Is giving resources away for free allowed?

Question

Motivation: I once had one surplus card on my hand, and knew the robbers would come soon. So I gave it to someone for free, to avoid losing more cards when they hit.
I was surprised by how badly this was received. Two of the three other players (the hosts of the game) acted upset, like I had tried to cheat. I had to take the card back, get robbed the next turn and 'giving cards away for free' was banned immediately. (Oh, how I hate mid-game additions to the rules. But that's beside the point.)

So now the question: Is this really illegal in Settlers of Catan? Is it generally considered underhanded in any way? If so, why?

My reasoning was like this:

Consider players A and B.
A wants to give B a sheep.
A trades a sheep and one rock to B, in exchange for wheat.
A trades the received wheat for the (formerly his) rock.
A and B now both have the same resources they had in the beginning, only the sheep has moved from A to B.

Answer 1

There is an official rule against this practice. This is stated twice in the Almanac section of the the 5th Edition rulebook, in both the Domestic Trade section on page 7 and the Trade section on page 14:

Domestic Trade

On your turn, you may trade resources with the other players (after rolling for resource production). You and the other players negotiate the terms of your trades—such as which cards will be exchanged. You may trade as many times as you can, using single or multiple cards. However, you cannot give away cards, or trade matching resources (“trade” 3 ore for 1 ore, for example).

Trade

After you roll for resource production, you may trade with other players (domestic trade Y) or with the bank (maritime trade Y).

• You may trade as long as you have resource cards.
• If you decide not to trade during your turn, no one can trade.
• You may trade with another player between your turns, but only if it is that player’s turn and they elect to trade with you.
• You may not trade with the bank during another player’s turn.
• You may not give away cards.
• You may not trade development cards.
• You may not trade like resources (e.g., 2 wool for 1 wool).

(emphasis added)

I understand that you can "effectively" give away cards by cunning sequences of "legitimate" trades, but it seems clear that this isn't really in the spirit of the game, and players should feel free to frown upon such sharp practice!

Answer 2

This question is answered in the official Settlers of Catan FAQ:

Trade - Can I give away resources or buy services with them, for example, to avoid being bothered by the robber?

No. On Catan, a trade always involves a give and take of resources. Consequently, Catan’s trade law does not contain a “trade” of something for nothing or for immaterial goods such as services.

Although you could get around this by doing the 2:1 then 1:1 trades, it violates the spirit of the rules and would be looked down upon by your fellow players.

Answer 3

The 5th edition rules do specifically prevent giving away resources directly:

You cannot give away cards, or trade matching resources ("trade" 3 ore for 1 ore).

There is nothing in the rules to prevent the thing you describe, namely using intermediary resources to effectively give away a resource without literally doing so.

As a result, this rule seems rather odd. All it literally prevents is a players gifting in particular situations (such as to a player with an empty hand). We need to dig into why this rule exists in order to evaluate what is or is not in "the spirit" of it. Here are some possible explanations, with their implications for the situation you describe:

1. The rule exists to prevent kingmaking. A player who is decisively losing could decide they want one of the players in the lead to win and start gifting all of their resources to cause that player to win. The rule doesn't seem very good at preventing this, as a player can just as easily kingmake by giving resources to a player at extremely favorable rates, but it does still add logistical complications, which may psychologically disincentivize this. If this is the reason for the rule, then gifting a resource to avoid the robber is totally fine, as it benefits you to do so potentially as much as it benefits the player getting the free resource.

2. The rule exists to prevent "7 dodging". The point of losing half your resources on a 7 is both to penalize hoarders and give some advantage to players in last. Thus, the rule is to preventing players from blatantly getting rid of resources to be at that safe 7 number. If this is the intent, the rule is not very good at this, as you can just make a 2 for 1 trade of different resources to get under the limit. In this case, giving away a resource is what the rules are trying (but failing) to prevent, and so is against the spirit of the rules.

3. The rule exists to prevent players trading resources for non-resources, such as robber placements, settlement spots, loans, and futures. In my opinion, allowing these things makes the game better, but that is personal preference. If this is the reason for this rule, it's unclear what the spirit of the rules is with regard to "7 dodging", as the benefit you are getting is simply having fewer resources rather than some non-resource concession from the receiving player. What is definitely against the spirit of the rules in this case is trading extra resources to a player (to get down to 7 cards) in exchange for some of those cards back later.

At the end of the day, "the spirit" of the rules is defined by your play group. If the hosts have a particular interpretation of the rules for a game, that's typically what you have to go with. My group's preference is to house rule that you can trade resources for intangibles, in order to allow all of those fun things like futures and bribery.

Answer 4

There is an 'official' rule against this idea, since one player is unfairly favored over the others, and it may create trouble in practice.

In my games, we usually avoid this issue by trading 2:1 (with a player) to a resource you need anyway. If you got any 2:1 ports to reduce your number of cards, use those instead as it is fair to everyone.

Example: Assume you intend to build a city, but have two extra sheep you don't need and lack a wheat. Your number of cards adds up to 8. Simply trade the sheep 2:1 with someone to wheat and you'll not only avoid the robber, you'll also make progress towards your goal.

Either way, this pretty much only applies in the early game when you're unlikely to get many resources per turn. Later, when you've already got a number of towns built, you'll get new cards almost every turn so giving away one of them is less important.