Tried competitive play vs casual house rules for Catan last weekend

My group always plays with the robber reroll variant, but I joined a tournament game without it. Someone stole my only ore three turns in a row and I couldn't build a thing. Has anyone else found house rules actually make the game more balanced or do they just hide bad strategy?

2 comments

2 Comments

coleman.jade19d ago

That 1/6 chance for the robber to hit the same hex three times in a row is about 0.46%. So you got pretty unlucky, but house rules can mask that kind of variance. The real problem with tournament Catan is the lack of an adjusted starting board. In casual play my group uses the "friendly robber" rule where you can't block someone who's at 2 points or less. That actually forces people to think about resource distribution instead of just griefing the leader. Without that rule tournaments just become whoever gets lucky with the dice rolls and early robber placement. The pros don't use house rules because they're playing for consistency over many games, but for a single session they can definitely save a game from being ruined by bad luck.

the_olivia19d ago

You tried that friendly robber rule? We did the same thing in my group for a while. Worked great honestly.