Member House Rules

[Zugzwain]

If you get caught cheating..... to many cards in hand, using a card against the rules, drawing to many cards or any other form of cheating lose a level.

Also if you play " the best thing in life is leveling up" it can be the winning level of course thats because i have almost every munchkin card not counting the promo cards

[Dragon Munchkin]

One house rule I use is you can drop down to level 0. Everyone still starts the game at level 1.

[munchkin_hex]

Hey all you Munchkins out there,

What are some fun things that you've added to the game (house rules) to make the game even more Munchkinly?

I really like having to act like the opposite sex when you're sex changed, or in Munchkin Booty, talking with a funny accent. I wanted to know if anyone had anything extra they added to their house rules?

Like for instance, when I play, anyone who is Cursed must wear/balance a spoon on their nose until the curse is lifted. (fun stupid things like that)

[Jammer134]

I'm new to the Munchkin universe and we LOVE it! However after playing several rounds with friends and family over this past month, I've noticed four areas of gameplay that could be improved. So for us, I've come up with these new rules to make the game even more fun (IMHO). I'd like to share these and get some feedback for what I call - MUNCHKIN HERO...

Issue #1: The game needs more uncertainty when fighting monsters. Sure you can skillfully increase levels and play the right cards at the right time. But adding a degree of uncertainty or randomness to fighting can really make the game more interesting. For example, if I'm level 5 and I draw a level 4 monster. Shocker! I'm going to win (boring!!!). What if there was a degree of uncertainty that I might not win in this situation. What if I have a good chance of winning, but there is a possibility I may not win – even if nobody plays any cards. Sure there's uncertainty that other players may stab you in the back or play enhance monster cards – but this really doesn't seem like enough uncertainty. There needs to be a NATURAL level of uncertainty when fighting a monster, even if no enhancement cards are played.

Solution: Introduce dice! When you fight a monster, FIRST play any enhancement cards and/or ask for help. Then have another player roll one 6-sided dice for the monster and add that number to the monster's level/strength total. Then the player (whose turn it is) roll his 6-sided dice and adds that total to his level/strength. The higher total wins the fight. Anyone helping also rolls a die and ads it to the total. Remember any help or enhancement cards MUST be played/committed BEFORE any die rolls. Enhancement cards cannot be played after the dice have been rolled because rolling the dice IS THE ACTUAL COMBAT. So if a Munchkin kills a monster and someone pulls out a +10 ENRAGED card – it has no effect because the monster is already dead.


Issue #2: The games needs more uncertainty to determine who wins the game. As it is now, whoever reaches level 10 first – wins. So let's say I'm at level 9, I KNOCK DOWN THE DOOR, and I get the dreaded LEVEL 1 POTTED PLANT. Shocker! I'm going to win... the entire game! Sure, others might play enhancement cards - but to me it seems boring and very anti-climatic. You spend an hour or two working up your character to level 10 and you win the game just by defeating an ordinary monster? Sure the potted plant is an extreme example, but I say, to win the game a player needs to overcome a BIG obstacle. Reaching level 10 should not be deciding event in wining the game. It needs to be more... uncertain.

Solution: Pick a Boss Monster. At the very beginning of play – pull out the level 20 PLUTONIUM DRAGON (or whatever is the highest-level monster in the deck). Once a player has reached level 10, instead of KICKING DOWN THE DOOR, they can now go up against the Boss monster, in this case - the Dragon. Whoever kills it first, wins. HOWEVER the boss monster will get TWO dice to roll in battle and you still only get one. If a player doesn't think he's ready to kill it after level 10, he/she can continue to go up levels until he/she decides it's time. But the more time a player takes to level up, the more time you give to others to reach level 10 and kill the boss first. All other player cards can be used in this boss fight (before any dice rolls). But a Munchkin who defeats the boss, in this case, is truly a MUNCHIKIN HERO.


Issue #3: Game slows down while a player decides how to get down to 5 (or 6) cards at the end of their turn. To me, this is what makes the game take so long and get somewhat boring. The game essentially stops here while a player tries to decide what cards to play/give to charity/discard – especially if there's new people playing.

Solution: End the turn early. Pass the action on to the next player after the "LOOT THE ROOM" phase has ended. The person whose turn JUST ENDED, has until his/her next turn, before they "KICK DOWN THE DOOR" to get down to 5 (or 6, if a dwarf) cards. So while others are playing/starting their turn, others whose turn just ended can take their time to figure out what cards to play/discard. HOWEVER if a player starts their turn by “KICKING DOWN THE DOOR” and they have MORE cards than they're suppose to have (more than 5 or 6) and they're caught – then the person catching them can randomly pick cards from the offender's hand to get them down to 5 cards. The person catching the offender can keep any of the cards, but he/she must get down to 5 (or 6) cards before they KICK DOWN THE DOOR to begin their next turn.


Issue #4: A character dying is not that big of a deal. The only thing that happens is that you loose your cards, but you keep your race, class AND ALL OF YOUR LEVELS. Then on your next turn you draw 8 cards again – which you can build a pretty good character from and still have a good chance of leveling up on your next turn. It's almost like dying had no effect, and in some cases really help you out by giving you better cards. As it is now, death seems like a slap with a wet spaghetti noodle.

Solution: When you die, you loose HALF of your levels (round down) AND all of your cards including your race and class cards. Death needs to hurt. Sure it could be you loose ALL of your levels, but this would really slow down the game. So a good compromise would be to loose half of your levels. Then on your next turn draw 3 door cards and 2 treasures before you kick down the door.

So these are my thoughts and observations. I've played with these new rules and for me it really makes the game a lot more fun, especially adding the big boss monster at the end. I haven't played with any of the other official Munchkin expansions, so maybe some of these rule ideas have already been implemented. But until I get my hands on any upgrades, this is how we'll play Munchkin. Thanks for reading!

[Mister Ed]

You might like to try Munchkin Quest, the boardgame version of Munchkin. It has your #1 and #2. It also has a bit more of a bite to Death, with you drawing less cards than at the beginning of the game, and an automatic level loss.

It takes a lot longer to play, though, or so I've heard.

[Clipper]

I'm actually surprised that you find Charity to be a big issue. It rarely happens in my experience as you can play your Items to the table (or sell them for levels), so you mostly end up with only Door cards, which are often spare Classes or something else you don't really mind about giving away.

But yeah, I was also going to suggest you have a look at the Munchkin Quest rules, as it seems that style of combat is what you are after.

[Mister Ed]

Yeah, I haven't found that the Charity phase has much to do with what makes the game take a long time. What makes the game take a long time (when it does) in my experience is people getting off to a slow start and being unable to get a monster they can beat at the beginning of the game, and people having a hard time getting the final level because everybody is focused on keeping that from happening.

Ironically, it seems to me that your other three suggestions are all working AGAINST your dislike of the game going long. Having it be harder to win combat, and harder to get the final level, and having death be as punishing as you want it to be, all would tend to make the game longer, possibly MUCH longer, I would think. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I just don't think that avoiding slowdowns in the Charity phase will balance out the game lengthening aspects.

[Bampop]

I don't think Jammer has a problem with the game going long. It seems the problem is downtime while people weigh their options during Charity.

[MunchkinMan]

I think that having the option to avoid Charity, especially when the next player is the lowest level player and might want that card before he starts his turn, is terribly unfair and really defeats the point of Charity.

Honestly, all of the other ideas fit perfectly well into a board game that you expect to take a while, and especially one where you might be able to have multiple combats in a turn (I wonder what that board game might look like?), but don't fit in with a fast-paced card game. Regardless of whether you think Charity slows things down or not, Munchkin is a fast-paced game.

[UncleBob]

I wonder if you could just solve the slow aspect of the charity part down by setting a timer. I'm not sure what the exact agreed upon time for setting the timer should be, but it's something to consider. Once the timer runs out, the player with the lowest level gets to randomly pick cards from your hand (without looking) until you're at the limit.