How Settlers of Catan Got Us to Roleplay (Again)

Secret confession time; once upon a time I stopped gaming. I know, it's dreadful, horrible thing to say. I almost hate to admit it ever happened. But work, family, more work.... everyone in our gaming group had "grown up" and it seemed like there was always something preventing us from getting together to roleplay. Gaming fell by the wayside; the weeks became months, and the months became, gasp, years.

However, eventually my husband and I got back into roleplaying through the oddest route. It was via Settlers of Catan. Weird, right? I can't remember exactly how we first came into Settlers. I think it might have been when the new gaming store opened in town. We read the rules and it looked good, but the game needed three players. So we coerced a friend who lived in the same apartment to come over and give it a try.

Photo credit: Alexandre Duret-Lutz

Next thing you know we were playing regularly. We recruited other friends to come play. We started playing every Saturday night. And often come Sunday morning we would visit the game store and buy an expansion, adding on 5-6 players, Seafarers, Cities and Knights.

We were hooked. Saturday after Saturday we got together after dinner and played one game after another of Settlers. And suddenly we realized... wait a second,  we have a regular gaming group here! We had four to six people getting together with us every Saturday... and if that could happen, then why the heck weren't we roleplaying? Suddenly bam, magic, the band was back together.

Because playing Settlers of Catan is good fun, but roleplaying? Roleplaying is glorious.