Munchkin is an award-winning card game released in 2001 by the legendary game designer Steve Jackson. If you have been to any game convention in the last two decades then you most likely have heard about this classic. So when I got the opportunity to try this oldie out for the first time I was excited. To my surprise this game would lead me down a dark path of hate, racism and sexism.
Under the hood
You and your friends start of at Level 1 where the goal is to reach 10. In order to progress you go through 3 simple steps:
- Kick in the door – pull a card from the Room cards and follow the instructions
- Face monster from (1) or kick in another door
- Discard cards down to your hand limit
Each time you beat a monster you are rewarded a Level unless the card says otherwise and gain some Treasure cards. These treasures cards contain anything from items, new races or classes. That’s right, this card game comes with a fantasy theme of races and classes. When you start the game you begin as a Level 1 Human race. But, if you fail to beat the monster each card describes some punishment.
Whenever you stand in battle with a monster you can call any player for help, but only one. Why should that player help you? Most likely you will split the loot, such as 50/50 or whoever can bid the lowest demands. Once the fight starts the other players will simply not just sit around and watch the fight play out, they want you to fail at all costs. Therefore they can sabotage the fight by making the monster stronger or the battling players weaker. Not only will the player facing this monster face the consequences of a loss, but also the friend helping him or her out!
Notice that death in this game simply means that you drop all levels and items, but you can continue to the race. You are never totally out of the game.
My take on it
There are three things about this game that stands out for me.
At a first this looks like one of those “take that”-card games that is jolly fun and surprising. You can never expect the outcome fully. Everyone face the quirky monsters and call each other for help when in trouble. The game… slowly turns ugly. On our second playthrough we probably stood at the starting line of Level 1 for about an hour. Simply throwing whatever shit we could find at each other. Everyone in the mindset of not caring for a second if we can beat grow a Level as long as nobody else can.
But it doesn’t end there. The request for help and bidding of who gets what switched from negotiation to threats. (What’s the difference anyway right?) Instead of asking to be your helper, how about I threat you into it. The dialogue went such:
Player 1: Im facing this big mean monster, I probably can’t make it. Can someone help me?
Player 2: Sure, I can help… but I want all of the treasures for myself
Player 1: Whaaat?
Player 3: I want you to accept my help instead. Otherwise I will curse your character to hell and you won’t survive this fight.
Player 2: If you choose the other players help I will kill you both.
Player 1: …
That lead us into the next problem – Elves. Oh, Elves. Why couldn’t you just be another Legolas stereotype. To understand this overpowered card you must learn the rules surrounding it. Elf is class with pointy ears that your character can find among the cards and switch to. The benefit of being an Elf is that normally if you help a friend in fight you are never guaranteed anything, but hopefully that friend will keep his word about what treasures you can get. The Elf however gets a Level every time he helps to kill a monster. Let’s look at the dialogue above with an Elf in the group:
Player 1: Im facing this big mean monster, I probably can’t make it. Can someone help me?
Player 2: Sure, I can help… but I want to split the treasures 50/50. Deal?
Elf: Ahum! I can offer you my help. Aaaand I don’t require any of the treasures. You can keep all of it for yourself!
Player 2: But WHY?
Elf: Well, since I get a Level from beating this monster I don’t need anything else out of this fight.
Player 1: You have yourself a deal, Elf!
Player 2: Fuck my life.
In other words, this game sets you up to naturally hate the Elf. They quietly take all the jobs for low rewards and never had to lift a finger. Gathering levels on every players turn right under their nose. Yes, you are basically hating a specific race. How does it feel? Not good huh?
Now that we got the racism out of the way, now how about that jolly sexism? When you start the game a Human you can also choose your gender. Do you want to be identified as a Male or a Female. Do you identify yourself as a Non-Binary? Too bad. Now what does genders matter to this game anyway? Actually, it has a huge impact. Some cards are only allowed for Males to use and some can only be used by Females. A double handed hammer can only be worn my a Male for example. Let’s leave it at that.
As a matter of fact there is a curse called “Change Sex”! Is it really logical that changing your sex is considered a curse? I guess you can say that it was forced upon you and you didn’t like that, or that it was distracting because you didn’t expect it. Anyway, it is a bit hard to call it a Curse.
So when I went to BoardGameGeek and looked this game up it came to no surprise that this game was rated 5.9 out of 10 (I would say any game over 6.5 is OK, similar to IMDB for movie rating comparison). It’s hard to tell where Steve went wrong when he designed this game or if it just didn’t age well in today’s society. Of course this was supposed to be a satirical take on D&D and other roleplaying games though it went a bit over the edge.
But, beside all that offensive stuff, a poorly written rulebook and a poorly aged game design what I do know is that I won’t unpack this game again.