I think player elimination is actually a pro of Monopoly. My favorite part of playing Monopoly is getting eliminated after 30 minutes and being allowed to leave.
My Nephew likes Monopoly, but its Pokemon Monopoly and has character specific traits that can drastically change the course of the.... *ZZZZZZZZZ* sorry I fell asleep just describing it... So glad he loves Descent- Journeys in the Dark!!
I was going to comment this! You forgot another upside: Once you are eliminated from Monopoly, you aren't watching your friends having fun. You are watching them play Monopoly!
I agree wholeheartedly with Tom, however he misses Monopoly's greatest sin. It is that Monopoly has single handedly done quite a bit of damage to the board gaming industry, and continues to hurt it to this day. When people think of board games, they think of Monopoly, and because they've had a bad experience with it, they don't play board games at all. I'm convinced there are a lot of people out there who would play more games if it weren't for Monopoly.
That and my personal pet peeve Snake and Ladders. As a teacher, I have talked to my students about board games, and all they could think of is Monopoly or variation of board games where you roll dice and you move and stuff happens (or not) and it's all LUCK BASED. This has a HUGE impact on their creativity when they are allowed to make board games as assignments, since it always end up being either a Monopoly clone or a Snake and Ladders reskin. Ending this on a more uplifting note, however, I have introduced Sushi Go as a quick game and it's a huge hit! I still have to encourage them to do long term planning and memorising, but oh well, at least they aren't playing Monopoly.
Exactly. While this happens with Monopoly with the western audience, there's a similar situation with the werewolf game (devolved from The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow) in China. Often loudly played and simple mined (not the game themselves and how they are played), it gives a misinformed impression of "board games" to both ones who like it and ones who don't. Now with Apps with "social" functioned added in, they attracts the likes of Tik Tok users and further worsen the average person's (already close to zero) impression of board games.
I once asked someone what games they played that made them hate boards games. No surprise that monopoly was on the list. I recommended Pandemic instead as a starter. Sold her on it.
I grew up with, monopoly, clue, life, risk, connect 4, scrabble ect. And even growing up we only played these games when there was nothing else to do. Until about three years ago. I played werewolf and thought..."huh that was fun and different". And even though I saw these new board games, I would pass them by because of the games I grew up with. I just simply didn't know that GOOD board games could exist. My name is mark and I used to be a boring gamer, I'm 3 years clean now! Thank you.
Thank god I wans't the I am not the only one feeling that way. I HATE Clue with a passion, even when growing up. Not only was I myself the murderer the few times I did play it having to catch myself to win, but it's just a "who gets to accuse people more first!". Seriously that is all you do.
One of my happiest moments recently was walking through a Target and realizing that while they still had the obligatory selection of Monopoly/Risk/Scrabble/Clue, they also had started stocking Catan, Ticket to Ride, Codenames, and Pandemic. Here's hoping the next generation of children grow up on those games and we can all finally escape the stigma of Monopoly.
In Poland you can't see any good title in supermarkets.. only monopoly crap alongside games about.. crap (poop in toilet, or something), pie game, hungry hippos and other rubbish products.. Luckily my kids have me, so they will never touch these (they do see commercials in tv, but that i can't do too much about).. But i must admit that my 5yo son finds something interesting in rolling dice, last time we played a gambling game which he came up with, tell if next roll will be higher than current one, if yes - it's a point, if not nothing happens.. first to 7 is a winner..;) so no matter how hard you try they need to experience it by themselves..:D
Yes I can’t step into a Target these days without checking their selection. They’ve also got Splendor, Mysterium, Azul, Coup, Love Letter - heck they even had some of those Sasaki games like “Deep Sea Adventure” and “A Fake Artist Goes to New York.” Yeah, it’s pretty awesome to see. Barnes and Noble similarly has a pretty good collection.
In Barnes & Noble, I saw Teraforming Mars and Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion with some Unmatched and Disney Villainous here and there. I have high hopes for the future of board gaming
Speaking of buying Monopoly, when I bought mine, it didn’t come with a tray for the houses and hotels, so we just kept them in a cheap plastic bag, and the rubber bands that keep the money and cards together, well my brother mistakenly used them as projectiles for his rubber band gun!😂
For my money, the worst part of Monopoly is the inevitability curve. Usually, after the first hour, it’s pretty clear who is going to win. And you’re powerless to do anything to either change the tide or speed up the end other than quitting. And worse, if you have two players standing who are evenly matched, there’s no mechanic to force them into a showdown. You just have to hope your war chest lasts longer than the other player’s.
Another interesting point is that strategically, it's best to obtain property and go straight to jail. Being able to receive money in jail and not having to worry about landing on an opponents space means it's the best thing that could happen to you. That's an objectively bad mechanism in a game, that the best way to win is to practically not play.
In my college years we played Monopoly according to 'prison rules' which I invented one lazy afternoon. The premise was each player was a felon newly freed from prison, out to make it big in the world. You initially started with no funds, but whenever you landed on unowned property you could extract the value of its rent as "protection" or triple that amount in a heist, the money being taken from the bank. Heists were risky, however, because if you failed the dice roll you went back to prison and lost all your ill-gotten gains (confiscated by the government, of course.) There were also all manner of ancillary rules relating to different mob activities like robbery (stealing from other players), gambling (rivals could gamble in each other's hotels to offset rent, but you could also end up losing more), arson (you could burn down rival houses and hotels), bribery (mainly the police to avoid going to jail for rolling doubles or to cut down jail time), and "whacking" which allowed sufficiently rich players to assassinate their rivals (the amount of money modifying a die roll) to win the game. All of this was laid over the normal rules of Monopoly, which were still in effect, but rarely did anyone win via that method. It was much more fun to rise to the top on a wave of crime and eliminate your rivals toward the end, gangland style. It's debatable to an outside observer whether our house ruling made the game better or worse (probably worse) but it brought our group an undeniably great amount of joy and hilarity at the time.
I'm not really sure anyone actually plays Monopoly at all. This is a game you buy because of the cute re-theme or because you are out of ideas for a gift for someone's kid, it maybe gets played once (not until completion but until everyone gets bored, which means roughly around the 45th minute), and then it sits on the shelf for the next 30 years.
Yes people do actually play monopoly still unfortunately. I was at a relatives a few years back and they wanted to break out monopoly and play it. I told them i had some much better games we could all play and have fun with. They insisted that monopoly was the only BG that existed and nothing else was better. So i sat down and played with them. I made sure to get almost 1 of every property set then proceeded to never trade a damn thing with anyone and hoard all my money. Needless to say they started yelling at me and i just sat laughing telling them.."Hey i didn't write the rules i just play by them". The following christmas i sent them a copy of Ticket to Ride and they were absolutely amazed. Never played Monopoly again they told me.
I still think that the worst thing about Monopoly is that it ruins the board gaming hobby for a lot of people of different ages. When you hear a non-gamer sigh like "Ugh, board games last like 4 hours and it's all down to luck..." you can instantly tell what they have been playing. There are other similarly terrible non-gamers' games out there but Monopoly is their poster boy.
If I want some board game based on rng and luck of the roll..rather play a table top rpg..these is a bit of luck, but at least you have stats and you are combating monsters and actively roleplaying.
Let be honest a game of monopoly shouldn't last 4 or 3 hours it should be 1 hour or less if you play the rules properly. But I still hate the trading part of the game because nobody I play with want to trade when I make a great deal like I give you 2 low level property for higher level property.
We had a blinged out anniversary edition of Monopoly. I looked for it the other day and found it on a shelf behind the bar, crushed, with most of the paper money missing and stains on the board. Then I recalled the last game we played and it all made sense.
Same. Never saw anything positive in this game and viewed it as a mandatory family time that was far from being enjoyable. This is #1 reason I grew to despise it, not really because of any more objective reason, but because of horrible experiences.
I thought my mom loved it when I was younger (ugh - I hated it). What she really liked was the family being together. Now we are free to play Flashpoint, Zombicide, and Aeon’s End, and we have never looked back.
Settlers of Catan has issues too. I played it a few times and don't like it. One issue is of Catan is similar to monopoly, a player will have bad success with getting the right tiles for resources or not the right dice rolls. The point is , someone in that game will be stuck never having a chance to win or being able to make a comeback. There just stuck playing the game out to the finish. At least in monopoly when hope is gone. u can leave and go watch TV. Second, its boring to me to sit and trying to build roads that look like matchbox sticks and and a few wooden buildings that look like wooden pieces from original monopoly. And did you see there 30 anniversary edition? It was so boring the artwork and components. The game needs to have updated artwork and components to reach the levels of gaming today. Catan at least changed the board game industry with new innovative ideas for gameplay. That's my only positive thing to say about it.
In Monopoly you're not playing the game, the game's playing you. There's only ever basically one thing you can do, which is what the dice tells you to do, what the cards tell you to do, and buy everything you can. It's all random and it never ends.
@@nagredmoonstriker252 Strategy exists in monopoly but there's only one. There aren't really two ways you can play the game. Buy everything you can, try to trade for sets. That's it. If you can't get the set because you weren't lucky enough to get it, or someone refuses to trade with you....then that's it. You're done.
That's like saying that the only strategy to win Magic: The Gathering is to be lucky enough to draw the right cards. No, there are other Monopoly winning strategies, especially when it comes to trading. But if you're set on hating the game, there's no reason for me to waste my time telling you where to look for them. But that's okay, we all have our dislikes, no hard feelings. But just one point - if no one will trade with you, you need to make better offers. Believe me, there are offers that you can make that will seem (at first) to be equally beneficial to both sides. How do you know that you'll be better off after the trade than your opponent will be, and they don't know that? Because you learned strategies... oh, that's right. You don't think there are any strategies concerning trading. Never mind. 😉
The Non-gamers in my family keep asking to play this one. To me Monopoly is more an activity than a game as you make the same decisions over and over again. However my family enjoys the windfalls and the "Take that!" aspect of the game. A better option I would recommend to those that like Monopoly is a Card Game called "Monopoly Deal" It involves set collection, take that , windfalls etc. It uses the original Monopoly art and it has interesting decisions to make on your turn. Its also short and has that "Let's play again vibe" If you try it I think you will be thanking me! This game is also by Hasbro and can be found in your Target or Walmart store for around 6$
In a similar position with non-gamers wanting to play it, I made two small changes and I find the game much more bearable, not to the point where I would choose to play it mind you. We play with the actual rules, but with two house rules added, firstly every time you need to roll a dice you can take a 3 instead of that one (with the exception of prison) and secondly if you land on a property a blind auction is immediately started, with the highest bid getting the property.
Monopoly was created as a morality lesson as to how capitalism is an unfair system, meaning the game is intended to not be fun. Seriously, look up the story of the woman who invented it.
The Landlord Game was a game where you first acquired property and then had a part that showed capitalism as a flawed system. Then someone stole the game, took the part that showed showed capitalism as a flawed system out, called the game Monopoly and sold it as their own design.
Just to clarify : The point of the original version was more to show that monopoles forge even without the contributing parties actively working toward that goal - hence the later name 'monopoly'. People at the time had difficulty understanding that there was a process that would - over time - tend to monopolization and would not believe it without going through it themselves in the interactive way monopoly presents. That is kind of the essence of monopoly : The point that the game eventually ends even though it potentially could run forever. On another Note : There are other abstract games that illustrate that certain systems without currency - over time - tend to introduce currencies or behave like systems with currency meaning that capitalism, even if flawed, is actually not that easy to get rid of.
@@thegreatandmightyseff7214 I don't think so. Like most communities, there are good and bad (most are good) 🙂 We also must strive to not be too sensitive. Sometimes what we perceive to be offensive was never intended to be. 🙂
I secretly hated Monopoly even as a child. I played because everyone else wanted to play but I preferred Stratego or D&D. I can't remember a single instance in which we finished the game. Usually we would all give up and move on to watching TV. There is a copy of the game in our home but I refuse to list it on my BGG profile. Oh how I detest it.
*I can't remember a single instance in which we finished the game.* This. Once most of the properties had been acquired, no one was willing to cede the advantage to anyone else by trading away key properties, and the game just dwindled down until everyone was tired of it and we declared the person with the most money the winner.
I watched Dice Tower in 2016 because I wondered if there was anything other than Monopoly and man it has been a treat since then! Thanks Dice Tower and all the other board game channels!
Monopoly sucks. I used to try and lose as fast as possible so I could get out of playing, and the only table flip that ever happened from any board game session was my mom table flipping monopoly and storming away. I hate Monopoly as well, Tom.
Monopoly gives board games a bad name. People play it because they like owning things. Most of that same crowd will enjoy Ticket to Ride much more and get the same ownership experience.
To be fair, think it goes beyond that. First, you have the fantasy & tactility of handling & owning money, property etc. Then the randomness works as a story/drama generator, something I noticed in popular "bad" games. And at the very least, Monopoly is an "upgrade" to Snakes & Ladders like how Catan is an "upgrade" to Monopoly. The key IMO is introducing games which give these sensations, while being better overall, which I'm very sure many modern games would. To me, it was Marrakech, with its streamlined but much more tactical trap-laying, and Catan, obviously
Yeah usually when I ask someone if they like boardgames, their response depends on whether or not they like monopoly. Either way I have to then explain that there are way better games out there
Times are changing though. I was surprised to read that the biggest newspaper in my country published a piece of news talking about Gloomhaven - one of the best games out there I agree, but one that I would've never though to enjoy any kind of mainstream appeal. Also people more invested in gaming seem to be more and more knowledgeable about modern board games too, thanks to games like Hearthstone and Slay the Spire. Monopoly will fade slowly to the background, let's just have a bit more patience. :)
@@franxx5239 Personaly, I like monopoly and games like monopoly. I just got catan and it is fun. I like risk and ticket to ride are similar just ask for more if ya want
I love the analogy to liking McDonald's as a child. Nailed it! That said, I studied Monopoly when I was in 6th grade, and it taught me the importance of statistics, probability, and calculating expected rate of return. I learned a lot about how games work from studying this game - its history, its mechanics, and the various strategies used. It also introduced me to opening up rules by adding "house rules" - as well as how those can break the game (e.g., free parking jackpots). Finally, one of the rules variations I heard about later on was called "Powers Monopoly", where each player was given a different, unique "power". The description of this variant made mention of "Cosmic Encounter"... and that was the first time I'd heard about that game... which introduced me to a whole other world of board games not sold in chain retail stores. So, thank you, Monopoly, for educating me in so many ways. As long as you are learning, you are growing - and Monopoly was an important part of my growing up (including growing beyond it).
One of the rules I add to Monopoly to streamline the game and avoid full player elimination is the ‘All Bought Up’ rule. Once every single property is bought on the board, the game is over. Each player counts up all their money and values of their properties, whoever has the most wins. It still allows for auctions, trades and upgrades on properties without it getting into the long haul at the end when everyone getting sick and tired of the game but also allows for some ‘strategy’ when it comes to buying properties to perhaps allow for more trading options or to stop some players from fully upgrading with houses and hotels. It also means that it allows some small chance for players who win if they have been careful with money or not able to get full sets and upgrades. Makes a 4 hour game into a cool 1 hour game with opportunities for it to be actually fun. Would recommend this rule as it was always the intent of the original designer of monopoly to end the game there rather than the whole capitalist/elimination factor that later designers added into it later.
Monopoly was fun as a child because I felt like I had money, that I was making my own purchases, and felt like I was getting rich (if winning). There was also the thrill of throwing dice and excitement of maybe evading a property my father owned with a hotel on it. Once I got older, I realized the game was not fun at all. It is like going back and watching cartoons or tv shows that you really enjoyed as a child and then realizing that they were very cheesy and cringey.
I've play monopoly game multiple times with my friends. Some of them are already either going home, sleeping in the middle of the game, or possibly dead.
Actually i like some parts of Monopoly. Reason i think many people like Monopoly: 1. The rules are very easy to learn. 2. Almost no downtime. 3. Almost no AP. 4. There’s a lot of interaction 5. You can socialize. 6. Don’t spend much effort thinking. People play games just for socialize without spend much effort thinking. That’s why they like Bingo (for me not a game) or even roulette or poker without money involved. 7. You see your empire growing. People like that when playing a game. Monopoly gives you that feeling, you watch your empire getting bigger and bigger, and i love that (only if you are extremely unlucky you get nothing). The thing is, your grow is based on lucky but many people don’t care or don’t realise that. 8. You control (or you feel you control) your empire (lands) because it depends on your negotiation skills. It’s true when you have them but many of them you got them by luck. Remove the luck factor of the game and probably wouldn’t be so bad. You can do some house rules to mitigate that luck on the dice. “For example: If you roll 2 dice the most common move is 7 steps. It would be better if the game gave us the choice to roll 1, 2 or 3 dice. You still went to prison with 2 equal numbers. Maybe that would change the strategy I don’t really know.” I know people who watch Dice Tower love modern games and hate Monopoly in general. I don’t like to be one of those fundamentalists who realised that there are much better games now that Monopoly has to be despised. And because everybody in the world plays it and they sell the game like McDonald burgers due to their marketing it’s a game to be hated. And is cool to hate the game, specially who know the “truth”, the people that played Monopoly thinking it was the best they could get but now they know that there are much better games. I understand that’s annoying to watch a bad game selling so much and to be the most known. But I actually have some respect about Monopoly. It’s a very old game so you should take that into account, and just because they sell a lot is bad? If Monopoly succeeded why can’t others do the same.
I will say if you're watching dice tower for the first time, and your only experience in board gaming is Monopoly... Explore this channel!!!! And get some gateway games to get your family to start gaming
The metal pieces in Monopoly have never had a theme to them... their origin is just a bunch of metal charms from a charm bracelet. In fact, the original version of the game just used wooden pawns. heh
It's possible that they _did_ have a theme. They represented the different classes or occupations that could be found in a traditional mansion, but I suspect this might be a retro-fit. Battleship - navy; cannon - army; thimble - seamstresses; iron - maids; wheelbarrow - gardener; top hat - upper class; ballet shoe [which looks like a boot to me] - the arts; horse and rider - hunting; race car - chauffeur . I think this is suspect, as not all tokens always appeared together. There were also earlier, retired tokens (such as a lantern), which means the "theme" can't have been there at the beginning.
The luck element in Monopoly isn’t so much that it has dice, it’s that so much can turn on a single good or bad throw. Chance is very granular in the game. Lots of war games have dice, but generally speaking any given roll has a small impact. You’re often playing the odds, and that works because one or two outliers aren’t going to determine victory.
A few other problems with monopoly. There's no catch-up mechanism. The game is largely determined from the first lap or two around the board, it just takes a really long time to resolve that early advantage. It's just unpleasant to lose. Most modern competitive games (especially economic ones), if I lose, I've still built something cool that I can feel a sense of accomplishment at. Sure, your thing was better, but my thing was still good. In monopoly, I lose with nothing to show for it. This combines with the first problem such that the end of monopoly just gets more and more miserable. Especially with the ability to sell and mortgage, you can hold on for quite a long time, but as you do so you're slowly being ground down to nothing. Other problems: Every game is the same. There's almost zero strategic choices. There's almost zero tactical choices. It's essentially solved. There's almost nothing to do on anyone else's turn. You barely interact with the other players, except in trading (paying rent doesn't count as interaction, because there's no choices involved). And this is a silly gripe, but the scale is all wrong, and the flavor makes no sense. You can buy an entire street for the 8 times the price of one person paying rent? And what's even happening in this game? We're all property developers, but we have to randomly wander around town, forced to stay in whatever house or hotel we happen to be standing near at night time?
The one thing I really hate most is that after a while it's pretty clear who is going to win (the one that is lucky enough to buy the most expensive streets early on or the player who can build houses the first) and who is going to loose first (if you don't get to buy things in the first 2 rounds of the board) and there is absolutely nothing the other players can do about it. There is nothing more frustrating than playing Monopoly and seeing after maybe 15 minutes already that you can't possibly win anymore, just because of bad luck. And you just have to sit there losing everything you have and getting no chances at all. It really feels unfair and I would even say like bullying. 1 person has everything and you have nothing and the game is designed to rub that fact in your face in the nastiest way possible.
I think the problem is growing up in a western household meant you were playing board games your parents (or grandparents!) played, and you figured that's what board games had to offer. Unfortunetly, a lot of those games were luck based. I had so many copies of Monopoly and Risk, and once I started playing actual board games, I got rid of nearly all of them. Ticket to Ride was my gateway board game.
Tom, I'd be interested in a series of videos like this. Videos about mass market games and sorting out the good ones from the bad ones. How about a video about, in your experience, the absolute best version of Clue?
One idea to try and make Monopoly more strategic is for rolling 2 dice with different numbers, you have the option of moving the larger of the two dice. If you choose that, then the next player has the option of moving either the smaller dice or whatever they roll (unless they roll doubles, then they have to reroll, and then they can pick to move the smaller of the 2 dice from the previous player).
This should be played across the emergency broadcast system. So many people don't realize good board games exist and most hate board games specifically because of Monopoly.
The house rule that NEEDS to be added when your family pressures you into playing Monoploy is this: The game is over when the first person is eliminated. Whoever has the most money at that point is the winner.
This is a great idea, and a lot of newer Monopoly copies incorporate this into the rulebook that nobody reads b/c they think they already know the rules. Honestly, better end-game conditions improve two of Tom's biggest gripes, player elimination and total game time.
The most important point is that if you're unlucky with the dice at the beginning of the game you're sunk. Which is also why I've sworn off the Monopoly killer, Settlers of Catan. Settlers has the same problem... if the dice are unlucky for you at the start you're kaput, as you quickly get blocked off and unable to trade significantly.
Most people just hate learning rules to a new game. I think that's the main reason why Monopoly is popular, everyone knows the rules (or think they now the rules)
thats the biggest drawback is that the rules are very rarely read so people are invariably playing to house ruled variations which screw up the buying of locations and money being recycled through the free parking thing
I love this video. I used to really dislike board games because I thought they were all like monopoly. But I have been so surprised to find a whole world of really good games out there. Now it is my favorite hobby. Thanks Tom! I hope tons of people find good games after watching this video. :)
@@sajanpatel4956 Thanks for the suggestion. I love Pandemic (including Legacy season 1 and 2) I have really dug into the hobby over the past couple years and have found lots of goodies. :)
This is the secret to having fun playing Monopoly: playing fast. Blazingly fast, where you're rolling the dice while the player before you is still moving their piece and the player before them is still paying for their property. You only pause for a few seconds when somebody wants to make a deal or needs to figure something out (or auctions if you play with them). It makes the game take like 30 minutes, which has the benefit of making players more likely to take risks. No need to actuarially assess trades if the game is going to be over in 15 minutes, just go with your gut and get the dice rolling again.
I played a game of monopoly at the lake with some friends last summer. I won which may have been a factor into why I got into board gaming in general. However since that fateful night I have developed a board gaming hobby thats boardering on obsessive addiction. Though I now agree that Monopoly isnt the greatest game out there, it takes a certain type of player to enjoy it regardless of the outcome. And I find this to carry over to most board games, is that you dont have to win or lose, its just a fun and imaginitive way to pass the time. The winners mindset is toxic and monopoly tends to cater to and breed the winner mindset. So Ive come to love games like arkham horror, NEMESIS, 7th continent, and spirit island. Cooperation, failure and cutting losses are key components to the game and when 1 fails we all fail. Seeing how one reacts in failure is a beautiful experience especially when they arent being singled out and its a collective experience. Monopoly though not the greatest still holds a decent place in my heart.
As with most trading games, you need to allow any type of deal. The real fun starts when you hand someone a piece of paper that says "Parkway option to trade in 5 turns for $300, cost $50." Creative and economically inclined people will instantly be having a good time.
Three main issues with Monopoly that most modern games have solved in various way. 1. As you point out, is players are eliminated one by one, sometimes quite early, in a game that can often drag on for a long time. 2. There is no set endpoint for the game, it can go on almost indefinitely if the last two players randomly wind up with relatively even property portfolios. All this while as many as two players may be sitting around watching, or if they're lucky, playing something better. 3. The game is usually over (even for the last two players) well before it ends anyway. Almost every game of Monopoly I have ever played never really ended. What usually happens is that one player gets a sizable advantage and it becomes pretty obvious that he is going to win, but it could still take 5-20 trips around the board for him to drive that final player out, so everyone just agrees that this has gotten tiresome and we play something else. So, even winning the game is often tarnished by the fact that you did not REALLY win, the other guy just got tired of playing and conceded.
You shouldn't ALWAYS buy a property if you land on it. Always always auction off the utilities because they're overpriced. Sometimes you might want to pass on a property in order to keep cash in hand for a later property or if you're about to land on something scary.
We should rewrite the rules for Monopoly so it's playable. Variable player Powers? Car can choose to change their low die to match their high die. Thimble can choose to take one of their die backwards direction. Board Adaptations based on what you own? If you land on railroad at the end of a die, you can warp to any other - by paying both owners! - and continue your trip. If you own the utilities, you get the money from luxury tax. If you own a property on the same street as me, my trips down that street cost me one less improvement. If you go to jail, you lose a property! ??????
First rule proposal: When the first player is eliminated, gameplay ends. The winner is the highest net worth at that time. -- Reduces late-game slog. Second rule proposal: All players start with three properties, randomly dealt to them. -- Reduces early-game phase time. Third rule proposal: Free Parking is removed and replaced with a new space: Gas Service. Gas service is a property in the Utility category and works the same way as Water Works or Electric Company. A monopoly of all three Utilities changes the multiplier from 4x (one utility owned) and 10x (two utilities owned) to 20x for all three owned. -- This eliminates a dead-space on the board and helps to make the utilities more relevant to the game. Fourth rule proposal: For all Utilities: If a player lands on them, he rolls both dice and pays the owner dice value * the number of houses on all his properties. If she owns both WW and EC, he pays double and if she owns all three, he pays triple. I.e. Player 1 owns 11 houses & 2 hotels (13 total) ; he lands on Water Works. So he rolls the dice and the result is 8. Multiply that with the 13 buildings he owns for a total of $104, or $312 if she owns all three utilities. -- This is a small counterbalance to owning large numbers of houses, since it specifically hits large house ownership harder. Fifth rule proposal: A player in jail receives only half of all monies, to which he would normally collect from rents and incomes. The other half of collected monies goes to the bank. -- This reduces the effectiveness of the remain-in-jail late game strategy. Sixth rule proposal: Players no longer need a complete monopoly to build houses on a color group. On any and each owned color property, the player may build as many houses as properties in the color group he owns. I.e. If Player 1 owns Kentucky Ave, but no other red properties, then he may build up to one house on Kentucky Ave. If Player 2 owns St James Place and New York Ave, but not Tennessee Ave, then he may build up to two houses on each orange property he owns. All restrictions are removed when the player gets a monopoly. -- This reduces player stagnation caused by lack of monopolies.
First off, nice suit Tom! Secondly, I'm already loving this new series. Ironically what I love about the Dice Tower is their overwhelming positivity, however, who could turn down more opportunities to see Tom throw game boxes around!
In my opinion, Ticket to Ride shows how to design a family game and avoid the failures of Monopoly. No player elimination, simple choices every turn, no runaway leader, game can't drag on, hints of possible plans, and planning works but luck and other players requires their re-evaluation.
The easiest way to make Monopoly good, is put a time limit on. When family game night comes around, we play house rules and as soon as the first piece is moved, we set an alarm for 90 mins. Once that 90 min is over, we all make sure the number of rolls are equal between players that are left in, then we count. All money, mortgage value of properties and half price of all houses/hotels. Can make the last 10 mins very tense, still luck based but also when it hits around 45 mins, people start panicking and throw caution to the wind and make more risky trades. I always enjoy Monopoly for these reasons. Edit: Strikes a nice balance, players are eliminated but never sat around too long. Makes watching for only 30 mins or so still enjoyable. Mostly gets down to only 2 players but have had close 3 ways (we usually play with 6 or 7 starting) Edit 2: You do get some dead games where you get nothing going, but I think that is more down to the number of players we have rather than anything to do with time limit
I agree with Tom on this one. In general terms Monopoly sucks!! However there is a version of Monopoly called ‘Monopoly Gamer’ that without being a wonder at least it is fun to play with the family. It features Nintendo’s Super Mario characters each with its own ability and power-up, there is no paper money and it doesn’t take too long to end.
I wish I could enjoy it. Too light for a game group and my brothers who are monopoly fans won't play it. They gave up before the first round saying this isn't Monopoly at all.
I too dislike Monopoly (I call it "Monotony"). If you're a fan of the franchise and the basic elements of the game, I recommend Monopoly Deal instead (it's an official card game variant). It has all the good gameplay elements of Monopoly but is more strategic and takes a fraction of the time. Monopoly was important originally because it was an early board game that made the genre accessible, but now that there are so many better options, I agree with Tom: there's no need to play Monopoly anymore. And to add to his list: this game has been franchised to DEATH. Here in England nearly every city has its own customised version, and I've seen at least three Mario variants and six Star Wars variants (every franchise has at least one version of it). It's just been overdone.
play with the speed die rule, if a game takes longer than 90 minutes you're doing it wrong or you don't understand what properties to buy, when to build houses, when to keep liquidity, etc. It's not actually just luck believe it or not.
EVERY GAME has a luck factor so i don't get that arguement......the basic game is too long and drawn out......just thought of this...but it would be cool if losing players could MERGE resources
I don't play a lot of the old classic games for these reasons. When playing something like Risk, we usually stop when the first person goes out and proclaim whoever is in the lead with points, money, etc. is the winner and end it there.
I agree, it was fun as a kid when board games were pretty basic. I have two copies of Monopoly that I haven't touched for decades. So many great games now, why would you waste two hrs on Monopoly? I'd rather be playing something from FFG, Rio Grande, Plaid Hat or AEG just to name a few.
My biggest beef with Monopoly is that there comes a point when you know with near certainty who will win, it just takes a lot of time to get there. So you have to painfully keep playing while that person slowly grows richer and richer.
Claudio Villa off the top of my head... Get rid of rolling and moving. Give people a larger (maybe complete?) selection of properties to buy. Give people a larger (maybe complete) selection of where they live - and therefore who they pay rent to. More expensive properties would have to give solve kind of advantage over cheap ones. Likewise with upgraded properties. In theory, everyone could gradually get richer (in property of not cash) throughout the game, but the richest would be the winner.
I played Monopoly many, Many times as a kid and I don’t think we ever played a game to completion. Once all of the properties were purchased, the game got boring and we would end up outside playing baseball or basketball.
Sometimes you already know you Will lose when you've played 30 minutes but you get eliminated 2 hours later. It is so boring when you just feed the other players and don't have any hope.
Not true, risk is where I started, though that game had problems of it's own, and if you're going for a historical approach, chess, go, backgammon, etc. have been around a lot longer. I suspect that even when monopoly was first made, it was not a good game by the standards of the time.
Monopoly can be appreciated because it laid a foundation on which the boardgames of today are built. Cheaply made renditions of the game do it a great disservice.
The only reason I like Monopoly is because it was intentionally created with flawed game rules to highlight the awful problems with capitalism. So I appreciate it for its social commentary. The entire game was designed to make a point and was never really intended to be enjoyed.
How would you improve it? maybe have a mechanic similar to Scythe where you gain rent from your props every turn, but you cant gain from a prop you chose last turn. if you land on your own prop you gain a bonus, If you own two or more Rails, you can move between them if you begin your turn on them, or pay the owner of the two to move between them. Taking inspiration from real TTGs, those are just a few ideas.
First and foremost, the biggest problem with Monopoly is the ending condition. (1). There's no way to force the end of the game because you are dependent on other people running out of money. (2). If you are eliminated, you have nothing to do while the others play on. Both of these can be addressed by creating an alternate ending condition other than eliminating all the other players. Here are 3 possibilities: (a). When one player is eliminated, whoever is the richest wins. This keeps the feel of the game while still shortening it significantly and removing the player-elimination stigma. (b). Limit the game length by some means. For instance, each time someone passes go you draw a card from an event deck and somewhere near the bottom is a card that ends the game. (c). Use a catan style VP counter. One possibility is to have a pile of "Luxury items" that can be purchased for points. The earlier you buy them, the more efficient they are, but you might need that money for trades. First to reach a certain point threshold wins. There are other problems, but any of these would make the game 10 times better.
My dad used to set the kitchen timer and we would count our money and property after a certain amount of time. Highest total won. We hardly ever played more than 45 minutes. So, while I’m not a huge fan, everlasting games didn’t happen for us.
You should check out Fortune Street on the Wii. It has taken the spirit of Monopoly and improved it immensely! I've had so many great games with my group. Player elimination: gone, or at least causes the game to end. Time: the game does eventually end. Even if nobody goes bankrupt, you win by reaching a certain amount and getting to the bank (start) with that amount. Luck: there, but diminished. No need to trade for a full set. You can develop your properties easily. You can just make them better with more in the set. I know it's a video game, but I think it would be of great interest on your channel.
I played Monopoly probably once, went straight to jail, missed the returning-to-starting-point bonus and lost the game. And that’s probably the last Monopoly I’ll ever play
1. Expensive components don't necessary translates into better gaming experience. 2. A game does not need to be new or super complex to be fun. 3. Kids love the small money, they love holding it and the simple cards make it easy to read and play. Fun fact, in our Game Days people ALWAYS ask for Monopoly spots. So I guess that Tom is right and the Universe is wrong? LOL
1. True enough, but he didn't say they _necessarily_ do, only that he didn't like the cheap components. I don't like cheap components either. Some people won't care, but some people definitely do. 2. He didn't say the game was not fun because it was old or not complex enough. He criticized the high impact of random die rolls, the spaces that don't do anything, the limited trading, and the early elimination of players. 3. He acknowledged that kids might like it and that he did when he was a kid. Kids would still love money that's printed on both sides, cards that don't get dog-eared from sharp corners, and cards with color on them. He also said that if you like the game, that's fine, more power to you, play it and enjoy it. How does your game group equal the universe?
The complaints about the components were cringey. I play board games a lot, so even games that have higher quality cards than Monopoly still get ruined quickly. I dont care about keeping a game pristine, or using sleeves for board game cards. So it's not a problem to me. The paper money is fine. My game money isn't perfectly straight, but neither are my dollar bills (which sucks on vending machines). The one complaint I highly agree with is trading, or rather refusing to trade. The game slows down a lot and people are going around the board without much happening. Edit: The monopoly car tin edition board and components are much better quality and look prettier.
Too Long + Too Random + Player Elimination = Ameritrash. Monopoly and Risk which has all the same problems were what the term was invented for. I think the simplest fix to Monopoly would just be to auction all un owned property that is landed on, and if nothing is landed on auction the lowest value unowned property, this would cut an hour off the game easily while greatly increasing the amount of player interaction and strategy.
Well to be fair you can make a lot of the same criticisms about Settlers of Catan. - Components: Well they're mediocre for a $50 game. It's better quality than Monopoly or Sorry!, but you expect better quality for the price. - Gameplay: It's roll and see if you get resources. Yeah, there is trading but it's the usual "hey I have wood, do you have stone?" and getting shot down. - Decision making: The only things that matter is what cards you got from dice rolls. Can I build a road? No. Can I build a settlement? No. Can I build a city? No. Can I get a development card? No. Does anyone want to trade with me? No. OK, next person. - Early elimination: Well I got cut off in the initial placement and I have no places to go and no places where I can get good resources. The game is over before we even get to the first dice roll. Now I have to sit through an entire 2 hour game knowing that I'll max out at 4-6 victory points and there is absolutely nothing I can do. So it's really a matter of attitude and perspective if you ask me.
I'm a game-lover who rarely gets to play with others, and something that drives me nuts is my nephew, who has just turned 12. He has just won his first ever spelling bee, and has been made Dux of his school. He is extremely intelligent. He also has an interest in board games, but his gaming experience is Monopoly, along with similar types (he even asked for Operation for his birthday recently - it almost broke my heart, and it wasn't that long ago that he was still playing Snakes And Ladders!). A problem is, neither of his parents are interested in the hobby (his mother/my sister hates anything like that), so they don't really know much else about it. I did actually try introducing him to a few others when he was younger, like Carcassonne, and he showed some interest, but that's gone. Now it's just mainstream games, and he turns his nose up at anything else. Then again, he's not a very good loser (like his mother), so maybe it's for the best.
This is cathartic for me. I tried to play Anti-Monopoly a while ago because I got it for free and my mom wanted to play it since we thought it might be a fun different take on Monopoly, and it was just suffering, even worse than actual Monopoly.
Even when I only knew about monopoly, checkers and chess I thought it was boring and luck based. We fixed the player elimination by only playing two players when someone is out of money the game was over.
I'll only play the game if it's more realistic and I get to start as a trust-fund baby. I then start with all the $500 bills, three get out of jail free cards, and both Boardwalk and Park Place with hotels.
I think people forget that Monopoly was never supposed to be a "fun" game. It was originally called "The Landlord's Game" and it was intended to show the horrors/problems of greed, capitalism, and monopolistic ownership.
I liked Monopoly as a kid, so I have fond memories of it. We also played by the rules, so that may have helped. heh The game has plenty of flaws and games have easily surpassed it, so I haven't played it again in ages, but I still keep a copy in my collection... I guess out of nostalgia. It's also from the 50s, so it is probably the oldest game in my collection too. lol Monopoly holds an important spot in board gaming history, but it definitely is long in the tooth. I don't hate it, but I also don't desire playing it any longer... not now that we have so much better games available to us. ;-) It's an artifact of the times.
I remember I loved Monopoly. Best game ever, I thought. Now I have around 60 games in my collection. All great games in my opinion for the most part. Good board games have spoiled me, and now I really cannot stand Monopoly.
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I think player elimination is actually a pro of Monopoly. My favorite part of playing Monopoly is getting eliminated after 30 minutes and being allowed to leave.
Good point.
I used to try and bankrupt myself so that I could get out of playing.
That is 29 minutes too long.
My Nephew likes Monopoly, but its Pokemon Monopoly and has character specific traits that can drastically change the course of the.... *ZZZZZZZZZ* sorry I fell asleep just describing it... So glad he loves Descent- Journeys in the Dark!!
I was going to comment this! You forgot another upside: Once you are eliminated from Monopoly, you aren't watching your friends having fun. You are watching them play Monopoly!
I agree wholeheartedly with Tom, however he misses Monopoly's greatest sin.
It is that Monopoly has single handedly done quite a bit of damage to the board gaming industry, and continues to hurt it to this day. When people think of board games, they think of Monopoly, and because they've had a bad experience with it, they don't play board games at all. I'm convinced there are a lot of people out there who would play more games if it weren't for Monopoly.
I dream of a world where people think of 'Catan' when they think of board games.
That and my personal pet peeve Snake and Ladders. As a teacher, I have talked to my students about board games, and all they could think of is Monopoly or variation of board games where you roll dice and you move and stuff happens (or not) and it's all LUCK BASED. This has a HUGE impact on their creativity when they are allowed to make board games as assignments, since it always end up being either a Monopoly clone or a Snake and Ladders reskin.
Ending this on a more uplifting note, however, I have introduced Sushi Go as a quick game and it's a huge hit! I still have to encourage them to do long term planning and memorising, but oh well, at least they aren't playing Monopoly.
Exactly. While this happens with Monopoly with the western audience, there's a similar situation with the werewolf game (devolved from The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow) in China. Often loudly played and simple mined (not the game themselves and how they are played), it gives a misinformed impression of "board games" to both ones who like it and ones who don't. Now with Apps with "social" functioned added in, they attracts the likes of Tik Tok users and further worsen the average person's (already close to zero) impression of board games.
I guess what I wanna say is, bad games and cash grabs hurts a lot, more than we realize.
I once asked someone what games they played that made them hate boards games. No surprise that monopoly was on the list. I recommended Pandemic instead as a starter. Sold her on it.
I grew up with, monopoly, clue, life, risk, connect 4, scrabble ect. And even growing up we only played these games when there was nothing else to do. Until about three years ago. I played werewolf and thought..."huh that was fun and different". And even though I saw these new board games, I would pass them by because of the games I grew up with. I just simply didn't know that GOOD board games could exist. My name is mark and I used to be a boring gamer, I'm 3 years clean now! Thank you.
Clue, Risk and Scrabble and Connect 4 all at least pass muster. Not perfect, but not a boring 2 hour luckfest.
Thank god I wans't the I am not the only one feeling that way. I HATE Clue with a passion, even when growing up. Not only was I myself the murderer the few times I did play it having to catch myself to win, but it's just a "who gets to accuse people more first!". Seriously that is all you do.
@korrok Start with Catan, Ticket to Ride, and/or Pandemic. Those are classics you can't go wrong with.
@korrok Settlers of Catan is a good balance of skill, luck and social manipulation. And it has relatively simple rules to boot.
Oh hi Mark.
You don't win Monopoly, you just last long enough for everyone else to lose...
One of my happiest moments recently was walking through a Target and realizing that while they still had the obligatory selection of Monopoly/Risk/Scrabble/Clue, they also had started stocking Catan, Ticket to Ride, Codenames, and Pandemic. Here's hoping the next generation of children grow up on those games and we can all finally escape the stigma of Monopoly.
In Poland you can't see any good title in supermarkets.. only monopoly crap alongside games about.. crap (poop in toilet, or something), pie game, hungry hippos and other rubbish products.. Luckily my kids have me, so they will never touch these (they do see commercials in tv, but that i can't do too much about)..
But i must admit that my 5yo son finds something interesting in rolling dice, last time we played a gambling game which he came up with, tell if next roll will be higher than current one, if yes - it's a point, if not nothing happens.. first to 7 is a winner..;) so no matter how hard you try they need to experience it by themselves..:D
Yes I can’t step into a Target these days without checking their selection. They’ve also got Splendor, Mysterium, Azul, Coup, Love Letter - heck they even had some of those Sasaki games like “Deep Sea Adventure” and “A Fake Artist Goes to New York.” Yeah, it’s pretty awesome to see. Barnes and Noble similarly has a pretty good collection.
@@mienzillaz i recently visited Krakow and Warsaw and u can say i visited two very beautiful board game shops
In Barnes & Noble, I saw Teraforming Mars and Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion with some Unmatched and Disney Villainous here and there. I have high hopes for the future of board gaming
Speaking of buying Monopoly, when I bought mine, it didn’t come with a tray for the houses and hotels, so we just kept them in a cheap plastic bag, and the rubber bands that keep the money and cards together, well my brother mistakenly used them as projectiles for his rubber band gun!😂
For my money, the worst part of Monopoly is the inevitability curve. Usually, after the first hour, it’s pretty clear who is going to win. And you’re powerless to do anything to either change the tide or speed up the end other than quitting. And worse, if you have two players standing who are evenly matched, there’s no mechanic to force them into a showdown. You just have to hope your war chest lasts longer than the other player’s.
Another interesting point is that strategically, it's best to obtain property and go straight to jail. Being able to receive money in jail and not having to worry about landing on an opponents space means it's the best thing that could happen to you. That's an objectively bad mechanism in a game, that the best way to win is to practically not play.
Meeple Overboard! How about a friedly game of tic-tac-toe?
In my college years we played Monopoly according to 'prison rules' which I invented one lazy afternoon. The premise was each player was a felon newly freed from prison, out to make it big in the world. You initially started with no funds, but whenever you landed on unowned property you could extract the value of its rent as "protection" or triple that amount in a heist, the money being taken from the bank. Heists were risky, however, because if you failed the dice roll you went back to prison and lost all your ill-gotten gains (confiscated by the government, of course.)
There were also all manner of ancillary rules relating to different mob activities like robbery (stealing from other players), gambling (rivals could gamble in each other's hotels to offset rent, but you could also end up losing more), arson (you could burn down rival houses and hotels), bribery (mainly the police to avoid going to jail for rolling doubles or to cut down jail time), and "whacking" which allowed sufficiently rich players to assassinate their rivals (the amount of money modifying a die roll) to win the game.
All of this was laid over the normal rules of Monopoly, which were still in effect, but rarely did anyone win via that method. It was much more fun to rise to the top on a wave of crime and eliminate your rivals toward the end, gangland style. It's debatable to an outside observer whether our house ruling made the game better or worse (probably worse) but it brought our group an undeniably great amount of joy and hilarity at the time.
So you used the pieces to make a much better more exciting game... ROFL
This is awesome. If you do a detailed write up on bgg or elsewhere, I will BUY a copy of classic monopoly.
Wow that is amazing. That should be how its meant to be played.
That sound so much better. You should post the details on BGG if you haven’t already 😀
So...Grand Theft Monopoly? Sounds fun!
I'm not really sure anyone actually plays Monopoly at all. This is a game you buy because of the cute re-theme or because you are out of ideas for a gift for someone's kid, it maybe gets played once (not until completion but until everyone gets bored, which means roughly around the 45th minute), and then it sits on the shelf for the next 30 years.
Exactly. And that's not how it should be with board games under any circumstances.
Yes people do actually play monopoly still unfortunately. I was at a relatives a few years back and they wanted to break out monopoly and play it. I told them i had some much better games we could all play and have fun with. They insisted that monopoly was the only BG that existed and nothing else was better. So i sat down and played with them. I made sure to get almost 1 of every property set then proceeded to never trade a damn thing with anyone and hoard all my money. Needless to say they started yelling at me and i just sat laughing telling them.."Hey i didn't write the rules i just play by them".
The following christmas i sent them a copy of Ticket to Ride and they were absolutely amazed. Never played Monopoly again they told me.
Some People even like Monopoly more than Terraforming Mars.
I still think that the worst thing about Monopoly is that it ruins the board gaming hobby for a lot of people of different ages. When you hear a non-gamer sigh like "Ugh, board games last like 4 hours and it's all down to luck..." you can instantly tell what they have been playing. There are other similarly terrible non-gamers' games out there but Monopoly is their poster boy.
If I want some board game based on rng and luck of the roll..rather play a table top rpg..these is a bit of luck, but at least you have stats and you are combating monsters and actively roleplaying.
Let be honest a game of monopoly shouldn't last 4 or 3 hours it should be 1 hour or less if you play the rules properly.
But I still hate the trading part of the game because nobody I play with want to trade when I make a great deal like I give you 2 low level property for higher level property.
Nowadays that could also mean one of those overly complex KS Eurogames
We had a blinged out anniversary edition of Monopoly. I looked for it the other day and found it on a shelf behind the bar, crushed, with most of the paper money missing and stains on the board. Then I recalled the last game we played and it all made sense.
... go on... please. I am genuinely curious.
very important video for mankind.
should be called Monotony.
James McKnight that's what my father in law calls it
HAHA .. good one!!!
you're a gawdamn genius
Indeed! Monopoly sucks! Stupid, boring - and I usually lose. :P
U betcha!
was hoping for a component drop into a fire
I've never liked Monopoly. Never. Even when I was playing it with my friends as a kid. I played because they did. I am free from that shackle.
Same. Never saw anything positive in this game and viewed it as a mandatory family time that was far from being enjoyable. This is #1 reason I grew to despise it, not really because of any more objective reason, but because of horrible experiences.
I thought my mom loved it when I was younger (ugh - I hated it). What she really liked was the family being together. Now we are free to play Flashpoint, Zombicide, and Aeon’s End, and we have never looked back.
"here are four thousand games better than Monopoly. Let's start with the Settlers of Catan..."
According to BGG, at the time of this posting, there are 17,225 games that are better than Monopoly.
Sounds about right.
Settlers of Catan has issues too. I played it a few times and don't like it. One issue is of Catan is similar to monopoly, a player will have bad success with getting the right tiles for resources or not the right dice rolls. The point is , someone in that game will be stuck never having a chance to win or being able to make a comeback. There just stuck playing the game out to the finish. At least in monopoly when hope is gone. u can leave and go watch TV. Second, its boring to me to sit and trying to build roads that look like matchbox sticks and and a few wooden buildings that look like wooden pieces from original monopoly. And did you see there 30 anniversary edition? It was so boring the artwork and components. The game needs to have updated artwork and components to reach the levels of gaming today. Catan at least changed the board game industry with new innovative ideas for gameplay. That's my only positive thing to say about it.
In Monopoly you're not playing the game, the game's playing you. There's only ever basically one thing you can do, which is what the dice tells you to do, what the cards tell you to do, and buy everything you can. It's all random and it never ends.
Sorry, Paulo, your refusal to accept that strategy exists in Monopoly doesn't invalidate it.
@@nagredmoonstriker252 if strategy exists in it, then its not "refusal go accept" but "inability to see".
@@nagredmoonstriker252 Strategy exists in monopoly but there's only one. There aren't really two ways you can play the game. Buy everything you can, try to trade for sets. That's it. If you can't get the set because you weren't lucky enough to get it, or someone refuses to trade with you....then that's it. You're done.
That's like saying that the only strategy to win Magic: The Gathering is to be lucky enough to draw the right cards. No, there are other Monopoly winning strategies, especially when it comes to trading. But if you're set on hating the game, there's no reason for me to waste my time telling you where to look for them. But that's okay, we all have our dislikes, no hard feelings.
But just one point - if no one will trade with you, you need to make better offers. Believe me, there are offers that you can make that will seem (at first) to be equally beneficial to both sides. How do you know that you'll be better off after the trade than your opponent will be, and they don't know that? Because you learned strategies... oh, that's right. You don't think there are any strategies concerning trading. Never mind. 😉
OK, thanks! @@lioneart19
The Non-gamers in my family keep asking to play this one. To me Monopoly is more an activity than a game as you make the same decisions over and over again. However my family enjoys the windfalls and the "Take that!" aspect of the game. A better option I would recommend to those that like Monopoly is a Card Game called "Monopoly Deal" It involves set collection, take that , windfalls etc. It uses the original Monopoly art and it has interesting decisions to make on your turn. Its also short and has that "Let's play again vibe" If you try it I think you will be thanking me! This game is also by Hasbro and can be found in your Target or Walmart store for around 6$
In a similar position with non-gamers wanting to play it, I made two small changes and I find the game much more bearable, not to the point where I would choose to play it mind you. We play with the actual rules, but with two house rules added, firstly every time you need to roll a dice you can take a 3 instead of that one (with the exception of prison) and secondly if you land on a property a blind auction is immediately started, with the highest bid getting the property.
I’m going to start using “antiquatated” myself.
Its not even fun when you win.
The true winner is the first to lose.
Daniel Paine Lol! Truth!
Monopoly was created as a morality lesson as to how capitalism is an unfair system, meaning the game is intended to not be fun. Seriously, look up the story of the woman who invented it.
Ronnie Lunn , yes I've read about this somewhere; wasn't its original title "The Landlord Game" or something like that?
The Landlord Game was a game where you first acquired property and then had a part that showed capitalism as a flawed system. Then someone stole the game, took the part that showed showed capitalism as a flawed system out, called the game Monopoly and sold it as their own design.
Yeah but then Parker bros/ hasbro/ whatever got hold of it and muscled her out
Just to clarify : The point of the original version was more to show that monopoles forge even without the contributing parties actively working toward that goal - hence the later name
'monopoly'. People at the time had difficulty understanding that there was a process that would - over time - tend to monopolization and would not believe it without going through it themselves in the interactive way monopoly presents.
That is kind of the essence of monopoly : The point that the game eventually ends even though it potentially could run forever.
On another Note : There are other abstract games that illustrate that certain systems without currency - over time - tend to introduce currencies or behave like systems with currency meaning that capitalism, even if flawed, is actually not that easy to get rid of.
The rules of that version of monopoly were slightly different. Not a lot, but definitely enough to notice.
I'm no psychoanalyst but I hypothesize that the trauma being exposed to Monopoly as a child is why I now almost only play co-ops/solo games. 😆
@Java Monsoon Me too!! If it needs to be online, or has no solo campaign, I have no interest.
Really?? I don’t like co-ops and solo games.
Gamers are so toxic
@@MrTravolta7 Why?
@@thegreatandmightyseff7214 I don't think so. Like most communities, there are good and bad (most are good) 🙂
We also must strive to not be too sensitive. Sometimes what we perceive to be offensive was never intended to be. 🙂
I secretly hated Monopoly even as a child. I played because everyone else wanted to play but I preferred Stratego or D&D. I can't remember a single instance in which we finished the game. Usually we would all give up and move on to watching TV. There is a copy of the game in our home but I refuse to list it on my BGG profile. Oh how I detest it.
*I can't remember a single instance in which we finished the game.*
This. Once most of the properties had been acquired, no one was willing to cede the advantage to anyone else by trading away key properties, and the game just dwindled down until everyone was tired of it and we declared the person with the most money the winner.
I watched Dice Tower in 2016 because I wondered if there was anything other than Monopoly and man it has been a treat since then! Thanks Dice Tower and all the other board game channels!
No
What I hate about monopoly is that it single-handedly turned me off to board games for most of my life.
Monopoly sucks. I used to try and lose as fast as possible so I could get out of playing, and the only table flip that ever happened from any board game session was my mom table flipping monopoly and storming away.
I hate Monopoly as well, Tom.
Out of every board game I've ever seen, nothing seems to bring out the inner Table Flipper faster and more consistently than Monopoly
Monopoly gives board games a bad name. People play it because they like owning things. Most of that same crowd will enjoy Ticket to Ride much more and get the same ownership experience.
To be fair, think it goes beyond that. First, you have the fantasy & tactility of handling & owning money, property etc. Then the randomness works as a story/drama generator, something I noticed in popular "bad" games. And at the very least, Monopoly is an "upgrade" to Snakes & Ladders like how Catan is an "upgrade" to Monopoly. The key IMO is introducing games which give these sensations, while being better overall, which I'm very sure many modern games would. To me, it was Marrakech, with its streamlined but much more tactical trap-laying, and Catan, obviously
Stinks that for most people who don’t know the hobby this is the game that defines “board game”
Yeah usually when I ask someone if they like boardgames, their response depends on whether or not they like monopoly. Either way I have to then explain that there are way better games out there
Yup and when I say I play board games as a hobby they think I sit down and play Monopoly and Clue for fun... oof
More like "BORED game".
Its the same with most music genres.
Times are changing though. I was surprised to read that the biggest newspaper in my country published a piece of news talking about Gloomhaven - one of the best games out there I agree, but one that I would've never though to enjoy any kind of mainstream appeal. Also people more invested in gaming seem to be more and more knowledgeable about modern board games too, thanks to games like Hearthstone and Slay the Spire.
Monopoly will fade slowly to the background, let's just have a bit more patience. :)
My soul dies a little inside when someone says “”lets play monopoly”. I have hated it my WHOLE life. 😂 I agree 100%.
Thank you Spider-Tom.
With great power comes with great responsibility. Defend the world from bad games, 1 video at a time. :)
This video is NOT GOOD
I am with you. I stop playing monopoly a lonnnggggg time ago. Hate it for the same reasons. There so many better games now.
What other board games do you recommend?
@@franxx5239 Personaly, I like monopoly and games like monopoly. I just got catan and it is fun. I like risk and ticket to ride are similar just ask for more if ya want
I love the analogy to liking McDonald's as a child. Nailed it!
That said, I studied Monopoly when I was in 6th grade, and it taught me the importance of statistics, probability, and calculating expected rate of return. I learned a lot about how games work from studying this game - its history, its mechanics, and the various strategies used. It also introduced me to opening up rules by adding "house rules" - as well as how those can break the game (e.g., free parking jackpots). Finally, one of the rules variations I heard about later on was called "Powers Monopoly", where each player was given a different, unique "power". The description of this variant made mention of "Cosmic Encounter"... and that was the first time I'd heard about that game... which introduced me to a whole other world of board games not sold in chain retail stores.
So, thank you, Monopoly, for educating me in so many ways. As long as you are learning, you are growing - and Monopoly was an important part of my growing up (including growing beyond it).
One of the rules I add to Monopoly to streamline the game and avoid full player elimination is the ‘All Bought Up’ rule. Once every single property is bought on the board, the game is over. Each player counts up all their money and values of their properties, whoever has the most wins. It still allows for auctions, trades and upgrades on properties without it getting into the long haul at the end when everyone getting sick and tired of the game but also allows for some ‘strategy’ when it comes to buying properties to perhaps allow for more trading options or to stop some players from fully upgrading with houses and hotels. It also means that it allows some small chance for players who win if they have been careful with money or not able to get full sets and upgrades. Makes a 4 hour game into a cool 1 hour game with opportunities for it to be actually fun. Would recommend this rule as it was always the intent of the original designer of monopoly to end the game there rather than the whole capitalist/elimination factor that later designers added into it later.
Monopoly was fun as a child because I felt like I had money, that I was making my own purchases, and felt like I was getting rich (if winning). There was also the thrill of throwing dice and excitement of maybe evading a property my father owned with a hotel on it. Once I got older, I realized the game was not fun at all. It is like going back and watching cartoons or tv shows that you really enjoyed as a child and then realizing that they were very cheesy and cringey.
I've play monopoly game multiple times with my friends.
Some of them are already either going home, sleeping in the middle of the game, or possibly dead.
Actually i like some parts of Monopoly.
Reason i think many people like Monopoly:
1. The rules are very easy to learn.
2. Almost no downtime.
3. Almost no AP.
4. There’s a lot of interaction
5. You can socialize.
6. Don’t spend much effort thinking. People play games just for socialize without spend much effort thinking. That’s why they like Bingo (for me not a game) or even roulette or poker without money involved.
7. You see your empire growing. People like that when playing a game. Monopoly gives you that feeling, you watch your empire getting bigger and bigger, and i love that (only if you are extremely unlucky you get nothing). The thing is, your grow is based on lucky but many people don’t care or don’t realise that.
8. You control (or you feel you control) your empire (lands) because it depends on your negotiation skills. It’s true when you have them but many of them you got them by luck.
Remove the luck factor of the game and probably wouldn’t be so bad.
You can do some house rules to mitigate that luck on the dice.
“For example: If you roll 2 dice the most common move is 7 steps. It would be better if the game gave us the choice to roll 1, 2 or 3 dice. You still went to prison with 2 equal numbers. Maybe that would change the strategy I don’t really know.”
I know people who watch Dice Tower love modern games and hate Monopoly in general.
I don’t like to be one of those fundamentalists who realised that there are much better games now that Monopoly has to be despised. And because everybody in the world plays it and they sell the game like McDonald burgers due to their marketing it’s a game to be hated. And is cool to hate the game, specially who know the “truth”, the people that played Monopoly thinking it was the best they could get but now they know that there are much better games.
I understand that’s annoying to watch a bad game selling so much and to be the most known.
But I actually have some respect about Monopoly. It’s a very old game so you should take that into account, and just because they sell a lot is bad? If Monopoly succeeded why can’t others do the same.
I will say if you're watching dice tower for the first time, and your only experience in board gaming is Monopoly... Explore this channel!!!! And get some gateway games to get your family to start gaming
Dude, even the metal pieces are wack, like... They don't even have a theme or anything, just random stuff I hate it.
The metal pieces in Monopoly have never had a theme to them... their origin is just a bunch of metal charms from a charm bracelet. In fact, the original version of the game just used wooden pawns. heh
most of them kinda work... except the raptor.
It's possible that they _did_ have a theme. They represented the different classes or occupations that could be found in a traditional mansion, but I suspect this might be a retro-fit. Battleship - navy; cannon - army; thimble - seamstresses; iron - maids; wheelbarrow - gardener; top hat - upper class; ballet shoe [which looks like a boot to me] - the arts; horse and rider - hunting; race car - chauffeur .
I think this is suspect, as not all tokens always appeared together. There were also earlier, retired tokens (such as a lantern), which means the "theme" can't have been there at the beginning.
The luck element in Monopoly isn’t so much that it has dice, it’s that so much can turn on a single good or bad throw. Chance is very granular in the game. Lots of war games have dice, but generally speaking any given roll has a small impact. You’re often playing the odds, and that works because one or two outliers aren’t going to determine victory.
A few other problems with monopoly. There's no catch-up mechanism. The game is largely determined from the first lap or two around the board, it just takes a really long time to resolve that early advantage. It's just unpleasant to lose. Most modern competitive games (especially economic ones), if I lose, I've still built something cool that I can feel a sense of accomplishment at. Sure, your thing was better, but my thing was still good. In monopoly, I lose with nothing to show for it. This combines with the first problem such that the end of monopoly just gets more and more miserable. Especially with the ability to sell and mortgage, you can hold on for quite a long time, but as you do so you're slowly being ground down to nothing.
Other problems: Every game is the same. There's almost zero strategic choices. There's almost zero tactical choices. It's essentially solved. There's almost nothing to do on anyone else's turn. You barely interact with the other players, except in trading (paying rent doesn't count as interaction, because there's no choices involved). And this is a silly gripe, but the scale is all wrong, and the flavor makes no sense. You can buy an entire street for the 8 times the price of one person paying rent? And what's even happening in this game? We're all property developers, but we have to randomly wander around town, forced to stay in whatever house or hotel we happen to be standing near at night time?
The one thing I really hate most is that after a while it's pretty clear who is going to win (the one that is lucky enough to buy the most expensive streets early on or the player who can build houses the first) and who is going to loose first (if you don't get to buy things in the first 2 rounds of the board) and there is absolutely nothing the other players can do about it.
There is nothing more frustrating than playing Monopoly and seeing after maybe 15 minutes already that you can't possibly win anymore, just because of bad luck. And you just have to sit there losing everything you have and getting no chances at all. It really feels unfair and I would even say like bullying. 1 person has everything and you have nothing and the game is designed to rub that fact in your face in the nastiest way possible.
I think the problem is growing up in a western household meant you were playing board games your parents (or grandparents!) played, and you figured that's what board games had to offer. Unfortunetly, a lot of those games were luck based. I had so many copies of Monopoly and Risk, and once I started playing actual board games, I got rid of nearly all of them. Ticket to Ride was my gateway board game.
Tom, I'd be interested in a series of videos like this. Videos about mass market games and sorting out the good ones from the bad ones. How about a video about, in your experience, the absolute best version of Clue?
Auctioning every property regardless of who lands on it fixes most of these problems. It moves it all the way up to a 5/10.
PLEASE keep this series going!
One idea to try and make Monopoly more strategic is for rolling 2 dice with different numbers, you have the option of moving the larger of the two dice. If you choose that, then the next player has the option of moving either the smaller dice or whatever they roll (unless they roll doubles, then they have to reroll, and then they can pick to move the smaller of the 2 dice from the previous player).
This should be played across the emergency broadcast system. So many people don't realize good board games exist and most hate board games specifically because of Monopoly.
The house rule that NEEDS to be added when your family pressures you into playing Monoploy is this: The game is over when the first person is eliminated. Whoever has the most money at that point is the winner.
Best Monopoly house rule ever!
Or maybe the first player to eliminate another player is the winner. So we don’t have to count the awful money
This is a great idea, and a lot of newer Monopoly copies incorporate this into the rulebook that nobody reads b/c they think they already know the rules. Honestly, better end-game conditions improve two of Tom's biggest gripes, player elimination and total game time.
The most important point is that if you're unlucky with the dice at the beginning of the game you're sunk. Which is also why I've sworn off the Monopoly killer, Settlers of Catan. Settlers has the same problem... if the dice are unlucky for you at the start you're kaput, as you quickly get blocked off and unable to trade significantly.
Most people just hate learning rules to a new game. I think that's the main reason why Monopoly is popular, everyone knows the rules (or think they now the rules)
thats the biggest drawback is that the rules are very rarely read so people are invariably playing to house ruled variations which screw up the buying of locations and money being recycled through the free parking thing
I love this video. I used to really dislike board games because I thought they were all like monopoly. But I have been so surprised to find a whole world of really good games out there. Now it is my favorite hobby. Thanks Tom! I hope tons of people find good games after watching this video. :)
último cigano verdadeiro Have you played pandemic? It’s a pretty good cooperative board game in my opinion.
@@sajanpatel4956 Thanks for the suggestion. I love Pandemic (including Legacy season 1 and 2) I have really dug into the hobby over the past couple years and have found lots of goodies. :)
No
OMG! This has to my overall favorite video of all time with Tom. Also makes me realize how much I’ve come along in my board gaming hobby.
Monopoly is an usurpation of what it was meant to be. A criticism of capitalism. Plus... the game luck mechanic sucks.
Yes and the game was copied and the woman who designed it got no credit. Another reason to hate the game
exactly
They should rename it "Capitalism"
This is the secret to having fun playing Monopoly: playing fast. Blazingly fast, where you're rolling the dice while the player before you is still moving their piece and the player before them is still paying for their property. You only pause for a few seconds when somebody wants to make a deal or needs to figure something out (or auctions if you play with them). It makes the game take like 30 minutes, which has the benefit of making players more likely to take risks. No need to actuarially assess trades if the game is going to be over in 15 minutes, just go with your gut and get the dice rolling again.
I played a game of monopoly at the lake with some friends last summer. I won which may have been a factor into why I got into board gaming in general.
However since that fateful night I have developed a board gaming hobby thats boardering on obsessive addiction.
Though I now agree that Monopoly isnt the greatest game out there, it takes a certain type of player to enjoy it regardless of the outcome.
And I find this to carry over to most board games, is that you dont have to win or lose, its just a fun and imaginitive way to pass the time. The winners mindset is toxic and monopoly tends to cater to and breed the winner mindset.
So Ive come to love games like arkham horror, NEMESIS, 7th continent, and spirit island. Cooperation, failure and cutting losses are key components to the game and when 1 fails we all fail.
Seeing how one reacts in failure is a beautiful experience especially when they arent being singled out and its a collective experience.
Monopoly though not the greatest still holds a decent place in my heart.
Monopoly is probably the worst “Classic” board game. I’ll take Clue and Risk over Monopoly any day.
I personally think risk is worse than monopoly but that’s my opinion
@@theneon_fighter i loved RISK!! would never play it again though.....to many other games have taken the best parts of risk and made it better
Why are the components being dropped not in flames? ;-)
As with most trading games, you need to allow any type of deal. The real fun starts when you hand someone a piece of paper that says "Parkway option to trade in 5 turns for $300, cost $50." Creative and economically inclined people will instantly be having a good time.
Three main issues with Monopoly that most modern games have solved in various way.
1. As you point out, is players are eliminated one by one, sometimes quite early, in a game that can often drag on for a long time.
2. There is no set endpoint for the game, it can go on almost indefinitely if the last two players randomly wind up with relatively even property portfolios. All this while as many as two players may be sitting around watching, or if they're lucky, playing something better.
3. The game is usually over (even for the last two players) well before it ends anyway. Almost every game of Monopoly I have ever played never really ended. What usually happens is that one player gets a sizable advantage and it becomes pretty obvious that he is going to win, but it could still take 5-20 trips around the board for him to drive that final player out, so everyone just agrees that this has gotten tiresome and we play something else.
So, even winning the game is often tarnished by the fact that you did not REALLY win, the other guy just got tired of playing and conceded.
You shouldn't ALWAYS buy a property if you land on it. Always always auction off the utilities because they're overpriced. Sometimes you might want to pass on a property in order to keep cash in hand for a later property or if you're about to land on something scary.
We should rewrite the rules for Monopoly so it's playable.
Variable player Powers?
Car can choose to change their low die to match their high die. Thimble can choose to take one of their die backwards direction.
Board Adaptations based on what you own?
If you land on railroad at the end of a die, you can warp to any other - by paying both owners! - and continue your trip.
If you own the utilities, you get the money from luxury tax.
If you own a property on the same street as me, my trips down that street cost me one less improvement.
If you go to jail, you lose a property!
??????
We do the "no paying rent in the future" trades but are limited to a specific amount (e.g., 1-3 times).
First rule proposal: When the first player is eliminated, gameplay ends. The winner is the highest net worth at that time.
-- Reduces late-game slog.
Second rule proposal: All players start with three properties, randomly dealt to them.
-- Reduces early-game phase time.
Third rule proposal: Free Parking is removed and replaced with a new space: Gas Service. Gas service is a property in the Utility category and works the same way as Water Works or Electric Company. A monopoly of all three Utilities changes the multiplier from 4x (one utility owned) and 10x (two utilities owned) to 20x for all three owned.
-- This eliminates a dead-space on the board and helps to make the utilities more relevant to the game.
Fourth rule proposal: For all Utilities: If a player lands on them, he rolls both dice and pays the owner dice value * the number of houses on all his properties. If she owns both WW and EC, he pays double and if she owns all three, he pays triple. I.e. Player 1 owns 11 houses & 2 hotels (13 total) ; he lands on Water Works. So he rolls the dice and the result is 8. Multiply that with the 13 buildings he owns for a total of $104, or $312 if she owns all three utilities.
-- This is a small counterbalance to owning large numbers of houses, since it specifically hits large house ownership harder.
Fifth rule proposal: A player in jail receives only half of all monies, to which he would normally collect from rents and incomes. The other half of collected monies goes to the bank.
-- This reduces the effectiveness of the remain-in-jail late game strategy.
Sixth rule proposal: Players no longer need a complete monopoly to build houses on a color group. On any and each owned color property, the player may build as many houses as properties in the color group he owns. I.e. If Player 1 owns Kentucky Ave, but no other red properties, then he may build up to one house on Kentucky Ave. If Player 2 owns St James Place and New York Ave, but not Tennessee Ave, then he may build up to two houses on each orange property he owns. All restrictions are removed when the player gets a monopoly.
-- This reduces player stagnation caused by lack of monopolies.
First off, nice suit Tom!
Secondly, I'm already loving this new series. Ironically what I love about the Dice Tower is their overwhelming positivity, however, who could turn down more opportunities to see Tom throw game boxes around!
In my opinion, Ticket to Ride shows how to design a family game and avoid the failures of Monopoly. No player elimination, simple choices every turn, no runaway leader, game can't drag on, hints of possible plans, and planning works but luck and other players requires their re-evaluation.
The easiest way to make Monopoly good, is put a time limit on. When family game night comes around, we play house rules and as soon as the first piece is moved, we set an alarm for 90 mins. Once that 90 min is over, we all make sure the number of rolls are equal between players that are left in, then we count. All money, mortgage value of properties and half price of all houses/hotels. Can make the last 10 mins very tense, still luck based but also when it hits around 45 mins, people start panicking and throw caution to the wind and make more risky trades. I always enjoy Monopoly for these reasons.
Edit: Strikes a nice balance, players are eliminated but never sat around too long. Makes watching for only 30 mins or so still enjoyable. Mostly gets down to only 2 players but have had close 3 ways (we usually play with 6 or 7 starting)
Edit 2: You do get some dead games where you get nothing going, but I think that is more down to the number of players we have rather than anything to do with time limit
I agree with Tom on this one. In general terms Monopoly sucks!! However there is a version of Monopoly called ‘Monopoly Gamer’ that without being a wonder at least it is fun to play with the family. It features Nintendo’s Super Mario characters each with its own ability and power-up, there is no paper money and it doesn’t take too long to end.
jorand73 Agreed, Monopoly Gamer is the only version I actually enjoy playing. I even went out and bought all the extra figures.
CB0X me too :)
I wish I could enjoy it. Too light for a game group and my brothers who are monopoly fans won't play it. They gave up before the first round saying this isn't Monopoly at all.
@@thedoctor1325 They gave up before the first round saying this isn't Monopoly at all.
That is hilarious.
This was a very mild review. I hoped for some quality rampage, burning components or something. Still, thumbs up for good work in general :)
I too dislike Monopoly (I call it "Monotony"). If you're a fan of the franchise and the basic elements of the game, I recommend Monopoly Deal instead (it's an official card game variant). It has all the good gameplay elements of Monopoly but is more strategic and takes a fraction of the time.
Monopoly was important originally because it was an early board game that made the genre accessible, but now that there are so many better options, I agree with Tom: there's no need to play Monopoly anymore. And to add to his list: this game has been franchised to DEATH. Here in England nearly every city has its own customised version, and I've seen at least three Mario variants and six Star Wars variants (every franchise has at least one version of it). It's just been overdone.
play with the speed die rule, if a game takes longer than 90 minutes you're doing it wrong or you don't understand what properties to buy, when to build houses, when to keep liquidity, etc.
It's not actually just luck believe it or not.
EVERY GAME has a luck factor so i don't get that arguement......the basic game is too long and drawn out......just thought of this...but it would be cool if losing players could MERGE resources
I don't play a lot of the old classic games for these reasons. When playing something like Risk, we usually stop when the first person goes out and proclaim whoever is in the lead with points, money, etc. is the winner and end it there.
To be fair, the Mario and Mario Kart versions of Monopoly are pretty fun. They're a decent departure from the core game though.
I agree, it was fun as a kid when board games were pretty basic.
I have two copies of Monopoly that I haven't touched for decades.
So many great games now, why would you waste two hrs on Monopoly? I'd rather be playing something from FFG, Rio Grande, Plaid Hat or AEG just to name a few.
My biggest beef with Monopoly is that there comes a point when you know with near certainty who will win, it just takes a lot of time to get there. So you have to painfully keep playing while that person slowly grows richer and richer.
I was wondering...if we could recreate Monopoly from scratch using modern board games mechanics...how would it play?
Claudio Villa off the top of my head...
Get rid of rolling and moving. Give people a larger (maybe complete?) selection of properties to buy. Give people a larger (maybe complete) selection of where they live - and therefore who they pay rent to. More expensive properties would have to give solve kind of advantage over cheap ones. Likewise with upgraded properties. In theory, everyone could gradually get richer (in property of not cash) throughout the game, but the richest would be the winner.
I played Monopoly many, Many times as a kid and I don’t think we ever played a game to completion. Once all of the properties were purchased, the game got boring and we would end up outside playing baseball or basketball.
Sometimes you already know you Will lose when you've played 30 minutes but you get eliminated 2 hours later. It is so boring when you just feed the other players and don't have any hope.
Without Monopoly, most of you would not be playing boardgames today!
True. But that doesn't make it good.
Not true, risk is where I started, though that game had problems of it's own, and if you're going for a historical approach, chess, go, backgammon, etc. have been around a lot longer. I suspect that even when monopoly was first made, it was not a good game by the standards of the time.
Monopoly can be appreciated because it laid a foundation on which the boardgames of today are built. Cheaply made renditions of the game do it a great disservice.
The only reason I like Monopoly is because it was intentionally created with flawed game rules to highlight the awful problems with capitalism. So I appreciate it for its social commentary. The entire game was designed to make a point and was never really intended to be enjoyed.
How would you improve it? maybe have a mechanic similar to Scythe where you gain rent from your props every turn, but you cant gain from a prop you chose last turn.
if you land on your own prop you gain a bonus,
If you own two or more Rails, you can move between them if you begin your turn on them, or pay the owner of the two to move between them.
Taking inspiration from real TTGs, those are just a few ideas.
First and foremost, the biggest problem with Monopoly is the ending condition.
(1). There's no way to force the end of the game because you are dependent on other people running out of money.
(2). If you are eliminated, you have nothing to do while the others play on.
Both of these can be addressed by creating an alternate ending condition other than eliminating all the other players. Here are 3 possibilities:
(a). When one player is eliminated, whoever is the richest wins. This keeps the feel of the game while still shortening it significantly and removing the player-elimination stigma.
(b). Limit the game length by some means. For instance, each time someone passes go you draw a card from an event deck and somewhere near the bottom is a card that ends the game.
(c). Use a catan style VP counter. One possibility is to have a pile of "Luxury items" that can be purchased for points. The earlier you buy them, the more efficient they are, but you might need that money for trades. First to reach a certain point threshold wins.
There are other problems, but any of these would make the game 10 times better.
My dad used to set the kitchen timer and we would count our money and property after a certain amount of time. Highest total won. We hardly ever played more than 45 minutes. So, while I’m not a huge fan, everlasting games didn’t happen for us.
As a kid I loved making my own versions of Monopoly.
You should check out Fortune Street on the Wii. It has taken the spirit of Monopoly and improved it immensely! I've had so many great games with my group.
Player elimination: gone, or at least causes the game to end.
Time: the game does eventually end. Even if nobody goes bankrupt, you win by reaching a certain amount and getting to the bank (start) with that amount.
Luck: there, but diminished. No need to trade for a full set. You can develop your properties easily. You can just make them better with more in the set.
I know it's a video game, but I think it would be of great interest on your channel.
Tom - it's not fine that people like monopoly. Anyone who does needs a strong talking too. Or be introduced to Settlers of Catan.
I played Monopoly probably once, went straight to jail, missed the returning-to-starting-point bonus and lost the game. And that’s probably the last Monopoly I’ll ever play
1. Expensive components don't necessary translates into better gaming experience.
2. A game does not need to be new or super complex to be fun.
3. Kids love the small money, they love holding it and the simple cards make it easy to read and play.
Fun fact, in our Game Days people ALWAYS ask for Monopoly spots.
So I guess that Tom is right and the Universe is wrong? LOL
1. True enough, but he didn't say they _necessarily_ do, only that he didn't like the cheap components. I don't like cheap components either. Some people won't care, but some people definitely do.
2. He didn't say the game was not fun because it was old or not complex enough. He criticized the high impact of random die rolls, the spaces that don't do anything, the limited trading, and the early elimination of players.
3. He acknowledged that kids might like it and that he did when he was a kid. Kids would still love money that's printed on both sides, cards that don't get dog-eared from sharp corners, and cards with color on them.
He also said that if you like the game, that's fine, more power to you, play it and enjoy it. How does your game group equal the universe?
Here here!! 👍👍
Mom, Mister Vasel is one of his moods, again!
I wish more people rant like you Tom, objectively.
The complaints about the components were cringey. I play board games a lot, so even games that have higher quality cards than Monopoly still get ruined quickly. I dont care about keeping a game pristine, or using sleeves for board game cards. So it's not a problem to me. The paper money is fine. My game money isn't perfectly straight, but neither are my dollar bills (which sucks on vending machines).
The one complaint I highly agree with is trading, or rather refusing to trade. The game slows down a lot and people are going around the board without much happening.
Edit: The monopoly car tin edition board and components are much better quality and look prettier.
Too Long + Too Random + Player Elimination = Ameritrash. Monopoly and Risk which has all the same problems were what the term was invented for.
I think the simplest fix to Monopoly would just be to auction all un owned property that is landed on, and if nothing is landed on auction the lowest value unowned property, this would cut an hour off the game easily while greatly increasing the amount of player interaction and strategy.
After three minutes I realized this is the best board game review ever. Ever! Also, KevyB wants to argue about Pluto.
Well to be fair you can make a lot of the same criticisms about Settlers of Catan.
- Components: Well they're mediocre for a $50 game. It's better quality than Monopoly or Sorry!, but you expect better quality for the price.
- Gameplay: It's roll and see if you get resources. Yeah, there is trading but it's the usual "hey I have wood, do you have stone?" and getting shot down.
- Decision making: The only things that matter is what cards you got from dice rolls. Can I build a road? No. Can I build a settlement? No. Can I build a city? No. Can I get a development card? No. Does anyone want to trade with me? No. OK, next person.
- Early elimination: Well I got cut off in the initial placement and I have no places to go and no places where I can get good resources. The game is over before we even get to the first dice roll. Now I have to sit through an entire 2 hour game knowing that I'll max out at 4-6 victory points and there is absolutely nothing I can do.
So it's really a matter of attitude and perspective if you ask me.
Wayyyyyyyyyyyy over priced game for supposed 'quality of components'
I'm a game-lover who rarely gets to play with others, and something that drives me nuts is my nephew, who has just turned 12. He has just won his first ever spelling bee, and has been made Dux of his school. He is extremely intelligent. He also has an interest in board games, but his gaming experience is Monopoly, along with similar types (he even asked for Operation for his birthday recently - it almost broke my heart, and it wasn't that long ago that he was still playing Snakes And Ladders!).
A problem is, neither of his parents are interested in the hobby (his mother/my sister hates anything like that), so they don't really know much else about it. I did actually try introducing him to a few others when he was younger, like Carcassonne, and he showed some interest, but that's gone. Now it's just mainstream games, and he turns his nose up at anything else.
Then again, he's not a very good loser (like his mother), so maybe it's for the best.
This is cathartic for me. I tried to play Anti-Monopoly a while ago because I got it for free and my mom wanted to play it since we thought it might be a fun different take on Monopoly, and it was just suffering, even worse than actual Monopoly.
Even when I only knew about monopoly, checkers and chess I thought it was boring and luck based. We fixed the player elimination by only playing two players when someone is out of money the game was over.
I'll only play the game if it's more realistic and I get to start as a trust-fund baby. I then start with all the $500 bills, three get out of jail free cards, and both Boardwalk and Park Place with hotels.
I think people forget that Monopoly was never supposed to be a "fun" game. It was originally called "The Landlord's Game" and it was intended to show the horrors/problems of greed, capitalism, and monopolistic ownership.
I liked Monopoly as a kid, so I have fond memories of it. We also played by the rules, so that may have helped. heh The game has plenty of flaws and games have easily surpassed it, so I haven't played it again in ages, but I still keep a copy in my collection... I guess out of nostalgia. It's also from the 50s, so it is probably the oldest game in my collection too. lol Monopoly holds an important spot in board gaming history, but it definitely is long in the tooth. I don't hate it, but I also don't desire playing it any longer... not now that we have so much better games available to us. ;-) It's an artifact of the times.
I remember I loved Monopoly. Best game ever, I thought. Now I have around 60 games in my collection. All great games in my opinion for the most part. Good board games have spoiled me, and now I really cannot stand Monopoly.