Quinns: Have you heard of Munchkin? It might be the most popular standalone card game in our hobby. You all play Dungeons & Dragons-type heroes racing to reach level 10, alternately working together and wrenching one another backwards. It’s a grinning figurehead for table gaming. And I hate it.

I hate that in parodying D&D so focusedly it erects walls around gaming as a whole, its 20 year-old injokes acting like barbed wire. I hate that it goes on for 30 minutes longer than anyone wants. I hate how the game is entirely based around attacking the lead player, rendering the entire first 60 minutes almost pointless. But most of all, I hate how it gets everywhere.

I’ll be at the pub, explaining SU&SD to some friend or stranger or travelling pervert, and they’ll say “Oh! Yeah, I’ve played Munchkin. It was OK!” And with that, all the icecubes will disappear from my drink, a new wrinkle will appear on my body and all the babies within two miles of us will start crying.

So here it is. My counter-offer. If you want a light, mad card game with a Dungeons & Dragons theme, buy Gauntlet of Fools instead, a game from no less than the creator of Dominion. Also, a game of battling trolls with a hangover, and getting skewered by spear traps while hopping on one leg.