LargeMarmot
Sergeant
463 Posts
    
 | | 04/27/2006 11:21 PM |
| | At the risk of looking too much like Harry Potter I want to put my players into a living chess game. Instead of regular chess rules whenever two pieces move into the same square they fight to the death as opposed to attacker taking the square automatically. Has anyone ran something like this? I was thinking about gearing to a party of about lvl 5 to 7 and using various undead as the opposing pieces. Any suggestions? | |
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Thenameless
Warlord
12481 Posts
The Fortress of Solitude
| | 04/27/2006 11:25 PM |
| | I'm not sure how well this would work out, as the elimination mechanic of chess is an integral part of the game. You might need to change more of the rules to make it work properly. | |
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LargeMarmot
Sergeant
463 Posts
| | 04/27/2006 11:31 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Thenameless
I'm not sure how well this would work out, as the elimination mechanic of chess is an integral part of the game. You might need to change more of the rules to make it work properly.
I probably will need to change more of the rules around but I want to make sure that the game will go reasonably quickly and have the players not screwed due to lack of actual chess skill. I'm open to suggestions. | |
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zenthrus
Warlord
5132 Posts
SLC, UT
| | 04/28/2006 12:26 AM |
| I ran this in a LARP once. It was a ton of fun. That's a real live-action chess set. We had one PC acting as one player and a key BBEG acting as the other. The rest of the players (and various monsters) made up the chess sets. The "players" directed the movement of the pieces. There were a couple of really bad matchups that made sense if it was a real chess game, but wound up creating imbalanced combats (in chess pawns can auto-capture any other piece in the right circumstances...not so in chess like this).
If the battles are determined by actual combat (as opposed to the auto-capture rules of chess) you might want to consider revising the movement rules and be very careful what gets included as a pawn. | |
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Warlord
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Umass Amherst Baby!
| | 04/28/2006 2:04 AM |
| | How about a Dungeon set up like a chess board? Each room has a themed encounter to it? | |
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Lachlarlan_the_Mad
Sergeant
470 Posts
| | 04/28/2006 9:56 AM |
| You could make it part of a contest of some sort.
Perhaps a tournament setting. First team to win the livechess competition wins a grand prize. Whenever a piece is captured it is teleported off the field or some such.
Perhaps its an ongoing thing at a remote location. The PCs could be the first to defeat the chessmaster.
Of course, it would help greatly if your PCs know and understand the fundamentals of chess. | |
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kestrel.ca
Underboss
1687 Posts
| | 04/28/2006 9:59 AM |
| If you can find a copy of EX-1 or EX-2 (I forget which now) there was an example of this. These were Gygax's (IIRC) modules based on Lewis Carroll's Alice stories. EX-1 is Adventures in Dungeonland (Alice in Wonderland) and EX-2 is Beyond the Magic Mirror (?) (Through the Looking Glass). I played these many years ago and they certainly twisted my head about -- but they were a lot of fun. I think they have been released as pdf on WotC website.
One of them had the players enter a large field, divided into numerous squares separated by streams. There were a number of rules to handle this set of encounters, but generally the whole party was moved together and would have to overcome each challenge together. In this case, the point of the game was not to defeat the other team (as they were fighting pieces from either side) but to get across the field. | |
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Sulaco
Underboss
1605 Posts
| | 04/28/2006 11:53 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by LargeMarmot
At the risk of looking too much like Harry Potter I want to put my players into a living chess game. Instead of regular chess rules whenever two pieces move into the same square they fight to the death as opposed to attacker taking the square automatically. Has anyone ran something like this? I was thinking about gearing to a party of about lvl 5 to 7 and using various undead as the opposing pieces. Any suggestions?
This is a very, very old idea. I recall this from either a Dragon article or a module back in the mid-80's. Check around on Google and you might find some stuff that is pre-done.
I was going to do a variant of this in the campaign I ran back at University. The concept was called "Grumpy Old Dragons" and it was about two ancient dragons who captured adventurers and used them as living pieces in various games just to keep themselves occupied.
Never got around to it using it, though. | |
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maijstral
Underboss
2105 Posts
| | 04/28/2006 12:10 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by kestrel.ca
If you can find a copy of EX-1 or EX-2 (I forget which now) there was an example of this. These were Gygax's (IIRC) modules based on Lewis Carroll's Alice stories. EX-1 is Adventures in Dungeonland (Alice in Wonderland) and EX-2 is Beyond the Magic Mirror (?) (Through the Looking Glass). I played these many years ago and they certainly twisted my head about -- but they were a lot of fun. I think they have been released as pdf on WotC website.
One of them had the players enter a large field, divided into numerous squares separated by streams. There were a number of rules to handle this set of encounters, but generally the whole party was moved together and would have to overcome each challenge together. In this case, the point of the game was not to defeat the other team (as they were fighting pieces from either side) but to get across the field.
yes it was dungeonland and you can download it on WOTC site (I think they 3.5ed it as well but I could be wrong). I remember one of the rules was the party could only move like the piece they defeated and they had no idea where every piece was so any movement could potentially take you to a battle.
The goal was to get across the board.
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