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Monopoly is great, unless your friends refuse any sort of trading/negotiation not explicitly laid out in the rules. None of my friends would hear anything alon

Monopoly is great, unless your friends refuse any sort of trading/negotiation not explicitly laid out in the rules. None of my friends would hear anything along the lines of "Ok, I'll trade you this, and in return, you'll be immune from paying for this long, or you'll only have to pay 30% forever, plus you'll receive this property that you can use to trade Tim for that property so that you can get a monopoly too." My friends didn't like to think that hard. "You pay what's on the card. If you get this then you'll have a monopoly and that's bad. Boardwalk is the best one." I always liked thinking a little bit beyond the basics of that game. The railways have the highest yield out of anything, plus there are 4. Monopolies of only 2 more valuable properties are not really as valuable as a monopoly of 3 "average" properties. Utilities are crap. I'm hoping that in the real world people are a bit more susceptible to "negotiating."

Spyckie 19y ago
haha monopoly is great, especially with friends who don't think outside the box. It requires very fine deal negotiation and value assessment skills. My favorite move in monopoly is to come up with some trading deals that would give everyone monopolies in a single turn, but make it so that I had either a positional (read: my piece is either in jail or far, far away from their monopolies) or money advantage. Then, mortgage/sell all my other properties, build up as much as possible and hope to kill someone quickly. In monopoly, you have to play the 'do or die' strategy. There is no other way to play. Unfortunately, now they no longer do any deals with me because they know my deals are deadly even though they look fair...
- dkokelley 19y ago
  That's the trick. Sometimes the deals aren't deadly, you just have to point out how they are beneficial to everyone. Sell the value. Unfortunately some friends feel that seclusion is the best route. I'm notorious for aggressively pursuing side deals with my friends.
dfranke 19y ago
The way I read the rules is that you're welcome to make any deals you want -- immunity, whatever -- but they aren't enforcable. The person you make the deal with is free to reneg the moment it's to his advantage. Really, vanilla monopoly is a very carefully balanced game. I've never heard any house rule that doesn't make things worse.
- SwellJoe 19y ago
  I have to agree. Monopoly is a blast with a group of friends playing straight by-the-book rules. It takes a while, of course, and sometimes one or more players will be out pretty quick and then things seem to drag on forever between two equally funded and propertied players. But, mostly it's nicely balanced and provides a challenging but relaxing evening of entertainment. Good humor required, wine or beer optional.

Spyckie 19y ago

haha monopoly is great, especially with friends who don't think outside the box. It requires very fine deal negotiation and value assessment skills. My favorite move in monopoly is to come up with some trading deals that would give everyone monopolies in a single turn, but make it so that I had either a positional (read: my piece is either in jail or far, far away from their monopolies) or money advantage. Then, mortgage/sell all my other properties, build up as much as possible and hope to kill someone quickly. In monopoly, you have to play the 'do or die' strategy. There is no other way to play. Unfortunately, now they no longer do any deals with me because they know my deals are deadly even though they look fair...

dkokelley 19y ago
That's the trick. Sometimes the deals aren't deadly, you just have to point out how they are beneficial to everyone. Sell the value. Unfortunately some friends feel that seclusion is the best route. I'm notorious for aggressively pursuing side deals with my friends.

dfranke 19y ago

The way I read the rules is that you're welcome to make any deals you want -- immunity, whatever -- but they aren't enforcable. The person you make the deal with is free to reneg the moment it's to his advantage. Really, vanilla monopoly is a very carefully balanced game. I've never heard any house rule that doesn't make things worse.

SwellJoe 19y ago
I have to agree. Monopoly is a blast with a group of friends playing straight by-the-book rules. It takes a while, of course, and sometimes one or more players will be out pretty quick and then things seem to drag on forever between two equally funded and propertied players. But, mostly it's nicely balanced and provides a challenging but relaxing evening of entertainment. Good humor required, wine or beer optional.