Vent: Spent 3 years playing Settlers wrong

So I've been playing Catan with my group for like 3 years now. Last Tuesday at a game night in Portland, this guy named Mike points out that I've been placing the robber before rolling, not after. I felt like a total idiot, but honestly the game is way more cutthroat now. Has anyone else had a moment where you realized you were playing a game completely wrong for years?

2 comments

2 Comments

david8219d ago

Yeah I actually read something about this exact thing on BoardGameGeek a while back. Somebody wrote a whole post about how they played Catan for two years before realizing the robber goes after the roll. It was kind of wild how many people chimed in with their own stories. That Mike guy probably saved your group from a lot of hidden frustration. The game must have felt super random before with the robber before the roll, like you couldn't really plan around it. I bet your group's whole strategy changed once you fixed that rule.

alexlewis9d ago

Ha, I gotta disagree with you there @david821. The robber before the roll actually adds a fun layer of chaos that a lot of people miss when they play it the right way. It makes you think harder about where you place your settlements because you never know when someone's gonna block your best numbers. Sure, the official rules say after the roll, but I've played it both ways and the before version keeps things tense and unpredictable. Planning around the robber is already tricky since you can't predict a 7 anyway, so moving it before the roll just shifts the headache. I think your group might have lost some of that edge by switching it up.