Monopoly

This article is about something that is considered by the overpowering majority of /tg/ to be fail. Expect huge amounts of derp and rage, punctuated by /tg/ extracting humor from it.

It fucking sucks. While it may suck a bag of dog shit, it is (after Chess and Go) the most popular tabletop game ever made. Go figure.

It was originally an adaptation of an obscure game known as "The Landlord's Game," which was intended as an educational tool to illustrate the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies, and explain the benefits of the single tax theory of Henry George. However, since "The Landlord's Game" was made by a woman, who was also a Quaker, nobody gave a shit, which was why Charles Darrow was able to modify the original game and sold it off as his own original creation. Also, he chopped out half of the game, namely, the second half where everyone loses all their money and an Important Lesson is learned about capitalism. Which is why it sucks. Imagine if 40k didn't have a turn limit, and you just played until the opponent was tabled, and both of you got two free units every turn (Isn't that just apocalypse though?). As an historical aside, Mr. Monopoly is an amalgam of William Randolph Hurst (the newspaper billionaire who owned most of congress and started a war) and Samuel Insull (the fellow who monitized electricity).

How to play Monopoly

1. Go around for 3 hours
2. Land on Mayfair with someone else's hotel on it (Boardwalk if you're an Americanfag)Jealous much!
3. Flip the board
4. ????
5. Profit!

No, really?

Yah rly. The winning condition is "when everyone is broke except for one player." Aside from how "last man standing" boardgames suck, it's possible to play a game that never ends. Try this: get one of the Monopoly computer games, tell it to play with 4 computer players and 0 human players. Put it on 'fast', and come back in a few hours. All four players will have hundreds of thousands of dollars each, with no signs of anyone "losing."

The only way to win is to convince one of your fellow players to do something stupid, like sell you a property you need to complete a set.

This game takes forever. No, I am not kidding you. You, the person who wanted to play the game, will be the only one left after 5 hours of straight gameplay who still wants to play. Everyone else will have lost patience, fallen asleep, run out of snacks, died of old age, or some unholy combination of any or all of the previous four. I seriously played one game of Monopoly for THREE MONTHS with my grandmother. My grandfather left after the first three weeks. I have no idea who won. In that time, I probably could have made a pretty awesome character in ANY RPG SYSTEM (yes, even Rolemaster), and have had four or more truly memorable moments in a campaign.

Most modern iterations of the rules focus on either the game ending when the *first* player becomes bankrupt, or for an arbitrary value of cash and property to be reached. Either vastly speeds the game.

Monopoly license everything...

It is no small joke that Monopoly have made a version of itself to cover just about everything under the sun. You're into normal vanilla monopoly? Get lost, there is way too many weird and wacky flavors to take, although you may get sick after having them.

Here is a concise list of some of the different kinds of monopoly available: Batman and Robin; Beatles; the Big Bang Theory; Bob's Burgers; Cthulhu; Deadpool; Despicable Me; Disney Princesses; Disney Theme Parks; Doctor Who; Dot-Com (where the properties are all Internet companies like Google); Dragonball Z; Dr. Who; Dublin (the actual city); Fallout; F.R.I.E.N.D.S.; Game of Thrones; Gay; Ghostbusters; the Golden Girls; Guardians of the Galaxy; Halo; Harry Potter; Lego; the Lord of the Rings; National Parks (like Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon and shit); the Nightmare before Christmas; Nintendo (which is not to be confused with the individual Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon versions of Monopoly); Northampton (the city, seriously); Pirates of the Caribbean; Pokemon; Powerpuff Girls; Royal Family; Simpsons; Spongebob Squarepants; Star Wars; Star Wars Limited Collector's 20th Anniversary Edition; Star Wars Episode 1 Edition; Star Wars Classic Trilogy Edition; Star Wars Original Trilogy Edition (apparently there is a difference between the "classic" trilogy and the "original" trilogy); Star Wars the Clone Wars; Star Wars 40th Anniversary Special Edition; Star Wars with a goddamn Rubik's Cube because that makes a fuckton of sense; Stranger Things; Street Fighter; Super Mario Bros; Supernatural; Toy Story; The Walking Dead; 2010 Fifa World Cup South African edition; CHEATERS EDITION; Guildford (the town in Surrey); Yu-Gi-Oh; and Zelda.

And Twilight. GOOOOODDAAAAAMMMMNNNNNN.

You think the above list is a joke? Then my dear friends you will truly weep, when you discover each one is very, very real... even Gay Monopoly, though it wasn't actually made by Parker Brothers, who sued its creators out of existence back in the '80s for intellectual property infringement.

P.S. Just in case you weren't depressed enough; every single version of Monopoly is literally exactly the same from a rules perspective. Every property and card gets renamed, but the functional rules of the game don't change at all. (Not true with Lord of the Rings Monopoly, Pokemon, and at least a few of the fifty or sixty Star Wars editions)

/tg/-Approved House Rules

Not to be set back by the monotony of Monopoly, /tg/ has, after a period of discussion, decided that the following rules can potentially make a game of Monopoly strategic and more fun.

1. Landing on an unowned property incurs an Auction, not a sale. (See below.)
   1. Bidding can start either at $1 or the value of the property, with the former allowing cheap purchases and the latter ensuring that all properties will sell at or above their face value.
2. A completed color group is not required to purchase improvements on a property, with the exception of Hotels.
   1. Properties don't collect rent until there is a house on it. Not only does this remove the insanity of paying rent for an empty lot, it makes the utility actual useful, at least in the early game, as those will always be able to collect money.

Monopoly for Millennials

"Forget Real Eastate - You can't afford it anyway."

Instead you win with the most Experience Tokens, which conveniently look like social media upvotes (and downvotes >:D ).

The only thing funnier than the game is the meltdown it caused on the internet.

The Rule Nobody Uses

BREAKING NEWS This speeds up the game, and makes it possible to complete sets without some player doing something self-destructively stupid, and it's already in the rules but nobody uses it!

If you do not wish to buy the property, the Banker sells it at auction to the highest bidder. The buyer pays the Bank the amount of the bid in cash and receives the Title Deed card for that property. Any player, including the one who declined the option to buy it at the printed price, may bid. Bidding may start at any price.

It's right there in black and white. Hasbro Official Rules

The board gets sold off fast and everybody gets a weird portfolio of random properties, both of which make Metanopoly (see below) more fun and brutal. Note there are plenty of other often-missed rules (no extra houses, no P2P loans, no Free Parking jackpots) that speed the game up, too.

Special Rules to Make It Fun

Illuminopoly

Fixes Monopoly by replacing it with a different property-management game built around the shell-company mechanic from Illuminati. You're acquiring property... so you can modulate the house wiring and put fluoride in the water and control people's MINDS. (fnord)

Solarquest

This improves the game by replacing it entirely with a different roll-and-move real estate game.

• Solarquest at BoardGameGeek

Fortune Street

A vidya version of Monopoly that manages to be a much better game, in the same vein as Solarquest, by replacing it with a better roll-and-move real estate game with more choices and more finance.

• Fortune Street at Wikipedia

#OccupyBoardwalk

For the anti-American commies who are protesting on Wall Street, you can play the game as the 1%.

Powers for each of the pieces

• Wheelbarrow: Move an additional spaces equal to your lowest die; gain an additional 25 dollars when passing Go.
• Battleship: You may fire at any piece directly opposite the Battleship, sending them back to Go. They do not gain money from passing Go.
• Money Bag: Gain $300 when passing Go.
• Horseman: Move an additional spaces equal to your lowest die; when the Horseman lands on an occupied space, the Horseman can choose to send all other pieces back five squares or to the Horseman's nearest property, whichever is closer; when sending a piece back to his property, the Horseman must accompany them.
• Automobile: Move twice the number of spaces shown on the die.
• Locomotive: All railroads cost half as much; when rolling a double and not in jail, the Locomotive can move to any owned railroads instead.
• ̶T̶h̶i̶m̶b̶l̶e̶:̶ ̶W̶o̶w̶,̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶,̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶a̶g̶g̶o̶t̶?̶ ̶S̶t̶a̶r̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶h̶a̶l̶f̶ ̶m̶o̶n̶e̶y̶.̶ ̶J̶e̶e̶z̶.̶ While everyone else is arguing over the popular pieces, take an extra 500$ from the bank. Lie if asked about it. You also get to mock the other players mercilessly if you win. "Who's the fag now?"
• Loom: Pay half as much when renting; mortgages pay 20% more.
• Shoe: Same as Horseman.
• Dog: The Dog may take the roll of the previous player instead of rolling their own die.
• ̶I̶r̶o̶n̶:̶ ̶S̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶T̶h̶i̶m̶b̶l̶e̶,̶ ̶Q̶u̶e̶e̶r̶ ̶E̶y̶e̶.̶ Oops, got removed. Congrats on being retro, I guess. Or you just didn't care enough to buy a new set. Probably that.
• Hat: Same as Money Bag; Hats are classy.
• Cat: Ignore the first time you have to pay rent after passing Go because half the neighbourhood feeds you.

• Bike: Same as Automobile
• Hashtag: Smear Campaign! Same rules as Battleship.
• Laughing and Crying Emoji: You start with a Get Out Of Jail card.
• Monopoly Man Emoji: Same as Money Bag.
• Sunglasses: Anonymous: Ignore the first time another player attacks you with a card.
• Camera: Photographic Evidence: Double the Experience Tokens when you are the First to visit a location.

Metanopoly

AKA how many ways can you get your opponents to derp. Use underhanded meta-game tactics to win, and none of it is "technically" illegal. Haggle, brown-nose, backstab, and generally play pre-WW1 European politics. Barter for everything, trick people with word games, do whatever you can to be the nastiest SPAH in a game full of SPAHS. Works well with 7+ players, and is great fun against that one crafty uncle who shows up at family reunions. You know, for a game of Monopoly. Goes shorter than most games because everyone either gets curb-stomped by one guy, calls everyone else a cheater, or gets so enraged that the game turns into a bar fight and you must use your Weeaboo Fightan Magic to escape unscathed.

Waropoly 40,000

In the grim darkness of the future, there is only passing Go...

In other news, GW has just announced an official Warhammer 40k Monopoly game. Until that comes out, just use the above board. It'll be basically the same thing.

Touhopoly

In the grim future of Gensokyo, the Pentex corporation controls 98% of the habitable land.

Settleropoly and Talismanopoly

Shoot the guy who suggested playing Monopoly and go play Settlers of Catan instead.

Or, if you must play Ameritrash, go play Talisman, which is at least interminable in a way that can still provide somewhat interesting decisions for all players 30 turns in.

Board Games
Classics:	Backgammon - Chess - Go - Tafl - Tic-Tac-Toe
Ameritrash:	Arkham Horror - Axis & Allies - Battleship - Betrayal at House on the Hill - Car Wars Clue/Cluedo - Cosmic Encounter - Descent: Journeys in the Dark - Dungeon! Firefly: The Game - HeroQuest - Monopoly - Mousetrap - Snakes and Ladders - Risk Talisman - Trivial Pursuit
Eurogames:	Agricola - Carcassonne - The Duke - Settlers of Catan - Small World - Stratego - Ticket to Ride
Pure Evil:	Diplomacy - Dune (aka Rex: Final Days of an Empire) - Monopoly - The Duke
Others:	Icehouse - Shadow Hunters - Twilight Imperium - Wingspan