http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Munchkin

Andrew Rilstone "Munchkin: One who, on being told that this is a game about politics and intrigue in 17th century Italy, asks to play as a ninja."

The Munchkin is the Tabletop RPG player who plays the game to win at any cost, even if that isn't the point of the game. Perhaps the most ridiculed Player Archetype of all time, this player is rarely interested in the story behind the game. The Munchkin's characters are usually either little more than extensions of his own personality, a completely blank ball of sentient death (known among roleplayers as "murderhobo"), or whatever personality would give him the most bonuses.

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The Munchkin's motivation for adopting this attitude often stems from a mistaken belief that tabletop RPGs are like TCGs and e-sport videogames, where beating your enemies is the top priority and learning to exploit the most subtle nuances of the game's mechanics for competitive advantage is considered skillful. While this might be true for games that are all about winning, this attitude is fundamentally opposed to the spirit of most tabletop RPGs, where "winning" is usually secondary to just enjoying the experience of playing (assuming there's a victory condition to begin with) and there is ample freedom to enjoy this pastime in many different ways, such as imagining yourself punching everything and breaking stuff, imagining yourself doing silly things, or immersing yourself in your character and the campaign. This clash of values  the pro e-sports player focused on the end goal of destroying everything and winning, versus the rest of the roleplayers whose focus is the journey and the end goal is not entirely relevant to them  is what makes the Munchkin so widely reviled by roleplayers.

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The Munchkin sees fighting monsters and solving puzzles only as a means toward more power, more gold, more stuff, more pluses. A Munchkin is not satisfied until he can kill a god with his +25 Dancing Holy Vorpal Sword of Flame. On a Critical Failure. Of course, the combat mechanics is only the most obvious avenue. Munchkins try to hunt for "XP for roleplaying" by being overly dramatic, and heaven help you if the game uses Ritual Magic  everything will stop until the Word Salad cooked up by the Munchkin is resolved. Anything that gives more pluses will be used and abused to the nth degree.

In layman's terms, the Munchkin is that one kid in your childhood who can't spend a single pretend game of "Jedi vs. Sith" or something similar without repeating "Nuh-uh, I dodged it!" every time you land a single lightsaber hit on him, and makes up unfair One-Hit Kill attacks he insists are undodgeable at every chance he gets.

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The Munchkin's ambition frequently outstrips his sense of fair play. Most of the time, he looks out for number one; the other players are little more than minor inconveniences to him, or obstacles on his path to ultimate power. As such, the Munchkin may engage in one or more of these personas:

Munchkins are a constant source of irritation for the Game Master, and will often be the direct cause of the Bolt of Divine Retribution or even Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies. He may be forced to employ some killer tactics just to challenge them. And if the Munchkin becomes the Game Master, bringing the same attitude to the other side of the table, he'll usually end up as a Killer Game Master.

A more pleasant brand of munchkin may try to share his rule-bending benefits with the rest of the group, or may help other players build their character knowing how the game functions well enough to make it easier on new players who have an idea in mind. Some will even purposefully break new games in test runs so GMs can know what to look for when playing it with other munchkins. Some who are also The Roleplayer will act out the quirks they take for those extra points, even if this means their character is a complete Bunny-Ears Lawyer, which can be quite fun for all. A more audacious one (a cross with The Loonie) takes advantage of his knowledge and power to do incredibly crazy things that their fellow players will be telling their children about in years to come.

A Player Archetypes trope, along with The Real Man, The Roleplayer, and The Loonie. Can be "Stop Having Fun" Guys if they leave the other players in the dust and force them to play "their way." Note that these traits are stereotypes, and if any player actually has all of these, you should run far, far away. Also like the other archetypes, there is also some good to be had here, in that nobody wants to play a character that is so weak they make no impact on the world, even in the most plot-heavy games, and some Munchkinism is helpful in those cases where a DM is not careful to ensure that everyone is having a good time.

The name "munchkin" refers to the tendency of younger players to adopt this play style. Munchkins are, more than anything else, immature. They tend to grow out of it.

Not to be confused with the small but pleasant folks who live east of the Emerald City, nor the pleasantly-wacky card game/tabletop RPG inspired by this Player Archetype. Or the breed of cat with very short legs.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

This is pretty much Sora's entire motivation in .hack//SIGN. He justifies it by claiming he is the only one actually playing the game for the sake of having fun while everyone else is taking it far too seriously. His lack of maturity is later explained by the fact that in real life he's only in fourth grade.

The series naming Goblin Slayer. He's not above dirty tactics or using spells for unintended purposes to kill more goblins. In fact, his usual modus operandi is to rig things so far in his favor that the dice simply have nothing to do but let his quarry be slaughtered, hence "he does not let anyone roll the dice". The gods of the setting are of two minds about this; some can appreciate it, others just get pissed off whenever he enters the equation, and smite him with bad rolls when chance can play a part.

In Little Witch Academia (2013), both Akko and Diana go through the "typical RPG" assignment, in which they must penetrate a dungeon to retrieve treasure, as Munchkins of different categories. Diana is Min-Maxed - she declares herself 'invincible' and mows through legions of terrifying monsters, determined to bring back the best loot possible even though the rest of her party urges her to turn back. Akko is an inept Psychopath who gets derailed trying to murder every little blob monster that happens to move her way, even though her party members remind her that killing monsters isn't even part of the assignment.

All of the "Big Five" characters (Lina, Naga, Gourry, Amelia, and Zelgadis) in The Slayers qualify as min-maxed munchkins in any RPG system.

Comics

Igor Olman from Dork Tower is arguably one of the best examples of this trope. Sample quote: "I kill Gandalf." He succeeded.

All the main characters (except Sara) from Knights of the Dinner Table exhibit frequent Munchkin behaviour, although they've improved over the years. Most notably, Brian is the archetypal Rules Lawyer and loves to exploit Game-Breaker abilities; Bob refuses to back down from any fight even when at a massive disadvantage, calling the other party members cowards if they don't back him up and accusing the GM of cheating if he loses, even when against ridiculous odds; and Dave is obsessed with stats, considering his Hackmaster +12 sword to be his most prized possession because it has a +12 on the end. All three also abuse pretty much any NPC in their path, including stealing from beggars and using hirelings as human shields, all the while maintaining that they are Lawful Good for stat bonus reasons, and they never accept the various consequences of these actions as being their own fault, even when Sara is spared them due to having distanced herself from the actions of the others.

Fan Works

Film

Cass in The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. The humor value of some of his antics (attempting to kill the Big Bad with a lightsaber and dynamite—in a Medieval European Fantasy setting) might put him in the Loonie category, except for the fact that he seems to be doing them for perfectly serious reasons.

Lando in Knights of Badassdom is a major Rules Lawyer, but isn't above resorting to outright cheating when he runs out of loopholes to exploit (he goes as far as to claim a non-existant protective spell to keep himself alive in one encounter). It's eventually Lampshaded after he's killed by the real-life succubus accidentally summoned by another LARPer, and his remains are found by his party. Gunther: One cannot cheat death forever.

Live-Action TV

In an episode of Community entitled Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the group tries to play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Pierce immediately takes on the role of the munchkin, starting off as a psychopath and ending as a cheater .

. Dwight on The Office (US). In the episode "Murder," he and everyone else in the office play a murder mystery dinner party game set in Savannah, Georgia. He draws the Butler character but immediately abandons it to play a hardass detective.

Literature

The Intercontinental Union of Disgusting Characters is a RPG-Mechanics Verse novel about Disgusting Characters — that is, munchkin PCs.

The Brightest Shadow is a high fantasy series where the destined Hero destroys everything in his path. In addition to being a murderhobo, his power is illogical within the context of that world, serving only to lead him to victory.

Podcasts

While Justin and Clint of The Adventure Zone play preconstructed characters included in the 5th Edition starter kit, Travis decided to roll his own. His starting ability scores were suspiciously high. The Dungeon Master later nerfed him quietly between episodes to bring him to the level of the rest of the party.

Tabletop Games

Video Games

Webcomics

Web Original

Pretty much all players in Acquisitions Incorporated, shown brightly in the 3rd series finale , but visible through all games (surprisingly, almost avoided by the one least experienced with RPGs, and playing the most self-obsessed character - Mike Krahulik and his character Jim Darkmagic). In some cases, this can be explained by the party being chaotic evil/neutral, as wealth is their sole motivation.

, but visible through all games (surprisingly, almost avoided by the one least experienced with RPGs, and playing the most self-obsessed character - Mike Krahulik and his character Jim Darkmagic). In some cases, this can be explained by the party being chaotic evil/neutral, as wealth is their sole motivation. Puffin Forest actually inverts this trope. In a Star Wars game , Ben played as a smuggler with an addiction to death sticks, which he used to calm his nerves, even though they made him worse in combat. The GM actually used some pretty contrived Railroading to cure the character of the addiction, despite the party, including, Ben being okay with it.

Western Animation