From:	TopCat <topcat@******.net>
Subject:	Re: Mr. Broadwater and some other things
Date:	Mon, 13 May 1996 16:55:33 -0500

>[*snip*]...Basically, I'm sick and tired of
>the fascist gamers out there who feel that if a game is more powerful than
>what they're comfortable with, it's wrong. It's not how it was meant to be.

Now I have to disagree, it was a good streak too. Munchkinism is going
outside the rules or conventions of the game. When characters become 10th
grade vampire physical magicians that runs six delta clinics while saving
the world or breaking into Arcologies for pocket change, then there's
munchkinism. So there's that.

>Well, guess what, it is. These stupid games that we spend our money on were
>made for two reasons: 1) to make the companys that make them money, and 2).
>so that the people buying them can have fun. Ok, Topcat, you enjoy your
>detective campaign because it's real low power and dark. Thats cool, it
>sounds great. But someone else is going to find it a drag. They want a
>high power, high velocity, world shattering game.

*gasps and chokes*

True, some people like the earth-shattering plots, no pay, high power, Elven
Illuminati game. I don't. I had too much of that back in my D&D days. I
enjoy darker literature and movies, so I fall into darker games easier. A
game doesn't necessarily have to be low-power to be dark though. I would
play/run a dark, mid-high power campaign just as happily. For a detective
campaign that is fairly new, low-power works perfectly.

>I fluctuate, sometimes I
>like low power street level games where you get into the nitty gritty, and
>other times, a like the higher powered "munchkin" games that some people
>shun like the plague cause people are doing things and using equiptment that
>are in the rules, but they don't feel you could ever "earn".

Then it isn't munchkin, it may not even be powergaming. When you start
inventing things that unbalance the game, then it's munchkin. When your
characters skills/stats/spells/equipment are min/max'd for the most dice at
least cost, it's powergaming (which can be unbalancing). If everything in
the campaign is of unbelievable power, then everything's balanced. If
everything's munchkin, then it's no longer Shadowrun but some bastard
offspring of the game. Which is ok, as long as you can admit that and
everything is around that power-level (it becomes balanced and no longe
rmunchkin). It's just when a campaign is unbalanced (overpowered characters
vs. underpowered opposition or the other way around) that I start
getting...riled.


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"I was thinking of the immortal words
of Socrates, who said: I drank what?"
-- Real Genius
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TopCat at the bottom...