Adding alcohol to classic board games: Settlers of Catan

New series for all my readers. Now it is my belief that you can enjoy a nice beverage while you play a board game or not it not going to impact the enjoyment of the game itself. Unfortunately, I have some friends (Editor's note: the term friends is being used very loosely) that basically refuse to do anything in a group that does not involve to much alcohol, additionally I think that they believe board games are childish, which is completely wrong but they are allowed their opinions.

So in order to try and find a compromise, I am going to attempt to come up with some rules to board games to incorporate drinking so those friends can escape their lives.

First game up in the series is Settlers of Catan.


I am going to assume that this is the regular version (or 6 player expansion) not of the expansion games mainly because the expansion games are to difficult for these friends to play.

Now my first thought is that when ever a player rolls a 7 they have to take a drink but I have a better idea. When a 7 is rolled and the robber is moved all players not on the tile the robber is moved to take a drink. Instead of punishing one player this brings gets potentially every player involved in a roll.

Ex. A It is the orange players turn and the board is set up as below.

The Orange player rolls a 7. Oh no

The Orange player moves the robber to the space with Red and Blue settlements. That means the orange and green players have to a drink. 

Next rule is going to be about the resource cards. A player can trade two wheat cards in to force any player to take a drink. This was made so that players that would rather watch people drink instead of playing the game can do that. It's kind of stupid.



Next is going to be when you build a settlement that is on the same tile as another player. Each player that shares a tile with the new settlement needs to take a drink as well as the building player.

Now it is the blue players and they build a settlement.

Since the settlement was built on the a spot that share a tile with orange and green those players have to drink. It also shares a tile with the red player so in this situation all the players drink.

Back to rolling, every time a number is rolled outside of 7 is rolled and no player collects a resource all the players drink.

You probably can't tell but in the picture above if a two is rolled all the players would drink so no one gets resources on the two tile.

A player with under 6 victory points can steal a trade by challenging the player who's turn it is not to a drinking challenge. First to finish their drink takes the trade instead. The player has to be able to complete the trade. If a player challenges and cannot do the trade they lose 1 resource card

I guess there needs to be some game mechanic changes as well since the above rules are basically just slight changes that introduce drinking and not impact game play. Well in order to get them into the game there needs to be something they can do by drinking. Well I am going to allow them to build two roads on the same lane as an opponent. Now to do these you are going to have to pay double for the road and chug a drink. The second time they do they need to pay triple and drink 2 drinks.

I am not sure how this is going to change the game play but it should be interesting not that it is likely my friends are going to want to play and my friends that do play will want to play the normal version and just enjoy the game the way it was meant to be.

Keep on the look out for more games.