BillionSix wrote:A lot of people seem to be defending the types. Understandable. Any of them are tolerable in small doses. I think the point of the thread is that they are taken too far.
For instance:
The Great Unclean One: Also known as the Cat P*ss Man. Not bad in small doses. A nice guy with an occasional funk is tolerable. But that guy who never changes his clothes, and has filth and stink as a part of his self-image, and makes up stories about soap allergies to maintain his stank. That guy is a problem. I think it's a self-esteem problem. He does this to keep people at arm's length. If they can't get close in the first place, they can't reject him.
The X-File: If it is only occasional, just make sure the plots don't center on him. But the guy who always flakes out? Why is he in the group?
The Two-Fisted Coward: Sad. Can't even pretend to be brave. With these guys, I imagine a sort of trauma gained from an early gaming group. Their first campaign, played with a terrible GM when they were 13, was basically, "Try to survive. But you won't." Their GM told them that "winning" is surviving to the end of the game, then started wiping out the whole party. So this imprinted the player with a "turtle" attitude. Pile on all the defenses you can, and avoid trouble.
The Star: Nothing wrong with a dynamic character who likes center stage. In moderation. I think the problem is with the real attention whores. The ones that go into passive-aggressive hissy fits when they are out of the limelight for even a second. If something cool happens to another player, then it's "Whatever. I'll be on the couch. Call me when something good happens." That's if you are lucky. Some aren't so passive, and will just jump in and steal the attention back.
The Perv: A character who likes the sexy sexins, and isn't shy about it, is okay, given an open-minded group. The Perv is a different animal. "The mayor greets you." "I cast a spell to turn him into a hot chick! Can I have sex with him now?" or "I just created a new D-Bee race. Guess how many sexual organs it has!" There are stories of worse stuff, including people who literally are messing with themselves under the table while the game is on. If the perversion is non-stop, and ruins the game, then it's a bad thing.
The Gender Bender: I have done this. I will be honest, it is a lot easier to do this in a chat game, where I am less self-conscious about making the female character actually act feminine. I try to make them realistic, unless it's a more humorous game, when I will go more over the top. This is not what we are talking about. We mean the Lesbian Stripper Ninja. The women played by male players who have heard of women, seen them on the internet, and someday hope to meet one.
The Freak: A variation on the Star. At least the Star cares about the story. The Freak is just bored, and doesn't care about anyone's fun. In moderation, with a decent player, this can add spice to the game. But dude who sets fire to the tavern just because his character hasn't done anything in 30 seconds is not a good player.
The Loner: "I'm a loner. I walk my lonely path. Alone. Alone, I face my enemy, then go on my lonely way. Alone." These dudes read every comic Wolverine was ever in. The good ones realize that Wolverine wasn't really a loner. He joined the X-men. He had friendships and relationships, and went on missions with them, and let Colossus throw him at people. Sure, he grunted and made lots of loner noises, but he was a team player, really. Or at least he tried to be most of the time. The bad ones just refuse to talk to anyone. They don't realize that if they don't join the group, nothing happens to them. They sit at different tables from the group, don't agree to go on the same mission as the group, and ultimately complain when the adventure passes them by.
The Leader: If one player is good at taking charge, making plans, and organizing things, then great. A group can only benefit from someone who is a good leader. This guy, however, is not. He desperately wants to be. He is a guy who feels powerless in his real life, and wants to be respected and obeyed in the fictional game world. The problem is, he sucks at it. The players are doing their own thing, or maybe following the guy who is actually good at leading. So he sits there and says, "I should be the leader! Do what I tell you!" I think the funniest thing you could do to this guy is actually make him the leader. Then watch him fail. Because leading is not about having the Leader title. It's about actually getting people to follow you. And shouting random orders, and throwing a hissy fit when they aren't obeyed is not the mark of a good leader.
The Sycophant: I'll be honest, I haven't seen this one before. I have seen the opposite, where a GM blatantly favors a specific player. Often the player is a long time buddy, or the GMs sex provider. But this is a topic for the Annoying GM thread.
The Power Gamer/Munchkin: Wanting to play a powerful character is not true Munchkinism. Some people just like that level of power in a game. There is nothing wrong with wanting enough power to meet all challenges. A true Munchkin, however, doesn't want there to be any challenges. It's a more aggressive version of the two-fisted coward. He wants to be more powerful than anything he meets, including the other PCs. This is the guy who probably plays first-person shooter games in God Mode. The munchkin in his purest form can be spotted by his whiny bratty sense of entitlement. Side note: I worked in a supermarket for years, and there are shopping munchkins. They will see an item that has blatantly been moved or shifted to the wrong spot where it kind of looks like it's much cheaper, but only if you are really stupid. Most people will point it out, let you fix it, and move on. But the munchkin will demand it at the blatantly wrong cheaper price. Their entire psyche is given over to "I WANT IT! I WANT IT! I WANT IT!" They noticed it, they want it, they deserve it, and they don't care how stupid and petty this makes them look. Compare this to a munchkin arguing that his character should have some über gun from some obscure book that only comes from a distant place in the Three Galaxies, but he should still have it in the Palladium Fantasy world and it should still do MDC damage he noticed it, he wants it, he deserves it, and "I WANT IT! I WANT IT! I WANT IT!"
The Hack-and-Slasher: Nothing wrong with enjoying a good fight. This is the guy who kills every friendly NPC, kills the other PCs girlfriend, kills the random passersby on the street, then gets confused when the cops show up, gets indignant when the GM shifts him to an evil alignment, and when the other players yell at him for ruining the game, has this stupid look of wounded innocence, like he doesn't think he did anything wrong.
There are a few others.
The Pro From Dover: This is the dude who chooses something, and has to be the best at it. In the world. His skill universally recognized. This is not necessarily combat. I have seen guys who play a doctor, but have to be the greatest surgeon on earth. Or the most famous musician. In the palladium rules, this isn't much of a problem, since characters are fairly standardized at what they can do. But point buy systems? They will choose one thing, or a group of related things, and raise them to godlike proportions. If it is one of those games that names their skill ranks, like 1- Poor, 2 - Average, 3 - Good, 4 - Great, 5 - Excellent, 6 - Extraordinary, 7 - So Amazingly Perfect That Should Any Man Gaze Upon You Whilst You Perform This Skill His Eyes Will Melt From Their Sockets, His Mind And Soul Will Be Burned Away, And He Will Spend The Rest Of His Days Speaking Of Nothing But The Glory Of Your Flawless Skill; then the Pro will read it as 1 - Worthless, 2 - Worthless, 3 - Worthless, 4 - Worthless, 5 - Worthless, 6 - Worthless, 7 - Acceptable.
The Story Munchkin: This is a character who creates a character who dominates the game. However, not in the combat arena. He creates a backstory that necessitates everything being about him. He is obsessively hunting the man who killed his brother. He does nothing else. The other PCs can follow, and if they are good, they can help. Though he would prefer you just stay out of his way. But he will do nothing except hunt the man who killed his brother. "Okay, you need to find the Lost Orb of Phanasticoria." "Sorry, I can't. I have to find the man who killed my brother." Kind of a mix of Loner and Star.
The Anti-Munchkin: I've seen this. The character who is paranoid about being seen as a munchkin, or thinking of himself as a munchkin, so he won't make a character who is, y'know, good at anything. Mediocre stats, pointless skills (for roleplaying, you know.) and the most basic of weapons. And no cool powers. Probably plays the Vagabond in Rifts. Now there is nothing wrong with playing an underdog with a good personality and backstory, especially in a low-powered campaign. But if your fear of munchkinism drives you to make a useless character every time, you have a problem.
Brian
I've never met the anti-munchking, though I suspect there are some on the boards, and that they expect everyone else to want to play the same things...
but it is annoying
