Cocked dice a journey into madness

Cocked dice... WTF!

Having run the Armageddon war games club for 4 years or so, I'd started to pick up on the personalities of the players and their "quirky" ways. There were players who would always give you different stats, players who would change their armies rules, or "believe" what they were doing was right, and then the worst of the lot, those who called "cocked" when a dice isn't laying perfectly flat on the table.

It was a phenomenon that slowly crept up on me. Some of our scenery was sitting on 5mm board and every now and again you'd get a dice leaning against it, perhaps showing more than one number. I started to notice that those dice would be scooped up quickly and the simple claim of "Cocked" with a meaningful look at the opponent and a long drawn out blink that would defy the opponent to say anything would take place and the dice would be re-rolled.

I also started to notice that the "cocked" dice were never re-rolled if the number was one that the roller was after. It gnawed at me, and one day I snapped. I led a campaign of terror against all "cocked" dice rollers, well not all of them, because sometimes, it was a legitimate claim. There even came a time when if you could put a die on top of a cocked die and it stayed there, then it wasn't cocked, if it fell off, it was cocked. To me that was the way the "cocked dice callers" tried to make their art a science. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! It's not going to happen. The only way you're going to be able to get away with a cocked dice is to not roll it into terrain, simple.

One novel way of combating cocked dice is to call the cocked die as a 7, especially if it's showing more than one number. Of course here you're going to have the cocked dice callers trying to call "Cocked, that's a 7." all the time, but they'll learn soon enough, like they did at our club, as to whether their call is going to be regarded as legitimate.

One of the last games that were played at the club was between High elves and Empire in Warhammer fantasy. There was a group of us watching as it was the only game going on at the time. About halfway through the game, a handful of dice were rolled and it was claimed that one of them was cocked. As is the custom for the "cocked dice caller", he grabbed the dice in question and went to roll them again. The Crowd errupted in cries of "Cocked! WTF" and "OMG, that was so not cocked." the perpetrator could do nothing but put the dice back down and continue on with what he'd originally rolled, which apparently wasn't to his liking. It's hard to call cocked dice on a flat table.

On my first visit to Arcanacon this year, I wandered past a table where a game of 40k was going on. I can't remember the armies battling but I was there for a dice roll. He was standing over the table, he rolled the dice into the middle, next to a tank and then calmly called cocked, so picked up a heap of dice and rolled again. I had to bite my tongue and walk away. The bloke opposite him hadn't batted an eyelid, the table had a sand texture to it and if the bloke thought it was cocked, I'm sure he had a spirit level out to see if it was indeed raised off the table. I couldn't believe that something that to me is just a way of re-rolling a result that wasn't favorable was so accepted. I know there are times when yes, the dice is indeed showing a few numbers, and when that happens I'll ask the opponent if they think it needs to be re-rolled, not just pick it up with the call of "cocked" and re-roll the dice.

What are your thoughts on cocked dice? Have you had any cocked dice nightmares at the hands of players who think winning is the be all and end all of gaming?