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January 11, 2006

Yeah but it still sucks

Boing Boing reports on a web site filled with variant Monopoly rules. They go far beyond the free parking bonuses I grew up with. Some look interesting, although little to shake my feeling that the board game is a miserable and boring time waster where you turn friends into enemies by bankrupting them.

This cool Monopoly website has tons of information about the odds of landing on squares and the expected value of various playing strategies.

If you are one of the 7 people in the developed world lacking this game, amazon can sell you one cheap. But don't play it, loot it for parts to play a cheapass game.

Posted by OneEyedMan at January 11, 2006 9:16 AM

Comments

I also had a chance to look over those house rules, and a lot of them are absolutely great. I have been playing monopoly with very odd house rules for a while now, though none of the ones that are listed in there. (usually I play with hostle buyout rules and arson rules)

I'm a big fan of board and war games, and I'm very competitive when I play too. I have always wondered why people seem to manage to loose friends over games though. I get as intensely involved in my gaming as anyone who I have ever met, but when the game get's put away it gets put away, and that's the end of it. I have seen people who loose freindships over in-game conflicts, (though mostly with risk, and Warhammer 40k) And I just don't understand why. No one ever lost a freind with streetfighter 2 (well, no one I know) why are board games diffrent.

probably because they actually engage your brain and or leave some things open to interpritiation. I hate to think about the kind of fights that could break out over a game of nomic.

Posted by: giblfiz [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 12, 2006 11:52 AM

I've played a bunch a games with you and I don't consider you highly competitive. Try playing with the blue eyed girl! :)


The major reasons for the conflict you describe is how long the games take and the fact that in many complicated games, the rules are imperfectly understood by the participants. So what one player thinks of as clever play, the other considers cheating, rule mining, or just unfair.

Street fighter has obvious rules, costs a quarter to play, and doesn't allow cheating. Tick tac toe doesn't have cheating for similar reasons.

I don't like games where opponents are gradually eliminated. I play games to spend time with people I like, so gradually knocking them out is against the point. I don't like games that have an expected play time of more than two hours. The best sort of games are strategic, complicated, and fast so many people have a chance to be a winner.

Posted by: TheOneEyedMan [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 12, 2006 4:11 PM

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