Everchosen and oft cheating?

[Dead Scribe]

On 12/5/2019 at 10:00 AM, Groomy said:

Is it really that bad? 

Yes.  It is that bad.  But thats expected and you go into that eyes wide open.  If you can get away with even the slightest edge, players will do it.  There are teams that even drill arguing rules both ways to be able to win arguments against the refs better.

I think anything that deals with secret information is not really a good idea and I can't see why GW would do that with how heavy their design teams also go to tournaments and should know better.

Edited December 9, 2019 by Dead Scribe

[Kurrilino]

2 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

Yes.  It is that bad.  But thats expected and you go into that eyes wide open.  If you can get away with even the slightest edge, players will do it.  There are teams that even drill arguing rules both ways to be able to win arguments against the refs better.

I think anything that deals with secret information is not really a good idea and I can't see why GW would do that with how heavy their design teams also go to tournaments and should know better.

Just use a cup. It is really not that bad and blown out of proportions

[Sleboda]

18 hours ago, Kurrilino said:

Just use a cup. It is really not that bad and blown out of proportions

Actually, @Dead Scribe is right. We like to think of it community as a friendly pool of awesome people, but the key word there is people.

People are, ultimately, self serving in all actions (baring misfiring neurons). Gamers are still people, and human nature is tough to beat.

We don't want to think about this. We want to believe we are somehow the exception to how all humans ever have behaved, but we're not. It's a bummer to think about, so we try to drown out those thoughts with visions of sugar plum fairies and wishful thinking. It doesn't change the reality, it just masks it and makes us feel better.

As a rules judge and player in events for decades, I can say I've personally witnessed dozens of instances of cheating and even some of the practiced rules lawyering Dead Scribe mentioned. It is real and happens regularly.

[Kurrilino]

3 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Actually, @Dead Scribe is right. We like to think of it community as a friendly pool of awesome people, but the key word there is people.

People are, ultimately, self serving in all actions (baring misfiring neurons). Gamers are still people, and human nature is tough to beat.

We don't want to think about this. We want to believe we are somehow the exception to how all humans ever have behaved, but we're not. It's a bummer to think about, so we try to drown out those thoughts with visions of sugar plum fairies and wishful thinking. It doesn't change the reality, it just masks it and makes us feel better.

As a rules judge and player in events for decades, I can say I've personally witnessed dozens of instances of cheating and even some of the practiced rules lawyering Dead Scribe mentioned. It is real and happens regularly.

Guys, if you take a cup shake it and drop it upside down on the table, there is no way to cheat.

Especially in tournament environments, where officials are around. You guys are paranoid.

 

[Sleboda]

3 hours ago, Kurrilino said:

Guys, if you take a cup shake it and drop it upside down on the table, there is no way to cheat.

Especially in tournament environments, where officials are around. You guys are paranoid.

 

I think you're missing a bit I said previously.

I agree with the cup method. I also think TOs should force that method without allowing players to opt for another so that cheating, which will happen otherwise, is reduced.

In other words, people are bad. Enforce good behavior.

[Dead Scribe]

The cup should work fine.  The fact that we need a cup in the first place is what I am shaking my head at.  There shouldn't be rules like this in the first place IMO.

[Overread]

They've been in the game for ages. Assassins that can embed into a unit without declaring which unit have been around for as long as AoS and longer. You write it on a bit of paper and hide it in plain sight to be revealed when the player desires (or when the unit is removed from the table). 

Another is transports, 40K has often had rules at times where you did not have to declare which unit was in which transport. You had to declare it on your army list, so your opponent knew it was there, but not which was in what transport. It meant you could play tricks such as putting a more powerful unit in a weaker transport and hope that your opponent ignored it thinking that you'd ptu your best in your best transport. Or even having dud transports with nothing inside etc... 

[Sleboda]

2 hours ago, Overread said:

Assassins that can embed into a unit without declaring which unit have been around for as long as AoS and longer.

Now you don't even write it down. No room to cheat.

This is the first die roll that I think you keep secret in AoS.

Also, imagine this:

You do the cup thing and check the result. It's not the result you want. You play things out for a little bit and then *oops* you bump the cup. The die goes floppy. In the spirit of "generosity" you offer to reroll it, even commenting that "gee, it may not go right for me again, but gosh it was my fault for bumping it."

Your opponent agrees, and even though it's only a 50/50 shot of getting the result you want, that's better than the 100% chance of not having it with the roll you had before the "accidental" bump.

This rule, while neat, opens up a new avenue for cheating.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Sleboda

[Dead Scribe]

There are already people at my store talking about how to get around this and influence the secret die roll somehow or how people could cheat with a cup.

[Dolomyte]

Magicians could cheat with the cup, but the few magicians who play slaves to darkness are probably all great dudes. 

[decker_cky]

2 hours ago, Dolomyte said:

Magicians could cheat with the cup, but the few magicians who play slaves to darkness are probably all great dudes. 

Woe unto the sad soul who has to play against those who dwell in the center of the venn diagram of magicians, age of sigmar players, and cheaters. 

[Beastmaster]

5 hours ago, Dolomyte said:

Magicians could cheat with the cup, but the few magicians who play slaves to darkness are probably all great dudes. 

Yeah, but those will know how to cheat with dice anyway. 😎

[JPjr]

8 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

There are already people at my store talking about how to get around this and influence the secret die roll somehow or how people could cheat with a cup.

Every now & then I feel like we’re tantalisingly close to solving the riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma that is your AoS gaming group’s problem with new player retention.

Edited December 12, 2019 by JPjr

[Dolomyte]

6 hours ago, decker_cky said:

Woe unto the sad soul who has to play against those who dwell in the center of the venn diagram of magicians, age of sigmar players, and cheaters. 

What else is in that particular persons Venn diagram I wonder? Hates dogs, thinks Star Wars prequels are better then original, fan of true detective season 2, paints solely with ikea paints. 

[Dead Scribe]

They are looking at how people can cheat with the cup so that they know how to see it.  There have now been two ways identified by the group.

I agree with the statement above with the people good at cheating the cup are also good at dice cheating.  It is a sleight of hand maneuver, as is rolling dice and always getting the result you want (not talking about loaded dice).

[Dead Scribe]

3 hours ago, JPjr said:

Every now & then I feel like we’re tantalisingly close to solving the riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma that is your AoS gaming group’s problem with new player retention.

Its not really a riddle.  The players we have lost left because they either got bored of playing the hardest lists all the time, or they left because they were under the impression that if they bought a 2000 point army that they would be competitive against other 2000 point armies and didn't understand how badly off the balance in the game was.

[gjnoronh]

19 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Now you don't even write it down. No room to cheat.

This is the first die roll that I think you keep secret in AoS.

Also, imagine this:

You do the cup thing and check the result. It's not the result you want. You play things out for a little bit and then *oops* you bump the cup. The die goes floppy. In the spirit of "generosity" you offer to reroll it, even commenting that "gee, it may not go right for me again, but gosh it was my fault for bumping it."

Your opponent agrees, and even though it's only a 50/50 shot of getting the result you want, that's better than the 100% chance of not having it with the roll you had before the "accidental" bump.

This rule, while neat, opens up a new avenue for cheating.

Agree Joe - but there have been all sorts of shenanigans possible in WFB and AoS for years (where is the fanatic, which identical level 2 has the dispel scroll etc.)  Aside from simple stuff like purposeful mismeasurement, bumping models when your opponent isn't looking, consciously misquoting rules etc.   I know once  our Da Boyz judge and our mutual friend Matt Maggitti who was rules judging at the GW Baltimore GT in the early 2000's caught someone with a tape measure that was 14 inches long  for '12' inches marked on the tape.   

As others in this thread have suggested a determined cheater can find a way to do it and in all sorts of aspects of AoS.   The game system isn't playable competitively if people are willing to make a determined effort to cheat.      I don't think as a TO it's realistic to say "you shouldn't cheat and do the following extensive comprehensive and full proof things to make sure you don't 'accidentally' cheat."

That being said as a TO I'm happy to encourage best practices within reason  (i.e. exchange written army lists, have all warscrolls available to your opponent during the game) but I'm also realistic that a determined cheater will circumvent anything done in good faith.  

Edited after Sleboda quoted me to make it clearer 

 

Edited December 12, 2019 by gjnoronh

[Deepkin]

2 hours ago, Dolomyte said:

What else is in that particular persons Venn diagram I wonder? Hates dogs, thinks Star Wars prequels are better then original, fan of true detective season 2, paints solely with ikea paints. 

True Detective season 2 wasn't THAT bad, and thats a hill I will...well, not die on, but at least get mildly wounded upon.

Vince Vaughn's lines like "it's like blue balls...for your heart" are pure gold, and we all know it 😂

[Mr Spadge]

I have been keeping up with this thread as it seems bonkers....

So, just so I'm aware....

What events do you guys run/attend? If cheaters are this rife at them I'd like to know so I can avoid the events/gaming area wherever possible.

I normally only attend events locally to me or at warhammer world but have never encountered cheating once in 16 years of going to events.... so I have to wonder what the state of the game is outside my experience if people are this scared of players deliberately cheating 🤔

[Kurrilino]

15 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

There are already people at my store talking about how to get around this and influence the secret die roll somehow or how people could cheat with a cup.

Are you guys absolutely sure you play warhammer for the right reason?

 

Just take a cup drop it on the table and don't touch it again. How someone can cheat here is far beyond me.

As soon as someone touches that cup again, rip his arm off.

[TheCovenLord]

On 12/5/2019 at 8:39 PM, Sleboda said:

I agree. I'm just saying that tournaments should spell that out as the solution and not leave it up to individual players to decide.

Ah yes. In that case agreed.

[Sleboda]

6 hours ago, gjnoronh said:

That being said as a TO I'm happy to encourage best practices (i.e. exchange written army lists

Just a note on that.

I recently learned that that one is not a best practice, but an actual rule! I had no idea.

[Sleboda]

3 hours ago, Mr Spadge said:

What events do you guys run/attend? If cheaters are this rife at them I'd like to know so I can avoid the events/gaming area wherever possible.

I have attended as player and judge major and minor events all across the US. Also Canada and UK a few times. I've seen cheating in all three countries. 

[Deepkin]

56 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

I have attended as player and judge major and minor events all across the US. Also Canada and UK a few times. I've seen cheating in all three countries. 

Have you ever checked your warscroll card to make sure you don't have a bubble aura of +1 to cheating? Make sure to note if it says "within" or "wholly within," naturally.

Think about it. I know I haven't.

[gjnoronh]

1 hour ago, Sleboda said:

I have attended as player and judge major and minor events all across the US. Also Canada and UK a few times. I've seen cheating in all three countries. 

FWIW while I haven't maybe judged as many events as Sleboda we've been active in the same parts of the USA at least and I haven't personally seen cheating at the table top  He may have a better eye for it then I have!