The Knights' Games are a distinctive form of entertainment and sporting life for young people, though older participants take part in some of them as well. They are most often organized on the occasion of folk festivities — various gatherings tied to state, national or religious holidays — held outdoors. However, the Knights' Games can also be organized outside of festivities, taking on a character that is mainly sporting-competitive and recreational. In earlier times, only men took part in the Knights' Games. Today, women may take part in many of them as well (for example, running and marksmanship).
The Knights' Games were organized above all as a form of entertainment, but also as competitive disciplines in which individuals or groups, villages or tribes, competed against one another. What comes to the fore in them, above all, is the spirit of collective competition and collective achievement, though individual achievement is not neglected either. Every individual's success is also the success of his "team" — that is, of his village or tribe. Cultivating this collective spirit through the Knights' Games played a special role in preparing people for shared struggle and resistance.
The most common Knights' Games in old Montenegro were: the shoulder stone throw, target shooting, and various kinds of jumps (wrestling and running were rarer). The most frequent of all were the shoulder stone throw and the long jump (both from a standing position and with a running start, i.e. a run-up).
In the Knights' Games, unlike in the highland games, participants were divided by age, and there was also a division by social status. We know from the literature, for example, that Montenegro's rulers and the people of the court had their own Knights' Games — entertainments, above all — and that they set themselves apart from the wider population in competitions as well (target shooting with pistols or rifles, shoulder-blade cutting, and the like), while the rest of the citizenry had their own.
On the other hand, many of the Knights' Games were also shaped by generation: young men had their own games, older men theirs, and boys, in turn, theirs.
In any case, the Knights' Games in Montenegro would have followed this same course even without the influence of the Turks and of the Littoral (that is, of the Italians, chiefly through the Littoral and Venice).