Munchkin

A game where the box tells you exactly what the game is about. "Kill the monster, steal the treasure, back stab your buddy". Munchkin is a card game created by Steve Jackson, and won a Origins award in 2001 for Best Traditional Card Game. Munchkin is a card game that can be learned easily and enjoyed by a large audience because of the hilarious take on the role-play genre of gaming and the minimal required time to play.

Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz

When talking about Munchkins, I don't mean the short weird looking ones seen above. A "Munchkin" in the gaming world is a name older players give to the younger, or more competitive players in a non-competitive, casual board or pen and paper game. These people usually position themselves in the game in a way that will give them an advantage over others so they can win. For example, someone optimizing their stats in their new Dungeons and Dragons character to make them extremely powerful but ignoring the storyline, and the other player's needs. Overall, Munchkins are just overall not a pleasant person to play any game with.

The significance of me telling you about "Munchkins" is because basically you and the rest of the players (2-6) are essentially trying to be the better Munchkin by, equipping the best gear, killing the most stuff, and backstabbing everyone in the process.

The objective is to get the the 10th level of the dungeon. By doing this you kill a monster to advance to the next level or play a card that does it for you.

Bribery, typical munchkin...

The game starts with each player picking up 8 cards. 4 from the treasure deck and 4 from the door deck. the treasure deck has cards that help the player while the door deck will have monsters, curses, races, and classes. In the game everybody starts as a human with no class (hah). Overtime players will come across cards that will give them a class or race like dwarf, or a warrior, each with their own bonuses.

The first thing a player does on their turn is kick down the door (reveal the first card on the door deck). The player can do several things at this time depending on what is revealed. If it's a monster card, the player must defeat it or run away.If the player wins they move up a level and collect their treasure, but if the player chooses to run away they roll a 6 sided dice and must roll anything over a 5 to escape or "bad stuff" happens. Bad stuff could be from anything such as lose your strongest item or die, it depends on the monster. Other cards such as races and classes are picked up by that player and they move into the next step of their turn. If it's a curse, the effects occur immediately and the player discards a card and performs any action required.

one of the many funny monster cards

If the player did not reveal a monster card they may "look for trouble". They instead play a monster card in their hand and fight it to increase their level. If the player does not fight a monster or look for trouble they may "loot the room" picking up the first card on the door deck and placing it into their hand.

The final step is to play as many cards as you'd like. If you meet the requirements you can play certain equipment cards and increase your effectiveness when fighting monsters. You can even sell your cards for a level or give them to other players to build a temporary trust with them.

Fear my knees!

You can help each other fight monsters if the monster is too strong for just one to hand, but dont be surprised if another player will assist the monster just to further themself in the game. As the game goes on players are more inclined to back stab one other to step in to the lead. You can play cards that help a monster their fighting or play a curse on their character. It wont make you any friends but it's pretty fun crashing their party.

The common "I just got duped" reaction

That's all you really need to know about Munchkin, it's a fun game, easy to learn, and something fun to do when you and your friends are bored. Check out the game here or you can buy it at Amazon.