Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

We played a tournament recently, is there rules to the types of dice that are allowed. We were really tearing up the tables with a team of orks, 2500pts per team, 1250 per person, we put down 8 10man squads of boys in trucks, 2 looted wagons, 2 battlewagon riding nob units with 2 ghazgkhulls (I know it seems weird but go with it for sake of this discussion), deffkoptas. Just your run of the mill giant pile of shooty orks. Nothing particularly gruesome strength wise, just lots and lots and lots of dakka.

So a particular set of players we don't normally see at our gaming site were doing fairly well in the tournament. They had a team of eldar and blood angels. The one guy had the classic, special dice he used for what quickly became apparent as his important saves a yellow dice that constantly rolled 1 and a black dice that almost always rolled 6. And the other fellow, had a set of dice that seemed odd. Its difficult to explain but they looked like a normal 6 sided dice that had been sucked in in the middle, so the 8 corners stuck out from a somewhat curved in center. Imagine sucking in a cardboard box towards a point in the middle. Anyways, I really didn't see much in the rule book about what types of dice are allowed so we let it be. So he seemed to have 12 of these dice and here are a couple of his rolls, I am really sharp at counting dice and keep track of them on a notepad most of the time and after his first couple of wild rolls I really started keeping track;

6-6s then this one.... 8-6s then this one.. 2-6s then this which I couldn't friggin believe 9-6s
4-5s........................4-5s.......................9-5s.........................................................3-5s
2-3s........................ - ..........................1-1

Rolls like this went on and on..... I like to believe in luck, but also believe you have to realize pigs don't fly....

Now I want to believe you could roll this, but hey these same dice constistantly and repeatedly rolled 6 for saves, and consistantly rolled these astronomically wild sets of 5 and 6, and when it came time for leadership tests or something he had to roll low for these RED dice came out which seemed rather normal.

The game still came down to a tie, of 1 scoring unit each on the objective. But it was just hard to resist telling the guy to stop rolling the weird dice and stick to using the normal dice.

So I ask for input on what would you do in a situation like this.

Swapping between different pools of dice for different rolls, and getting statistically rare rolls very, very often, are pretty good indicators of loaded dice.

The hilarious part is even if they were using loaded dice, they still couldn't win.

personally, I'd ask them if I could use the same dice. See what their reaction is.

I would think that at some point I would call BS. In the case of a tournament I would probably call over an official and let them see the dice rolls.

Regardless, if I felt that someone were cheating then I'd pack up my army and walk away. I do this because I enjoy the game (and, occasionally I like to win too!). However, if I'm convinced someone is cheating then I really don't want to waste my time.

Incidentally, we have a rule where I play. The dice that were rolled for the hits are the same ones rolled for the saves. This really takes care of any issues with imbalanced dice; regardless of intent. After all, if those dice usually roll high, then they are still going to be high when saves are rolled. Which makes it almost pointless to bother with loaded dice.

yeah, pretty much loaded dice. also, the best indicator is weirdly-shaped dice. think how bad of a tactician you have to be to use loaded dice and STILL not win...

Im a fan of using the to wound dice for saves, not only makes the game faster and easier but it would have an adverse affect for people using loaded dice. (I hope I used adverse correctly)

The two suggestions here are the best way to handle it. As soon as you start to smell something fishy ask to use their dice and request that the same dice are used all the time. Want to load your dice to roll 6's all the time? Cool I'll take 6's on my cover/armor saves all the time too.

I would ask to use the same dice and see how well it works. If you think its loaded, tell a tourni official.
My rule that if any dice hit the ground (unless you are playing on the gound) count as failures. Just try to get him to roll off the table.

The yellow and black dice definitely sound loaded.

However, I have seen those weird curved ones for salt. They kinda look like this --- ) ( --- from the side, right?

Nothing loaded about those, unless they tweaked with them, which it sounds like he did. Not sure who makes them though.

To answer your question however, no there's no rule in the BRB. However, a judge would have issues with miraculous die rolls consistently.

Sucked in dice are usually the clues to heated dice. (Dice that have been put in the oven with the number they want at the top - it heats them and the inside melts a bit and lowers towards the bottom, anyone can do it and it really irks me. ) That gives a dice the appearance of sucked in dice.

I would of kindly asked try his dice for your big important shot or game winning turn.

Were the curved dice like this?

Lol. okay that isnt the kind I had in mind. I was thinking just slightly curved in a bit. Like you wouldn't notice it unless you took a good look.

These are the one's I've recently been warned to look out for: http://www.magicnevin.com/proddetail.asp?prod=l18301

I think you make them roll higher by keeping them in your hands to warm them up or rolling them in a certain way.

I didn't know any of this goes on - it's awful.

it is important to call people like this out on these sort of shananigins(even if they lose)


personally i woud like it if big tournaments supplied their own dice and had a bin at each table with a 100 or so dice. it would cut down on cheaters like this.


Cheating is NEVER ok. especially in a game of little toy soldiers. how bad do you need to win?

This reminds me of MW2, playing a game where the entire enemy team was using mods (modded controllers, and just general hacks) and our team weren't. And we still managed to beat them. How bad must you be to lose when breaking the game?

I've never played against someone with loaded dice, but the other thing you have to watch for are square edged dice. You can roll 2 out of your hands to land on whatever you want, no loading required. Just means you can always make those couple of saves (hello wound aloocation) and LD tests etc. Some tournaments have now banned the use of square edged dice, and casinos never use them due to this.

Oshova

Using dice for specific rolls might be interesting or cause for concern, but not neccessarily shady.

I typically have 3 different sets of dice on the table. normally, it's to differentiate different guns for a unit. "The 4 blues are the assault cannon and the 12 white dice are my hurricane bolters" as an example.

I keep my dice in separate piles. I might roll the blue dice for saves one turn and my black dice for to-hits and to-wound rolls. If they are failing me, then I'll switch to my whice dice with the Templar cross.

However, from turn to turn, it's rarely the same dice for the same rolls. If I have to make a leadership check or armor save and I have a few dice in my hand, then those get rolled. Whatever they are.

As for having a hot hand, I've been on the receiving end of this. My opponent assaulted me (chaos marines on regular marines) and had 21 wounds from 24 attacks. Not 21 hits, 21 wounds.

However, luck like that doesn't last forever. Watch them closely the next tournament and see if their awesome luck holds.

Oshova wrote:This reminds me of MW2, playing a game where the entire enemy team was using mods (modded controllers, and just general hacks) and our team weren't. And we still managed to beat them. How bad must you be to lose when breaking the game?

I've never played against someone with loaded dice, but the other thing you have to watch for are square edged dice. You can roll 2 out of your hands to land on whatever you want, no loading required. Just means you can always make those couple of saves (hello wound aloocation) and LD tests etc. Some tournaments have now banned the use of square edged dice, and casinos never use them due to this.

Oshova

actually, casinos ONLY use square dice as these are the only dice that have equal chances to land on any particular face.

in casinos Dice are also required to bounce 3 times(one must be off a vertical surface) for the roll to count(this solves the issue you brought up)


Rounded dice roll more instead of bouncing.

Dice with the dots drilled out are more likely to roll a 6 as the side with the least amount drilled out(the one) is opposite this number. the increased chance is less then 1% though.

There are two ways of cheating with dice, one is to load them -- there are several techniques for this -- and the other is trick rolls. Another way is to find the dice which, due to manufacturing irregularities, tend to roll high or low.

Casinos supply their own, very high quality dice, and a valid roll must reach the bumper and bounce back. These rules eliminate cheating.

It's a bit much to expect people to buy Casino dice, which are very expensive, but proper shaking and rolling can be done anywhere by the use of dice cups and a rolling tray.

BTW the Lou Zocchi Gamescience dice have a very slightly "sucked in" appearance, or dishing, where the numbers are. It is caused when the plastic cools in the mould and shrinks. Yet the Gamescience dice are considered some of the best made and most random of wargame dice.

As for cocked dice or off the table dice, I don't think there is a universal custom, however I have always played that dice which fall cocked, or off the table or in a place where they can't be read, should be rolled again.

-Loki- wrote:Swapping between different pools of dice for different rolls, and getting statistically rare rolls very, very often, are pretty good indicators of loaded dice.

The hilarious part is even if they were using loaded dice, they still couldn't win.

personally, I'd ask them if I could use the same dice. See what their reaction is.

I would agree....I do not really believe that players do dice shenanigans, so the best way for me is to swap dice if you have any doubt....

yes. thats the dice

Grey Templar wrote:it is important to call people like this out on these sort of shananigins(even if they lose)


personally i woud like it if big tournaments supplied their own dice and had a bin at each table with a 100 or so dice. it would cut down on cheaters like this.


Cheating is NEVER ok. especially in a game of little toy soldiers. how bad do you need to win?

Couldn't agree more Grey Templar. It destroys the game. What also annoy's me is people who roll dice by just letting them drop out of their upturned hand. What part of ROLL the dice do they not understand?

syanticraven wrote:Lol. okay that isnt the kind I had in mind. I was thinking just slightly curved in a bit. Like you wouldn't notice it unless you took a good look.

Hm, then they probably aren't curved for visual effect. Not that this proves guilt; it just seems somewhat more suspicious given what some guy above said about heating dice and fixing them that way.

Anything for a... tie? Wow id find and request a rematch but bring a crap load of my own dice and tell him to use them. may not prove much but it'll show if he cheated you. i have played a game with may daemons and consistently made my saving throws for 4 out of 6 models each time, crazy yes i think but it happened however what your talking about is just ridiculous, Those are some weird dice, did you ask where he got them?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

syanticraven wrote:Lol. okay that isnt the kind I had in mind. I was thinking just slightly curved in a bit. Like you wouldn't notice it unless you took a good look.

Hm, then they probably aren't curved for visual effect. Not that this proves guilt; it just seems somewhat more suspicious given what some guy above said about heating dice and fixing them that way.

I agree

Sounds a bit fishy to me. As people have said, the 'curved' dice could just be a certain style, but when someone uses distinctly different piles of dice for saves and leadership, for example, that's when alarm bells start ringing

Easiest fix in a tournament is the judge requires both sides to use one set of dice. Seen it work a number of times at putting cheaters in their place. Even if they arent cheating, but just acting suspiciously it can ruin the opponents experience.

You also have natural rolling - when practiced you can "roll" one or 2 dice from your hand to come up the number you want, based on knowing how you roll and being consistent with whcih facign is up, for example.

Casino dice are machined. Gaming dice are cast. Kilkrazy mentioned Gamescience dice. Here is part one of a nice little vid of Colonel Lou and a nice explanation of the science of dice making. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR2fxoNHIuU

There are a number of issues here that need to be considered. I personally believe that large tournaments should provide each table with two plastic red cups and a set of dice. The dice need to be rolled from the cup every time.

This may not be realistic in terms of the cost to the tournament organizers for the dice and the time it takes for players to dump dice into the cup for every roll. (Even if it only adds one second per roll, you could still see your game lengths increase by up to 10 minutes depending on what kinds of armies people are playing)

Second, I do know of people who use a hodgepodge of dice, and while I don’t necessarily believe they are cheating, I do know of other individuals who collect dice they know or believe to be “lucky”.

The production techniques that go into casino dice are way WAY different than the production techniques that go into hobby dice. It’s easy to speculate that bubbles or simply varying densities in the molded plastic could influence the results of the die roll toward a TENDANCY to yield a certain result. One could also speculate that, although such a die might not be common, nor commonly recognized, someone who’s been playing war games for 20+ years might build for themselves a hodgepodge collection of dice that tend to yield certain results.

I for one remember playing D&D with a guy who had a “lucky 20”. A 20-sided die that consistently rolled absurdly amazing results. To look at the die you’d think it was just “lucky” and there were no imperfections at all. The guy was an older guy and had been playing for many years. I speculated that he just happened to come across a die that had some sort of internal imperfection, decided it was “lucky” and kept it for future D&D adventures.

It’s not really malicious, it’s more ignorance. Many people have “lucky” items but rarely are the items a generator of a random result such as a die.

This is why I prefer my opponents dice to be mostly uniform. I don’t mind a few color or style variations (I myself use red dice for my Warp Spider Death Spinners, white dice for my Warp Spider Exarch who shoots at a different BS, and black dice for my attached Autarch who has a different weapon AND shoots at a different BS) but if the dice are a hodgepodge collection of different colors, shapes, and sizes, I tend to suspect the dice collection might consist of “imperfect” “lucky” dice collected over a lifetime of wargaiming.

That situation is tricky to address and it puts a bad taste in my mouth. You can’t really say “my opponent is cheating! His dice are loaded to roll better than normal” because dice rolling is random and absurdly good and bad “outlier” results are bound to come up – even in close proximity to one another over time. If you try to attack the situation by saying “he’s getting amazing results! His dice are loaded” you’re gonna lose that argument because dice are dice and an outlier result is not proof of any wrongdoing. The only proper way to attack the situation is for both players to use the same dice pool (or even trade) but that’s simply not something most players are willing to do.

I can’t say I’d MIND trading my dice with my opponent but I’d be a little perturbed if he lost a die. That possibility wouldn’t stop me from trading, but it might stop some exceptionally tightly wound or superstitious gamers.

It’s something of a gaming community sticky situation I’m not entirely sure how to address.

one good way to see if your opponent is cheating is to do this.

suggest he roll using your dice. if he strongly opposes the idea there is a good chance of something fishy going on.


or you use the dice he used to wound to roll your saves. if they are loaded then you should pass all your saves

if this happens consistantly throughout the game then something is wrong.

Pick up a dice. Roll it 10 times.

If it rolld the same all 10 times its a trick dice.

Kick the kid out of the tourney.

Smitty0305 wrote:Pick up a dice. Roll it 10 times.

If it rolld the same all 10 times its a trick dice.

Kick the kid out of the tourney.

Even a weighted die doesn't roll the same number every time, it just throws off the 1/6 chance for each face.

The real way to test for weighted dice is to get one of those things the casinos use, where you can place a die in, grip it by two opposite corners and spin it. A fair die will slowly come to a stop. A weighted die will come to a stop, then move backwards several times.

IMO, every TO should have one of these and use it when the issue of cheating comes up.

I think my favorite "trick dice" story involved a Flames of War tournament. Apparently one of the players there had at least a handful of dice that only had fours, fives, and sixes. Because there's no angle from which you can see more than three faces on a die, if done properly it's impossible to detect without actually picking up and handling the die or watching it carefully while walking around it. Apparently someone did just that, however. Otherwise no one would have known what he was up to.