So we've finally been able to run a Chainbound event! We had to buy a second camera to do it, but it's finally working.

We ran a four player event, which ran smoothly - however, at the end we had results which meant two players had two wins, and two players had one win. The players with two wins had the same Win/Loss record, the same SoS, and the same ESoS - but the system has clearly decided one of them to be in first and one to be in second. As this made a difference in prizes awarded, please can I ask what criteria GEM uses to decide who gets ranked where when the numbers are the same across the board?

We've a similar issue come up in our first Chainbound event (also a 4 player pod).

Even being give a second camera (from another store who had used it to run chainbound events) didn't solve it for us - two seperate PCs using either of our cameras were not able to get the codes to scan direct from app or cards.

We ended up getting players to screenshot their profile QR codes and photograph their deck codes in order to enlarge them to the point that the cameras could pick them up.

Same query, what is the tie-breaker it's using to decide placings (our 1st place according to this was beaten in R2 by 3rd place).

I'm also curious as to why it's running 3 rounds for 4 players?

I've always understood the correct way to do swiss pairings (to avoid precisely this sort of 2-3way win scenario) is;
4 players - 2 rounds
5-8 players - 3 rounds
9-16 players - 4 rounds
17-32 players - 5 rounds etc

23 hours ago, Proud Lion said:

what criteria GEM uses to decide who gets ranked where when the numbers are the same across the board?

Per the OP rules ( https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/bf/4d/bf4db20f-92b7-4bdb-b1af-ba1dcb2fd435/kf_tournament_regulations-compressed.pdf ) (Page 9) the final tie breaker when everything else is tied is "random".

Anecdotally, I've found that GEM appears to award the win to the player who got 2 wins first. However this is based on an extremely small sample size without any knowledge of the algorithms used internally in the software so could very easily be me seeing patterns where there are none.

On 5/12/2019 at 3:37 PM, gamersemporium said:

I'm also curious as to why it's running 3 rounds for 4 players?

I've always understood the correct way to do swiss pairings (to avoid precisely this sort of 2-3way win scenario) is;
4 players - 2 rounds
5-8 players - 3 rounds
9-16 players - 4 rounds
17-32 players - 5 rounds etc

I don't know if it's truly random, first to X wins, or what WER does (order of registration), but I would not base a prize schedule for Chainbound on place, but rather number of wins. The chains to be added are based on number of wins, and that explains why you have 3 rounds for a 4-person pod.

On 3/28/2019 at 3:17 PM, RedHawkOP said:

Hello all,

Alex Watkins here. I want to thank Jeff for being on here and answering peoples questions. I also want o thank everyone for taking the time to contact us and give feedback. I have made a couple of videos to help stores get set up on GEM. the first video goes through eh step required to set up and the second goes through a ChainBound event.

Set Up

https://youtu.be/-dQ75wu180g

Chainbound
https://youtu.be/JvOB9bDDrxA

Those videos were so useful! Wish we had seen them when we were setting up. Would've saved us a lot of time and headaches. (And thus you guys, too.) Can you please pin this somewhere, like to the start of this thread?

The mobile app for scanning is soooooooooooooo much better. Thank you for adding that.

Now we just need the Archon names it gives us to always link to the Master Vault.

I’ve found the iOS app for my iPad, but I can’t find the Android app for my Galaxy S9. I’d appreciate any help on this matter.

Question about tournaments variants: will they ever be supported with official software? Or it is better to play these variants unofficially and forget about GEM if running these tournaments?

11 hours ago, kenkakuknight said:

I’ve found the iOS app for my iPad, but I can’t find the Android app for my Galaxy S9. I’d appreciate any help on this matter.

I just searched the Play Store for "GEM Remote" and found it.

There's an iOS app? I must have missed a memo?

I am also dead in the water, because after the 2.19.1 update, I can only make Casual events which means I cannot run my chainbound event scheduled for today.

We need manually entry of participants like 30 minutes ago. I was banging my head against the wall here trying to sort out why I couldn't do anything, then the community organizer asked if we had a webcam. No we do not, we are a retail business, I have never once needed a webcam for anything in my life.

A half hour later of multi tasking (one of which was this), I find this thread with no solution to my dilemma.

Also why is there no retailer tournament support number I could have called?

Please fix all this. Using 3rd party software for pairings and no official reporting of this event.. yay.......

Also could you respond in a more direct manner, these forums are not part of my regular routine. I will probably not think to check them before our next keyforge event is planned for July 13th

You can send a reply to my email. thank you

On 6/6/2019 at 4:41 PM, gulfcoastgaming said:

I attempted to update my GEM software, it started then said there was a suspicious file. So, I tried again, but now it thinks the old version was already uninstalled and will not proceed with the new version. How can I remedy this? Is the old download available somewhere? At this point I am dead in the water to run chainbound events. Any help would be appreciated.

Is anyone monitoring this forum any more? I need serious assistance. I have even emailed gem support twice with no response! I am UNABLE to run ANY events. I do not have GEM to run them any more and it will not download and install!!!

I work in a game store in Brazil. We started using the program recently and faced the following issues:

1. All events were properly registered as "tournament" on the site and were visible on the store locator a few days before the event.
2. On the day of the event, we logged into the program, but we did not find the events registered on the site anywhere, so we started a new event, even with our profile logged in the program we only found "casual" events, we filled everything after the event. event created, we appeared the possibility to upgrade to "chainbound", we did and we ran the interior event normally.
3. When the event is over, we tried to edit the report and to our surprise, it was not possible because the list is blank (see attachment).

We ask for help because we want to promote the growth of the community of players in our region, thank you.

Hi, I tried contacting Jeff Brower     by forum DM about that

It's not direcly related to GEM, but I found out there is a vulnerability in using the current profile ID QR code that you scan for tournaments at Vault Tour for exchanging ember shards for IRL prizes.

It's possible to get a valid QR code for any user, including current Vault Tour winners with hundreds of shards, without event needing they account password. Thus spending others people shards to buy merch.

If any Asmodee/FFG official want to reach me, or if you direcly or indirecly have contact with staff , let me know. You can DM me and should have access to my personnal email too.

As for other people wanting to know how that can be done, dont bother trying, I won't leak that out.

Is there any way to do either of the following in GEM:

• Manual pairing / re-pairing of rounds
• Edit tournament settings during the event

Re: pairing changes, we often have couples / friends attend our events, and request not to play each other in the first round (because they play each other all the time outside of my store). At the moment, I can't see any way to do this. It also means if I have an error in the event set up (part of my second question), I can't currently see a way to make sure the players have the same pairings if I have to re-create the event for any reason.

Re: tournament setting changes, I realised halfway through an event I was running that I've selected the wrong number of rounds, as we specifically intended to do less rounds. I can't find a way to fix this once rounds have started - and worse, it's a sealed event, so even if I could re-create the event, I wouldn't be able to put the players and their decks in correctly.

If neither of these things are possible, can I please ask if someone would be able to help me fix my event file, which is incorrect in its current form and can't be uploaded as it is? Thank you.

Looking through this thread, it looks like I need to request allotments for chainbound events. Where in the retailer portal or GEM is that located? I cannot find that info ANYWHERE and the couple of folks who have asked on this thread never got a reply.

After a series of phone calls and emails, I was also told to go through: [email protected]   . I emailed them and no reply.

I have someone who wants to sponsor a chainbound event. The last FLGS they did it through was not on the ball, so all the players showed up and did not earn any aemberpoints. I have been struggling for two weeks to get this resolved so the event I set for the 13th can actually happen. Based on your response rate (in emails), I would say ANA's customer service needs work.

More importantly, setting up OP for games should not be this nerve-wracking.

So if my email inquest could be responded to or an actual answer of how to request allotments could be posted here (versus the three other requests that have been ignored), that would really help my store.

21 hours ago, themeeplescafe said:

I was also told to go through: [email protected] 

I apologize for the incorrect email address. Your request evidently went to nowhereland. The correct email address:

[email protected]

If anyone has any problems with allocations or Æmbershards please send an email to that address for resolution. I am told that they have gotten all of the allocations sorted, but if you check and they are not correct - drop a note to that email address. We truly want you to succeed. This discussion forum is primarily here to let those of you who can help each other do so. This is not an official support channel. Dropping an email to Organized Play at Fantasy Flight Games is the correct path for resolution of organized play issues!

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

On 8/10/2019 at 10:59 AM, Proud Lion said:

Is there any way to do either of the following in GEM:

• Manual pairing / re-pairing of rounds
• Edit tournament settings during the event

Re: pairing changes, we often have couples / friends attend our events, and request not to play each other in the first round (because they play each other all the time outside of my store). At the moment, I can't see any way to do this. It also means if I have an error in the event set up (part of my second question), I can't currently see a way to make sure the players have the same pairings if I have to re-create the event for any reason.

Re: tournament setting changes, I realised halfway through an event I was running that I've selected the wrong number of rounds, as we specifically intended to do less rounds. I can't find a way to fix this once rounds have started - and worse, it's a sealed event, so even if I could re-create the event, I wouldn't be able to put the players and their decks in correctly.

If neither of these things are possible, can I please ask if someone would be able to help me fix my event file, which is incorrect in its current form and can't be uploaded as it is? Thank you.

We purposely disallow manual pairings for lots of great reasons and you can read back to find some of my earlier posts about that. We do not want anyone manipulating the tournament for the number of rounds and things like that either - we want the same experience available to players no matter which store they decide to play. A Chainbound at one location must be the same rules and opportunity to win as Chainbound in another. I think your motives are admirable, but when I order a Big Mac here and a Big Mac there I want to be sure that it always arrives the same way so that I know what I am getting.

If you run a Chainbound event incorrectly, you can always convert it to Chainbound with the conversion tool. Once you log in, the button appears and by selecting it your event is converted for you. I hope that helps!

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

On 6/27/2019 at 1:12 PM, Thiago Odilom said:

I work in a game store in Brazil. We started using the program recently and faced the following issues:

1. All events were properly registered as "tournament" on the site and were visible on the store locator a few days before the event.
2. On the day of the event, we logged into the program, but we did not find the events registered on the site anywhere, so we started a new event, even with our profile logged in the program we only found "casual" events, we filled everything after the event. event created, we appeared the possibility to upgrade to "chainbound", we did and we ran the interior event normally.
3. When the event is over, we tried to edit the report and to our surprise, it was not possible because the list is blank (see attachment).

We ask for help because we want to promote the growth of the community of players in our region, thank you.

I have forwarded this to the team. It would seem that this should work to me. Thanks for the post!

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

On 6/12/2019 at 7:44 PM, gulfcoastgaming said:

Is anyone monitoring this forum any more? I need serious assistance. I have even emailed gem support twice with no response! I am UNABLE to run ANY events. I do not have GEM to run them any more and it will not download and install!!!

I hope this is fixed for you. When new software is released it often gets this response from antiviruses. The second attempt at install should allow it ot be installed. The thing is that in today's world, very little can be trusted. In order to trust even the software that I have tagged with a signing certificate, it must meet a threshold number of installs before many anti-virus systems trust it - even if it is as safe as GEM.

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

I've recently started helping run Keyforge events at my local store after increased interest in the game. I can run the Gem software fine, but run into issues when trying to set up a chainbound event as the store is yet to receive allocations for chainbound events. At present i can set up a casual event, and convert to chainbound, but can not report the results.

I've contacted my distributor and they are unable to help, and I've emailed FFG organized play, and have not yet gotten a response.

Is anyone able to provide more information as to how to get allocations for the store, so we can start holding official chainbound events, rather than manually tracking chains each week.

On 8/28/2019 at 11:55 AM, OldAmber said:

I apologize for the incorrect email address. Your request evidently went to nowhereland. The correct email address:

[email protected]

If anyone has any problems with allocations or Æmbershards please send an email to that address for resolution. I am told that they have gotten all of the allocations sorted, but if you check and they are not correct - drop a note to that email address. We truly want you to succeed. This discussion forum is primarily here to let those of you who can help each other do so. This is not an official support channel. Dropping an email to Organized Play at Fantasy Flight Games is the correct path for resolution of organized play issues!

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

I have emailed [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]. I have gotten no response from the first two, and I got a generic completely unhelpful responses from the third. My tournament is scheduled for next Friday and I still can't make it official.

I am sorry, but your customer service really needs help. You also should put up some sort of FAQ or easy procedure to request allotments, because this is ridiculous.

On 1/24/2019 at 4:56 PM, OldAmber said:

We just wanted to give everyone as much access as possible. By having it where anyone can run a Casual tournament, a retailer does not need to worry about sharing their login and you can have anyone volunteer to run a Casual event whom you trust to do it correctly - the software keeps everything fair and since there is no shenanigans with manual pairings you can be sure that even your Casual events have the same integrity as the highest level ones. BUT - when it comes time for the events that you are allocated, your retailer password is required to get access to those allocations (and tournament definitions) and to upload them later because you are responsible for that. It is important to us to keep the retailers safe, events runable at all times and the players happy in the knowledge that they have the same fairness wherever they play! This was our solution and we hope that it works well for you.

Jeff Brower
GEM Client Lead

The store I play at store owner is having problems with logging in. I think it asks to download an update when he tries and when he clicks yes nothing happens. Customers and the owner have sent emails and have heard nothing back. Can someone please help?