I recently discovered an interesting and seldom mentioned game made by Gary Gygax called Dragon Chess. I love playing traditional chess and I love D&D so I'm interested in making boards and starting playing. I've found scans of Dragon Magazine issue 100 which show the boards and give some details about how to play. I've also found an article on chessvariants.com and boardgamegeek.com about it. I was wondering a couple of things:
Have any members of Canonfire played Dragon Chess? If so, what did you think of it?
It also seems to me that it would be cool to have themed sets of Dragon Chess set in different D&D settings. What advice would you give for creating a Greyhawk themed set? I'm thinking of things like creatures to use, rules variants and things like that.
Chatranj is the Greyhawk name for chess.
Planarchess
a variation of Dragonchess (see Dragon issue #100) There are three 12 by 8 square boards. The Lower is called the netherboard, the upper is called the astral. There are spirals standing as posts in the corners. They consist of four checkered steps each. Tharizdun himself further explains the rules:
"Only those able to go on squares of different colors can use the twisting paths as they would move normally, a single space or many squares. Vaulting and skipping pieces count all squares and move upward accordingly, and off to another board if there is distance remaining, but they must stop as soon as leaving the spiral. If an enemy man occupies the space, then it is en prise if capture is desired. The diagonal-movers use only two of the four vortices, because of the the color of entry, of course. When these move to another field, their color changes. Dark and light alternate above and below, though so to go from nether to astral or vice versa means there is no shifting from such transfer. Exit from spiral requires pause."
The pieces vary from dragonchess in name and move of forces. There are thirty-six pieces to a side. The dark forces have 24 on the netherboard and the light have that amount on the astral. Both sides have 12 pieces on the middle board. Pawns become more powerful as they move up or down. Captured pieces may be turned into pawns for the capturing side. Some pieces include kings, celestial knights, chevaliers, assassins, chevaliers, archpriests, marshals and oliphants. (from Dance of Demons pp. 295-298)
This is from Chris Siren's site on the Gord the Rogue series at http://home.comcast.net/~chris.s/gordmain.html
Hope it helps _________________ Now shall Macha's kings arise, large-hearted folk! Weapons let them shatter: Let them fight the battle: Let them plow the earth in anger: Let them strike on shields!
Thanks Nightgor! That does help! The game you described sounds like a lot of fun. I'll check into making a board like the one described. A chess-like game that people can play that is actually in the D&D setting of Greyhawk is really cool!
Your Welcome I remember having fun playing dragon chess with some friends when the magazine came out with it, a lot of fun. _________________ Now shall Macha's kings arise, large-hearted folk! Weapons let them shatter: Let them fight the battle: Let them plow the earth in anger: Let them strike on shields!
Have any members of Canonfire played Dragon Chess? If so, what did you think of it?
A long, long time ago ... I actually talked an old roommate of mine into giving it a shot, since he was really big into playing chess. We made card-stock playing boards, and made plans for making a balsa wood 3D version, but that much neer happend.
We played several games of it, and it seemed really rather interesting, but just about the time that we were getting used to the rules and stuff, we moved on to other games and whatnot. This was absolutely ages ago, but I recall that it was fun to learn rules to a "new" game that we'd never played, and it was made even more run by the roleplaying aspect behind it.
Another time, a bit more recently, when Dragonchess came up in the Age of Worms Adventure Path my players wanted to know what it was all about. Rather than having them take ranks in a skill they'd likely never use otherwise, I dug up stuff on the game, and let them play it to their heart's content. Sadly, I wasn't up to snuff to be able to compete with them enough to be a Dragonchess mastr like Lazare (with his Profession: Gambler +7, and 54gp Dragonchess set), so their games with the NPCs had to be handled by the dice. The games they won when playing eah other gave them a bonus on their roll to play against Lazare.
I really wish I could find a way to play it online, and be able to get other players to interact with it. Maybe on RPGTools, or Open RPG could create a basic playboard, I guess.
At any rate, it's a whole lot of fun, especially if you involve it with a RP session. Similar to the way that Three Dragon Ante was incorporatd into the game. And remember, . At all. I promise! It made me the most popular guy around when I played it! Seriously. Maybe just a touch on the geeky end of the spectrum, but cool!
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Seriously. Maybe just a touch on the geeky end of the spectrum, but cool!