H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Feb 18, 2012 09:13 PM UTC:
It seems you want to erode the meaning of 'Chess variant', to become synonymous for 'board game'. I don't see what is to be gained by stretching the meaning of a term to cover something for which there already exists a perfectly good word. It gives me a definite Smurfish feeling.
We could even expand the meaning further. Why require a board, when a meadow could do? Why require turns or players? Or a winning condition? A cow is also sort of a Chess variant, right? It also moves on a 2D plane...
I think it is very good to have language where you can make a distinction between Chess (variants), Checkers (variants), Go (variants) etc.