You might be a child in the 70s if:

[dr wogz]

this too:

 

[NTP2]

Most of my toys back in the day ended up getting hacked up one way or another...

They still are, I mean you sell kits!

 

[Antares JS]

You had a marathon Monopoly game.. Played for a day or two, and even use extra money & houses from older / other monopoly sets..

You actually played board games!!

Monopoly is a terrible game,* but board games in general have made a huge comeback over the past decade or so, and are not the province of the 70's. Board games are my other big hobby, I have a pretty decent collection of them, most of them made in the last 10-15 years, and play them on a weekly basis. There's even a company called "Restoration Games" that acquires licenses to old, classic games and releases updated versions of them, like "Return to Dark Tower" and "Thunder Road: Vendetta."

View attachment 644182

And taping a penny to the tone arm head to prevent skips.

Heh, I have an automatic record player (most arm movements are automatic) and that's still hard.


*The biggest problem with Monopoly is that there's little hope for other players to catch up when one player is way ahead, combined with the fact that it usually takes a long time to actually bankrupt a player, meaning that the winner is typically decided long before it's official. I'm pretty sure that's deliberate, as the game was supposed to send a social message about the danger of monopolies, but it's not very good game design.

 

[NTP2]

Monopoly is a terrible game,* but board games in general have made a huge comeback over the past decade or so, and are not the province of the 70's. Board games are my other big hobby, I have a pretty decent collection of them, most of them made in the last 10-15 years, and play them on a weekly basis. There's even a company called "Restoration Games" that acquires licenses to old, classic games and releases updated versions of them, like "Return to Dark Tower" and "Thunder Road: Vendetta."

*The biggest problem with Monopoly is that there's little hope for other players to catch up when one player is way ahead, combined with the fact that it usually takes a long time to actually bankrupt a player, meaning that the winner is typically decided long before it's official. I'm pretty sure that's deliberate, as the game was supposed to send a social message about the danger of monopolies, but it's not very good game design.

I was just about to @ you when I read that post!!

Ps I think games really got good when people realized how fun works (aka a goal, a challenge trying to stop you, and game mechanics to let you win if you’re skilled with them.)

 

[jqavins]

*The biggest problem with Monopoly is that there's little hope for other players to catch up when one player is way ahead, combined with the fact that it usually takes a long time to actually bankrupt a player, meaning that the winner is typically decided long before it's official. I'm pretty sure that's deliberate, as the game was supposed to send a social message about the danger of monopolies, but it's not very good game design.

My brother and I and a few friends devised a few rule changes, just two or three important ones, that fixed that. We'd get three or four games completed in a long evening,

And then there was the Friday night we completed a long game of Risk, asked ourselves what we wanted to do next, decided to make the 2½ hour drive up to the lakefront summer house, got there, asked ourselves what we wanted to do next, and played another long game of risk. Then we went out for breakfast.

Ps I think games really got good when people realized how fun works (aka a goal, a challenge trying to stop you, and game mechanics to let you win if you’re skilled with them.)

So... competitive sports, solitaire, puzzles, adventure games... These things were invented when?

 

[Antares JS]

And then there was the Friday night we completed a long game of Risk, asked ourselves what we wanted to do next, decided to make the 2½ hour drive up to the lakefront summer house, got there, asked ourselves what we wanted to do next, and played another long game of risk. Then we went out for breakfast.

I'd be interested in hearing your Monopoly house rules. I've heard many variations, but what did you do?

The problem I have with vanilla Risk is that the person who secures North America first usually wins in my experience, because it's a massive bonus of five armies per turn, but is easy to defend with only three entry points. One of my favorite variants of Risk, Risk 2210, fixes some of the problems with the game by having more routes into North America and a five-round time limit after which a final score is tallied.

Now if you want a decent "olden days" game, that's pretty fun as-is, Clue is pretty good. People would get so mad at me when I bluffed by including cards I was holding in my guesses to throw others off track or force an early reveal of information. Good times.

 

[NTP2]

So... competitive sports, solitaire, puzzles, adventure games... These things were invented when?

1 I think they are more fun to watch than play…
2 in general, there are plenty of simple games like chess or Ur, that follow these rules by accident. (Or a unknown genius)
3 I don’t know if I’d call them games.
4 ???? That was after 1970 I’m pretty sure?

 

[Antares JS]

1 I think they are more fun to watch than play…
2 in general, there are plenty of simple games like chess or Ur, that follow these rules by accident. (Or a unknown genius)
3 I don’t know if I’d call them games.
4 ???? That was after 1970 I’m pretty sure?

I think what you are thinking of is more in terms of design choices...

Here are some things that people try to incorporate nowadays that improves games:

-People still being involved in play when it isn't their turn.
-Shorter turns with less downtime for everyone.
-No player elimination, or only player elimination towards the end of the game.
-Important choices to make on every turn.
-Less luck-based mechanics
-More interesting themes

 

[Azamiryou]

The biggest problem with Monopoly is that there's little hope for other players to catch up when one player is way ahead

True story. My brother and I were playing with two of our friends. Brother was having bad luck, hardly landing on anything to buy. In due course, I wiped out Friend 1 and Friend 2, becoming owner of almost the entire board. Just before I got Friend 2, he traded to brother so that brother had the light blue monopoly (and nothing else).

After I defeated Friend 2, it took less than three laps around the board for Brother to win. While it was just the two of us, he literally did not land on a single property I could collect on, not even once.

 

[BEC]

this too:

View attachment 644232

This picture is an odd reminder to me....I took a girl on a first date to see this movie when we were in college.

We've been married for nearly 46 years now.

 

[jsdemar]

This picture is an odd reminder to me....I took a girl on a first date to see this movie when we were in college.

We've been married for nearly 46 years now.

Are you sure it's still her?

 

[Antares JS]

True story. My brother and I were playing with two of our friends. Brother was having bad luck, hardly landing on anything to buy. In due course, I wiped out Friend 1 and Friend 2, becoming owner of almost the entire board. Just before I got Friend 2, he traded to brother so that brother had the light blue monopoly (and nothing else).

After I defeated Friend 2, it took less than three laps around the board for Brother to win. While it was just the two of us, he literally did not land on a single property I could collect on, not even once.

The dice giveth, and the dice taketh away.

 

[BEC]

Are you sure it's still her?

Fairly certain, yes.

Actually, why do you ask? That's a still from a carousel sequence in Logan's Run.

 

[dr wogz]

Hooo boy, can I talk "house rules" for Monopoly and Risk.


Risk:

• use two boards..
• add an extra dice or two, this make the 'large army grind' go faster. attack with 4 or 5, instead of just the 3.
• "Nukes & teleports" was a fun one:
  • if the attacker rolls a 3 of a kind, that determines "nukes or teleports" and starts the sub-rule.
  • if the roll is even, it's Nukes. If odd, Teleports.
  • roll one die. that's how many nukes or teleports you get.
  • Nukes: draw the top card from the deck. that country either gets wiped out (reduced to 1 army) or 'mutates' (add 1 army) Continue thru the die count
  • Teleports: flip the tow top card of the deck: those two countries switch armies / swap land. Continue thru the die count

Example:

• I roll three 5s. So, "Nukes or Teleports"
• Odd, so 'teleports.'
• I then roll a 2. SO, 2 teleports..
• The first two cards drawn are Indonesia & Siam. You grab your armies off Siam, I grab my one army off Indonesia. I now own Siam, you now own Indonesia
• The 2nd two cards re Alberta & Peru. We swap armies.
• I was attacking from Alberta. So, my turn has essentially ended. You had Peru, and had the continent. You no longer have the continent, but now have 23 armies (from Alberta) against your 3 armies in each of the other 3 countries in S. America..
• My next turn is likely to take over S. America.. I was working on N. America.. but things change....

This can really shake the game up!!

 

[Azamiryou]

Our house rule for Risk was that you use M&Ms for the armies, and you have to eat whatever you kill.

Fun for a bit, but the winner would end up in a world of hurt...

 

[jqavins]

Hooo boy, can I talk "house rules" for Monopoly and Risk.


Risk:

• use two boards..
• add an extra dice or two, this make the 'large army grind' go faster. attack with 4 or 5, instead of just the 3.
• "Nukes & teleports" was a fun one:
  • if the attacker rolls a 3 of a kind, that determines "nukes or teleports" and starts the sub-rule.
  • if the roll is even, it's Nukes. If odd, Teleports.
  • roll one die. that's how many nukes or teleports you get.
  • Nukes: draw the top card from the deck. that country either gets wiped out (reduced to 1 army) or 'mutates' (add 1 army) Continue thru the die count
  • Teleports: flip the tow top card of the deck: those two countries switch armies / swap land. Continue thru the die count

Example:

• I roll three 5s. So, "Nukes or Teleports"
• Odd, so 'teleports.'
• I then roll a 2. SO, 2 teleports..
• The first two cards drawn are Indonesia & Siam. You grab your armies off Siam, I grab my one army off Indonesia. I now own Siam, you now own Indonesia
• The 2nd two cards re Alberta & Peru. We swap armies.
• I was attacking from Alberta. So, my turn has essentially ended. You had Peru, and had the continent. You no longer have the continent, but now have 23 armies (from Alberta) against your 3 armies in each of the other 3 countries in S. America..
• My next turn is likely to take over S. America.. I was working on N. America.. but things change....

This can really shake the game up!!

Sounds too random for my taste. We had a nukes rule that was never used. When you have a sufficient number of territories to qualify as a nuclear power, you may choose to dowse the board with gasoline and light it.

 

[Knundrm]

 

[goose_in_co]

There was no "Chicago 1" album.

It was, "The Chicago Transit Authority"