HUGE game of Munchkin

[Jake]

Hello everyone, I just wanted to post my experiences with playing a huge game of munchkin and maybe provide some incite for others that want to attempt the same thing.

First I will explain the setup and decks that were used in playing. When I play Munchkin with multiple decks, I don't combine the decks into one giant deck of doors and one giant deck of treasures. I keep the decks separated next to each other to allow more choice for those playing, add an extra aspect of strategy, and help make cleanup a bit easier with individual discard piles for each deck respectively. The decks and expansions listed below show how I piled each deck set (one deck of doors and one of treasures for the set).

1. Base Munchkin Set + 2,3,4,5,6
2. Munchkin Bites +2
3. Munchkin Zombies +2
4. Super Munchkin+2
5. Munchkin Booty
6. Munchkin Pathfinder
7. Munchkin Legends
8. Munchkin Conan
9. Star Munchkin
10. Axe Cop Munchkin
11. Munchkin Cthulhu

House Rules were:
1. Death - lose all your items, go back to level 1. Keep your race. (Has never been implemented yet in a game because they have been lucky running away.) This rule does make the strategy more interesting.
2. Unlimited Backpack space (Surprisingly was only used by one player in this game and not for very long)
3. No set time limit to play cards for or against monsters. The volleying of cards and when it ended was at the discretion of the host (me) and I tried to allow everyone to play as many cards as possible during a turn.
4. Players could offer up the monster's level(s) upon kill for assistance in killing a monster. (Hence the 3 winners below) Levels could not be traded between players after a monster had been killed under any circumstance.
E.G. "Help me kill this monster and I'll give you the level but I get the treasure." was fine.
But not, "I'll trade you one of my levels for your 1-handed item."

We played until level ten. There were a total of 11 people. The game took a total of 5 hours and 12 minutes. 2 People left after 3 and a half hours of play. By the 4 and a half hour mark, there were 4 players who would attempt to help everyone at level 9 just so the game would end. That was, to me, the most annoying part of the game because it could have been an even longer and more cut throat amazing game of munchkin. It took a team of those 4 players helping each other to gang up on the remaining 5. There were 3 winners, each gaining the winning level on the same turn by means of bargaining. The turns went quickly for the most part unless someone was around level 8 or 9 and battling a monster. Those turns lasted anywhere from 5-25 minutes with associated strategy and planning between players. Because of the number of players and large amount of cards, we played the game on a ping pong table. There was not much trading between players because it was hard for people on one side of the table to see the cards another player had on the other side of the table, especially for beginners, who could not recognize a cards value based on the picture alone. We also had to ask players on the far side of the table to draw cards from the decks on that side if the necessary deck was over yonder.

Those are my experiences playing a gigantic game of munchkin. Let me know what you think, if you have any tips on making the game better or more efficient, or if you have any large munchkin game experiences of your own. Thanks!