1 hour ago, drjkel said:

I'm glad I started X-wing with my oldest son (he tagged along as a spectator for a few months before playing in his first event). I always had "what is he getting from this?" in mind, both from the game itself and the community. Which means that, although we met a bevy of awesome people, he was also exposed to some shady players/actions, or players even he thought were immature and whiny. I got a bit sick of explaining that some people derive self worth only from winning, whatever it takes, and that I agree that it's not the ideal way to be.

It makes the break with the community from not going to events anymore slightly easier to think he won't be exposed to the bad sides anymore. I wish I could cherry pick who goes to events locally, I may still drag him and the middle son (who now plays occasionally!) to events once in a while to be exposed to a variety of decent grown ups having fun playing a game, no matter how the actual game is going.

I always attend the store tourneys in our area with my 9yr old. We're possibly lucky with our community, 99.9% of people have been 100% fantastic. But we've had a couple small doses of salt from a (losing) opponent. This is fine by me, the contrast with the many, many great losers/winners we've been up against makes it a really good education in how not to be. The boy understands full well what it's like to be a bad loser, since he's a terrible one at home, so it's a good mirror for him and requires very little explanation. Mostly it's making him aware that he has plenty of time to stop acting like a spoiled child before he grows up

That said, if bad attitudes were in the majority, I'd consider it very much the wrong kind of education. But then I wouldn't be interested in attending these things myself.

2 hours ago, catachanninja said:

I dont know if we touched on the exact topic, but I fully agree people don't have the obligation to bring something fun to play against, but when I know I'm not going to enjoy my games of x wing, why am I playing?

To win alternate art versions of game components we already own...maybe a plaque, trophy, medal or challenge coin?

The fact that any of us take this even remotely serious is pretty hilarious.

1 hour ago, Cuz05 said:

I always attend the store tourneys in our area with my 9yr old. We're possibly lucky with our community, 99.9% of people have been 100% fantastic. But we've had a couple small doses of salt from a (losing) opponent. This is fine by me, the contrast with the many, many great losers/winners we've been up against makes it a really good education in how not to be. The boy understands full well what it's like to be a bad loser, since he's a terrible one at home, so it's a good mirror for him and requires very little explanation. Mostly it's making him aware that he has plenty of time to stop acting like a spoiled child before he grows up

That said, if bad attitudes were in the majority, I'd consider it very much the wrong kind of education. But then I wouldn't be interested in attending these things myself.

It was not the majority, thankfully. But given how well he could play even when he was 6, it made some people SUPER salty or gave them leeway to bend the rules because he clearly wouldn't figure it out on his own.

I have a long list of **** things people pulled (or tried to pull) on him. I try not to think to hard about it and remind myself that most of those people still lost or had to fight to eke out a win.

Some fun ones that stuck: measuring arc from the corner but really not following the arc itself (I was at the next table over and pretended to teach him how to measure an arc to wave off the BS), reminding him of Biggs' effect when Biggs was not at R1 of the Ghost (which worked on him , later told me "no, I just wanted to remind him for future turns"), talking through his target options and highlighting the obviously wrong ones (to a grown up, maybe, but a kid? The 1 hull Asajj was obviously a better target than a fully healthy Palob with focus/evade), endlessly whining about how hot his dice could be, etc.

He had a blast at the PTL Open and nearly finished 4-2 if his round 5 opponent wasn't a mean monster (I know how he plays ... he got unlucky drawing me), everyone was astounded that a 7 year old could hang. Most of the local folks loved seeing him play and taunting any new player that had to face him, especially YouTubers coming from afar who did not heed the warnings and had the whole room calling the crackshots he would suffer. A handful refused to play him initially because it's an ego crusher to get 100-0 by a kid, but they learned to enjoy the challenge of facing his super aggressive hunting style.

His bad luck was getting stuck in the middle tables. IME, the salt mines are either having fun or giving up while the top table enjoy the competition. The middle ones are where the real salt is. The bad behaviour he'd started to notice on his own drained his love for the game. He merely likes it now. That makes me mad. Son #2 will not be brought to tournaments because of this. Son #3 still has a year or two before that, but it's unlikely.

I miss the good players. I'm glad to be rid of the whiny ones.

1 hour ago, gennataos said:

The fact that any of us take this even remotely serious is pretty hilarious.

Could be worse.

1 minute ago, kris40k said:

Could be worse.

Flagged by my work as "Tasteless". Seems appropriate.

1 minute ago, gennataos said:

Flagged by my work as "Tasteless". Seems appropriate.

Mine blocked it as "gambling", which could be a fair cop; your IT is a bit more brutal about its opinion.

3 minutes ago, drjkel said:

His bad luck was getting stuck in the middle tables. IME, the salt mines are either having fun or giving up while the top table enjoy the competition.

Just cut to avoid the wall of text, but that's an interesting story. Good and bad, of course.

When I was really young, my parents were nice (dumb?) enough to let me just go out and play the pokemon TCG against others, half kids, half adults. I was maybe 7? Maybe I was a kid an naive, but I only ever remember the adults (really looking back, some of the "adults" were like 16-20) being really nice and helpful, and keeping an eye out for kids trying to cheat other kids.

That being said, I probably don't remember the jerks because I was a kid and didn't realize they were jerks. Hopefully some of that carries over to current X-Wing? I'm sure people cheated against me all the time, and I just never knew.

5 minutes ago, Brunas said:

I'm sure people cheated against me all the time, and I just never knew.

Probably still do. I can't believe you gave that other guy who "claimed" to be the Loopin' Chewie creator a shirt.

2 minutes ago, gennataos said:

Probably still do. I can't believe you gave that other guy who "claimed" to be the Loopin' Chewie creator a shirt.

to be fair, he was really handsome.

1 minute ago, Brunas said:

to be fair, he was really handsome.

We all are.

11 minutes ago, Brunas said:

When I was really young, my parents were nice (dumb?) enough to let me just go out and play the pokemon TCG against others, half kids, half adults. I was maybe 7? Maybe I was a kid an naive, but I only ever remember the adults (really looking back, some of the "adults" were like 16-20) being really nice and helpful, and keeping an eye out for kids trying to cheat other kids. 

That being said, I probably don't remember the jerks because I was a kid and didn't realize they were jerks. Hopefully some of that carries over to current X-Wing? I'm sure people cheated against me all the time, and I just never knew.

My daughter is currently 7 and doing some pre-release tournaments for pokemon... (because those are less likely to be truly competitive - our choice, not hers) My wife and I have been pretty watchful, and remain silent for the most part, and while the adult opponents are quite nice and even very fun opponents, a couple parents tend to interfere more in their kid's games and are suggesting plays or even just playing the game for their kid. So anecdotally, I could see you just not noticing some of what was going on at that age.

It probably happens, and it'll happen with a smile. The friendly cheat goes down so much easier than the blunt in-your-face cheat.

2 hours ago, Brunas said:

Just cut to avoid the wall of text, but that's an interesting story. Good and bad, of course.

When I was really young, my parents were nice (dumb?) enough to let me just go out and play the pokemon TCG against others, half kids, half adults. I was maybe 7? Maybe I was a kid an naive, but I only ever remember the adults (really looking back, some of the "adults" were like 16-20) being really nice and helpful, and keeping an eye out for kids trying to cheat other kids.

That being said, I probably don't remember the jerks because I was a kid and didn't realize they were jerks. Hopefully some of that carries over to current X-Wing? I'm sure people cheated against me all the time, and I just never knew.

I'm going with "nice", cause otherwise I'd be saying I'm dumb

In my experience, actual cheating attemps are very rare. We had one local player who was notorious for it. Then he did it on a stream in a Nationals and he never came back to tournaments (that I know of). He was unpleasant to play against, always looking for edges like trying to swap dials, forgetting to remove charges, etc. The fact that I've seen it tried on my son far more than on me is not great though. Most of those players tend to phase out of the community, thankfully.

The whining is more annoying than the cheating, in large part because it is far more common. I don't have a lot of patience for my kids blaming the world for their failures, so having grown ups model that behaviour is really annoying. It's a big factor of who I enjoy playing against the most. Those who seem unaffected by wins or losses are often more fun to play against.

56 minutes ago, drjkel said:

The whining is more annoying than the cheating, in large part because it is far more common. I don't have a lot of patience for my kids blaming the world for their failures, so having grown ups model that behaviour is really annoying. It's a big factor of who I enjoy playing against the most. Those who seem unaffected by wins or losses are often more fun to play against.

I'm putting text here that is technically not "I agree", while keeping the original message and spirit of "I agree"

1 hour ago, drjkel said:

The fact that I've seen it tried on my son far more than on me is not great though.

you think that's because they're trying to cheat a kid, or just that you're not playing the game so you notice it more?

4 hours ago, drjkel said:

The bad behaviour he'd started to notice on his own drained his love for the game. He merely likes it now. That makes me mad.

That's some sad stuff right there.

Somebody cheating for advantage in a major competition against peers, I can accept, though it still disgusts me. I'm happy enough in myself to shrug that nonsense off. Cheating and moaning at a wee lad would make me want to stamp on things.

I have said to my boy before, that if we were to face someone with a bad attitude, causing problems and generally being a jerk about playing him, that we would simply concede. We have no need to get bogged down by other people's bullshirt over a board game. It's better to just move on and show your opponent how cheap their desire is in the process.

It's a shame that sort of thing has been common enough to become a chore for you both.

We're fortunate that we have store tourneys we can go to every 2 or 3 weeks. At that level, pretty much everyone is great, even the top players are only practicing and experimenting.

I've no real desire to flex more intensely at nationals and such, neither of us are particularly competitive people. So hopefully my lad will never get too much exposure to the needy and greedy.

As an aside, it's interesting how often I've seen, or read about kids doing well with simple, aggressive lists and playstyles. I've lost to my boy often enough. Reminds me how much we 'adults' sabotage ourselves by over thinking.

Not that I seem to have actually learned anything from that.

Man, this quote from the last podcast "rebel players finally got an ace with Poe, and all they do is joust with it". I have never heard a more true statement about X-Wing than this description of resistance players. I am like 10-0 vs Poe lists, and every single one of them used Poe to just joust.

Are we going to talk about how people keep trying to build lists to out joust Tavson, but every game the initial joust happens and the non upsilon player always ends up like

7 minutes ago, SnooSnarry said:

Are we going to talk about how people keep trying to build lists to out joust Tavson, but every game the initial joust happens and the non upsilon player always ends up like

What? Shockingly cute and appealing to children?

26 minutes ago, SnooSnarry said:

Man, this quote from the last podcast "rebel players finally got an ace with Poe, and all they do is joust with it". I have never heard a more true statement about X-Wing than this description of resistance players. I am like 10-0 vs Poe lists, and every single one of them used Poe to just joust.

He gets focus AND lock! THAT'S TWICE THE ACTION EFFICIENCY!

5 minutes ago, Brunas said:

He gets focus AND lock! THAT'S TWICE THE ACTION EFFICIENCY!

this is getting out of hand!

1 hour ago, jagsba said:

you think that's because they're trying to cheat a kid, or just that you're not playing the game so you notice it more?

I've always been playing the game on the next mat over, which was necessary for most opponents since they needed a translator (them being unilingual English and my son being a 7 year old French speaker who was just starting to learn English) . If I could notice it while playing my own game, it's really sad.

2 hours ago, SnooSnarry said:

Man, this quote from the last podcast "rebel players finally got an ace with Poe, and all they do is joust with it". I have never heard a more true statement about X-Wing than this description of resistance players. I am like 10-0 vs Poe lists, and every single one of them used Poe to just joust.

I like to read stuff like this for two reasons.

1. People will fail with Poe so I'll feel like more of a special flower when I play him if he drops out of popularity.
2. People will be used to Poe jousting them, so when I don't, they won't know what to do.

5 hours ago, Brunas said:

He gets focus AND lock! THAT'S TWICE THE ACTION EFFICIENCY!

Good, twice the efficiency, double the jam!

How long until the Wedge discussion is repeated with Poe?

In my few games against him, the correct choice was always to take him down first: he's generally hitting hardest compared to his durability

How long can this go on?