Adventurers as a marginalized social class?

[Amaril]

I've been thinking lately about games and settings where adventurers (or whatever the local flavour is called) aren't famous and respected heroes, but outcasts on the fringes of society who do what they do because they have no other way to survive. The Witcher comes to mind as an example; Geralt and his kind are tolerated because they have skills people need, but rarely appreciated and never accepted. However, living outside the established social structure as they do grants them a degree of freedom and independence few others enjoy. Or Shadowrun, where runners are much the same, except in their case, the freedom of their position is the whole point rather than an added benefit.

To me, this kind of setup makes a lot more sense than how D&D usually presents things. It accounts for a lot of the weirdness that arises from adventurers being a recognized thing in a setting. Their ability to travel freely when most people are bound to their land, without being part of society's warrior class or servants to a ruler? Well, no one wants them around after they've been paid, so what else are they gonna do? Adventurers always being the go-to solution for monster problems when whatever lord is hiring them already has knights of their own? What if monsters represent the kind of problems no one wants to acknowledge or do anything about, and adventurers are the unlucky sods who get sent to face them because someone has to? Adventurers who get rich spending all their loot on fighting gear rather than retiring to luxury? They couldn't live normal lives if they wanted to.

It would also explain the prevalence of some of the standby character concepts, and encourage some new ones that could be interesting. All those orphans who watched their families be killed by orcs? They adventure because they have severe PTSD that prevents them from holding down a normal job. Wizards leaving their libraries to go delving in old tombs? The search for magical power requires sacrificing your humanity, and they've delved so deep that they can no longer bear to be surrounded by such small, limited minds. In a world like this, I see most adventurers being from marginalized groups that are never given a fair shake--oppressed racial or ethnic groups, GSRM people (if that's an issue in-setting), the mentally ill. People who are only going to be accepted by other outcasts in the same boat they are. I imagine a lot of parties would have something of an us against the world mentality, and a big theme would probably be the conflict of Lawful society and the Chaotic forces trying to tear it apart, with adventurers struggling to find where they want to fit in between.

What do you folks think of this? Any experience with games that handled it this way? How might you go about making it work?

[Zombimode]

Well, the problem you are describing is, in way, self made. It is self made in the sense that you are assuming there is a social class of adventurers. You understand the term "adventurer" as refering to a member of a specific social class. There is no need to do so. Instead you could understand "adventurer" as a descriptive term refering to people (from ALL classes) doing certin things.

To pick at some of your examples: why does the local lord hire adventurers to deal with a problem instead of sending his knights? Well, maybe he IS sending his knights. His knights the ARE the adventurers.

Adventurers don't have to form a social class or belong to the "outlaw" or "mercenary" class. They can be part of the warrior elite, the clergy, the scholars or the seedy underground respected upper class merchants.

You are an adventurer if you are doing adventurous things. Regardless of your social class.

Maybe this is a difference in playstyle. But outside of my humble beginnings into the hobby, no campaign that I have run or was a player in involved player characters that said "Howdy, we are adventurers, so lets check the nearest Adventure Blackboard in the next tavern for any unsolved quests!"
Instead the parties consisted of people that were compelled, either by their own motivations or outside events, to pursue certain risky and dangerous activities. Those activities formed, at a meta-level, the "adventure".

[Amaril]

Yes, of course, all good points, and ones I've seen used. You're right, the weirdness I'm describing is a bit of a strawman--I don't think I've ever played a game where the PCs were actually members of an "adventurer" social class that way. Still, though, I find the idea interesting to examine, especially when it leads to concepts like this that I think could be actually cool to play around with.

Ignoring any question of an existing problem that this would solve, therefore, do you think it holds up on its own merits?

[Beleriphon]

Yes, of course, all good points, and ones I've seen used. You're right, the weirdness I'm describing is a bit of a strawman--I don't think I've ever played a game where the PCs were actually members of an "adventurer" social class that way. Still, though, I find the idea interesting to examine, especially when it leads to concepts like this that I think could be actually cool to play around with.

Ignoring any question of an existing problem that this would solve, therefore, do you think it holds up on its own merits?

Some settings embrace this idea that "adventurers" are a different class of people than others. Cormyr in the Forgotten Realms has what amounts to Adventurers Licenses that are paid to crown, and in exchange get to raid tombs and ruins in the Cormyr, but are bound by law to some limits. Eberron takes a different tact that adventurers are people that do adventurous things. Indiana Jones would be an example since he did adventurous things, but his job was an archaeology professor. Dr Livingstone would be a D&D adventurer since he did things because that are exciting and full of adventure, and most certainly was a fairly well to do member of society.

The Witcher's world is different. People that are adventurers (like Geralt) are outcasts in one way or another. Even the regular army troops aren't "adventurers" since their presence in weird dangerous situations is always called out as abnormal by themselves or by Geralt. They aren't trained, equipped, or even mentally capable of dealing with the weirdo adventurer required situations that Witchers regularly encounter. By the same token, nobody wants a freaky mutant hanging around their houses, nor do they want weirdo outsiders hanging out because who knows what they might be up to.

[kyoryu]

I've got a friend writing an RPG based on this concept, actually.

[Gallowglass]

There is an obvious problem which is the inherent murder-hoboism of adventurers.

For your world set up to work, then the common folk need to have agency to look down upon, belittle or treat the PCs as an underclass of unwanted hooligans.

The problem is, the moment the PCs get sneered at, treated harshly, threatened to be thrown out of town, jilted or looked at crosseyed, they'll simply kill the common folk doing so.

And take their stuff.

So you send the townguard after them. Either the town guard is also killed and looted, or they are high enough in class levels to take the PCs which means THEY are adventurers as well, doesn't it?

in D&D there is such a huge power disparity between even low to mid level adventurers and common folk that its relatively easy for the adventurers to either wipe out, or buy, small villages. And there is little consequence to their murder-hoboism outside of OTHER adventurers.

So, in your world set up, this would be the outcome in my opinion. Just giving the players an excuse to go full murder hobo.

[Amaril]

The Witcher's world is different. People that are adventurers (like Geralt) are outcasts in one way or another. Even the regular army troops aren't "adventurers" since their presence in weird dangerous situations is always called out as abnormal by themselves or by Geralt. They aren't trained, equipped, or even mentally capable of dealing with the weirdo adventurer required situations that Witchers regularly encounter. By the same token, nobody wants a freaky mutant hanging around their houses, nor do they want weirdo outsiders hanging out because who knows what they might be up to.

Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm describing. Witchers are feared and distrusted because they're freaky mutants, but they're tolerated because people need them--no one else can do what they do. In the setup I'm imagining, not all adventurers would be marginalized because of their abilities this way, necessarily; it might be because of some other sort of prejudice, and the skills they possess were developed out of necessity to survive rather than the cause of that necessity, but the same kind of situation would be the result.


I've got a friend writing an RPG based on this concept, actually.

Oh, really? I'd love to hear more about that, it sounds interesting.


There is an obvious problem which is the inherent murder-hoboism of adventurers.

For your world set up to work, then the common folk need to have agency to look down upon, belittle or treat the PCs as an underclass of unwanted hooligans.

The problem is, the moment the PCs get sneered at, treated harshly, threatened to be thrown out of town, jilted or looked at crosseyed, they'll simply kill the common folk doing so.

And take their stuff.

So you send the townguard after them. Either the town guard is also killed and looted, or they are high enough in class levels to take the PCs which means THEY are adventurers as well, doesn't it?

in D&D there is such a huge power disparity between even low to mid level adventurers and common folk that its relatively easy for the adventurers to either wipe out, or buy, small villages. And there is little consequence to their murder-hoboism outside of OTHER adventurers.

So, in your world set up, this would be the outcome in my opinion. Just giving the players an excuse to go full murder hobo.

This has occurred to me. I don't think it's a guaranteed outcome in all cases, though. For one, I wouldn't use D&D to run a game like this--it would require a system that didn't necessarily give the PCs the kind of power that would let them get away with this stuff. More importantly, though, this kind of behaviour is dependent on the group, and their expectations for the game. If I had a group I trusted and knew frowned on murderhoboism (like the one I'm in right now), and pitched the game as "hey, would anyone be interested in a game about adventurers from marginalized fringes of society struggling to survive and find their place in a world that seems set against them", and they thought that sounded like a fine idea, then I'd hope I could rely on them not getting upset when that premise was played out. Otherwise, I would never attempt a game like this in the first place, so it's moot.

Also, on your point about town guards: just because you're as strong as an adventurer doesn't mean you are one. You might be a seasoned warrior, but there's a difference between being a seasoned warrior going up against another seasoned warrior, and being a seasoned warrior going up against a ten-foot-tall fire-breathing acid-spitting demon with a cry that chills the blood and a face like the tortured remains of your former best friend. Even if they're equally dangerous by a strict comparison, the latter is a lot more terrifying, and that's the kind of thing adventurers have to deal with every week. Just because you're a skilled fighter doesn't mean you'll be willing to do that, and if you're not, then you're not an adventurer. At least, not in the kind of world I'm describing here.

[johnbragg]

So you send the townguard after them. Either the town guard is also killed and looted, or they are high enough in class levels to take the PCs which means THEY are adventurers as well, doesn't it?

in D&D there is such a huge power disparity between even low to mid level adventurers and common folk that its relatively easy for the adventurers to either wipe out, or buy, small villages. And there is little consequence to their murder-hoboism outside of OTHER adventurers.


A patch I have is something I call "brevet levels". It's partially inspired by the old movie marriage ceremony "By the power invested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife." Also partially inspired by the Dark V arc, and Xykon's speech about power. Also partially inspired by trying to reconcile the DMG population of spellcasters with the XP-grinding necessary to have that many high-levelled people without having the commoner population nearly-exterminated DArk Sun style.

Start with the idea that everyone in a magical world is magical, in the same sense that we all have gravity. Banding together, masses of ordinary non-heroic folk are still a potent source of energy that can be organized, "harvested" and used for various purposes.

The town, acting as a community, has the ability to bestow levels upon chosen people. So the head of the City Wizards Guild and the high priest get bumped up, ex officio, to whatever level the DMG says they're supposed to have in a town that size. Likewise the subordinates, filling in the ranks in the heirarchy.

This also lets you have mid- to high-level spellcasters with the tactical sense of a turnip--they didn't get to be level 9 by grinding through dungeons and wildernesses, they studied and helped build magical town walls and such, and rose through the ranks of a sort of magical civil service.

[Slipperychicken]

I'd rather have players and GMs make actual reasons for their characters to adventure, with defined goals and such (i.e. "increase the glory of Arthur's court", "destroy the monsters that hurt innocents", "gain funds so I can one day return and reclaim my noble house from invaders", etc etc). That would be much better than inventing a social structure to rationalize murderhobo behaviors.


Also, a few ideas from germanic and viking law that seem great for dealing with murderhobos. I'd want these in any setting that attempts to include murderhobos in the lore.

Weregild, or "man-price"; a monetary fee that can be paid after a killing to avert blood-feuds or other unpleasantness. It's a way for players to feel consequences in a way that matters to them (even a murderhobo cares about his pocketbook), but without completely crashing and burning the game the first time they kill a civilian. People of different classes have different values for weregild, so while a free person might be 200 gold, a nobleman might be 1200, a high noble might be 20,000, and so on. You might increase or multiply the weregild by for a woman or a child, or even break it down by age. There are also fees to be paid for other damages, such as theft, injury, sexual assault, and property-destruction. Once you pay the fine, you're done, and there's not supposed to be any further feuding or revenge after that. You can do as many crimes as you can afford, so to speak.

Trial-by-combat, which is one way to let PCs survive instead of being simply executing them. And let's face it, it's way more fun than doing an amateur fantasy mock-trial.

No modern legal principles like fair and speedy trials, cross-examination, right to face the accuser, or presumption of innocence. If you get caught and thrown in jail, a lord (or whoever is in charge) maybe put you before himself and his buddies (i.e. his court), and make a decision; the lord's word is law in his court. He might choose to decide innocence through trial-by-combat, drowning, shoving your hand in a pot of boiling water, or he might just pronounce you guilty and sentence you.
Outlawry is a big one. Bandits and other undesirables like witches and cultists may be branded outlaws, which means they are not protected by any laws whatsoever. That means it is 100% okay to kill them, do unpleasant things to them, and take their stuff. Of course, even if a particular bandit isn't explicitly an outlaw, nobody's going to mourn his loss, and who's going to stop you from killing him?

[Darth Ultron]

I've always used the idea that around half the world does not like adventures. They are seen as just above criminals, though they often dip down into criminal too. After all, the basic adventurer often breaks all sorts of laws to ''do the right thing.''

The hunters, from Supernatural, are a good example or Agents from Warehouse 13 or any such ''secret'' show. You have specialists that people can call on for help, but they don't really know or like them.

[Comet]

Any experience with games that handled it this way?

Torchbearer is all about people like this.

Stalker is about people like this in an altered version of our world, today.

Valley of Eternity is about penguins like this.

I do like it. Being marginalized by society gives players something to bond over and is potentially very evocative of current events and mood in the real world, too.

[Beneath]

Seconding Torchbearer for this. It also has a flat enough power curve that you can't just murder your way out of dealing with society while still making adventurers able to do things that ordinary people can't (the idea that these two things are in conflict is very specifically a result of design choices made by D&D and copied by video games, that being able to do special things always correlates exponentially to being better at fighting), or that they just won't.

The other thing that can make this work in D&D is sticking to relatively low levels. A D&D character is supposed to be able to declare themself a noble, claim title to land, and stab anyone and anything who disputes it until the king recognizes them by the time they're double digit levels (there were explicit mechanics for this in AD&D and earlier), even if just eight levels ago all they had was what they could carry on their back and a vague idea of where the man who murdered their parents had went.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I was also going to mention Torchbearer. The entire premise of the game is that society doesn't have enough room for everyone, and so people without a proper place in it get pushed to the fringes and have to make a career out of looting ancient ruins to make enough money to be able to survive in a hostile world.

[Arbane]

You might find this RPG.net thread worth reading: Doomed Slayers (https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?571602-necro-Doomed-Slayers-Justifying-the-tropes-of-Adventurers). (Short form: Adventurers aren't allowed to own real estate and have to keep moving, but they get around a lot of legal folderol as long as they're not killing citizens and taking their stuff.)

[Telok]

I wouldn't say that normal adventurers get marginalized. They go out, have adventures, and return home to civilization, family, etc. I know a lady who retired and is now traveling the globe, six months in Paris, a year in Austraila, Mongolia, Italy, Vietnam. Rather a bit like an adventure.

The people who are marginalized are the murder-hobos. They probably even self-marginalize. No families, no homes, no real social contact, highly paranoid, distrusts authority, rebels against any form of restrictions. They may be out slaying dragons and stopping demonic invasions but they don't tell anyone about it. They just show up in town once in a while, listen to some rumors, and go nuts buying and selling magic murder tools.

Marginalized people have no social standing and no political or economic power. It doesn't matter if they can murder everyone in the room and are wearing more money than the national treasury because they can't leverage that into anything but lethal bullying.

[goto124]

Valley of Eternity is about penguins like this.

I'm a penguin-lover. I must know more!

[Comet]

I'm a penguin-lover. I must know more!

The glacier is a cold, cruel place to live. Survival is hard enough on its own, raising a new generation seems borderline impossible. If the cold doesn't get your eggs then beasts will. If beasts don't then your jealous neighbour might.

Enter heroic penguins. They scream 'enough' and take it upon themselves to right the wrongs of this frozen dystopia. They learn to fight, they learn the art of philosophical powers and they set out to kill beasts and bring justice to the world. And the other penguins hate them for it. Sure, they'll cheer if you come to their aid specifically, but penguins are, above all else, afraid of change and individuality. Heroes are freaks, heroes do not have time to mate and guard their own eggs. Heroes are weird, they have strange weapons and alien powers and even more alien passion at their disposal.

So these penguins become outcasts, not for fame or riches but because they believed in a better world. Some of them persevere, some of them march on to their deaths and some of them embrace the white fury of the glacier and become anti-penguins, wielder's of the glacier's own elemental might. Heroic penguins are an accepted part of life, silently praised when they come to a community's aid but quickly pushed to continue on their journey as soon as the job is done.

That's Valley of Eternity. It's a simple little game but, man, the text packs a punch if you like melodrama and moral grays. And penguins, which you of course do because who wouldn't.

[Lord Raziere]

Adventurers as outcasts is pretty much how I've always thought of them, actually.

I mean, your a bunch of people who don't follow the normal rules of society, traveling around facing angers no one else does, with problems and experiences that no normal person goes through, often with powers and skills that nobody else possesses. and only the most milquetoast and bland options for what an adventurer can be are things like "dwarf fighter" or "elf wizard". the vast majority of options are that adventurers can be anything from celestial beings to a party composed entirely of beings that adventurers normally fight themselves. couple that with all vast variety of classes, the numerous power sources of those classes and it becomes clear that adventurers are only united by how they are exceptions.

so it makes perfect sense that they are all outcasts on the edge of society, doing things their own way because the rest of society has rejected them. this doesn't really conflict with adventurers as celebrities or anything, because fame and infamy are two sides of the same coin and anyone who fights for a living is guaranteed to make enemies, and just because your rich or powerful doesn't mean people like you. and just because your more powerful than somebody doesn't mean you automatically kill them for not being nice to you, mostly because its simply not worth it even if your a heartless evil villain. even if you make the argument that adventurers welcome all the people providing them more exp by trying to fight them, simply make a force big enough, and no adventurer could possibly survive, adventurers are people with limited resources despite their power, and no matter what satisfaction you get from finally cutting some village jerks head off, the fact remains that all the loot and coin you take from them are useless if the next village over hears what you did and doesn't want to do business with you.

you want your outcast adventurers to stop going murerhobo? simply point out that all the people that do their enchantments and buy the loot they take back from dungeons won't buy anything from guys who kill innocent villagers and will run away in fear while taking all their possessions, leaving only ghost towns when they come. if fighting adventurers is useless, then have all the citizens start fleeing, armies start using scorched-earth tactics to make sure they can't get anything valuable, and watch they travel through desolate areas with nothing to kill, nothing valuable to take, and eventually no food to eat.

oh but you say, the caster can simply conjure food and water! but they are still cut off from the two things that adventurers really feed on: loot and experience. No progression, no challenge, nothing to interact with, and all that loot you currently have useless because there is no one to sell to, and no one to buy things from with your gold. deprivation is the adventurer's true weakness.

their position is thus both outcast from society yet dependent upon it to be more than nothing but the very wandering monsters they fight. in fact could explain why adventurers ARE outcasts: the more violent and murderhobo-ish you are, the more you are in danger of literally transforming into one of the monsters that you fight. those trolls or ogres your fighting? might've been adventurers just like you once, but decided to kill a few too many villagers and became those things instead.

[Slipperychicken]

Marginalized people have no social standing and no political or economic power. It doesn't matter if they can murder everyone in the room and are wearing more money than the national treasury because they can't leverage that into anything but lethal bullying.

When you get that kind of cash, you start noticing you're not as marginalized as you used to be. That's how people get back into society, by gaining wealth and power. It doesn't matter that you're a filthy murderhobo; your coin's as good as anyone else's.


Just start using that cash to raise forces loyal to you instead of covering yourself in magic bling, and then suddenly you have a lot more political power than your social class would imply. Play the cards right, and "lethal bullying" turns into "political power" which can become "rightful authority". Converting money into armed forces has worked for loads of historical figures. It just doesn't happen so often in tabletop game systems that don't have rules for it, or whose players and GMs aren't willing to deal with the hassle.

[Amaril]

Seconding Torchbearer for this. It also has a flat enough power curve that you can't just murder your way out of dealing with society while still making adventurers able to do things that ordinary people can't (the idea that these two things are in conflict is very specifically a result of design choices made by D&D and copied by video games, that being able to do special things always correlates exponentially to being better at fighting), or that they just won't.

The other thing that can make this work in D&D is sticking to relatively low levels. A D&D character is supposed to be able to declare themself a noble, claim title to land, and stab anyone and anything who disputes it until the king recognizes them by the time they're double digit levels (there were explicit mechanics for this in AD&D and earlier), even if just eight levels ago all they had was what they could carry on their back and a vague idea of where the man who murdered their parents had went.


I was also going to mention Torchbearer. The entire premise of the game is that society doesn't have enough room for everyone, and so people without a proper place in it get pushed to the fringes and have to make a career out of looting ancient ruins to make enough money to be able to survive in a hostile world.

Reading the back of the Torchbearer rulebook was one of the things that got me thinking about this. From what I understand, it's a fairly crunchy dungeon crawl game, which I've sort of gone off lately, but I might check it out just for this premise.


You might find this RPG.net thread worth reading: Doomed Slayers (https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?571602-necro-Doomed-Slayers-Justifying-the-tropes-of-Adventurers). (Short form: Adventurers aren't allowed to own real estate and have to keep moving, but they get around a lot of legal folderol as long as they're not killing citizens and taking their stuff.)

Good stuff. Not exactly what I'm imagining, but I like it. I find it funny how one of the things the OP thought most important to outline first was the code Slayers live by, and one of the first things I've come up with thinking about this happens to be a similar code for adventurers in a hypothetical setting based on these principals (though mine is a lot more self-interested: watch each other's backs, don't take stupid risks, don't split the party, share the wealth equally).


Marginalized people have no social standing and no political or economic power. It doesn't matter if they can murder everyone in the room and are wearing more money than the national treasury because they can't leverage that into anything but lethal bullying.

In the real world, sure, because there are no monsters out there that threaten society. The whole premise of the system I'm picturing is that adventurers do have leverage, however much people might resent it, because they're the only ones who can do the job they do, and it's a job that really does need doing. Does it make realistic sense? Maybe not, but I don't think it's that much more nonsensical than a lot of the stuff that's typical for fantasy games, and in a game that's specifically about exploring this theme, I think it works well enough.


The glacier is a cold, cruel place to live. Survival is hard enough on its own, raising a new generation seems borderline impossible. If the cold doesn't get your eggs then beasts will. If beasts don't then your jealous neighbour might.

Enter heroic penguins. They scream 'enough' and take it upon themselves to right the wrongs of this frozen dystopia. They learn to fight, they learn the art of philosophical powers and they set out to kill beasts and bring justice to the world. And the other penguins hate them for it. Sure, they'll cheer if you come to their aid specifically, but penguins are, above all else, afraid of change and individuality. Heroes are freaks, heroes do not have time to mate and guard their own eggs. Heroes are weird, they have strange weapons and alien powers and even more alien passion at their disposal.

So these penguins become outcasts, not for fame or riches but because they believed in a better world. Some of them persevere, some of them march on to their deaths and some of them embrace the white fury of the glacier and become anti-penguins, wielder's of the glacier's own elemental might. Heroic penguins are an accepted part of life, silently praised when they come to a community's aid but quickly pushed to continue on their journey as soon as the job is done.

That's Valley of Eternity. It's a simple little game but, man, the text packs a punch if you like melodrama and moral grays. And penguins, which you of course do because who wouldn't.

I love all of this. Might need to pick up this game.


their position is thus both outcast from society yet dependent upon it to be more than nothing but the very wandering monsters they fight. in fact could explain why adventurers ARE outcasts: the more violent and murderhobo-ish you are, the more you are in danger of literally transforming into one of the monsters that you fight. those trolls or ogres your fighting? might've been adventurers just like you once, but decided to kill a few too many villagers and became those things instead.

Oh this is good. I don't know if I'd have adventurers who go off the deep end literally turn into monsters, but that would definitely be a big thing symbolically. There's a fine line between living in service to society while being apart from it, and taking advantage of what society offers while working to tear it down, and if you cross that line, you risk becoming just as bad as the monsters you face.


When you get that kind of cash, you start noticing you're not as marginalized as you used to be. That's how people get back into society, by gaining wealth and power. It doesn't matter that you're a filthy murderhobo; your coin's as good as anyone else's.


Just start using that cash to raise forces loyal to you instead of covering yourself in magic bling, and then suddenly you have a lot more political power than your social class would imply. Play the cards right, and "lethal bullying" turns into "political power" which can become "rightful authority". Converting money into armed forces has worked for loads of historical figures. It just doesn't happen so often in tabletop game systems that don't have rules for it, or whose players and GMs aren't willing to deal with the hassle.

Yeah, but even if you try and buy a castle and an army and call yourself a lord, that just means every other lord in the land is gonna gang up on you. Because you're a dangerous madman, or a filthy [racial expletive], or a blaspheming sorcerer, and you can't be allowed to hold that kind of power. You'd be a danger to everyone if you did! Adventurers have seen their kind try this before, and every time, they've just been crushed back into the dust by everyone else. Are you going to try anyway? Maybe you'll be the first to succeed, the one to change the pattern, and really start turning things around for people like you everywhere. Or maybe not. But in a game like this, I'd leave that up to the players, not have it be something that's already happened.

[Keltest]

Honestly, I find it difficult to imagine a world where there are enough adventurers (and therefore problems that need an adventurer to be solved) to form an entire social class, yet apparently there are few enough of them that they can still be marginalized. The reason Witchers are treated as poorly as they are is because there is a serious amount of propaganda against them and a tiny handful of witchers left, so they cant really fight the bad reputation they have. But for adventurers to form an actual social class, there need to be a lot of them, and they need to be fairly easily identified as adventurers. But at that point, they should also have a lot of power and influence. In the Forgotten Realms, pretty much all the movers and shakers are ex-adventurers to some degree because being an adventurer is a very direct path to wealth and influence.

[Slipperychicken]

Yeah, but even if you try and buy a castle and an army and call yourself a lord, that just means every other lord in the land is gonna gang up on you. Because you're a dangerous madman, or a filthy [racial expletive], or a blaspheming sorcerer, and you can't be allowed to hold that kind of power. You'd be a danger to everyone if you did! Adventurers have seen their kind try this before, and every time, they've just been crushed back into the dust by everyone else. Are you going to try anyway? Maybe you'll be the first to succeed, the one to change the pattern, and really start turning things around for people like you everywhere. Or maybe not. But in a game like this, I'd leave that up to the players, not have it be something that's already happened.

That's not how it always turns out. It does depend on where they set up, what kind of forces they built, what the political climate is like, and who they decide to take down first.

IRL, literal adventurers and even bandits often came through and taken places. That's how a lot of lords came to be in the first place, and there have been many cases of untitled people simply getting together funds to conquer an area. Legitimacy is just what happens when they hold onto power long enough. Often enough in history, a bunch of raiders would take over a place, then the existing lords talk to them, look at their prodigious military power, and figure it's safer to just deal with them as part of the power-structure instead of blowing treasure and lives on a war over it. Either that, or someone tries and fails to unseat them, then everyone else figures it's too much of a risk. And the people surrounding the adventurers' holding aren't necessarily united against them; one might even buddy up with the new lord, seeing an opportunity to counter an old rival. The new ruler might even seem pretty reasonable overall, depending on his reputation, once everyone gets over the 'he wasn't a lord from birth' thing. I do think they should face a lot of challenges from existing powers, but unless they really screwed up, it shouldn't always be the entire region instantly uniting to dog-pile them.

In fiction, you sometimes have guys like Conan. He was a literal barbarian thief from nowhere who adventured for a while and made a name for himself before gathering together forces of increasing size and eventually taking over a kingdom. He took power from a mad king and was reasonable in his policies, so most of the common people were happy with his rule. He did deal with challenges to his rule, and becoming a king isn't exactly easy.

[Clistenes]

I don't like settings in which adventuring parties are a common thing. I like it better when they are a very rare exception.

I mean, if it isn't common to rise in power killing stuff like adventuring parties do, adventurers can't be common.

But if it were common to rise in power by killing stuff, common soldiers would rise in power too, and climb the ranks as they become more powerful, and the world would be controlled by high level warlords, warrior kings, knights, high priests, high druids, archmages...etc with retinues of high and mid level NPCs. Why would they need to rely on a group of freelancers to solve their problems? If there are werewolves stalking the woods, the king sends a crack team of twenty level 12 knights, supported by a couple royal woodsmen (mid level rangers), a couple mid level clerics and a mid level war wizard, and they turn the lycanthropes into fertilizer in no time.

In a world like that, your adventuring party aren't heroes, they are office boys who take care of stuff that is too insignificant for the big players to care, like dire rat infestations (kinda like Faerun... :smalltongue:).

[Beleriphon]

Weregild, or "man-price"; a monetary fee that can be paid after a killing to avert blood-feuds or other unpleasantness. It's a way for players to feel consequences in a way that matters to them (even a murderhobo cares about his pocketbook), but without completely crashing and burning the game the first time they kill a civilian. People of different classes have different values for weregild, so while a free person might be 200 gold, a nobleman might be 1200, a high noble might be 20,000, and so on. You might increase or multiply the weregild by for a woman or a child, or even break it down by age. There are also fees to be paid for other damages, such as theft, injury, sexual assault, and property-destruction. Once you pay the fine, you're done, and there's not supposed to be any further feuding or revenge after that. You can do as many crimes as you can afford, so to speak.

Trial-by-combat, which is one way to let PCs survive instead of being simply executing them. And let's face it, it's way more fun than doing an amateur fantasy mock-trial.

No modern legal principles like fair and speedy trials, cross-examination, right to face the accuser, or presumption of innocence. If you get caught and thrown in jail, a lord (or whoever is in charge) maybe put you before himself and his buddies (i.e. his court), and make a decision; the lord's word is law in his court. He might choose to decide innocence through trial-by-combat, drowning, shoving your hand in a pot of boiling water, or he might just pronounce you guilty and sentence you.
Outlawry is a big one. Bandits and other undesirables like witches and cultists may be branded outlaws, which means they are not protected by any laws whatsoever. That means it is 100% okay to kill them, do unpleasant things to them, and take their stuff. Of course, even if a particular bandit isn't explicitly an outlaw, nobody's going to mourn his loss, and who's going to stop you from killing him?
[/LIST]

And of all of these things happen to Geralt at one point or another in The Witcher games. The Witcher has a reason why "murderhobos" (witchers) exist. Heck, since the games are based on books the whole point of The Witcher novels is to give a reason for the protagonist to be a itinerant monster slayer traveling around stabbing trolls, and beheading wyverns. It gets to the

As a general rule adventurers aren't a social class in the game that is being proposed, but rather people that fall outside of the normal class structure of society. They aren't serfs, free peasants, merchant freemen, nobles, or royalty. The closest an adventurer might be if a free peasant, but a local burgher can't treat the adventurer the same way he might treat a peasant, if only because the adventurer is there to do a job and because it might result in a natural death (enough steel through the chest will naturally cause death).

Realistically the adventurers as a social class are people that aren't any class. They're the last members of noble families that no longer exist, peasant farms run off the land in the last war with no where else to go, they're mercenaries that abandoned their contracts but have no other skills but fighting. Really they are anybody that doesn't fight into the rest of the world's tidy boxes and are willing to kill weird stuff to make money.


I don't like settings in which adventuring parties are a common thing. I like it better when they are a very rare exception.

I mean, if it isn't common to rise in power killing stuff like adventuring parties do, adventurers can't be common.

But if it were common to rise in power by killing stuff, common soldiers would rise in power too, and climb the ranks as they become more powerful, and the world would be controlled by high level warlords, warrior kings, knights, high priests, high druids, archmages...etc with retinues of high and mid level NPCs. Why would they need to rely on a group of freelancers to solve their problems? If there are werewolves stalking the woods, the king sends a crack team of twenty level 12 knights, supported by a couple royal woodsmen (mid level rangers), a couple mid level clerics and a mid level war wizard, and they turn the lycanthropes into fertilizer in no time.

In a world like that, your adventuring party aren't heroes, they are office boys who take care of stuff that is too insignificant for the big players to care, like dire rat infestations (kinda like Faerun... :smalltongue:).

After a fashion the level 12 knights, the rangers and such are adventurers, if they regularly do such things for their liege lord. As for why you rely on freelancers, because its cheaper (they bring their own equipment), and if they die you don't have to pay anybody and your existing followers don't get mad that they're comrades keep dying because of your mad quests.

Think of it this way. If I was running a government and I need to go destroy something I don't like (but don't necessarily need to exercise the full might of my armed forces to do so) do I send my own soldiers, or do I hire some people that have the existing skills? If they succeed great, if they don't I just increase the reward a bit for the next group of expendable mooks highly-skilled adventurers. After a fashion D&D doesn't allow for this kind of setup to work, unless we operate on the basis that most adventurers die or retire well before getting to the point where they can topple kingdoms because its Thursday.

[Draken]

I don't like settings in which adventuring parties are a common thing. I like it better when they are a very rare exception.

I mean, if it isn't common to rise in power killing stuff like adventuring parties do, adventurers can't be common.

But if it were common to rise in power by killing stuff, common soldiers would rise in power too, and climb the ranks as they become more powerful, and the world would be controlled by high level warlords, warrior kings, knights, high priests, high druids, archmages...etc with retinues of high and mid level NPCs. Why would they need to rely on a group of freelancers to solve their problems? If there are werewolves stalking the woods, the king sends a crack team of twenty level 12 knights, supported by a couple royal woodsmen (mid level rangers), a couple mid level clerics and a mid level war wizard, and they turn the lycanthropes into fertilizer in no time.

In a world like that, your adventuring party aren't heroes, they are office boys who take care of stuff that is too insignificant for the big players to care, like dire rat infestations (kinda like Faerun... :smalltongue:).

Most D&D settings, I reckon, actually subscribe to this fact in some fashion or another, but sometimes with a catch. These people got old and died. Or they got old and tried to not die and went on to become insane, violent horrors in the forgotten ruins of their own once shining (or benighted) civilizations.

It is a cycle of people gaining power and then leaving it to their fat descendants (or getting fat on descendants).

[Clistenes]

After a fashion the level 12 knights, the rangers and such are adventurers, if they regularly do such things for their liege lord. As for why you rely on freelancers, because its cheaper (they bring their own equipment), and if they die you don't have to pay anybody and your existing followers don't get mad that they're comrades keep dying because of your mad quests.

Think of it this way. If I was running a government and I need to go destroy something I don't like (but don't necessarily need to exercise the full might of my armed forces to do so) do I send my own soldiers, or do I hire some people that have the existing skills? If they succeed great, if they don't I just increase the reward a bit for the next group of expendable mooks highly-skilled adventurers. After a fashion D&D doesn't allow for this kind of setup to work, unless we operate on the basis that most adventurers die or retire well before getting to the point where they can topple kingdoms because its Thursday.

But those expendable mooks are as likely to become bandits, thieves, assassins, pirates, tomb robbers...etc., as they are to take jobs from the government. In the real world governments tried to get rid of free companies, condottieri, corsairs and the like as soon as they could; such folks are a sympton of a weak government/country/army. A powerful king would try to press mercenary adventurers into regular service.


Most D&D settings, I reckon, actually subscribe to this fact in some fashion or another, but sometimes with a catch. These people got old and died. Or they got old and tried to not die and went on to become insane, violent horrors in the forgotten ruins of their own once shining (or benighted) civilizations.

It is a cycle of people gaining power and then leaving it to their fat descendants (or getting fat on descendants).

Yes, but, if adventuring parties are common, weakened dinasties wouldn't last even a single generation. The minute the king isn't powerful on his own right or lacks loyal, powerful vassals who protect him, an adventuring party would either steal the crown or raze the kingdom to ashes for the loot.

In essence, what I say is: If powerful adventuring parties are common, then the government, army...etc., HAVE to be made of powerful people too. And if the government and army are made of powerful people, they don't need to rely on adventurers to save the day.

However, if adventuring parties are something rare, something that is seen only once every generation, they can be the protagonist of History (and not just of a story): They can be the heroes who save the kingdom, the rebels who topple the government...etc.

[Honest Tiefling]

*slips in to steal ideas...*

More seriously, I am liking this idea. For instance, you could have a class of people who don't own land and are barred from certain positions...And in return, get glory, social freedom, and a bit of mobility in that they can go from peasant to great hero. Maybe a few non-human races get shuffled into this position (especially races like Halflings, because they are usually infertile with humans, so shoving them here makes them valuable and takes advantage of their abilities, but you don't have to worry about marriages failing to produce children.), and would make for a more interesting way for a society to have a race among their ranks...But sorta not.

[Amaril]

In essence, what I say is: If powerful adventuring parties are common, then the government, army...etc., HAVE to be made of powerful people too. And if the government and army are made of powerful people, they don't need to rely on adventurers to save the day.

But the important thing I'd make clear in a world based on this premise is that just because you have power doesn't mean that power can solve every kind of problem. Yes, the rulers of the world are powerful--they have wealth, armies, the loyalty of subjects, and many of them are great warriors in their own right. But all that power is meant for solving human problems. Against the forces of chaos, monsters and magic and madness, no army or kingdom or treasure horde can protect you, because all that power comes from ordered society, and threats like these are antithetical to the nature of ordered society. To fight chaos, you need people who have been steeped in it--those society has pushed to its edges, who have lived on the boundary between order and chaos and are prepared to hold that line. It takes a monster to kill another monster.

[Honest Tiefling]

Against the forces of chaos, monsters and magic and madness, no army or kingdom or treasure horde can protect you, because all that power comes from ordered society, and threats like these are antithetical to the nature of ordered society. To fight chaos, you need people who have been steeped in it--those society has pushed to its edges, who have lived on the boundary between order and chaos and are prepared to hold that line. It takes a monster to kill another monster.

Whose to say those nations aren't dealing and schmoozing with the forces of chaos, corruption, evil and/or eldritch forces? I'm pretty sure some noble somewhere is going to think this is a great way to off his sister from the throne and well, that's how you got Tieflings in some editions.

[Amaril]

Whose to say those nations aren't dealing and schmoozing with the forces of chaos, corruption, evil and/or eldritch forces? I'm pretty sure some noble somewhere is going to think this is a great way to off his sister from the throne and well, that's how you got Tieflings in some editions.

Yeah, probably. Of course, the moment they do that, they stop being the ruler of a mighty holding (symbolically) and become a single mad, scheming usurper dabbling with dark forces for their own selfish ends. Turning toward chaos means giving up your ties to others, complete with all the power the offer, and becoming solely an individual, because that's what chaos is all about, individuality. And when you're just one scheming noble, without the backing of your great holding, you're fair game for an adventuring party to take down.

[Honest Tiefling]

Of course, the moment they do that, they stop being the ruler of a mighty holding (symbolically) and become a single mad, scheming usurper dabbling with dark forces for their own selfish ends.

Uh...Why? Firstly, there are other forces to contact, not just Chaos. (And chaos probably isn't the best one, let's be honest here). Also, why would Chaos drive someone to madness? Or are you talking about something other then the DnD idea of it? (So sue me, we're on a forum spawned from a webcomic about DnD!) World-destroying primordial chaos beyond human comprehension is not going to be what a nobleman goes to get rid of pesky siblings (not intentionally, anyway), if they could even do so in the first place!

And secondly, if one were to be Chaotic Evil/Neutral Evil, only one's own individuality needs to matter. Why care about the freedoms and rights of others? You want a kick-butt palace to hold parties in. Their free will is quite secondary to that. And Dark Forces don't always have to be so lonely, through in many published cases they do tend to reach for the idiot ball and try to backstab each other instead of their actual enemies.

Doesn't even have to be all that powerful, perhaps just a few gargoyles or subserviant beasts, maybe dark forces grant certain types of magic useful for running a kingdom, etc. Basically, another way to control VERY powerful PCs without resorting to a mundane army.

[Amaril]

Uh...Why? Firstly, there are other forces to contact, not just Chaos. (And chaos probably isn't the best one, let's be honest here). Also, why would Chaos drive someone to madness? Or are you talking about something other then the DnD idea of it? (So sue me, we're on a forum spawned from a webcomic about DnD!) World-destroying primordial chaos beyond human comprehension is not going to be what a nobleman goes to get rid of pesky siblings (not intentionally, anyway), if they could even do so in the first place!

And secondly, if one were to be Chaotic Evil/Neutral Evil, only one's own individuality needs to matter. Why care about the freedoms and rights of others? You want a kick-butt palace to hold parties in. Their free will is quite secondary to that. And Dark Forces don't always have to be so lonely, through in many published cases they do tend to reach for the idiot ball and try to backstab each other instead of their actual enemies.

Doesn't even have to be all that powerful, perhaps just a few gargoyles or subserviant beasts, maybe dark forces grant certain types of magic useful for running a kingdom, etc. Basically, another way to control VERY powerful PCs without resorting to a mundane army.

Right, sorry, got my head kinda stuck up my own behind there and forgot where I was (I do that a lot).

Yes, I'm completely ignoring D&D fluff at this point and just making up my own stuff. Anyway, if I were to use this idea, Law and Chaos would be the two big forces governing everything, so there wouldn't exactly be a very diverse menu for dark powers to sell out to. It would be less the kind of deal where there are Chaos Gods who you go and talk to and sell your soul to for magical power--more the kind where just by studying magic on your own, you're inherently moving further towards the abstract force of Chaos, because magic just is chaotic (it represents personal power at the cost of being able to relate to other people). And yeah, you can totally tell stories about wicked tyrants abusing their political power to restrict others' freedoms, but this wouldn't be a game meant for those kinds of stories. The wicked tyrants are the people the adventurers fight to keep in place, which sucks, but it's better than a world ruled by Chaos. And maybe, just maybe, the adventurers will someday be able to reform lawful society from within so it's less oppressive and people like them can have better lives, and the wicked tyrants will be replaced by less wicked, less tyrannical rulers. And then Lawful society will learn that maybe sometimes a little bit of Chaos, just enough to let people have some freedom without being crucified for it, isn't such a bad thing, and the gap between the two sides will start to get a little narrower, and this whole stupid conflict can be left behind in favor of a better world where Law and Chaos can coexist.

...I may be getting stuck up my own behind again. I'll just stop typing for a bit.

[Draken]

But those expendable mooks are as likely to become bandits, thieves, assassins, pirates, tomb robbers...etc., as they are to take jobs from the government. In the real world governments tried to get rid of free companies, condottieri, corsairs and the like as soon as they could; such folks are a sympton of a weak government/country/army. A powerful king would try to press mercenary adventurers into regular service.



Yes, but, if adventuring parties are common, weakened dinasties wouldn't last even a single generation. The minute the king isn't powerful on his own right or lacks loyal, powerful vassals who protect him, an adventuring party would either steal the crown or raze the kingdom to ashes for the loot.

In essence, what I say is: If powerful adventuring parties are common, then the government, army...etc., HAVE to be made of powerful people too. And if the government and army are made of powerful people, they don't need to rely on adventurers to save the day.

However, if adventuring parties are something rare, something that is seen only once every generation, they can be the protagonist of History (and not just of a story): They can be the heroes who save the kingdom, the rebels who topple the government...etc.

Common and rare can depend on what the adventuring party is, of course. If you have a roving band of mostly general purpose humanoids with mainly martials and only the odd spellcaster (aka: "the assumed default") then you will probably only call them adventurers if their general modus operandi is the mostly beneficial sacking of dangerous and forgotten subterranean cave/tomb/dungeon systems. If they go about causing trouble for the populace and pillaging, they are bandits and get dealt with by other beneficial adventurers or soldiers before they turn into a powerful gang of villainous demigods or a marauding army of rebels.

It is the classic ludicrous darwinistic fantasy socio-ecosystem. You have good aligned murderous maniacs and evil aligned murderous maniacs fighting for supremacy, while the established powers do their best to quell them while they are small and work with the big fish, making themselves useful while pointing them at their racial/religious/ideological enemies.

If you don't think too much on the subject, you have heroic fantasy. If you do, you get dystopian deconstruction. And then you start talking the merits of the alignment system. And then you start talking about the ecosystem of monsters. And then you start defining monsters. And then you get to the monster adventuring party.

And once you are at the monster adventuring party you start wondering if adventurers want political power or if that is just a human desire, and you end up with a band of creatures that is traveling in search of new delicious foods and to sate the requirements of their abhorrent reproductive cycles and everything is simpler and fun again, if disturbing to those looking from the outside.

[Amaril]

It is the classic ludicrous darwinistic fantasy socio-ecosystem. You have good aligned murderous maniacs and evil aligned murderous maniacs fighting for supremacy, while the established powers do their best to quell them while they are small and work with the big fish, making themselves useful while pointing them at their racial/religious/ideological enemies.

If you don't think too much on the subject, you have heroic fantasy. If you do, you get dystopian deconstruction. And then you start talking the merits of the alignment system. And then you start talking about the ecosystem of monsters. And then you start defining monsters. And then you get to the monster adventuring party.

And once you are at the monster adventuring party you start wondering if adventurers want political power or if that is just a human desire, and you end up with a band of creatures that is traveling in search of new delicious foods and to sate the requirements of their abhorrent reproductive cycles and everything is simpler and fun again, if disturbing to those looking from the outside.

Can I please, please sig this?

[Draken]

Can I please, please sig this?

Woo. It's been so long since someone asked to sig me. Please do.

[Honest Tiefling]

...I may be getting stuck up my own behind again. I'll just stop typing for a bit.

Shush. You are not stuck up your behind, you're detailing your world. Which I assume, was a part of the reason for this thread, no? And this adds another dimension to the game, and is going to come with its own problems, but also its own appeal. Chaos is lurking around and is powerful, but you have a defined cost for tapping into it that is not standard. Never apologize for having inventive ideas about a setting! (Unless they're designed to make the players not have fun. Apologize for those.)

It does illustrate why this class of people exist. I assume they are...Unsettling or dangerous to the community, but vital to go stomp impressive threats that can't be beaten with an army. But if they become less able to relate to others, won't they be incapable of relating to one another within the party? How would a DM handle this situation?

[Telok]

Just start using that cash to raise forces loyal to you instead of covering yourself in magic bling, and then suddenly you have a lot more political power than your social class would imply. Play the cards right, and "lethal bullying" turns into "political power" which can become "rightful authority". Converting money into armed forces has worked for loads of historical figures. It just doesn't happen so often in tabletop game systems that don't have rules for it, or whose players and GMs aren't willing to deal with the hassle.

Right. That sort of thing was baked into AD&D. When you did enough stuff to become famous and had enough wealth you settled down, spent some money, cleared some land, and got integrated into society. Because 10+ level fighters were strong leaders who could chop stuff into mincemeat, wizards needed apprentices to catalog their spellbooks, priests built temples and served the community.

But if you change the assumptions a bit that doesn't happen. Change the in-town interactions to "get quest" and "sell loot", change the magic/money/monster balance so that all money is spent on magic so that the next monster doesn't kill you (or that divorce money and magic but also stop giving lots of money because they "don't need it"), change the social dynamic so that 0.2% of the population is 10th level or higher or that nobody but the PCs are 10th and higher. Any of these can split adventurers from society and deny them opportunity or reasons to rejoin, do all of them and society loses meaning to adventurers.

If adventurers don't need society for anything (leveling up, buying stuff, hiring people) and the society has enough (or no) people already in it who are as powerful as the adventurers then there's this social chasm that adventurers can get stuck on the wrong side of. It's the rules of the game system that shape this. Individual DMs can change things but if they aren't thinking about this sort of thing it won't happen on it's own. Then you end up with anti-social murder-hobos who are just looking for the next quest or magic death tool.

[Amaril]

Woo. It's been so long since someone asked to sig me. Please do.

Darn, I can't--character limit. But still, wisdom.


Shush. You are not stuck up your behind, you're detailing your world. Which I assume, was a part of the reason for this thread, no? And this adds another dimension to the game, and is going to come with its own problems, but also its own appeal. Chaos is lurking around and is powerful, but you have a defined cost for tapping into it that is not standard. Never apologize for having inventive ideas about a setting! (Unless they're designed to make the players not have fun. Apologize for those.)

It does illustrate why this class of people exist. I assume they are...Unsettling or dangerous to the community, but vital to go stomp impressive threats that can't be beaten with an army. But if they become less able to relate to others, won't they be incapable of relating to one another within the party? How would a DM handle this situation?

Thank you :smallredface: And bingo. There are basically two types of adventurers. First, you have the kind who were driven to that life because they were unsettling or dangerous, or assumed to be--people from oppressed racial or ethnic groups, the disfigured, the mentally ill, anyone "normal" folks don't want to have hanging around. Then, you have the kind who became unsettling or dangerous as a result of pursuing a life of adventure. This could include magic-users who have started to lose their grip on their humanity as a result of their studies, but it would also encompass people who had a shot at a normal life, but chose to go fight monsters instead. You might just be some naive farmhand who left home seeking excitement and adventure, but one encounter with a pack of soul-rending demons later and you're left with scars you'll carry forever, and people will notice, and they'll be uncomfortable around you. And it doesn't help that now you've spent all this time hanging around a gang of freaks, blasphemers, and madmen, and who knows what you've gotten up to with them? Congrats--you've left your old, boring, safe life in Lawful society behind, and joined the adventurers out on the fringes. And there's no going back, because like it or not, you're one of them now.

Adventurers can still work in parties because they're not completely subsumed by Chaos, far from it. In fact, they're still closer to the Lawful side of things--they might live apart from normal society, but they still serve its interests with what they do. Their refusal to fit into the neat little boxes laid out for them does mark them as more independent than most people, though, which is precisely why most of them have few permanent attachments outside their small, close-knit group of traveling companions. In fact, I think the fine line between Law and Chaos that adventurers have to walk is part of the reason the adventuring party as a unit is so important to them, and why they're so vehemently opposed to splitting up. If they start going off on their own, they risk forgetting how much they need other people, and then forgetting that other people are important, and then forgetting why they can't just go around killing anyone they please, and then there you go.

[nedz]

This idea kind of reminds me of: Strider at Bree.

[Slipperychicken]

Right. That sort of thing was baked into AD&D. When you did enough stuff to become famous and had enough wealth you settled down, spent some money, cleared some land, and got integrated into society. Because 10+ level fighters were strong leaders who could chop stuff into mincemeat, wizards needed apprentices to catalog their spellbooks, priests built temples and served the community.

But if you change the assumptions a bit that doesn't happen. Change the in-town interactions to "get quest" and "sell loot", change the magic/money/monster balance so that all money is spent on magic so that the next monster doesn't kill you (or that divorce money and magic but also stop giving lots of money because they "don't need it"), change the social dynamic so that 0.2% of the population is 10th level or higher or that nobody but the PCs are 10th and higher. Any of these can split adventurers from society and deny them opportunity or reasons to rejoin, do all of them and society loses meaning to adventurers.

If adventurers don't need society for anything (leveling up, buying stuff, hiring people) and the society has enough (or no) people already in it who are as powerful as the adventurers then there's this social chasm that adventurers can get stuck on the wrong side of. It's the rules of the game system that shape this. Individual DMs can change things but if they aren't thinking about this sort of thing it won't happen on it's own. Then you end up with anti-social murder-hobos who are just looking for the next quest or magic death tool.

I'm so glad they fixed the magic item treadmill in 5th edition D&D. It's really nice to not need a magic-mart. Just find one magic weapon while questing, and you're good for the rest of your career.

I do wish that we could get more serious rules for mercenaries and henchmen though. There is a section for them in the PHB and DMG, but they really don't say anything helpful. They basically tell the DM to wing it, which isn't very useful when you need to know what each type of mercenary would be worth.

[Grim Portent]

I've been working on a setting that uses this idea in spades.

Adventurers come from many sources, young nobles seeking glory, peasants looking to defend their families, deformed monsters looking for a way to protect the society they cannot be part of in the vain hope of gaining acceptance, so on and so forth.

All are or will become outcasts. Every time they return to their court or their loving family or the isolated hamlet that lets them stay for protection the people around them notice their eccentric habits, hear their outlandish tales and become aware of the danger they pose. How do you know that this time they weren't bitten by the werewolf? How do you know they haven't brought the attention of fey childsnatchers down on your house? How do you know that what has come back is really the person that left? Most adventurers meet a gruesome and tragic fate, and so most of society says their tearful goodbyes and shuts the door on them when the stress and fear overwhelms their gratitude and affection.

In the heartlands of civilization the greatest and most established are treated with warm welcomes, as slayers of bandit lords and nameless horrors from beyond the edge of the wilds, but in the lands on the fringes, where monsters and witches prey on mortal men paranoia is the usual response to the presence of adventurers, for they have strange ways and bring down dark omens on those they meet. Even in the cities those who lack any fame or who possess enough oddities or deformity are frowned upon and given little welcome. A warrior champion who slew a dozen men who raided caravans is a hero, but a muttering warlock who claims to have prevented the invasion of the realm by nightmarish beasts no man has seen is considered a dangerous madman.

[Beleriphon]

I've been working on a setting that uses this idea in spades.

Adventurers come from many sources, young nobles seeking glory, peasants looking to defend their families, deformed monsters looking for a way to protect the society they cannot be part of in the vain hope of gaining acceptance, so on and so forth.

All are or will become outcasts. Every time they return to their court or their loving family or the isolated hamlet that lets them stay for protection the people around them notice their eccentric habits, hear their outlandish tales and become aware of the danger they pose. How do you know that this time they weren't bitten by the werewolf? How do you know they haven't brought the attention of fey childsnatchers down on your house? How do you know that what has come back is really the person that left? Most adventurers meet a gruesome and tragic fate, and so most of society says their tearful goodbyes and shuts the door on them when the stress and fear overwhelms their gratitude and affection.

In the heartlands of civilization the greatest and most established are treated with warm welcomes, as slayers of bandit lords and nameless horrors from beyond the edge of the wilds, but in the lands on the fringes, where monsters and witches prey on mortal men paranoia is the usual response to the presence of adventurers, for they have strange ways and bring down dark omens on those they meet. Even in the cities those who lack any fame or who possess enough oddities or deformity are frowned upon and given little welcome. A warrior champion who slew a dozen men who raided caravans is a hero, but a muttering warlock who claims to have prevented the invasion of the realm by nightmarish beasts no man has seen is considered a dangerous madman.

I like that. His Eminence the Lord Mayor of Capital City isn't going to treat an adventurers as scary monsters that are three seconds from flipping out and killing him. The Lord Mayor might treat adventurers like peasant rabble with particularly useful skills, but they aren't to be feared. The peasant ealdorman on the other hand is rightly afraid of a group of armed hooligans that can slay the entire goblin tribe that has been raiding their village for months (four or five adventurers just proved to be mightier than the goblins the peasants couldn't deal with) so they better take their pay and be on their way before they get ideas.

That's the on thing I love about The Witcher stories. Peasants are actually basically Batman thugs, a fearful and superstitious lot. It doesn't hurt than many superstitions are true.

[Grim Portent]

I like that. His Eminence the Lord Mayor of Capital City isn't going to treat an adventurers as scary monsters that are three seconds from flipping out and killing him. The Lord Mayor might treat adventurers like peasant rabble with particularly useful skills, but they aren't to be feared. The peasant ealdorman on the other hand is rightly afraid of a group of armed hooligans that can slay the entire goblin tribe that has been raiding their village for months (four or five adventurers just proved to be mightier than the goblins the peasants couldn't deal with) so they better take their pay and be on their way before they get ideas.

That's the on thing I love about The Witcher stories. Peasants are actually basically Batman thugs, a fearful and superstitious lot. It doesn't hurt than many superstitions are true.

Even a King would treat some with fear. Presentation is important for how adventurers will be treated.

For the most part the ones who deal with mundane and wholesome threats, bandits, foreign invaders, rebels and the like will be treated as defenders of the realm and enjoy the benefits of that. Especially if the adventurer is some kind of mundane warrior who has most of the same superstitions and practices as the people of the realm.

A scholar into the supernatural who faces down demons and eldritch monsters with arcane might and unnatural rituals, who traded an eye for the power to stare down the abyss and withered their limb to raise the dead on the other hand will be feared and respected as some kind of dark necromancer. Something to keep at arms length, placate and flatter when it is present and use as a boogeyman when distant. No matter how much more important his battles are than those of a simple bandit-hunter he will receive few, if any, accolades for his efforts.



Obviously this doesn't apply in settings with sorcerer-kings and enlightened nobles. Works better in settings where the wild and monstrous is far away or long forgotten by the average person, like the Game of Thrones setting, the Witcher, Dragon Age and the like.

[Amaril]

Even a King would treat some with fear. Presentation is important for how adventurers will be treated.

For the most part the ones who deal with mundane and wholesome threats, bandits, foreign invaders, rebels and the like will be treated as defenders of the realm and enjoy the benefits of that. Especially if the adventurer is some kind of mundane warrior who has most of the same superstitions and practices as the people of the realm.

A scholar into the supernatural who faces down demons and eldritch monsters with arcane might and unnatural rituals, who traded an eye for the power to stare down the abyss and withered their limb to raise the dead on the other hand will be feared and respected as some kind of dark necromancer. Something to keep at arms length, placate and flatter when it is present and use as a boogeyman when distant. No matter how much more important his battles are than those of a simple bandit-hunter he will receive few, if any, accolades for his efforts.



Obviously this doesn't apply in settings with sorcerer-kings and enlightened nobles. Works better in settings where the wild and monstrous is far away or long forgotten by the average person, like the Game of Thrones setting, the Witcher, Dragon Age and the like.

Yeah, this is the way I imagine it working. If you deal with mundane threats, you're fine--people understand that you're one of the good guys, and they treat you as such. The adventurers I'm describing are specifically people who deal with the other kind of problems, paranormal and monstrous. I wouldn't say all of them are magic-users themselves, but just being exposed to that stuff arouses suspicion.

[flond]

Don't forget the idea that Adventurers might be common Right now. A blip of time after a calamity (or, given this is fantasy, an opportunity like a wizard accidentally making a new continent) where government structure is weak for say, a decade or less. Enough time for the term to show up, for policies to work around them, and then for them to die out, until the next period of unrest makes seeking your fortune attractive.

[Jay R]

Throughout history, the wandering adventurer is a bit of an outcast, just as anybody without a home is. Lawmen work with bounty hunters, but they don't respect them. Generals use spies, but don't like them. Gunfighters are respected to their faces, but not invited to dinner.

If you are planning to do this, I strongly urge you to watch both The Seven Samurai and its remake The Magnificent Seven (the old one, from the 1960s*) to see it done well, set in two very different cultures.

*The new Chris Platt version may show the same thing, but I can't know until I've seen it.

O'Reilly: You think I am brave because I carry a gun; well, your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility, for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers. And this responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. And there's nobody says they have to do this. They do it because they love you, and because they want to. I have never had this kind of courage. Running a farm, working like a mule every day with no guarantee anything will ever come of it. This is bravery. That's why I never even started anything like that... that's why I never will.


Chico: Villages like this they make up a song about every big thing that happens. Sing them for years.
Chris Adams: You think it's worth it?
Chico: Don't you?
Chris Adams: It's only a matter of knowing how to shoot a gun. Nothing big about that.
Chico: Hey. How can you talk like this? Your gun has got you everything you have. Isn't that true? Hmm? Well, isn't that true?
Vin: Yeah, sure. Everything. After awhile you can call bartenders and faro dealers by their first name - maybe two hundred of 'em! Rented rooms you live in - five hundred! Meals you eat in hash houses - a thousand! Home - none! Wife - none! Kids... none! Prospects - zero. Suppose I left anything out?
Chris Adams: Yeah. Places you're tied down to - none. People with a hold on you - none. Men you step aside for - none.
Lee: Insults swallowed - none. Enemies - none.
Chris Adams: No enemies?
Lee: Alive.
Chico: Well. This is the kind of arithmetic I like.
Chris Adams: Yeah. So did I at your age.


Kambei Shimada: So. Again we are defeated.... The farmers have won. Not us.

[Telok]

Power blip are three paragraphs. Bah.

Short idea: There are two axis of possibility the first is whether or not the game has rules that link adventurers to the society as people who are productive, accepted, and useful. The second is whether or not the DM and the players are trying to have adventurers as functioning members of society.

AD&D and superhero games have rules that encourage adventurers to be real participants in their society. From gaining titles and land to love interests and dependents, the characters have things to tie them to the npcs as people. Whether or not any of it happens is up to the DM and the players, but the tools and information are there for everyone to use.

Contrast that with some of the other games mentioned and with the recent D&D editions where characters and society don't have rules linking them to the society or they link in a negative manner. Characters trend towards sociopathy simply because they have little or no common ground with the society. DMs and players can go against this, but without rules support or guidelines.

I recently played a 5e d&d game where the party literally didn't care when whole cities were destroyed by demons. There was nothing our characters needed from civilization and by the time we could do anything but run away we could also just plane hop to somewhere nicer.

[Cluedrew]

Quotes: ...Unless you have some objections, I would like to use some of these quotes in Quotes you Character Off Of. Still working on the character but the quotes are defiantly interesting.

[Jay R]

Unless you have some objections, I would like to use some of these quotes in Quotes you Character Off Of. Still working on the character but the quotes are defiantly interesting.

I don't see how I could possibly object to you taking and using quotes from the same movies I took them.

[Max_Killjoy]

This sounded like an interesting topic, but then it started hammering on the "murderhobo" stereotype / strawman, and it got aggravating.

Like other terms in the gaming and writing arena, "murderhobo" has been diluted and misused to the point of near-uselessness.

[Cluedrew]

To Jay R: Me neither, I just wanted to let you know. Plus the fact things I can't see happening happen with frightening regularity.

To Max_Killjoy: What do you mean by "hammering on the "murderhobo" stereotype / strawman"? Yes it does play with that stereotype (which is yes, rather vague) but is that hammering or do you mean something else?

[Max_Killjoy]

To Max_Killjoy: What do you mean by "hammering on the "murderhobo" stereotype / strawman"? Yes it does play with that stereotype (which is yes, rather vague) but is that hammering or do you mean something else?


It's a slanted and prejudicial* term too often leveled against any character who wanders and engages in conflict, regardless of their actual situation or motives or methods, presuming that the "knight errant" is no different from the "serial killing hitchhiker".

Perhaps not here, but in other discussion venues it's often used to denote, with derision and while looking down one's nose, any character who isn't deeply mired in angst over every violent act and/or who isn't fully enmeshed in a social web of obligations and limits.



( * in the straight sense of the word, meaning pre-judgement before relevant facts are known)


Edit -- I probably shouldn't let it get to me, but it's one of those terms that's used too often when gamers try to make their preferences into objective goodfun vs badwrongfun divisions.

[Clistenes]

Going back to topic... what about adventurer types who pretend to be regular people, superhero style? A respected alchemist and astrologer who secretly is a powerful wizard. Your regular hunter/woodsman who secretly is a one-man army who keeps whole tribes of orcs and gnolls at bay without anybody knowing. The minstrel who can do magic with his music, but keeps it a secret. The respected citizen who is in fact a successful thief...etc.

If society rejects adventurers, they could work like a secret society of sorts. Daddy does long business trips every three months or so, and when he comes back he brings nice gifts for the kids and a huge profit earned thanks to his hard work... but in fact he goes dungeon delving with his colleages from other towns.

[Amaril]

Going back to topic... what about adventurer types who pretend to be regular people, superhero style? A respected alchemist and astrologer who secretly is a powerful wizard. Your regular hunter/woodsman who secretly is a one-man army who keeps whole tribes of orcs and gnolls at bay without anybody knowing. The minstrel who can do magic with his music, but keeps it a secret. The respected citizen who is in fact a successful thief...etc.

If society rejects adventurers, they could work like a secret society of sorts. Daddy does long business trips every three months or so, and when he comes back he brings nice gifts for the kids and a huge profit earned thanks to his hard work... but in fact he goes dungeon delving with his colleages from other towns.

That could be fun, though it would be limited to those adventurers who can hide their unusual nature from most people easily if they need to. I feel like that line of thought is drifting into a very different kind of game, though :smalltongue:

[Sam113097]

There is a setting called Doomed (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/103414/Doomed-Slayers) Slayers (https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?571602-necro-Doomed-Slayers-Justifying-the-tropes-of-Adventurers), in which adventurers are a seperate social class in a feudal society. In return for freedom and the right to take any loot they can carry, they are expected to defend the general populace from any danger/monsters, and remain neutral in conflicts between nations. They aren't allowed to stay in one place or own more than they things they carry with them. People become slayers as an alternative to jail time or execution or to win glory and fame. Younger children of nobles (who don't stand to inherit lands or titles) have the option of becoming slayers. The slayers remind me of the Night's Watch from Game of Thrones, in that they defend the realms of men from monsters and are made up of criminals and lowlifes.

[Lord Raziere]

It's a slanted and prejudicial* term too often leveled against any character who wanders and engages in conflict, regardless of their actual situation or motives or methods, presuming that the "knight errant" is no different from the "serial killing hitchhiker".

Perhaps not here, but in other discussion venues it's often used to denote, with derision and while looking down one's nose, any character who isn't deeply mired in angst over every violent act and/or who isn't fully enmeshed in a social web of obligations and limits.

( * in the straight sense of the word, meaning pre-judgement before relevant facts are known)

Edit -- I probably shouldn't let it get to me, but it's one of those terms that's used too often when gamers try to make their preferences into objective goodfun vs badwrongfun divisions.

I myself always used the term (and I use it rarely) with a very strict definition:
an adventurer who kills innocents and random villages just because of some petty reason that only someone sociopathic would kill over.

knight-errants are those who protect the innocent. they may kill monsters by the truckload, they may gather loot to kill more, they may gain power through this, but above all they protect those who cannot protect themselves in the process.

a murderhobo is someone who violates this, who kills an NPC just because they won't get their way, who goes from protecting to killing the innocent just because they aren't patient or capable of recognizing the world around as a world that they are in rather than something there only to satisfy them. these are the people that knight-errants kill if they ever find them, because there is no difference between a murderhobo and any other monster, bandit or raider.

adventurers/knight-errants on the other hand stand apart by the difference that that they protect innocents whether for righteousness or money.

[Amaril]

I think another important distinction is in how one handles enemy non-combatants. If a legit adventurer or knight-errant attacks the camp of an orc tribe who's been raiding a nearby village, they'll fight and kill the warriors who are responsible for the actual raiding, but leave the civilians--children and such--unharmed. A murderhobo will kill them all without a second thought.

[Telok]

When I use the term murder-hobo I'm referring to a playstyle exemplified by a couple guys in my group. Their characters are perfectly happy just wandering around, killing stuff, looting, and leveling up. They have no interactions with npcs beyond buying and selling equipment (no roleplay, just accounting) and asking "What's the next quest to kill?" There is no activity beyond killing, looting, and powering up except for when they get bored and attack or insult npcs in order to start a fight.

The current D&Ds support this play style very well. Fighting is rewarded by power, no mechanics or rules tie the PCs to the setting or society, and the only consequence of failure (to a murder-hobo player) is getting to make a new character.

So when I refer to some adventurers as being self-marginalizing and to some game systems as promoting this, that's what I'm talking about. We tried a superhero game that fell apart after a couple months because they didn't like the lack of loot and having to deal with npcs as characters instead of as vending machines.

Now none of this is part of the setting. None of the settings our games run in push adventurers to be marginalized, neither do they prevent it. If the adventuring group becomes marginalized, with no respect, social standing, allies, or power (beyond personal killing ability), then it's due to the PC's actions. Those actions are guided in part by the rules of the game system. With nothing to encourage or promote social interactions or non-violent solutions every encounter is a fight and violence is the answer to any question. Again, if the DM and players both want more than that then the rules won't stop them. But of the rules don't help them in that you will see more marginalized PC adventuring groups.

[cildan]

Just reading some of this thread got me thinking.

Its seems like there is a mild version of this in The Hobbit and LotR, in the way Bilbo was treated before he went with the Dwarves and was talked about after he came back from the Lonely Mountain. Even if all the hobbits did was talk about him.

And the difference also is there after Frodo and the others are treated when they come back and deal with Sharkey in Hobbiton.

Not sure if I really have a point to this, it just got me thinking.

[Garimeth]

But those expendable mooks are as likely to become bandits, thieves, assassins, pirates, tomb robbers...etc., as they are to take jobs from the government. In the real world governments tried to get rid of free companies, condottieri, corsairs and the like as soon as they could; such folks are a sympton of a weak government/country/army. A powerful king would try to press mercenary adventurers into regular service.



Yes, but, if adventuring parties are common, weakened dinasties wouldn't last even a single generation. The minute the king isn't powerful on his own right or lacks loyal, powerful vassals who protect him, an adventuring party would either steal the crown or raze the kingdom to ashes for the loot.

In essence, what I say is: If powerful adventuring parties are common, then the government, army...etc., HAVE to be made of powerful people too. And if the government and army are made of powerful people, they don't need to rely on adventurers to save the day.

However, if adventuring parties are something rare, something that is seen only once every generation, they can be the protagonist of History (and not just of a story): They can be the heroes who save the kingdom, the rebels who topple the government...etc.

Many good posts in this thread, but I wanted to highlight this. In the game I am DMing the last group of "adventurers" toppled a region spanning necromancer emperor, reformed the way everyone practices religion, and created a new kingdom. The PCs are playing 600 years after that group's deaths, and by the time the game is done will have changed the setting. They will never be higher than level 7 (this is 13th age, max levels are level 10.)

Influence is always more valuable than physical power. When is the last time a Navy SEAL got elected to any political office? How about appointed to SECDEF? SECNAV? Ok, just made the Chief of Naval Operations? Ok, ok, just promoted to admiral.

Real power is the ability to scale your influence to get more people to do what you want.

[Arbane]

When I use the term murder-hobo I'm referring to a playstyle exemplified by a couple guys in my group. Their characters are perfectly happy just wandering around, killing stuff, looting, and leveling up. They have no interactions with npcs beyond buying and selling equipment (no roleplay, just accounting) and asking "What's the next quest to kill?" There is no activity beyond killing, looting, and powering up except for when they get bored and attack or insult npcs in order to start a fight.
(SNIP)

I found this (http://lawfulgoodness.tumblr.com/post/146945087420/since-it-was-always-sort-of-a-vague-term-for-me) on Tumblr today, and it seems relevant:




Since it was always sort of a vague term for me, what's the difference between a bunch of murder-hobos and, say, a dungeoneer-by-trade sort of party who focuses solely on combat and looting?


Does your group have a home? Do they have longstanding NPCs with whom they have positive, healthy relationships? Do those around them hold them accountable for their actions? Have they ever rejected a job due to its questionable morality or the likelihood of harming innocent bystanders?

If you answered “no” to any of the questions above, these could be symptoms of a serious condition called
http://66.media.tumblr.com/d5f54e4c7760dc0a47cd31c2243aa37e/tumblr_inline_o9uda8M4J91rt8y60_500.png

Talk to your doctor, pharmacist, or local GM about your symptoms, and see if a Conscience™ is right for you.

Side-effects may include:

Considering the consequences of your actions
Realizing that “Chaotic Neutral” is not the same as “Evil, but in a fun way”
Using the same vendor more than once, because they’re still alive
Local villagers singing songs in your honor rather than cursing the day you were born
Your Game Master actually looking forward to game night
Caring about others
Developing a sense of empathy
Laying awake at night fretfully dreaming about that orphanage you set on fire that one time

If these conditions last for more than 4 hours, congratulations, you may actually be a Hero instead of just some (CENSORED) adventurer.

[goto124]

So wait, am I a murderhobo IRL? Okay, I have a home, but it's the spirit of things...

[Amaril]

That's definitely a very specific set of criteria, and one that might be rigged against certain games. I wouldn't go using it as a universal metric.

[Max_Killjoy]

That's definitely a very specific set of criteria, and one that might be rigged against certain games. I wouldn't go using it as a universal metric.

That thing from Tumblr is the sort of snide, over-the-top, broad/loose usage of "murderhobo" that makes me hate the term.

"Character wanders? Character is a loner? Why, that guy is a "murderhobo", lets all point and laugh mockingly so we can feel superior."

[Cluedrew]

To Amaril: I don't think those are supposed to be criteria as opposed to some common "symptoms" (Since you know... medical ad parody). If I had criteria I would have 2:
Murder - Excessive use of mechanical ways to force getting there way. Such as murdering anyone who disagrees or mind-control.
Hobo - Does not form story connections with the setting or treat the NPCs like characters.

Meeting only one of these two criteria is... might also be a problem, but does not mark murderhoboisum. I recently had a run in with an almost murderhobo, but they had enough social connections that the didn't meet the hobo condition.

[KorvinStarmast]

I don't like settings in which adventuring parties are a common thing. I like it better when they are a very rare exception. This. Along with this is the theme of the rarity of magic, in that magic users/wizards have to go out and find new spells via adventuring sometimes, since magical research is so expensive and time consuming. Wait, I think I just described OD&D, and a number of "gritty realism" type campaigns that I've played in. Monty Haul can be fun too, but it's a whole different game.

[goto124]

Hobo - Does not form story connections with the setting or treat the NPCs like characters.

Meeting only one of these two criteria is... might also be a problem, but does not mark murderhoboisum. I recently had a run in with an almost murderhobo, but they had enough social connections that the didn't meet the hobo condition.

I find that I tend to meet the "Hobo" criterion* a lot. What does that make me? A CRPG player?

* Singular for "criteria". Who thought I would ever use that word?

Also, what do you mean, treat the NPCs like characters? How else do I treat them? What is this "real people" you speak of? I live in my basement 365 days a year, emerging only on leap days for my quadannual grocery shopping!

[johnbragg]

I find that I tend to meet the "Hobo" criterion* a lot. What does that make me? A CRPG player?

* Singular for "criteria". Who thought I would ever use that word?

Also, what do you mean, treat the NPCs like characters? How else do I treat them? What is this "real people" you speak of? I live in my basement 365 days a year, emerging only on leap days for my quadannual grocery shopping!

The contrast is not treating NPCs as characters vs people, it's treating NPCs as characters vs automated magic item/quest kiosks.

[Hawkstar]

That thing from Tumblr is the sort of snide, over-the-top, broad/loose usage of "murderhobo" that makes me hate the term.

"Character wanders? Character is a loner? Why, that guy is a "murderhobo", lets all point and laugh mockingly so we can feel superior."Even loners have addresses you can mail things to and they tend to sleep in at the end of the day. Even migrant workers make a living by building or helping others build instead of killing things and taking their stuff (Unless they're professional exterminators.)

"Exterminatorhobo" doesn't have the same ring to it, even if he doesn't kill innocent people. The people who misuse the "Murderhobo" term are the ones who think it only applies to the people who are "Stab the villagers!" instead of EVERY person who doesn't have a true home and makes a living by killing and looting people (No matter how non-innocent these people are). The term was made up to comment on how ridiculous the lifestyle of a classic adventurer is (No matter how benign), not to mock the "Chaotic Stupid Evil" playstyle, which it got co-opted to mean.


I find that I tend to meet the "Hobo" criterion* a lot. What does that make me? A CRPG player?Are you a migrant worker without a permanent address? If not, you're not a hobo.

A "murderhobo" is simply a migrant worker who's profession is killing people that other people need killed. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Max_Killjoy]

Even loners have addresses you can mail things to and they tend to sleep in at the end of the day. Even migrant workers make a living by building or helping others build instead of killing things and taking their stuff (Unless they're professional exterminators.) "Exterminatorhobo" doesn't have the same ring to it, even if he doesn't kill innocent people. The people who misuse the "Murderhobo" term are the ones who think it only applies to the people who are "Stab the villagers!" instead of EVERY person who doesn't have a true home and makes a living by killing and looting people (No matter how non-innocent these people are). The term was made up to comment on how ridiculous the lifestyle of a classic adventurer is (No matter how benign), not to mock the "Chaotic Stupid Evil" playstyle, which it got co-opted to mean.

Use, misuse, whatever.

First, the "wandering adventurer" is in some settings entirely appropriate, but like even the most mundane or accepted of concepts can be done very badly, even to the point of unintentional self-parody. "Even loners have addresses" and "even migrant workers build stuff" sound like an application of modern standards to all times and places, real and fictional.

Second, I don't see it used to mock "chaotic stupid evil" playstyle -- I see it used to mock an entire swath of the gaming community by stating that they're engaged in a playstyle and having badwrongfun, regardless of how accurate that is. It's a term that might have had a technical meaning at one point, but has been diluted by misuse to the point of meaning nothing more than "games and characters I don't approve of" -- in much the same way that Mary Sue now means nothing more than "female character who threatens my fragile machismo" or "character I don't like so I'll use this insult" or "character who is not defined by a plethora of crippling flaws and weaknesses they never overcome".

[Hawkstar]

Use, misuse, whatever.

First, the "wandering adventurer" is in some settings entirely appropriate, but like even the most mundane or accepted of concepts can be done very badly, even to the point of unintentional self-parody. "Even loners have addresses" and "even migrant workers build stuff" sound like an application of modern standards to all times and places, real and fictional.

Second, I don't see it used to mock "chaotic stupid evil" playstyle -- I see it used to mock an entire swath of the gaming community by stating that they're engaged in a playstyle and having badwrongfun, regardless of how accurate that is. It's a term that might have had a technical meaning at one point, but has been diluted by misuse to the point of meaning nothing more than "games and characters I don't approve of" -- in much the same way that Mary Sue now means nothing more than "female character who threatens my fragile machismo" or "character I don't like so I'll use this insult" or "character who is not defined by a plethora of crippling flaws and weaknesses they never overcome".

Murderhobo isn't a playstyle. It's a character's lifestyle. And they're 'modern' concepts in that they are part of civilization (Dating at least back to the Egyptian empire). Sure, nomads might not have fixed addresses, but their relationships within their tribe is still fixed, and they have jobs within that social structure. Sure, cowboys regularly traversed the whole Great Plains - on a mostly-fixed path as part of regular employment. Hollywood's "Drifter" archetype, though, is straight-up murderhoboism, and not an actual reality. A sheriff or ranger may have a lot of land to cover, but they still have a home to return to at the end of the day, week, month, or at least year if not season, and gainful employment as such. A knight-errant had a home (His fief), and employer (His lord), though he often went on long-ranging missions as well. Even vikings operated within an estabished society (Though one hostile to the societies it plundered) and the plundering was simply seasonal employment (They have the 'murder' down but not the 'hobo')

Meanwhile, the traditional Adventurer's home is the tent and bedroll he carries on his pack (Until he upgrades to a bedroll in a Rope Trick, and eventually Magnificent Mansion), and his source of income is "Whatever he finds on the bodies of the people he kills - usually monsters, bandits, and the like. With some rewards from assorted towns for helping kill these people/monsters. But no long-term employment contracts or steady income"

The world has been more conventionally civilized and for far longer than you seem to give it credit for.

[Steampunkette]

I love this idea!

Murderhobo could be an issue if your players aren't willing to accept the core conceit of the story, but if that is the case then it is an issue of player and game mixup. So long as you've got players willing to follow through with the roleplay, it could be amazing.

Plus it could give privileged folks a look at the other side of things.

[Max_Killjoy]

Murderhobo isn't a playstyle. It's a character's lifestyle. And they're 'modern' concepts in that they are part of civilization (Dating at least back to the Egyptian empire). Sure, nomads might not have fixed addresses, but their relationships within their tribe is still fixed, and they have jobs within that social structure. Sure, cowboys regularly traversed the whole Great Plains - on a mostly-fixed path as part of regular employment. Hollywood's "Drifter" archetype, though, is straight-up murderhoboism, and not an actual reality. A sheriff or ranger may have a lot of land to cover, but they still have a home to return to at the end of the day, week, month, or at least year if not season, and gainful employment as such. A knight-errant had a home (His fief), and employer (His lord), though he often went on long-ranging missions as well. Even vikings operated within an estabished society (Though one hostile to the societies it plundered) and the plundering was simply seasonal employment (They have the 'murder' down but not the 'hobo')

Meanwhile, the traditional Adventurer's home is the tent and bedroll he carries on his pack (Until he upgrades to a bedroll in a Rope Trick, and eventually Magnificent Mansion), and his source of income is "Whatever he finds on the bodies of the people he kills - usually monsters, bandits, and the like. With some rewards from assorted towns for helping kill these people/monsters. But no long-term employment contracts or steady income"

The world has been more conventionally civilized and for far longer than you seem to give it credit for.


When I say I see it used mainly to criticize a playstyle, that's exactly what I meant. While your insistence that it defines a "character lifestyle" is interesting, that's just not how I'm seeing it used. It's being broadly used to belittle and denigrate what the people using it see as badwrongfun -- games and gaming featuring any character who is not sufficiently obligated and engaged with others, any character who is not sufficiently reluctant to resort to violence or threats, any setting or campaign which might allow for such a character. This sort of broad use appears to be a natural consequence of slapping a name like "murderhobo" down on the table, it happens with other terms that are even less loaded in their construction.

As for the "drifter"... One, it's one thing to say it's overused in fiction, and another thing entirely to claim no one has ever lived that way. Two, most games deal in a lot of fictional archetypes and elements, what's wrong with the idea of someone moving from town to town, job to job, alone or in a small group, as part of a game or fictional setting -- especially in a setting where there are opportunities for such a person?

What happened to adventurers staying in inns when near a town or city?

There's a non-Hollywood wandering character archetype in Asian cultures, from the ronin of Japan to the traveling warrior monk of China, that's been around far longer than movies or genres -- I supposed that's all "invalidated" by the criticism inherent in "murderhobo" too?

~~~~

If the term were overall used to specifically and strictly refer to characters who exist only as "game pieces" in a campaign of going from town to town and killing for the sake of this week's treasure and treating NPCs as cardboard standups, and therefore are ridiculous and even disturbing when viewed through the lens of the NPCs and the setting as "real", then it would be fine.

Instead, it's used to denigrate a far broader range of characters via the implication that they are of a type with the above specific sort.

~~~~

And the thing is, I understand the temptation to avoid any and all personal connections for a character -- no family, no home town, no permanent home, nothing -- given the way that some GM's treat such things as "Chekhov's stuff". If the PC has parents "back home", orcs will threaten that home. If the PC has a sister, she will be kidnapped or worse. If the PC has a spouse, the spouse will end up dead or cursed or turned into a vampire or whatever. If the PC keeps his loot in a bank, the bank will be robbed. And so on.

[2D8HP]

So wait, am I a murderhobo IRL? Okay, I have a home, but it's the spirit of things...
I find that I tend to meet the "Hobo" criterion* a lot. What does that make me? A CRPG player?

* Singular for "criteria". Who thought I would ever use that word?

Also, what do you mean, treat the NPCs like characters? How else do I treat them? What is this "real people" you speak of? I live in my basement 365 days a year, emerging only on leap days for my quadannual grocery shopping!:biggrin:
It's hard to express just how much joy I find in these posts!


There's a non-Hollywood wandering character archetype in Asian cultures, from the ronin of Japan to the traveling warrior monk of China, that's been around far longer than movies or genres -- I supposed that's all "invalidated" by the criticism inherent in "murderhobo" too?There's also the "Knight Errant" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight-errant) from european medieval romances.

[hamishspence]

There's also the "Knight Errant" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight-errant) from european medieval romances.

They sometimes had home fiefs though.

The sellsword, independent mercenary, etc might be closer to the D&D adventurer.


"Exterminatorhobo" doesn't have the same ring to it, even if he doesn't kill innocent people. The people who misuse the "Murderhobo" term are the ones who think it only applies to the people who are "Stab the villagers!" instead of EVERY person who doesn't have a true home and makes a living by killing and looting people (No matter how non-innocent these people are). The term was made up to comment on how ridiculous the lifestyle of a classic adventurer is (No matter how benign), not to mock the "Chaotic Stupid Evil" playstyle, which it got co-opted to mean.

It's fairly logical though to take the approach that only murderers can be murderhobos, and that an "exterminator of non-sapient pests" wouldn't qualify - it has to be killing of people:



A "murderhobo" is simply a migrant worker who's profession is killing people that other people need killed. Nothing more, nothing less.

and it has to qualify as murder.

[2D8HP]

They sometimes had home fiefs though.

The sellsword, independent mercenary, etc might be closer to the D&D adventurer.A great example from history: John Hawkwood (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hawkwood)

[hamishspence]

In Faerun, the "hobo" bit may be less important, with plenty of adventuring groups with permanent "hometowns" that they always return to after their trips into the wild.

The Knights Of Myth Drannor typifying the non-hobo adventurer archetype.

[Amaril]

I love this idea!

Murderhobo could be an issue if your players aren't willing to accept the core conceit of the story, but if that is the case then it is an issue of player and game mixup. So long as you've got players willing to follow through with the roleplay, it could be amazing.

Plus it could give privileged folks a look at the other side of things.

Privileged folks like me, you mean? :smalltongue:

You raise a good point. A game like this would make it really important that all players are aware of the premise beforehand. I know a lot of people play games for wish fulfilment and power fantasies, and those people would be very disappointed and frustrated if they were thrown into something like this without warning. I wonder just how many people would even be willing to play a game that advertised as being about experiencing disempowerment and unfairness...

[veti]

Privileged folks like me, you mean? :smalltongue:

You raise a good point. A game like this would make it really important that all players are aware of the premise beforehand.

"Adventurers as outsiders" is not particularly outrageous. Just make sure to mention it, either in the background sheet or during character generation, and you're covered.

I think it's hard for modern people to understand, and empathise with, the importance our ancestors attached to "knowing someone's family background". Up until the 19th century, the vast majority of people would only mix with their very local community. The people you knew and trusted, were those whose parents, siblings etc. you knew. When anyone did anything bad, that would reflect on their family, and so for the most part, if one member of the family was trustworthy, there's a good chance others would be too - because the good ones would make it their business to keep the others in line.

(I don't know if it's general knowledge, but the institution of the "grand jury" is based in this kind of society. The idea was for a prosecutor to ask the accused's neighbours, who knew them and their family, if "given this evidence, would you believe X might have done this thing?" And only if the prosecutor could get a verdict of "OK, it's possible" from them, would the case be taken to a formal court. So someone who was really loved and trusted by their community would be virtually impossible to prosecute.)

That's the background to a world where people are deeply suspicious of strangers, particularly those who didn't seem to have any good reason to be wandering the countryside. If a complete stranger walked into a village inn and asks if there are any odd jobs that need doing - the reaction would be grave suspicion, if not outright hostility. Why is she here? What is she running away from? Who, in a word, is she?

Of course they might have plausible answers to those questions, but they'd better be plausible. If she starts spinning some fantastical yarn about being abandoned by her parents and drifting into a life of petty crime before being picked up by a wealthy patron and look, if you want to tell fantastical stories you should be a bard, they get a certain latitude in these matters, but neither you nor your story are interesting enough for that so get out of my inn you lying hobo.