Today’s Spent Glory discussion will center on making your Underworlds gaming experience the best possible for both you and your opponent as part of the Community Growth series. Let’s talk about how to be a courteous player and take our community’s reputation for fair play and kindness to the next level! We will cover some details of gameplay that will improve the perception of fairness, and then some behavioral choices that will enhance everybody’s experience.

GAMEPLAY

The main thing to focus on when trying to maintain a ‘good opponent’ perception and up your chances of winning the Best Sportsman award at any event is to make everything game-wise very obvious and remove any possibility of cheating or playing to advantage. There are a few things you can do on the tabletop while sitting at your game to make your opponent sure you’re on the level and playing fair.

Announce your intentions before any action you make so that your moves are clear. Don’t make the mistake of saying ‘ok I’m gonna swing with my leader’ and then roll the dice – who are they targeting? is it a charge? Are you using a weapon upgrade? These things might make your opponent choose to or not to react with something of their own and if you don’t communicate they may struggle. Even if it’s really obvious to you, it’s courteous to announce. The worst case is after they roll defense for a two dodge fighter you say ‘oh sorry I was targeting the one shield guy’ – conveniently after you saw their crit, even. Don’t look like a cheater. If you’re able, go the extra step: “I’m rolling two hammers, your fighter is Flanked, and I have cleave”. When both players know the stakes of a dice roll, nobody can pull any funny business after the fact, and there’s more certainty for everyone.

Establish rules ahead of time about dice. Talk with your opponent before the game about “what-ifs”. Are you using a dice tray, and what happens if a die doesn’t land in it? What counts as a cocked die that needs to be rerolled? What happens if you roll the wrong die, like defense when it should have been attack dice, etc? For me, I like to say it has to land in my dice tray, any even slightly cocked die is rerolled (so no trying to do the ‘can you stack a die on it), and if you roll the wrong dice none of that counts and you roll again with the correct ones. You and your opponent can play it however you want, but it’s much better to have this conversation before you’re haggling over whether somebody gets to keep that crit they rolled or not.

Offer for your opponent to cut your deck before you begin, and potentially every time the deck is reshuffled. Sure, you shuffled, and sure, deck stacking/card counting is hard, but you want to remove any doubts. I don’t even ask ‘do you want to’, but rather hand them my deck and say ‘you can cut this whenever you’re ready’. It sends a message to your opponent that you’re not cheating in this fashion and will make them feel good about playing you wince you’re forthcoming and honest. They can always decline to cut, but the onus is still on you to offer.

Allow a verbal cue to respond to a reaction window and the like rather than blowing through it- ‘do you have any cards to play’ or ‘would you like to drive me back’ allow the opponent to respond ‘no’, and then you can make your next move. Not asking could cause them to feel as though you’ve trampled them or denied them an opportunity to make their move. It also reduces the chance that you’ll end up in a situation like ‘actually I wanted to play a card’ which they now say after seeing you’re going to be making a charge or what have you – did your announcing the charge inform that decision? Do you feel like having an argument where both people feel like the other maybe is cheating? Avoid that with transparency and verbal confirmation.

Always offer the opponent to read your card if there is confusion or you perceive they’re upset about something. This game has a lot of variety baked in. There are nearly 60 warbands and several Rivals decks with more on the way. Most players won’t have intimate familiarity with them all, especially if you took a less common or underplayed card. If you say “I play card name and so it’s plus 1 dice” that’s all well and good, but you’ll gain cool points by showing or handing the card to the player so they can read it for themselves. Sometimes we make mistakes – maybe you only get that +1 dice if the target is adjacent and you forgot that part in complete honesty. This gives the opponent the chance to say ‘hey I see here that doesn’t happen’ and it looks much less like you were trying to pull a fast one on them and hoping they’d just accept what you said. This goes double for Objective scoring.

Avoid touching your models unless you’re actively moving them – don’t want to appear to be a cheater who is nudging into another hex for advantage (or maybe forget where you were and now have to guess)

Don’t move your cards away from the table so nobody gets the idea you’re pulling one from your sleeve. Should you drop a card, make sure that you are very clear about what happened and what you’re doing before reaching for it.

Don’t use alternate art cards for competitive events! Imagine if you accidentally took two copies of a great card because you physically had two copies of that card. A person could definitely intentionally include two of a great card either hoping to draw it earlier or perhaps more blatantly get to use it twice. If you see an alternate art card in a high-stakes environment, it’s hard not to think ‘did that guy take the other one too? am I being cheated?’ Even if you really did only take one copy and just like the fancy art better, leave it at home for the tournament. It’s a distraction to your opponent who is used to seeing the ‘regular’ art and can psychologically mess with them even in situations where they don’t expect cheating. Let’s all play with the same standardized tools.

BEHAVIORAL TOPICS

No cell phones (except for occasional photo) – you’re being rude if you’re texting or scrolling social media and you own it to your opponent to be engaged and attentive. You’re being much ruder if looking up cards/referring to notes and gaining any kind of competitive advantage with outside information – not only does it slow down the play, but it’s like playing 2-on-1 and that ain’t fair, man.

Reduce food at the table, especially if it’s something that will be dirty and get on the toys/dice/whatever. The classic is Cheetos – orange dust on the board is disrespectful to your opponent who owns half the stuff being touched – imagine if they care a lot about their great paint job and you’re just getting things oily and grimy. Also avoid anything overly strong smelling – I know garlic fries are great, but you want to beat your opponent with superior play, not superior stank.

If you have a drink at the table (hydration is important), make sure your drinks have caps or lids so you’re less likely to spill anything if they get knocked over, which happens. I actually keep my water bottle on the floor next to my chair to reduce visual clutter and reduce the odds a bunch of coffee goes sloshing into their discard pile. Ideally any drinks are separated from the gaming space by enough of a margin that they’re not a part of the experience at all.

Control your substance use, drink responsibly, etc. Lots of people like to drink during conventions. Maybe you have a casual atmosphere at your local game night where a few beers or other ‘consumables’ are fine and dandy. That’s great for consenting adults and all that, but make sure you stay within your limits. You want to have fun, but you want your opponent to have fun too. If you get sloppy, distractible, distracted, or become an annoying distraction, it’s not a shared good experience. Your opponent will be having a bad time, and likely people at neighboring tables will as well. Know your limits and all that.

If you’re spectating a game, keep your yap shut until after it’s all said and done. The worst example of this is ‘coaching’ where you tell a player something like ‘hey you know you have a reaction you could use here’ or ‘if you charge to that spot, you can drive them back over there so I would do that instead’. Providing competitive tips to a player, unless it’s explicitly in a teaching environment and that’s what everyone signed up for, is a no-no. Maybe they chose not to use that reaction or charge there for a reason, and now they have to explain the Objective card they’re trying to score and reveal their plan. Or now they feel like they can’t do that move because it’s cheating. Or they DO take that move and now their opponent feels cheated. Even if you’re not giving strategic advice, it’s distracting and annoying to have somebody saying things and interfering with the game. Save for a few ‘oh dang nice crit!’ (and in very limited doses), you’re observing, not commentating, and preferably doing so from more than an arm’s length away.

Wrap

I’m not trying to call anybody out or point the finger at some player in general, but I do want to have us remember in this community that it’s a game and we are all here to have fun. It’s your responsibility to play with your opponent, not just against them, and make sure that we all enjoy ourselves. If you are working on growing your own local scene these tips should help keep people feeling good and wanting to come back for more. Now be nice, shake hands, and spend that glory!