Michael Marcovici's art ends the autocratic rule of the player over the pieces:

http://sites.google.com/site/artmarcovici/democratic-chess

Perhaps this is why I lose so much.  Who am I to decide where my knights should sit?

I have read some books where the characters within the book try to wrest control from the author.

Marcovici would be devastated to learn of chess.com's Vote Chess: a cheap and cheerful way of implementing his scheme.

While I agree that vote chess is not autocratic, it is not quite Marocovici's scheme.  Vote chess is more an oligarchy, where a group of rulers decide the destinies of the pieces; Marcovici's pieces are self-determining.

I also disagree that vote chess is cheerful.  

Suppose you have 16 chess pieces all running the same version of some chess engine, aren't they all going to come to same conclusion about what the best move is? - provided they can all see the whole board and they are not so sentient that they object to sacrificing themselves!

If a piece could only see it's own squares and the immediately surrounding squares, that would make for a more interesting dialogue between the pieces.

rhoskins wrote: I also disagree that vote chess is cheerful.  

I haven't tried it yet - so I can't sensibly comment.

I don't suppose you've ever played netball? In that game, team members have fixed positions e.g. Goal Attack. They have to pass the ball as they are not allowed to leave their zone.

If, in a Vote Chess Match, each person was given responsibility for a few squares, then whenever the 'ball' came into their zone, that person would have the casting vote.

This is the same as asking "Do the pieces have free will?"  I think they do not have free will and would all make the same move.  Reasonable people have disagreed about free will in the past.

I don't know how Marcovici's pieces will act.  I think they act independently, using limited knowledge gathered from their individual positions.  Giving different answers, not because of free will, but imperfect knowledge. 

Namaste.

This would be fun, but how would we decide who had the 'ball?'