The common GOOD, the BAD and the UGLY

Author: Gergely Boza

Recommended age: 15-99

Number of players: 6-25

Space needed for the game: 2-5 small tables

Difficulty level: 3

Playing time: 20-25 minutes/round

Preparation time: 15 minutes (+ once the time to prepare the accessories).

Accessories: board game-style layout (ideally with tables that can be sat around), A4 sheet of paper, small tokens or toy figures (could be pieces of paper, pebbles, etc.), chart to keep track of stock size (optional), pencils, pre-made table to determine the rate of stock renewal, dice.

Short description: Players form small communities that may exploit a common local resource. The renewable resource can be a fish stock, a forest, or other livestock or crop. During the game, each player decides individually how much of the common resource to harvest. Then the game moderator renews the resource at a pre-defined rate. The aim is to achieve optimal management and sustainable consumption and to avoid overexploitation.

Preparations: Depending on the number of players, place the game boards (representing the resource pool, for example a A4 sheet of paper with a picture of a lake or a forest) on separate tables, with 4-6 players per board. Place on these the number of extractable resource pieces (tokens) indicated in the table. The initial number of pieces should be half of the total size of the resource stock (25 pieces in the example below). In addition, prepare a separate box from which the moderator places the renewable resource tokens on the boards. Print out a table which gives the number of tokens as a function of the size of the current stock. This shouldn’t be seen by the players so that they don’t know these numbers (for example, in the table below, if the current stock size is between 22 and 29, therefore 10 tokens should be placed on the board).

Both the size of the initial stock and the renewal rate can be changed between game sessions, so that the experience gained by playing them game with certain rules proves useless in the next session. Print out tables where players can record the state of their resources (see the example below: out of the initial stock of 25, all 5 players have taken 2, leaving 15; the renewal table shows that the stock size is renewed by 5, making it 20 in the beginning of the next round). In addition, players can also write their own harvests on a separate sheet, so that it can be added up more quickly at the end.

Course of the game:

Basic game: players gathered around a common resource can take one resource token per turn. At the end of the round, players count up all the resources they have extracted and enter them in the table, along with the size of the remaining stock. The moderator will then place new resource tokens on the boards based on the remaining stock. Then comes the next round of harvest, followed by renewal. It is helpful to have card (e.g. a 1 written on it) at the tables which indicate the starting player and is passes around at the end of the rounds. In order to motivate both selfish and exploitative individual behaviour and to steer the group dynamics towards sustainable solutions, one can offer various rewards. A reward may be offered to the player who harvests the highest amount of resource (per a session or per the whole game), or to the group that achieves to have the highest amount of resource during the game (counting both the harvested and the maintained stock sizes). The end of the game is determined by a roll of the dice; if we have planned the game for, say, 15 rounds, roll a dice from the 10th round and if an even number comes up the game ends. There are many other variations of the game, here we demonstrate three that can be played in sequence:

Version 1 (random allocation of players among resources, no coordination and no communication) write as many names on a board (blackboard or scoreboard) as the number of resources pools around which the groups are formed; the names can be, for example, names of real lakes, colours, or animal names. Make a stack of cards equal to the number of players. Each pile should contain as many cards as the number of rounds planned (e.g. 5 cards). Write the names of the resource pools on the cards so that the people at the same table belong to different pools. This will ensure that no one knows who their "partners" are in managing the resource, so that those sitting next to each other cannot discuss strategy. In each round, each person secretly writes down the number of resource units they have extracted, and then one by one show it to the moderator. He notes these and calculates the total extractions, then writes the result in the table on the board, with the renewal also noted. In the next round, the extraction continues. If the number of extraction exceeds the total pool size, the resource disappears and further harvest will not be possible for this particular resource pool (so it is advisable to keep track of the pool size). After the predetermined number of rounds, players count up their extractions and the game ends.

Version 2 (the basic version of the game, with discussion and coordination between the beneficiaries and maintainers of a resource): in this version, players gathered around the table can discuss the level of extraction, coordinate their strategy, or can continue their selfish, exploitative strategy. If they have played session 1, they are expected to be more cautious about their exploitation in this session of the game. Experience has shown that in the first rounds, resources are often almost exhausted by heavy exploitation, so everyone is more cautious later on. Teams typically try to figure out the optimum stock size, i.e. where the highest reproduction and the highest level of sustainable exploitation can be achieved. After the predetermined number of rounds, or after tossing dice, the game ends and players sum up their extractions. Rewards can be given to the player with the highest harvest and to the group with the largest resource level sustained at the end of each round.

Version 3 (guidelines, rules): in this version, groups have to follow 4-6 rules given them in an envelope. These rules may reflect certain world views, represent laws that have been made in real policy-making, etc. Here are some ideas: "The game continues with the usual rules." (control group); "All the resources harvested in a round by the group members is distributed equally among them. The remainder that cannot be distributed is returned to the pool." (egalitarianism); "The players decide whether to apply a rule and what that rule should be." (democratic decision making); "The player who has previously extracted the most determines the overall extraction rate and the individual extraction rate in each round, and he or she may start the next round." (hierarchical community ruled by an oligarchy); "The punishment of the player with the highest extraction can be voted on by the group members." (peer punishment); "The player who has harvested the most in a given round pays a penalty to the moderator." (central enforcement); "The player with the highest harvest in a given round pays a penalty to the moderator if the dice roll results in an even number." (central enforcement, which can be escaped by luck); "Each player may only produce his share of the resource." (individualistic community). For the latter rule, the resource is divided into equal shares corresponding to the number of players, and the resource tokens are distributed evenly, with the undistributable remainder being deposited randomly.

Version + a treatment: One can also model unforeseen disasters that can cause size-dependent destruction of resource pool. Typical examples are heavy rains and floods in forests, which cause more damage the fewer trees in the area leading to soil degradation and landslides. For animals, epidemics can decimate the population. In such cases, a dice is rolled from halfway through the game (e.g. Round 5) and if an even number is rolled, all the stock is halved. But one can also use a more complex function like: 0-10: halving/ 10-20: -6/ 20-30: -3/ 30-: -1/ etc. This can be combined with the previous game modes, or played separately as a version with an emphasis on the unexpected risk of natural disasters.

Biological background: The exploitation of common resources has always been a major dilemma in both animal and human societies. In such situations, selfish, exploitative behaviour is preferable strategy, despite the fact that it leads to resource depletion and collapse. Numerous experiments, games and real-world observations show that without regulatory mechanisms, selfish, exploitative behaviour dominates, as it offers the greatest gains for the individual. We call this phenomenon the “Tragedy of the Commons”, and the harvested resource a “Common Good”. We can find examples from our own experiences as well. Common kitchens in dormitories, common gardens in residential communities are often neglected because everyone puts their own selfish interests first, i.e. they want to make others pay the "cost" of cleaning up, while they only enjoy the fruits of the work done by others. But the problem is actually much bigger. The exploitative behaviour of human societies has now reached such proportions that the entire biosphere is under a threat. In many cases, overfishing of fish stocks has led to the disappearance of some species from the seas, such as the bluefin tuna in the Atlantic, Black Sea and Caspian Sea. Atlantic cod is also threatened by overfishing. Excessive deforestation has led to ecological disasters in many cases, and often, also to social disasters. Managing our common resources is one of the greatest challenges of a modern, global, profit-driven society. Different systems of norms, value systems not revolving around money and power bought on it, communication between parties, punishment of exploitative behaviour or uniform regulations can all help to create a sustainable system. In addition, experiments have shown that if players know exactly when the game ends, they will exploit the resource completely in the last round, as this is the most profitable strategy. This is why in such games unpredictability is introduced, such as in this game the end is determined by the roll of the dice. The game also allows us to illustrate a fundamental model of population dynamics, the so-called logistic or bounded growth curve. In this model, the highest growth rate is observed for the medium population size. For small population sizes, the growth rate is much lower due to the Allee effect (the growth rate of sexual populations decreases for small population sizes, for example because it is difficult to find a mate or because inbreeding becomes high). The carrying capacity of a habitat is limited, so a large a population size will also cause a decrease in the growth rate, usually because the amount of food is reduced and the mortality rate increases.

Reference: own idea

Recommended reading:
1. Laugen AT, Engelhard GH, Whitlock R, Arlinghaus R, Dankel DJ, Dunlop ES, Eikeset AM, Enberg K, Jørgensen C, Matsumura S, Nusslé S, Urbach D, Baulier L, Boukal DS, Ernande B, Johnston FD, Mollet F, Pardoe H, Therkildsen NO, Uusi-Heikkilä S, Vainikka A, Heino M, Rijnsdorp AD, Dieckmann U (2014). Evolutionary impact assessment: Accounting for evolutionary consequences of fishing in an ecosystem approach to fisheries management. Fish and Fisheries, 15(1):65-96.
2. Ostrom E (1998) Coping with Tragedies of the Commons. (https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7c6e/92906bcf0e590e6541eaa41ad0cd92e13671.pdf)
3. Gowdy JM & McDaniel (2013) Paradise for Sale