"If your typical wargame rules writer invented chess " Topic

Which version would we be on now?
Would there be holdouts in Sidney and Milwaukee who still played 6.0 instead of 7.5?
Would pawns have to trace a supply line?
If you paid extra points, could a knight make two attacks in a turn?

Well,

If you have a rook, you would also be required to field one Bishop, and if the rook is taken the bishop looses a lot of its abilities.

Periodically, some of the chess pieces would be outlawed in tournament play, and you would have to buy a resculpt in order to field that piece.

Kings would cost 13 times as much as any other figure, and Queens 9 times as much.

Both Kings and Queens would have a command range.

There would be animosity between knights and bishops, so they could not occupy adjacent squares.

There would be alternate rules for cinematic movement.

Some units would be "tough". If they are taken, then they get a die roll and on a 5-6 D6 they are not taken and the opposing piece must retreat one square in the direction from with it came.

Pawns would have to stay within one hex of each other unless "in command".

If a pawn reached the far border, instead of converting into the piece of the owner's choice, it "upgrades" to a super pawn which can move in any direction, cannot be taken by another pawn, and can "take" opposing pawns from two squares away.

"En passant" would become "en stealth" where the pawn in question is invisible on the opposing player's next move.

Queens would be required to wear chainmail bikinis and all pawns and knights and queens must have grossly oversized weapons.

Periodically the rules would require all figures to be rebased…. if currently on round bases, then square, and vise versa.

And lastly… all pieces must be painted.

Oh… and the rules would be almost unreadable – chocked with grammar, tense, voice and punctuation errors, and the errata would be even worse. The table of contents would be mis-numbered, and the index would refer to pages that are not in the rules.

The End is Nigh

link

I seem to remmber a point system from my Chess Club days (nerd street Cred) pawns 1 point and so on.

If GW made chess. Then you'd need to buy new pieces every 3 years!

Extra Skullz = 1 point per piece

I know. Vice versa.

There'd be bitter fighting between "Its just a game" guys who roll randomly to see how many pieces you get, and "Simulation" guys who insist on only using medieval rules.

We would also need army lists.

You get this: link

It's actually kind of a wargames version of Fischer random chess where you can pick your pieces and knights have random platforms..

Virtual, that first post is very well done.

During the Middle Ages weren't there popular variants that used dice to resolve whether a piece took another or not? I think I heard this once. It would drive purists apoplectic, of course, but might actually be rather fun to have a pawn drive off or even destroy an attacking queen through some hot dice rolling! If you owned the pawn, that is…

Don't even get me started on the morale rules!
Players "resign" even though they still have units on the table.

Mike

Then there would be the online Forum – because every game needs to be "supported" nowadays:

Q: The rules state that a Knight can hop over an enemy piece to land on a different square. But it doesn't state whether that square has to be the same color as the square it hopped from. Can you clarify? And does it matter how tall the enemy piece is? Can I hop over a pawn the same way I'd hop over a Queen?

It also doesn't specifically say how many enemy pieces I can hop over. Can I hop over just one, or two? If it's only one, then if I hop over one, to take another, does that second piece count as being "hopped over? Or is that a different type of movement? I can't find it in the Index anywhere.

According to Ignatz P. Badazz, horses could rarely jump more than pawn-high. Are the pieces meant to be a literal scale? Because if so, I don't think a Knight should be able to jump over a Bishop. Did you playtest this? My group and I have a lot of experience and would be happy to volunteer to help you improve the next edition.

I don't think I can top Garth's contribution there.

But I would imagine the foreword blurb by the designer.

"What we have here, the labour of years of research and playtesting, is what we think are the most comprehensive realistic and yet playable warfare rules on the market. Gone are the old, flawed design concepts of only moving diagonally and everyone getting to be a King if you make it to the end of the board. In Chess, we wanted to highlight the important nature of combined arms warfare whilst retaining the classic elements of Draughts. We hope you like these, a set of principles of board warfare to be enjoyed by gentlemen gamers of discernment."

Not enough skullz, typical IGO, UGO. Rooks? What the heck is a rook. Is it a typo and supposed to be crook?

the New Chess Championship

YouTube link

What's the figure scale? Are they metal?

Is it figure or base removal? What's the basing scheme? Can I use multiple 6 mm figures on a single base?

Garth in the Park wins the internet today with that post.

What time scale is represented in the battle? Is there a ground scale? If there isn't a ground scale, I won't play. If your pieces don't have the correct weapons on them, then they are useless. How long does each player's turn represent in the battle? If your piece runs out of ammo in the middle of the game because you roll a double 6, then that piece can't move or shoot. Just a few rules clarifications before I play this "Chess version 7.1".

"No opportunity fire rules, no fog of war…I'm not playing!"

"I must admit, I've never played the game but every game I've seen just has wall to wall pawns."

"Is "Grandmaster" magazine still just an advertising mag for Chess? I remember the old version which included draughts, scrabble and backgammon not just chess.

I do not think the original problem is with the rules designer. It is with the gamers or rather the rules lawyers. This group of players will examine the rules to a intense point which makes all of the revisions required.

However there is that group of designers which are pushed to publish by a specific deadline which may be too soon. The result is a sloppy product needing immediate revisions.