Chaos in Santa Barbara

This could actually happen:

One day we are living in our peaceful coastal village when, suddenly, all of Santa Barbara’s businesses become mercilessly competitive — everyone is out for themselves, real estate inflation destroys family fortunes, investors try to avoid going bankrupt, and criminals start buying their way out of jail — things are so chaotic that it feels like our town’s fate is being determined by a roll of the dice.

Of course I’m not describing our actual polite and cooperative town. I’m describing the town I found in my recently purchased board game, Monopoly: Santa Barbara Edition. Seeing our festivals, museums, and gardens named on the board reminded me how charming our town is. But I also saw a premonition on the board. States Avenue has been replaced by our Santa Barbara Harbor. This suggests that our never-ending debate about what to do with cars on State Street will by solved by global warming — the ocean will rise so quickly that we won’t have any cars downtown — because we’ll all be using boats.

Since my purchase, I have become sensitive to news about board games and was surprised to learn the following: because of research which showed that younger generations do not want to play competitive games but rather prefer cooperative games with positive goals, Mattel created a new version of Scrabble which they recently released in Europe.

In Scrabble Together — that’s its real name — players do not play against each other. Instead, players are guided by “goal cards” and combine their efforts to come up with the “best words.” If players need assistance they can use “helper cards” so that no one gets frustrated.

I’m sure these changes to Scrabble are really going to catch on, It’ll be just like living in Santa Barbara, where everyone acts polite and cooperative. Because, when we play games, we all want less competition, everyone to feel good about their experience, and our winning to be achieved by a committee … right?

Which means we’ll soon be seeing these new versions of classic board games:

Monopoly offers Co-op-poly

The new game no longer reflects the competitiveness of capitalism. Instead, everyone owns all the properties together as a Co-op and each player pays their rents to the Center of the Board whenever they land on properties. The first player to run out of money moves to the intersection of Mediterranean Avenue and Baltic Avenue and tries to clean up the neighborhood.

Chess is The New Chess

Nobody “takes” anybody. You share the space and move on. Show some respect. And everybody still loves the horses. Or knights if you prefer. In this new version they’re called Centaurs.

Battleship transforms into Rainbow Warrior

Really? Battleships? The object is to blow up your opponent? No way. Greenpeace. Save the whales. End of story.

Password changes to It’s a Given

Players are told all but one of the letters of the word they are trying to guess, and then have 26 chances to guess the word before they lose their turn.

Consequently, no one’s feelings are hurt.

Risk creates No Risk

Territory Cards are dealt out to players to determine which regions of the world they inhabit. No one invades anybody. Each player is given the same number of plastic pieces (the pieces now represent people migrating instead of attacking armies). Taking equal turns, players put these pieces in any region they want.

When all the plastic pieces are used up, a Grand Diversification Party is hosted by the region with the most immigrants.

Sorry! becomes Congratulations!

Same game. Players use the number cards to move their pieces around the board until all of them land exactly in their Circle. One change: players don’t send opponents back to Start when pieces land on the same space. Instead, their opponent is sent ahead to their Circle. Congratulations!

Settlers of Catan develops New Energies

Old settlers in this “build a civilization” game used non-sustainable energy sources to fuel growth. Obviously, these practices would eventually destroy the very civilization they were trying to build. The new game lets settlers use renewable power plants. And to show how dedicated this game is to saving the planet, it’s made out of sustainable products, because nothing says “stop climate change” louder than having your Pollution, Fire, and Flood game cards made of recyclable cardboard. This one’s not a joke. It’s an actual new game.

A final note: The Santa Barbara Courthouse occupies the Boardwalk square in Santa Barbara Monopoly. Our Courthouse is the perfect choice for the most famous square in a game about property ownership. I mean, just think how many Santa Barbara property owners have defended their rights to raise rents, forgo repairs, and evict tenants right inside those very walls.

This building may also be the site where our chaotic debate about automobile traffic on State Street will finally be decided.

In other words — we roll the dice.