Fixing Monopoly

Monopoly is like a train. It goes on and on and on, even if you put on the brakes. Maybe try tooting the horn?Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

It’s too long.

I’ve played lots of board games, several longer than Monopoly, yet somehow Monopoly feels too long to me, too. It’s the only board game that I know of that has many mods added by players for generations, but the rules advise against it because they can make the game longer.

Here’s my crazy theory: there is no perfect length, there is only a bad fun/time ratio. Monopoly is too long, compared to how much fun it is.

Monopoly is too boring.

You roll your dice and you pray you land on good spots. You buy every property you can, and then jockey to make big trades with others. On a turn, the only decisions you really can make are:

• Buy Houses. If you do the math, getting to 3 houses is the key, so this isn’t really a choice.
• Make trades. I think you can usually count these on 1 hand for all players.
• Mortgage Properties. Usually, you’re doing this to pay off a big rent, at which point the game is basically over and wasting your time.

Basically, the only part of the game is trades, and you usually pull off 1 or 2 before the game is decided. Everything else is luck and on auto-pilot.

What Makes Monopoly Fun?