'Lucky Dice' in a league

[Shteve0]

Hey guys

Just a bit of advice, please. There's a player in our local league who brings a selection of dice to every game, and then picks from them depending on what roll he's making. So armour rolls have one set, injuries another and so on...

He tells me it's superstition but ultimately, whether it's legit or not, I don't feel okay about this. I played his norse three times this season with my undead, and he pitch cleared me twice in those games (I went on to win two and draw the other, it's not just sour grapes). And in last night's game, he cracked 8 armour without using modifiers a good 70% of the time.

He's a very experienced coach but unfortunately we have some newbies in the league - who can respond badly to total carnage - and I'm hoping to see as many as four more debutants this season. What should I do? He's been around longer than I have and I don't want to put noses out of joint, but I've seen enough to be sceptical and - as Smeborg once said to me (and I paraphrase) - it's normal human behaviour to nominate 'over achieving' dice as your 'lucky' rollers.

Any offers on how to deal with this? I raised it yesterday with him, being clear I didn't believe he was intentionally gaining an unfair advantage, but of naturally he got very defensive.

Cheers

S

[dode74]

Ask him if you can use his dice?

[Darkson]

Ask him if you can use his dice?

+1
If he says no, say he can't use them.
If he says yes, then no issue.

I'd add in to the league rules that coaches must share dice if requested. We do that, but in an informal way.

[Ullis]

In Blood Bowl you always have to roll high, no matter what roll you're making. If it was a matter of sometimes rolling high and sometimes rolling low, then I'd be worried. So using a larger amount of dice should just make it harder to cheat.

You could also ask him to switch teams if there's lots of newbie players with rookie teams around. Playing against high TV teams with rookie teams isn't a good way to get introduced to Blood Bowl.

[Oventa]

Ask him if you can use his dice?

+1
I only share dice now.
No matter who is my opponent, and even if I "believe" my opponent uses "unlucky" dice.
I simply ask opponent if he wants us to use his or mine.
I am mentally in a much better world since doing this

[Shteve0]

All of which is fine in one game (I did so late on in our last matchup and, rather unbelievably, rolled an 11 and a 10 straight up. Who saw that coming?). But you need to be confident that you're in the right to do so; and my concern is not so much for me, it's that new players will take a kicking (it seems to be AV rolls in the man) and clear out completely. Yeah, it pisses me off, but with three players going into their third season, two into their second and potentially 2-4 debutants, addressing it on a game-by-game basis doesn't feel like I'm digging the root out.

[Heff]

league rule, dice to be shared at request. Then if someone gets their panties in a bunch you can just point to the rules.

Second thing I would do is have 2 leagues, one that restarts teams each season and the other that you can play old retired teams from the first one in. That's what we do. This levels the playing field a bit and still allows you to play old and favorite teams on occasion.

[Axtklinge]

In the league I play, before the game starts both coaches choose who's dice they're playing with (either from one coach, the other or both), and then place the chosen dice in a central "dice pool" (usually side line dice pool), from where both pick the dice to play.
So there's never "my dice" or "your dice", since both play with the exact same dice.

[Corvidius]

Sharing dice is the only fair way and tbh I remember someone saying it was actually in the rules because the box set only has one set of each dice.

[TheDoc]

I'm all for the +1 on asking him to use his dice. At our league we have no problem sharing dice. I have even had a player use my red block dice and smack me to pieces (I then used them and double skulled out ) .

We do have a couple of players who only use certain dice for matches and the way we deal with it is to literally say "give them here, I want to roll the luck out of them" and proceed to try them out making sure that they are random.

[GalakStarscraper]

Anymore ... any Blood Bowl I play is with a shared set of dice.

After watching a Goblin team steal a win from me by making 24 3+ Dodge rolls in a row in one turn by using his "lucky" Dino dice ... I've found sharing to be the only way to play.

Tom

[Darkson]

Had this written in the ARBBL Open rules pack for the last few years:

Dice– before a game, coaches should agree on what constitutes a “cocked” dice, and point out any faces that have graphics instead of numbers/dots. If you’re using non-standard Block dice, please make sure your opponent if aware of that face means what.
If you want to share dice, please tell your opponent before the game starts, and decide on which dice to share.
Finally – NO “lucky”dice that only get pulled out of the bag/dice box for crucial plays – it can foster the impression they’re not fair dice.

Not had anyone complain.

[DixonCider]

the people who change how they roll when I play them are frustrating also, limp wrist rolls are so annoying especially in a "fun" league

[Winged_Human]

Oh man! Nothing bothers me more than someone who just drops their dice from low altitude to cause a "non-roll", things like that always make me questions someone's willingness to win.

[Blammaham]

This is a constant argument in BB. Thunderbowl purchaced 20 plastic dice towers and instituted a shared dice policy and it killed the "lucky" dice concept! It is as simple as saying if one coach wants to share dice, dice are shared. League rule. The dice towers get rid of any "funny" rolling "techniques" S.