Comic Strips

In an ironic twist of complete capitalist predictability, the game we know today was also stolen from the original developer.

Far Side? Here I thought that was from War Games.

Originally called "The Landlord's Game" Parker Brothers changed it to something less obviously terrible in the run up to the great depression.

Goes to show you how indoctrinated and manipulated we all are when we think that the idea of a monopoly is more acceptable than a landlord.

Not quite. Parker Brothers had always intended it to have a pro-capitalist message. The woman (and of course it was a woman who got fucked over) who invented The Landlord's Game essentially got duped.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret-history-monopoly-capitalist-game-leftwing-origins

If you play by the rules the game isn't that long, either whoever owns orange or who gets lucky at the beginning just wins the game.

When I was a kid the family rule was that the game is only over once there's a "real" winner, meaning all the others gone bankrupt. Always great for the first loser and easy 3-4 hour games. I just liked playing the bank and sorting bills.

Personally I think the landlords would just increase the rent while saying their interests are literally the only ones that need protection from the state because they generate all the revenue but can't blame them for trying.

My first thought was that ending the taxes at land ownership was shortsighted - all capital should be taxed - but then I looked up Georgism on Wikipedia and saw that that was basically already in scope (mostly by “including title of ownership for natural resources and other contrived privileges (e.g., intellectual property)”).

Have you tried to play literally any other board game?

Monopoly has one great rule (or lack of specificity), that it doesn't put any restricting on when you are able to trade (doesn't even say it has to be your turn!). This creates a great ten minutes or so when most of the properties are bought and people are making interesting deals with each other.

Everything else in the game is bad because there are very few interesting decisions to make. The dice tell you where you go and the space you land on tells you what to do. Strictly you "decide" whether or not to buy an available property if you land on it, but it's virtually always a good idea. In the rare auction case you can decide your bid. You can decide which order you mortgage off your properties if you are out of money. I think one of the chance/CC cards has a choice on it? Even buying houses is kind of dull since you have to build them evenly across the block.

This is it! Everyone I've ever met that hates monopoly doesn't play by the rules. They don't auction, they put all the money under free parking, and I've even had some people that increase the $100 when you pass go once all of the properties are bought. Of course you hate the game, you've been playing it wrong.

Exactly, play by the original rules, and play aggressive as all hell. You don't need almost any property, it's just fine to mortgage everything but your main set, the goal is to get one very developed set ASAP.

Not only is this a pretty effective way to win (a conservative player who lands once on a very developed property is basically out of the game), it also makes the game progress much faster, especially if other players are willing to concede before the bitter end. 2 or 3 players like this, and you've actually got a recipe for a decent time.

Why? There's literally thousands of better games. Just pick any from the top thousand on BGG.

I do too, even though I'm 1000% aware of the original message behind it. It's like a toxic relationship.

So what's in your top 5?

It's actually a bit better since you don't pay income tax every time and there's guaranteed income.

Iirc the kid had their hand on a piece even though it was the robot's turn, so it was really just an anti-cheat feature if you think about it.