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How to fix Monopoly (personal opinion, feel free to jump in)

Monopoly is one of those games that I despise. I hate the elimination based upon pure randomness. I also hate that there is not really any meaningful choices. Die rolls determine the game (mostly.) There is one redeeming factor though, and that is that it has a wonderful trading mechanism built in. So I'm going to go into how to fix the mechanics that I perceive to be a problem.

Chance
The chance card in the game is alright. But it just adds an unneeded part to the game. I believe that the Chance Deck should be combined with Community Chest along with more cards (for example, move forward 3 spaces; move back 2 spaces; advance to the next property you own and gain income for that property from the bank; advance to the next property that an opponent controls and pay double; ect.) Then you will announce that you are "going to take a chance." You may do this after you roll the die.
Now I have not created a playtest of this yet, but this is one way to allow for the random moving but for a player to have a meaningful choice. They can accept their fate of landing on a two house Baltic or potentially being force to pay double on a 4 house Boardwalk. It's meant to be a risk, since this is a game about real estate. As of writing this I would start with a 50/50 of drawing a good card, or a bad one.

Trading
An additional thing that I would like to add to the game is another form of trading. Player A is coming close to a monopolized boardwalk, before he rolls dice he may offer to Player B to pay 75$ for incase he lands on Boardwalk that he won't have to pay the full 100$. That player is completely allowed to say no. Again this is another risk, He could go for the guaranteed money of 75$, or risk getting that extra 25$. That benefit might not pay off though, Player A could miss it by 1 and go to luxury tax or the GO space. If this action is taken then the "I would like to take a chance" option is removed.

Player Elimination
Instead of a player getting eliminated when he goes bankrupt, all of his property goes back to the free market with the mortgage. He is still in the game. The game will end when (depending on the number of players) a player has X number of Monopolies. When that player goes bankrupt they get 500 dollars and have a 1 loop safety (that player does not have to pay for rent on any property that he lands on until he passes GO.)
This allows a player to be able to get back into the game and have a (albeit slim) chance. This is something that can make a game very memorable. If a player does not wish to continue playing he may opt out of the game (this allows a player to try to fight back, be the underdog, or prevents him from being forced into a situation in which the player will not have any fun.)

Spaces
To fill in for the Community Chest and Chance cards being removed from the board, we can replace them with 2 utilities (Gas and Internet (this being modern times and all)). The other spaces I have not thought of anything yet (at the time of this writing. If you have any ideas on what could go here feel free to post down below.)

With these changes I believe that Monopoly will have a much more modern feel, and be much more enjoyable to the masses. If you find flaws in any of these ideas I encourage you to let me know in the comments below. I'm here to learn about better Board Game Design, and if I don't let my ideas and theories out for more experienced people to see, then I can't advance in the way that I want to.

Comments

Loan consolidation?

I'm​not sure I ever finished a game of Monopoly - seemed like it was fun to roll & move (in my younger years), and buy up property. But when in the late game it all turned into charging tons of rent and mortgaging, it seemed like a totally different game from the start. It just became a game of "how about I give you this property and we call it even" house rule.

It would be interesting to fix it - I like the idea of winning at X# of monopolies (meaning groups of the same color, right?) Instead of elimination, it would just be a win condition. Then, we'd need catch up mechanics:

What if, instead of giving more randomness like move 3 spaces, the Chance deck was gone and those spaces on the board became "loan consolidation"? It could function as a catch up mechanic - allow you to bring a property out of "mortgage", but the first time opponents land on that property or it's neighboring colors (that you own), all rent goes into Free Parking. After that, you're back to normal.

That's just a quick idea, not very thought out, but maybe you could do something with it!

How to "fix" monopoly? Remove

How to "fix" monopoly?

Remove the roll&move.

Why would you waste your time trying to fix monopoly though?

After winning 9 out of 10

After winning 9 out of 10 games. I clearly felt that the game is broken.

Broken in several places.

If you where to change/fix any of those places. The game imho would become totally different.

Monolopy Deal

ElKobold wrote:
How to "fix" monopoly?

Remove the roll&move.

Your wish has been granted:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/569642/its-miracle-monopoly-fun-again

Why do it? To keep sucking money out of the same market when they're sick of traditional Monopoly.

Monopoly Deal

The Monopoly Deal card game does a good job of solving many of the issues that make Monopoly dull while maintaining the theme of property groups, rent, and set collection. Best is that you can play about 12 games of it in the time it would take to play Monopoly once.

I will add that "free parking" money is not in the rules to Monopoly, and that as a mod it adds more time to a game that suffers from being overly lengthy already.

I like the loan consolidation idea in terms of replacing the Chance mechanism.

And the idea of prepaying at a lower rate certainly has merit. It would be most helpful when approaching a row of hotels. It would add a nice layer of interaction and decision making for all players.

Why?

The reason why I want to fix Monopoly is that it is THE board game. It's what most people in the world think of when they hear "board game." I think that most people (like myself) got turned off of board games because of all the problems and flaws with Monopoly. If we could keep the same name and just revise the mechanics and rules slightly to become more "modern" then we could get a better understanding of board game design.
I want to take a lot of old "classic" board games and try to modernize them to better understand board game mechanics.

soundslikeayouproblem

soundslikeayouproblem wrote:
If we could keep the same name and just

Except you can't. Hasbro will eat you alive if you will.

soundslikeayouproblem wrote:

we could get a better understanding of board game design.

There are much better ways to understand board game design. Like books, blogs, podcasts, and by simply playing many different games. (And making new ones, of course)

soundslikeayouproblem wrote:

I want to take a lot of old "classic" board games and try to modernize them to better understand board game mechanics.

Just play more games. Learn the new stuff. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.

People who have only played monopoly tend to start with "improving monopoly". Others have only played MTG and so they fall for the "I`ll make my TCG" trap.

There are many good blogs and podcasts on game design. I suggest you start with these for your research. It will save you lots of time and effort.

Candy Land

There was a game released called Run For Your Life, Candyman! that was a riff off the original Candy Land, but added enough new things to the mix to keep Hasbro off their backs.

It's not the deepest tactical masterpiece out there, I'll admit. But someone thought up the idea, some publisher thought it was good enough to put in the market, and at least one person I know thought it would be novel enough to buy and play at a monthly Game Night (complete with gingerbread man cookies!).

The same thing has been done with Monopoly with various -opoly derivatives. And it wouldn't keep happening if people weren't -making money- off the practice. However I definitely agree that there are plenty of more useful methods to -learning- tabletop game design than trying to "fix" Monopoly.

I don't plan on creating

I don't plan on creating "Monopoly Modern" or anything like that. But those games have sold to the most people, if we don't take a minute to look at them then how can we improve what was the most successful?
I believe that by starting from the what I know of to be the beginning, I can understand why things were created or changed since then to see if there is a natural progression of things. Every once in awhile something completely new comes out that changed everything. It happens in all creative and developmental styles of life.
In an art class a person learns about the masters of old. There may be flaws with what they did, but they still learn from it. Now I understand that this is different, but I still believe that this is the best way to learn what truly makes a great board game.

I greatly appreciated your comment and I see what it is that you are saying. I'm currently on the look out for these books and podcasts and such. I have a solid foundation of games at home to go through and learn from. I just feel this is the best place to start. If another person comes along in a few years trying to start out, I hope that they can take a look at blogs like this to have a stronger understanding of how board games developed.

I do think that books and developing my own games is a really good way to go. If you have any recommendations I would love to hear them to further myself as a designer.

Quote:I'm​not sure I ever

Quote:
I'm​not sure I ever finished a game of Monopoly

Surprisingly, if you play the game EXACTLY BY THE RULES, with the auction and all the other stuff, the game last at most 1h30min.

Most variants tends to make the game more fair and balanced but also makes sure the games never ends. So it's one of the reason why I stopped thinking about it.

Else I used the 1 House (worth 1 house) or 1 hotel (worth 2 house) variant. Because the scaling at 3 house explodes.

The best insvestment/income ratio is 3 house. Build 3 hours everywhere first, then build more once everything is full.

Else there are very Nice ideas in "Fortune Street", a Wii video game strongly inspired on monopoly with the option to buy shares, buy out opponents for 5 times the price, invest on your property only if you stumble on one of your property, etc. Worth taking a look.

Reimagining.

I think it needs a reimagining, rather than a fix. I think there are some changes that could be made. Wasn't Monopoly a fix for Finance? And wasn't Finance a fix for another game? Each becoming more streamlined for the mass market?
Think about what Monopoly did for the masses. It gave everyone a chance to be a baron of some sort. Barons were a big deal at the time, they were building the USA we know today.
I think if it were reimagined for today's modern world, not much would need to be changed, and I think it would work better.
People don't want to be barons anymore, they have a bad name now. Now people want to be Gates, Google, Jobs, Musk, etc. I think most things would work better in Monopoly if it reflected today's business environment.

Burn every copy in existence

Burn every copy in existence would be my solution.

one suggestion...

Mech combat!

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