My Thoughts on Rules
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2010 9:38 am
Back in 2007 I was watching one of the "new" Star Trek TOS remastered episodes, and there was a scene
with Kirk and Spock playing Tri-Dimensional Chess. I recalled when I was younger my uncle brought over
a collectible set to play with my other uncle when he was visiting. I was fascinated by the game, but
was not allowed to play it because the equipment was fragile. So after the episode ended, I went on
eBay and wound up buying a used set a few days later. I had only played regular Chess occasionally
before that. I was so interested in the game that I looked up info on the rules even before the set
arrived. I found http://chessvariants.org, a fascinating site.
There I not only read about the "standard" rules and variations of rules to Tri-Dimentional Chess, but more authentic three dimensional chess variants, like Raumschach. Eventually I became interested in some of the other games like Shogi and the Shogi variants, especially Chu Shogi and Dai Shogi. Slowly, and unconsciously at first, I began to compare the different games' structure, noticing rules that seemed to improve games compared to others, as well as those that harmed games compared to others. The three-dimensional variants, which I was most interested in, I soon recognized all had significant structural problems.
I wanted to develop an improved version. One of the first things I noticed about the quality of Chess games was that the ones that worked better were generally the ones that had pieces with opposite, but corresponding, patterns of movement (like the Rook and Bishop). So I determined to develop a game where all pieces corresponded exactly to an oppositely powered piece. Then came the first problem. If you include a Knight, then according to this principle you should have a piece that jumps two spaces orthogonally, as well as one that jumps two spaces diagonally. But those pieces themselves are very weak, compared to the other pieces. The best, albeit imperfect, solution is to have some sort of combined piece with those powers, but then the piece tends to be excessively powerful. The other option is to eliminate Knights and jumping pieces entirely, but that would make a dull game. Of course, the examples I just gave you were in 2D, and I also tried implementing these principles in 3D, which is exponentially more difficult because many more types of piece need to exist in 3D than in 2D. So my ultimate solution was: Simplify. Why do you have more than one type of piece in the first place, it is unnecessary, and creates unsolvable problems. But again, a Chess-type game with only one type of piece or move is again overly dull. Furthermore I had concluded by this point that first move advantage was a major flaw. (About 30% of top professional Chess games end in draw.) So, one possible solution would be to have a movement based game with only one type of piece in which captures are worth a set number of points and the player to move second is given a certain statistically determined komi. However, as I mentioned before, the game would probably be dull, and it would also be inelegant because the second player would have to capture less pieces than the first to win. Furthermore, it is uncertain if the komi could be refined enough, seeing as it would be unlikely that its value would be exactly equivalent to the capture of a certain number of pieces.
So I concluded that what was needed was a game where movement was not involved but point scoring was, so the second player could be compensated. Also, with my experiments with 3D and other games, I had concluded that simplicity was the key. Three dimensional games create technical problems (without even thinking about problems caused by there physical requirements) that are unnecessary to deal with. The game should have the smallest number of dimensions necessary for meaningful interaction to occur. That excludes 0D and 1D. So the board must be two dimensional. Is this starting to sound familiar?
So the game needs to have:
1. One type of unit, of two opposite "charges".
2. Two dimensions.
3. No movement.
4. Komi.
5. All rules must be simple as possible to avoid unnecessary complication.
6. Enough variation to challenge humans.
"This is Go!" That was the conclusion I came to. I had learned the game while I was studying the flaws of Chess, and unwittingly I discovered the basic principles behind Go as the solution!
Just a couple of closing notes. The "units" or stones, should only have influence in the directly
orthogonally adjacent positions. Connection and removal are required to allow proper scoring. Adding diagonals are an unnecessary complication. The basic concept of claiming area, and the lack of stone movement, is necessary to satisfy conditions 3 and 4. The design of the stones and the lack of additional arbitrary rules (Like prohibiting suicide!), as well as the board geometry and ko rules are required by conditions 1, 2, and 5.
So anyway, once I had determined this, I was so impressed by the game that I had to start playing it, to satisfy the one last question: It works logically and functionally, but does it really make the best game? And the conclusion I came to: overwhelmingly yes!
with Kirk and Spock playing Tri-Dimensional Chess. I recalled when I was younger my uncle brought over
a collectible set to play with my other uncle when he was visiting. I was fascinated by the game, but
was not allowed to play it because the equipment was fragile. So after the episode ended, I went on
eBay and wound up buying a used set a few days later. I had only played regular Chess occasionally
before that. I was so interested in the game that I looked up info on the rules even before the set
arrived. I found http://chessvariants.org, a fascinating site.
There I not only read about the "standard" rules and variations of rules to Tri-Dimentional Chess, but more authentic three dimensional chess variants, like Raumschach. Eventually I became interested in some of the other games like Shogi and the Shogi variants, especially Chu Shogi and Dai Shogi. Slowly, and unconsciously at first, I began to compare the different games' structure, noticing rules that seemed to improve games compared to others, as well as those that harmed games compared to others. The three-dimensional variants, which I was most interested in, I soon recognized all had significant structural problems.
I wanted to develop an improved version. One of the first things I noticed about the quality of Chess games was that the ones that worked better were generally the ones that had pieces with opposite, but corresponding, patterns of movement (like the Rook and Bishop). So I determined to develop a game where all pieces corresponded exactly to an oppositely powered piece. Then came the first problem. If you include a Knight, then according to this principle you should have a piece that jumps two spaces orthogonally, as well as one that jumps two spaces diagonally. But those pieces themselves are very weak, compared to the other pieces. The best, albeit imperfect, solution is to have some sort of combined piece with those powers, but then the piece tends to be excessively powerful. The other option is to eliminate Knights and jumping pieces entirely, but that would make a dull game. Of course, the examples I just gave you were in 2D, and I also tried implementing these principles in 3D, which is exponentially more difficult because many more types of piece need to exist in 3D than in 2D. So my ultimate solution was: Simplify. Why do you have more than one type of piece in the first place, it is unnecessary, and creates unsolvable problems. But again, a Chess-type game with only one type of piece or move is again overly dull. Furthermore I had concluded by this point that first move advantage was a major flaw. (About 30% of top professional Chess games end in draw.) So, one possible solution would be to have a movement based game with only one type of piece in which captures are worth a set number of points and the player to move second is given a certain statistically determined komi. However, as I mentioned before, the game would probably be dull, and it would also be inelegant because the second player would have to capture less pieces than the first to win. Furthermore, it is uncertain if the komi could be refined enough, seeing as it would be unlikely that its value would be exactly equivalent to the capture of a certain number of pieces.
So I concluded that what was needed was a game where movement was not involved but point scoring was, so the second player could be compensated. Also, with my experiments with 3D and other games, I had concluded that simplicity was the key. Three dimensional games create technical problems (without even thinking about problems caused by there physical requirements) that are unnecessary to deal with. The game should have the smallest number of dimensions necessary for meaningful interaction to occur. That excludes 0D and 1D. So the board must be two dimensional. Is this starting to sound familiar?
So the game needs to have:
1. One type of unit, of two opposite "charges".
2. Two dimensions.
3. No movement.
4. Komi.
5. All rules must be simple as possible to avoid unnecessary complication.
6. Enough variation to challenge humans.
"This is Go!" That was the conclusion I came to. I had learned the game while I was studying the flaws of Chess, and unwittingly I discovered the basic principles behind Go as the solution!
Just a couple of closing notes. The "units" or stones, should only have influence in the directly
orthogonally adjacent positions. Connection and removal are required to allow proper scoring. Adding diagonals are an unnecessary complication. The basic concept of claiming area, and the lack of stone movement, is necessary to satisfy conditions 3 and 4. The design of the stones and the lack of additional arbitrary rules (Like prohibiting suicide!), as well as the board geometry and ko rules are required by conditions 1, 2, and 5.
So anyway, once I had determined this, I was so impressed by the game that I had to start playing it, to satisfy the one last question: It works logically and functionally, but does it really make the best game? And the conclusion I came to: overwhelmingly yes!
