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.