HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mjd@saul.cis.upenn.edu ("[*] The Power in the Streets")
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Chess on spherical boards.
Date: 12 Nov 92 00:00:50 GMT
	<1992Nov11.161535.20791@cc.umontreal.ca>
	<1992Nov11.191304.19055@math.utexas.edu>
	<MJD.92Nov11174539@saul.cis.upenn.edu>
Organization: Eaters of Wisdom
In-reply-to: mjd@saul.cis.upenn.edu's message of 11 Nov 92 22:45:39 GMT

In article <MJD.92Nov11174539@saul.cis.upenn.edu> mjd@saul.cis.upenn.edu ("[*] The Power in the Streets") writes:
>       A good version of spherical chess would have all the squares be the
>   same, each adjacent to exactly eight others, or so it seems to me.
>   Perhaps you could accomplish it this way:

    Of course this isn't a sphere either, because the circumfrence is 8
squares in the east-west direction and 16 squares in the north-south
direction.
--

                And for to se, and eek for to be seye
Mark-Jason Dominus 	  			    mjd@central.cis.upenn.edu 

Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: ant@mks.com (Anthony Howe)
Subject: Q: group focus
Organization: Mortice Kern Systems, Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 14:39:10 GMT

Apart from discussing and possibly playing abstract games in this group
could the discussion of game components and design such as game themes, 
scenarios, algorithms, and heuristics also be covered?

-ant
-- 
ant@mks.com                                                   Anthony C Howe 
Mortice Kern Systems Inc. 35 King St. N., Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2J 6W9
"Nice legs.  For a human that is." - Worf (Q-pid)
From: bjbisset@eos.ncsu.edu (BILLY JOE BISSETTE)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: rec.games.abstract vs alt.games.xtrek
Date: 10 Nov 92 17:28:04 GMT
Article-I.D.: ncsu.1992Nov10.172804.10254
Reply-To: bjbisset@eos.ncsu.edu (BILLY JOE BISSETTE)
Organization: Raise A Great Old One Foundation
Originator: bjbisset@c00000-118dan.eos.ncsu.edu


 Just so you people will know, I do know what xtrek and netrek are.  And it
looks like my comparisons have been invalidated due to the massive What??? and
Game postings here...
 Scott, netrek may be alive and well, but from what I've heard, alt.games.xtrek
was to have been removed some time ago, and never has.  And if you've been
reading that news group, you would see it's not quite getting the overflow
from the netrek group...
-- 
----------bill the insane cultist, bjbisset@eos.ncsu.edu
Please make a donation to the "Raise a Great Old One" Foundation.
Everyone chant with me:  Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
                         Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: jcc@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Jeremy Caplan)
Subject: Re: TRY THIS
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 20:33:40 GMT

Hey!  Let's make a seperate newsgroup for TRY THIS things!

I've been kicked out of numerous fast food restaurants in my time.

Jer (grin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Kalah - Complete Rules
From: Jeff Raven <JAR129@psuvm.psu.edu>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 11:44:04 EST
Organization: Penn State University

With all the discussion about Kalah going on, it looks like everyone's
playing by a slightly different set of rules. Also, since, as someone
noted, it's pretty impolite to start a discussion without telling
everyone the rules to the game, I thought it about time someone posted
the complete rules to Kalah.

Kalah is played on a board made of fourteen pits, arranged like this :


                            Player Two
       Two's             X  X  X  X  X  X         One's
     scoring pit ->   X                    X <- scoring pit
                         X  X  X  X  X  X
                            Player One


Each player has seven pits - six which are initially filled with stones,
and one scoring pit, at first empty, on his right. Each non-scoring pit
contains six stones, although beginners sometimes play with three.

Play starts with either of the players. A move is made by removing the
stones from one of your pits (excluding the scoring pit), and placing
them, counter-clockwise, one per pit - with the exception of your
enemy's scoring pit, which you skip. If the last stone lands in your
scoring pit, you are allowed to make another move - there is no limit
to the number of times you can do this in your turn. On the other
hand, if your last stone lands in an empty pit - and this pit is on
your side - you remove both the stone that landed in the empty pit
and all the stones in the pit opposite yours, and place them in you
score pit.

After you have finished your move, your opponent moves, with play
alternating betwteen the players. Play continues until there are no
stones on one side of the board. At this point, the player with stones
remaining takes all of the stones from his pits and places them in his
scoring pit. The winner is the player with the most stones in his score
pit.

As someone noted earlier, there is a computer program available for IBM
PCs, KALAKH.ZIP, which is available at most IBM game archives. (Last
place I saw it was in the games directory of wuarchive's umich mirror.)

If anything's not clear about the rules, feel free to ask.

Jeff Raven
jar129@psuvm.psu.edu
From: Chris.Jeris@launchpad.unc.edu (Chris Jeris)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Hellish Card Games
Date: 11 Nov 92 01:42:50 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina Extended Bulletin Board Service

Okay, Maybe this doesn't belong here, but here's a try:

This is a card game called variously mao, mau, or quasi-mao (a REALLY
nasty variant thought up by a friend of mine)... I'm sure it's played
all over the place but I learned it at the American Regions Math League
meet a few years ago.

Best with five players.  The following rules are 'basic rules':

1  Each player takes a turn in rotation to the left.
2  The dealer deals seven cards to each player, eight to himself and
then selects one to be the first card played.
3  A turn consists of playing one card or drawing one card from the pile
of unused cards.
4  When the pile is exhausted it is shuffled (some variants have "mercy"
rules that state that all players with more than twenty cards discard all
but twenty of them) and play begins again with the top three cards from the
old discard pile.
5  Rules may require players to play certain cards or do certain things
based on the last three cards played and who played them.  No rule may reach
more than three cards back.
6  (oops)  To play a card it is laid on the last card played.  No one may
look through the pile of played cards.
7  The winner of a hand is the first player to play his last card and say
"Mau" (or whatever the name of the game is).  A player going out but failing
to say "Mau" commits a foul.
8  A player violating any rule commits a foul and is penalized by drawing
a card.  A player falsely accusing another of committing a foul himself
commits a foul.
9  A player taking more than fifteen seconds for his turn commits a foul.
10 When two people have won hands, the two of them confer and create a new
mutable rule which is not initially known to the other players.  This rule
may require players to do or play anything (within reason as determined
by your player group...)  This occurs after every second hand, or less
often if one player wins consecutive hands.

Then there is a first rule, which is (highly) mutable:

1  A legal play consists of playing a card which is either of the same suit
or the same rank as the last card played.

Only mutable rules may be changed by other mutable rules.  If a lower-numbered
rule is not SPECIFICALLY changed or repealed by a higher-numbered rule, then
the lower rule takes precedence.  (Rule numbers must go in sequence...)

The "quasi-mao" variant I mentioned now has a total of twenty-one mutable
rules.  It's really hellish especially since I don't know but about six of 
them.  And there's no mercy rule.  (I prefer to play with a 20- or 25-card
mercy rule, but others are nastier.)

Chris Jeris	cjeris@imsasun.imsa.edu	The Illinois Math & Science Academy
--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  laUNChpad.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Nancy Lebovitz)
Subject: Re: Move
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 13:49:33 GMT

In article <DBH.92Nov12094822@wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk> dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk (Denis Howe) writes:
>boutell@isis.cshl.org (Tom Boutell) wrote:
>>King's pawn to queen's duck thirteen. Soprano.
>
>neilb@scs.leeds.ac.uk (Neil Bowers) wrote:
>>Zebedee takes the staff car, with the candlestick!  Do not collect $200.
>
>In article <1dscpqINNd30@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> nate@cats.ucsc.edu
>(Nathaniel Douglas Renwick) wrote:
>>Ahh... but having forfeited your right to pluck the chicken, I have
>>put sleeves on my vest.  Wrong number.
>
>Troglodyte (+2,-3,0) and double.
Aleph null squared plus seventeen. You have control of the national debt.

Nancy Lebovitz
nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu

Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: neilb@scs.leeds.ac.uk (Neil Bowers)
Subject: Re: Game of Nomic Beginning
Originator: neilb@csparc2
Organization: The University of Leeds, School of Computer Studies
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 17:56:34 GMT

In article <BxIC7E.D6n@phage.cshl.org> boutell@isis.cshl.org (Tom Boutell) writes:
>I propose a game of Nomic, to be carried out by email. 
>If there are no objections, certain minor additions to the rules will be 
>made in advance.

There is already a Nomic world running.  Taken from "help" on NomicWorld:

	Nomic World is run on a cut-down MUD server to provide a real-time
	multi-person interface by which discussion and proposals for nomic
	may take place.
 
There is an associated mailing list.  To be added, send email to:

	nomic-request@yoyo.cs.monash.edu.au

Messages are sent to

	nomic@yoyo.cs.monash.edu.au

To connect to NomicWorld, use:

	telnet 130.194.67.16 5000

I believe there has been some discussion about email support for
those who don't have internet connectivity, or can't use telnet
for non-standard ports.

Neil
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: benko@news.dcs.warwick.ac.uk (David Benko)
Subject: What???
Originator: benko@granite
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 16:59:45 GMT


   'elascurn@daimi.aau.dk (Lars R{der Clausen)' asked:
"Three-on-a-row in a 3^x space is rather easy to prove things about. That game
has (as far as playing something on a sheet of paper during lessons) long
been dead for me. 4-on-a-row in 2-d space is a bit more fun, but I seem to
have proved the the starter wins. How about 5-on-a-row? How about 3-player
4-on-a-row? Has anyone tried to prove who wins there?"

As far as I know the '5-on-a-row' game is proved to be won on a table 15x15
for the 1st player by some Japaneese.
Remark: 4-on-a-row in 4x4x4 table is good for the beginner as well.

David Benko
From: palmerd@holst.cs.unc.edu (Daniel Palmer)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Move
Summary: summary of the first half
Date: 12 Nov 92 20:58:33 GMT

In article <1dscpqINNd30@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, nate@cats.ucsc.edu (Nathaniel Douglas Renwick) writes:
.
. neilb@scs.leeds.ac.uk (Neil Bowers) writes:
. >boutell@isis.cshl.org (Tom Boutell) writes:
. >>King's pawn to queen's duck thirteen. Soprano.
. >Zebedee takes the staff car, with the candlestick!
. >Do not collect $200.
. Ahh... but having forfeited your right to pluck the chicken,
. I have put sleeves on my vest.  Wrong number.

And that wraps up a thrilling first half, Tom Boutell has the clear lead,
but his Wall-squad appears to be tiring.  Neil Bowers is still in excellent
shape considering the choppy conditions on the lake and all of his 
flap-backs are in opposing corners.  However, don't count Nathaniel Renwick
out, if he can turn the catapult around and traverse the discontinuity this
is anyone's game!

-Howard Cosell
From: mjd@saul.cis.upenn.edu ("[*] The One True Cross")
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Mornington Crescent
Date: 10 Nov 92 17:43:18 GMT
Organization: Eaters of Wisdom


This is probably the most abstract psychology game I've ever met. 
I heard it from Ranjit Bhatnagar (ranjit@gradient.cis.upenn.edu).

The rule is:

	Players take turns naming stations from the London Underground.
	Whomever is first to name the station `Mornington Crescent', wins.

    When I first heard this, I thought it was a joke, but it it really
quite serious.

    Inexperienced players often suggest this strategy:

	``Why don't you just name Mornington Crescent as soon as it's
	  your turn?''

    Because if you do that, nobody will play with you, that's why not!

    To be a good Mornington Crescent player, you have to be able to
intuit, deduce, or guess when the other players are thinking of naming
Mornington Crescent, and then name it just before they do.  If another
player was thinking about naming Mornington Crescent on his next turn,
he cannot be irritated if you beat him to it.  If the other players
think that X is about to name Mornington Crescent, and you name it
before X does, they will not be angry at you; they will be pleased by
your perspicacity.
--

                And for to se, and eek for to be seye
Mark-Jason Dominus 	  			    mjd@central.cis.upenn.edu
From: anik@crhc.uiuc.edu (Sadun Anik)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Kalah
Date: 10 Nov 92 10:44:59
Organization: Center for Reliable and High-Performance Computing
NNTP-Posting-Host: lyra.crhc.uiuc.edu
In-reply-to: Jeff Raven's message of Tue, 10 Nov 1992 10:13:06 EST


  For those intersted, there is a public domain msdos kalakh (that is
how the author spells it) game from Russia. I got it from wuarchive
msdos-games directory. It is nice VGA program.

--
Sadun Anik, U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Center for Reliable and High-performance Computing
e-mail: anik@crhc.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: nik@scs.leeds.ac.uk (Nik Silver)
Subject: Think Small: Game 1 Results
Organization: The University of Leeds, School of Computer Studies
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 16:17:03 GMT

The first Think Small game is over, and the results are printed below. Each
pair of entries in the columns shows a chosen number and the number of people
who picked that. So the winner is...
        Mary K. Kuhner <mkkuhner@genetics.washington.edu> !!!!!

with the winning number 15. Congrats to her --- a vastly inexpensive prize
will be winging its way to her shortly. And now those results in full...

  No.  Freq               No.  Freq               No.  Freq
  ---  ----               ---  ----               ---  ----
    1  8                   17  5                   47  1
    2  7                   18  1                   53  2
    3  2                   19  2                   73  1
    4 13                   20  1                   74  1
    5  7                   22  2                   82  1
    6  6                   23  3                   83  1
    7  6                   24  3                   84  1
    8  2                   26  4                   86  1
    9  2                   27  2                  101  1
   10  3                   29  1                  108  1
   11  2                   30  1                  113  1
   12  3                   31  1                  123  1
   13  5                   37  4                  131  1
   14  5                   41  2                  193  1
   15  1                   43  1                  371  1
   16  1                   44  3

My apologies to those whose entry didn't reach me in time, for whatever
reason. There will be another game soon, and this time it will run for
longer.

No apologies, however, to one nameless person who sent in all the numbers
from 1 to 78. (Okay, it was Steve Hollasch.) Not only was he disqualified, but
all his entries were disqualified, as well. Hence the stats above. So let that
be a lesson to you, young man. Also, one R D Boyle sent in numerous entries
under different guises, but the Net Police sorted him out, too.

Thanks to everyone who entered, for making it worthwhile. See you next time,

-- 
Nik ``nik@scs.leeds.ac.uk'' Silver

(ps: Hopefully the above stats will make it even trickier for the next time ;-)

Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: Alexx@world.std.com (Alexx S Kay)
Subject: Re: E-mail Hnefatafl
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 17:35:41 GMT

nwbernst@unix.amherst.edu (Neil Bernstein) writes:


>Anyone for a game of E-mail Hnefatafl, or Hafntafl (damned if I know how to 
>spell it)?  Anyway, it's that Viking game where one side tries to get the king
>out to the side of the board and the other side tries to capture the king.
>Here are the rules the way I learned 'em:

[...]
>2) Black has first move.  Black's object is to move its king to any square on 
>the edge of the board.  White's object is to capture the king by surrounding
>it on four sides, ie O
>	       	     OKO
>	   	      O

According to the way I learned, the situation:
    OO
   OXKO
    OO
is also a legal "checkmate".  This can obviously be extended to "surrounding
the king and any of his pieces completely (orthogonally) with no intervening 
spaces", although for the king to have more than one "neighbor" in the
endgame is rare.

[...]
>4) Pieces capture by surrounding other pieces on any two sides (except diagonal
>of course.)  Capturing is an _active_ process, ie, a piece may move between two
>of its opponent's pieces and not be captured.

It should be pointed out that multiple captures are perfectly legal.

Legal capture:

  ABCDEF			  ABCDEF
0 ...O..			0 ...O..
1 ...X..			1 ......
2 .OX.XO			2 .O.O.O
3 ......			3 ......
4 ...O..			4 ......

  situation			situation after
  before move			O's move D4-D2


[...]
>5) The space where the king is first placed (dead center of the board) is
>called the THRONE and designated by a T after the king moves from it.  Consider
>it to be an immobile "neutral" piece.  No piece _except_ the king may move 
>through it.  Captures may be made by any side against it, eg:

>O....   ......			.X....	.....
>.....   ......			...... 	.....
>.XT..   .O.T..		or	..OT..	.X.T.
>.....   ......			......	.....
>.....   ......			......	.....
>		
>before	 after			before	after

I learned a different version of this (though I haven't got the rules handy
and may be misremembering)  No other piece could *land* on the throne, but
moving through was perfectly legal.  I also have conflicting memories about
whether using the throne to capture was actually in this game or in one of
its relatives, Tablut or Alea Evangeli.

[...]
>PS: Anyone know anything about what games the Greeks and Romans played?  I
>know they played various sorts of dice games, but I'd really be interested in
>more detailed information

If you have a good source for SCA books, _Medieval_Games_ by Salamallah the
Corpulent is an excellent text.
More accessibly (I think) from Dover Books is _Board_and_Table_Games_From_
_Many_Civilizations_

Alexx

Alexx@world.std.com
Think "HONK" if you're a telepath.
	[Seen on a Nancy Button]
From: hship@sw.stratus.com (Howard Ship)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Awari Strategies
Date: 10 Nov 92 15:53:37 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: teton.sw.stratus.com

Please post the rules to this game.

-- 
"I can't believe I had the Anti!"
Howard_Ship@vos.stratus.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: jonh@david.wheaton.edu (Jonathan Hayward)
Subject: Re: What [is this newsgroup about]???
Organization: Wheaton College, IL
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 16:50:32 GMT

In article <1dn48fINNomp@charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu> tdunn@ecst.csuchico.edu (Tim Dunn) writes:
>Rec.games.abstract is for games of pure strategy which have no existing
>newsgroup.  Pure strategy implies no hidden knowledge and no element of
>chance.  Thus, by way of example, Othello and Pente are two that satisfy
>both criteria.  Chess and Go do as well, but they have existing groups.

Within my experience, having a probabilistic rather than absolute set of rules
does not destroy the strategic element, but rather changes it.  Creating
optimal strategy differs between situations where the rules are always the same
and where the rules are not always the same.

My memory of the charter is rather fuzzy, but where I saw it (rec.games.design)
was from discussions among game players who play strategy games that have a
random element as well as deterministic strategy games.

If people want to just discuss strategy games with deterministic rules, go
ahead, but there are games that involve randomness and are not "Well, I'll just
trust to me luck and see what happens".  In some ways, randomness adds
considerably to the strategic complexity of games.

(keep in mind that the original application of strategy - warfare - is
something that has a considerable random element, and is still very much
intelligence based in approach)

################################################################################
# "God, give me mountains # "But the greatest   # Jonathan Hayward             #
# to climb and the        # of these is love."  # Jonathan_Hayward@wheaton.edu #
# strength for climbing." # I Corinthians 13:13 # jhayward@imsa.edu            #
################################################################################
From: dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk (Denis Howe)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Mornington Crescent
Date: 11 Nov 92 10:28:45
Organization: Computing Department, Imperial College, London, UK
	<1992Nov10.203229.19889@random.ccs.northeastern.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk
In-reply-to: nik@scs.leeds.ac.uk's message of Tue, 10 Nov 1992 20:32:29 GMT

In article <1992Nov10.203229.19889@random.ccs.northeastern.edu>
nik@scs.leeds.ac.uk (Nik Silver) wrote:

>In article <MJD.92Nov10124318@saul.cis.upenn.edu>,
>mjd@saul.cis.upenn.edu ("[*] The One True Cross") wrote:
>>
>>	Players take turns naming stations from the London Underground.
>>	Whomever is first to name the station `Mornington Crescent', wins.
>
>Since mjd only heard this from a friend, he seems to have not heard
>of the best part of the game.
>
>Originally it was devised as part of the BBC Radio 4 programme ``I'm
>Sorry I Haven't A Clue'' which is a spoof panel game.  The two teams
>of panellist would take it in turns to name stations, and along the
>way invoke archaic (and, naturally, completely ficticious) rules and
>tactics.

This is a special example of the general class of games where one or
more players don't know the rules, like the "Chairmain Mao" card game
(which I think was also described in Scientific American with the name
of "Elusis").  The difference with Mornington Crescent is that there
are no rules.

A similar game is The Power Game where one player starts off by saying
"Power, power, power, he who has the power has it now".  The power
then passes to another player who must repeat the incantation.  The
secret rule is that it is the next person to talk who get the power
but it usually takes a long time before people realise that.
--
Denis Howe <dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk>
So Biggs, you're the idiot who bought all these IBM PCs.  You're fired!
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: guckes@math.fu-berlin.de (Sven Guckes)
Subject: Othello Puzzle for MSDOS Windows
Originator: guckes@medusa
Organization: Free University of Berlin, Germany
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 15:56:33 GMT

Well, WINDOWS ships with an Othello called "reversi".
It has four levels of difficulty.
It is possible to win ALL 64 pieces at the first three levels.
What are the moves ?
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract