I created a chess variant that uses traditional chess with a layer of wargaming added. You can co-occupy squares, which means you can move your queen in front of your king and next turn move your bishop there too. Also you fight for the square like in wargaming: you have a statistic sheet for each piece and when you move into combat you roll dice to see if you hit and how much damage you do. If you don’t score a kill, the continue to fight next turn. To win, you either Checkmate your opponent (can’t move into an allied occupied square when in check) or you go in and bludgeon the king.

The rest of the rules include Healing (of injured pieces that survived square take-over), Withdrawal (retreating from a combat square to any adjacent square thus allowing a black square bishop to go white square), Queen expulsion (allowing a queen to kick an opponent out of the square) and Carrying (the ability of the rook and the knight to carry/move additional pieces).

Since you are using traditional 64 square board and chess rules (except the co-occupation and dice attacks), players can attempt traditional styles of opening moves, controlling the center of the board, end runs, etc. And sometimes they don’t work because of the probability. This helps level the field for a beginner. Until you learn what works and what doesn’t (and even I don’t know all those things), it gives you the freedom to just do stupid things that you wouldn’t do under any circumstance in traditional chess to see what would happen.

But lo, if you think this chess game will get blasé after awhile, think how often you have wargamed or played Magic, etc. Randomness helps.

This chess variant is called Fantasy Chess. http://www.shadowhex.com. There is a battle rep at http://www.gamestercrafter.com/fantasy_chess/ It has played well at the Los Angeles Strategicons. The top demographic does seem to be 10-14 year old boys, but anyone I taught liked it or thought their friend/relative would like it.

Another aspect about Fantasy Chess is that you can (and should) make your own chess pieces out of 15mm or 25mm figures. That allows a collector of figures to display their collection as prize chess pieces. And this is in any genre: Fantasy, Napoleonics, Sci Fi, Horror, etc.

And a game should be able to expand to keep interest.
1) Fantasy Chess can be played as Tournament. In traditional chess, you play a game…that’s it. you play a game…that’s it. In a Fantasy Chess Tournament, you can declare all your surviving pieces Veterans and the go into the next game increased in rank. By the 4th game you have rank 0-3 ranked pieces of various sorts. You can keep the ranking hidden if you want and sometimes you want to hold back a high ranking piece if its going to get mauled. This is Continuity gaming that can lead to campaigns.
2) You can play Fantasy Chess as a 4 player game. Bump two chess sets together and have army of the left and army of the right agains your opponents. You get full use of both boards and the initiative for each turn is rolled so its a new order each time. You actually plan moves (or not) with your ally as you attempt to checkmate both the enemy kings. This is a way of bringing players together.
3) Campaign Fantasy Chess hasn’t been developed yet, but I can see it taking on any aspect of what is currently out there. A map of a continent zoned by country and your army attempts to take over. You battle and gain rank. Your mortal enemy the orcs are uniting with the goblins to the south and invading your neighbors land. You unite with the elves and do a 4 player battle to determine who wins.

I don’t have the consideration that chess variants are a white elephant. I think its just getting the right variant played and get enough word of mouth out there to form groups that will play (that would probably be the 8-14 year olds) and have it penetrate the niche market until it becomes popular enough to push into other zones. Yes, the chest purist will howl, but I realize that this type of game is marketed at the wargaming/general gaming public and those who like chess in general. As usual for game designers, I intend to be the one that breaks the ice the Chess Variants are Death. “Of course, now Richard or someone will come out with a killer chess variant that sweeps the nation.”

- John Paul

Magic doesn’t seem to reward players with randomness so much as it utterly ruins them: mana screw anyone?

I think one of the great shames of the game is that with the internet and better coverage in general the game has become more calculable (all cards in a given set known, etc) and so moved more towards rewarding player hours put in over skill, acute tactical play etc. You can be a sharp player but the guy with 100 hoursn of playtesting and the best metagame call (arrived at through said testing) will crush..