How do we feel about the changes to Monopoly?

The Game Room
1

My kids are now old enough to play Monopoly. We started playing a month or so ago with a game I bought a few years ago, but never opened. There have been a few changes since last I played. Today I was looking in the game section at Target and noticed the latest version has a few more changes.

These are changes to the basic Monopoly game, not one of the many variants out there.

The first, is the speed die. This was the only big change in the version I have. It is a third die, blue in color, with either a 1, 2, 3, Bus, or Mr. Monopoly on it. You only use it after you pass Go he first time. This what it does:
[ul]
[li]1, 2, or 3: Add to total value of dice. If you get three dice with the same number, move to any spot on the board.[/li][li]Bus: You can choose between moving the value of both white dice, or just one (e.g. if you role a 4 and 3, you can move 3 spaces, 4 spaces, or 7 spaces).[/li][li]Mr. Monopoly: After you move your piece the numer on the white dice and perform any actions avaialbe or required there (drawaing cards, buying property, paying taxes or rent), move to the next unowned property, or if all properties are owned, to the next property owned by someone else.[/li][/ul]

This really does move the game along faster. If you play with the speed die, you are also supposed to give each player an extra 1000. The properties get purchased a lot faster, as you can end up buying two properties in one turn. It also hurries the end game as it is possible to land on two hotels in one turn.

With the speed die, I don’t think we have had a game last 3 hours of play. More like 1.5 to 2 at most. This has made it a lot more practical to play as we usually only have an hour or so free to sit down together and play.

The version I saw in the store, had a more cosmetic change visible in that the properties in the picture no longer had dollar values. Instead of a dollar sign, they had an M with two lines through it. I guess this is to let them make one international version?

I also so an interesting version that uses electronic banking with cards and more realistic prices. Passing Go was 2Million. Board walk was 4Million. I am not sure how well the bank worked, but if don’t have to deal with keeping all the bills in neat piles, that sound good to me.

Anyone played the new versions? Better, worse, or just ignore?

2

Interesting - I haven’t seen or heard about that. I will say though, that if your games of regular Monopoly are going 3 hours, stop a) putting money on Free Parking and b) start using the auction mechanism described in the original rules.

3

Or, I could stop playing with a six and nine year old*. We have never put money on free parking and rarely does the auction option come up.

*And before anyone asks, they are quite good at Monopoly. Both are good at math and really competitive, to the point that it usually their mother who gets washed out first, and both have won the whole thing. Being kids, they are easily distracted, though.

4

That’s fair. :slight_smile: I bet in that situation, having that speed boost of the 3rd dice is a great change of pace.

5

I remember playing it as a kid. A very long time ago. The length of the game was never a problem. We didn’t have electronic games to distract us. Or make us wish we were somewhere else.

I can see the desire to shorten the game is probably necessary in today’s world.

6

Hee, my it’s-complicated girlfriend played Monopoly ALL DAY with her eight-year-old daughter today, who kept artificially lengthening the game by bailing her mother out on the two or three occasions she got bankrupted.

7

Curious. And don’t want to threadshit, but what is an “it’s-complicated girlfriend”?

8

Well I’m old and even when I was a kid Monopoly was infamous for taking forever. The only game that took longer was Risk (and when I was a little older, Axis and Allies)

9

There is a rule that most players ignore. Honestly, I have never seen it used in any game of monopoly I have ever played. The rule says that when a player lands on a property and does not buy it, that property is auctioned off by the bank to the highest bidder. I bet a game would be somewhat quicker if this rule was used.

10

We always played that way. The only thing I just recently noticed was that you don’t have to star the bidding at the list price.

What really kept games going, in my opinion, was getting money for landing on Free Parking.

11

We didn’t use that rule when we were little, but by the time we got to our teens, we used it and played Monopoly “by the book,” which really made it a better and more strategic game than what we were playing as kids (which included all sorts of house rules like Free Parking, double salary if you land on Go, and who knows what else.)

12

Monopoly’s not supposed to be fast, it’s one of those games you play when you have a lot of time and nothing better to do. It’s a game that should end not when someone fulfills the stated goal of bankrupting everyone else, but rather a game that one wins by being the last person who doesn’t have to stop playing to go home/to bed/to do something else, etc.

Someone get O’reilly on this, stat.

13

My daughter was telling the new game doesn’t take as long to play now and it’s easier for kids to play they get too bored with the old game. I like the old game better but no one has the time to play it anymore.

14

Truth be told, as popular as it is - and I like Monopoly - it’s not a very well designed game in terms of gameplay, and even for adults it can run way too long. It’s a visually interesting game that has neat parts and cards and stuff, but as a game it’s ill advised in a lot of ways;

  1. It can take too long to play,
  2. It eliminates players as a means of determining victory, as a result of which some people are left with nothing to do while others play, potentially for a long time, and
  3. It has essentially no strategy to it at all if you play absolutely by the book. It’s just the luck of the dice.

The rule changes as described in the OP solve at least problem 1 and add a little strategy with regards to problem 3.

15

In fairness, it is a much faster game if you play by the printed rules but almost no one does. Taking away the auctions and adding the Free parking bonus (two things almost everyone who plays does) are the main culprits in extending the game.

16

He doesn’t have a girlfriend, he just knows a girl who would be very angry to hear him say that.

17

So, for the people who play with the auction rule, how do you do it? Since there is no minimum bid, do you just start bidding at $1 for every property someone lands on and doesn’t buy? It seems like low-balling the initial bid and everybody bidding just a little more than the previous person until someone finally buys it would drag the game out, not make it go faster.

18

I also played it as a kid, a very long time ago, when the pace of life was slower.
And even then, we re-named it “Monotony”.
I don’t think we ever actually played an entire game to the finish.

But the playing pieces were neat. You could balance the little Scotty dog on its nose with its rear feet in the air. :slight_smile:

19

Yes, the bidding can start at $1.
Usually only a couple of players are interested in the property and the bidding soon reaches a reasonable price.

The game speeds up considerably with this rule because the properties are bought faster; sets are made; houses bought and bankruptcies follow.

20

Just play the way The Master plays. Use the Jean-Paul Sartre piece (comes with blank dice and it’s up to you to decide how far you want to go) and the Nostradamus piece (you just sit around and guess who’s going to win).