Dealing With Frustration...

[aycee71]

I am about to play in a tournament. My first in many years since I have been working over seas. I have a slight problem...dealing with the frustration that happens when dice go really bad. For example, this happened in a game I was playing to help prep me for the tournament...I shot a Rhino with 12 krak missiles BS4 and either missed or just scratched the paint. The next turn I assaulted a vehicle with Terminators and while I did blow up the vehicle managed to kill more of my Terminators in the explosion that ensued then I did the squad inside the vehicle. Then I managed to fail petty much 90% of my saving throws from 2+ to 5+.

I don't want to be a bad sport. I don't want to be that guy who people don't to play, but I get so angry and frustrated when that happens. I'm not angry at the other player just at the dice rolls. Does anyone have any advice or insight to help?

[MaltonNecromancer]

Redefine the terms of victory.
Aim to be magnanimous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnanimity

[AbusePuppy]

There isn't really a lot you can do- those sort of dice rolls and can turn a game against you, but it's important to remember that sometimes things will fall exactly the way you need them to and everything will work out perfectly. Luck goes both ways.

During the game itself, my only real advice is to try not to let it get to you. It's a rather simplistic platitude, but honestly there isn't a lot more that can be said- keep fighting on, do everything you can to win, and never, ever take it out on your opponent. It's understandable if you're terse or frustrated when that happens, but don't blame it on the other guy and don't just chalk the win up to bad luck. Good generals learn to work around bad luck- sometimes there's nothing you can do, but often times there is.

Your brain is horrible at judging how often things actually happen. I don't doubt that you had some bad luck during the match, and indeed, it may even be that things are as bad as you say, but more often it's the human mind's tendency to focus on what it's looking for and misremember events to reinforce its view that is the source of "bad luck." Most of the players I know who moan constantly about how bad their luck is are just ignoring the times when their luck runs good; they can pinpoint every instance of rolling three 2s on armor saves, but they don't remember the time they rolled three 6s to penetrate. Don't let yourself be that guy.

But all of that aside, though, condolences on the match. Sometimes things go crappy, and that's just the way it is with dice.

[SotonShades]

I agree fully with AbusePuppy; he really has got it fairly spot on, especially with the way people tend to focus on their bad luck. I find that it is especially true at tournaments because people feel they have wasted their time and their money simply because the dice go against them.

At my old old FLGS (which is now my new FLGS... Oh the fun of moving around the country!) I had legendary bad luck, to the point there was an official competition to see who could wipe me off the board the quickest, including setting up the armies. The eventual winner was 15 mins to set up both armies, for my opponant to roll for first turn and for me to fail each and every armour save I was called to make with my space marines, leaving nothing but smoking wrecks of my vehicles before he even got to his assault phase!

Still, we all have games like that, where absolutely nothing seems to go right for you and your opponant can't roll anything lower than a 5 (but snake eyes on every Ld check... or at least the only one you force him to take!)
So what's to be done? For me, I tend to make a joke about it. "The Emporer certainly isn't protecting these guys today!" tends to spring to mind. "Gork and Mork are obviously more interested in fighting each other than giving my Waaargh! a helping hand today..." That sort of rubbish. I've even been known to vocalise my thoughts on the best way to punish dice after the battle/tournament. Flamethrowers/blowtorches come up quite often, but I'm sure you can get more creative than that!

I also do my best not to call out my bad luck until my opponant does. Moaning that my dice rolls are bad sounds like sour grapes. If my opponant hasn't picked up that my luck has been bad, it probably does have something more to do with the way I deployed my army or some of the decisions I've made. For me that is always something hard to face. My heart sinks, my head feels heavy... all that malarcky. So what is to be done here? I find closing my eyes, taking a few deep breaths and then looking at the game again tends to help. Screw your battle plan. You have started a new game, with your forces in a very unusual deployment, and only a few turns to achieve your mission. You don't have an ideal force, you are probably vastly outnumbered. Those are the kind of situations that really test you and, if you remember what you learnt using your force in that way, can make you a better general in the future. Of course that's much easier said than done.

On the other hand, if my opponant has pointed out that lady luck isn't on my side for that game; well sometimes the best generalship in the world wont help you. Time to start playing silly. I favour suiciding units; run them in to impossible odds. Use units like Devastators for assaulting, get your Khorne Bezerkers shooting their bolt pistols... do the unexpected. You will be surprised how often your opponant's battle plan is based around what they expect your forces to do. When they suddenly have to face an unexpected situation, their army can start to crumble as badly as yours did... or they will table you even more quickly, which just gives you more time for a laugh and a joke post game, maybe a post match beer and the odd jibe about how many 1s a single person can roll! Hey, you were going to lose anyway because of luck, right?

As the others have said, never make it about/take it out on your opponant. Sure, luck doesn't help, but make sure you shake his hand and congratulate him without saying he got lucky or that you had terrible dice etc. By all means challange him to a rematch/say you are looking forward to playing him at the next tournament, but hold back any bile or venom for when you get home. Grab a hammer and start smashing at the offending dice... :P

[Wildeybeast]

The last two posts are both excellent advice, but I would like to add something to them. I don't believe any game is won or lost because of luck, either good or bad (because there is no such thing). As in real life, battles are usually won or lost by the commander. I take the following approach - there is random element to the game, which needs to be accounted for in your army selection and tactics and mitigated as far as possible e.g. is putting half your army in reserve really the surefire winner that you think it is when nothing turns up until turn 4. When it comes down to bad rolls on shooting, saves and so on, there is only so much mitigation you can do however, so what I try to do is not fixate on the bad rolls, but look at what I did wrong/could have done better. How could my army selection have been different? Those crucial failed rolls that 'cost me the game' - how could I have avoided having to make those or maximised my chances of making them successfully. So in the examples you give, perhaps you could have assaulted that rhino with a sergeant with melta bombs and power fists to mak sure of killing it. Was having your terminators assault that vehicle really the best way you could have used them? Could you not have sent them into something that a) won't blow up in their faces and b) ensures you are using to theur full potential? I'm not trying to get at you, just suggesting that we all do things worng and it is too easy to blame it on the dice. If you review every game and try to improve just one thing next time round, you will find that pretty soon, when the dice gods do turn against you, it doesn't matter so much. After all, the best generals turn moments of calamity to their advantage and see only victory when staring into the face of defeat.

[Bean]

Games absolutely can be dictated by dice outcomes. I don't imagine that they are primarily responsible for the outcomes of very many games, but the assertion that it can't possibly be (and I know you didn't phrase it that way exactly, Wildey, but you came pretty close) is simply false. If I roll nothing but sixes and you roll nothing but ones, no amount of player skill on your part is going to let you pull out a win against that type of imbalance--whether you want to call that imbalance luck of not.

Luck (or whatever you want to call it) is a substantial factor in the outcome of every game, and has roughly as much potential as any other factor (player skill, relative army composition, terrain) to dictate the outcome of a game--which is to say that there is some possible imbalance in any of these factors that can, on its own, render a game essentially unwinnable by one party.

Game-dictating imbalances in any one factor don't seem to occur very often, but, for example, I had a situation recently in which a significant imbalance in two factors (luck and army composition) did dictate the outcome of a game.

I played my paladin army against another guy's foot Sisters army. We rolled kill points and Dawn of War. I won the roll to go first. I had five kill points on the table--Draigo, a ten-man paladin squad, a five-man paladin squad, and two dreads. He had basically nothing beyond meltas for anti-tank.

The guy is a really good player (I'm not always convinced that his armies are the best). The game, though, was basically over from the point at which we'd finished deployment. He was never able to bring my army within melta range--I had no incentive at all to allow that to happen. Picking up his one rhino with my dreads was easy, and I got another squad with shots as they tried to bring the meltas in. My opponent didn't lose because he was a bad player. He lost because he got unlucky--we ended up in a scenario where his army had virtually no chance of beating mine.

[Wildeybeast]

Firstly, you rolling all sixes whilst I roll nothing but ones is so staticistically unlikely as to be impossible. That is a silly and unhelpful example.

Your recent experience completley supports my view. Your friend is clearly not a 'really good player' because he built an army that got utterly stuffed by the scenario. How can you possibly claim otherwise when he has an army that basically auto-loses if two 1 in 3 dice rolls go against him? Youc ontradict yourself by saying he a good player but then admit is army selesction isn't always the best. Building a good army is a key part of playing the game succesfully. I'm not claiming to be a good player, I frequently make stupid errors, the point I am making is that it is all too easy to focus on the chance element and ignore your own failings as a commander. They very best generals don't worry about bad luck, because they can work around it. My advice to aycee is not to focus on the bad dice because you can't control them, instead focus on what you can improve.

[Bean]

Firstly, you rolling all sixes whilst I roll nothing but ones is so staticistically unlikely as to be impossible. That is a silly and unhelpful example.

Not at all. It illustrates a fundamental truth--that disparity between the quality of opponents' dice results can swing a game. Sure; the odds of all sixes and all ones is low, but it doesn't take a disparity of that magnitude to dictate an outcome--pointing to such a disparity only proves that such a dictation is possible.

Now, we could fiddle around with some models (mathematical models, that is) and come up with an estimate about how likely it is that 'luck' will swing a game, but once we're doing that, you've already conceded your point and accepted mine--that dice can potentially swing a game.

It isn't so statistically unlikely as to be impossible. Impossibility is a concept that statistics and probability math recognize--and treat in a manner very different from improbability or unlikelihood.



Your recent experience completley supports my view. Your friend is clearly not a 'really good player' because he built an army that got utterly stuffed by the scenario. How can you possibly claim otherwise when he has an army that basically auto-loses if two 1 in 3 dice rolls go against him? You contradict yourself by saying he a good player but then admit is army selesction isn't always the best. Building a good army is a key part of playing the game succesfully. I'm not claiming to be a good player, I frequently make stupid errors, the point I am making is that it is all too easy to focus on the chance element and ignore your own failings as a commander. They very best generals don't worry about bad luck, because they can work around it.

Again, not at all. Some my disagreement stems from demonstrable errors in your argument, and the rest is a matter of definition, but I do think this needs to be addressed.

As for the first bits, the army doesn't auto-lose if two 1/3 rolls go against him. It auto-loses if two 1/3 rolls go against him and he's paired against one of a very small set of opposing armies. As I noted, this doesn't demonstrate a loss by luck alone, but a loss by army disparity and luck combined--not in a take-all-comers sense but in a in this particular scenario, against my particular army sense.

So, in that area, you're just wrong--you're failing to correctly represent the scenario, despite having been given the key details you're excluding.

Second, I distinguish between player skill and skill at army construction--and you should, too. Players can and do frequently make essentially impeccable choices in game (during play) while using armies that they know are non-optimal but play anyway for aesthetic reasons. This doesn't make them bad players; it means that they are knowingly handicapping themselves prior to playing.

In fact, I routinely see people say things like, "good players can win with bad armies," which suggests that this view of player skill--the one which differentiates between skill at army construction and in-game decision making--is not uncommon.

So, in total, this is just wrong. My friend isn't a bad player. His army isn't a particularly poor army in an all-comers sense. He just got unlucky--he encountered a very rare situation in which his army was simply incapable of winning. He lost to luck. That doesn't support your position. It disproves it.



My advice to aycee is not to focus on the bad dice because you can't control them, instead focus on what you can improve.

I would certainly agree with this, but, of course, it does nothing to support the overall claim that 'luck' can't dictate games. The very best generals do their best to mitigate luck. They don't worry about it, but they do acknowledge it--and acknowledge that sufficient luck can swing any battle.

Edit:

Also, it wasn't two 1/3 rolls, it was two 1/3 rolls and one 1/2 roll. I went first, too, and that had a significant impact on the game. I was able to push him well back into his deployment zone, which left me with a lot more room to retreat into than I'd have had if he'd gotten to deploy first. We're down to a 1/18 against what is, again, one of a very small set of armies that can hose his in the way mine did. If you don't count that as bad luck, I feel pretty safe in concluding that your opinion isn't one that should count. =P

Edit again:

Anyway, the important point is that you're right to a degree: there's no point in getting upset over luck, since you can't control it and (presumably) neither can your opponent (and if your opponent can, that's something to get upset over). That said, I know from experience that luck can be extremely frustrating, and the only thing more frustrating than bad luck is the opponent who says, "luck can't win or lose games." Anyone with a half a brain can see that this is not true, which basically just leaves it in the realm of condescending crap. If someone who complains about bad luck is a bad sport, the person who patronizingly asserts that any good player can deal with any amount of luck is, hands down, worse.

[SotonShades]

Now we just need someone to teach us to deal with frustration when two opposing views collide on an internet forum and start reiterating the same points of their argument over and again in a vein attempt to make the other see reason!

[DarkLink]

Not at all. It illustrates a fundamental truth--that disparity between the quality of opponents' dice results can swing a game. Sure; the odds of all sixes and all ones is low, but it doesn't take a disparity of that magnitude to dictate an outcome--pointing to such a disparity only proves that such a dictation is possible.

But I think the point is that it's not going to happen every time. For every game where you seem to lose via poor luck there's a game where you're rolling better than your opponent is. And since it's out of your control either way, there's no point in complaining about it, especially since in the long run it's only in your head.



Now, we could fiddle around with some models (mathematical models, that is) and come up with an estimate about how likely it is that 'luck' will swing a game, but once we're doing that, you've already conceded your point and accepted mine--that dice can potentially swing a game.

So because he'd be willing to prove or disprove your argument by testing it, you win? I'm glad you're not a scientist:p.

[Bean]

But I think the point is that it's not going to happen every time. For every game where you seem to lose via poor luck there's a game where you're rolling better than your opponent is. And since it's out of your control either way, there's no point in complaining about it, especially since in the long run it's only in your head.


I don't think that's the point. That's obvious, after all, and I agree there's no point in complaining about it.

Wildeybeast wrote:

"I don't believe any game is won or lost because of luck, either good or bad (because there is no such thing). "

This is the assertion I'm contesting, and it isn't equivalent to the statement that luck tends to even out over multiple games. I agree that luck will tend to even out over multiple games.

However, luck can absolutely dictate the outcome of a game. That is my point, and Wildeybeast's point is directly opposed to it.



So because he'd be willing to prove or disprove your argument by testing it, you win? I'm glad you're not a scientist:p.

That's not even close to an accurate representation of what I said.

I said that if he'd be willing to work on determining the probability of it occurring, he'd first have to acknowledge that it can possibly occur. Since my point is only that it can possibly occur, my point is a necessary premise for the evaluation I proposed.

Given that you failed to correctly apprehend anything I wrote, I think I can safely say that I'm glad you're not a scientist. =P

[Wildeybeast]

I don't think that's the point. That's obvious, after all, and I agree there's no point in complaining about it.

Wildeybeast wrote:

"I don't believe any game is won or lost because of luck, either good or bad (because there is no such thing). "

This is the assertion I'm contesting, and it isn't equivalent to the statement that luck tends to even out over multiple games. I agree that luck will tend to even out over multiple games.

However, luck can absolutely dictate the outcome of a game. That is my point, and Wildeybeast's point is directly opposed to it.

Sorry Bean, I didn't make myself clear. What I should I have said so that everyone understood me was: "I don't believe any game is won or lost solely because of luck". Somewhere along the line, there will have been something you could have done to change the outcome of the game. I agree that chance could entirely dictate the outcome of the game, in the same way that Kiera Knightley could turn up at my door with a playboy bunny outfit and a copy of the Karma Sutra, but that's not really something I can influence, nor indeed is it a situation that warrants any considering in the planning of my life. Equally, in a game situation there is nothing you can do against consitently poor rolling, but it is not really something you should factor into your battle plans given how unlikely it is. I'm not being patronising, because I agree no one can deal with the amount of bad luck you are suggesting, but we both know that never happens. What actually happens in a game is that you fail a number of important dice rolls and then you fixate on that and ignore all the dice rolls you successfully make. What I am suggesting is 'what could you done have to alter those criticial rolls?' Could you have avoided having to make them? Could you have maximised the odds in your favour?
The very best generals do acknowledge that luck can swing a game, but they make sure it always swings in their favour by careful army selection, a good battle plan and having that unique spark of creativity that turns apparent disaster into a winning position.

[DarkLink]

I dislike certain rules such as random game length precisely because it introduces more luck to an already heavily luck based game. Sometimes you get to turn 5 and you have a choice to either contest an objective, or hold off for later for one reason or another, and in the end it often has little to do with skill and more to do with the ability to guess whether or not that particular dice roll will come up as a 1-2 or a 3-6.

If 6th ed did away with random game length and other things like random difficult terrain, I wouldn't complain at all.



I said that if he'd be willing to work on determining the probability of it occurring, he'd first have to acknowledge that it can possibly occur. Since my point is only that it can possibly occur, my point is a necessary premise for the evaluation I proposed.


His point was that the odds were negligible. Doing some math to see if good or bad luck do have a statistically significant influence on the outcome is quite different from concluding that good or bad luck does have a decent chance of influencing the outcome. And as pointed out above, you must have misunderstood Wildeybeast before I may or may not have misunderstood you, so :p.

[eldargal]

Getting back to the OP:


Learn to laugh it off. It isn't as easy as it sounds but the best way of dealing with it is to see the humour in a bad run of dice, joke about it and try and do your best to at least put up a fight for your opponents sake. Of course if you believe in the power of positive thinking (I don't, I just think it is healthier to be positive) your luck will begin to right itself.;)

[GFGames]

Getting back to the OP:


Learn to laugh it off. It isn't as easy as it sounds but the best way of dealing with it is to see the humour in a bad run of dice, joke about it and try and do your best to at least put up a fight for your opponents sake. Of course if you believe in the power of positive thinking (I don't, I just think it is healthier to be positive) your luck will begin to right itself.;)

This is a good bit of advice. Fundamentally, most wargames are games of chance, and chance just isn't always on one's side. If the dice really want you to go down, there's not a lot you can do about it, but if you grin and crack a joke or two even a hard loss can be an entertaining experience.

[Bean]

Sorry Bean, I didn't make myself clear. What I should I have said so that everyone understood me was: "I don't believe any game is won or lost solely because of luck". Somewhere along the line, there will have been something you could have done to change the outcome of the game.


In practice? Perhaps. I am pretty good at the math, though, and I do certainly think I've seen games that come pretty close. I count my game against my sisters-playing friend as one of those. In this situation, the something my opponent could have done to change the outcome of the game wasn't really 'somewhere along the line'--it was well before the line ever started. He could have played a fundamentally different army--not just a few tweaks, but something substantially different in principle from the army that he chose to purchase, well before our game. Once he had made those purchasing decisions, months before we ever scheduled our game, his ability to do something that would have affected the outcome of our game, given his luck, had ended.

So, you can certainly make this claim, and it is more reasonable than the one you made previously, but I still think I disagree. I think that, even in practice, people do run into situations where bad luck essentially overrides any reasonable effort to deal with it and achieve victory despite it. I've seen it happen.





Equally, in a game situation there is nothing you can do against consitently poor rolling, but it is not really something you should factor into your battle plans given how unlikely it is. I'm not being patronising, because I agree no one can deal with the amount of bad luck you are suggesting, but we both know that never happens. What actually happens in a game is that you fail a number of important dice rolls and then you fixate on that and ignore all the dice rolls you successfully make. What I am suggesting is 'what could you done have to alter those criticial rolls?' Could you have avoided having to make them? Could you have maximised the odds in your favour?
The very best generals do acknowledge that luck can swing a game, but they make sure it always swings in their favour by careful army selection, a good battle plan and having that unique spark of creativity that turns apparent disaster into a winning position.

I agree that you shouldn't factor bad luck into your battle plans. I wasn't ever suggesting that you should. What I was saying is that luck can be legitimately frustrating--poor to the point where no play decisions can possibly overcome it. I stand by that assertion. It's possible (you agree). It might not be likely, but I've seen it happen. It has happened.

Pulling out a win despite bad luck is certainly a mark of a skilled player, but there is luck that no amount of skill can defeat, and while it might be unlikely, there are a huge number of 40k games being played. I know that it has happened, and I think that it probably happens more frequently than you're imagining.




His point was that the odds were negligible. Doing some math to see if good or bad luck do have a statistically significant influence on the outcome is quite different from concluding that good or bad luck does have a decent chance of influencing the outcome. And as pointed out above, you must have misunderstood Wildeybeast before I may or may not have misunderstood you, so .

That isn't what he actually wrote. It may have been his point, but I can only respond to what he actually writes. I quoted what he actually wrote, and it was unambiguous.

Doing some math to see how likely it is that luck will have a significant influence on the outcome is different from concluding that luck does have a decent chance of influencing the outcome, but it does entail accepting that luck does have at least some chance of influencing the outcome.

Wildey stated explicitly that he believed that no such chance existed at all. I didn't misunderstand him, and I legitimately addressed and countered this position, which he has since revised.

You imagined in his post something that wasn't there. You, in fact, misunderstood both of us. =P

[Wolfshade]

In 40k there is no luck just discreet possibilities.

With regard to the OP, I agree with those who advocate laughing it off. I have a tactical marine armed with a missilie launcher, his personal best is missing a monolith 1" away from him. "Lucky" Hank as he became know has a long and inglorious history of missing very large vehicles from very close range, his base is adorned with trophys from such great shots.

There is always a bet as to how many krak missiles he can fire without hitting.

[Bean]

In 40k there is no luck just discreet possibilities.

I think you mean discrete. ;)

Anyway, whatever you want to call it, sometimes you get highly unlikely outcomes when you roll the dice. Sometimes it helps you and sometimes it hurts you. Some people call that good or bad luck.

It's not as though there is some sort of personal force that is luck, but the term applies equally well to the impersonal vagaries of chaotic events.



With regard to the OP, I agree with those who advocate laughing it off. I have a tactical marine armed with a missilie launcher, his personal best is missing a monolith 1" away from him. "Lucky" Hank as he became know has a long and inglorious history of missing very large vehicles from very close range, his base is adorned with trophys from such great shots.

There is always a bet as to how many krak missiles he can fire without hitting.

This, though, is is good advice.

[SotonShades]

This, though, is is good advice.

I think you mean "This, though, is good advice" ;)

Sorry, couldn't help myself :D

[Bean]

I think you mean "This, though, is good advice" ;)

Sorry, couldn't help myself :D

Certainly so. =P

The difference is that discreet is actually an entirely separate word from discrete. It's not just a typo. ;)

[Wolfshade]

It's not just a typo. ;)

It was I was going non-continuous:(

[Wildeybeast]

Anyway, whatever you want to call it, sometimes you get highly unlikely outcomes when you roll the dice. Sometimes it helps you and sometimes it hurts you. Some people call that good or bad luck.

It's not as though there is some sort of personal force that is luck, but the term applies equally well to the impersonal vagaries of chaotic events.

Thanks Bean, that's what I meant when I said no such thing as 'luck'. I obviously need to express myself more clearly and precisely on the internet because people pick you up on anything! :D I was trying to get across the view that it is too easy to give into a fatalistic resignation and get obsessed with luck when what we should be doing is focusing on the elemnets of the game we can control and minimise the effect chance has on us.

Another thing I like to do is get into the 'character' of my army. So as my nids get squashed, I imagine myself as the uncaring hive mind, safe in the knowledge that although this battle goes against me, my individual bugs don't matter as we will eat everything. Or as my Tau get destroyed yet again, I try to think of each soldier happily doing so as he lays down his life for the greater good of the Empire. Rather nerdy I know, but it helps detach me from the immeadiacy of the game and makes it more enjoyable when things go wrong.

[Bean]

Thanks Bean, that's what I meant when I said no such thing as 'luck'. I obviously need to express myself more clearly and precisely on the internet because people pick you up on anything! :D

Especially me. I'm basically a compulsive nit-picker. ;) No hard feelings, I hope.



I was trying to get across the view that it is too easy to give into a fatalistic resignation and get obsessed with luck when what we should be doing is focusing on the elemnets of the game we can control and minimise the effect chance has on us.

And with this, I would agree completely. There's no point in becoming fatalistically resigned to bad dice.

But, on the other hand, it can be very (legitimately) frustrating to have very bad "luck" (or whatever you want to call it.)

I used to play foot marines--las/plas spam in 4th edition. When you fire six BS:4 lascannons two turns in a row and get exactly one hit, that's frustrating--whether "luck" has it out for you, personally, or not. =P



Another thing I like to do is get into the 'character' of my army. So as my nids get squashed, I imagine myself as the uncaring hive mind, safe in the knowledge that although this battle goes against me, my individual bugs don't matter as we will eat everything. Or as my Tau get destroyed yet again, I try to think of each soldier happily doing so as he lays down his life for the greater good of the Empire. Rather nerdy I know, but it helps detach me from the immeadiacy of the game and makes it more enjoyable when things go wrong.

I'll admit, that does constitute a strong appeal in playing nids. Of course, I don't play nids. Lately, I've been playing paladins, which are just the opposite. Fortunately, they don't die nearly as frequenly. :)

[the jeske]

well unless the error is not my **** up I generaly dont care , random rolls are random and as I have never played in a winer takes opponents army tournament , the losing just happens it is part of the game .
But when I am realy down I like to pick one or two people for full cavity search . Nothing gives people more fun then roughing up others and when you do it personaly it is just a bonuse . That is why jobs at police , MP or customs[where I work] are so good stress realivers . I wouldnt encourage drinking or beating peope up , because it makes it hard to play in the same place in a short time[or longer depands who you beat up and how much you drink].

Cutting wood or any other for of hard physical labor helps to . not even spiritus makes you oblivious to the harshness of life like unloading a ton of wood cutting it up and making it in to nice rain/snow safe piles.

[Wildeybeast]

None at all Bean, I think we both broadly agree. Havingthe fickle finger of fate really turn against is very frustrating, we've all been there but I prefer to try to take the monty python approach - 'don't grumble, give a whistle...' Everyone deals with losinga game differently, its just about finding a way to deal with it that works for you and making sure you don' spoil it for your opponent.

[BobbaFett]

Well, with the dice... **** happens.

We all have stories with it. It doesn't matter wich wargame are you playing, if you are using dice sometimes impossible can happen.

I have 80% of success chances with this one - FAIL!
You have only 10% here- WIN!

Sometimes, the hability to keep a polite poker face when this happens is what you need to be able to continue a friendly game.