I used to love playing board games like Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, etc etc, but gradually had my love for them beaten to death over the years. Why? Well apart from Mousetrap, which just never, ever fucking worked properly, the reasons are simple. Poor losers, and poorer winners:

Monopoly

Man, I used to love this game. Until one night, playing with Brad, Janet (housemates of mine from college, names have been changed for comic effect) and a couple of friends, I had a terrible, terrible experience. Janet was a quiet person, with a soft, squeaky voice - and no, she wasn't cute, she was horribly annoying. Anyway. We were playing away, winning, losing, and so on, until Janet edged into the lead. Now, she wasn't having any fun - she was treating it as if it was real money, and as if thousands of jobs would be lost if her Park Lane hotels were closed down. So she starts winning, which doesn't really matter, cause as we all know it's all about how drunk you get and how much money you can nick from the bank without anyone noticing.

But then she starts really going for it. Ruthlessly. She hounds people out of business and money, destroys the competition, and basically leaves all those who oppose her standing knee deep in the blood of their children. It was a massacre. After a while, I said "Look, you've clearly won, let's pack it in" - but no, she was determined to see it through to the bitter fucking end. She wasn't happy until every single other player was completely bankrupt, and she owned every item on the board.

Towards the end, we were all just sitting there in silence, going through the motions, paying her rent until we ran out of money, while she took everything from us. I think she even ended up owning the fucking jail and the Go square, she was that mercenary. It was horrifying to watch, let alone be a part of. I haven't played it since.

Trivial Pursuit

This is thanks to my mother. Once again, I used to really enjoy this game, I was okay at it, not brilliant, but then none of us were. Our family used to drag it out at Christmas, and we'd all sit around and have great fun. But then my mother started getting too good at it.

She's always been intelligent, very well-read, so of course she was going to have more general knowledge than us - we didn't mind. But she was such a fucking gloater, it became less and less fun. A poor loser is one thing, but a poor winner is even worse.

Among her tricks were:

  • Just as she was about to read out a question, she'd burst out laughing, as if to say "There's no fucking way an idiot like you will know this..."
  • When someone else read out a question, she'd snort, and say "Eeeeeasyyyyy..." - of course, they wouldn't know the answer then.
  • Pointing out every five minutes that she left school when she was 14 years old. The genius of this is that it works both ways - you can say it triumphantly if you get a question right, and even if you get it wrong, you can use it to defend your lack of knowledge. When she won the game, she would say it, with delight. When she lost, she would hit us with "Well, I suppose that's what an education does for you. I wouldn't know, of course, I left school when I was 14."

I haven't played that since, either.



ariels says re Board Game Horror Stories: You should try Diplomacy, I guess. In that game, the *OBJECT* of the game is to make sure nobody ever speaks to you again.

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