Powergaming Munchkins. Evil Incarnate

[Dyntheos]

You know the player.

You may play only 4 hours a week but a Munchkin will spend triple that time during the week fine tuning rules, harrassing the DM to get that +3 circumstance bonus to move silently because his rogue is some off beat PrC / race combo, that saw a Dragon magazine article, that had an obscure reference to a forum post, that mentioned vaguely that while you stand on one hand and move your left leg out, in time to a bard song, you get move silently bonuses..

Do you have one? Do you know of one? Have you ever played with one? What do you think of Munchkins, and what specific layer of hell should they be sent to?

What funny examples of powergaming have you seen that a player tried to get past the DM, and did so with a straight face and honest smile, yet had his fingers crossed behind his back?

 

[demiurge1138]

Ah... my favorite munchkin is no longer with me. But he's still on these boards, so I half expect him to put a snarky comment on this thread. The man was reknowned for race class combos designed to the maximum benefit and for multiclassing like a demon (one of his characters, in a reptilian camapign, was a feral kobold samurai/fighter/Hong's martial artist/sorcerer/bladedancer). He created a frenzied berzerker so insane that he killed more characters than I did, and could not be stopped by the party by any means. That delightful character ended up an NPC and the campaign's final battle.
My least favorite munchkin is also, fortunately, no longer with me. He was terrible with finding arcane abilities, exotic weapons and customizing magic items, but his worst habit was that he fudged every dice roll. So he was half munchkin, half cheater... all terror. And then there was the session he DMed... I still get chills.

Demiurge out.

 

[Arc]

Ah... my favorite munchkin is no longer with me. But he's still on these boards, so I half expect him to put a snarky comment on this thread. The man was reknowned for race class combos designed to the maximum benefit and for multiclassing like a demon (one of his characters, in a reptilian camapign, was a feral kobold samurai/fighter/Hong's martial artist/sorcerer/bladedancer). He created a frenzied berzerker so insane that he killed more characters than I did, and could not be stopped by the party by any means. That delightful character ended up an NPC and the campaign's final battle.
Demiurge out.

Ah... you bring back such fond memories. Having a character who could singlehandedly kill the entire group did wonders for party cohesion though, you have to admit. And the samurai was actually of only average power in the party, I just powergamed like crazy to get a decent implimentation of the character concept I wanted (which if run without powergaming was rather weak).

As a powergamer (or one who "roll-plays", as recent threads have named it) who's played among other powergamers, I have to say that powergaming (not Munchkinism, there is a difference) can be loads of fun, as long as everyone in the group is into it. Having friendly rivalries over who can find the most powerful character combo, or make the most interesting character concept work, is a heckuva lot of fun. Having 1 or 2 people in a group powergame while the rest sit by and play weak characters is no fun, even for the powergamers. There's a certain frustration that sets in when you realize that your character can beat whatever the DM throws at you, and that there's no real point to having some of your party with you (except to eat XP).

Munchkinism (as my experiances define it: powergaming + cheating/trying to make exceptions for yourself only) is a different story. The challenge of making a powerful character within the rules isn't there if you cheat in character creation or play, and there's no real way to have friendly competition over who can cheat more. As I see it, Munchkinism is for powergamers who don't have any skill.

 

[Sarellion]

This was in my homebrew world and -system.

One player always:

1. Asked me rules questions for at least twenty minutes at the beginning of every game. These were not essential stuff but some tweaky strange ideas.

2. Was greedy for artifacts so much it was silly. Flew around alone during a siege to seek out mages to kill them for their stuff. Also he tried to kill another party member to get his stuff, especially one piece that was better than his equipment. Tried to kill the main NPC of one quest for her stuff. He tried to get one friendly ally killed by villains to claim his tower and artifacts. The villains were attacking the tower after he published a journal about it. It ws a tower of an ancient race. The Guardians was friendly and even gave them some gems. The villains read the journal and asked the group for help looting the tower. The group agreed but wnated to turn on the villains in the heat of battle.The munchkin tried to play the villains and the guardians against each other so they would kill him before. Afterwards he would have claimed the tower.
He wanted to kill the PCs of another group that gamed in the world for thier stuff. He even collected old burnt leather armor from some random orcs that wandered around which was nearly worthless.

3. Always had some strange ideas how things could work. He tried to get expendable family and associates help to kill a dragon in the swamp with no idea how to motivate them. He wanted to hire combat engineers, transport them in a swamp thousands of miles away to build ballistas to fight a flying dragon. He had only weird ideas how to kill the dragon but he had finished planys how to split the loot. We had hours of debate how much blood would be usable for alchemy, how many scales we could get, what yould make out of dragon bones and so on.

4. Managed to insult every NPC individual or group that the DM wanted to be friends, allies or contractors of the group.

5. The magic system uses powerpoints to regulate how much magic you are able to use. They take some time to come back over several days. He always tried to get other people to use their magic and resources to save his own.

 

[Gothmog]

I've got lots of stories, but some of the most memorable:

- When making a new character for a 2e game, one munchkin asked what the largest, most damaging weapon was, to which I answered "two-handed sword". He then asked, "is there anything bigger?" Yeah, the three-handed sword is right over there bub.

- A little known fact about munchkin powergamers- they lose their powers when in the presence of a pretty female (sometimes any female). I've seen this happen at least half a dozen times. These social inepts sit and drool, and generally forget everything they know about circumstance modifiers, synergy, and max attack combos, instead trying to impress the young lady with geek trivia and generally being boorish louts (think comic book guy from the Simpsons). In fact, this even works to some degree if even a PICTURE of a pretty lady is on the wall or elsewhere in the room. Poor dudes are pretty hard up in the date department. You just HOPE & PRAY they never get their hands on the Book of Erotic Fantasy, or they'll be min/maxing there too!

 

[dead]

From where I come from in the world (not USA) the word munchkin in not in a gamer's vocabulary.

As far as I can tell, a munchkin is a what I would call a "power gamer". Someone who is more interested in powering up their PC's stats and levels than they are in roleplaying. Is this a good description of a munchkin?

Also, could someone please tell me where the word munchkin came from. Is it only used in a roleplaying game context or did the word exist before RPGs?

 

[demiurge1138]

Yes, dead, your assumption of the definition of munchkin is a fairly accurate one. The original connotation was that these players were young and inexperienced role-players, thus they were short, thus munchkins. But the word has evolved beyond that point to mean any ludicrous powergamer that relies on any rules (and sometimes their bending and breaking) they can to make a "cooler" character.

If you can find the "You May Be A Munchkin If..." list somewhere (it's at least a dozen places online), you'll have a pretty thorough idea of their tricks and how much the rest of the gaming community enjoys having a joke at their expense.

Demiurge out.

 

[dreaded_beast]

And then there are the "deep-immersion role-players" who spend a good hour or 2, just conversing with the cannon-fodder NPC street urchin who has nothing to do with the adventure, because it's "in-character".

We know this, because the DM is frantically trying to think up a name for the street-urchin and stuttering "uh, uh, uh...."

These are the same people that spend over an hour in RL, bartering for a piece of bread at the local tavern.

And the rest of the party waits while every time the player opens their mouth as gallons and gallons of prose and poetry flow from their mouth taking up in order to answer the simple question:

"Left or right?"

 

[Creamsteak]

Ah, I just feel silly saying this cause the players that I occationally called "munchkins" were nothing compared to their DM in finessed powergaming...

One always played archers, and wanted to use every book he could buy to add a +2 bonus to his hide/move silently/use-rope or whatever, and always wanted some strange elf race with extra pluses to something or another. His combat ability was pretty good, but the guy playing it was super dense. A number of combats began with him spending four rounds trying to climb into a tree limb so he could take his shots... and by then half the targets were dead or retreating. Once though, the tree was knocked over as soon as the character made it up...

The other kid was twice as dense. He basically wanted to play a fighter with good damage and cleaving, but he just wouldn't stop there. He had to take *exactly* two paladin levels and gain some prestige class with supreme cleave right after, and have iajutsu focus in a non-oriental game. He had all this "damage potential" if he could ever win initiative, be fighting eight opponents surrounding him, and all these other circumstances, but that never came about happening. So, even once he gets to play this out of place character, the first thing he does is run up to the biggest creature he can find and try to take it out on his own... and gets eaten alive. All that annoying me and working on his character only to walk up to a creature with a petrifying gaze attack and fail a saving throw...

The first might play again sometime when he frees up his schedule, but the other had to leave the game for unrelated reasons.

 

[dead]

The original connotation was that these players were young and inexperienced role-players, thus they were short, thus munchkins.

Ah, yes. The word munchkin is, indeed, used to describe short people where I come from. I failed to make that connection. Thanks for clearing that up, demiurge.

I had another question, though.

Steve Jackson Games has put out the following d20 products:
- Munchkin Player's Handbook
- Munchkin Master's Guide
- Munchkin Monster Manual
- Munchkin Monster Manual 2.5

What are these all about? Is this an attack on D&D and its reputation as a munchkin gamer's paradise?

Is it all in good humour? Or, does it raise the ire of some D&D/d20 fans out there?