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The game withing a game: AD&D™ characters can battle over a chessboardby Tim Grice
(70.60)
The game of chess has its origins in
the distant past. In medieval times it was
known as the game of kings. Given the
quasi-medieval setting of most AD&D™
game environments, it seems not im-
plausible that knowledge of chess lurks
somewhere in the land. This article
demonstrates how to simulate the game
of chess in a fashion that is both reason-
ably accurate and playable.
Who can playFor the purpose of simplicity, chess is
treated as a language insofar as learning
it is concerned. This means a character
must have an intelligence of at least
eight to be able to learn and play the
game. A character with an intelligence of
eight can know one additional language,
as indicated in the Players Handbook. If
the character in question chooses to
know how to play chess, he or she has
used up that additional language. A
character with an intelligence of 10, who
can normally know two additional lan-
guages, can know only one additional
language if he or she chooses to know
how to play the game of kings. While the
game is treated as a language for learn-
ing purposes, it should be remembered
that chess is not literally a language; just
because a character knows how to play
chess does not mean that character can
converse with any monster that can also
play chess. The character could engage
the monster in a game of chess, but any
other, more meaningful communication
between them is impossible unless both
have some spoken/written language in common.
Chess modifiersNot all chess players are created equal.
The degree of proficiency a chess player
has is simulated with a statistic called the
Chess Modifier (CM). When a person
learns the game his CM is low, but it will
increase as the player gains experience
in the game. Chess Modifiers range from
9½, for the lowest-ranked beginner, to
more than 100, attainable only by chess
masters: the average CM for a player
character is about 35. The basic Chess
Modifier for a character who has just
learned how to play chess is computed
by adding the character’s intelligence
score and half his or her wisdom score,
retaining the fraction if there is one. A
cleric with an intelligence of 11 and a
wisdom of 13 has a CM of 17½ when he
first learns the game of kings. When play-
ing the game his CM is considered to be
17 (dropping the fraction). The “extra”
fraction is used when the cleric gets bet-
ter at chess, as detailed below on the
subject of experience.
Playing procedureThe game of kings is played in turns,
each of which are, coincidentally, exactly
one turn (10 melee rounds) long. To pre-
pare for a game, the judge (DM) first
determines the Stalemate Limit for that
game by adding the players’ Chess Mod-
ifiers, dividing that total by 10 (dropping
the fraction, if any) and adding the result
of a roll of d6. If the game continues for
this number of turns, it is considered to
end in a stalemate or draw, with no vic-
tory for either player.
To begin each turn of a game of chess,
each player secretly chooses which of
the six strategies he will use and writes it
on a note which is given to the judge
(DM). Also on this note is the means, if
any, by which the player is cheating. The
judge then rolls percentile dice and mod-
ifies the result according to the players’
strategies, according to whatever means
(if any) of cheating are being used, and
according to the players’ Chess Modifi-
ers. (The procedure is clearly outlined
later in this article by an example.)
Finally, the adjusted dice roll is used to
refer to the appropriate line on the Turn
Result Table (below), and the result read
from that table is used to adjust the
game’s cumulative score, which is set to
zero at the beginning of the game. If the
cumulative score reaches -4 at the end of
a turn, the game is over with a crushing
victory for White; a cumulative score of
-3 indicates a win for white; a cumulative
score of +3 indicates a win for Black; and
a cumulative score of +4 is a crushing
victory for Black. If the cumulative score
at the end of a turn is between -2 and +2
inclusive, the game continues until a
winner emerges or until the Stalemate
Limit for that game is reached.
Turn Result Table01—05: Great move for White; adjust
cumulative score by -2
06—45: Good move for White; adjust
cumulative score by -1
46—55: No change in status; no ad-
justment to cumulative score
56—95: Good move for Black; adjust
cumulative score by +1
96—00: Great move for Black; adjust
cumulative score by +2
The strategiesThe six strategies are: General Attack,
Build Up Own Position, Destroy Foe’s
Position, Set a Trap, Trade Down, and
Attack Foe’s King. At the beginning of
each turn Black and White both select
one of these, write it down on a note
(along with the method of cheating, if
any, being employed) and hand it to the
judge. The judge cross-indexes the two
strategies on the table below; this yields
a number, which is added to the percen-
tile dice roll generated by the judge.
(Adding a negative number is equivalent
to subtracting that amount if it were
expressed as a positive number.) Black’s
CM is added to, and White’s CM is sub-
tracted from, the resulting number. This
modified number (perhaps also further
modified for cheating; see that section in
the following text) is compared to the
Turn Result Table to determine the result
of that turn’s moves. Note that each
“turn,” for purposes of adapting chess to
the AD&D game, may represent more
than a single pair of moves on the chess-
board; what is being measured by the
Strategy Table and the Turn Result Table
is not necessarily the result of individual
moves, but the result of the application
of a general strategy over a series of
such moves, all of which constitute one
“turn” in the AD&D time system.
STRATEGY TABLEA = General Attack; B = Build Up Own Position; C = Destroy Foe’s Position;
D = Set a Trap; E = Trade Down; F = Attack Foe’s King.
To be continued...