Board Game Arena

The "Friendly Robber" rule in Catan has become a contentious issue within the community. While intended as a lighthearted addition to gameplay, it has introduced several negative consequences that significantly impact the overall gaming experience.

Anti-competitive nature: By allowing players to target specific opponents, regardless of their actual in-game advantage, the "Friendly Robber" rule directly undermines the competitive nature of the game. It's a tool in the first turn to prevent a quick scalation of the players with best initial places. That mechanism is removed because an irrational "mercy" that presuposes that all start in the same point.

Encourages speculation: This leads to an unnatural way of playing. Somethimes happensa that people waits to do the first village while getting development cards and undermine the options of the first guy who builds it first village (by only being able to put the robber on him).

Unbalanced gameplay: By concentrating all attacks on a single player, the "Friendly Robber" rule can create highly unbalanced games. This can be particularly frustrating for players who find themselves constantly under attack, regardless of their strategic choices.

Lack of official recognition: The "Friendly Robber" rule is not a part of the game's official ruleset. This inconsistency can lead to confusion and disagreements among players, as there is no clear consensus on how to handle situations that arise from its use. Sometimes people, not being activated the option, asks for using it anyway, others expect to wait for all to have their 3 points...

Difficulty finding fair matches: Due to the popularity of the "Friendly Robber" rule, it has become increasingly difficult to find online matches that do not include this variant. This limits the options available to players who prefer a more traditional and competitive gaming experience.

To address these concerns, I propose that the "Friendly Robber" rule be officially removed from Catan. By eliminating this rule, we can:

Restore the competitive balance: Players will be judged solely on their strategic abilities and in-game performance.
Encourage natural gameplay: The game will return to its intended strategic focus, without the need for unnatural tactics.
Promote balanced gameplay: All players will have a fair chance to succeed, regardless of arbitrary targeting.
Align gameplay with official rules: Removing the "Friendly Robber" rule will bring the game into greater alignment with its official ruleset.
Expand the player base: By eliminating a divisive rule, we can attract a wider range of players who prefer a more traditional gaming experience.

Every online Catan community from recent times has turned toxic. It's not really the matter of the game mode. I'd say that elo is to blame for the most part. If you have a metric that defines that someone is better than the others, people will start taking it too seriously. This is also one of the reason why I don't play much online anymore. The last one that was somewhat OK was PlayCatan - there, the community itself was able to manage the player base. Reporting and removing bad players from the general player base really helped keep it civilized. Here we can only red-thumb for ourselves, but that means that that the toxic players can still keep playing and making the game toxic for other players. And that breeds more toxicity.

Maybe slightly off topic... But yeah, the default game mode should be without friendly robber... and 4 players.

Try friendly mode? Can't lose ELO and it's hidden for all players. It should be possible to play without the friendly robber rule.

I rarely play Catan anymore, but I find the friendly mode really nice if you just want to play a game, and not be competitive ( I play Wigspan and 4-player Castles of Burgundy in friendly mode. So can't 100% confirm Catan will be less toxic).

While some of your criticisms of the Friendly Robber rule have merit, your suggestion to eliminate it is frankly absurd.

The Friendly Robber is an official variant created by Klaus Teuber in the Traders & Barbarians expansion and playable with other versions including the base game of Catan. Here is a link to the rule booklet where it is described.

Support for this rule on BGA is fairly recent and the situation before it was supported was becoming extremely unpleasant because many people would announce or simply expect players to follow it and be upset when someone did not. With official support, if you ensure the option is disabled, you can mostly avoid these situations.

I have no difficulty finding matches without the Friendly Robber, and if you play Arena, then literally no games have that option. You can also find tournaments without the option. If you use any of the automatic game finding mechanisms on BGA, you can also ensure that the option is disabled.

I'll try the Arena. Thanks for the advice, mister ware.

Edit: Now its obligatory to play FR in the Arena, a disgrace.

I used to play Arena exclusively (before the friendly robber implementation) so there's no issues with anyone being upset at the silent/vocal expectation of friendly robber.

But unfortunately, the inverse happened, there's more people freaking out now if I steal before 3 points on Arena and I then get singled out whereas before everyone just kept playing. I even got called a dirty player for doing it. People keep saying it's normal to follow friendly robber when I argue that there's literally a friendly robber option but it's turned off for Arena for a reason.

And obviously, they don't understand the argument that they were first pick and had better hexes so friendly robber just guarantees they overrun.

I wouldn't really eliminate it altogether since it's okay in a casual setting. It's just upsetting when I'm trying to play properly and get attacked unnecessarily.

As a paying premium member, you can start tables yourself and play with or without any option you want. On the tables I start the Friendly Robber option is never enabled (but the Easy Start option is).

As a non-paying member, please do not complain that many (paying) members prefer to play with the Friendly Robber option - their money makes it possible for you to play for free.

Shivaware wrote: ↑04 October 2024, 16:51 and if you play Arena, then literally no games have that option.

Oops! I guess they all have that option now!

I agree with all your arguments and never play FR if I have the choice. However, I also agree with Shivaware. When we didn’t have the option to enable or disable, almost every game erupted in dispute, based on expectations from each player, during which, if you wanted the rules as per official base game, you were often painted as the bad guy and targeted as a result. Now, players can see what they are joining before they do so, and the conversation has rarely come up since, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s good that it’s there.

I see that the new Arena season has it enabled! I believe (and have written elsewhere) that the gurus are deliberately trying to make Arena Catan the worst possible version of the game, and true to form, they’ve done it again. First they made it 3p (stuck for over 2 years), then random number chits, and now this. Perhaps it’s because of what Shinobu describes, to stop those arguments? I wouldn’t know, as I’ve boycotted Arena since 2022. I’ll continue to host 4p non-FR games with spiral numbers (as per the rules and all official tournaments) and politely inform anyone who complains when the robber goes on them in the first round that (a) that’s what they signed up for, and (b) it’s a balancing mechanism, NOT an act of aggression.

The friendly robber variant makes the original arena game lame.
Defeats the whole purpose of even having a robber knight to help slow down a best position first drop or whatever.
There is too much advantage for a well placed opponent that has a undeveloping player on the same tile because you cant rob the better player.
Games go way too quick with usually one person dominating the game entirely and the two others seriously lagging behind.
By forcing friendly robber in arena you have eliminated a balancing mechanism.
Arena is no fun anymore, at all, with friendly robber!!