Other Gaming Stereotypes

Apparently, folks want to hear what I have to say about archetypes apart from Munchkins and Power-Gamers, so once again let us head on over for a watch of The Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising, and I’ll go through each of the players in turn.

Cass: As already stated, here’s your “bad” power-gamer. He’s an overbearing, competitive rules-lawyer. It’d be tempting to say that he meets the Ieqological criteria for munchkinism as well, but we really don’t see him trying to steal any thunder from the other players: his douchebaggery is limited to the OOC realm, so it is a grey area. I myself wouldn’t label him a muncher, but others might (and Lodge does during the scene in the coffee shop).

Joanna: Three stereotypes shown here. First we have the benevolent power-gamer. Min-maxed to the nines, and ruthlessly pursuing the party’s goal, she meets every critical standard for power-gaming. She even took notes at the table! If she weren’t a northwesterner who would turn into a pillar of ash when exposed to the Tennessee sun, I’d marry her. Second, we see the “significant other brought to the gaming table”. This one actually gets turned on its head, since the stereotype usually involves the sig-other being disinterested, only showing up because her beau insists upon it. Finally, we have the popular conception of what girl-gamers are like: more interested in the roleplay aspect than metagaming, side interests in theater, and a loathing of in-game chauvinism. Had she had facial piercings and been playing a LARP instead of a real game, the stereotype would be complete. But then she wouldn’t be a power-gamer.

Gary: Where to start? Gender-bending for one: the nerd who plays female characters because he can’t get a real one. I’ll try not to mention his other stereotypical traits that might explain a penchant for roleplaying a woman, since some people might find it offensive. . . . Yeah, okay I couldn’t keep a straight face, either. But mostly he’s the munchkin, as I’ve already proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a previous essay.

Lodge: Oh, puhleeze! Have you ever known a GM who wasn’t a frustrated writer? That’s so obvious, it hardly bears mentioning. He’s also the focus of my envy because clearly he’s about to start tapping Joanna… More importantly, his journey--indeed the whole movie--is a great illustration of the bit of GMing advice I give more often than any other: Let your players do the adventure their way!

Leo: The portly fellow with a beard whose character runs around doinking everything in a skirt? If there’s a gaming stereotype there, it is well hidden…

Lets Agree on Vocabulary, Part Deux: The Munchkin

Wikipedia, which I profess to loathe and anyone who cites it as a source in a discussion with me is destined for a blastin', defines munchkin thusly: 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.

That's a pretty good definition, though I would expand it to include "receive the most attention, be the central character in the story, and in general overshadow other players, NPCs, and the plot itself." Yes, brother and sister gamers, your pretentious "story games" attract munchkins as well, and sometimes the games most considered "munchkinproof" actually suffer the worst infestations.


Let us begin. To continue from yesterday's discussion of power-gamers, we shall also keep using The Gamers2: Dorkness Rising as our demonstrative example. As I stated, Gary the gamevestite is our classic munchkin. As I list the telltales of munchkinism, think of his portrayal (before his redemption, anyway).

1. Attention is the pizza and munchkins want the biggest slice, be it the GM's attention, the attention of the other characters, the most "unique and interesting" role or whatever. If they had their way, they'd have the whole pie, both IC and at the table.
2. Munchkins hate being railroaded. I mean they really hate it. They're here to have fun, and how dare that dick of a GM try to impose a plot? This goes beyond normal free-wheeling plot-dodging; munchkins will actively attempt to destroy the plot. This is the guy who, when the GM says he's starting a game of intrigue that will take place in the kingdom's largest city says, "Cool! Can I play a druid?"
3. Munchkins can always justify their douchebaggery. If you find a group of gamers glaring at one of their number while he protests, "But it is what my character would do!", then you have treed yourself a munchkin. While he will attest that he's simply staying in character and being a good roleplayer (often with a derisive sniff to indicate that all you sheep who are trying to follow the plot are bad roleplayers), do not be fooled. A cursory examination of the character sheet will usually show that yes, indeed, burning down the orphanage is what that character would do...and that the character was created to be exactly the kind of character who would do that!
4. Munchkins get bored easily. As in they get bored any time they are not in the spotlight. Their customary solution to boredom is to cause chaos in the gameworld. "Just shaking things up a bit to keep it fresh."
5. For all their talent for mayhem, munchkins tend to have little imagination. One common manifestation is that their characters tend to all be very similar to the last character they played. Another is the one whose characters are all cookie-cutter images of characters from fiction or anime. How many dual-wielding, brooding dark elf clones have we seen in the past 20 years?* These guys are easy to spot and very easy to surprise at the table: if their character's "inspiration" never did something in the books or the cartoons, the player will never think of trying it. Of course, the bad part of this is if Drizz't or their anime hero ever did do something, these guys are guaranteed to try it--especially if it is ridiculous and/or would look 'kewl'.
6. Munchkins are often also power-gamers, but not always. Sometimes they can be the opposite. Remember, the power-gamer is motivated by success. Victory is everything. A power-gamer loves his character and might have every level of progression planned out, but if a situation arises where a heroic martyrdom will seal the group's success, a power-gamer will unhesitatingly charge in, the plan for his next character already forming in his mind. A munchkin, on the other hand is motivated by narcissism. Everyone else at the table, including the GM, is there to show how awesome the munchkin is, and the most annoying munchkins don't do power builds at all. Instead they make the most ridiculously crippled characters they can dream up. Becuase if their character has to be carried by the rest of the party, and is so useless as to guarantee the failure of the mission, then they are assured to have a whole lot of the attention; the activities of the group will by necessity revolve around them.
7. Munchkins are convinced, and will try to convince everyone else, that they are the elite of roleplayers. The Very Elder Gods of the Game, if you will. They will deride every other player ("Matt's a damn power-gamer"), the GM ("What a fucking railroader--why doesn't he just write a book?"), and the game itself ("This game sucks. Call of Cthulhu is way better!"). Should you make the mistake of calling them out, be prepared for tantrums, internet flame-wars, and of course, a renewed campaign of douchbaggery.
8. Munchkins are everywhere. Sadly it is true. Look around your gaming group. If you cannot identify the munchkin, then either you have the luckiest GM alive, or you yourself are the munchkin.
9. Munchkins never leave. They are the ones who will stick with even a bad campaign until the GM gets tired of it. Maybe it is due to the narcissism, or possibly that they know they have a negative reputation at every other game in town, but once you've got one, you have to either endure, convert, or murder him. The first two options require more patience than I generally have.

You see the common threads and are tempted to say, "Oh I get it: munchkins are selfish." You're not wrong. But you're also thinking so small that you're far from right. I mean, while it might be accurate to say that a bank-robber is selfish, you wouldn't say that about a terrorist.

So lets wrap up with an example that shows the difference between a power-gamer (who isn't a munchkin) and a munchkin (who may or may not be a power-gamer). After all, that was the whole purpose of these two entries anyway. I'll even use an example from the World of Tropis, to make Danny smile:

Our characters are investigating a murder. The victim was a noble from a rival nation in our nation's capital city, and tensions are so high right now that were the killing to become known, a bitter and bloody war would surely erupt. So we basically have to find the Serb who killed Archduke Ferdinand while at the same time staging a coverup of the assassination, lest the whole of Europe erupt into World War I. Easy right? Well, the noble family is stonewalling us, we can't bring any official weight to bear because we need to keep the coverup in place, and besides our superiors are a bunch of corrupt tossers anyway. What do we do? We break into the noble house's villa to look for clues, naturally. The rogue is the obvious choice, but the power-gamer in the group insists on going with. Not so much because my character is all that particularly stealthy (we already had a rogue so I built him to fill a different role), but because as a power-gamer I know that having another set of eyes and ears (ie. a second perception roll) could spell the difference between success and failure. A munchkin would have gone along because he hates anyone else in the spotlight. Once inside, we make a surprising discovery: the god-ninjas of the campaign world are already here and they are slaughtering the entire family. They ignore us because we aren't a threat to them (really, they could kill us thirty different ways before we could say "shit"). So we stay out of their way. A munchkin would engage the assassins out of course, because no NPC can possibly be allowed to be more powerful than he. Now we have a problem. Where we were trying to keep a single killing quiet out of fear of the consequences, now the entire noble family is being killed. We can't stop the assassins, and come sunrise the whole world will know that they have been murdered. War is inevitable, and the streets will run red with blood. Or is it? The powergamer says "wait until the assassins clear out then we set the house on fire and leg it." The reasoning being that an "accidental" fire would muddy the waters enough to buy us some time to try to figure all this mess out, whereas just leaving would ignite the war (and possibly bring us, the heroes, under suspicion). So the power-gamer is advocating a course of action that sounds a whole lot like munchkinery. The difference is in motivation. A little mayhem here increases our chances of success in the long term. A munchkin would burn the house down simply because the nobles snubbed him. Or because he was bored. Or because they are NPCs.

So hopefully I've a clear and convincing argument that Munchkins and power-gamers are not the same beast, and also hopefully explained why it is important to me that people draw the distinction.

Tell me your thoughts on the topic or just tell me your munchkin stories.






*Yes it is true that I played a drow for close to six years, but he doesn't count: he was admittedly evil, not broody at all, and was a henchman to the campaign's quintessential villian. A munchkin wouldn't play second-fiddle to anyone. Besides, he was also a pirate, and therefore by definition he was cool.

Let's Agree on Vocabulary At Least...

If my blog were about the way my older brother barbecues, I'd call it Cooking Without Heat Because I'm Scared Shitless of Burning Stuff. But here I am digressing already, so back on topic!

Past couple days I've been rewatching The Gamers and The Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising. That makes about the eleventy-zillionth time, for those of you keeping score at home. This time I even put the YouTube link up on my PSM for Skype, and sure enough I got a slew of "lol" messages. Those guys (and ladies, of course) are very talented, and I'm happy to evangelize for them.[subliminal] Buy the DVD... Buy the DVD[/subliminal] You haven't seen it? Shame, shame. Go HERE right after you're done reading this. I mean it.

Here's where I start getting to the point. While I was waiting for one of the parts to buffer* I happened to scroll down to the comments. There I found a month-old exchange that can accurately be paraphrased thusly:

Muppet4016: This is inaccurate. Roleplaying games aren't competitive,
so why are they portraying this as a contest between the GM and the players?

Dumbass6739: They are making fun of his group of immature
power-gamers! Wow, I hate power-gamers. So immature.

Xxn00b-pwner69xX: Yeh. Power-gamers are teh
suXxorz!

This, friends, bothers me. Not only because I am a power-gamer, but also because I'm a big fan language and it is really really difficult to have intelligent discourse on any subject when we disagree on the meaning of a word. So, in the interests of civil conversation, let us agree on the following:

A Power-gamer is defined (by Wikipedia, no less--who'd have thought I'd be citing them) as: a player of role-playing games who focuses on making their characters as powerful as possible. Check. I support that definition, and would submit as I have many many times in the past, that this is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. As a power-gamer I seek ways to make my character efficient in his chosen vocation, be that ranged combatant, backstabber, wizard, whatever. Am I doing this to be a prick? Actually just the opposite: I'm filling a role within my party, so I owe it to them to not do it half-assed. If I'm the party's battle-turtle, they are depending on me to have (to quote the movie) good strength, a high armor-class, and hit points out the ass. By Gygax's Bushy Beard, I'm fucking going to have the best strength, the highest armor class, and the most hit points I can squeeze out of the rules, because the people around me at the table deserve the best I can do. Metagaming? Hell, no! How is it metagaming to say that Hugh Badaxe is going to play to his strengths and train his hardest to be the best damn big, dumb door-kicker he can be?

Some characteristics of power-gamers:

1. They seek, find, and exploit mechanical and/or tactical and/or social advantages to increase the efficiency of their character within its designated role in the party.
2. They have an intimate knowledge of the rules. They may or may not be argumentative, depending on the specific player. This familiarity will extend to other classes and party roles, so they may best support the overall party. They may or may not advise other players in tactical situations depending upon the specific player and group dynamic. They do not, however, cheat; that is the bailiwick of the munchkin.
3. They have an intense and personal interest in the survival and advancement of the character. This usually extends to that of the other party members as well, but may not depending on the specific player and group dynamic.
4. They fucking pay attention. They take notes. They gather information. They make plans, purchase specific gear, and load up on specific spells to efficiently take the party's objective.

In the movie, everyone represented a gamer stereotype. No, I won't get into all of them because this ain't a cinema-analysis blog. But if we agree upon the above definition, the only power-gamers in the movie are Cass and Joanna. They make good representations of the "may or may not" clauses in my definition.

So what are the others? Well, the gender-bending magic-user guy is a munchkin, pure and simple.**

But isn't power-gamer just another word for munchkin? You know: you say 'tomato' and all that?

Nope. A munchkin is a different type of critter. We get confused because very often a real douchebag will exhibit qualities of both the power-gamer and the munchkin. But they ain't the same thing.

So what is a munchkin, you ask?

Tell you tomorrow.

*No, that's not a euphemism for anything, regardless of what it might mean in the UK--we won a couple wars so we wouldn't have to listen to you guys so fu... Sorry. Digressing again.

**AND his character is hawt!

Why I Game Over the Internet

Some highlights from today’s trip to the FLGS:

You play Rolemaster?  That’s a game for munchkins!

“I beg to differ: Few munchkins have enough attention span to  get through a character creation.” 

Well, yeah, but all those rules…

Another conversation with a different person (who would have been easier to understand if she’d had fewer than six facial piercings, but I digress):

Why don’t you like 4e?  Is it because young people play it?

“No.  I don’t like it because the characters all have the same abilities."

No they don’t… (pause)  Well, maybe some of them do but take the… (pause)  Well, I don’t care, it rocks!

The guy at the register points to my headphones while he’s ringing up my dice (the TGG’s Conan game is audible through the one that isn’t in my ear):  You listening to the Penny Arcade podcast?  Man that is so awesome!

“No, actually it is one of the groups hosted on rpgmp3.com.  If you like the PA podcast you should check them out.”

Yeah, I hear a lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon since the PA guys proved to be so popular.

“Actually rpgmp3.com has been doing that sort of thing since since 2004 and they began podcasting a 4ed game the same day the game was released and…  You know, never mind.  I’ll buy some dice online.  Have a nice day.”

Some days its easy being a card-carrying RPG Podcast Professional and Worldwide Ambassador for AP Producers Everywhere.  Other days it ain’t

David Carradine 1936-2009

For those of you living under rocks, David Carradine passed away yesterday in Thailand. He’s best remembered for the tv series Kung Fu, and doing a slew of really bad (but really good…) Roger Corman films in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

I won’t sit here and try to say that his screen works were any kind of a big influence on my life, or that he was any kind of terrific actor. But I have had a lot of fun watching them, and I feel saddened by his passing more than any other tv/film celebrity that I can remember.

So, friends, lets all pop in our DVDs of Death Race 2000, open a frosty beverage or three and have a laugh with D.C. for old time’s sake. Don’t own a copy? Well, get to your local Blockbuster and rent one! And turn in your nerd card on the way.

CRAZY IDEA OF THE WEEK: I wonder how much of a logistics and timing hassle it’d be to record movie commentary tracks over Skype… This may require investigation. Any thoughts?

It Was Good Enough For Me Twenty Five Years Ago…

 

There are many many introductory adventures that have been written for Call of Cthulhu in the time since I (and probably 75% of all CoC players globally) first played through The Haunting.  There probably a few of them that are better.  Probably a bunch of them that are not.  But I’ll admit it, I chose to run The Haunting for Jess, Andy, and Natasha this week because that’s the adventure that was run for me the first time.  I have fond memories, and naturally I want my friends to have fond memories.

But, reading through it, the adventure shows its vintage.  I’m sure I’ll get no argument when I say that gaming has evolved since I started into the hobby.  And so have gamers.  We expect more these days.  Maybe just because it was good enough in 1984 is no guarantee that it will be good enough in 2009.

We’ll see though.  It is still, in my opinion, the best intro scenario of which I’m aware.  And lets face it: I want my friends to have fond memories like I do.

Talk to me: anyone else had any thoughts along these lines (and please, lets talk about some other games here; if I stick too long on a topic exclusive to CoC I might become one of those people I alluded to in an earlier post.  And I’ll not have that.