Munchkin: The Game That ENDS Friendships

Kill the Monsters - Steal the Treasure - Stab your Buddy

Muchkin is an RPG card game where everyone starts classless, raceless, and naked. Everyone chooses a color for their game token and puts the appropriate gender side face up, in this game I was purple. We all start at level one with one attack power and a player wins by reaching level 10.


Each player is also dealt two room cards (with the door picture on the back) and two treasure cards. Door cards can include things like monsters, class/race cards, spells and "Go Up a Level" cards. The treasure cards include more of the items like armor, footwear, headgear and weapons.


To start each turn the player "Kicks down the Door" (i.e. draws a room card) and if it's a monster, it must be fought. If it's not, the player chooses to either loot the room (taking another room card and putting it in their hand) or looks for trouble by laying down a monster from their hand to fight.

To defeat a monster, players must have one attack more than the monsters level (except for warriors who win on ties.) So for example for me to beat this level 11 Pterodactyl, I would need 12 attack power.

A players attack power is equal to their level plus all equipment bonuses (weapons/armor) but there are additional one time use cards that can modify it as well. Some pieces can only be worn by certain races or classes like this Slug Thrower.

Here's Why This Game Ends Friendships

When a player can't defeat a monster on their own, they can ask others for help getting the needed attack power together. Typically these players make a deal on how the treasure is divided up prior to the kill. BUT, players can also choose to buff the monster, causing the others to loose their fight, and causing "Bad Stuff" to happen.

Nothing could stop me this game though! I got off to a great start, defeating some early monsters and selling some equipment cards to go up a couple levels. This time it was a pretty nice game, considering we all had to help each other out in the early game, letting me get to level 9, with only one more level to win.


Even with my opponents using everything they could to buff up my final monster, they couldn't keep me from winning.

Muuuaahahaha!

Final Thoughts

Munchkin is a TON of fun the $25 Cost is reasonable especially considering the mass replay value this game has, on top of the various expansions and variations like Munchkin Cthulu. It's really quite easy to pick up, with plenty of complexity to keep my interest. In a way, I liken this game to therapy via paintball wars.

Fair warning though...

This Game Really Does Test Friendships! BEWARE!

Image Sources:
All pics were taken with my phone.