(no subject)

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Addendum: Some Mega-Macro-Super-Large-Monumental-Diamond-Chess Pieces

(Refer to this for basic Diamond Chess.)

Mega-Macro-Super-Large-Monumental-Diamond-Chess isn’t just played on a stupidly large (38 × 38) board with the regular pieces. It has exotic pieces. Lots of exotic pieces. You start with several dozen of them arranged in a square around your town — the arrangement is up to you — and then you can move more pieces onto the board as usual (“mustering”) or, sometimes, in unusual ways (see below).

Some additional terms:

“capture by grapple” is capturing by landing on a piece (as in terrestrial chess). It goes with the standard “capture by spear” (in which a piece moves orthogonally next to an enemy piece and takes it) and “capture by arrow” (similar but diagonal).

“Promotion”: Various pieces change their identity at various times. This is sometimes compulsory and sometimes optional, depending on the piece. In many cases it is a demotion: several very powerful pieces get demoted to weak ones when they capture. For your convenience and safety, there are several pairs of pieces (e.g. the Delighted Child and the Extremely Noisy Neighbor) which have the same move, but promote differently. About half the pieces in the game cannot be mustered; they must be acquired by promotion (if at all). Promotion is marked on the piece in various ways — in a real set, it is done with rings or decorations. Feralan and Wexiset are using small wooden home-made pieces, little more than blocks of wood with names written on the sides. Fortunately, the longest chain of promotions is five: Troublesome Rassimel Girlfriend promotes to Foreign Herethroy Banker promotes to Hideous Neighbor promotes to Street-Performing Balloon Artist promotes to Drunken Masked Prince. (This sequence of events rarely, if ever, happens in real life.)

Orren Butler: can move as far as possible without running into anything else (like a piece or the edge of the board) in any direction, followed, optionally, by another move as far as possible in any direction. It may carry one piece that was adjacent to it when it started; the piece must end up adjacent to it, though not necessarily in the same relative position. It cannot capture. If it could move to the owner’s home town, it can promote to a Perspicuous Rassimel Butler (which is like the standard piece “rassimel”, but can only be taken by arrow.)

Drunken Masked Prince: One of several masked pieces. The mask is a wooden cap that fits snugly over the top half of the piece; the bases below the mask are identical. The mask can be pulled up halfway to reveal a colored band — red, for the Drunken Masked Prince — and all pieces with the same color band have approximately the same move. If you want to make this move, you only have to reveal the band. (If you want to use any other special powers, you need to reveal the whole piece.) None of the masked pieces can capture while they are masked. The Drunken Masked Prince has a knight’s move, or any number of squares forward. When it is revealed, it can also move as a (3,1) or a (3,2) knight. It captures by grapple, and, when it does so, it may take another move (which may not capture).

Masked Undiapered Baby: A red-banded piece. When its mask is off, it cannot move, capture, or be captured, but the 3×3 square centered on it is considered to be all water squares, like the river. At any point thereafter, its owner may promote it to a Pissing Drunkard: Any straight line between a pair of Pissing Drunkards is considered to be river.

Conservative Cani Curmudgeon / Radical Rassimel Rabblerouser: The CCC version of this piece can move any number of squares vertically, or to the right horizontally or diagonally. It cannot move to the left at all. If it gets into a position where it has no leftward moves (even if it has vertical moves) it can be transformed into the RRR version. [The names of these pieces have been mercilessly anglicized.] The piece has a little flag on its head pointing to its current direction.

Psychotic Bladed Warbler: This piece moves exactly three squares horizontally or vertically. It captures all pieces precisely two squares away from it — belonging to either player. When it captures, it automatically promotes (or demotes) to a Frenetic Cowardly Epistemologist. Its capture is counted as being of all forms — e.g., pieces which resist any form of capture, such as herethroy being immune to capture by arrow, resist the Psychotic Bladed Warbler.

Frenetic Cowardly Epistemologist: Moves precisely nine squares backwards, jumping over pieces in the way; it captures by arrow. If it cannot move, it can be promoted to an Apartment-Dwelling Humbug (a very minor piece).

Fragrant Woodcutter: A double herethroy. It must make two orthogonal herethroy moves (rook moves). On an empty riverless board , it could go to nearly any square, except for the squares that a herethroy (or rook) could reach. Its move must end with precisely two captures by spear. If it cannot capture two pieces, it cannot move at all. If it captures one herethroy (and one non-herethroy), it promotes to a pair of herethroy, which may be placed anywhere on the owner’s side of the board.

Insane Locador Wizard: My personal favorite. Behaves like a zi ri. Recall that the basic zi ri piece can teleport other pieces, viz. pick them up and make them take a knight’s move to an unoccupied square. An Insane Locador Wizard can, also, muster a piece from the square that the victim was teleported away from. If you can get your Insane Locador Wizard on the enemy side, you can build up quite an army there pretty fast.

The Judgment

I couldn’t even finish reading the rules once before my eyes glazed over and became ocular donuts. I can’t imagine playing the curst thing.

Comments

[dracosphynx.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, the longest chain of promotions is five: Troublesome Rassimel Girlfriend promotes to Foreign Herethroy Banker promotes to Hideous Neighbor promotes to Street-Performing Balloon Artist promotes to Drunken Masked Prince. (This sequence of events rarely, if ever, happens in real life.)

There must be some story that inspired this promotion sequence! Some unfathomable piece of World Tree history!

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Fragrant Woodcutter

The woodcutter cuts fragrant wood, or is himself fragrant?

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

"I couldn’t even finish reading the rules once before my eyes glazed over and became ocular donuts." That describes exactly what happened to me too! ... I regret, even for the normal Diamond Chess post..

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

The woodcutter is, personally, fragrant.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I am without fathoms!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

This honestly doesn't sound like the sort of game you're supposed to actually play. Is it even playtested?

[oh6.livejournal.com]

This kind of reminds me of a card game, "doppelkopf", that my sister and her boyfriend taught me and my other sister one night in their hotel while we were all in Toronto on vacation. Learning all the rules pretty much took care of the night. We were informed that some other members of the orchestra play much, much more complicated card games.

[oh6.livejournal.com]

Other members of the first sister's orchestra, rather.

[rowyn]

It is now? Oh, you meant before Wexiset and Feralan.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I would hardly say that it has been thoroughly tested, but the rules are written up in an unambiguous notation as far as I can tell. There are large-board versions of diamond chess (12×12 up to 19×19) which are played ... not often, but you can actually buy a set of the 12×12 in a decent board-game store, and I have seen a nice set of the 19×19 more than once, in the home of someone -- inevitably Rassimel -- who claimed to have played it.

The huge version seems like it's more done for the experience than for the mastery of the game. Though Wexiset, in particular, was utterly in her element. She is, as I may have mentioned, quite Rassimel.

[I haven't invented more than this, and don't plan to. I am cribbing from the real-life history of Shogi, where huge variants were played, but not very often. -bb]

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

You can't possibly imagine that Wexiset is the first Rassy obsessed with diamond chess variants. That would be crazy!

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

The problem with these huge variants is not just the crazy number and array of pieces, but the fact that you're expected to move one at a time. Even advancing half your army by one space would be incredibly tedious. What might be interesting would be if you could treat groups of units as squads that move together, with several moves per turn. More like "Warhammer". (Or the freeware version, "Toymallet .40c".)

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

No, no, the First Sister's Orchestra promotes from the Orren Backup Band!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Oh, but you don't advance your whole army at once. The game is a series of duels between small numbers of pieces, in the middle of the board -- frequently ended by surprise attacks from the awaiting armies.

[Like the huge versions of Shogi. -bb]

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Mostly I was wondering if Wexiset and Ferelan made up the 39x39 version themselves, but it sounds like somerassy else did it earlier.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Oh, they indeed did not! It's been around for centuries. Not close around, though.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Now all you need is a collectible version of the game, in which not all pieces are available to all players; instead, they receive a random selection of pieces, and they must then challenge other players in order to win a piece from them, offering one or several of their own as a wager! ^_^

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

Goodness, now I've got to start thinking of how this could possibly be fleshed out and balanced on a massive scale...

Sounds like fun for some rainy week. ^^

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Well, look at Tai Shogi, a massive variation of Japanese chess, for a fleshed-out playable insane RL version. -bb]

[burgeneryh.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6M_6qOz-yw