Thread by @mspowahs

I’m sure this either isn’t very good, or it is and has already been done before, but in the last 5 minutes before waking up my brain randomly bestowed upon me (and I am now sleepily attempting to relate) a narrative generation tool I’m calling Tender Chess:

1) Wars are conflicts. Conflicts are perspectives. Perspectives are stories. Every person is a nation. Set up the board to set the story. Each side can have a mix of white and black pieces. (The legend mapping between perspective and chesspiece does not exist yet)

2) The first goal is to, while taking turns, consolidate all of your own pieces on the other side of the board. The board sides “belong” to the people with the fewest number of pieces already there. The person with the most pawns of their color on their side goes first.

3) The secondary goal is that each player must capture as few pieces as possible. It’s possible to negate conflict through the interpersonal use of cunning statecraft, or trained army; but are such victories real? Conflict is only truly resolved collaboratively.

4) If, while moving pieces around, a legal chess capture is possible, it must be taken. We are imperfect beings.

5) Every time a piece is moved, it involves the restatement of that part of the conflict. (This is where dream-fuzz comes in. It’s unclear the mechanism by which this retelling automatically becomes conflict resolution.)

6) The early game is called the Squabble: it involves both players sorting out the legal capture moves which are immediately available by virtue of their pieces being together. I imagined capturing a piece creates a narrative which automatically favors you, but is not fully true.

7) The next phase is the Unpacking: collaboratively making space between each other’s pieces, and avoiding captures as much as possible. It requires both sides to actively work with care to make room for the other’s perspectives.

8) The endgame is the Memory: the two perspectives become each knit together in their wholeness, minus the unavoidably captured pieces. (The secret truth of most opposing stories is that both stories are true.) Where a piece is missing, the others’ perspective fills in the gap.

9) In the end, the resolved state—and specific motion to get there—can be used as inspiration for:
- the two sides of any complex tale, and where disagreements remain
- what two people have gone through together
- the history of two nations, as told by their historical documents

If this sort of quasi-automated generative storytelling tool seems interesting in the slightest, feel free to steal it, put actual meat and muscles on its skeleton, and just let me know what comes of it.