I just recently realized, despite the several different variations of Munchkin explored on this blog (Legends, Oz, Nightmare Before Christmas, and Shakespeare) I’ve never properly covered the basic mechanics here. So guess what we’re talking about this week!
There are two decks: Door cards and Treasure. Officially, every player starts with two cards from each, but we usually play the quick start, which is 4. Door cards come in a lot of variety, namely monsters (which you fight), curses, single use combat modifiers, races and classes (ex: elf, thief), and some miscellaneous cards that let you ignore certain rules, such as Super Munchkin, which lets you have 2 classes.
Treasure cards are either Go Up A Level cards (you’ll need some sort of token to keep track) or items, which can be subdivided into equipment and one-shots. Equipment are things that provide combat bonuses for as long as you have them equipped, such as Scary False Teeth (+1 bonus) or the Boots of Butt-Kicking (+2 bonus). There are certain limitations, of course, such as you can only hold 2 hands’ worth of weaponry at a time. Some of these are also limited by sex, race, or class. For instance, the Hammer of Kneecapping (+4 bonus) is usable only by dwarves, and the Very Holy Book (+3 bonus) can only be used by clerics. Can’t use an item you have? Don’t worry! You can play it tapped sideways, which doesn’t give you the bonus, true, but it also doesn’t count towards the hand limit. This goes for the one-shot items, too, which is the difference between single use Door cards and single use Treasure cards – since items all have some value listed, they can be tapped; they can also be sold for 1 level every 1000 gold, no change if you go over.
Your actual turn looks like this: first, if you have cards you’d like to play before starting your turn proper, now is the time to do so. You don’t want to walk into a potential combat underequipped. Next, you kick open the door, flipping the top card of the door deck face-up. If it’s a monster, you fight it (we’ll come back to that), if it’s a curse, you take the penalties as written on the card, and if it’s pretty much anything else, you read the card out loud to the table (we may be backstabbing munchkins, but we’re courteous backstabbing munchkins) and then put it in your hand to be played when you so choose. Finally, if you didn’t fight a monster this turn, you have a choice: loot the room, or look for trouble. If you loot the room, you draw the top card of the Door deck — face down this time — and proceed to the “avoiding charity” part of gameplay; to look for trouble, you play a monster from your hand and fight it.
“Why would you voluntarily go looking for trouble?” you might ask. For two good reasons, my friends: 1, defeated monsters leave treasure behind! We do crazy things for treasure. And 2, you go up a level each time you defeat a monster. Not only is the goal of the game to reach level 10 first, but that last level can only be achieved through combat, and sometimes the deck is taking too long to bring that about by itself. “Ah, ok, treasure and levels, that seems reasonable,” you say, “So how does combat work?” I’m glad that you asked. Each monster has a level from 1-20, sometimes with extra rules depending on the opponent. I.e. Filthy Geats are usually a Level 11, but are at a -3 against Bards. For you to win the combat, the sum of your level and all your various combat bonuses must be higher than the monster’s total level; monsters win ties unless your class is Warrior. At this point, all players, yourself included, are free to play additional modifiers that affect the combat, on either the player or the monster as indicated by the cards they’re using. If you suddenly find yourself losing a fight, ask for help! You’re allowed to recruit one other player to your fight by offering them treasure. If they agree, their total combat strength is now added to your own.
If you can’t feasibly win a combat, either because you drew a level 20 on your first door-kicking of the game or because your friends really don’t want you to win this one, you have to roll to run away. With a 5 or a 6, you succeed, and escape unscathed but without treasure or level rewards; if you fail, you suffer the Bad Stuff as outlined on each monster’s card. Hopefully you just lose a level. (If it kills you, that doesn’t mean you’re out of the game! …it just means you lose all your cards and items, except your race and class. Ouch.) If, on the other hand, you win the combat, congratulations! Go up a level, draw the specified number of Treasure cards — straight into your hand if you fought alone, or face up if you won with help, and divvy up the loot as agreed.
I mentioned “avoiding charity” — at the end of your turn, if you have more than 5 cards in hand, you have to give the excess to the lowest level player at the table (split as evenly as possible if there’s a tie) or discard some if you are the lowest level player. As such, there’s a certain frantic rush to play or tap as many cards as possible.
And that’s the basics of Munchkin! Like I described it in the Munchkin Legends post: kick open the door, fight a monster, loot the room and stab your best buddy in the back.
