Pai Sho
This page is devoted to the decoding of the ancient wisdoms of the game of Pai Sho, as seen in the world of Avatar: the last air bender. Please feel free to share any ideas or comments for this game. I've laid down some basic ideas, but nothing's really written in stone. The password is "AangAvatar". You don't need anyone's permission to edit, if you have an idea, go right ahead!
(The front page has been cleaned up some; no worries though, any information it contained has simply been rejiggered to one of the pages linked here. The Wiki Pai Sho page will be almost a photocopy of the old FrontPage, but I wanted to open some room for more Variant formats.)
information. Avatar: the last airbender and the basic concept of Pai sho is (C)2008 Nickelodeon.
What is Pai Sho?
Pai Sho is an ancient game that stretches in popularity among many nations. It is unknown where Pai Sho first originated, as all of the four nations claim that it originated in their respective countries, naming specific villages and historical persons as originators or major reformers to what eventually became known as Pai Sho. The first mention of Pai Sho in writing is around -850 in a fire nation historical book. Over the next 1,000 years more writings appeared in a greater quantity throughout the four nations.
Pai Sho was played in air temples, and is played in the earth king's palace, the water tribe villages and fire nation cities and on the fire nation war barges. Pai Sho is somewhat inspired by oriental flower arranging (Ikebana). The game is commonly played with two players, though a larger number could play.
Archaeologists discovered Pai Sho boards, pieces and diagrams in an ancient air temple and have pieced together a "lost" variation of Pai Sho dubbed Tei Setsu Pai Sho (Air Temple Pai Sho). The game was played in the squares, but it is unknown whether this is the original game, or a variant brought from one of the other nations, click
Tei Setsu Pai Sho for more details.
Playing Materials
The game is played on a circular board with an 18x18 square grid with the corners cut off. In the center is a diamond shape divided in to four quarters with white and red at opposite corners. A Pai Sho board has 256 spaces on it.
Seating- Two players sit across from one another. The drawn tip closest to you is called “the Home Port”. The tip closest to your opponent is called “the Foreign Port”. The other two tips are call “East” and “West” Ports. The “Sides” are divided by the line in the center.
Few tiles are known with certainty; those that are include the White Lotus, the Wheel, and others shown here. Thus, different variant creations utilise different tile sets. For more on these Variants, see Variations.
Harmony
Harmony plays an important part in many variations of the game; from accumulating points, to removing pieces, rules for Harmony fulfill many roles. While specific combinations for Harmonies vary, some similarities exist:
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Most often, Harmonies occur between two pieces, though occasionally those pieces can form a chain with other Harmonious pieces.
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Generally, Harmonies have a value, differentiating valuable or difficult Harmonies from less valuable or simpler ones.
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When Harmonies are present, the White Lotus tile generally produces them easily or increases their value.
The Pot
In games that utilise capturing, all captured pieces are put into a pile on the side of the board, which is called "The Pot". It can be worth a certain number of points; these points are often awarded to one player or another after the game, to keep it interesting. In addition, The Pot is often used to facilitate gambling, applying a monetary amount to total point value therein.
See Also:
Pai Chi
this is my version of pai sho, it's simpler and i think will have a shorter game time
Name
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Placement position
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Harmonious
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Disharmonious
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For tile pictures see the print stuff page, I recommend the alternative tiles. PrintStuff
White flowers
Jasmine
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Home
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Lily, peach
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rose
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Lily
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East/west
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Jasmine, jade
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cherry
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Jade
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Center
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Lily, rose
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peach
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Red flowers
Rose
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Foreign
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Jade, cherry
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jasmine
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Cherry
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East/west
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Rose, peach
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Lily
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Peach
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Center
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Cherry, jasmine
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jade
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All flowers can move up to 3 spaces
Name
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Placement position
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Movement
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ability
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Non- flowers
Knotweed
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Any
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Can only be moved by the wheel.
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Any adjacent piece can’t be moved. They can still be used in harmonies, and be moved by the wheel, or exchanged by the boat, or destroyed by an appropriate peace
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Boat
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Center
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Up too 4 spaces
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Jump over a flower to replace it with one which has been removed
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Wheel
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Any
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Up too 3 spaces
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Rotates adjacent pieces (adjacent is defined as any piece one square away, not diagonal)
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Rock
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Any
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None
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Blocks any harmonies or movements that pass through it. Cant be destroyed
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Power
Dragon
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Enemy side
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Up too 6 spaces
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Can destroy any piece, (except rock)
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Lotus
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Your side
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Up too 2 spaces
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Can destroy any piece (except rock) and acts as a substitute in a harmony. Disharmonious with any enemy flower
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Goal: (if you can meet either case you achieve victory)
- Have 2 harmonies at any time. A harmony can have no more than one enemy flower
- Have all 6 of your enemy's flowers in the removed pile at any time.
Harmony
A harmony is defined as any case in which 3 harmonious tiles are in a single line (you may use no more than 1 enemy tile in your harmonies, if it has 2 of your enemy tiles the harmony becomes your enemy’s), with no disharmonious pieces in between any 2 of the tiles. the tiles need not be adjacent.
Removing tiles
- move a tile onto it’s disharmonious opposite. the tile which has been landed on is removed, the tile which was moved stays on the board. you can destroy your own tiles.
- Move a dragon or lotus tile onto any tile. (except rock)
- All removed tiles are moved off the board into the removed pile, not back to the owners tile bank. the only way to bring back a tile from the removed pile is through the use of the boat
Playing the game
The game begins with both players placing one tile from their tile bank. From that point till a game winning condition is achieved you can either:
- Place another tile from your tile bank in its appropriate position. You can never place a tile on top of an already placed tile. your tile bank is defined as your set of tiles which have not yet been placed on the board
- Move a tile which has already been placed. You can move over your own tiles (except rock) but you can’t move over any enemy tiles. The exception is the boat which can jump over any number of tiles (except rock) as long as it moves to an open space no more than 4 spaces away. Its ability affects all jumped flower tiles.
Placing a tile
There are 4 different starting regions for almost all tiles (the exceptions being the lotus and the dragon). The four regions are the center (purple), the home port (pink), the foreign port(yellow), and the east/west port (blue). Note that your enemy’s home port is your foreign port and vice versa. On the full size board the starting regions are marked off by green lines. You can place a tile on any point that is touching or contained by the green square formed by the green lines in its appropriate starting region.
The game board
Notes:
- If anyone wants to take the time to make a good looking game board, you are more than welcome to post it.
- This is fairly untested, any revisions/clarifications that need to be made to the rules, are more than welcome
- I’m not very good on a computer, if someone could move this to the appropriate page, that would be much appreciated.
- I’m having trouble posting the images of the game board, they are a jpg format and I’m working off a Microsoft windows xp computer, help would be much appreciated.
- Original creator: Nolan
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