Munchkin (role-playing games)

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For other uses, see munchkin (disambiguation).

In gaming, a Munchkin is a player who plays what is intended to be a non-competitive game (usually a role-playing game) in an aggressively competitive manner. A munchkin seeks within the context of the game to amass the greatest power, score the most "kills," and grab the most loot, no matter how deleterious their actions are to role-playing, the storyline, fairness, logic, or the other players' fun. The term is used almost exclusively as a negative label and frequently is used in reference to powergamers and to immature players in general.

The term was applied originally to young gamers by older players, presumably because the connotation of being short and ridiculous (like the Munchkins in the book and film The Wizard of Oz) made it an apt label for the childish gamers it was applied to. However, before long it came to refer to anyone who engaged in a juvenile gaming style no matter their height, age or experience. Suggestions that the term appeared first on BBS and Internet forums in the late 1980s as "muchkin," to describe someone who wanted his character to have as much of everything as possible, and that it subsequently gained an additional N via misreadings and mistypings [1], can be discounted, since the term was already in use and needing no explanation on usenet groups by 1984.

Munchkins are infamous for various degrees of cheating, willfully misinterpreting rules that work against them while loudly proclaiming ones that work in their favor. As a matter of course they selectively obey the letter of rules while perverting the spirit blatantly. The worst munchkins will cheat shamelessly, ignoring inconvenient numerical modifiers and fouling dice throws till they get the result they want. During character creation, munchkins engage in vicious min-maxing, leading to exceptionally unrealistic or unusual characters who make no sense except in terms of raw power.

Munchkins are often accused of roll-playing, a pun on 'role' that notes how munchkins are often more concerned with the numbers and die rolls than with the roles that they play.

A more neutral use of the term is in reference to novice players, who, not knowing yet how to roleplay, typically obsess about the statistical "power" of their characters rather than developing their characters' personalities.

A game master who constantly awards players magical or "broken" (overly powerful) items without proper backstory or justification can also be called a munchkin master. Many on-line roleplaying games, such as Diablo II, Final Fantasy XI, and World of Warcraft, foster this sort of roleplaying due to the limitations of MMORPGs in terms of personality. The stimulus created by improving one's equipment and stats can take the place of the emotion that is sometimes attained in "real life" roleplaying.

In french, the munchkin is known as a "Gros Bill" (Big Bill), from the nickname of a parisian player who played with roleplaying game author François Marcela-Froideval. Marcela-Froideval later wrote an article about this type of player with collegues Didier Guisérix and Daniel Duverneuil in one the first issues of the french gaming magazine Casus Belli in 1981, causing the widespread use of that nickname for french powerplayers.

1 The Munchkin File
2 Munchkin's Guide to Powergaming
3 Munchkin Games
4 External links

[edit] The Munchkin File

The Munchkin File is any one of a number of variations on a text file circulating on the Internet, a long list of roleplaying stereotypes and how they relate to each other, different games, and different settings.[2] They generally involve four stereotypes:

Real Man (the player who usually plays tactically aware rough-and-tumble fighter types)
Real Roleplayer (the player who gets the most into 'playing' their character, and also tends to be the brains of the group)
Loonie (the player who comes up with ridiculous character concepts, makes lots of wise-cracks, and generally plays for laughs)
Munchkin (the aforementioned power-gamer).

For example:

When encountering a sleeping dragon...
- Real Men wake it up, issue a formal challenge, then attack it.
- Real Roleplayers sneak away quietly.
- Real Loonies tie its shoelaces together.
- Munchkins read its mind to learn any Draconic spells, kill it with a single stroke, make one of its teeth into a sword, make armor out of the hide, then resurrect it as a familiar.

At least one version of the Munchkin File divides Real Roleplayers into Thespians (dedicated role-players) and Brains (smart guys).

[edit] Munchkin's Guide to Powergaming

The Munchkin's Guide to Powergaming ISBN 1-55634-347-7, December 1999, by James "Grim" Desborough (author of the "Slayers Guide to ..." series) and Steve Mortimer, is a satirical book about munchkinism in role-playing games, written as a how-to guide. It covers different genres of role-playing and ways to exploit each.

[edit] Munchkin Games

Steve Jackson created a card game called Munchkin in parody of munchkins in various genres of role-playing games.

An actual Munchkin role-playing game has been based on this card game, using the d20 System and mostly satirizing Dungeons & Dragons. It includes 5 hardcover volumes, and a science-fiction sequel, Star Munchkin.