Hive minds and shared mechanics among players present a unique challenge in balancing compromise and autonomy. Just as Janov struggled to determine whether Gaian truly allowed individual tendencies within its shared consciousness in Foundation and Earth, game designers face a similar dilemma. How do you ensure fairness when mechanics, resources, and actions are shared among players?

Hive minds are often portrayed as villains in media—think of the Cybermen or Borg, who seek to assimilate everything into their collective. However, there are stories like Semiosis by Sue Burke, where a bamboo-like lifeform demonstrates sentience and makes moral choices, or The Last Human by Zack Jordan, where neural networks connect almost all of the species, that explore hive minds as more than just a sinister force. These examples show that hive minds can be a character trait, not just a state of being—a concept that can be more deeply explored at the game table.

There in lies the wub. If players share autonomy, how do we encourage these neural stories without detracting from the experience? The following categories capture the current approaches I’ve identified within our genre of gameplay:

Read more on Hive Minds and the "Help the Hive" Game Jam here: https://holisticdice.substack.com/p/hive