Tagline: “Chess will never be the same!” This innocent looking pack of 80 cards completely alters the game of Chess – from a static strategic puzzle to a dynamic tactical conflict. Moody and evocative art by Rogerio Vilela. Translated from the original French.

I actually have quite vivid memories of writing this review. It was the first time I really became aware of how thoroughly I’d been bitten by the reviewing “bug” because I started thinking about how I would write the review of the game as I was playing the game.

The tagline of Knightmare Chess is, “Move a piece. Play a Card. Chess will never be the same…”

There you have the whole game. In the elegant box in which Knightmare Chess comes you will find 80 cards – each of which subtly alters the rules of Chess in different ways. These cards let you do all the things you always wish you could do in a tight moment during a game of Chess – resurrect a piece which has been captured, move a piece out of the way, take not one piece, but many on a single move. On each of your turns you can play one card.

When first approaching this game I was both anticipatory and doubtful. Anticipatory because it sounded like a fun thing to do once or twice. Doubtful because chess is an ancient game – its grace and its beauty come from the fact that its rules are carefully balanced, all the pieces are known, and the challenge comes from manipulating a known set of variables in a strategic way to overcome your opponent.

The premise of Knightmare Chess, while seemingly innocuous, actually radically alters the very basic appeal and structure of the game. The rules are no longer balanced, they are in constant flux. The pieces are not known, they can be altered and rearranged. There is no known set of variables, the variables are unknown and changing.

At first glance, therefore, Knightmare Chess has the potential to completely screw the only appeal chess has – its strategic component.

After playing the game awhile I realized I was wrong. Knightmare Chess transformed Chess into a radically different game, but it did not destroy it. Where Chess is a static strategic puzzle (with its elements known and the possible interactions between pieces completely proscribed), Knightmare Chess is a dynamic tactical conflict. Just because the rules are always changing, doesn’t mean that Knightmare Chess is an inferior game. It does mean, however, that it appeals to an entirely different aesthetic than Chess.

Chess has often been described as a wargame. Indeed, in some ways it is – if you are willing to accept a certain degree of abstraction. Nonetheless, it is an odd one – one in which you have only a certain number of troops, in which both sides are equal, and in which everything is ultimately predictable. If Knightmare Chess is similarly a wargame carried to an extreme degree of abstraction, then it presents a model of modern warfare – where the sides can quickly become unequal, where reinforcement is conceivable, and where combat is anything but predictable.

Knightmare Chess is a fascinating game. If you are a chess player, approach it with an open mind. If you have no taste for chess, then it is entirely conceivable that this game will appeal to you nonetheless.

It should be noted that I am using a copy of the Second Edition for the purposes of this review. The differences between the first and second editions are extremely subtle and largely inconsequential to the overall gameplay and assessment of this game. For a list of differences you can check Steve Jackson Game’s website.

Style: 4
Substance: 5

Author: Pierre Clequin and Bruno Faidutti
Company/Publisher: Steve Jackson Games
Cost: $14.95
Page count: n/a
ISBN: 1-55634-319-1
Originally Posted: 1998/05/30

Go to Part 1

BACKGROUND: This berm bunker belongs to the Ford Family. These militia isolationists generally keep to themselves, but are known to come into Hogtown from time to time. (When they do, they tend to show up in a paranoid group and spend most of their visit watching each other’s backs.)

The family consists of Ma Parker, Pa Clark, three daughters (Melissa, Angela, and Margerie), and three sons (Arthur, Peter, and Timmy). All the children are grown except for “Little Timmy”. The compound is also home to two hired farmhands (Bruce and Ted). The Fords are all pure-bred humans, although Ted is a felinoid.

At dawn, the bunker was attacked and overrun by Osirans. Peter, Bruce, Margerie, and Timmy were taken to the Nano-Embalming Compound (Encounter 4) as prisoners. Pa Clark, Arthur, and Ted were killed. Ma Parker, Melissa, and Angela are still alive and being held prisoner inside the compound by the Osirans. (The Osirans decided that this made as good a place any to hold prisoners while waiting for the nano-embalming vats to cycle. Over the next 24-48 hours, they’ll probably bring additional families from the surrounding area and lock them in here.)

LAY OF THE LAND: This encounter was designed for a battlemap from the Gamma World boxed set.

• Ma Parker, Melissa, and Angela are still alive and held inside the compound.
• The bodies of Pa Clark, Arthur, and Ted can also be found inside the compound.
• The stairs inside the compound go down to a subterranean level where there living quarters for the family. There’s also a large storage area containing two years worth of stocked food.

ENCOUNTER: Two Osiran Battlepriests and a flight of Osiran Bots (2 Attack Bots + 6 Monitor Bots) guard the berm bunker. The battlepriests are dressed in full Egyptian regalia, complete with golden headdresses. They each carry firestaves and have high-tech armbands laced with complex, bejeweled interfaces.

REWARDS:

• 1 Omega Tech card per PC (from the Osirans).
• 2d6 Ancient Junk if they loot the Ford’s bunker.

CLUES

• Location Tracker. The battlepriests each carry one. Mechanics check: Easy – Activates the tracker, which pings the Nano-Embalming Compound (Encounter 4) and shows its map location on a small screen. Moderate – Recognizes that activating the tracker without the proper code sequence will send an alarm to the people on the other end. Hard – Figure out how to bypass the code sequence (so that the compound isn’t put on alert).
• Onboard Nav Systems in the Osiris Bots. A moderate Mechanics check can decode map locations for the Nano-Embalming Tomb (Encounter 4) and the Tomb (Encounter 5)
• The battlepriests are completely in-the-loop regarding the Lesser Emperor’s plans. They won’t talk willingly, but if somehow coerced or forced they can cough up the location of the Crater (Encounter 2), Nano-Embalming Compound (Encounter 4), and Tomb (Encounter 5).

Next: Nano-Embalming Compound

Go to Part 1

BACKGROUND: This is where the techno-meteor impacted and the Osirans emerged. They moved the large chunks of technology that emerged with them to the Nano-Embalming Compound (Encounter 4) and the Tomb (Encounter 5) several hours ago.

LAY OF THE LAND: This encounter was designed for a battlemap from Keep on the Shadowfell. (It can also be found in Fantastic Locations: Dragondown Grotto.)

• Nature (Moderate): The large skeleton in the center of the crater appears to be of a huge, winged cat. Nothing like that has been seen in the area.
• Perception (Easy): On the south side of the crater, it’s very easy to see trails in the ash where heavy equipment has been dragged out.

ENCOUNTER: The Lesser Emperor left behind a giant Scarab Spine Beetle (burrowed underneath the crater) and a screen of four Osiris Bots to monitor and guard the crater. Let the PCs poke around the crater a bit before they rouse the beetle. Have the Osiris Bots do a fly-over towards the end of the encounter, but only engage if attacked. (Otherwise they’ll fly-off in the direction of the Tomb.)

The scarab beetle’s wings have been painted in golden, swirling patterns. At the center of the pattern on each wing is an Eye of Osiris:

The Osiris Bots are gleaming oblongs of black plastic.

REWARDS:

• If the PCs search the surrounding area, they’ll find 2 Omega Tech cards per PC. (Scattered from the techno-meteor.)

CLUES:

• The trail on the south side of the crater becomes more difficult to follow after it leaves the crater, but it leads to the Ford Family Bunker. (complexity 1, 4 successes, moderate DC)
• Onboard Nav Systems in the Osiris Bots. A moderate Mechanics check can decode map locations for the Nano-Embalming Tomb (Encounter 4) and the Tomb (Encounter 5)

Next: The Ford Family Bunker

Go to Part 1

BACKGROUND: A bandit gang had laid an ambush in the Hole in the Wall. About an hour ago, an Osiran serpent squad attacked the bandits. The Osirans were disappointed when the bandits fought to the death, denying them living prisoners for their nano-embalming vats (Encounter 4).

LAY OF THE LAND: This encounter was designed for a battlemap from Keep on the Shadowfell. (It can also be found in Fantastic Locations: Fields of Ruin.)

• The bodies of a half dozen bandits lie scattered around the hole in the Wall. Any inspection of the bodies will reveal distinctive circular brands on their shoulders.
• Conspiracy (Easy): The tattoos mark these as members of the Circle Gang. They’ve nomadic raiders who cycle through these parts every few months.
• Nature (Easy): There are clear signs that other bodies have been dragged away from the area.
• Perception (Easy): In a nearby copse of trees, the PCs can find another 6 bodies wrapped in cerecloth.
• Science (Moderate): There are puncture marks on the corpses. They look like snake bites, but the snakes must have been huge.

ENCOUNTER: Once the PCs have spent a little time investigating the scene, the Osiran serpent squad returns to finish collecting and prepping the bodies. They include a Serpent Commando, a silver drake, and three giant silver asps. All of them have silver scales that glisten like mercury. The serpent commando wears a tunic formed from bands of ebon and lapis lazuli

REWARDS:

• Bandits carry 1d6 pieces of Ancient Junk (Gamma World, pg. 81). (It’s strange that whoever killed the bandits didn’t loot the bodies.)
• 1 Omega Tech card per PC from the Osirans.

CLUES:

• The Osiran Snake-Warrior has a Ford Family Militia Badge pinned like a badge of honor to the front of his tunic. (Moderate Conspiracy check to recognize the badge as belonging to the Ford Family. See Encounter 3.)
• The serpents’ trail leads to the Nano-Embalming Compound (Encounter 4). Following the trail requires a skill challenge (complexity 1, 4 successes, moderate DC).

Next: The Crater

This is a quick scenario I threw together in a couple of hours for Gamma World. It was designed to serve as an introductory adventure for 1st level characters.

BACKGROUND: Over the past few months, intermittent meteors have been hitting the area around town. The force of the meteor impacts (or perhaps something special about these particular meteors) have been tearing open interdimensional rifts. Locals have started referring to them as “techno-meteors” because high-value tech has often been found in the area around the impact craters.

THE OSIRANS: A meteor struck down around 10 PM last night. The rift it opened pulled through a Lesser Emperor of the Osiran Empire and his entire funerary chamber. (Osiran Emperors retire into a state of cryo-torpor, sending their virtual consciousness into the Land of the Dead while continuing to wield great influence over the Empire through their religious cults. But that’s largely irrelevant for the purposes of this adventure. The visual motif you’re looking for here is Techno Pulp Egyptian.)

Bereft of his crystalline pyramid, the Lesser Emperor is less than amused. Having determined that he has no way of returning home, however, he has decided to launch a Conquest. If he’s successful, the result would be a Neo-Osiran Empire of papyrus cults and Art Deco pyramids in which the dead serve as eternal slaves. (Or some bastardized, post-apocalyptic fiefdom built in its image.)

OSIRAN TIMELINE:

• 10 PM – Appear in Crater.
• 1 AM – Leave crater and establish a new Tomb for the Lesser Emperor.
• 4 AM – Move equipment to Nano-Embalming Compound.
• 8 AM – Attacked Ford Family Bunker.
• 10 AM – Attacked the Roadside Ambush.

NOTE: Most Omega Tech scavenged during this adventure should be given a distinctly Egyptian flavor if possible.

THE HOOK AND SET-UP: The PCs are based out of Hogtown. Hogtown is your standard, post-apocalyptan settlement. It’s a thin veneer of civilization that’s trying to stretch itself out over as much territory as it can manage.

The PCs work as a team of specialized troubleshooters for Boss Hog. They’re called into his office first thing in the morning: He’s got a job for them. Last night his observatory (a huge, rickety structure in the center of town that Boss Hog refers to as being “three stories tall” although no one locally knows why he’s measuring it in tall tales) observed a meteor strike to the west. The PCs need to head on out there, secure the site, and gather up any valuable tech in the area before other scavengers show up and pick it clean.

(Boss Hog can either be a petty tyrant who just wants the stuff to aggrandize himself. Or he can honestly be trying to make Hogtown into a place where people can get by just a little bit better and the tech will be serving the community. I dunno. See where the snout-nosed little bastard takes you.)

HEADING OUT: The meteor strike is on the other side of Cataclysm Wall. This is a weird wall of jagged rock about thirty or forty feet deep that was thrust up out of the ground during the Big Mistake. It runs for dozens of miles and is a real pain in the ass for navigation in these parts. Fortunately, during the Militia Wars that wracked the region after the Big Mistake several holes were blown through the Wall. There’s a dirt road that runs through one of these holes not far from where the meteor went down.

Conpiracy (Easy): The road is kept in pretty good condition. There are quite a few farms north of the Wall, and they all bring their goods to Hogtown on this road.

Conspiracy (Moderate): The hole in the Wall is a natural chokepoint for trade. Which means that bandits are known to lay ambushes there.

Next: Roadside Ambush