Originally published at: This is the Monopoly world champion and here are his tips for winning | Boing Boing
…
2 Likes
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
23 Likes
here are his tips for winning
Have a tolerance for boredom and bad game mechanics. Otherwise everyone except you can go bankrupt and you’ll still lose.
The most interesting thing about the game is its origins.
17 Likes
Play to lose so you can get on with your day. That’s my strategy.
10 Likes
Seriously read the rules and play “fundamentalist” Monopoly and it’s…less bad.
No pile of money in “Free Parking” (where did that even come from in the first place?). Auctions when people land on a space they don’t want to buy??!? Who knew??
7 Likes
Auctions turn it into more than a game of snakes/chutes and ladders.
3 Likes
6 Likes
And “Don’t let your older brother run the bank.” He would always steal thousands when he thought I wasn’t looking. And guess what he does for a living.
6 Likes
I have heard time and again from fans of Monopoly that it’s a completely different game when played by the written rules, and not house-ruled into oblivion. I have yet to test this out, because I have played so many fantastic modern board games, I cannot fathom Monopoly ever competing.
7 Likes
Always choose the top hat.
2 Likes
This was a pretty fun documentary on Monopoly from a few years back – and I’m generally a Monopoly detractor.
2 Likes
Those are tips for winning, but I prefer getting entertainment out of my games.
How to get the most enjoyment out of Monopoly:
- Make sure the entire set is contained in the box. You may extract the dice, of course, as they are actually useful in other games.
- If there are multiple sets available collect those together as well. Again, extract dice.
- Place set(s) on a non-flammable, well-ventilated surface.
- With suitable tool, light Monopoly box on fire. Accelerant may be added if desired and it’s safe to do so.
- Enjoy the resulting fire, being sure to keep it safely contained until all traces of the terrible game are consumed.
- Do not allow another Monopoly set into your house ever again.
14 Likes
Nor even a five-minute game. What kind of masochists would run tournaments for this?
On the plus side, hatred of Monopoly certainly brings us all together…
3 Likes
Nah. I’m a modern board gamer myself, I enjoy rules and instructions, and I have played Monopoly almost entirely by the rules as many times as I could stand it. It doesn’t get any better. (I have to question a game that I can play as a child and come up with the same 3 strategies as a grand champion employs).
I think the monopoly fans that like the game prefer to play without house rules, but that doesn’t mean that playing without house rules makes it more enjoyable for the average person.
Monopoly is best for a mixed crowd, you can have children and grandma at the same table, it’s social, and the non interested have almost as good of a chance at winning as the interested people do. It’s like eating at Applebee’s.
7 Likes
Ah! It’s educational. No wonder it’s no fun.
2 Likes
I don’t get what your trying to say here.
Snakes/Chutes and Ladders is essentially a deterministic game, assuming the spinner is replaced with a seeded psudo-random number generator. If you wrote a computer version of the game you could just pick a number of players, then almost instantly tell everyone which player won and ask if they want to see the replay of the ‘game’, or run the game with a different seed to get a different winner. There is no real player agency in the game at all.
If anything auctions reduce the determinism of Monopoly. For each roll that lands a player on an unowned property they have to choose to by it or not, if they don’t then every other player needs to decide how valuable the property is to them and if they will bid and how much to bid. The personalities and preferences of the players can change the results dramatically, resulting in something that isn’t at all like a determinism of Snakes/Chutes and Ladders.
It is very much better, but that is like saying watching an unenjoyably bad 1 hour movie is better than watching an equally bad 4 hour movie. It’s clearly a true statement, but why would you do that when there are good movies to watch?
2 Likes
Ah, the issues of text-only. I prefer auctions because they stop the game being chutes and ladders, same as you’re arguing
1 Like
From what I remember playing Monopoly as a teen (I haven’t touched it for at least 30 years) the problem with Monopoly isn’t that a game goes on for hours. The problem is that usually after twenty minutes it is clear who’s going to win and then the game goes on for hours.
6 Likes
Not the only game. We used to play with house rules that ruined the game of Risk*, although we were too young to realize it.
*We played that the defender got to choose whether to roll one or two dice after the attacker roll. Which tipped the odds enough that the game favored the defender. And we didn’t regard the counter set as limiting which resulted in Stunningly huge forces on choke points like the Ukraine or Kamchatka. Nobody ever won. The games invariably lasted until my friends little brother flipped over the board in frustration or dinnertime, when we had to clear the table.
3 Likes
Hard pass.
1 Like
