My 8-year old will likely be playing Dash at some tournaments. What is appropriate to make sure he is protected from any, let's politely call them jerks, that try to call a judge about Dash's ability being declared? I have seen a couple of fun ideas, but want to hear what other's you've seen/heard.

*If this needs to go to the rules forum, I apologize*

Saying at the start of the game "I will be using Dash's ability unless I say otherwise" is the best way to cover yourself.

If the opponent has a problem with it, it's because they're a jerk. If they make a stink about it to an 8 year old, they should be ashamed and everyone should shame them.

Just now, Sekac said:

Saying at the start of the game "I will be using Dash's ability unless I say otherwise" is the best way to cover yourself.

If the opponent has a problem with it, it's because they're a jerk. If they make a stink about it to an 8 year old, they should be ashamed and everyone should shame them.

This seems like the simplest solution, and I have had little trouble with it. We are just considering attending Regionals/System Open events and plastic spaceship 'pilots' seem to forget that we are playing a game with no 'real' prize at stake.

I've got a 9 y/o daughter and I take her to small time ($5 buy in, 5-10 people) Destiny tournaments. She knows the rules pretty well but with new expansions come new mechanics that she may not know. When pairings come up I usually go with her to introduce her to the other player and explain that we try to know all of the rules but there are some she may forget. Most players in that community are pretty forgiving and work very well with her. Most of my interactions in the x-wing community have been very similar, even in higher stakes (system opens). It's generally a pretty cool group. I'd be sure to introduce your son to the Judge/TO so everyone knows who is who and if your son has any concerns who he should reach out to in the game.

If somebody is going to **** over an 8 year old, that's on them and they have to live with themselves. Just be a good coach and practice with your son on declaring all of his actions ahead. That's good practice for us all. I run FCS a ton on my ships and I'm horrible about pulling the locks and audibly declaring the re-acquisition after the attack. That's been only real psuedo negative experience, people getting a bit testing about not saying that out loud.

First of all, 95% of players are completely ok with you saying "Dash's ability is always on unless otherwise stated."

For the other 5%, invoke this rule. The FAQ states that the Dash player "must choose whether or not to use his ability". MUST!!! It is not a thing you can choose not to do, you have do declare yes or no. If you forget something that must happen, you should go back and do it. Also, as something that has to happen, it's on the opponent to make sure they do it as well. Finally, since it says choose whether or not, there really isn't a declared default if everything gets messed up for opponents to scream the ability is off.

Or my personal favorite, when someone says "you didn't declare his ability, you hit that rock" just respond with "what rock?" and keep doing what you're doing. If they get all uppity, just say "Sorry, I was ignoring you as well as that rock."

4 minutes ago, Killerardvark said:

Or my personal favorite, when someone says "you didn't declare his ability, you hit that rock" just respond with "what rock?" and keep doing what you're doing. If they get all uppity, just say "Sorry, I was ignoring you as well as that rock."

Seconded.

Just keep moving along.

In my experience of playing Dash for 3 years now, the only time I've ever had to pre-emptively declare whether I'm using Dash's ability is when I need to check if a Barrel Roll or Boost is going to land me on a rock.

If somebody tried to tell me to take a stress from maneuvering onto a debris because of something I didn't say, I would just ignore them, or call a judge on them if they escalated the issue.

Tell your son that if his opponent tries to tell him to do something that he doesn't think he should be doing, he needs to raise his hand and call a judge immediately. A lot of ***tty people out there will try to pull fast ones over on kids, so it's important that he knows that opponents are not to be trusted for explaining rules.

I would also like to add that as a Dad, please let me know if my kid is expressing any salt during the game or is unsportsmanlike. You won't offend me and I really do want to know. Give me and my kid honest feedback on their gameplay. They can't change what they don't know.

Have this card on your squad sheet. I gave out ~50 of these at the IL regional, and there should be more at Krayt Cup.

Just now, Kaptin Krunch said:

Have this card on your squad sheet. I gave out ~50 of these at the IL regional, and there should be more at Krayt Cup.

Now I wish I would have been able to make it up (that was our closest regional)! Any chance I could get you to send me one?

I appreciate everyone's advice! Our experiences so far with the X-Wing Community as a whole has been stellar. I think my, I sense unwarranted, concern stems from the crud that some of the younger members of my competitive MtG team experienced when we took them to higher-level events. Thanks for being part of a great community!

Has anyone seen any cool mods/reminders others have used?

15 minutes ago, AT Leader said:

Now I wish I would have been able to make it up (that was our closest regional)! Any chance I could get you to send me one?

I appreciate everyone's advice! Our experiences so far with the X-Wing Community as a whole has been stellar. I think my, I sense unwarranted, concern stems from the crud that some of the younger members of my competitive MtG team experienced when we took them to higher-level events. Thanks for being part of a great community!

Has anyone seen any cool mods/reminders others have used?

I'll have them at Indy, Michigan, and Adepticon.

50 minutes ago, Killerardvark said:

The FAQ states that the Dash player "must choose whether or not to use his ability". MUST!!! It is not a thing you can choose not to do, you have do declare yes or no. If you forget something that must happen, you should go back and do it. Also, as something that has to happen, it's on the opponent to make sure they do it as well. Finally, since it says choose whether or not, there really isn't a declared default if everything gets messed up for opponents to scream the ability is off.

And here's what I'm going to invoke if I get called to a table to judge this. There is no default state. Both players are responsible for maintaining the game. If you don't know what your opponent is doing with a required choice, you need to ask them, not try to "gotcha!" them with a judge call.

I was only 15 when the game came out, and I seem to recall really enjoying announcing everything I was doing, it made me fly better. Not sure if the same applies to an 8-year-old, but I do remember playing Axis and Allies when I was 8 and being no more immature about it than I am now, so I'm assuming your 8-year-old is probably pretty mature about board gaming. Getting into that mode for tournaments isn't really that hard, in my experience. I think if you practice with him a little bit beforehand with some games that are played in that very formal style of announcing everything you do, it'll help him a lot. It's annoying, but that's always how I have to play at tournaments too. In my experience, certain types of nerds can get really really fussy, mean, and competitive (nothing against nerds, when it comes to Star Wars, I'm a total nerd. But there's certain stereotypical mean nerds who give us all a bad name).

I also really agree that anyone who tries to cheat in a plastic spaceships game against an 8-year-old is a jerk (not gonna say what I would say because I don't want a warning point...). And I agree that kids should know all the rules so that other people can't cheat them , not the other way round. But I know that as a kid, I always liked to be treated like an adult, and part of that included suffering the consequences of missed opportunities (in my first tournament, I made it to the final table and lost because I dialed in a red move on a stressed-out Tycho so my opponent flew him off the board for me).

35 minutes ago, Killerardvark said:

I'll have them at Indy, Michigan, and Adepticon.

I cannot make Indy or Adepticon Hoping for Michigan, but it has to fall into place.

Just now, Kieransi said:

I was only 15 when the game came out, and I seem to recall really enjoying announcing everything I was doing, it made me fly better. Not sure if the same applies to an 8-year-old, but I do remember playing Axis and Allies when I was 8 and being no more immature about it than I am now, so I'm assuming your 8-year-old is probably pretty mature about board gaming. Getting into that mode for tournaments isn't really that hard, in my experience. I think if you practice with him a little bit beforehand with some games that are played in that very formal style of announcing everything you do, it'll help him a lot. It's annoying, but that's always how I have to play at tournaments too. In my experience, certain types of nerds can get really really fussy, mean, and competitive (nothing against nerds, when it comes to Star Wars, I'm a total nerd. But there's certain stereotypical mean nerds who give us all a bad name).

I also really agree that anyone who tries to cheat in a plastic spaceships game against an 8-year-old is a jerk (not gonna say what I would say because I don't want a warning point...). And I agree that kids should know all the rules so that other people can't cheat them , not the other way round. But I know that as a kid, I always liked to be treated like an adult, and part of that included suffering the consequences of missed opportunities (in my first tournament, I made it to the final table and lost because I dialed in a red move on a stressed-out Tycho so my opponent flew him off the board for me).

That is how I learned too. I think I am concerned because I have a local player who has people try to cheat against her often. We often get to get a good laugh out of everything people have tried.

Teach him to scream "DASH!" for every move, barrel roll, or boost. At least until his opponent of that round loudly proclaims, with witnesses: "I get it, can you please stop declaring all the time!"

Some people take the game way too personal. And, for some reason, losing to a kid seems to really trigger some people and they become willing to do really shady stuff to avoid it.

My son has been going to tournaments since he was 6 and, after two years of being a regular, I know that many other players will make sure that no one will try to pull a fast one on him. It's still a sad prospect when you want to go to a larger tournament where people won't know that he's an actual player and may want to pad their win column through whatever means. My son is naive enough to expect the best from people, and I don't want to shatter that world view of his (yet), he just turned 8...

All I can say is that, over time, if he follows the rules and shows he's actually there to play, most players will just stop seeing a kid in front of them. Which also means they'll stop pulling punches (which is good). But the key part is that you'll have a bunch of people that have his back if something shady is going down, not just "well, it's his dad, of course he sides with him."

May people at those tournaments fear the screams of "DASH!" as much as people around here fear "CRACKSHOT!"

Slight Devil's advocate here (as I don’t really mind one way or the other) but assuming the opponent allows Dash to be "on" all the time, in the event where the dash player boosts or barrel rolls onto a rock when they thought they would clear it, is the opponent then still considered a WAAC player for making them stay on the rock and Dash cant shoot this turn?

Surely you can't have it both ways?

18 minutes ago, drjkel said:

Some people take the game way too personal. And, for some reason, losing to a kid seems to really trigger some people and they become willing to do really shady stuff to avoid it.

I almost lost with Dengar-Asajj to a nine-year old playing Boshek-ClusterMine-Oicunn. He had Boshek'd a full-health (-1 Oicunn ram, I guess) pre-nerf Manaroo off the table the game before, beating one of our better players, and I literally only won because I knew he would yell "Boshek!" at me when I revealed my dial, so I set a fatal 3 bank as my maneuver and straightened out thanks to Boshek. Still one of the most fun games of X-Wing I've experienced. Came down to an out-of-time range 3 shot from Oicunn that I got 1 evade on to stay alive at 1 health for the win!

This was in a tournament. If he'd won, I would have been so happy for him, beating up on the old guys with fricking Boshek.

It actually doesn’t matter what you say or do prior to the game, because if a TO walks by and notices you don’t declare, then he may enforce the rule as he sees fit.

Just follow the letter of the stupid rules, and you won’t have stupid problems.

15 minutes ago, Mace Windu said:

Slight Devil's advocate here (as I don’t really mind one way or the other) but assuming the opponent allows Dash to be "on" all the time, in the event where the dash player boosts or barrel rolls onto a rock when they thought they would clear it, is the opponent then still considered a WAAC player for making them stay on the rock and Dash cant shoot this turn?

Surely you can't have it both ways?

I agree.

Personally, if he is left on a rock and play continues then the decision was made; but I am pretty low key when playing so I let them decide up until play moves on.

Ultimately, I plan on having him announce each step anyway so hopefully he/I can avoid any problems.

I want to create a little token. Each side has a picture of Pat Morita on it. One side with him holding up his right hand, one with him holding up his left hand.

The caption on one side says "Dash On" and on the other side "Dash Off"

Dash on, Dash off. Breath in through nose; out through mouth.

@Killerardvark I should be at Indy, and would like to ask nicely for one of those cards (even tho I'm not flying Dash)

5 hours ago, Mace Windu said:

Slight Devil's advocate here (as I don’t really mind one way or the other) but assuming the opponent allows Dash to be "on" all the time, in the event where the dash player boosts or barrel rolls onto a rock when they thought they would clear it, is the opponent then still considered a WAAC player for making them stay on the rock and Dash cant shoot this turn?

Surely you can't have it both ways?

Is this not the time a Dash player would declare if is off for the purpose of the movement action?

35 minutes ago, TyrantNZ said:

Is this not the time a Dash player would declare if is off for the purpose of the movement action?

My specific example noted above infers Dash is by default "on" and the player has not said anything then performed a move (because Dash is assumed on) then not said anything and performed a boost which they assumed would clear the rock but instead they landed on it. In this instance there's still an agreement that its on unless turned off, but RAW because he didn’t declare Dash the player can argue that they meant to be off.

So the question still stands in this scenario would you then be considered WAAC for making them stay on the rock because Dash was always "on"?

Edit:

I also suspect that a lot of people do want it both ways in that a single action Dash (Lone Wolf for EPT) always want dash on during movement but off during actions, whereas PTL Dash is always on during movement, mostly off during first action (though sometimes on) then on again during second action.

Neither of which I would actually be OK with.

17 hours ago, Mace Windu said:

Slight Devil's advocate here (as I don’t really mind one way or the other) but assuming the opponent allows Dash to be "on" all the time, in the event where the dash player boosts or barrel rolls onto a rock when they thought they would clear it, is the opponent then still considered a WAAC player for making them stay on the rock and Dash cant shoot this turn?

Surely you can't have it both ways?

Yeah - if they declare it as always on, and don't say they would like it off for their boost or barrel roll, then they stay on the rock.

That's not WAAC - that's holding them consistent. That is the exact time you, as the dash player, usually want to declare you're not using the pilot ability: when you know the boost or BR is close, and you don't want to stay on the rock if it overlaps.

I'm still completely confused as to how his ability works.