Had a talk with a high school kid at a thrift store that changed how I see game night

I was digging through a pile of old board games at Value Village last Saturday when a teenager walks up and asks if I play Catan. I said sure, and he tells me his group ditches the rulebook for most games and just makes up their own rules as they go. At first I thought that was chaos, but then I realized he was having way more fun than I ever do sticking to the manual. Has anyone else tried just tossing the rules and seeing what happens?

3 comments

3 Comments

quinna8929d ago

wait hold on they just ditch the whole rulebook?? like they open up Catan and just start doing whatever with the pieces?? thats wild honestly. i get house ruling some stuff but throwing the whole book out seems like how you end up with someone claiming they built a road that goes straight into the ocean or something. maybe im too much of a stickler but i need SOME structure or my brain short circuits.

emmaclark29d ago

Haha okay but real talk do you think they just declare a sheep as "counts as a brick too because it's in the shape of a brick"? @quinna89 I'm right there with you, I need a rulebook or I'll literally just stare at the board and panic. I mean, I get wanting to be creative, but the whole point of Catan is that there's a system that makes sense even when your luck is trash. Without that, it's just arguing over who gets to pretend a road is a bridge.

jana_jones29d ago

Right? I feel attacked because I'm the friend who once tried to build a settlement on a sheep because I ran out of hexes and said it was "pasture." @quinna89 you're not a stickler, you're just sane. I need the rulebook too or I'll end up trading wheat for imaginary resources just to keep the peace.