The very basics
 

I have now played about four games of various Munchkin variants, spread out over a long period of time (a situation that clearly needs to be remedied) and I'm still a little confused about the sequence of play. In the last game I played I was told that I got to "listen at the door", and draw a card and keep it secret, before kicking down the door and fighting the monster.

Now I've read the basic rules a few times and I'm wondering where the heck the moderator got that idea. It seems weird. And it was a semi-official demo game, a place one does not expect to see houserules in play.

When I was running the game it was even worse, as I couldn't figure out what to do with treasure cards I wasn't going to use. Do they stay in your hand, or is there a place they go specifically where they are not in your hand but still available (and out in the open for all the players to see). If the latter, this should prevent treasures circulating willy-nilly among the players in charity (and prevent the lowest-level player from having an enormous hand that he in turn must divvy up in his discard phase!)

For a game with only four pages of rules, it's amazing what a person can foul up....

Re: The very basics
 

The Listen at the door rule was added as a new version of fast play. I suggest rereading the rules since they did an overhaul on them in 2010. The main website has all of them in PDF format.

This is an easy one. Any treasure cards with a Gold Piece value or says "No Value" you can put in play out of the way. Basically, your active cards are right side up. These cards are played sideways. It implies your character is carrying the items, but not using them. Obviously, one-shot items can be played from this pool of cards whenever you want.

Re: The very basics
 

Oddly enough, both the new Fast Play rules came into play in that game. I was surprised when one of the players joined in the final combat for a share of the victory, and now I know how they could do that. If I'd known I had that option I might have tried it first....

Does Deluxe come with the new rulebook?

Re: The very basics
 

Yes. Deluxe was released after the great rules update if 2010.

Re: The very basics
 

This is unfortunate. These rules are optional and it should be known which ones are being used or not before the game starts.

Re: The very basics
 

And the Munchkin core set I inherited wasn't. The cards are in grey-scale, and the rules are definitely more primitive.

Deluxe is on my Want List, but what do I do with this set?

Re: The very basics
 

Treasure it always. . . :-)

I know that my experience is different, given that I run demos of the game and had run the National Tournament at Origins for a fair number of years, but I still have all of my old, old, old sets (i.e., 3 sets all of first printing copies up to Munchkin 4). In preparation for selling our house, they went in to storage, not into the yard sale box, never near the ebay box (such a lonely, empty box). I just can't seem to part with them, and in some respects, they have no trading value that I would wish to determine.

Re: The very basics
 

You can also actually play with it, if you're willing to do a little work.

1) Print out a copy of the new 6-page rules that are available on the website. That is the current version, and is what you should be playing with these days.

2) Print a copy of the Munchkin Change Log (http://www.worldofmunchkin.com/faq/changelog.html), which lists all of the cards that changed with the 19th printing of Munchkin. Unfortunately, the original set had the most changes, but they're not insurmountable.

Those two things will allow you to use the existing set with the current rules, the rest is up to you :)

Re: The very basics
 

I didn't know those rules existed, so it would not have helped. The weird thing is that it was a MiB who ran the game. Someone who wanted the game to go fast because she'd been told she needed to demo Castellan too.

Re: The very basics
 

Those rules are listed under Option Fast Play rules in the current rule sheet.