People have a marginal role in managing forests located in the vicinity of their villages in Northern India. This situation is scrutinized in this paper by studying strategic play of forest users. Thereto, a 1 versus n−1 game of people's participation in forest management is estimated for three institutional and historical distinct cases at the State and village level. Critical discount factors are derived to verify whether incentives exist for villagers to mutually participate in managing commonly used forests. This paper finds such incentives in varying degrees for games at the State level and for games in 23 of the 32 considered villages.