<story><title>Senet</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senet</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zests</author><text>I love ancient board games. It&amp;#x27;s amazing to think about chess and how rules have been changed slightly over time for 1000 years. The game has since been stable for about 500. The computer era is revolutionizing the game again and maybe will usher in new popular variants (Fischer random, no castle chess) as our understanding of the game evolves.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>legitster</author><text>Richard Garfield (mathematician and designer of Magic the Gathering and others) used to give a talk about randomness in games.&lt;p&gt;He talked about the history of chess, and how there used to be a lot more variants of the game (some even being a 4 player game with dice!), and over time competitive players naturally will want to remove random elements from the game.&lt;p&gt;But on the other hand, some amount of wild unpredictability is important to attract players - there&amp;#x27;s a softening of skill gaps.</text></comment>
<story><title>Senet</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senet</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zests</author><text>I love ancient board games. It&amp;#x27;s amazing to think about chess and how rules have been changed slightly over time for 1000 years. The game has since been stable for about 500. The computer era is revolutionizing the game again and maybe will usher in new popular variants (Fischer random, no castle chess) as our understanding of the game evolves.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>btilly</author><text>&lt;i&gt;It&amp;#x27;s amazing to think about chess and how rules have been changed slightly over time for 1000 years.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Medieval chess was a very different game.  For the most stark example, the queen did not get her modern move until around 1450.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;The game has since been stable for about 500.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;And yet something as basic as, &amp;quot;white moves first&amp;quot; was first suggested in 1857.</text></comment>