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<blockquote data-quote="Stephenls" data-source="post: 1693662" data-attributes="member: 6782">For a reliable definition of &quot;munchkin&quot; you have to go back to the word's roots.&nbsp; It does come from the Wizard of Oz originally, but it entered gaming with the second generation of players.See, you had all these older dudes who'd been playing for a while, and they suddenly found themselves dealing with 12 year old players.&nbsp; So, 12 years old = small = &quot;munchkin,&quot; after the characters in the movie.&nbsp; While the word was first associated with children players, it soon became associated with people who behaved like children players.Munchkin means childish and immature.&nbsp; Obsessed with gaining power, attention-grabbing, tendency to ignore the rules when they're inconvenient, and all around annoying are the general traits of a munchkin.&nbsp; Almost all players go through a munchkin stage when they start the hobby -- people who get labeled munchkins are the ones who never grow out of it.&nbsp; What actually counts as munchkin behavior is like the old definition of pornography: &quot;We know it when we see it.&quot;(The word also, for a time, mutated to mean &quot;any style of play of which I, the person using the word in question, dissaprove,&quot; but us net.folks quickly realized that was counterproductive and it's mostly stopped being used for that.)Similarly, &quot;twink&quot; comes from the misunderstanding of a court case in the 80s where, urban legend holds, a dude tried to get off a murder charge with a temporary insanity plea by arguing that he was on a sugar high from eating too many twinkies.&nbsp; This isn't an accurate representation of the case -- he was actually arguing that eating a lot of junk food and generally behaving in a self-destructive manner were indicative of his depression, which was, according to him, a form of temporary insanity (so the twinkies were more a symptom and an warning sign, rather than a cause) -- but the misrepresentation stuck when people talked about it, because &quot;A dude tried to get off murder by blaming a sugar high from eating twinkies!&quot; is the sort of stupid court case that sticks in the mind.&nbsp; Thus, a twink is a player who makes absurd arguments and often browbeats the DM into accepting them -- &quot;Rule X on page XX and rule Y on page YY combined indicate that I have infinite hit points!&nbsp; Really!&quot;Gaming is like the urban myth about Eskimos having 200 words for snow.&nbsp; We've got a lot of terms that mean almost the same thing, which is &quot;Guy who RPs in a way I think is bad.&quot;Compared to munchkin and twink, the definition of min-maxer is pretty simple.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Stephenls, post: 1693662, member: 6782"] For a reliable definition of "munchkin" you have to go back to the word's roots. It does come from the Wizard of Oz originally, but it entered gaming with the second generation of players. See, you had all these older dudes who'd been playing for a while, and they suddenly found themselves dealing with 12 year old players. So, 12 years old = small = "munchkin," after the characters in the movie. While the word was first associated with children players, it soon became associated with [I]people who behaved like[/I] children players. Munchkin means childish and immature. Obsessed with gaining power, attention-grabbing, tendency to ignore the rules when they're inconvenient, and all around [I]annoying[/I] are the general traits of a munchkin. Almost all players go through a munchkin stage when they start the hobby -- people who get labeled munchkins are the ones who never grow out of it. What actually counts as munchkin behavior is like the old definition of pornography: "We know it when we see it." (The word also, for a time, mutated to mean "any style of play of which I, the person using the word in question, dissaprove," but us net.folks quickly realized that was counterproductive and it's mostly stopped being used for that.) Similarly, "twink" comes from the misunderstanding of a court case in the 80s where, urban legend holds, a dude tried to get off a murder charge with a temporary insanity plea by arguing that he was on a sugar high from eating too many twinkies. This isn't an accurate representation of the case -- he was actually arguing that eating a lot of junk food and generally behaving in a self-destructive manner were indicative of his depression, which was, according to him, a form of temporary insanity (so the twinkies were more a symptom and an warning sign, rather than a cause) -- but the misrepresentation stuck when people talked about it, because "A dude tried to get off murder by blaming a sugar high from eating twinkies!" is the sort of stupid court case that sticks in the mind. Thus, a twink is a player who makes absurd arguments and often browbeats the DM into accepting them -- "Rule X on page XX and rule Y on page YY combined indicate that I have infinite hit points! Really!" Gaming is like the urban myth about Eskimos having 200 words for snow. We've got a lot of terms that mean almost the same thing, which is "Guy who RPs in a way I think is bad." Compared to munchkin and twink, the definition of min-maxer is pretty simple. [/QUOTE]

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