Legends of the Three Kingdoms

Legends of the Three Kingdoms (; literally Three Kingdoms Kill), or sometimes Sanguosha, LTK, 3KK for short, is a Chinese card game based on the Three Kingdoms period of China and the semi-fictional 14th century novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (ROTK) by Luo Guanzhong. The rules of the basic LTK are almost identical to the rules of the older Italian card game Bang!. LTK was released by YOKA games (游卡桌游) on January 1, 2008, and has been followed to date by a total of seven official expansion sets, an online version LTK Online, as well as a children's version LTK Q Version. There are self-created cards by players, but these are mostly unofficial.
LTK initially began with a strong following in China since the entire game is in Chinese. Sales of LTK totaled 20 million yuan in 2009, and 100 million yuan in 2010. However the game has begun to reach an international audience after players began translating the game into the English language and posting these translations on blogs and forums. Site visit statistics from one of these blogs showed that readers outside of Mainland China come primarily from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Malaysia, and New Zealand.
Relevance to history.
The cards and characters of LTK are all related to the ancient history of China, the most telling of which are the characters and their abilities. Each character is given an ability in the game which usually mirrors the historical character's personality, actions, strength/weakness, cause of death, and historical events in which the character was involved, etc. For example, Liu Bei's ability Kindness (仁德) allows him to give away his cards to other players, mirroring the benevolent and kind nature of Liu Bei in ROTK. Cao Cao, on the other hand, is given the ability Treachery (奸雄), which allows him to keep any card which causes him damage. This mirrors Cao Cao's style of coaxing able advisers of his enemies to defect and join him, then utilizing them for his cause.
The relevance of these abilities to ROTK and the Three Kingdoms history is interesting enough to inspire players to discover more about ROTK and Three Kingdoms history for themselves. One blog author describes his knowledge of Three Kingdoms evolving from uninterested to semi-expert after immersing in the study of LTK abilities. In August 2012, UC Berkeley offered a course in LTK. The faculty sponsor of the course, Professor Robert Berring, wants to get undergrads "acquainted with essential philosophy dating back to China's ancient dynasties".
Basic rules of the standard mode.
The standard mode of LTK can be played by 2 to 10 people. Each player plays one of these four roles: Monarch (主公), Minister (忠臣), Rebel (反贼) and Traitors (内奸). There can be only one monarch in the game at all times, but the number of ministers, rebels and traitors are determined by the total number of players, as shown in the table on the right. Each player may have 3 or 4 Health points (see below), depending on their character.
Objectives.
Different roles have different victory conditions:
The game ends immediately if:
As long as one of the scenarios listed above occur at the endgame, the associated roles can claim victory even if the character has already been killed. In general, the Monarch and his ministers must work together to kill the rebels and traitors, while the rebels can cooperate to kill off the ministers before attacking the Monarch. Meanwhile, the traitor(s) can guise as a minister and help to kill the rebels, before revolting against the ministers and finally confronting the Monarch.
Types of cards.
LTK consists of a few types of cards, which serve different purposes in the game.
Play.
There are six main phases to playing when it comes to any player's turn.
Death.
When a player's Health points is reduced to 0, he faces imminent death and must instantly take action: he may request to be saved by a "Peach" card (thus letting other players play the card), or may use one immediately if he has it. If he is successful, his health will be recovered to 1 point. Otherwise, he dies (except some special character like Zhou Tai), and must reveal his role card and discard all other cards. If he is a Rebel and killed by a card from another player, that player may draw 3 cards.
It is possible for a player's health to have a negative value (such as suffering from a Lightning attack). In this case, the player will need as many "Peach" cards as he requires to raise his health back to 1 point in order to continue the game (for example, a Health point of -1 requires 2 "Peach" cards). The abilities of certain cards or characters may involve healing more than 1 points of health, or even prolonged living below 1 Health point.
Point duels.
Certain special characters (such as Xun Yu) may initiate point duels with another player to unleash their special abilities. This is done when the initiator plays a card, and the other player does the same, and both players compare the numerical digit on the upper left corner. The player with the larger number on the wins, with "Ace" as the smallest value and "King" as the largest value. In the case of ties, the initiator of the duel is considered to have "lost" the duel. Suits such as diamonds, hearts, etc. do not matter. Both cards are discarded into the discard deck; players cannot retrieve back the cards into their hands.
Character allegiance.
All LTK characters are separated into four historically relevant allegiances. They are Shu Kingdom, Wei Kingdom, Wu Kingdom, and Neutral Heroes. In the original LTK, there are no repeated characters. However, as later character expansions are introduced, some characters are duplicated in different allegiances. This is because of the complex changes of each historical figure. Some characters, such as Jia Xu, were under the allegiance of different kingdoms through the course of their lives.
With the introduction of the first LTK expansion pack, a new fictional allegiance known as the Demi-Gods was introduced. Demi-God characters are typically very significant characters in ROTK and Three Kingdoms history, and these characters are given abilities that are much more powerful than regular characters. The presence of Demi-God characters can severely imbalance a regular game, and thus most players choose not to include Demi-God characters into gameplay. Since Demi-God characters are obtained by chance in expansion packs, Demi-God character cards have become collectible pieces. Prices of single Demi-God cards have been known to equal, or exceed, the price of the whole expansion pack.
In 2011, YOKA released collectible SP cards that comes with every purchase of Zhuoyou Zhi (桌游志) magazine, a monthly magazine discussing board and card-games in China. Many SP cards are remakes of existing LTK characters with different allegiances, representing that character from a different time period in his or her career.
Expansion packs and collectibles.
As of October 2012, seven different official LTK expansion packs have been released. Two different Collector's Editions have also been released. Beginning January 2011, ultra-collectible SP cards were released monthly with every purchase of Zhuoyou Zhi magazine. As of October 2012, the SP Yang Xiu character released with the inaugural issue of Zhuoyouzhi magazine has been seen to sell for 500 yuan, which is over forty times the original price of the magazine.
Variations.
Variations to the original game are played by people from all over China. The game has since been translated into English. Many people created different ways of playing LTK with no roles.
Criticisms.
LTK is essentially an exact rip off of Bang!, there are a few differences between them. Ie. the basic cards and tool cards. The similarity has motivated the creators of Bang! to sue LTK and its Western distributor. While the court found there was potential for copyright infringement on its initial hearing, it ultimately ruled in favor of Ziko Games and dismissed the case in 2016.