Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
213,945
edits
Human Chess: Difference between revisions
→Comic Books
m (→Video Games) |
|||
| (3 intermediate revisions by 3 users not shown) | |||
Line 9:
|''[[Marvel Adventures]]: [http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/8554/maavengers26017tt6.jpg Avengers #26]''}}
The favorite pastime of every [[The Chessmaster|Chessmaster]] and [[Evil Overlord]]. [[X Meets Y|Chess played with actual people]], sometimes [[Serious Business|
A subtrope of [[Variant Chess]]. Expect somebody to go into [[Evil Overlooker]] mode at least once.
Line 28:
* Used, as the page quote suggests, in a ''[[Marvel Adventures]]'' issue. The chessboard is presumably gigantic to accommodate [[Planet Eater|Galactus]], who plays against the Avengers with his Herald Silver Surfer as King. After this ends in stalemate, they play baseball... [http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t142/robertroberts_2007/Capture-Copy-9.jpg in a human-scaled stadium]... but it's okay, [[Rule of Fun]] fully applies. After that [http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/630/maavengers26019zk6.jpg failed] they try [http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/6718/maavengers26020is5.jpg Texas Hold 'Em] and then end up in an [http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/4813/maavengers26021se2.jpg Infinite-Star Restaurant].
* ''[[Countdown to Final Crisis]]'' shows [[Omnicidal Maniac|Darkseid]] looming over a chessboard with pieces of the heroes, [[Non Sequitur Scene|for reasons that are never fully explained]].
* A variation appears on a recent{{when}} cover of ''[[New Mutants]]'' with Cyclops looming over the chessboard.
* An older comic involved a witch capturing a mermaid's friends and family, [[Taken for Granite|turning them into statues]], making those statues chess pieces, and then challenging the protagonist to a game chess with the pieces. Unlike a lot of examples, it showed that the pieces were very heavy.
* The pornographic version occurs in Alan Moore's ''[[Lost Girls]]''.
Line 49:
* Played seriously in the ''[[Lymond Chronicles]]'' novel ''Pawn in Frankincense'' where the hero is forced to play such a game with both his friends and enemies being pieces.
* Most of the plot in ''[[Alice in Wonderland|Through the Looking Glass]]'', but probably [[Adaptation Displacement|better known]] for being in [[Walt Disney]]'s ''[[Alice in Wonderland (Disney film)|Alice in Wonderland]]'' film .
* The ''[[John Carter of Mars]]'' novel ''Chessmen of Mars'' uses the to-the-death variant, where "chess" games are a form of gladiatorial combat. However, the outcome of the fight is not preordained; either "piece" could be killed during a fight.
* Likewise for the climatic scene in ''[[The Lords of Creation|In The Courts of the Crimson Kings]]'', a homage to ''[[John Carter of Mars]]''.
* ''[[The Squares Of The City]]'' by [[John Brunner]].
* The Emperor in ''[[
* The [[Star Trek]] novel ''The Final Reflection'', by [[John M. Ford]], starts with Klingon children preparing to take part in live ''klin zha''. And since we're talking Klingons, you've already guessed that this is a gladiatorial version.
* The second [[Gentleman Bastard Sequence]] novel ''Red Seas Under Red Skies'' featured a cartoonishly evil scene, with nobles playing a [[Variant Chess]] with people. The catch was that whenever a player lost a piece, the opposing player could inflict ANY punishment besides death on the piece.
* ''All the King's Horses'' by [[Kurt Vonnegut]]. Also adapted for TV in a SF anthology series {{spoiler|with a twist that made the villain more sympathetic. He didn't really execute the lost pieces, just pretended to to make a point. The [[Sadistic Choice]] he faced still cost the hero his family.}}
* ''[[Carrion Comfort]]'', by Dan Simmons. Oh god, Carrion Comfort. The [[Our Vampires Are Different]] [[Our Vampires Are Different|mind vampires]] (pretty much in name only, they are simply people who can control minds) in the novel are seen doing this on several occasions. In the first instance, holocaust victims are used as pieces (to the death, naturally). The plot of novel runs like this as well, as the two puppet master
* Adam Wiśniewski-Snerg's short story "Anioł Przemocy" ("Angel of Death") involves a woman forced to take part in one of these. It's a game played by two computers where the pieces are mind-controlled humans that kill each other. (It turns out to be a virtual reality simulation, though.)
Line 69:
* [[Forgotten Realms]] has a few.
** Dragons have the Great Game, xorvintaal, the objective of which is to steal the other dragon players' treasure with the help of mortal chess pieces called exarchs. The game is a "tortured mess of contradictory rules and exceptions that only a dragon with centuries to study could understand," far beyond the comprehension of younger races. Narratively speaking, xorvintaal exists to fuel Excuse Plots, so if the DM needs dragons or the PCs to do something all they have to do is call it a xorvintaal maneuver. And of course, it helps to increase uncertainty in Gambit Pileups.
** Beholders play [https://web.archive.org/web/20160614102939/http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/vellurith-part-one The Vellurith]. Which in turn is a part of [[Divine Chessboard]], since both Great Mother and Mystra (via her best agents, as stated in [https://web.archive.org/web/20160612202420/http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/vellurith-part-two Part 2]) influence it.
== [[Video Games]] ==
Line 80:
** Mentioning "a nod to castling," all of the pieces have nods to their actual chess counterparts. The Pawns take small steps (though they can change direction) and attack not only to the front, but to the back diagonally (as a reference to how a pawn attacks diagonally and the move "en passant." They can also be promoted. Knights can jump over the pieces and attack by landing on Dante (other pieces will try and fail to move through other pieces). The King can only attack in his immediate area. And the Queen can move diagonally and horizontally the full length of the board (though, ironically, this, along with the cackle she makes when she moves, allows her to be the most easily avoidable). Rooks and Bishops also only move and attack along their normal counterparts' paths.
* On one level of Durlag's tower in the ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' expansion ''Tales of the Sword Coast'' you end up on a large chess board with a full set of hostile chess pieces bearing down on you. Since [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]], they all move at once. Although they adhere to some appropriate rules; any pawns that manage to cross the board without getting killed (and the pieces are ''tough'') will turn into queens... with spellcasting ability.
** The computer even cheats double: the other pieces scurry about like crazy, but if ''your'' characters don't stick to the
* The old ''Battle Chess'' computer game was a comedic version of this, with animated scenes when one piece took another: The elderly king pulled out a gun and shot the knight, the rook turned into a stone-golem and ate the pawn, and so on.
* ''Archon'' was a fantasy version of this, with pieces like dragons, genies, goblins, and knights, who fought over the squares.
Line 88:
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In one ''[[Spiky-Haired Dragon, Worthless Knight]]'', the titular knight saw an ad for "knight". He answered it, but found out that it involved being the chess piece. He took the job anyway, as he really needed money.
* ''[[Homestuck]]'' has an [[Up to Eleven|entire
== [[Western Animation]] ==
Line 94:
* In ''[[Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?]]?'', [[Carmen Sandiego]] challenges the two detectives to a game of Human Chess in which she's the black king, and the detectives are the white king and white queen. (The other pieces are priceless artifacts that she stole during the episode.) She promises to turn herself in if they checkmate her. {{spoiler|Zack takes her up on it, but Ivy only plays along until she's in a position to take a more direct approach.}}
* In ''[[Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light]]'', the series [[Evil Overlord]] Darkstorm plays with on an oversized board with actual humans. When "captured", the person is dunked by trapdoor into the moat. (This becomes an escape route later on.)
* In ''[[Amphibia (TV series)|Amphibia]]'', the episode "The First Temple" has something similar to the one in ''[[Harry Potter]]'' but with a twist. In order to get through the eponymous temple, Marcy has to win a game of Flipwart (which is Amphibia's version of chess) with her friends forcibly turned into four of pieces. Here's the catch - while Hop-Pop, Polly, and Sprig become pieces on Marcy's side, like the Harry Potter example, Anne becomes a Knight on the ''opposing'' side. (And no, [[Meat Puppet|Anne has no control at all]] of how her piece moves.) Thus, Marcy not only has to win while protecting ''her'' living pieces, she has to do so without taking the Knight. And even worse, the unseen opposing player ''cheats'' and will not accept a forfeit. {{spoiler|It turns out it was a [[Secret Test of Character]]; when Marcy loses on purpose to forcibly end the game, she passes the test.}}
* In the ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' episode "What Is Reality?" one of the Riddler's VR traps is a chessboard with living pieces. (After all, [[Smart People Play Chess]] and Nygma is an [[Insufferable Genius]].) The clue he gives Batman is, "Move according to the rules or it's the end of the day", and Batman making a wrong move causes the floor to collapse under him. Robin figures it out; because Batman is [[Superhero Sobriquets|"the Dark Knight"]] and all the enemy pieces are white, he has to move the way a Knight would (three squares forward then one to the side) in order to reach the White King.
Line 104:
** The first convention to perfect this was Anime Boston. The first year it was filmed in entirety was [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5tj1lnS7Co&feature=related 2008 Kids vs. Adults]. The following year, the match was not filmed due to unseen circumstances. Since then, it was filmed each year, seen here: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj-BxXD2QsQ 2010 Past vs. Future], [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdvflVPVh6w 2011 Fantasy vs. Science], and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS64t4eKsDU 2012: Good vs. Evil]
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar Akbar the Great of India] was a chess enthusiast (and also a show-off) who built at least one giant chessboard for this purpose. Some of the pieces were soldiers mounted on horses or even on elephants.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]▼
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
▲[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]
| |||