Making "Monopoly" less of a negative-sum game

[classical_hero]

The house rule my family always played regarding Free Parking was to be able to collect all taxes and fines paid since the last time someone landed there. It doesn't increase the money supply, but it does make the game more fun.

That is a common house rule in many areas where the game is played.

 

[warpus]

We used to play with that "free parking = free money" rule, but I grew out of my monopoly phase after I realized how boring it was.. It was probably one of the first board games I ever played.

It'd be a fun game if there was more strategy and if it wasn't just fate decided by dice.

 

[Mise]

I hate monopoly because no-one ever trades All my friends are quite content with rolling the dice collecting £17 rents and passing Go for their little £200 salary... My friends are dumb.

 

[Earthling]

Yeah, monopoly is fundamentally boring. The best is to try to get one of every possible monopoly and then never trade them, so players are pretty much guaranteed to accumulate cash from passing Go.

I have played Cataan just a few times with friends but it does seem a lot better - I'm a decent fan of Risk with the right rules as well, but really haven't played many board games at all for ages.

 

[cardgame]

I plan on being the creator of Commieopoly.

Good luck with that

 

[Synobun]

Good luck with that

Free Parking will be converted to Secret Police. Land on it and THEY collect on you

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Let's add a Bailout card to the Community Chest.

 

[Narz]

I plan on being the creator of Commieopoly.

I'd love to create a game about creating a sustainable community & maintaining it in the face of hostile corporate forces (a different tract from yours but board game design used to be a dream of mine).

 

[Defiant47]

Yeah, when I was little, I was crazy about Monopoly, but not so much more now.

A common rule for free parking is $500 jackpot + all taxes. Additionally, I like the idea that landing on Go nets you $400.

 

[GoodGame]

I hate how this game always ends in some degree of economic collapse. Folks buy properties and decrease the amount of cash in the economy; properties generate no net revenue for the economy. Everybody doing this leads to economic collapse.

I was thinking a somewhat good way of ameliorating this (i.e. having properties yield some sort of "social surplus") might be as follows: when a player lands on Free Parking, that player receives a fraction (say, 10%) of the total RENT value of all his assets.

Thanks,
Pax

I see what you're getting at but it seems obvious the designers wanted to avoid players needing to do any math, which would be another source of cheating. So instead they put in an indirect tax------the policeman/event cards. And even if you aim for more realism, that's only part of the problem; How'd you represent the Federal Reserve? Rather than improve the taxation system (which would tax the player's brains and require extra activities---which might be a game design no-no), how about just pulling out an extra pile of funny money for the bank?

Let's add a Bailout card to the Community Chest.

EXACTLY!!! But how do you pay for it---property taxes, or out of your starting cash for the next generation (i.e. your next game)?


**
If anything, Monopoly is a game about managing a portfolio of investments, so any changes I'd make would be towards enhancing that aspect of the gameplay.

 

[Ammar]

Indirectly there is a tax by which the properties do generate revenue---the policeman/event cards. I guess the designers wanted to avoid the players needing to do any math, which would be another source of cheating.

There's some basic multiplication involved when you have to renovate your houses.

 

[aelf]

I'm going to get rights to Dune-opoly.

 

[GoodGame]

There's some basic multiplication involved when you have to renovate your houses.

Which is probably easier than figuring out percentages which are fractions. :smile: And less time-consuming.

But overall, there's primarily counting, addition, subtraction in Monopoly's simple game mechanics.

 

[Ammar]

Which is probably easier than figuring out percentages which are fractions. :smile: And less time-consuming.

But overall, there's primarily counting, addition, subtraction in Monopoly's simple game mechanics.

You can pretty much avoid the fractions, though. Just state something like

"Give yourself 50$ for every full 1000$ you have in cash".

Not totally precise, but close enough for a game.

 

[Rashiminos]

http://www.boardgamers.org/

Had to post this link after hearing mentions of XYZ of Catan and Race for the Galaxy.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

EXACTLY!!! But how do you pay for it---property taxes, or out of your starting cash for the next generation (i.e. your next game)?

Judging from the real bailouts, the latter. Well, if the bank government runs out of money, that is.

 

[PiMan]

I hate monopoly because no-one ever trades All my friends are quite content with rolling the dice collecting £17 rents and passing Go for their little £200 salary... My friends are dumb.

My friends are worse. When I was about to send one person almost bankrupt, they traded everything they had to someone else in exchange for a dollar. This happened twice in a single game.