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Message no. 1
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Munchkins (was Re: Shapeshifter Question)
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 10:10:23 +0100
According to Glenn Sprott, at 2:22 on 18 Mar 00, the word on the street
was...

> On a completely different note... I'm not sure I understand the exact
> definition of "munchkinism." I think I have the basics down, but
> could someone give me a quick "once-over?" Is it the same thing as
> saying, "Cheesy?" I hope not... I hate that word and the people who
> hide behind it (only those who use it EVERY time they get shafted. I
> am not trying to offend.)

There's no real simple definition of a munchkin -- almost everyone you ask
will give a different answer. IMHO, they're those players who try to win
the game (despite an RPG being impossible to win) by being the character
with the highest stats, biggest weapons, and strongest powers. And they
don't feel bound by the rules to obtain them.

Note the difference with powergamers, who simply want to play a powerful
character but stay within the rules. A powergamer, for example, might have
a human magician character with Body 6 (10), Strength 6 (10), Quickness 6
(10), an assault cannon, and heavy military armor.

A munchkin might have those same things, but the assault cannon has a 100-
round clip, is a ranged weapon focus, and cost only 1 Karma to bond, while
the military armor gives him Immunity to Normal Weapons and the ability to
levitate at will. Often, though, a munchkin like this will be the low end
of the scale...

Another way of looking at it is that munchkins want all the advantages,
don't care about the rules to obtain them, and will do anything to avoid
disadvantages.

Also a good way of separating a powerful, but normal, character from a
munchkin is the lack of charcter background and history in the latter. The
human magician with the assault cannon may be strong and powerful, but if
this character has a detailed history and a well-thought-out personality,
it isn't a munchkin.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
What a pretty life you have...
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 2
From: Deirdre M. Brooks xenya@********.com
Subject: Munchkins (was Re: Shapeshifter Question)
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 18:27:45 -0800
Gurth wrote:
>
> Also a good way of separating a powerful, but normal, character from a
> munchkin is the lack of charcter background and history in the latter. The
> human magician with the assault cannon may be strong and powerful, but if
> this character has a detailed history and a well-thought-out personality,
> it isn't a munchkin.

Nor is powergaming a bad style, if everyone is having fun. :-)

--
Deird'Re M. Brooks | xenya@********.com | cam#9309026
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
"If any of you loved me, you'd kill yourselves tomorrow."
-- Spider Jerusalem | http://www.teleport.com/~xenya
Message no. 3
From: Erik Slof e0slof@********.cs.adelaide.edu.au
Subject: Munchkins (was Re: Shapeshifter Question)
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 13:14:19 +1030 (CST)
On Sun, 19 Mar 2000, Deirdre M. Brooks wrote:

>
>
> Gurth wrote:
> >
> > Also a good way of separating a powerful, but normal, character from a
> > munchkin is the lack of charcter background and history in the latter. The
> > human magician with the assault cannon may be strong and powerful, but if
> > this character has a detailed history and a well-thought-out personality,
> > it isn't a munchkin.
>
> Nor is powergaming a bad style, if everyone is having fun. :-)
>
Thats fine but if everyone is 'powergaming' as such then its just a power
game

IMHO a Powergamer is someone who pumps their character out of proportion
to the game they are playing in
=> powergaming in a high power game is difficult

Tristy the worped Swashbuckler
Message no. 4
From: Deirdre M. Brooks xenya@********.com
Subject: Munchkins (was Re: Shapeshifter Question)
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 19:04:28 -0800
Erik Slof wrote:
>

> > Nor is powergaming a bad style, if everyone is having fun. :-)
>
> Thats fine but if everyone is 'powergaming' as such then its just a power
> game

I replied to Gurth's post and used Gurth's definition.

I also do not subscribe to the theory that any particular style that's
fun for the participants is "wrong."

> IMHO a Powergamer is someone who pumps their character out of proportion
> to the game they are playing in

I don't hold to that definition, personally. But I'm not interested in
forcing you to agree with my definition.

> => powergaming in a high power game is difficult
>
> Tristy the worped Swashbuckler
>

--
Deird'Re M. Brooks | xenya@********.com | cam#9309026
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
"If any of you loved me, you'd kill yourselves tomorrow."
-- Spider Jerusalem | http://www.teleport.com/~xenya
Message no. 5
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Munchkins (was Re: Shapeshifter Question)
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 11:46:20 +0100
According to Erik Slof, at 13:14 on 20 Mar 00, the word on the street
was...

> IMHO a Powergamer is someone who pumps their character out of proportion
> to the game they are playing in
> => powergaming in a high power game is difficult

Good point.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
What a pretty life you have...
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 6
From: Deirdre M. Brooks xenya@********.com
Subject: Munchkins (was Re: Shapeshifter Question)
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 03:02:42 -0800
Gurth wrote:
>
> According to Erik Slof, at 13:14 on 20 Mar 00, the word on the street
> was...
>
> > => powergaming in a high power game is difficult
>
> Good point.

Certainly. It's hard to maximize for power efficiency when you have that
much available to you. :-)

--
Deird'Re M. Brooks | xenya@********.com | cam#9309026
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
"If any of you loved me, you'd kill yourselves tomorrow."
-- Spider Jerusalem | http://www.teleport.com/~xenya
Message no. 7
From: Lurch lurch@****.net
Subject: Munchkins (was Re: Shapeshifter Question)
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 00:03:14 -0600
IMO, I think one of the defining characteristics of most munchkin-style
players is a need for the attention/approval of his peers. In my
experience, they tend to feel insignificant or unappreciated in real
life and try to compensate for this by making their character
exponentially more powerful than everyone else around him so they can
live vicariously through it and make their fellow gamers "ooh" and
"ahh"
with awe & envy (I'm pretty sure these gamers are the reason those
shirts exist that read "Do NOT tell me about your character"). Please
note that I don't think ALL munchkins conform to this type of behavior,
only the numerous ones I've met over my 22+ years of gaming.

Viewed this way, the difference between munchkins and power gamers can
be gauged by the scale of the challenges they seek out. A power gamer
might play a maxed-out street sammy hoping (foolishly) to take on a
dragon in single combat before his cybermancy craps out on him, while a
munchkin playing the same character would probably be happiest mowing
down hordes of anonymous, near-powerless gangers without taking a
scratch in return (he's probably also more likely to spout the sort of
trash-talk you tend to hear on city basketball courts when things are
going his way).

Just my 2 cents; YMMV...

--
Lurch
http://yourang.freeservers.com
"Sic gorgiamus allo subjectatus nunc"
Message no. 8
From: Simon Fuller sfuller@******.com.au
Subject: Munchkins (was Re: Shapeshifter Question)
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 17:16:53 +1000
-----Original Message-----
From: Lurch <lurch@****.net>
To: shadowrn@*********.com <shadowrn@*********.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 4:02 PM
Subject: Re: Munchkins (was Re: Shapeshifter Question)


>IMO, I think one of the defining characteristics of most munchkin-style
>players is a need for the attention/approval of his peers. In my
>experience, they tend to feel insignificant or unappreciated in real
>life and try to compensate for this by making their character
>exponentially more powerful than everyone else around him so they can
>live vicariously through it and make their fellow gamers "ooh" and
"ahh"
>with awe & envy (I'm pretty sure these gamers are the reason those
>shirts exist that read "Do NOT tell me about your character"). Please
>note that I don't think ALL munchkins conform to this type of behavior,
>only the numerous ones I've met over my 22+ years of gaming.
>
>Viewed this way, the difference between munchkins and power gamers can
>be gauged by the scale of the challenges they seek out. A power gamer
>might play a maxed-out street sammy hoping (foolishly) to take on a
>dragon in single combat before his cybermancy craps out on him, while a
>munchkin playing the same character would probably be happiest mowing
>down hordes of anonymous, near-powerless gangers without taking a
>scratch in return (he's probably also more likely to spout the sort of
>trash-talk you tend to hear on city basketball courts when things are
>going his way).
>
>Just my 2 cents; YMMV...
>
>--
>Lurch
>http://yourang.freeservers.com
>"Sic gorgiamus allo subjectatus nunc"
>
There is a book by British author Ben Elton (Stark, I think) where one of
the main chracters is an extremely highly trained killer who lost his tackle
in an explosion in the Vietnam War. The man was constantly on the edge and
killed people without thinking, and then regretted it because he wanted to
be a hippy. In one passage it talked about how this man played Dungeons and
Dragons. It said that the game is generally played by insignificant nerds
who are picked on a lot and have trouble being accepted by society (I
preferred it when they thought that all role players were devil worshippers
and to be feared :)) and they always had characters who were enormous Conan
types that had sex constantly and killed anyone who looked the wrong way at
them. This hippy killer vet with no goolies had a character that was a small
and peaceful wizard that did little more than hand out flowers and be nice
to people. Except that this small happy wizard also had a penis that dragged
in the dirt behind him.

My point? errr...

Further Reading

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