Munchkin!

Before you get me wrong, Munchkin is in this case a card game.

“Munchkin is the dungeon experience . . . with none of that stupid roleplaying stuff. Over a million sold now, in three great flavors…card game, boardgame, and RPG.” -offical page   (I only write about the card game.)

The aim is to get lvl 10 in the dungeon. When you start, you are a lvl 1 human without a class. On your turn you kick down a door in the dungeon (draw a door-card) and look for trouble. If you find a monster, you have to fight it. It can also happen that you get cursed. If you don’t have to fight or get cursed you can add the card to your hand. Door-cards can have monsters, curses, classes/races, monster enhancers and other suff helping you(no gear).

If you could beat a monster you can take its treasures(gear/other helpful things) and level up, if it beats you, bad stuff happens, you may die or loosing levels, loosing gear or…anything else is happening, it depends on the monster.

If you didn’t fight a monster, you can…
1. …fight a monster from your hand.
2. …draw a door-card without showing it to the others.

This game is so much fun because you can play almost every card at any time (even if it’s not your turn), but I should also tell you about the epic humor in the game. Where else could you fight a Shrieking Geek or Snails on Speed? Where else could you wear a Horny Helmet or fighting with a Swiss Army Polearm or even use a Limburger and Anchovy Sandwich to pwnish your enemies? There are also a lot of allusions to (MMO)RPGs or other fantasy stuff, which makes the game even greater. Not to forget are the great illustrations from John Kovalic.
Of course the game can’t be taken very serious the rules make this clear with phrases like: “Decide who goes first by rolling the dice and arguing about the results and the meaning of this sentence and whether the fact that a word seems to be missing any effect.” or “Any disputes in the rules should be settled by loud arguments with the owner of the game having the last word.” (I couldn’t play with my brother if this rule didn’t exist, since I own the game, so if we are unsure about something, I can always decide what to do and tell him: “It’s in the rules.” )

There are also expansions and sequels to the original Munchkin, some remain in the fantasy theme, others are about science fiction, pirates, vampires, super heroes and much more.

Check out the official page for more information.