Hasbro Has Changed the Official Rules for Monopoly

(Photo: William Warby)

Since 1933, the board game Monopoly has been the source of countless fights and arguments among friends and families. It's a great game. But most games need a bit of tweaking over time as players discover problems that reduce rather than exacerbate conflict. Accordingly, Hasbro, the company that owns Monopoly, has issued new rules. These rules are suggestions from players who have adapted the game to suit their own needs. Leanne Italie writes for the Associated Press:

The winning house rule for landing on Go means players get 400 Monopoly dollars instead of the official 200. As for Free Parking, official rules call for absolutely nothing to happen when a player lands there. Under the house rule, any taxes and fees collected are thrown into the middle for a lucky someone who lands on that corner square.
Rounding out the five winners are players must travel around the board one full time before they can begin buying properties, and collecting 500 bucks for rolling double ones.

What changes to the game would you make?

-via TYWKIWDBI

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Always played the game with the $400 for landing on Go, and the Free Parking getting the money "in the middle" from Luxury Tax, funds to get Out of Jail, and other assessments in the Chance and Community Chest cards. Payouts from the cards came from the Bank, since Banks were (and are) Evil Incarnate. Also played that if you rolled doubles and landed on an opponents space, you could skate by rolling again quickly if they hadn't paid attention to your touch down on their property.

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Part of what makes Monopoly suck is the house rule that Free Parking give a payout. It just prolongs the game pointlessly.

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A few years ago, I revised the rules to make the game more fun, including:
- No $1 bills. Everything got rounded to the nearest $5, to cut down on all that clutter and time wasted counting ones.
- No Free Parking. That square became the Gas Company, so there were 3 utilities to own. Rent was calculated according to how many of the utilities you owned.

Then I made up a bunch of cards called Fate Cards, so I had 3 stacks - Chance, Community Chest, and Fate. 2 of the 6 designated Chance and CC squares were drafted into Fate squares, so there were 2 of each category. Some of those Fate cards were:
- Go to jail free (this is really helpful at the end, when you are safer sitting in jail than walking across other people's hotel minefields);
- Go the opposite direction around the board (this made it possible to hit the income tax BEFORE you hit GO);
- You may build 1 house now on a property, whether you hold the entire neighborhood or not;
- Title deed for Boardwalk and Mediterranean Ave immediately swap positions/ownership (since the rent on Med. Ave is rounded down to $0 anyway, this made it a valuable property to own, so one could pick up Boardwalk for really cheap).
- If you don't like the number you just rolled, you may play this card and re-roll 1 of your dice, but you must accept that second roll.
- Tornado (You may pick up any house on the board and set it down on any other buildable property);
- Mafia (Each player loses 1 property of their choice and the property can be bought by whoever lands on it. Houses remain on it.)