I've just spent most of the day writing up proper dice rules for The M42 Project. Once I'd finished the how-to-roll-2D6 nonsense, I realized that games like 40K, Warpath, and Flames should really include a few pages of rules on what sorts of dice are legal to use in a competitive game. It would solve a lot of problems! So here's my anti-cheating rules. Let me know what you think!
Ensuring Honest Rolling
In casual non-competitive games, or when you’re just learning to play M42, it’s perfectly fine to use whatever six-sided dice you happen to have around. If that’s the case, go ahead and skip over this section. You can come back to it later once you’re comfortable with the rules.
But proper competitive play at events such as tournaments requires a few restrictions on the types of dice that players can use and how they are rolled. This is to discourage some of the more common forms of cheating and ensure that everyone has a good time.
Legal Die Sizes
There are a staggering number of companies that manufacture and distribute D6 dice. In every color and style imaginable. But this variety does cause some problems for competitive play. Dice that are too small can be difficult for an opponent to clearly read. On the other hand, dice that are too large are easily rolled in ways that ensure that certain numbers are more likely to come up.
The minimum legal size for any die used in a game of M42 is 12mm3. This corresponds to the size of the Chessex dice that are sold in blocks of 36 by most game stores. Any die smaller than 12mm3 is not legal for competitive play.
The maximum legal size for any dice used in a game of M42 is 19mm3. This corresponds to the largest standard dice used in American Casinos. Any die larger than 19mm3 is not legal for competitive play.
No Mixing Of Sizes
All of a player’s dice must be of the exact same size. Mixing sizes of dice, even within the legal range, is not allowed. This is to prevent dice of different sizes from being used for rolling different kinds of tests.
No Hand Made Dice
All dice used in M42 must be machine made. Players may not use dice that they have made themselves. Nor may they use dice made of hand-poured resin or other ‘hobby’ materials.
No Damaged Dice
All dice used in M42 must be free of cracks, dents, holes, chips, or any other visible surface defect. Dice which appear to have been partially melted or otherwise deformed shall also be disqualified from use.
No Custom Glyphs
All dice used in a game of M42 must display their numbers using either traditional dots or clearly visible numbers printed in a san-serif font with a line under the ‘6’. Dice which mix the use of dots and numbers are not allowed.
Dice which use custom letters, images, or symbols for one or more of the faces are not allowed.
White Or Black Marks Only
All of a player’s dice must have all of their dots or numbers marked with either white or black paint at the time of original manufacture. Dice whose markings have been painted in by the player are not allowed. Black dice marked with black paint, or white dice marked with white paint are also not allowed.
Close-Handed Throws Only
It is possible for a skilled cheater to ‘set’ the dice in his hand so that as he drops the dice onto the table, they are more likely to land certain ways.
Before rolling, a player must close their hands entirely around the dice and shake them twice prior to releasing them onto the table. If this is impossible due to the large number of dice being rolled, a cup must be used to roll the dice instead.
The Dice Must Travel
After leaving the player’s hand, all of the dice being rolled must travel at least 6 horizontal inches before coming to rest. If this is not done, or the dice are simply dropped straight down onto the table, the roll is invalid and must be performed again.
Cocked Dice
It sometimes happens that a die will come to rest against a model or bit of scenery that prevents it from lying flat on the table. When this happens, simply re-roll the cocked die. If the cocked die was rolled as part of a larger group of dice, then only the cocked die must be re-rolled.
If there is any disagreement between the players as to whether a particular die is cocked or not, perform the following test:
Have the player who wishes the current roll to stand attempt to place a second die of the same size on top of the disputed die. If the second die falls off of the first, or the first die is moved during the test, the die is cocked and must be re-rolled. Otherwise the roll will stand.
That's it so far. Did I miss anything that should be included?
Update:
I want to thank everyone for all the criticism, both friendly and passionate, about these rules. It really does help! As a direct result of these criticisms I've made some substantial changes, which you can see in detail over on my newest M42 post if you're interested.
To summarize the changes:
- Lowered the top legal die size down to 16mm (Monopoly sized), but you can now mix sizes as long as they're in the legal range.
- The only color restriction now is that you can't have white markings on white/clear dice, or black markings on black or dark-tinted dice.
- Custom Glyphs are fine, but all dice using Glyphs must use those Glyphs to represent the same value.
- Both players now contribute dice to a common pool that is used for all tests. Any player may roll any die from the pool for any test.
- Dice are cocked if they don't land flat on the surface of the table. Dice that land on moveable terrain are always considered cocked.
Finally, the entire sub-section is being moved to a different master section, called 'Sportsmanship' that will be in the back of the book instead of the front. That way casual players can ignore it easily.
Ok, this might seem super obvious to you, but *I* don't get it. Why NOT allow different die types for different kinds of tests?
ReplyDeleteBecause any difference calls into question the fairness of the roll. If someone thinks that using Casino dice gives them an edge, fine. But don't roll the big dice for one kind of roll and smaller dice when you need a lower value. Even if you aren't cheating, it will look like you are.
DeleteIf your opponent keeps using blue dices for leadership and Initiative tests (JoWW) and red dices for armor/hit/wound and is getting an oddly amount of luck for the past few games on all saves you tend to get suspicious. If that happens on a tournament then not only suspicious you get pissed off as well.
DeleteEven when using the same dice poll I had an opponent once said that four dices were his to use alone because they were his lucky ones,and they never failed him! Lucky indeed...
Why is this here? And why would I play something this strict anyways?
ReplyDeleteIt's here because I thought it would be of interest to the readership of the blog. If you think it's too strict, tell me why. I'm looking for feedback.
DeleteCasino size dice are what people use to cheat with. From clumping them together in a big pushed together then drop, to no roll thumps. Hey amazing you rolled a 5.
ReplyDeleteThe dice must travel isn't a sure fire thing as sliding is as big an issue as dropping.
It's much more difficult to execute cheats with small dice than with large ones.
I think it's much easier if all cocked rolls or off table rolls, must just be re-rolled.
Not sure I follow the white or black marks bit. The best dice come unpainted, but have the sharp edges necessary for good rolling.
My 2 cents!
So what would your restriction, if any, be? You've said before that Chessex dice aren't really random. As they roll more ones than sixes. While Casino dice really require 2 bounces and a long travel to truely randomize.
Deletehttp://www.gamescience.com/ Expensive, and need people to fill them in unless you have them pre-filled, which could lead to people using lead. Kinda sad panda but I do think of everything.
DeleteChessex aren't fair, but if everyone uses them...meh?
GameScience are NOT the same quality now as they were several years ago before they were bought out. They really, truly are not. Yours might be excellent quality, but buying them now is a literal gamble.
DeleteAny more doable restrictions?
DeleteGood lord man... if you don't trust me to play your game, then by all means I won't play.
ReplyDeleteI get that cheating is bad, and honestly anyone who has to cheat at plastic dolls to feel good about themselves has their own problems... but seriously. Putting this into the straight rules for a system just seems... silly. Maybe it's just me.
And some of this seems over the top. Severely. Only white and black pips? Feck no I'm not buying a new block of "tournament dice" because someone tells me my perfectly legit sets aren't perfectly legit. I personally have no problem with sigils on the 1 or 6 side, but I like to know which side it is from the start (which is easy to check). There's literally no point to having some of one and some of the other.
And a 6" move? Granted this is a good idea in theory, dice should be rolled, not dropped... but who can't think of someone who's going to complain that that game winning 6 only moved 5 1/2"? Having any measurement, even an abstract, leaves the same level of "I don't think it was enough" that some D-bag can latch on to.
Why not just supply dice cups in the starter box that must be used for competitive play? Or just in general, and people who are casual can just "house rule" to not use it? Those seem to solve half of the problems (loaded dice being the other half).
I can see why you might think these types of rules would be silly for some games. But shouldn't a ruleset that's competitively focused address the issue? Even if it's with rules that are different/whatever than what I've written?
DeleteI did write, in the first paragraph, that the rules can be ignored for casual games.
My dice rules are a tad more simple:
ReplyDelete1) Any die that's remotely cocked should be rerolled to prevent arguments.
2) If I want to use your dice (or vice versa) that's fair. If the dice aren't loaded, then this shouldn't be an issue.
If I play with someone where I feel I need to watch their rolls, then frankly, that's someone I don't want to play with in the first place. I'm out to have fun, not play with cheaters (or those that make me think they might).
Most folks don't cheat to any great degree. But you never know who you're going to face at a tournament. Amongst friends? Use whatever you like!
DeleteThen this should be a TO's rules, not a core rule of a game.
DeleteYou don't think that a competition-focused ruleset should address the issue?
Delete(It's time to get ranty. This is two posts.)
ReplyDeleteYou know that snippy third round tournament game everyone always has where absolutely everything becomes a rules dispute? Thinking about applying stringent dice rules on top of it just made blood pour out of my ears.
I can't think of anything less fun than having to discuss whether or not a beneficial dice roll moved six horizontal inches with some douchebag who just wants to try to bully you into re-rolling it, or just as a spectacular new avenue to slow-play.
Not to mention, a lot of these are only really feasible if you're rolling <10 dice. If you need to roll large amounts of dice, picking them up and "dropping" them is about the only way anyone ever does it, because tables/terrain just don't really accomodate anything else.
You'd practically be forced to play 4x4' games on a 6x4' table to enforce any of this, and leave a casino-style legal rolling area in the blank space. Otherwise...oh, I know you tried to roll that Damage Table die that blew up my tank properly, but unfortunately it banked off a ruin and ended up <6" from where it started! Re-roll!
On top of that, it strikes me as clearly being one of those things that would be abused more often than enforced--you're not inserting rules into a perfect world. People would absolutely not care about any of this UNTIL they think they're being cheated--that's just the way most people play. They're not going to call someone out at random for not rolling dice the right way if they think it's innocent, because they don't want to look like jerks.
So in the attempt to legislate rolling, you've just invented an INCREDIBLY easy new way to cheat, with the full support of the rules--like I said, 90% of players in 90% of games will absolutely ignore the specifics of all of this for the sake of convenience/speed/being polite, and only raise issue when they feel slighted. So now, anyone who feels like it can go about playing an average, normal game, being absolutely friendly while you both ignore all the strict legal specifications regarding rolling your dice.
It would become entirely possible to roll ALL (or at least the majority) of your dice "illegally" without raising question from all but the absolute strictest of opponents, because in this case "illegal" is not the same as "cheating"--it's not as if everyone who has ever dropped dice or rolled them less than six horizontal inches gained an advantage from it, it's just the guidelines you've created to try to prevent cheating from happening--but the vast majority of people are still not going to equate an "illegal" roll with "OH LAWD IT'S A CHEATER."
And what happens when it becomes common (and it absolutely will--again, not a perfect world) for people to not raise issue with an "illegal" dice roll here and there? Well, like I said: you just created rules-supported cheating.
Once you've established that your opponent won't freak out about an "improper" roll (say, by intentionally mis-rolling some meaningless stuff early game to see how they react, like a Move or Run roll) you simply start INTENTIONALLY mis-rolling important rolls. Your opponent, having already set the precedent of not reacting to a single illegal roll here and there, will be unlikely to say anything out of sheer politeness. But whenever you want--and with the full backing of the rules--you can go "oh, sorry, I didn't roll that one right." and re-roll it. And what will the opponent's recourse be? To say "hey, you didn't roll a bunch of them correctly earlier either!"? Too late, right?
(cont.)
DeleteNo offense, but it's delusional to expect that you can properly enforce Vegas-style procedures onto a tabletop game, because tabletop gamers just aren't going to play like that the majority of the time. There's nobody minding the tables to force everyone to play the right way--EVERY single time--and in the absence of that, people will get complacent and lazy. So what, you say "that's their fault for not dice-lawyering every single game they ever play"? Once again, it's not a perfect world, and the fact that nobody's going to consistently follow all those rules is not really on the fault of the players.
I know everyone likes to get a little conspiracy theorist-y in terms of accusations of cheating with dice rolls after they lose, but if you believed everyone who accused someone else of cheating dice rolls at a tournament, it would mean everyone who's won a tournament in the Indianapolis area in the last three years blatantly cheats with their dice.
In the end, all you'd accomplish is making it possible to game the system to your benefit, rather than having to perform actual physical cheating with dice. And the former will be FAR more common than the latter.
Again, I hate to burst all the conspiracy-bubbles, but I'll go ahead and say it: I honestly believe I have never played against someone who cheated their dice rolls. Nor have any of you ever heard me accuse someone of doing so, because I take the (seemingly unpopular) stance of just blaming bad luck when things go badly. But I absolutely can't make it through a tournament day without two or three people coming up to me and saying they think the guy they just played against was using cheater-dice, or is some kind of master criminal who plans his dice rolls in advance. Or, alternatively, having someone come up and tell me that the person I just beat is going around accusing me of the same.
The paranoia is getting out of hand, and it's all because people want to have someone to blame when they lose. I'm frankly tired of listening to everyone be whiny, distrustful douches and spreading nonsense rumors about everyone else just so that they don't have to accept that they might have lost fairly. I would be absolutely SHOCKED if the majority of our locals have played even a SINGLE game against someone who was legitimately cheating with their dice rolls, but if you ask around it would sound like we're currently beset by a damned plague of cheaters.
End rant.
Ok, first and formost: I AM NOT accusing anyone I know of cheating with dice. There is no agenda here other than writing a tight set of rules that will benefit both casual and more competitive players. If there are rumors about so-and-so this and he-did-that, I'm not a part of them.
DeleteI think that saying I'm looking to enforce Vegas-style proceedures is a bit harsh. 6 inches isn't anywhere near the 3+ foot move with a bounce off of the backboard that's required in craps, for instance. It may or may not be workable in reality, but that's a different thing. It's also the reason I posted this. For feedback from folks who attend and run a lot of tournaments!
I don't think it's delusional though to have SOME standards. If nothing else, it raises the awareness of new players to they ways they might be cheated. I can remember my own first tournaments and how I didn't even know I was being cheated blind. I knew something was up, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
Truth is, most of this crap happens at the bottom tables, not the top. If the problem can be dealt with in some consistent fashion, then we'd lose fewer players to bad experiences.
Take what you yourself just said:
"But I absolutely can't make it through a tournament day without two or three people coming up to me and saying they think the guy they just played against was using cheater-dice, or is some kind of master criminal who plans his dice rolls in advance. Or, alternatively, having someone come up and tell me that the person I just beat is going around accusing me of the same."
THAT is what I'm trying to find a way to prevent, or at least lessen. No, you can't bring glyph dice, but in return you don't have as much of this kind of crap to wade through.
> leave a casino-style legal rolling area in the blank space.
DeleteThere's a neater solution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dice_tower
I'm not suggesting rules should mandate it, but maybe tournaments could provide some?
Honestly, that's a mood killer. Either everyone is going to ignore it, or be turned away because of it. I assume that M42 still falls under the "game" description, as such, is normally played to have fun, not be this level of serious. The restriction on size I can understand, but pip color, no custom sides, the type of roll used? really? If this was an enforced rule I would honestly never play this game.
ReplyDeleteAnd as a side note, I haven't played dice cup games in over a decade, and I don't start now. If someone doesn't like how I roll dice, then I don't need to play them.
This seems way over the top to me. It's meant to be a game, you know, for fun. You could just use one of those little plastic hemispheres with the die sealed inside where you push down on it and it pops...
ReplyDeleteI rarely ever have encountered dice cheating. Sure it can and does happen but there are bigger issues for sure.
ReplyDeleteYour experiences differ from mine then. It's been a few years, but I've been blatantly cheated at tourneys before.
DeleteI tried to cheat SandWyrm but a video camera caught me and oh yeah, we never played. Sad Panda.
DeleteLOL!
Delete/faceplam Ok...honestly the only thing I really care about is agreeing on what is cocked. That's about it. So if people really need to cheat at 40k then let them. The only people they are cheating are themselves, because they will never really be any good at the game anyways.
ReplyDeleteCall it a character flaw if you like, but I don't believe in ignoring problems.
DeleteOk I understand a little bit of it, but I'm never going to ask the person im playing to follow all these guidelines and expect them not to look at me and say "No thanks, I think I'll play someone else".
DeleteOne thing I'm kinda surprised I haven't seen mentioned is how the hell are you gonna determine where to measure that 6" roll from? It's not like you can insta-drop a marker at the exact point of release. It's just not feasible. And yes, 6" isn't nearly are large as craps' requirement, but at the same time, you don't have people betting hundreds of dollars are a 40k game, let alone a single roll in said game.
ReplyDeleteI'm also with Foodie in saying that putting these rules into the Rulebooks is a terrible, horrible, terrible idea. I mean, you said that these rules are meant for competitive play. I've yet to read a Basic rulebook that tells you how to run a tournament, what terrain is legal, etc, etc.
Now, I'm tired, so I'm gonna let it at that. But I'll leave you with a thought: Mr. Owl, how many rules does it take for a game to stop being a game?
I think the 6" criticism is a fair one. Maybe I'll just re-write that and some of the other things as a set of best practices, but not an actual rule.
DeleteWhy do games have rules at all then? The structure has a purpose.
I don't mean that game's shouldn't have any rules, just that too many can make it into more of a chore than a pass-time. "Too many cooks spoil the broth" as it were.
DeleteMy solution would be to have players share one set of dice. Either one player's set is randomly picked (coin flip?) or else tournaments could provide a communal dice set and have them be a consolation prize for the loser (for them to burn/torture/punish etc.)
ReplyDeleteThat really eliminates 99% of the issues. He keeps rolling his "lucky" dice for LD tests and is getting hella-lucky? Well you just roll those dice too. The problem with stopping players using different dice for different tests is that it slows the game down if you can't multi-roll for multiple tests at once and you can still cheat even with all the same colour dice. There was a tournament here where a guy had a dice cube where 4 of the dice had no 1s.
The issues with roll technique are really frustrating. I would provide some kind of box/lid for dice to be rolled into. It eliminates issues with cocked dice, hitting models etc. and you can oblige people to hit the edge of the box when they roll to stop them "dropping" them (which I really hate even when it's not being done deliberately).
Obviously the other restrictions on "no funny dice" should stand too but overall that seems the most solid way to address dice for competitive play.
This. Why not just supply dice at the tournament? Roll it into fees. Include a dice-cup or dice-tower if you want fair rolling. They're incredibly easy to make.
DeleteThat's a solution, but it's not one that would apply to competitive pick-up games. Nor would it be universally adopted. I really think that there need to be a set of base standards in the rules that set some expectations up front in a consistent way.
DeleteSharing one player's dice, though, would be fine for pick-up games and achieves the same result. Or if you have distinctive dice just pooling them would work too.
DeleteThat really eliminates most of the issues.
Interesting... Not 100% I'd agree with a lot of it, but it does get some interesting points out there.
ReplyDelete:-) Mind, I use my own "lucky" dice (old Mechwarrior Clan Wolf and Steel Wolf dice), and I'd miss them if not allowed, but I'm much more a fan of even play fields, so I'd probably go a step further and say everyone uses the same "pool" of common dice. No worries about "special" dice, but skilled rollers would still have something of an advantage...
Taking it to the logical extreme, would having some "computer device" (be it some sort of tablet/smart phone/computer) running something of a good randomizer program where the player would enter "x" d6 and both could see the results?
Computers aren't an answer. All you need is someone to create an 'iCheat' app for the iPhone and we're back to uncertainty.
DeleteAnd that's really the key thing here. We need to remove the uncertainty and the 2nd guessing from this part of the game. Part of respecting your opponent is not making them suspicious of the things you do.
Okay, I'll throw in my two cents...
ReplyDeleteI am not opposed to having these rules in the main rulebook. I do think they are a little over the top, but I don't think it is 'wrong' to address this issue. I also wouldn't list them as optional, people will ignore them if they like.
I agree that the most common issue is with cocked dice. My brother and I have always played that if it isn't flat on the grassmat it gets re-rolled---no matter what! So if you roll a six and it's on your army list it's a re-roll! A little crazy-I know, but not at all questionable! I hate it when only an opponets crappy rolls are cocked, but that 'maybe' six on a models base or a hill is fine! We almost always just use a box to roll in.
I like the dice restrictions, especially when you're stating for competitions (may be ignored for friendly games). I hate it when people have multiple dice with all sorts of designs/runes/whatever on them. And they seem to never remember which one is the '1' and '6'.
I don't think requiring a dice cup at a tourney is that big of a deal either. You could provide plastic cups if needed.
I agree that having a required travel distance is a rule waiting abuse. I think rolling into a box helps with this issue.
That's a very reasonable answer.
DeleteThe lay one die on top of another thing isn't something I do (I re-roll any slightly cocked die). But it was suggested to me by someone I played once and seemed like a decent compromise between anything goes and arguing about whether a die is lying completely flat on the table.
This discussion applies to us all, since rolling the dice is part of what we do when wargaming. The only way to eliminate the "Human" part of rolling the dice easily and fairly simple. Each opponent uses the same size dice, and roll said dice into a dice tower eliminating any ability to control the outcome of the diceroll. I could elaborate more on the subject however I believe that says it all. Simple.
ReplyDeleteIt's simple, but requires a dice tower. Cups are everywhere, but a dice tower has to be made.
DeleteI like the everyone uses the same dice idea.
Agree with most other commentators, this doesn't seem necessary. If the concern is tournament related only then simply make the TO responsible for supplying the required dice and a cup/box or dice tower to roll in.
ReplyDeleteFor friendly games these rules would be irrelevant. If you suspect your opponent of cheating, simply don't play him.
I seem to be by myself here- but I am totally with you on all of these points. It's not a matter of whether I think you are cheating or whether you think I am, it is good sportsmanship to play like this! Sportsmanship is everything even in friendly games. Can you imagine if when playing pool you potted a ball when your opponent wasn't in the room or lent on the table when someone was taking a shot. These are things that just aren't done. Using standard dice and good rolling techniques are all good habits to get into anyway. Good work SandWyrm I say!
ReplyDeleteYou are one of the only Col. Ackland. So I guess if I play risk competitively or magic, ugh! I can only set my pieces a certain way or have to shuffle in a particular way so I am not cheating? This is ridiculous! Cheating is one thing but making a set of rules so the fun is drained from the game is borderline stupidity.
DeleteBut heh! Everyone has their opinion.
Thanks for the kind words Colonel. :)
Delete@Spag
So your fun would be drained if all your dice had to be of the same size? I find that hard to believe. You're just not used to the idea.
And I never would be. Just like MVB I would never play a wargame with these type of restrictions.
Delete@Spaguatyrine and Everyone else: My point is its not about cheating, its about using good habits. So yeah if I was playing risk competitively I might not pile all my pieces on top of each other so my opponent can't tell how many there are- not that that is cheating.
DeleteI roll MY dice in a manner that shows I'M playing sportingly. I go out of MY way ensure I am being fair and reasonable to my opponent.
Games played between men should be played in a Gentlemanly fashion. This is where young boys learn good sportsmanship. And this isn't just 'Game' skills this is life skills. Its ok to play to win, but beat people soundly or risk going to jail.
So YES, if we need guidelines on what is sporting and fair, if we need to point out what is and isn't gentlemanly then so be it!!
This is what people don't get. Being civil doesn't mean you have to be anal about the way you shuffle your cards or anything but say you are playing magic with a friend and you have clear-back plastic, that's cool. But if you go to a tournement (a real one by wotc or one who follow their tourney rules), you have to use single colored backings that you can't see through, so no markings can be made. You also have to place your cards in game a certain way, the removed from play another way and your graveyard another.
DeleteThat's not being an ass, nor forcing people to buy another set of plastics, it's just setting a neutral set of simple rules to prevent any foul play - or feeling of being cheated, which are even worse than being cheated on a game....
Strange to see this. Strange, but thought-provoking. Two things stick out for me:
ReplyDelete1. No Custom Glyphs
2. Cocked Dice
The first strikes me as odd but that might be specific to gaming in my region (Ireland). Most people that attend tournaments have their own dice with the '6' replaced with engraved custom symbols, whether a club or country design, although the cheaper dice have stickers that have slowly worn away (except for you Itzacon with your blank 6 side...) and no-one ever has a problem with it as long as everyone knows that the 6 is always the icon which is something I always make clear to my opponents. The other thing is the smaller orange-coloured dice I have that are never rolled as I use them to track vehicle damage and that's also made clear when the game begins. What I'm trying to say is that I think its a bit excessive to ban the glyphs as I'm not sure they lean more toward any one facing over the others.
As for Cocked dice, I was surprised to find the Danish (and I think other Scandinavians) play it that if a dice touches *any* terrain piece and is not fully flat on the board it has to be re-rolled, so when felt or other material is used to cover the board and it leads to bulges on the table then they don't count as flat. It's something I'd like to see adopted over here tbh.
As for casino dice, their roll is discounted unless they bank i.e. hit a wall before resting aren't they? I'd insist on them hitting a wall before they're accepted in any game I play too.
I'm not opposed to the Glyphs because they unbalance the odds. Truth is, it's VERY hard to get true randomness without a minimum travel, number of bounces, and whatnot that's very hard to do on a 6x4 table that's full of terrain and models. So having Glyphs or not isn't going to make an appreciable difference to what number comes up.
DeleteNo, the problem is readability and the creation of opportunities for suspicion.
Well, the thing about glyphed dice is that even when made by the same company for the same event, they don't always have the glyph in the same spot. For example, a common dice here in Indy is the GenCon dice. This one company hands them out each year at GenCon with the GenCon followed by the date on one of the numbers. I myself have a small little collection going, and have noticed that between years, the glyph isn't always on the 6. I believe my '09 d6 has the glyph on the 1 spot instead. I also know a guy who has d6's with a demon glyph on the 1s spot. Granted, with glyphs they're usually gonna be on the 1 or the 6, the difference is still huge, so the potential is there.
DeleteAlright so i will throw in my two cents I guess. These rules are definately on the strick side and I have seen half of the shenanigans mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI have seen:
1.) Two sets of dice one with 1's glyphed the other with 6's (I could keep track of what he was rolling but others might have struggled).
2.) Dropping dice without a roll (they roll it close to the table and it just lands flat)
3.) Rolling Shenanigans (had a local store owner show me that when he set his dice a certain way in his hand and rolled them they ended up the numbers he needed... was crazy and I still don't trust the guy to this day when I face him)
4.) Oversized dice that dont really roll
5.) The friendly cocked dice the opponent only reaches to re-roll if its bad roll
I wont lie I have asked opponents if they would mind switching up dice. Not because they were cheating or anything but because there dice simply defied logic and statistics. They were free to say no but both times I have done it they agreed and the game continued just fine but closer to average. :)
Anyone that see's me roll will know I couldnt possibly cheat them. I flick the dice up in the air or shake them wildly before rolling. I like rolling I think its fun. Though sometimes a few of my dice end up bouncing off the table. :(
So my suggestion: Tournaments have spare dice if needed. Not necessarily 6" being rolled but you could have a certain distance they could be dropped from. Or require players to shake the dice in there hand before rolling. I wont mind either way. Dice shit on you it happens. Hell it happened to me at the Indy Open.
Why is it that the comments from locals are so negative? Most of which use different sizes for specific rolling! Yeah I use different colors and sizes of dice, but none of which are set aside for anything in specific. I use any of them for every kind of roll I make, but lately have been bringing one set of dice and only using them. Why would anyone be so unwilling to use one set of dice? Some of you sound pretty self-incriminating by the comments you have made.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there should be "rules" for dice and what is acceptable rolling. I also agree with some of the above content about the aforementioned "rules" are a bit too much. Distance travelled is probably the biggest issue, but conforming to only using certain sizes should not offend anyone.
IMHO if you are not or will not be a "cheater" then abiding by a few simple rules is the least you can do to show that!
I've re-written the rules based on the feedback here. They're summarized up at the end of the original post.
ReplyDeleteWell done. ;)
DeleteI've seen an enormous amount of activity that is accused of being dice cheating, and isn't even remotely close to it. I also almost NEVER see people complain at events about it ... they wait until they are on a blog or forum afterward and firmly swear about how awful it was.
ReplyDeleteI would not play a wargame that had detailed rules about what dice I could or could not use, or even felt it made any sense to have such rules in place.
I don't really mind attending a tournament that has dice restrictions and rules in place, but I think it's a little silly to include in a printed rulebook.
Read the new improved "guidelines" (which sounds friendlier than "rules"), and I approve.
ReplyDeleteCocked dice and dice you can read should be the limit. Dice that fall off the table get re-rolled. Tell me what you're rolling for. Let me see the results before you pick them up. Pick up all the hits or all the misses., and don't cahnge which for the reset of the game. Who cares about diff sized dice? If they rolled the dice and they didn't roll, then tell them to re-roll and call bullshit if they refuse.
ReplyDelete