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For a long time THE load out for tactical marines was las/plas. It was cheap, effective, and denied your opponent an armor save. These days the 4+ cover save is king.

I'm wondering if denying your opponent that die roll is a bit better than statistics would indicate. In a perfect world, it wouldn't matter, but these are dice, which everybody knows are imperfect. Most gamers I know have their little rituals and observances to make the dice roll better, including using some dice for some purposes, and other dice for other things. Even if the dice are manufactured to be fair, usually they're made so cheaply that they still tend to produce some results over other over time. Anybody who's used their dice for some time starts to get a feel for this, and will pick their dice accordingly.

Now I'm not saying anybody is cheating, or anything of the sort, this is all perfectly legal, and seldom done deliberately.

So, if you've got people who are deliberately choosing some dice over others, based on their performance. I think this will result in a setup that favors people who get some sort of saving throw, where they get to use these dice, over situations were they get nothing at all. Thus saving throws are much better than they're supposed to be, throwing the game off. Some of the smarter players pick up on this, and attempt to prevent their opponents from getting any sort of saving throw, making their performance better than people who don't.

What do you guys think?

Obviously, if you run into a cheater who also knows how to play, you will lose. Denying him saves won't work, as he'll be playing an army that takes max advantage of his loaded dice, probably Kairos + Daemons.

Wait. How is using dice that truly perform better at a certain task not cheating?

I can understand using high quality Casino dice to get an even spread, but knowingly using dice that have a tendency to roll high seems at the very least unsporting. I'd watch anyone doing this very closely. They're the types that are more likely to roll their cover saves behind terrain, pick up their 'hit' rolls, and otherwise obfuscate the dice.

I would be prety suspicious of someone using specific dice for specific roles. Certainly in my group of gamers, usualy one player supplies the dice, and both play with those dice(if only to avoid mixing them up).

If they are using specific dice knowing they role better, to me this is akin to using loaded dice. So realy the only way to look at this is statisticly.

It's not cheating to roll dice that roll better than the average gamer dice, i.e. Chessex. They're proven to roll more than their share of 1's.

Casino dice, and to a less extent non-beveled dice, roll closer to exactly statistically average, but still do not roll above average.

Now, I do think it would be cheating to use different dice for different rolls. Or, to think of a better example, to use two varieties of dice, one with a symbol on the 1's and another with a symbol on the 6's and conveniently "forget" which ones are which. That happened to me once and now I am leery whenever I see a symbol on a dice.

I have been hearing about this several times now where gamers are using certain dice for certain situations. Basically using the dice that they know statistically roll less 1's(than cheap chessex dice) like casino dice or precision backgammon dice for everything but leadership tests. And then they pull out the "Lucky chessex dice", which has been shown to roll more 1's, for leadership tests.

Bottomline in my opinion is that you should use 1 type of dice(multicolored for differentiating wounds and shots, if necesary) for all of your rolls, period.. end of story. Either all chessex or all casino or all precision backgammon.

I also realize that the probability of effecting the outcome of the game by using different dice is fairly low.

To me it's the principle of the thing.

GG

In terms of meta game, yes denying your opponent rolls of sorts is always a good idea.

So how do you deny someone a 4+cover save? Use a template weapon of some kind!

Let's see what is good with this
Flamers
Heavy flamers
callidus assasin brain scrambler thingy
whirlwinds

So how many of these ignore amor and cover?
1)flamers ignore both but only 5+ or worse armor...
2)Heavy flamers are better strength and wound more often and also ignore 4+ or worse armor
3)callidus is AP 1 woooo... but often has trouble wounding anything with ld 9 or better and you can only have one...
4)whirlwind covers a large area, often wounds, but has trouble with armor saves... and is expensive + a heavy choice

Too me the analysis is run with heavy flamers since they seem, point for point, the most efficient way to ignore armor and cover... however they don't do much vs 3+ or better armor... Sisters of battle can get around this with some lucky rolls and faith, but no one else.

The metagame is also shifting to low armor/high number count armies so heavy flamers may become more valuable...

Anytime you deny rolls your odds of winning goes up

I use my lucky dice for every game. I also have colours of dice for specific things. For example, here is my load out of dice I currently use for each game:

- I have my pair of orange pheonix rising dice that have pheonix's for the number 1 and beveled edges as my dice for leadership/morale tests, because its awsome to see two pheonix pop and then yell "insane courage"!

- Then I have 20 yellow and white hard edged mini dice for attacks, wounds and saving throws.

- I have 5 or so red and white mini dice with beveled edges used only as wound counters.

- And finnally I have 10 white and black mini dice with hard edges for use as alternate weapon shots or dispell dice.


So am I a cheater or just a player who likes organising his dice into certain groups so that its easy to tell my rolls apart and because he feels each are good at doing their own thing?

My opinion is that as long as the dice are not cooked you can use whatever you for any roll. Some people hate this and will flat out say you are a big cheater if you do this. If it upset my opponent and they said something about it I would use the same dice for all rolls.

G

BigToof wrote:For a long time THE load out for tactical marines was las/plas. It was cheap, effective, and denied your opponent an armor save. These days the 4+ cover save is king.

I'm wondering if denying your opponent that die roll is a bit better than statistics would indicate. In a perfect world, it wouldn't matter, but these are dice, which everybody knows are imperfect. Most gamers I know have their little rituals and observances to make the dice roll better, including using some dice for some purposes, and other dice for other things. Even if the dice are manufactured to be fair, usually they're made so cheaply that they still tend to produce some results over other over time. Anybody who's used their dice for some time starts to get a feel for this, and will pick their dice accordingly.

Now I'm not saying anybody is cheating, or anything of the sort, this is all perfectly legal, and seldom done deliberately.

So, if you've got people who are deliberately choosing some dice over others, based on their performance. I think this will result in a setup that favors people who get some sort of saving throw, where they get to use these dice, over situations were they get nothing at all. Thus saving throws are much better than they're supposed to be, throwing the game off. Some of the smarter players pick up on this, and attempt to prevent their opponents from getting any sort of saving throw, making their performance better than people who don't.

What do you guys think?

++ edit for the triple post ++

I was clicking the quote button by accident... sorry!

G

++ edit for the double post ++

I think there is a reason guys that play hard core war games like Advanced Squad Leader use dice towers and share the same dice.

I also think there is a reason Casinos supply the dice at Craps, a reason those dice are translucent and a reason they have serial numbers on them, and that the dice have to bounce off a backstop before they land.

Any time you have people using an instrument of chance to determine a favorable outcome there is some percentage of your population that will attempt to manipulate that outcome. There are only two options: You minimize the opportunity to influence the instrument of chance, or you don't.

If I ever run a tournament one of the first things I will do is issue EVERY person a brick of dice and require all players to use the house issued dice.

To be fair you should use the same dice for everything, or alternatively allow your opponent the same choice of dice knowing which tend to roll for what.

I mean how can anyone think it's fair to bring your own set of dice that are only for your personal use, for which you've secretly worked out what results they tend to roll and then use different ones depending on whether you're fighting in hand to hand combat, taking a saving throw or testing leadership?? At what point is that not underhanded? And, may I say, a bit obsessive about winning.

That's simply not on, the point of the D6 is that in theory you have a 1 in 6 chance of getting any result, the 'luck' element of the game should be equal between two opposing players, your strategy and tactics are entirely down to you however. Admittedly some dice tend not to be equal, but to knowingly take advantage of that, well...

To try and harness the 'luck' side of the game with a collection of squiffy dice that have a tendancy to throw the results you want from them...well hell how's that *not* cheating? It's certainly far from the spirit of the game, when you take a dice throw the game should be out of your hands, the only advantage should be in how hard you cross your fingers for a good result.

How does getting the custom symbols effect the distribution of Chessex dice? I'm thinking about getting a big green block of them with my Sept symbol on the '1' side (I figure a circular design replacing a single circular 'pip' makes more sense than replacing 6 separate circular 'pips') and then getting a few other colours to represent different weapons (markerlights, railguns & the like), but not getting the symbols.

Is doing this to match my army going to get me branded as a cheater?

It shouldn't. There's always some chod lickers out there though that will cry foul over any little thing they think they can complain about.

I use at least 3 different sets of dice when I game - two cubes worth of the small chessex dice + enough other small dice so I have large number for rolling shoota boy attacks/shots. Then I have around 30 large chessex dice+ dice I bought at Target for other stuff.

I'm trying to wrap my head around loaded dice being part of the metagame.

WT@#???

They best way to effectivly deny a saving throw is massive firepower at the weakest point.

Blast weapons, close the distance fast, and crush someone with shock attacks.

Dice won't help you when you literally chase down a target, close them and instigate HtH with another unit or two coming up behind it.

And finally a good way to deny saves is to instigate moral checks and lots of them.

As for a tournament that allows loaded dice...
a couple of questions-

Wouldn't anyone worth thier salt make an issue if they feel someone is outright cheating?

How many of these tourny cheaters are actually out there?

Wouldn't someone be black-balled from the tourny thing if they got caught cheating?

I have used different types of dice for different things on occassion. Casino dice for power weapons, chessex for squad bodies; that sort of thing. I have never had anyone complain, and if they did I would be happy to use one certain type. Really, I've just got a huge bag of all my dice and about 7 different types in there.

But I NEVER use a certain size, type or shape to influence the roll. The roll of dice is meant to inroduce a certain amount of chance. Influencing that outside of the rules is dishonest.

budro wrote:
It shouldn't. There's always some chod lickers out there though that will cry foul over any little thing they think they can complain about.

QFT!

G

You come across as not having read the OP. No one said anything about loaded dice... it was about using dice that appear to roll better for certain odds. The thing is no one ever takes these dice and rolls them over 1000 times to perform any statistical analysis to see if they really do. It's really just like superstition at the end of the day.

G

Grot 6 wrote:I'm trying to wrap my head around loaded dice being part of the metagame.

WT@#???

They best way to effectivly deny a saving throw is massive firepower at the weakest point.

Blast weapons, close the distance fast, and crush someone with shock attacks.

Dice won't help you when you literally chase down a target, close them and instigate HtH with another unit or two coming up behind it.

And finally a good way to deny saves is to instigate moral checks and lots of them.

As for a tournament that allows loaded dice...
a couple of questions-

Wouldn't anyone worth thier salt make an issue if they feel someone is outright cheating?

How many of these tourny cheaters are actually out there?

Wouldn't someone be black-balled from the tourny thing if they got caught cheating?

grizgrin wrote:I have used different types of dice for different things on occassion. Casino dice for power weapons, chessex for squad bodies; that sort of thing. I have never had anyone complain, and if they did I would be happy to use one certain type. Really, I've just got a huge bag of all my dice and about 7 different types in there.

But I NEVER use a certain size, type or shape to influence the roll. The roll of dice is meant to inroduce a certain amount of chance. Influencing that outside of the rules is dishonest.

Let's unite against those chod lickers!

G

The Green Git wrote:

If I ever run a tournament one of the first things I will do is issue EVERY person a brick of dice and require all players to use the house issued dice.

Wow. You're rich. Really! Dice are not cheap.

I use three kinds of dice and regularly switch between them after getting good rolls so noone can call anything. People are paranoid :p

Strimen wrote:I use my lucky dice for every game.

I have several sets of *un-lucky* (Chessex) dice that I use in various games. On "bad" days, I have changed out entire dice sets with no improvement in luckiness, continuing to roll badly for the day. Sometimes the dice roll "hot", and that's pretty amazing when it happens, but it's a rare day.

Strimen wrote:I also have colours of dice for specific things.

I also color-code by function:
- plasma in white
- heavies in black
- characters in red
and so on.

I haven't noticed any pattern to them over the 5+ years I've had my dice...

Aside from them rolling below average overall...

Lordhat wrote:

The Green Git wrote: If I ever run a tournament one of the first things I will do is issue EVERY person a brick of dice and require all players to use the house issued dice.

Wow. You're rich. Really! Dice are not cheap.

That is why you make it part of the tournament fee.

Green Blow Fly wrote:You come across as not having read the OP. No one said anything about loaded dice... it was about using dice that appear to roll better for certain odds. The thing is no one ever takes these dice and rolls them over 1000 times to perform any statistical analysis to see if they really do. It's really just like superstition at the end of the day.

G

I did this in september. I own 250 chessex dice... we all rolled these dice on a table and we found in the end... we ended up with an even distribution of numbers. we rolled this set 4 times to get the distribution...

Yes for you silly statistics people this is not the same as rolling 1000 dice once. I know this.

But when in a game do you roll 1000 dice? You roll multiple sets of smaller dice. In my testing this came out the pretty much the same every time with no varience one way or the other.

GBF when I go to the necro, you can see my dice box (yea I am a organized BFG nerd!)

Green Blow Fly wrote:You come across as not having read the OP. No one said anything about loaded dice... it was about using dice that appear to roll better for certain odds. The thing is no one ever takes these dice and rolls them over 1000 times to perform any statistical analysis to see if they really do. It's really just like superstition at the end of the day.

G

I cry BS on that. BS I say!

People have done studies on the difference between chessex dice and have shown that they roll a higher percentage of 1's than what they should statistically.

As much as you roam these forums and others I have a hard time believing that you haven't read the same studies as me.

There are a lot of people that read the same studies as me and you,and they go ..Hmmmmm chessex dice roll more 1's? I'll just use them for me leadership or toughness tests, and use my casino dice for my shooting and wounding rolls.

However I agree with your point that maybe it's not "THAT" big of a deal when you look at the Big Picture of things.

But most people agree with me that it is kind of shady, if your trying to gain an advantage by "hustling the dice".

I think it's just good manners to try to keep things on the up and up.

GG

generalgrog wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:You come across as not having read the OP. No one said anything about loaded dice... it was about using dice that appear to roll better for certain odds. The thing is no one ever takes these dice and rolls them over 1000 times to perform any statistical analysis to see if they really do. It's really just like superstition at the end of the day.

G

I cry BS on that. BS I say!

People have done studies on the difference between chessex dice and have shown that they roll a higher percentage of 1's than what they should statistically.

As much as you roam these forums and others I have a hard time believing that you haven't read the same studies as me.

There are a lot of people that read the same studies as me and you,and they go ..Hmmmmm chessex dice roll more 1's? I'll just use them for me leadership or toughness tests, and use my casino dice for my shooting and wounding rolls.

However I agree with your point that maybe it's not "THAT" big of a deal when you look at the Big Picture of things.

But most people agree with me that it is kind of shady, if your trying to gain an advantage by "hustling the dice".

I think it's just good manners to try to keep things on the up and up.

GG

I just did the same study a bunch of times turns out I got the same result...? How do we reconcile that?

Anyone at the necro this year can do the study with me again as I will be bringing my dice in the big obnoxious red box

I have seen a couple of different studies were the tests involved rolling dice multiple 1000's of times. These tests were done by university people, not by Joe blow in his basement. :-) I can't get warseer from work, so I will have to put a link up when I get home.

Maybe you could search here on DAKKA and find a link as well.

GG

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Lordhat wrote:

The Green Git wrote: If I ever run a tournament one of the first things I will do is issue EVERY person a brick of dice and require all players to use the house issued dice.

Wow. You're rich. Really! Dice are not cheap.

That is why you make it part of the tournament fee.

You can buy single bricks of 36 12mm dice for around $5. If you buy them in any kind of bulk that price will go down. As mentioned above you just incorporate it into the fee.

Besides, that way you can be sure that each and every participant will get SOMETHING to show for their day of games and fun.

Green Blow Fly wrote:You come across as not having read the OP. No one said anything about loaded dice... it was about using dice that appear to roll better for certain odds. The thing is no one ever takes these dice and rolls them over 1000 times to perform any statistical analysis to see if they really do. It's really just like superstition at the end of the day.

G

Exactly. This is not about cheating, that's something else.

This is about the perception the your opponent is going to roll better than he should, and that denying him this fixes something. It also goes to what I perceive as being a big ta-do about the increase in cover saves for units. If you deny your opponent a saving throw of any sort, they are basically helpless to prevent you removing their models. The saving throw makes it seem like they still have some input into game, even if it's totally luck based.

I've also been on the bad side this, when my opponent passed save after save. I had one guy do this to me in a Flame of War game, where he made 19 3+ saves in a row, which basically won the game, when in fact I should have toasted him. I would have been upset, except he had failed a number of 5+ saves before with the same exact dice, and he's not that sort of fellow.

I had some people make comments about my dice rolls one day at the FLGS. Just an off hand remark, but it made me wonder, so I rolled them all 10-20 times, and wrote down the results. Came out that the dice I was using were below average. FWIW, they are the chessex dice, and this was before the study, so I was a little surprised. FWIW, I haven't stopped using them, and I use them for everything.