Blunders vs Illegal

[Gamer234]

Player A is wearing boots that allow him to ignore curses from kicking down the door. He picks up the Big Feet curse (can't wear footgear, if wearing any it's destroyed) and forgets about the powers of his boots. He grumbles, throws away the boots, and we move on.

Do we have to inform him that his boots protect him and he gets them back?

[cccwebs]

There is no rule that says you have to inform a player of all the rules. That said, you may find yourself lacking players if you make a habit of allowing players to remain ignorant of the rules as people often disassociate themselves from people whom they feel are cheating them.

[bonetm]

I really don't understand why players asume they can cheat at Munchkin games. Just because it makes fun of the munchkin-way of roleplaying, it's still a game, and has rules and fair-play ettiquette. The rules don't say you have to do it, but the rules for any game I know have a simillar warning, because cheating is not fun.

[PK]

Guys, I think you're being a bit strident. "Not reminding someone of an ability he could've used" isn't cheating, nor is it comparable to cheating. It's the player's responsibility to remember what he can do, not the rest of the table's.

Now, if the player in question was a child, or a newbie, or the guy who never wins, it'd be nice and charitable to give him a reminder, sure, but in no way should he be able to expect that sort of thing. And if the guy knows what he's doing and always wins, then I'd be surprised if anyone did this.

I know that I sometimes brain fart and miss an opportunity to save my own butt -- and usually on the next round, another player will say, "Dude, you know you could've used your Great Wall there?" and I'll be embarrassed that I missed it. I certainly don't get upset and demand to know why the other players didn't point that out at the time.

[MunchkinMan]

I'll have to echo RPK's sentiments here. This isn't cheating, and I understand that the word "cheat" wasn't initially used to imply that the other players were cheating, but that the one player would feel cheated.

Now, I'm sure that we could all agree that intentionally forgetting to tell people critical game rules is cheating, but reminding a player he has a bonus or ability that it's not necessarily your responsibility to remember is not. This comes down to what your group and your players consider general fair-play, not necessarily with respect to only Munchkin. If you can all handle the fact that no one spoke up and let this guy toss away something that he didn't have to, that's fine. If the person doesn't feel like the rest of you cheated him, then it really doesn't matter. If he does feel cheated, then you as a group have to come to some agreement about how to handle those situations in the future. As for how to handle it if someone spoke up and said, "Hey, you didn't have to do that because of the card you just threw away," I'd certainly let him get the card back, as long as too much time hadn't gone past and retrieving the card would be too disruptive to the game.

[bonetm]

Yeah, I think Erik and Rev have good arguments and a valid opinion. But I would feel like cheating by doing this. This is a matter of personal ethics (not to say that Rev and MM are not ethical people, just that ethics do vary from person to person).

[bonetm]

And I would feel like cheating myself to win a game where this situation applies. =)

[Blu]

I would unless I were playing in an official tournament. Here at home, we point out things like that to each other whenever applicable.

[morleydotes]

I've found the fastest way to teach players the games and to watch the game and not the tv/girls/other games/girls/bright shiny things/girls/dice spinning/girls is to let them get their butts handed to them and then innocently ask "why didn't you use...?". They start watching the game and not the tv/other games/bright shiny things/spinning dice.


Still won't work on the girl watching though....


Pat