Fixing Monopoly | Hacker News Reader

Fixing Monopoly

ludible.nl

58 pointstmsbrg49 comments

I prefer this approach: http://imgur.com/a/vX3zm

> Because of the way the game is designed, this inevitably results in one person acquiring a majority of the assets on the board, and beginning the slow, painful, friendship-destroying process of grinding the other players out of the game, turn by turn. This is why Monopoly starts as a fun exciting romp, only to turn into a bitter cesspool of despair.

I agree. Monopoly isn't broken; it's a shitty game by design.

Yeah exactly, the game shows that monopolies naturally emerge from player actions, just as in real life. That was the entire point of the game being created.

That post doesn't really make sense. Of course if you can get two Monopolies without any other player having a threat you will win. Building shortages are rarely used in serious play.

Minus-Celsius is a former tournament Monopoly player and his posts on this thread summarize it better than I could: https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/42wze4/how_to_w...

The author admits as much in reply to Minus-Celsius. He wasn't proposing the master strategy to win against good players, he's laying out an effective way to poison the well so we can stop playing that stupid game every thanksgiving.

Yeah, it's missing my favorite tactic though. Trading expensive mortgage properties for cheap mortgage properties to players with little to no money. Even though you give them a monopoly on a more expensive set they can't do anything because they have no money.. mouhahah.

Step 2: ...With less experienced players, swapping an expensive property (e.g. green) for their cheap one (e.g. orange) to give you both a full set is an easy sell, but they end up with the "poisoned" set: something that's too expensive for them to develop with their current resources...

This is why when I play I ignore that rule and allow unlimited houses and hotels. In fact the very first time I played a game with limited houses was also the last time I ever played that way, since it seemed so unfair I decided the rules were flawed.

Also, if you want a game that never ends and is just for fun, instead of winning: Allow borrowing money from other players, secured by their property, but without requiring them to actually sell it. (The game will never end, but you can have fun anyway.)

> it seemed so unfair

Well, that is the point. :-)

The site is hugged to death, so I'll just be that person who makes assumptions based on the headline, and writes comments without reading.

Assuming we're talking about the game, my favorite fixes are anything that increase player autonomy, interaction, and decision-making, and decreases randomness.

My favorite variations are probably old-hat to many players, but they include allowing completely unregulated deals between players (e.g. loans, swaps, etc.) and allowing all players to bid on every single unowned property that a player lands on (sometimes with some kind of addition such as the landing player getting the right of first refusal at twice the price, or something, but never simply letting them purchase at face-value).

The second rule -- putting all landed-on properties on the open market -- really allow people to try out different strategies, whether it's trying to buy everything at the start, no matter the cost, or trying to be more cautious with money.

> allowing all players to bid on every single unowned property that a player lands on (sometimes with some kind of addition such as the landing player getting the right of first refusal at twice the price, or something, but never simply letting them purchase at face-value).

AFAIK this isn't a variant, this is more or less the actual real rule of the game (or something halfway between). If a player refuses to buy something when they land on it, it's supposed to go up for auction with no minimum bid.

No one plays that way, but it's the official rule.

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Monopoly/Official_Rules

I'd never actually played with auctions (had no idea they were in the rules, which I'd learned from friends/relatives and not from reading the rulebook) until I played the video game version for NES (years after it came out), which also happens to be the least-hellish way to play the game that I've experienced, I think because it handles running auctions and the nuts-and-bolts of keeping track of mortgages and crap like that that's so tedious in the real game.

Of course people play that way. It's the rules. :)

I'm not sure if you're joking (smiley lacked a clear target), but just in case you're not: Monopoly is somewhat famously almost never played by the actual as-written rules. Indeed, most people know the rules they learned as children and are shocked to discover they aren't playing by "the rules".

Right, to be clear the variation is that it always goes up for auction.

The way my family always played growing up was that the player who landed on an unowned property could but it at face value, but if they didn't want to, it automatically went to auction. I honestly wasn't particularly fond of this, as if you were losing closer to the end of the game and landed on something unowned, as you often had to end up letting the player who was winning buy it for fairly cheap because you couldn't afford to spend the money on properties that wouldn't help you. I also noticed that most of the people who I played with outside my family did not play with this rule, adding to my frustration.

Another thing I remember us doing that nobody else seemed to was that if you bought/traded for a mortgaged property from another player, you had to pay 10% of the mortgage price to the bank if you didn't want to pay to unmortgage it immediately. I'm not sure if this is in the official rules, but as a young kid with no understanding of how real-world mortgages or interest worked, this seemed rather unusual and was somewhat frustrating as well.

> allowing all players to bid on every single unowned property that a player lands on

This seems to have been the rule from Magie's 1923 patent.

"1. Land in Use - A player stopping on this space is supposed to be occupying and using the land, and pays to the owner thereof the amount of land rent indicated. If there is an Improvement on the land, he pays $100 in addition to the land rent. If a player is himself the owner of the space, he takes from the board the amount of rent indicated. If the space is for sale, that is, if the corresponding card is still on the board, all the players bid for it, the highest bidder paying to the board the amount of his bid and taking the card into his hand.[...]"

https://www.google.com/patents/US1509312

-----

edit: and the 1906 rule, except that the landing player just has to meet the highest bid, not beat it.

"RULE 7. Land Rent. --- When a player stops upon a lot owned by another player, he must pay the land rent to the owner. If he stops upon one of his own lots he pays nothing. If the lot is not yet owned by any of the players, it is "For Sale" and the player stopping upon it may purchase it at the original sale price, provided no other player bids more for it. If the player who has stopped upon it is willing to pay the highest price bid, he has the first option. If he cannot or does not want to pay the highest price bid, then the player bidding the highest price must take the lot at the price he has bid for it. If the first player does not by a lot and some other player does, the first player pays the land rent to the purchaser. If no player buys it the land rent is paid into the PUBLIC TREASURY. If the lot is thought the purchaser or takes the corresponding Title Deed card from the pack."

http://landlordsgame.info/games/lg-1906/lg-1906_egc-rules.ht...

I could only get a cached text version of the link to load, but I'm surprised to see not a single mention of The Landlord's Game. It was the precursor to Monopoly developed by Elizabeth Magie, and intentionally designed to be an unfair and unbalanced game in order to demonstrate certain economic principals.

  The earliest known version of Monopoly, known as The
  Landlord's Game, was designed by an American, Elizabeth
  Magie, and first patented in 1904 but existed as early
  as 1902. Magie, a follower of Henry George, originally 
  intended The Landlord's Game to illustrate the economic 
  consequences of Ricardo's Law of Economic rent and the 
  Georgist concepts of economic privilege and land value 
  taxation.

  The game was created to be a "practical demonstration 
  of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual 
  outcomes and consequences". She based the game on the 
  economic principles of Georgism, a system proposed by Henry 
  George, with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich 
  property owners and impoverish tenants. She knew that some 
  people could find it hard to understand why this happened and 
  what might be done about it, and she thought that if Georgist 
  ideas were put into the concrete form of a game, they might 
  be easier to demonstrate. Magie also hoped that when played 
  by children the game would provoke their natural suspicion of 
  unfairness, and that they might carry this awareness into 
  adulthood.

  * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_board_game_Monopoly
  * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord%27s_Game

(edits: typos and formatting)

The problem is, very few actually play the game by the correct rules. That's what the imgur link in a different part of this discussion is trying to teach. The 'proper rules' that make Monopoly the unfair game it is intended to be.

I'm trying to dig up Magie's alternative rules, which were modeled after preferred Georgist policies. I never tried them myself, but I hear they made for a very long, overly balanced game with highly equitable outcomes. Too boring for a game, but much nicer for real life ;)

I have a link to them somewhere. I'll post it if I can find it.

This version has three phases: http://socialcredit.schooljotter2.com/resources/social-art/m...

Mobile-friendly text and clickable links:

> The earliest known version of Monopoly, known as The Landlord's Game, was designed by an American, Elizabeth Magie, and first patented in 1904 but existed as early as 1902. Magie, a follower of Henry George, originally intended The Landlord's Game to illustrate the economic consequences of Ricardo's Law of Economic rent and the Georgist concepts of economic privilege and land value taxation.

> The game was created to be a "practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences". She based the game on the economic principles of Georgism, a system proposed by Henry George, with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants. She knew that some people could find it hard to understand why this happened and what might be done about it, and she thought that if Georgist ideas were put into the concrete form of a game, they might be easier to demonstrate. Magie also hoped that when played by children the game would provoke their natural suspicion of unfairness, and that they might carry this awareness into adulthood.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_board_game_Mono...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord%27s_Game

Thank you! I apologize, I use HN formatting options so infrequently on here.

So Magie's game came with two sets of rules ---one monopolistic, which I believe became modern Monopoly, and the other antimonopolistic. Has anyone played the last ruleset? Really interested to know what it's like...

Writeup with some rules in it here:

http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2009/07/the-landlord-game-or...

This is the modern version of the original version of monopoly.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1931/anti-monopoly

EDIT: nm, I have been assuming that for some time now... TIL.

Our house monoply varient involves a third die. The third die has n+2 sides where n is the number of players. If a one is rolled, everyone takes a bong hit. If the highest number is rolled everyone takes a sip of water. The rest of the numbers are handed out to each person. When the die comes up on their number it's their turn. This isn't as much of an advantage as you'd think it'd be. It's easy to run out of money early, and not go forever later.

Also: -Auctions -No free parking -Immunity trading -Three die rolls = jail -Doubles = same player goes again as their turn isn't over

Alternatively, you could play a well-designed game. There's no shortage.

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame

> Pandemic Legacy is a co-operative campaign game, with an overarching story-arc played through 12-24 sessions, depending on how well your group does at the game.

eish - is there a list for something that can be played for kids with short attention spans?

That depends quite a bit on the kids, their ages, and their attention span... and necessity of theme. A global pandemic is a bit heavy though.

Sure: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamecategory/1041/childre...

Just sort that by rank to get an ordered list of the best children's games.

How short, and how old are the kids?

Very young kids: Animal Upon Animal

Older kids, really short attention span: Love Letter

Older kids, somewhat less short attention span: Carcassonne, Sushi Go Party (which is a gateway drug to the similarly-played, confusing-sounding-rules-but-actually-easy-in-practice Seven Wonders)

[EDIT] if others list suggestions there's a high likelihood that King of Tokyo will be on the list, but I want to preemptively counter that by noting it's a well-regarded, kid-friendly-themed, simple game that I've entirely failed to find any fun in, and can't even fathom how others find fun in it, though I believe them when they claim that they have—I just don't understand. [EDIT EDIT] Point is, watch a Youtube play of it before committing. Actually, probably do that for any of these.

See if you have a local board game café, hopefully children are welcome. The one near me has staff who can recommend appropriate games, and will explain the rules. A specialist shop might work too.

Ordered by my estimate of length/attention, and all fine for a 10 year old:

Battle Sheep, Diamant, Forbidden Island, Splendour, Carcassone.

Forbidden Island is a cooperative game (everyone wins, or everyone loses), the others are competitive.

For little kids (4-5): Catan Junior, My First Stone Age, Patchwork, Hoot Owl Hoot. For slightly bigger kids: Quirkle, Takenoko, Tokaido, Sushi Go, Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne.

I generally find TableTop to be a well-curated source of games; games that look fun on the show have always gone over well for me.

Dice Tower has a great Top 10 list (but from multiple perspectives, so there's almost 30 games on here) for childrens games, Tom Vasel in particular has a bunch of children and plays games with them all the time: http://www.dicetower.com/top-tens-results/young-childrens-ga...

My personal recommendations would be: Rhino Hero, Battle Sheep, Dr. Eureka, Coconuts, Can't Stop, Kamisado, King of Tokyo, Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, Formula D, We Didn't Playtest This At All, Smash Up, Magic Labyrinth, Incan Gold, For Sale, Port Royal, and Escape!. I have fun with all of these as an adult, too.

Space Cadets Dice Duel? Because there's no point in having children if not to press-gang them into being your starship crew? Its a silly game yet funny. Its physically kinda continuously active for everyone and battles don't seem to last long. Imagine if everyone is literally simultaneously playing Yahtzee and achievements give your ship power to maneuver and blow up the other ship, kinda.

They have to be literate beyond the Uno level to play Fluxx. You have to pay attention continuously, which is either good or bad... Fluxx is highly random.

No Thanks is the kind of highly abstract game that a five year old can play without understanding any strategy thereby horribly losing yet drunken adults can turn it into something like ultra high stakes poker complete with somebody whipping out a calculator to determine the optimum bluff based on extensive card counting and possibly faulty beliefs about statistics. Its mostly a dumb memory game with at least two or three strategic levels of statistical analysis above it to determine optimal bluffing patterns. This game can be carried to excess by adults at thanksgiving ... yet chilled out adults or kids can have fun. Its kinda like monopoly in that the odds of a yelling match breaking out are anomalously high.

Red7 is an exercise in creating complexity out of not much, for better or worse. Too much complexity for really little kids. Middle school is OK.

The kids have to be sneaky to place Sheriff of Nottingham. Watching people get away with, or not get away with smuggling keeps the attention pretty well. You're allowed to give the Sheriff "advice" which means the kids end up screaming thru the entire game.

Hey Thats My Fish is pretty good above toddler eating the pieces but below later elementary school. Sorta area control mixed with a memory game.

My experience with minecraft indicates kids have an attention span of about sixteen hours if they enjoy what they're doing. If they don't enjoy what they're doing their attention span isn't a millisecond longer than your average fifty year old, but they are much more brutally honest about their lack of interest than your average fifty year old. My wife's attention span for Caverna or power grid is about the same as my teen kids, she's just nicer about tolerating Dad's game night than the kids are.

I see a general pattern above that kids will sandbox a game if they're too young to understand it and the sandbox is fun enough.

Machi Koro - light and breezy Caylus - medium to heavy

Both manage to accomplish what modern Monopoly grasps at in distinctly different ways. They are also fun and end before they've destroyed any relationships.

A friend of mine once made a "Dungeons and Dragons Monopoly" variant where each character was a D&D class and the spaces were re-named as iconic D&D locations. If a character landed on the same space as another, they'd then get to "fight" (roll two dice and compare numbers) and the winner could steal a property from the other. It turned out to be one of the more fun Monopoly variants I've ever played, as it allowed monopolies to be created easier (fighting to get that third property someone wouldn't trade you) and thus the game progressing faster.

So you made Talisman?

Mirror: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

Just add the hostile take over expansion called Risk.

http://www.gilwood.org/riskopoly.htm

In 2010 I met a guy who claimed to be the US Monopoly champion at a boardgame meetup in LA. I asked him how there could be a serious championship since the game's rules are so simple and professional players would simply play the statistics. He said the whole game is about convincing people to give you what you want, he was very good at it, and it turned out that his regular profession was lawyer.

Am I the only one for whom the link isn't working? I'm getting a 404 error.

http://existentialcomics.com/comic/159

hugged to death?

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

Lol...the cache appears to be loading a plugin that loads content from a remote source...so cache isn't helping me here.

On a side note, am I reading this correctly in that it is using a <javascript> tag to run PHP?

view-source:http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

| <script type="text/javascript">

| window.abb = {};

| php = {};

| window.PHP = {};

| PHP.ajax = "http://www.ludible.nl/wp-admin/admin- ajax.php";PHP.wp_p_id = "1034";

| ...

It's just a javascript variable named PHP.

It would appear so. Still amusing.

The Google cache doesn't seem to work for me, it just keeps trying to load some stuff (as others have noticed).

The version on archive.is works for me, however: https://archive.fo/i6OfT

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