Member House Rules

[Cheese8242]

Originally Posted by mehtkat

I might try the quick start rules (double starting cards) and it sounds like the early level team combats are similar to your (play friendly early) alteration but putting it in a standard rule format to force it along.

See, I think you and your play group is taking the whole "stab your buddy in the back" part a little to much to heart. And unfortuantly there are way to many Munchkin players that do.

There is nothing wrong with this (especially if it works for your play group). But the real point of the game is to have fun. And in a two player game cutthroat play style doesn't work in the very beginning. One player will almost always get too large of a lead, while the other gets stuck at or around level 1.

While this can be fun for the person with the lead, the other is going to have a horrible time.

You shouldn't need special house rules to make sure no one gets stuck at level 1. At least if your playing with friends, don't you want to make sure both you and your friend are having fun. If so then there shouldn't be any trouble helping each other in the beginning.

Now once you start getting close to winning that's when your open to backstabbing. But if your playing with someone in a two player game and they refuse to help you get past level 1 and/or keeps backstabbing you while your level 1, you need to start looking for a new person to play with. Those are the type of people that can suck the fun out of a game (not just Munchkin).

[mib2932]

And buy a wicked munchkin die so you start at level 2.

;-)

[mehrkat]

Originally Posted by Cheese8242

.... But if your playing with someone in a two player game and they refuse to help you get past level 1 and/or keeps backstabbing you while your level 1, you need to start looking for a new person to play with. Those are the type of people that can suck the fun out of a game (not just Munchkin).

I'm not sure I explained well enough. The person I'm playing with is my young son and he just gets it better if there is an actual rule. Once he sees the advantage of the rule he'll go along but he's also always the lucky one so I can't explain it to him by showing it to him in action. And he's in a stage now that his capacity to feel joy at being ahead is really strong and ability to see the other side is at a low ebb. And adult I could just explain and we could come to a solution that worked for everyone and I don't disagree that an adult that didn't feel some need to make the game fun for everyone would be a problem. In a child its my job to teach him as well as play with him to show him why the social contract is necessary sometimes a rule is necessary to that goal.

Though in general everybody seems to agree that working together at low stages is the way to solve the problem. Thanks for your thoughts

[Cheese8242]

Oh ok, that does make a big difference. I thought you were just wanting two-player rules so you and a friend could play. But if your teaching your son and he is still to young to understand the helping part, it does in deed make sense to have a rule set in place. Yours does seem to work for that.

[Puuka]

Biggest thing my son and I had done is no curses can be played out of the hand on a player under level 10 (We play epic). This works well enough. I'm thinking of changing it to cusrses can only be played on a player more than 2 levels higher than you.

[Humorme]

Sorry. Been away from the forums for a while. Things happen. Here's some things to try:

1) Institute a "ghost" player. Sometimes I play 2-p munchkin with my g/f and we institute a ghost player who's hand is always face-up. The general idea is he doesn't bother a level 1 or anyone at half his level. He will always use cards to interfere with the highest level player at the first opportunity. Some basics like that will give ghost man a nasty personality and you may just find yourself teaming together just to beat him.

2) As said a few times, use the fast game-play rules. They are good for this sort of thing.

3) Add a new dimension to the game. Currently, I am shamed to say that I have not yet bought munchkin quest. Things happen. Instead, I pulled out my D&D tile sets and miniatures. Basically, I created my own form of Munchkin Quest using D&D tiles and minis, munchkin cards, and some platic "gold" coins. Though I havn't tried it 2-player yet, I'd be willing to bet it would be just as fun. I'm sure that will happen soon. I'll post some specifics in a different thread once I've worked through the game to see how it goes in its final form. That is, of course, if it doesn't violate any forum policies. It does use the fully copyrighted Munchkin game, so I don't see how I could claim any royalties.

Some other ideas I entertained, but havn't tested:

Each player gets two hands. The objective is to win with one hand that you're playing, but not both. Winning with both hands causes you to lose (here I refer to winning with both hands as reaching level 10 with one hand and the other hand being higher level than either of your opponent's hands). In theory, this method would be interesting since it would be bad to power-play both hands and encourages your opponent to help your losing hand or to even become self-destructive to cause both your hands to win. Additionally, for this type of game, I would allow GUALs to be played on other players.

Another idea is that each player plays their own self and their own ghost player. They would pre-determine which hand is their actual hand, while their ghost-player hand is trying to beat them. This was my g/fs idea and while it has merit, I didn't feel like trying to figure out how to properly go about doing this. Once you get down to making rules for this style of playing (which I like to do even if I know no one would cheat) you can see where complications would arise if you don't base it on the honor system.

[Mylon]

Originally Posted by Mylon

Another rule I'm considering is allowing players to draw 2 door cards during the search the room phase. This gives more liklihood of having the fun backstab cards on hand, being able to play curses on other players, and otherwise more likely to have a race/class card to use.

So I got a chance to play with this houserule and I must say it was a blast. It made for a very long game (I was at level 9 at one point, then went down to like level 5, and then I did something similar to the other level 9. It was great).

It helps let everyone get a race/class (or more than one of each) especially given our blended deck, and monster cards to match those wandering monster cards (it's annoying to have 2 wandering monster cards, but no monsters to play them with). And curses... Duck of DOOOOOOOM!

[daelyn]

Originally Posted by MunchkinMan

In truth, you described a situation where everyone fed the Thief and now the class is suddenly unbalanced. The problem is, people kept the Thief stocked with cards. You keep the Thief in check by not giving him cards.

If a Thief stole his way down to level 1 (kept losing rolls, and subsequently levels), aren't all the other players forced to give him cards during charity? I thought you were only allowed to discard if you were the lowest level or tied for lowest, otherwise you must give your cards to the player of the lowest level.

[Cheese8242]

Originally Posted by daelyn

If a Thief stole his way down to level 1 (kept losing rolls, and subsequently levels), aren't all the other players forced to give him cards during charity? I thought you were only allowed to discard if you were the lowest level or tied for lowest, otherwise you must give your cards to the player of the lowest level.

This is true, however it shouldn't be to hard to find away to get rid of extra cards in your hand instead of giving them away during charity.

[abrodock]

You could always become a thief yourself and do the same thing back to them, or all team up against them there are lots of ways to turn the tables... Charity hardly ever comes up in our games, we normally find other ways of dealing with cards