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Fun Chess.

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Zoka
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Joined: 12/15/2013

This makes serious Chess players laugh and is way better than serious Chess in my opinion.

Use a dice, a number for each type of piece = 6 sides, or make a special Chess dice.

Rules are the same as for Chess.

Move the piece you throw. If you can't move, you can move an adjacent piece, or pass.

There is still skill involved, but a fair dose of chance as well.

questccg
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Joined: 04/16/2011
Funny

I have made changes to my current WIP and it was similar to your idea:

-Instead of using pure strategy dictated by the cards themselves, I decided to use dice to allow players to gamble with their luck.

In my mind, it's a better mechanic because it is somewhat unpredictable - and sometimes you can WIN BIG! I think it will add to the overall *depth* of the game.

Zoka
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Joined: 12/15/2013
It seems to me that the best

It seems to me that the best games are fun and unpredictable. Life is already too serious. I am trying to find a way of making my WIP fun also. Decided it is too much a mind battle.

Zoka
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Joined: 12/15/2013
A rule change has evolved.

A rule change has evolved. Making both King and Queen important to knock off, makes fun chess more interesting. With just the King to checkmate the game can be too short. Once that change happens it starts to seem like the King has way too little power in comparison to the Queen, so the next change to try is both having equal power, that of the Queen. It works well, as long as the board doesn't blow up.

Greggatron
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Can you explain more how the

Can you explain more how the game works? So I roll a die to place on the board? This means with a lucky streak I could have 5-6 queens at same time? Have you ever played Proteus? It is my favorite dice chess variant.

Also, these are cool dice to use over normal pips or chess symbols:

Masacroso
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Joined: 05/05/2014
You can use a quantum analogy

You can use a quantum analogy and diversify the amount of luck or the impact of the randomness on the game.

"Quantum mechanic" example: forcing a amount of moves and the direction move, by example, draw a dice of 8 sides and move a piece one square to someone of the 8 possible directions if possible, and after move the piece normally. If direction is occupied then choose (by will, for example) any of the others. Another crazy idea: the amont of draws of the dice (2 draw, 2 squares moves from the, in first place, chosen position) is proportional to the amount of "power" of the piece (queen is the more powerfull piece, for example).

Well, the example isnt appropiate for chess, but surely we can create something more proper.

Another idea about control the amount of luck for a game is a "call for randomness" where all players, in the turn of the call, must play with a random variable on their moves.

Masacroso
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You can use a quantum analogy

Zoka wrote:
It seems to me that the best games are fun and unpredictable. Life is already too serious. I am trying to find a way of making my WIP fun also. Decided it is too much a mind battle.

You can make both, maybe, with a mechanic that create randomness at will by the players. Or just making two set of rules for the same game, one more "fun" and other more "serious".

And, moreover, you can make a serie of plays with a rule with a random variable (or more than one) with a different value for this variable, and adjust it (via experimentation) to the number that you feel make the game with the needed amount of "fun" without broke all seriousness of the game completely.

gameogami
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Joined: 03/20/2012
This will probably come off

This will probably come off as a trite response, but... Chess is already fun.
I think your efforts may be better spent on creating something new.

Zoka
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Joined: 12/15/2013
Proteus looks like a good

Proteus looks like a good game. I will try it some time. This dice chess is much more simple. One dice of six sides, a side for each of K Q R B K and one side for moving a Pawn.

cybulskina
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Joined: 10/08/2015
Cheops, based off Dune

Found a cool variant called Cheops, where basic chess fundamentals are changed for a dual winning condition. quite interesting.

http://cheops.cheopsguild.com/

gilamonster
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Joined: 08/21/2015
unintentional reinvention

I have read several times that the oldest versions of chess used a dice in exactly the manner described by the original poster - to control which piece a player could move in each turn. At that point, chess was apparently often used for gambling, so a strong element of luck was actually considered desirable. Some chess historians claim that the use of the die was optional. Anyway, by the time it got to Europe (possibly even Persia, rather earlier), this variant had pretty much died out.

I had another idea for a chess variant involving dice: every "round" (two turns), the players either roll a die or flip a coin to decide who will play first in the next round. Otherwise the rules are standard chess rules. This should remove most of the advantage of playing white. Also, sometimes a player will move twice in a row (if the player rolled lower and thus moved second in the first "round", then rolled higher and moved first in the following round. The effect will be that you will never be able to take turn order for granted in your planning. It probably would also delay the game from being completely solved by supercomputers for a while, because the size of the complete game tree will grow considerably. It will also make a lot of book-knowledge for regular chess invalid or at least require significant modification, which would irritate a lot of the more dedicated chess-players, who have invested considerable time into studying opening-lines, etc.
I've tried playing chess-960 (Fischer-random) with a fairly strong chess player, but we found it that it tended to reduce to a fairly recognizable state by the middle-game (ie. he still won!)

kos
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End Game

gilamonster wrote:
I had another idea for a chess variant involving dice ... which would irritate a lot of the more dedicated chess-players.

Indeed, a worthy goal in its own right.

However, I doubt that any chess variant will ever replace the current game in popularity. Serious chess players will never play it because it isn't "real chess", and the rest of the world will never play it because it looks too much like chess.

Regards,
kos

radioactivemouse
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From my understanding...

I have a a big chunk of a lecture dedicated to the history of chess in my Intro to Game Development class.

The gambling game with the dice described above is called "Chaturanga", which borrowed its 8x8 board from an earlier game called Ashtapada. Yes, it was used for gambling...yes, it was a 4 player game (which had around half the pieces per player)...yes. it used a die for moving; it was an elongated cube that only landed on one of 4 sides that indicated one of the 4 pieces (Boatmen (weak bishop), Rajah (king), Elephant (rook), and Infantry (pawn)).

Hindu laws soon forbade dice in games because of gambling, which forced the evolution of this game...they got rid of the die and became two player. It was renamed Shantraj.

As Shantraj spread, people kept putting their own spin on the game, creating many variants such as Xiang Qi (Chinese), Shogi (Japanese), and modern Chess.

Chess stuck because the discovery of the new world (US) and the development of the printing press solidified the rules (as previous iterations were passed by word of mouth), which is why the chess we know today is the most popular of the Shantraj variants.

I know this not a popular opinion, but I believe Chess has run its evolutionary course. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, I just believe the game (which used to represent something) is now more of an abstract game. I don't think there will be any future variant of chess that will win the public eye. The closest I've seen (which isn't that bad) is For The Crown, which combines chess with deck building, a modern game mechanic. Games today are so much of an industry that chess is more lauded for its contribution to gaming rather than being any kind of innovative based on its modern variants.

gilamonster
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Chess has definitely become

Chess has definitely become an abstract game - I would argue that this rubicon was crossed when the modern form was born, in which the strength of the queen and bishops was vastly increased. Before that the piece classes represented an ancient army: infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots(or boats), but by the renaissance this was already more than 1000 years out of date militarily speaking. Now few things in human society are static, and tournament chess rules are still constantly being fine-tuned, so I wouldn't personally rule out the possibility of any major changes in the rules in future , but I certainly don't really expect my suggested variation (or anyone else's in particular) to be "the next one". There have been countless fairy-chess rulesets (some quite good in my opinion) suggested over the centuries, and most are still very obscure, or completely forgotten: Courier-chess, anyone? My idea about random turn-order was actually inspired by a claim of someone that chess was a game of chance based on the idea that white had a statistically significant advantage through playing first (and varying turn order is a widely used modern mechanic, hehe).

I think (as several famous 20th century grandmasters apparently thought) that chess will eventually (probably soon) suffer death-by-analysis (especially with computer-assistance), although it will probably be played informally for many years after being solved due to the complexity and sheer size of the complete game-tree (far simpler games have been solved by computer or even by hand, but endure in casual play). I can imagine, however, that this might actually be enough to drive a modification to the rules on the top level, to avoid the mental equivalent of widespread doping in other sports. Also, despite the fact that top chess players today have all spent years studying theory (they have to to reach the top), some of them will actually embrace a major rule change as a new challenge. As an aside, although I understand why many people dislike the "excessive bookishness" or study required for top-level play, having been shown some of the thought-processes of a good chess-player who has put in the hours, I can say that it does not in any way remove the strategy from the game; it merely allows them to strategise more moves ahead more easily ('on a higher level' if you like). But I personally lack the patience or motivation to study chess theory quite that diligently.

Regarding the other chess variants which have become mainstream in their respective cultures (and as far as I know they are still very widely played), I find it interesting to compare them and the cultures which they originate from: the highly restrictive movement rules, lack of pawn promotion and over-powered cannons of Xiang-Chi seems to me to reflect the ordered, stratified chinese empire, while tubulent feudal Japan with its periods of civil war and violent political intrigues gave birth to Shogi, where every piece can be promoted, and captured pieces change sides and fight against their former owner. I'd like to know what parallels a person from a non-european culture would see in our version of chess. Perhaps as our culture continues to change, our variant of chess will also be further modified to mirror some aspects of it and the conflicts in our world. Or maybe (given the dubious current assumptions that all future wars will be against terrorists) Hneftafl or fox-and-geese will get a second chance and chess will fade into obscurity.

Anyway, sorry for the long pontification

Black_Cockatoo
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Joined: 03/11/2016
By coincidence, my currently

By coincidence, my currently unpublished game Ninjas vs Aliens is a die-roll based chess variant.

https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/ninjas-vs-aliens

There are three colours each, and the die determines which colour (and consequently, which player) can move. There is a second die with a single ! which means the defending piece takes the attacking piece instead.

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