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"Chess is imagination" (David Bronstein)
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I haven't had a whole lot of success organizing events in the real world. Let's see how abstract strategy games do for a more specialized audience.
As some of you know, I'm part of the Society for Creative Anachronism, the medieval recreation society. This Saturday, the Barony of Roaring Wastes will be holding a celebration of Twelfth Night. I'll be doing a gaming tournament of medieval abstract strategy games. The games include:
Alquerque
Checkers
Jungle
Hneftafl
Nine Men's Morris
Twelve Men's Morris
Ming Mang
Chess
Byzantine Chess
Shogi
Xiangqi
Tamerlane's Chess
Players will play up to six of these games. Complete rules are here:
All these games date back to the middle ages. It will be interesting to see how things work out for a game tournament at an event that is not exclusively dedicated to games. I'll let you know afterwards. If nothing else, for all we know this may be the first tournament of Tamerlane's Chess to be held in the last 600 years.
Hmmm. Don't think I did that link right in the opening post. The entire last paragraph appears to be the link. (But the actual text of the link (http://gamesinmichigan.com/12night didn't seem to make it.
Oh. In the event any of you would like to join me, I'm afraid the event is exculsively for the SCA. We do allow non-members to come to our events, but we do have a requirement that everyone make at least some attempt at medieval garb. Of course, we are pretty darned flexible about "some attempt". I haven't seen it in a while, but people have been known to wear two towels, pinned together at the shoulder, tabard style. Bedsheet togas also work.
At any rate, if you are interested, go to the website http://midrealm.org, and check out the calendar of events. Drop me a line with questions.
For the rest of you, I just thought you might be interested in an abstract strategy event. I'll give whatever sort of after-action report I can.
It might be interesting to get an IAGO World Tour event at an SCA event sometime. If it could be scheduled far enough ahead and be unique enough, it is worth merit for consideration.
Hi, Meadmaker:
This sounds good. I'll be very interested to hear how it goes. And if you ever need slightly updated shatranj games for any such event, let me know. I've been tempted to bring some of my games to places like the Renaissance Fair a bit north of me. Enjoy, and the best of luck.
Joe
So here's the after-action report.
It went fairly well. We only had eight players take me up on the "tournament" part, but the games were available throughout the day, and several others just played pick-up games. Several people played Shogi and Xiangqi. A few played Jungle (Dou Shou Gi - the ancient precursor to Stratego). I steered the kids toward Nine Men's Morris and Twelve Men's Morris. Alquerque proved popular with both kids and adults.
The final round found my son leading by one point. He had played the 2nd place player in the previous round, where they had drawn at Hneftafl (each side playing the king's guards once, and winning.) The rules didn't allow them to play again two rounds in a row. In fourth place, I played Alquerque against the second place player, and my son played Ming Mang against number 3. I lost after deciding not to force a draw, but my son pulled out the win in Ming Mang to take the title.
The highlight of my day was an over the board contest in Tamerlane's Chess. Playing over the board is so much different than playing against a computer, and it was a grueling contest. I resigned after a very well played giraffe ambush left me down a couple of pieces, and in a bad position. It would have taken a long time to force a checkmate, but he clearly had the upper hand. If you ever get a chance to play this game, I recommend it, once in a while. I can't see making a habit of it.
Additional comment:
I had a chance to observe people I know, and try to get them to play, and observe who played and who did not. Several people I thought would play declined, with the common reason given, "I'm not very good at these games."
It seems as if people were quite upset to lose at these games, but didn't pat themselves on the back very much when they won. It's as if they counted their wins as being due to chance, but their losses as being due to incompetence, stupidity, or some other failing. This contrasts dramatically with such other competitions as games that include chance. There, defeat is inevitably the result of bad dice rolls, while victory is a sign of superior play, at least in the player's self evaluation.
Remove the chance factor and people end up feeling like they lose a reason to have an excuse to play and risk it.
What I would like to see, in regards to abstract strategy games is that, even if people don't play, at least they can become spectators and talk things up and get others to watch, and also play up the pure skill of things (and other attributes of abstract strategy games, and look to make them cool). I believe we should also look towards developing effective handicapping systems so people who aren't good can still feel an interest in playing.
I know that games as spectator events has been a goal of yours for a while, and it isn't completely ridiculous, but I just can't see it taking off. As a percentage of the population, there is darned near no one more interested in abstract strategy games than I am, and there's no way I could see myself paying attention to a game for more than about three minutes. Even as I get more an more involved in Chess, I never take advantage of opportunities to observe games among superior players. I don't check to see who won major events. I just don't care. There are undoubtedly some who do, but it has to be a very small audience.
I know Korea did have a cable TV channel devoted to Chess. I think that was the whole channel. It included international and Korean Chess. I don't know if they still exist, but if they do, it might be something to check up on.
The thing that surprised me as a I watched the reactions is how apparently unsettled people were by losing. It really seems to bother some people, a lot. I just hadn't noticed it before. On the other hand, winning didn't give them much of a sense of satisfaction. I think newcomers to a game, which includes almost everyone if the game isn't all that popular, realize that they are fumbling through the game, so if they win, they don't feel brilliant. They know they just happened to see a winning move. However, if they lose, they project that the other person wasn't doing the same thing. Since they know that they were utterly lost, but they assume that the winning opponent knew what he was doing, it gets at their self esteem.
I think what is important here is we figure out how to make the games seem like forms of novelty for people, where exploring the play is a reward unto itself. And we work to up the feeling of accomplishment by people playing. Anyhow, thank you for the information. Let's think on this more.
Sorry fo the late post . I think people do get intimidated when asked to play an abstract. I think it is because, especially if they consider themselves intelligent, they don't want to appear stupid when they lose. I have a friend here in Australia who is a high ranking public servant with a string of letters behind his name, but when I invited him to play a new abstract, he looked terrified and politely declined. I do think however, that spectators of such games can be set at ease by viewing a game because they get involved to a degree and see that it's not so intimidating, and could be even be fun. Children rarely exhibit such aprehension and this says something.
You found having spectators makes things less intimidating for people? I thought it might be the opposite. What I suggest we need to do here is both emphasize the ease of learning the games, plus the novelty of playing. If we can figure out a way to sell playing a range of abstract strategy games as fun, we can get growth. In this, maybe we look into making kids at the events, and bringing out their inner child.
I do guess if a crowd is supportive, then people would be interested in playing.
Let's give more thought to the novelty angle and also the easy to learn angle on this, and getting to the inner children. One idea might be to bring Zillions to a convention, and have a group of people beat Zillions on its easiest setting. Maybe also go with a massive multiplayer format to: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/396259/the-rules-to-massive-multiplayer-connect-four-
Have a crowd play itself and you track the results. People hide in the crowd, and all they have to do is be on the winning side in the end. Actually, your experiences is making me think a massive multiplayer version may be a very useful way to get people into abstract strategy games.
I wasn't suggesting that having players watch a game give comfort to those playing, but rather the viewer might be made feel comfortable when they safely observe the game. I am, like other armchair athletes, a great boxer when I am sitting in my armchair at home, but I wouldn't want to fight Mike Tyson in the flesh, unless - theoretically speaking - I could then give him a game of chess once I regained consciousness. As for the Zilliions tournament, the idea has some merit I think: the threat of being beaten by a computer probably wouldn't have the same negative affect as being beaten by a human opponent, who, unlike the computer, has the capacity to judge.
David, you are saying it would benefit if we were able to play up the being a spectator angle to these games to get them interested? I do believe we need to work on the spectator side in order to get the player side to work.
I would suggest that people think about exactly why they like to play new abstract strategy games, and get these out in a way that it would captivate new people who currently don't play. YES, I am suggesting the emotional angle be looked at here.
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