"was he cheating?" Topic

Sounds like a good plan!

for competitions, we supply all the dice. It's not accusing anyone, just removing any chance that there might be something suspect about the dice in use.

Essentially, most dice will have some form of bias, unless you purchase casino dice and replace them every month, they will not be genuinely balanced.

Now have those dice in regular use, bashed about in a bag, and they may well develop a significant bias.

I know people that have 'lucky' dice, and this may simply be that over time, they have noticed a die that is 'lucky'. It may well be that they are unknowingly using an unbalanced die.

I would suggest playing another game with them using the same rules. This time, make a careful note of which dice were being used, when and what the results are. That should give you better evidence.

Lou Zocchi of Game Science has a pretty interesting video on YouTube in which he demonstrates how most cheap dice are imperfect. It's well worth a watch:

YouTube link

That being the case, it's reasonable to suspect that some players will pre-roll their dice a number of times and pick out the best rollers. I'm always suspicious when I see a player show up with his "bag of dice" and carefully sort them out on the table.

After watching Lou's presentation, I invested in several sets of casino dice, and always insist that everyone play with them in the games I put on.

What is amazing to me is that after fifty-three years in the hobby and hundreds of games, I have NEVER encountered anyone who did this, or who showed up with "his own dice" . I don't doubt the original posters words, but I find it amazing that there could be so many people out there who would do things like this.

@Ottoathome

you've been in this hobby for 53 years and have never had someone bring their own dice?

i've been in this hobby for 37 years and have never had anyone NOT bring their own dice.

how does it work that no one has ever brought their own dice? is there some communal dice pool? how many people are we talking about?

i've been to half a dozen tourneys in the past 12 months and every single person has brought their own dice.

i must be misunderstanding this concept.

Nope, never. My gaming group here has about 8 people in it regularly, and about 15 total,(the other 7 come occasionally as they can). No one brings their own dice.
People come and go but it's been rather steady at that number. Back before I moved here it was the same. Back when I gamed with some guys in high school it was the same.

When I put on a game, as I said, I have bags of dice, all color coded for the game. For my 18th century game it's pink, for my modern between the wars game it's green and yellow, and for the Civil War, red and blue. There's over 100 in each bag. For other periods I simply use one of the dice from the other periods. This is a recent improvement. I did it because I did not like the unsightly look of a hodge-podge of different colored and sized dice.

As I said I have NEVER had anyone at my home or at ANY of the convention games I have put on bring their own dice, NEVER. If someone DID bring their own dice I'd probably NOW just tell them to put them away.

But I've never had to do that.

you, sir, are an anomaly. i put on demos as a side job, i've done hundreds of games with probably thousands of people over the decades and the concept of providing dice is so alien to me i had to come here and discuss it.

i've seen it, i'm familiar with it. but it is definitely not usual.

but as an older, experienced gamer, maybe that's what it was like when you played. nowadays gaming is less niche, and game companies sell dice. personalized dice are getting more popular by the year. before, you had a color, usually themed to your army. now they laser cut personal designs.

Dear Fabambina

I don't think I am. I provide the table, terrain, minis scenario and everything so it would never occur to me NOt to provide dice. At home when I run a game for the group I provide dinner as well which will usually be something like a goulash, Ham, pot roast, or other hearty meal. At conventions I also have a cooler of sodas and munchies for free.

It's still the same today. I've gone to dozens of HMGS cons and other persons cons as well and I have never once seen persons using their own dice. Are you in England or Europe? Maybe they do things differently there.

I don't give a hoot what companies do. Personalized dice are out, and if a person would insist on using his own dice I'd bounce him from the game. It's a small expense to buy a hunred matched dice.

I have to agree that your gaming experience is an anomaly. I have run hundreds of games at conventions and I would say the majority of gamers have their own dice and almost
automatically use them .Almost always they put them away when I saw that I provide the dice ,but they all have them.
Same with club games or even friends houses .
and these games are mostly in the US (HMGS, Gencon, Origins Little wars , etc…)
Do you only play with people that know you ? that may be the situation, especially if you bounce people for wanting to use their own dice.
Not sure where you play, but it may be that they do things differently there.

regarding the possible cheating dice : I do not in any way condone cheating But have a question :would any of you put the same effort into having an opponent change his dice if he was rolling consistently crappy ? I have seen a number of times where someone is asked to change their dice for great rolls ,but never seen someone asked to change dice because the die rolls suck .
The point being if you are worried that your opponent is getting an edge because of unusual probabilities in his favor shouldn't you be as worried if it is aiding you?
just food for thought .

So ,in the interest (?) of furthering this discussion ,while at Cold wars I did a quick walk through and count 2 times as games were beginning .
observed 23 games (non-tournament )
9 of them : GM supplied dice
10 of them: gamers quite clearly using their own dice
4 : Not sure could be either (hodge podge of dice ,but no discernable player dice bags ,carriers , ownership of dice )

And at the Tournaments: EVERYONE used their own dice! with the exception of the specific Saga dice that the GM's supplied to people wanting to try the game .