Munchkin: Someone who sees all Roleplaying Games as a competitive sport, and is willing to use less-than-ethical means to feel like he or she is "winning." There are a few intentionally-competitive RPGs out there, Rune and Amber for example, and most LARPs. The Munchkin is distinguished by shady actions and a desire to achieve at the expense of the other players - not just at the expense of adversarial characters.
Point-Weasel: Someone who "min-maxes" a system, by making every decision during character creation (or XP expenditure, magic item creation, etc) based on achieving the maximum possible impact from the system. A point-weasel never asks "is this fair?" Character concept, or the overall enjoyment of the game, are distantly tertiary to the attempt to milk every advantage out of a system.
Corollaries to these: Munchkinism can manifest as point-weaseling, or as resource-hording, spotlight-stealing, or out-and-out cheating. Not all munchkins are point-weasels. By the same token, I've met people who point-weasel at character creation but then do a fine job of role-playing cooperatively ever after. Making an effective character isn't the same as point-weaseling, either, provided said character has flavor and doesn't take abusive advantage of obscure loopholes in the rules. Also, note that "playing to win" isn't munchkinism when playing a game where there is a way to win, and winning is the stated goal.
Developer: A person who's job or hobby is to playtest and refine a game system with the intention of minimizing the opportunities for munchkinism and point-weaseling.
4 comments:
What are the traits of an ideal role-player?
I was always a point-weasel in competitive games (like WH40k). I remember suggesting, once, that the Eldar Avatar could serve as a targeting device, moving among a group of enemies and then being fired on by weapons it was immune to. Our group decided the Eldar gunners probably wouldn't shoot their guns at their god, even if they knew it would survive.
Awesome idea. In a game like 40k, I would have been a-o-k with this, and voted in favor of the gunners being free to shoot at a(n immune) god who ordered them to do so.
I think you've just inspired a post (about the best 40k army I ever made) for later today.
GMed VtM and was wondering,what do you do when the player is a weasly-munchkin rules lawyer and the GM is a creative points weasel trekkie and star wars geek?..
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