PITCH THOSE HOUSE RULES IN THE TRASH, WHERE THEY BELONG
Although Monopoly is the greatest board game of all time, it gets a bad reputation for taking countless hours to play. Money continues to change hands. The pieces circle the board. Yet little, if anything, actually advances in the gameplay.
But this perception of Monopoly has been earned not because the game itself is wrong, but because the way most people play is an affront to both God and Hasbro Incorporated.
Monopoly, like all other board games, comes with a guide. This guide comprehensively outlines the functions of each space on the board, as well as detailed instructions for how to follow the rules that govern the game.
And yet, whenever I sit down with friends for a board game night, the inevitable and insufferable questions begin to arise: How much money do we get for free parking? How much do we get when we land on GO? Can I trade you Boardwalk in exchange for a low-interest loan lasting twelve turns? Ethan, why are you getting so angry—it’s just a game!
You people make me sick with this nonsense.
Ethan Gottesman-Kaplun
What people need to understand about Monopoly is that it’s an allegory for cold hard capitalism without a welfare state. So no, you don’t get money on free parking. No, you don’t get an extra special prize for landing on GO — take your $200 and keep walking, pal. And no, you don’t get any loans or rent moratoria or special deals. If you want to win, you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make better investments.
The sort of house rules that inject extra money into the game of Monopoly also give players more opportunities to recover from bad decisions, given that everyone simply has more money that takes longer to lose. This, of course, lengthens the gameplay significantly.
But a truly perverse bastardization of the rulebook,perhaps the most egregious of all,comes at the tail end of the game just as someone is about to go bankrupt. One of the richer players, against all logic, decides to give them a hail mary deal to keep them in the game!
Need I remind people that the entire point of the game is to obtain a monopoly of property and cash? This means that you must eliminate all other players. So don’t tell me that the game takes too long when you’re willing to bail out your pathetic competitors, who should just accept their loss and walk away from the table in shame.
Instead, the losers are left in perpetual, hellish suffering, trudging through the remnants of a game they have zero chance of winning after foolishly mortgaging and pawning off the last of their hotels, houses, and properties.
If you play Monopoly as God intended, it shouldn’t take more than one and a half to two hours, at most. If you are an unserious charlatan and poor excuse for a tabletop gaming enthusiast, you’ll be suffering through a monster of your own creation for an entire day.
The choice is yours, heathens.
