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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
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.
He sees fighting monsters and solving puzzles only as a means toward more power, more gold, more stuff, more ''plusses''. A [[Munchkin]] is not satisfied until he can kill a god with his +25 Dancing Holy Vorpal Sword of Flame. On a [[Critical Failure]]. Of course, the combat mechanics is only the most obvious avenue. Munchkins try to hunt for "XP for roleplaying" by being over-the-top dramatic, and [[Planescape|Kossuth]] [[Kill It with Fire|help you]] if the game uses [[Ritual Magic]] -- everything will stop until the word salad cooked up by the Munchkin is resolved. Anything that gives more plusses will be used and abused.
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* [[Rules Lawyer]]: This Munchkin disputes every [[Game Master]] ruling, and has memorized every loophole in the game manual. For some reason, he never seems to "correct" the DM when the rules as written would hurt him... The [[Game Master]]'s best tactic against this guy is [[Rule Zero]]; what the DM says, goes, no matter what page 54, column 2, line 41 word 5 of the book says.
* Cheater: He never rolls where you can clearly see him, and he gets a distressing number of natural 20s. It's just his "lucky dice", he says. His character sheet comes prerolled with max stats. And he has an annoying habit of "forgetting" to write things down, like whether he's used up his spells for the day. Could this be the sort of sad, pathetic creature that would cheat at a cooperative [[Tabletop RPG]] game? (Yes.)
* [[Metagame|Metagamer]]: We all metagame once in a while. After all, even if our characters don't know exactly what that orb with all the eyes is, they've got the feeling that it's ''dangerous'' and probably shouldn't be charged head-on. But this guy seems to have read (and memorized) all the monster manuals and the published adventures, and is [[Crazy Prepared|impossible to catch off guard]]. Once he sees that [[All Trolls Are Different|giant green scaly thing]] charging him, he ''immediately'' breaks out the [[Achilles' Heel|acid]]. Homebrewing is the best way to trip this fellow up.
* [[Heroic Comedic Sociopath|Psychopath]]: If it has stats, [[Lord British Postulate|it's there to be killed]]. For this Munchkin, [[Murder Is the Best Solution|violence is the first, last, and only solution to every problem]]. Even the most zealous [[The Real Man|Real Man]] knows when it's not time to fight, but not this guy. He'll take up any excuse to start a fight.
Munchkins are a constant source of pain and agony for the [[Game Master]], unless [[Monty Haul|he's a munchkin too]], and will often be the direct cause of the [[Bolt of Divine Retribution]], or even [[Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies]]. He may be forced to employ some [[Killer Game Master|killer tactics]] just to challenge them.
A more pleasant brand of munchkin may try to share his rule-bending benefits with the rest of the group. A more audacious one (a cross with [[The Loonie]]) takes advantage of his knowledge and power to do incredibly crazy things that their fellow players will be telling their children about in years to come. Sadly, a rare breed.
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** This is kind of variable through seasons or between the series and [[OA Vs]]. 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]]''
** A fictional case of a real-world case of Munchkinism in Nodoka Miyazaki. Armed with a book that lets her read the minds of anyone whose name she knows, she seeks out two artifacts to create a ''nasty'' combo. One lets her, by demanding someone's name, receive it (without them even saying it). The other lets her read books remotely -- that is, without them even being open. Any one or even two of these objects wouldn't be that powerful. Together, she rapidly turns from a terminally shy girl into one of the biggest cases of [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]] ever, ''humiliates'' one of the most powerful characters in the ''entire series'' by evading his attacks and stealing another of his artifacts to make herself ''even more powerful'' (while ''reading the details on how to use it from his mind'', and [[Took a Level In Badass|effectively takes enough levels in Badass to leave even the main character fawning at her awesomeness]].
*** 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 WASN'T out to become "all powerful" or whatnot, she simply wanted to be as useful as possible. Under most circumstances, her powers were only of limited usefulness, and easily disrupted (even if she knew what an opponent was up to, she still had to act upon/tell others that knowledge). Now if she had an item (her Pactio card?) that let her tell her allies that info Telepathically...<shiver>.
** Perhaps even scarier was Nodoka's Best Friend, Yue. With her ability to RESEARCH just about anything ever printed, Yue could discover stuff that her opponents didn't even know. Couple that with her mystical training/knowledge/knight gear, and she outmunchkined Nodaka (w/o the key...). Likewise, if one looked at REAL munchkins, we'd have Negi himself (re: his REAL power boost, on par with Eva), Eva (immortal undead and caster), Chachamaru (Pactio Orbital Laser), Chao (Power Armor, time travel, magic...everything BUT the pactio), Setsuna/Ku Fei/Mana/Kaede (Kick ass BEFORE the pactio), and most of all: ASUNA (Superhuman stats, BFS, Kanka, AND Magic Cancellation?!?!?!? Thank God for her Subpar IQ Stat...).
* [[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.
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== 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|MUDs]] 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 plays would eventually level out of their preferred bracket. That same patch also added the option ot turn off experience gain, but doing so results in being placed in an entirely separate bracket from other players of a similar level. So it's munchkins only vs. other munchkins and casual players vs. casual players.
** ''[[
* ''[[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 [[Munchkin|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 equipments]] for the [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys|majority of the]] [[Glass Cannon|higher-leveled players]] who have [[Spoiled Brat|extreme amounts of cash]] (which essentially neglects [[Hard Work Hardly Works|every]][[The Roleplayer|one]] [[The Loonie|el]][[Elemental Powers|se]]); as opposed to [[Competitive Balance|the originally rather fair gameplay]].
** 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.
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** [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 and 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-Bit Theater
** 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.
** [http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0528.html This strip] finally [[Invoked Trope|calls it by name]] and shows Pete's reflex to the word (even in a ''[[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz]]'' reference).
* ''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 [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 and Dragons]]'' game. And for [[Min-Maxing|good reason]].
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