God-Characters vs. Munchkins

God-Characters vs. Munchkins
By Patrick Feaster - [Reproduced with kind permission.]

Various terms have been used to name what is NOT deemed proper in free form role play: god-character, god-PC, munchkin, power-gamer (for the person); and god-PCism, power-gaming, or proactive role play (for the activity). These terms are used loosely to describe a collection of phenomena, and very rarely does one find a definition rather than a list of negative characteristics.

Since there are so many terms floating around already, I propose that we tighten up the terminology. There are two distinct aspects of "improper" free form role play, and I suggest we assign the term "god-character" to one and "munchkin" to the other -- and "power-gamer" to the combination of the two!

God-Character: This term is, as far as I am aware, limited to free form role play. Therefore it seems reasonable to apply it to an aspect of power-gaming that is also limited to free form role play. Free-form role play has one distinctive "rule" which has been restated time and time over the last twelve years: The player (mun) has the final word on what any character does AND what happens to the character. Whenever another mun enters some statement that impinges on the reality of some character, this act has been considered a type of power-gaming. Unless the character's mun has approved the action, it has been considered illegitimate -- it didn't really happen. As Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. put it: "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."

The principle, as applied to role play, was first discovered on Quantum Link in 1985 as a means of regulating combat between characters in the absence of dice: "When the FFRP group formed we never called it that specifically we used to call the fighting aspect 'free form', the definition being... 'You alone are responsible for the actions of your PC.' Based on the type/strength expected of your PC, you responded to an action on your own. No one could cause action to you. That was how we ended up defining it in the beginning." [log of IRC interview with Q-Link veteran Kitanea/Kaela, November 22, 1998].

David Eddings has recently restated this principle, noting that a player should say only that his or her character *attempts* to strike an opponent, leaving the success or failure of the action up to the opponent's mun [see his "The Nature of the Beast article]. This might have originated as a commonsensical substitute for dice-rolls or programming, but it is interesting to note that the problem exists on MUDs as well, except that in a MUD there is no "theory" encompassing it. Lynn Cherny has described an unsolicited sexual encounter in a MUD; could she claim afterwards, "I didn't really do that?" To her, this was an open question ["Objectifying the Body in the Discourse of an Object-Oriented MUD <ftp.game.org/pub/mud/text/research/objectify.txt>"].

In free form role play, it is *not* an open question; and anyone who tries to dictate the experience of another character can be defined ipso facto as a God-Character, guilty of Godmunnery. The reference to "God" may be borrowed from the common analogy by which each Dungeon Master in structured role play has been considered the "God" of the role play universe [see for example Gary Alan Fine, Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983) 72-73]. Godmunnery refers to the attempt of a player to assume the role of Dungeon Master in dictating *all* reality, rather than the reality of a single character.

Some theorists have pushed this issue (which I have elsewhere called the "principle of character autonomy") to extreme lengths, arguing that any statement which dictates other characters' *perceptions* is an act of godmunnery. One example put forward of this phenomenon: "PC-A enters the room, his brilliant smile immediately drawing the attention of all the ladies in the room, and inspiring jealousy in the hearts of all the men" [Jason Laity, "Proactive Roleplay <wffrp07.shtml>"]. Another example: a character's "hood is down and his pale face looks very sad, you are slightly repelled by him yet you are curious, for he is *** the Vampire." As Lindsey remarked: "This is assuming one, that people ARE looking at him all the time, and two, that they will react exactly as he desires. This is unfair to other players, and not good RP etiquette (means politeness -- look it up). This is a relatively minor sort of proactivism..." [Mailing list BLKDRAGON-L@lists.io.com, November 13, 1997]. According to these arguments, what one *perceives* is up to oneself!

Furthermore, objects appear to be governed by the same principle, i.e. a player controls whatever Things he or she first "creates." After all, Lynn Cherny notes in the article I mentioned earlier that "all characters are technically objects, just like all scenery and props." The only difference between an Object and a Character is that a Character is the direct enactor of /me and speech statements on IRC. Meddling with one's Things has been considered god-PCism: "It's so annoying when somebody comes up to you and steals all your stuff or hacks your head off without any of your consent. This is basically how I group GodPCs..." [Ken-Mun, "How to Interact With Other Characters," The Talisman <http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/4989/>].

Moreover, certain complaints would not make sense unless this principle were being observed, e.g., a person can retroactively make a theft impossible by modifying an object's characteristics: "if you do have a pouch, why would you need it boobytrapped with poison needles and such?" [Dave Haapalehto <mailto:ackmed@hotmail.com> to BLKDRAGON-L@lists.io.com, June 10, 1998].

Borrowing a term from J. R. R. Tolkien, we might call the area over which each player has jurisdiction his or her total "sub-creation" [see his "On Fairy Stories," in The Tolkien Reader (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966)]. The fantasy world of free form role play is made up of many such little autonomous sub-creations. The founder of a setting or channel might consider the setting to be part of his or her own sub-creation, thereby justifying control over it -- e.g., forbidding "just anyone" from starting wars there and the like. Using a setting without permission has been called "the same as walking into someone's room and asking to use a stereo or something they own" [Zarak, "The Rules of the #TwistedBlade_Inn, Version 3.6 <http://www.ie-com.com/imperia/Legends/prules.html>"].

Godmunnery is therefore a larger phenomenon than it might seem at first glance, providing the basis for all sorts of expectations about what can and cannot happen in free form role play. However, it is only one of the two key aspects of power-gaming.

Munchkin: This term is found in both free form and other types of role play (such as tabletop gaming or MUDs). For example, there is an interesting article using this term by Sean Michaels, namely "Munchkins: a Modest Proposal <http://www.mudjournal.com/michaels2.htm>," in MUD Journal. Therefore it seems reasonable to apply the term to an aspect of power-gaming that is shared by various types of role play. Since a player has the absolute last word on whatever his or her character does, a character who can "resist any attack" or "do anything" (so long as it doesn't involve attacking other characters or manipulating others' objects) is not technically a god-character in the sense I have defined above. The problem here is twofold:
the actions are "incorrect," and
the character is not fun for others to play with.
Dave Eddings claims in his aforementioned article that players of this sort will eventually be ostracized. I will therefore define this type as the MUNCHKIN, and guilty of MUNCHKINRY.

Godmunnery is pretty straightforward compared to munchkinry, which we might tentatively define as "role playing with objectionable content." Broad categories that have been mentioned by others include the following, many of which overlap:
UNIMAGINATIVE muns, specifically those whose characters fit cliches (orphans, smirking villains) or are borrowed/stolen outright from published works. The concept here is that a role player should have something to offer other players: parroting cliches or plagiarizing fantasy novels offers nothing.

UNSUITABLE material, which does not fit the consensual standards of a setting; e.g., musketry in a medieval/fantasy cosmos. This is, of course, a highly subjective judgment, but it is clearly a matter of munchkinry as opposed to godmunnery. Roleplay is a communal activity; introducing unsuitable material shows that a player is unwilling to enter into role play on equal terms.

FRIVOLOUS use of "rare" things or events.

Healings and reincarnations -- this does not directly impact other characters, but still there is a taboo against it and it has sometimes even been written into channel law. The #DragonMyst*Inn rules insist, for example: "When one party dies, that person is sent to the graveyard and can later be resurrected 24 hours later. During this time, the same mundane may create another character, but the other character must have a different name" [<http://www.ozemail.com.au/~samurai/NEW.HTM>]. Injuries and deaths have weight only if they are not easy to circumvent. A player who shrugs them off as minor inconveniences cheapens them for everyone who role plays in the same setting. There have frequently been complaints about the "overuse" of magic, which amounts to roughly the same thing -- if magic is part of everyday life, then there's nothing interesting or exceptional about it.

A variation on this principle is shown by disapproval of inordinately wealthy characters or those who are dazzlingly beautiful or handsome (the latter feature also parrots a common cliche). Money is only valuable, and beauty only remarkable, within a context of rarity.

ILLOGICAL actions, which do not follow the internal logic of the fantasy world, e.g., a character addressing another character by name before being introduced.

UNREALISTIC interactions, such as overhearing a whisper at a long distance. There are, of course, "outs" for both (d) and (e) in that a player can claim to be telepathic or to have super-sharp hearing. Although I've never seen it done, it could be argued that names and utterances are part of a mun's sub-creation, and that a mun should have the final word on whether his or her character has been overheard, or whether the character's name is known. Instead, these "mistakes" have been mentioned in the same breath with aspects of munchkinry, so that seems to be their "natural" category.

INACCURATE fantasy characteristics, i.e., those which do not fit consensual ideas regarding something within the fantasy cosmos; an example of this might be a vampire character who can appear during daylight with no ill effects (though this very thing has been defended on certain grounds). Historical inaccuracy (which overlaps "unsuitable" material) falls here as well -- anachronisms, etc. Of course, players' thresholds for recognizing and tolerating inaccuracies of this sort will vary widely depending on their background.

BLURRING of the in-character/out-of-character distinction, particularly confusng what the mun knows with what the character knows. This is munchkinry and not godmunnery (by the "principle of character autonomy," a character CAN know whatever the mun wants him or her to know!). This takes various forms and overlaps to some extent with (d) and (e) above.
Godmunnery is a matter of principle, and munchkinry is a matter of style. Godmunnery is about what DOES happen (objective), and munchkinry is about what SHOULD happen (normative). They are different phenomena, and I hope that by giving them different names we can advance the theory of free form role play beyond lists of what we do and don't like, and move on to a set of general and defensible principles. Godmunnery and munchkinry do often coincide and overlap as POWER-GAMING, which we might tentatively define as "playing TO WIN rather than playing A ROLE."

Gary Alan Fine had discussed this issue with regard to tabletop role play long before free form role play came into being. Since there *seem* to be no objective rules in free form role play, someone playing to win will allow his or her character both to do anything (munchkinry) and to do it to anyone (godmunnery), without necessarily differentiating the two strategies.

A common assumption is that newbies play to win, while long-time players emphasize faithfulness to a role, but that judgment is unfair to newbies. Instead, there is simply a fundamental difference in motive between a role player and a power-gamer.

While power-gaming does not threaten the basis on which a structured role playing game functions, it *does* threaten free form role play in which the checks and balances all operate by consensus. A power-gamer in AD&D or a MUD will have a rough time of it and probably will wind up with a dead character; a power-gamer in FFRP can seem to come out ahead while ruining things for everyone else.

Even if there are institutions such as the #Blkdragon*Inn GodPC Council (founded in March, 1998) it ruins the "reality" of the setting when one has to resort to out-of-character disciplinary action; that is a course of last resort. That may be why MUD help sites are all about learning commands and technical information, while FFRP help sites are mostly about style. Educating MUDders only benefits newbies and is pretty straightforward; educating FFRPers benefits everyone involved, but it is far more difficult.

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