Munchmadnesskin

In my last post, I mentioned that I was able to play Munchkin for the first time.  I was intimidated at first.  Partly because I'd heard of the game, but knew nothing about it and was playing with people who were familiar with the game and its mechanics.  How familiar?  I didn't ask, but they seemed to know a lot more than me, which during a card game, can be quite a lot, especially when there is more than a single rule.

It's like going to play Killer Instinct or Street Fighter IV with someone and you've never played that game before.  All of a sudden, you're up against someone who knows a handful of specific moves or how to properly execute a Combo Breaker.  It was a little frustrating in that, like in any card game, I didn't want to reveal what cards I had in my hand, but at the same time, understand when I could play a card.  Specifically a monster card.  Not a "Wandering Monster" card, just a regular monster card.  A monster card that happened to be a Level 16 Undead King Tut.

Don't get me wrong, the rules were explained and understood as best they could, considering we were all a smidgen tired, having driven 101 miles to just outside of Astoria, then an additional 15 miles (which took about an hour) to get to a Safeway and back for all the camping things we forgot to bring; like firewood for one.  And we had been drinking steadily for just over an hour and I had broken out a bottle of Fireball to share/introduce.  So really, the non-comprehension was mostly all on me, so I'll take the blame on that one.

In the end though, I really like the game that Steve Jackson has created.  So much so that only after 1 1/2 times playing Munchkin, I have bought the basic deck and three expansion decks.  Specifically, these ones:

I also plan on purchasing this expansion deck once it becomes available.  Another nice thing about the expansion decks, is that each card, from each expansion has their own tiny logo on the front of the card that tells you it's from an expansion deck.  In case you want to play with the standard deck and not The Guild or Monster Enhancers deck, you can easily find them within the massive stack.  It's a great, simple little idea.  Oh, oh, oh!  And the expansion decks are all relatively inexpensive at only ~$5, or there abouts, depending on the deck.

One of the things that drew me to this game (or really, buying the game), was that upon further examination, all of the decks are the same.  You could go out and buy five copies of the Munchkinomicon and all 15 cards in the pack are all the same 15 cards.  There are no "rare" cards.  Sure, you can buy the Boxes of Holding which come with two additional cards that you can't acquire on their own, but they're not going to be the rare cards like in Magic: The Gathering that are "so rare" that they'll fetch hundreds of dollars.  Sorry, correction, thousands of dollars.  You can also purchase blank cards to come up with your own rules of sorts that will blend in with the rest of your deck.  And everyone plays with the agreed upon deck.  If you introduce a card that no ones seen before, it goes in the deck with all the other cards.

Something that I find interesting, is that I went into this post intending to talk about my most recent trip to a new gaming store to buy some d10 dice for some rounds of Munchkin that Conklederp, Coolman and I played last night, but that somehow turned into this conker of a post.  On Monday I'll go into my gaming store non-adventure.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Brain Has It's Own Plans