Digital Copies & Tournaments

[Nabterayl]

Thank you DarkLink, I never even thought of altered Codeces I want the tournament to be fun for all. I do agree however that there are so many supplements coming out it is a nightmare to keep up with and I really can't afford to purchase them all so I have rules reference for a tournament, that is why I rely so heavily on the players.

I echo DarkLink's sentiment that the risk of digitally altered codices is one that you can really only guard against by having your own reference copies (which you've indicated is not financially feasible - something I quite understand). At the same time, I think that the risk of digitally altered codices (whether digitally altered digital e-books or digitally altered printouts) is small enough that it doesn't really bear losing much sleep over. It's certainly possible to digitally alter a printout so that it looks like you've just copied the relevant pages of your physical codex, and I'm sure it's possible to digitally alter an e-book, but for most people that would not be a trivial task.

In addition to being a small enough risk that I don't think you need to spend too much worry guarding against it, I also think it's a small enough risk that it wouldn't be fair to penalize players for bringing the product. After all, for every person who brings an e-book version of their codex or supplement specifically because they are savvy enough to have altered the file, there are going to be a hundred people (or a thousand) who bring the e-book version because it's lighter and/or they find it more user-friendly.

[Tannarak]

Howdy!

I don't know if you do the pre-registration or not, but if you did, you could ask other members of the group to bring in the codexes that you didn't have. This would give you a little bit of time to acquire the ones that you and the group were missing.

[DarkLink]

I mean, I was being a little bit facetious, it's a lot harder to fake a physical copy of a codex than a digital one, but I do feel that the cost of trying to prevent cheaters is far too great if it means effectively banning entire armies, like the Sisters of Battle. I fully understand the difficulties on the TOs, I am buddies with Reece and a couple of other TOs for fairly large tournaments, but sometimes you just have to keep your goal in site. Providing games is the step one, preventing cheating is step two, and it's pointless to forego step one in favor of step two.

[WildAnimal]

Are there so many cheaters? Really?
And how would they cheat? Make up special rules? Modified stats?

One of the more crazy threads, I've seen around, but I see the importance if people are cheating like is kinda normal practice. What give the hobby degraded too...sad

[DarkLink]

They are there, but they're caught by attentive players, rarely by judges.

[WildAnimal]

They are there, but they're caught by attentive players, rarely by judges.

It's just a toy soldier war game, and people cheat? Don't get it. Could people post some examples they have experienced adult people have tried/succeed in cheating?
I'm getting some popcorn, sounds exciting.

[Katharon]

I've never known anyone to be douche-bag enough to edit a digital copy to make their units stronger. That's so dumb because the rules can be checked with a second and third copy. If 1 of these things is not like the other...you get the drill. But that is totally different from questioning the providence of a eCodex or supplement -- you're talking about a different issue altogether.

[Morgrim]

Also, about a comment on players whose batteries die and no longer allowed to use their models as a result -- that's so severe as to be BS imho. Sh*t happens and sometimes a player's electronic means of viewing his or her rules might fail, be broken, or otherwise incapacitated beyond their ability to control. To punish them as a result of that is too harsh and should be the subject of another discussion thread -- not here in this thread.

It seems both this concern and the concern about people damaging your electronic device could be resolved by printing off the relevant pages of rules. That way you'd only need to show your original copy on your device if the TO was concerned it differed, and in such a case depending on the size of the tournament they may choose to check with a different player that also had the same rules.

Either way, you absolutely need a copy of the rules available to your opponent, in whichever format works best.

[DarkLink]

It's just a toy soldier war game, and people cheat? Don't get it. Could people post some examples they have experienced adult people have tried/succeed in cheating?
I'm getting some popcorn, sounds exciting.

I've gone to a lot of tournaments. Of those, I can think of one, maybe two, cases of a player blatantly getting caught cheating. One player had magnetized all the weapons on his vehicles (Eldar, iirc, back in 5th), and swapped them out each game based on who he was facing. Players talk between games, though, and a couple of his opponents figured it out and he got caught. Every once and a while, a story like this pops up. I recall another battle report where a guy was caught with loaded dice. But we're talking about a handful of cases over the course of the last couple of years of worldwide tournaments. Blatant cheating like that is pretty rare.

More common is a case where a rule gets played wrong in a way that may or may not have been intentional. But that's very hard to differentiate from cases of legitimate confusion. Like a player "forgetting" that their assault unit doesn't have frag grenades, or something like that. Usually, the players who pull this stuff get a reputation, so this is not an unknown. A smart TO will have judges keep an eye on these guys. That's tougher to do for large tournaments where there are a lot of players that fly in from all over to play, but those tend to have more judges and the players tend to know the game better in the first place so they're less likely to get duped.

But, for the most part, the vast majority of people I've played in tournaments are quality opponents. I can confidently say that, as a way of getting 3+ guaranteed games in on a weekend, I've never been disappointed by a tournament, even on the rare occasion I did run into a crappy opponent.

[Katharon]

It seems both this concern and the concern about people damaging your electronic device could be resolved by printing off the relevant pages of rules. That way you'd only need to show your original copy on your device if the TO was concerned it differed, and in such a case depending on the size of the tournament they may choose to check with a different player that also had the same rules.

Either way, you absolutely need a copy of the rules available to your opponent, in whichever format works best.

Not everyone has a printer. Basically, all I'm saying is that if someone has a copy of the rules -- in any fashion -- then allow it. If that copy of rules is somehow damaged or no longer able to be read (you spilled black coffee all over your print outs, codex, or you lit it on fire), that should not disbar a player from continued play. He or she can undoubtedly find another person who can provide them with a copy or hopefully knows their rules enough to continue. If a TO want's to get anal-retentive about this, then that's not a tournament that I'll be participating in.