Count me in as one of the ones SAYING “It’s not in the rule book”.
I’m of the opinion that people who play with that rule rarely finish games because it destroys the financial advantages (or disadvantages) that are necessary to end the game in a reasonable amount of time.
Yeah, I’m a slum lord, and don’t want you getting any of that “government assistance”. 
Our nuclear rule for Risk was that you could use a card at the start of your turn. It would wipe out all armies except one in the territory on the card (and no fallout). The payback was that any player who had a nuclear card used against him could retaliate by launching a nuclear card of his own (and it didn’t have to be against the player who attacked him). And the victim of that card could retaliate in turn and so on. Nuclear wars tended to go on until people had run out of useful cards and would wipe out a lot of armies. But if you managed to stay out of a nuclear war, you’d usually be the most powerful player on the board afterwards.
I know this is in the rules for two player games, but we always play Risk assigning the initial countries by cards, no matter how many players. It makes for a more interesting and varied game, since the same people don’t always go after the same continents.
We drop the auction rule for Monopoly, since it takes longer for all properties to be bought up that way. I’ve never even heard of the rent money to Free Parking rule - that kind of sucks for the person who has hotels, doesn’t it?
It’s not rent money to my experience – it’s Income and Luxury Taxes, and money paid due to Community Chest/Chance cards. Also, it was common for us to plop a $500 bill down in the middle of the board to “prime” Free Parking at the beginnings of games or whenever somebody just won the jackpot.
I’m not sure if **Least Original User Name Ever ** meant rent money went into the center or not 
In Chrononauts, which is a pretty cool game, by the way, we play with one “whine” permitted. If a player doesn’t like either the Character or the Mission that he’s dealt, we deal him a new one.
I always like to play Squa Tront, the highly-evolved cockroach from an alternate future (the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated into all-out nuclear war).
I recently played a round of Apples to Apples with an extra drinking component - the selector chose not only the best card, but the worst card, and whoever throw it in had to drink. A fine rule.
When I used to play scrabble with some old roomates back in the day, we would score double points for band names.
Ooh, we use a lot of AtA house-rules. Or, rather, one big one: the judge for the round can choose any criterion he or she wants One of my favorites is the “best explanation” one: it doesn’t matter how good the card you throw in is inherently good or not, as long as your explanation rocks.
Daniel
Yeah, that’s the way I remember it, too. Rent money went to the bank – but the tax spaces (income and luxury) and things paid from the cards were what went into the middle for “Free Parking”.
Allies and Axis: Transports can take two infantry units AND either a tank or an AA gun.
Also, you can pay extra IPC’s when building an industrial complex to use it immediately (well, at the end of your turn), instead of having to wait. Also, along the same line, you can pay double and have an AA gun placed down at the same time the IC is put down.
I also play by the optional ‘paratrooper’ rules (where you can use bombers as transports for paratroopers)…and a few times I’ve also use the optional destroyer rules (where you can have destroyers as an anti-sub ship type…I think in newer versions of the game this is actually a regular rule with destroyer pieces provided).
I played with one fellow who allowed you to directly buy a random technology (you had to roll the dice to determine which one you got) for 100 IPC’s (instead of having to take the risk on rolling a 6), but not many people took advantage of it even so.
-XT
I think the current edition has as standard rules a version of both of these: A transport can take 1 infantry and 1 armor or artillery (a new ground combat unit); when you buy tech rolls you choose which technology to research.
In the early days of Magic: The Gathering, my friends and I played informal group games during school breaks and lunches. To speed things along, we could play all the lands in our hands on the first turn. Normally you can only play one land per turn. Nobody was skilled enough at the time to exploit it, though.
Re: Monopoly, doesn’t rent go to the property owner?
We play Risk the same way, here. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone play by the “auction” rule in Monopoly. (For those that don’t know, the auction rule states that after a player lands on a property, but chooses not to buy it, it gets auctioned off till someone else buys it.)
The one I remember is winning “Radiant” with “Madame Curie”.
Yes, once. I don’t like it, as I’m a Scrabble purist, but my opponent was visiting me after I’d had some surgery, had brought me expensive soup and other goodies, and is pretty and sweet. So I didn’t complain.
Did anyone else think this was going to be an alternate rule where you could collect $200 in rent from only 3 railroads?
Brilliant!
Daniel
Slighty more than a third of the time the winning card when my group plays A2A is an “opposite but funny” card, edging out “correctly descriptive” and “funny because it’s sorta true” cards. With an occasional “surreally funny” pick.
Which brings us to our groups house rule: pick a random Red Apple from the pile and add it to the stack. If the Decider picks it, the “House” (i.e. no one) wins. The House has come dangerously close to winning through its surrealicious picks!
Does Apples to Apples normally have guidelines for judging? The way we play, each judge can use whatever the hell criteria they want, and the rest of us have to figure out if they usually go for literal, metaphoric, or goofy connections, and adjust our play technique accordingly.
However, “pirates” always wins. Always.
I don’t remember if “pirates” always wins in our group, but “flying monkeys” always does. Even against pirates.