Munchkin: Difference between revisions

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—everything will stop until the word salad cooked up by the Munchkin is resolved. Anything that gives more plusses will be used and abused.

* [[Ninja Looting|Ninja Looter]]: Don't expect a Munchkin to share the spoils of an adventure equally -- ifequally—if he can't take the lion's share, he'll try to take the ''best'' stuff first.

* [[Metagame|Metagamer]]r: 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.

* Lina Inverse of ''[[The Slayers]]'' is a pretty good example of a Munchkin as a main character, with maybe trace elements of [[The Loonie]]. Incredibly powerful and greedy, with no qualms about blowing up her own friends or beating them to a pulp (though she does draw the limit at actually stealing their stuff -- shestuff—she ''will'' beg for it, though), and so impulsive in using her powers that she's earned a terrible reputation throughout the known world.

** 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 -- thatremotely—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—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 -- findingplay—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.)

* Cass in ''[[The Gamers|The Gamers: Dorkness Rising]].'' The humor value of some of his antics (attempting to kill the Big Bad with a a lightsaber and dynamite -- indynamite—in a [[Medieval European Fantasy]] setting) might put him in the [[The Loonie|Loonie]] category, except for the fact that he seems to be doing them for perfectly serious reasons.

* ''[[The Intercontinental Union of Disgusting Characters]]'' is a [[RPG Mechanics Verse]] novel about Disgusting Characters -- thatCharacters—that is, munchkin PCs.

** The term also describes Badasses and [[God Mode Sue|God Mode Sues]]s in fictions.

* ''[[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 [[Munchkin|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.

* 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]]s on.

* ''[[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 -- likeunits—like Centurion/Ability -- hadAbility—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.