Running-fight games are

board games Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a co ...

that essentially combine the ''method'' of race games (such as

backgammon Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Pe ...

pachisi Pachisi (, Hindustani: əˈtʃiːsiː is a cross and circle board game that originated in Ancient India. It is described in the ancient text ''Mahabharata'' under the name of "Pasha". It is played on a board shaped like a symmetrical cross. A ...

) and the ''goal'' of elimination-based games such as

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

draughts Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; British English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. Checkers ...

. Like race games, pieces are moved along linear tracks based on the fall of dice or other lots; but like chess, the object is to capture opponent pieces. They might be most easily conceptualized as race games with two main differences: First, when a piece lands on a space or point occupied by an opponent, instead of sending it back to the beginning to start over, the opponent piece is '' captured'', permanently removed from the game. Second, there is typically no "end" to the track; pieces keep moving around their circuits, gradually capturing more and more enemy pieces. A player wins and ends the game by capturing the last of the opponent pieces. Running-fight games are found almost exclusively in Islamic-influenced cultures, ranging from

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, often bearing the names Tâb, Sig, or variations thereof; in fact, the whole running-fight family is sometimes referred to as Tâb games. However, three

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

an examples exist:

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Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

Sáhkku Sáhkku is a board game of the Sami people. The game is traditional among the North Sámi, Skolt Sámi, Inari Sámi and Lule Sámi but may also have been played in other parts of Sápmi. Rules Sáhkku is a running-fight game, which means that p ...

( Samit), and Að elta stelpur (

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

ic). Also in this group is the

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica ...

n game known variously as Bul, Boolik, or Puluc. The modern cross and circle game Fang den Hut! and its descendants

Coppit Coppit is a running-fight board game created in 1927 by Otto Maier Verlag which was originally called in german: Fang den Hut (or Capture The Hat in English). It was renamed and has been re-released several times, most notably by the Spear's Game ...

and Headache are also running-fight games. Their unusual method of capture is the same as that of Bul, and conceivably they are descended from it, since a description of Puluc was published in German in 1906, and Boolik in English in 1907; Fang den Hut! was published in Germany in 1927.

References

* * * * {{Tabletop games by type Roll-and-move board games