I often see comments, even participate in real life discussions about 'munchkins' and 'min-maxers'.  These are univerasally accepted as a real problem and somehow indicative of bad gaming.

Really now?

Many behaviors ascribed to munchkins are indisputably bad gaming. Failure to acknowledge the actual rules of the game is a common one.  Anti-social behavior is another.

Making a powerful character within the rules, then playing him as a badass? Say what?  

Essentially a min-maxer, a munchkin in some regards, is nothing more than a specialist.  What exactly is wrong with this?

In the real world you will find someone who is really really smart spends a large amount of time learning very hard sciences and otherwise educating themselves, until they leave the rest of us feeling like we are not even operating on the same plane. They don't generally take up football.

Likewise, someone with a keen eye, great coordination and patience might find themselve working as a sniper, where they are best served by their talents. In fact, people who recruit snipers, and train them, select for those very trait above all others.  And a top notch sniper can shoot under incredible conditions with an accuracy that seems superhuman.

Make a character like this in a game and you are accused of Min-maxing.  

I see.

So, my hyper intelligent supergenious should be playing football, and my keen eyed agile mofo should play the piano?  Only spastic half blind molepeople should play snipers now?

Oh, wait, you say they are 'unbalanced' somehow. What you might mean is that your non-sniper can't outshoot the sniper in a fair fight, is that it?   Balance is a loaded term anyway.

Now, I'll agree that a character that is a master sniper, with all the trimmings AND a Particle Physisist reknown for his theories so advanced that other scientists can't follow them is just wrong. Unless your default power level of the game is 'superhuman across the board' you probably have a broken game if someone is doing that.

But Min-maxers, by definition have sacrified areas of ability to 'max out' their favored schtick.  This is inherently a weakness, this is ultimately a balancing factor.  Blame the GM if he can't find a way to exploit that at some point.   You don't want 'broken' characters in your games, then by god, teach your players why broken characters are a bad idea.

Discuss :pundit:

It really all depends on what you are calling min/maxing.

If you are just saying that making the most powerful character you can, within the rules of the game, then I have no problem with min/maxers.

OTOH, those who are upset with and wont play a character who he rolled up and less than perfect stats for his class or whatever,  I have a problem with. Its the ones that have to have the perfect statistical character or they wont be happy that bother me.

Mcrow pretty much answered this one for me.  I have no problem with folks trying to get the most out of their character.  I have, however, found that min/maxers in my groups often also tend to be rules lawyers, and can bog down a perfectly good game.  So long as a min/maxer is working within the agreed setting and not trying to be an Illithid Ninja in our game about scrappy villagers setting off to fight a minor dark lord, I'm cool with it.  There's nothing wrong with wanting an optimized character.  But playing out of your role in order to be Mr. Perfect and not working to be a part of the game and setting, I do have a problem with.

It's only a problem when they break the game or try to do so. Otherwise, bring it on.

Pendragon was the game that taught me to love the min-maxer. It turned them all into Glory-hounds – just like they ought to be as Arthurian knights.

I agree that there's nothing wrong with making a powerful character if the rules of the game allow it and if the player doesn't also display disruptive behavior such as constant rules-lawyering, killing all the NPCs on sight, etc.

Min-maxing is merely a term for optimizing.

One of the principal draws of RPGs is the element of wish-fulfillment and empowerment. Players often expect to have characters who are good at what they do and enjoy successes. Optimizing characters is merely a means to that end.

Then there is munchkinism. Muchkinism, under my definition, is min-maxing to the detriment of enjoyment of the game by others. Min-maxing to this degree results in a number of possible outcomes that make the game less enjoyable. For example, expoiting a loophole that makes one character type preferable to all others diminishes the variety in the game, and players who do not like that character type get diminished enjoyment from the game due to the munchkin becoming the hero of the game. Or, the munchkin player takes a combination of abilities that make no sense in context of the setting, destroying the sense of immersion of disbeleif for other players.

heh... seems like I am on to something then with my perspective.  So, if we are all agreeing here that optimization, min maxing the available options for character creation is a perfectly valid form of game play, why then does the term get tossed around with such venom?


I do have to agree that the Munchkin term tends to apply more to the antisocial styles of play, the out and out rules breaking (or finding broken rules) and other un-fun activities.  

But why then are there players that announce a game is hopelessly broken because you can start a character off as the worlds greatest sniperTM?

Is there some unspoken assumption that characters are supposed to start off as at least somewhat incompetent in their chosen career/power level?

This is a serious issue if you are working on a game system...

Quote from: SpikeIs there some unspoken assumption that characters are supposed to start off as at least somewhat incompetent in their chosen career/power level?

In some circles, I think there certainly is. Others, not.

Polls on enworld show a marked preference for starting at 1st level. Whether 1st level is "incompetant" is up for debate, but it's the bottom of the character scale in D&D. Yet, most D&D players, if ENWorld is to be taken as an accurate indication, prefer to start at this level. Some like the campbellian "zero to hero" experience. Some like that the character's formative low levels contribute to the concept and feel of the character. For some, it's just tradition. (I can't speak too strongly to this, as I prefer to start at 4th level or so when running.)

Games like hero and M&M, the starting power level seems to be more a genre choice.

Yes, it's a perfectly valid form of game play, but it can be disruptive toward other forms. Sometimes--maybe most of the time--this is really the game's fault for rewarding minmaxing, but that doesn't make the practice any less disruptive.

The problem is biggest with unconstrained pointbuy systems, I think. Player A wants to make a well-rounded character and interprets that to mean taking a bunch of skills and characteristics related to his background, even if they might not be very useful in the proposed campaign. Player B wants to make a character of maximum effectiveness for the campaign. If the GM gives enough points to let A have a "good" character, B is going to make a scenario-smasher who overshadows everyone else. If the GM just gives enough points for B to make a decent character, A finds he can't even make his character at all.

A smaller but similar problem is that minmaxing may make certain "interesting" character builds untenable. Again, the GM has to choose between tailoring the scenario to PCs that have taken advantage of all the crocks and synergies--which means only a few types will be viable--or making it for inefficiently-designed characters--which lets the minmaxers dominate.

We're discussing something like this issue on the "point buy" thread in the rpg forum - take a look.

I think min maxing is a problem where it takes advantage of holes in the system - where you're not actually specialising in any meaningful sense, but actually getting extra abilities more or less for free then it's a problem, though mostly one with the system.

It can still be a problem, from the GMs perspective, even when it is a legitimate tradeoff.  I've run into plenty of parties where not one player can drive a car, climb a wall or open a locked door because they've all loaded up on specialist skills that make them good at a few specific things (vis: combat).  Sure, you can send the message by letting them live with the consequences a few times but until they learn it does tend to derail the adventure.  And it's unfair, in some ways, to the players who do actually blink first and end up with much less glamorous characters just so they can handle the mundane business of driving to the meet.

That's why those sorts of games make a big deal about the GM overseeing chargen. I think the GM needs to be clear about what the game requires, too. I once made up a 400-pt chr in GURPS – tried very hard to make him well-rounded and plausible. The GM loved it! He read it over and over, saying 'What a great character!' But when we got to playing, it was all combat in which my chr was almost helpless next to the other chrs. So I think the GM had his wires crossed in his own head.

I used to freak out a bit when people would grotesquely min/max in my games.  But as I've gotten older and more experienced I generally let 'em loose.  If something really is too powerful for the campaign I discuss it with the player in a congenial fashion.  Sometimes they edit the character, sometimes they make a whole new one.  But most of the time I just allow whatever ubercool powers they can put together.  As the DM I can always compensate with more monsters and deadlier traps.  No biggie.  Like the time the PCs wanted to take on the Frost Giant Jarl all armed with hammers of thuderbolts.  They had the GP so I allowed it.  A few hastily made changes to the module (Such as adding a one in front of the number of giants in every room, so that 2 giants became a dozen and 6 giants became sixteen) was all that was needed to keep the PCs on their toes.

I have a hypothesis about gamers that I've formed over many years.

Our hobby seems to attract a type of gamer which has poorly developed competitive skills and poorly developed skills of coping with being defeated in competition.  They are attracted to our hobby by the lie that RPGs are non-competitive.

This type of gamer then demmands to be treated equally in the game.  But, since they are underdeveloped in this area, what they are really after is to be treated as the "winner."  Other players who threaten this position of "winner" are obviously doing something wrong in the eyes of this type of player.

Balance is a big issue to these players, but what they're really after is to neutralize any advantage in play.  Their idea of a "fair" play environment is one in which player skill or "mastery" cannot affect the game.  In their minds, superior knowledge of the rules or playing ability should be no reason for another player to have an advantage or to acquire a greater reward.

These types of players are usually the ones who scream "munchkin" most often.  They also tend to decry people who aren't "role playing."  

To be perfectly clear, I'm not accusing anyone I've participated in a discussion with here of being this type of gamer.  Nor am I saying all accusations of "min/maxing" or "munchkinism" are made by this type of player and are therefore illegitimate.  I'm just saying that a lot of those cries come from these kinds of players.

Gabe: I'm not a huge fan of the Sacred Cow of Game Balance, myself.

But I do think that because one guy obsessively wanks over GURPS that doesn't mean it should make MY job as a GM harder because he knows how to use every little rule to create an uber-character that will then make every other player irrelevant.

RPGPundit

one of the most interesting ideas about Game Mastering a proper challenged for players came from an older edition of Champion's.  Essentially they worked from the assumption that the players had made their characters as powerful as possible (by DEFAULT), therefore to make a proper challenge, take their character sheets adn file off the serial numbers.

I seem to recall this advice being repeated in 'Listen Up You Primative Screwheads' for Cyberpunk.

In both cases the Game Designer was working from the assumption that Min/Maxing was the default playstyle. By that assumption, it is the person who deliberately cripples their character by NOT making a 'contributing' character that drags down play and forces the GM to adapt to THEM, rather than the 'uber' PC's made by other characters.



Interesting side note: The other night, after starting this thread, I was told by my perspective Exalted GM that I would be on probation if I played in his game. Apparently the character I submitted for approval was 'too powerful' and 'scared him'.  I broke the GM in a game I have yet to actually play.  Obviously I am one of teh evil min/maxers... and I thought I was just following a concept to it's natural conclusion.   The ultimate irony: that character was a model of gross inefficency from a min/maxer point of view....:eek: