I spent some (to much!) time last night fooling around with Ruddigore Chess. I started by hacking and slashing up Fergus's Duniho's Chessgi ZRF, and seeing what happened. (Zillions is hardly the only tool suitable for this sort of thing, of course, but it is the one that usually comes to hand for me. Occasionally I worry about the effect this has on my game designing, since if the only tool you have is a hammer, everthing starts to look like a nail. However, the essay <u>Zillions of Games: threat or menace</u>, will have to wait for another day.) <p> As a frame, the battle represents a Loser-take-all battle between Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd (white) and Sir Despard Murgatroyd (black) as to who will be stuck being the cursed Bad Baronet of Ruddigore. <p> The initial rules were: <ol> <p> <li><b>Ruddigore</b> Chess is a <a href='../other.dir/chesgi.html'>Chessgi</a> variant, and all rules of that game apply except when contradicted below.</li> <p> <li>Each turn that a player does not perform a wicked deed by capturing a piece (their's or their opponent's), they must sacrifice a piece to the curse. Pieces in hand may be sacrificed. Sacrificed pieces are out of the game.</li> <p> <li>You may capture your own pieces ('If a man can't capture his own, pieces, <strong>whose</strong> pieces <em>can</em> he capture?'). Pieces of your own you capture go into your hand.</li> <p> <li>The first three turns are a Bank Holiday, and there are no captures or sacrifices then.</li> <p> <li>If you run out of other pieces to sacrifice, and you must sacrifice, you must sacrifice your King and lose.</li> </ol> <p> The problem with this game, as a few minutes of thought would have told me, is that it is far, far easier to capture your own pieces than the opponent's. What you get is mostly self captures with occasional threats in order to force a piece loss on the opponent, with the goal of having them run out of pieces to sacrifice first. Not very Chess-like. <p> The made the follow changes then, attempting to get more pieces engaged: <ul> <p> <li>Only the King, renamed the Baronet and given the ability to capture (but not move without capturing) like a Knight in addition to moving like a King [WFcN], can capture friendly pieces (if you want something done right . . .).</li> <p> <li>The Knights are replaced by Gentlemen, which are limited Nightriders (NN2).</li> <p> <li>Pawns are now Quickpawns which can always move two forward, and I've eliminated en passant to encourage them.</li> </ul> <p> This made a small difference, but not enough. So I eliminated the Bank Holiday, and made sacrifices required only on even turns (Sir Despard did all of his wicked deeds in the morning, and did good in the afternoon). This helped a lot, now you can capture your own piece on an even turn, and deploy it on an odd one. Now, though, I'm wondering if the Gentlemen are too powerful, since when dropped they can fork like anything. Maybe Halfling Nightriders? <p> I also find I'm tempted to rename everything: Pawns into Farmers, Bishops into Vicars, Rooks into Squires, and Queens to Stewards. But on the other hand, if the move hasn't changed, it is confusing to change the name of the piece. <p> Anyway, this is still very much an on-going project, and I'd appreciate any advice anyone has.