Item's in play question.
 

Ok, so a couple weeks ago I was playing with my friends.

I put a Madness on one of them, Obsessive Compulsive. If I remember correctly, they have to have all their items in order when their turn starts. If they do, they get +2(?) in combat. If they don't, they cant ask for help in anyway or something like that. Either way, there's a negative to not having your cards in order.

Now, here's the problem we(or should I say I) ran into. His turn came around, he didn't have all his stuff in order. Him and his GF were saying he did. I told them that his all his stuff had to be in order, including items he had sideways. They were all like, "Those don't count they're in his/my bag". I was like, "wtf? there's no "bag" in this game, just items you don't use!".

Then they were trying to say items on the table aren't in play. I told them yes they are. I mean, what else would you call it? Oh wait, "In my bag".

So we argued for about 5 minutes and I just dropped it just to get the game moving again. IDK where they came up with this "in my bag" nonsense for items that you have on the table and/or are not in use.

I just need someone else to confirm my beliefs, as this bag nonsense makes no sense, and they won't believe just me.

Re: Item's in play question.
 

You are correct, there is no "in my bag" in Munchkin, not as an official game term, anyway. I've heard people refer to stuff they weren't currently using with some variation of that term, but it has no in game meaning. The items on the table are in play, whether you are currently using them or not.

I can't comment meaningfully on how that applies to that particular Madness card, as I don't have it. In fact, I've only played Munchkin Chthulhu once thus far. I THINK that Madness came up in the game, and it was annoying, even for OTHER players, because the player who had it took it to mean ALL cards in front of him had to be in alphabetical order, even "Cheat!" cards (and other such "cards played on cards") making it difficult to keep track of what was played on what.

Re: Item's in play question.
 

The way we play this is that your items in use must be in alphabetical order, then the items not in use have to be in alphabetical order as well. I suppose you could go the extreme, and have all items laid out, some turned sideways and some not, and alphabetize them, but we have some people that you'd have to keep a VERY close eye on them or they'll cheat. We also play that only the name of the item needs to be in order (so Cheat! is ignored, but modifiers that change the name are not).

Re: Item's in play question.
 

We realized pretty fast that modifiers like ".....of Destiny", would complicate order matters. So we simply disregard those. But that "in my bag" nonsense along with it not being in play as a result of being in a "bag" was really annoying me.

Re: Item's in play question.
 

Everything you have on the table is in play. The only cards you typically don't count as your "in play" cards are persistent Curses, and that's so people don't think they can discard one of those cards to power an ability or "pay" for a Curse, Bad Stuff, or other card effect. "In my bag" is a crock, but even if you use that unofficial term, still keeps the Items in question in play since it's out on the table, not in your hand, the key distinguishing factor between in play and not. BTW, if this were Munchkin Quest, both of the Items you have in your pack are in play, too.

Re: Item's in play question.
 

We use the term backpack for items not in use. I'm not sure where it came from but we use it. It is handy we find for explaining to newer players the concept of turning your cards sideways. Ok the rules tell you to but people always ask why? Especially as we generally have two rows of items due to space constrainsts. One row of items being used and one row of items not being used.

For the purpose of the madness card we treat the two rows as seperate.

Re: Item's in play question.
 

Funny, this is exactly how we play, too. :)

Re: Item's in play question.
 

I understand where the term comes from and why people use it, and I've even used it (as an example) in an attempt to explain the concept of Items you're not using to someone who was having a difficult time. However, it's not an official term and neither Andrew, Angie or myself support the use of it here at this time.