Monopoly is the WORST

If you're listening carefully, Jeff just accuse me of being bad at making friends.

Petition. You said that like no I said it's a good way. If you don't know how to feel people out, this is a good way to hack. Your wife is scary and me I guess I got a little too real, I apologize.

Hey guys, welcome back. This is Megan and we are talking about something. I am very excited about this week. This episode is called Monopoly is the worst for sure. Absolutely. And I just want right out of the box, we're really sorry for anyone who just absolutely loves Monopoly talking about my recent affection for board games. I did not realize how much fun they could truly be games at one point in my life were just something that you did with a group if you were nervous about how conversations are going to go and give somebody everybody something else to focus on. But it wasn't really the point of the evening together. And I realize how wrong I was about that and how great board games can really be an exciting and fun. And now I get

Gather with people just to play these games, it seems like when we were growing up, I remember playing a lot of card games with my grandparents. I remember there was always like everyone had a copy of Life. Everyone had a copy of Monopoly Monopoly, but it wasn't what it is now and I really appreciate what it has become so much. So that we have a whole closet that is devoted to all of the games. And that's not a fan of detection would like to disclose the number of board games residing in my linen closet right now and it continues to grow. So I apologize for that but over 100 board games probably over a hundred and ten. Now how many copies of Monopoly do we have?

But I think what people who are into board games will already tell you, is that now is the time to play board games. There are board game lounges that are like board game bars for people, go and eat food and play games. Like Megan said, there are dedicated Nights two people going and just playing board games together, up until this last year. When Gathering was kind, of weird. I had a regular group of guys, where we regularly met to either play Dungeons & Dragons or just to play board games. We have theme nights to play board games and I think we can trace all of it back. I know, personally in my own life, I can trace it back to one specific game, but I think the board game craze in the United States can be traced back largely to a German game called Settlers of Catan, which has been out since 1995. But in 2008, it really reached the Pinnacle of

I guess what we'll call exposure in the United States and people started playing. And if they realized it's a it's a german-style board game where you're playing for yourself but there's not a ton of direct competition with other people. I mean you are in competition and there is conflict but you don't just directly bomb somebody or attack them and I think when people played this euro-style of game, they realized it like board games, can be fun and it can have a different theme, a different rapping to it. And so now all these years later, there are whole web sites, devoted to people making games. And we buy them before they come out. There's a Kickstarter is a place where I bought multiple games where somebody gives their idea and they're going to make their coming up with a new game or its people who want to get their project funded and it's a different way of getting funding than

Going the traditional route of finding investors are a big company. People are making them themselves with crowdsource money and they're really fun. We've got some great games. We would have to have a trogdor board, you get all the straight stuff. And so we have a closet full of games that I would never have heard of. But when I as a child, much less trying to think if we have any games from when we were kids, we own mousetrap on Hungry, Hungry Hippos and we have we have a lot of kid games. Jenga we have but we have Bob's Burgers. A great time to play games. There are so many that come out and maybe maybe there's an over-saturation but there is such a great Market there, so many good ones to find it. When you find somebody who loves talking about board games, they will be able to tell you.

Something that you should find and enjoy. So we decided to kind of hate on Monopoly for a couple of reasons. First of all, we think that it is. One of the reason that people do have a bad taste in their mouth about board games because that's when we've all played, and if you have a bad experience with it, for some reason, you probably played it more than once and Monopoly for whatever reason, repackaged itself, so many times that people get it out and pretend it's going to be a new game and still has all the same problems. I'm so here's our first reason why we think Monopoly is a bad game. I think this might be the number one reason. It's a bad game. Like and we didn't really do these in, like any kind of order. All by Design is not a great game. It is almost entirely luck driven, and has really only one mechanic for moving forward. And that is simply

Rolling the dice and moving your spaces and the luck is if you get to buy good Properties or if you get a good chance card. But other than that, there's not very much that controls the flow of Monopoly. It's really just the best luck. And I mean, think if you're playing with six people and the first two or three people go, once you get to play ar456, you have to, you have to roll and beat all those other spaces before you can even get to anything good. So basic game mechanics, it's just bad. The cool things about board games now is that they're just totals and Oodles of studies and there's a lot of Science and Mathematics find board games and there been studies on Monopoly and mathematically, literally in Monopoly, there is no way to overcome bad rolls. So will you have those those

I swear, you are just rolling poorly or you're not in the right place at the table, you're not sitting in the right spot. You literally do not have a chance to win monopoly. You can't come back. You're not going to get lucky. You're not going to have that big going to draw just the right card. That's going to save you. It is designed to teach people ironically enough. It was designed by an auntie monopolist person to teach people. The, the dangers of a monopoly driven systems. They are somehow at some point in the last 86 years, the game turned into one of the best-selling games of all time and maybe it's the collectors. Maybe it's people buying all the different themes. I think it's probably a great beginning place for a board game like it's a good place to start. Then you should act like we're talking about some more mechanics and so so what does that mean? The mechanics of a game in? And what we mean by that is that there's multiple elements at play multiple

Is to earn points or multiple ways to advance and different strategies strategies that you're able to develop is never good. At the strategy is just be better at rolling dice in the person next to some other strategies that we found. We love and board games are board games that have a salad. I bet it's kind of a funny term and maybe maybe Point salad is not the best way to explain mechanics of Point salad is when there is a collection of mechanisms more than just rolling, that there are lots of ways to get points there. You know, you'll be playing a game and it might be worker placement or it might be area control, it might be action points.

And there's all sorts of different games we can recommend. For those, you know, you have sides for area control and root worker placement, you know, champions of midgard. There's all these different games where you have these little elements but you put them all together and you might not know who won until the very end of the game. They usually have some sort of, you know, you played so many rounds and then it's however you played your hand. How are you played your action points which were you only have so many actions to do each turn? So if that helps with the length of the game you don't get to do all sorts of things and where there are different ways to win like it's an either-or scenario, you can it's been awhile to get the most Egyptian Victory Point different ways. So just right.

The cop was shot several different ways and it just keeps the game. Like you said, keeps the game fresh, and everybody has a chance. If you're not doing great inroads, do something else. You know, build better Advance your city's further with my cat and I think probably what draws people to Catan. The board is not the same. Every time a Catan game is actually designed so that the board looks different and you can play it multiple times and there's a lot of depth to it, you know, one of our complaints about Monopoly, if you roll poorly, you know how many spots are on the board, you know, where everything is at. And it's going to be the same game. Essentially, you just hoping you roll the right numbers Monopoly. Had portals or something, you can travel but I don't know. I know it's going to come back.

So there's, there's lots of lots of game mechanics that are out there. It's just a, I think part of what is making this board game Renaissance. So, exciting is, when you find the one that hits just the right number of those Mechanics for you, whether you're super competitive and one that's a direct conflict is good or maybe one that's a little more like that and that euro-style where you're just kind of working on your own projects, are you have a lot of things that you're you're keeping moving. There are so many options now that you don't get stuck or relegated to just always play the same type of games that we think Monopoly is bad. People get left out because of the design of the game. When you run out of money, you are out of the game and because it's elimination style. If you're out first, that's the end of the fun for you and your left waiting until everyone else finishes and then you're left.

Hoping that people do badly and left hoping that someone is a jerk and won't trade or you're just that's that's your role for the rest of the game and games games like that just aren't fun for everyone involved. And not every game that has been created in the last 10, 15, 20 years gets rid of that entirely. But so many of them do have an element where you really don't know who wins until the very end. Unless one person just has the most incredible strategy or just gets really lucky and something or aren't you end up like me and Monopoly where you're definitely not going to win but you're not out first and then you see everyone who is out having fun but you're too competitive to just loose your money. I don't know why you're laughing. This is the real issue. I know you're just helping man. I just want to get out. I just want to be done and that's never good when when you're just longing for the end of the game. That's a, that's a bad game.

Do you like how you outed yourself there? And you, you said, one thing that's really funny about the difference between that you are super competitive. I am and I am not entirely non-competitive, but it doesn't bother me as much as it bothers shoes. So that's, that's funny. So kind of an alternative to this. Something I've discovered through playing new and different board games did the concept of Cooperative board games that word Cooperative opposite of competition and that was just a completely new concept to me. I cannot think of any game that I played as a kid that was cooperative. If they were all competitive you are trying to be the winner but and Cooperative games you are playing the game together and it's you against the game.

You know, you think of video games and you think a player versus player, but there are those rare video games. You find that have a great player versus the environment and you're not playing other people and that has been translated really well to board games there. So many great Cooperative games, maybe it's ironic, I don't know, but Megan, what is the first Cooperative game? You got to play so much. The first Cooperative game I fell in love with is called pandemic and you are literally working with everyone playing the game to beat the spread of a very contagious disease diseases. Yes, yes for diseases and you're trying to control the spread and relative it, two different continents and make sure that it doesn't spread through air travel and oh my gosh, it's awful. Like now it's, it's not even funny but I would definitely, I would play again and we just pretend that we didn't have 22.

Well, then, and now there's new versions of that wear their kind of reskinning them the way that Monopoly did. But we have one based in the Netherlands, which is about stopping the locks from flooding. We have the fall of Rome, which is based in Italy. We have the Iberian Peninsula, one which is Spain back in the nineteenth century and you're trying to stop like smallpox and things like that. Zombies got to real, some of my one of several of the greatest moments of boardgaming ever there. Also, even now with with pandemic, they have seasons of them. So you can play through these, like story, campaign, driven versions, of of pandemic, their season 1 season 2, and playing with a same group of people. And you play at least 12 times over the course of the year and the story changes and you, you literally put stickers on the board and you mark it up and you tear up cards.

It's incredible, but what's on community, you know that it brings you together that many times you like, and like I said that you're getting together for the purpose of playing these games and experiencing this together, but there are also, there are so many other Cooperative games. There's a, there's a great one five-minute dungeons, which is kind of a real-time game, which is super fun. If you're, if you're okay with it kind of stressful, feeling of that they have. Do they have a Marvel skin for that one? Which is super fun. There's really complex stuff. Complex, cuz this one's this is okay, for even kids, there's flash point, fire rescue, there's Forbidden Desert is Castle Panic, which is a ton of fun. We have a Star Trek variant of Castle Panic, which is based on the 1960 Star Trek and I love that one. You're trying to keep the Star Trek, Enterprise safe, it's really fun.

Cooperative games can kind of scratch, the itch for play games when you don't want to hurt feelings or friendships, or if you're trying to fill out new people into your group rather than getting into a really competitive high-stress situation, Cooperative games me a fun way to feel things out, you'll see people's rolls, expand, you'll see leaders, you'll see people who might be in their shell kind of come out a little bit. Jeff just accuse me of being bad at making friends.

What what are what do I say? What my competition. You said that. Like no I said it's a good way. If you don't know how to feel people out, this is a good way to hide. Your wife is scary and me I guess I got a little too real. I apologize all of that to say there are so many great Cooperative games out there and and and there are some really hard ones. We just got one that I played with our eight-year-old, which is it's a Wonder Woman game, something about. It's something about the Amazons. Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman Wonder Woman themed, but you play on some mascara, which is the island that the Amazons live on, and you play an Amazon. So, you have these different abilities, but you are fighting a villain from the Wonder Woman comics and poor. And I had a really good time playing, but it was really hard and The Game beat us. But we thought otherwise it was a ton of fun, and she couldn't wait to play again. In fact, I'm looking for

Play it again. And of course she got to be Diana Prince, you got to be Wonder Woman which made her whole day so it was wonderful.

Then our last big discussion about why Monopoly is not the best game. It's just too long. And as we were researching Monopoly, it just how long is Monopoly supposed to take the recommended, like the suggested time limit says, 20 minutes to 180 minutes, which is very different amount of time, but I don't know how you could possibly play Monopoly in 20 minutes unless you just didn't care, and didn't try. And just whoever got the big spots. Got the big spots, the end. You can play it really fast. If you don't trade, I think one of the other reason than this goes into, the too long. There is no benefit in Monopoly to trading unless you're behind. So if you're ahead don't trade with anybody, just continue to crush them at the point of Monopoly. It so you can finish the game really fast because they feel bad or they trade because they get distracted. Because

They, they might be ahead, but they just want a little bit more. So they'll trade with somebody, that's not an effective trade and then they catch up and then you just get this game. But we're really the personalities have taken over and you either have somebody who enjoys crushing everyone don't look at me like that port for you just end up in these stalemates because nobody wants to lose, but nobody wants to sacrifice their stuff. Either our know, this seems almost hypocritical cuz we just talked about Settlers of Catan and how wonderful it is a huge part of Settlers of Catan is a trading mechanism, but it's not necessary. And the trading in Catan is almost like a mutual. Like, I know you're building your points, but I'm building mine. We're going back and forth. But like Megan said, you get people who will trade in Monopoly. Like, what they feel bad, or you'll just half the person. Who's the banker, who seems to always have more money than they need to have, or should have click click little sidebar. Once Upon a Time, The Game of Life.

Went completely digital for a little bit and you had there was like an extra thing that came in the box and you swiped debit cards on it. So the game was fully in control of the bank. How lame is that? There's no like slipping an extra bill here and there like it was all controlled by the dumb robot, but I confess a lot of things about ourselves there. So maybe just confessed to cheating at life. I mean, I should probably confess I cheat a lot. I don't see a games with good mechanics because there's no reason. Like I got to make it introverting will keep watching you and we won't talk about what we do professionally.

There are great mechanics to control length of games. There are certain number of rounds that you play some games. Like I mentioned, like five minute dungeon, there's literally a real time to it. So once the timer's done that's the end of that. I mean, honestly, how many of you ended every single game in Monopoly with. Okay, let's just be done and count how much money you have. And that's the winter. I swear that's how every game of Monopoly I ever played ended or somebody flipped the board over my life, play more than one game of Monopoly, especially in college with a board. Got flipped over

I was also part of the risk club. We did have fun and we would play that game forever, but that's different, that's a different story. But I think ultimately what we're trying to get across is that game should be for fun and they should be to enjoy who you're with and I think they scratch an itch for Community. They scratch an itch for competition, cooperation, and there are so many really intelligent much smarter than me. People who are developing different games with different themes and different variations that you just have to go looking to find something that will make, you excited about playing board games, and want to say very quickly. If Monopoly holds a special place in your heart. We want to absolutely respect that if you have fond memories of playing Monopoly, if it was important to you, if your family did that often together, we really do respect that but I'm going to say that you enjoyed those times because

Both of the people you were with and not because Monopoly is a brilliant game because it's just not, we could continue talking about games and games and games. In fact, there's a whole nother paragraph underneath of things that were going to talk about. But I think we're going to cut this off because we could just keep going, but I want it. We'd have not talked about. We haven't talked about deck building games with cards. We haven't talked about party games for their great with big groups of people that are kind of low pressure. We haven't talked about role-playing Dungeons & Dragons, which I could do a whole podcast on myself games, which are playing games at the table, but you're moving your throwing things. You're you're flipping things, it's Jenga. But but even that I loved you and I love a good game of Jenga.

We love war games, we are going to continue talking about board games. If you have tried some of these games, if you have game recommendations, we're going to do a whole thing about playing games with your kids, because we have four kids and we love playing games with our kids. And I know some people are like what I cannot push chutes and ladders again or I cannot play. Hi, Ho Cherry-O. We have some recommendations for some really great, really fun games that you can play with young children all the way up as they get older to learn. So many of these elements that were talking about to make them. Good game, theory, people and good. Think we we have a heart and excitement for the so please share with us the things that you've learned share with us the games that you liked me, that your family loves, and if you're a hardcore Monopoly lover, let us know. Why do you love that thing? What are some of the best stories that you have about Monopoly? We'd love to hear it. You can you can tell us that you can send us an email stickless at gmail.com, you can give us a

Out on Twitter which I think is stick podcast. So please, please do those things. Get in contact with us. We want to hear about it now but we're going to move on to remember.

Hey remember Rugrats. Yeah so I guessed I guess your first one, I did not guess on this one. And I'm so pumped to talk about this when I'm so excited. I picked it because I wanted you to be pumped to talk about it. I'm really surprised you picked this one so 90s babies. If you wealth 90s babies, know what I'm talking about. If you don't know what I'm talking about, Rugrats was a cartoon, I have some facts about Rugrats. What do you want to? Give us a brief summary of the show was a poorly drawn cartoon that was on, Nickelodeon that I love so much and it was about babies that there was a group of them. There was Tommy and Chucky and there were the twins.

There was Angelica, who was like the mean cousin and these babies would get into. I mean, they would talk to one another. They always tried to escape from things and it was just a fascinating, that weird Nickelodeon art style, where things weren't pretty or polished. But I learned a lot from Rugrats. In fact, I think I know why Megan picked this one. I learned a lot of things that I understand about Judaism from Rugrats, which is phenomenal. There's a whole episode about The Maccabees. It's it's incredible. But this is one of those shows that there was a dinosaur named Reptar. I remember this one really fondly, it's an iconic cartoon from the 90s. I think the intro is rated it was in the top 20 of best show intros ever just because it was so creative. And the perspective of the animation was really unique, especially for especially for its

I'm were old enough to get to say things like that. Like I don't even know when was it on? Like I was going to say like 92 to 9791 and then I couldn't, I was going fast, I couldn't find a definite end date because it actually did have spin-offs and it had a movie and all that good stuff or like teenagers or something. Yeah, that way yet. It was one of the spin-offs they followed the baby brother for a little while. They had a lot of things even Spielberg called it. I love this, I love the phrasing of this compliment from Steven, Spielberg sort of the peanuts of our time is laughing. So much at the fact that I chose Rugrats is because I was not allowed to watch Rugrats and that is just something that we have laughed about so much.

Through our entire time of knowing each other and Mom, if you're listening, I'm I'm sorry. It's so funny that we were not allowed to watch this. Damn it concerns that she had about it. The babies were mean, like, they could be mean and they were disrespectful or none of that as a grown up. I'm not smirking mean no. I, I completely understand. But even as a even has a kid, who did not watch the show? I have legitimately seen one episode. It is the one you referenced earlier about the Maccabees. You showed it to me. And I learned a lot about Hanukkah even though I never watched it hearing that theme song, come on, seeing the Rugrats pictures or things from the past, still hit that Nostalgia because it was just such a part of childhood.

Well I I appreciate it, I do I think Rugrats is a pretty, it is a great show. There were better shows on Nickelodeon, there were was better and I think that's Doug. I think the best Nickelodeon show don't add me. Hey Arnold to my bad. I would love to hang out but when you're talking about this are these shows and I think Doug is the best one way. Thank you for joining us this week on stickless. We are so glad that you were here. It's something we said if you want to have a board game night or if you have some thoughts about Monopoly or if you just want to talk about 90s, Nickelodeon cartoons like Rugrats, please reach out to us, let us know. And just know that we are thankful that you were here. The police raid us wherever you, get your podcast. That helps us out. Let us know what we're doing. Better or what we should. We can improve on.

And we look forward to talking to you again next week. I'm Jeff.