Game System Breakdown – Players

Whether it’s a tabletop game or a video game, they share certain commonalities within their game systems.

When we attempt to understand the systems of different types of games, we tend to use a similar approach to analyse the content they contain. Therefore, we can try to categorise and analyse these elements to better understand the structure of the game system.

As participants in the game, players are usually one of the most frequently mentioned terms in game rules. The term “player” connects many aspects of the game, because most games are designed with the player in mind. Just as books need readers, music needs listeners, and films need an audience, games fundamentally, as a medium of information transmission, also require players.

One key difference between games and the other media mentioned is the immersion that games provide. Games offer players experiences across multiple senses—visual, auditory, and tactile—making it easier for players to become immersed in the game. More importantly, players are required to make various decisions within the game, which can range from small to large. These decisions can influence the progression of the game and even affect its outcome. Such choices bring players closer to the game creators, allowing them to feel like an integral part of the game environment.

In different games, the number of players and the roles they take on can vary. In single-player games, there is usually only one player, who must confront the game system. In multiplayer games, players are assigned different roles based on their unique abilities. When describing the rules of Landlord Poker（斗地主, an asymmetric 1v2 card-shedding game）, for example, we mention the number of players and their roles.

Landlord Poker is a three-player card game. At the beginning of each round, one player becomes the “landlord,” while the other two players form the “peasant” team. The landlord receives extra cards and plays alone against the two peasants. Players take turns playing cards or card combinations, and the side that plays all of its cards first wins. In the rules, we can see that Landlord Poker has two distinct roles, “landlord” and “peasant,” with different hand sizes and victory conditions, which are allocated during the game. Therefore, Landlord Poker is classified as an asymmetric competitive game.