Why I Hate Monopoly

Why yes, I hate Monopoly. Yes, the American board game classic that everyone has on their shelves and when the power goes out they think, "Hm, we should play that again" and so it gets dusted off and people run around the board and realize after a while they're not having fun and never finish. Here's why.

The Bad Stuff
Chance - Perhaps the biggest and more glaring problem is the variable chance involved in Monopoly. You are very much at the sway of how the dice roll. Roll too low and you don't go around the board enough, don't generate enough income, and if you luck out and hit that one square and have to give up two properties to pay rent you might as well kiss your chances of winning goodbye. Or somehow you miraculously hit all four railroads on your first go around and have a nice cushion for the rest of the game. It doesn't matter at the end of the day how much you know, the game comes down to the dice rolls. Plus, the cards in the middle can be game breaking. Some do nothing. Some can completely ruin your bank accounts.

That isn't to say random chance is strictly bad. After all, poker is interesting because you don't know what cards will come out. Risk 2120 I recommend to everyone and it still determines all fights based on dice. And sure there's elements of strategy and how you control who has what properties in Monopoly, or the subterfuge of knowing when to mortgage a property, seal a deal, or how to bid in the bidding process. The problem though is too much reliance on the dice and random cards. And for all the talk of strategy, people still see the dice as the true rulers of the game. It doesn't matter when high-level players try to explain the intricacies, the beginners only see dice rolled, pieces move, money exchanges hands. Which brings us to

(close to) Zero-Sum Game - Monopoly is based around the concept that to get ahead you abuse your fellow players. There's a decent cash generation of $200 each turn around the table, but when most rents start in the $50 -$100 range you can be ruined by a few bad landings on opponents' properties. But wait, you can recoup that when other players land on your stuff, right? Well, sure, but in the end you're living off your fellow players. Wealth generation always comes at wealth lost from someone else. And this animosity stinks. This is similar to how Diplomacy can ruin friendships. The only way to get ahead involves stepping on your buddy's toes. Inevitably this devolves into one player having it all and having a blast with their empire, throwing out favors, while the rest get frustrated and pray they end up in jail so they don't have to pay rent.

Contrast this to games such as Settlers of Catan and Dominion. There are ways to rob other players and hinder them, but the overwhelming majority of growth is from the game itself. Everyone is building up together, the question is who's building up faster. In Monopoly, once there's blood, it is all too easy to just move in for the kill and take whatever is left for yourself. After all, you can't let the other players get a piece. I sometimes feel like this is the real reason why people still play Monopoly; so you can have your chance of being the big shot with all the cash.

Losers Leave - Monopoly is also a game where the loser leaves the game. This might be perfectly fine at a board game party where the first loser can find a new game to play. Or if you're like me and enjoy kibitzing a game you can derive pleasure from watching. But most people want to be actively participating, and now someone in the group isn't participating. Many people have house rules that say the game ends when a player is killed, or they form "mergers" so people play as a team, but these are band-aids.

Games like StarCraft get around this by being online, so once you lose, you can just fire up a new game with random faceless players. Or Mafia gets around this by letting the observers see everything that goes on, deriving pleasure by knowing everyone's secrets. But for Monopoly everything's already in the open, and if Monopoly is the only game going all that's left is to check Facebook on your phone. Laaaaaaame. And this is exasperated by

Taking Too Long to End - Think of the last time you actually ended a game of Monopoly. That is, one player had it all, everyone else was bankrupt. I doubt you've ever done that. I know I've never done it. Inevitably everyone quits once a few people are out and it is obvious who will win. There is no point after a while. And yet the stated end win conditions is only one can leave victorious. Blegh. It is no wonder everyone has a variant on how to end the game. Most property/money after 1-2 hours. So many rounds around the board. Every time a double is rolled, move a marker and when it hits a certain point, game is over.

Obvious Strategies/Shallow Skill Curve - I'll get to the subtle ones later, but most of Monopoly boils down to a few basic principles. 1) Having more property is good. 2) Having a buffer of money is good. 3) Having Monopolies is SUPER good. That's roughly it. The weakness in Monopoly is that the core mechanics are simple and don't provide very much growth. Most of the strategy boils down to the meta-game as you try to wheel and deal with your fellow players on a trade. Or better yet, if you're playing with the real rules, the bidding process (which unfortunately only lasts during the early game). Everything else is move your piece, try to get a Monopoly, invest in houses (but not always hotels) and make sure you have enough cash on hand to snatch that deal or pay the rent on Boardwalk. That's about it. Where's the growth? The discovery of the strategy? The mastery of a system? Monopoly is extremely shallow and provides little reward for investing time and experience into the game. Poker you learn to read people's faces and bets. Chess you learn the trade-offs and how to manage your position. Dominion your eyes are slowly opened to the efficient and fun card combinations. Monopoly boils down to a few statistics and being able to work a room. Except the second skill you can learn elsewhere.

Not enough player interaction - If you're playing the game properly, there is the bidding system. There are also deals on making a property trade. But otherwise, during your turn you can go get a snack because everyone else is just rolling and moving fake money from one person's coffers to another. Basically, when it is not your turn, it's typically boring. You have no interesting trade-offs to make and no way of directly influencing how they move (unless you are persuading them to buy that property/house). Thankfully, turns are short. Usually.

The Redemptive Stuff
OK. Now that I've ranted, I'm sure I have some very angry people who will furiously argue that Monopoly is a hallmark of American board game tradition, and it is that way for a reason! Plus, look at all this literature about Monopoly strategies and it is all about the meta-game and we play Monopoly for HOURS!!!!

Well, yes. Let's be honest, there are some good qualities of Monopoly we can learn from.

Being a Household Game - Monopoly is lucky in that it is a household game. Therefore, everyone has a copy (except me) and there's a variety of house rules and literature written up. Because it is there and always has been. Once several friends and I were discussing what makes a good spectator sport, and realized modern Football is a horrible spectator sport. There's these weird strategies on getting the 4th down, some teams intentionally give up yardage on defense to restrict the offense's passing lanes meaning yardage isn't a good indicator of control, and all these weird scoring systems and regulations and mind games between coaches. And yet it is one of the most watched sports on TV in America. Why? Because it has been around, it has matured, and everyone has a basic inkling of how it is played. With these regulations to keep it "fair" and consistent money at stake, strategies have formed over the years. Every little thing to get an advantage, from watching the placement of the linebackers to get the optimal pairings, to subtle changes in rulings, to strategic uses of timeouts. Because of its longevity and maturity it is a deep and complex game on and off the field.

Same with Monopoly. Everyone has played it, and knows the basics of how to play it, and that kind of maturation generates literature about it which makes it an even more prestigious game. And there are plenty of house rules that help patch up the glaring issues with the base game, making it much more palpable.

Bidding - One of the most forgotten parts of Monopoly is actually one of its best traits. Did you know that if someone declines to buy a property from the bank when they land on it, it goes up for auction for all the players? Suddenly all the players are involved, subterfuge on trying to get a deal or just forcing up the price come into play, and it is great fun! Plus, if the property up for bidding the last in a set, all the other players can pool together to really make one player pay for their Monopoly, or at least drive up the price enough that they are sunk for a pass around the board. Unfortunately, this rule only lasts as long as there are properties held by the bank. Curses. Unless you enjoy putting properties up for bidding in general instead of trading (house rule: bank gets 10% off the sale so backroom deals are still in the running).

But this actually solves one of the biggest problems of not enough player interaction. And gives a huge interesting playing field with great trade-offs and deals, and brings personality back into the game.

The Higher-Level Strategy - As a result of being a household game, people have actually done simulations on the game to determine the best deals. This game was made back before super computers could crunch and spit out the optimal pricing per property, so inevitably there are discontinuities. Everyone knows the first few properties are mostly junk, the middle region is a sweet spot, and the Blues (Boardwalk and Park Place) are AMAZING. But did you also know the Railroads are one of the bets scaling sets and the best rate-of-return in the game? Or that you actually don't want to buy more than 3 houses on Boardwalk and Park Place. Actually, Boardwalk and Park place are actually pretty lame-o! They just seem powerful because if land on them once you get a huge shocker rent. But there's only the 2 on the board, and they're in a statistically poor position and super expensive to upgrade. So, yes, there is strategy in Monopoly. Plus if you play with interesting people, the game is unsurprisingly amazingly interesting. The inside jokes, the eruptions of laughter, petty temporary "hate", the deals made and broken, and jockeying for position can be great fun. This is because the rules allow the opportunity to give whatever kind of agreements or deals that you want, and this meta-game region is where the fun really happens.

Simple Rules - For all the bashing I gave it, Monopoly is remarkably simple, and to a degree that's a strength. Everyone understands buying and selling of property, you can see your wealth grow, and if you land on someone else's property you pay a set amount. There aren't 10 pages of errata to check (see Twilight Imperium and Descent) or 30 minutes of exposition and rules explanation (see trying to explain Settlers of Catan or Arkham Horror). You roll dice, you move, and based on where you land something happens. Pure and simple, anyone can understand and play in a few minutes. Also, these simple rules allow a large amount of freedom. You don't have a rule about how a deal must occur or what it must involve, you just make those up as you go. That freedom provides the means for an interesting meta-game around the board as gentlemen deals are made and bribes are handed out.

Summary (TL;DR)
Monopoly is not a bad game. Sure it is pretty lackluster in my opinion, and I'd much rather play a million other newer games over it. But, for all its poor qualities, it's still stuck as a "classic" board game, and for decent reasons. Everyone can pick it up and play. They may not enjoy it as much as other games, but it's a safe game. Simple and brain-dead for those who just want to unwind and glorious chances of fame and fortunes for that one lucky person who manages the lucky roll or secures those crucial deals.

Just don't work yourself up too much trying to win at it. It is an exercise in frustration. Save your mental cycles for a game that will reward the effort, like Twlight Imperium. It's biggest failing is that the core game mechanics do not promote fun. Instead they promote being a shark, or feeling helpless and at the mercy of chance. Fun has to be created while playing this game by playing with fun people. Though it provides a large amount of potential to have fun it doesn't provide an interesting system to play with in the first place. And personally I've never had that "talk the next day about it" feeling after playing Monopoly. But the stories we tell and discussions of strategy after Twilight Imperium or Betrayal at the House on the Hill indicate we were engaged, found the game interesting, and all had so much fun we could look forward to the next time we get together and play.

So next time someone recommends you have a board game day for Monopoly, politely see if you can teach them some other game. I recommend starting with 7 Wonders or Dominion.