How To GM For The Lollipop Guild
Well,
my recent column on munchkinism has gotten a rather large amount of reader
responses, and I felt the need to share one of the better ones with you. I was actually thinking along these same
lines myself but decided against putting those extra arguments in my original
column. But now, Jason Frey (thanks a
million!) has written me an excellent email that expands even further on the
munchkinism debate, and says it far better than I could! I'll be stepping aside now--hope you enjoy
it!
Great essay on the differences between legitimately
powerful characters and those ill-begotten munchkins. I think you raised some interesting points, and there are two
others that have occurred to me as well.
1.
The Ugly Secret: Am *I* a
munchkin?
Whether we like to admit it or not, most
of us long-time gamers were munchkins at some point. Usually when we first started out, we either didn't understand
the 'real' nature of gaming and thought the combat stuff was the coolest part,
or we were so worried about not
understanding
the rules that we spent LOTS of time reviewing the books and became a bit of a
rules lawyer.
See, it takes time to understand that an
RPG isn't the same thing as a game of chess, or football, or Chutes &
Ladders. In all those other
examples,
everyone follows the same rules all the time.
All parties are equally matched in terms of what they have available to
them, and are in direct competition with each other.
Roleplaying is different. Is there competition? Sure, there can be. But who's your opponent? Is it the GM? Maybe. The other players?
Sometimes. Yourself?
Probably more often than we'd like to admit. The thing is, though, the rules are by their nature
subjective. They're
there
to SHAPE the experience, not define it.
That being the case, an appeal to the GM is an appeal to common
sense. As players we don't
always
understand the goals of the game or what's going to happen next (it's often
best if we don't!), so the GM has to ask us to place a
certain
amount of trust in her. Because again,
the goals are a bit different for everyone.
Ultimately most GMs want an entertaining game,
one
that challenges the players and maybe even lets everyone learn a bit from one
another. When we start out as gamers,
we often don't
understand
that part, and so we assume the GM really IS out to get us. Most gamers do grow out of this, though. I've known progressively fewer munchkins as
I've gamed more. Partially that's
because I don't play with people who have that kind of agenda, but mostly it's
because they tend to change a bit with time.
2.
The Ugly Secret II: The GM made
me do it!
How often does a GM complain that he has a
munchkin disrupting the game? In my
days of running a campaign (with extremely mixed results), I was driven to
distraction and talked my roommate's ear off after the offending party left
each session. Finally, the roomie (a
good friend and much more accomplished GM than I ever will be) told me it was
MY fault!
Imagine the horror! What was this jerk talking about? As usual, he was more right than I gave him
credit for. Yes, Randy was a combat
hound. Yes, he could do nothing useful
unless it involved martial arts. And I LET
him get away with it. I didn't
consistently reward the other players for having well-rounded characters with
actual background stories. I had a
number of encounters prepared for each session, but it was easier to let him
get away with just bluffing through the non combat stuff than to call him on
the carpet. If he didn't see negative
consequences
from being a munchkin, why should he stop?
He was getting exactly what he wanted from the sessions.
Realizing that about myself, I thought back
to other GMs I played with and saw the same thing in many of them. If every session is based
around
combat and exotic weapons skills, aren't the players being encouraged to be
munchkins? I walked away from sessions
with those GMs unhappy because I never got to use a single non-combat skill I
spent days selecting for my character.
I would end up trying to do things with my characters that they weren't
equipped to do simply because those were the only actions that the GM was looking
for. And then, when the session ended,
the GM would complain that there wasn't any roleplaying. Ultimately, if you want to avoid having a
munchkin in your group, you have to consistently reinforce the non-munchkin
attributes of your other players. If
the munchkin is smart--and most of them are, actually, or they couldn't massage
the rules the way they do--they'll get the hint eventually...
Okay,
this is Beth again. I agree
wholeheartedly with all of these additional points. Munchkins are truly annoying little specimens, but in the end
the real threat is the kind of GM that lets them run rampant over a campaign. I refer to this as the "Is your GM a
cracksmoker?" principle...because, quite frankly, some GMs would have to
be baked 24/7 to approve some of the stuff that gets under their radar. Anyone with half a brain in their head would
realize that a first-level fighter with strength 18 and dexterity 17, elven
chain mail, an a +5 bastard sword is going to seriously unbalance a
campaign. After all, Rule Number One:
The GM is always right. And there's no
rule that says you have to accept every character a player throws at you. Who's going to keep those munchkin
tendencies on a short leash if you don't?
That's
about all I can say about this theme that Jason didn't say perfectly
already. Thanks again...and thank you,
everyone, for reading these columns and keeping your insightful comments
coming!