Comments by MichaelNelson

An excellent concept game and I think it will be quite playable. Joe's
whole series of Shatranj variants are fascinating. The varying power
levels of short and medium range pieces with few or no long range pieces
make for something quite different. 

This particular variant with its direction changing moves reminds me of
Jetan.

A fine start to what I hope will be a lengthy and very informative series.
The various games already generated by this project are first rate and I
expect many more as the work continues. 

I might point out that the shorter range of pieces opens some
possibilities that may be more practical than in games with long range
pieces. Relay Chess leaps to mind, as well as various forms of
Progressive.

While I love the Shatranj Pawns in the variants, I think that a shortrange
piece game with stronger Pawns might be most interesting as well.

David is surely correct. Black's Queen is not in check so how can moving
it along the shared line of movement with the Lion put it in check? For
the Lion to capture the Queen, there must be a third piece between them to
act as a screen: Qh1, Qi1, or Qj1 being interpreted as check means that
Black's Queen is being used as its own screen.

I'm working on a couple of additional piece sets for PM. One is part of the Short Range Project and the other eliminates Nightriders and provides additional enhancements. In both cases I expect a more strategic, less explosive game.

I am in no way dissatisfied with the classic piece set, I just think providing some alternatives will be interesting for players who like the game concept but would prefer a different feel.

When I have them worked up I will amend the game page and submit a new ZRF.

I really like this concept--it's not precisely like anything I've seen, fundamentally simple, yet makes for a very unorthodox game.

So far as I know, Graeme isn't channeling me--perhaps I should channel him and get my creative juices flowing again.

I am ready to come back to the chess variant pages after a long absence
(over 2 years). I had a stroke in April 2009 and it's been a long road
back.
I was in a nursing home for a year and a half and was still very weak when
I came home. While I'm still confined to a wheelchair, I'm fully OK
mentally and am physically very capable--fully up to hanging out on line,
commenting on posts, inventing games.... So expect to see me now and again.
A special hello to Joe Joyce and thanks for everyone who make CVP possible.

Add my favorable vote to the others. I find the articles interesting and
enjoyable--and I say this as someone who has has disagreements in the past
with Mr. Duke.  If anyone doesn't like them they are easy to skip--no need
for the CVP to spoil it by removing interesting articles.

What are the general characteristics of a pawn-like piece? I'd nominate
these characteristics:

1. Most numerous piece type in the game.
2. Weakest piece type in the game.
3. Short range.
4. Non-retreating.
5. Promotes to something decisive (can force mate).

For illustration, consider how several variants stack up:

FIDE Chess: pawn satisfies each criterion perfectly.

Shatranj: Perfect for 1-4, deficient in criterion 5, as K + Ferz that a
pawn promotes to can't force mate (less of a problem with the Shatranj
ruleset as stalemate and bare King are wins).

my own Pocket Mutation Chess: 1-3 is perfect, 4 is not so much so, as a
pawn can retreat via a pocket move, 5 partially not a fit, while the pawn
has a promotion path to a decisive piece, it can only only promote directly
to a Knight or Bishop, which can't force mate.

Betza's For The Birds Chess: 1, 2, 4 and 5 OK but the pawn-like piece has
a long range move.

my own Wizards' War: nothing remotely resembling a pawn in this game (by
design--one of my design objectives was a playable, pawn-less, strong piece
game).

I submit that all the games are playable Chess Variants (broadly defined)
but the better a variant conforms to these criteria, the more
'Chess-like' it is.

Try analyzing some other variants with these criteria and let me know what
you think of this hypothesis, offering alternative/additional criteria if
you wish.

Perhaps a rule change for the Go-Away scream is in order. I would suggest something like this:

1. All pushes are executed.
2. Any Human to Zombie promotions are executed.
3. Any effects resulting in piece destruction are executed (engulfment, zombies on ichor or multiple occupancy squares, etc.).
4. Any petrifications are executed. 

All partial moves under a single number would be deemed simultaneous.

Under this proposed rule, the owner of the Go-Away is unable to specify the order of effects. This will reduce the tactical complexity of these moves and hopefully render the programming problem tractable.

Whether it would overly damage the peculiar and interesting flavor of Nemoroth is a question I'm not qualified to answer.

Note that Xiangqi had no divergent pieces until the cannon was added, in the original version all pieces moved passively and captured in the same way. On the other hand, the Pawn in the various forms of early Indo-Persian Chess has been divergent since the earliest known times. If divergence is an evolutionary change, that suggests that Indo-Persian Chess is older that we currently think it is. On the other hand, it could be an import from some non-Chess Indo-Persian game, perhaps acquired from a Greek game at the time of Alexander the Great. This last factor does not apply at all to China.
Note that divergent Pawns are conspicuously absent from Xiangqi, Janggi, and Shogi, but do occur in various SE Asian variants, which have influences fom both China and India.

So I would propose the points:

1. Maybe both the Indo-Persian origin theory and the Chinese origin theory are wrong and two different but somewhat similar games were developed independently, perhaps with some mutual influence on one another.

2. My idea could easily be wrong (probably is).

3. So could anybody's idea be wrong, whether they think Chess originated in China, India, Atlantis, or Mars.

4. Documentary evidence is not definitive, nor is it likely to become so.

5. It ultimately doesn't matter, however interesting the question is.

6. It sure as hell isn't worth
   a. practicing racism, or
   b. accusing others of racism.

George,is the mate# also one for pieces such as the Amazon which can force
mate without the assistance of the friendly King? Is there a need to
distinguish these pieces from mate number 1 pieces such as the Rook which
can easily force mate with the help of the friendly King but not without
it?

IMHO, Muller's 7 criteria look quite useful for estimating how chess-like a game is--a continuum, rather than a binary is/isn't categorization. They would provide a conceptual framework for observations such as (to intentionally cite an extreme example) Capablanca's Chess is more chess-like than the Game of Nemeroth. Where the line is between chess variant and non-chess games cannot and indeed need not be determined exactly. The question is, is a given game chess-like enough for it to be useful to consider the game a chess variant--can a useful number of Chess concepts be helpful in playing and analyzing the game?

But drawing lines can be fun and useful if it isn't absolutized. Approached in a spirit of 'reasonable people can disagree', everyone should be free to chime in.

As a starting point for looking at some edge cases, I offer my own game Wizards' War for consideration: 
1. It has royal pieces, though capturing them is not the only method of victory.
2. It is entirely pawnless (in the Muller sense--many games are pawnless in the sense of 'this game has no piece that moves like an FIDE pawn').
So is it a chess variant or not and why? Bonus points for citing games that are clearly but not hugely more/less chess-like.

Mr. Zanotelli raises an interesting point. His is indeed a possible way to apply the FIDE Pawn rules to the changed circumstances of this game. But Peter Aronson's way is equally valid. In the case of FIDE Chess, they are equivalent statements of the same rule, as a Pawn cannot make its first move from any place other than the second rank, and a Pawn on the second rank cannot have moved previously--neither of which conditions apply to the Pawn moves of other pieces in this game.

Congratulations on a fine first effort, Matteo! The triple move idea is
untried, so far as I know, and will need play testing to see if it makes
the game too explosive. If that is the case, this game should still keep
most of its flavor as a double move variant. (Hope triple move works out, I
really like that.) In any case, a balance rule to reduce the first move
advantage is in order. For a double move game, the rule is well
known--White may make only one move on the first turn. I propose a triple
move analog to that rule: 

On the first turn, White makes one move.
On the first turn, Black makes one or two moves.
On the second turn, White makes one or two moves.
On subsequent turns, the player on move makes one, two, or three moves.

Assuming that the laws of check follow FIDE rules (which is a reasonable assumption for a variant player by orthodox chess masters) Checking both Kings simultaneously is quite possible by discovery or fork, it is not automatically mate in the case of the fork, as the checking piece is potentially capturable, but cannot be answered by interposition or King move. Discovered check whereby each King ends up checked by a different piece is checkmate: there is no possible way to answer both checks. A line piece can also check by pinning one King to the other, for example Kings on a1 and c1, b1 and d1 vacant, enemy Rook moves to e1. This can be answered by capturing the Rook or interposing on d1 (not b1).

Excellent thematic variant! I've not seen the idea of imposing colorboundness on all pieces but removing it by the odd number of files on a cylindrical board, thought I recognize component ideas.

A small quibble about promotion:

Promotion to a Knight is needed in FIDE Chess, as its moves are not a subset of the Queen's move. In some positions, the Knight can checkmate when the Queen can't even check. This factor does not apply to this game; but there is one case where underpromotion to Rook or Bishop in needed (rather than merely allowed) in FIDE--when promoting to Queen would result in immediate stalemate, but the lesser promotion could force checkmate on a subsequent move. With three combination pieces to choose from, it is much less likely in this variant,  but analysis is needed to determine if it is possible: if so, underpromotion must be allowed (if and only if stalemate is a draw).

I think Joe Joyce's post on "male predominance at chess" make more sense
than the study itself. The explanation of gender differences in Chess may
be simpler yet.  **On average**, men are more likely than women to purse
activities that have no social utility apart from the pleasure of doing
that activity. Chess is in that category (as indeed are checkers, card
games, etc.) No insult intended--I am interested in Chess variants for my
own pleasure and no other reason and feel no need to apologize to anyone
for that fact, and neither judge nor wish to judge anyone else for doing
the same.

I have considered that Chess can teach critical thinking, strategic
planning, etc. Yes it can, but so can a myriad of non-game things useful in
themselves apart from teaching.

"Male predominance at chess" is a current fact of reality. I suspect
there are males who believe this has 1) always been true, 2) always will be
true, and 3) SHOULD be true. A significant number of such males will then
reason by analogy about "male predominance in science", etc.

I won't touch of the idea of a female human being who argues for "male
predominance ...", the very idea terrifies me.

RPG themed chess has been around at least since Betza's Way of the Knight from 1995. (http://www.chessvariants.org/crossover.dir/wotn.html). Like your idea for earning upgrades, which need to be more liberal than those in Betza's game, since his upgrade ranks increase power more with each upgrade. I can't rate this game "excellent" without playtesting it, but a solid "good"
for your idea.