Coffee-Table Tycoons

Ever since Parker Bros. brought out Monopoly in the depths of the Depression, economic bad times have spawned board games for tycoons manques. Even apple sell ers could feel as rich as a Rockefeller if they had two hotels on Boardwalk. Business parlor games are again popular this recession-haunted Christmas. Avalon Hill, a Baltimore games manufacturer, reports that business games are now selling just behind always popular war contests like Third Reich and Gettysburg.

One of the top sellers is Avalon Hill's Acquire (price $15), which allows would-be conglomerate makers to wheel and deal their way to paper empires. In Profit and Loss ($15) players trade art, antiques, real estate and stocks. Capitalism itself is put to the test in Class Struggle ($12), in which players rep resent different classes in society and the object of the game is to win the revolution.

The newest game is Pressman Toy Corp.'s Fortune 500 ($25), which allows each player to run his own company.

The winner is the first one to triple the value of his starting capital. Twenty firms, including Aetna Life & Casu alty, Mobil Oil, W. R. Grace, Chase Manhattan and Esmark, paid $30,000 each for the publicity value of having their names appear on the game board.

Not all the games are cheeky manuals for self-styled robber barons. A few also teach the players something about business. Alan Teck, director of Chemical Bank's financial consulting services, developed the hot-selling Foreign Exchange ($15), in which players work through the arcane world of international finance. He is now developing an other game involving the gold market. Stocks and Bonds ($13) initiates players in the workings of Wall Street, and Limit Up (at $49.95, one of the most expensive of the games) shows potential Bunker Hunts the mysteries of trading silver and other commodities.

Walter Mitty moguls weary of monotonous board contests can amuse themselves with Energy Czar ($14.95), which plugs into an Atari computer game set. Each "czar" formulates his own energy policy, while the com puter spews out useful information. Players do not win the game by creating the best policy or making the most money. The victor is the one who scores highest in the public opinion polls.

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