GAMES NIGHT WITH THE HALOS

[titusnowl]

If Simon isn't there, they will play poker or rummy or whist, but if Simon is, the cards are hidden; he'll quite merrily clean them all out, and they'll never see the money again.  There's no arguing with him, because he'll point out, with all honest truth, that they only had the money in the first place because of him...

So it's board games. 

Monopoly's a fun one, for certain values of fun.  The game itself is, as they all agree, unbelievably boring when played straight, so they never do.  Pat, as the most trustworthy one in the bunch, is always the banker - but even she's not entirely trustworthy, as Simon can always convince her to make him unsecured loans at 0% interest.  As soon as the money's been passed out, everyone starts trying to sneak cash out of the stack of the next player over - which comes to a sudden stop when Simon sees Roger's hand slowly creeping past his beer; swiftly, all of Simon's money is pushed into a rough pile, and his knife appears and is driven through the stack into the wood of the table, and his smile is unassailably seraphic as he watches Roger pretend not to have been attempting to nick anything.  Of course, after that, Simon can't spend his own money - it's nailed to the table! - so he pays all his rents straight out of the bank.

Simon is always the car.  Roger is always the dog.  Monty is always the shoe.  The statue is set on the board to represent Norman, in absentia.  Norman's piece isn't played, but if you land on an unoccupied property and public sentiment is currently against you, you may be forced to pay the rent into the "Free Parking" space on the principle that "That's one of Norman's properties."

Once, Monty, in a fit of cash-flush real-estate fervor, purchased both Broadway and Park Place (yes, they have an American edition of the game for some reason), and erected two hotels on each of them.  When Simon had the bad luck to land on Broadway, and Monty demanded the obscene amount of rent thus due to him, Simon merely looked at him calmly and said "no."
"But I've got two hotels on it!"
"Not anymore you haven't.  I've just engaged a demolition company."  Simon then flicked the hotels off the board so that they bounced off Monty's forehead.

That sort of behaviour is typical.

They also have their own set of house rules:

1. You can rob the bank.


2. The thimble is a policeman (it represents the light on top of the car).  It gets sent around the board on its own roll.  If it lands on the same spot as your token, you get sent to jail.
   
3. No buying your way out of prison, because we are opposed to paying bail in principle.  The only ways to get out of jail are:


• Use a get-out-of-jail-free card.


• Roll doubles, which means you've broken yourself out.


• Wait for another player's token to land on Just Visiting so HE can help you bust out. 


• Try to sneak out without rolling doubles and hope the other players don't call you on it.


4. The utilities have to get paid every time you go around the board, not just when you land on the space.  (Simon instituted this rule in one game when he had both utilities, on the principle that you have to pay REAL utilities on a regular basis.  Of course, if he hasn't got any utilities, he's likely to claim ignorance of this rule ever having been in effect.)

Clue's another fun one.  If they've been drinking before they start, they sometimes declare that it is In Character Clue Night, which means that you pull your token from a bag and then have to BE the character thus represented.  For instance, if you're Colonel Mustard, you must wear a pith helmet.  Somehow, and nobody knows how he manages it, Simon always fixes it so Roger is Miss Scarlet.  Once, Simon (and again, nobody knows how he managed it) got Mr. Boddy, and spent the entire game lying on the floor beneath the table complaining about how long it was taking the rest of them to solve the mystery.  "I'm right here, you old idiots; hold a bloody séance or something."

They usually end up getting bored of the actual gameplay and instead spending the time making up new and unusual murder methods.  "Mr. Boddy was in the parlor, and Mr. Green was in the library; Green tied the rope to the revolver and swung it across the hallway, striking him in the head and killing him."  "Mrs. Peacock coated a candlestick with a virulent poison, then left for a holiday in Honolulu, so that she wasn't anywhere near when the murder took place."  "The 'lead pipe' is actually a marijuana-smoking implement, and he died of lead poisoning."  "Mr. Boddy committed the murder himself - the corpse is his twin brother."

They used to play Sorry, but after three games running devolved into wrestling matches, Pat banned it.


For the record, I am going to be instituting Halo House Rules any time I play Monopoly ever again.