like chess
This morning I dreamt I was in a faraway land, and after some social gaff, I was challenged to this chess-like game. The board was ten feet square, there were sixty large, ornate pieces to a side made of blown glass. There are lions, dragons, emperors, princesses, monks, slaves, also, cannons and a few others. For the beginner version of this this game there was a labyrinthine set of rules beginner players are supposed to memorize and play by otherwise judges berate them mercilessly.
Opponents pieces may killed or enslaved. No piece may be promoted. Enslaved pieced do not retain their old powers, they're just slaves. You can exchange princess. Princesses unlike queens, don't move at all but stay on the same square the whole game unless they're exchanged whereupon they stay on their corresponding squares. The exchange doesn't have any strategic value but raises the stakes: the victor is more honored, the loser is more ridiculed. The game ends when you kill or enslave your opponents emperor. Enslaving the emperor is the more highly rated victory. Losing players often play their entire endgame trying to have their emperor killed rather than enslaved.
I was challenged to the advanced game. In the advanced game there are no rules. You command and bully lackies (usually beginning players who are still studying the rulebooks) to move the pieces for you, wherever you feel like moving them. You have to act as aggressive and macho and tyrannical as you can. A committee of judges analyze and rationalize every move and the manner in which you move it. Their conclusions about the game indicate how you are supposed to act on your turn. There's a coup-de-grace move, sort of like checkmate, where you grab one of your own pieces (after having not touched them the entire game) and throw it on the ground smashing it to pieces. Losers of the advanced game are humiliated by being demoted to beginner, that is if they ever play again.
I was doing very poorly until I woke up.