I have not spent much time talking about it, but I am gaming nut. I love games. Sports, trivia, board games, all sorts. Except for single player games, which is why the console games appeal to me but never have lasting power with me. Lately I have been reading and listening to a lot of game design theory and to-day I heard about a variant of chess that sounded interesting. It’s called Rando-Chess and it’s very simple. You play chess and then at the end you roll a die. If the die rolls a 1 then the loser of the match actually wins. I do not understand why this is interesting. It adds nothing to the game. This is not to say adding randomness is value-less but this randomness is value-less. It does not change how one plays the game.
Here is my variant that does change it: every time a piece tries to kill another piece you roll the die. When a 1 rolls then the usual loser wins. This change would have a profound effect. People would be much more hesitant to attack with a queen, unless it was the other’s queen being attacked. Pawns would gain immense value.
Sadly, my usual gaming partners recently graduated and moved away so I’ve nobody to test this theory out on. Give it a go and tell me how it works.