agonyaunt | (no subject)

My grandchildren love playing Monopoly. The board game has become a great way for me to interact with them, and also a great way for them to see capitalism in all its imperfect glory. The problem: One of the cards a player may draw when landing on Community Chest is “Bank Error in Your Favor. Collect $200.” Right when we first started playing the game together, I removed that card from the set. I did so because it taught the wrong lesson. The proper thing to do when there is a bank error in your favor is to report it and return the money.

My grandchildren have discovered the deletion and believe I am silly and old-fashioned. After all, it’s just a game, they say. I stand by my belief that the card should not be in the game; we learn all kinds of lessons from gameplay, and ethical decision-making should not be dismissed so easily. How tightly should play reinforce ethical behavior? Is a game a place where you can and should live in a different ethical world? — Victor Poleshuck

From the Ethicist:

I wonder whether your moral focus here is a tad narrow. We’re talking about a board game called Monopoly. Players succeed by dominating market segments and extracting ruinous rents — after they build on Boardwalk without so much as a wetland permit, let alone an environmental-impact review. It’s a world where incarceration is utterly normalized and rapacity is rewarded. And what troubles your conscience is the prospect that the bank gets shortchanged?

That’s not to single out this particular board game. In chess, white enjoys the inherent advantage of moving first, while knights refuse to go straight — so much to unpack. Battleship encourages the sinking of ships without the slightest effort at diplomacy. Risk is basically a primer on imperialism, urging players to conquer continents and subjugate foes. Clue trivializes violent homicide. Sorry sanitizes revenge, and — well, you could go on.

But what’s the point? All this board-game barbarity leaves our souls unscorched. Games indeed exist within their own imaginative space, where competitors engage in chilly strategy and conflict without carrying its lessons into real-life morality. Removing this random cash-injection card will only make it a bit harder for trailing players to catch up. So put it back. You can even use it as a moment for conversation, and ask your young reprobates what they’d actually do in that situation. Just don’t lose sight of the bigger picture here. If your grandkids are still willing to play with a sermonizing card snatcher, they must really love you. Roll the dice, but I’d say you’ve already won.

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1. Several commenters point out that The Landlord Game was a moral game about the evils of capitalism

2. LW, this question is silly and you should find a new game to play. I'm just saying, you wouldn't have these problems with Clue, Guillotine, or Settlers of Catan.

(I had to come up with a third game but I couldn't come up with one that also has a murdery premise, sorry. Any suggestions?)

1313 Dead End Drive :)

The Mafia/Werewolf Game?

Arkham Horror?

Heh. What I taught *my* kid about bank errors was that you never wanted to spend the money, because the bank will inevitably find out, yank the money back, and leave you overdrawn!!

I wish that boardgames were the worst ethical conundrums we were dealing with in this day and age ;p

Yet again I ask what is it like to live a life so problem-free that this is as close as you can get.

...but LW is fine with there being FOUR railroads that are functional enough that you can "land on" them? With the state mass transit is in, in Monopoly's country of origin?

My mom has several times been unexpectedly sent multiple hundreds of dollars by banks *correcting* errors *not* in her favor (....or at least that's what they claim) so I've always just interpreted it that way, LW, and you can too.

Sometimes, even under capitalism, there are errors which do turn out in the little person's favour, and they pay up! - I got a small amount of dosh from my house insurance people due to some errors in calculation over the years, which they paid by cheque, very annoying as I had to go to a bank to pay them in, not as if they didn't have my direct deposit details, but hey, unexpected moolah!

On the train issue, in the London version I think you pony up for the station, with all its various commercial opportunities (though, honestly, Fenchurch Street??? pass).

What's significant about Fenchurch Street?

Was it a Jack The Ripper location?

It's one of the smallest London termini, has no interchange with the Tube system, and these days, services only go to east London and south Essex. Though it does see a lot of traffic (commuters). I.e. not Gateway to the North/West/Continent etc.

That makes a lot more sense than the US edition, in which it's railroads, not railway stations.

My wife very much does this. Even with payroll errors. She won't touch the money, and she contacts them immediately bc they will take that money back when they figure it out with interest

I assumed that was supposed to mean buying railroad stocks. Same as utilities meant buying utility stocks.

LW is misreading the card. It refers* to an error you noticed in your bank statement where they withdrew $200 more than they should have. After spending years trying to correct them, you gave up and treated the money as lost. But lo and behold, the scales of justice ground along and decades later you were deemed correct and the $200 showed up.

*speculation — but this sometimes happened to my mother because she really balanced her statement every month and the bank sometimes did make errors. So that’s what I always thought the card meant.