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NOTICE: Provisional rules copyright 1999 by Yoon Ha Lee and Joseph Betzwieser. Normally I wouldn't bother, but if some publisher likes Origami Souls, I want the option of including this as an appendix to the novel. I designed the concept; Joe did the nitty-gritty first-draft rules, which I present here. My comments are in [brackets, thus]. If anyone wishes to playtest this, or has (a cardboard/index card set with paper clips to weight down pieces is easy to make, I've found), please email me or Joe with comments, suggestions, whatever. I'll be happy to give you credit. :-) Preliminary playtesters:
The original concept was story-driven--I wanted to use a chesslike metaphor in Origami Souls, but didn't want to use chess itself. Go looked interesting (I'm probably the only member of my family who doesn't really play it, which is mildly shameful considering I come from a line of go-players) but too abstract and unfamiliar. Plus, I really wanted a traitor piece. So I introduced that and hinted at elements stolen from Burmese, Chinese, Japanese, and pole chess variants. (That's "pole" as in just a plain pole, not as in Polish. Piers Anthony described such a variant in one of his Apprentice Adept novels, but I forget which one, and I don't know if the variant actually exists.) Then I threw the specs at Joe. ;-) (I'd previously come up with a set of rules that I was unhappy with.) His first attempt was neat, but too obviously chess-derived. So I threw him some more specs and he came up with what you see here....which I'm decently pleased with for a draft. The moves this time around look more "organic"--more like something that might have evolved in some culture, rather than something made by combining chess pieces' moves in weird ways. (That wasn't Joe's fault, but mine. I wasn't clear enough about my specs.) I also apologize for the text-only renditions of how pieces move. Someday if I can ever get .gif versions I wouldn't mind putting up an alternate page-with-pictures.
PIECES AND PATCHES:
OBJECTIVE: capture the opposing player's general or occupy all three squares of his homeland with your units. HOW THE PIECES MOVE: I'm presuming from Joe's notation that the piece is represented by the appropriate alphabetical letter, X represents squares the piece can move onto, P (in the case of the fort) indicates a "protected" square, and O (in the case of the traitor piece) indicates the possible placement of an "other" piece.
General: Most important piece in the game. Starts
off in your center homeland square. If youcapture the opposing general,
you win. Moves 1 square in any direction. Captures by moving onto an
opposing piece. [It's essentially a king.] X X X
Fort: Possibly the second most important piece in
the game. [Note: At this point Joe's guessing...but so am I.] May be
placed (as a move) in an open square in your deployment area during any
phase, even after your deployment phase is finished. Once placed it does
not move. Opposing pieces may not end their movement on a square adjacent
to the fort. When capturing a fort, the capturing piece is also captured.
[That is, you must automatically sacrifice that piece to the fort's
player.] P P P
Commander: May move any number of spaces in a
straight line in any direction so long as the spaces are adjacent and are
not occupied by other pieces. Captures by moving onto an opposing piece.
Captures by moving onto an opposing piece. [It's essentially a queen.] X X X
Master of arms: May move up to 3 squares, in any
combination of vertical and horizontal as long as the squares are adjacent
vertically and horizontally and are not occupied by other pieces. Captures
by moving onto an opposing piece.
X
Master of spells: May move up to 2 squares, as long
as the squares are adjacent in any direction and are not occupied by other
pieces. Captures by moving onto an opposing piece.
X X X X X
Master of the hunt: May move up to 3 squares in a
straight line in any direction, as long as the spaces are adjacent and are
not occupied by other pieces. Captures by moving onto an opposing
piece. X X X
Pike: May move 1 square horizontally or vertically.
Captures by moving 1 space diagonally forward onto an opposing piece.
X Capture: X X
Traitor piece: The traitor piece is perhaps the
strangest in the game. It starts out on the center square, under no one's
control. When moving a piece to capture the traitor piece, you have two
options: X X X HOW TO PLAY: Determine who will play first. Both players start in their deployment phase, and alternate turns. [You may only move or deploy your own pieces!]
Deployment phase: Your deployment phase ends when you mobilize. You are considered mobilized if you place your last piece.
Mobilized phase: Have fun! :-p And thanks to Yune for calling my attention to the "preformatted" tag. |
