Rules generally determine the time-keeping system, the rights and responsibilities

of the players, scoring techniques, preset boundaries, and each player's goals.

The rules of a game may be distinguished from its aims.[16][17] For most
competitive games, the ultimate aim is winning: in this sense, checkmate is the aim
of chess.[18] Common win conditions are being first to amass a certain quota of
points or tokens (as in Settlers of Catan), having the greatest number of tokens at
the end of the game (as in Monopoly), or some relationship of one's game tokens to
those of one's opponent (as in chess's checkmate). There may also be intermediate
aims, which are tasks that move a player toward winning. For instance, an
intermediate aim in football is to score goals, because scoring goals will increase
one's likelihood of winning the game, but isn't alone sufficient to win the game.

An aim identifies a Sufficient Condition for successful action, whereas the rule
identifies a necessary condition for permissible action.[17] For example, the aim
of chess is to checkmate, but although it is expected that players will try to
checkmate each other, it is not a rule of chess that a player must checkmate the
other player whenever possible. Similarly, it is not a rule of football that a
player must score a goal on a penalty; while it is expected the player will try, it
is not required. While meeting the aims often requires a certain degree of skill
and (in some cases) luck, following the rules of a game merely requires knowledge
of the rules and some careful attempt to follow them; it rarely (if ever) requires
luck or demanding skills.

Skill, strategy, and chance

Games of skill include games of physical skill, such as wrestling, tug of war,
hopscotch, target shooting, and stake, and games of mental skill such as checkers
and chess. Games of strategy include checkers, chess, Go, arimaa, and tic-tac-toe,
and often require special equipment to play them. Games of chance include gambling
games (blackjack, Mahjong, roulette, etc.), as well as snakes and ladders and rock,
paper, scissors; most require equipment such as cards or dice. However, most games
contain two or all three of these elements. For example, American football and
baseball involve both physical skill and strategy while tiddlywinks, poker, and
Monopoly combine strategy and chance. Many card and board games combine all three;
most trick-taking games involve mental skill, strategy, and an element of chance,
as do many strategic board games such as Risk, Settlers of Catan, and Carcassonne.

Single-player games
"Single-player game" redirects here. For single-player video games, see Single-
player video game.
Most games require multiple players. However, single-player games are unique in
respect to the type of challenges a player faces. Unlike a game with multiple
players competing with or against each other to reach the game's goal, a one-player
game is a battle solely against an element of the environment (an artificial
opponent), against one's own skills, against time, or against chance. Playing with
a yo-yo or playing tennis against a wall is not generally recognized as playing a
game due to the lack of any formidable opposition. Many games described as "single-
player" may be termed actually puzzles or recreations.

Multiplayer games
"Multiplayer game" redirects here. For multiplayer video games, see Multiplayer
video game.

The Card Players by Lucas van Leyden (1520) depicting a multiplayer card game
A multiplayer game is a game of several players who may be independent opponents or
teams. Games with many independent players are difficult to analyze formally using
game theory as the players may form and switch coalitions.[19] The term "game" in
this context may mean either a true game played for entertainment or a competitive
activity describable in principle by mathematical game theory.

Game theory
Main article: Game theory
John Nash proved that games with several players have a stable solution provided
that coalitions between players are disallowed. Nash won the Nobel prize for
economics for this important result which extended von Neumann's theory of zero-sum
games. Nash's stable solution is known as the Nash equilibrium.[20]

If cooperation between players is allowed, then the game becomes more complex; many
concepts have been developed to analyze such games. While these have had some
partial success in the fields of economics, politics and conflict, no good general
theory has yet been developed.[20]