Can a TO approve third-party dice for use as long as the opponent is allowed to use them if they wish?

By the letter of the law, no. Dice, obstacles and bomb tokens are considered "essential components" and only official FFG-provided product may be used.

Unofficially, no one's really going to care what you do at your local store tournaments.

2 hours ago, DR4CO said:

Unofficially, no one's really going to care what you do at your local store tournaments.

he's asking about store championships, not a local store tournament. As a judge I absolutely would not allow third party dice at a store championship (not that I'm actually judging one this year).

A pedantic question:

Are FFG prizes considered "product"?

1 minute ago, Alekzanter said:

A pedantic question:

Are FFG prizes considered "product"?

Yes. Anything originally produced by FFG counts.

8 hours ago, VanderLegion said:

he's asking about store championships, not a local store tournament. As a judge I absolutely would not allow third party dice at a store championship (not that I'm actually judging one this year).

For the sake of curiousity, based on FFG rules or another reason?

4 hours ago, AT Leader said:

For the sake of curiousity, based on FFG rules or another reason?

I would do it based on both FFG's ruling, since it's pretty clear and doesn't actually allow for a TO to use their discretion and there's no way of knowing what a set of 3rd party dice will be like. The ones from FFG may not be perfect, but at least this way everyone is playing with the same imperfections.

That said... I've never seen a armed FFG agent at any event I've played, including at the FFG event center, so it's going to be up to the TO if they enforce that rule or not. IMO they should, because again the rule doesn't actually allow for TO's discretion, and a TO who ignores this rule may ignore other ones.

Hey everyone,

TO here, we had this happen last year and I told them no just in the essence of fairness. You cannot take the chance of someone accusing them of being weighted to favor a certain build (modified dice don't always roll hits or evades). Plus, if it was revealed someone won a semi-major event with custom dice.... you best be sure people would be a little suspicious. Best to play it safe.

Bringing 3rd party dice slows things down by having people stop to question them. I have seen white, black and metal custom dice online that look nice, but know they would be questioned at a tournament. FFG has made it harder to know what is legal with the different varieties they have awarded, so if someone had a 3rd party set that looked similar it may be hard to tell which are legal.

The odds of rolling 4 crits are 1 in 4096. It happened to me... um... 2 or 3 times I think so far. Each time, both me and my opponent were flabbergasted and even slightly amused! Had I rolled that with non FFG dice, even if they were perfectly balanced and keeping in mind that the odds of it happening do exist... I don't think either me or my opponent would be as amused...

It's not the fairness of the dice that I worry about, but rather the nagging doubt that would remain behind after using them.

Thank you for the responses! I might take mine with me and ask the TO, but am planning on using FFG official.

I like the point that the rules seem to leave no wiggle room for TO's on the matter and that one that does might be lax in other matters.

I have been steadily rolling both of my sets of unofficial dice and my FFG's (over 1000 rolls) and haven't seen any anomalies but why risk having someone make a stink and blame dice when they lose.

The funny thing is the FFG dice are really easy to mod and make them weighted...

11 hours ago, dotswarlock said:

It's not the fairness of the dice that I worry about, but rather the nagging doubt that would remain behind after using them.

Yeah that's a great point. Even if they were completely fair, even better than the FFG dice, any time something weird or unlikely happened people would be much more likely to think something is up with the dice themselves.

So what you're doing it creating a very easy target for someone to blame for a loss.

53 minutes ago, muribundi said:

The funny thing is the FFG dice are really easy to mod and make them weighted...

It turns out it's basically impossible to stop people from cheating if they're determined to. See the recent world's stream extravaganza for further proof.

This does bring up a good question: How do you verify that the dice your opponent uses are legal from FFG?

I have a couple of sets of dice from different core sets and noticed on a few that the symbols are not exactly the same. Some lines are different thicknesses and they look different.

There are sparkly dice, transluscent dice, marbled and gold and silver dice from FFG regional and world events.

With at least 5 different types of legal dice from FFG - how to do you know that what your opponent has are FFG and not 3rd party?

4 minutes ago, USCGrad90 said:

This does bring up a good question: How do you verify that the dice your opponent uses are legal from FFG?

I have a couple of sets of dice from different core sets and noticed on a few that the symbols are not exactly the same. Some lines are different thicknesses and they look different.

There are sparkly dice, transluscent dice, marbled and gold and silver dice from FFG regional and world events.

With at least 5 different types of legal dice from FFG - how to do you know that what your opponent has are FFG and not 3rd party?

In particular, there are 3rd party dice that are virtually identical to some of the regionals+ prize dice.

6 hours ago, nigeltastic said:

It turns out it's basically impossible to stop people from cheating if they're determined to. See the recent world's stream extravaganza for further proof.

That is why banning third party dices only spoil the fun of legit people and do not protect against anything.

Exactly like copy protection on game, it never stopped anyone pirating game and it is a pain when you buy it.

Edit: It only give the impression that people will not cheat with dice...

6 hours ago, muribundi said:

That is why banning third party dices only spoil the fun of legit people and do not protect against anything.

Exactly like copy protection on game, it never stopped anyone pirating game and it is a pain when you buy it.

Edit: It only give the impression that people will not cheat with dice...

Not quite true. It makes it harder to cheat with dice since you have to do whatever you're going to do to actual FFG dice. It's one of those things where you stop less determined people from cheating by making it harder to do so so it's not worth the time investment. If someone can just buy a set of weighted dice and use them that's more tempting than if they have to go through the modification process on a set of FFG dice and hide their work. Some people would never cheat regardless and some people would always cheat regardless it's just a matter of making it harder for those who do to do so.

As a TO I never have and never will allow third party dice.

The potentiale headache people might cause if someone gets salty over dicerolls is not worth it

23 minutes ago, Holmelund said:

The potential headache people might cause if someone gets salty over dicerolls is not worth it

A couple people have brought this up. I think I am just trusting and assume others are as well.

Personally, this is a solid reason. I don't know if I'll even ask...

14 hours ago, AT Leader said:

A couple people have brought this up. I think I am just trusting and assume others are as well.

Personally, this is a solid reason. I don't know if I'll even ask...

Yeah, it's a genuinely good reason not to try to use third-party dice. It also genuinely sucks that I can't use my beautiful black Nerd-X dice in tournament games. Both things are true.

2 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Yeah, it's a genuinely good reason not to try to use third-party dice. It also genuinely sucks that I can't use my beautiful black Nerd-X dice in tournament games. Both things are true.

Yah. Makes me sad, since I really love the look of the nerd x dice, but most of my games are either vassal or tournaments, so i wouldn't really get to use em...

On 2017-5-26 at 10:44 PM, nigeltastic said:

If someone can just buy a set of weighted dice and use them that's more tempting than if they have to go through the modification process on a set of FFG dice and hide their work.

I hope your not naive enough to think that someone that sell weighted dice would not make them look like the FFG one...

If someone is game enough to buy weighted dice, he will buy them as FFG counterfeit...

Blocking using third party dice protect against nothing. This is an illusion of security.

1 hour ago, muribundi said:

I hope your not naive enough to think that someone that sell weighted dice would not make them look like the FFG one...

If someone is game enough to buy weighted dice, he will buy them as FFG counterfeit...

Blocking using third party dice protect against nothing. This is an illusion of security.

You have to keep in mind that third-party dice might be biased by accident. There doesn't have to be malicious intent for it to be an issue!

11 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Yeah, it's a genuinely good reason not to try to use third-party dice. It also genuinely sucks that I can't use my beautiful black Nerd-X dice in tournament games. Both things are true.

I have a pair of 'Sparkled' Nerd-X dice and a white pair from another brand that i like to use casually. I have found that they are just as even as the FFG in moderate testing (~1000 rolls)

i just wish we could have more variety in dice when there are VERY few opportunities to win them in the middle of MT.