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{{quote|'''Red Mage''': Thus, as you can plainly see, I have balanced every nuance of my character to perfectly complement every other facet. I've exploited every rule in the book to eradicate the very notion of flaws. Look on my character sheet, ye mighty, and despair!
'''Ordeal of Pride''': There's still the matter of hubris.
'''Red Mage''': Have you heard ''nothing'' I've said?
|''[[8-Bit Theater]]'', [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2005/10/25/episode-616-mark-of-the-marvel/ "Mark of the Marvel"]}}
The [[Munchkin]] is the [[Tabletop RPG]] player who plays the game to "win", at any cost, even if that isn't the point of the game. Perhaps the most ridiculed [[Player Archetypes|Player Archetype]] of all time, this player is rarely interested in the ''story'' behind the game. Indeed, his characters are little more than extensions of his [[Author Avatar|own personality]], or whatever personality would give him the most plusses.
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A [[Player Archetypes]] trope, along with [[The Real Man]], [[The Roleplayer]], and [[The Loonie]]. Can be [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys]], if they leave the other players in the dust, and force them to play "Their Way." Not to be confused with the small but pleasant folks who live [[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz|east of the Emerald City]], nor the [[Munchkin (game)|pleasantly-wacky card game/tabletop RPG]] inspired by this Player Archetype.
Compare [[Mary Sue]], who is frequently the literary counterpart. See also [[Dungeonmaster's Girlfriend]], who is someone who gets Munchkin benefits thanks to a third party.
{{examples}}
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** This is kind of variable through seasons or between the series and [[OAV]]s. At least the first two series portray her as relatively compassionate and well-rounded, even if she is hot-headed and frequently selfish. The "Book of Spells" OAV, on the other hand, is more in line with the Munchkin, showcasing much more of her greedy, mercenary side.
* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]''
**
*** This is a good time to note here that this is a case of [[Tropes Are Not Bad]]; not only does it work out to be purified awesome, but it is ''perfectly well justified''—Nodoka, before seeking the artifacts, had encountered probable [[Big Bad]] Fate Averrinicus, who basically deconstructed the main character's ''entire team''. Her life was very, ''very'' much on the line, so taking the absolute best optimization of the build presented to her by her Pactio artifact was the practical choice. It also shows what some types of Munchkin consider to be the ideal of Munchkin play—finding odd combinations that combine into pure magic. (And to be fair, in a series where "courage is the real magic", Nodoka needs quite a dollop of it to successfully pull off her feat of Munchkinry.)
*** And let's also note one other thing: Nodoka
** Perhaps even scarier was Nodoka's Best Friend, Yue. With her ability to
* ''[[Dragon Ball]]''{{'}}s formula for a nearly unstoppable villain: Start by mixing [[Mix-and-Match Critters|the DNA of every species of the series]], for all of their natural abilities and none of their weaknesses. Give it the power to [[Energy Absorption|absorb energy]] [[Mega Manning|and skills]] from people [[I Am a Humanitarian|by devouring them]], and let it loose on [[Omnicidal Maniac|a third of the world's human population]]. Buff it with [[Good Thing You Can Heal|absurd regeneration powers that let it come back to full power]] [[From a Single Cell]]. [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|Top it all off with an alignment of]] [[Chaotic Evil]], and you have Cell, a supremely overpowered [[Organic Technology|biological]] [[Art Major Biology|android]] and GM's worst nightmare. [[Min-Maxing|Even its flaws are minimized]]: its initial [[Punished with Ugly|hideous appearance]] gives way to the [[Bishounen Line]], [[A God Am I|its insatiable desire to conquer everything]] only drives him to become more powerful, and being utterly reviled by the entire world is of utterly no consequence to a [[Nigh Invulnerable]] [[Lightning Bruiser]] such as itself.
* Many of the villains of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' could be considered this. And in a purely adversarial sense, Seto Kaiba.
==
* Igor Olman from ''[[Dork Tower]]'' is arguably one of the best examples of this trope.
* Several characters from ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]'' fill this role, with Newt being the most persistent.
== Film ==
* Cass in ''[[The Gamers|The Gamers: Dorkness Rising]].'' The humor value of some of his antics (attempting to kill the Big Bad with
== Live-Action TV ==
* Dwight on ''[[The Office]]''. In the episode "Murder," he and everyone else in the office play a murder mystery dinner party game set in Savannah, Georgia. He draws the Butler character but immediately abandons it to play a hardass detective.
* In an episode of ''[[Community]]'' entitled "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons", the group tries to play ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons''. Pierce immediately takes on the role of the munchkin, starting off as a psychopath and ending as a {{spoiler|cheater}}.
== Literature ==
* ''[[The Intercontinental Union of Disgusting Characters]]'' is a [[RPG Mechanics Verse]] novel about Disgusting Characters—that is, munchkin PCs.
== Mythology ==
* ''Real Mythology'' example -- [[wikipedia:Sun Wukong|Sun Wukong]], the monkey king from ''[[Journey to the West]]''. His origin story makes him the patron god of munchkins.
** Of course, ''his'' GM responded by dropping a mountain on him (which means that [[Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies]] is [[Older Than Feudalism]]?) and later using a cursed headband to effectively place him under control of a more sensible player. Bravo!
** Also, Sun Wukong's name in Japanese is very familiar to a lot of people with similar implications: [[Dragonball Z|Son Goku]].
* Also, not to be outdone, the [[Norse Mythology|Norse]] have an entire Pantheon of Munchkins. From Thor, who can't die unless he lets go his magic hammer (that he can't let go of){{verify}}, to Odin, who had some of the most epic lootz in all of mythology.
** Odin may very well be a literal munchkin god. He took a major flaw (ripping out his left eye) in order to get a huge bonus to his Wis and Int skills (drinking from the legendary Well of Mimir). He even got some nice animal familiars out of it, the ravens Huginn and Munin [[Genius Bonus|(thought and memory, respectively)]].
* Marduk. He first appears after every other god in his pantheon collectively fail to destroy Tiamat and destroys her singlehandedly for them. On the way, he loots the halos of every divine entity he kills, making him orders of magnitude more powerful than any other deity, and returns to the heavens to be made king of everything for eternity. The entire story reads like a terrible'' Dragon Ball Z''
== Tabletop Games ==
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** It's telling when the rulebook opens with telling you to roll for turn order, then argue about it.
** The company also published the satirical ''Munchkin's Guide to Power Gaming'', covering useful and critical information such as how to cheat at rolling dice, manipulating the GM, [[More Dakka|How Every problem Can Be Solved With Bigger Guns]], and weapons such as the rapid-fire miniwand, capable of firing dozens of fireball spells per second.
*
* An amusing anecdotal etymology: In the beginning of the '80s, a Parisian player nicknamed "Gros Bill" ("Big Bill") became infamous for this style of playing, to the point of becoming legendary among French roleplayers. As a result, the French term for "munchkin" is "grosbill".
** The term also describes Badasses and [[God Mode Sue]]s in fictions.
* The game ''1000 Blank White Cards'' basically revolves around this if you want to win. The final blank in the deck is usually the card that wins the game. You need to expect this.
** That said, ''1000 Blank White Cards'' is the sort of game only a Munchkin would ''want'' to win, since the only rule (aside from the premise) is that the guy with the most points wins-as the website points out, what's the point in making a card that says you get all the points, if the next guy makes a card that demands you eat your "I get all the points" card? As a consolation prize, the website offers an extra win condition for those who can't fathom the notion that you can have fun playing a game even if you don't win-if there are more of your cards in the pile at the end than anyone else's, you win.
** It's a ''slightly'' modified game from ''[[The Enemy Papers]]''. Where it was used as a part of an object lesson.
* Pretty much all players in ''[[Penny
* ''[[Old World of Darkness]]'' rules were partly invented to avoid munchkinism but in fact ended up generating two system-specific types of Munchkin:
** The "tortured" character who avoids traditional munchkinism but is instead a being of pure [[Wangst]] and taking up all of the game's "spotlight" time as a result. Since Storytellers are "suggested" to reward role playing with XP, this wangst can turn into player wangst when their "deep performance" isn't rewarded like they expect.
** The "ugly alcoholic baby midget ninja" who takes on a monumental number of relatively mechanically-inconsequential character flaws (being short, being a child, being ugly, being an alcoholic or drug addict etc.) in order to pick up a game-breaking combination of advantages. Which is [[Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught|not actually allowed by the rules]], though.
** Not everybody knows about him nowadays, but the original ''World of Darkness'' does have its very own metaplot munchkin character: [[The Scrappy|Samuel]] [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|Haight]]. (And he broke the rules to get that way, make no mistake.) But considering he ended up as an
* There is the famous story of Old Man Henderson, the only character to ever win ''[[Failure Is the Only Option|Call]] [[Killer Game Master|of]] [[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)|Cthulhu]]''.
** His 320 pages of backstory also allowed him to be an [[All There in the Manual|expert in whatever was needed at the time]].
== Video Games ==
* In [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|massively multiplayer games]], there exists the opportunity for higher level players to give lower level players gold and items the lower level players would not normally be able to acquire. From the era of [[MUD]]s on.
** ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' twinks dominated [[Player Versus Player]] battlegrounds in the lower level brackets, often frustrating more "average" low level players. One famous twink had a dodge rating of 120% at level 10. Blizzard really ought to know better; Diablo II had level restrictions on enhancement items way back in the late '90s.
*** Twinking in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' was eventually trumped in a patch which made battlegrounds give experience, so
** ''[[EverQuest]]'' had one egregious example overlapping with griefing on a roleplaying server. When you died, you lost experience, and would actually lose a level if your experience dropped enough. However, you would not lose any new powers, though they might be scaled back to the lower level. In one notorious case, a level 50 character killed himself all the way back down to 20, then went around decimating other level 20s with his greatly expanded power set. This case caused [[Obvious Rule Patch|a change preventing such massive de-leveling]]. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Now that's some dedicated powering up]].
* ''[[Maple Story]]'' has an extremely large portion of the higher-leveled community who are pretty much like this. The MMORPG itself even has a plot, but virtually no one cares about that aspect of the game even though it is quite decent. The community originally wasn't really like this; until [[Adam Smith Hates Your Guts|the economy started going crazy]] and the game owners would add tons of [[Bribing Your Way to Victory|overpowered]] [[Game Breaker|special
** Some games have even easier twinking. In ''[[Phantasy Star]] Online Blue Burst'', the only equipment with level requirements are frames (aka armour) and barriers (aka off-hand shields). But in addition to these basic items, the game featured units, with varying purposes, and MAGs, whose stats would augment that of their owner when equipped. Some units were especially powerful in the early game, such as Centurion/Ability, which boosted five of the player's six stats by 30 points each. Since they lacked level requirements, these rare and powerful units could be used at level 1, as could MAGs which had been raised to level 200, their maximum. (Conversely, some of these units—like Centurion/Ability—had limited use at higher levels.) A level 1 HUmar is no real threat, but when equipped with four Centurion/Ability units and a level 200 MAG, they become an unstoppable death machine until Very Hard difficulty.
*** Also of note, it's entirely possible, through the use of [[MA Gs]] and Units, for a level 1 Ranger type character to use any gun in the game, including the most powerful ones.
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*** Technically, there are such things as "roleplaying shards". And ''they'' are specifically marked as such, not vice versa. So grinding/munchkin is the default mode.
* This is [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'', when talking to an "Elderly Hive Dweller". Upon beginning dialogue, one of the lines used by her is "I'll bet ye've got all sorts o' barmy questions!" ''(she mimics your heroic stance)'' "Greetin's, I have some questions... can ye tell me about this place? Who's the Lady o' Pain? I'm lookin' fer the magic Girdle of Swank Iron, have ye seen it? Do ye know where a portal ta the 2,817th Plane o' the Abyss might be? Do ye know where the Holy Flamin' Frost-Brand Gronk-Slayin' Vorpal Hammer o' Woundin' an' Returnin' an' Shootin'-Lightnin'-Out-Yer-Bum is?"
* The Einzberns in ''[[Fate/stay night
== Web Comics ==
▲* ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]''
** [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0216.html This strip] shows off a very good example of a character a Munchkin would make, and a very good example of how a smart [[Game Master]] can deal with it. The example given is quite possibly illegal (depending on your interpretation of the rules for "attacks of opportunity"), but also relatively mundane, considering that [[Vancian Magic|the spell system]] of ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' is widely considered to be a [[Game Breaker]] in its own right. (It should be noted that the tactic in the comic doesn't work, but see the discussion page if you want to talk about that.)
** [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0125.html Behold] a "Roleplaying" Munchkin at its shameless moment.
* The embodiment of the Munchkin is the character Red Mage of ''[[8-
** Ranger is also a solid Munchkin, considering his choice of classes (to be precise, Ranger and Ranger) his constant abuse of the rules ("Moreover! As a Ranger/Ranger, I can dual-wield my dual-wield!") and his strange family (every species is in his genealogical tree).
* ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' turns [[Star Wars|R2-D2]] into this. To be exact, his form comes from taking [[Do-Anything Robot|so many gadgets and abilities]], offset with lots of flaws and downsides, notably the inability to speak Basic.
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* ''All'' of the PCs from ''[[DM of the Rings]]'' (the precursor to ''Darths and Droids'') have some Munchkin aspects (most notably an obsession with treasure), but Legolas is the biggest one of the group.
* Cory ([[One-Man Army|Zoro]]) and Luke ([[Lethal Joke Character|Luffy]]) from ''[[One Piece: Grand Line 3 Point 5]]''. Given that the GM designed parts of the game with this in mind, this makes [[The Roleplayer|Natalie's]] life rather difficult.
* ''Chainmail Bikini'' has a great example in [https://web.archive.org/web/20130614234207/http://shawntionary.com/chainmailbikini/?p=37 this] strip.
* Protagonist of ''[[Weregeek]]'' was [http://www.weregeek.com/2007/04/06/ suspected of being "natural-born munchkin"] at his first ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' game. And for [[Min-Maxing|good reason]].
* Played for humor in ''[[Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures]]''. The Twinks are gang of munchkin characters described as:
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** Eridan applies too, under "psychopath". What little we're shown of his time in SBURB has him bitching that no one seems to want to come to his world and help him deal with all these murderous angels. Karkat points out that the angels wouldn't have been murderous at all if Eridan hadn't automatically assumed he was supposed to kill them, or at least, having discovered that he gained no benefit from killing them, proceeded to ''keep killing them anyway''.
* Resonance Ben from ''[[Keychain of Creation]]'' deliberately cultivates Resonance (a [[Walking Wasteland]] curse that all Abyssal ''[[Exalted]]'' have) and uses it to make necrotic attacks. No sane GM would let him do such a thing in the game proper.
* Mike from ''[[Something*Positive]]'' is the worst kind of munchkin. He was also an abrasive [[Jerkass]] before some positive [[Character Development]]. Now he's just kind of a [[Jerkass]] and a munchkin. One [[Deep-Immersion Gaming]] arc had him showing up late, because he wanted to design "balanced" (read: all stats maxed out) characters for everybody despite being told beforehand that the GM would be doing this, and he announced the campaign just wasn't working and they should just use his characters instead...10 minutes into the actual game.
== Western Animation ==
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