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The original chess is Shatranj, and it had multiple victory conditions,
including barring the king and stalemate as a win, provided only one side
had their king barred.  These rules were taken out when people thought the
changes made to what we have with regular chess, would mean you would
almost never draw.

You also didn't have castling, which left the king in the middle of the
board, vulnerable to being checkmated.  I can also, through my playing
with Near Chess, see that when you do what you do with the pawns by giving
them extra mobility (2 spaces to start instead of one), it results in pawn
structures that remain solid all the way through, which reduces the
chances of creating uneven pawn structures that help to cause the endgame
generating more pawn promotions.  Also this, in addition giving the other
pieces more mobility means that you have the firepower pieces getting out
in front of the pawns, burning off faster, with less firepower left in the
end game to bust up pawn structures more.  All this leads to more draws.

The end result was it was far less likely to have the draw conditions we
have today, which are pushing around 60% on the highest levels of play.  I
would like to hear someone explain why draw rate of 60% or higher is a good
thing, particularly people who are into variants and are willing to adopt
whatever rules are needed to make an enjoyable game.

I will suggest anyone here to download Near Chess and have the Zillions AI
try it and see what happens when you move chess back closer to Shatranj
than regular chess.  I believe you get a lot less draws.