Image via Wikipedia

The original Dungeon Masters Guides for 4th edition is one of the most praised books in the set of original core books for the advice it gives on running adventures, campaigns and creating encounters. It is also criticised for a general lack of content for the experienced role-player, to whom this content is nothing new, and information commonly found on the internet.

With the Dungeon Masters Guide 2, Wizards will be hoping to answer some of their critics and put together a book with useful advice for all of their players. There are now a number of excerpts they have released from their new product.

Group Storytelling

This chapter looks like more of the same, covering similar material to that found in the DMG. It looks at dream sequences and flashbacks with a look at working with your players to craft a background for their characters and the world.

For many players they want to create a character fast and get playing. A character background is a chore rather than a delight. This chapter will either be loved by your players as they find motivation to invest in their characters, or will be a part of the DMG2 that you never look at.

Companion Characters

This chapter looks at bringing one of the creatures in the adventure into the party as a side-kick. Throughout D&D’s history there have been companions of some sort available and they have never worked very well for the game. Either they were too powerful or so weak that you daren’t let them come within 50 yards of you. Here Wizards of the Coast really have their work cut out to make this viable but not overpowering from your group. Otherwise you just have another figure to put on the map and remove as soon as a dragon deems to breathe fire over you all.  Adding complication for the players and a difficult balancing act for the DM, this is something a lot of groups will ignore.

Advanced Encounters

Here Wizards of the Coast tell the D&D Dungeon Master how to craft a more advanced encounter. Judging from the preview this could be a misleading title, with WotC using the word ‘encounter’ to refer to anything that happens in the game. The chapter, as previewed, seems to focus more on the role playing side of the game, negotiating with NPCs or finding clues in some mystery. If it’s done well it might be quite interesting but there is a danger this will read as a means to bring your players to the next combat.

Terrain

The terrain section is one of the real draws of the DMG2. While the previous three sections don’t really seem to play to the strengths of 4th Edition, new terrains and rules here really do. Dungeons and Dragons in its current version is a combat game, and that’s where its strengths lie. This will let you build more interesting combats and design more varied and challenging battles for your players. This is what the D&D Dungeon Master needs.

Skill Challenges

The Skill Challenges section in the original DMG is a huge disappointment and a confusing mess of rules which give even players well skilled for a challenge a hard time. The rules are often now run using a combination of errata and house rules. A new section on Skill Challenges is very much required from the DMG2 and this might give a solution to the flaws in this game mechanic. If it does, this will be a useful feature in the game.

Customizing Monsters

Here we find more rules to create the monster you want with the skills you want it to have. With more Monster Manuals being released, do we really need a section on customizing them? Even if you want to create a Goblin Rager riding a wild boar that’s particularly adept at squirting lemon juice into its enemy’s eyes, you can just create it without too many problems. This section seems somewhat redundant, especially since similar rules are already found in the first DMG.

Adventures and Rewards

There is an Adventures and Rewards section in the first DMG covering what rewards to give out, depending on the level of your party and the experience gains they are earning. This section then covers similar ground. Does your Dungeons and Dragons game need more information on how to give out rewards? There is relatively little of real interest that this section can bring for most games and this is probably another part of the book which will be referred to little, if at all.

Paragon Campaigns

It is interesting that WotC should deem to need a section specifically aimed at Paragon level campaigns. This must surely focus on the feel of the campaign, emphasising that the players should be facing more daunting tasks and more impressive enemies than they saw in the heroic tier. Ultimately the combat in the game at Paragon level is not so different from the Heroic levels, so there is little that needs to be covered here.

So is the DMG2 an exciting new release for 4th Edition D&D? That, of course, depends on what you are looking for and how you play D&D. With a focus on encounter and campaign design, it seems to offer little to anyone playing the published 4th edition campaigns, focusing on Dungeon Masters running homebrew games instead.

To a large degree it appears to be a very similar book to the 4th Edition DMG. If you felt the DMG lacked substantial rules content, the same is likely to be true of the DMG2. The content covering new rules for the game is likely to be only the terrain and skill challenge sections. Conversely those that loved the DMG for its advice on running a homebrew game and managing a group of players will probably also love the DMG2. It seems to follow a similar path to aid your encounter and campaign design and focus on helping you to run a Dungeons and Dragons game your players will enjoy.

Image via Wikipedia

I have been playing this online strategy game Emret for a while. It is a Turkish game with the classical Command & Conquer style, and it is really fun to play.

At the time I am writing this article, I am the 329th most powerful player which is not that bad. Well, I was pretty much sure I had built a strong defense system and was pretty much sure that I could defeat any serious attack.

I couldn’t be more wrong. My whole defense system was based on this foolish idea that my opponents would attack me with tanks and planes; because the infantries were too weak to take into any consideration. But it turns out that the bazooka men become very powerful when 10000 of them are sent. I was caught off guard. I wasn’t really expecting anything like that, so I had no defense system for infantries. As a result, my gaming would almost come to an end, but luckily my alliance made a deal with the guy.

So now, I have to build a new defense system, this time for the infantries so that the bazooka men will not hurt me again. And I have two options for that. I can either build towers or bunkers, or maybe a mixture.

Now, note that my main strategy is not actually about building defense. On the contrary, I am building my own bazooka army to retaliate back in case I receive such attacks again, but yet, I still need some sort of a defense system.

It is important to understand that this method I’m trying to explain does not give you miracle solutions. You should be aware of the basics of linear programming and modeling. I have already written two articles on these topics so perhaps it is better if you read them before you go on. You can find my previous articles at:

Introduction to Linear Models

and

Linear Programming for an Imaginary Strategy Game

My problem with the current situation in my online game is, I have to decide how I should spend my resources so that I get the best defense.

I am going to use a Google Spreadsheet for the task, simply because Google provides an online and free tool for me to use. I am going to use the “Solve Tool” for the job. Most probably you will find a similar tool in OpenOffice, or in other spreadsheet software you have. You will definitely find such a tool in MS Excel, and honestly, it is better than what Google provides, but the thing is MS Excel is not free. and also it is not online which means you can use it only in your own computer. But you can use a Google document in anywhere you have a connection.

So, open a Google Spreadsheet. If you are not sure what I am talking about, having a Google account is enough to open a spreadsheet. Just launch Google Docs and you will see how easy it is to open a new file.

I shared the Google document I created for this particular problem, so that you can access it and examine it freely. I can assure you that, it wouldn’t really take more than 10 minutes for you to understand the whole thing if I were sitting next to you and explaining all the stuff. I am not very sure about my writing talent, and you may feel it is rather complicated, but trust me on this: If you focus, you will get it.

The current situation is:

I have 33857 gold, 10338 iron, and 17210 wheat. The cost for 1 turret is 176 gold, 436 iron and 456 wheat. And the cost of 1 bunker is 158 gold, 248 iron, and 204 wheat. And as you can see from the table, the defense I can get from 1 turret is 587; and the defense I can get from 1 bunker is 322. As you can figure out, these numbers indicate the defense power of the units, but also they have a fire power to eliminate the coming soldiers, and they are 856 and 483 respectively.

Before building any mathematical model, I should decide what I want to achieve very clearly. What do I want? Easy enough, I want to get the best defense I can get with my resources I have in stock.

But wait a minute. I will be getting some defense power anyway, so maybe it would be wiser if I focus on the fire power of my units, so that I make sure that I can eliminate as much enemy soldiers as I can. You see, this is just a choice, and it depends on how you are playing the game. Mathematical models can not make such a decision for you. They can only tell you the most optimistic path to your goal, only after you decide what your goal is.

So ok, I will be getting the defense power anyway, so I will focus on the maximum fire power I can get with the resources at hand.

Before getting into any nerd stuff, let’s do some simple math. The game already tells me the number of maximum units I can get: and they are either 23 turrets or 42 bunkers. At first glance, it pretty much seems like I should forget abut the bunkers and build turrets because their fire power are far bigger than the bunkers. But if you do the math, you will get:

23 * 856 = 19688 fire power for the turrets and

42 * 483 = 20286 fire power for the bunkers. Wow, so it seems like it is better if I build bunkers. But is this really the most optimum choice? Well, if you are not into any nerd stuff, the answer may be a “Yes” for you. Just build the damn bunkers and move along. However, if you want a more scientific approach to find out the real best optimum choice, linear programming may be the cure.

This is already a very long post, so follow me for the next article on this topic and I will tell you how you can use the solve tool. Or maybe, you would just like to view the Google document and try to figure it yourself.

Image via Wikipedia

Dungeons and Dragons: The Misconceptions

People often ask me what Dungeons and Dragons is.  For whatever reason, many seem to be under the impression that to play Dungeons and Dragons you must be a nerd who dresses up as his/her character.  A kind of every-day Halloween.  In “reality” (if such a word can be used in connection with Dungeons and Dragons, the game, as Dungeons and Dragons for Dummies points out, “is played around a table or other comfortable location where books and papers can be spread out and dice rolled.  D&D is a game of your imagination, part group storytelling and part war-game.”

The Rules in the Core Books

Of course any game needs rules.  In the case of Dungeons and Dragons (or D&D for short) you need both setting and rules.  Most of us don’t know what a Deva, a gnome, or a shifter is like.  And yet, it’s entirely possible that we will choose to play one of these creatures.  Further, most of us have not had experience in the kind of fantasy Medieval professions our characters are likely to take up.  What’s a cleric like?  What does a Bard do, exactly?  Or a Ranger?  But it’s not enough to know that; you also need to know what the world is like. 

What sort of places are there in the world?  Recently, for example, Dragon Magazine described Air Spur, a city state that many consider to be the most beautiful city in all Faerun and which is governed by a wind-soul genasi Queen.  To find out what “Faerun” is or even what “genasi” are you need the Dungeons and Dragons Core Books.  These books will cover the basic rules of your character and your world. 

Core Books are Guides

What happens if you decide to go dragon-hunting?  Or, alternatively, if you decide to befriend a dragon?  What sort of government can you expect to have among elves?  How about dwarves?  How do people perceive you?  What sort of professions are available to you?  How does a battle work for you and your team?  The core books will provide you with guidelines (although the battle rules are obviously quite important).  The core books are not meant to carve your world in stone.  That’s part of why, as I have written in the D&D Insider you can subscribe to the D&D Insider and get the core rules (and extras) on a “flow basis”.

Tell Your Story

Remember, Dungeons and Dragons is a game of the imagination; of story-telling interspersed with combat.  So the core books are your guides but they don’t write your story for you. 

Have fun!

In games, as in life; the First Law…Don’t get caught.
Getting caught offers greater loss than what you gained.

If you’re playing against a computer program and you have to cheat, well, you know you’re not well.

If you’re playing with another mammal and you have to cheat, then you are just pathetic. Being pathetic you need all the help you can get.

To obey the First Law; this is the First Rule; Don’t Be Obvious.

Take this game of Scrabble. Here’s Kris. He’s cheating as if there’s some big prize at the end.  He’s got the wierdest words, especially the seven letter bonus point ones, and he always knows to put his high point letters in the exact spot that you can’t use them.

It’s not once and a while.  It’s every game.

Maybe the first time you played against Kris you thought…hmmm…I wasn’t paying attention or playing strong enough, or maybe you think that he was lucky….but by the mid point of the second game, you know, as if it is in neon lights, that he is cheating.

If Chris had played ‘normally’; some little words ‘Z’ or ‘X’ placed so you get a few points, and if he only beat you by a few dozen points; you would play him again and again, not realising he is using one of those cheat programs which is so good it has made a champion out of the most dyslexic person I ever met.

But Kris doesn’t recognise the First Law of Cheating, nor the First Rule; he is virtually prancing about the board, begging his opponent to say something.

And considering how blatant he is in his plays; his opponent will say something.

When you’re caught, as you will be, if you’re obvious, don’t make the mistake of protest.  Most people who think you’re cheating and say so, are a little annoyed.

The reason they aren’t cheating is because the game is not life and death to them.  It’s a game. It is a diversion. it is not the centre of their lives.

They aren’t happy that you’ve cheated them, but it’s not important. Until you start lying.

The Second Rule of Cheating: Don’t Lie

When one lies and is caught lying, the response is anger. Not only did Kris breach trust, but now Kris shows utter disrespect for the person he has cheated by insulting their intelligence.  So now they are angry. And angry people tend to react.

This may mean the Cheater will be locked off the server or have his name posted somewhere so no one else will play with him.

Hence, if you’ve been caught by the First Law , because you breached the First Rule , don’t make the mistake of compounding it by breach of the Second Rule.

Just ‘forfeit’ the game, as if you’ve been mortally insulted, and leave the other person alone, you’ll live to cheat another day.

Kris, who is busted, is proclaiming his innocence. The more he posts, the angrier the opponent becomes until it’s a matter for the Sys Ad.

Hence, if you’re caught, if you’re even charged; “Are you cheating?” your best response is to forfeit the game, let the other person win, log off for a while, and when you return avoid them.

By forfeiting you put the opponent on the back foot. S/he may wonder if they might have been a bit hasty. After all a real cheater would never ever forfeit.  So you’ve bought yourself a bit more time, and maybe you should re-read Law 1 .

Most of you won’t need to know the Second Law , but here it is; Let the Wookie Win.

Once and awhile you’ll come up against a really hard player. This is someone who takes their game very seriously. For this player to lose because you cheated is going to go very badly for you.

Sometimes the Wookie is a world class hacker, and you might find yourself having to buy another computer, (if you’re playing on line), or a good plastic surgeon if you’re playing face to face.

Don’t try to cheat Wookies.  They don’t take it well.

War at sea. Two combatants. One against the other. Mystery. Subterfuge. Explosions. What could be better? Oh yeah, add in destroyers and submarines and aircraft carriers. This game of hide-and-seek with ships on a peg board is a long-time favorite.

Candy Land

This might seem to be a game for the kids, but its really for all ages. It’s basically a racing game around the board to see who can get to the end first. Cards drawn can send a player forward and back. Lots of color to this game.

Chutes and Ladders

Another one for the kids. Believe it or not, this game of climbing up and sliding down is based up an ancient game of morals from India. And the morals are still there. If you do something good, you advance by climbing up a ladder. Do something bad and you slide down.

Clue

Okay, an adult game. Why? Because it involves murder. Murder most foul. The drift of the game is to find out who did the killing, where they did it and what weapon they used. It can be a laugh riot trying to figure all this out.

LIFE

Much like real life, in this game you take your chances and win big or fall low. Money and getting to the end are the big rewards. That, too, sounds kind of like real life. In another “believe it or not moment,” this game was originally created all the way back in 1960.

Monopoly

This is possibly the most iconic of board games. You move around the board while buying property and hoping you don’t land on someone else’s property and have to pay them rent. With so many different house rules, sometimes Monopoly games can seem to go on forever. In the official rules, the winner is the player who has bankrupted everyone else; in other words, it’s the player who has all the properties. But this can take hours. Probably the best way to shorten the game is to set a time limit, then the winner is decided by who has a combination of the most money and property values.

Mouse Trap

You move your mouse around the board and hope it doesn’t get caught in the trap. It sounds like a game for little kids, but what with all the fancy pieces of the actual trap, it looks like something that could draw the interest of many adults, especially guys who like those Sharper Images catalogs.

Risk

Another war game, but this time the goal is to take over the whole world. Yes, you too can be a conqueror. This is another of those games that seemed to last forever and there was no end in sight. It seemed like no one could ever win. Even if you were down big time, a few lucky dice rolls and you could be back on top.

Scrabble

A lot of adults love this game, but the kids can enjoy it, too. Being able to spell helps big time, as does have imagination with letters and words. You score

Stratego

Yet another war game. This time, generals face off with their armies fronting one another. The way to win is by capturing your enemy’s flag or by making it so he or she can’t make any more moves. A fairly simple game of tactics, it can also be a lot of fun.

Now, as with any game, there is a difference between playing the game and winning. Those in the first category are quite pleasant and you’ll enjoy the time you spend. Those in the second category are best avoided.

There are various kinds of cheating. In Scrabble, looking up words in a dictionary is not cheating as the game itself has a two letter dictionary and a box where you can check spelling.

There are various apps which allow you to enter your letters and words will be supplied. This is kind of borderline cheating as you could, if you wanted spend awhile shuffling the letters around, come up with these words, at least some of them, as others are quite obscure.

Then there is an app where you enter your letters, and the letters on the board and the app tells you where to play.

Hence a dyslexic can be the top player as his little ‘helper’ prog is better than that of the guy with the Doctorate in English.

This is pretty much the kind of cheating of those who are not playing scrabble but playing Win.

In every game on line there are ‘cheat’ programs or ‘helpers’ which are computer against computer, you’re just there to enter your name. As my computer doesn’t need to be amused, but I do, I avoid the cheat programs.

It is not impossible to appreciate when the other player is using a cheat. The strange words, the odd positioning, and you are left with:

• a) get a cheat program to play against his/her cheat prog;
• b) quit
• c); drag it out

In the first, it’s kind of boring to do this, the second is sort of knee jerk, but if you’re smart and have chosen one of those 24 hour to move games, you get to play Torture the Cheat.

Most cheaters avoid long games, they want to play Win and get it over with as fast as possible. Playing “1 day to take a turn” games are usually safe from those playing Win, though occasionally you’ll get a live one.

Now here is this character with his cheat prog running at high speed. He gets on, sees the letters you’ve played, types them into his cheat prog, enters the letters he has, and the computer flings out the word and where he should play it.

Now you play, his computer responds, and you feel, something is strange here. So you take your time. Maybe you try to chat with the guy.

He doesn’t want to chat with you, he wants to play Win.

So when he texts; “Are you going to make your play?”

You text back: “Well, I’ve got 24 hours to play.”

He will forfeit the game.

Now you ponder how in the world can a guy whose life is based on ‘winning’, who cheats to win, can forfeit a game, which counts as a loss.

The fact is, this guy is not playing any game at all, he’s cheating to Win. He is so annoyed it will take so long to win he forgets his creed, and angry at you, makes that illogical action.

The mentality of cheaters will invariably provoke this response. He wants to ‘get it over with’. He believes he must Win and desires you just quit after he makes his first play so he can go on to play 100 games of Win and 0 games of Scrabble.

Torturing the cheater doesn’t stop him from cheating, it stops him from playing with you. Which is all you want.

Why Scrabble? I have several answers:

(1) It’s my game. As a lifelong student of language – a professional writer and former academic (with a Ph.D. in linguistics), I bring certain advantages and perspectives to the game.

It’s not just my vocabulary. I don’t have an enormous vocabulary, especially compared to Scrabble pros, who memorize truly staggering lists of words. My vocabulary is probably slightly above average in size. I’m probably one of the relatively few people who know the Greek alphabet. But what really gives me an advantage at the Scrabble board is my understanding of how to form words via the principles of linguistics.

That’s what you’ll be learning.

My method follows orthodox Scrabble strategy to some degree – but adds a number of my own refinements and enhancements based on my knowledge of language and word structure.

(2) The Scrabble take on life. All games are metaphors for life: you do your best within a narrow stricture of some sort, an arbitrary set of rules. In life, it’s the genes and family environment you start with. You try to learn from your mistakes and devise some kind of long-term strategy to achieve your goals. And in many life situations, as in games, there’s a clear, zero-sum goal that different parties are pursuing, and their pursuit creates conflict. Games are a lot like life.

But why a book on Scrabble and life? One reason is that it’s new territory. The philosophical implications of golf, baseball, football, basketball, chess, tennis, and other games have been wrung dry. But as you’ll see, Scrabble has its own unique brand of patience and discipline, its own take on life’s lessons. This is unexplored territory. This book will explore it.

(3) Everybody knows Scrabble. Scrabble has another advantage: it is iconic. Practically everybody knows what it is, and everyone knows how to play – or can learn in a very short time. So the book should have a fairly wide appeal. If you don’t already play with any kind of regularity, you might even be encouraged to take up the game, because when you finish this book, you will have an almost unfair advantage over your Scrabble-playing friends and relatives.

(4) Scrabble has an ideal balance of luck and skill. In Scrabble, as in life, you must play the tiles you draw – but you can improve them on successive draws. This is the essence of my strategy – and the reason why the game, like life, is never truly over until it’s over.

Scrabble may seem more forgiving than life, since we can simply exchange any and all of our seven tiles, whereas there are some things about our lives that can’t be changed (at least, not easily).

But a Scrabble exchange can get you nothing – or even come back to bite you if you draw the same letters again (that’s why I generally don’t recommend exchanging at or near the end of the game) – or your opponent gets your discard and makes a big play. Change has consequences, some unforeseen, as we learn from both Scrabble and life.

(5) Scrabble trains the brain. Research on aging shows that it’s important to keep the brain and mind nimble with games like Scrabble. Of course, Scrabble can improve your memory. In Scrabble tournaments, a lot of points are scored with some very esoteric words.

But my method trains the brain by accessing higher mental faculties: the ability to anagram – to assemble not only words, but parts of words – and to manage your rack so that you use all seven tiles in one play – and collect that wonderful 50-point bonus as often as possible.

And learning my system takes a lot less time than memorizing millions of words, because it draws on linguistic facts that most people already know – or can grasp very easily.

For instance, my method focuses on, among other things, word-parts that are visible to anyone. Consider the fact that many four- and five-letter English words that begin with a consonant can be preceded by an A: AFOOT, AVAST, ABIDE, ABLAZE, APACE, ASLEEP, ABED. Now…just by knowing that, you’ve learned dozens of five- and six-letter words – with no memorization effort at all. They all contain the common first letter A, which you can use to form a new word at right angles to the first.

Finally, there’s the matter of revelation. My system is based on some simple facts about English that are not understood by most Scrabble players (not even by some good ones, from what I’ve read) but are completely obvious – once they’re pointed out.

It comes as a great revelation to most casual Scrabble players that you can improve your rack (and thus your scoring potential) with letters that are “productive” – i.e., letters that can be combined into a huge number of words and word-parts. But upon hearing the concept, everybody accepts the idea, because everybody intuitively knows that some letters are more common than others.

So the revelation that will make you a much better player is far from incomprehensible – it is simply not perceived. Ultimately, then, this book should leave you with a feeling that in life, as in Scrabble, powerful truths may live just beyond our ken, and we must be as receptive as possible to them.

For years, teachers and parents tried to find a way to educate their students in ways that are fun and educational at the same time. With the game of Scrabble, you are mixing education, analytical skill, competition, and fun all at the same time. Whether or not that was the intention of the Scrabble creators is yet unknown, however, they created a phenomenon that reaches across all continents.

Evolution of the Scrabble Game

There are now official tournaments and clubs that center around this game, most notably the National Scrabble Championship (locations differ each year). Currently, there are over 10,000 clubs worldwide, and thousands of tournaments. For those who are hardcore about the game, there are even Scrabble coaches. They work as freelance individuals to shape the player into a world-class Scrabble player. There are over 1,000 active in the United States alone.

Scrabble in Pop Culture

Scrabble is mentioned in the Wedding Planner as Jennifer Lopez is a tournament player.

In Ada, a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, the main character scores 390 points on a turn including a 50-point bonus for using all her tiles.

Scrabble is also mentioned in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Dent uses Scrabble tiles to figure out the meaning to the universe.

The movie Sneakers, a 1992 film about computer hackers, Robert Redford’s character uses Scrabble tiles to crack an anagram from a black box they stole.

The Finish

While it is hard to determine the intentions of the Scrabble creators, we do know that their influence will spread throughout the world in years to come. One acclaimed Sociologist once said, “Scrabble has already surpassed chess in its popularity. Chess was a bridge to negotiation and conflict. If this fire called Scrabble spreads anymore, our world could be in a better place.” That’s far reaching of course, but a game that has come into its own and has taken on a life in itself, we can only assume that its impact will stretch further and further into our culture in one form or another be it the board game itself, an offshoot thereof, in video game form, or in general conversation. Could we see a revolution? Probably not. After all, it’s just a game, right?

Monopoly is one of the favorite American past times, but there have been numerous popular editions available over the years. Here is the holiday Monopoly extravaganza, choose the edition that suits you best, pass out some money, and get ready to pass Go…

Pirates of the Caribbean Edition

• 6 pewter tokens featuring Jack Sparrow’s compass, Pirate skull, the dog with keys, the Black Pearl cannon, Davy Jones’ chest, and Jack the Monkey.
• Buy, sell and trade new properties such as Isla Cruces Beach, Port Royal Harbor, and Tortuga Docks.
• New Pirate Dice.

Transformers Edition

• 6 pewter tokens including 3 Autobots: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and Jazz as well as 3 Decepticons: Megatron, Starscream, and Sound Wave.
• Buy, sell, and trade the Transformers universe cities, bases, and planets
• Decipher custom Autobot and Decepticon Cards using a special card decoder

Star Wars Saga Edition

• 8 pewter pieces including Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, a Stormtrooper, or Bobba Fett!
• Houses and hotels are replaced with X-wings and tiefighters for houses and Star Destroyers and Millenium Falcons for hotel!
• Buy, sell, and trade Star Wars galaxy properties such as Dagobah, Mos Eisley, and Coruscant.

NFL Collectors Edition

• Buy, sell and trade all 32 AFC and NFC teams.
• 6 pewter pieces including a football, whistle, and a cheerleader.
• Houses and hotels are replaced with stadiums and locker rooms.

My Fantasy Baseball Players Edition Monopoly

• 6 pewter pieces including the hot dog, World Series® Trophy, pitcher, batter, ball in glove and catcher’s mask!
• Buy, sell, and trade over 100 different MLB players
• Over one million possible combinations of player lineups

Electronic Banking Edition

• Paper money is replaced with debit cards. Just swipe your card to make payments.
• 6 pewter pieces including a Segway personal transporter, an Altoids tin, space shuttle, flat-screen TV, baseball cap and a dog in handbag.
• Higher property values and locations based on different landmarks.

Spiderman Edition

• 6 pewter pieces including Goblin 2, Venom Sandman, and Spiderman himself in 3 different poses.
• Houses and hotels are replaced by apartments and skyscrapers.
• Spiderman’s Optional Rules for a faster game.

Disney Pixar Edition

• 8 pewter pieces including Buzz Lightyear, Boo and Sulley, Nemo, Mr. Incredible, Lightning McQueen and Remy
• Houses and hotels are replaced with traffic cones and Al’s Toy Barns
• Buy, sell, and trade properties such as the Parr’s family home, Gll’s Pirate Skull, Edna Mode’s Mansion and more.

Disney Edition

• 8 pewter playing pieces including Alice from Wonderland, Snow White, Dumbo and Pinocchio.
• Buy, sell, and trade new properties including Beauty and the Beast, 101 Dalmatians, and the Lion King.
• Houses and hotels are replaced with cottages and castles.

70th Anniversary Edition

• 1930s style game board
• Uniquely designed houses and hotels
• 12 pewter pieces inspired from original Monopoly

There are so many crazy versions available that it is almost too hard to choose. It turns out that there really is the perfect Monopoly theme for everyone, but each person likes a different one. So, without further delay, here are even more all-time favorite Monopoly editions that you can choose from:

Monopoly-Sponge

Here’s one Monopoly edition you may not find available …

Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Elvis Presley Monopoly

I love Lucy Monopoly

Coca-Cola Monopoly

The Simpsons Monopoly Edition

Family Guy Monopoly

American Idol Monopoly

Underwater Monopoly

World’s Largest Permanent Outdoor Monopoly Board

A Rare 1930’s Fascist Version

(Historical Background)

Johnny Lightning Monopoly

The Chinese Edition

Red Sox Monopoly

I always hate to choose sides, but a monopoly edition for the baseball fanatics in the house is definitely worthwhile…