2 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I guess these are the questions I’m left with:

1. Do you agree that re-rolling the dice restores a perfect game state?

2. If so, why is that not the goal in this case?

3. If not, how does it not? If it is caught, there was no effect. If it wasn’t caught, then either it was someone’s mistake, or someone was cheating and would have gotten away with it anyway.

The cases where extra dice give you a favorable result are way more common than extra dice giving you an unfavorable result anyway. Rolling the extra die was cheating if he ever intended to use that role on purpose. The problem isn’t what to do when it does get caught. The problem is what to do when it doesn’t. And the answer is that that is impossible, but it isn’t a major problem in our game because there aren’t that many cheaters

Okay, thank you, I see where the confusion is now. I'll take the blame, I warped over a few key details and assumed some fill in was understood. That's a my bad. Let me explain hopefully more completely. Let's get back on some tracks here.

And just for simplicity, for all examples, let's go with your supposed to roll three, and did four.

For your 1 and 2, no. Not at all. I apologize if I explained that odd, point me to where you got the notion and I'll add a note to it. My belief was that only the overage only by itself is invalid: three of the dice are right, one is wrong. Figure out which one and cut it. In the same way that we treat an under roll as having valid results, just not enough, we should treat the dice that landed as right, with an extra.

Like as a demonstration, if you rolled each die individually one at a time, and knew each one as they landed, then this would be easy, the fourth one is the 'extra'. Duh right? Back that one off, and your back to rights. If you could watch the roll in slow motion, then whichever was the last die out of the hand would be it, and you'd rightly ignore it. If all the dice came up with the exact same result, cutting any of the four would still get you an equal result to the three you were supposed to have.

And that's where you either get into the NPE moment that started this whole discussion, or the exploit. At some point a low roll gets called as completely wrong, and gets a 'free Mulligan'. Like in the earlier case of four blanks. It doesn't matter that all the dice are the same, and no matter which die was extra, the outcome doesn't change, they still get a second shot. I don't think you should. Whether it was the more common mistake or accident, or cheat attempt, you should have a way to fix it that doesn't open it to a new set of results different from the first. Because that is the essence of how the exploit works.

Which gets us to your number 3, it's only by 'getting caught' that it works as an exploit. If it's caught then hope you don't burn your good roll, and even if you did you only go back to what was probably a lost cause anyway if your desperate enough to even try it*, and you have the same stat odds per die again. You might still luck out. So there's a higher chance to profit in the attempt alone. And since it is so common a mistake it's easy to hide. As I've said, it's insidious. Any good cheat is. This one doesn't even require manual dexterity.

If it is caught, we do have mostly house rules to correct it. As I've mentioned, taking back damage retroactive to the event.

Even if it's not a major problem, it is a problem. We can fix it. So why shouldn't we? Why not block it out as much as possible? There's literally no reason not to that I can think of. Especially when one of the two corrective actions on the table is just flat out faster as far as I can tell.

*There's a whole other side to this conversation as to how the requisite conditions for the mistake or exploit are created in the first place. Ironically the most common I've found it's when someone makes a mistake honestly, realizes, but unless it will profit them doesn't say anything. Again, whole other side to the conversation. Maybe later.

1 hour ago, ForceSensitive said:

Even if it's not a major problem, it is a problem. We can fix it. So why shouldn't we? Why not block it out as much as possible? There's literally no reason not to that I can think of . Especially when one of the two corrective actions on the table is just flat out faster as far as I can tell.

Because you are intentionally ignoring people with arguments.

Multiple people, me included, have raised concerns that these kinds of rules would introduce a negative play experience to more people than the number of cheaters it would stop.

Even if we assume cheating is a problem in X-Wing, which it isn't but that's also something you refuse to engage, your system only alters how we deal with them it doesn't remove the ability to cheat. And you do it at the expense of the enjoyment of the people who do not cheat.

2 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

Which gets us to your number 3, it's only by 'getting caught' that it works as an exploit. If it's caught then hope you don't burn your good roll, and even if you did you only go back to what was probably a lost cause anyway if your desperate enough to even try it*, and you have the same stat odds per die again. You might still luck out. So there's a higher chance to profit in the attempt alone. And since it is so common a mistake it's easy to hide. As I've said, it's insidious. Any good cheat is. This one doesn't even require manual dexterity.

I'm not sure that the other methods fix this perceived problem as cleanly as you think they do, though. Let's step back for a second.

The standard procedure, rerolling with the correct number of dice, produces a result which is statistically identical in all ways to performing the roll correctly in the first place provided the error is spotted consistently. An exploit can be performed by selectively "noticing" your "mistake". For this exploit to work, you need the other player to not calculate the correct number of dice and compare it to the number rolled.

With the methods that penalise the player who rolled too many dice, an exploit can be performed by getting the other player to roll too many dice. For this exploit to work, you need the other player to not calculate the correct number of dice and compare it to the number they are about to roll.

So in both cases, an exploit is possible by relying on your opponent to not count the dice properly. Is the problem truly solved, then? It might be reduced, if you believe one exploit is harder to pull off than the other. But there are certainly ways to "encourage" your opponent to mess up a dice roll.

Quote

Even if it's not a major problem, it is a problem. We can fix it. So why shouldn't we? Why not block it out as much as possible? There's literally no reason not to that I can think of. Especially when one of the two corrective actions on the table is just flat out faster as far as I can tell.

"Literally no reason" is a bit hyperbolic. There are a number of possible drawbacks to the various "penalty" methods which people have pointed out, including:

1. Results in a statistically different outcome to a correct roll, which can be gamed in some circumstances.
2. Feels bad in when the incorrect roll is an accident, which many people believe is a large majority of the time.
3. Disproportionately likely to penalise new / inexperienced players.
4. Can attempt to cause penalty in your own favour by manipulating or distracting other player.
5. May slow the pace of the game, due to people being very careful about counting dice before every roll.
6. Still relies on detecting incorrect rolls to be effective.

4 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

My belief was that only the overage only by itself is invalid: three of the dice are right, one is wrong. Figure out which one

You’ve given yourself a literally impossible task.

Dice are random. They’re intended that way. There’s no sovereignty to a die once rolled. Luck doesn’t get saved or wasted. It’s random. Other than “muh dice!” is there any reason to give an invalid roll any consideration? What if I rolled 5 natural crits but then realized I was disarmed? Are those dice just wasted? The answer is yes. Is that NPE? That depends on your point of view. It does let down your expectations, but that’s because you set your hopes in something false in the first place.

But either way, acting like rewinding a dice roll gives new information is somewhat dishonest. I can’t imagine any useful information that would be gained by rolling too many dice (you learn what the invalid dice give you but... what good does that do you? Unless you intend to keep the invalid dice, which is cheating) and I can’t imagine any case where randomly rolling doc before the real roll can affect the game state at all.

4 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

At some point a low roll gets called as completely wrong, and gets a 'free Mulligan'. Like in the earlier case of four blanks. It doesn't matter that all the dice are the same, and no matter which die was extra, the outcome doesn't change, they still get a second shot.

Flip this around: by your reasoning (dice rolled one at a time) a 4-evade roll should also keep 3 evades. It’s not inherently punishing. But what if it were three blanks and an evade? You’ve given yourself an impossible task. It’s Schroedinger’s cat — not just unknown, but unknowable. Your ship is both dead and alive.

Back it up and get it right. Enforcing any other rule inherently advantages one player. Rewinding, as a rule, does not advantage anyone. It’s third in the floor rules because it’s the longest process, but it’s last because it’s fairest. There’s nothing immutable about the dice. An incomplete roll can be completed. An invalid roll gets annulled.

4 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

Which gets us to your number 3, it's only by 'getting caught' that it works as an exploit.

No, it’s ONLY by NOT getting caught that it works as an exploit. If you knew you were redoing the roll anyway, why bother rolling extra? What earthly good does an extra, invalid “bad” roll do for you? Maybe try it just to tilt your opponent? But why? There are so many easier and even more immature ways of doing that. If you know you’ll have to fix it, you knew it wouldn’t count and don’t have any stake in the outcome. It’s ONLY the hope of going undetected that makes it worth trying.

To which I say: If you’re that worried about cheating, count your dice better. Always announce the numbers and their reasons. This is pretty basic competitive courtesy, and is typically done even in most casual games I play and watch.

4 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

There's literally no reason not to that I can think of. Especially when one of the two corrective actions on the table is just flat out faster as far as I can tell.

Here’s a counter proposal:

“If a player moves a ship while it isn’t activating a movement ability, the player that didn’t move it may rotate it up to 45 degrees.”

Elegant, simple, quick, and punishes cheaters!

But I don’t think any of us want to live in that world.

It’s the NPE of getting brutally (or at least excessively) punished for a simple mistake, instead of just fixing the game state. There are better ways of dealing with cheaters than punishing everyone who gets caught not following the rules perfectly. First off, cheaters are much more likely not to get caught in the first place, so you’re mostly punishing the wrong ones. Second the ones you are punishing are least likely to enjoy the tournament scene and this would drive them further away. If this were inserted into the rule book, that would just be straight-up mean to newer or less conscientious players and greatly undermine the spirit of “Fly Casual.”

But I’m more interested in why you feel an invalid dice roll affects game state (which you do think, right? I’m so confused). For example the 5 natural crits mentioned earlier. How do those get counted?

@Flurpy first point, incorrect. Just last page I think it is I used one of the presented arguments from the group, and in total agreement with it, held it as an example as to why one of the three options on the table is eliminated. Notably one of the two I preferred, my original suggestion no less. I did so because the presented argument showed that that particular version was going to produce the NPE the group was concerned with, and an exploit. I've operated according to the logic.

Second point, also incorrect. I've engaged with it multiple times. Even referencing old caught and public cases, and rules that have been introduced in light of those cases. I think those are back in page one or two. To not acknowledge that any game of sufficient size, which Xwing certainly is, has somewhere inside of it a seedier element is nothing but naivety that I'd challenge you to prove otherwise with concrete evidence. Of the two remaining fixes, both so far have removed the cheat, and only one of those penalizes it currently. Again, We got rid of the third as it did have an angle shoot on it, that someone else established. The remaining two have not been presented with a strong argumentation as to how they induce an NPE that is definitively worse from the one we currently have. It was after all a NPE that shined a light on this exploit in the first place. And then I moved on.

We've three goals here: Return the game to correct state, prevent possible exploits, do so without negative experience. In light of the ongoing discussion I've increased how I value the last of those. The current reroll rule fails two of those goals. The two remaining proposed thus far, only one will fail the last goal depending on your stance on the subject. If that's the hangup, then @GreenDragoon's would be the one that I imagine you'll like the best. And to repeat myself, I'd be fine with that one. It seems to me the one that will not be as feels-bad thanks to it's random determination. I personally can't get mad at random cancel out when I had too many random inputs.

I've so far only preferred the other available option because just like a few other rules in the game, it had a built in penalty as a caution. The opponent of a person who jostled any ship is the one who corrects it to within reason. That's a penalty. Formerly the same for dials while stressed. A penalty on a mistake is not outside the norm even for just this game. In football a false start still yields a five yard penalty. It does not care if it was intentional or not. Mistakes, still, cost. It's a good system that games of all types have relied on for years.

@Ysenhal well said. I will point you to another prior established statement from @Jeff Wilder that is from the originator thread, just so we're all aware that it's been prior established and I agree with it. This is on page 2 of the Salt thread. It unfortunately did not get carried over, so we'll get it its due here.

"This is one of those rules where what they settled on is *statistically* 100% fair, but an unethical player can angle-shoot the rule."

I hold contention with it. Yes in stats you could demonstrate that every roll had a reset chance when you start again. But chances of rolling in sequence do not. This is a gray area that many here are relying on to hold up that the reroll is correct. But it doesn't hold water to me. Once you've made a roll, your chances of replicating that roll again exactly right after go down drastically. Just rolling a six twice in a row on a d6 is a 1/36 chance. This is the math that's important here because it's what created the current NPE/exploit. If I whiff, and call it out, my chances of whiffing the reroll are FAR lower. Which is the gain for the cheater. I either succeed and cheat with an extra die, or if it's caught or 'caught', my roll normalizes in the current fix, and I just succeed less. But still chances are good I'll profit either way. Some Risk of course.

There is a good point that you, and I believe one other, brought up: tricking the opponent into the roll. But you could do that same thing now before a fix anyway, you just don't tell them they have to redo a roll unless you feel it will profit you. This scenario is odd for an incredible number of reasons, but since it could happen even now we should address it. With the two fixes we are down to, random axe or opponent pick, the random axe would work better of the two I think, but of course not as well as I'd like.

The opponent pick version is in an odd boat for sure in this situation, again good catch guys. I'll always give credit where due. So I go back to the three goals. It still accomplishes the pool being returned to at least the right size still. But your exploit ruling is weird. The design of the rule needs to prevent the cheater, not the cheated. If the rule is written that the opponent of the one making the original mistake is to be the arbiter of the penalty, then we get a way to fix it. Though granted it's not pretty. The person rolling is not the one who made the error per se, they were an unwitting victim. They were told to roll it and mistakenly trusted it. So when the cheat 'catches' it, as their own mistake from the beginning, well the rule at that point says the person rolling actively gets to choose as they are the *opponent to the mistake*. Which in a way would be fine. You tried to trick me, shame on you, I pick the best result to lose now. That would seem to me an appropriate slap on the wrist to the liar. I don't like it because it's too close to a 'spirit' of the rule call, and not a concrete one. But the current rule is just open to it entirely. So... Well now what? We found a new cheat! Go us! 😳 🤣 Insert prisoner Obi-Wan 'good job' gif here

Now for your list.

1. This is some debate. I've previously demonstrated that it's not the case when you consider sequential rolls., And more on that below in the CM discussion. Which everyone seems content to twist the math, so suit themselves.

2. The CURRENT rule is a cause of 'feels-bad' so I'm not sure here if you want to hold it against the current suggested ones the same way. Remember it was from a bad feels event this all began, and a few others have chimed in with the same. If you want this as you're logic, it has countered itself.

3. An ironic claim with no evidence. Usually newer players are more careful as they are likely intent to learn the details of what is going on and be hyperfocal on the numbers and verify every one. Your milage may vary. Most of the times I see these mistakes happen on the over/under roll side it's from the more experienced players that I've seen. Their repetition is usually what gets them into a habit, which induces a mistake. Think dirty dozen here: complacency, norms. When you've rolled a thousand attacks from an X-wing, it's pretty easy to forget you have weapons disabled the one in a thousand times you had to worry about it. This in turn ironically makes them more susceptible to getting targeted by the exploit. To wit, they're the ones I've most often been able to slip it past before revealing what I did when I've been experimenting. Their assumptions are the their weakness. If they already believe a falsehood, then I don't even have to lie except by omission.

4. Addressed above. There's a stop gap in it now, but the other fix may be better. Well rounded to the rest of your post though. Thanks for pointing it out.

5. I find this... Extremely Odd. That it's precisely what the most vocal defense of any change had been from the OP onward: 'Count your dice better, communicate, prevent the mistake'. You'd think that was a goal from the way the chat had gone but now you call it...a drawback? Respectfully, Make up your mind. Do you want people to do this or not? Do you want a vehicle that induced a learning experience that enforces a desired behavior that had been touted out as an ideal for a whole thread or don't you? One of the earliest things I said here was that prevention is the best medicine. You can try to paint me as having said otherwise but there's a record that says quite different. I think it would be nice if we all did this. I do it myself. Hence why I still prefer a mild penalty: if it gets a player to pay closer attention, that's a win to me.

6. So does the current rule. Was this supposed to be a freebie? This literally is against the current rule. This is moot.

@ClassicalMoser it's not an impossible task, I've given multiple ways it works without anything but an obvious logical reasoning. You can ignore that if you want, but it's still there, and we'll part at that refusal from you to acknowledge if you like. No hard feelings.

We're not talking about rolling five crit results then realizing the disarmed token. That's just tough luck. Yup, wasted. Oh darn. We're talking about rolling five crit results then remembering you have weapons failure. Then your reroll is absolutely a bad feels, and absolutely a punishment on the mistake. Where if you used the opponent-cancel, or GD's random-cancel, it wouldn't be. Even just the highest-cancel we got rid of would only have just set back the one you weren't supposed to roll, and you keep your cake.

The odds of you rolling a four crit pool= .000,2

The odds of rolling a five crit pool= .000,003

The odds you rolling a 4 crit pool AFTER you already rolled five crit pool= .000,000,07

No matter how you want to sequence it, You don't have the same odds on a reroll. The math says you don't. This is the math the exploit relies on just with low rolls. Rolling extra dice and just getting a larger average is the first cheat. If it helps clarify, there's two going on, but we're trying to close technically the second one and thus preventing the first from being gained from. So this answers your last question. The five crit pool should stand after removing one. It would be punishing to a player to have that 1 in 3 million event get pushed out to being a 1 in 700 million odd to get back, especially when the 4 were a 1/20,000 in the first place. My logic has not changed on this. Like you all, I'm trying to prevent an NPE as well.

But you bring up a great question about information to gain, and I rightly appreciate that. Let's assume as we've been doing that this is totally a mistake as we have now from a few posts back. I appreciate and commend you for your statement that you didn't *think* there was anything you could gain. It's not easy to admit you can't think of something but still be open to possible input. I tip my hat to you sir. If I may point you to the answer you seek.

It's not obvious, but there's certainly info to gain. Namely, intentions on the sequence. And this was a weirder discovery in my experiments so I don't fault anyone for missing it. It took me a while to realize it was something I was gaining. Because here we have to consider the situation not in a vacuum, but with live tokens and stakes. From time to time we've all run into this straight off the honest mistake so you ought recognize it from your own experience. If I go with my focus, do you spend the tokens and trigger the abilities I think you will? Or do you tip your hand to some other plot? Are you saving that token? Do you have a trick I just plum forgot and now have a thankful reminder of that would make me want to keep that token? Or a trick I didn't even know about?

It's the classic 'oh darn I shouldn't have spent that, that was a bad idea.'

Plays can get revealed tangential to the results of the roll. It's almost like getting a dry run on the sequence before doing it for real. I'll wholly admit, it's not the most common. But it is a possibility that even on the common mistake can throw off a game, revealing plays otherwise held close to the chest. Sometimes it by total accident reveals to each other what you were thinking in terms of say target priority. And I'll repeat it in case someone wants to say I intended otherwise, I admit it's not common. But as my logic is and had been and will be 'once is too much' for a exploitable flaw, I'll still include it. Especially when we've already determined the mistake is more common than the exploit. (Honestly, where have people misinterpreted me on that? I flat out wrote it as an agreed assumption several posts ago?) Anyway, Hope that helps understand where I'm coming from on gains. It is possible to get info you shouldn't have on plays. There's more to it once you get this far, but you should be able to think of those yourself.

For your counter proposal. It hasnt even followed the first and second of the three goals we have. It doesn't return the game to the correct state, and it's more exploitable by miles if I just bump the ship a second time it either goes back closer to where it should be and I've undone the first rotation if I didn't like it, or it gets turned to 90. And I can repeat it. Staring at a rock? Bump! Any 45 will likely get me a way around it. At least your right, none would want to live in that world. Because that rule doesn't punish cheating the way you want to claim, contrarily it enables the ef out of it. Not sure why you even went with this.

With great emphasis: Guess it's a good thing we currently give the opponent of the bump the final say on where it goes back within reason, like a soft penalty! And isn't it just so darn crazy that rule didn't kill fly casual either?! How remarkable. It's almost like fly casual gets a chance to shine when you have penalties in place on people trying to cheat, so that you can just enjoy the game.

I'm pretty sure I answered your last question already.

And here I'll close. Many have rushed to the 'new player' defense here. Claiming that a new player will be upset at a penalty that was installed to prevent a cheat. And that they will somehow then be better off when they get cheated as it's 'harder to detect' so having a tool to punish it at all is unwanted. Indeed if they eventually encounter the exploit from the receiving end, wouldn't they then wonder why the blazes there wasn't a way to penalize it? I was a newer player to higher end Magic tournaments when I took a game loss as a penalty for a mistake. I went to the next tournament anyway, more careful of my play and assured that the rules took cheating seriously and had responses to it to protect my still new to high end play self. So I don't find the statement that it will push new players away to have any logic. A new player would want to know that the designers of the game had worked to close off the cheat attempt, prevent negative play experience, and enable the rest is on the community to fly casual.