Bursaropoly™
You are the bursar at (what you like to think is) a leading public school. Your aim is to win control of as many schools as possible and ensure that they don’t lower their fees to undercut you. There are additional opportunities to profit from the sale of assets or from outsourced contracts. Unless the Competition Authority intervenes, keep playing until you can guarantee inflation-busting rises in the school fees and bankrupt the competition.
If you own all three schools of one colour you can start to build boarding houses – or even a girls’ house (red) to maximise your revenue.
You will need
1) A Bursaropoly Board (Click to Enlarge)
2) Pieces
You can make your own out of plasticine, cannabis resin or any materials that are to hand. We recommend making:
- A boater hat
- A mortar board with an axe embedded in the top
- A rugby football
- A length of rubber piping with tufts of scalp stuck to it
- A Joy Division album
- Masonic regalia
- A packet of fags or an enormous dooby.
3) "Bursar's Chest" and "Pot Luck cards"
You should know by now that life isn't fair and that there's no use snivelling about it. You are going to have to make these cards yourself or, at best, instruct some fag or underling to do so for you.
There are two kinds of cards you need to play. The first sort are called "Pot Luck". They look a bit like this:
The second sort are called "Bursar's Chest". They are incredibly similar to "Pot Luck" cards, though the more astute will notice that one sort say "Bursar's Chest" on them, whilst the other say "Pot Luck".
Make yourself a blank set of each, and then write (or have written) the following things on them.
a) Bursar's Chest cards
- You are asked to take the son of a Russian Oil Magnate: Collect a £200 sweetener.
- Art teacher takes out a sexual harassment suit. Pay £50 compensation.
- You move up ten places in the academic league tables. Collect £100.
- Food poisoning hits Oliver’s House. Medical bill of £100.
- You win lottery funding to repair the Fives courts. Collect £150.
- First XV smashes up service station. Pay £150 to hush it up.
- Cricket pitch hired out to County Side. Collect £50.
- A Californian studio uses your school to film its latest magnum opus Cloister Girls Go Crazy. Collect £150.
- School tops league tables. Raise fees by 15% for three turns.
- You are found guilty of price-fixing by the Competition Authority. All school fees on the board now cost £23,500 a year.
- CCF Armoury: Right to sell to Yemeni religious foundation £150.
- Rare Portrait of Elizabeth I: Chance to sell to Japan £150
b) Pot Luck cards
- A rival school fails to tell you that it is reduced its fees by 15% and steals next year’s intake. Go back to Stamford and hope for redemption.
- A state school in an affluent London borough is closed down. Move forward three spaces.
- You are obliged to take some underprivileged students on scholarships. Back two places.
- You change the uniform. Collect £100 and advance one place.
- Your son fails Common Entrance: go directly to Stowe. Do not pass Go and do not collect £200.
- The Government renews your charitable status. Forward three places.
- The new art school is denied planning permission. Back one place.
- Upper Playing Field: Chance to sell to Developers. Collect £150.
- You have been assessed by the local Council's Environmental Health and Health and Safety Departments". Pay a £100 backhander for each boarding house.
4) Property Cards
This set is issued with only blank property cards, as the fees of the schools vary from game to game, depending on who is playing. Before a school can be sold, the purchaser must either hire some boys to hack into the vendor's computer system and find out how much the fees are, or the purchaser must induce another player to share this information for the mutual benefit of all players.
