Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;648305The only time I see people play Munchkin is when the SJGame guy is touring the stores doing tournaments.

That is only YOUR view of things and narrow experience. In southwestern Ohio (Cincinnati general area) MUNCHKIN is extremely popular. People that have NEVER played D&D or roleplaying games come in looking for it. Plenty of times have sold out of the original version and just have variations on the shelf (SUPER MUNCHKIN, MUNCHKIN Apovalypse,...etc)


Also there are very often pick-up games of MUNCHKIN at our tables. Those happen both with our DEMO copy of it and with just-purchased copies.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Ronin;648237Don't you mean collaborator?
(I will also accept the term "Vichy")

One man's terrorist is another woman's freedom fighter.

Ok. Interesting thread.

It started with a 'let's do a simple clone of GURPS!' to which my answer is "Heroes and Other Worlds" which is a retro cone of TFT, of which GURPS is a retro clone rejigged to the the nth degree with complexity.

Then, "we need a simple lite fantasy intro to GURPS". Here there is some truth that GURPS falls into the 3rd wave of rpgs (HERO, RQ3, maybe 3e D&D, MegaTraveller) where the complexity of the game grew huge (usually in pursuit of simulation or verisimilitude. Problem is.. we all got families and lives and decided we liked simpler games, hence the lighter indie games and the return to older styles, OSR, Mongoose Traveller, FATE, OpenQuest. So.. if SJG don't want to do a very light fantasy GURPS, then I refer you to answer 1.

Then it became, "SJG don't support GURPS". Bollocks. They support it more than any game system evah! All those 3e books and settings are as valid now as they ever were, since GURPS settings were wonderfully system light, they work as well with 4e as they do with Traveller or FATE or D&D.

Quote from: Koltar;648385In southwestern Ohio (Cincinnati general area) MUNCHKIN is extremely popular.

I seriously doubt that.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;648628I seriously doubt that.

I live in Texas. Far away from SJG, and its pretty damn popular here. (My brother in law, who is NOT into RPG's at all, brought over a copy to play.)

I've seen arrive at game stores looking for Munchkin People who'd never played any RPGs. It has happened enough times to feel that Koltar up there isn't wrong in his view. (I've spent an inordinate time hanging out at game stores it seems.)

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;648628I seriously doubt that.

Pretty popular in my neck of the woods.

Quote from: Piestrio;648640Pretty popular in my neck of the woods.

Yeah. In my experience, GURPS is a cult game. It's got pockets of activity here and there and some isolated die-hards who run games with their circles of gamer friends who regularly play other games. It's got a strong following, but not one you can see right off the bat on forums, new product lists on websites, new shiny interviews on blogs and whatnot, especially considering the buttload of material published in years past, which means these guys could keep on gaming without purchasing anything official til Kingdom Come.

PS: LOL well the original comment was about MUNCHKIN. I mistook the comment to be about GURPS. I'll just let it because it really reflects my experience of the fans of the game and its popularity.

PPS: I've seen Munchkin being played in FLGS casually in Vancouver, BC. It's pretty popular around there, apparently.

Quote from: Piestrio;648640Pretty popular in my neck of the woods.

Yeah, I have played Munchkin with a crowd that had almost no idea what D&D was (theater student+ architect couple and their friends).  So even in Seattle it seems to have a broad base of interest.

Quote from: estar;648046I disagree about complexity. GURPS issues is solely one of presentation and accessibility. Having used many complex RPGs, I feel that the GURPS core books are an outstanding reference book. But reference books are not what is needed to entice gamers from other systems into playing your game when they seek out alternatives.

I was thinking of complexity in terms of the amount of material that you have to digest in order to decide what makes sense for a particular campaign.  

I know GURPS can do good presentation because we saw much better presentation with 3E.  In particular, there was a much clearer attempt to build intuition about what the numbers mean, which is critical to really understanding the system without trying a lot of things out first.  Putting this in highly visible tables that jumped out was a really nice piece of the book layout.

It also made it relatively easy to guesstimate what skill levels and attributes a specific NPC would likely have, which was always good.

Quote from: Votan;648654Yeah, I have played Munchkin with a crowd that had almost no idea what D&D was (theater student+ architect couple and their friends).  So even in Seattle it seems to have a broad base of interest.

It boggles that someone wouldn't think it was popular honestly.

Target doesn't stock product just for shits and giggles.

I wonder if Munchkin outsells D&D these days?  That would be pretty funny.

I can't deny that there's a lot about 4e that has bothered me from the beginning.  I hate that they included Infinite Worlds and the sample characters in the core.  That space could have provided a larger section on vehicles and animals and monsters that would have gone a long ways towards having the game be more universal in the core book.  I dislike the formating of advantages and skills.  It would have made a lot of sense to separate out the non-mundane advantages and sort skills by function as in 3e.

On the other hand, the mechanical changes brought me back when I had given up on GURPS as an inherently flawed and broken system.  

Still the disappointments after the initial ambitious promises can't be overstated.

Quote from: Votan;648654Yeah, I have played Munchkin with a crowd that had almost no idea what D&D was (theater student+ architect couple and their friends).  So even in Seattle it seems to have a broad base of interest.

Are Munchkin players supposed to know about D&D?  Anyway, it's just a gag/pun joke card game that is fun to play once maybe.  Because after you've read all the jokes...  re-gift.  I like how people will say how sales of a game have doubled in the last week if they sold 2 boxes.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;648678Are Munchkin players supposed to know about D&D?  Anyway, it's just a gag/pun joke card game that is fun to play once maybe.  Because after you've read all the jokes...  re-gift.  I like how people will say how sales of a game have doubled in the last week if they sold 2 boxes.

Take those 2 boxes and then multiply by 50,000 for last year alone.

Quote from:  SJ Games Stakeholder reportEarly in 2012, we ordered 100,000 copies of Munchkin . . . and that print run barely got us through the year!

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;648628I seriously doubt that.

You seriously doubt that the extremely popular game is extremely popular in Ohio?

OK. Cool story, bro.

Quote from: Koltar;648019No, there really doesn't have to be one.

There doesn't "need" to be one, but bestiaries are the single best time-saver for prep that exists. They're also utterly invaluable for improvising material when the PCs go haring off in an unexpected direction.

If your game system has even the slightest degree of complexity (i.e., anything which assigns more than a single stat to an NPC), I'd much rather be able to say "4 goblins", flip open a book, and start using them.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;648691You seriously doubt that the extremely popular game is extremely popular in Ohio?

I don't doubt you're a fanboy of the game.  Let me know when everyone has bought every add-on for this extremely popular game.