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Message: <blockquote data-quote="IceFractal" data-source="post: 3813241" data-attributes="member: 27704">My definitions are slightly different:Powergamer - Someone for whom character power is a major goal.  Not their only goal, but definitely an important factor.  Sometimes they know how to get power, sometimes they don't.  There are definitely powergamers who don't actually know how to make a powerful character ("This Half-Fiend Half-Dragon Sorcerer is going to be so uber!")Optimiser, Min/Maxer - Someone who knows how to optimise a character for its purpose, whether that purpose is doing massive damage in combat or being a really excellent basket weaver.  The fact that an optimiser can create ridiculously strong characters doesn't mean that they will actually use those in a game.  Munchkin - Someone who obtains character power through, basically, cheating.  This can be blatant dice-cheating, pressuring the DM to adopt rule interpretations that favor the munckin's character, or bringing in homebrew material that they know to be broken.  Of these, Powergamers and Optimisers overlap, but neither is a subset of the other.  Munchkins are a subset of Powergamers, which doesn't usually overlap with Optimisers (why cheat if you can get power legitimately, and vice-versa).  Note that this doesn't cover whether someone uses overpowered characters to ruin a game.  That's because that decision is a different factor: being a jerk.  It's no different from other ways of being a jerk, like trying to backstab everyone's character in a non-PvP game, or insisting on using a character whose personality everyone else hates.  Interestingly, while many munchkins are jerks, not all of them are.  Sometimes people turn to the path of the munckin because they feel overshadowed and their optimising skills are lacking.</blockquote>

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