From:	dbuehrer@****.org (David Buehrer)
Subject:	Re: My take on Munchkinism
Date:	Sun, 19 May 1996 18:25:57 -0600 (MDT)

Jonas Gabrielson wrote:
|
|On Wed, 15 May 1996, David Buehrer wrote:
|
|> Jonas Gabrielson wrote:
|> |
|> | Nope, because it's not the whole picture. Taking everything into
|> |account, most characters are balanced, more or less. We've been through
|> |this - all character types has some kind of an edge over the others. But
|> |if you min/max the sam, then it's munchkinous, because all of a sudden
|> |he's invincible in combat, and it upsets the balance.
|>
|> I disagree with the philosphy that min/maxing is munchkinous. Sams should
|> be good at combat, great at combat if they want to live. I have no qualms
|> about any of my players min/maxing a character. Because this same
|> min/maxing will force them to be specialized in one area to the point that
|> they will be at a serious disadvantage in many other areas. A sacrifice has
|> been made to be the best butt kicking Sam that they can be. And after a few
|> adventures and some karma they start to cover the character's weakenesses
|> and it balances out. Or if someone else has min/maxed (like the detective)
|> then the Sam leaves that job up to the detective and leaves it at that.
|> Munchkinous would be when a player breaks the rules and makes a
|> decker/sam/rigger that is good at all of those things. And being a munchkin
|> takes two, the GM is equally at fault when he lets this happen.
|
| Hey, if it worked out, I have no problems with it. My experience
|is that it won't work out, and I have to nudge the player into changing
|his PC for everyone's convenience and over-all fun. And yes, they can
|perhaps start covering other bases, but why would they? They'll just lose
|edge! And as long as one min/maxed character continues along his specialty
|only, the others will want to follow so as not to become "weaker".
| And yes, I stated before that no player can be a real munchkin
|without a munchkinous GM.

Ah...I sometimes forget that I've been playing with the same group for six
years now. And I also tend to forget what my gaming life was like before
that and (incorrectly) assume that the other players on this list may not
be in the great group like I'm in. Sorry.

>From what I've read from your postings it
seems that you are playing with a group that hasn't really matured yet
(but is working on it :)

A couple of other points. You've stated that on one occasion a player left
because he wasn't getting enough karma. And that you know give every
character the same amount karma. This is not a good idea. You are creating
a situation where one or more players can ride on the coat tails of the
other players and receive the fruits of their labors. I believe in
individual reward for individual effort. If someone can't deal with that
then it's their problem, not mine, not the other players'.

On game balance and powerful characters vs not so powerful characters.
This is an experience thing. I and the other people I play with at one
time made powerful characters (within the rules) and played them
exclusivly within their realm of speciality. We made life hell for the
GM and weren't really playing the game. And then, at some point, that
changed. We still make powerful characters, but for some reason we gain
satisfaction from roleplaying them outside their realm of expertise.
Take a tank troll into a seedy bar and start asking around about the
guy your looking for and see how much fun you can have. Or have your
detective hold off a squad of shock troops with an ares predator (from
behind full cover) and see how much the troll now respects him for at
least trying (your detective's hospital room will be filled with FTD
baskets).

After much rambling my point would be...we're at a disagreement on the
definition of munchkinism because of our varying degrees of experience. For
me munchkinism is cheating and fucked up roleplaying values. I can live
with everything else :)

-David

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