Like always, I am not exactly sure how we steered towards the topic of games, but I remember talking about how make in junior high, my best friend and I could play an entire game of Monopoly without the board, the pieces, the money, or the property cards. All we needed was some dice. We had played regularly enough that we knew all the property names, rents, house costs, etc. We kept track of money with simple path and a pad of paper.
That level of play of course required the printing of extra money, because our rules didn’t limit the number of houses or hotels you could build on a square. At one point, we even took money from the game of Life, which had bills ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 - now that’s how you build houses in Monopoly.
From there we kept going on about other games of our past and present and the custom rules we used to make the games better. A brief list is below that covers our discussion, but post your own custom rules and we can get a good index going.
Monopoly
1. Free Parking jackpot. This may be the most common addition to Monopoly. Basically any cash that you have to pay out that doesn’t go to another player gets put in the middle of the board. Whoever lands on the Free Parking square gets the pot.
2. Double your money on GO. This one was new to me and one that sounds pretty good. We all know when you pass GO you get $200. But land directly on GO and get double your salary for a cool $400.
3. Only the current player opts to buy. The official Monopoly rules state that if the current player doesn’t want to buy the property they land on, that the property is up for auction to all other players, highest bidder wins. If you really did this, the game would last longer than it already does.
Battleship
1. You can move your ships. This one sounded too silly at first. During your turn you can choose to attack your opponent or move one of your ships on your board. You can only move ships that have not been hit. This would definitely increase the play time of Battleship and possibly add a little more strategy.
Risk
1. Stratego per battle. Now this is a rule I don’t subscribe to, but one that was suggested many moons ago. As if a game of Risk didn’t take long enough, this option suggests you play a game of Stratego for every battle played in Risk. Winner claims the land.
2. Battleship per battle. Similar to the Stratego theory, for every Risk battle on a coast line, you play a game of Battleship. Winner claims the land. Again, another one I wouldn’t dare include in my next Risk game, but I suppose it could be done.
There have to be tons more custom rules we all had for the games we play (and played). Drop them below if they come across your mind. At one point, we might all be able to play the ultimate game.
My family always played Monopoly without the Monopoly part. You could build a house or hotel on any piece of property you owned. You didn’t have to have all of the same color. It made for a shorter game by hours.
Howabout introducing an economic element into Risk?
Utilizing Monopoly, use your cash and properties to affect your plan for world domination. Start out playing Risk, and at the end of each turn, play Monopoly until everyone’s gone around the board once.
Continue this throughout the game.
Use your Monopoly money to buy surplus armies for Risk- but don’t waste all your money on armies- because you need to develop your nation (properties, utilities). Only by balancing the two can you truly acheive economic dominance.
I can see it now- The Ultimate Game: Riskopoly!
Non-monopoly building sounds like a good idea to shorten the game from 10-hours to at least 4 or 5. Plus it makes you feel more like a bad ass sooner because you’re building and raking in the cash!
Riskopoly. Talk about an all nighter.
Riskopoly: THE game for real men.
I played Brian’s #1 in the Monopoly game with my childcare kids and the bank ran out of money! For some reason I can’t remember changing the rules but I’m sure we did and either didn’t know any better or Mom never told me that she changed the rules on me because I was all about playing by the rules when I was a kid.
Now the stratego per risk battle would be interesting if the size of your risk army amounted to the number of stratego pieces. So if you only had one risk guy all you got was the flag. If you had a ten on the risk board you got to pick nine other stratego pieces (the flag being the tenth). You could even kick it up a notch by makeing the rule that each risk piece corralated to a specific stratego guy. So you had to move your risk armies around to get the pieces in place to attack. Ex. if the defender had bombs around his flag and you had no 8’s you would have to take your risk turns getting an 8 or two to that battle (I play stratego by the old numbering system where the 1 is the strongest). You could really make the game of risk involved and VERY long.
I remember playing risk as a drinking game one night. The longer we played, the less strategy we applied. :O)
G+