Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[GreatWyrmGold]

The starting position for each board of Six-Person Chess

♚♚♚ ♚♚♚

This is a variant of chess, played by six people in two teams on three boards.
Capturing pieces goes beyond weakening your enemies, and also strengthens your friends.
There are several new pieces added--the Dragon, the Fool, the Guard, the Scout, the Sorceror, the Summoner, the Teleporter, and the Wizard. These have special abilities which should complicate things. In a good way.

Thanks to Dr. Sheldon Cooper for inspiring me, and to Nerjin for sharing the not-secret of his spreadsheet display.

♚♚♚ ♚♚♚

Most of the rules are like normal chess. However, the multiple boards adds some fun complications, and of course the new pieces need rules.
Changes:
1. The colors are not white and black. The three primary colors are pitted against the three secondary colors, as suggested by the neat six-colored dividing lines of kings.
2. Turn order goes Green, Red, Purple, Yellow, Orange, Blue.
3. The board is expanded to 10 squares by ten squares by three boards. The starting position on each board is shown at the top, with the following symbolclature:

Spoiler: What the Symbols Mean: (click to show/hide)

B-Bishop
C-sCout
D-Dragon
F-Fool
G-Guard
K-King
N-kNight
O-sOrcerer
P-Pawn
Q-Queen
R-Rook
S-Summoner
T-Teleporter
W-Wizard

4. Captured pieces do not disappear; they instead go to a different board. Pieces from the GR board go to the PY board; pieves from the PY board go to the OB board; and pieces from the OB board go to the GR board. The exception is pieces captured by the Fool or the Sorcerer. Captured pieces are under the control of the capturer's ally and appear as close to the starting position for that piece as can be managed; e.g. a Yellow bishop would become a Blue bishop at BA4 or BA7.
5. Eight new pieces have been added:

Spoiler: New Pieces (click to show/hide)

Dragon--The Dragon may move up to five spaces in any straight-line direction. It can "jump" over pieces like the knight.
Fool--The Fool may move either one space diagonally or two orthogonally. Pieces captured by the Fool move in the opposite direction of normal.
Guard--The Guard moves one space in any direction, like the King. If an adjacent piece is captured, move the "captured" piece to the Guard's space and capture the Guard instead.
Scout--The Scout may move one or two spaces forward (three on its first move), or capture any piece in the square in front of it or diagonally forward (like a pawn, but more versatile). It can capture en passant and be promoted like a Pawn can.
Sorceror--The Sorcerer may move up to three spaces diagonally. Pieces captured by the Sorcerer are removed from play rather than transferred; however, the Sorceror may capture one adjacent piece after its move if it has not captured yet.
Summoner--The Summoner may move up to three spaces diagonally. Instead of moving, it can create a pawn in an adjacent square.
Teleporter--The Teleporter may move up to three squares diagonally. Instead of moving, it can move itself or an adjacent piece (other than a king) to an unoccupied square on any board which is either the same square the Teleporter is on on a different board or a space adjacent to that (e.g, a Green Teleporter on I1 could teleport a piece to any board's I1, or any square adjacent to an I1, assuming those squares were unoccupied).
Wizard--The Wizard may move up to three squares diagonally. Instead of moving, it can transform any piece within 3 squares into a Pawn of the same color the transformed piece was.

6. Scouts and Pawns may not be promoted to Kings, Pawns, Scouts, Sorcerers, Summoners, Teleporters, or Wizards.
7. The game is not won on a given board until the king is captured. Play goes on in that board after it has been won.
8. A team wins the game if it wins two of the three boards.

♚♚♚ ♚♚♚

Signing up:
Six people may join. Select the color you'd most like to be.

Turns:
Post the piece you're moving and the space it's moving to. If needed, you must specify which of a given piece you mean. For example, from the starting position, Green could post "Dragon to GD2," or "GA2 Dragon to GD2."

Spoiler: Players for Playtest I: (click to show/hide)

Primary Team:
Loud Whispers (red)
Dariush (yellow)
Remuthra (blue)

Secondary Team:
javierpwn (green)
scapheap (purple)
Doomblade (orange)

For my convenience and eventually yours: The Board

[javierpwn]

Seems good 'nuff

I'll be Green

[miauw62]

PTW because I'm terrible at chess.

[scapheap]

purple please.

Didn't notice the purple first time.

[Nerjin]

I'll go as Red.

[Dariush]

Yellow, I guess.

Edit: I nearly broke my mind trying to understand why the two sides have a different number of pieces and then realized that the image is cut-off.

Also, do pieces ordinarily captured remain under the control of the one who captured them?

Also also, it's spelled 'sorcerer'.

Also x3, can we please have a more... sane tile numbering, specifically in the format 'board number-column-row' (swapped order to conform to standard chess marking) instead of 'colour (so we don't have to remember which colour correponds to which board) -row counting from the first row of this colour-column'? I.e. instead of 'GA2' it would be '1A9'.

Also x4, does the Wizard transform pieces into the same colour as the wizard or the same colour as it was initially?

[Doomblade187]

Orange, please.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Edit: I nearly broke my mind trying to understand why the two sides have a different number of pieces and then realized that the image is cut-off.

What are you...Oh, for the love of--it took me like 15 minutes of cropping to get that, and now it's ruined!

Also, do pieces ordinarily captured remain under the control of the one who captured them?

No, they're under the control of the ally of that player. I'll go add that. That was already there. Huh.

Also also, it's spelled 'sorcerer'.

Often, I spelled it like that. Where's the tyop?

Also x3, can we please have a more... sane tile numbering, specifically in the format 'board number-column-row' (swapped order to conform to standard chess marking) instead of 'colour (so we don't have to remember which colour correponds to which board) -row counting from the first row of this colour-column'? I.e. instead of 'GA2' it would be '1A9'.

I based that on a chess board numbering I saw once, but yeah I guess that makes more sense.

Also x4, does the Wizard transform pieces into the same colour as the wizard or the same colour as it was initially?

Initially. That is vague, isn't it?

[Remuthra]

Blue

[GreatWyrmGold]

javier, scapheap, Nerjin, Dariush, Doomblade, Remuthra...we have six.

-----

Primary Team:
Nerjin (red)
Dariush (yellow)
Remuthra (blue)

Secondary Team:
javierpwn (green)
scapheap (purple)
Doomblade (orange)

Once I get an image with the three boards, it'll be time to start and javier's turn.

[miauw62]

Often, I spelled it like that. Where's the tyop?

It's right there, GWG

[Dariush]

Edit: I nearly broke my mind trying to understand why the two sides have a different number of pieces and then realized that the image is cut-off.

What are you...Oh, for the love of--it took me like 15 minutes of cropping to get that, and now it's ruined!

Google and install Lightshot. This will save you a LOT of trouble, I promise.

Also, do pieces ordinarily captured remain under the control of the one who captured them?

No, they're under the control of the ally of that player. I'll go add that. That was already there. Huh.

Er, the Fool and the Sorcerer were listed in such a way that I thought they were exceptions to the general rule. In this case, does this mean that only two people can have pieces on the same board?

Also also, it's spelled 'sorcerer'.

Often, I spelled it like that. Where's the tyop?

There are several new pieces added--the Dragon, the Fool, the Guard, the Scout, the Sorceror, the Summoner, the Teleporter, and the Wizard. These have special abilities which should complicate things. In a good way.

Ctrl+F is a useful combination to know.

Also x4, does the Wizard transform pieces into the same colour as the wizard or the same colour as it was initially?

Initially. That is vague, isn't it?

I... don't understand whether this is sarcasm or not. The aliens are probably at fault.

And while I'm here,
1. Can Dragon jump over multiple pieces at once?
2. Does Fool's ability have any effect on anybody except pawns and scouts?
3. Can Sorcerer capture the piece if it moved the full three spaces? (I'll term this capture-after-movement special-capture for brevity)
4. Can Sorcerer special-capture pieces in all eight directions?
5. Does Sorcerer move to the captured piece's tile after special-capturing?
6. Can Summoner summon pawns in all eight directions?
7. Same question regarding the Wizard's action: can he affect any space that's reachable by three or less king-moves, any space reachable by a single Wizard's move, any space reachable by a single Queen's move, any space that's reachable by exactly three king-moves, any space exactly three spaces distant diagonally or any space exactly three spaces distant in one of the eight directions?
8. Is there any limit on the transforming into pawns (time limit, numbers limit or something else)?
9. Do the summoned pawns last forever (until capturing, that is)?
10. Is there any limit on the number of summoned pawns simultaneously in play?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Often, I spelled it like that. Where's the tyop?

It's right there, GWG

That was the joke. 

Edit: I nearly broke my mind trying to understand why the two sides have a different number of pieces and then realized that the image is cut-off.

What are you...Oh, for the love of--it took me like 15 minutes of cropping to get that, and now it's ruined!

Google and install Lightshot. This will save you a LOT of trouble, I promise.

I'll look it up.

Also, do pieces ordinarily captured remain under the control of the one who captured them?

No, they're under the control of the ally of that player. I'll go add that. That was already there. Huh.

Er, the Fool and the Sorcerer were listed in such a way that I thought they were exceptions to the general rule. In this case, does this mean that only two people can have pieces on the same board?

Yup. It's simpler that way.
(The Fool and Sorcerer have their exceptions noted in their rules.)

Also also, it's spelled 'sorcerer'.

Often, I spelled it like that. Where's the tyop?

There are several new pieces added--the Dragon, the Fool, the Guard, the Scout, the Sorceror, the Summoner, the Teleporter, and the Wizard. These have special abilities which should complicate things. In a good way.

Thankyou.

Also x4, does the Wizard transform pieces into the same colour as the wizard or the same colour as it was initially?

Initially. That is vague, isn't it?

I... don't understand whether this is sarcasm or not. The aliens are probably at fault.

Not intentionally, no.

-----

Anyways. Nerjin's display idea sounds neat, but it's a pain. I'm considering a table or something.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

0

Screw it. This was started before Dariush's reply, and I'll give that Lightshot thing a try.

[lemon10]

I might as well try to get on the waitlist, since I figure that someone will probably drop out of this sooner or later due to its apparent complexity.

[Remuthra]

I might as well try to get on the waitlist, since I figure that someone will probably drop out of this sooner or later due to its apparent complexity.

It's chess³, you'd think people would assume it's complicated.