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This is more of a general question, but it came up most recently for me in regards to X-Wing. How nitpicky are you about measurements?

Recently my favorite person to play with said that I sucked all the joy out of playing non-grid based games because I'm so nitpicky about measurements. I've always had an obsession with playing "correctly" no matter what game. I guess I'm THAT GUY when playing X-Wing. I always try to be super exact about how I move my minis. I get irritated when someone just kind of does it loosely and I can see a tiny shift of ruler or miniature. Plus, things seem to come up right on the edge an awful lot. Something is always just right at the edge of a firing arc or movement near an asteroid is just always so close it's hard to tell if it should have bumped or not. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I definitely think I come across that way.

I mean, let's say someone moved their fighter, and when they placed it at the end of movement they kind of shifted a millimeter or two or bumped an asteroid. Then the final placement ends up with them not overlapping, but basically edge of base to edge of asteroid counter. In situations like this, I ask for a rule roll to determine if they bumped the asteroid, and I'm willing to abide by the roll. However, I get told I'm being a jerk because they "clearly" didn't overlap the asteroid, yet I feel that if they had placed their miniature legitimately and/or not bumped the asteroid then they would have been overlapping it so I at least ask for a roll. They're not trying to cheat. I'm not trying to cheat. It's just that they're moving things more loosely than I would.

I just want to play casual. I'm honestly not pissed about any of it or trying to piss anyone off. I'm not WAAC. My friend says I'm a jerk about it, and I trust him enough to believe it. I don't know, I guess despite that I'm hunting for validation that I'm not really that bad about it.

I'm going to try and resist my natural inclinations and endeavor to be much more accepting of it. But does anyone else have thoughts about measurements and when things come up just right on the edge?

Ships are sometimes moved accidentally or placed inexactly during the normal course of the game. A small margin of error is allowed in the position and orientation of ships in these situations so that the pace of the game is not unnecessarily affected. Players should not abuse this margin of error, and they must use the tools included with the game to be as accurate as possible.

That's the ruling from the official tournament guidelines.


I take that as "do your best to be accurate, but everyone makes mistakes."

Basically, entropy is a . I alsways try to do things accurately, but ships get bumped, or templates end up at weird angles due to clutter, all of which slowly push ships out of position.

For me it depends on the situation. If it's the first turn and there is nothing critical happening, then I don't care if people fudge their movement. Like if someone opens and heads more towards an asteroid than they expected, I'm happy to let them adjust. However, if I've made a deliberate effort to block someone, then I'm completely anal about them measuring correctly. Sometimes people land a corner on an asteroid, and it's not clear if it's on or off, I usually just let those ones slide. People enjoy thinking that they've piloted so perfectly that they just missed the asteroid, most of my games are friendly so I don't like taking that away. If it's really on the asteroid then there is no hiding it. If I were playing more competitively I'd probably be a bit more fussy.

I had a person fly their shuttle off the board once during a tournament on the second turn because they accidentally chose the wrong turn direction. I just let them change their dial to the other turn direction and kept playing. It's just a game not life or death

 Chute82 wrote:
I had a person fly their shuttle off the board once during a tournament on the second turn because they accidentally chose the wrong turn direction. I just let them change their dial to the other turn direction and kept playing. It's just a game not life or death

If you're a filthy casual.

But as for measurements, close as possible or at least both players agree in case of bumping and such. Getting a 3rd party is good too

As precisely as possible. And a roll to see if you really hit that asteroid is reasonable if it's clear that things have been bumped and you're trying to make a best guess at where everything should go but can't agree. It's not really reasonable if you let it turn into "every time you land near an asteroid you have to roll to see if you get moved onto it". Since it seems like you're having this happen fairly frequently you're probably getting into the second category and your opponents are getting justifiably annoyed at you taking every opportunity for a 50/50 chance of putting them on a rock.

A friend of mine has arthritis. His hands are useless for any fine motions, but he insists on moving his ships himself. He bumps the gak out of everything. And he absolutely wants to use his 3D hunks-of-resin asteroids, which also get shuffled constantly.

I still play him, for the fun of it, mostly for him. But we had the discussion about the tournament scene not being for him. He was making people angry, but they were too polite to tell him directly. Not everyone's made to run marathons.

Whenever we have a move that is potentially iffy, everyone just shuts up and we monitor the moment. If the asteroid shifts as the ship lands on it, someone always catches it. If a bump happened and we try to reset things, we always go for consensus, and then move on from there. It's important not to go back to a move made 30 minutes ago and say "if you'd have,,," because then you just look like someone living in the past, or holding a grudge.

Oberron wrote:

 Chute82 wrote:
I had a person fly their shuttle off the board once during a tournament on the second turn because they accidentally chose the wrong turn direction. I just let them change their dial to the other turn direction and kept playing. It's just a game not life or death

If you're a filthy casual.

But as for measurements, close as possible or at least both players agree in case of bumping and such. Getting a 3rd party is good too

If you bump a ship( it happens we are only human) just place it back as close as possible and keep playing... guess Velcro board and game pieces could solve the OP issue

I try to be careful, but inevitably, something always gets bumped out of place.

Overall, though, I've seen too many a time where mere millimeters resulted in the death (or royal screwing over) of a ship, so I try to be careful about my measuring but not overly anal. Align maneuver template into front guides, put thumb down on template to hold in place, move ship to align base with the end of the maneuver template, carefully pull the template away. As for asteroids, basically if the base can be tottered a bit, it's clearly on, otherwise it generally isn't.

I've only ever had one game where I felt I had to get onto someone's case because they were being too loose with their measurements (we're talking about two finger's width or more of extra movement, with the template sorta thrown down, the miniature sorta tossed to the end of the template).

 Stormonu wrote:
I try to be careful, but inevitably, something always gets bumped out of place.

Overall, though, I've seen too many a time where mere millimeters resulted in the death (or royal screwing over) of a ship, so I try to be careful about my measuring but not overly anal. Align maneuver template into front guides, put thumb down on template to hold in place, move ship to align base with the end of the maneuver template, carefully pull the template away. As for asteroids, basically if the base can be tottered a bit, it's clearly on, otherwise it generally isn't.

I've only ever had one game where I felt I had to get onto someone's case because they were being too loose with their measurements (we're talking about two finger's width or more of extra movement, with the template sorta thrown down, the miniature sorta tossed to the end of the template).

Hah, yeah, it is more than acceptable to be a bit grumpy about that. I would be a bit salty about that one as well.

Well, from everyone's comments, it seems clear that I'm being unreasonable and need to chill out, so I'll take that to heart.

In retrospect, I suppose logically it's not practical to insist on the level of precision I seem to be.

For the Asteroid bumps, if I or my opponent is moving, I euther ask my opponent to hold the asteroid in place or I do the same for my opponent and things land where they land.