Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

To indicate 'stinky' in notation, how about '*'?  And to indicate being run
over by the Train, how about '_'?

I live a few score miles from PA SGL 312, and I have never seen any critter
(aside from a Hunter) carrying lunch in a brown paper bag.  Sometimes the
brown paper bag contains appropriate liquid refreshment, like Wild
Turkey.

I try to imagine strategies and tactics, and my mind fogs up.  Maybe Wild
Turkey would help.

Moussambani comments on the number of rules; in response I have submitted
to the editors an expansion of the design notes which explains first that
there are not really so many rules because the way it's written makes there
seem to be more than there are; and second, why there are so many rules.

John Lawson claims never to have seen any critter (except a Hunter)
carrying lunch. In response, I state that I am old-fashioned, and in my day
critters did not order pizza deliveries with their cell phones.

Moussambani lavishes compliments upon me. I respond that I am still in the
first flush of post-creation happiness for this game, and can pat my own
back for the moment; but I will treasure the compliments later. Patting my
own back, I am fairly sure that I have created a playable and interesting
game with no playtesting, merely by applying much effort, knowledge, and
experience -- and this is not easy to do -- and I am also convinced that I
have designed the rules in a way that truly and properly reflects the theme
of the game. I may have cause to regret this boasting, but if that happens
it will be educational for all of us, me included.

John Lawson mentions Wild Turkey. When I returned from my trip to PASGL312,
my first action was to enter a liquor store; I vaguely remembered that
there was such a brand of something. It turned out to be a midrange, or
perhaps a slightly cheap, Kentucky bourbon, produced since 1855. Not bad at
all, and the picture on the lable looks enough like a real wild turkey to
be recognizable; but I think that somewhere there is an Audobon painting
that has it down to the last feather, because the first time I saw a wild
turkey it already looked familiar -- and the picture on the bourbon lable
isn't good enough to do that.

Both correspondents give notation suggestions. I hope that the editor will
incorporate them.

Everybody should know that the excellent UAD of the starting position was
contributed by the editor. Let us all praise the editor.

In the expanded design notes, in the Train section, it should be noted that
the initial position of the Train was deliberately chosen to cancel White's
first-move advantage.

Everyone should know that showing the route of the Train in the UAD was the
editor's idea.

'If a Deer is at a3 and wants to jump
   to b5, when is it blocked by the train? Is it when the train is in a4,
   or in b4, or in either a4 or b4, or in both a4 and b4?'

Hey! People are already saying too many rules! Hush!

Unless otherwise specified, if a Knight cannnot jump it is considered to
move first Rookwise then diagonally, so that a blockable Knight move from
a3 to b5 is blocked when a4 is occupied;
as per the 'Rule Zero' page -- which I haven't submitted to the editors
because I've been so 'busy' thinking about PASGL312 Chess! (And so I can't
blame you for asking, right?)

In this game, the Train is capitalized, in honor of Jay Gould, who is the
evil capitalist robber baron whose name is in Gouldsboro.

If you are not familiar with the history of Jay Gould and Jim Fisk and the
Erie Lackawanna RR, buy or borrow a book. It's a wonderful story.

Yes, Gouldsboro is named after *that* Jay Gould, and yes, the Train in
PASGL312 Chess is in real life the Erie Lackawanna RR! (I paused for a few
minutes and decided that it really needs a few more exclamation points.)
!!!!

Let me see if I understand 'Lunch' correctly:

If a critter loses its lunch, that lunch disappears from the game; it is
not lying around to be picked up by some other critter.

If a critter drops its lunch, that lunch disappears from the game; it is
not lying around to be picked up by some other critter.

If a critter steals another critter's lunch, the stealing critter must, of
course, already have a lunch.  The result is that the stealee has no lunch
and the stealer has lunch, not two lunches.

Since lunches are not 'conserved' as objects, then they may be considered
more as states, say 'lunchvoll' and 'lunchlos'.

Did I get it?

I've merged the additional material at the end, and added the notation
additions.

I've been looking at the point scheme.

The total number of points a player can have for critters next to the
campfire is 24 plus 1 for each Shrew that can be promoted to Chipmunk, or
32.

If you assume that promoting Shrews is difficult: 

Then the likelihood of exceeding your opponent's point count by 30 is close
to zero.

And the likelihood of losing the game even though the opponent's Bear is
eliminated for 20 points is close to zero.

Furthermore, to achieve the maximum score (32) for Campfire propinquity,
there would have to be 16 critters adjacent to the Campfire.  Since the
train passes through each Campfire square 2 of every 20 turns,
orchestrating the 'campout' without some critter getting sqooshed would be
near impossible.

Another interesting effect is that if each side loses its Hunter
(foolishly, since the only way I can see for that to happen is for them
both to be squished by the Train), the game can never end, except draw by
agreement.  Perhaps in this case we need something like a 50-move rule, but
instead of a draw, the winner is declared on points.

I can see the possibility of an urban variant of PASGL 312 called NYCTA
IRT, where commuters jostle to be near the door to get on or off a subway
train without being pushed onto the tracks or having their pockets
picked.

BTW, I noticed no one has actually rated this.  I give it excellent for
concept.  Play is still moot.

If I'm interpreting the rules correctly, critters earn points EVERY TURN
that they start next to the campfire. If a bear stays next to the campfire
6 turns in a row, that's 30 points.

As for the possibility of an endless game, it looks like the only way it
can happen is if both hunters are lost, as you said. How about we say that
a player that loses a hunter loses the game? That would close the loophole
without affecting gameplay much (the chances of losing a hunter are
extremely slim).

I think Joseph is right.  It looks like I missed exactly how points were
accumulated.  I was thinking they would be assessed once, at the end of the
game, but assessing them at the end of each ply makes more sense.

Then missing Hunters might not be a disaster, because if you outplayed your
opponent, your score would eventually exceed his by 30 points anyway.  It
would probably be undesirable to have two royal pieces.

This is another one of those games, like Nemoroth and Captain Spalding
Chess, where you need to spend days studying the rules to have a chance.  I
love this stuff.

I've been meaning to ask how 'PASGL 312' is spoken.

Most straight-forward would be 'pee-ay-ess-gee-ell-three-twelve'.

I've personally been referring to it as
'Pennsylvania-State-Game-Lands-three-hundred-twelve Chess', but this might
be considered hyper-correct.

Other alternatives are also possible; which is most appropriate?

So many comments to answer!

I think of the abbreviation as pronounced p, a, s, g, l. The roadside signs
sometimes say 'sgl 312', and the 'pa' is implicit because you're obviously
in Pennsylvania.

Yes, scoring is cumulative per turn. I must confess that I didn't consider
how many points one could score per turn.

If the opponent does not shoot you or steal your lunch, I guess you can
score enough in one turn to win; with the Train coming by, you have 10
moves to load up a square and ten moves to empty it; but some of the
emptying moves could go from one Train square to another.

Remember that pieces can become useless without being removed from the
board. If you skunk a bunch of enemy pieces and occupy their home squares
with Chipmunks it's a big advantage.

Because of multiple occupancy, it's easy to promote a Shrew. However, it
takes quite a few turns.

If a piece is on its home square and you steal its lunch, what happens? (a)
nothing much; it gets a new lunch just by being there; (b) it has to leave
home and re-enter the square. This is unspecified, a hole in the rules.
I'll specify after some more playtesting.

It's serendipitous that you can try to scroe some points fast with 1.
Df1-d4, but then Wg8->d4 bonk! and the Deer is lunchlos! 1. Df1xc7 merely
helps the enemy development. Ths Skunk has such great mobility, what about
1. Sb1-b2 intending Sb2-b7 trying to get in the way and slow down enemies?
Maybe the Fox is the key to the game? No? Hmmm, this is baffling to try to
play.

'...I guess you can score enough in one turn to win; with the Train coming
by, you have 10 moves to load up a square and ten moves to empty it; but
some of the emptying moves could go from one Train square to another.'

If you are accumulating points fast enough, it may not be necessary to make
any attempt to unload the Campfire square if you reach the 30 point
advantage before the Train actually squishes your critters.

'Because of multiple occupancy, it's easy to promote a Shrew. However, it
takes quite a few turns.'

And all that time, your opponent is gathering his critters around the
Campfire.  (Do critters gathered around the Campfire sing songs and make
s'mores?)

'...this is baffling to try to play.'

This is an alarming admission.  I confess that, even after actually playing
Nemoroth and Captain Spalding Chess, I am having trouble getting my mind
around PASGL 312, and now the inventor is baffled, too.  Maybe I'm not as
dense as I feared.

'...but some of the emptying moves could go from one Train square to
another.'

Also, if you unload a Campfire square to a Campfire square on the other
track, the train will be back to that square in 10 moves or so.

I understand that the Hunter cannot shoot through the Train, and the Deer
cannot leap over the Train, but it is unspecified if the Woodchuck chucks
wood in a high enough arc to clear the Train.

'if the Woodchuck chucks wood in a high enough arc to clear the Train'

Yes, I think it does. I said it could chuck past obstacles. The Woodchuck's
shooting aims at awkward places, but I am finding it to be a very
interesting piece in my attempts at playtesting.

No wonder I had to post before testing! It would have taken me months and
months to playtest because the strategies and tactics are even stranger
than Nemoroth's!

I think that pasgl312 will be very hard to play. At least, my own attempts
to play a game against myself have all ended after just a few moves with
confused positions where i really didn't understand what was going on or
what strategy would be appropriate.

In designing this game, I first thought about what critters and features of
the real pasgl312 I wanted to have in the game, and then I determined the
major characteristics of each piece according to the nature of the
real-life critter as best I could; and then for several days I thought
about individual interactions one-on-one between the pieces. The result is,
as far as I can tell, that no piece is overly dominant.

This means that there is a skunk strategy and a woodchuck strategy and a
deer strategy and even a chipmunk strategy (because of multiple occupancy,
you can advance the shrew from c2 to g6 to h7 to g8, and get a chipmunk;
it's very hard to stop! But it takes a few moves, so what is the enemy
doing while you do this?)

Yes, the Fox strategy is designed into the game. If you can eat all the
medium/small critters (oops, actually there aren't any small, are there?)
then the large critters lack support. A combined Woodchuck+Fox attack is a
nice idea. By design, the Woodchuck aims at awkward squares, and by design
you may have trouble implementing this strategy.

Because I designed primarily for the theme, there are lots and lots of
rules. Because I thought so hard about the one-on-one interactions, every
strategy i think of has a counterstrategy. 

I do not think that I will ever be very good at this game; on the other
hand, when i used to play my own games competitively, the games i played
poorly were usually more popular than the ones I could win -- people got a
kick out of beating the game's inventor, I guess.

I think i could play Nemoroth pretty well. 

I hope to see somebody play pasgl312 well. I will admire and applaud.

I did not think that repetition would be an issue in pasgl312 chess.

If a position is the same except for the Train, it is a different position.
Therefore, in order to have a real rapetition. you have to wait for the
Train to come to the same place and have all the same pieces in the same
place, and have them all just as lunchvoll or lunchlos as they were before.


If the relative score is the same you can claim end of game and the higher
score wins. Is that a good enough rule?

This will not often happen, I think.

Yes, that's a good enough rule.  My feeling was that it didn't matter. 
Even in a dual stalemate position, with just the Train chugging around, if
there are pieces near the Campfire, the score will be incrementing, at
least until the critters are squished by the Train.

Wouldn't achieving a stalemate position be difficult?  With multiple
occupancy, it is near impossible to blockade lunchvoll critters, and if one
player's critters were all lunchlos, he would be in a very bad position
anyway, and possibly lost.