Playing With / Munchkin

Basic Trope: A player who plays solely to win.

• Straight: Pete's characters use frowned-on tactics and blatant rules exploits.
• Exaggerated: Pete claims he wants a real challenge, despite flattening entire worlds before the game begins with overpowered characters.
• Downplayed:
  • Pete plays the game as any normal character would, but he always gives his character the personality that would encourage them to get the most powerful items as well as above average charisma and intelligence during each game.
  • Bob is The Real Man; he loves winning fights, but his character, while very strong and skilled, isn't quite a Game-Breaker.
• Justified:
  • Pete's playing a game you can win and he's just doing what everyone else does.
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard or The GM Is a Cheating Bastard. Pete is just retaliating.
  • Pete is playing a game in which teammates are expected to compete with each other and with the GM. Playing optimally with the best possible builds is the only way to keep up.
• Inverted:
  • Pete makes his characters as weak as he can, perhaps for the bragging rights.
  • Pete plays his characters as recurring Red Shirts to provide another set of armor for the other characters.
  • Pete is more interested in the story than the game. He deliberately weakens his characters to make the flavor better.
• Subverted:
  • The overpowered-ness is entirely by chance. He didn't plan for it to be that strong.
  • The other characters are new to the system, while Pete isn't. Of course his characters are going to be more powerful, he's the only one who came to the table knowing how to properly make a character.
  • Pete's character is Petryr, the power obsessed pompous wizard who selects optimal spells to maximize power and minimize weaknesses. But that is simply because a genius obsessive like him would try to account for everything remotely likely. Pete plays through his flaws including trying to be overly self-reliant, and risking potentially dangerous and morally questionable spells and artifacts because of what the power could do.
• Double Subverted: Pete did, however, only choose that combo so he would be able to simply convince the traveling mage in that module to give him the potion of godly form, rather than doing a long quest and then another one to find the mage again. This is, of course, his FIRST step in getting the best items without having to take the module's expect and much longer route.
• Parodied:
  • Pete optimizes his character to be the best pastry chef in the entire world.
  • Pete is a midget. (Possibly to get extra points for his build.)
• Zig Zagged:
  • The character has maxed-out manipulative skills and stats to give Pete more scope for in-character improvisation. It seems Pete is using those skills to get the most powerful weapons and items, but it turns out the GM asked Pete to do it, as later Pete's character gets kidnapped and the quest is then to save him.
  • Pete's character is made to be a sneaky and stealthy character which the group lacks so he can make up for what is otherwise missing in the group. This makes him nearly useless when close quarters combat is involved, but in any situation where a lock stands in the group's way or security systems have to be broken, Pete's character gets them past it easily.
  • Pete is a game design professional who would find it hard to get in an appropriately matched group while playing normally. So he will alternate playing powerful characters who fight fair despite nothing else doing so and playing a Weak, but Skilled Combat Pragmatist who uses the cheesist tactics that may be outright war crimes level of dirty fighting but aren't Loophole Abuse to prevail despite subpar stats.
• Averted: Pete doesn't care about winning at all, he just wants to have fun with friends. His character is well-rounded and adds dynamic to the party.
• Enforced: The Killer Game Master expects players to be munchkins and his scenarios consist of throwing them up against ludicrous odds just to see how they'll worm their way out of them.
• Lampshaded: "Pete has the power to level the legions of all 9 circles of hell and we just started this quest!"
• Invoked: Some characters from an RPG Mechanics 'Verse need a mighty warrior, so they summon Pete from our world. Aware of the dangers of this world, he uses his gaming knowledge to exploit the world rules in order to survive, as his enemies won't hesitate to employ similar tactics in order to kill him.
• Exploited: The DM plans ahead and in one of the first modules Pete picks up an abnormally good sword, but only Pete would see why it was good. Later, when Pete tries to kill the demon who's the cause of the main quest, it turns out it was the demon's sword and it gives a good in character way for Pete to lose a good chunk of power.
• Defied: The DM vetos any and all overly munchkin acts. So long as they are out of character, anyway.
• Discussed: "Pete, how come your character is so much better at this than mine?"
• Conversed: "Allowing character customization is like having key NPCs with limited hitpoints — an opportunity for game breaking which will not be resisted."
• Implied:
  • Pete's actions and rolls are rejected more often than those of the other players.
  • People are visibly disappointed or disgusted when Pete joins the gaming group.
• Deconstructed:
  • Pete's characters are rejected again and again, and when he throws a fit, he's ejected from the group.
  • Pete's unscrupulous methods turn other players against him. Depending on how much the game favors his style of play, he may either be crushed under The Power of Friendship, rendering his dependency on numbers and exploits moot, or successfully drive away every other player, thereby destroying the game with a loss in player numbers.
  • If the DM is crafty, he might rig the game in such a way that punishes Munchkin players. If Pete is a Metagamer, the DM will change details around to throw them off. If Pete is a Min Maxer or a Ninja Looter, the DM will exploit their greed by setting up traps that they can't brute force their way through (especially if doing so destroys the items they're going after, such as a fragile potion cask in a chest). If Pete is a Psychopath or Murderhobo, the DM will make a Player Punch out of their in-game actions, which would force Pete to reflect on them and become more immersed in the story, rather than the game.
  • Pete finds himself so far ahead that he loses interest in the game and drops out.
• Reconstructed:
  • Pete has a Killer Game Master. His characters uses overpowered combos, however because of the DM the other players actually like playing with Pete because he often gives them a fair shot at actually playing the game. The DM also happens to expect only the rules to sufficient to take the players down, meaning that Pete is also well suited to counter the DM at any point. Also, when not playing against Killer Game Masters, he doesn't use every tick he can for the sake of levels.
  • In fighting back against Pete, the other players resort to using the same tactics against him, becoming munchkins themselves in the process.
  • The DM accomodates for Pete by incorporating his playstyle into the game's canon:
    • If Pete's character is a Min Maxer, they might be taken as the World's Strongest Man in-story, a simple-minded Blood Knight that cares only about the victory of war and nothing else. While this helps the party through the toughest battles, the other players are still needed to contribute to the story in other ways, be it through solving puzzles, navigating sensitive diplomatic talks, or interacting with the NPCs in heartfelt ways. Therefore, Pete remains an important part of the campaign, but doesn't dominate it to the detriment of the other players.
    • If Pete's character is a Psychopath or Murderhobo, the DM might try to hit him with a Player Punch, except Pete actually derives satisfaction from the consequences of his character's actions. Rather than berate or punish Pete for going Off the Rails, the DM rolls with it and sets him - and possibly the rest of the party - down a Villain Protagonist route. This may even help him get immersed in the setting while still tailoring it to his highly aggressive playstyle.
  • Pete finds new purpose in the game by using his massive lead over the other players to help them, whether it's making difficult raid battles easier or sharing the troves of loot he's acquired over time.
• Played For Laughs:
  • Pete comes up with absurd plans and combos. That's why the group keeps him around.
  • The campaign is designed to have the party focus on puzzle solving, Stealth-Based Mission, and talking their way out of trouble - and even slight use of violent will result in Cool and Unusual Punishment. However, the GM isn't too cruel, just has very strong sense of humor. As Pete's character is purely designed for combat and nothing else, the long string of critical fumble lead the events in hilarious way.

---

Back to Munchkin with the mouse-clicking skill you traded your ability to wink for during character creation.

---