October 6, 2010: These "Munchkin" Labeled Dice Are Not Official!

We have learned that the Polish company Q-Workshop, which produced the "Wicked Munchkin Die" and the "Munchkin Cthulhu Dice of Doom" under license, has shipped at least four other dice sets with the Munchkin trademark and images, and with rules advertised as for use with Munchkin. None of these four sets went through our approvals process, let alone GOT approval. They sent me a photo of one prototype die in December of last year, and I commented . . . and apparently they asked one of our European MIBs for rules suggestions. That seems to have been it. But now we have found out that they made them and SHIPPED them.

We don't even know for sure when the unapproved sets were shipped. Until yesterday (Tuesday), we only had a copy of ONE of those sets . . . because an American MIB showed it to us when we visited Con*Stellation earlier this month! We are now, as you might have guessed, discussing the problem with Q-Workshop, and yesterday we got copies of three other sets.

All Q-Workshop dice except the Wicked Munchkin Die and the Munchkin Cthulhu Dice of Doom are unofficial and not usable in Munchkin tournament play in any language, regardless of what the package says. We have been told that some of the unapproved dice (and their rules) have gotten into official tournaments at conventions. That's over, it's done with, the gods of Munchkin have blown a raspberry, and the results of those events remain official.

At this time, the Wicked Munchkin Die and the Munchkin Cthulhu Dice of Doom remain official and tournament-legal, unless the rules of a specific tournament forbid them.

To our Munchkin fans who bought these dice, assuming they (and the rules) were "real" Munchkin items, I apologize. This completely blindsided us. When we grant a license, we trust the licensee will respect its approval process, so the name "Munchkin" on the package actually means something. Around here, we are still going "Wait, they did WHAT? They have SHIPPED these?"

-- Steve Jackson