Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

The problem with the Dragon in the opening phase of Dragonchess is well
known. The Sylphs at 1a2 and 1a7 are sitting ducks and also the future of
the Oliphants at the a-row is looking bleak. In fact an unleashed Dragon
can be a devastating force and can whip out the entire left side of the
upper and middle board. 

Several solutions are given by different players ranging from minimizing
the ability of capture from afar (CAF)to the square directly below the
Dragon, reducing the maneuverability to a bishop in normal chess, to
changing the starting position of the Dragon or the Sylphs or a combination
of these solutions (see also Comments on this website). 
Although minimizing the CAFabilty will reduce the power of the Dragon it is
still possible to capture the undefended Sylphs at the a-row with the first
move. The Oliphants are also still in danger as are most of its neighbors.

Changing the starting position of the Sylphs to one square to the right,
keeps the Sylphs a little saver but postpone the problem for the pieces on
the left flank at the middle board. After 1. 1Sf2-g3, the Dragon can still
get to the undefendable square 1a7 and threat to roll up most of the pieces
on the back row of the middle board. 

In normal chess all the major pieces start safe behind the pawns. All the
pawns are defended by one or more pieces. Even the pawns on the relative
weak squares f2 and f7 are defended. Not so in Dragonchess, the undefended
squares 1a2 and 1a7 can form a stronghold from which a Dragon can capture
or at least threat to capture several enemy pieces right from the opening.

I think I found a simple and elegant solution. To defend the squares 1a2
and 1a7 just swap the starting position of the Hero and the Unicorn on the
middle board. From the squares  2b1, 2b8, 2k1 and 2k8 the Hero defends the
squares diagonally on the upper and lower board.  It doesn’t change the
nature of the game, nor minimize or reduce the power of the Dragon. Somehow
it feels right, a hero defending a helpless sylph against a powerful
Dragon.

I love the game, and built myself a wooden set back in '85 (still have it)-- used 3/4" wooden dowels of various lengths for the pieces, with woodburned letters on their top ends.

I also find the dragon to be rather overpowered; too many games seem to devolve into "dragon wrestling." My own suggested solution has three parts:

First change: reduce the dragon's capture-from-afar ability slightly, so that it can't capture the square directly underneath it-- only the squares orthogonally adjacent. (This differs from the usual suggestion of restricting it *only* to the square directly underneath). Rationale: One of the things that makes the dragon so overpowered is that there are so few pieces on the middle board that can threaten it without being gobbled up-- just the hero and paladin. Several pieces can capture straight-up, though, so this makes it more possible to threaten the dragon. By keeping the orthogonal squares, the capture ability isn't lessened all that much (still 4 out of the original 5 squares).

Second change: As others have suggested, shift the row of sylphs sideways by one square, so they're lined up over the dwarves. Not only does this take the endmost sylph out of the dragon's line of fire, but it also has the effect of caging the dragon behind its own sylphs-- unblocking it requires moving a sylph first, which is a nice mechanic to have. (I know that some have objected that this leaves half the warriors "uncovered," but in my experience, this isn't a problem. First, they all have pretty good cover from the back-rank middle-board pieces anyway; second, it's easy to slide a dwarf sideways if needed; third, the ability I describe below mitigates this issue further.)

Third change: Give warriors a new ability, "sacrifice."  A warrior can capture a piece directly above or below it... but dies in the process. Each player can do this only once per game (like castling in chess).

I've found that doing this leaves the dragon as a very powerful piece, but prevents rampages, and keeps an interesting balance with the other pieces.

Ive been playing D&D for decades, and have enjoyed MANY games of Dragon
Chess over those decades... I really dont have much to add other than
seeing the the man Zagyg himself posted (Gary Gygax) about the game hit me
with a wave of nostalgia, and I just wanted to post in memory of him

Long live Dragon Chess!

Is there any license regarding this chess variant and its rules? Can someone make a computer game for Dragonchess and sell it without any copyright/trademark issue?

Cam, I wish you luck in putting something together. Dragon 100 is the only of my old Dragon magazines I have kept. I am not a lawyer, but if you want to  make money off of Dragon Chess,  you will probably have claims against you. The good news is that as far as I can tell, Hasbro doesn't hold the rights to it. According to a 12-12-2012 article in Forbs by Michael Peck, Gail Gygax, his second wife, holds all rights to his property. The article also mentions his sons Eric and Luke are still active in gaming. Another consideration is the Dragonchess (one word) game, they might also wish to fight over the name. If I were you, I would certainly put in plenty of due diligence in research before put alot of time and money into the project only to have it swamped with cease and desist letters.

Thanks for your reply and info, John Davis! Yes, from what I've found the name is most likely what I can't use. But the rules it seem that they can't be copyrighted: http://www.strebecklaw.com/court-rules-favor-cloned-tabletop-game-no-protection-us-copyright-law/ .

So, while not ideal, I'm fine with changing the name. But I would have liked to keep the name of the pieces, like Oliphant or Paladin. The reason I like this game is because it has cool fantasy characters. Dungeons and Dragons fans would have liked that more. If they need to change, I would have to find other fantasy characters names that I could use. I love the idea of air, land and underground for the 3 boards.

Regarding the actual game, I was intending to make it free to play online. The money possible being made from ads, membership or donations. That would allow me to put more time in improving the platform if people would like to play on. Other than that, there will also be server expenses that would need to be covered.

 

If you are looking to turn a profit, I'd advise you to forget it.  There is remarkably little interest in chess variants in general, and almost none in Dragonchess despite the fact that it's been around for a long time.  And there's a number of places where people can already play tons of variants for free.

If this is just out of personal interest in the game, this site provides the means and infrastructure for you to make the game available for online play. Check out Game Courier in the Play menu. All it requires of you is to design and program the game. The hosting and administration of games is handled by scripts on this website. Calling the game Gary Gygax's Dragonchess might be sufficient to distinguish it from the other Dragonchess. This game has already been programmed for Zillions-of-Games, and it has been programmed in Java.

So, there is nothing prohibiting someone from making a game courier page. I like Alfaerie graphics, I'm thinking, X, .ZF, .BW, for the upper board. For the Courier-Speil middle board, .EF, GU, .NGU, and SE, ~CO, _JG_.DW, for the lower board.

So, there is nothing prohibiting someone from making a game courier page. I like Alfaerie graphics, I'm thinking, X, .ZF, .BW, for the upper board. For the Courier-Speil middle board, .EF, GU, .NGU, and SE, ~CO, _JG_.DW, for the lower board.

Done.  Something like this what you had in mind?

http://play.chessvariants.com/pbm/play.php?game%3DDragonchess%26settings%3Dgreg

OK, there's one thing about this preset that's not ideal, but I don't think there's anything that can be done about it.  I've stacked the three boards (air, land, underground) on top of one another.  The problem is that when it's the second player's turn, the entire set of boards is rotated and so from his perspective, the air board is on the bottom and the underground board is on top.

As far as I know, the only alternative to this would be to put the three boards side-by-side, but would be less intuitive and the rendering would be far too wide.

I noticed that this page doesn't actually mention the victory condition.  I consulted Dragon Magazine #100 and confirmed that the goal is to checkmate the King.

There is a mistake for the Elemental. The original text for the Elemental has “The upward move can only be made if a capture is involved, but the downward move can be made without capturing.” The descriptive text above for the Elemental matches the intent of the original text but the diagram for the middle board does not. The four “x” on the middle board should be “c”.

Along the lines of piece values and relative rank, I would submit:

Paladin:11

Dragon: 10

Mage: 9

Cleric: 8