Been fiddling with a variation on chess to play with friends and family. Here is a link to the blog post with some pictures: http://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/wuxia-chess-iii.html

WUXIA CHESS

Here are some rules to spice up a regular game of chess with wuxia flavor. These are loosely inspired by techniques from our game Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate.

What you will need:

•   A chess board and pieces
•   Poker Chips (or similar marker)

The rules for wuxia chess are the same as regular chess with one big difference. All Rooks, Knights and bishops have special Wuxia Techniques they can use once during play (once used, they become normal bishops, rooks and knights). In addition, a single pawn of your choice is designated as a Secret Hero and also has a special ability.

Wuxia Techniques are assigned to pieces by their type and indicated by the placement of a poker chip beneath the piece.  Rooks, Bishops and Knights all have Wuxia Techniques. Secret Hero Pawns can use one of four. When the ability is used, simply remove the poker chip so you know that the piece can no longer draw on its wuxia technique.

To conceal your Secret Hero, take out some white poker chips and write an S on the bottom of one of them. Then take all the white poker chips and place them beneath your pawns (putting the one with the S under your Secret Hero).

Wuxia Techniques never work on Kings or Queens. They are immune to these abilities. Pawn Techniques are an exception to this rule. They can be used against the Queen but not the king.

WUXIA TECHNIQUES
Every Rook, Bishop and Knight has the following Wuxia Technique. These are represented by placing a Poker Chip beneath the piece. Once the Wuxia Technique is used, the poker chip is removed and the Technique cannot be used again by that piece.

Blazing Charge (Rook): You blast your foes in a blinding charge, leaving a trail of bodies in your wake. You may continue moving and capture one extra piece in your path. For example this allows a rook to move forward, capture a piece, then continue forward until it captures another piece. Optional: The Rook can choose to move through its own pieces instead of attacking when it uses Blazing Charge.

Qinggong Master (Knight): Your Lightness Kung Fu is profound and you may make an additional move this turn. The second move is your full movement. You can capture a piece on your first or second move, but not on both.  

Ricocheting Strike (Bishop): Your attack ricochets or sends fragments flying at another piece on the board. When you capture a piece, the nearest enemy piece is also captured. If more than one piece is nearest to you, then choose which one to capture.

PAWN TECHNIQUES
Pawns designated as Secret Heroes can use any of the four abilities. The Secret Hero can choose to use any of these four Pawn Techniques once during play. Select which ability to use at the time of activation. Once you use a Pawn Technique, you cannot use any more (remove the white poker chip to indicate this). Again, you may only select one pawn to be your Secret Hero. If your secret hero reaches the end of the board and becomes a Queen, it retains its Pawn Techniques.

As with the other pieces, Pawn Techniques are represented by Poker Chips. Use the white poker chips and write an S on one of them (placing this piece beneath your Secret Hero and giving the others blank chips). When the Pawn Technique is used, it should be removed as the pawn can no longer use it.

Suicidal Qi Blast: You unleash all your internal energy in a powerful wash of light that strikes surrounding enemies. You can use this ability when you are captured to take two adjacent pieces.

Three-Point Strike: You use your knowledge of pressure points to quickly tap your foe three times in the chest area, causing them to freeze. This can be used on any foe in an adjacent square. The affected piece cannot move for 2 turns.

Swift Rebuttal: You sidestep and counter your foe's attack, using their momentum against them. When any piece, except the kind or queen, tries to capture you from two or more spaces away, you counter and capture them instead

Grace of the Tiger: You effortless evade attacks and are difficult to capture. First attempt to capture you always fails. The piece that attempted the capture returns to its original position. This still counts as your opponent's move and ends their turn.

Looks interesting and fun!

The rules aren't 100% clear to me as written, specifically:

Blazing Charge - Gives two attacks, or can pass a friendly - can you mix and match freely (kill & pass, pass & kill, pass & pass, or kill & kill), or is it just kill & kill or pass one friendly?

Ricocheting Strike - How is nearest calculated, precisely? Is it only along diagonals, or in all directions?

Suicidal Qi Blast - Can one of the pieces killed be the piece that captured you, or is it immune since in your space killing you and not adjacent? Also, Chess being such a literal game, it's probably good to specify whether there MUST be two adjacent targets to allow using this, or if it can be used with only one target.

Swift Rebuttal vs. Grace of the Tiger - You can only use one per game, right? So Grace of the Tiger would only seem the better choice when for some reason it's better to return the enemy attacker where it came rather than eliminate it, yes? (Of course sometimes in Chess this may be better, mainly if you have a check or better fork you can exploit if you do.) It's a little confusing the wording "First attempt to capture you always fails." It makes it sound like this could be an ability separate from the poker chip choice ability, but then you'd want to track whether it had been used or not with something else.

"kind or queen" -> "king or queen"

The description for Grace of the Tiger seems slightly oddly worded because it implies an inherent ability rather than a choice to use your one special action for one special defense:

"You effortless[ly] evade attacks and are difficult to capture."

So if it's meant to be just another one-time ability choice, I'd expect the description to be more a form such as:

"You evade an attack with [insert fluff]."

If it IS meant to be a separate thing, I'd suggest the description of pawn choice abilities mention that Grace of the Tiger is an exception, and suggest a formal way to indicate whether it's been used yet or not.

Quote from: Skarg;874677Looks interesting and fun!

The rules aren't 100% clear to me as written, specifically:

Blazing Charge - Gives two attacks, or can pass a friendly - can you mix and match freely (kill & pass, pass & kill, pass & pass, or kill & kill), or is it just kill & kill or pass one friendly?

Ricocheting Strike - How is nearest calculated, precisely? Is it only along diagonals, or in all directions?

Suicidal Qi Blast - Can one of the pieces killed be the piece that captured you, or is it immune since in your space killing you and not adjacent? Also, Chess being such a literal game, it's probably good to specify whether there MUST be two adjacent targets to allow using this, or if it can be used with only one target.

Swift Rebuttal vs. Grace of the Tiger - You can only use one per game, right? So Grace of the Tiger would only seem the better choice when for some reason it's better to return the enemy attacker where it came rather than eliminate it, yes? (Of course sometimes in Chess this may be better, mainly if you have a check or better fork you can exploit if you do.) It's a little confusing the wording "First attempt to capture you always fails." It makes it sound like this could be an ability separate from the poker chip choice ability, but then you'd want to track whether it had been used or not with something else.

"kind or queen" -> "king or queen"

The description for Grace of the Tiger seems slightly oddly worded because it implies an inherent ability rather than a choice to use your one special action for one special defense:

"You effortless[ly] evade attacks and are difficult to capture."

So if it's meant to be just another one-time ability choice, I'd expect the description to be more a form such as:

"You evade an attack with [insert fluff]."

If it IS meant to be a separate thing, I'd suggest the description of pawn choice abilities mention that Grace of the Tiger is an exception, and suggest a formal way to indicate whether it's been used yet or not.

Thanks. Here is a quick update: http://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/wuxia-chess-iv.html

You may have something very interesting here.

After extensive playtesting, you may want to consider a Kickstarter to fund the creation of a boardgame and/or an app game.

"Wuxia Chess" is a great title.

Quote from: Spinachcat;874700You may have something very interesting here.

After extensive playtesting, you may want to consider a Kickstarter to fund the creation of a boardgame and/or an app game.

"Wuxia Chess" is a great title.

Thanks.

I don't know. I just put it together for family and friends. All people need is a chess board and some poker chips. If I ever did anything like that it would be more about coming up with a cool board and pieces that work with the rules, but I think for that sort of thing I would have to partner with someone who knows a bit about board games and kickstarter.

Right now I've just been playing it it here or there. Probably have had a total of about 15 games at this point. So not a whole lot to go on. A few things seem to really be working and making the game more interesting (at least for me).