Munchkin card game

[Gobblin goblin]

Anyone ever heard of munchkin? its this card game that parodies D&D in the best way, and it has an immense number of variants all of which parody something else. Its really a lot of fun. :smallsmile:

[Spore]

The card game is 16 years old and has had about 85ish expansions. I think it is safe to know people already have heard of it. :D

[Knaight]

It's also pretty mediocre from a game design perspective - the parody is all it has going for it, and while it does a good job with that it gets stale pretty fast.

[Spore]

I don't know people who can play it longer than 15 minutes to be honest. It is the ideal warm-up game pre-session but I didn't realize how popular it was. I saw it in our gaming store when it was released and I was intrigued by the simple rules and jokes. Maybe that's why it is popular.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I don't know people who can play it longer than 15 minutes to be honest. It is the ideal warm-up game pre-session but I didn't realize how popular it was. I saw it in our gaming store when it was released and I was intrigued by the simple rules and jokes. Maybe that's why it is popular.
I don't think I've played a game that lasted less than an hour and a half, maybe two hours. Largely because I play with groups who try to win. :smalltongue: (The optimal strategy is to keep knocking down whomever's in the lead, until everyone's out of cards--and then the person who's managed to hang on to enough juice to race to Level 10 wins. This means that the game drags out an immensely long time.)

The jokes are goofy and fun, the simple rules make it accessible, but the game itself...not so much.

I'd definitely rather play Love Letter, which is shaping up to be the new "rethemed for everything" game, except that it's a tight design that legit plays in 5-10 minutes, even with players who try to win. (There's also a Munchkin variant!)

[factotum]

I don't know people who can play it longer than 15 minutes to be honest.

The very first game of it I ever played was at the UK meetup a few years ago in Peterborough, and it lasted about an hour and a half!

[Fri]

I'll just quote my comment on the other thread.


Problem with munchkin is "second place rule"

It's a bit more complex than this, but the simplification is, when you're at the first place and almost win, everyone would have to take you down or the game would end and attacking use up your resources. Then the second place would be first place, and usually everyone would have exhausted most of their resources. And when everyone realizes this, basically everyone would have to hoard resources, and everyone are eyeing each others daring each others to be first place first. Pretty sure there would be a mathematical game theory covering something in this line.

This isn't just problem with munchkin btw, some older multiplayer competitive games have this problem, but it's very prominent in Munchkin, especially if you've played it for a while.. There are some ways to fix it in game designs obviously, and I think later games have put that in mind so they have less of this problem. For example, in Cosmic Encounter they randomize who you have to attack each turn, so everyone can't just dogpile to the same person, though obviously there are ways to reduce the first place's advantage even if you can't attack them directly. Also there's different risks for helping the defender or the attacker, etc.

Interestingly, I haven't played it, but according to my friend the Illuminati Card Game (which is designed by the same guy) circumvent this, by for example, constantly giving you resources so you can't run out of resources to attack/defend, giving second place more reason to commit resources than the others, have ways to attack enemies that will hurt him but not hurt you nor give you anything, etc.


Btw I'm curious. Is there something that's considered a better or fixed Munchkin? Something that's in the same gaming space basically, but have better gameplay?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

BTW, I think the game term you want is "game of chicken". Totally serious. It's a weird inversion of the Prisoners' Dilemma where nobody wants to be the one who betrays the "everyone stays even" dynamic. Or, you could view it as a Prisoners' Dilemma where "betraying" is defined as "not trying to be first place", since playing the game honestly means straightforwardly trying to be first.

[Bohandas]

I'll just quote my comment on the other thread.


Problem with munchkin is "second place rule"

It's a bit more complex than this, but the simplification is, when you're at the first place and almost win, everyone would have to take you down or the game would end and attacking use up your resources. Then the second place would be first place, and usually everyone would have exhausted most of their resources. And when everyone realizes this, basically everyone would have to hoard resources, and everyone are eyeing each others daring each others to be first place first. Pretty sure there would be a mathematical game theory covering something in this line.

This isn't just problem with munchkin btw, some older multiplayer competitive games have this problem, but it's very prominent in Munchkin, especially if you've played it for a while.. There are some ways to fix it in game designs obviously, and I think later games have put that in mind so they have less of this problem. For example, in Cosmic Encounter they randomize who you have to attack each turn, so everyone can't just dogpile to the same person, though obviously there are ways to reduce the first place's advantage even if you can't attack them directly. Also there's different risks for helping the defender or the attacker, etc.

Interestingly, I haven't played it, but according to my friend the Illuminati Card Game (which is designed by the same guy) circumvent this, by for example, constantly giving you resources so you can't run out of resources to attack/defend, giving second place more reason to commit resources than the others, have ways to attack enemies that will hurt him but not hurt you nor give you anything, etc.


Btw I'm curious. Is there something that's considered a better or fixed Munchkin? Something that's in the same gaming space basically, but have better gameplay?

Just an idle thought - haven't tried this - but what if you instituted an "Afro Samurai"-type rule where only the person in second place could attack the person in first place

[Winthur]

Just an idle thought - haven't tried this - but what if you instituted an "Afro Samurai"-type rule where only the person in second place could attack the person in first place

It is painfully unlikely that a second place character can defeat the frontrunner solo, and it also takes away from the charm of this party game's "GUYS FOCUS WE HAVE TO TAKE A MASSIVE TURD ON LUCAS RIGHT NOW BRING OUT ALL THE PLUSES YOU HAVE" if it's just a show between Lucas and his 9+16 Dwarf/Elf Fighter and Maria and her 8+14 Halfling Wizard.

[JeenLeen]

Anyone use any special houserules?

For base Munchkin, we wound up banning the Wizard class due to one player's insistence. Namely that, (as is fitting, given D&D 3.5), it's broken good.
I remember one time I had a multi-class wizard/rogue with some stuff to boost my running away, and I was essentially immune to everything (in the sense of I could keep my character from suffering Bad Stuff from losing a fight.) I forget the details of why those two classes synergized so well, but it was really cool and really annoying for the other players.

[Quild]

Munchkin is a good game. You may need through one or two games before the group get used to it and can play fast so no one gets bored. My games with experienced players usually last 45-90 minutes.
I had 4 or 5 people discorvering it last year, they had fun at their first game. I'm good at explaining rules though.


Like most games, I played it a while before actually reading the rules and discovering that I got poor rules. It changed a lot of things!
My bf and I cheated a lot during our first sessions with friends. Like playing a card, saying what it does and actually do it without anyone checking that we were lying. It doesn't work anymore obviously.

I'm not sure what confusion the countless extension may bring. I played the 2 first extensions and the game was still pretty solid.

Many changes even to the base game were bring since it's release. Some items or powers were nerfed, some things clarified.


Anyone use any special houserules?

For base Munchkin, we wound up banning the Wizard class due to one player's insistence. Namely that, (as is fitting, given D&D 3.5), it's broken good.
I remember one time I had a multi-class wizard/rogue with some stuff to boost my running away, and I was essentially immune to everything (in the sense of I could keep my character from suffering Bad Stuff from losing a fight.) I forget the details of why those two classes synergized so well, but it was really cool and really annoying for the other players.

Wizard was nerfed at some point. It's Charm Spell was "You may discard your whole hand to charm a single Monster instead of fighting it." Discard the Monster and take its Treasure, but don't gain levels. If there are other monsters in the combat, fight them normally".
A minimum of 3 cards to discard was then added.

The early form was very powerful, because you could take a loooot of loots early game (especially if you consider that 0 card in hand is still a whole hand that can be discarded). Now, while still powerful, it's not over powered.

I don't see why rogue was specially OP. You may discard cards to stab another player or try to steal. Maybe you were using all your cards (but one?) to steal some stuff while you were fighting (you actually can't do that according to the rules) and then discarded the rest.

[LibraryOgre]

Munchkin's sweet spot is about 4-5 players. If you only have 2, a lot of the charm is lost. 3, it gets better, but it's too likely to become "two people gang up on one".

Once you get 4 people, it starts to have more flow to it, and you're more likely to miss something that someone has that will let them sneak in and take a win.