Twink
What is a twink?
The term I’m referring to comes from the Role Playing subculture. The term is what you call a player who uses every available advantage to turn whatever character capital and rule knowledge he/she has into it’s fullest game effecting potential. Another similar term is munchkin.
The term can be applicable to any number of situations involving some sort of limited resource. For example, an individual finds a vending machine with one item barely holding on to its rack. That individual knows that if he/she puts in enough change to buy the item behind it, they’ll get both of them out of the machine. This individual could be marked as fortunate, shrewd and/or frugal. However, if this individual went around examining various vending machines specifically for this instance, that person would be a twink. They are knowingly exploiting a flaw or rule in the system (vending machines sometimes foul up) to gain as big an advantage as possible (two or even three items from the machine).
So, why is this term important to know?
The term is important to know because despite the blatant opportunistic nature of a twink, they are usually very successful. The hacking of traditional rules that twinks do usually has some strong results. In the above case with the vending machine, the twink will net more free items from the vending machine than any other individual.
However, the term has a negative connotation. Twinks are often seen as “no fun” and “opportunistic.” Sometimes the rule hacking they do has the perception of hurting the systems they are manipulating. This perception is not always incorrect.
