Munchkin - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): The Munchkin

"Munchkin: One who, on being told that this is a game about politics and intrigue in 17th century Italy, asks to play a ninja."

— Andrew Rilstone

When they encounter a sleeping dragon:
Real Men wake it up and THEN attack it.
Real Roleplayers sneak away quietly.
Loonies tie its shoelaces together.
Munchkins have their 34th-level thief backstab it with their +17 Sword of Slay Anything, put all its treasure in one backpack, make armor out of the dragon hide, and resurrect it as their familiar.
— The ''Real Men, Real Roleplayers, Loonies and Munchkins'' list

Ben: If I cloned myself we'd be able to pursue multiple leads effectively.

Pete: If I cloned myself we'd fight to the death and the winner would be the new me.

— Darth and Droids #296

The Munchkin is the Tabletop RPG player (and Video Game player) who plays the game to "win", at any cost, even if that isn't the point of the game. Perhaps the most ridiculed Player Archetype of all time, this player is rarely interested in the story behind the game (indeed, his characters are little more than extensions of his own personality, or whatever personality would give him the most plusses). He (or she, let's be fair) sees fighting monsters and solving puzzles only as a means toward more power, more gold, more stuff, more plusses. A Munchkin is not satisfied until he can kill a god with his +25 Dancing Holy Vorpal Sword of Flame of Doom. On a Critical Failure. And he will throw a tantrum if he can't.

Indeed, the Munchkin's ambition frequently outstrips his sense of fair play. Most of the time he looks out for number one; the other players are little more than minor inconveniences to him, or obstacles on his path to ultimate power. As such, the Munchkin may engage in one or more of these irritating behaviors:

Ninja Looter: Don't expect a Munchkin to share the spoils of an adventure equally — if he can't take the lion's share, he'll try to take the best stuff first.
Gamebuster: Min Maxing taken to its upper limit. Any Munchkin character of this type is nothing more than a collection of 'kewl powers', taken for no logical in-story reason other than their combat effectiveness. Often includes blatant Game Breaker abilities and power combinations that were never meant to be. Call him out on this, and he'll call you a Scrub.
Attorney at Rules: This Munchkin disputes every Game Master ruling, and has memorized every loophole in the game manual. For some reason, he never seems to "correct" the DM when the rules as written would hurt him... The Game Master's best tactic against this guy is Rule Zero; what the DM says, goes, no matter what page 54 of the book says.
Cheater: He never rolls where you can clearly see him, and he gets a distressing number of natural 20s. It's just his "lucky dice", he says. His character sheet comes prerolled with max stats. And he has an annoying habit of "forgetting" to write things down, like whether he's used up his spells for the day. Could this be the sort of sad, pathetic creature that would cheat at a cooperative Tabletop RPG game? (Yes.)
Metagamer: We all metagame once in a while. After all, even if our characters don't know exactly what that orb with all the eyes is, they've got the feeling that it's dangerous and probably shouldn't be charged head-on. But this guy seems to have read (and memorized) all the monster manuals and the published adventures, and is impossible to catch off guard. Once he sees that giant green scaly thing charging him, he immediately breaks out the acid. Homebrewing is the best way to trip this fellow up.
Psychopath: If it has stats, it's there to be killed. For this Munchkin, violence is the first, last, and only solution to every problem. Even the most zealous Real Man knows when it's not time to fight, but not this guy. He'll take up any excuse to start a fight.
- Even worse is the variety that only plays Chaotic Evil characters (or, if the Game Master forbids evil characters, a character that he claims is "Chaotic Neutral" but retains his special brand of sociopathy). Naturally, he's really Stupid Evil, and simply plays the game to kill stuff in gruesome ways (NPC or PC). This Player Versus Player junkie will probably end up fighting his fellow party members more than he does the actual monsters.

Munchkins are a constant source of pain and agony for the Game Master (unless he's a munchkin too!), and will often be the direct cause of Rocks Fall Everyone Dies. He may be forced to employ some killer tactics just to challenge them. Though the archetype is often mocked, there isn't really anything wrong with this style of play (as some theorists

recognize); so long as no one's actually cheating and everyone's on board. After all, it can sometimes be satisfying to punch out Cthulhu once in a while. The problem comes when one player brings this mindset into a non-munchkin group, whether through innocent intent or merely being a jerk out to ruin everyone else's fun. In either case, increasing the game's difficulty to accommodate the munchkin will only end up leaving the non-minmaxed players behind, and they'll stop having fun.

Those who do "unfair" or game-breaking things in RPGs, through Min Maxing or other means, are also called "twinks;" this may apply generally, or to the specific act of transferring the possessions of a very high level character (to whom they are cheap) to a much lower one (to whom they are godly). The term may refer to The Twink, refering (with Unfortunate Implications) to the fashion in which such individuals expend such a great deal of effort on "dressing up" their characters. It may also, however, be unrelated to that trope; the most common alternate explanation is that a low level character in high level armor may have an outer layer of extreme protection, but still has a "creamy filling

" with almost no actual HP.

A more pleasant brand of munchkin may try to share his rule-bending benefits with the rest of the group. A more audacious one (a cross with The Loonie) takes advantage of his knowledge the power to do incredibly crazy things that their fellow players will be telling their children about in years to come. Sadly, a rare breed.

A Player Archetypes trope, along with The Real Man, The Roleplayer, and The Loonie. Compare Stop Having Fun Guys, who believe that anyone who isn't a munchkin is doing it wrong. Not to be confused with the small but pleasant folks who live east of the Emerald City.

Examples:

The card game Munchkin is all about this, with cards such as "Whine at the DM" and "Convenient Addition Error" allowing you to gain levels. In fact, as the catchphrase, "Kill the monsters, Steal the Treasure, Stab your Buddy" indicates, the whole point of the game is backstabbing (if you're a thief, literally) your way to victory.
- The company also published the satirical Munchkin's Guide to Power Gaming, covering useful and critical information such as how to cheat at rolling dice, manipulating the GM, How Every problem Can Be Solved With Bigger Guns, and weapons such as the rapid-fire miniwand, capable of firing dozens of fireball spells per second.
This strip from Order Of The Stick shows off a very good example of a character a Munchkin would make, and a very good example of how a smart Game Master can deal with it. The example given is quite possibly illegal (depending on your interpretation of the rules for "attacks of opportunity"), but also relatively mundane, considering that the spell system of Dungeons And Dragons is widely considered to be a Game Breaker in its own right. (It should be noted that the tactic in the comic doesn't work, but see the discussion page if you want to talk about that.)
The embodiment of the Munchkin is the character Red Mage of 8-Bit Theater, who only cares about items based on their stat increases, is a huge Twink and thus (initially) wouldn't use a spell that aligns him improperly to save anyone's life, and thinks he can manipulate the laws of the universe by shifting the numbers on his stat sheet and avoid damage by forgetting to write things down (though this often works). Also, a while ago, he revealed he is the Last Of His Kind, because every Red Mage was a munchkin, and as the dragon Muffin sums up, "they stupided themselves to extinction".
In massively multiplayer games, there exists the opportunity for higher level players to give lower level players gold and items the lower level players would not normally be able to acquire. From the era of MUDs on.
- World Of Warcraft twinks dominate Player Versus Player battlegrounds in the lower level brackets, often frustrating more "average" low level players. One famous twink had a dodge rating of 120% at level 10. Blizzard really ought to know better; Diablo II had level restrictions on enhancement items way back in the late '90s.
- Some games have even easier twinking. In Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst, the only equipment with level requirements are frames (aka armour) and barriers (aka off-hand shields). But in addition to these basic items, the game featured units, with varying purposes, and MAGs, whose stats would augment that of their owner when equipped. Some units were especially powerful in the early game, such as Centurion/Ability, which boosted five of the player's six stats by 30 points each. Since they lacked level requirements, these rare and powerful units could be used at level 1, as could MAGs which had been raised to level 200, their maximum. (Conversely, some of these units — like Centurion/Ability — had limited use at higher levels.) A level 1 HUmar is no real threat, but when equipped with four Centurion/Ability units and a level 200 MAG, they become an unstoppable death machine until Very Hard difficulty.
  - Also of note, it's entirely possible, through the use of MA Gs and Units, for a level 1 Ranger type character to use any gun in the game, including the most powerful ones.
- This is averted in City Of Heroes as not only are the enhancements that improves a player's powers unusable if the player is more than 3 levels below the level for that enhancement, but also the degree to which an enemy can damage the player and resist being damaged by the player is scaled based on the level difference between the two. If the enemy is more than 5 levels above the player, not only are they nearly impossible to kill, but the player will not get any reward even if they could defeat it (a mechanism to discourage powerleveling).
  - Giant Monsters are the exception to this rule, as they are designed to require dozens of players to take down and everyone in the zone they appear in is meant to be able to participate. These monsters are effectively "level-less".
  - Rikti invasions work the same way... although the Rikti are still high-level opponents, and often lowbie players have trouble with status effects and attacks that higher level ones can work around. And the inability for low-level characters to have their attacks scale upward to the invaders' level 30 base HP means that a group of low-level players, without significant outside support, can easily wind up overwhelmed by constant reinforcements spawning in.
- Due to the use of skills rather than level for item requirements, Anarchy Online is particularly notorious for twinking. It crosses into lampshade territory as almost the entire player economy is based on twinking and even casual players will be using gear at least a few levels higher than them.
  - Recently severely curbed. Now, equipping a high-level item early on de-powers it the point where it can actually be worse than something more in line with your current level.
- A case could be made that MMOs don't even try to discourage munchkin-style roleplaying. Sure, items have minimum level requirements, and the most powerful gear requires you to bring down raid bosses for which you'll need the second-most-powerful gear to even attempt, but the basic style of play is oriented toward making your character constantly more powerful. Players will even deriede other players for not playing like munchkins. The trick-and-trap or intrigue-based adventure of a pencil-and-paper RPG is completely absent.
  - Technically, there are such things as "roleplaying shards". And they are specifically marked as such, not vice versa. So grinding/munchkin is the default mode.
This is Lampshaded in Planescape: Torment, when talking to an "Elderly Hive Dweller". Upon beginning dialogue, one of the lines used by her is "I'll bet ye've got all sorts o' barmy questions!" (she mimics your heroic stance) "Greetin's, I have some questions... can ye tell me about this place? Who's the Lady o' Pain? I'm lookin' fer the magic Girdle of Swank Iron, have ye seen it? Do ye know where a portal ta the 2,817th Plane o' the Abyss might be? Do ye know where the Holy Flamin' Frost-Brand Gronk-Slayin' Vorpal Hammer o' Woundin' an' Returnin' an' Shootin'-Lightnin'-Out-Yer-Bum is?"
An amusing anecdotal etymology: In the beginning of the 80's, a Parisian player nicknamed "Gros Bill" became infamous for this style of playing, to the point of becoming legendary among French roleplayers. As a result, the French term for "munchkin" is "grosbill".
- The term also describes Badasses and God Mode Sues in fictions.
Supermegatopia presents an excellent example here◊.
- I'd love to know what a "level zero prestige class" is, given that all legitimate ones require five standard class levels first. And any enchantments you can afford with starting money... will probably last a few minutes at most. The picture's funny, but I'd enjoy it more if it had used at least a borderline legitimate munchkin strategy, not one that is so blatantly impossible.
  - No, there are prestige classes enterable earlier, such as Master Specialist, which can be entered after 3 standard levels normally, or two with a couple of dodgy tricks.
Real Mythology example — Sun Wukong, the monkey king from Journey to the West. His origin story makes him the patron god of munchkins.
- Of course, his GM responded by dropping a mountain on him (which means that Rocks Fall Everyone Dies is Older Than Feudalism?) and later using a cursed headband to effectively place him under control of a more sensible player. Bravo!
Darths And Droids turns R2-D2 into this, that is if he wasn't already.
- To be exact, his form comes from taking so many gadgets and abilities, offset with lots of flaws and downsides, notably the inability to speak Basic.
All of the P Cs from DM Of The Rings (the precursor to Darths and Droids) have some Munchkin aspects (most notably an obsession with treasure), but Legolas is the biggest one of the group.
- Can it really be called an obsession when the GM gives out about enough gold for a single beer over the course of the entire Lord Of The Rings trilogy?
Cass in The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. The humor value of some of his antics (attempting to kill the Big Bad with a a lightsaber and dynamite — in a Medieval European Fantasy setting) might put him in the Loonie category, except for the fact that he seems to be doing them for perfectly serious reasons.
- Gary in Dorkness Rising could be called a Loonie, since he has a tendency to do stupid pointless things, like resurrecting a cooked chicken, whenever he gets bored.
The Onion Movie includes a sketch that parodies this trope.
Several characters from Knights Of The Dinner Table fill this role, with Newt being the most persistent.
Protagonist of Weregeek was suspected of being "natural-born munchkin" at his first Dungeons And Dragons game. And for good reason.
- Good reason? He wasn't playing a spellcaster.
- Making the "smash stuff" character big and muscular isn't exactly rocket science.
Lina Inverse of The Slayers is a pretty good example of a Munchkin as a main character, with maybe trace elements of The Loonie. Incredibly powerful and greedy, with no qualms about blowing up her own friends or beating them to a pulp (though she does draw the limit at actually stealing their stuff — she will beg for it, though), and so impulsive in using her powers that she's earned a terrible reputation throughout the known world.
- Her overpoweredness is mostly justified, as no matter how strong she is, the people she's going up against are usually many times worse.
Played for humor in Dan And Mabs Furry Adventures. The Twinks are gang of munchkin characters described as:
Dan: Troublemakers! They have many names: Trolls, spammers etc. Or gamers who god-mod and are "unbeatable." They go about and cause havoc, not thinking about the future!
- Given that the comic was based off an RPG chatroom, it might be a jab at munchkin players.
Dwight on The Office. In the episode "Murder," he and everyone else in the office play a murder mystery dinner party game set in Savannah, Georgia. He draws the Butler character but immediately abandons it to play a hardass detective.

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