There are no universally agreed upon definitions for these
Posted Feb 4, 2022, 3:03 PM UTC
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Minmaxers make specialized characters by making some stats really high at the cost of others (ie point buy to 15 15 15 8 8 8).
Meta gamers make choices based on things the character they play wouldn’t know, such as by reading the stats of monsters to learn what they can do or reading a module to know where the traps are.
Powergamers are like a more advanced version of minmaxers, who build their character to be op at one thing and not that great at anything else (ie getting the highest possible dpr)
I have no idea what munchkins are, but I assume it refers to cheeky players who take advantage of loopholes and other in game mechanics
Optimizers are like power builders, only not quite as powerful.
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I've seen 3 different definitions for min-maxers. And all of them are commonly used enough that none of them can be considered truly universal. Yes those are decent definitions, and nearly the original definitions, but they have to be used in the same way by a majority to be considered universal terms
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Fair enough, I was just giving the definitions that I’ve always used because they fit are about as correct as any other.
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Munchkins are supposed to be a satire of power gamers. They build the most broken builds, don’t roleplay at all, and are murderhobos. The joke is that it is usually the young players doing it.
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Really? My bad
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Not a moral judgment of any kind, mind you. Play how you have fun, so long as the rest of your table is also having fun!
If you wanna take a stab at defining them yourself in the comments, feel free.
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How definitions proliferate.
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The attempt would not (has not) changed anything. universally is the keyword here. Maybe if we could get a majority of people to understand the difference between them, but so far all attempts have failed
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That's quitter talk.
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Minmaxers are players who only put points into one or two things so that they can do those things really well
Optimizers are players who want to make their character as good as possible at what they want to do. (more general than minmaxers) They tend to be more open to working with the group
Munchkins only care about loot and being powerful. You don't see those very often any more