Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Saturday night, we were invited to hang out at the home of The Cheshire Cat and The Paper, who hadn't done much entertaining lately, so we were happy to join them. Also there were The White Rabbit, The Dormouse, The March Hare and Batman.

The Cheshire Cat and The Paper have acquired new furniture since we visited last, including a large footrest for one of the loveseats. With all the furniture and a fairly large coffee table, this makes it a really tight squeeze to get into your seat.

The Gryphon sat at the loveseat at the window, the far end of the room, meaning I had to push by them every time I needed to get out.

We hung out for a while, chatting, and then The March Hare suggested we play a card game he just got, Super Munchkin. The Paper went to bed before we started, since she was already fading.

Now, when I first heard the name of the game a couple years ago, I was thinking of The Wizard Oz. But this refers to a term gamers use to describe role players who are only interested in accumulating power. They don't care about plot development or character interplay. All they want is shinier toys and more abilities.

Munchkins would love this game. Each round, you draw a card which is either a monster to fight, a trap that does something bad to you or everyone around you, or a special card. If the monster is above your ability to fight, people around the circle can agree to help you, either for free or in exchange for part of the treasure gained from beating the monster.

Some of the special cards allow you to do mean things to other players, which is especially helpful near the end of the game when you're trying to keep someone from winning. You go up a level every time you defeat a monster, and the first person to reach level 10 wins.

In the early rounds, everything depends on the luck of the draw. So for the first two rounds, I encountered a monster too tough for me to beat and too tough for anyone to help me beat. This pretty much decimated me so that I never quite recovered. The Gryphon, sitting next to me, had similar luck.

Batman was having difficulty, too, remaining level one for a long time because he didn't encounter any monsters, even after people were powerful enough to help him. He kept drawing interesting cards, which can give you things like background story, things to wear (headgear, armor), power objects or your class (such as Brain, Techno or Mutant).

The cards Batman drew worked together to create the character of a flying thief. He had three different cards that allowed him to steal things from other players. So sometimes if he saw something he liked, he would simply steal it.

The Dormouse, on the other hand, drew a card that gave him a background story where he had touched an ancient idol, which bestowed on him the ability to hold onto a lot more power cards than he'd normally be allowed to. By the end of the game, he was ridiculously powerful.

He was a Brain class, and with all his accumulated power objects, people were joking that he was a super villain.

There wasn't much to my character. According to what I drew, she was a Mutant who could attack with fire and stun people with her cleavage. She wore crystal see-through body armor. Later in the game, she traded from Mutant to Brain, having evidently done some studying. Sounds like a very smart comic book hero. Call me Flame Brain.

Towards the end of the game is when it gets interesting, because that's when the teeth come out. I didn't expect it to end the way it did, though.

The Cheshire Cat had been very mild-mannered throughout the game, helping people out, sometimes for free, and only being mean when someone had been mean to him. He talked about how the guys we should concentrate on defeating were The March Hare and The Dormouse, both of whom were at level 9.

But he was, as well, and was the first of the three to draw a monster. Knowing that he would win if he succeeded, we all threw extra badness at him. It looked like we had won when Batman threw down a card that turned one of the monsters to his side, because he just wanted to see the game end. We threw even more monsters at him. It looked really close. We weren't sure who would win.

And then, The Cheshire Cat threw down a card that said by divine intervention he just barely won the fight and, therefore, the game. "How long have you been holding onto that game?" we asked him.

"Most of the game," he said. So basically, he knew he could afford to be nice to everyone, because given the right set of circumstances, he was guaranteed to win.

The game was fun. I don't really enjoy games that focus on being mean to the other players. I prefer games where your success isn't contingent on doing bad things to the other players. Still, it was entertaining, and the cards were fun to read. I can see why people like it.

By then, it was pretty late, so we bid them adieu and drove home.

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

February 2007 Index

Musings Index

What do you think? Share your thoughts
at Alyce's message board (left button):