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Hellbent

Monopoly!

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Umm... who here likes the game Monopoly? Any stories or any interesting experiences to share? Strategies? Properties you like? Properties you dislike?

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I like the game but haven't played for so long I'd probably have to read the instructions. My favourite strategy was to buy all the railroad stations and/or all the properties along one side of the board. I also kept a close eye on whoever was the banker - most couldn't be trusted not to give themselves the occasional under-the-counter loan, a situation that's made all the worse when it's one of your parents robbing the bank.

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lol.

Commonly overlooked or misconstrued rules to remember are:

1. If you land on a property and decide not to buy it, the property immediately goes up for auction to the highest bidder.

2. You do not need to go around the board once before buying properties.

3. When you pay 10% on Income Tax it is 10% of your net worth, not just the cash you have on hand (so title deed prices and any houses you own.)

4. When you unmortgage a property you pay an additional 10% interest. So to unmortgage Reading Railroad costs $100 + $10 = $110.

5. If you get mortgaged properties from another player either through a trade or because they went bankrupt on you, you have to *immediately* pay 10% on the properties. You then have the choice of immediately unmortgaging the property at no additional interest (so you just pay the mortgage value)--or you can unmortgage it later by paying back the mortgage value plus another 10%.

6. If you own a monopoly of a color group with no houses on it, or the utilities, or a partial monopoly of the RRs, the rent does not drop because other properties in the group are mortgaged. Ie. Shortline RR is mortgaged, but Reading isn't--you still collect $50 on Reading Railroad.

7. Landing on GO, Free Parking or rolling snake eyes does not win you any extra money. Taxes and other fees do not go to the middle. There is no reward for landing on Free Parking.

8. You may not lend money to another player or offer immunity to another player as part of a trade.

9. There is no punishment for being in jail other than having to pay $50 to get out after 3 turns in Jail. While in Jail, you may conduct business as usual. You may make trades, participate in auctions in properties or houses, build or sell houses and collect rent. On the 3rd roll in jail, you move the number rolled on the dice and pay $50.

10. If you roll doubles while in jail, you do not roll again. If you roll doubles and then are sent to jail, you do not roll again.

11. You sell houses back to the bank at half price.

12. You may build as many houses at a time as you are financially able to afford, but you must build up the houses as evenly as possible (no lumping 4 houses on Boardwalk and none on Park Place.)

13. You do not need to land on your property before building houses. It does not need to be your turn in order to buy houses. You may build houses at any time.

14. There are 32 houses and 12 hotels in the game. If there are no more houses or hotels available to buy, you may NOT use other items to build houses. This is known as a housing shortage and is an intentional part of the game rules. If there is a housing shortage and more than one person wishes to buy the remaining houses, they are auctioned off to the highest bidder.

15. Once a property is built up to a hotel, no additional houses or hotels may be added to that property.

16. If the bank runs out of money, you MAY print your own makeshift money or have the rich people in the game give back some of their money to the bank and receive a receipt for their "deposits".

EDIT: 17. The official rules state that when player A lands on your property, you must say "pay up" (or some equivalent) before the second person to the left of player A rolls; NOT when the next person rolls as is commonly believed.

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In economics class in HS there was a monopoly tournament...

7 days, 3 games of Monopoly.

Round 1: personal manopoly. 9 boards, we are each playing on our lonesome. I survived round 1. We did not play til the end.

Round 2: 2 man teams on 3 boards. I survived round 2 with the Russian exchange student who had never played the game before.

Round 3: survivors from each board on round 2 form a team. 3 companies (teams), myself, the Russian, and the towering jock that was on leg medication that made him hyper.

This is where it got interesting... This is where the people who were out in round 2 were spectators, but had money. With it they bought stock. With that in mind, the Russian and I bought all of the stock in 1 company and made a hostile takeover.

Then we were left with we had all the land and no money, while the other remaining company (the stoner and 2 bimbos) had an excessive amount of money. At the end of the week, the teacher said my team would win, because in monopoly land means more than money in the long run.

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My gf got me A Christmas Story Monopoly for christmas. I did not know such a variation existed. I have not opened it yet, but yes one of the pieces is a lamp.

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Mancubus II said:

My gf got me A Christmas Story Monopoly for christmas. I did not know such a variation existed. I have not opened it yet, but yes one of the pieces is a lamp.

Haha.

I myself have the Simpsons version of Monopoly. It's sadly the only board game I own.

I used to have a PC version of monopoly. That was so long ago that it came on like 4-5 floppy disks.

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Hellbent said:

1. If you land on a property and decide not to buy it, the property immediately goes up for auction to the highest bidder.


Is there a reserve on that? It's a rule that I/we have commonly chosen to ignore simply because it could end up something like this:

1. You gonna buy that expensive property?

2. Nah!

1. OK, I'll bid £1

3. Ummm, I bid £2

1. That's me out

3. OK, it's mine for £2 woohoo!


I have 1 traditional set (bought in the 70s some time) 1 star wars set and a travel set. I don't think that I've actually played for, maybe, 10 years or more though.

I knew some of the other rules you mentioned, forgot about others, and didn't know about a few too.

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I used to play it with my brother all the time. It wasnt until I was 13 that I played it at my friends house that my brother an I were playing it all wrong, then I never played it again after that.

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Monopoly is my favourite board game of all time. I love it so much, I made a drinking game based on it. It started with pretty casual rules, but I started adding more shots once people started getting bored before they got drunk:

- Pass GO, take a shot
- Land on another player's property, take a shot
- Land on GO, take two shots
- Land on Free Parking, take two shots
- Go to Jail, take two shots

I went four years undefeated in Monopoly, until I bought the video game adaptation on the Xbox360. I now play more frequently, and lose more often to the AI (often set to Hard) and friends. It's also easier to clean up when drunk.

7. Landing on GO, Free Parking or rolling snake eyes does not win you any extra money. Taxes and other fees do not go to the middle. There is no reward for landing on Free Parking.


Outside of tournament play, I adjust those-- except snake eyes; I haven't even heard of that. Not really a misconception, as long as everyone agrees to it before the game starts. Besides, the rules are pretty broken, unless you're getting at least $250 from landing on Free Parking.

13. You do not need to land on your property before building houses. It does not need to be your turn in order to buy houses. You may build houses at any time.


The video game doesn't let you do this, so I began to think it wasn't true. Glad to know I can still build houses while someone behind them is about to roll... Though 'anytime' implies I could still do it when it's confirmed that they're about to land on one... Can I do that?

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Yes you could, but you couldnt charge them extra rent because their rent/rewards are calculated the moment the dice stop rolling. They roll the dice, they've taken their go. You can put houses there while they're moving their piece to your property but you'd have to wait til the next person landed there to charge the extra rent.

I used to play a fair bit of monopoly, but then my friends all got bored of it. It does take a hell of a long time to play a full game.

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In the last 6 months I have played Monopoly against 2 of my female friends. 1 friend is very competitive while the other wants to play to play. It seems like I cannot lose at all. I am just super lucky when I play against them. Lucky as in I only land on my property and they always land on mine.

The last game I would have destroyed them both in an hour, I had 2 monopolies and we each had 1 property of every other neighborhood. To make things interesting, I sold them each one property so they could make a bargain and we all could have monopolies. I still won.

Its just strange.

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I enjoy the game, although conflict over the rules is always annoying... and there's a few people I absolutely cannot play with because they won't agree with what the book says. That being said, I usually try to get an agreement before the game starts over some of the details that people often change or ignore.

Also I have Anti-Monopoly which looks fun but nobody ever wants to play it without hearing the rules first... it just doesn't work like Monopoly does, so it's annoying when people pass off hearing the rules because they assume it's played just like Monopoly.

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I'm unabashedly a slum lord when it come to Monopoly. My favorite properties are easily the purples (Mediterranean) and the light blue (Oriental) mostly because they form a murderer's row and are incredibly cheap to build on but to own. Also, most of the time, are undesirable and easy to negotiate. In addition, I usually take over the utilities and railroads which gives me a fairly even board. Boardwalk and Park Place? Sucker properties.

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Enjay said:

Is there a reserve on that?

[...]

I have 1 traditional set (bought in the 70s some time) 1 star wars set and a travel set. I don't think that I've actually played for, maybe, 10 years or more though.

There's no reserve. Nothing in the rules says what the bidding must start at or what increments it must commence at (I always play by $10 or $5 increments.) A property can sell for $5 or $1000 (or more.) There are no limits to how little or how much a property can be auctioned for. In the rare event someone goes bankrupt by having to pay some kind of tax (either drawing a mean card or landing on Luxury Tax) the bank immediately auctions all the properties the person owned to the highest bidder.

Could you post pictures of the 70s set (such as the game board?) I'd be curious to see how it differs if at all. What are some of the player tokens in the set?

JohnnyRancid said:

I used to play it with my brother all the time. It wasnt until I was 13 that I played it at my friends house that my brother an I were playing it all wrong, then I never played it again after that.

Awww.. how were you playing it wrong? What didn't you like about the proper rules? I find the game the most fun (the most exciting) when you adhere to all the rules.

Coopersville said:

Monopoly is my favourite board game of all time. I love it so much, I made a drinking game based on it. It started with pretty casual rules, but I started adding more shots once people started getting bored before they got drunk:

- Pass GO, take a shot
- Land on another player's property, take a shot
- Land on GO, take two shots
- Land on Free Parking, take two shots
- Go to Jail, take two shots

[...]

The video game doesn't let you do this, so I began to think it wasn't true. Glad to know I can still build houses while someone behind them is about to roll... Though 'anytime' implies I could still do it when it's confirmed that they're about to land on one... Can I do that?

I recently thought about implementing some drinking rules to Monopoly (it is by far my favorite game of all time too... well, maybe a close second to Doom?) I like the rules you suggested!

About the building houses anytime. The rules don't specify. I guess if you can pay the bank and erect the houses before the next person rolls, then that's fair game. But if you can't, not sure if you are allowed to hold the game from continuing until you're houses are built. I've never played in a tournament (what kind of tournaments have you played in?) but perhaps one way of doing it is, if you declare your desire to build houses--gameplay immediately stops (no one can roll the dice) you can then buy your houses--when you say you're done, gameplay can continue. I play monopoly on Pogo.com, and it's the same thing--you can only conduct transactions and trades on your turn.

I am trying out for the national tournament in Washington D.C. on April 14th. They are making a film documentary of the game, and the filmmakers are sending me a camera to film myself for it (film myself taking a qualifying quiz that I need to pass in order to even have a chance at qualifying for the tournament)
http://monopolydocumentary.com/

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geo said:

In the last 6 months I have played Monopoly against 2 of my female friends. 1 friend is very competitive while the other wants to play to play. It seems like I cannot lose at all. I am just super lucky when I play against them. Lucky as in I only land on my property and they always land on mine.

The last game I would have destroyed them both in an hour, I had 2 monopolies and we each had 1 property of every other neighborhood. To make things interesting, I sold them each one property so they could make a bargain and we all could have monopolies. I still won.

Its just strange.


I often win against my friends (about 75% of the time) but my former roommate is a BRUTAL player and usually beats me, although I got very lucky against him once and won with the dark purples, the railroads and the utils; when he had the light blues and light purples.

I was on a winning streak against my other friends. But one recent game that I just played tonight--I over $1500 in cash and 2 oranges. I offered boardwalk and $500 for the orange (since the other player had hardly any cash) and she still wouldn't do the trade. I ended up giving her boardwalk and $800--had enough to build ten houses on the oranges (12 after mortgaging) but both my friends missed me, and then I rolled snake eyes from oriental ave (so in two turns in a row landed on my other friends hotels on light blues) couldn't recover from that. Shoulda won, was suckered into being overly generous with the trade to get the oranges. Next game came back to clobber them both with the oranges again. What's your favorite monopoly geo?

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Hellbent said:

Awww.. how were you playing it wrong? What didn't you like about the proper rules? I find the game the most fun (the most exciting) when you adhere to all the rules.
[/b]


We generally played the game right, we just kinda bypassed specific rules, like how you can't put houses or hotels on properties until you own the whole avenue, some stuff you can't do until you go around the whole board at least once, some other stuff I can't remember. We used to play where as soon as you bought a property, you could put houses on it assuming you had the money to do it. The initial rules were kinda irritating and made the game so much longer.

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Hellbent said:

Could you post pictures of the 70s set (such as the game board?) I'd be curious to see how it differs if at all. What are some of the player tokens in the set?


I'll have to see if I can find it. I know I have it, I just don't know where it is. Unless you are used to the UK board, however, it will look different. It's the standard UK London board starting in Old Kent Road and finishing in Mayfair. From what I recall, the player tokens include a top hat, an old boot, a small scotty dog and a 1930s style racing car.

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My family has that version (from the 70s or older); at least I recall the pieces are the same. The car, the boot, the hat, and I clearly remember the dog because we had one of those (a black Scottish terrier) when I was a kid.

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As far as I can tell, the pieces in Monopoly have always been the same unless you're playing one of the many themed versions (or the Here & Now World Edition, in which all the prices are jacked up, money is replaced with "credit cards", and all the properties are changed to names of cities). I specifically remember always going for the boot.

Basic Monopoly seems to come in two flavors, though - the UK version is based on the streets of London, if I recall, while all the properties in the US version are named for streets in Atlantic City, NJ.

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On the Simpsons there is a joke about another Monopoly related fist fight, how do those Parker Brothers sleep at night. When I was growing up, my friend's mother and aunt said they had a fist fight over it. Playing Monopoly with my cousin's kids erupts in their fist fighting and kicking (they're born bitches).

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My old roommate would always play Monopoly for the Sega Genesis. Boring as fuck to play, amazing to watch. I don't know what it was, but I could sit there for hours watching him.

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Another misconception about Monopoly that I felt I should mention is the names people give the mascot. Some that I remember my friends using off the top of my head are "Charles Pennyworth" and "Uncle Pinchpenny".

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I think the greatest day of my life was when I got hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk, effectively wiping out everyone.

But I've always been a bigger fan of Risk

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Patrick Pineda said:

I think the greatest day of my life was when I got hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk, effectively wiping out everyone.


That's basically exactly like my one good monopoly story. Myself and two of my buddies decided to play LOTR Monopoly. we had been playing for about half an hour and nobody had gotten Park Place or Boardwalk (Mt. Doom and Barad-Dur) yet, and I was repeatedly trying to get them. My one friend says "I don't know why you're trying to get them, nobody ever lands on them anyway". The next two revolutions of the board result in me picking up both properties leaving me with almost no money. Within the next 10 minutes, both my friends had ended up landing on those spaces. Needless to say it was the quickest game of Monopoly I ever played.

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When I was a kid I played against my sister, my cousins and my mom. My mom would beat us all through the threat of attrition. Now two hours isn't that long now that I'm older, and it wasn't as if she had control of the board the entire time. But for some reason, once it hit the two-hour mark, she would strike like a rattlesnake on fast forward. Snatch up the red or yellow and green properties and put those goddamn red houses on them. I don't know if the dice hated everyone but my mom, but they made us pay heavily for running through that gauntlet. It was very Pavlovian; once someone rounded the Free Parking corner, it made us auto-think "Goddammit, this shit again". And woebegone to the poor bastard who had the misfortune of landing on the Go to Jail space and being denied that $200 that we needed at that time. I'm certain my mom relished and savored that look in our eyes, the one where our eyes flit ever so slightly down onto the board. The one that says, "No more. Our spirits are broken from this financial death spiral."

Funny thing I just realized: none of us ever mortgaged our properties, mom included. I don't think the idea ever occurred to us even though the manual was there. We even read the list of questions on the little cardboard box used to house the game pieces (that list posted above). It was as if our eyes collectively rolled towards the ceiling whenever they even glanced at mortgage.

Now that I've looked at the player pieces again, what was that piece with the big round wheel? I assumed it was a cannon that was pointing towards the sky.

Off-topic: I've heard of people getting into fistfights over Diplomacy.

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In the end any set of rules is merely a set of suggestions. Let everyone play the way they enjoy most. Some deviations are even listed in the rulebook of my edition.

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HWGuy said:

[snip]

Now that I've looked at the player pieces again, what was that piece with the big round wheel? I assumed it was a cannon that was pointing towards the sky.

Off-topic: I've heard of people getting into fistfights over Diplomacy.


Yes, it was a cannon. What types of diplomacy issues? I know that an often source of contention is when two players offer immunity when doing a trade.

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Some of the craziest games of Monopoly ever played...

On a Ceiling
Two University of Michigan students painted an 8 x 8 foot Monopoly® board on their dormitory ceiling and played the game using helium-filled balloons as tokens.

In 1961
The First Officially Recognized Monopoly® Event Took Place.
A Group of Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity students at the University of Pittsburgh ran out of money for the bank after four days of play. And beings they where playing by official Monopoly® rules, (which state that the bank never goes broke) they wired Parker Brothers, and asked for more money. So Parker Brothers sent $1,000,000 in Monopoly® money by plane, and had Brink's Armored Car Service to meet them at the airport. The cash was delivered to the fraternity, and the game went on.

In 1967
while finishing off a $2 million train robbery, the trains hijackers played a game of Monopoly® with the stolen money.

On a Mammoth Board
One of the largest Monopoly® games was played on a board which was laid out on the streets and sidewalks at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Players cast huge foam dice from the third floor fire escape and they were informed of their moves via walkie-talkie and messengers on bicycles.

Nano-Monopoly
The smallest game: 1 square inch played for 30 hrs.

More fun Monopoly trivia here!

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