Satchmo Played Monopoly: "And I Think To Myself What a Wonderful World!"

This month's theme for our regular Monopoly Club get-together was a total revelation. What I had understood to be "around the world" was, in fact, Wonders of The World (both natural and historical, with The Seven Wonders of The Ancient World being the most valuable properties).

As well as the traditional "forcing your opponents to go bankrupt" method of winning, this version introduced a new way to end the game, emphasising its theme of "seeing the wonders of the world".

Everyone was given a faux passport, containing a miniature version of the game board, upon which you marked off every "wonder" that you visited, and when a player had ticked them all off they got a £1,500 bonus and game would finish.

This change was complemented by a new rule for the airports (the railway stations on a traditional board). Landing on one allowed you a free "return flight" to any "wonder" on the board, so you could tick it off on your passport. Your counter didn't move, you simply marked off a square of your choice.

Pete shows off his passport

Passport interior: the game provided easy-erase marker pens to tick off the squares

The passports were decorated with date stamps from the early 20th Century, heightening the feel of the game as emulating the Golden Age of travel. Money in the game was pounds and you were building "guest houses" and "hotels".

Because of this passport twist in the game mechanics, for the first time in our 12 games, we opted not to use the official Monopoly speed die in case it made the game "too short". As it turned out the game ran long, and yet I still believe that the gimmicks of that special die would have made it too easy to tick off all the locations on the board.

Our musical background for the evening started as "EuroPop", but when Pete had an allergic reaction to Whigfield's Saturday Night, Rachel switched the Spotify playlist to "traditional music of the world".

We chose our movement pieces, which represented stages in the development of transport - Clare was Stephenson's Rocket (aka "Puffin' Billy"), Rachel was a three-masted schooner, Pete was the Montgolfier Brothers' hot air balloon, and I was the vintage motor car - and the game began. 

Pretty much from the off, although I was, of course, collecting properties along the way, my goal was to "visit" all the sites, claim the £1,500 bonus and (hopefully) win that way.

A promising start to my property portfolio

Although I managed to mark off all but one "wonder" on my passport by the time I went bust, I blew through my finances in the process and, not surprisingly, eventually crashed out on one of Pete's properties.

Pete had a cunning tactic of buying up all the airports. This meant that even though those squares gave us the potential to eliminate another site from our passport it would cost us £200 for the privilege. 

Because we opted not to go with the special die, that also meant we started with less money, and it felt like we spent a lot more time "cash poor" than usual.

Not long after I was out, Rachel followed, and eventually Clare, leaving Pete as master of the world!

No one else had come as close as me to marking off all the sites in their passport - for all the good that did me!

This victory means Pete's lead in the league table (see below) has become more commanding. He's now seven points ahead of me, and as a win nets you five points (second gets you three, third gets you two, and fourth gets you a single point), it is going to take several wins from any of the rest of us, as well as somehow ensuring Pete goes out first or second each time, to overtake him!

All our passports at the end of the game

Current standing in the Monopoly Club league table

Wonders of The World was a wonderful version of Monopoly (pun intended), provoking a lot of conversation and banter along the way, as we were inspired to share stories in the "I've been there" genre. Not only did the rule booklet have historical details on all the movement counters, but we belatedly realised that all the property cards had facts about their particular 'wonder' on the back.

All the squares on the board were also numbered and these tallied with numbers on the map in the middle of the board, so you could see where any particular 'wonder' was in the world (which was useful for me when I mixed up Angel Falls with Victoria Falls).

See where your property really is in the world

A beautiful iteration of Monopoly, with no printing errors that we discovered, nice chunky playing pieces (always useful when every player wears glasses), and an interesting educational element if you wanted it, it's no surprise that we all agreed that Wonders of The World was our first 'perfect', ten out of ten, Monopoly theme (see table below).

"Let The Wookie Win!"

With several Star Wars playlists blasting on Spotify, and a barrage of film quotes in our arsenal, this month's Monopoly contest used a Star Wars board that drew just on the Original Trilogy.

As it was Clare's choice, she got to pick her counter first and chose Princess Leia, Rachel took R2-D2. Pete was Boba Fett, and I was Luke.

Left to Right: Boba Fett, R2-D2, Leia, and Luke

Although the temperatures weren't quite Tatooine levels, it was still hot and sticky when we sat down to game - even with the back doors wide open - leading to a fractious (but good natured) contest of cut-throat commercialism. 

Pete pretty much led from the off, if such a thing is possible in Monopoly, while I dragged along behind the others. Everyone else had almost completed a couple of laps of the board before Luke finally limped back to the Go square for the first time.

It was quite a development-heavy game, with more hotels (space ports) and houses (colonies) seemingly popping up than usual, which meant three of us were pretty much 'cash poor' for the majority of the game.

Conversely, Pete somehow engineered an enormous property portfolio empire and a personal fortune that rivalled (if not exceeded by the end of the game) that of The Bank.

The underused 1,000 credit coin - more Monopoly themes should employ coins!

My only moment of financial "happiness" was trading in a couple of 500 credit notes for the 1,000 credit coin... which I then promptly used to purchase two-thirds of Endor off of Rachel.

Rachel's collection of property, around the game's mid-point

The start of Pete's empire: space ports on Dagobah

The rebels strike back: I build space ports on Hoth...

... for all the good it did!

Clare went out first, when I somehow bankrupted her, but then the rest of us fell in quick succession to Pete's impressive array of Imperial space ports on high value sites.

I was next out and then Rachel, pleased with her second place, which has helped her slightly in the overall rankings.

With his victory in this game, Emperor Pete pulls ahead at the top of the Monopoly Club league table, while at the tail end Rachel is clawing her towards Clare's third place spot (although we have to remember Clare has a game in hand, as Nick subbed in for her during one of our early games).

The Star Wars board had some nice theming touches, starting with the counters being divided into Light Side and Dark Side, which then determined which style of colony (houses) and space ports (hotels) a player could build.

A particularly welcome touch, and seemingly rare in the games we've played, was having sets of properties united by their in-universe locations (e.g. there were three green properties all on Endor; two dark blues on Coruscant; two slightly different shades of blue on Dagobah etc).

Chance and Community Chest were labelled Rebel and Imperial, with their all-important text themed to the Star Wars universe, and accompanied by appropriate clip art.

The miniature movers were sculpted after Star Wars characters from the Original Trilogy, and reminded me an awful lot of old school RPG minis produced for the legendary West End Games d6 roleplaying game from the late '80s and '90s.

Unfortunately, I found the figures occasionally difficult to identify, especially against the darker squares, and developed a tendency to move the wrong one (usually Clare's Princess Leia) instead of my own. Much to the amusement of my fellow gamers! 

It's Pete's choice which of his many, many themed Monopoly boards we play next time, and so we'll have to wait and see which he chooses (Ghostbusters and Game of Thrones were mentioned, but he has a lot to pick from).

Meddling In Monopoly's Property Market...

Pete's Scooby-Doo-themed Monopoly board

I'm not going to beat about the bush here: I won our Monopoly game last night, quite comprehensively I like to think.

I'm not bragging though because it was way more luck than judgement. I could lie and say my bumbling, dice-misreading, rule-forgetting persona was some deep level Keyser Söze-style Machiavellian misdirection to keep my "foes" off balance... but the honest truth is that's just me.

For the second gathering of The Monopoly Club, a spin-off from The Tuesday Knights, we plumped for the Scooby-Doo-themed iteration of Monopoly, from Pete's huge archive of 'novelty' Monopoly variants.

It was my choice and everyone agreed.

We were originally supposed to have played this last month, but my bout of food poisoning put paid to that.

In lieu of Clare (who was off skiing), Nick joined Pete, Rachel, and I for the evening.

I selected the Velma token (because why wouldn't I? She is the best), Rachel played Scooby-Doo, Nick was Shaggy, and Pete was The Mystery Machine.

My contribution to the game was the donation of a pair of my Scooby-Doo dice, which while thematically appropriate were a bugger to read (especially for someone with dodgy eyesight like myself) because of the tiny numbers on each face.

Unlike a lot of these "branded" Monopoly sets I've checked out over the years, clearly a lot of thought had gone into the design of the Scooby-Doo set, ensuring that not only were the properties "properties" (and not people, monsters, bits of equipment etc) but they were also grouped like 'real' Monopoly locations. 

Unfortunately, the font chosen for the location names on the cards made them often quite difficult to read, especially where they overlapped with the graphic below.

This, and the dice, thus - while accenting the Scooby-Doo mood (along with Rachel's Scooby-Doo playlist on Spotify) - contributed to my bumbling style of play, and almost certainly helped prolong the game.

Velma, Shaggy, Scooby, and The Mystery Machine ready for an adventure

As last time, we used Pete's "house rules" to speed things up (such as the official bonus Monopoly die) and, once again I got off to slow start with everyone else scooping up properties all round the board in their opening few turns.

The modest start of my property empire

My not-so-secret weapons: two restaurants on the most valuable sites

However, I concentrated on the two most valuable sites on the board - rather than initially spreading my portfolio - and then used what money I had left to quickly build-up "snack shacks" (ie. 'houses'), then restaurants (ie. 'hotels'), on those squares.

Somehow, I think from Rachel's mocking of my cookery skills, these became "up-market fish-finger sandwich" restaurants.

My fellow players may have laughed... but it was these that bankrupted first Rachel and finally Peter, with Nick crumbling under the costs of stopping at another of sea food restaurants on a different edge of the board.

Nick plotting strategy

For the longest time, I'd really thought I was going to be the first to go out and that Nick was on course to trounce us all (as he has a real head for boardgames and rules minutiae).

Therefore, I was as genuinely surprised as anyone to realise, in the closing stages of the game, that I was in with a very good chance of winning.

Given that I still don't quite grok a good proportion of the game's mechanics (there's a reason I never 'mortgaged' any of my properties) and was basically winging it according to the dice rolls and "roleplaying out" events in my head.

Much merriment, for example, was made of the moment when Rachel asked how much I wanted for a property I owned and she needed to complete a set, and - without hesitation - I replied: "A thousand dollars."

That then became a running gag for the rest of the evening.

I think Alfred Pennyworth summarised my approach to Monopoly best in 2008's The Dark Knight:

" ...some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."

I'm certainly not arrogant enough to think I will ever win another game of Monopoly with this crowd, but I was delighted that the one I did win was my choice, Scooby-Doo.

For our next meeting, Pete's going to send over a spreadsheet (or just a list) of his Monopoly collection and Rachel will be picking what board theme we will be tackling.

Pete utterly bamboozled by my random play style

Alice wasn't happy that we were still gaming way past her bedtime and made sure we knew it!