Commonspoly is a cooperative/competitive board game that promotes the act of commoning as an alternative to privatization. It is the conceptual opposite of Monopoly. Instead of accumulating private property, players work to convert privately owned goods to either public or community ownership. Players collaborate to defend their world from speculators while managing resources and building commons-based alternatives.
Components
1 game board with property spaces
Player tokens
Property cards
Community cards and event cards
Resource tokens (time, wellbeing, money)
Speculator pawns
Dice
Setup
Place the board centrally.
Each player selects a token and receives starting resources.
Shuffle property, community, and event cards.
Place speculator pawns per starting rules.
Distribute starting property cards.
Turn Structure
Roll dice and move around the board.
Land on a space and resolve its effect (property, community action, event, etc.).
Take actions to convert private properties to commons or public goods.
Speculators advance based on certain triggers.
Actions
Commoning: Convert a private property to community ownership by pooling resources with other players.
Publicize: Convert a property to public ownership.
Invest in wellbeing: Spend resources to improve community welfare.
Trade and negotiate: Exchange resources with other players.
Resist speculation: Take actions to push back against speculator advances.
Scoring / Victory Conditions
Cooperative win: All properties are converted to community or public ownership before speculators take over.
Loss: Speculators gain control of too many properties or players run out of key resources.
Special Rules & Edge Cases
The game is free-licensed and open source; players can modify rules.
Resources include abstract concepts like “time” and “wellbeing” alongside money.
Speculators are an automated threat that advances based on player actions and events.
The game is designed as an educational tool about commons economics.
Multiple variants exist for different group sizes and time constraints.