The only reason to trade is to make the game shorter. If you want to actually win, you should never trade properties, especially not to give your opponent a monopoly. Trade could be viable if you could make an equal trade, but equal trades are nigh impossible in this game.
How many people do you play with? How frequently does someone get a natural monopoly just by landing on the properties? If you frequently get natural monopolies by landing on them, without trading, then yes, the game is broken, because it is a *trading* game, and that makes it a luck game. This is what's wrong with 2- and 3- player monopoly.
+Matthew Kessler Trading is what makes the game worth playing. I am playing a lot with the kids and the imaginative trades that they now engage in is an education. --> sweeteners of rent free (or rent rebates on certain properties) can encourage deals to go through. --> joint development (where one person holds the properties but the development and rewards are shared), help stop the current leader from winning.
+Matthew Kessler yea, power grid which I mentioned has a far far greater incentive (although the rule where you MUST buy all same colors to get houses does offer a bit incentive)
+Matthew Kessler depends on the group you play with. My friends and I all realize that when 2 players trade they usually both come out on top over the other players, even if your trading partner gets the better deal. if you are playing with 5 people and 2 of them trade, its the 3 that don't trade that will lose out.
+Matthew Kessler *Plays with my grandparants and my mother* Hey grandma, want to give me that card for 10.000 and this other card? *No.* 20.000 and that card? *No.* 50.000? *No.* [In that version, it's pretty old, you get 20.000 when you start and 4000 by going over go]
+Equestrian Republican I liked wheeling and dealing. And invoking auctions if you have enough players, never pay for the sticker price right off the bat, unless you're desperate to have it. And usually most understood to buy anything you land on, so everyone would be low on money and would have to go to auction. And it'd get interesting. Then we'd have side deals, and other auctions to the side. And yes, it's mostly chance based on the roll of the dice if you land somewhere and can't raise the money to pay rent or whatever. It's kind of like poker, or black jack. Some skill, and mostly chance.
+Equestrian Republican - as mentioned in the video one of the common problems people have with the game is that common house rules like the "free parking" bonus pump money back into players' hands, causing the game to drag on much longer than it really should. When the "endgame" is two or more players with developed monopolies and large stacks of cash, it can be a very slow process for one of those players to collect enough rent from the other to deplete their cash and force them to sell houses and mortgage things. It's not a problem of the game being boring, exactly, it's a problem of the game dragging on long enough that players get weary. When you take those rules away, the game becomes much shorter, and players are much more likely to be forced to make _careful_ decisions about how to spend their money... If players are very wealthy, there's no need to think about whether to buy a property: if you land on it, you buy it. That's another way the money bonus rules can really screw up the game, they effectively take away one of the game's precious few avenues for player decision.
Me and my siblings used to have like bank robberies if you got caught you were sent to jail and if you didn't then ok and also the banker always cheated no matter who it was
Yeah but the bank cannot go bankrupt. If the bank does run out of money you are allowed to make more money by writing it in paper or any other way you choose. But if you run out of houses/hotels you can't use random objects as houses.
Botchamania JEEZUS. Yes, but the case comes to when only 1 house is available and 2 players want it, how do the players decide who gets to purchase the last house?
I remember reading the rules when we got the game in my family as a child in the early 90's (born in 1984). We played by the printed rules and I was surprised to find that other people were using all these strange house rules. For example, the rules said that if a player declines to buy the property at its listed value, then it goes up for auction, which is what we would do. The only advantage of the early game was if you landed on a space you wanted, you could just buy it outright for the printed value, though we usually put nearly everything up for auction. That mean almost everything was sold in about three or four trips around the board. We never had the influx of extra cash from free parking. The only extra cash came from the Chance & Community Chest cards. If I recall, the basic math of the game is set up so that Hotels aren't actually worth the investment. I think only two or three houses are worth buying and that the third or fourth house has diminishing returns... how much rent you get out of the space compared to how much you are forced to invest into building that 4th house and/or hotel.
+Paul Gaither The actual use of Hotels is for when your opponent is low on funds and getting near your property, you buy the hotel to bankrupt them if they land on it. Buying a hotel actually puts more houses back into the bank meaning it gives your opponent more chances to get a leg up on you. You have to use hotels strategically. They end the game, but hurt you if your opponent doesn't hit it.
+Paul Gaither Don't you get exponentially increasing returns on house investment? Generally you need to buy three houses before you get return on your investment and four or five to turn a profit. I haven't ever tried to limit the number of houses though. It seems like a bad strategy. A single player getting three sets never happens and two is unlikely assuming you're playing with more than two players.
+Paul Gaither There are no diminishing returns between the 3rd house and 4th house. There is not a single property where the rent differential is less than the cost of the purchase of the 4th house. E.g. The cost of a house is $50 on Mediterranean Ave (The cheapest property), while the rent from 3 to 4 houses increases by $70 (From $90 to $160). Unlike the 1st house purchase where EVERY property except for Boardwalk is a lost of income in relationship to purchase of a house and the rent received.
+Agent StephenG You're forgetting about that card where you have to pay the bank money for each house and hotel you own. I think there's one in both the chance and community chest decks. Hogging all the houses is good and all, but you are screwed if that card finds you. Maybe the safest and correct mathematical play is to complete two monopolies, and try to build up to 18 houses. With only 14 houses remaining, you've already given yourself the advantage. Now you need to rule out disasters so you try and save money so that if you get unlucky, you can pay the fine in a way that doesn't cripple you. After all, with the majority of houses you should be able to come back and win the game.
I remember as kids we combined three game sets and would add new rules on the fly -- ended up allowing for things like buying Go (where people would pay YOU when they pass it) putting houses on rail stations and utilities and putting multiple hotels on properties. We included 'Game of Life' money because we needed denominations in the tens and hundreds of thousands.
+James Firmiss (IznbranahlGoose) We played the part with multiple hotels AND allowed a debt for a couple of turns. What ended up happening was everybody owing everyone a couple of milion dollars, because everybody landed on opponent's hotels, but then the opponent landed on theirs before the turn limit expired, so we were passing this enormous debt around :D
+vengefulenigma Congratulations - you accidentally discovered one of the problems with Keynes' economic theory! Debt doesn't go away - it just gets pushed around. This isn't so bad when it's just the rich and well to do, but it has debilitating effects when an abstracted form - purely, poverty - is exhibited as a symptom on the real world global map.
Of course you're going to think it's a terrible game,...BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T WIN, then YOUR BRAIN WILL NOT SUPPLY YOU WITH AS CLOSE TO AS MUCH DOPAMINE BECAUSE YOU AREN'T WINNING! So, try to win!
In our late teens & early twenties, after getting our own apartments, we had Monopoly games that would last for days & days before somebody won. It was very cool with strangers showing up & taking someone else's place that had to split late at night or whatever. Lot's of party-Ann & laughs & what not.
Monopoly, like risk. is a game of exclusion. It's main aim is to remove players from the game. You eliminate a player, what does that player do now? Take European style games. All players play until the end and scores are totaled at the end. Everyone is included throughout in European games.
I once played a game of monopoly for over 2 months. Literally all summer. We had to print more money, and eventually it just turned in to us trading money. We bought another board and cut it up and connected it. We made a double board thing, finally my friend joe won. We just didn't care at that point.
There is almost no way that is possible. Almost. I've seen this happen when one person has 4 RR's and 2 utilties, and the other players don't have the cash needed to develop houses on their monopolies. But when that happens, the RR and utility player is the clear winner. Or are you one of those players that dump more money into the game all the time? The money supply in monopoly keeps going down. 50% loss on each property/house purchase, another 10% each time you mortgage for short term funds. Oh -- do you refuse to trade and make monopolies/build houses?
+Abby I wouldn't be surprised if the super rich families in the USA experienced the same feeling a century ago, i.e. at some point you have so much money that it doesn't matter anymore.
Abby ya u guys killed the game for yourselves if there's no money left then there's none left u don't print more or create more properties that totally ruins the whole point of the game if u started the game with a bigger board or more money that would be different
There's just no way you haven't won if you're able to create a housing shortage. There can only be a shortage if there are multiple people cooperating with it.
You forgot to mention one of the most essential balancing rules: auctions. If a player chooses not to buy an open property when they land on it, it's auctioned off to the highest bidder. This reduces the amount of luck involved in the first turn, as although rare, it's completely possible for a player to get stuck landing on already owned property and fee spaces, simply losing money. Most players ignore the auction rule, making the game completely skewed against a player right on the first turn.
It's not just auctioned to the highest bidder it's even better. It's auctioned PERIOD. So if nobody on the table bids the last player to speak takes it for free (takes it for 1$). So in a couple of rounds EVERY property is owed by someone.
Ultimarad Yup, that's part of it. And if you're really feeling hardcore, you can go back to the original Landlord Game rules: landlordsgame.info/rules/lg-1904p_patent.html
PBS Game/Show Thanks for the link, wish me luck trying to convince my family to play Monopoly again. Great video btw, Monopoly's history is a lot more interesting than I thought.
PBS Game/Show I found how they made sure the game never went on forever. After the players go around the board five times the game is ended and the total net gain of money and properties is calculated with the highest being the winner obviously
Ultimarad There's actually another mechanic that a lot of people tend to ignore: the auction. I can't speak for Landlord, but one of the original mechanics in Monopoly was to auction off a property if a player chooses not to buy it when they land on it.
Adrian Mabee Yup. That's a big one. You gotta get those properties out there quickly. Combine that with hogging houses, getting up to three houses as quick as you can (huge rent jump) mortgages to do it, and knowing which properties are cash cows (St. James, Tennessee, & New York for the win), it's amazing how short and aggresive the game actually is.
Papers, Please is not about post 9/11 immigration. It's about the Cold War, it's commentary on what the USSR dealt with on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
It's about how Bigfoot and Bat-mite (no, not Batman) control the Illuminati and want to summon Nyarlathotep to cook the perfect quiche. How hard is this for you guys??
Our rule to "fix" monopoly: you can reroll as many times as you want until you accept the result, but each reroll costs a successively higher dollar amount. So you can avoid expensive properties or try to get the one you really want, but it costs more and more money each time. And as the game goes on and more property is bought up, it becomes a game of managing who's going to screw you the least. That, plus ending the game when one person goes bankrupt, then counting money totals. Boom. Strategy, and a manageable game length.
The Internet Peasant Now that's an interesting tweak to the game. Can you explain a bit more about the dollar amounts to reroll dice in a little more detail? I would like to try this with my group of friends sometime.
Alexander Dojutrek Sure. Your first roll on your turn is like normal. If you don't like it, you pay an amount that you agree on before starting the game -- for something closer to the original game, make rerolls $100, and increase by $50 or $100 each time. This makes it a desperation move for people who aren't well off, but a drop in the bucket for the rich, who can think of it less like gambling and more like an investment for potential greater rewards. We start with $5, though, and increase it by a bill amount each turn: third roll is $10, fourth is $20, fifth is $50, etc. You can't go over $500, but no one ever has in our family. It adds up over time, but allows poorer players to have more of a chance to get back on their feet by avoiding the Boardwalks and Park Places more often. The first method is good for a game of just adults, whereas kids tend to like the second method, and it introduces them to a concept of risk/reward in gaming (and life, I guess). We've tried other variations of other rules to varying success, but the general idea that seems to work best is, anything that increases player choice via gambling doesn't break the rest of the game, and can be increased or decreased for difficulty or time pretty easily. Hope that helps!
The Internet Peasant I like that idea, from what I've seen generally ideas to try and make monopoly less terrible are money sinks and that seems like a good one.
PBS Digital Studios I bet "Labour upon mother Earth produces potato" would make the game appeal to a whole new demographic, though (in addition to being agriculturally more accurate).
PBS Digital Studios Socialism has a low market value. That is why the original game didn't become so popular. By the way, you guys are beating yourself over the head by living in New York. Move the whole PBS operation could move to a lower priced real estate area and save a whole bunch of money. Your employees would be happier too. The downside? They will go through withdrawals because they aren't in New York.
Roger Smith You have a seemingly misguided idea of Socialism. I am assuming that you mean that Socialism produces poorer people, i.e. lower GDP and lower over-all buying power in the country. That isn't true, if you were to even out the income inequality it would amp up buying power for the low and middle class, leaving the rich... still rich. Example. My country has 1000 dollars for 1000 people. If they each have 10 dollars, that means each person has a buying power of rough $10. However, they way it is currently set up, only 1 person out of that 1000 has $900 and the rest split the $100 that is left. Ugh... I don't feel like explaining anymore. MORE PEOPLE WITH MORE BUYING POWER=GOOD! www.investopedia.com Here is a link to a website that got me through Macroeconomics my freshman year. Have fun.
arse monkey I already have a BBA and I studied economics. If Socialism is so good, why do countries that try it have such poor results? Your example is so simplistic because your model assumes a zero sum game. That is not what happens in real economies.
Roger Smith Yep, you definitely wouldn't want to live in Norway, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, etc.. Horrible, horrible countries, with terrible standards of living, huge crime rates, pathetic life expectancy, etc.. /sarcasm
I love how even in its current incarnation it is amazingly socialist. You periodically get money for simply living, everyone starts out with the same amount of money, and everyone has the same mobility around the board. I always have fun envisioning a version that is played by capitalist rules. One player is randomly chosen to have 10 times more money, which allows him to roll 2 sets of dice and decide which one he likes best. That play also gets to decide on house rules as long as he can out-bid other players to influence the government. Yes, it hasn't even become a realistic game anymore but neither is our job market.
Travis Bewley We didn't get into this, but I'm curious how different cultural contexts affect how you think of the game? America doesn't have a popular socialist tradition the way other countries do, so it's not surprising that game took on an "American" point of view over time.
Travis Bewley You really do have to be careful about throwing around loaded terms like "Socialist" as it does have vastly different contexts in different countries. The derogatory version of which is almost entirely an American concept, which in my experience has little basis in reality. As a New Zealander, I would consider myself a socialist. That is to say, I support laws and government programs that promote the well being of society as a whole of which we are all a member of, over and above individual liberty. However, many individual liberties and capitalism for the most part are congruent with socialism, and even promote it. I would say Monopoly as far more in common with Corporatism then Socialism. Where the rich and powerful change the rules to suit themselves, to gain even larger monopolies to enrich themselves, even at the expense of the market and everyone else. Which is kind of analogous to how Monopoly has changed over the years, as people have added new 'rules' that increasingly favor them gaining a monopoly, even if in doing so broke the original rule set and design philosophy.
glukolover I believe that claiming everyone to be a member of a society without them explicitly saying so is fairly tyrannical. That is why I think socialism is immoral. And no, I am not one of the americans who just dont understand the superior european view of collectivism. I do agree that monopoly shows corporatism or social democracy and not the free marked, as you are restricted to the game board and the prices are fixed. To make it a socialist game, you could remove prices and ownership and have a wage per turn as you at the same time have all the properties have the same rent which is a little bit above the daily wage. the chance cards would be the corruption cards that would allow you some money by stealing from your competitors or the bank so the game keeps going.
***** You missed one of my main points, that is your using the bastardization definition of 'socialism'. To anybody who doesn't share that definition, you come across as more of an anarchist. If you want to call society that feeds you, cleans you, builds houses for your to live in, and all the technology it creates as a result that you then turn around and use immoral, then so be it. That just makes your selfish and anti social. I suggest you become a hermit, as it may suit your ideology more. As for me, I am happy to give back to the society that has given me so much.
PBS Game/Show Yes, but America has also had a tough time ever defining political establishments or admitting the complexity or ambiguity of any of these terms. We (I live in America) tend to just assign anything we don't like into a term we can then turn derogatory. I think America's history of this kind of rhetoric can be traced back to our very founding. Where over-simplified rhetoric was used to justify why both the English government was bad, yet the current local government should be allowed to stay in power. Then we go on to the alien and sedition acts and even Thomas Jefferson attacking the Federalists and federalism. Always using over-simplified rhetoric to create an us/them in order to unify public opinion and power. It's in our DNA, it just got worse in the cold war. glukolover I perhaps did not explain myself thoroughly enough. I do not think that it is a "Socialist game" but rather for a game called Monopoly it has a surprising number of socialist aspects. I also agree with many of your points about socialism, though I would caution not falling into the same trap I see so very often of seeing an Us/Them paradigm. Part of the issue is we are being blinded to the complexity of the world. Being told we have to make one of a dozen choices, but even that is wrong, we have an unlimited amount of choices. This isn't multiple choice, it's fill in the blanks. As soon as you define someone else by these terms you put them in a box, and if you argue against them that way you are also putting yourself in the same kind of box. The best way to really change minds is to step outside the cliche' buzz terms, definitions, and rhetoric and really ask questions and engage. I used to be harshly against "Socialism" and "Communism" and really pro "Free-Market" but after a long while I realized these subscriptions were sewing my eyes shut to what I really cared about. In the end my beliefs wound up being closer to traditional socialism then anything else, though I do have areas where I tend to ether think it doesn't go fr enough or goes too far. ***** OK, you went as far as to call it immoral, which I think is taking that too far but let's calmly discuss each point "I believe that claiming everyone to be a member of a society without them explicitly saying so is fairly tyrannical. That is why I think socialism is immoral." OK, well then should we withhold education, language, technology, and protection from foreign powers until a citizen can decide if they want to be part of the society? I don't think this is even possible, nor would even most of it be advisable. We gain so many protections and benefits from being a part of a society. We are born into a system where we have been provided with enough protections that Language, math, recorded history, safety have been allowed to thrive. There is no such thing as the rugged individual. No one comes up with their own language, then builds their own math and then creates their business. They learn society's language, societies math and do business in a system our society created. Would it be fair to be granted all of these benefits, yet be able to decide you don't feel like contributing to the obligations that come with it? "To make it a socialist game, you could remove prices and ownership and have a wage per turn as you at the same time have all the properties have the same rent which is a little bit above the daily wage. the chance cards would be the corruption cards that would allow you some money by stealing from your competitors or the bank so the game keeps going." Why would wages be slightly less then rent? How would the idea of having corruption cards not be applicable to a monopoly game with any economic system? Why would the mechanics of the corruption cards work like that? That's not how corruption works. I get that you don't like socialism but if you want people to not act like you're an ignorant American, then perhaps you could represent the concepts you are claiming to represent more accurately and not in such an overtly bias way.
For a period of almost 3 years I was part of a "Sunday Monopoly game" which involved 5 players. (The game was always completed with someone winning.) Myself,my GF,my GFs Sister,their Step Mom and their Dad. Their Dad is Ted Dabney(the guy that invented and wrote the program for Computer Space and Pong). I learned many lessons in game strategy by playing against him(their Dad). I still relish the day I changed my strategy early in the game and ended up beating him. That was the only time he lost. When you study the Rules of Monopoly and realize there is a strategy by sticking to the rules it's a great learning tool.
The formula's not actually that hard.You can learn it really fast these days by playing online, but for some reason online Monopoly isn't that advanced yet.
+Paul Sieben Yup... no credit at all. Not sure if PBS Game/Show is unfamiliar with the idea of "fair use" still requiring credit to be given to an author. Not that that's a valid excuse. Ignorance of the law, is not a valid defense for breaking it... then again, I'm not sure if Quill would actually care, but as with most things, I'm probably wrong.
Whenever we run out of houses in my family, we just substitute other things in to allow the player to improve their property. I never realized that the number of plastic pieces in the box was supposed to be a limit on how many houses were allowed in play.
Ian Buck Nah, you blitz for 2 monopolies, or you buy 1 of everything and engage in brutal trade. The hotels do not ruin anything, they just tempt fools into returning valuable houses.
Its not even that, most people hoard cash and don't pounce on every possible buying opportunity. If you have say 6 people you single out a person and make exclusive trades which appear in their favor to get ahead early. I am yet to lose a game of monopoly
You're not playing against other cold hearted players then. In my family only I and my uncle win, because we understand how to do favorable trades and stuff like that. If my uncle is not playing, it's not really fun for me.
It sounds quite off to say "we're playing it wrong" and point to the original game; we're not playing the original game, we're playing the game as it exists today. Sounds like all the criticisms of modern Monopoly, therefore, hold up.
+Nick Clinite Well, no, because he showed that supposedly 70% of players DONT play by the actual Monopoly rules, which by extension means that we do indeed "play it wrong".
+Baleur All I saw him focus on was a bunch of "this official rule that exists in the game today did not exist in the original game". I think he only listed one that is nowhere in the rules?
+Nick Clinite There are many things that people do wrong in monopoly, free money on free parking, giving "free passes" if people cant afford to pay, deciding to pass on unowned property they land on when it HAS to be auctioned off if not flat out purchased... there are many "house rules" that people use that literally break the game and they are used by many people because they don't bother to learn the actual rules. I learned about all of these rules when i got a handheld monopoly game one christmas when i was a kid. I realized that i was playing monopoly completely wrong my entire life and whats more my FAMILY was playing it wrong. I used to play that thing for hours because when you play by the actual rules the game is pretty damn intense and doesn't take THAT long.
+Fallen Deus yep, we just bought Monopoly again for my kids to play and I insisted we played by the actual rules rather than the "house rules" (which are strangely global, my wife and I are from countries thousands of miles apart yet shared some of the same, strange house rules) and the game suddenly becomes much faster and more intense. There is still the problem of one "winner" emerging quite early on and nothing much anyone can do to change it though.
There's a documentary on the Monopoly World Championship I saw (Name escapes me) and they brought up that the Free Parking House Rule can add something like 3-4 hours to an average game of Monopoly, thus ruining it.
Thanks so much for making this video. I wish you would have touched on the Prosperity rules though. At any point in The Landlord's Game, players can vote to invoke the alternate ruleset. Players keep their land but rent instead goes to a public treasury which is used to fund things like a free college (which replaces the spot that would previously land you in jail) and raise players' wages. The fact that players consciously vote in these mechanics is a huge part of the design. It models a reality in which voters use their power to change the system they're in.
Flounderboy15 If you like Risk, check out Rex (Or rather, Twilight Imperium Rex: Final Days of an Empire, but that's a mouthful and it's rude to talk with your mouth full :). It has Risk's elements of area control and diplomacy, but gives each player some unique abilities and removes most of the chance while still keeping enough unpredictability to make things interesting.
Flounderboy15 If you like Risk, you have to check out Risk Legacy. Each game affects each future game - for example, the winner gets to found a major city by placing a (non-removable) sticker on the board. From then on, only that player can start from the territory their city is in, and it provides a bonus to their population for mustering armies. Plus there are whole packets of new rules and game components that you get to open when some triggering event occurs - for example, each player receives one missile token for each game they've previously won, which can be used once per missile per game to change a die result into a 6; one of the packets opens when three missiles are used to alter a single roll. As you can guess from the nature of the triggering event, the contents are a major game-changer.
***** Wow, that sounds so much better! I adore risk, but I've always wished that 1) a single unit would stop taking out 1/3 of my entire army because god hates it when I roll dice, and 2) there were more clandestine meetings, subtle nods, alliance building, back stabbing, and bloodshed. I will look into this game.
I've been looking at Risk Legacy for a long time. I just wonder, with all the other games my gaming group goes through (not to mention tabletops, which are our normal fare), whether we'll ever end up having played Risk three or more times. That, and whether I can trust them not to name their cities after dirty words, thus rendering my board unable to be brought home to play with my nephews. The thing about the classic games I grew up on is, once I met my friends in college, they introduced me to a whole new world of board and card games that I never knew existed. Games like Risk, Sorry, Go Fish and Candy Land pale before Carcassonne, Dominion, Squint, Bang!, Sushi Go, Munchkin, Red Dragon Inn, Magblast, and that one where the gnomes try to repair a leaking submarine before they all die. Basically, all the many games that Shut Up and Sit Down has gone over, I never knew about before I was at least twenty. When you've been playing a screaming space game, trying to make a dragon out of a few random squiggles on cards, or elbowing in on the other players' castles via trollishly placed castle-edge tiles, it's hard to go back to abstract run-this-piece-around-the-board gameplay.
Well, I'm DEFINITELY playing it wrong, considering as a kid I made a charity ingame called "Penniless People" which is where I basically just donate to someone if they haven't got enough money, and they donate to me if I find myself in the same situation. And the last time (last as of writing this) I partnered up with my sister to take down her boyfriend and friend, claiming we were business partners, and we wouldn't charge eachother for landing on eachothers' property and we shared the money if either of the other players did. It all started because I owned Mayfair and she had Park Lane. In the end they both quit and we divided the loot between us. Man, I love Monopoly.
What's great about monopoly is how it fails at delivering it's point. You would think that letting people buy things and "capitalism" would quickly lead to someone owning everything (monopoly) but as everyone who is ever played this game knows: it just takes forever for that to happen. But if the game was to trully represent free market a little bit more closely, then it would never end. You would only have to add one rule: people may choose to move in either direction. Just one choice when you roll the dice. The infamous "Pepsi vs Cocacola". And at the same time, allow landlords to charge less to the people that land in their propierty. Allow them to negotiate before the player decides where to move. Do *that* and you will see how the game trully never ends and how the prices of all the propierties suddendly standarize and how people start coming up with new deals to stay alive. All those games would end with people simply wanting to leave because it is 4am in the morning and this game has been the same for hours.
+androkguz Well monopoly is a market in with steady falling marginal costs (the bigger you are the more effective you get) in such a condition, there always will be a monopoly sooner or later, also in real markets. Think railroads for example. The one with the bigger network gets more revenue, since the rails once build don't cost more, no matter how many trains drive over. Its called "natural monopoly". For the game to get to a place of a never ending market, you'd have to make a rule that players having more estates would have to pay more than players with less estates, forcing them to sell estates... This way it would likely go on forever, since a player on the losing side always gets a bonus to put him up again.
George Lionon Two things: 1) "Natural monopolies" in real markets don't really work like that. If they did, we would have only one train company. But that's actually a much more complicated topic 2) Yeah, the game will probably end eventually, but with my rules, that time will no doubt be huge. Lets imagine the situation where somehow one person owns half the map while the other three have the other half split up among them. The area owned by the runner up is not contiguious and has lots of contact with the competence. Your hypothesis is that this guys should win and win more and more. I say that in such situation, the other three would have a lot of incentive to *always* pay the player that's not the runner up, given a choice. I mean, why help the guy? That's the first one you want to backrupt. And once he falls down the totem, you start starving the new runner up for money.
In countries were railroads (the rails not the trains) were privately owned, they soon became a monopoly. Yes the ability to decide which direction to go would also make a game endless, as soon one player got 7 plots next to each other, he would never have to leave them.
+androkguz The length of the game is irrelevant and arbitrary, how could one begin to compare that to reality? The point is that an emergent monopoly is inevitable, which is what happens in the game and in real life. There are caveats to that, in real life of course, but this phenomenon is still instructive.
+androkguz If you let people choose which way they get to go when they roll the dice, eventually people will only hang around Go so that they can constantly collect revenue. This will be viable until someone has hotels set up around Go, but by that point (trades are rare, remember), people may have so much money they can absorb those costs anyway. Increasing the length of a game of monopoly will also have adverse consequences on player behaviour. I hate eliminating people from monopoly because it means they'll have to sit there and watch others play for what may be a few hours. That's boring for them, and boring for me too.
I saw a video recently about a rule in monopoly that I never heard of and it was if a player lands on a space and doesn't want it the property then goes up for auction
I was so shocked when I got the Mac version of Monopoly and that was an option. So I checked the rules, and that was actually what was supposed to happen. It may have been default. This was '92 so my memory may be off about whether it was default.
usually when I play my opponents are always saving their money to get park place and boardwalk... fools. i spend the money I can quickly buying up whatever I land on. they end up losing in the end bc they don't get the property they want, and I have several preventing any from getting a set. that's the key, be the first to gain a set and then houses while preventing others from doing the same. however a standstill is sometimes inevitable, that's when trading is necessary. I get the idea of limiting housing, but i don't feel like adding hotels takes away from the game. I think it's just how people play the game that makes it long. reluctance to buy or trade things. the free parking, think many players started playing with it giving you $ to change the game up. I may try limited resources n next time I break out my LOTR monopoly though.
My brother refused to play monopoly with me. His reason - I was too aggressive. I would buy what ever I was able to, to raise money I would be mortgaged up to the hilt but in the end I'd own the majority of the board and, eventually, I'd own his soul. His strategy would be to go for Mayfair (British version) and put houses on it. It was funny, he would enjoy me landing on Mayfair and losing - yet I was way too aggressive in buying everything I landed on.
One of my favorite techniques is to concentrate on the LEFT properties, (like Oriental, Connecticut , Vermont) versus the the right ones (Med. and Baltic) on each side. Houses cost the same , but rents are higher, so more bang for the buck.
Buy everything you can when you land on it, when all the property is purchased add as many houses and hotel as you as soon as you can, when a player owes more than he can pay rather than let him morgage his property offer to take a single property than either breaks his monopoly on a colour or complete one of your your sets. This save the property going back into the general purchase pool when the player goes bankrupt. Love this game played leagues with my three brothers when we were kids, have played thousands of games of monopoly, it teaches patience, and acceptance.
Simple: People can't buy properties anymore. When you step on one you can't buy it, instead that property goes for auction AUTOMATICALLY starting from the original written price of the property. That makes the game fun and engaging and also more fair and last less time.
lol did anyone else notice, thanks to PewDiePie, that they added 3 unneeded minutes in, just to get 10 minutes, for the extra add revenue and RUclips perks?
5 of us played yesterday boxing day and we had the house rules in effect such as no extra cash on free parking, no double for landing on go etc. We basically tried to play by the actual rules, well the first thing that went sideways was when someone landed on free parking and they complained there was no extra cash, so we put in $50 plus all fines. I rolled the dice then after my roll I wanted to build houses and everyone said your turns over after you roll. This went on and on. The rules need to be clearly defined before the start and no whining after the fact. We needed a referee and a linesman.
I can't believe I never thought of trying to win the game by creating a housing shortage. That is such a smart way to win the game. Next time I play monopoly I am not going to build any hotels.
exactly his arguments are its not a bad game its just that over the years its had bad rules implemented its like saying this isnt a bad burger just because over the past 5 weeks its gone moldy
He said that 'House rules' ruined it. Like getting money from going on free parking(Never played with it but it seems too forgiving) and Hotels which reduces the advantage of quickly buying houses
+Jay Alan Ungart Do you actually know what Keyneisian pumping is? It means decreasing taxes during a recession, and then increasing them once the recession is over. It's essentially borrowing money from the future. It has nothing to do with what happens in Monopoly. That's just flat out printing money. That only works in Monopoly because all the prices are fixed, meaning inflation is impossible. In real life, the money would become useless. And, by "Works," I mean keeps the game going, since that's the entire point of the economy. Once the "game" ends, all money is worthless. Everyone else is bankrupt, so how are you going to spend your money?
+victor zeng So long as you have enough players, more than 2, auctions were one of my favorite parts, as well as side deals. It's where most of any skill was actually involved.
I never heard of the Free Parking houserule before this year and this is the first time I've heard of "Rolling doubles gives you cash" houserule. That being said, the hotels rule, I've never known about being an add-on and that does seem like that would be the one thing that would extend the game by a lot.
***** it is very similar to a monopoly however since the barrier to entry to create board games is so high (it's now around 40$ only however thank's to print on demand) Still you need to convince retailers to sell your games and they almost always say no, even if your games are good, so it is very similar to a monopoly (you can't do your thing because the system is overgrown) but since it's a collective effect rather than an effect from one single company, it can't be called a monopoly
TheGuardian163 you're joking right? Check out the various tabletop gaming communities on G+. They post custom board games all the time, and quite of few of them go through very successful crowd funding campaigns.
***** read my comment again What I wrote was like a timeline; few years ago, then in brackets the current situation the a "not" was a typo, it was a "now". After the brackets it's a "but we still got an issue" ... And yes of course you can create your own product in succeed, I'm saying it's difficult. Retailes won't accept your games unless you're already re-known, regardless of how good your game is Thank's to the internet you can access the public directly (like crowdfunding you mentioned) but retailers still usually won't sell your games, unless it's someone like you an I who trusts and loves people who are ambitious and make their own board games. My bet is one of those people will become the new Hasbro eventually and start making deals with retailers (maybe TheGameCrafter will do that once it's big enough; select the most popular games, show them to retailers and make a deal with them, similar to Hasbro) Meanwhile if you wanna make board games, you're really on your own (but you do have great tools, thank's to today's technologies) Edit: it's similar to getting your book published, except instead of being "60% of books are bad and discarded, 39.9% of books are good but still discarded, and 0.1% are getting accepted to be published" it's "you're not in a big company, we're not publishing it" ... But again, no matter what retailers do, yeah it makes things harder but if you're dedicated you'll get it done no matter what
***** Last point; it affects game designers as a community more than as an individual (because any one of them can say "Screw that! I get it published and known and sol *no matter what!"* but as a group a ton don't get many copies sold or known at all And although it's changing, most peopel buy board games in common retailers, not online, so they are put apart from the market (as a community - again, as an individual, you can push through that, but as a whole... well look at how many great games don't get known)
I feel like the criticisms in this video miss the mark. Rules changes happen in games, because people find more interesting and fun ways to play over time. It may have been originally designed as simple critique on capitalism, but people didn't find that game interesting, and it evolved. You will find that rule changes like, money on free parking and extra cash for landing exactly on go, mainly happen in kid's games instead of adult ones. This because a lot of times kids want games that last forever without quick winners and losers. Changes involving luck also allow differing skill levels to compete, and add excitement. I think the reason Monopoly is so popular, is that it is a game that can be explained in a few minutes, whose base strategies are obvious, but can have sophisticated mid-game late-game strategies. The problem with using board games as social critique, is that they get across your ideology without teaching anything about how they work. You can easily design a game like the Landlord's game to demonstrate how much it sucks to be on the losing end in a capitalist economy. But you do not actually learn any of the problems with complexities of capitalism because you use artificial rules that don't make sense as an analogy. For example, your analogy with building houses and hotels on property with property prices in Brooklyn falls flat, because unlike the game monopoly in which you have to stay on the property that you rolled, you do not have to live in Brooklyn. You live there because you like it, and you will continue to do so until the price of living there is more than the price you are willing to pay. The game also fails to demonstrate how the cheap properties of today can become the expensive properties of tomorrow, and vice versa. Boardwalk Atlantic City was once considered the most expensive property, if the game was made today, it obviously wouldn't.
By working on a computer version of Monopoly, I analyzed the rules very carefully (to ensure proper implementation). The reality is that the rules are extremely elegant for the play mechanic. The rules are very specific in key areas (housing shortage, lending/borrowing, auction rule for unowned property that's not purchased), but very open-ended on the trading mechanic, which is where the genius of the game lay.
I think the vast majority of people play with unofficial or "house" rules not as a purposeful decision to make the game more enjoyable, but because they assume they already know the rules from when the game was first taught to them as kids. The game is so popular and has been around for so long that people learn it as children from their parents, who learned it from their parents, etc. House rules are passed on for generations without anyone checking the official rules. So, house rules aren't conscious decisions to alter the rules; they are what people assume to be the official rules.
This went different from how I expected. The game breaker I expected was the fact a lot of people don't play with auctions, which keeps the game moving. I've also seen the creativity of pissed off opponents colluding to wreck your day in the most extreme way. That was interesting when it happened. In my mind, it's you versus everyone else, to them, I got tag teamed in the dumbest way.
When I was back in school. (Early 1970's) my dorm-mates and I played an interesting version of "Cut-Throat Monopoly" Other than traveling clockwise and passing "GO," the main rule was "If ya' can get away with it . . . Go ahead" Trusts, collusion, selling and trading across the board, no limits on building houses and hotels on each property, cheating. stealing, you name it . . . all part of the game (Although, if ya' got caught cheating or stealing, ya' hadda' go ta' Jail) Just like real life . . .Bernie Madoff would have been proud of us.
GuitarMD Pittsburgh we play with a small part of what you describe: if you land on someone’s property and they don’t realize and the next person already has rolled their dice, too bad for them, you don’t need to pay.
Another rule that increases the speed of games, but I see rarely used, is: if a player couldn't afford or didn't want to purchase a property they landed on, it was to be auctioned off to the other players. Also, nobody trades enough.
Whether Monopoly is fun or not also depends a lot on who you are playing with as winning typically depends on if other players are willing to trade/barter property with you. Very rarely can a player get a monopoly just by the luck of the dice. If you play with people willing to trade so you both can get closer to getting a monopoly the game goes faster but if other players refuse all the time the game is painfully long. Also for some reason a lot of people forget about property auctions. That is if someone lands on a property and they don't want to buy it, that property has to be auctioned to someone else. This also makes the accumulation of property go faster and thus the whole game goes faster.
I can see the point about the money thing completely. One time I played with a friend and because of bad luck and lots of spending, money was hard to come by. This made the game way more fun and intense because of the money shortage.
The best version of Monopoly is its 15-minute card game counterpart: Monopoly Deal. It’s a perfect blend of the nostalgia of Monopoly but with easier gameplay and it’s quick. You still get the great satisfaction when you win as well.
As far as I know, auctions can be participated in by anyone, even the person who landed on the property but wasn't interested in. You could pay like 1/10000th of the total price if your bid of $1 was the highest one.
The game is SUPER fast when played correctly. We ended it in 2 hours, and this was because everyone kept texting on their phones and leaving the room. Auctioning REALLY makes the game intense as it limits your money.
Samuel Rosenberg It does both from my experience. My family members fell for this strat by auctioning all their money for Broadwalk before. No one wants to let one guy earn broadwalk for $10 so everyone raised the price til it was in the $700 thus why I say auctioning limits cash and make the game intense. I won this game of course because I'd put IMPORTANT properties up for auctioning as people wanted them and in the end I came back. a few hours ago my cousin won...because he auctioned $550 for park place...he won the biding but we underestimated him due to his lack of money...later he makes $100s and $200s from pass and go and chances...and then he RISK building houses...then someone lands on Broadwalk and owed him $1,400 they lost almost everything...Then litterally with that money he made hotels...then everyone EVERYONE SOMEHOW GOT BAD RNG and paid up $2,000 ....LOL THIS GAME IS FUN
I think the addition of hotels actually helps the balance of the game. To be in a position to afford hotels on your properties, you'd probably have to be in the lead. Once you trade in your houses for hotels, though, you just made a relatively poor investment (or at least very risky one) that opens the door for other players with enough money to purchase the houses you just got rid of, thus giving them a better chance of winning then they had previously. It might make the game last longer but it could/should make it more competitive. If the other players land on a property with a hotel, it's likely to bankrupt them. That would shorten the game. It's kind of a win-win.
I clicked this video because I wanted to learn how to make the game fun again. But there is so much history and so much details that talk about how things came to be and very little on how to fix…
I never won Monopoly as a child but always had a soft spot for it. I liked having money and rolling dice, but hated the long sessions just to end up "losing" (eventually whoever had the most money "won"). Once I grew up, FINALLY read the rules, and FORCED everyone to strictly adhere to them... suddenly a game could be played in about an hour and I began to actually win.
There might be hope for Monopoly after all - in Brazil, where the game is called "Banco Imobiliário", there's an environmental version of the game, in what the goal is no to bankrupt others, but to change an entire infrastructure of a city, or country, to clean energies. The players don't use money, but carbon credits to reinvest in solar and wind farms, organic agriculture etc. Sorry the text is in Portuguese, though: planetasustentavel.abril.com.br/noticia/atitude/conteudo_413606.shtml
It usually takes a variation to save this garbage game. That's why people make up rules, not just because they can't remember the real rules, but to speed things up and add actual strategy.
Monopoly does require skill though. While basically everything within the mechanics is left up to chance, how you deal with any of the potential outcomes embodies the skill portion. How you invest your capital, how you manage risk, and how you deal with other players determines at least half of your success in the game. Example: Jack and Bob are playing Monopoly. Jack has $75 and Bob only has $25. Jack rolls and lands on a property that costs $180. He passes, and so the property goes up for auction. Bob can start the bidding first, but can only bid $25 maximum. He has a choice of running the risk that Jack really doesn't want the property and could potentially acquire it for $1, but knows that even if Jack doesn't want the property it is is in Jack's best interest to make Bob pay as high a price as possible. This is a situation within the game that only uses 2 players, $100 in the current money supply of the game and a single property and it's already complex. Just think how much more complex it becomes when the pool of players is increased and the surrounding properties and potential dice rolls factor in to the choices Jack and Bob have to make. And just because so many of the people I've played with in the past haven't actually read the rules in the current game, auctions are indeed a thing and don't just affect the properties, but the houses and hotels as well. monopoly.wikia.com/wiki/Auction
Jonathan Bennett Yeah, Monopoly requires skill. Actually, the chance element is nothing compared to the skills required to be a good player. It's all about building houses in the right time, at the right place and make the most beneficial deals with other players.
Jonathan Bennett FINALLY! Someone who sees the strategy in Monopoly! It's amazing to see that so many of these people must completely SUCK at monopoly right!? You, me, and Markus could play 1000 games VS any 4 people who posted that monopoly has no skill, and I guarantee you that one of us would win every one of those 1000 games. The only chance they would have to win a single one is that we would very quickly ignore them and gun for each other as the only real opposition.
"Money in monopoly is a finite resource " I'm pretty sure that there is a rule something along the lines that says if the bank runs out of money, use paper instead.
Folopolis. Actually the way we change the rules to get and keep more money for all is why the game lasts long. I learned to stop at 4 houses to keep opponents from being able to improve their properties little by little.
This video is exactly right. If you play the game right, it will be a relatively short game. The goal is not to accumulate cash; it is to bankrupt your opponents as quickly as possible. Money management is the key. You do not want to pay full price for properties. Always buy them at auction. If you notice the other players are spending their money on properties too quickly, sit back and buy properties that come up later. When everyone is broke, you can buy at a big discount. If no one can afford a property, you might even be able to buy it at less than half price and then quickly mortgage it for a quick profit. You do have to get lucky or do some dealing to get a monopoly. When you do, spend every dollar you can building houses as quickly as possible. You have to drain money away from your opponents before they build houses that you might land on.
Interesting idea. I always hated the weird ideas (eg free parking) but never thought of limiting houses (to the contrary we used spare tokens as houses when we ran out lol). One of the best versions of Monopoly to play is the Mega Edition & after watching this video I think I know why; those extra properties tend to drain more money from the system as more rolls are taken to go around the board. Speed roll die are pure evil though in any edition
Even when played by the actual rules (no Free Parking cash, auction off properties if the buyer can't/won't buy it), it still suffers from horribly unbalanced spaces. If any player gets a monopoly on the oranges the game is over. If someone manages to acquire all four railroads the game is heavily in their favour because of the chance cards that routinely send you there (for double the rent!). In some ways this can add some strategy (I'm not buying Boardwalk because that expensive POS is barely landed on), but if all players are aware of the "hot" and "cold" spaces it becomes very difficult to get necessary trades accomplished.
Jazz xander For all of the reasons he explained in the video. It takes incredibly long, and there is no skill to it. It's just a background for conversation.
Smitteys86 People that complain about it being bad are just snobs it is simple, easy to play and quiet fun. Me and my friends would make up like 20 new rules then play the game for 6 hours at a time it was amazing. The fact that it doesn't require high skill means nothing, only if something is played it a competitive sense does skill matter.
Lince Assassino I don't understand why people get upset about monopoly. people get very offended when you turn down clearly unfair offers or do things like move to a square when you had no real choice in the matter. you can probably count the number of choices a player gets in monopoly on 1 hand.
Raisin Toast So is Love Letter, Sushi Go, King of Tokyo, Dominion, Smallworld, Hanabi, Mascarade, Coup, Three Dragon Ante, Age of War, etc. While it's true that the primary goal of games is to have fun, games without skill aren't very fun. I mean, if you enjoy your personal input having no impact on the outcome, more power to you, but personally I find it rather annoying (Probably the primary reason I keep coming back to Yoshi's Island, but haven't touched The Evil Within for a long time. Granted TEW isn't actually random, but from what I played it certainly felt that way :P).
Monopoly: I am the longest game by far Risk: Yeah right Escaping Alcatraz: MORTAL FOOLS Conquest for North Africa: Im gonna do what's called an MLG gamer move
Monopoly is an awesome game. Most people don’t like it because they don’t know how to play and get crushed all the time. It was a blood sport at my house and I ruthlessly dominated adults at age 9 by knowing every rule, every property value, every rent and exactly where I would land from any place on the board with any roll.
There is literally no strategy involved in that game. Board games are not magic, their mechanics can be analyzed, math of incomes, points and rewards can be counted. Monopoly is objectively broken game, where best strategy is to just buy everything. Have you ever played a videogame with really bad mechanics? Unresponsive controls, XP or Health or guns or whatever was poorly balanced, there were boring stages, etc.? Monopoly is like that, the mechanics and design is just broken.
my rules to anarchy: use a 100 to buy all the remaining $1 trade all your money into $100 now everyone has to round up and are crippeled by $100 shortages >:)
Yep. And you can also call it the Law of Unintended Consequences. You change one thing, and it has massive effects that you might not have seen coming.
Ever hear of a game called Go For Broke? It's the exact opposite of Monopoly. Everyone starts off with one million dollars and the winner is the first person to spend all their money. It's quite fun.
I flippin' love Monopoly. Monopoly and Cluedo are my favorites of traditional board games. Update: 2:50 - Oh...apparently it's part of my heritage...didn't know this about the Religious Society of Friends. Update 2: 5:52 - We have NOTHING to do with Quaker Oats. Our image was usurped for this.
Everything is about money. The best way to play is to destroy everybody else and you should never care about anybody else because they are opponents, not friends nor family nor gamemate, only opponents. Capitalism 101 in my opinion.
siratthebox Capitalsist's ideology is always treated as common sens in capitalist country, so if you're talking about something related to capitalism, the "common sense" is never a valid argument. You could play a game of monopoly where everybody tried to have fun together, but that would mean that nobody would try to get a monopoly because a monopoly result in bankruptcys and so : end of game for some of the players. That's the message : the rules, the way the game is setup, is the same has real life in that, if you wan't to balance the rules, you would be taking from the one who have the most to help those who have the least. On one hand you have everybody playing for themself and only themself, trying ot get as much money as possible even if it means "killing" another player, on the other hand you have a system where there's limits and a search for equilibrium where every player can be happy and where the goal switch from killing everybody else to having fun. Seams to me like your usual capitalist vs anti-capitalist debate, and the thing is that if you play with the normal rules (the "capitalist" way), you realise the problems the game has (too much luck, some have a ton other can't even play...) and if you look at the real world you see exactly the same problems.
I still prefer to play Risk, if you want destroy and control your adversaries, might at least be direct and take control of their land :P all of it!! Conquer the world! Obviously! xD
It's better than Monopoly, even though it kind of plays like Monopoly (alliance trades, betrayals, area control, etc). No roll-move though, so that's already awesome.
It’s all fun and games until they tell you to pay for each house and hotel you own.
Lynn Musana yea that made me lose all my cash lol
That hapoend to my cousin 2 times it cost him 3k
Ohhh yes! I had forgotten. That broke me!
And you own every property and there's a hotel on each of them
Ikr
I won second prize in a beauty contest! No other board game can do that.
ah, when $15 was a night on the town. no offense oklahoma
You so ugle
There were only two contestants
I won first in cheaters edition😅
Ape beauty contest?
The problem is when people don't trade properties in order to form monopolies. Trade and the game will be short.
iamchillydogg My family does trading but we don't do auction. Nothing happens when you don't want the property.
The only reason to trade is to make the game shorter. If you want to actually win, you should never trade properties, especially not to give your opponent a monopoly. Trade could be viable if you could make an equal trade, but equal trades are nigh impossible in this game.
+Suspicax Rohde then you are trading wrong.
BoRed 08 How? If you want to win, you shouldn't trade.
How many people do you play with?
How frequently does someone get a natural monopoly just by landing on the properties?
If you frequently get natural monopolies by landing on them, without trading, then yes, the game is broken, because it is a *trading* game, and that makes it a luck game. This is what's wrong with 2- and 3- player monopoly.
You forgot to mention nobody wants to trade. Ever.
+Matthew Kessler Trading is what makes the game worth playing. I am playing a lot with the kids and the imaginative trades that they now engage in is an education.
--> sweeteners of rent free (or rent rebates on certain properties) can encourage deals to go through.
--> joint development (where one person holds the properties but the development and rewards are shared), help stop the current leader from winning.
+Matthew Kessler yea, power grid which I mentioned has a far far greater incentive (although the rule where you MUST buy all same colors to get houses does offer a bit incentive)
+Matthew Kessler
depends on the group you play with. My friends and I all realize that when 2 players trade they usually both come out on top over the other players, even if your trading partner gets the better deal.
if you are playing with 5 people and 2 of them trade, its the 3 that don't trade that will lose out.
+CPTANT Just like in real life business.
+Matthew Kessler *Plays with my grandparants and my mother*
Hey grandma, want to give me that card for 10.000 and this other card?
*No.*
20.000 and that card?
*No.*
50.000?
*No.*
[In that version, it's pretty old, you get 20.000 when you start and 4000 by going over go]
I don't know who thinks Monopoly is boring... I always found it very intense.
+Equestrian Republican I liked wheeling and dealing. And invoking auctions if you have enough players, never pay for the sticker price right off the bat, unless you're desperate to have it. And usually most understood to buy anything you land on, so everyone would be low on money and would have to go to auction. And it'd get interesting. Then we'd have side deals, and other auctions to the side. And yes, it's mostly chance based on the roll of the dice if you land somewhere and can't raise the money to pay rent or whatever. It's kind of like poker, or black jack. Some skill, and mostly chance.
+Equestrian Republican - as mentioned in the video one of the common problems people have with the game is that common house rules like the "free parking" bonus pump money back into players' hands, causing the game to drag on much longer than it really should. When the "endgame" is two or more players with developed monopolies and large stacks of cash, it can be a very slow process for one of those players to collect enough rent from the other to deplete their cash and force them to sell houses and mortgage things. It's not a problem of the game being boring, exactly, it's a problem of the game dragging on long enough that players get weary.
When you take those rules away, the game becomes much shorter, and players are much more likely to be forced to make _careful_ decisions about how to spend their money... If players are very wealthy, there's no need to think about whether to buy a property: if you land on it, you buy it. That's another way the money bonus rules can really screw up the game, they effectively take away one of the game's precious few avenues for player decision.
Me and my siblings used to have like bank robberies if you got caught you were sent to jail and if you didn't then ok and also the banker always cheated no matter who it was
+Equestrian Republican It's intense when you actually play by the standard rules. Making up your own usually makes the game longer.
+Equestrian Republican Some people think many moves ahead and are baffled by boredom when they do. The skill in the game is capped super low.
Wait wait wait. The game was _designed_ to have _limited_ resources? That is a huge change!
If people would actually read the rules, then they would know that's the case.
Yeah but the bank cannot go bankrupt. If the bank does run out of money you are allowed to make more money by writing it in paper or any other way you choose. But if you run out of houses/hotels you can't use random objects as houses.
If 2 players want the last house/hotel the way we play it is that whoever's turn is closer gets to buy the last house/hotel.
@@AA-100 you can upgrade properties even if it is not your turn. Yes that is in the rules
Botchamania JEEZUS. Yes, but the case comes to when only 1 house is available and 2 players want it, how do the players decide who gets to purchase the last house?
I remember reading the rules when we got the game in my family as a child in the early 90's (born in 1984). We played by the printed rules and I was surprised to find that other people were using all these strange house rules.
For example, the rules said that if a player declines to buy the property at its listed value, then it goes up for auction, which is what we would do. The only advantage of the early game was if you landed on a space you wanted, you could just buy it outright for the printed value, though we usually put nearly everything up for auction. That mean almost everything was sold in about three or four trips around the board. We never had the influx of extra cash from free parking. The only extra cash came from the Chance & Community Chest cards. If I recall, the basic math of the game is set up so that Hotels aren't actually worth the investment. I think only two or three houses are worth buying and that the third or fourth house has diminishing returns... how much rent you get out of the space compared to how much you are forced to invest into building that 4th house and/or hotel.
+Paul Gaither The actual use of Hotels is for when your opponent is low on funds and getting near your property, you buy the hotel to bankrupt them if they land on it. Buying a hotel actually puts more houses back into the bank meaning it gives your opponent more chances to get a leg up on you. You have to use hotels strategically. They end the game, but hurt you if your opponent doesn't hit it.
+Paul Gaither Don't you get exponentially increasing returns on house investment? Generally you need to buy three houses before you get return on your investment and four or five to turn a profit.
I haven't ever tried to limit the number of houses though. It seems like a bad strategy. A single player getting three sets never happens and two is unlikely assuming you're playing with more than two players.
+Jake Surname Nope, 3 houses usually have the best return on investment.
+Paul Gaither There are no diminishing returns between the 3rd house and 4th house. There is not a single property where the rent differential is less than the cost of the purchase of the 4th house. E.g. The cost of a house is $50 on Mediterranean Ave (The cheapest property), while the rent from 3 to 4 houses increases by $70 (From $90 to $160). Unlike the 1st house purchase where EVERY property except for Boardwalk is a lost of income in relationship to purchase of a house and the rent received.
+Agent StephenG You're forgetting about that card where you have to pay the bank money for each house and hotel you own. I think there's one in both the chance and community chest decks. Hogging all the houses is good and all, but you are screwed if that card finds you. Maybe the safest and correct mathematical play is to complete two monopolies, and try to build up to 18 houses. With only 14 houses remaining, you've already given yourself the advantage. Now you need to rule out disasters so you try and save money so that if you get unlucky, you can pay the fine in a way that doesn't cripple you. After all, with the majority of houses you should be able to come back and win the game.
I remember as kids we combined three game sets and would add new rules on the fly -- ended up allowing for things like buying Go (where people would pay YOU when they pass it) putting houses on rail stations and utilities and putting multiple hotels on properties. We included 'Game of Life' money because we needed denominations in the tens and hundreds of thousands.
+James Firmiss (IznbranahlGoose) Sounds like post WWI germany...
+James Firmiss (IznbranahlGoose) I think that is a great idea! You should try and make it a real game someday!
+James Firmiss (IznbranahlGoose) We played the part with multiple hotels AND allowed a debt for a couple of turns. What ended up happening was everybody owing everyone a couple of milion dollars, because everybody landed on opponent's hotels, but then the opponent landed on theirs before the turn limit expired, so we were passing this enormous debt around :D
+vengefulenigma Congratulations - you accidentally discovered one of the problems with Keynes' economic theory! Debt doesn't go away - it just gets pushed around. This isn't so bad when it's just the rich and well to do, but it has debilitating effects when an abstracted form - purely, poverty - is exhibited as a symptom on the real world global map.
Che'ro Fae'lynn The more you know! :D
Monopoly is a terrible game said no winner ever
Of course you're going to think it's a terrible game,...BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T WIN, then YOUR BRAIN WILL NOT SUPPLY YOU WITH AS CLOSE TO AS MUCH DOPAMINE BECAUSE YOU AREN'T WINNING! So, try to win!
Thats once again... because the rules keep getting streched, changed, and making it go on forever
If the rules make the game impossible to win, then the rules make the game impossible to win FOR EVERYONE!
Winning isn't about fortune, but skill!
monopoly is broken and meant to be broken
In our late teens & early twenties, after getting our own apartments, we had Monopoly games that would last for days & days before somebody won. It was very cool with strangers showing up & taking someone else's place that had to split late at night or whatever. Lot's of party-Ann & laughs & what not.
i dont understand why people hates monopoly game..i enjoy more and more every time i play it..
Asch Aurora same here
Ik!! Monopoly is awesome!
It takes too damn long to play!
I hate playing it with my family because my sister and cousin will refuse to play it without the "land on free parking get money" rule.
Monopoly, like risk. is a game of exclusion. It's main aim is to remove players from the game. You eliminate a player, what does that player do now?
Take European style games. All players play until the end and scores are totaled at the end. Everyone is included throughout in European games.
I once played a game of monopoly for over 2 months. Literally all summer. We had to print more money, and eventually it just turned in to us trading money. We bought another board and cut it up and connected it. We made a double board thing, finally my friend joe won. We just didn't care at that point.
Now imagine being the third player bankrupt on day 1. "Sure, you can join us again next round."
There is almost no way that is possible. Almost. I've seen this happen when one person has 4 RR's and 2 utilties, and the other players don't have the cash needed to develop houses on their monopolies. But when that happens, the RR and utility player is the clear winner.
Or are you one of those players that dump more money into the game all the time?
The money supply in monopoly keeps going down. 50% loss on each property/house purchase, another 10% each time you mortgage for short term funds.
Oh -- do you refuse to trade and make monopolies/build houses?
Abby You have to purposely want to keep the game going.
+Abby I wouldn't be surprised if the super rich families in the USA experienced the same feeling a century ago, i.e. at some point you have so much money that it doesn't matter anymore.
Abby ya u guys killed the game for yourselves if there's no money left then there's none left u don't print more or create more properties that totally ruins the whole point of the game if u started the game with a bigger board or more money that would be different
I actually love monopoly ;(
Gooligans Smooligans Me too along with millions of other people who love it too! Take comfort, my friend. You are NOT alone. :-)
Robert J. Holtz Cool only reason I said that was because no critics like it.
Gooligans Smooligans Most critics are idiots.
It’s a fun family game being reviewed by crazy strategy rats.
Me too
Monopoly is fantastic as long as you play by the official rules. There is actually a lot of strategy involved.
NOT
I really like the strategy of NOT buy hotels and making a HOUSING SHORTAGE!
Until you get that dang "Assessment" card (especially the Community chest one-More expensive)
Might as well rename it "Monopoly: Gentrifier Edition".
There's just no way you haven't won if you're able to create a housing shortage.
There can only be a shortage if there are multiple people cooperating with it.
Even the rulebook recommends doing that. The banker also has to auction off houses at that point.
@@muuubiee Yes,it hardly ever happens.
You forgot to mention one of the most essential balancing rules: auctions. If a player chooses not to buy an open property when they land on it, it's auctioned off to the highest bidder. This reduces the amount of luck involved in the first turn, as although rare, it's completely possible for a player to get stuck landing on already owned property and fee spaces, simply losing money. Most players ignore the auction rule, making the game completely skewed against a player right on the first turn.
It's not just auctioned to the highest bidder it's even better.
It's auctioned PERIOD. So if nobody on the table bids the last player to speak takes it for free (takes it for 1$). So in a couple of rounds EVERY property is owed by someone.
So basically, don't put tax money in the middle only to be collected by landing on free parking and drop the idea of using hotels?
Ultimarad Yup, that's part of it. And if you're really feeling hardcore, you can go back to the original Landlord Game rules: landlordsgame.info/rules/lg-1904p_patent.html
PBS Game/Show Thanks for the link, wish me luck trying to convince my family to play Monopoly again. Great video btw, Monopoly's history is a lot more interesting than I thought.
PBS Game/Show I found how they made sure the game never went on forever. After the players go around the board five times the game is ended and the total net gain of money and properties is calculated with the highest being the winner obviously
Ultimarad There's actually another mechanic that a lot of people tend to ignore: the auction. I can't speak for Landlord, but one of the original mechanics in Monopoly was to auction off a property if a player chooses not to buy it when they land on it.
Adrian Mabee Yup. That's a big one. You gotta get those properties out there quickly. Combine that with hogging houses, getting up to three houses as quick as you can (huge rent jump) mortgages to do it, and knowing which properties are cash cows (St. James, Tennessee, & New York for the win), it's amazing how short and aggresive the game actually is.
Papers, Please is not about post 9/11 immigration. It's about the Cold War, it's commentary on what the USSR dealt with on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
Emjoria This guy sounds like a real Commie to me
I thought it was just stamping passports and detaining some wankers
It's both.
It's about how Bigfoot and Bat-mite (no, not Batman) control the Illuminati and want to summon Nyarlathotep to cook the perfect quiche. How hard is this for you guys??
@@commandercaptain4664 C'mon man get real, everyone knows the Crawling Chaos hates quiche.
Our rule to "fix" monopoly: you can reroll as many times as you want until you accept the result, but each reroll costs a successively higher dollar amount. So you can avoid expensive properties or try to get the one you really want, but it costs more and more money each time. And as the game goes on and more property is bought up, it becomes a game of managing who's going to screw you the least.
That, plus ending the game when one person goes bankrupt, then counting money totals.
Boom. Strategy, and a manageable game length.
The Internet Peasant That's a cool tweak!
The Internet Peasant Now that's an interesting tweak to the game. Can you explain a bit more about the dollar amounts to reroll dice in a little more detail? I would like to try this with my group of friends sometime.
Alexander Dojutrek
Sure. Your first roll on your turn is like normal. If you don't like it, you pay an amount that you agree on before starting the game -- for something closer to the original game, make rerolls $100, and increase by $50 or $100 each time. This makes it a desperation move for people who aren't well off, but a drop in the bucket for the rich, who can think of it less like gambling and more like an investment for potential greater rewards.
We start with $5, though, and increase it by a bill amount each turn: third roll is $10, fourth is $20, fifth is $50, etc. You can't go over $500, but no one ever has in our family. It adds up over time, but allows poorer players to have more of a chance to get back on their feet by avoiding the Boardwalks and Park Places more often.
The first method is good for a game of just adults, whereas kids tend to like the second method, and it introduces them to a concept of risk/reward in gaming (and life, I guess).
We've tried other variations of other rules to varying success, but the general idea that seems to work best is, anything that increases player choice via gambling doesn't break the rest of the game, and can be increased or decreased for difficulty or time pretty easily.
Hope that helps!
The Internet Peasant I like that idea, from what I've seen generally ideas to try and make monopoly less terrible are money sinks and that seems like a good one.
The Internet Peasant That is a brilliant tweak.
Monopoly is an old game, because rich people can go to the prison.
László Szerémi I lol'd, nice one.
László Szerémi A+
I don't get it :-|
props to ya
László Szerémi It's also not too old for the exact same reason.
Monopoly is my favourite board game. No, this is NOT sarcastic. I actually love this board game.
“Do not pass 'Labour upon Mother Earth Produces Wages’. Do not collect $200." Hm, somehow it doesn’t have the same ring to it...
PBS Digital Studios I bet "Labour upon mother Earth produces potato" would make the game appeal to a whole new demographic, though (in addition to being agriculturally more accurate).
PBS Digital Studios Socialism has a low market value. That is why the original game didn't become so popular.
By the way, you guys are beating yourself over the head by living in New York. Move the whole PBS operation could move to a lower priced real estate area and save a whole bunch of money. Your employees would be happier too.
The downside? They will go through withdrawals because they aren't in New York.
Roger Smith You have a seemingly misguided idea of Socialism. I am assuming that you mean that Socialism produces poorer people, i.e. lower GDP and lower over-all buying power in the country. That isn't true, if you were to even out the income inequality it would amp up buying power for the low and middle class, leaving the rich... still rich. Example. My country has 1000 dollars for 1000 people. If they each have 10 dollars, that means each person has a buying power of rough $10. However, they way it is currently set up, only 1 person out of that 1000 has $900 and the rest split the $100 that is left. Ugh... I don't feel like explaining anymore. MORE PEOPLE WITH MORE BUYING POWER=GOOD!
www.investopedia.com Here is a link to a website that got me through Macroeconomics my freshman year. Have fun.
arse monkey I already have a BBA and I studied economics. If Socialism is so good, why do countries that try it have such poor results? Your example is so simplistic because your model assumes a zero sum game. That is not what happens in real economies.
Roger Smith Yep, you definitely wouldn't want to live in Norway, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, etc.. Horrible, horrible countries, with terrible standards of living, huge crime rates, pathetic life expectancy, etc..
/sarcasm
I love how even in its current incarnation it is amazingly socialist. You periodically get money for simply living, everyone starts out with the same amount of money, and everyone has the same mobility around the board.
I always have fun envisioning a version that is played by capitalist rules. One player is randomly chosen to have 10 times more money, which allows him to roll 2 sets of dice and decide which one he likes best. That play also gets to decide on house rules as long as he can out-bid other players to influence the government.
Yes, it hasn't even become a realistic game anymore but neither is our job market.
Travis Bewley We didn't get into this, but I'm curious how different cultural contexts affect how you think of the game? America doesn't have a popular socialist tradition the way other countries do, so it's not surprising that game took on an "American" point of view over time.
Travis Bewley You really do have to be careful about throwing around loaded terms like "Socialist" as it does have vastly different contexts in different countries. The derogatory version of which is almost entirely an American concept, which in my experience has little basis in reality.
As a New Zealander, I would consider myself a socialist. That is to say, I support laws and government programs that promote the well being of society as a whole of which we are all a member of, over and above individual liberty.
However, many individual liberties and capitalism for the most part are congruent with socialism, and even promote it.
I would say Monopoly as far more in common with Corporatism then Socialism.
Where the rich and powerful change the rules to suit themselves, to gain even larger monopolies to enrich themselves, even at the expense of the market and everyone else.
Which is kind of analogous to how Monopoly has changed over the years, as people have added new 'rules' that increasingly favor them gaining a monopoly, even if in doing so broke the original rule set and design philosophy.
glukolover I believe that claiming everyone to be a member of a society without them explicitly saying so is fairly tyrannical. That is why I think socialism is immoral. And no, I am not one of the americans who just dont understand the superior european view of collectivism.
I do agree that monopoly shows corporatism or social democracy and not the free marked, as you are restricted to the game board and the prices are fixed.
To make it a socialist game, you could remove prices and ownership and have a wage per turn as you at the same time have all the properties have the same rent which is a little bit above the daily wage. the chance cards would be the corruption cards that would allow you some money by stealing from your competitors or the bank so the game keeps going.
***** You missed one of my main points, that is your using the bastardization definition of 'socialism'.
To anybody who doesn't share that definition, you come across as more of an anarchist.
If you want to call society that feeds you, cleans you, builds houses for your to live in, and all the technology it creates as a result that you then turn around and use immoral, then so be it.
That just makes your selfish and anti social.
I suggest you become a hermit, as it may suit your ideology more.
As for me, I am happy to give back to the society that has given me so much.
PBS Game/Show Yes, but America has also had a tough time ever defining political establishments or admitting the complexity or ambiguity of any of these terms.
We (I live in America) tend to just assign anything we don't like into a term we can then turn derogatory. I think America's history of this kind of rhetoric can be traced back to our very founding. Where over-simplified rhetoric was used to justify why both the English government was bad, yet the current local government should be allowed to stay in power. Then we go on to the alien and sedition acts and even Thomas Jefferson attacking the Federalists and federalism. Always using over-simplified rhetoric to create an us/them in order to unify public opinion and power. It's in our DNA, it just got worse in the cold war.
glukolover I perhaps did not explain myself thoroughly enough. I do not think that it is a "Socialist game" but rather for a game called Monopoly it has a surprising number of socialist aspects.
I also agree with many of your points about socialism, though I would caution not falling into the same trap I see so very often of seeing an Us/Them paradigm.
Part of the issue is we are being blinded to the complexity of the world. Being told we have to make one of a dozen choices, but even that is wrong, we have an unlimited amount of choices. This isn't multiple choice, it's fill in the blanks.
As soon as you define someone else by these terms you put them in a box, and if you argue against them that way you are also putting yourself in the same kind of box. The best way to really change minds is to step outside the cliche' buzz terms, definitions, and rhetoric and really ask questions and engage.
I used to be harshly against "Socialism" and "Communism" and really pro "Free-Market" but after a long while I realized these subscriptions were sewing my eyes shut to what I really cared about.
In the end my beliefs wound up being closer to traditional socialism then anything else, though I do have areas where I tend to ether think it doesn't go fr enough or goes too far.
***** OK, you went as far as to call it immoral, which I think is taking that too far but let's calmly discuss each point
"I believe that claiming everyone to be a member of a society without them explicitly saying so is fairly tyrannical. That is why I think socialism is immoral."
OK, well then should we withhold education, language, technology, and protection from foreign powers until a citizen can decide if they want to be part of the society?
I don't think this is even possible, nor would even most of it be advisable.
We gain so many protections and benefits from being a part of a society. We are born into a system where we have been provided with enough protections that Language, math, recorded history, safety have been allowed to thrive.
There is no such thing as the rugged individual. No one comes up with their own language, then builds their own math and then creates their business. They learn society's language, societies math and do business in a system our society created.
Would it be fair to be granted all of these benefits, yet be able to decide you don't feel like contributing to the obligations that come with it?
"To make it a socialist game, you could remove prices and ownership and have a wage per turn as you at the same time have all the properties have the same rent which is a little bit above the daily wage. the chance cards would be the corruption cards that would allow you some money by stealing from your competitors or the bank so the game keeps going."
Why would wages be slightly less then rent?
How would the idea of having corruption cards not be applicable to a monopoly game with any economic system?
Why would the mechanics of the corruption cards work like that? That's not how corruption works.
I get that you don't like socialism but if you want people to not act like you're an ignorant American, then perhaps you could represent the concepts you are claiming to represent more accurately and not in such an overtly bias way.
For a period of almost 3 years I was part of a "Sunday Monopoly game" which involved 5 players.
(The game was always completed with someone winning.)
Myself,my GF,my GFs Sister,their Step Mom and their Dad.
Their Dad is Ted Dabney(the guy that invented and wrote the program for Computer Space and Pong).
I learned many lessons in game strategy by playing against him(their Dad).
I still relish the day I changed my strategy early in the game and ended up beating him.
That was the only time he lost.
When you study the Rules of Monopoly and realize there is a strategy by sticking to the rules it's a great learning tool.
The formula's not actually that hard.You can learn it really fast these days by playing online, but for some reason online Monopoly isn't that advanced yet.
6:00 The Quakers had nothing to do with the oats and actually sued to get their name off of them..they failed.
OOF
Was not expecting to see Quill18 in this video.
same.
+Ethan Major he is also missing in the sources
+Paul Sieben I see he is indeed missing. What a dick this PBS is.
I know! Does Quill know he's in this video and not even given credit?!
+Paul Sieben Yup... no credit at all. Not sure if PBS Game/Show is unfamiliar with the idea of "fair use" still requiring credit to be given to an author. Not that that's a valid excuse. Ignorance of the law, is not a valid defense for breaking it... then again, I'm not sure if Quill would actually care, but as with most things, I'm probably wrong.
Isn't is funny that no one remembers the socialist version at all but the capitalist game is a hit all over the earth. Kinda like real life.
Joel Craig And the capitalist is better
Because the socialist game collapsed on itself and everyone died of starvation
Why would you want to remember the socialist version?
Joel Craig there is no "socialist" version of the game. There is a Georgist version called the Landlord's Game.
Robert Ponder did you watch the video?
I remember playing the NES or SNES version of Monopoly and thinking, "What in the world is this auction thing?"
Whenever we run out of houses in my family, we just substitute other things in to allow the player to improve their property. I never realized that the number of plastic pieces in the box was supposed to be a limit on how many houses were allowed in play.
Ian Buck We did the same thing. Usually dices from some Yahtzee package lying around.
Ian Buck Nah, you blitz for 2 monopolies, or you buy 1 of everything and engage in brutal trade. The hotels do not ruin anything, they just tempt fools into returning valuable houses.
I love monopoly. Play cold hearted and you win every time
Until they figure out how cold you are, and no longer make deals with you, ever.
It's happened to me, and you'll lose everytime mate.
Its not even that, most people hoard cash and don't pounce on every possible buying opportunity. If you have say 6 people you single out a person and make exclusive trades which appear in their favor to get ahead early. I am yet to lose a game of monopoly
You're not playing against other cold hearted players then. In my family only I and my uncle win, because we understand how to do favorable trades and stuff like that. If my uncle is not playing, it's not really fun for me.
And what if two players play cold hearted? Is it fun again?
It sounds quite off to say "we're playing it wrong" and point to the original game; we're not playing the original game, we're playing the game as it exists today. Sounds like all the criticisms of modern Monopoly, therefore, hold up.
+Nick Clinite Well, no, because he showed that supposedly 70% of players DONT play by the actual Monopoly rules, which by extension means that we do indeed "play it wrong".
+Baleur All I saw him focus on was a bunch of "this official rule that exists in the game today did not exist in the original game". I think he only listed one that is nowhere in the rules?
+Nick Clinite And with original that is the original monopoly. I for one found out that i have played monopoly wrong all my life.
+Nick Clinite There are many things that people do wrong in monopoly, free money on free parking, giving "free passes" if people cant afford to pay, deciding to pass on unowned property they land on when it HAS to be auctioned off if not flat out purchased... there are many "house rules" that people use that literally break the game and they are used by many people because they don't bother to learn the actual rules. I learned about all of these rules when i got a handheld monopoly game one christmas when i was a kid. I realized that i was playing monopoly completely wrong my entire life and whats more my FAMILY was playing it wrong. I used to play that thing for hours because when you play by the actual rules the game is pretty damn intense and doesn't take THAT long.
+Fallen Deus yep, we just bought Monopoly again for my kids to play and I insisted we played by the actual rules rather than the "house rules" (which are strangely global, my wife and I are from countries thousands of miles apart yet shared some of the same, strange house rules) and the game suddenly becomes much faster and more intense. There is still the problem of one "winner" emerging quite early on and nothing much anyone can do to change it though.
There's a documentary on the Monopoly World Championship I saw (Name escapes me) and they brought up that the Free Parking House Rule can add something like 3-4 hours to an average game of Monopoly, thus ruining it.
ThePallydan It's called "Under the Boardwalk: The MONOPOLY Story"
the lesson is: free money ruins everything . . .
this game is GENIUS taught me tons of stuff when I was younger
Thanks so much for making this video. I wish you would have touched on the Prosperity rules though. At any point in The Landlord's Game, players can vote to invoke the alternate ruleset. Players keep their land but rent instead goes to a public treasury which is used to fund things like a free college (which replaces the spot that would previously land you in jail) and raise players' wages. The fact that players consciously vote in these mechanics is a huge part of the design. It models a reality in which voters use their power to change the system they're in.
Eric Eldridge Good point!
I think Risk is the only long-form board game that I've played and enjoyed.
Flounderboy15
If you like Risk, check out Rex (Or rather, Twilight Imperium Rex:
Final Days of an Empire, but that's a mouthful and it's rude to talk
with your mouth full :). It has Risk's elements of area control and
diplomacy, but gives each player some unique abilities and removes most
of the chance while still keeping enough unpredictability to make things
interesting.
that sounds interesting, i'll look into it!
Flounderboy15 If you like Risk, you have to check out Risk Legacy. Each game affects each future game - for example, the winner gets to found a major city by placing a (non-removable) sticker on the board. From then on, only that player can start from the territory their city is in, and it provides a bonus to their population for mustering armies. Plus there are whole packets of new rules and game components that you get to open when some triggering event occurs - for example, each player receives one missile token for each game they've previously won, which can be used once per missile per game to change a die result into a 6; one of the packets opens when three missiles are used to alter a single roll. As you can guess from the nature of the triggering event, the contents are a major game-changer.
***** Wow, that sounds so much better! I adore risk, but I've always wished that 1) a single unit would stop taking out 1/3 of my entire army because god hates it when I roll dice, and 2) there were more clandestine meetings, subtle nods, alliance building, back stabbing, and bloodshed. I will look into this game.
I've been looking at Risk Legacy for a long time. I just wonder, with all the other games my gaming group goes through (not to mention tabletops, which are our normal fare), whether we'll ever end up having played Risk three or more times.
That, and whether I can trust them not to name their cities after dirty words, thus rendering my board unable to be brought home to play with my nephews.
The thing about the classic games I grew up on is, once I met my friends in college, they introduced me to a whole new world of board and card games that I never knew existed. Games like Risk, Sorry, Go Fish and Candy Land pale before Carcassonne, Dominion, Squint, Bang!, Sushi Go, Munchkin, Red Dragon Inn, Magblast, and that one where the gnomes try to repair a leaking submarine before they all die. Basically, all the many games that Shut Up and Sit Down has gone over, I never knew about before I was at least twenty.
When you've been playing a screaming space game, trying to make a dragon out of a few random squiggles on cards, or elbowing in on the other players' castles via trollishly placed castle-edge tiles, it's hard to go back to abstract run-this-piece-around-the-board gameplay.
Well, I'm DEFINITELY playing it wrong, considering as a kid I made a charity ingame called "Penniless People" which is where I basically just donate to someone if they haven't got enough money, and they donate to me if I find myself in the same situation.
And the last time (last as of writing this) I partnered up with my sister to take down her boyfriend and friend, claiming we were business partners, and we wouldn't charge eachother for landing on eachothers' property and we shared the money if either of the other players did. It all started because I owned Mayfair and she had Park Lane. In the end they both quit and we divided the loot between us.
Man, I love Monopoly.
What's great about monopoly is how it fails at delivering it's point. You would think that letting people buy things and "capitalism" would quickly lead to someone owning everything (monopoly) but as everyone who is ever played this game knows: it just takes forever for that to happen.
But if the game was to trully represent free market a little bit more closely, then it would never end. You would only have to add one rule: people may choose to move in either direction. Just one choice when you roll the dice. The infamous "Pepsi vs Cocacola". And at the same time, allow landlords to charge less to the people that land in their propierty. Allow them to negotiate before the player decides where to move. Do *that* and you will see how the game trully never ends and how the prices of all the propierties suddendly standarize and how people start coming up with new deals to stay alive. All those games would end with people simply wanting to leave because it is 4am in the morning and this game has been the same for hours.
+androkguz Well monopoly is a market in with steady falling marginal costs (the bigger you are the more effective you get) in such a condition, there always will be a monopoly sooner or later, also in real markets. Think railroads for example. The one with the bigger network gets more revenue, since the rails once build don't cost more, no matter how many trains drive over. Its called "natural monopoly".
For the game to get to a place of a never ending market, you'd have to make a rule that players having more estates would have to pay more than players with less estates, forcing them to sell estates... This way it would likely go on forever, since a player on the losing side always gets a bonus to put him up again.
George Lionon Two things:
1) "Natural monopolies" in real markets don't really work like that. If they did, we would have only one train company. But that's actually a much more complicated topic
2) Yeah, the game will probably end eventually, but with my rules, that time will no doubt be huge.
Lets imagine the situation where somehow one person owns half the map while the other three have the other half split up among them. The area owned by the runner up is not contiguious and has lots of contact with the competence. Your hypothesis is that this guys should win and win more and more.
I say that in such situation, the other three would have a lot of incentive to *always* pay the player that's not the runner up, given a choice.
I mean, why help the guy? That's the first one you want to backrupt. And once he falls down the totem, you start starving the new runner up for money.
In countries were railroads (the rails not the trains) were privately owned, they soon became a monopoly.
Yes the ability to decide which direction to go would also make a game endless, as soon one player got 7 plots next to each other, he would never have to leave them.
+androkguz The length of the game is irrelevant and arbitrary, how could one begin to compare that to reality? The point is that an emergent monopoly is inevitable, which is what happens in the game and in real life. There are caveats to that, in real life of course, but this phenomenon is still instructive.
+androkguz If you let people choose which way they get to go when they roll the dice, eventually people will only hang around Go so that they can constantly collect revenue. This will be viable until someone has hotels set up around Go, but by that point (trades are rare, remember), people may have so much money they can absorb those costs anyway.
Increasing the length of a game of monopoly will also have adverse consequences on player behaviour. I hate eliminating people from monopoly because it means they'll have to sit there and watch others play for what may be a few hours. That's boring for them, and boring for me too.
I saw a video recently about a rule in monopoly that I never heard of and it was if a player lands on a space and doesn't want it the property then goes up for auction
Noob Tactical
We play with that rule, for some teason i think it is in the rule book for newer editions (post 2004)
Frank De Mascio I've never heard of that rule and when I did I played a game with family it went so much faster lmao
I have been playing monopoly since the mid 1980's and the auction rule has always been there.
I was so shocked when I got the Mac version of Monopoly and that was an option. So I checked the rules, and that was actually what was supposed to happen. It may have been default. This was '92 so my memory may be off about whether it was default.
Evert van Dalen Well for me it is recent as I stopped playing the game in the 70s.
usually when I play my opponents are always saving their money to get park place and boardwalk... fools. i spend the money I can quickly buying up whatever I land on. they end up losing in the end bc they don't get the property they want, and I have several preventing any from getting a set. that's the key, be the first to gain a set and then houses while preventing others from doing the same. however a standstill is sometimes inevitable, that's when trading is necessary. I get the idea of limiting housing, but i don't feel like adding hotels takes away from the game. I think it's just how people play the game that makes it long. reluctance to buy or trade things. the free parking, think many players started playing with it giving you $ to change the game up. I may try limited resources n next time I break out my LOTR monopoly though.
Ghadente exactly
My brother refused to play monopoly with me. His reason - I was too aggressive. I would buy what ever I was able to, to raise money I would be mortgaged up to the hilt but in the end I'd own the majority of the board and, eventually, I'd own his soul.
His strategy would be to go for Mayfair (British version) and put houses on it. It was funny, he would enjoy me landing on Mayfair and losing - yet I was way too aggressive in buying everything I landed on.
One of my favorite techniques is to concentrate on the LEFT properties, (like Oriental, Connecticut , Vermont) versus the the right ones (Med. and Baltic) on each side. Houses cost the same , but rents are higher, so more bang for the buck.
Buy everything you can when you land on it, when all the property is purchased add as many houses and hotel as you as soon as you can, when a player owes more than he can pay rather than let him morgage his property offer to take a single property than either breaks his monopoly on a colour or complete one of your your sets. This save the property going back into the general purchase pool when the player goes bankrupt.
Love this game played leagues with my three brothers when we were kids, have played thousands of games of monopoly, it teaches patience, and acceptance.
Matthew Meech you're not playing by the rules. What kind of weird leagues were you in?
Matthew Meech nope buy the 4 stations don't worry about property's and hotels. Once you get all 4 stations you win in the long run
Probably because you have 4 "traps" on the board while the most the other players will have is 3.
To be fair playing Monopoly with only official rules without any house rules makes it a bit more difficult and interesting.
What I want to see is a new, updated list of rules that reflect the original intent of the original game, so that we can play monopoly the right way!
Simple:
People can't buy properties anymore. When you step on one you can't buy it, instead that property goes for auction AUTOMATICALLY starting from the original written price of the property.
That makes the game fun and engaging and also more fair and last less time.
lol did anyone else notice, thanks to PewDiePie, that they added 3 unneeded minutes in, just to get 10 minutes, for the extra add revenue and RUclips perks?
what?
Rocwell Edwards Yep.
Rocwell Edwards Why is it thanks to Pewdiepie?
What did pewdepie do?
Pewdiepie made a video exposing those people who make videos over 10 minutes longer for better ad revenue, and more perks.
5 of us played yesterday boxing day and we had the house rules in effect such as no extra cash on free parking, no double for landing on go etc. We basically tried to play by the actual rules, well the first thing that went sideways was when someone landed on free parking and they complained there was no extra cash, so we put in $50 plus all fines. I rolled the dice then after my roll I wanted to build houses and everyone said your turns over after you roll. This went on and on. The rules need to be clearly defined before the start and no whining after the fact. We needed a referee and a linesman.
I can't believe I never thought of trying to win the game by creating a housing shortage. That is such a smart way to win the game. Next time I play monopoly I am not going to build any hotels.
Got a monopoly ad before the video
Stopped me watching the video actually.
Monopoly is a game and should be judged as a game despite its historical back ground or the message it tries to deliver.
exactly his arguments are its not a bad game its just that over the years its had bad rules implemented its like saying this isnt a bad burger just because over the past 5 weeks its gone moldy
He said that 'House rules' ruined it. Like getting money from going on free parking(Never played with it but it seems too forgiving) and Hotels which reduces the advantage of quickly buying houses
Ludvig SC Games and they do its just that he mostly judges it as a bad game because it strays from its original message
Lox
That’s ignorance.
So Keynesian pumping of money into the system makes the game suck? Who would have thought that?
+Jay Alan Ungart
Yes by extending the life of an awful unstable system without addressing any of the real deficiencies of it.
Like Keynesianism.
+Jay Alan Ungart Do you actually know what Keyneisian pumping is? It means decreasing taxes during a recession, and then increasing them once the recession is over. It's essentially borrowing money from the future.
It has nothing to do with what happens in Monopoly. That's just flat out printing money. That only works in Monopoly because all the prices are fixed, meaning inflation is impossible. In real life, the money would become useless.
And, by "Works," I mean keeps the game going, since that's the entire point of the economy. Once the "game" ends, all money is worthless. Everyone else is bankrupt, so how are you going to spend your money?
If monopoly were RL. Not pumping money into the system would make the system collapse.
You forgot the most crucial part. You if someone doesn't buy the free space you land on, it goes to auction.
+victor zeng So long as you have enough players, more than 2, auctions were one of my favorite parts, as well as side deals. It's where most of any skill was actually involved.
+jmitterii2 You MUST make a huge deal of it tho otherwise its not fun
I never heard of the Free Parking houserule before this year and this is the first time I've heard of "Rolling doubles gives you cash" houserule. That being said, the hotels rule, I've never known about being an add-on and that does seem like that would be the one thing that would extend the game by a lot.
The irony is Monopoly is owned my a Monopoly. Hasbro owns Milton Bradley, Parker Brother, Playskool, Nerf and Wizards of the Coast.
GastonAsston technically, Parker Brothers doesn't exist anymore because Hasbro stopped using the brand and moved all its products over to MB
***** it is very similar to a monopoly however since the barrier to entry to create board games is so high (it's now around 40$ only however thank's to print on demand)
Still you need to convince retailers to sell your games and they almost always say no, even if your games are good, so it is very similar to a monopoly (you can't do your thing because the system is overgrown) but since it's a collective effect rather than an effect from one single company, it can't be called a monopoly
TheGuardian163 you're joking right? Check out the various tabletop gaming communities on G+. They post custom board games all the time, and quite of few of them go through very successful crowd funding campaigns.
***** read my comment again
What I wrote was like a timeline; few years ago, then in brackets the current situation the a "not" was a typo, it was a "now".
After the brackets it's a "but we still got an issue"
...
And yes of course you can create your own product in succeed, I'm saying it's difficult. Retailes won't accept your games unless you're already re-known, regardless of how good your game is
Thank's to the internet you can access the public directly (like crowdfunding you mentioned) but retailers still usually won't sell your games, unless it's someone like you an I who trusts and loves people who are ambitious and make their own board games.
My bet is one of those people will become the new Hasbro eventually and start making deals with retailers (maybe TheGameCrafter will do that once it's big enough; select the most popular games, show them to retailers and make a deal with them, similar to Hasbro)
Meanwhile if you wanna make board games, you're really on your own (but you do have great tools, thank's to today's technologies)
Edit: it's similar to getting your book published, except instead of being "60% of books are bad and discarded, 39.9% of books are good but still discarded, and 0.1% are getting accepted to be published" it's "you're not in a big company, we're not publishing it"
...
But again, no matter what retailers do, yeah it makes things harder but if you're dedicated you'll get it done no matter what
***** Last point;
it affects game designers as a community more than as an individual (because any one of them can say "Screw that! I get it published and known and sol *no matter what!"* but as a group a ton don't get many copies sold or known at all
And although it's changing, most peopel buy board games in common retailers, not online, so they are put apart from the market (as a community - again, as an individual, you can push through that, but as a whole... well look at how many great games don't get known)
I feel like the criticisms in this video miss the mark. Rules changes happen in games, because people find more interesting and fun ways to play over time. It may have been originally designed as simple critique on capitalism, but people didn't find that game interesting, and it evolved. You will find that rule changes like, money on free parking and extra cash for landing exactly on go, mainly happen in kid's games instead of adult ones. This because a lot of times kids want games that last forever without quick winners and losers. Changes involving luck also allow differing skill levels to compete, and add excitement. I think the reason Monopoly is so popular, is that it is a game that can be explained in a few minutes, whose base strategies are obvious, but can have sophisticated mid-game late-game strategies.
The problem with using board games as social critique, is that they get across your ideology without teaching anything about how they work. You can easily design a game like the Landlord's game to demonstrate how much it sucks to be on the losing end in a capitalist economy. But you do not actually learn any of the problems with complexities of capitalism because you use artificial rules that don't make sense as an analogy. For example, your analogy with building houses and hotels on property with property prices in Brooklyn falls flat, because unlike the game monopoly in which you have to stay on the property that you rolled, you do not have to live in Brooklyn. You live there because you like it, and you will continue to do so until the price of living there is more than the price you are willing to pay. The game also fails to demonstrate how the cheap properties of today can become the expensive properties of tomorrow, and vice versa. Boardwalk Atlantic City was once considered the most expensive property, if the game was made today, it obviously wouldn't.
By working on a computer version of Monopoly, I analyzed the rules very carefully (to ensure proper implementation). The reality is that the rules are extremely elegant for the play mechanic. The rules are very specific in key areas (housing shortage, lending/borrowing, auction rule for unowned property that's not purchased), but very open-ended on the trading mechanic, which is where the genius of the game lay.
I think the vast majority of people play with unofficial or "house" rules not as a purposeful decision to make the game more enjoyable, but because they assume they already know the rules from when the game was first taught to them as kids. The game is so popular and has been around for so long that people learn it as children from their parents, who learned it from their parents, etc. House rules are passed on for generations without anyone checking the official rules. So, house rules aren't conscious decisions to alter the rules; they are what people assume to be the official rules.
We put jackpots that have 500 and a free hitel
This went different from how I expected.
The game breaker I expected was the fact a lot of people don't play with auctions, which keeps the game moving.
I've also seen the creativity of pissed off opponents colluding to wreck your day in the most extreme way.
That was interesting when it happened.
In my mind, it's you versus everyone else, to them, I got tag teamed in the dumbest way.
When I was back in school. (Early 1970's) my dorm-mates and I played an interesting version of "Cut-Throat Monopoly"
Other than traveling clockwise and passing "GO," the main rule was "If ya' can get away with it . . . Go ahead"
Trusts, collusion, selling and trading across the board, no limits on building houses and hotels on each property, cheating. stealing, you name it . . . all part of the game (Although, if ya' got caught cheating or stealing, ya' hadda' go ta' Jail)
Just like real life . . .Bernie Madoff would have been proud of us.
GuitarMD Pittsburgh we play with a small part of what you describe: if you land on someone’s property and they don’t realize and the next person already has rolled their dice, too bad for them, you don’t need to pay.
Another rule that increases the speed of games, but I see rarely used, is: if a player couldn't afford or didn't want to purchase a property they landed on, it was to be auctioned off to the other players. Also, nobody trades enough.
Whether Monopoly is fun or not also depends a lot on who you are playing with as winning typically depends on if other players are willing to trade/barter property with you. Very rarely can a player get a monopoly just by the luck of the dice. If you play with people willing to trade so you both can get closer to getting a monopoly the game goes faster but if other players refuse all the time the game is painfully long. Also for some reason a lot of people forget about property auctions. That is if someone lands on a property and they don't want to buy it, that property has to be auctioned to someone else. This also makes the accumulation of property go faster and thus the whole game goes faster.
I can see the point about the money thing completely. One time I played with a friend and because of bad luck and lots of spending, money was hard to come by. This made the game way more fun and intense because of the money shortage.
The best version of Monopoly is its 15-minute card game counterpart: Monopoly Deal. It’s a perfect blend of the nostalgia of Monopoly but with easier gameplay and it’s quick. You still get the great satisfaction when you win as well.
"He who has the gold makes the rules." - Jafar (Aladdin)
Quill18! :D
***** YAY!
As far as I know, auctions can be participated in by anyone, even the person who landed on the property but wasn't interested in. You could pay like 1/10000th of the total price if your bid of $1 was the highest one.
This was a very enjoyable episode
MayuriKurotsuchi Thanks!
The game is SUPER fast when played correctly. We ended it in 2 hours, and this was because everyone kept texting on their phones and leaving the room.
Auctioning REALLY makes the game intense as it limits your money.
Samuel Rosenberg It does both from my experience. My family members fell for this strat by auctioning all their money for Broadwalk before.
No one wants to let one guy earn broadwalk for $10 so everyone raised the price til it was in the $700 thus why I say auctioning limits cash and make the game intense. I won this game of course because I'd put IMPORTANT properties up for auctioning as people wanted them and in the end I came back.
a few hours ago my cousin won...because he auctioned $550 for park place...he won the biding but we underestimated him due to his lack of money...later he makes $100s and $200s from pass and go and chances...and then he RISK building houses...then someone lands on Broadwalk and owed him $1,400 they lost almost everything...Then litterally with that money he made hotels...then everyone EVERYONE SOMEHOW GOT BAD RNG and paid up $2,000 ....LOL THIS GAME IS FUN
Auctioning for boardwalk makes everyone loose a large chunk of cash.
Samuel Rosenberg Indeed, but my family member would over bid for weak properties like Pennsylvania ave and such
Samuel Rosenberg He overbids in the beginning of the game
Samuel Rosenberg Meh depends, I've won 4 games in a row and its called auction baiting...
The real video starts in 4:10
Whether or not you like Monopoly, I think we can all agree that Dominion is awesome.
I like Arctic Scavengers better.
lol brooklyn housing, it's actually cheaper to rent a room out on the Ritz
I think the addition of hotels actually helps the balance of the game. To be in a position to afford hotels on your properties, you'd probably have to be in the lead. Once you trade in your houses for hotels, though, you just made a relatively poor investment (or at least very risky one) that opens the door for other players with enough money to purchase the houses you just got rid of, thus giving them a better chance of winning then they had previously. It might make the game last longer but it could/should make it more competitive. If the other players land on a property with a hotel, it's likely to bankrupt them. That would shorten the game. It's kind of a win-win.
I clicked this video because I wanted to learn how to make
the game fun again.
But there is so much history and so much details that talk
about how things came to be and very little on how to fix…
You can tell this is PBS because you learned something.
I never won Monopoly as a child but always had a soft spot for it. I liked having money and rolling dice, but hated the long sessions just to end up "losing" (eventually whoever had the most money "won"). Once I grew up, FINALLY read the rules, and FORCED everyone to strictly adhere to them... suddenly a game could be played in about an hour and I began to actually win.
There might be hope for Monopoly after all - in Brazil, where the game is called "Banco Imobiliário", there's an environmental version of the game, in what the goal is no to bankrupt others, but to change an entire infrastructure of a city, or country, to clean energies. The players don't use money, but carbon credits to reinvest in solar and wind farms, organic agriculture etc.
Sorry the text is in Portuguese, though: planetasustentavel.abril.com.br/noticia/atitude/conteudo_413606.shtml
try and learn it before trying to play a game in it :-)
Sounds horrible
It usually takes a variation to save this garbage game. That's why people make up rules, not just because they can't remember the real rules, but to speed things up and add actual strategy.
Monopoly does require skill though. While basically everything within the mechanics is left up to chance, how you deal with any of the potential outcomes embodies the skill portion. How you invest your capital, how you manage risk, and how you deal with other players determines at least half of your success in the game.
Example: Jack and Bob are playing Monopoly. Jack has $75 and Bob only has $25. Jack rolls and lands on a property that costs $180. He passes, and so the property goes up for auction. Bob can start the bidding first, but can only bid $25 maximum. He has a choice of running the risk that Jack really doesn't want the property and could potentially acquire it for $1, but knows that even if Jack doesn't want the property it is is in Jack's best interest to make Bob pay as high a price as possible.
This is a situation within the game that only uses 2 players, $100 in the current money supply of the game and a single property and it's already complex. Just think how much more complex it becomes when the pool of players is increased and the surrounding properties and potential dice rolls factor in to the choices Jack and Bob have to make.
And just because so many of the people I've played with in the past haven't actually read the rules in the current game, auctions are indeed a thing and don't just affect the properties, but the houses and hotels as well.
monopoly.wikia.com/wiki/Auction
Jonathan Bennett Yeah, Monopoly requires skill. Actually, the chance element is nothing compared to the skills required to be a good player. It's all about building houses in the right time, at the right place and make the most beneficial deals with other players.
Jonathan Bennett FINALLY! Someone who sees the strategy in Monopoly! It's amazing to see that so many of these people must completely SUCK at monopoly right!? You, me, and Markus could play 1000 games VS any 4 people who posted that monopoly has no skill, and I guarantee you that one of us would win every one of those 1000 games. The only chance they would have to win a single one is that we would very quickly ignore them and gun for each other as the only real opposition.
The hidden gem of RUclips: x2 speed. It lets you watch 5-minute content in 5 minutes.
Reno 2x speed on a 5 min video makes it 5 mins? wonder where ur math went wrong
I never said it was a 5-minute video. :)
"Money in monopoly is a finite resource "
I'm pretty sure that there is a rule something along the lines that says if the bank runs out of money, use paper instead.
Probably one of the changes of the new version
If a game of Monopoly lasts more than 2 hours, it is because everyone is really bad at it.
Played a game by myself with 4 tokens. Lasted 4 hours.
No...? It's just a long game.
Folopolis. Actually the way we change the rules to get and keep more money for all is why the game lasts long. I learned to stop at 4 houses to keep opponents from being able to improve their properties little by little.
I typically play Monopoly (Mega addition) with 8 players.
It takes 3-4 hours.
When you play a 2-hours Monopoly game, do everybody have fun?
Love the idea of adding a adding some house rules. 1. You can move either direction (which adds strategy), 2. Take out the hotels.
Monopoly isn't as boring as this video. Sorry, I stopped short!
Long Monopoli game a problem... Play timed games.
Set the egg timer to 1h ( or whatever) and whoever is ahead at the buzzer wins :-)
This video is exactly right. If you play the game right, it will be a relatively short game. The goal is not to accumulate cash; it is to bankrupt your opponents as quickly as possible. Money management is the key. You do not want to pay full price for properties. Always buy them at auction. If you notice the other players are spending their money on properties too quickly, sit back and buy properties that come up later. When everyone is broke, you can buy at a big discount. If no one can afford a property, you might even be able to buy it at less than half price and then quickly mortgage it for a quick profit. You do have to get lucky or do some dealing to get a monopoly. When you do, spend every dollar you can building houses as quickly as possible. You have to drain money away from your opponents before they build houses that you might land on.
Interesting idea. I always hated the weird ideas (eg free parking) but never thought of limiting houses (to the contrary we used spare tokens as houses when we ran out lol). One of the best versions of Monopoly to play is the Mega Edition & after watching this video I think I know why; those extra properties tend to drain more money from the system as more rolls are taken to go around the board. Speed roll die are pure evil though in any edition
I prefer Risk over Monopoly, There is something about going out and wage war against your friends and obliterate them.
I didnt know there were people who dislike monopoly.
I should play it with those original rules...
Martin Rupprecht landlordsgame.info/rules/lg-1904p_patent.html
PBS Game/Show Thanks a lot :)
Martin Rupprecht
We are playing it right!
Sorry it is jungle out there; don't try to deny our nature.
You want to be a thief, go ahead. Everyone goes up against the wall eventually.
Even when played by the actual rules (no Free Parking cash, auction off properties if the buyer can't/won't buy it), it still suffers from horribly unbalanced spaces. If any player gets a monopoly on the oranges the game is over. If someone manages to acquire all four railroads the game is heavily in their favour because of the chance cards that routinely send you there (for double the rent!). In some ways this can add some strategy (I'm not buying Boardwalk because that expensive POS is barely landed on), but if all players are aware of the "hot" and "cold" spaces it becomes very difficult to get necessary trades accomplished.
I love getting all the houses and not trading them for hotels. I also enjoy the speed rules, shortens the game.
Isheian it’s great until you have to pay for each house lol
How can you not like monopoly? I love it
Jazz xander For all of the reasons he explained in the video. It takes incredibly long, and there is no skill to it. It's just a background for conversation.
Smitteys86 If by conversation you mean arguing, raging and attempted murders, yes.
Smitteys86 People that complain about it being bad are just snobs it is simple, easy to play and quiet fun. Me and my friends would make up like 20 new rules then play the game for 6 hours at a time it was amazing. The fact that it doesn't require high skill means nothing, only if something is played it a competitive sense does skill matter.
Lince Assassino I don't understand why people get upset about monopoly. people get very offended when you turn down clearly unfair offers or do things like move to a square when you had no real choice in the matter. you can probably count the number of choices a player gets in monopoly on 1 hand.
Raisin Toast So is Love Letter, Sushi Go, King of Tokyo, Dominion, Smallworld, Hanabi, Mascarade, Coup, Three Dragon Ante, Age of War, etc. While it's true that the primary goal of games is to have fun, games without skill aren't very fun. I mean, if you enjoy your personal input having no impact on the outcome, more power to you, but personally I find it rather annoying (Probably the primary reason I keep coming back to Yoshi's Island, but haven't touched The Evil Within for a long time. Granted TEW isn't actually random, but from what I played it certainly felt that way :P).
Monopoly: I am the longest game by far
Risk: Yeah right
Escaping Alcatraz: MORTAL FOOLS
Conquest for North Africa: Im gonna do what's called an MLG gamer move
Twilight emporium is long.
Monopoly is an awesome game. Most people don’t like it because they don’t know how to play and get crushed all the time. It was a blood sport at my house and I ruthlessly dominated adults at age 9 by knowing every rule, every property value, every rent and exactly where I would land from any place on the board with any roll.
There is literally no strategy involved in that game. Board games are not magic, their mechanics can be analyzed, math of incomes, points and rewards can be counted. Monopoly is objectively broken game, where best strategy is to just buy everything. Have you ever played a videogame with really bad mechanics? Unresponsive controls, XP or Health or guns or whatever was poorly balanced, there were boring stages, etc.? Monopoly is like that, the mechanics and design is just broken.
What monopoly is my favorite board game of all time!!!
jesusopoly
Jake Hix wouldn't that mean it wouldn't exist?
I thought the top three lines on the eye exam poster in the background said, " U PU POO".
my rules to anarchy: use a 100 to buy all the remaining $1 trade all your money into $100 now everyone has to round up and are crippeled by $100 shortages >:)
Owen Chiang Ingenious.
Owen Chiang There's a rule in monopoly saying that if the bank runs out of money, make more with paper. Rule 11, I believe.
maregondrako sshhh we like anarchy plus who actually reads those things
6:42 that’s called the Butterfly Effect
Yep. And you can also call it the Law of Unintended Consequences.
You change one thing, and it has massive effects that you might not have seen coming.
Ever hear of a game called Go For Broke? It's the exact opposite of Monopoly. Everyone starts off with one million dollars and the winner is the first person to spend all their money. It's quite fun.
Ugh, I sat through that much history just to be told something I already know.
God I hope I don't start seeing this guy in my suggested feeds.
I flippin' love Monopoly. Monopoly and Cluedo are my favorites of traditional board games.
Update: 2:50 - Oh...apparently it's part of my heritage...didn't know this about the Religious Society of Friends.
Update 2: 5:52 - We have NOTHING to do with Quaker Oats. Our image was usurped for this.
"Monopoly teaches about the evils of capitalism!" No.
yes. definitely
Jake Hix What part of forcing you to stay in a hotel you can't pay for, and selling off your entire company to do so, is "capitalist"?
Everything is about money. The best way to play is to destroy everybody else and you should never care about anybody else because they are opponents, not friends nor family nor gamemate, only opponents. Capitalism 101 in my opinion.
***** "If you want to win you have to actually play the game to win" ?? That's not capitalism, that's common sense you dumbass.
siratthebox
Capitalsist's ideology is always treated as common sens in capitalist country, so if you're talking about something related to capitalism, the "common sense" is never a valid argument.
You could play a game of monopoly where everybody tried to have fun together, but that would mean that nobody would try to get a monopoly because a monopoly result in bankruptcys and so : end of game for some of the players. That's the message : the rules, the way the game is setup, is the same has real life in that, if you wan't to balance the rules, you would be taking from the one who have the most to help those who have the least.
On one hand you have everybody playing for themself and only themself, trying ot get as much money as possible even if it means "killing" another player, on the other hand you have a system where there's limits and a search for equilibrium where every player can be happy and where the goal switch from killing everybody else to having fun. Seams to me like your usual capitalist vs anti-capitalist debate, and the thing is that if you play with the normal rules (the "capitalist" way), you realise the problems the game has (too much luck, some have a ton other can't even play...) and if you look at the real world you see exactly the same problems.
I still prefer to play Risk, if you want destroy and control your adversaries, might at least be direct and take control of their land :P all of it!! Conquer the world! Obviously! xD
ImperatorRom I dominated at both. Great games.
Toby Mitchell yep my go to board games
It's better than Monopoly, even though it kind of plays like Monopoly (alliance trades, betrayals, area control, etc). No roll-move though, so that's already awesome.
Wait people actually use free parking and snake eyes?
Why would you do that to yourself.
Just do it