Do you know the easiest way to destroy a Munchkin? In the game, make them face a Munchkin Metagaming villan that is twice the munchkin that they are. It takes some preperation, but watching their heads explode is well worth the effort.
Grimtooth's traps and cursed items are the best way to deal with munchkins I find.
The stereotypical munchkin mindset is "kill things, take loot." Give what they want, just make them pay the devil afterwards.
This might get a little rambly, so be warned. I have a point to make in my head. Let's just see if I can get it typed out.
I have no problem with power gamers, and I will tolerate someone crunching numbers out the wazoo. Two of my players love finding something (typically melee attacks, both the attack rolls and damage rolls) and obsess (sp?) over making them as high as possible. So long as I can still devise a challenge to face them (which hasn't always been the case, mind you, and then I do get angry, but that's as often my failure to look at all the options or a group misreading of a rule), I'm fine.
A DM who feels the need to always present a challenge to his characters, in terms of numbers and modifiers to oppose theirs, is power gaming himself. The same applies, though to a lesser and more admirable extent, to one who seeks to use "real-world" things, such as tactical maneuvers, cover, strategy, etc., to always make sure that their party is challenged.
I admit, I like looking at the encounters I make to face my party and think, "Yes, this ought to make them sweat!" as I smile evily to myself. As a character, not so much. So long as I can do something of significance in a combat encounter, I'm fine. I really don't care about being the most powerful wizard or warrior there is, so long as I'm appreciated by the party. When someone constantly outshines me and makes my contributions seem negligible (or acts like they were when I may well have saved their @$$), I get pissed. But the biggest thing for me is to have a DM and group that lets me explore my character (and my fellow players') as far as I can go, who presents challenges and events based on my story, what I have and haven't done, and gives my character an opportunity to grow in personality like a real person. I like an epic story, whether it be a 20 level AP like SCAP or AoW or a campaign arc like City of Shadows of Vampires of Waterdeep, and for a cinematic, epic flow. I like to see people look at the monster before them as a monster, not as a bunch of numbers to overcome and a bundle of XP to be earned, and I like that whether I'm DMing a group or playing in one. I have a very visually oriented mindset, so a clear description of fantastic locations is paramount to me, and that extends to the towns we walk through on our way to the dungeon. Are the builds stone? Wood? One story? Two? Mud? Huts? Yurts? Don't just say, "a town," tell me what it looks like, because if you don't, I quickly become lost and loose interest. Also, as a player, it's very important for the group around me to be interested, or at least work to facilitate, my desires for roleplaying, or I quickly fall into an attitude of, "No one else is doing it," and I forget about it and just start laughing and joking about everything, even when I should be paying attention and being serious and would expect my players to be so when I DM.
However, I do like to plan my character out from 1st to 20th level, typically, in some level of detail (feats, classes, etc.) just to get it out of the way and give me a sense of direction. I typically abhor the thought of taking a PrC for myself, just because I don't see the need or have trouble working out an in-character reason to. They just feel contrived to me, too often, unless they play to my character concept, which is almost invariably a generalist wizard. However, if you've got a concept that is very specific/demanding, and a certain multi-class/PrC combo is the best way to realize that, go ahead! I'll give you all the support I can.
Also, as a player, I like good stats. Maybe it's because my group, the only one I've known, is mainly powergamers and they've worn off on me, but while I'm fine being able to do something, during character creation (a process I love; so many possibilities come to mind when you're making a new one, it's like starting a brand new book in a series by a loved auther- you know it's going to be good but have no idea what to expect)- when making a character, I feel this almost subconscious urge to make my stats better, get them higher, be the best they can be. So I understand the powergamer's view and don't have a problem with it. Someone who just gets good stats isn't a munchkin, nor is someone who gets off by mucking with the rules to get a desired effect or power level, so long as they aren't disruptive to everyone else at the table.
To me, munchkin is a derogatory word, and I do't mind it. It's just a fact. A munchkin is, to me, someone that builds a character, spending hours looking at spell, feat, item, etc. combos to do something, anything, with little to no chance of failure, and then when it comes to roleplaying, looks at you with a blank stare. There, I got it out!
I think I'm a ramble-holic. Is there a program for that?
EDIT- ONE MORE THING. I think that one reason most people on these boards seem to be so vociferously (sp?) opposed to "munchkinism" is that we are overwhelmingly DMs. This is a board for DMs. By the very nature of our roles, we must have a good comprehension of story and a creative streak. This seems to typically lead to a love of character development and plot weaving and an interest in pursuing cinematic but "realistic" elements in our games. Many of us have strong leadership skills, and thus we do, whether we realize it or not, have an ego to feed, and thus feel very possessive about our games and feel that we have total control over them (I know I do, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that; a DM has to be in control of their game, and by the nature of him providing it and putting vast amounts of time into it relative to the players, I feel that it IS the DM's game). It also makes us feel that people should be playing the way we want them to, which ISN'T necessarily right, though the players certainly have no right to destroy anyone's fun, including the DMs, as he's (or she's) doing this for enjoyment, too.
We think about our games as far more than a release from reality, but as a living, breathing place, and we want our players to appreciate that and act accordingly. Often, they don't think about that fact, and thus when they disregard the effort to build the world around them, by being munchkins, it's a direct insult to us, saying, "I don't care about the work you put into this." The fact that many of us also have anal streaks in our personality (I know I do; raise your hand if that's you, too!) makes this even harder to take, and it also makes it hard to bend to others' wishes when it would put our work, the world we've made, at risk by colliding with the vision we have of it, or requiring a change in a loved element.
That really wasn't just one more thing, was it? Ok, that's the end of the ramble! .... for now....
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...I want to kick butt/fry the bad guys/slice and dice or whatever, and always win when I do it (or as often as possible anyway)."That...is why you fail."
By thinking about the game in terms of 'kicking butt'/'frying bad guy'/'slicing & dicing' and always winning, you've entirely left the spirit of the game behind, obliterated the believability of the game-world and turned the adventure into a table-top video game.
A mean-spirited person would suggest that you quit trying to play and go back to your X-Box/PS3/Gamecube, where the results are more immediate. I still have hope for you...
...I am already a weedy geek - I don't want to play one. I don't think that is a sin, I think it is good tactics and creative use of the rules (let's leave aside issues of game balance and poor playtesting of new rule additions - let's assume for this discussion that the rules balance or at least can be made to with judicious tweaking)."Creative use of the rules"!?
The rules are not there for you to "get creative with" - they exist to allow the DM to TRY and describe, portray and operate, to some level of realism, a fictional world and its inhabitants. Any use of the rules outside this goal is abusive.
When generating a character, most DMs and players would come up with a nice backstory that justifies the character's existence and explains his training and tendencies; the less believable and more outrageous the story (or if you can't even make a story fit the character at all), the more likely that the character is abusive to the rules.
Of course, if birds of a feather flock together and everyone enjoys their particular style of game, then more power to them. There's no harm, no foul as long as the styles don't mix - which will mostly apply just to DMs dealing with certain players.
M
I appreciate that there has been a lot more thread since I last posted, which says most of what I am going to say. I also appreciate that maybe it wasn't the best of days for you when you (Mr Chin) wrote this post - I've been there myself, so it's not a big deal.
I think the point you make is very pertinent in that it is to some point a clash in styles - if you want a very role-playing intensive game, having a guy (or gal, but I bet most offenders are male) who has simply designed a killing machine and wants to use it can be frustrating. I DM most of the time, I have known that feeling. But I also, generally, feel that the problem has been mine as a DM when it has happened.
My group are, to a greater or lesser extent, power gamers. They are less inclined to expend time on detailed character histories than reseraching good feat selection. But they are having fun (more on this later) so it's cool. For the current campaign, though, to mix things up a bit I created the characters myself, gave them detailed backgrounds to fit in with the plotlines of the campaign (OK, maybe it is a bit unlikely that a group of four random strangers should have so many evil organisations gunning for them individually, but hey, this IS fantasy) and presented them to the players. I even made them play against type a bit (the arch-fighter got a rogue/paladin, the mage-aholic the warforged fighter, and so on) and, yes, the characters were min/max-ed a bit, but this was secondary to their place in the campaign - i.e. what was important was WHO THEY WERE. Everyone is having fun, and the "meatier" campaign arc and background is making them roleplay a bit more.
I carried out the above exercise mainly for my own enjoyment (well, I'm there to have fun too) as I tired a bit of the fortnightly grind of "find the monster, kill it, take its stuff". And I think my players were finding it difficult to get any real motivation for their characters, other than a meta-gaming "oh well, I guess that is the adventure so we had better go and do it".
But I did this as a DM - if there was a bit of a lack of roleplaying, motivation and believability before, it was also my fault as a DM. If you have a guy who is a "munchkin", arguably you have not created the milieau for him to reach into his character and pull out the "personality". Surely we all, as players, visualise and identify with our characters? The DM should encourage this sort of thing, by hook or by crook, IF THAT IS WHAT HE AND HIS GROUP WANT.
Good grief, I'm almost sounding like a role-player. What has come over me?
However, I take massive exception to this idea that the rules exist purely for the DM to create a world and deign to allow his players to enter it. Excuse me?! What do the initials PHB stand for, again? The rules are there, for all participants to use to have an enjoyable experience. And if having an enjoyable experience involves me creating a half-orc barbarian/fighter with a bastard sword in each hand - no wait, make that a dwarven barbarian/fighter with a dwarven waraxe in each hand, it saves on a feat - so be it. I hardly see that as abusive - why were these feats and other rule elements created? It certainly isn't the DMs job to tell the players what characters they can and cannot have, or what feat constructions, or whatever. It is a healthy process to experiment with different combos - it shows a love and interest in the game and its mechanics.
I would encourage a character to max out his character as much as possible, because it is FUN to play someone who is super-competent and can kick butt. But "kicking butt" can involve a high Bluff and Diplomacy check as much as a Two Weapon Fighting feat. It doesn't create a problem for me, but a CHALLENGE. My job, as a DM, is partly to rise to challenge what the players can throw at me. I'm not going to restrict their choice, I'm going to push them hard and really USE that new feat/power/spell - not so that it just let's them waltz through the adventure, but instead because they will fail if they don't exploit their characters' potential to the fullest. It validates their choice, and a close, challenging encounter is fun for everyone.
It is also a big help around the table since these players generally know the rules well. I play with a bunch of friends (not my normal group) who are clueless about the rules - it can be very painful!
Ultimately, my original post was just a lighthearted comment about something which bugs me slightly about the attitude of some gamers - that there is something intrinsically "better" about "role-playing" v "rules-playing". The experience of D&D incorporates both. I appreciate that some have a preference for one aspect or the other. But do I want to discourage someone who gets a kick out of exploiting the rules to the fullest by calling him a munchkin? No. Does it do our hobby good to get elitist? No. So lets stop being patronising, wake up to our responsibilities as DMs, and stop blaming players because we haven't created a game that is satisfying for everyone.
My two pence (I'm British).
Alex
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I think that one reason most people on these boards seem to be so vociferously (sp?) opposed to "munchkinism" is that we are overwhelmingly DMs. This is a board for DMs. By the very nature of our roles, we must have a good comprehension of story and a creative streak. This seems to typically lead to a love of character development and plot weaving and an interest in pursuing cinematic but "realistic" elements in our games. Many of us have strong leadership skills, and thus we do, whether we realize it or not, have an ego to feed, and thus feel very possessive about our games and feel that we have total control over them (I know I do, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that; a DM has to be in control of their game, and by the nature of him providing it and putting vast amounts of time into it relative to the players, I feel that it IS the DM's game). It also makes us feel that people should be playing the way we want them to, which ISN'T necessarily right, though the players certainly have no right to destroy anyone's fun, including the DMs, as he's (or she's) doing this for enjoyment, too.
We think about our games as far more than a release from reality, but as a living, breathing place, and we want our players to appreciate that and act accordingly. Often, they don't think about that fact, and thus when they disregard the effort to build the world around them, by being munchkins, it's a direct insult to us, saying, "I don't care about the work you put into this." The fact that many of us also have anal streaks in our personality (I know I do; raise your hand if that's you, too!) makes this even harder to take, and it also makes it hard to bend to others' wishes when it would put our work, the world we've made, at risk by colliding with the vision we have of it, or requiring a change in a loved element.
Amen, brother. I think this, rather than anything else, gets to the very heart of the munchkin debate. But, as I hope I pointed out above, I primarily consider this my problem as a DM, not that of the players.
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What certainly wasn't part of the original spirit of the game is the idea of 'optimizing' your character before play begins. That's a little separate game-in-itself that came to exist through points-based RPG systems, and has nothing to do with the core RPG experience.
Perhaps, but probably because the the general primitiveness of early D&D. One of the possible sources of "problem" is that the feat system appears, primarily, designed for fighters. Let's face it, a 1E or 2E fighter is probably the easiest character to create - roll stats, choose equipment and, er, that's it really. And nothing else is going to change, except when you roll hp.
I applaud the new feats system and how it individualises fighters, but it probably panders to the worst instinct of the typical munchkin/power gamer, since creating a combat powerhouse is the name of the game. And, when you look at some new feats in the supplements, there are probably a fair number of "munchkins" in the R&D department in WOTC too. Oversize Two Weapon Fighting (Complete Adventurer) - oh, yeah, baby...........
Most of my players are powergamers, but they also role-play. It's been mentioned before that it's okay to be a munchkin, because if you actually lived in a world as deadly as a D&D campaign world, you would want every advantage you could get to survive.
I've come to terms with the powergamers in me and in everyone else by realizing that the player characters are larger than life heroes. They're movie heroes; they're Bruce Willis in Die Hard, they're Jean Claude Van Damme, they're Clint Eastwood. I'm very liberal about ability rolls and such. I don't allow prestige classes I dislike and the only core classes available in my game beyond the PH are the scout, warmage, marshal and favored soul.
I also don't allow every feat there is, but I've created several homebrewed feats that some might consider overpowered (but I create them mostly for my bad guys, heh!)
I dislike a lot of magic items, mainly because I think it becomes an arms race, with the DM having to outfit the bad guys with gobs of magic to challenge a magic heavy party at higher levels and the game is already complicated enough.
So, basically if a player figures out a way to use feats/skills/class abilities in an effective way to overcome challenges, I don't have a problem with it per se. If they just sit around like a bump on a log when role-playing is going on or the party is trying to solve a mystery, then it's them that will be bored.
My current PC in the only campaign I play in is a 3rd level cleric/4th level sorceror getting ready to take his first level in mystic theurge. Even though I know the campaign is going to be exclusively a dungeon crawl (90%), I play my character as an urban sophisticate, a worshipper of Cyric with a strong self-preservation streak. He's like Klinger in MASH, he's always trying to figure out a way to get out of the adventure and go back to Waterdeep. His skills are heavy on diplomacy, bluff and trickery, which aren't always useful when dungeoncrawling, but he doesn't care. He's a very reluctant adventurer, finding the whole thing to be much too dangerous for long-term endeavour, but since his daddy cut him off from his university stipend, he has no other way to make money.
So, I have some munchkin in me, but as long as I role-play my character well, I can live with it. I think you can do both.
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I've come to terms with the powergamers in me and in everyone else by realizing that the player characters are larger than life heroes. They're movie heroes; they're Bruce Willis in Die Hard, they're Jean Claude Van Damme, they're Clint Eastwood.
I agree. I prefer to think more of Conan than Bilbo Baggins when I'm creating or visualising characters. I guess it is fun to play an everyman, average dude for a change of pace. But I would always want to default to a tough, competent character out of choice. The game is ultimately about wish-fulfilment, and doing fantastic things in a fantastical setting. There is much to be said, of course, for role-playing - the game is VERY dull without it. It is hard to sustain belief in the setting with just a set of stats on a character sheet. But let's not deny the gratifying pleasure of rolling that crit and taking down the bad guy, or the pleasure in the out-of-game preparation where you selected the feat/weapon/spell/item combos that let you do it. And it's not a DMs place to get fussed by that - the players are not a passive audience to revel in his fantasy world conception, but active participants with choices.
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I'm not sure what you mean by 'primitive', but the original design decisions of D&D were deliberate, not unconscious. Gary could perfectly well have introduced munchkinable character 'customization' if he wanted; instead the classes are archetypal, with individuality provided through how they're played more than what's on the character sheet.
I'll take your word for that. I'm not dissing the older version of D&D, but I think it's a bit rich to say that the old game was DESIGNED to emphasise role-playing when it was, from its origins, about killing the monsters and taking their stuff (that was how the experience point system worked - treasure values), killer dungeons (Tomb of Horrors and so on) and combat and tactical situations. I don't know - I wasn't there and maybe you were, and if so I bow to your greater knowlege. But I also read some of Gary Gygax's columns in the relatively recent Dragon magazines and even I thought what he was describing seemed a bit overly power-gamey. And while I will always doff my cap to St Gary, I wasn't aware that he was so prescient he could see all of the potential developments, but then chose not to apply them.
And I'm not dissing you either, by the way. But in 1E or 2E, one fighter was much like another - so, yes, the difference was all in the role-playing. It had to be. I personally think it is a bit richer if you can customise your character within the mechanic of the rules as well as through characterisation. They are both great.
Maybe I should leave this thread alone now. I'll be starting a support group for munchkins next.
Most of my players are powergamers, but they also role-play. It's been mentioned before that it's okay to be a munchkin, because if you actually lived in a world as deadly as a D&D campaign world, you would want every advantage you could get to survive.
A Powergamer and a Munchkin are not the same thing. They are similar, but with one fundamental difference. A powergamer workes with in the rules of the game, while a munchkin exploits the rules of the game for their own gain. anytime I here some Munchkin talking about exploiting loopholes it pisses me off. The rules for D&D are like the laws of Physics for that worlds. Useing a loophole that is there because Wizards didn't think it was nessassary to include something so common sense is exploiting the letter of the law over the spirit of the law. It is childish, and it is selfish. And that is the bottom line of why munchkins are hated. They make the game all about themselves, and f*@$ everyone else sitting at the table! THey have no respect for their fellow players and even less respect for the DM and the time they put into building the game.
I've read your posts in the past, and I believe that you are a powergamer, not a munchkin. I've never hear you say anything about exploitation for exploitations sake. I think there is a thin line between a powergamer and a munchkin, but it is a very clear line and I think it takes a very strong DM to hold a Munchkin in check.
I aspire to be a munchkin. I'm just really, really bad at it. But I refuse to give up. Practice makes perfect or so I've been told. I think my problem is that I can't stay focussed long enough on one or two traits. I always get sucked in by the "wouldn't it be cool if..." flashes that come into my head that come to me during play. I know, though, that eventually I'll get there.
I'll get there...
A Powergamer and a Munchkin are not the same thing. They are similar, but with one fundamental difference. A powergamer workes with in the rules of the game, while a munchkin exploits the rules of the game for their own gain.
Okay....roger that...my players don't try to exploit the game at the expense of others and neither do I. I can see the difference. Thanks!