7 minutes ago, President Jyrgunkarrd said:

No, I don't have evidence that it this is majority-of-players behaviour... but in my mind it hardly needs to be. Even if it is only something like 1 in 10 players selecting for better dice, I don't see why it is incumbent on me to just accept that level of disadvantage.

If the community can successfully lobby for all events to supply the dice, fine and great, I'm on board. Until then, I'm not interested in lowering my chances at winning TT accessories that have a nice resale value (because of MOV impact) in an environment where some people share dice and some people don't.

I mean, I, too, would like everyone sharing dice.

But Im still going to share dice, and force all my games to share dice.

8 hours ago, President Jyrgunkarrd said:

My   objection to being  asked to participate in a shared pool is simple enough (and I hope this does not come acro  ss as too pithy or snide; I'm not trying to be): it isn't yet mandatory at most events, a  nd so if I participate in a shared pool while so   m  eone else with positively biased di  ce pl  ays with those at another table, I'm n  ow at a disadvantage in terms of tournament placement (my individual game is fair, yes, but tournaments encompass more than just my individual game).

Again, you seem to be unaware that you have to share dice if your opponent requests it. It's not your choice.

4 hours ago, johnstevens said:

Kudos for the creative work.

Some of the replies on here really do make me feel like I have a life though, guys it's a game and a hobby, no need to take it so seriously 🙂

Building contraptions like automatic cat feeders with face detection to not feed the wrong cat etc. is a hobby too The hobbies just came together here!

9 hours ago, President Jyrgunkarrd said:

My objection to being asked to participate in a shared pool is simple enough (and I hope this does not come across as too pithy or snide; I'm not trying to be): it isn't yet mandatory at most events,

Well, it is (sort of) mandatory. I suggest you re-read the tournament regulations. This is on page 5.

Quote

Sharing Components

Before or during a tournament round, any player may request that a single range ruler, or set of range rulers, a set of maneuver templates, and/or set of dice be shared for the duration of the round. Any decisions are subject to review by a marshal.

The marshal may mandate that players must share a single range ruler, set of maneuver templates, and/or set of dice during a round.

If an opponent asks you to share dice, it's up to the marshal to allow you to refuse. I doubt there are many marshals that wouldn't mandate dice sharing, especially not if you were as upfront about dice doping as you claim to be.

13 hours ago, President Jyrgunkarrd said:

Ha, I wish. I am neither good enough to play at that level nor do I have the resources to trek out to major events.

I just play at local prize events on Vancouver Island (which is fine by me; as I understand it, most big events stopped offering prizes, and IMHO it just isn't worth it to go through a whole day worth of competitive X-Wing if there isn't a prize).

Guys, I think we can move along here.

21 hours ago, Wazat said:

"Dice Doping" should be the term for this. It sounds more clear than "Dice Vetting". What does everyone think?

absolutely hate it. makes it sound like one is loading or "cooking" their dice as opposed to just seeing if you feel they roll decently untampered.

13 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Again, you seem to be unaware that you have to share dice if your opponent requests it. It's not your choice. 

This is incorrect. It's optional unless mandated by the event Marshal.

3 minutes ago, PanchoX1 said:

absolutely hate it. makes it sound like one is loading or "cooking" their dice as opposed to just seeing if you feel they roll decently untampered.

Cool, it doesn't have to be that term.

But I should emphasize, what we're discussing here isn't just "oh I rolled blank twice in a row, better throw out that die", rolling a few dozen times, or other impotent methods. If someone is measuring their dice or doing statistically significant numbers of roll tests to find the dice that give them the best results, then they're actually altering their dice pool to give themselves a very real competitive advantage. This is something that will have a real effect over multiple games, e.g. during a tournament. This is the difference between wearing your lucky socks (impotent, beyond the placebo effect), vs letting that shady coach give you a drug to boost your performance (doping, which has a real effect on performance beyond placebos, even if it's just an edge). Doping is a pretty big deal in sports for a reason, and that's what came to mind when I learned people could tamper with their dice pool to min-max their odds.

I think it's as bad an adjustment of performance as changing the cards in your damage deck, probably worse if you can filter some really good dice out of a large lot (you roll a lot more dice than you receive crits). Average hits/crits/evades count for a lot in a tournament, especially when all players are about the same skill and they're playing well. Using a performance-enhancing dice pool might give you an edge in that fight, but it's not a fair or sportsmanlike edge. It's not an intended part of the game to alter your dice pool like that.

So I think there should be a name that properly describes this practice. If not dice doping, then "loaded dice", "cherry-picked dice", "advantage dice", or "munchkin dice".

I'm drawn to "advantage dice" mainly because it mildly shames FFG's practice of cheaply/ineptly producing components that create some unfair advantage for specific players, and then side-stepping the problem by saying "Stevie, share your components with your brother". Sharing advantage templates and dice doesn't exactly fix the problem, but it's an easy way for FFG to not have to do anything about it.

Likewise I think there should be a separate term for using this technique not to gain an edge, but to subvert it: pick out the most "fair" dice (if not returning to statistical fairness, which could be hard with such flawed dice, then at least removing outliers so you have very average x-wing dice). Maybe "dice normalization"? Because that came up at the game store last night and I know it's the sort of thing I'd do too. With a $20 or $40 caliper you could measure your dice and throw out the ones with severely malformed edges, as those seem to be the most guilty ones? Doesn't solve opponents abusing the system, but if you really want to know your own pool, you could find out with a pretty cheap tool and a couple hours of free time, presumably? (that said, it might help people cherry-pick good dice if there's a clear&easy correlation between the location of the bad edge and the result; that seems iffy to me though, you'd have to do some rigorous tests, or at least I hope so)

I lazily eyeball-inspected my dice last night and saw no deformed edges, it was all very boring, but maybe I don't have the eye for it. It could very well be that I have very average, mundane dice in my daily pool, which would make me happy even though it condemns me to having to learn to fly better instead of making excuses, hah!

As an aside: Last night I was told there was once a deal in the works between FFG and Gravity Dice to produce official good dice, but the deal fell through. That's too bad... I know people want quality 3rd-party stuff to be valid in tournaments. That said, Gravity Dice are pricey , so hopefully it would never be a mandatory purchase to play competitively.

I wouldn't want to ever put players in a position where they have to spend heavy on dice to be allowed in a tournament, because most of the players I know don't have lots of disposable income. They're pretty judicious in their x-wing spending, even though the hobby is a pretty big deal to them. A hundred bucks is worth a lot of ships. I don't think FFG would be into that either, which is probably part of why the deal failed.

35 minutes ago, PanchoX1 said:

This is incorrect. It's optional unless mandated by the event Marshal.

@GreenDragoon

What they are referring to:

Sharing Components

Before or during a tournament round, any player may request that a single
range ruler, or set of range rulers, a set of maneuver templates, and/or set
of dice be shared for the duration of the round. Any decisions are subject to
review by a marshal.

The marshal may mandate that players must share a single range ruler, set of
maneuver templates, and/or set of dice during a round.

26 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Any  decisions are subject to
review by a marsh  al

The way I understand this:

If I request, the Marshal has to actively deny this request. If he doesn't, the respective player has to share dice.

Just now, GreenDragoon said:

The way I understand this:

If I request, the Marshal has to actively deny this request. If he doesn't, the respective player has to share dice.

It also supports a player may ask, their opponent can say no and only the Marshal can overrule the refusal. In effect only the Marshal can require dice to be shared.

6 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

It also supports a player may ask, their opponent can say no and only the Marshal can overrule the refusal. In effect only the Marshal can require dice to be shared.

Interesting, that's not at all how I understand it. Good to know that you see this reading.

It supports both readings, but anyone unwilling to share dice is going to get questions as to why. And a marshal siding with the refuser given this thread better have solid reasoning as well.

It'd be interesting if we could get FFG to issue a clarification, especially if it was in response to these findings. Similar to advantage templates, I can see them coming out with a very clear ruling that if either player wants to share dice, you're both sharing dice, no arguments. The marshal should require very special circumstances to side with the player saying no, such as "But these are my medical dice! They're coated with the medicine I need to live! He can't touch them, he'd go into shock!".

3 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Interesting, that's not at all how I understand it. Good to know that you see this reading.

" Before or during a tournament round, any player may request that a single
range ruler, or set of range rulers, a set of maneuver templates, and/or set
of dice be shared for the duration of the round."

Not sure what "request" means in your neck of the woods, but here in the US it means "ask". So "may request" means that the regulations permit someone to ask without being in violation of the rules.

18 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Not  sure what "request" means in your neck of the woods, but here in the US it means "ask". So "may request" means that the regulations perm  it someone to ask without being in violation of the rules.

I see 'request' stronger than ask. In this context, a synonym would be 'demand'.

If someone 'may demand' then that means he has the option to force a shared dice pool, unless the Marshal denies that request. That's how I read it.

1 minute ago, GreenDragoon said:

I see 'request' stronger than ask. In this context, a synonym would be 'demand'.

If someone 'may demand' then that means he has the option to force a shared dice pool, unless the Marshal denies that request. That's how I read it.

Must be cultural then. FFG really should clarify it since every definition of the word I'm finding falls in line with my understanding of it but there is some confusion over it.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/request

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/request

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/request

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/request

https://www.wordnik.com/words/request

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/request

https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/request_1

https://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/request

Instead of arguing over the word, let's ask FFG.

15 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Must be cultural then. FFG really should clarify it since every definition of the word I'm finding falls in line with my understanding of it but there is some confusion over it.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/request

Your first link, definition 4.

I sent this into FFG's rules question endpoint, and I'm hoping I worded it well:

Quote

Hi FFG! I have a question about tournament dice sharing to prevent unsportsmanlike conduct.

The rules for Sharing Components say you can request to share the opponent's dice, and then it's up to the marshal. Does that mean the marshal has to approve it, or does the opponent have to share unless they can convince a marshal to disapprove the request? (or in other words, is an assumed right, or something you have to get marshal permission to do if the opponent objects?)

Here's the relevant section:
"Before or during a tournament round, any player may request that a single range ruler, or set of range rulers, a set of maneuver templates, and/or set of dice be shared for the duration of the round. Any decisions are subject to review by a marshal."
"The marshal may mandate that players must share a single range ruler, set of maneuver templates, and/or set of dice during a round."

The reason for this question:
We're discussing the implications of "victory dice pools" (using scientific methods to find official FFG dice with better odds of hits/crits/evades, and building a dice pool from them). It's hard to detect this activity, so the solution is to make both players share dice so there's no advantage to either player. Link: (https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/296488-i-tested-my-dice/)

But we've already had a player announce he would not agree to letting an opponent share his dice, because he wants the advantage of the dice pool he's collected. So it matters whether it's a given that he MUST share unless the marshal intervenes, or if sharing is still a special permission that has to be requested and then granted by the marshal.

Hopefully I'll get a response. I don't ask often so I don't have a good sample size, but I don't think I've gotten answers very often. Might help if multiple people ask in their own words.

3 minutes ago, DarkHorse said:

Your first link, definition 4.

First: Wazat's post just above yours is what needs to happen.

Second: Read their section entry for "Demand"... The synonymous meanings of "demand" and "request" is not what you, or Greendragoon, are implying.

It is Definition 4, as with the page on "Request" : https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/demand

38 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Must  be cultural  then. 

Must be that I'm a non native speaker, so I'm aware that I get nuances wrong and I'm happy for corrections of misunderstandings. Requests are generally granted, or at least that's the apparently wrong understanding I have. Still, several of your links seem to include my understanding.

Dictionary.com included "solicitation or petition" which sounds stronger to me than 'ask'

Thefreedictionary.com makes an example with the police. But if the police requests something, you don't have an actual choice, do you?

Collinsdictionary.com gives the example of "Students are requested to park at the rear of the building.", and that again does sound to me like it is generally granted unless for a specific reason.

Macmilliandictionary.com mentions requests for visas, again an example where the normal case is to grant it.

Together, these dictionaries seem to support my understanding to some degree.

If you aren't required to share dice when a player asks, why would it be in the rules as something a player can do? Come on.

It's not in the rules that I can share tokens with my opponent, therefore I can't. Really? Is anyone really arguing this?

2 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Is anyone really arguing this?

Apparently so, yes. I can't argue for it (plus I'm drunk) but at least I'm not completely off then? 🤷🏻‍♂️

1 minute ago, Brunas said:

If you aren't required to share dice when a player asks, why would it be in the rules? Come on.

? In a game type where you're generaly expected to bring and use your own legal materials? Usually not doing so is grounds for ejection from a tournament baring a judge making a specific exemption. This rule permits otherwise in the case of templates and dice for X-Wing...