Monopoly Solution
How it works
The message from TopHat16 should clue teams into the fact that they need to reconstruct the first five moves of a Monopoly game based on the information they were given. The message tells teams not to use the Speed Die included in the most recent editions of the board game and tells them how turn order is determined when playing the game.
The first step in reconstructing the turn information is determining the order in which players roll. Because the handout states that TopHat16 rolled first and rolled one 5 and another players rolled a 10, teams should deduce that TopHat16 must have rolled a total of 11. This is the type of logic that needs to be applied as teams work through reconstructing the game. In particular, for each roll, the information in the handout might include the rolled values of one or both dice, the amount of money the player has left at the end of the turn (including any rent paid to the player since their previous turn concluded), and an additional text-based hint; the partial information supplied for all players should allow teams to deduce the missing information. Since teams know that TopHat16 rolled first, the rest of the ordering should quickly follow: 20thDog, Boot18, 24AndThimble, Car41.
Once order is determined, teams use the Monopoly board, deed cards, and the information to fill in the information missing on the 8.5" x 11" handout. As a note, Chance and Community Chest cards may be needed to reconstruct the game.
Once the game has been reconstructed, teams should recall that they also have the 11" x 17" handout and have yet to use it.
Looking carefully at the handout, teams should first look at those rectangles that have words on them. Each has a large letter that is a part of one of the words and the words correspond to the locations on the Monopoly board. For example, the letter "D" was taken out of "Railroad" and thus "D" corresponds to the Pennsylvania Railroad location on the board. Teams should then place the other letters on the board, making sure that each letter can be found in the property it is placed on top of. With this rule in place, there should be only one solution that allows all of the sets of 4 and individual pieces to be placed on the board.
Teams should next find a way to connect the two sets of data they now have.
Since each location on the board now corresponds to a letter, teams should write the letter corresponding to the location on each player's turn information sheet. For TopHat16, they should end up with ADDDICE. Similarly, 20thDog should lead to ROLLSAND; Boot18 PLAYER; 24AndThimble INTUSE; and Car41 gives ASCII. Reading these in order and adding punctuation yields "Add dice rolls and player int. Use ASCII."
Teams now follow this instruction.
The totals for the players are 68, 69, 65, 76, and 83. These are the ASCII values for the letters D, E, A, L, and S.
Solution
DEALS
Design notes
There are some letters that occur pretty frequently in English words and yet don't appear too frequently on the Monopoly board. That made it a little challenging to find turn combinations that would lead to meaningful phrases.