I have a problem. My son and I are both rotten losers, and overly magnanimous winners. Our expectations of what the dice results "should" be rarely matches reality. I blame myself, as he learned by example from me. I've been trying to work on this, with limited success. It's better when we play co-operatively, like the Aturi campaign. But we love list building and love dogfighting.

Does anyone have any suggestions that can help?

Sit down and talk about the "pissiest" things you do to ruin each others' games after the fact. Don't do those things.

Stop commenting on dice.

Never fire or defend without dice mods like Focus or TL. Never Ever. Do you hear?

Momma' always said if you have nothing good to say then don't say anything at all.

In all seriousness though, this is a great opportunity to be more mindful of how you communicate/interact with others which could have additional benefits in your social life and workplace and your son's future success.

Personally, I have to remind myself to avoid hyperbole and be careful about the adjectives I use. I've got sticky notes all over my monitor at work and even have a timed delay in Outlook that gives me five minutes to review and edit any emails after I hit send.

Learn that you can't control everything, nor should you want to.

How does the sore losing show itself, do you curse, does it ruin your day?

Or get yourself a true coop game, such as Robinson Crusoe, LotR the LCG, Ghost Stories. Those games will teach you to sit up, pay attention and take a spanking.

What is this thing called "losing"??????

It sounds like you need someone to call you on your bad behaviors. Any time someone is sucking the fun out of the game by being a sore sport I will tell them. Most of the time people will straighten up after that. I hope people do the same for me because I wouldn't want my actions to turn someone away from a great game.

I think the important thing to remember is that it is just a game of little plastic spaceships that is meant to be fun. If you crack a hissy fit when you lose, sooner or later you will run out of people to play against because people wont want to play against "That guy".

Die are never the issue, they are part of the game. I have lost Fel to rolling 4 blanks and I have saved Defenders by rolling all evades, it ebbs and flows all the time. Congratulate your opponent on good flying rather than saying you only lost because you had cold die. I was playing against a friend last week, he had me dead to rights, I shot first because of higher PS, I got a crit through, he turned it over and was the crit which meant he skipped that round of shooting. He was annoyed, but it is how the game goes.

I think too if you are over zealous victors, people will tend to rub your nose in your losses more too.

If you dont mind me asking, how old is your son?

I think the important thing to remember is that it is just a game of little plastic spaceships that is meant to be fun. If you crack a hissy fit when you lose, sooner or later you will run out of people to play against because people wont want to play against "That guy".

Die are never the issue, they are part of the game. I have lost Fel to rolling 4 blanks and I have saved Defenders by rolling all evades, it ebbs and flows all the time. Congratulate your opponent on good flying rather than saying you only lost because you had cold die. I was playing against a friend last week, he had me dead to rights, I shot first because of higher PS, I got a crit through, he turned it over and was the crit which meant he skipped that round of shooting. He was annoyed, but it is how the game goes.

I think too if you are over zealous victors, people will tend to rub your nose in your losses more too.

If you dont mind me asking, how old is your son?

Almost 16

Almost 16 has its own issues.

But you are right to have a talk with him about sportsmanship and he's also old enough to call you out too.

Great opportunity to teach a life lesson, be a dad, and have fun.

(And you can always just let him win! Then tell him you did. He'll never know then).

Almost 16 has its own issues.

But you are right to have a talk with him about sportsmanship and he's also old enough to call you out too.

Great opportunity to teach a life lesson, be a dad, and have fun.

(And you can always just let him win! Then tell him you did. He'll never know then).

Always act like you're having fun. Even if you aren't because you're losing and that's infuriating you.

If you're in a **** mood, nobody else wants to see it. Because that's just going to ruin their mood as well.

Have a designated slapper standing by. Any time either of you start with the QQ about losing, the slapper steps in and, you guessed it, slaps the offender across the face with an open palm. If it's a repeat offense, the slap repeats in reverse. Each time an offense is repeated, the slap adds one more repetition.

For the hardest lessons, Latin, sportsmanship, etc., corporal punishment is required.

Take the dice away. Take the damage deck away.

If you are going to shoot with a 3 dice primary, you get 1.5 hits, more with TL or focus. The defender gets .375 evades per die. Keep score. Count all crits as double damage.

You will then have a game based purely on your ability to fly it. No one left to get mad at but your self.

table flip and walk away........
But seriously you are a grown up its only a game lead by example. Teach your son its ok to lose some times

Instead of focusing on what went wrong for you, focus on what went right for your son and what you felt went right for you. Complementing the other player for certain actions if they win or lose makes it feel like a much friendlier affair and can lead to genuine improvements in your game. I find it's the best way to deal with any defeat.

I think focusing on the positive aspects and focusing on learning when something goes wrong are the keys to help you.

You'll help your son by being a better example. After you have your part of the problem fixed for a little while, it'll be easier to approach him with any corrective feedback.

Glad you're playing with him though -- I spent my teenage years playing Axis & Allies with my dad. He'd always beat me unless I got lucky, but he had the experience advantage. Today, we still meet up once or twice a month, only these days we are playing x-wing. I got him hooked within a month of my starting to play.

If you don't have mods, don't expect to roll well. Hope to roll well, but don't expect to.

And everytimr the game majorly changes, seemingly because of one good or bad dice roll, think about the other reasons that ship died, or didn't do any damage. Mabey because of your positioning. Mabey because your opponent outflew you. Mabey because your shooting at a poor target for what your ship is designed for. Mabey because you killed the wrong ship first, leaving the one that can hit you or can't be hit alive. The list goes on and on.

The important thing is realising you have a problem and asking for help....

As long as you know you're doing it I'm sure you'll be OK in the long run. I'd recommend having plenty of lists and play quick. Play enough and you'll both have something good to remember.

If he wins 10 in a row, send him to his room.

I have a problem. My son and I are both rotten losers, and overly magnanimous winners. Our expectations of what the dice results "should" be rarely matches reality. I blame myself, as he learned by example from me. I've been trying to work on this, with limited success. It's better when we play co-operatively, like the Aturi campaign. But we love list building and love dogfighting.

Does anyone have any suggestions that can help?

I've wasted god knows how long lamenting poor dice. It can't be helped, it's at the very core of the game. They'll either love you or hate you.

For general sportmanship, head back to basic lists built around your favourite character each and go from there. Rediscover the joy of flying? Even back to the core set games could help. What I mean by that is maybe both of your lists have so many upgrades included you're assuming they'll be 100% effective all of the time?

When your son gets that triple natural evade he desperately needed to block your carefully planned and executed attack, instead of "****!", try "Nice roll!" and a high five.

I'd suggest two things. Each of you point out to the other when they're doing something that's poor sportsmanship. Quite often we'll do things and not even realize we're doing it. I once heard a very wise statement. We tend to judge ourselves based on our intentions and others based on their actions...

Of course when someone is frustrated pointing out to them doesn't always help a lot.

Then come up with some sort of penalty system for that bad behavior, but something not related to X-Wing. Maybe you have to do his choirs or he has to do yours. Or putting money in a poor sportsmanship jar (which you then use to buy more X-Wing) or something.

But in addition to that have some sort of reward for good behavior. If one of you loses graciously the other does something nice, like maybe putting money in that jar to buy more X-Wing with.

Point is to recognize when you're doing something wrong and correct it, but to also recognize when you do something good and reward it.

I'd suggest two things. Each of you point out to the other when they're doing something that's poor sportsmanship. Quite often we'll do things and not even realize we're doing it. I once heard a very wise statement. We tend to judge ourselves based on our intentions and others based on their actions...<<<<<THIS!!!!!!

Of course when someone is frustrated pointing out to them doesn't always help a lot.

Then come up with some sort of penalty system for that bad behavior, but something not related to X-Wing. Maybe you have to do his choirs or he has to do yours. Or putting money in a poor sportsmanship jar (which you then use to buy more X-Wing) or something.

But in addition to that have some sort of reward for good behavior. If one of you loses graciously the other does something nice, like maybe putting money in that jar to buy more X-Wing with.

Point is to recognize when you're doing something wrong and correct it, but to also recognize when you do something good and reward it.

I like the jar thing. Maybe designate the good behavior with Rebels (the Light Side) and bad behavior as Imperials (Dark side). When someone has a completely ludicrously terrible or lucky roll, put a buck into the Scum jar.

If nothing else, you'll be buying more ships!

Learn that you can't control everything, nor should you want to.

I really like this idea. If it were me, I'd probably play some specific games where you could just get smoked either way, but it's fun. Come up with a really crazy way to play the game so that you get used to just having fun, even if you are losing. I think that's a start.

20 Obstacles is one way. Just throw stuff out there and expect that even just flying without hitting something will be hard. At that point, it's just a crazy game and hope you have fun with it.

Agree to play some B-wing list ideas. Just make up a crazy list that is not competitive, but has some silly mechanic or idea that you want to try out....like lots of Scyks with Tractor Beams or something. This way, you have fun just flying something different and pulling off absurd combos, but it's not expected to win.

Mario Kart could be fun. Competitive, but crazy. Idea is to recapture the joy of just playing.

Wow. These are some great suggestions.

Part of the problem is the game has changed so much in depth and complexity. My son loves to fly powerful synergistic combos but I basically want to fly X-wings. We had a 2 weekend stretch where I lost to his Palp defenders 5 times in a row.

Lol I banned him from flying that list.

What I should do is fly triple defenders and just put an X-wing model on the base.

I guess we should embrace the fact that we only have a meta game of 2, and just create our own fixes to balance it out so we can fly what we enjoy.

Also I need to stop landing on rocks.

There is definitely a problem if you want to fly casual lists and he wants to fly super competitive lists. I'm not sure what I can do for you there.