Monopoly for me is a blah, mindless diversion when you have hours to kill. Roll the dice, move the marker, hope you don't land on Boardwalk with a hotel, quit the game when everyone is bored stiff with it.
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Years ago, Liz and I played it with a couple who took it extremely seriously. They made alliances, broke them, and pooled properties between them to gain monopolies to use against the other players.
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To be fair, they told us beforehand how cutthroat they played. I just had never met anyone who was that way in Monopoly. The game I take seriously is Risk. Lie, backstab, double-cross. Whatever it takes to conquer the world; I'll do it. One's breaches of integrity are only reined in by the fact that if you break your word in this game, people will remember that in the next one.
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In case you're wondering, the games that Liz is a cutthroat in are Yahtzee and Clue. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Monopoly
Monopoly for me is a blah, mindless diversion when you have hours to kill. Roll the dice, move the marker, hope you don't land on Boardwalk with a hotel, quit the game when everyone is bored stiff with it.
.
Years ago, Liz and I played it with a couple who took it extremely seriously. They made alliances, broke them, and pooled properties between them to gain monopolies to use against the other players.
.
To be fair, they told us beforehand how cutthroat they played. I just had never met anyone who was that way in Monopoly. The game I take seriously is Risk. Lie, backstab, double-cross. Whatever it takes to conquer the world; I'll do it. One's breaches of integrity are only reined in by the fact that if you break your word in this game, people will remember that in the next one.
.
In case you're wondering, the games that Liz is a cutthroat in are Yahtzee and Clue. Don't say I didn't warn you.
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9 comments:
When I was growing up, my mom thought houses and hotels in monopoly were too complicated for us, so the four of us kids made up our own rules - we started with two bills of each money amount, paid the mortgage price instead of the tax price (or whatever it is) when we landed on someone else's property, and monopolies didn't matter a bit. I always thought the game was boring. Then again, if ti was more complicated than that, I wouldn't have bothered to play. We got Risk for Christmas and while Jason and the boys play, I don't bother.
On the other hand, Yahtzee and Clue are wonderful games. Clue especially. I believe I own 5 different versions. 6 if you count Clue Jr. for the boys. 7 if you count the movie, haha!
Clue for me is another mindless diversion. It's better than Monopoly because it doesn't take so long to complete.
Liz and her family are Clue sharks. they keep track of how many times opponents ask for each suspect/weapon/room, figuring that you're doing that because you in fact have them in your hand.
and if you're playing CLue with them and need to, say, go to the bathroom or get something to drink, be sure to take your scoresheet and notes with you. they will peek.
We like to play Master Detective, but of course, it needs at least three players and we generally play after the kids have gone to bed. We've made our own version, then, which is a mix of ClueFx and Master Detective, where you have to step on the little spy glasses on the board in order to look at the cards contained in the borrowed Fx suspect folders (8 in all).
We also keep track of who asks for what and when and where, as well as who sees which of our cards, possibilities when they see other people's cards, etc. I have my own notations and such.
Oooo. You'd fit in just fine playing Clue with Liz and her family. I know we have both the regular and the Master Detective versions. ClueFX I'm unfamiliar with. Is that the one that comes with a DVD?
Rory says "Always take Australia". Whatever that means. :P
Oh yeah! He's absolutely right! It's got a natural choke-point. If you can build-up those territories, you can hold them forever.
And if you can't get Australia, South America is the second-best option. Only two ways to get into it.
I can see we need to have a Risk tournament sometime.
You're both wrong. You always take North America: highest per-turn army bonus for the least amount of territories.
Pfft. Australia indeed. A pigeonholed pittance on the Risk map, a penal-colony poorhouse on the world map.
i admit, North America is a worthy continent to have in Risk. but it's usually hotly-contested, with lots of attrition, and not easily defended once you've used up most of your armies to take it.
IMNSHO, Africa is the third-best continent to take. Europe is too tough to hold. I swear Ukraine borders on everything.
And as they say in that great movie, The Princess Bride, "never get into a land war in Asia".
I totally miss that you'd responded here. ClueFX is talking Clue that you can play with two people. The suspects are different than normal, there's no dice, and you have to find the inspector once you know the answer. he hides. I love that game! It's so much easier to be tricky.
Most people don't know or have the Master Detective one, so it's cool that you do!
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