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Made in us
Daemonic Dreadnought





Eye of Terror

 JNAProductions wrote:
 techsoldaten wrote:
Stop a minute and think what someone could do knowing this is the situation at the Lone Star Open. Some of the advantages you are making available to someone who's flexible when it comes to rules:

- Submit a list when they register, then bring multiple lists optimized against specific factions. Each list could use very similar units but change some of the options to get an advantage for that specific match up.

- Bring out that extra unit for a hard match. The only reason that other guy got caught was he had the extra unit in 6 matches and was honest about it. The likelihood someone's going to notice I had an extra HQ in the third round is low.

- Straight up play a different list with completely in the first five games, optimized against specific factions. The odds are low anyone notices as long as my list matches the one I submitted to TOs. There's certainly no record of what I had on the table, and people who don't read don't have great memory.
That is called cheating, cheating, and cheating. Adding a brief time before the game starts to go over your opponent's list (like was suggested by another poster) is a good way to help.
I should also note that, to the information I have available, the cheater was not honest. He was caught, and THEN 'fessed up.

But sure, let's punish people who were already playing at a disadvantage because their opponent cheated. That's sure to help everything.

Take the time to read my post in it's entirety.

Then tell me if that's actually the part that made you mad.

   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle





In My Lab

Please explain how "Add a short time to go over your list with your opponent" equates to "More people will cheat."

Because, while punishing the cheater AND their opponent might not cause extra cheating, it will make it easier to get away with cheating. If someone notices before the game starts? They report it, they're fine, their opponent is not. But if they don't notice till end of game or something like that, they will be heavily encouraged to NOT report since they'll be in trouble.

Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne! 
   
Made in us
Daemonic Dreadnought





Eye of Terror

 JNAProductions wrote:
Please explain how "Add a short time to go over your list with your opponent" equates to "More people will cheat."

Because, while punishing the cheater AND their opponent might not cause extra cheating, it will make it easier to get away with cheating. If someone notices before the game starts? They report it, they're fine, their opponent is not. But if they don't notice till end of game or something like that, they will be heavily encouraged to NOT report since they'll be in trouble.


As with all things, the discretion of judges matters. The threat needs to be real.

   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle





In My Lab

That doesn’t explain what I asked you to at all.
And saying “A judge could just not use the rule,” is not a strong endorsement of that rule.

Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne! 
   
Made in us
Daemonic Dreadnought





Eye of Terror

 JNAProductions wrote:
That doesn’t explain what I asked you to at all.
And saying “A judge could just not use the rule,” is not a strong endorsement of that rule.

No, a TO could determine the severity of the consequences.

In one situation it may be appropriate to just say "don't do it again."

In another (like the subject of this thread,) it would be appropriate to ban the players. At least that's my opinion.

Turning the Lone Star Open into a clown show transgresses against the people who organized it. They have every right to come hard on the people who created the situation.

And I get it - you want to say the person with the extra model created the situation. You don't have to repeat that, I understand what you are saying.

The TOs need to change the culture and penalizing people who don't read lists is the most efficient way to do so. It's not just one player, it's the system.

   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

 techsoldaten wrote:
 Overread wrote:
Your proposition is that in a wargame between two people, if one cheats and the opponent doesn't identify that cheating during the game (and call it out); then both should be punished for the transgression.


But it's dishonest to characterize this a wargame between two people. We discussing a tournament where many people pay money and take their time to attend. One where volunteers invest a great deal of time and energy to make sure things go right.

The fact you see this as a single game is probably the root of our disagreement. You have all the sympathy in the world for the poor victims savaged by the dreaded extra Helbrute and zero consideration for the people who put on the event or the other players, who are likely being savaged by things extra Termigants / Trukks / Wracks / etc you just don't know about.

That's fine and you are totally entitled to your opinion. But I think about the community at large and how to prevent this from happening again.

If your solution is "punish cheater more / shame him / ban him from everything forever" (I think that's what your saying, when you're not talking about eggs), you're increasing the likelihood of actual, deliberate, intentional cheating at the event. I don't mean that abstractly, I mean you, personally, are increasing the level of cheating at events every time you respond
.


I fail to see how punishing both players helps the TO or those organising in any way.
Also what happens if a TO observes the game and also fails to spot the cheating until after, will they also be penalised? After all they were part of the game process, they oversaw and they failed to spot and report the cheating the same as the opponent. Under your proposal they are also part of the game and thus would have to also be penalised to the same degree as both other players.

Instead of helping the TO you're now punishing them alongside the players. Now you've got 3 people being punished for the actions of 1.


 techsoldaten wrote:

You personally are making this very clear, public case that at the Lone Star Open:

- No one reads lists

- Very loud people are opposed to any discussion about changing the situation

- The only chance of being detected is winning the whole thing.

This is Dakka, it's widely read, and people are sneaky by nature. There are people in the world who will see this and say, damn, that's a really appetizing situation and I want a bite.


You are going to have to explain this. How does my point that if a person cheats they should be the one punished for the cheating, in any way, suggest that the only way they'd be detected is winning the event?
In this modern day and age many major events are live-streamed. You've an audience watching; you've TO officials at the game; you've the opponent; you've live viewers watching the match in person at the event. You have multiple layers of potential to spot cheating or suspect play; you've live recordings of the match to review.

 techsoldaten wrote:

Stop a minute and think what someone could do knowing this is the situation at the Lone Star Open. Some of the advantages you are making available to someone who's flexible when it comes to rules:

- Submit a list when they register, then bring multiple lists optimized against specific factions. Each list could use very similar units but change some of the options to get an advantage for that specific match up.

- Bring out that extra unit for a hard match. The only reason that other guy got caught was he had the extra unit in 6 matches and was honest about it. The likelihood someone's going to notice I had an extra HQ in the third round is low.

- Straight up play a different list with completely in the first five games, optimized against specific factions. The odds are low anyone notices as long as my list matches the one I submitted to TOs. There's certainly no record of what I had on the table, and people who don't read don't have great memory.

If you had a sincere issue with cheating, you would be taking steps to reduce the potential for harm. Instead, you're advertising opportunities for it to occur on this very influential platforms for discussion on the topic.



Those are all attempts to cheat in the game, if you were caught performing those actions you and you alone should bare the punishment and responsibility for your actions.
That aspect does not reduce nor increase the chances of someone trying to cheat. The risk/reward for them is identical. They are going into the situation with the exact same considerations. Your proposal presents no additional risk for them



Instead you seem to be operating under the assumption that the only way to prevent cheating is to punish everyone you can in the hope that doing so and applying such a heavy handed level of risk on all participants will result in people adhering to gameplay better and being more stringent in their review of the game. However you are doing so at a GREAT cost; because now you're creating a very toxic environment where any transgression sees multiple people blamed including those who took no active part in the cheating.


Again this isn't the way you build healthy gaming environments.
Heck lets look at sports, if one player fouls another in football they don't both get red cards do they. The one who performed the fouling gets the card. Both are responsible for ensuring fair play; but the one who breaks that agreement is the one who bares the responsibility and punishment. Imagine if you could take out your opponents by just transgressing against them. You'd see lower tier footballers committing fouls all the time against better players just to take them off the field.



Once more we swing back to understanding WHY an army list and deployed army failed to get spotted multiple games into the event. You understand and resolve that issue without simply reaching for "punish everyone". My suggestion of a simple pre-game time slot to formally review army lists resolves the issue of time pressures on both players making them rush the army review or skip it. The suggestion that TOs must check all armies before the end of the first game (ideally before the start, but at many events that might not be practical).
Separation of storage and armies further reduces the chances of players slipping in extra models after that first match.

You don't resolve these issues by just whipping everyone; you resolve them with the creation of good practice and policy that rewards good behaviour; encourages good behaviour; discourages and makes harder cheating behaviour.
Heck you could resolve "weighted dice" as a risk by simply having event only dice provided by the event. A larger event could even turn it into a sales trick having unique appearing dice for each annual event, the cost of which can be recovered from sales of those unique dice to the general public during/after the event. Now you can't bring weighted dice to the match because everyone is rolling the same dice.

That's a much better option than punishing both players if one is found to have used weighted dice after the game (which is honestly much more likely to happen than a spare hellbrute slipping through the net)

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Toledo, OH

I think any rule that erodes the social trust at an event is inherently flawed. A game of warhammer is competitive, but it isn't zero sum. For the vast majority of players, having a positive experience is more important than winning or losing.

I don't want to be deep in the losers bracket at 1-3 and having some dude going over my list like he's elliot ness.

   
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Decrepit Dakkanaut






New Orleans, LA

 Overread wrote:

Instead you seem to be operating under the assumption that the only way to prevent cheating is to punish everyone you can


With respect, I don't believe he's operating under this assumption at all. I believe he's bored and either (1) performing a thought exercise or (2) just trolling.

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Eye of Terror

kronk wrote:
 Overread wrote:

Instead you seem to be operating under the assumption that the only way to prevent cheating is to punish everyone you can


With respect, I don't believe he's operating under this assumption at all. I believe he's bored and either (1) performing a thought exercise or (2) just trolling.

No, this is what it looks like when I'm trolling:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1590/618082.page#7429362

A guy named Tenebre got ripped off by Blue Table Painting on an expensive Chaos Dwarves commission. I went after the owner, elevating links to this thread + other complaints + ridiculous things the owner said to top 10 SERP in all major search engines (#3 - #10 placement on 240 search phrases including just the company name.) Had indicators the same was happening in Facebook and Instagram. You can read the instructions I gave in the thread for others to participate. After a few months, the situation was resolved.

It takes a LOT of stupid to get me paying attention to anything in Warhammer that doesn't affect me personally. In this case, the issue isn't that someone cheated, it's that 6 people didn't catch a glaring, obvious error that could have been spotted by simply checking a list before a game. That's my issue with it, you don't need to keep telling me I'm wrong, calling me names or suggesting I'm anything less than dead serious.

This whole thread makes a great case that the Lone Star Open is welcoming and inclusive to those pursuing exceptionally loose competition. It's also suggesting something about tournaments is complete BS, that the rules are so lax all kinds of exploits can be carried out without concern of being caught (unless you win the whole thing.) So those rankings, those balance patches based on tournament outcomes, maybe they're actually just a measure of how the top 1% of players do in a very limited sample size since anything downstream of winners tables is suspect. Or maybe that's not it, and it's just certain tournaments that should not be included in competitive rankings due to the permissive environment.

Either way, I appreciate you for your help in showcasing the prevailing attitudes. It's working.

Polonius wrote:I think any rule that erodes the social trust at an event is inherently flawed. A game of warhammer is competitive, but it isn't zero sum. For the vast majority of players, having a positive experience is more important than winning or losing.

I don't want to be deep in the losers bracket at 1-3 and having some dude going over my list like he's elliot ness.


If reading a list of models and comparing them to what's on the table seems like a huge amount of effort, perhaps that explains the outcomes you experience at tournaments.

Reading other people's lists, learn what they have, etc takes 1 - 2 minutes and helps you to improve as a player. Been doing it for about 20 years. Most of the people I know do it.

Overread wrote:
 techsoldaten wrote:
 Overread wrote:
Your proposition is that in a wargame between two people, if one cheats and the opponent doesn't identify that cheating during the game (and call it out); then both should be punished for the transgression.


You keep including that line in your responses, this is the second time I've needed to point out that's not my position at all.

My position is at a tournament, players should be required to read each others' lists at the start of the game. I never said they are responsible for errors they don't spot.

It's hard to miss it when there's a Helbrute on the table and the list doesn't have a Helbrute. I can see a couple people missing that, but not 6. Helbrute or No Helbrute is a binary.

Not going to respond to the rest of your message except to say the dishonesty displayed in your posts is precisely why tournaments need rules like this. The lack of candor and willingness to just lie / say anything is pretty much with every post. It's rare that someone so perfectly embodies the problem a rule is meant to correct and is willing to invest so much effort in making that clear to everyone else.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/11/29 16:34:24


   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

I agree, that multiple opponents didn't spot the Hellbrute means that army list checking wasn't happening when it should be part of the process.

The difference is that you view the resolution to this being to issue punishments toward those who fail to read the list and identify transgressions within the list.

Whilst I'm saying that the resolution is to impose a 5 minute formal pre-game list reading phase (or similar pre-game start up element). If you provide formal time where you cannot do anything BUT list read you remove the pressure to start fast. You increase the time players have to read and review and properly digest things; perhaps even break out a calculator if they think something isn't adding up right.
If you structure that with some kind of event army list or printouts from the same army list builder etc.... then you'd also have a clearly typed and printed and clearly formatted list to read. No quirky handwriting or strange notation style.

Furthermore that TO's should review all lists before the end of the first game (accepting that before the start would likely be difficult for most events to enforce without a significant lag on getting the event itself started)



I'm proposing a policy that resolves the issue in a formal manner which isn't punishment based at its core. Which also recognises that the Hellbrute is an extreme and that most cases its going to be additional models in a squad or an upgrade or weapon choice that doesn't add up etc... Rather than one which assumes extreme case situations and imposes penalties upon both. Even in the Hellbrute example only one person cheated.




Also don't kid yourself, Dakka is well read* but its not really a formal eventing website. Most major events have their own staff and teams; many of which might only glance at dakker or aren't even here (heck honestly most of that chatter is likely happening these days in Discord groups not forums).


*and honestly its freaking amazing and great that its still going as well as it is in a day and age where most forums are ghost-towns

A Blog in Miniature

3D Printing, hobbying and model fun! 
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle





In My Lab

 techsoldaten wrote:
My position is at a tournament, players should be required to read each others' lists at the start of the game. I never said they are responsible for errors they don't spot.
On literally this page you talked about banning players for not noticing an extra Helbrute.

 techsoldaten wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
That doesn’t explain what I asked you to at all.
And saying “A judge could just not use the rule,” is not a strong endorsement of that rule.

No, a TO could determine the severity of the consequences.

In one situation it may be appropriate to just say "don't do it again."

In another (like the subject of this thread,) it would be appropriate to ban the players. At least that's my opinion.

Turning the Lone Star Open into a clown show transgresses against the people who organized it. They have every right to come hard on the people who created the situation.

And I get it - you want to say the person with the extra model created the situation. You don't have to repeat that, I understand what you are saying.

The TOs need to change the culture and penalizing people who don't read lists is the most efficient way to do so. It's not just one player, it's the system.

Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne! 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut



London

I think with modern man now coming of age to play in tournies and with AI lists becoming more common with all their errors, I can't imagine mistakes will decrease. Though I guess tournament apps will automate that process, but it doesn't cover more models coming out of the case (which unlike some here I have some sympathy for given how easy it is to do, especially when points change al the time).
   
 
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