Element

In this Death Match, use the four elements to trap your opponent before they trap you. (Original design by Mike Richie)

Designer(s): Non-original Game	Match Type: DM (for 2 players)
Featured in: Zero's Gambit, DM Colosseum, Exordium, The Genius: PnP

Each player controls a sage. Your aim is to set the board position such that your opponent cannot move on their turn. This is done by placing element stones to block movement on an 11 by 11 board.

There are 4 different element stones, Fire, Wind, Earth and Water.

Each turn players can move their Sage 1 square to any of the 8 surrounding spaces. (optional)

Players will then draw 4 stones from the pool at random (the pool is infinite, and each stone has an equal chance of being drawn). Players can choose to draw less stones for additional movement. For every stone of the 4 you choose not to draw, you may move 1 additional spaces. You can choose to not move any of your allocated spaces if you so wish, but unused movement isn't carried to your next turn. You can choose when you move in your turn between placing stones, this can also be broken up.(Move, Stone, Move,Stone,Stone). You may not move onto a space with a stone.

Each stone has different effects when placed. Here are the rules for placing stones:

• Every stone drawn must be placed on the board, as long as there is an valid move.

• Stones cannot be placed on top of other stones, unless they satisfy the rule of replacement.

• The rule of replacement allows you to remove 1 colour of stone and replace it with another, the colour you can swap it with depends on the colour removed.

• Fire Stones Replace Wind Stones

• Wind Stones Replace Earth Stones

• Earth Stones Replace Water Stones

• Water Stones Replace Fire Stones

• You can replace the stones on a square multiple times. (i.e, a square with a Fire Stone, can be replaced with a Water stone, and the replaced with an earth stone, in the same turn.)

• The effects of placing a stone are resolved before the next stone is placed.

You win the game if at the start of your opponent next turn, there is nowhere their sage can move.

The following are the effects that take place when a stone are placed are the following:

Fire Stones:

Fire spreads, placing a stone next to another Fire stone, can cause additional Fire stones to be added to the board.

When you place a Fire stone next to one or more Fire stones already on the board, another fire stone is added on the opposite side on the adjacent fire stone if the space is empty or wind. If the space contains a Earth or Water Stone or a sage, nothing happens. If the space contains a fire stone, look at the next stone in the line and place it repeat the above process. Fire stones only spread orthogonally, and not diagonally. Additional Stones placed by this process do not cause further fire stones to be placed.

Wind Stones:

Wind Rises, stones next to sages can allow them to jump, the distance can be increased by stacking to create whirlwinds.

Jumping is a free action, and doesn't take up an allocated move. Sages may jump over an adjacent wind stone, orthogonally or diagonally, but the landing space must be empty. The same wind stone cannot be used to jump multiple times in a turn. Wind stones may also be jumped over if there are multiple adjacent in a line. Wind stones may also be stacked up to a height of 4 to create whirlwinds. Whirlwinds allow a sage to jump a number of spaces equal to the number of wind stones in the stack, along with any stones wind stones in a line. Players can only jump the exact number of wind stones in a line.

Earth Stone:

Earth Barricades, stones can be used to create irremovable walls by stacking to form mountains.

Earth stones may be placed on top of those already on the board up to a height of 2. This causes them to become a mountain, and cannot be replaced by wind stones. Any other earth stones connected adjacently either orthogonally or diagonally, become part of the mountain range and also gain this property. Two Diagonally connected mountain earth stones stop sage movement.

Water Stones:

Water Flows, connected stones form rivers, that move connected tiles. You form a river by placing a water stone next to either a single water stone or straight line of water stones. The player then choose where the river then goes, moving 1 space for each stone in it, taking all those in the line with them. The river moves orthogonally, and must move each time a stone is added. If a river cannot move its full number of spaces, it is an invalid move. When a river moves it can replace fire stones, but is blocked by Wind Earth and other water stones, as well as sages. If a stone is placed such that two rivers could be formed, the player chooses which to move.

Starting Board:

Moves are given by coordinates. There is a 5 minute time limit to do all your turns actions, with a 10 minute reserve time. (there is some allowance for clarity in describing river pathways). Though players can choose to submit an image instead using the excel sheet format attached, and then I will check if its valid. Players must state how many stones they will draw before drawing any. Then Dicebot will choose the stones. if you have any questions about the rules, feel free to ping me.

Since, the DM is a bit confusing, I'll post the source rules and tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2HyPhXdRvs

https://www.ratherdashinggames.com/-/media/files/pdf/rules/ruleselementv2.pdf

In this game, players use element tiles to try to prevent their opponent's sage from being able to move.

Element is a popular game within the Genius ORG community. It has its origins as a board game designed by Mike Richie, and these specific rules were created by chaotic_iak for the purposes of facilitating a version of it for DMs.

The game is played on a 11x11 board. Each player has a sage (flower), starting next to the center.

The game is also played with element stones. There are 4 elements: fire, water, earth, and wind (shown below). There is an infinite supply of each element stone. Each element is special and modifies a core rule in their own way. What follows is the general rules; rules modified by elements follow later.

Each of the 4 elements is weak to another, in the following cycle (X -> Y means X is weak to Y): fire -> water -> earth -> wind -> fire. You may place the elements you draw anywhere but cannot place them if an element is already on that tile. There is one exception: The Rule of Replacement. You may replace a tile with an element if the element being placed beats the element that is already there. For example, if a water stone is going to be placed on a fire stone, the fire stone is removed, because fire is weak to water.

The DMO, @Kotov, decides the starting player of the game. Players alternate turns.

On your turn, you must first specify a number of stones you will take. This number can be between 0 and 4. You will receive that many stones; each stone is chosen among one of the four elements, independently and at random. You will also get a number of moves, equal to 5 minus the number of stones you took. Thus if you take 2 stones, you get 3 moves for the turn. After that, you must place all your stones and make all your moves. You may do these in any order; for example, you might place one of your stones, then make two moves, then place the other stone, then make the last move.

To make a move, simply move your sage one space orthogonally or diagonally. In general, you may not move to a space with an element.

To place a stone, simply place the stone on a square on the board. In general, the square must be empty or contains a stone that you can remove by Rule of Replacement.

The game ends after an action (place a stone or make a move), in which a sage runs out of movement options and thus cannot move even if they have to. The opponent of the blocked sage wins the game. In case both sages end up blocked, the player that doesn't have the turn wins. It might also be possible that you cannot complete all actions in your turn; in that case, you are forced to forfeit and your opponent wins.

The four elements are represented by colors: fire tiles are red, water tiles are blue, air tiles are beige, and earth tiles are black.

ELEMENTS

These are the rules specific to the elements.

Fire: If there is an orthogonal (horizontal/vertical) line of 1 or more fire stone on the board and you place a fire stone on an end of such line, another fire stone is automatically placed on the opposite end of the line, if it's empty or has wind stones (by Rule of Replacement). If your fire stone is the end of several lines of fire stones, all of them get an additional fire stone each.

In the example below, a fire stone (dark brown) is placed on a stack of wind stones by Rule of Replacement. As a result:

Fire spreads to right and down (yellow).
Fire doesn't spread to left (out of grid), up (fire can't replace earth), or up-right (diagonal).
Fire only spreads down once; it doesn't do chain reaction.
Another fire stone is placed near bottom-right. This doesn't cause any spreading; fire stones must be adjacent to the new fire stone in order to cause spreading.

Water: If there is an orthogonal (horizontal/vertical) line of 1 or more water stone on the board and you place a water stone on an end of such line, you have formed a river for the turn. If your water stone is the end of several lines of water stones, you must pick one line to be a river. You must then trace a path, starting from the stone you placed and traveling orthogonally without U-turning or overlapping yourself or the river, for as many squares as there are stones in the river, across empty squares or squares with fire stones (by Rule of Replacement). The stones from the river are moved to the path you traced. If it's impossible for you to trace such a path, the stone placement is illegal.

In the example below, a water stone is placed on the dark blue spot. As a result:

There are three potential rivers (extending left, up, or right), you must pick one.
The next image is if you pick river extending up. You must trace a path of 2 squares (yellow).
The next next image is if you pick river extending left. You must trace a path of 3 squares; you can't go shorter. This time the path going left (from the first image) doesn't work because you block yourself.
The fire stone can be passed over by Rule of Replacement.

Earth: You may place an earth stone on top of a lone earth stone. A stack of two earth stones is called a mountain, and all earth stones connected orthogonally or diagonally through other earth stones to a mountain together form a range. All stones in a range are immune from the Rule of Displacement (and thus wind stones cannot be placed on them). Sage cannot pass diagonally through a range, except using the free action of wind stones; see below.

In the example below:

Initially there is no mountain (top image), so all earth stones are just earth stones; a sage can go diagonally.
An earth stone is placed on the top-left earth stone (middle image), forming a mountain. Now bottom-left area is a range and the bottom-left sage can't go diagonally.
An earth stone is placed to connect to top-right stones (bottom image). The range expands and the top-right sage can't go diagonally either.

Wind: You may place a wind stone on top of other wind stones, making a stack of up to 4 high. An orthogonal/diagonal line of 1 or more wind stone stacks is called a whirlwind. As a free action, if your sage is on an end of a whirlwind and entering the whirlwind doesn't require you to go diagonally through a range, you may ride the whirlwind. Count the number of wind stones in the whirlwind; your sage travels in the direction of the whirlwind, jumping over that many squares (including diagonally through ranges) and landing on the next one. For example, if the whirlwind has 1, 2, 1, 3 stones, you will jump over 1+2+1+3 = 7 squares and land on the next one. Your sage must land on an empty square; if your sage would land on a stone or outside the grid, the action is illegal. In addition, you may only use each stack of wind for riding once every turn. Placing additional wind stones on the same stack counts as the same stack, but removing all wind stones of a stack and putting new ones on the same square counts as different stack.

In the example below:

You can move bottom-left, jumping over 1+2 = 3 squares and landing on the next one.
You can move bottom-right, jumping over 1+1 = 2 squares. You can jump over a range because you're already in the middle of a whirlwind. Note you can't jump back to the middle in the same turn because you'd be reusing a stack, but you can do so on a later turn.
You can move down, jumping over 3 squares (the 1 doesn't count, it isn't connected). You can then jump again to top-right. Note you cannot go bottom-left any more because you'll be going through a range.
If the fire stone wasn't there, you could move down (jumping 3) then move up (jumping 1) in the same turn; the 1 wouldn't have been used the first time you jumped.
You can't move left; jumping lands you to the wind stone.
You can't move top-left; jumping brings you out of the board.
You can't move top-right; you can't cross the range before jumping.

Credits

This game was played as DM5 in Zero's Gambit and also appeared in DMC1.

The game itself is copied from the board game Element, created by Mike Richie.

The only change from the original game is that there are 30 stones of each element in the original, but an unlimited supply here.

Summary

This is your last chance to master the elements and to advance to finals.

Use the randomly drawn elements to trap your opponents while keeping your options open!

- - - Rules - - -

The game is played on an 11x11 square grid. Players will take turns moving and placing elements on the board.

The game ends when a player has no empty spaces next to them at the start of their turn and that player loses.

The board starts out empty except for the two players on F5 and F7. The player pieces will be referred to as sages.

Pengu, as the DMO will decide who starts. After that, turns alternate.

On your turn, you must:

Draw a number of elements from 0 to 4.
Move your sage and place drawn elements.

If you don't do the above in the time limit, you concede the DM.

Drawing

To draw a number of elements, use Digory's command /take [0-4]

If you do not want to draw any, please still use /take 0 to confirm your move.

Digory will return the queried amount of elements. Each element is randomly picked from Fire, Water, Earth and Air. The chosen elements aren't guaranteed to be distinct, there can be repeats.

A single element can be referred to as a stone.

Moving

You must move 5 - (drawn stones) spaces. For example, if you draw 3 stones you must move 2 spaces. If you draw 0, you must move 5

Sages can move to any touching space. Sages can move diagonally and can move to previously visited spaces.

You can only move to empty spaces, you may not move to a space occupied by an element or an opponent's sage.

You can "squeeze" in between two stones; if there is a stone directly above and another directly to the right, you may still move up-right as long as it's empty.

Placing and Weaknesses.

Each of the 4 elements is weak to another in the following cycle (where X ->Y means X is weak to Y): Fire -> Water -> Earth -> Air -> Fire.

An element can be placed on an empty space or on the element that is weak to the one placed.

If an element was placed on top of a weak element, the latter is removed.

After you got your elements, you can move and place them in any order.

For example, you can move twice, place 1 element, move once and place another element.

Game End

The game continues with players moving and placing elements until one player starts their turn unable to move.

This ends the game in the trapped player's loss.

The player that is still able to move wins the DM and advances to finals.

- - - Elements - - -

Each element modifies the game in a major and unique way. Learning how to use them effectively is key to mastery.

Earth

An earth stone can be placed on top of a lone earth stone to create a mountain.

A mountain touching another earth stone (even diagonally) turns the earth into a mountain, creating a mountain range.

Mountains can not be replaced by Air.

Sages can not move diagonally through a mountain range with the exception of using an air stone to do so. (read Air for more details)

🔍 In the example below:

Initially there are no mountains, so both sages are able to move diagonally.
An earth stone is placed at A2. The bottom-left sections becomes a mountain range, causing bottom-left player to be unable to move back

Air

An air stone can be placed on top of another air stone or stack creating an air stack of at most 4 stones.

A straight line of at least 1 air stone or stack is called a whirlwind.

If you are touching a whirlwind, as a free action, you may ride the whirlwind, jumping in the direction of the whirlwind over a number of spaces equal to number of air stones in the whirlwind and landing on the next space. This action jumps over all of the spaces, allowing you to ignore mountain ranges.

You may not ride a whirlwind if:

The landing space is occupied by a stone or a sage.
The whirlwind is separated from you by a mountain range.
An air stack that is a part of a whirlwind was already used by you this turn.

🔍 In the example below, the player

can move the whirlwind down, jumping 1+2 = 3 spaces and landing on the next one
can move down-right, jumping 1+1 = 2 spaces, which include a mountain range
can move right, jumping 3 spaces (the 1 doesn't count, it's separated) and then...

...can move down-left immediately after and can move up-left immediately after that. This will cause the player to end up on A2.

 Note that none of those actions were moves, a player is free to make a move inbetween or after any of those actions.

can NOT move up-right, as that lands the player off the board.
can NOT move up-left, as it requires crossing a mountain range before riding a whirlwind
can NOT move down-left, as it will land on an element (air)

Fire

If a fire stone is placed orthogonally adjacent to a line of fire stones at least 1 fire long, another fire stone is automatically placed on the other end of the line.

These bonus fires can only be placed on top of empty spaces or air stones and do not cause chain reactions.

If a fire stone is placed next to multiple fire lines, multiple bonus fires are placed, one at the end of each line.

🔍 In the example below, a fire stone is placed on B3, which causes it to spread to E3 and B5.

B1 and D4 are unaffected because fire can't replace earth and fire doesn't cause chain reactions.

Water

If a water stone is placed orthogonally adjacent to a line of water stones at least 1 water long, that line and the newly placed stone form a river.

If multiple rivers can be made, player making the turn chooses which one river to make.

The, you must trace a path for the river to follow, starting at the placed stone and without intersecting itself or making U-turns (snake rules).

Then, the river stones will be moved to the path you traced.

The path must only consist of empty or fire spaces.

The number of spaces a river must move is equal to the number of stones in the river.

If you can not move the river the required number of spaces, you may not place the stone there.

🔍 In the example below...

water can NOT be placed on B1, as there is nowhere for the river to flow.
water can be placed on C2, which creates 3 potential rivers.

The player is free to choose which river to pick, let's say the river extending left was picked.

The player then traces a path for it. The path has to be 3 spaces long, it can not be shorter.

The player picks Down, Right, Down, which results in the 3rd image.

Administration

This game has no private information, only the game room will be used.

Use /take [0-4] command to query a number of stones to take.

The command is currently not finished. Players will be pinged when it's available.

Place stones by saying which stone to place and at which coordinate.

You can specify which whirlwind to use by saying a space it is on while touching it.

Specify which path the river takes using UDLR moves.

Move using U, D, L, R, UL, UR, DL, DR, space or comma separated so that UR isn't read as a U and then a R.

For trivial moves you can just specify the coordinate you move to.

Players may request a board update after making a portion of the move and before making the rest.

Players may undo any of their actions until they confirm them by saying "confirm" after making all the moves and placements.

Players get 3 minutes per turn with 5 minutes reserve time, used in 30 second intervals.

Running out of time forfeits the DM.

The board state will be updated at the start of every turn as well as on player's request.