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Comment by koolba | Hacker News Reader

You’d be surprised how few people know about the rule for auctioning property that is not purchased. I’m guessing most people learned to play without reading the actual rules. It’s just passed down by copying the actions of your older siblings.

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As someone's thats read the many country's and state's constitutions, all major holy books and heavily weighted side-books for different sects

Its surprising I haven't thought to read the rules for Monopoly yet

Could be an onion headline. Constitutional lawyer has never read the Monopoly(R) official rules.

I bet you haven't read the UK constitution.

Because it isnt a single document

I didn't! And it's interesting I just read the 1st player who declines to buy can participate in the auction.

How often would an opponent be willing to pay more than list price? I guess to secure like the 2nd blue property. Otherwise it seems like should always just decline to buy and hope for good auction outcome.

And if your opponent good to auction too. Though maybe mortgaging properties if you have a good opportunity is worth it.

What other rules make the game more interesting/complex that the 'young kid' version might not know?

Often the “lesser” properties go to auction and it can be worth trying to get them for less than the mortgage value.

If you land on a high-value property you want to buy it outright mainly to deny the monopoly possibilities to others (high value being the orange, etc).

You don't get any reward for landing on "free parking.". Rewards for landing on that spot are a common house rule that makes the game worse; injecting money into the game slows it down greatly.

Or, due to how tedious the game can sometimes be people ignore it because it’s too mouth work.

> due to how tedious the game can sometimes be people ignore it because it’s too [much] work.

The view that the game is tedious is directly caused by not reading the rules.

Monopoly is in an odd position where everyone is convinced they know what it's like, and yet nobody knows how to play it. Turns out, if you play it according to the rules, it is not at all similar to the version with rules you made up.

It still is not fun as a game though.

- For people uncomfortable with cut throat competition, this game is winner take all.

- For competitive people, victory is 90% luck and therefore unsatisfying.

- The game is decided halfway through the game time, the rest is the inevitable victory of the leading player.

I've played the game a number of times as a deployed troop just for something to pass the time which can also be mildly entertaining for some people.

Our customized house rules are quite fun and move the game along faster as well:

* Eight players setup as four joint ventures.

* Joint ventures share cash and properties, but have two separate tokens on the board.

* No rent collection while in jail to dissuade camping out.

The end game becomes tense as your team has back to back rolls.

So the venture can't collect money if either partner is in jail?

Yes. Legal fees tend to scale to what ever you can afford so it seemed like a fair rule.

Seems like an accurate emulation of the real capitalism, as intended by the game creator.

The worst thing is it is a knock-out format, which is inherently anti-social.

I think the typical house rules (no auctions, cash on free parking) are to make the game more tolerable for younger children.

Auctions are complicated, and a child with little money is angered when their sibling gets the property they landed on for a discount.

Income tax is tough, but there's a chance of getting it back, so please pay Billy.

skipping auctions, and having money in free parking are why most people think monopoly takes a long time to play. It's like playing musical chairs but not removing any.

In part, but it still takes a while to play, and the outcome is obvious long before the end, leading to an anti-climatic slog at the end. This happens even if you play by all the rules.

"I got 6 hotels and half your properties are mortgaged. Let's play for another 15 turns until you happen to land on my hotel, then I will win."

I have often had uncertain outcomes at the end. For example, I had orange and red Monopoly with houses; the only other Monopoly with houses was green. Advantage was clearly to me. The third opponent bankrupted on green, I got the real estate tax card, forcing me to sell three houses right before my lone remaining opponent ran my gauntlet, then I hit green, jail, green again.

Sure, but thats like an extra 25 minutes instead of an extra 4 hours.

My wife and I decided out of the blue to play monopoly today. As it had been so long I had to read the instructions and found that out. We were both quite surprised!

> I’m guessing most people learned to play without reading the actual rules.

Wait, Monopoly has rules?

Exactly, even this run is using house rules, as the official rules state that you are required to own all properties of the same colour before building, and also that houses must be built evenly on each property.

this isn't true about either the blog post (buys boardwalk and park place, purchases houses evenly on this complete property group) or the comment above (no houses or hotels are involved)

You are correct, I guess my reading comprehension isn't what it used to be. I thought I saw an error and got blinded by the rush of posting a correction.

The blog buys both BW and PP, and buys houses evenly.

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