Munchkin/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A player who plays solely to win.

  • Straight: Pete's characters use frowned-on tactics and blatant rules exploits.
  • Exaggerated: Pete claims he wants a real challenge, despite flattening entire worlds before the game begins with stupidly broken characters.
    • Does it count as Exaggerated when it's also Truth in Gaming? There are people out there who tear through games with overpowered builds/weapons/equipment and then cry It's Easy, So It Sucks.
  • Beyond the Impossible Bob's character has nigh infinite stat at level one.
  • Justified: Pete's playing a game you can win, and he's just doing what everyone else does.
  • Inverted: Pete makes his characters as weak as he can.
  • Subverted: Pete's character's brokenness is entirely by chance. He didn't plan for it to be that strong.
  • Double Subverted: Pete was lying.
  • Parodied: Pete optimizes his character to be the best pastry chef in the entire world.
  • Deconstructed: Pete's characters are rejected again and again, and when he throws a fit, he's ejected from the group.
  • Reconstructed: Pete has a Killer DM. His characters use broken combos, but he only brings them out when the DM gets out of hand, for all the good it does.
  • Zig Zagged: The character has maxed-out manipulative skills and stats to give Pete more scope for in-character improvisation.
  • Averted: Pete doesn't care about winning at all, he just want to has fun with friends. His character is well-rounded and adds dynamic to the party.
  • Enforced: The Killer DM expects players to be munchkins, and his scenarios consist of throwing them up against ludicrous odds just to see how they'll worm their way out of them.
  • Lampshaded: Another player comments on him being "a perfectly balanced player".
  • Invoked: Some characters from an RPG Mechanics Verse need a mighty warrior, so they summon Pete from our world. Aware of the dangers of this world, he uses his gaming knowledge to exploit the world rules in order to survive, as his enemies won't hesitate to employ similar tactics in order to kill him.
  • Defied: The DM vetos any and all overly munchkin acts.
  • Discussed: "Pete, how come your character is so much better at this than mine?"
  • Conversed: "Allowing character customization is like having key NPCs with limited hitpoints -- an opportunity for game-breaking which will not be resisted."
  • Played For Laughs: Pete comes up with absurd plans and combos. That's why the group keeps him around.
  • Played For Drama: The time Pete spends looking up new exploits wreaks havoc with his personal life.
  • Plotted A Good Waste: The DM wants to probe the stability or brokenness of a new system and invites Pete, a well-known munchkin to help.

Back to Munchkin with the mouse-clicking skill you traded your ability to wink for during character creation.