So, a group of 5 traveled from South Florida to Melbourne to play in Get Your Fun On's Store Championship, where the FL Regional is being held. All was well all day until a series of strange events happened that I have never heard of before.

My friend flew a great day with Brobots, finishing 4-1 in Swiss and making the Top8 cut. He went on to table his first match and advance to the Top4. Tables were set and a mere minutes before dials, the TO asks him to step aside and speak in private with the owner and the TOs.

They told him that "players - at least 3 of them" had complained that his dice were acting in an unfair way (basically accusing him of baking his dice). Mind you he finished 4-1, behind 2x 5-0's. He was astonished of this claim and they told him if he wanted to "clear his name" that he could open a new pack of dice to finish the event. His dice were held. Imagine being mentally prepared for a Top4 game and having this thrown at you. A clear slap in the face to what you accomplished this day to then have to return to the table knowing the room was looking at you as a cheater.

Instead of the TO disregarding the claim (of which they said they received "numerous" throughout the day), and without any direct observance of any inconsistencies with the dice (how would you notice anything anyway unless you were rolling natural 3/4 hits all day). He was running Brobots, HLC, FCS, which naturally and consistently deal 3-4 damage a roll. (It's what they do!)

So instead, he is confronted as a cheater and politely asked to change his dice. I don't care how nicely you tell someone, you are essentially saying someone said you cheated, I believe them, so please change your dice to appease everyone.

This is complete and utter BS and I simply will not tolerate this. This venue is supposedly going to host the most important X-Wing in the area of the year and this is how they would handle a complaint? Simply take the word of a couple people who are bitter from losing and politely request (ie: force) the player to change his dice?

I had a great time and was even commenting to my friend how well they handled the transitions between matches just to have this absurdity happen at the final tables?

To exacerbate the situation, the TOs had their significant others play who very likely were the ones who initiated the complaints. Even if this were not the case, as was not the case of my friend actually cheating, I could make the claim, as the unknown persons did against my friend.

So 5-0 players were not accused, but a 4-1 player from out of town who beat local players who were direct significant others of the TOs gets accused?

Call it what it is but this is pure sour grapes and the TOs decide the best course of action was to pull my friend aside and give him the "opportunity" to play with new dice to "clear his name".

Sadly, it isn't rare for this to happen. Can't let an out of tower come in and swipe our swag!

And if this sets you aback, you'd truly be astonished at what lengths a TO and store for a W40K tournament will go to to make sure the right (i.e. store regular/local) wins.

Omg dude, you already have 2 other threads going for this, you have to start another one?

You're a real big man starting threads where people can't defend themselves. Keep spreading your false accusations. No one here cares about your pettiness.

I'm done with you. Enjoy your continuous ranting. I'm still waiting on that loss you promised me, guess it will never happen.

Sorry, I replied this in another thread about this same thing but new ones keep popping up so I guess I'll copy it here as well.

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?

JFC, if I ever find myself in this situation, im done playing competetively for good.

The friendly community that this game has is one of it's best qualities. Take that away and it's just another game to table 3-4 times a year when friends come over...

Fly casual or GTFO

Wouldn't this be as simple as the TO, or some other trusted individual taking a notepad, the dice in question and tracking results after rolling them 20-30 times? If they are as weighted as was accused, the results would look skewed rather quickly.