Single Comment

> Luotuoqi is intended to be playable with an ordinary board and pieces.

Thank you for this clarification.

> I don't see a big deal with entries that differentiate one
rook/knight/bishop from the other.

Well, it is not a big deal if and only if end users can easily distinguish
the meanings of the pieces on the board.  There appear to be three
possibilities.

1. Reorient one of the two pieces of one type.  For example, invert a
rook.  I find that ugly and undesirable.  It might however work for a rook
but would not work for a knight or a bishop.  Piece inversion would not be
nice however and would not work for play with, say, an Isle of Lewis style
chess set.

2. Distinguish the two pieces of one type by the Luotuoqi rules having
colourbound pieces and different rules for a piece depending upon the
colour of the square upon which it stands, either expressed as colour of
square or as to whether the piece and the square have the same colour or
are of different colours.  This would work and would, to my mind, be
stylish and elegant, using information content to distinguish pieces
without adding anything onto the board.

3. Distinguish the two pieces of one type by having something such as a
draughts piece under one or both of the two pieces of one type: if under
both, then the two draughts pieces are of different colours.  However,
that would then mean that the Luotuoqi game could not be played with just
an ordinary chess set.

> It will be up to the polling to see if others have issues.

This does not follow.  I am asking about the rules of the metagame, not
the results of the voting on the rules for the Camel Chess game.

> A similar situation applies with rules like proposal 3, The Cube.  It
introduces something other than the basic 32 pieces and a board.

Well, it is a similar situation in some ways, yet is qualitatively
different.  For example, the cube could be a button, an empty herb jar, a
piece of cardboard, a book, anything handy, as it is just a physical
representation of a Boolean variable.  Distinguishing pieces on the board
with a marker would need suitable markers, which might cause problems in
finding something suitable or in using them with a travelling chess set.

It would, I feel, be quite in order to have more than one item off the
board, so that there were more than one Boolean variable associated with
the game.  Maybe 'small valued integer' could also be an off the board
type of item.  That is part of the fun of the design process.  However, my
own view is that there should be nothing added on the board.

> Only the voting will tell if this places the rule beyond the pale.

Well, it won't.  If proposal 3 is not accepted, then that could be for
various possible reasons, one of which might be a feeling that the idea of
having the cube is 'beyond the pale'.  Any such non-acceptance might be
only that some other rule is regarded as more important within the
constraints of having two new rules.

----

I find a certain amusement in the possibility that an industrial
psychologist might be quite fascinated by this discussion of the rules
within a committee structure!  Does if often (always?) happen with
committees? :-)