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Team Games

Disciplines > Game Design > Types of Game > Team Games

Description | Example | Discussion | See also

Description

Team games are those in which groups of people act together to achieve a common purpose.

There are rules that constrain the formation of teams, the most common of which is the number of people which make up the team. There may also be selection criteria such as age, skill or membership of named organizations.

In most games, teams compete against other similar teams. Two-team games are particularly common in sports.

Some games are played by a single team, for example in basic a role-playing game.

Example

Teams of player-characters are recruited, each with different skills to play in an online role-playing game.

Team members are selected from a chess club for playing in inter-club competitions.

A football club picks players through a complex recruiting process. For each game they then pick those who are most on form. They pay bonuses for winning games more than individual performance in order to ensure the players work in harmony.

Discussion

One of the main benefits of playing in a team is the social camaraderie and  between people on the team. In practising and competing together, they form close social bonds and consequent good friendships.

Friendship can become a problem when a player is not putting in enough effort or who has limited skills, particularly as the team advances to play against more skilled teams.

An important aspect when designing the game is to ensure everyone on the team engages and can enjoy the game. This can be helped by creating specific roles that are to be filled and which need different skills or approaches. With this, it can help to have a subtle balance of both team-wide and individual activity.

Selection of teams is often a tricky balancing job as you are seeking both a complementary blend of skills and a group of people with the right attitude and who can get on together.

A group of people does not become a team automatically. They first may go through the Tuckman process as roles are sorted out. They may also be helped by a coach who handles both personality and skill issues.

Training the team to be a team both increases skills and helps them to trust and respect one another so that on the field of play they will work collaboratively rather than seek individual glory.

Where a team plays against single other teams, the aggregate scoring across multiple games is typically constrained within a limited number of teams (eg. leagues or competition entries) and a limited time period (eg. a season or tournament).

See also

Groups