Ryan B.: Updating Traditional Monopoly via Monopoly 500

Hello everyone and welcome. How many of you are tired of seeing the umpteenth variant of the standard Monopoly theme without the game itself being updated?

It was a very interesting week at my house. We had our monthly boardgame night and for something different, we decided to do Monopoly with a twist. I am always dabbling in game design and I really wanted to spice Monopoly up a bit for this event. Ironically, we had eight friends show up for the evening’s festivities (including me) and when that happens all the dangers of traditional Monopoly come to the forefront: a long wait times between turns, a slow start up, and the ever-present 8-10 hour length that it would probably take to bankrupt everyone and finish the game were potential problems rearing their ugly heads.

Well, I knew that no one was going to stay at our house past midnight, so I had to come up with something good. Hence my new Monopoly variant that I enthusiastically called Monopoly 500.

So after appetizers of individual skewered raviolis and pine nuts with a sun-dried tomato aioli and canapes of artichokes, olives, Port Salut and pancetta, it was time to start playing. We wheeled out the rules of Monopoly 500 and got down to business. And what business it was! We had auctioned off various properties during the game and I found it distinctly interesting when Mediterreanean Ave auctioned for $360.00 while Boardwalk went for only $410.00! Furthermore, the whopper of the evening was the auction of Park Place, which went for a astounding $850.00! (And I think my wife now has the designation of paying the most for any one property in Monopoly history.)

Anyway, all participants were absolutely amazed by how intense this version of Monopoly was and how they all felt they were in every aspect of the game the whole time. It was like a mini version of I’m the Boss. And with a fixed time limit, the pressure was always on to make deals; our end-game was particularly frantic. With that encouragement, I am going to publicly post my Monopoly 500 variant and you all can tell me what you think.

The idea was to create a variant in which you wouldn’t have to wait between turns and where you could see action the entire game. Actually, Monopoly is a fun game if you abide by most of the official rules. When people create a circumstance where you are given money for landing on “Free Parking,” for example, it creates a paradox. Providing money for “Free Parking” allows people not to go bankrupt, which defeats the basic purpose of the game: bankrupting all participants to have a clear winner.

Hence we ourselves create the paradox which leads to so much criticism of Monopoly.

So how to reconcile all of the elements of doing what it takes to win versus keeping everyone involved and interested in the game? Well, try the Monopoly 500 variant and judge for yourself. Seven people told me it was a much more exciting variation of Monopoly than they are used to, but it works only in kin with a careful understanding of the official rules of Monopoly. I’m willing to give this variant to the masses to see whether Monopoly can’t evolve into a game everyone can enjoy, but be forewarned: This variant creates certain intricacies that are not found in the traditional version. But I will leave it to you to discover exactly what they are. Without further ado…

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Monopoly 500
A supplement to the official rules…

A New Start:

1. Only $500 is given to each player to start the game.
2. All railroads now cost $350 to purchase. See: Railroads and Subways below.
3. Building must be in chronological order and there must be houses available in order to build hotels. (This is actually an often overlooked official rule of the game, which states that you can’t build a hotel on an undeveloped monopoly even though no houses are available just because you have the money to build.)
4. See: Auction of Property.

Auction of Property:

Everyone participates in the buying of properties when someone lands on an unsold property space. This is done through an auction.

When a person lands on a property space, he becomes the auctioneer. He announces a auctioneer’s fee that everyone who wants to bid on the property must pay to the auctioneer. Auctioneers get to bid for free on the property up for auction.

The auctioneer may elect not to charge a fee. If the auctioneer elects not to charge a fee and no one participates in the auction, then the auctioneer may buy the property at face value. But if the auctioneer does announce a fee and no one wants to pay that fee, then the property does not go up for sale.

All auctions must start at the property’s face value.

Railroads and Subways:

If you land on a railroad space you have two options:

1. If no one else owns the railroad, you may purchase it for $350.
2. If someone else already owns it, you simply pay a fixed rental fee for the equivalent of two railroads in the traditional version ($50) until your next turn – unless you decide to do a subway transfer.

Subways

1. You can own a maximum of two Railroad Cards at the same time and only if both cards create a subway system.
2. You need two opposing railroads to own a subway system. There are two possible subways, created by owning both Short Line and Pennsylvania Railroad OR Reading and B&O Railroad.

About the Subway and Transfers:

If you land on a railroad space and the railroad is owned and part of a subway:

• If you own the subway: You may automatically transfer to the other station, if you desire. If you pass GO, you collect $200.00. No charges or fees apply to using the subway, as long as you own it.
• If another player owns the subway: You can decide to make a transfer to the other listed subway station. You must decide to do a transfer on the same turn you landed on the original railroad space. You do not collect $200.00 if you pass GO AND you must pay a $150.00 transfer fee to the player owning the subway in lieu of the normal $50 rent.

Ending the Game:

The game ends at an exact time limit set by the players. My recommended time: 2-1/2 hours.

Counting It All Up: Winning

At the end of the game, players take turns selling everything back to the bank:

• Houses: Bank pays $100 per house
• Hotels: Bank pays $500 per hotel
• Property: Bank pays original face value price for each unmortgaged property.
• Railroad: Bank only pays $200 (which is the original face value) for each unmortgaged railroad card.

The player with the most money wins.

Ryan B.
“A fun game starts with fun people”

© 2006 Ryan B.

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Comments:

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What problems in the original game were the new railroad rules introduced to address? Posted by Joe McKinley on Mar 10, 2006 at 12:56 PM | #

hmmm. When I participated in the national Monopoly Championship in Sweden two years ago, we played the basic rules. But there was a time limit, 90 minutes. And then the winner was the player with greatest assets altogether, cash, properties (full value), houses and hotels (full value). Then you got points, the better your position, the more points (I am sorry, but I don not remember how many), like 7 points for the winner, 5, pts, 3 pts, 1 pt. If someone was eliminated the winner “took” his points too. So making all other players go bankruptcy was almost necessary to win the tournament. THAT was the added spice I needed. And with experienced players and a kinda meta-gaming in every game, the negotiations became very interesterin. /Strömer, from Sweden Posted by Patrik Strömer on Mar 10, 2006 at 01:12 PM | #

Joe, You asked the magic question that I hoped would get thrown out there.  So thanks! The railroad question is kind of tricky… my idea was that the value early in the game for purchasing railroads should be negligble.  More than likely, the unsold space provides some breathing room to take stock of other opportunities on the table.  So on to the math.  Purchasing two railroads at $350 each is a $700.00 investment.  You know you can recoup $400.00 of that at the end of the game.  That leaves a $300.00 shortfall that needs to be made up.  While that can be accomplished easily enough, it doesn’t leave too much room for making the profit necessary to make ownership worthwhile.  So why purchase? The railroads and subways are more about “opportunity cost” more so than profit centers (even though they can be this too...) Once sufficient cash flow has been generated, the railroads may be a good buy later in the game… as a way out if certain properties ahead of you have hotels on them and are not owned by you.  If you can land on the railroad with any degree of frequency (even one time...) you have the opportunity to pass “Go”, collect $200.00 and be on the safe side of the board… vs. potentially having to dole out $700.00, $900.00, $1,200 to an opponent with a hotel.  That is a swing potentially of $2,400 (you being down $1,200 and the other person $1,200 up) As you can see, even if this is accomplished once in the game, it can be a deciding factor. One of the two additional elements to also take into account is the rule about the strict time frame (no exceptions).  This puts a strong push in making your deals efficiently and also knowing when to stop taking on properties for development. The end sums awarded at the end of the game play to a different dynamic.  With fixed payouts are made at the end of the game, it means that houses are an investment on Baltic and Oriental, have no effect on States and New York.... and are actually a cost assessment for any place on the board between Illinois and Boardwalk. And finally, with the auction element, Monopoly 500 really becomes a real-estate “speculation” game… where every decision is important and you have a much greater control over your destiny. By limiting the funds available at the start of the game, the common Monopoly strategy of “buy everything” no longer applies.  I think it was Valerie Putnam that just wrote an article about “solving” games.  This has commonly been a viable way to “solve” Monopoly in the past, which has now been removed from the equation.  Now you must be a capable money manager as well and astute in properly valuing property. Besides, for once “You just won $10 in a Beauty Contest” really does count for something.  : ) Great question.  I was delighted to answer it. Thank you! Ryan B. Posted by Ryan Bretsch on Mar 10, 2006 at 07:02 PM | #

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