Every now and then, I invite some of my friends over to play a marvelous little Steve Jackson game called Munchkin. The game is about power-levelling through a standard swords and sorcery encounter. Munchkinism is, in the SJ lexicon, a synonym for hysterical power-levelling.
One of the interesting rules of Munchkin (which relates to our discussion last week about player risk) is that a player is never allowed to take on something he doesn’t absolutely know he can defeat. Your options are ‘win’ or ‘run away’ (while running away, you may be killed). Why? Because a power-levelling munchkin knows better than face risk.
My theory: in most modern MMOs, even your most ardent RPer will, over the long haul, revert to munchkinism – i.e. fighting without risk – for most of their experience (especially with 2nd or 3rd characters). Granted, what they can take on will usually increase over time as their skill playing their character grows.
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