while profanity is fine, belittling opponents is not (although trash talk is usually fine, there is a line which should be apparent to anyone with a modicum of social skills)

as to being grumpy, theres no problem with being annoyed, there is no problem with bemoaning your rolls or failures. becoming pissy and rude to your opponent however is not on.

there is an old saying, sticks and stones (and thrown dice) may break models or poke peoples eyes out, but words will at worst, annoy people momentarily.

i know a guy who, if his dice disappoint him on day 1 of a tournament, he goes home, takes one of them and melts it down (while 'making the rest watch')

there is also a tournament i go to every year that in the admission booklet says something along the lines of "please refrain from hurling dice that consistently roll low, people pay good money for dice like that"

i tend to punish figures that disappoint me. a keen example would be while back, when i played warmachine, i was at a tournament, with my khador+mercs force, against his protectorate.
now, i had two sniper characters, one, an elf named Eiryss, is a widely known high-end character assassin, who has special ammo types that can if used properly win you the game. the other, a human named Kell, was able to shoot twice (but without eirysses excellent ammo types) if he stood still (lurked)
both are unquestionably some of the best shots in the game

Turn 1, my opponent rushes a bunch of his temple flameguard troops at my snipers, next turn they're going to hit them and be a problem. their officer has 5 hitpoints, which i can do automatically (each sniper shot can ignore armour to do an automatic one point of damage, so 2 from kell, eiryss can use a special ammo type to do 3 points automatically)
Eiryss misses. kell shoots the dude twice.

Turn 2, my opponent sets Kell on fire before i kill his flameguard off, however due to having diverted much of my army towards killing the troops, both my snipers survive (at a significant loss of overall army position)
on the other side of a forest, one of his paladin characters has rushed forwards. now, the paladin is usually invulnerable to pretty much everything, but due to his actions this turn, he is exposed (although out of sight)
Eiryss has a ammo type which allows her to shoot through walls/forests (albiet at the loss of the 3 autopoints) so she takes the shot. she hits him, but rolls poorly on damage and does nothing. Kell meanwhile shoots two more flameguard in the head (whilst still on fire i might add)

Turn 3, i am now in a very bad position, infact, i am about to lose the game if i cannot stop his big heavy jack from rolling up to my general and killing him. luckily, eiryss has another chance to redeem herself (her third bolt prevents any resources being allocated to this elite model if she hits)
she promptly misses again.
i sigh, and announce to my opponent that Kell will lurk (he is still on fire btw) and shoot eiryss. a momentary look of confusion (protectorate players cannot hire eiryss) before he realises what is going on. we laugh as i execute the useless tramp, and end up losing the game. but atleast the wench knew how i felt about her performance.


vent displeasure in ways that dont endanger people or property. anything else is quite simply unexceptable.

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~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

On a completely different note, many years ago I came across a guy who was quite famous in the tournament circles of the day. He was a good painter / modeler, and if he lost a game (which was not often) he gave his own General figure to the opponent.
(History does not relate whether he also gave away the offending dice)

A bit clunky, but accurate.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Hurled dice can sometimes end up IN the eye of the beholder

Jaldon