Unending Game

[schmirk]

Hello! I've played the original Munchkins 3 times and twice have not finished it. After 2+ hours most if not all of the 3-4 players were on level 9 but could not kill a monster to win the game. This was due to the other players possessing "one off" items (e.g. friendship potion) that could make a monster in "any combat" disappear without the munchkin in combat gaining a level and winning the game.

What am I missing?

[Andrew Hackard]

Sometimes, games stall out at that point; it's a known bug, especially when you're only playing with a single set. My best advice is for the people with combat-ending cards to hold off playing them and force the other players to use up their +10 enhancers and one-shot cards, so they're in the discards and not available for reuse.

One other thing that helps (and I hate to say this, for fear I sound like a shill) is to add an expansion. That dilutes the game-wrecking cards you've found and makes it more likely that you'll have a definite winner in a reasonable number of tries.

[schmirk]

Thank you, Andrew. At the very least I now know what a shill is.

It states in the rules that, "If a deck runs out and there are no discards, nobody can draw any of that kind of card!" How could that happen? Would all the cards be in people's hands and in play? Are cards always discarded or is there another pile they can go into?

[Andrew Hackard]

I don't actually think it *is* possible, although it may have been at an earlier stage of the rules.

[NeosMagus]

We've had that happen a few times, especially in a six player game, where we've gone through multiple rounds of everybody at level 9 because somebody always had something to play to mess with combat. Comes down to luck of the draw at that point. Though remember that optional rule, if you help somebody win, you can share victory. We have done that a few times just because the game was going on too long.

[edge970]

Originally Posted by NeosMagus

We've had that happen a few times, especially in a six player game, where we've gone through multiple rounds of everybody at level 9 because somebody always had something to play to mess with combat. Comes down to luck of the draw at that point. Though remember that optional rule, if you help somebody win, you can share victory. We have done that a few times just because the game was going on too long.

I think you have to decide if this rule will be in effect at the START of the game.

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by edge970

I think you have to decide if this rule will be in effect at the START of the game.

Normally, yes, but I wouldn't fault anyone who decided to impose it because they wanted an unending game to END ALREADY.

[Mister Ed]

In my experience the trick to avoiding this is to never play with more than 4 players. ;-)

It doesn't happen EVERY time one plays with 5 or 6 players, but I've NEVER had it happen when playing with 3 players (which is the most common number of players I play with).

[NeosMagus]

We had an almost unending game of Zombies once... mostly because of the combination of dungeons and we were playing 6 players, and the players were doing that almost perfect balance of helping/messing, that for 2 hours we were in a stalemate. The venue was closing, so we just stopped right there and declared everybody who was tied for highest level to be the winner.

[Kythan]

My munchkin games have never gone over an hour. I'd say my longest munchkin game was 40 minutes. Unless you count taking a food break and watching a movie and then coming back to the finish game and deciding after all that to call it a draw since you cant remember who's turn it was. In that case my longest munchkin game would have been a few hours.