
The Campaign For Real Monopoly - shawndumas
http://www.marco.org/2011/07/25/campaign-for-real-monopoly
======
simonsarris
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>

~~~
vl
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.

~~~
ffrinch
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).

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justinsb
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'!

~~~
pemulis
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.

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seles
"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.

~~~
Avenger42
> 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.

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

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gamble
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.

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

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BenSS
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/>

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westicle
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/...](http://www.toysrus.com.ph/Zones/FamilyFunandGames/tabid/132/CategoryID/624/List/0/Level/1/ProductID/7286/Language/en-
PH/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName%2CProductName)

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lanstein
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.

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raintrees
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.

~~~
losvedir
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.

~~~
travem
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.

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

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Pointsly
Stratego is still far superior of a board game.

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napierzaza
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.

~~~
thom
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.

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racer01
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

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

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

