Monopoly "rule" question

[ekweizn]

@RickJay

When you and your friends and family step to the table to play Monopoly, there is an implicit agreement that the bonds that tie you together, the history and love and relationships that brought together the players in the first place, must be forgotten. Monopoly is a game of utterly ruthless competition, where your enemies must not just be dominated, but destroyed, and not just destroyed, but destroyed with a hideous enthusiasm. The true Monopoly player may be a kind and generous person in all other facets of life, but when the money is distributed and the dice rolled, your heart must be as coal, and your will as iron. You must not only set aside all that is decent in your soul, but just use your brain to outwit your enemies and plan their complete and utter destruction and humiliation.

That is Monopoly.

Coming soon to a theater near you

[BigT]

@Rilchiam

I include the mortgage value of assets. Did NES require that?

I would assume so, but I always wound up paying more than $200 after about a quarter through the game. And this is with it being nigh impossible to get a natural monopoly, and computer players who refuse to trade except for when the trade would set them up for a win.

Oh, while the game was shorter, it also sucked a lot more, even with human players. One player always wins handily, meaning there is no competition for the entire last third of the game.

[kaylasdad99]

@Skammer

I can understand people not playing with the Auction rule because it sounds too complicated or whatever (it’s really not) – but how could you have never HEARD of the rule? Don’t people read the rules of a game before they start playing?

I learned by playing with my older brothers, parents and friends. I’d been playing for several years before I ever picked up the rules and tried to read them.

Notice I said “TRIED.” Those things were so dry, wordy and small-printed that I gave up before I got halfway through. And I’m the one in the family who had the reputation for reading ANY printed matter I could get my hands on, including the stock market listings in the daily newspaper (which I also couldn’t understand, FWIW).

So what’s this about an “auction” rule?

[kaylasdad99]

@Scuba_Ben

Not a rules issue, but an observation. Mexican stand-offs happen, especially among reasonably good players. It takes some awesome negotiating skills to make the game’s One Big Trade and unblock the stand-off, and even more so to make sure YOU come out on top. In fact, making the One Big Trade and gaining an advantage is THE central element of Monopoly. If it weren’t for the trading, the entire game would be a matter of luck.

I’m OK with that. I hate negotiating (even IRL), and I’ll never participate in a trade of any sort (when playing Monopoly, that is; I’m grown-up enough to realize that when I’m backed into a corner by real-life circumstances, I can’t always get out of negotiating). And I hate it when the people I’m playing against go ahead and do it among themselves.

Let me be clear that I never interfere with trading, and I’m never vocal with my disdain for the practice.

[divemaster]

@kaylasdad99

So what’s this about an “auction” rule?

If a player lands on an available property and chooses not to buy it, the bank immediately puts the property up for auction. Any player in the game, including the person who landed on the property, can bid in an open auction format. The person willing to place the highest bid pays that amount to the bank and receives the property deed.

I can’t imagine playing the game *without *this rule. It makes for fun times when someone just HAS to get that third deed for a color group, and someone else is just as determined to keep it from him.

[notquitekarpov]

Monopoly sucks. Trust me as a BoardGameGeek.com regular - it sucks.

But it sucks slightly less if folk:

1. Play that every property landed on enters play - you must auction. Cash is king.
2. Never play any house rule that keeps money in the game let alone introduces more money into the game. So no Free Parking moneybags rules etc.
3. Trading properties is to be encouraged - it is about the only skill point in the game.

If you stick to the actual printed rules it plays best and lasts the least time.

Oh and if you are wondering why it sucks? The skill factor is low, it goes on too long even playing properly and there is a lot of dead time for players knocked out early.

[RTFirefly]

@Garfield226

There’s also that they don’t allow it in tournament play.

It seems that all legal interaction between two players in Monopoly is for one-time deals, no future considerations. I believe this is because there’s no in-game mechanism to enforce a player’s action or inaction in the future. In other words, once a suitable trade is found, it’s executed and the deal is done. Any other kind of deal requires some ongoing consideration with no in-the-rules way to enforce it.

Which absolutely makes sense in tournament play, where you’re playing with strangers who can’t just walk away from the game if you welsh on a deal.

In any other context, though, the ability of a disgruntled player to say, “screw you, I’m quitting,” enforces compliance pretty well. It’s no fun to win if you do so by setting off a chain reaction where everyone else gets up and leaves.

[RTFirefly]

@Garfield226

But physically play fast or slow, get rid of those house rules and you have a relatively speedy game. I’d bet that if you could simulate games with reasonable trades, those without house rules would finish on average a lot sooner (20-50-100? rolls) than those with house rules.

Back when I used to play a lot at summer camp, we had one house rule that sped games up and (IMHO at the time) made the games more interesting: unlimited hotels.

IOW, instead of maxing out with one hotel on a property, you could have two or five or a dozen hotels there if you had the monopoly and the money. Connecticut Avenue with five hotels would charge $3000 in rent. - take that, Boardwalk! Like most patzers, we blithely ignored rules about being limited by the physical house/hotel stock in the box.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@RTFirefly

Which absolutely makes sense in tournament play, where you’re playing with strangers who can’t just walk away from the game if you welsh on a deal.

In any other context, though, the ability of a disgruntled player to say, “screw you, I’m quitting,” enforces compliance pretty well. It’s no fun to win if you do so by setting off a chain reaction where everyone else gets up and leaves.

I have a standing rule, which is this: you can double-cross me in a deal in a game once. Once. After that, I make no more deals with you ever. I love wheeling and dealing in games, and I like it to be honorable: it’s just more fun for me that way.

Finding weird loopholes in our agreements is fine. If you can screw me in a way that doesn’t violate the letter of the agreement but shits all over the spirit, I’ll hold the move in awed appreciation even as I curse your soul to damnation. But violate the letter, and no more deals in any game.

[Meeko]

@BigT

I thought you had to include assets. I’m pretty sure that’s what the NES version did.

Incidentally, am I the only one who never played it with auctions? That was my biggest surprise when I rented the NES version.

Half came in here expecting the entire discussion to be over Auction.

Totally, completely surprised with the fact that Auction is in the game to begin with. I would wager to say that, given the rules as typed… Auction is the first, and most popular thing to go.

But yeah, in the endgame, forcing the auction just so you can get any property for 6 bucks, well worth it.