Dragons Trove: Munchkin

    A game of myth and legend, warriors and wizards rule the land, ancient dragons scour the skies, burning villages and taking their valuables, evil necromancers plot to take over kingdoms…..wait, wait, wait! That’s not this game. This game isn’t about role playing and experience points and all that nonsense. This game is about kicking down the doors, slaying the monsters and taking their treasure. It’s about helping your friend out of a jam, only to stab her in the back when it looks like she will win later on. This is

    The premise behind Munchkin is simple enough. Reach Level 10 before everyone else and win the game. How do you reach Level 10? Why, by defeating monsters of course. Now there is a lot of stuff that will happen in-between 1^st Level and 10^th Level. Curses, defeat at the hands of monsters, friends backstabbing each other, and relationships being broken.
    Munchkin is a card game that comes with two decks, Doors and Treasures. The doors contain the monsters, races, classes and curses that the players will encounter. The treasure deck contains all the different kind of weapons and treasures (duh) that the players will use in the game.

    You begin the game as a Level 1 Human with no class (I never get tired of that joke). As you draw cards you will come across various cards that will give you different races and classes. You could draw an Elf card which gives you a +1 to running away (more on that later) and it also gives you the ability to go up 1 Level for every monster that you help SOMEONE ELSE kill. You could draw a Warrior which gives you the ability of Berserking, which allows you to discard up to 3 cards in combat and you gain +1 to combat for every card discarded. 

A typical round goes a little something like this. 

    Draw a door card: Is it a monster? You could get a Level 18 Squidzilla or a Level 1 Drooling Slime. How do you fight? Well, you add up all your current Levels with all the equipment that you have that is in play (that is, sitting in front of you and not in your hand). You could have a +1 Leather Armor (complete with an image of a busty female adventurer wearing a dominatrix style leather outfit), a +2 Singing and Dancing Sword (not usable by a Thief) and a +2 Sneaky Bastard Sword. If you were Level 3 for instance, that would be a total bonus of 8 (3 for Level + 1 for Armor +2 for Singing and Dancing Sword +2 for Sneaky Bastard Sword = 8). So if you were fighting, for instance, the Level 6 Shrieking Geek, you would win that battle (you have to have total bonuses greater than the level of the monster), and go up a level. If you were facing the all powerful Level 20 Plutonium Dragon, you would not be able to defeat this monster and would instead have to try and run away or suffer “BAD STUFF”. 

If you were facing a monster that you could not beat, you could always ask for help. This comes with conditions of course. The person who volunteers to help may want half of the treasure that you would normally get for defeating a certain kind of monster. She may want ALL of the treasure. How badly do you want to defeat this monster and how bad is the BAD STUFF that happens if you fail to defeat the monster? These are all questions that you have to ask yourself.
Now here is where friendships are broken and husbands end up sleeping on the couch. You have just totaled all your bonuses, you have struck a deal with a fellow player to help you and you're ready to strike the final blow, but wait, what’s this? Another player throws down a Flaming Poison Potion which adds +3 to either side, and guess what, he adds it to the monster. Why would he do this to you? He does not want you to go up a level and get closer to winning the game that’s why. This bonus takes you just outside of killing the monster and now you must try and run away or suffer BAD STUFF.   
If you are able to defeat the monster (with no hassle from other players), you collect your treasure (making sure you honor any deals you may have had with other players) and go up a Level. Your turn is now over.

Was the drawn card NOT a monster? Well then the card goes into your hand and you can either LOOK FOR TROUBLE or search the room. If you Look For Trouble, you can play a monster card that you may have in your hand and fight it. Now make sure you don’t play a monster that you can’t kill (somebody else may take care of that for you tee-hee-hee). If you don’t want to Look For Trouble, you can just search the room, which simply means that you take another door card (face down so other players cant see) and put it into your hand.  Your turn is now over.

    
    
    The game creates memorable moments that will be talked about for gaming sessions to come. A few days back, my gaming group and I were sitting down to a nice friendly game of Munchkin (is there really such a thing). It was early in the game when I came upon a monster that I could just barely beat. Earlier, I had insulted my wife (in game of course) and she decided to take her revenge on me. She played a bonus on the monster against me, and for good measure, her brother played another bonus against me taking me WAY outside the realm of possibly defeating the monster. There were a lot of insults and curse words thrown around that night. In the end, I got my revenge however when I went on a streak of defeating monsters and playing rare cards that allowed me to go up Levels and I ended up winning the game (+1 bragging rights).
Munchkin has almost infinite replayability to it. Not only is every game that you play new and unique, there is over a dozen expansion packs available. Everything from Munchkin Zombie to Munchkin Bites (horror themed) to Munchkin Cthuhlu (any H.P. Lovecraft fans will love this one). They even have ones based on the popular web show by everyone’s geek crush Felicia Day, The Guild, to a game based on Robert R. Howards Conan The Barbarian. Whatever your taste, there is a Munchkin for you. Star Munchkin, Munchkin Fu, Super Munchkin and the best part is, you can actually mix all these sets together! You can become a Zombie Cleric (now there is a strange combination) by mixing classic Munchkin and Munchkin Zombies. It holds infinite possibilities for your gaming pleasure. 

So if you’re looking for a no frills night of gaming, with simple rules that leads to a lot fun and laughter, then Munchkin is the game for you. I highly recommend this game to you guys and I give it 5 out of 5 Munchkin Heads (that means it’s good).

Until next time fellow gamers, keep on geeking on!