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To hopefully head off a flame war, this isn't meant as the umpteenth incarnation of another browbeating of munchkinism, rolier-than-thouness, or anything like that. This is just an observation.
I spent some time lurking at a football discussion forum, and I noticed that their equivalent of the munchkin is called "the homer." This is apparently defined as someone who doesn't necessarily discuss football in a scientific manner; instead the "homer" vigilantly advocates the excellence of their home team regardless of the reality of said team's skill.
I seem to notice that whenever a unique human subculture is created, said subculture seems to desire to create an incarnate example that embodies all of the social morays and taboos of that subculture. For the football fans (or U.S. football fans for my esteemed colleagues from neighboring countries) this is the "homer." For us, it is the "munchkin,"
The ultimate roleplayer's Mr. Bungle.
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Social morays? Egad, those eels will take over the world!
Interesting observation. It is my view that the munchkin "exists" to make non-munchkins feel good about themslves. They can handily label others and define themselves by reference to what they are not. Tribal groupings can then handily exclude those they don't like by comparing them with the outsider class in such a fashion.
World of Warcraft, of course, has it's own iconic outider - the noob.
It's mores -- from something latin :)
And you're right. Every group has it's bogeyman -- ours is the munchkin.
I used to spend a lot of time over at Librarium-online, a warhammer forum. In the world of GW games the worst thing you can be called is "cheese," a person who designs their army list using as many of the most powerful units as they can and minimising the weak units, solely for victory. Which I guess is a min-maxer.
The funny thing is, you get people who are proud to be cheesy and think the people who design their army for aesthetics or flavour are wasting their valuable competition time. A big Australian tourney recently had a league called "cheese-fest" where people could min max without fear of losing points for composition or painting. The cheesefest was judged solely on generalship.
Personally I think a competetive wargame that is open to terrible min-maxing is just badly designed, which is why I stopped playing warhammer.
It's also interesting to think about the fact that "normal" society (as if there is such a thing) has a number of outcast sects of which one might be considered to be geeks (and/or nerds). For a long time I considered myself to be a geek but I had a subconscious feeling that I was better than some geeks (yeah right) because "at least I don't play Dungeons and Dragons". I am so so grateful to have fate show me the error of my ways. Anyway, the point is that not all geeks play D&D. So it's amusing to me that we have our own little dividers ("munchkins" being only one). Do the munchkins have another group within themselves that is even more esoteric? Munchkins who are so hardcore they don't even need rulebooks man. They're just doing straight up CALCULUS. Geez I hate THOSE guys.
I used to spend a lot of time over at Librarium-online, a warhammer forum. In the world of GW games the worst thing you can be called is "cheese," a person who designs their army list using as many of the most powerful units as they can and minimising the weak units, solely for victory. Which I guess is a min-maxer.
Over on the Living Greyhawk boards it's 'cheese weasel,' a term I've always liked. I think there are a lot of them in LG, also.
I happen to be a Star Trek fan -- a 'Trekker,' I'm told.
'Trekkies' are the annoying people running underfoot at cons wearing uniforms, who know all the characters' birthdates and whatnot. I'm not one of those -- I only know ST:TNG birthdates :)
PS -- are we still on topic, or has the thread been 'jacked?
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I happen to be a Star Trek fan -- a 'Trekker,' I'm told.
'Trekkies' are the annoying people running underfoot at cons wearing uniforms, who know all the characters' birthdates and whatnot. I'm not one of those -- I only know ST:TNG birthdates :)
PS -- are we still on topic, or has the thread been 'jacked?
I believe you're still on topic. I put my thoughts out there to stir up discussion of the issue, and you're noting another example of the phenomenon.
I thought the most derogatory football term is "fairweather fan".
In one of indie comic artist Chris Ware's excellent "Acme Novelty Library" books, he goes into the subdivisions of antique toy collectors; the guys you see (or may be) that go to flea markets and internet auctions looking for Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars and G.I. Joe action figures. He lists each subdivision and then remarks on how to identify each. Some collect as a kind of quest for revenge against parents that may not have had the means to give their kid the toys when they originally came out and these folks internalized it as lack of affection. Others seek to catalogue and lead discourse on said figures ("The Scholar") and then there's "The Outsider". Ware denotes that one can identify this specimen by presence of decent personal hygiene, in fashion clothing and presence of the much coveted "girlfriend". These are people that want hip decorations for their apartments and do not understand the amazing cultural value of their G.I. Joe figure.
That kind of tendency to seperate and catalogue people is universal to not only subcultures (from D&D fans to football fans to hipsters to crochet enthusiasts) but also religions and ethnicities. It's ironic that a big part of being human is the attempt to dehumanize not only everyone around us, but also ourselves. And labels are a way to do it.
Now if you'll excuse me, I must return to cataloguing my comic books, Magic cards and Dungeons and Dragons paraphanelia for future generations.
For metal...there was always "false metal"
as in "Death to false Metal!!!!" (Winger/Trixter/Vixen fans caught a lot of flak)
or ppl were tagged "posers" or "poseurs" (usually with a unclean word on the front of the tag)
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That kind of tendency to seperate and catalogue people is universal to not only subcultures (from D&D fans to football fans to hipsters to crochet enthusiasts) but also religions and ethnicities. It's ironic that a big part of being human is the attempt to dehumanize not only everyone around us, but also ourselves. And labels are a way to do it.
I guess the adaptive value of that is that it makes it easier to stomach killing them. In the Darwinian world in which we evolved our tribal ancestor doubtlessly had to compete with other tribes, and that solution to the problem was always on the cards. Tribal societies are often extremely violent (the noble savage is an 18th century myth) and this sort of mindset would help.
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Social morays? Egad, those eels will take over the world!
Interesting observation. It is my view that the munchkin "exists" to make non-munchkins feel good about themslves. They can handily label others and define themselves by reference to what they are not. Tribal groupings can then handily exclude those they don't like by comparing them with the outsider class in such a fashion.
World of Warcraft, of course, has it's own iconic outider - the noob.
Oh, yeah. My wife told me how to spell "moire."
;)
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Here at work, on our old computer system, we used to play lunch-time sessions of Unreal Tournament. There were some players whom we called "campers" because they would hang out around certain areas on the maps (usually areas with special items). I later came to understand that the "camper" term was used in other first-person shooter games as well.
And in netgames variation of n00b is of course expn00b, that is, a high-level character who still has little knowledge of the game and has usually made the exp by running same areas again and again and again...you can grow out from being n00b but growing out from being expn00b is much harder.
(In D&D this would be a player whose characters are stuck on being same powerful combination again and again).
I have never understood many peeps idea of cheese in WH fantasy or 40k; for me cheese in that game was combining certain magic items; we have several combination outlawed in our group as per our cheese rule; but I don't really understand any complaints about troop choices; the rules state how much of what kind of troop you can have and the rules makes say that the point values of units should all work out regardless of if you have 20 low point guys or 5 hight points guys; should be an even fight; not sure how much I believe that, but I have my own rules of thumb on how many models you need on the feild to win. If you dont build your army to win they you are kinda silly; sure everyone tries new combos and new tactics; but there is no one best build of any army and any army you can build; I can build one to beat it; that is the whole point of not showing your army list before hand; neither player has any idea what the other is bringing; sure is kinda silly in any real world application; but it is a game based on winning and loosing; very little cheese as far as I am concerned; I know extremists in the name calling finger pointing cadres who yell cheese if you play necrons, for instance; or any said army percieved to be better than their army;
it would be interesting to find out the lingo from many games and athletic events and put together a vocabulary; things like being accused of cheese, or munchkin or a homer; is an interesting development in the language and would be interesting to see how much it prevades our society and how much cross over between counter cultures there is and to what extent.
I tend to wonder if you loose a lot which is why you really stopped gaming; I have a friend who has some very valid complaints about the game; basically, regardless of what you bring and how bad a generaly you are; you can win soley on luck if you are a lucky dice roller; he has stastically trended out peoples rolls and we find that that is the greatest single determining factor in any game; this is the basic flaw of the game; there is just to much chance involved; any body have a name for people who always roll exceptionally well but are not cheating?
I used to spend a lot of time over at Librarium-online, a warhammer forum. In the world of GW games the worst thing you can be called is "cheese," a person who designs their army list using as many of the most powerful units as they can and minimising the weak units, solely for victory. Which I guess is a min-maxer.
The funny thing is, you get people who are proud to be cheesy and think the people who design their army for aesthetics or flavour are wasting their valuable competition time. A big Australian tourney recently had a league called "cheese-fest" where people could min max without fear of losing points for composition or painting. The cheesefest was judged solely on generalship.
Personally I think a competetive wargame that is open to terrible min-maxing is just badly designed, which is why I stopped playing warhammer.
The traditional Warhammer term is 'beardy.' I think 'cheesy' is the American version thereof. Warhammer and 40K have improved somewhat in recent versions and they are now less open to exploitation by players; most of the loopholes have been closed. Yet some inequalities still exist. 250 points of vanilla guardsmen will never take down a Bloodthirster in close combat, regardless of how many dice you're rolling. I think that's realistic enough; bad planning should never be rewarded and that's why the game is competitive.
Surfers use a word "kook". A kook is an inexperienced surfer, trying to surf in conditions beyond thier abilities. They become dangerious for everyone in the area, especially themselves. I am all for people learning to surf and I get a thrill when I see someone stand on a surf board for the first time. But don't be a kook, follow the first safety rule when around the ocean "When in doubt don't go out!" Also, if your learning to surf on the northshore of Maui, remember when the older big narly looking Hawaiian paddles up and tells you to get out because you don't belong here, he does this for your safety as well as everyones elses not because of spite. The older big narly looking Hawaiian surfers, are some of the most humble humans I have met.
Anyway, I don't think being a munchkin is as bad as being a Kook. A munchkin isn't going to kill himself or neccesarily hurt someone else, a Kook's inexperience can kill and injure.
"DON'T BE A KOOK!!!"
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(lol)
When I was in West Palm Beach, there was this "surfer" and I put that in parentheses because to surf usually implies the existence of waves, which are nonexistent in West Palm Beach, Florida except during a tropical storm, who thought "kook" meant "anyone swimming within his general vacinity as he waited, in vain, for anything remotely resembling a wave."
I tend to wonder if you loose a lot which is why you really stopped gaming
Dude I played Orks... the guys whose codex hasn't been updated since the early-mid 90s. I was never afraid of losing, or a poor loser; I always played for fun.
Ask someone who has experience with both GW games and historical wargames (if you can find one; not many GW gamers have played any other wargame). The winner of most Warhammer games can reliably be predicted by looking at the army lists before hand.
As you said, luck plays a huge part in Warhammer, as does army selection. It is NOT a game of tactics, despite what Warhammer players tend to think, though admittedly Fantasy is more tactical than 40K. The tactics are on the level of paper-scissors-rock.
How you actually use your army has such a tiny impact on the game compared with how you build it, which is why I quit 40K: I didn't find it fun that every time I fought someone with a mechanized Tau army for example (and there are a lot of them) I had two choices:
1) Make a terribly unlikely army list where every one of my officers and heavy weapons troopers happens to be carrying an anti-tank weapon, and as many of my regular troops and vehicles as possible are mysteriously outfitted for destroying hovering tanks.
2) Play MY army that I chose for fun to reflect my personal tastes and be utterly massacred, even with lucky dice rolls.
Now each to their own, but I don't enjoy tailoring my force precisely to fight each particular enemy. The trouble with 40k is if you don't do this, you aren't being competitive. You WILL lose, at least with such an outdated army as Orks, but that's a problem in itself; codex creep is just not good game design (though it is good business). As far as I'm concerned any legal army should be able to beat any other legal army with a bit of luck and good generalship. Even the most ardent GW fanboy will admit that this simply isn't the case: Some legal armies are more equal than others ;)
The traditional Warhammer term is 'beardy.' I think 'cheesy' is the American version thereof.
Yeah, 'Beardy' was the term used when I started playing in my teens. It's very rare to hear it now; I've even seen White Dwarf writers use 'Cheesy'.
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World of Warcraft, of course, has it's own iconic outider - the noob.
I HATE those guys. I play City of Heroes on a semiregular basis, and I almost always get stuck with some annoying piece of dung n'wah IN my group who gets US killed and always LIVES. Also, the way to tell a n00b is to ask if they are a n00b. If they say no, they're a n00b. If they kick your buttocks halfway to Reaver space, they're not. Always works.
(note sarcasm)-The Eldritch Mr. Shiny
P.S. - Sorry about going off on a tangent.
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Anyway, I don't think being a munchkin is as bad as being a Kook. A munchkin isn't going to kill himself or neccesarily hurt someone else, a Kook's inexperience can kill and injure.
Yeah. Sure.
I once had a munchkin/n00b/Drizzt wannabe player flip out when his character died (which was ENTIRELY his fault)and throw a book at me. And an empty dice box. THe latter of the two left a 1" cut on the back of my hand. I still have a scar from it.Also, the SAME GUY, a month later managed to kill off everyone else's characters, and I had to physically restrain one of my friends from attacking the munchkin with a FREAKIN' BAYONET that he had apparently pulled out of nowhere.
So, there ae two morals to these stories.
1. Munchkins CAN be INCREDIBLY dangerous.
2. My gaming group is incredibly unstable.
-The ANGRY and Eldritch Mr. Shiny
Anyway, I don't think being a munchkin is as bad as being a Kook. A munchkin isn't going to kill himself or neccesarily hurt someone else, a Kook's inexperience can kill and injure.
Yeah. Sure.
I once had a munchkin/n00b/Drizzt wannabe player flip out when his character died (which was ENTIRELY his fault)and throw a book at me. And an empty dice box. THe latter of the two left a 1" cut on the back of my hand. I still have a scar from it.Also, the SAME GUY, a month later managed to kill off everyone else's characters, and I had to physically restrain one of my friends from attacking the munchkin with a FREAKIN' BAYONET that he had apparently pulled out of nowhere.
So, there ae two morals to these stories.
1. Munchkins CAN be INCREDIBLY dangerous.
2. My gaming group is incredibly unstable.-The ANGRY and Eldritch Mr. Shiny
you guys are HARD CORE!
Director of Sales
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From back in the day when my friends all played world of Darkness MUSH's and MUD's, they had a term we carried over into our tabletop games: Twink.
I remember there being a very funny list that was a riff on Jeff Foxworthy called "You might be a Twink if..." The only ones I can remember (this was about ten years ago) went something like:
...your first character is a sixth generation Brujah who walks around with a swordcane and a katana.
...the word "ninja" appears anywhere in your character's backstory.
...your character was an ex-army anything.
It was mostly funny because there were something on the order of fifty jokes on the list and just about every character had at least one or two.
We still use the term to denote a character with an extreme specialization in some area, such as a combat-twink or a social-twink.