No direct observance of dice tampering and rogue complaints from losers do not warrant action against a player.

That's a cool pic and all, but how is it related to what happened? The TO did not warrant any actions against the player. They merely gave him new dice.

Because it's easier to read and agree with one sentence than an account of what actually happened.

Most people that are salty about what happened received an account from a disgruntled friend of the player, whos account of the events are FALSE and completely void of HIS involvement in the whole thing.

If you read the players first post he clearly said the TOs were not accusatory and only offered a solution, not enforce it.

I had it once on me too, what i do, is say "OK, use my dice then too and you will see!" and I allow to use my dice in game, that's it. Silence opponents

I have an opponent, that we both agree always use one set of dice, his one time, other my

All I can say about this is there's clearly some people in this thread with an ax to grind and some people who are clearly trolling this board and the X-Wing community as a whole.

Because if what I hear is true, and you have people making new accounts to rant about this, and ranting about it on facebook...

I don't know if the TO's made the best decision or not. But I can say that if there were people yelling at them, then those people need to be banned from the store for the next 6 months. Especially if what I read was true and one of them was a friend of the OP and was trying to defend him. If the OP does the adult thing and abides by the decision of the TO, then on one has any place 'defending' him.

There is never an excuse for someone to raise their voice like that. TO's do a lot of work and get little reward for it.

IME of several tournaments I've had one bad game and the X-Wing community as a whole is great. But as it grows there will quite naturally be an increase in the incidents of jerks because a small % of a large number can still be a fairly large number.

Which means that TO's need to do everything they can to weed out those types of people by letting them know their behavior is not only unwelcome but will not be tolerated.

So, no telling when this will post since I will have to wait for moderator approval. But, I figured it was time to create an account and jump in.

Hi. I'm one of the TOs from this event. And if you read my username, you can probably guess which poster in here is my soon to be husband. I've been in the X-Wing community since I met him, and have been referenced in write ups about him as "he turned to his wife and apologized for making the cut". I wanted to be more active the community because I wanted to see him more and share in his passions. Admittedly, this was my first time TOing such a large event. However, the other TO has multiple events of this size under her belt. In my opinion we were like a well oiled machine.

To the OP, so you know who I am. I am the one who looked you in the eye and told you that the reason we were saying anything to you was because I didn't want you to go home and find your name smeared all over the forums. We couldn't find rules on how to handle accusations like this. We did what we could under the limited, restricted time frame we had to come up with a good solution. If it were me, I would want to know.

You see, I share a bed and a life with a rabid player of the game. I know how things work. I have seen him come home from a tournament to find stuff written about his friends, or someone he played against, all over the internet. I always felt empathy for that person. What a shock it must be to think you had a great day, then to find your name tarnished all over the web in a community you love and trust.

Being "new" to this community, I didn't have an account on this website. I am not a member of some closed Facebook groups that these types of things are discussed on. My fiancé is though. And cue our surprise when we come home and find my -REAL NAME-, STORE NAME, and LOCATION, splashed all over the internet in a witch hunt of epic proportions. In places I had no means to defend myself. With accounts that didn't match mine, and didn't match yours as you posted here.

I am so, truthfully sorry we threw off your game. That was never our intention. Our intention was to give you a heads up that you could be facing what we are going through right now.

But seriously. Your friends shouted at us, in a crowded room. It started when I asked how the match went, and a passive aggressive comment was made to me. And then shouting. Shouting about how awful we are, how badly our event was ran, what a disgrace we are.... seriously? You have handled everything respectfully.

But your friends haven't.

Although I've seen some dice that were possibly cooked or something due to deformation of some of the sides, it still made no difference in average rolling. I've beaten this guy numerous times with numerous different builds so it didn't matter. As with some other folks here I don't really trhink you can effectively "cook" 8 sided dice.

One of the guys that I play with regularly every week has incredibly hot dice in most games he plays but not to the point I'd say he was cheating. Sure he has good streaks but folks forget about the blanks he rolls and only focus on the hits/crits and evades.

To the OP - I'd go back but I wouldn't bother saying anything about your dice. That would be a bit immature. Just go and play your game. If they try to do anything about your dice I'd just say share dice.

Getting beaten solely by dice sucks but it does happen and those of us that have played the game long enough know that.

Getting beaten solely by dice sucks but it does happen and those of us that have played the game long enough know that.

If there's dice in the game, sooner or latter you will be beat by them.

Other day we were playing to get ready for the SC. First game both our dice were just stone cold. So cold that the guy I was playing had three shots at my HWK with a autoblater cannon. He scored 1 hit.

For me if I rolled more than one hit out of three dice I felt lucky.

Saddly accusations of loaded dice is often the last resort of the poor loser. My one and only poor tournament game was against such a guy. We were both in the running for top 16 although it was iffy, but the whole game he did nothing but blame his dice. He even went as far to start offering to sell his collection to anyone who walked by, because a game where dice is the only factor wasn't worth playing.

I won and finished in the top 20, but below 16th. Was a bittersweet win for me, on the one hand I was glad to beat him but it was quite possibly the worse experience I've had in X-Wing. Thankfully it's still the worse experience i've had.

I always take my loaded dice to Store championships

p.s. this ******* thread still going? Close it down already I cant resist the urge to fkn troll u dumb *****

Buried a few pages back, because it was waiting moderator approval. Here is the account from the shop owner.

Hi Folks, I am the owner of the venue and was awaiting feedback from FFG Organized Play on how to deal with concerns like this in an event for their products but can not sit here and watch the TOs and the player with "the dice in question" get picked apart from both sides of the fence. Sorry this may be a TLDR post....

I manage literally over 800 organized play events a year in our store. We host events with participants in excess of 100 players occasionally. The average is 25-40. I am very picky about who is involved in organizing and/or officiating in events in my store. With that being said, as I don't play X-Wing beyond a little casual flying, I turned to the regional opinion and was told by everyone I talked to that the 2 TOs who officiated this event were great. One of them had run other X-Wing events in my store and EVERY player was always giving us positive feedback on the event coordination and officiating. The event ran incredibly smoothly. The TOs handled the entire process amazingly. My staff and I were getting constant comments from several players on how fun and well organized the event was running. They stayed constantly vigilant on Facebook for weeks leading up to the event answering every question and concern that came up ahead of time. We even had some new kids who had never played in an organized X-Wing event before that came in out of interest and these TOs took the time to make them comfortable and walked them through the whole process of registration, filling out the forms, team building etc. I don't feel I can stress enough how positive the event as a whole went off.... Heck, I walked past several conversations with customers who walked in the store and were curious about what was going on and the TOs and even some players would pause and explain to them the game and how it worked. This game builds an awesome community.

Now, as anyone who manages competitive events knows, drama sometimes unfolds in even the best run events. It's the nature of competitive events. Players play to win. If they don't win they look for reasons why. In a game such as X-Wing there is a luck factor (dice) that you attempt to mitigate by playing the right builds. Everyone who throws dice knows they run hot and cold. It's the nature of luck. To this end it can be very painful to have your dice in a cold spell and your opponents dice in a hot spell. The TOs are well aware of this. Hence, the way this went down.

To speak to the fairness in officiating the event that I feel the TOs were trying to maintain, here is a situation that came up earlier in the event that sheds some light on it. I was walking in the room observing and noticed one of the TOs standing on a tall stool and bending over one of the tall terrain tables we use for the event. She eventually had to kneel on the stool and bend over the table and use laser lines in whatever she was answering from the players. I even joked with the other TO and took a picture. In fact it's was on one of the video filmed tables so will probably show up out there some day. Anyway, when she came back over by the TO tables I gave her a short girl joke about it and she laughed but told me exactly "you have to do what you have to do to make sure the call is correct" it was a call about debris and a mine field, an obstructed attack. She needed to make sure she was above the view to make the right call. The reason I mention this is because of the next statements the TOs made to me. She commented that "that's one of the hard things to do when TOing is telling someone you consider a friend that their side of the judgment is against them". In fact this was a local player who she just had to tell he hit a meteor. This call very well likely cost him the game and the top 4 cut. Not something you would do if you were trying to "local bias". The other TO then mentioned "Yep, when I get called to a table I say Don't tell me who's ship is whose, just tell me the question".

I talked with several players and the TOs during and after this situation. I was there for almost all of the process. I have security cameras to back up the time line.

The first comment about the dice came as a comment early in the event to the TO (from her husband) when asked how he did as "I lost. My dice were horrible and his were hot". That was all. Not even an accusation. Not considered one. Not acted on.

The second comment came to the same TO again in a match report of "**** his dice were hot. I lost" again not an accusation. And again not acted on.

The third comment came directly to the TO after the first cut round. "please come look at these dice". She walked over and the player rolled all the dice on a table 5 or 6 times and EVERY die came up with paint every time. Yes, it is statistically possible. She looked at the dice and there is nothing obvious. The players states "I'm concerned about these dice". The TO tells him there's really no way to scientifically check for modifications here at the venue. She tells him he could have asked to use shared dice. The player stated "he asked his opponent to play a second just for fun match during the 30 minutes still remaining in the round with shared dice for peace of mind, and the opponent declined". She states this is within his rights to decline. Wanting to make sure to address it correctly she even consulted a neutral 3rd party TO from another region. He also stated there is no way to without a doubt prove dice here in the situation in the time frame. Both our TOs consulted forums, FAQs, everything they could find to look for an official response. No luck. This is when they contacted me. They were concerned a "rumor mill" would start up and didn't want to see the player accused of something he couldn't defend after the fact. They had been given a formal complaint at this time and needed to address it one way or another.

It's almost a lose/lose situation for the TOs. If they let it go, you have a player who could lodge a complaint about not having his complaint addressed. Or you could launch an investigation and try to somehow scientifically validate/fail the dice within the time and venue constraints 10 hours into an event that is headed to Top 4. There's really no way to test the dice properly. Both sides should be allowed to prove their sides or else drama and issues will arise. We decided together to address it discreetly as possible to avoid any issues of embarrassment. No one wants to be accused of cheating and no one want to feel cheated. We quietly took the dice owner aside in a totally separate area of the store and informed him a complaint had been made about the dice but that there was really no way for us to truly validate his dice here in the present. They wanted to make him aware so he could choose to do as he wanted. He was told he could play on as usual in the event with his dice and that would be the end of it. He could agree to share dice. I offered to open a sealed starter and let him swap to those for the rest of the event if he wanted truly neutral dice. He was obviously embarrassed and frazzled by the occurrence. He decided to swap to a new set of dice from the starter. It was stated as a group between us, this would make sure there could be no accusations about anybody cheating as we had all (Myself, the TOs, and the player) been there opening the starter and swapping the dice. We offered to give him his dice back at the end so no one could make any accusations. This was done to allow him to have proof it was not his dice but his play that won him the day.

We went to the top 4 cut. Unfortunately he lost his next match. But, for the record it was against the same opponent who was his only other loss earlier in the day. And who in the end won out the day. So, a challenging opponent at the least.

The next thing I know, I have a customer come to me and tell me I should get to the back of the room "because it's becoming heated".

I walk to the back and see my TOs standing there with 2 players talking to them and the player with the dice standing at the table looking down dejected. As I step up I hear one of the customers tell my TOs "this event was run horribly!" "I'm going to report it to FFG" the other customer states "I'm gonna accuse my opponents of cheating with their eyes!" "how dare you force our friend to swap dice!" "You singled him out and humiliated him and made him lose his match!" "You are so local biased and wouldn't do that to a local!" I pointed out there wasn't even anyone local in the event when this happened. They stated "That was absolutely the wrong call and I'm reporting it! You should have a community bucket of dice and make everyone take from that" "we'll never come back from here and regionals shouldn't be here!". Through this whole conversation the TOs kept trying to calmly explain the situation and asked for time to address it with FFG. We tried to talk with the original dice owner but he just seemed miserable and said "I think it just got in my head". The more the other 2 players ranted at myself and the TOs the more upset the original player got.

I would like to preface this now with pointing out this is the same person who, before this event, voiced his irritation online about regional here, insisted we needed to NOT run regionals as a possible 2 day event if it drew high attendance because "you could just run 60 minute rounds!" No you can't. Also, irritated that it is on Mother's Day. Also, mentioned online he was "looking forward to coming up and handing out the damage" But, also asked me to provide him a separate table with power to film feature matches for the day. Which I provided. It's also the same person who asked one of my TOs before the event started "If she even played the game?". So, to wonder if there was some prior hostility towards our venue is a bit understated.

So, at this point, I stated the conversation needed to stop because it was going to go nowhere but worse. He was told he was completely within his rights to report us to FFG. We also informed him we were going to look to FFG to provide official guidance on how to deal with accused dice issues in future events. We awarded the dice owner his prizes and store credit prize which he promply stated "I'll spend it now because I'm never coming back!" He did, and they left.

A note was sent to FFG Organized play for guidance on dealing with the issue in the future and we will await their word. But within the hour we start getting messages about all the bashing and flaming going on on all the major X-Wing forums about how badly the event was run, how bad the TOs were, etc... you can see it all up there and everywhere. It's in multiple threads everywhere. Even going so far as to calling out the TOs by name like they are some kind of villains and accusing them everywhere of "colluding against outsiders". Sorry, I couldn't sit by and watch them get bashed any longer without doing something.

Hopefully when this is done, we'll have an official answer from FFG on these matters and put it to rest. Meanwhile can we stop the constant bashing of 2 very hard working VOLUNTEERS?

They looked at my dice while I was across the room without asking after my top 8 win. As I said I was kinda flattered but I didn't expect it to go any further. I'm not superstitious about my dice or anything. There was never observation even when there were only 4 tables to watch.

Reading the statements by the TO and Store Owner saddens me deeply. This is an extremely unfortunate situation that has blown up for little reason. I really hope that this thing diffuses without any further damage to reputation and credibility.

So, to wonder if there was some prior hostility towards our venue is a bit understated.

It does sound like someone has an ax to grind, and that is someone that if it were my store, I'd make sure they understood they were never welcome in my store again.

I've known people like that and I've seen them create this kind of drama themselves solely for the sake of being able to latter on use it to get back at the person (or other entity) that they don't like.

Buried a few pages back, because it was waiting moderator approval. Here is the account from the shop owner.

Hi Folks, I am the owner of the venue and was awaiting feedback from FFG Organized Play on how to deal with concerns like this in an event for their products but can not sit here and watch the TOs and the player with "the dice in question" get picked apart from both sides of the fence. Sorry this may be a TLDR post....

I manage literally over 800 organized play events a year in our store. We host events with participants in excess of 100 players occasionally. The average is 25-40. I am very picky about who is involved in organizing and/or officiating in events in my store. With that being said, as I don't play X-Wing beyond a little casual flying, I turned to the regional opinion and was told by everyone I talked to that the 2 TOs who officiated this event were great. One of them had run other X-Wing events in my store and EVERY player was always giving us positive feedback on the event coordination and officiating. The event ran incredibly smoothly. The TOs handled the entire process amazingly. My staff and I were getting constant comments from several players on how fun and well organized the event was running. They stayed constantly vigilant on Facebook for weeks leading up to the event answering every question and concern that came up ahead of time. We even had some new kids who had never played in an organized X-Wing event before that came in out of interest and these TOs took the time to make them comfortable and walked them through the whole process of registration, filling out the forms, team building etc. I don't feel I can stress enough how positive the event as a whole went off.... Heck, I walked past several conversations with customers who walked in the store and were curious about what was going on and the TOs and even some players would pause and explain to them the game and how it worked. This game builds an awesome community.

Now, as anyone who manages competitive events knows, drama sometimes unfolds in even the best run events. It's the nature of competitive events. Players play to win. If they don't win they look for reasons why. In a game such as X-Wing there is a luck factor (dice) that you attempt to mitigate by playing the right builds. Everyone who throws dice knows they run hot and cold. It's the nature of luck. To this end it can be very painful to have your dice in a cold spell and your opponents dice in a hot spell. The TOs are well aware of this. Hence, the way this went down.

To speak to the fairness in officiating the event that I feel the TOs were trying to maintain, here is a situation that came up earlier in the event that sheds some light on it. I was walking in the room observing and noticed one of the TOs standing on a tall stool and bending over one of the tall terrain tables we use for the event. She eventually had to kneel on the stool and bend over the table and use laser lines in whatever she was answering from the players. I even joked with the other TO and took a picture. In fact it's was on one of the video filmed tables so will probably show up out there some day. Anyway, when she came back over by the TO tables I gave her a short girl joke about it and she laughed but told me exactly "you have to do what you have to do to make sure the call is correct" it was a call about debris and a mine field, an obstructed attack. She needed to make sure she was above the view to make the right call. The reason I mention this is because of the next statements the TOs made to me. She commented that "that's one of the hard things to do when TOing is telling someone you consider a friend that their side of the judgment is against them". In fact this was a local player who she just had to tell he hit a meteor. This call very well likely cost him the game and the top 4 cut. Not something you would do if you were trying to "local bias". The other TO then mentioned "Yep, when I get called to a table I say Don't tell me who's ship is whose, just tell me the question".

I talked with several players and the TOs during and after this situation. I was there for almost all of the process. I have security cameras to back up the time line.

The first comment about the dice came as a comment early in the event to the TO (from her husband) when asked how he did as "I lost. My dice were horrible and his were hot". That was all. Not even an accusation. Not considered one. Not acted on.

The second comment came to the same TO again in a match report of "**** his dice were hot. I lost" again not an accusation. And again not acted on.

The third comment came directly to the TO after the first cut round. "please come look at these dice". She walked over and the player rolled all the dice on a table 5 or 6 times and EVERY die came up with paint every time. Yes, it is statistically possible. She looked at the dice and there is nothing obvious. The players states "I'm concerned about these dice". The TO tells him there's really no way to scientifically check for modifications here at the venue. She tells him he could have asked to use shared dice. The player stated "he asked his opponent to play a second just for fun match during the 30 minutes still remaining in the round with shared dice for peace of mind, and the opponent declined". She states this is within his rights to decline. Wanting to make sure to address it correctly she even consulted a neutral 3rd party TO from another region. He also stated there is no way to without a doubt prove dice here in the situation in the time frame. Both our TOs consulted forums, FAQs, everything they could find to look for an official response. No luck. This is when they contacted me. They were concerned a "rumor mill" would start up and didn't want to see the player accused of something he couldn't defend after the fact. They had been given a formal complaint at this time and needed to address it one way or another.

It's almost a lose/lose situation for the TOs. If they let it go, you have a player who could lodge a complaint about not having his complaint addressed. Or you could launch an investigation and try to somehow scientifically validate/fail the dice within the time and venue constraints 10 hours into an event that is headed to Top 4. There's really no way to test the dice properly. Both sides should be allowed to prove their sides or else drama and issues will arise. We decided together to address it discreetly as possible to avoid any issues of embarrassment. No one wants to be accused of cheating and no one want to feel cheated. We quietly took the dice owner aside in a totally separate area of the store and informed him a complaint had been made about the dice but that there was really no way for us to truly validate his dice here in the present. They wanted to make him aware so he could choose to do as he wanted. He was told he could play on as usual in the event with his dice and that would be the end of it. He could agree to share dice. I offered to open a sealed starter and let him swap to those for the rest of the event if he wanted truly neutral dice. He was obviously embarrassed and frazzled by the occurrence. He decided to swap to a new set of dice from the starter. It was stated as a group between us, this would make sure there could be no accusations about anybody cheating as we had all (Myself, the TOs, and the player) been there opening the starter and swapping the dice. We offered to give him his dice back at the end so no one could make any accusations. This was done to allow him to have proof it was not his dice but his play that won him the day.

We went to the top 4 cut. Unfortunately he lost his next match. But, for the record it was against the same opponent who was his only other loss earlier in the day. And who in the end won out the day. So, a challenging opponent at the least.

The next thing I know, I have a customer come to me and tell me I should get to the back of the room "because it's becoming heated".

I walk to the back and see my TOs standing there with 2 players talking to them and the player with the dice standing at the table looking down dejected. As I step up I hear one of the customers tell my TOs "this event was run horribly!" "I'm going to report it to FFG" the other customer states "I'm gonna accuse my opponents of cheating with their eyes!" "how dare you force our friend to swap dice!" "You singled him out and humiliated him and made him lose his match!" "You are so local biased and wouldn't do that to a local!" I pointed out there wasn't even anyone local in the event when this happened. They stated "That was absolutely the wrong call and I'm reporting it! You should have a community bucket of dice and make everyone take from that" "we'll never come back from here and regionals shouldn't be here!". Through this whole conversation the TOs kept trying to calmly explain the situation and asked for time to address it with FFG. We tried to talk with the original dice owner but he just seemed miserable and said "I think it just got in my head". The more the other 2 players ranted at myself and the TOs the more upset the original player got.

I would like to preface this now with pointing out this is the same person who, before this event, voiced his irritation online about regional here, insisted we needed to NOT run regionals as a possible 2 day event if it drew high attendance because "you could just run 60 minute rounds!" No you can't. Also, irritated that it is on Mother's Day. Also, mentioned online he was "looking forward to coming up and handing out the damage" But, also asked me to provide him a separate table with power to film feature matches for the day. Which I provided. It's also the same person who asked one of my TOs before the event started "If she even played the game?". So, to wonder if there was some prior hostility towards our venue is a bit understated.

So, at this point, I stated the conversation needed to stop because it was going to go nowhere but worse. He was told he was completely within his rights to report us to FFG. We also informed him we were going to look to FFG to provide official guidance on how to deal with accused dice issues in future events. We awarded the dice owner his prizes and store credit prize which he promply stated "I'll spend it now because I'm never coming back!" He did, and they left.

A note was sent to FFG Organized play for guidance on dealing with the issue in the future and we will await their word. But within the hour we start getting messages about all the bashing and flaming going on on all the major X-Wing forums about how badly the event was run, how bad the TOs were, etc... you can see it all up there and everywhere. It's in multiple threads everywhere. Even going so far as to calling out the TOs by name like they are some kind of villains and accusing them everywhere of "colluding against outsiders". Sorry, I couldn't sit by and watch them get bashed any longer without doing something.

Hopefully when this is done, we'll have an official answer from FFG on these matters and put it to rest. Meanwhile can we stop the constant bashing of 2 very hard working VOLUNTEERS?

There was never an "I think..." to the psychological effect that issue caused, it was a surety. I understand the "get a thicker skin" argument, but all I had done for 10 hours was play fair and outfly opponents (edit: and I guess get lucky) and being told I was accused of loaded dice even after people had inspected them was surprising. IGs with FCS and HLC actually want to roll dice into a certain sequence in which I roll low and avoid modifying (which happened often), opponent rolls well enough to dodge for me to fire again with a TL. I guess I can see how that makes things look like they go my way frequently, but that's the build.

The winner did a fantastic job and was not complicit to what was going on, I am fully aware of that. He flew great and earned his prize. That said, I went into the Swiss match not familiar with his squadron and still managed a loss spread of only 26 points (best of the day?). Given another shot without the distraction it could've easily gone the other way.

I didn't know the TOs consistently rolled my dice and for frequent "paint." As I said I'm not superstitious or hiding anything, and as others have said it is a small sample size. I think you should consider the character of people on both sides. First you had a sore loser touch my stuff and then say I'm cheating. Then you tell me this, see the reaction and my willingness to do whatever is needed to uphold "my good name." I'm not trying to be mean, but I don't want you to be comforted by the thought that I just would've lost that round anyway.

You have a large player base in the area and I wish I had something so large down south, but now it scares me to think my "good name" is in check with your group because I lost the game with the supplied dice. That was the big issue with the whole scenario in the moment: 'Ok, now I have to play the same guy who beat me, there are people who already think I'm cheating and now if I lose to him again everyone will think the claim is valid.' That is clearly, without a doubt, a lose/lose.

One thing I will apologize for was my salty exit, but I do believe I deserve the opportunity to prove myself in Regionals at your store. All I wanted to do was play X-wing and do my best. If you want to give me new dice for the whole thing I don't care, but if I bring my own they will be the same.

The competitive X-Wing community is a pretty lousy community.

Get used to it.

Totally get you man. Stuff like that happens and it is tough to get your head back in the game. I don't think anyone has the justification to touch your stuff without asking you first. That was most definitely a mistake.

I think approaching you first, examining your dice, and then asking something to the effect of "Hey man just to put everyone's mind at ease would you mind rolling a fresh pack?" would have been the proper way to handle this but when emotions are flaring it is sometimes difficult to follow every procedure to a "T." I think the TO did his best but made a mistake in the order of operations. I'm sorry your experience suffered but realistically, with the human element figured in, this was probably the fairest way to resolve the issue.

FFG sees this as a casual game, and for this reason there is no official training for TOs at the casual level. I can't argue with this logic. We play for fun, not money and expensive prizes.

That being said, the rules actually DO offer a solution to this problem. All instruments being used by a player MUST also be available to the opposing player. As a TO (and I have dealt with this issue) I might roll the dice a few times, but honestly it can be very hard to spot "loaded" dice. Unless they come up the same result every time or there is a noticeable deformity, it is going to be hard to prove. The solution is to tell the players that all dice must be made available to both players.

I even have sympathy for the proposed solution - here are some new dice. I understand why this solution was proposed. It is not a "fair" solution though. It still ultimately sides with the bad sportsmanship of "if I lose, the other player must be cheating". Heck, it's easy to feel that way against double IGs with FCS and IA! My advice to all TOs is to only invent solutions when there is no other outlined way in the rules to solve the problem. You will find this will not happen often.

I also sympathize with store owners/employees responding to the threat of loss of business. A customer is unhappy and you want to fix that. The truth of the retail and service industry it that there are certain customers you will never be able to make happy. (Players that raise their voice and make threats are not interested in fair or being made happy.) Their continued "business" will only lead to the loss of customers you can satisfy.

Know the rules, stick to the rules. It solves the problems. Players that do not like this fall into the category of customers that cannot be made happy.

I understand the "get a thicker skin" argument, but all I had done for 10 hours was play fair and outfly opponents (edit: and I guess get lucky) and being told I was accused of loaded dice even after people had inspected them was surprising.

For the record, from what I've seen you did nothing wrong or at least nothing that isn't understandable.

This really sounds like a bad situation that got out of hand, and the real problem was the people at the end who were apparently yelling at the TO's.

As I said accusing someone of loaded dice is the last resort of a poor loser. But when 3 or more people all comment on it, I think the TO has to at least consider the possibility. Even if those 3 people aren't making accusations the TO has to consider checking things out.

The problem is, and from what I've seen the TO's knew full well they can't prove it one way or the other, but they also can't just ignore it. Frank the whole 'innocent until proven guilty' doesn't apply here. For one thing this isn't a legal case, and second there's no way to prove guilt or innocence really.

Just because you roll the dice 5 or 6 times and they all seem to roll well isn't proof of anything. But it also doesn't prove the dice aren't fishy. I suppose it they rolled poorly then at least you got something.

But again, between someone else playing with your dice, and what is frankly sounding like a witch hunt against that store, it sounds like the real issue wasn't with you or the store, it was other parties who were and still creating drama where none is needed.

FFG sees this as a casual game, and for this reason there is no official training for TOs at the casual level. I can't argue with this logic. We play for fun, not money and expensive prizes.

That being said, the rules actually DO offer a solution to this problem. All instruments being used by a player MUST also be available to the opposing player. As a TO (and I have dealt with this issue) I might roll the dice a few times, but honestly it can be very hard to spot "loaded" dice. Unless they come up the same result every time or there is a noticeable deformity, it is going to be hard to prove. The solution is to tell the players that all dice must be made available to both players.

I even have sympathy for the proposed solution - here are some new dice. I understand why this solution was proposed. It is not a "fair" solution though. It still ultimately sides with the bad sportsmanship of "if I lose, the other player must be cheating". Heck, it's easy to feel that way against double IGs with IA! My advice to all TOs is to only invent solutions when there is no other outlined way in the rules to solve the problem. You will find this will not happen often.

I also sympathize with store owners/employees responding to the threat of loss of business. A customer is unhappy and you want to fix that. The truth of the retail and service industry it that there are certain customers you will never be able to make happy. (Players that raise their voice and make threats are not interested in fair or being made happy.) Their continued "business" will only lead to the loss of customers you can satisfy.

Know the rules, stick to the rules. It solves the problems. Players that do not like this fall into the category of customers that cannot be made happy.

Can you please reference where it says in the rules if there is a dispute about dice then the players may share the dice used in a match?

The TOs tried to look for it at the event and I did as well after the fact and could not find this reference. Multiple people have referenced this rule but have not provided a source.

Can you please reference where it says in the rules if there is a dispute about dice then the players may share the dice used in a match?

It actually doesn't. There's a rule that says one person can request that they share a set of templates but there is actually no rule that says the same about dice.

the TO did not handle this correctly. either you were using loaded dice or you weren't. if you were, he should have checked. if you weren't, he shouldn't have bothered you to change dice.

all he needed to do was throw your dice a few times and see if anything was wrong. a lot of people don't understand statistics. it's perfectly normal for a player to go through a few lucky streaks.

Statistically speaking, throwing the dice a few times isn't nearly a large enough sample size to prove the dice were loaded. Offering a freshly opened set of dice to use was perfectly reasonable, and a fair way to ensure there was nothing wrong.

The TO wasn't in a good spot there. They had to deal with the accusation, but there's no good way to deal with that without potentially affecting the mental state of the accused. Instead of assuming that the accused's dice were loaded, the TO simply offered to swap them out with a factory-sealed set. If the dice weren't loaded, this swap shouldn't make any difference. If the dice were loaded (even if not intentionally so), this swap ensures fairness.

Simply put, there is no way to avoid confrontation when someone is accused of cheating (even if the accusation is false). The TO chose the least confrontational way possible to address the issue.

Now, what I do object to is the inspection of the dice without permission first. Handling someone else's property without their permission is not the right way to go about it.

Not that I'm a TO, but if it were me, I'd approach the accused and say, "I'm sorry, but there have been some questions about your dice. I have no way to prove or disprove the assertions, so to make everyone feel like they are on the same playing field, I'd like to offer to have you and your opponents both use this set of factory-sealed dice for the rest of the tournament. I apologize for the inconvenience."

To be clear, I'm saying that the other player would need to use the same set of dice as well. If one player is being forced to change dice, then their opponent should be as well. After all, if it's fair for one player, it would be fair for both.

It's unfortunate, but the problem is there are players who will try to cheat by bringing loaded dice, and there are players who will try to gain an advantage by making false accusations. It's next to impossible for a TO to know which is which (and which are simply sore losers), unless there's already a lot of evidence to prove one way or the other.

Why the fuss? Just change the dice and be done with it.

The only thing I see a problem with is someone touching your stuff without asking first. That alone would warrant a formal complaint.

It really is a bit of a lose/lose or double edged sword depending on your PoV and how martial you're feeling.

On the one hand, no one should ever feel restrained in approaching the TO when they think something is wrong. People can, do and will continue to cheat. I mean if people cheat at Solitaire why wouldn't they cheat at X-Wing? So you should never feel like you can't bring a concern up to the TO if you see something you consider fishy.

But on the other hand, accusing someone of cheating can be almost akin to cheating itself. Anyone who plays fair is going to be troubled by an accusation like that. It may or may not throw them off their game, but I don't think anyone is not going to be affected by it even if just for a moment.

So it may very well be something someone does to get in someone else's head and used as a way to try and throw them off. Or it might be something done to distract the TO's from their own cheating.

But no matter why it's done, the TO can't simply shrug and ignore it, nor can they really penalize someone who makes the accusation if it proves to be false. Unless it becomes a pattern of behavior that is.

What's worse is if the accusation does throw you off your game, it makes you look guilty even if as in the OP's case he was playing someone who was quite good and may of very well won anyway. Plus there's always people who will believe an accusation even if it's proven false after the fact.

the TO did not handle this correctly. either you were using loaded dice or you weren't. if you were, he should have checked. if you weren't, he shouldn't have bothered you to change dice.

all he needed to do was throw your dice a few times and see if anything was wrong. a lot of people don't understand statistics. it's perfectly normal for a player to go through a few lucky streaks.

Statistically speaking, throwing the dice a few times isn't nearly a large enough sample size to prove the dice were loaded. Offering a freshly opened set of dice to use was perfectly reasonable, and a fair way to ensure there was nothing wrong.

The TO wasn't in a good spot there. They had to deal with the accusation, but there's no good way to deal with that without potentially affecting the mental state of the accused. Instead of assuming that the accused's dice were loaded, the TO simply offered to swap them out with a factory-sealed set. If the dice weren't loaded, this swap shouldn't make any difference. If the dice were loaded (even if not intentionally so), this swap ensures fairness.

Simply put, there is no way to avoid confrontation when someone is accused of cheating (even if the accusation is false). The TO chose the least confrontational way possible to address the issue.

Now, what I do object to is the inspection of the dice without permission first. Handling someone else's property without their permission is not the right way to go about it.

Not that I'm a TO, but if it were me, I'd approach the accused and say, "I'm sorry, but there have been some questions about your dice. I have no way to prove or disprove the assertions, so to make everyone feel like they are on the same playing field, I'd like to offer to have you and your opponents both use this set of factory-sealed dice for the rest of the tournament. I apologize for the inconvenience."

To be clear, I'm saying that the other player would need to use the same set of dice as well. If one player is being forced to change dice, then their opponent should be as well. After all, if it's fair for one player, it would be fair for both.

It's unfortunate, but the problem is there are players who will try to cheat by bringing loaded dice, and there are players who will try to gain an advantage by making false accusations. It's next to impossible for a TO to know which is which (and which are simply sore losers), unless there's already a lot of evidence to prove one way or the other.

I've been playing this game for 3 years and I have never seen any "loaded" dice. There also is nothing in the rules to help a TO out in this situation. FFG dice are not "Vegas" dice and there is quite a bit of variance in them as well as the prize dice that FFG has provided as tournament prizes over the years.

I've seen some that appeared to be tampered with but they were no more effective than standard unmodified dice. I think the 8 sided design tends to make it more difficult, if not impossible, to make loaded dice that aren't so blatantly obvious.

In that post from the owner it states he was worried about dealing with a complaint if a players accusation weren't heeded. I must point out that those accusations were coming from a player that without permission from anyone pulled apart and went through another players belongings. I'm not so sure the venue should be worried about fielding a complaint from a player that should have been removed from the event for messing with another players stuff without permission.

As is usual, it is best to get more than one point of view on these situations.

There was definitely a local bias. Just not one they were claiming. Just a bunch of people butt hurt that they didn't get the Regional location.

FFG sees this as a casual game, and for this reason there is no official training for TOs at the casual level. I can't argue with this logic. We play for fun, not money and expensive prizes.

That being said, the rules actually DO offer a solution to this problem. All instruments being used by a player MUST also be available to the opposing player. As a TO (and I have dealt with this issue) I might roll the dice a few times, but honestly it can be very hard to spot "loaded" dice. Unless they come up the same result every time or there is a noticeable deformity, it is going to be hard to prove. The solution is to tell the players that all dice must be made available to both players.

I even have sympathy for the proposed solution - here are some new dice. I understand why this solution was proposed. It is not a "fair" solution though. It still ultimately sides with the bad sportsmanship of "if I lose, the other player must be cheating". Heck, it's easy to feel that way against double IGs with FCS and IA! My advice to all TOs is to only invent solutions when there is no other outlined way in the rules to solve the problem. You will find this will not happen often.

I also sympathize with store owners/employees responding to the threat of loss of business. A customer is unhappy and you want to fix that. The truth of the retail and service industry it that there are certain customers you will never be able to make happy. (Players that raise their voice and make threats are not interested in fair or being made happy.) Their continued "business" will only lead to the loss of customers you can satisfy.

Know the rules, stick to the rules. It solves the problems. Players that do not like this fall into the category of customers that cannot be made happy.

In the most technical sense, the rules actually only state that maneuver templates and rulers be available to both players if need be. Doesn't actually say that for dice. These girls were trying so hard to go strictly by the book that it caused this issue. It's akin to an NFL referee making a call that most people don't agree with because they are trying to follow the letter of the law. I can say I feel FFG would say to share dice based on anecdotal evidence from a conversation between a judge and player I heard first hand at world's this year. It was a light hearted discussion about if a player playing against someone with the top 16 dice could share them during a game just because they looked cool ( so sort of tongue in cheek). The judge said something to the effect of "sure, just make sure not to leave the table with any". I feel like this may be more of a proofreading error in the tournament rules? I don't know. And one of the accounts does say that one of the TOs mentioned the idea in passing earlier. It's just when push came to shove and they dug deep into the rules, they couldn't find it verbatim.