Anti-Munchkin

[Marveljew]

So, I read an article that mentioned the concept of an "anti-munchkin". This is a player who, usually out of fear of being labelled a munchkin, will play as under powered player that ends being virtually useless much to the annoyance of the other players. So, I was wonder if anyone has encountered one of these types of players. If you have, please share your story.

[CharonsHelper]

Yeah - I'm anti-munchkin! Those shorties can't even kill their own witch, and when a little girl did their work for them, their gratitude had them send the little girl down the road to the big city all by herself! What jerks!

[VincentTakeda]

My playstyle gravitates towards 'funky' at the expense of 'function'... I like interesting more than I like effective so I've had two things like this come up recently...

• A player who didn't like that when my turn would come up I didn't do anything particularly useful... Sort of only acted when I saw a cool unusual opportunity to contribute.
• A young player who had the audacity of suggesting that after 30 years of playing wizards, that he just needed to take a look at my character sheet and he'd rework it a bit and 'show me how its done'... lol.

[mikeejimbo]

I'm kinda like Vincent there in that I will totally take the funky. It helps that my group tends not to run games where you need to be super optimized to contribute, or even games where combat isn't a huge part.

For example, my character in the current campaign we're in has the concept "average guy caught up above his paygrade". His best skills are bowling and knowing about tea. It's a fun concept with a lot of chances for humorous and dramatic moments.

The other players don't mind because the kinds of games we play support these kinds of characters. I actually was labeled an anti-munchkin by the GM.

I optimize characters when the game calls for it, though still usually in amusing ways. (My omni-engineer, ahh he was fun. No combat ability but none of the characters did because it was explicitly a low-combat game. He did, however, have every engineering skill, repair skill, mechanic skill, armory skill, math skill, and a number of other related skills at ridiculous levels. His skill sheet alone was 3 pages long.)

[The Insanity]

Personally I prefer my characters effective AND interesting. IME optimization tends to make the character more fun to play.

[Sajiri]

I had a friend who was sort of like this? I dont think it was out of fear of being labelled a munchkin, but she did seem to be very anti-powerful-options in any sort of game, be it tabletop or mmo. Like, she knew what was the better option, but for some reason she was really against doing it, probably because its what everyone else did.

My very first game of D&D was with her as the other player. I wouldnt call my character overpowered, but it was definitely stronger than her's (she made a half orc barbarian), and honestly her character was often very weak. I can't remember her build, but the DM had to set up encounters in a way that we would often be seperated, so she could have one easier fight while I took on a harder one at the same time...but it didn't matter in the slightest. She was such a fun roleplayer that it made up for everything else, so much so that even though we dont talk anymore (on account of just drifting apart thanks to different schedules), in one of our more recent games, her old character was immortalised as a npc party member in her memory. Taught me that the strongest options arent always the best, since it is a game after all you should just have fun with the character you're playing.

[CharonsHelper]

On a more serious note - I don't make the most powerful characters I possibly can. I optimize more than the rest of my table, but I don't want to nerf myself as I enjoy the optimization process. So I optimize support roles and/or sub-par character types and make them playable.

I want to optimize, but I don't want to hog the spotlight either. But - that isn't really what you're talking about.

[redwizard007]

I rarely anti-munchkin, but I'll often munchkin in ways that are only rarely useful. I'll struggle through more common encounters and then BANG, my over the top knowledge architecture lets me collapse a dungeon on the BBEG.

More commonly, I'll sub optimize, but still be useful and contribute. Sometimes my clerics heal during combat, or I'll run an evoker, sometimes I'll even go vanilla fighter.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The weirdest example of that I've seen was a guy who forgot to buy his attack skill up in a combat-heavy game. Which was an understandable mistake, M&M is complicated and he hadn't played it before, but he refused an offer to shuffle points around to fix it. He also used what we figured out was actually a d10 instead of a d20- it was the same shape, but it had each number twice. Again, would not change it.

(The same party also had a guy whose attack powers were too weak to be useful (he'd Summon a couple weak ice golems) and a guy whose character was fine but spent most of their time faffing around and attempting useless strategies. If it wasn't for me and the telekinetic being seriously on the ball we'd have never gotten anywhere.)

[hymer]

One player was rather astounded when I informed him that a 3.X Con 8 character was at least as much a nuisance to plan for as the most heavily optimized character in the campaign. I'd vetoed that score distribution earlier, but we hadn't gone into the withertoes or the whyfores. He was also a little surprised at the thought that it was a strain on suspension of disbelief if the party's ranger couldn't find his own arse with an atlas. At level 8. Why were they bringing this inept fool with them into dangerous situations, when he ought to be in some sort of home?
I'd concluded that he just didn't care about the game or his character or anything, but he was just genuinely clueless that he was causing everyone headaches. I'm not sure if that counts as an anti-munchkin.

[thamolas]

In my experience, the games that favor heavy optimization tend to feel "samey" and every session blends together, except for the "boss fight" sessions, and all of the "boss showdowns" feel the same, too. This play style bores me to tears because it's always the same thing over and over.

On the other hand, intentionally making a useless character in a game that isn't focused on useless characters sounds pretty annoying. Is it just trolling to intentionally make a character that will annoy the group?

[mikeejimbo]

Personally I prefer my characters effective AND interesting. IME optimization tends to make the character more fun to play.

See I've always heard that, but I feel like it immediately rules out a lot of concepts that would be dramatically interesting but not lend themselves to optimized characters.

- The average guy who gets rescued by his alien friend just before the Earth is destroyed
- The high school teacher who starts making drugs to support his family
- The wizard who only knows one spell that would be dangerous to cast, but The Lady smiles on him
- The high school student who becomes a masked vigilante to clean up his town
- The old and delusional knight who just wants to protect his people from the giants
- The small country who attacks a larger one in order to get war repararions
- The writer who starts looking at the Eldritch things man was not meant to know
- The self-styled lawyer who never passed his bar but defends his cousin in court
- The politician whose plane is hijacked
- The beat cop who discovers that aliens are among us
- The FBI agent who believes that aliens are among us. (Or even his partner, who doesn't)
- The long shot political candidate who is picked by a shadowy organization to be a puppet
- The grifter who gets caught up amongst the schemes of a god of chaos
- The guy whose friends have to break him out of a psychiatric institution whenever they want his help
- The young man who accidentally steals a slave
- The "adopted" but uncultured child who is abused by his "father", becomes obsessed with his "sister" and vows revenge
- The girl who falls into a different world
- The fellows who hate travel and love eating but are the only ones who can destroy the powerful artifact
- The kid who falls in love with a rival family's daughter
- The farmer who has to lead his country's army
- The farmboy who is the chosen one of a prophecy
- The normal guy framed for a crime he didn't commit and runs from the law
- The plain, average girl who turns out to be a princess

I could probably go on.

[Mordar]

So is the motivation the key element here? Ineptness to avoid accusations of gamesmanship/munchkinism?

Because I had a friend always desperate to play pink ninjas...but not because he was worried people would think him an optimizer if he did otherwise...

- M

[sktarq]

Each table (and usually the DM/GM/ST is the key here) has their own natural level of optimization.

And roughly the PC's should fit close to that.

Thus the PC's should roughly be about the same level of optimization.

One of the types the OP mentioned at a highly optimized table is a pain in the neck. A table full of them is more fun than a barrel of chinchillas on Molly.

[The Insanity]

See I've always heard that, but I feel like it immediately rules out a lot of concepts that would be dramatically interesting but not lend themselves to optimized characters.

And that's because...?

[CharonsHelper]

And that's because...?

+1. In the right system/setting/party, it seems that nearly all of those would be perfectly playable when optimized.

You just shouldn't try to bring to mix the Breaking Bad teacher into a game about superheroes. (Which actually - is often the problem with horribly optimized characters. They want to play a character which doesn't fit the setting/story.)

[Arbane]

Characters in books/movies/etc. don't have to roll dice when they try to do something. Just sayin'.

[Quertus]

So, I like to play a whole range of characters. Because that is what is most interesting. My signature character, for whom this account is named, is incredibly powerful, not terribly optimized, and completely tactically inept. Good times. He is strongly focused on magic theory, with good sights and defenses, and so rarely steps on anyone else's toes.

I can enjoy playing characters that are much stronger than the rest of the party, or much weaker than the rest of the party, so long as the other players enjoy that, too. Granted, some systems lend themselves to this diversity better than others.

He also used what we figured out was actually a d10 instead of a d20- it was the same shape, but it had each number twice. Again, would not change it.

Um... What? I can understand the rest of the story, but this makes no sense. It'd be like playing d20, and always saying, "my character takes a 1".

In my experience, the games that favor heavy optimization tend to feel "samey" and every session blends together, except for the "boss fight" sessions, and all of the "boss showdowns" feel the same, too. This play style bores me to tears because it's always the same thing over and over.

On the other hand, intentionally making a useless character in a game that isn't focused on useless characters sounds pretty annoying. Is it just trolling to intentionally make a character that will annoy the group?

Each table (and usually the DM/GM/ST is the key here) has their own natural level of optimization.

And roughly the PC's should fit close to that.

Thus the PC's should roughly be about the same level of optimization.

One of the types the OP mentioned at a highly optimized table is a pain in the neck. A table full of them is more fun than a barrel of chinchillas on Molly.

I think it's a matter of the size of the range of optimization level that the table can handle. I happen to prefer tables that can handle big ranges. Some can, some can't. The can't's tend to feel boring and "samey", to me (regardless of whether they only play high op, only play low op, only play mid op).

[Grod_The_Giant]

+1. In the right system/setting/party, it seems that nearly all of those would be perfectly playable when optimized.

You just shouldn't try to bring to mix the Breaking Bad teacher into a game about superheroes. (Which actually - is often the problem with horribly optimized characters. They want to play a character which doesn't fit the setting/story.)

Exactly. It's not the optimization level that's the problem so much as trying to play a character who's fundamentally incompatible with the game in question-- be that system, setting, tone, what have you. It's the player's responsibility to bring a character the the table that fits the game being played. And yes, that means not bringing your out-of-depth-everyman into a Justice League game, just like it means not bringing your black ops supercommando into a Call of Cthulu game.

[Darth Tom]

I'm like that and all the games I've run are like that. Unlike most people on here, I find optimisation boring and unappealing, so I focus things on the group of us having fun with a cool story. It doesn't mean you can't have cool things, it just means you're Bilbo or Rincewind rather than Conan.

[mikeejimbo]

+1. In the right system/setting/party, it seems that nearly all of those would be perfectly playable when optimized.

You just shouldn't try to bring to mix the Breaking Bad teacher into a game about superheroes. (Which actually - is often the problem with horribly optimized characters. They want to play a character which doesn't fit the setting/story.)

That's my point - it depends entirely on the nature of the game.

Characters in books/movies/etc. don't have to roll dice when they try to do something. Just sayin'.

No, but they do suffer setbacks and failures. I think that those can be narratively interested. You can play a game that's narratively intersecting with optimization of course, but I think there is room for games that are not focused on perfectly optimized characters.

[CharonsHelper]

That's my point - it depends entirely on the nature of the game.

Right - but if the system/setting is designed well and those are its intended character types, those character should be able to BE the optimized characters. The system should just be put at a much lower power level and with a different focus than a D&D style dungeon slog.

[Quertus]

No, but they do suffer setbacks and failures. I think that those can be narratively interested. You can play a game that's narratively intersecting with optimization of course, but I think there is room for games that are not focused on perfectly optimized characters.

Yes. I'm interested in the story of what happens when these characters encounter this situation - what will they do? I'm interested in the story of what happens when these characters attempt this course of action - what will happen? Realistic setbacks and failures can be just as fun as realistic success, perhaps even more so. But not always as rewarding.

Always making optimized characters taking the optimal course of action doesn't sound nearly as fun to me. But it's probably a lot more successful.

[Guizonde]

last time i "anti-munchkined", i was getting into dnd. i played a radiant servant of pelor (so, extraordinary healer build, brutal against undead, not exactly the most powergamer build for a cleric). nobody told me that "concentration" was a skill, so first time i got beaned in combat, i wondered why i had to do a concentration check at dd72 to heal myself.

nowadays, i prefer to build lethal joke characters or eccentric professionnals. it's so much fun using 9-barrelled gatling guns as suppositories sometimes. turns out that the dark side of the moon doesn't have a very high armor rating, to boot. as the saying goes, "if it looks stupid, but it works, then it ain't stupid".

i won't nerf myself just for fun. i'll reign it back if i'm clearly overshadowing the rest of the group, but i won't make a useless character. that leads to boredom, and that leads to me leaving a table. not to say i'll always play overpowered characters. my playstyle leans towards "overkill is too subtle", so in general, i'll encourage the rest of the team that way.

what i love to play, turns out, is support. healers, snipers, scouts, techies, skill-monkeys, and force multipliers. that tends to drive my teammates bonkers at my antics while praising my efficacy. i don't play the sheet (or a system that encourages that), so that gives me greater latitude to pull off stunts that shouldn't be doable with my character. so what if i've got a 23% chance of success? if it works, i'm a hero. if i fail, i'm too unconscious to care. too many players artificially limit themselves by sticking to the crunch of their sheet rather than their imagination, or at least that's what i've seen from novice players. "my character has got +3 str on you! i'll wreck you in a fight."
"sure you will. i've got an ied and a fuse."
"when did you get an ied?!"
"when i took a perception check and found out we were next to a gas station and i've got a lit cigar."

if i wanted to play powergamer, i'd just do some math. i'm not in it for the power level, i'm in it for the latitude. yeah, i know wizards and clerics break the game with their spell list, but my forays into dnd led me to an antimagic-happy dm (spheres, collars, manacles, rays... you name it, we got hit by it). turns out i'd rather take a rogue, a ranger, or a halfling outrider. being less dependent on gear and more on the environment and quick thinking leaves me feeling more free.

[Katrina]

I was accused of this for the longest. In fact, only our resident Munchkin knew how well I knew how to optimize because he would often present a character and I would point out the loophole, exploit or hidden trick he was using within a few minutes of looking at the character sheet. That and occasionally I would announce something and he would look at me odd and remark "I thought only I knew that trick."

The others didn't take me seriously until I literally cut down the second strongest combatant in the group in a single attack when he turned on us. (It was a critical, but the character was built to have a 16-20 crit range on a x3 weapon.) Suddenly, respect. After years of slightly disrespected rogues, sorceresses being greeted with head shakes (Sorceror is unoptimized, apparently.), an Anima violinist that everyone thought was a joke until I revealed the AT 10 vs everything but Energy, and who knows how many crazy BESM d20 concepts, they were suddenly scared. It was then that my friend started revealing the horrible effectiveness behind all the previous "joke characters" that I had never used. Good times.


And seriously? What strange company makes a d20 shaped d10???

[RazorChain]

One of my friends and a fellow player always makes a special snowflakes characters that often just don't function.

One of his favorites was the wild mage or anything that rolls a random roll to check if things go horribly bad. With his rotten luck he should never be allowed to roll on such a random table.

Another thing of his is the overspecialization or in point systems where he buys a power that only functions on wednesdays during the full moon....if he can he will attach some randomness ala the random table where things can go horribly wrong and will.

The third is when he makes characters who are absolutely jack of all trades....and worse than mediocre at everything and he tries to fill all the roles of the party by himself. So playing the fighter/rogue/mage/cleric that also is the face/fixer/specialist/skillmonkey ends up as the party gimp...as he has gimped his character so much.

Once in a blue moon he actually manages to make a character that works and contributes.

[Knaight]

Exactly. It's not the optimization level that's the problem so much as trying to play a character who's fundamentally incompatible with the game in question-- be that system, setting, tone, what have you. It's the player's responsibility to bring a character the the table that fits the game being played. And yes, that means not bringing your out-of-depth-everyman into a Justice League game, just like it means not bringing your black ops supercommando into a Call of Cthulu game.

Sure, but sometimes the character is fundamentally incompatible with the campaign (if not the system) precisely because they're heavily optimized. Almost the entirety of TO fits within this even in D&D, and that's without getting into how there are plenty of generic systems where heavy optimization can often fly against the core concept of individual campaigns, and low optimization can fly against the core concept of other individual campaigns (nobody starts a 400 point GURPS game wanting the points to be ineffectively distributed; that game is there to be ridiculously high powered).

[Dappershire]

Optimized characters are so boring. How unique can you really be, with your unexplainable dips in eclectic classes, with the same feats and forms and skills and points that every other munchkin has because that's what works!
I much prefer to under optimize, so I'm forced to get creative with what I have. I limit my characters for story purposes alone. I'll give my barbarian a rapier (or ten. They break). I'll force my bard to carry a full sized Harp. Or make my human paladin as short as a Halfling, but screw it if I'm not carrying the biggest shield around Church. I love rolling 18s as much as the next nerd, but if I don't, you wont see me sneaking in some weird race to cover my lacks. What the hell is a variant human anyways?
If under optimization is keeping you from helping in any way, then the other players probably have two dimensional demigod like characters that your DM has to provide for.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Sure, but sometimes the character is fundamentally incompatible with the campaign (if not the system) precisely because they're heavily optimized..

Well, sure. Matching the rest of the party optimization wise is as important as matching the game's tone. But while that sometimes rules out mechanics, it rarely rules out CHARACTERS (that weren't already ruled out by other factors). "Cool martial artist" in D&D could be anything from a Monk 20 to some crazy psionic gish build, fitting neatly into any op level you can imagine.

Optimized characters are so boring. How unique can you really be, with your unexplainable dips in eclectic classes, with the same feats and forms and skills and points that every other munchkin has because that's what works!
I much prefer to under optimize, so I'm forced to get creative with what I have. I limit my characters for story purposes alone. I'll give my barbarian a rapier (or ten. They break). I'll force my bard to carry a full sized Harp. Or make my human paladin as short as a Halfling, but screw it if I'm not carrying the biggest shield around Church. I love rolling 18s as much as the next nerd, but if I don't, you wont see me sneaking in some weird race to cover my lacks. What the hell is a variant human anyways?
If under optimization is keeping you from helping in any way, then the other players probably have two dimensional demigod like characters that your DM has to provide for.

Optimization doesn't mean making the same choices every time. It means having an idea and making the best version of the idea you can. You go "okay, I have an idea for a hobo kickboxer" and THEN saying "well, this PrC strongly expresses the concept, and I need this to enter it, and these things to compliment it." Idea, then build. Heck, sometimes it's "I want to be a tiny dude with a huge shield, how can I make that bad@ss?"

Do you sometimes get boring but optimized characters? Sure. Anyone can make a boring character. Anyone can make an interesting one too, because how interesting a character is HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE NUMBERS ON THEIR SHEET. It's all about how you play it. An optimized character is not intrinsically boring any more than an anti-optimized character is intrinsically interesting.

[Dappershire]

An optimized character is not intrinsically boring any more than an anti-optimized character is intrinsically interesting.

I dunno. In my experience, Optimized characters are made by players that care about the crunch, more than the fluff. They don't make a well rounded Paladin, then build a story around it. They build a Paladin/Sorcerer, out of some race that can fly, with a couple of meaningless flaws so they can afford a new feat that pwns. It rarely makes any logical sense, and I often find it distasteful. It gives me the first impressions that they need to draw attention through superior math, than through storytelling. If I'm not proven wrong, its not a terrible issue, I just find reason not to play with that person/group for long.
Making a character dedicated to one thing can be fun "My barbarian is gonna be able to wrestle frikken dragons outta the air!", and obviously you need specialized talent trees to get them off the ground. But when a player starts doing such things with every single character....well, I just don't approve of munchkins all that much.