Munchkins

[chron187]

I personally find Munchkins fun (from a distance) which one of us can say we havent at least been slightly amused by a Munchkin Horror story it is akin to a Cheech and Chong movie to me to hear well told stories of munchkinism (hence I bought the Munchkins Guide To PowerGaming and I may get the Slayers Guide to Rules Lawyers because I find alot of munchkin stories funny from a distance BLESS THEIR LITTLE MUNCHKIN HEARTS so I can laugh)

 

[Tanuki]

I started a group out as passengers on a liner once. They had all kinds of stuff -- I let them have whatever they asked for as they rolled things up. They had an FGMP and lots of other high power stuff (stowed in the arms locker), combat armor, the whole gamut.

Then I ran them though a day or two on the liner and asked each player just what their character was doing for the evening. At about two a.m. the abandon ship klaxon went off and ships crew herded everyone off to the lifeboats. They all ended up together in a lifeboat with whatever they had on them -- one character, who the player specified was doing a night of heavy drinking, ended up with nothing but his skivvies. <eg>

We had a great time with the subsequent adventure, but there was a fair bit of grumbling for lost weaponry and equipment.

 

[Bishop]

When I GM'd for a group that had a tendancy to boarder on munchkanism

, I would scale the danger to match the PCs. As soon as the characters pulled out Mil Spec gear, the military was called and they had no intention of arresting them

.

T.

 

[GBoyett]

Originally posted by DaveShayne:
I fudge world rolls all the time. Though I usually try for moderate levels of tech (between 9 and C instead of the usual spread) I wouldn't call that munchkin behavior though. It's just a tool you have to create the kind of adventure backdrop you like.

Yeah, but it's wasn't for one world. I was doing it in order to allow access to all the nice high-tech items at all the worlds, with no regards to story concept. I mean I had subsectors that would make a Solomani Rim subsector weep with envy.

Now a days, when I do a subsector mostly I take what I get, with little or no mod if the rolls don't fit a pre-conceived background.

 

[vegascat]

My usual group has started to fear the smile when they see a nice big shiny weapon in front of them. They figured out that they didn't get anything really powerful unless they were going to need it sometime soon.

Not that I like to torture PCs or anything, but what DM doesn't ocassionally think of the players as mice with teeth.

Then again, sometimes I let them find something really good, like an FGMP14, without the powerpack. It ended up as an airlock defense mechanism.
As far a fudging the rolls, It does make for a more interesting universe. Anyone can roll dice and write down the numbers. To make a place lived in, with history, fudging the die is a fact of like.

 

[GBoyett]

I found several ways to deal with a munchkin or "Big for His Britches" players. This mostly dealt with an Highlander-style Immortal that a friend and I have played for 10 years RT.

</font>

• Have one or two megacorporations take an interest of him, including some assassination attempts</font>
• Several racist groups that knew about Immortals starting to go after him. This included an EMP booby trap what wipe out the computers in the office building his office were located.</font>
• Other high end NPCs were after him.</font>
• A nasty feud with a corporate exec friend that kept him moving around for almost 2 decades. This cause a divorce and self-imposed exile from his closest friends. Eventually there was a reconciliation(sp).</font>
• Caught up in the family/corporate politics of his exec friend.</font>
• My favorite was the corporation got nervous after someone raided his office looking for a data crystal that had blackmailable info. So they used a cruise missle attack on his Grand Canyon house because they knew the crystal was there.* This cause a divorce with his current wife. </font>

*He did come out good because the company did arrange a very nice financial settlement that help him setup a small security company. Also the combat engineer/forensic team were impressed with the amount of punishment the house took. So the PC sold the design specs for nice amount. Best part he got footage of the attack and used it in a commercial advertising his security company.

 

[vegascat]

Sounds a bit too much like real life in big business.

 

[DaveShayne]

Originally posted by George Boyett:
Yeah, but it's wasn't for one world. I was doing it in order to allow access to all the nice high-tech items at all the worlds, with no regards to story concept.

I understand. But this isn't munchkiny it's tailoring the game universe to cater to the style of game you wanted - one with lots of high tech widgets.

Munchkin DMing would have involved keeping all of those toys in the hands of the ancients and making sure all of the bad guys were ancients. And then ensuring that even if the players somehow manage to beat the "Grandfather of the week" that none of the kewl weaponz work for the PCs.

 

[vegascat]

You don't like to give the kids big new shiny weapons, without an instruction book? Or at least something that tells them which end is the dangerous one?

"Oh wow, here's that neat ball he was using to shoot at us with. I wonder how it works?"
Picks it up, ZAP!!!

"Hey, what happened to George, the new guy in the red shirt? I saw him over here by this silver ball."

 

[Murph]

http://www.senet.com.au/Gooney/players.html

IMTU, when I became very generous with equipment like battledress, the players became very nervous. Very nervous.

 

[vegascat]

You got the idea Give em as much as they can carry of what they thought they want. Then, when fully loaded and pirate munchable, give them a nice juicy target.

Of course, if they think of scanning the floating derilect ship, they might notice the 30 guys in battle dress and the powered up fusion guns pointed at their drives.

After their acting like caged rats that they are and a few good rolls...
With luck, they might be able to assemble a few working sets of battle dress, after they clean the guts out of them.
Oh, they have working battle dress now!!!
They can go after big game now!!!
What can possible stop them???
Did they do a complete ops check including computer programming?
Did they notice the bugs in the system?
Didn't they find it just a little easy to win a battle against 30 guys in battle dress?
Are they going to wonder who will let them out when the suits they are wearing lock up?

Players that trust a smiling DM will get what is coming to them.

 

[GBoyett]

Originally posted by vegascat:
Sounds a bit too much like real life in big business.

If you were referring to my last message, that was the nature of a high end Cyberpunk/Shadowrun campaign. Several of the adventures were results of corporate intrigue and R&D that just happen to interfere with the Immortal's life, sometimes it was revenge for decade old actions of a family member, and there was the occasional Immortal NPC looking to take a head.

 

[vegascat]

I was referring to roll playing divorces. Immortals in sci fi? different twist.

 

[GBoyett]

Originally posted by vegascat:
I was referring to roll playing divorces. Immortals in sci fi? different twist.

It was a bit like the quote from Godfather II when Michael said the life kept dragging him back. The Immortal was married for a year and some corporate intrigue or another kept interfering with the couple's life. Blowing up the house was the last straw. The divorce was noncontested and the ex-wife only wanted to get out. There was no real roleplaying as the whole thing was mostly some "behind the scenes" signing of divorce papers.

In terms of Immortals in sci-fi, we ended the CP/Shadowrun campaign by attacking the spaceplane Hiroshi (The Immortal) was riding. He then wakes up in the airraft bay of a scout/courier that is misjumping.*

Currently Hiroshi is in the Five Sisters subsector of the Spinward Marches. Unfortunately he stumbled on some people that triggered his Immortal buzz and they sense him.

Not to mention having a Droyne Sport taking interest of him because they sensed each other.

*The group I was in had an ongoing multi-verse campaign that occasionally jumped from one RPG/TV setting to another.

 

[Nearside]

Yeah, my group did the Immortal thing. I had read the novel a few weeks before we saw the movie, and put an immortal in as a NPC. The characters were totally 'baffled' as to what was going on. A big fight took place in the cargo hold, but the PC's just got there after the Quickening took place (blowing circuits all over their ship) and were horrified to find a headless corpse in their hold.

For the most part, any immortal's they met were NPC's.

Fun, though. McKensie, we hardly knew ye...

 

[jrob1968]

Challenge the players - don't just say "you can't have that," but make them work for what they think the want, and during play. The risks must also prove equal to the rewards.

If you make a mistake and give out too much "stuff" too easily, there are ways to get rid of the excess without being to obvious about it. Taxes, tariffs, reatrictive laws that won't let the characters carry their favorite toys (properly enforced, of course).

As for the characters themselves:
1. Never allow characters you haven't approved ahead of time.
2. Consider requiring characters to be rolled up in front of you.
3. Consider limiting (t20) the number of terms of prior service you will allow.
3. Emphasize the role-playing possibilities of average (or even below-average) stats. One of my favorite Ad&d characters had a 5 strength and a 9 con. Naturally, I made her a female wizard, and played her carefully - she survived for many years of playing time.

 

[vegascat]

The one thing the munchie players always seem to forget, no matter how big they get, there are always bigger fish out there.
Yes, make them earn what they get, They will appreciate it more.
And always remember the strings and red tape. The crunchier it looks, the more strings attached and red tape to cut through.
You can allow a group to get the nastiest, fastest, deadliest and most awesome weapom out there, but if it only has 3 bullets, then what?
then you could geve them a weapon they really don't want to use. How about a thunderball with one way only to detonate it, a key pad that must have a code entered manually with no delay settings.