Define Munchkin ! and How do you see them effecting the game ?

A munckin is a gamer who plays to win, and only to win. They want power, but do not want to work for it. They want the maximum benefit with minimum effort. Most importantly, they fear loosing (aka PC death or failure of mission goals.) so they make sure they're PC can do everything adequately, and his primary focus better than anyone. They work poorly in groups unless they are the leader/focus and the rest act as lackeys/henchmen.
A munchkin can be detected by one or more of the following:

1.) Absurdly high ability scores, done through point manipulation, cheating, or both. (Luck is not an option to a munchkin.)
2.) Very cherry-picked class levels, usually using multiple prestige classes, and rarely more than 5 levels in any one class.
3.) Exceptionally good hp for a character of that level.
4.) More Treasure than a character twice his level should have.
5.) Mathamatical errors on the character sheet, always in his favor.
6.) More than half of all attacks critical hits or or threats.
7.) Declarations of "I hit", even if the AC of a foe is unknown.
8.) Lots of contingencies, ranging from powerful magic, to not knowing that the dragon was ancient, to rules-lawyering.
9.) Manages to take less hp damage from mutliple attacks than the other party members do from one.
10.) "Lucky" sucess on checks or abilities that are not his forte, commonly doing better than the "trained" specialist in the field.
11.) Playing a ECL character lower than the normally "agreed" upon ECL for the race.
12.) Constant whining for X spell/feat/item from Y supplement, even after the DM says no.
13.) Bleeds information like a sieve, often aware of PC notes, MM stats, and info his character has no business knowing. Often teleports from area to area whenever a die roll needs to be made (like a spot check), just to roll better than the PC the check was made for.

DM's can be munchkins too. These are players who become disenchanted with being the star of a game, and want to rule there own planet. They make games they would want to play in. That means they are a hodge-podge of settings, ideas, etc with little rhyme or reason but because it was "cool."
Noteable DM munchkin traits include:
1.) High and low tech living next to each other with no rhyme or reason.
2.) Very powerful races with low or no ECL.
3.) Lots or powerful treasure and magic.
4.) Invincible NPCs, some being former munchkin PCs.
5.) Encounter WAYY above normal PC challenger ratings, won by higher magic or NPC involvment.
6.) heckling of PCs when they fail to overcome a DMs Plot/Task/whatnot.
7.) Reminders they can be whiped out at any moment the DM chooses, constantly.
 

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Munchkin is a term used in much the same way as the terms "unpatriotic," "improper," or "obscene." Everyone seems to agree that they exist, but you get a half-dozen camps on how to determine what one is.

Hence, it is a term that is meaningless without an agreed definition, except perhaps as an epithet. I've known stat-chompers of the first caliber, who brought our gaming table to great heights of fun and drama, and I've known rules-poor players who couldn't make a character good at anything, who wanted everything handed to them because "they had a cool backstory."

There's no cornering the market that I've ever seen.
 
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The term has lost some of its usefulness through overuse.

Basically, the term originally meant "someone who has all of those bad gaming habits you had when you were 14".


Which in itself isn't particularly useful.

The classic munchkin generally combines powergaming, rules-lawyering, an overwhelming desire to be the center of attention, and a complete lack of empathy for the fact that anyone else might not be having fun. Rules are made to be exploited. Those inconvenient will be ignored. Those convenient will be argued past the limit. Power is desired--not just a high level of power but power completely out of scale with anything else around.

For the most part, I like to think that the reason I wouldn't have fun gaming with someone is a simple clash of styles, but there's some people out there....
 

And then there's the humor...

See: Munchkin(tm).

I'm currently converting Munchkin D20 over to 3.5 (and doing a little balancing as I go along), and will then be converting WG7: Castle Greyhawk to that. I'll be putting stuff on a website once I've got stuff going and the campaign gets under way.

Will be fun. :)
 


Henry said:
I've known rules-poor players who couldn't make a character good at anything, who wanted everything handed to them because "they had a cool backstory."

These tend to be the drama queens. :)
Since I don't play WW games I've only encountered this in PBEMs.
 

S'mon said:
Since I don't play WW games I've only encountered this in PBEMs.

The WW games I've played in, many years ago, were the most blood-spattered, hack-n-slash, cookie-cutter-character-concept games I've ever experienced.
 

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