The Missing Monopoly Version

I was going to post my own version of Microsoftopoly, but it looks like someone named Jeff Adkins beat me to it.

His version is all joke - basically, Microsoft already starts the game off winning. My version was going to have each player select a personality card - Gates, McNealy, Torvalds, etc.. - where the personalities are kept secret until a player has acquired his first monopoly, and then the player plays by a set of rules that reflect that player's personality.

E.g.

Gates: Whenever any other player begins making money from a property, Gates must spend money to the bank each round trying to duplicate the technology. But if Gates lands on your property, he acquires it at face value (no negotiation) or releases a free version of the product, effectively turning your property into Free Parking.

Other players may declare bankruptcy and sue Gates. That player and Gates each secretly select an amount of money and reveal. If Gates reveals more than twice the money that the first player revealed, he pays his bid to the bank and acquires all remaining property of the challenging player, otherwise, Gates must give up a monopoly to the challenger.

Jobs can only own one monopoly, but it comes prebuilt with hotels.

McNealy plays by the normal rules.

Any player can turn his property into "open source", after which he collects no rent for that property. Any other player landing on the spot reduces his income from passing Go by $50 for the rest of the game, while the property owner increases his income by $5 for the rest of the game.

And, as the coup-de-grace, if Gates ever declares one of his monopolies to be open source, all players win.

Yehuda

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