Comments by JeffRients

'Isn't it accepted that in a good variant it is desirable to keep as
close as possible to ortho rules?!'

Accepted by who?  I'm not aware of any chess variant governing authority.

A brief perusal of this site will reveal dozens or even hundreds of
variants more unorthodox than Circular Chess.  

'Yet the Circular Society rules disallow en passant and castling.  
(Why are these differences necessary?'

I think the answer provided by the Society seems perfectly adequate.  I
would not expect a neophyte chess player to write a master level game. 
Nor do I see any reason to scorn simple variants.

'Sorry to jump on this, but is that really a good basis for forming
a variant's rules, basing them on the predjudices of a beginner
player?!'

I think the successes of this variant (its own Society and championships)
go far in establishing that Circular Chess was soundly constructed.  Keep
in mind that the audience for Circular Chess seems to consist largely of
pub patrons, not chess fanatics.  If anything, chess variantists who want
to see there games actually played by a mainstream audience might do well
in emulating Mr. Reynolds' design approach.

There's probably no need to be concerned yet.  I submitted Knight Chase on
April 21st and that just got posted last week, after Enochian Chess went
up, which was a later submission.

Link broken, but the pop-up ads seem to be working fine!  Information on
this variant may be found at http://www.kaissa-thegame.com/

'Michael Howe chided me for wanting to change the rules of an existing
chess varianr without the inventor's approval. Excuse me, but isn't that
like leaving the science of aviation entirely in the hands of the Wright
Brothers?'

The folks following the Wright brothers generally built their own planes,
rather than taking the model the brothers made and modifying it. They
apllied the principles of the Wright brothers to new constructions. Rather
than offer to change an existing variant, why not propose a similar variant
under a new name? Changing an existing game without altering the name leads
to confusion because the older form of the game becomes obscured. These
days if I want to find some players for a Dungeons & Dragons game I have
to specify which of more than a dozen versions I mean. When a game author
does not have to worry about Brand Identity, why not just use a new name
for your variant? Taking your method to its logical conclusion, your
version of Grand Chess might as well be called simply Chess.