The Campaign For Real Monopoly | Hacker News Reader

The Campaign For Real Monopoly

marco.org

66 pointsshawndumas59 comments

A lot of good points but I still think Monopoly is a pretty poor game by design.

Games are about decision making, and there is very little decision making to be had in Monopoly (Real or not). There is no strategy shift for the opening, midgame, or endgame. There's no secret scoring or clever traps, there's no imperfect information of any kind. Assuming dice rolls are the same, playing against yourself and playing against another person or playing against a computer will have pretty much identical outcomes.

In other words, if you want to play Real Monopoly with me, just go ahead and play against yourself and do the rational thing for me if a decision comes up. Let me know if I win.

Even in the shorter form of the game, the winner is usually apparent quickly and then there's a long march that resembles the Trail of Tears more than it does board game turns.

If you're going for an interesting board game, instead of Real Monopoly, I'd highly recommend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_(board_game)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlers_of_Catan

There are lots of good games out there. I'd tend to recommend Agricola and Power Grid also in the economic theme, but you'll do fine just browsing the recommendations at Board Game Geek and seeing what strikes your fancy. http://boardgamegeek.com/

BoardGameGeek is an excellent source.

I've been on there for more than 6 years [1] and it really is an example of a well targeted niche web app.

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[1]: http://boardgamegeek.com/user/Tulkas

I own both of those games, and after play Agricola, I've decided that it's just too aggravating (too many tough tradeoff decisions) but Power Grid is a favorite, and in a lot of ways, if you are interested in playing Monopoly, you'll find Power Grid to be 100x more fun.

That's probably because the game was never designed to be fun. It was designed to be a lesson that demonstrated the negative aspects of land monopolies, and that a land value tax was a good idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game)#History

Fascinating. I think the lesson must have backfired.

Whereas today, it teaches the much more fundamental lessons that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and that top hats can go faster than cars.

An interesting game that is very similar to Monopoly in a lot of ways is Rail Barron. However, in Rail Barron there are more choices to make (whether you pay someone else is not merely dependent on a die roll), which makes the game more interesting, and the end game generally goes much faster, making the game less of a chore.

There is a surprisingly good implementation of Settlers of Catan for iPhone, I'm playing through Seafarers expansion scenarios and enjoy it a lot.

Fun fact: Xbox 360 version has "equalized dice" setting (don't remember the actual name) which makes dice less random so it would have better histogram. This setting removes some frustration from the game, like you settling on two sixes but getting only eights benefiting the enemy, but obviously makes "lucky wins" less likely for you as well.

> This setting removes some frustration from the game, like you settling on two sixes but getting only eights benefiting the enemy, but obviously makes "lucky wins" less likely for you as well.

I've played regular board-game Catan about 10 times, and every single time either 6 or 8 has come up way less than it "should". It's been roughly equal whether it's helped or hurt me, but it really takes some of the enjoyment out of the game when people fight for those spots, only to have them be worthless.

I've found that settlers is very good at illustrating that random does not necessarily mean evenly distributed.

The iPhone version has this too: set Dice Mode to "Stack" to get a perfect distribution (as though you were drawing from a stack of numbered cards rather than rolling dice) and "Stack5" for a slightly less perfect one (as though 5 random cards were removed).

The way to do that in real life is to have a stack of cards with the same distribution as the dice, ie. 2 3 3 4 4 4 ...

Shuffle, turn face down and turn the top one over instead of rolling the die.

Many of the expansions for Settlers have such a deck with the added spice that you are to remove a small number of cards at the beginning.

+1 to the recommendations of Puerto Rico, Settlers, and Power Grid. Everyone I've played those games with immediately forget about Monopoly/Risk/etc and ask when we can get together to play again.

I often play Neuroshima Hex on my iPhone, it's great.

It's funny that you mention Settlers, since every time I've played it's always been quite obvious after the initial pieces are laid who will win hours later. If you don't have the good spots, it's a painful, slow grind to defeat.

However, it is a hugely popular game, and I'd love to know why.

I think it's popular because it is mostly random chance with a veneer of strategy. It's a clever game in that it equalizes people who think about it a little with people who think about it alot, but gives both those groups an edge of people who don't think about it at all. This makes it more accessible to people who wouldn't otherwise consider themselves serious gamers because if you try, eventually you'll get lucky and win.

I suspect that you're playing it wrong, or with the wrong people -- particularly if it's taking you hours to play.

Typically, there'll only be one or two really good spots (say, 8-10-5 or something). The players on those spots will/should get a disproportionate share of the baron, both because they have more cards and because they're in the lead and need to be dragged down to everyone else's level.

The game then becomes an issue of trying to get good without appearing so and picking the right time to make your move, rather than 'I have x points/regions, therefore I win'.

Sounds pretty similar to the Monopoly rules, now that I think about it...

I'm not sure where you got that impression from. Did you follow through to the original article?

http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue10/CampaignRealMonopoly1.ht...

There's plenty of imperfect information - I don't think you're required to reveal how much money is in your hand at any point, much less how much you'll pay for a particular property, and thus plenty of opportunity for richer players to screw poorer ones out of the property that they've landed on.

The best version of Monopoly I've played is the Mega version. A third dice speeds up the game start and finish by forcing players to move to the next unowned property, or to the next property where they must pay rent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly:_The_Mega_Edition

+1 for those who recommended Settlers. Ticket to Ride is also fun, and Diplomacy does not have to destroy friendships. (Anyone willing to devote 5-7 hours to a game is a friend forever, no matter how long I remember that time they switched sides without warning and wiped me out.)

If your game of Monopoly includes very little decision making, you are playing it very wrong and it's no wonder you don't like it. I have gotten the absolute worst rolls, ended up with two properties and still managed to negotiate my way to a win. That means that other people were making poor decisions.

The imperfect information in Monopoly is what you're thinking in your head. I've traded things with two or three other trades in mind that the other person couldn't have known I was going after. Or, traded someone a Monopoly they thought was a good deal, then sold my hotels to use up the remaining houses so they can't develop it.

And, there is ABSOLUTELY a strategy shift for the opening and endgame. Don't believe me? Try to develop the Green monopoly first.

Another great game with an economic theme reminiscent of Monopoly is China Town.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/47/chinatown

We had a really old version of Monopoly growing up, and the rules said something like "Players may make any agreements they wish" (the rules don't say that now). That's what real Monopoly is about in my book: deal-making rather than gambling on the dice.

For example, if one player owns all the railroads, the rent is higher for each railroad. So, a common deal would be to "give" all the railroads to a single player, and that player would then divide the greater spoils.

Similar "pool" deals could be made to collect properties without needing to hope that you got them all by luck, or making similar deals to block other players.

There are also a large number of books that talk about Monopoly strategy and even analyze it statistically.

Needless to say, with these rules the game could easily become 'contentious'!

I absolutely agree, and want to add one point: Rent immunity, which this author decries, is the only thing that keeps the game interesting after the first few times circling the board. Weak players can team up to tear down strong players, while strong players try to play weak players against one another. It's all socially and psychologically driven, and it's possible to engineer amazing comebacks.

But are agreements binding?

If you want a game that thrives on negotiation, try Diplomacy.

I've heard that it's a game that destroys friendships.

There are no dice. It's entirely about self-interest and betrayal. So why would you think that? ;-)

Yeah, Diplomacy is one of those games that you know you have been back-stabbed and there are no dice to save you. I will say it is a fun distance game with a group. Diplomacy is a marathon and Colonial Diplomacy is a sprint. Playing Diplomacy with a judge and only 1 area of visibility is a true treat.

If you want a game that can seriously lead to violence then try Junto, History of the Roman Empire, or TSR's Line in the Sand when Israel gets the "Ancient Israel" card with USA getting "Global Policemen" (these are not compatible and leads to nukes and fists).

Sometimes in the middle of a game of Diplomacy it seems worth destroying a friendship if it means finding a way to wrest control of Serbia from an opponent.

And if they quit your friendship over a game, you better get new friends anyway.

I've heard that too, but I'm not sure why any players (friends) would be surprised. The whole point of the game is to backstab other players at just the right moment! :)

This a great point. There are two facets to Monopoly that unfortunately go unnoticed in any debate among board game geeks. The first, you mentioned, is the art of the deal in each game - the psychological and strategic maneuvering of assets acquired by dice roll.

The second facet, and no less important, is that almost everyone knows the rules to monopoly. You can play a lively game of monopoly with your grandmother, your son, your older sibling, and a random stranger, because everyone has a basic understanding of the game.

In a game of psychological maneuvering, nothing is more valuable than the possible diversity of the psyches involved.

risk has both those properties, while being a lot faster-paced and less boring than monopoly.

That's where I'd risk to me. For one, the combat theme is going to instantly turn off at least half the females, and a chunk of the males also. It just doesn't have the same appeal.

"This is mostly about the property-auction rule, which I can confirm that nobody ever knows about."

And still no one knows about it, because it was never explained in that article either.

For the curious: If the player lands on an unowned property, whether street, railroad, or utility, he can buy the property for its listed purchase price. If he declines this purchase, the property is auctioned off by the bank to the highest bidder.

Yup. And suddenly, your moves involve strategic decisions, not just automated replies. And the game actually is interesting.

Really? Isn't it useful to always buy all the properties anyway? In an auction they usually go for more than the listed price.

Not really. If you're really short on cash, in the early game, it might e.g. be beneficial to skip buying Park Avenue.

Remember, you're trading off buying a piece of low-income real estate against the ability to build property and make your existing RE high-income.

There's also the point that once you auction, you have a chance to get it at a lower price, so it might be a calculated gamble.

NOT buying that piece of property might also force others into a bidding war. There's all sorts of strategies you can build on auctions.

If properties always go for more than the listed price, the other players haven't discovered that yet :) Try playing Monopoly with auctions and make strategic decisions about what you buy, not just "buy all" and see if it doesn't make a difference for you.

> And still no one knows about it, because it was never explained in that article either.

It's explained in the linked article, so I think marco decided not to reiterate it once more.

I had no idea what looks like the title of his post links to an external site.

The original article linked by this post had it right: the cultural ad-hoc rules for Monopoly evolved to make the game less frustrating for young children.

Traditional board games like Monopoly are mostly played by families, and games that require strategic thinking are obviously biased toward adults. Children hate losing, but they're pretty good at detecting when an adult let them win. Therefore, the most popular board games are mostly (or entirely, like Candyland) games of chance.

The problem with Monopoly is that it doesn't degrade gracefully when you remove the strategic components. Like a game of chess between players who don't know how to set up a checkmate, it devolves into pieces shuffling purposelessly around the board until everyone gets frustrated and quits.

Oddly enough while children hate detecting that an adult let them win, they are oddly blind to noticing when an adult let them cheat.

Folks should try out the revamp that Ian and Brenda came up with (veteran game designers). The docs are low-rez, but the play is interesting.

http://www.studio360.org/2011/may/20/monopoly-redesigned/

A modern update on the concept of Monopoly - try the card game variant "Monopoly Deal":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_Deal

All the childhood nostalgia of traditional monopoly (sans the dice & little pewter tokens) but with multiple genuine strategic options and an average game length of 10 minutes. Portable too!

If that isn't enough to hook you in, it is also available as TRANSFORMERS Monopoly deal.

http://www.toysrus.com.ph/Zones/FamilyFunandGames/tabid/132/...

Holy s*. That is exactly how we played when we were kids, including rounding rents. The game goes much, much faster when you memorize all the rents as well.

If anyone is interested, there's a book called The Monopoly Companion that has all of the rules. It pretty much boils down to 'more money, less fun'. The game should be about 50% luck when played correctly.

Cashflow is an alternative that enforces the same rules from reality. It gets you understanding what doo-dads really are, and how detrimental to long term plans they can be.

I've played Cashflow and I do really like it. It teaches some good lessons. That said, I once read a very interest article looking into Guy Kawasaki and I recall it was quite negative; he didn't have a "Rich Dad" or "Poor Dad" like in his books, and didn't have demonstrable real estate success. Unfortunately, I can't find the article right now, so I don't have any of the concrete criticisms it mentioned.

The author of rich dad poor dad is Robert Kiyosaki. Guy Kawasaki is the former chief evangelist at Apple as well as author of some other books.

Egad! That would explain my difficulty finding that article then. Thanks so much.

I did just a quick search and found a number of sites, most referring back to John T. Reed's piece here: http://www.johntreed.com/Kiyosaki.html

Although the content at the Reed link feels sensationalized to me (and sometimes very nit-picky) many of the points could be generalized as:

- Don't blindly follow what you read, and

- Kiyosaki is not consistent.

I found the books (I bought many of them - rather inexpensively by getting them used) VERY repetitive and along the lines of "read more, I am about to spill the secrets" followed soon after with the let down of "I am not going to tell you how, just why." I guess I was feeling more as a how-to kind of person when I chose the books. They also repeatedly recommended getting expert advice from professional CPAs and Attorneys.

Still, just like all "advice" books, there are bits of truth and helpful angles to be found. I am building up a modified version of the Cashflow plan in Real Estate, while continuing to keep my day job. :)

But the game can really expose one's level of acceptable risk, and help one see their choices and the possible impacts. Nothing like playing with fake money first and getting your hard knocks virtually, instead of betting the farm and having to start over.

Stratego is still far superior of a board game.

I never really played a game of Monopoly where the person who landed somewhere didn't buy whatever they could. And it never worked out badly for them either. YOu not only make income from it, but block people from making money or getting monopolies (if you don't get a monopoly yourself).

There are something like 100 board games out there that are a lot better than Monopoly.

> I never really played a game of Monopoly where the person who landed somewhere didn't buy whatever they could.

True, but the rule would still come in handy. When my brother and I would play, he would buy everything he landed on - which meant by the second or third trip around the board, he wasn't able to afford the more expensive properties without mortgaging (which he never did). So if they had gone to auction, I could have taken them just by offering more than he had, or mortgaging my own properties.

You are underestimating the number of better board games.

Generally I've found that going all in on an early monopoly, on the first two sides of the board, is the key to victory. The auction rule's important to this strategy - let people waste money on expensive properties, so they have no money for houses, or will at least be more amenable to trades involving cash. By the time you've bought all the greens, your opponents will have hotels on the light blues, purples and (most desirably due to the proximity to jail) the oranges, and you'll never have enough money to build any houses. That said, you can always bid just below the mortgage value of a bad property, and sometimes get lucky.

It partly comes down to who you play with. If, like my wife, they utterly refuse any and all trades (and I even like to propose very generous ones just to get an early monopoly), then you might as well just be playing a game of chance.

Anyway, upon discovering D&D and Magic: the Gathering, I lost most interest in board games, but despite the rivers of tears my family's shed over the Monopoly board, I still fully intend to put my kids through the same rite of passage.

Care to name them?

You don't specify what rules you play by, but Monopoly should only take 1-2 hrs max.

Hoard everything you can get hold of is a sure fire way to lose against experienced players. Income from non-monopolies is a pittance, so as soon as someone does manage to snag one and start building, you're stuffed.

I've found aggressive early trading to build up 3 houses each of orange or light blue will almost always guarantee a win, even if i don't own a single other property.

Does everybody really thinks monopoly is a poor game? Cmon people!!! Just ask your self how many games are there for that long time? I say great work Monopoly

Yes, and Justin Bieber and Hannah Montana are the greatest performing artists ever known.

How is this a rebuttal? They have only been around for a few years, and it's unlikely they will last a long time.

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