Comments by RichardHutnik

Hello Fergus.  I think it would be useful to clarify a bit of what I was
speaking about here:
1. My use of 'art' is meant to be in contrast to that of 'science'.  In
one sense 'art' and 'craft' were put next to each other.  You can take
what I said to speak about something created that can be admired for its
quality and stand alone.
2. While I can understand and appreciate designer's works standing alone,
as a fine piece of work, I am also of the belief games are designed to be
played, and not just put in some museum somewhere.  Because of this, I
believe there needs to be a dialog between the designer and players of
games, to make sure what comes about is played.  We can continue to follow
the old path of 'monkeys at the typewriter' spitting out more and more
works, and hope one sticks, with each game is its own and end of
discussion.  But I believe for a game to grow, it needs a community of
players behind it.  To this end, the community needs to feel as they are
part owners over the game, and have input.  You can see examples of this
involvement in 'crowdsourcing':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing

Part of the reason for FIDE Chess being what it is, is that a community
adopted the game, and how it developed wasn't from one person, but a
community that played it and codified the rules.  I know designers wish
they could create stand-alone games that would get the same degree of
reverence FIDE Chess has.  But I believe, unless a community feels the game
is their game, it isn't going to happen.
3. As for the effectiveness of the stand-alone game method, I can refer to
what you wrote in the original NextChess thread goes into the problems we
face with the current approach:
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/listcomments.php?subjectid=NextChess
    As for 'why not just have a collection of variants like we have now,
and no do some NextChess'. Well, how is this working? 

Let me answer this...:
Equipment Availability
Good. 

My comment: Availability I would rate actually as poor.  One can
theoretically make their own equipment for everything.  However, that
doesn't mean that equipment is readily available.  Most games are given as
gifts to other people. If giving gifts is the criterion of availability,
how exactly can we rate equipment availability as good?  Take the example
of Games Magazine in its Games 100 lists.  They list chess variants, and
tell people about Grand Chess.  People get interested.  Ok, now where do
they get the board and pieces?  They don't.  They have to make them.

Player Interest
Poor. Some variants have fairly large followings and most don't. I'm sure
it is also that way with card games, for which most everyone already has
the equipment. Most people are simply interested in playing the same games
everyone else already knows how to play. In most places around the world,
it will be easy to find someone else who plays Chess, but probably next to
impossible to find someone who plays your favorite variants. Naturally, the
promotion of Chess variants helps, but I don't know what promotion of some
kind of meta-game would do in addition to this.
4. We have some practical reasons to get NextChess to function.  We need to
have it so that we can make it commercially viable to supply equipment for.
 Despite people saying 'Let's just be digital' such doesn't have the
same degree of accessibility through physical equipment to have things take
off.  And unlike cardgames, we DON'T have equipment readily available at
all.  Like, how about going out and getting a 10x10 chess board in North
America?  Sorry, not easily doable.

I am bringing this up to get some ideas here.  The discussion on NextChess
had me wondering if we can come up with some format for having people play
stand-alone chess variants, but them linking together.  Call it 'Pick your
Poison'.  In this format, a player would challenge another player, and one
of the players would then pick a variant to play, and somehow it consist of
a selection of possible games to play.  I am not sure how this format is
determined.  Maybe players have a preferred list of games played, and the
overlap is what they play.

Basic idea is to come up with a way for players to have the freedom to play
what they way, games to retain their own unique flavor, but also we have an
standard way for establish ratings over a season, in a certain format. 

Please give some thoughts to the best way to run 'Pick Your Poison' (or
please come up with a better name here).  Consider it as a way to get my
wish of there be a world champion at chess variants overall.

Fergus, I do appreciate what you are saying as each game being a standalone
game with its own flavor, and arguably each one being a 'work of art' in
its own right.  My concern about this is that it makes each game a deadend
that can't be picked up and tweaked the way Chess has to spawn variants. 
The community doesn't end up owning the game and collectively tweaking it
to its wishes.  It is a take it or leave it, which ends up resulting in a
bunch of games that have their own followings, but not enough to reach a
critical mass to support mass adoption.  There is also egos at stake where
one designer or another jockeys for position to have their game as 'the
next chess'.  I have dealt with such individuals on the commercial level,
who have staked their financial lives on it, and it isn't pretty.  I could
name multiple of them, and then ask if any of their games have a following
here.  I don't see it.  I believe in an earlier NextChess discussion, we
saw limitations on a select game being picked.

So, let me amend what I said by saying we should have room for preferred
configurations, and also games as stand alone, but I also believe we should
have some form (or several forms) that allow the community to give feedback
and we evolve a design we can get enough people to play that has a critical
mass behind it that it could get adopted and we get some neat byproducts of
this, like commercial equipment being made to be able to play (you finally
get variant pieces... YIPPIE).

In a nutshell, can we have both what you want (each game as a work of art
unto itself) and also something we can evolve as a community, that can
borrow from all over?  Maybe have a third way also of an Athlon format
where, over a given year, a set number of the established games are the
pool that is played, and we push for a championship over that format. 

Let's do everything I say, rather than either or.

Do you have a 'Eurasian Pawn' (if not that, one under another name)?  It
moves forward one space, but may capture one space forward, or either space
in front of it diagonally.  There is an option with it where it may move
either one or two spaces forward as its first move (option depends on
player and game conditions)

George, thanks for the clarification.  When I did this entry, I didn't see Basic Chess: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MLbasicchess

I am also seeing 'Universal Chess' has been added on here:
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSuniversalchess

With my suggestions of 'Multiple Formations' and 'IAGO Chess System' and also this and Universal Chess (http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSuniversalchess), I believe we are having things advance into a way to integrate variants together for play (my hope is in tournament format).  I am in favor of having Multiple Formations adopt the rules to this for the formation where everything starts in the back row(s), while the pieces starting in the second row(s) would follow what is in Multiple Formations.

Keep up the good work everyone.  Hopefully we can get something going.

Ok, I updated Mr. Smiths Wiki entry.  Please add others here:
http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/drafting-page

An entry as a 'variant' on the CV site, is found here:
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSmultipleformat

Please continue discussions there.

May I propose the IAGO Chess System be considered as part of this
discussion?
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSiagochesssyste

I am of the belief now that the Chess community is settling on Speed Chess
to resolve a lot of its issues.  I would suggest the reasons why be studied
by the variant community.

Rapid and Blitz are the games of choice.  More indication that the Chess
community has decided to reduce the time to play, as the main way to
address the issues it has with chess.

Ok, how about we start a 'syncretism project'?  We create a school of
competitive chess variant playing that involves games that are a mix of two
or more chess variants?

Anyone up for this?

Thanks for the clarification John.  Please give me insight into how we can
derive a more universal application from this.

That looks like a mess.  Looks like someone hijacked the original
'American Chess Association' name and tried to make it their own name. 
Need to see if it comes off properly.  Not sure an event using a yahoo.com
email address for sponsors is going to come off properly.

Well, just my 2 cents.  Need to keep an eye on it.

Hello John.

I believe you are onto something here.  What you describe is what I would
like to see.  I believe an important part to this is, even if people in
their own games have their own terminology and so on, when engaging in a
common discussion, a common lexicon of terms is used to describe this. 
Also, working on ways for players to combine different works from the past
would help.

Let me chime in a sec from an IAGO perspective (PLEASE don't take this as
namedropping as a plug).  IAGO (read here myself would like to see IAGO do
this) would like to elevate the chess variant community by having different
variants on the IAGO World Tour, and also to have a recognized 'Chess
Variant Player of the Year' and also have a universal ranking for variant
players, across a pool of games.  Besides this, IAGO would also like to
have the variant community be able to input in the future of chess, by
having the common works on here lending to the discussion.  All this is
done for mutual benefit to the community, like variant pieces being
produced commercially, and variants being taken as a legitimate form of
chess.

So, for all this, IAGO (again read me seeing what I believe IAGO needs to
do) would like the variant community to come together and push things in
this direction.  Have something out of this efforts that can be used, and
IAGO get behind it.  In this, go for what has been spoken on, and get stuff
happening.