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Comment by dmnd | Hacker News Reader

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Risk and Monopoly have player elimination which is anti-social. Settlers also packs in way more fun per minute of time spent playing.

The rules are no more complicated, either. Just make sure you're getting them right so that balance isn't thrown off, which can make the game not fun. Play a few games online at http://games.asobrain.com/ where the program will teach you the correct rules.

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But there is something to be said for player elimination. Sometimes I like to have a graceful way to quit a game I'm certainly going to lose!

Risk and Monopoly take so long to finish that player elimination is a necessity. Games of Settlers where one player has no hope of winning aren't common, as long as players are of relatively equal skill.

I think (without having played Settlers) that in an ideal board game you shouldn't be able to get into a position where you know you're going to lose until the very end of the game. That's a big problem with Monopoly -- it's too easy to die a slow and painful death as you mortgage and sell your properties one by one. The further you are behind, the harder it is to get ahead.

This is why I like skill-based yet luck-dependent games like Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit. Even if you're 150 points behind in Scrabble, there's always the chance you're going to get two great racks in a row. And even if you're six pie-slices behind in Trivial Pursuit there's always the chance that you'll get a long run of questions you happen to know the answers to.

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