Monopoly Over Three Generations - with Tom Vasel

0:07 Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vasel and this past summer I had a family reunion with my brothers and sisters and their respective families. And when we did so, my sister-in-law came and gave me this copy of Monopoly and said, "This is yours. I've been holding on to it for you." And she had been uh 9 years ago my mother passed away and when after that happened I grabbed a couple things um from the house that I you know meant something to me um and some of them were the board games that they had. They still had a copy of King's Court and they had this copy of Monopoly but because I wasn't able to take it um she had kept a a hold of it for me and uh we just both of us forgot about it till now.

0:54 So I got this copy of Monopoly. Now this is the 1985 anniversary edition. Um this was a deluxe edition. Uh my family did not have a lot of money. We did not buy a lot of things but my mother got this I remember distinctly from refunding. Uh so she used different ways to refund and somehow got a a brand new copy a gorgeous copy of Monopoly and I read through that book and learned all about the designer of the game. Well, not the real designer of the game but uh uh the one that uh Parker Brothers said was the designer of the game. And I I remember this distinctly. I was nine at the time. This is 41 years ago and uh so just recently my son said, "Hey, what is the deal with Monopoly? What is this game? You've all these games. We play all these games together and we've never played Monopoly."

1:49 And I said, "Well, I guess we can play Monopoly." Now my son's a little older than I was when I played this game for the first time which was at age nine, he was age 12 playing it. But it it got me to thinking. On this channel, I have done uh several videos where I talk about Monopoly, I talk about games that are better than Monopoly, I talk about how I don't like Monopoly, and in fact, I think Monopoly has been overall bad for the hobby. But I have this copy. Why did I keep this copy? Why did I keep this particular copy? I mean, it's something to remember my mother buy, obviously, but I could have kept something smaller and perhaps better. But I remember that original game of Monopoly. In that game, I don't remember all the details, but I know I was losing. I know that I had to pay money, and I the the concept of landing on a spot and buying a property and then losing money. I remembered I remember crying.

2:49 Uh again, I was nine years old, but I remember crying at that I was going to lose the game, and I remember also that at some point, I got all four railroads. I remember my dad drawing a card that said, "Go to the nearest railroad and pay double." And I remember thinking how amazing that was, and I remember winning that game. Now, I don't know, and I've asked my dad, and he does not remember if they threw the game so that I would win it. I don't know if they played poorly or not. This is again 41 years ago. Who knows? But I remember loving that moment. I remember I remember thinking how triumphant it was to win this game. And then, of course, I went on to win and lose lots and lots of different games over the years, and I played lots of games. I've played thousands of games that I think are better than Monopoly. I own thousands in the Dice Tower library of games that are better than Monopoly.

3:43 And here my son comes to me and says, "I want to play Monopoly." And I remember that experience that I did with my my and my father, and I said, well, then we'll play Monopoly. So, me and one of my daughters, Amy and Jimmy, they were all visiting for my birthday. For my birthday, we play Monopoly. Um and it's so fascinating to me. We play it and he's not loving it at the beginning because, again, he lands on things, had to mortgage one of his properties at one point, didn't like that. But, he got all four railroads. He got all four railroads and then I, as his father, drew the card that said, go to the nearest railroad and pay double that amount.

4:32 You know, and then he won the game. And he said, this game isn't as bad as you all said it was. I said, well, perhaps maybe you would feel differently if you were the one who had to mortgage all your stuff and lose all the money. I don't I don't like Monopoly still. I want to be really clear on that. There Even after just playing it we And we played it by the very correct rules. We played it in probably an hour and 50 minutes. Um I kept things going smoothly. If you landed on a property and nobody owned it, you auctioned it off. There's no money on free parking. We played straight by the rules. The game has so many problems. The money amounts are so weird and unique from paying $17 to paying $890. The ramp up is crazy. If you trade with somebody, the trades need to be as equal as possible or the person who gets the better trade can go ahead. It's crazy lucky with the dice rolling. The The cards from Chance and Community Chest are wildly just different Hey, you won a a beauty contest. Here's a few bucks or pay $50 for every house / hotel that you own.

5:39 The rules about spreading houses out evenly, looking around, landing on the one space that says pay $200 or 10% and you're like, well, I don't know what 10% is and we got to figure this out. Mortgaging properties and buying them back plus an extra amount. There's just so many different problems with the game. And yet my son had a really good time. Because at the end of the day, the game isn't as important. It is that spending time together. So me and my daughter and him were playing we played this game in these couple hours as we got ready for what apparently was a surprise party for me. Um and then I look back at the similarities to that game that me and my parents played cuz my brother and sisters were all too young at the moment to play.

6:27 Three people playing Monopoly and then 41 years later three people playing Monopoly and that game brought us together. It didn't have to be Monopoly. It could have been any board game, but I am such a huge proponent of board games in general because they do things like this. They bring people together. Whenever someone says board games, you mean board games, b o r e d. I You don't get it. You don't get how wonderful it is. I'm here on the Dice Tower and we put out videos all the time, every day. Hundreds of videos we put out every year. I play hundreds of games every year. One of the most asked questions that comes to me is, Tom, are you jaded? Are you you know, what do you do for fun now that you do board games for?

7:15 It's still fun. Tonight, as of me recording this, we're doing a gaming get-together here in the studio. I get together with my game group. They're my friends and we have a good time. I play games with my children and now with my grandchildren and I played games with my parents. Mom has been in heaven now for almost a decade. Um man, I miss her. But she taught me board games and she probably wasn't always thrilled with the decision she made there because I wanted to play them all the time. And I was like, "Hey, let's play Stratego. Let's play, you know, Panzer Blitz. Let's play whatever new thing I found and wanted to play all the time." But, she took some time and did that with me, and that makes a good memory. So, while I often trash Monopoly, and I still, like I said, don't think it's a particularly good game, I'm going to hang on to this copy because it's the deluxe anniversary edition. It's what, 80 years? You know, this is probably valueless. I think it's probably worth, you know, $6 or something like that. But, to me, it's worth an immeasurable more larger amount than that because of what it has brought to both my family, past and present.

8:24 And maybe in 20, 30 years, I'll see my my my kids play this with their kids and do the same thing. Well, that could happen in a few years. I'm old. Anyway, I'm Tom Vasel. Thanks for watching The Dice Tower. I'll see you guys next time.

8:45 Hey. Uh thanks for watching another video here on The Dice Tower. Uh we really appreciate you stopping by and checking our things out. Thanks so much for joining us today. And hey, if you really like what we're doing here at The Dice Tower, then there are different ways to support The Dice Tower. One of those ways is through Patreon. We have links in the description to this video. We have links to lots of other things we do down there, so definitely check it out. But, either way, we're glad you watch us. Tell your friends about The Dice Tower. Until next time though, I'm Tom Vasel, and I hope you enjoyed this video. All right, Jimmy, what did you think of Monopoly?

9:21 It was a good game.

9:22 You liked it?

9:23 Yes.

9:24 Did you think it was lucky?

9:25 [snorts]

9:27 Yeah.

9:28 Did you Do you like it because you won? What if you had lost? What if you had been the one to lose all your money?

9:33 It would have still been okay. [snorts]

9:35 It would have been? Would you play it again?

9:38 Yeah, I think so.

9:40 All right. Well, also you crushed everybody. So, how's that feel?

9:46 A big good.

9:48 All right. So, [clears throat] how do you get so lucky is what I want to know.

9:53 Luck.