to fire at one another and one just barely has a shot while the other just barely does not. Without being there and seeing the full situation it's impossible to have a clear cut opinion on if this situation was handled appropriately.

Regardless of whether you were wrongly denied an opportunity to attack while your opponent wasn't, it does sound like the roll of a dice to determine if your opponent could attack or not was probably the right thing to do. It's the rest of the details that are murky.

To me a dice roll decision is the choice of not choosing anything. I have had TO's not roll dice on decisions that have gone against me and have been far less upset than this. I couldn't believe the disregard he gave to my opinion that he not base his decision on dice even after I had told him that I would go with whatever he decided. In reading some responses I realize that it could have been possible that the judge may have known the other player and rolled dice to remain impartial but that seems unlikely. I think the next time this happens to me if it happens again I'm just going to ask the TO for my money back a be done with the tournament.

If it' s coming down to a pure judgement call of whether something is in or out and it's so so close it could go either way then rolling the dice seems like an impartial way to make the call. There's no bias in the results of the dice.

It almost sounds like your only real beef is that the judge made the mistake of asking if everyone was fine with his rolling for it. I've got a feeling that you are in the minorty and most people would feel better hearing a TO say "You know, it's so close that I'm not sure. Why don't you guys roll for it" than they would "You know, it's so close that I'm not sure but my duties as a judge require me to make an arbitrary choice on a shot that may end up deciding the game. Player 1, I find your Star Wars related T-Shirt humorous. It made me chuckle. You may take the shot".

Range and arc should not be decided by a dice roll. If the other player agreed that the higher PS ship was out of range, then the lower PS should not be allowed to fire.

If three people can't determine if a ship has a shot or not then the answer is obviously no. You don't need a die roll. Plus sounds like your two faced opponent needed punched in their throat

Agreed that this seems like a terrible solution. I don't see why it couldn't be measured properly.

If three people can't determine if a ship has a shot or not then the answer is obviously no. You don't need a die roll. Plus sounds like your two faced opponent needed punched in their throat

It's a game where plastic space ships are pushed around a table. Nobody in that scenario ever needs to be punched in the throat.

Correct. People should not lie and cheat. Glad I play this game with friends. Because some of the stuff I read about people trying to pull would get some ones wig split.