Common GroundStory cards, votes and the Baron

Watch the Common Ground tutorial

Components

The asset tiles

Thirteen asset types, each with a printed cost, a printed yield in Capital tokens per round, an end-game Legacy value and a fixed supply. Dirty assets pay best. They always do.

Setup

1. Put the Dial's needle at 450 ppm (the year 2030). The Ice Loss tipping token is already flipped. Place 4 unowned Fossil assets (2 in the Reach, 1 in the Delta, 1 in the Rim) and 2 unowned Forests in the Verge.
2. Each player takes 8 Capital tokens, 1 vote token and their ownership discs. The bank never runs out.
3. Baron option, recommended at 4 or more players: shuffle 1 Baron card together with blanks to make one more card than the player count. Deal one face-down to each player and return the last card unseen. A Baron may therefore be absent. Look at your role privately. Deal one Personal Agenda to each Citizen; the Baron receives none. With the Baron option off, everyone is a Citizen and the shared survival goal is cooperative.
4. Shuffle Weather, Scenario and Initiative cards into one Story draw deck; set Wildcards aside.
5. Choose the Dial difficulty: Easy, Standard or Hard. Standard is the default (see The Dial).
6. Highest roll is the first Narrator. The role passes clockwise each round.

How a round works

Ten rounds, each about two years, taking you from 2030 to 2050. Every round runs the same five steps, with a Reckoning after rounds 3 and 7.

1. The world turns, resolved by the Narrator.
2. Story card, drawn and read aloud by the Narrator.
3. Income for everyone, then resolve the vote if this round drew an Initiative.
4. Actions, clockwise from the Narrator, up to two each.
5. Collective Actions resolve as they are proposed during the actions step.

The Dial and tipping points

The Narrator moves the needle. Add up, in this order:

Add 1 ppm for each seat above three to every baseline above. Two or three seats add nothing; four add 1, five add 2 and six add 3. Ice Loss already contributes +2 ppm from round 1. Unowned clean assets do not cool the Dial.

Easy is 1 ppm a round less and Hard 1 more. "Baron option on" means the Baron card was shuffled into the deal at setup, whether or not it was dealt. The simulation did not measure 2 seats or 3 seats with the Baron option; those settings use the nearest measured value and are provisional.

Count the assets quickly as pairs: one dirty against one clean cancels out. The net movement from assets is capped at 11 in either direction, so no amount of solar farms turns the round green on its own, and no fossil empire runs away with it in a single step either.

Crossing 500, 540 (Permafrost), 550 or 575 flips that tipping token permanently, and it adds its +2 to every subsequent round.

Story cards and the vote

The Narrator draws one Story card and reads it aloud. This is the beating heart of Common Ground: the cards are written to be performed, and the gallows humour is the point. Three kinds:

Weather

Roll the dice for the district: 1-2 the Delta, 3 the Reach, 4 the Verge, 5 the Rim, 6 the Narrator's choice. Assets of the named kinds in that district produce nothing this round unless defended. Everyone with an asset in the struck district pays 1 Capital token in repairs.

Scenario

Apply the one-off effect printed on the card, then enjoy the joke. A coastal reactor floods and everyone loses 2 Capital tokens for iodine tablets; giant fans remove 6 ppm and you draw another Story card; the last Mars ship crashes for +5 ppm, because there is no Plan B.

Third-era Wildcards

Set the 12-card Wildcard deck aside at setup. From round 8, replace a Scenario draw with a Wildcard. Weather and Initiative draws continue normally.

Initiative: the vote

Place the card in the centre and collect Income before voting. Going clockwise once, each player may commit 0 to 2 vote tokens. Then total them.

• It passes if the total is at least player count + 1: apply -9 ppm plus the card's printed effect, and the single largest contributor scores 2 Legacy (on a tie, nobody does).
• Committed vote tokens are spent either way, pass or fail. A failed Initiative is a real loss and everybody knows it, which is exactly why the last player in clockwise order has so much power.

Income

• Collect the printed yield in Capital tokens from every asset you own.
• Community assets pay 1 Capital token to everyone who helped create them, every round, for the rest of the game.
• Everyone collects 1 vote token, rising to 2 per round from round 4.

Actions in detail

Clockwise from the Narrator, each player takes up to two of the following.

Collective Action

This is Common Ground's signature moment: the table deciding, together, that a particular refinery has had long enough.

1. Propose a target: any fossil, logging, monoculture or motorway asset on the board. Never your own. No Collective Action may be proposed in rounds 9 or 10.
2. Players opt in. Each participant pays 1 Capital token. The proposer's action cost covers their participation; do not charge them twice.
3. The owner may recruit defenders, who each pay 1 Capital token. Neutral assets are defended by the bank.
4. Roll the dice and add the results, then read the table below. One attacker against one defender needs 7 or more. Each extra attacker lowers the number needed by 1; each extra defender raises it by 1, never below 3+ and never above 11+.
5. Success: the asset becomes a Community asset. Its heat no longer counts against the world, and it pays 1 Capital token per round to each participant for the rest of the game. Failure: nothing happens except the Capital tokens you all spent.

The Baron

Optional, and recommended at four or more players. One Baron card is shuffled with blanks and dealt face-down, so anybody at the table may be nobody at all.

• The Baron wins alone if the game ends in Collapse while they hold 12 or more Capital tokens, or if the world survives round 10 at 550-599 ppm. The surviving-world win has no minimum-Capital requirement.
• They play by all normal rules. Nothing stops them voting for Initiatives, building solar farms, joining Collective Actions, or lying about all of it. The best Barons are pillars of the community.
• Once per game, after any Collective Action against a fossil asset fails, the Baron may reveal themselves to immediately claim that asset, placing their disc on it.
• Revealed or not, at game end every role card is shown.

Personal Agendas

Each Citizen receives one secret goal worth 3 Legacy if completed. The Baron has no Personal Agenda. Reveal goals at game end.

• Sanctuary: own at least 3 Nature Parks or Forest Reserves, and more than any other player.
• Heartland: own at least 2 more assets in one district than any other player owns there.
• Smokestack: receive dirty-asset income in at least 8 different rounds. Keep a private tally; the digital game counts it.
• Unbroken: never lose an asset to weather.
• Bulwark: finish with at least 2 defended assets in one district.
• Commons: help seize at least 2 Community assets, the first by round 5.

The Reckoning

After rounds 3 and 7, each player secretly commits 0-2 vote tokens against one other player; everyone reveals together. Every committed token is spent. Only a unique highest total confronts a player; a tie confronts nobody. That player either reveals their role permanently or pays 2 Capital to each accuser. If they cannot pay everyone, they reveal. Revealing the Baron gives each accuser 1 Legacy; revealing a Citizen makes each accuser pay that Citizen 1 Capital. Personal Agendas remain hidden.

Ending and scoring

Collapse at 600

Everyone loses, except a qualified Baron, who wins alone. The deal contains at most one Baron.

2050, at the end of round 10, world surviving

• The table wins together if the Dial is under 550. Say it out loud. It matters, and the game is built so that this is the sentence people remember.
• Then crown the individual champion.

The Climate Dial is marked in four bands: Danger below 510, Severe danger 510-549, Extreme danger 550-599 and Collapse at 600. Every band is dangerous; the table's goal is to end below 550, out of Extreme danger.

A Community asset you helped seize awards 1 Legacy if held for less than two full rounds, or the absolute value of its printed Legacy after two full rounds. A Fossil Fuel Plant held long enough therefore awards 2 to each seizer. Count only assets still in Community hands.

Highest Legacy is the individual champion. Ties use most Community contributions, then remaining votes, then clockwise from the Narrator. At 550-599, the table fails its shared goal and a seated Baron wins alone, regardless of the Legacy champion. If no Baron was dealt, the champion still stands. The digital score also adds 8 Legacy to the Baron at 550-599; their solo win takes precedence over that score.