"Adventuring" is not synonymous with being a murder-hobo. [Archive]

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-24, 11:52 AM

I find the "adventure == murderhobo" attitude to smack of "badwrongfun" and a particular type of elitism. Let's take as an example my longest running group (about a year so far). They're currently at the top of Tier 3 (level 15). Here's a shortened version of what they've done so far, broken out by tier. After each one adventure, I've listed the major pillars used.

+ Resolved an issue with an angry tree-spirit (without violence). Created the nucleus of the PC druid's future grove. Social, exploration
+ Cleared out a mine full of corrupted creatures (at the request of their relatives). This started one of the major emergent story threads and introduced the final BBEG, although I didn't know it at the time. In doing so, gave the nearby town (their home base) a needed source of income. Combat, exploration
+ Explored an ancient magical library/research facility. Mostly non-violent, except as needed against unreasoning defenses. Could have been much more violent. Gained significant prestige due to the historical and research value of the site. Got hints as to a middle-tier BBEG. Gained several allies--one has stayed with the party ever since, the other is an academic mage whose career they boosted.Exploration with minor combat.

All of these had a central home base that they were protecting and strengthening, so no hobo here. All were minimally violent, so no murder here.

+ Cleared out an intrusion by the mid-tier BBEG's forces. I expected this to take place off-camera by other forces, but they took the initiative. They did this to gain notoriety in the capital and gain the trust of several groups. As a result, they got the chance at a house and rescued someone who became their house-holder (because they're away a lot). Combat and social.
+ Gained control of a house through adventure--they had to gain the house's trust (among other things). This is their ongoing home base. Mostly social, some combat against mimics and such beasts.
+ Went on an international exploration/diplomacy mission (self-directed). They decided to try to get the nations to form an UN-like coordinating body. This took several adventures--
++ Cleaning out a keep for some goblins (so that they had a defensive position against corruption from the south--goblins are not any more evil than anyone else). Combat, social, and exploration
++ Reaching and gaining the trust of another nation. Social and exploration
++ Protect a ritual to suppress an area of demonic corruption so they could go cut out its heart. Combat
++ Reach and discover the society of the BBEG: Exploration, limited combat.
++ Persuade the government of that society that they were being used by the BBEG. Free them from an ancient demonic contract. Combat, social.
++ Lead a multi-nation combat force against the BBEG. Combat, social to gain the allies.
++ Convincing their home society (which is relatively xenophobic) to provisionally accept the coordinating body. Social.

+ Discover a threat from the Far Realms-equivalent. Resolving this is the main adventuring goal of the rest of the campaign. Combat, exploration.
+ Discovered a lost city, thought destroyed. Mostly non-violently resolve some of the internal and external issues of that society. They only killed things that could not be reasoned with (animals, some insane creatures). This was mostly a side-quest, and explicitly so OOC. Exploration, combat, social.
+ Start diplomatic relations with another society (ongoing). Social, exploration.
+ Reach and explore a huge library city, looking for an artifact to keep it out of the hands of the Far Realms force (ongoing). Combat and exploration so far, with social about to start.

This is all very far from "kill people, take their stuff, repeat," yet is the type of adventure that 5e supports. They've been neither murderous (they fight only those who refuse to talk, and only when necessary--heck, they tried to talk down an obviously insane corrupted dragon) nor hobo-ish--they've had a sequence of fixed bases that they try to defend and improve. The treasures they've earned (and they're filthy rich, at least on paper) are earmarked toward their personal goals, and the required amount is "more."

Only one player had ever played before, and he had only done modules. They came up with these plans themselves--I only had a basic idea of the 1st tier locations and rough contents, not a fleshed out plot. They built their own goals and plot. I completely never expected them to try to build a UN-like group. I constantly have to scramble to keep building the world ahead of them. That's why I'm so offended by the "oh you just want murderhobo gaming" comments. Because I expected murderhobos, and have yet to actually see any. Across multiple groups. And I play almost exclusively with new players.

Tanarii

2017-10-24, 12:02 PM

Murderhobo is not synonymous with D&D adventuring. But it's a fine tradition of D&D, often upheld, especially at low levels. It does tend to get a bit old, to where it's time to move on to something new.

So is being murderheroes, same murder outlook, just directed more at villains for that true heroic feel. And possibly less hoboing and rolling bodies for loot, although I wouldn't count on it.

Nothing about your adventures couldn't happen with a group of murderheroes or murderhobos. In fact the kind of stuff you're describing is a natural outgrowth of starting off as murderheroes or murderhobos, except they tend to keep the murder tendencies for life. Your group chooses from the get go to be not to be so murderous, not so hoboish, and not so roll-bodies-for-loot? Good on you. But some people like to embrace that as the traditional starting point for their games.

(If you'll note from the other thread, I don't have much regard for eternal muderhoboing from zero to end of career. That gets pretty boring too, IMO.)

Potato_Priest

2017-10-24, 12:09 PM

Well, I am glad that you're having fun with your group. This game can be played many ways, and you guys seem to be enjoying yourselves.

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with murderhoboing though. The best campaign I've run to date was founded on that precise premise, and it got positive reviews from all involved.

Easy_Lee

2017-10-24, 12:13 PM

Demonslayer666

2017-10-24, 12:20 PM

If you don't sit at home, and you go around killing stuff...

Deleted

2017-10-24, 12:49 PM

Is suspect this speaks more to your DM style than the players themselves.

I always have to chuckle when DMs complain about things like murderhobos or metagaming. I chuckle because it's the DM's own fault.

Players respond to the DM. Outside of that, players do next to nothing. Most player behavior begins with DM behavior. Players are not so different from one another when considered as a group rather than as individuals - something I hate doing, but which is sometimes useful.

Murderhobos happen to killer DMs. If the DM acts as though it's his job to "challenge" the players (by coming up with ways to kill them), the players respond like so: if this world is trying to kill me, then I'm going to kill this world.

Boom, right here.

I typically have my players have families and relations. Stuff they do will cause issues with their families or have their children love or hate them... I can play off their murder hobo tendencies and bring them back down to earth...

In the middle of a battle with a Black Dragon a lawyer showed up and served one of the PCs divorce papers... The player was being a murder hobo and his character's wife decided that she didn't want anything to do with him (yay backgrounds). The player, to his credit, stopped the fight and asked the black dragon if he could go... That he didn't want to be rude but he really needed to fix his marriage...

The black dragon understood his plight as she recently went through a messy divorce (on the fly I decided this was why she was causing trouble since the player actually stopped to talk). The dragon ended up being an ally to the adventurers as they bonded over mutual strife and even put on an abduction act in order to allow the player character to win back his wife (dragon abducts the wife, the player saves her). By the roll of the dice it didn't work as their acting skills sucked (never leave home without performance or deception) but the PC learned something and stopped being such a murder hobo, he still had a daughter to protect and wants to keep in good graces with).

Mister_Squinty

2017-10-24, 01:05 PM

This is all very far from "kill people, take their stuff, repeat," yet is the type of adventure that 5e supports.

The D&D system is an art set. You can paint anything you want with it, but blobby stick figures on a white background will always be the easiest.

Glad to hear your group has fun with your style, however.

scalyfreak

2017-10-24, 01:10 PM

I find the "adventure == murderhobo" attitude to smack of "badwrongfun" and a particular type of elitism.

I find this opening statement highly ironic.

Adventuring is what we make it. Murderhoboing can be fun. The opposite can as well.

KorvinStarmast

2017-10-24, 01:11 PM

Murderhobo or murderhero is a subset of Adventuring.

Your players will tend to do what you reward them for doing.

Waterdeep Merch

2017-10-24, 01:20 PM

Murderhobo or murderhero is a subset of Adventuring.

Your players will tend to do what you reward them for doing.
Game Design 101. Anyone engaged in a game will automatically, subconsciously, drift towards whatever strategy or gameplay elements best rewards them. As a player you may make the conscious decision early on and at certain intervals to intentionally take more flavorful choices over powerful ones, but during moment-to-moment gameplay, you will divert towards whatever the easiest and most profitable decisions are within those guidelines.

I wish more GM's understood this. If you want your players to play a certain type of game, you need to incentivize the style of gameplay that lends to it best. Your three tools are always rewards, punishments, and threats of punishment. These need not always revolve around treasure, XP, and death, but you will always need to figure out what the players will want and how to let them get there.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-24, 01:25 PM

If you don't sit at home, and you go around killing stuff...

Yeah, that's not what's meant by murderhobo. It's always been about having

a) few considerations for NPCs (kill the shopkeeper if he won't give you a discount is a classic)
b) few if any goals outside of killing things (which isn't inherently a bad thing in and of itself)
c) no fixed address or people to protect. Murderhobos tend to get run out of towns and travel from area to area, cutting swaths of bodies across the landscape.

Well, I am glad that you're having fun with your group. This game can be played many ways, and you guys seem to be enjoying yourselves.

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with murderhoboing though. The best campaign I've run to date was founded on that precise premise, and it got positive reviews from all involved.

Murderhobo is not synonymous with D&D adventuring. But it's a fine tradition of D&D, often upheld, especially at low levels. It does tend to get a bit old, to where it's time to move on to something new.

So is being murderheroes, same murder outlook, just directed more at villains for that true heroic feel. And possibly less hoboing and rolling bodies for loot, although I wouldn't count on it.

Nothing about your adventures couldn't happen with a group of murderheroes or murderhobos. In fact the kind of stuff you're describing is a natural outgrowth of starting off as murderheroes or murderhobos, except they tend to keep the murder tendencies for life. Your group chooses from the get go to be not to be so murderous, not so hoboish, and not so roll-bodies-for-loot? Good on you. But some people like to embrace that as the traditional starting point for their games.

(If you'll note from the other thread, I don't have much regard for eternal muderhoboing from zero to end of career. That gets pretty boring too, IMO.)

Right, but murderhobo is most commonly used as a pejorative. I don't have any fundamental problem with the play-style of dungeon raiding with little connecting plot (used intentionally loosely there), but I'd like to find a different word than murderhobo to describe it. I guess I was reacting to those who seemed to believe that adventuring is a lesser play style as compared to building castles or merchant empires (or gaining wealth by using peculiar readings of optional rules for DMs as if it's a player entitlement). It's a form of elitism and badwrongfun. At least that's how it comes across.

Mikal

2017-10-24, 01:33 PM

Stuff

Strange though, that a lot of the stuff you have to scramble to do is not supported in the actual game rules to any degree. Else you wouldn't have to scramble as much.

I mean... the rules don't allow for you to get a stronghold for free, such as a druid grove or a house. After all they take away from active adventuring as it disincentives them from adventuring, since they don't have to pay upkeep for it (much like someone using their downtime to craft items which they can sell for say... 900 GP profit per month, which you expressively vetoed in another thread despite it being done in parallel to actual adventuring much like your examples).

But, I digress a little. The point is that the game itself does not provide support for much if any of this, especially when compared to previous editions. Those types of rules and incentives could be used to help move away from the murder-hobo mindset. Not having it there does actually push towards an adventurer in 5e (base adventurer, not one where you're house ruling and scrambling to create stuff the books don't mention how to start one) towards the murder-hobo lifestyle.

Think about the basic adventurer in 5e.
Do they have a base of operations?
No.
Why? Because there's no reason to do so. It's a money sink that in no way pays for itself, and even in your own examples the people who have any sort of base are ones you gave to for free it seems.
Without a base of operations, that's pretty hobo like.

Do they kill things to take their stuff to enrich themselves?
Yes.
Why? Because any attempt to make money any other way will fail, and the book seems to want to push them to do nothing but move from adventure 1 to adventure 2, raid style, while throwing them a few bones in downtime (as long as they don't actually profit from it of course!)
That's pretty murdery to me, as well as theft.

So... by the book, adventurers in 5e are pretty murder-hoboy to me.

You can add stuff in, like you've done so far, but that's not by the book.

Sigreid

2017-10-24, 01:39 PM

Yeah, that's not what's meant by murderhobo. It's always been about having

a) few considerations for NPCs (kill the shopkeeper if he won't give you a discount is a classic)
b) few if any goals outside of killing things (which isn't inherently a bad thing in and of itself)
c) no fixed address or people to protect. Murderhobos tend to get run out of towns and travel from area to area, cutting swaths of bodies across the landscape.

Right, but murderhobo is most commonly used as a pejorative. I don't have any fundamental problem with the play-style of dungeon raiding with little connecting plot (used intentionally loosely there), but I'd like to find a different word than murderhobo to describe it. I guess I was reacting to those who seemed to believe that adventuring is a lesser play style as compared to building castles or merchant empires (or gaining wealth by using peculiar readings of optional rules for DMs as if it's a player entitlement). It's a form of elitism and badwrongfun. At least that's how it comes across.

Instead of murder hobo how about full contact adventurer for the middle ground?

Mister_Squinty

2017-10-24, 01:44 PM

Instead of murder hobo how about full contact adventurer for the middle ground?

"Full Contact Transient" Have to reflect the lack of a permanent residence too.

Mikal

2017-10-24, 01:45 PM

"Full Contact Transient" Have to reflect the lack of a permanent residence too.

So... Murder Hobo.

Sigreid

2017-10-24, 01:48 PM

"Full Contact Transient" Have to reflect the lack of a permanent residence too.
I was actually thinking has a home to protect and goals and views the vigorous and targeted application of violence to remove problems.

Mister_Squinty

2017-10-24, 01:50 PM

So... Murder Hobo.

"Murder" implies criminality. WE are not "murderers". We are highly trained specialists in armed response and pro-active self-defense. Currently between residences.

Max_Killjoy

2017-10-24, 01:52 PM

If you don't sit at home, and you go around killing stuff...

...then you're one of many many things, only one of which is a "murderhobo" in the pejorative sense.

Mikal

2017-10-24, 01:52 PM

"Murder" implies criminality. WE are not "murderers". We are highly trained specialists in armed response and pro-active self-defense. Currently between residences.

Ha. My mistake. And to be fair, are you a hobo if you're carting around a dragon's horde worth of liquid assets?

Mister_Squinty

2017-10-24, 01:53 PM

I was actually thinking has a home to protect and goals and views the vigorous and targeted application of violence to remove problems.

I agree that's a way to run a great campaign, but it nails the characters down to a smaller geographic footprint. If the home is in need of protection, it makes it hard to narratively justify roaming across the map to address greater, if more distant, threats.

Mister_Squinty

2017-10-24, 01:55 PM

Ha. My mistake. And to be fair, are you a hobo if you're carting around a dragon's horde worth of liquid assets?

That is an excellent question. Especially if one's personal belongings include an Instant Fortress or Magnificent Mansion. I guess it would be the medieval equivalent of a tricked out RV.

Sigreid

2017-10-24, 01:56 PM

I agree that's a way to run a great campaign, but it nails the characters down to a smaller geographic footprint. If the home is in need of protection, it makes it hard to narratively justify roaming across the map to address greater, if more distant, threats.

That depends on where the threats are coming from. IMO, what home provides is a tie to the world outside the party and a reason to care.

Honest Tiefling

2017-10-24, 01:58 PM

Murderhobo or murderhero is a subset of Adventuring.

Your players will tend to do what you reward them for doing.

Yeah, it sounds like the OP gives their players options to solve problems in creative and non-violent ways. They also don't seem to immediately murder relatives. I bet that 50% of murder hobos are caused by NPCs re-enacting the Mary Sue Chronicles (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?275152-What-am-I-supposed-to-do)...

For those who haven't read it or don't enjoy drama-llamas, every NPC snubbed the PCs for illogical reasons despite seemingly being presented as being logical or rational people. Even their minions!

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-24, 02:00 PM

I was actually thinking has a home to protect and goals and views the vigorous and targeted application of violence to remove problems.

This is my common style.

...then you're one of many many things, only one of which is a "murderhobo" in the pejorative sense.

Amen.

I agree that's a way to run a great campaign, but it nails the characters down to a smaller geographic footprint. If the home is in need of protection, it makes it hard to narratively justify roaming across the map to address greater, if more distant, threats.

My players tend to see "home" as more than "house." For one character, he believes (but is probably just crazy) that he is a Far Realms being that took human form to warn the world about threats from beyond. He defines "home to protect" as the whole set of planes. Another is doing it because he's personally offended at the BBEG at this point. A third is in it to protect the political establishment he's building (and for the phat loots). The fourth is there because someone has to keep those crazy people from getting themselves killed. The group is not protecting only their house--that's what the town guards are for. They know of a bigger problem and are crazy enough to believe they can do something about it at its source.

The threat to their home is not so direct as to need them to stay home. It's more a problem they're trying to be proactive and stop it before it can threaten their house.

Easy_Lee

2017-10-24, 02:16 PM

Instead of murderhobo, why not just say nomadic mercenary? Because it's not as fun to say.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-24, 02:23 PM

Instead of murderhobo, why not just say nomadic mercenary? Because it's not as fun to say.

For me, the bite of the murderhobo label is the idea that the eponymous PCs don't have any concern for anyone but themselves. They kill and foul their own nests, then move on when the locals get annoying about the dead civilians. "Nomadic mercenary" doesn't have that same bite, but it still emphasises a form of play that I think is separated from the core style of this edition. It's certainly supported--you can do a plotless dungeon crawl just fine, for example. It's just not what the DMG and PHB are going for, in my reading. I read them as wanting there to be actual characters with motivations and goals beyond "kill loot maim" (that is, beyond simply being a murderhobo). But my reading may be colored by my preconceptions and preferences.

KorvinStarmast

2017-10-24, 02:28 PM

"Murder" implies criminality. WE are not "murderers". We are highly trained specialists in armed response and pro-active self-defense. Currently between residences. If you make 1000 of these t-shirts, I predict that you'll sell them all at the next gaming Con. :smallbiggrin:

Love your Show! :smallcool:

I agree that's a way to run a great campaign, but it nails the characters down to a smaller geographic footprint. If the home is in need of protection, it makes it hard to narratively justify roaming across the map to address greater, if more distant, threats. In a memorable campaign in OD&D that I played, late 1970's, we had a hometown/home base that our group operated from. The town of Glenworthy. A few of the adventures/raids had to do with defending the town. We had weddings there. A few of the PC's helped to build some of the buildings. One thing we weren't was vagrants of any sort. (Well, my druid was eyed with some disdain since he was as happy living out in the woods as in town ... and he once shape changed into a lizard to skip out on a date that was going badly ... )

"Nomadic mercenary" doesn't have that same bite, but it still emphasises a form of play that I think is separated from the core style of this edition.
I see the 5e character model as very much in keeping with Richard Boone's old TV show: https://killzoneblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Wire-Paladin.jpg

https://killzoneblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Wire-Paladin.jpg

Problems arise for various people in the fictional world, and the PC's try to solve them, sometimes it involves gunplay/combat. See also Kwai Chang Kane from the TV show Kung Fu.

Demonslayer666

2017-10-24, 02:45 PM

Yeah, that's not what's meant by murderhobo. It's always been about having

a) few considerations for NPCs (kill the shopkeeper if he won't give you a discount is a classic)
b) few if any goals outside of killing things (which isn't inherently a bad thing in and of itself)
c) no fixed address or people to protect. Murderhobos tend to get run out of towns and travel from area to area, cutting swaths of bodies across the landscape.
...

Nope. You can't claim exemption from murderhobo status unless you do live at home 7 months out of the year and don't kill things.

It has nothing to do with the treatment of NPCs (except in regards to killing them), your goals, or having a fixed address.

MurderGypsy, KillerWanderer, SlayerNomad...call it whatever you want.

And BTW, it's a term of endearment. :smallsmile:

Max_Killjoy

2017-10-24, 03:10 PM

Nope. You can't claim exemption from murderhobo status unless you do live at home 7 months out of the year and don't kill things.

It has nothing to do with the treatment of NPCs (except in regards to killing them), your goals, or having a fixed address.

MurderGypsy, KillerWanderer, SlayerNomad...call it whatever you want.

And BTW, it's a term of endearment. :smallsmile:

You are engaged in a "personal definition" fallacy. Regardless of how you'd like to use "murderhobo", that is not what most people mean by "murderhobo".

"Murderhobo" is most commonly used (by a wide margin) as a pejorative term for characters who are remorselessly willing to kill anything that gets in their way including innocent civilians and important NPCs who should have been allies, reject all connections to other characters, refuse to form any connection to place or location, and appear concerned with only loot and XP, etc -- characters played by players who treat the fictional world as artifice, as a gameboard and everything in it as cardboard playing pieces.

KorvinStarmast

2017-10-24, 03:24 PM

I dunno, when we were 12 we all wanted to murderhobo regardless of what the DM rewarded.

Like, one game we intentionally goaded him into making it a TPK just so see if we could.
I didn't start playing until I was a junior in high school.
When I ran D&D for youngsters, I didn't reward that sort of play. And ya know what? I didn't get 12 year old murder hoboes playing. Granted, I was an adult DM, and I had some years under my belt.
If you were all 12, and the DM was 12, then I am not surprised that you did that. Did you have fun? If so, good! :smallbiggrin:

Tanarii

2017-10-24, 03:28 PM

a) few considerations for NPCs (kill the shopkeeper if he won't give you a discount is a classic)I disagree with this one. Also, you forgot the key to proper murdurhoboism: the reason you're murdering things in dungeons / adventure sites is to roll them for their loot.

(Edit: to be clear, the reason they are called murderhobos has nothing to do with murdering NPCs. It's because you murder the creatures in adventuring sites / dungeons, going through them like a hot knife through butter. Then roll them for loot. Then move on to murderhoboing bandits and monster lairs, once you start wilderness adventuring.)

Right , but murderhobo is most commonly used as a pejorative. I don't have any fundamental problem with the play-style of dungeon raiding with little connecting plot (used intentionally loosely there), but I'd like to find a different word than murderhobo to describe it. I guess I was reacting to those who seemed to believe that adventuring is a lesser play style as compared to building castles or merchant empires (or gaining wealth by using peculiar readings of optional rules for DMs as if it's a player entitlement). It's a form of elitism and badwrongfun. At least that's how it comes across.i know it's used as a Perjorative. I don't care. I've unilaterally decided to adopt the terms murderhero and murderhobo as very accurate labels of certain styles of play. Typically running the line that goes Hero, Murderhero, Murderhobo, and Villain. D&D works just fine for a while if all you want to do is kill things and roll them for loot, to murderhobo. It also works fine if all you want to do is kill the bad guys and roll them for their loot, or murderhero.

But I think older editions of D&D had it right: this gets old. You need to do something new. That's why BECM(I) was designed to go Dungeon --> Wilderness --> Rulership --> epic / planar adventures.

And as far as I'm concerned, 5e is absolutely ideal for doing the same. Tier 1 is great for a basic dungeon. By the time you finish that after 5-6 sessions, you're level 5. Now it's time to branch out and explore the wilderness / frontier adventuring sites, in Tier 2! Right as you hit Tier 3 the party starts getting enough treasure they can pool resources for a Keep, or individually start saving for a Tower. Time to settle down a bit and look at those juicy neighboring kingdoms ... Uh, protect your investment in your land and people from various threats. Then Toer 4 creeps up, and you can get out there and do some really Epic and planar-bound stuff. And dump all your party's loot into a fancy palace, because by now you've probably installed one of your party as emperor.

Of course, you don't *have* to do that. You can murderhobo from one to twenty, sinking your cash into magic marts/ gear treadmill (if available). You can go jump straight into an epic adventure path at the ground floor and follow it the entire way. You can sandbox and persue your own goals. You can west marches wilderness. All for an entire campaign. It's just the traditional path / progression. And the costs for Towers, Keeps and Palaces etc in 5e line up pretty handily with the Tiers. What a co-inky-dink that is.

Potato_Priest

2017-10-24, 04:00 PM

I see a lot of argument that murder hobo can refer to a game wherein the players go from dungeon to dungeon and murder monsters taking their loot. I don't think that quite approximates the actual theory of murder hoboing, which in my opinions includes disregard for all NPC life, not just that of monsters.

So, when I described my last campaign being founded on murderhoboism, I mean that most of the PC's opponents were priests and townsfolk who the PCs murdered and looted.

It was fun.

KorvinStarmast

2017-10-24, 04:19 PM

I see a lot of argument that murder hobo can refer to a game wherein the players go from dungeon to dungeon and murder monsters taking their loot.
As I understand the terminology, that's "murderhero."

I don't think that quite approximates the actual theory of murder hoboing, which in my opinions includes disregard for all NPC life, not just that of monsters.

So, when I described my last campaign being founded on murderhoboism, I mean that most of the PC's opponents were priests and townsfolk who the PCs murdered and looted.

It was fun. Murderhoboes indeed. With a price on their heads ... :smallcool: (See also the hole in the wall gang for a kinder, gentler version of murder hoboes ...)

Tanarii

2017-10-24, 04:31 PM

As I understand the terminology, that's "murderhero."
As far as I know, I'm the one that uses that regularly. I've never seen anyone else use it, but it's possible I picked it up from somewhere.

To me the difference between a murderhero and a murderhobo is the murderhero find and kills cartoonishly evil villains in their dungeons / adventuring site, and rolls them for loot. The murderhobo just kills whatever's in the dungeon/adventuring site and rolls them for loot, and doesn't need any 'justification' that they're the Evil Villains.

Tanarii

2017-10-24, 04:32 PM

As I understand the terminology, that's "murderhero."
As far as I know, I'm the one that uses that regularly. I've never seen anyone else use it, but it's possible I picked it up from somewhere.

To me the difference between a murderhero and a murderhobo is the murderhero find and kills cartoonishly evil villains* in their dungeons / adventuring site, and rolls them for loot. The murderhobo just kills whatever's in the dungeon/adventuring site and rolls them for loot, and doesn't need any 'justification' that they're the Evil Villains.

*possibly non-cartoonish Evil Villains too, but I like my Villains obviously villainous. So the murderheros know they're the bad guys they're supposed to murder.

MadBear

2017-10-24, 04:57 PM

Boom, right here.

I typically have my players have families and relations. Stuff they do will cause issues with their families or have their children love or hate them... I can play off their murder hobo tendencies and bring them back down to earth...

In the middle of a battle with a Black Dragon a lawyer showed up and served one of the PCs divorce papers... The player was being a murder hobo and his character's wife decided that she didn't want anything to do with him (yay backgrounds). The player, to his credit, stopped the fight and asked the black dragon if he could go... That he didn't want to be rude but he really needed to fix his marriage...

The black dragon understood his plight as she recently went through a messy divorce (on the fly I decided this was why she was causing trouble since the player actually stopped to talk). The dragon ended up being an ally to the adventurers as they bonded over mutual strife and even put on an abduction act in order to allow the player character to win back his wife (dragon abducts the wife, the player saves her). By the roll of the dice it didn't work as their acting skills sucked (never leave home without performance or deception) but the PC learned something and stopped being such a murder hobo, he still had a daughter to protect and wants to keep in good graces with).

Wait, how have we all skirted past this post. This is both the most ridiculous and also most humorous thing I've seen happen at a table in a long while. Literally getting served divorce papers mid battle. Even, better that the Evil Black Dragon was like "Ah, that's rough man" and let the player fake capture him.

just wow.

Knaight

2017-10-24, 04:59 PM

Players respond to the DM. Outside of that, players do next to nothing. Most player behavior begins with DM behavior. Players are not so different from one another when considered as a group rather than as individuals - something I hate doing, but which is sometimes useful.

Funny how I've consistently ended up with very different games when GMing for different groups of people then. Either there's a heck of a lot of coincidental group-style match-ups across a random distribution of existing GM styles or players can have a lot of influence in how the group pans out.

Now, if we're going to throw around accusations of bad DMing, I could point out that a sufficiently railroad happy DM who heavily restricts player agency wouldn't be in a good position to notice the rest of the group having an effect. But I wouldn't do that.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-24, 05:04 PM

As far as I know, I'm the one that uses that regularly. I've never seen anyone else use it, but it's possible I picked it up from somewhere.

To me the difference between a murderhero and a murderhobo is the murderhero find and kills cartoonishly evil villains* in their dungeons / adventuring site, and rolls them for loot. The murderhobo just kills whatever's in the dungeon/adventuring site and rolls them for loot, and doesn't need any 'justification' that they're the Evil Villains.

*possibly non-cartoonish Evil Villains too, but I like my Villains obviously villainous. So the murderheros know they're the bad guys they're supposed to murder.

Then what do you call those who

a) treat killing as a necessary evil backup-plan and generally try to sneak past/talk to creatures they find and resolve things peacefully
b) have plans for the adventuring site beyond loot (although they're not averse to loot if such is found)
c) protect areas and build institutions (not necessarily selfishly either, but to help the area out even if they don't get direct rewards)?

Because that's what I see as my "normal" players.

As an example, I have a starter dungeon that I have used now with 3 groups. Their assigned task is to find and stop a group of goblins who have been stealing sheep (from friendly goblins). The dungeon has the following encounters:

a) 4 lazy goblins at the entrance. If not dealt with quickly, they'll try to alert the ones inside.
b) 4 goblins guarding a ramp downward (to a wyrmling dragon that serves as the brains of the operation).
c) a goblin boss, with about 6 goblins that he will call as reinforcements from a nearby room. This boss is cartoonishly evil--if the party doesn't alert the goblins, they find him engaged in...non-consensual relations...with some female goblin prisoners.
d) a black wyrmling dragon with a small hoard. This dragon is described as having been in captivity and rants about "Not going back to HIM" but is willing (unbeknownst to the party) to talk and will flee through an escape passage under an acid pool if given the chance.

So far, I've run it with three parties--two were newcomers to TTRPGs and one has a year of experience. How did they handle it?

1) the experienced party: Stealth ambushed a), tried to talk to b) but ended up in combat, ignored c) (didn't even explore over there due to time constraints), and talked to d) from the get-go and negotiated a compromise.
2) Newbie party 1: Tried to ambush a), failed and ended up killing them. Talked/bluffed b) into going looking for their friends. Split up--two went and talked down d) (tried to make allies with it and ended up spending healing resources to help it out) and two went and, upon catching c) in the act, knocked him out, interrogated him, then executed him for his crimes.
3) Newbie party 2: Found a) all asleep, killed them in their sleep. Tried to bluff b), failed, and ended up having to kill them. Took out the 6 goblin reinforcements quietly (sleep for the win), found c) in the act and killed him in fair combat. Talked to d) and tried to figure out how to help it escape more easily.

Notice that none of them (except in the case of a) used force as their primary objective. Only people that were over-the-top evil got killed, and they usually were able to fight back. All of them talked to the dragon and let it go willingly (and most even tried to help it along its way with no extra benefit to them, since it was leaving its meager hoard behind anyway.)

These are the players I see. I don't see either the murderheros or the murderhobos, at least in games I run. I have seen them in other games, where "no evil characters" was interpreted as "don't put evil on your sheet, but still act however you want."

Deleted

2017-10-24, 05:07 PM

Wait, how have we all skirted past this post. This is both the most ridiculous and also most humorous thing I've seen happen at a table in a long while. Literally getting served divorce papers mid battle. Even, better that the Evil Black Dragon was like "Ah, that's rough man" and let the player fake capture him.

just wow.

Thank you :smallsmile:, I do a lot better as a DM than a forum user.

Though different players will play differently and have a different idea of fun, when a DM leads a group and doesn't actually play yo the strengths that they have (PCs are living members of that world). Murderhobo is typically because of a disconnect between what the player wants to do and what the character wants to do because they don't really feel a consequence for their actions. But if you give the player a reason to not murderhobo, they will typically go with it because not being a murderhobo still has you murdering and adventuring, just in a vastly different way.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-24, 05:20 PM

Thank you :smallsmile:, I do a lot better as a DM than a forum user.

Though different players will play differently and have a different idea of fun, when a DM leads a group and doesn't actually play yo the strengths that they have (PCs are living members of that world). Murderhobo is typically because of a disconnect between what the player wants to do and what the character wants to do because they don't really feel a consequence for their actions. But if you give the player a reason to not murderhobo, they will typically go with it because not being a murderhobo still has you murdering and adventuring, just in a vastly different way.

And most people aren't really comfortable acting like that around people they like and trust. I feel most people are actually reasonably good at heart, but when disconnected from consequences and from positive social pressure (and when they don't really care about the game) they can act like jerks in the same way that people on the internet (myself included) often find it easier to be obnoxious.

Of course, there are some hard cases out there. I had one group (that I didn't continue DMing for) that, in their trial run with me as DM (a sort of job interview) had their first actions in a town after being told of the problem they had been hired to solve be

a) one bought all the alcohol he could and proceeded to get drunk
b) another tried to get all the town kids drunk (for what purpose, I'm not sure)
c) two others wanted to have explicit sex in public
d) and the fifth (not a regular to that group) actually wanted to investigate the problem.

I noped out of there pretty fast and didn't go back.

Psikerlord

2017-10-24, 05:28 PM

I don't have any fundamental problem with the play-style of dungeon raiding with little connecting plot (used intentionally loosely there), but I'd like to find a different word than murderhobo to describe it.
The word is adventuring. Murderhobos to me suggests a party with no ties to anyone, keeps on the move, kills NPCs willy nilly, stealing from ordinary folk, etc. Adventurers =/= murderhobos.

I've never actually seen a "murderhobo" game outside of a oneshot shadowrun adventure

Max_Killjoy

2017-10-24, 05:31 PM

Psikerlord

2017-10-24, 05:33 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-24, 05:37 PM

The word is adventuring. Murderhobos to me suggests a party with no ties to anyone, keeps on the move, kills NPCs willy nilly, stealing from ordinary folk, etc. Adventurers =/= murderhobos.

I've never actually seen a "murderhobo" game outside of a oneshot shadowrun adventure

Exactly. That was my point. PCs are adventurers in 5e. Not shopkeepers, not commoners, not murderhobos. The last is more playable than the first two, but still not the default. I posted this in response to someone who equated the two, saying that focusing on adventures was a more polite way of saying "kill things, take their stuff, repeat."

Or shorter version:

That's been my position whenever this has come up, and it's also the position of the thread title in a way.

Adventurer and murderhobo are not synonyms.

Tanarii

2017-10-24, 05:41 PM

Then what do you call those who

a) treat killing as a necessary evil backup-plan and generally try to sneak past/talk to creatures they find and resolve things peacefully
b) have plans for the adventuring site beyond loot (although they're not averse to loot if such is found)
c) protect areas and build institutions (not necessarily selfishly either, but to help the area out even if they don't get direct rewards)?

Because that's what I see as my "normal" players.
Heroes.

Alternately, in any game where combat is actually fairly dangerous, smart. If sneaking and talking to loot and XP is safer than killing your way to it, it makes sense to do that instead. Certainly it makes more sense than murderhoboing your way to it in older editions where gold = XP and combat is dangerous.

Honest Tiefling

2017-10-24, 06:19 PM

Or alternatively, you call them 'Exhibit A-F for why I hate PhoenixPhyre because I don't have a group of rational people to play with right now'.

mephnick

2017-10-24, 06:37 PM

The only people that think this are the idiots that brag about having entire sessions with no combat, as if that's something to be proud of. Sure, you can solve lots of issues through non-violence (try DMing for a GOO warlock face character), but if that becomes the focus of the game you should probably play something else. UNLESS (as Tanarii points out often), you're doing an older-school style where fighting means you ****ed up.

Most of my adventures are the sandboxy "rumours that something wicked sweet is in the Cave of Caverns to the west, but it's dangerous" type, so "kill, loot, repeat" is synonymous with adventuring for me. Doesn't mean I force it and I allow non-violent solutions, but the agreement is that if we're sitting down to play, you're killing things and taking their stuff. But you're also expected to be sane and non-evil.

Tanarii

2017-10-24, 06:43 PM

Or alternatively, you call them 'Exhibit A-F for why I hate PhoenixPhyre because I don't have a group of rational people to play with right now'.
It's also quite unusual in my experience to have new players willing to talk to humanoids unless you intentionally make them approach the players first.

Take the Caves of Chaos in Keep in the Borderlands module. One of the best tactics you can use is to ally with either the Hobgoblins/Goblins or Orcs/Gnolls against the others. In multiple editions, I've never had a group try to work with one side against the others. I have had some befriend the Kobolds, but I make them excessively non-hostile. But usually players invade the caves and attack on sight. And in BECMI, typically die brutally until they learn to be more cautious.

I even told my current 5e group I'm running in the Caves (playtest version) they were welcome to try talking to anything at any time when we started the campaign, that they weren't required to fight. They massacred the bandits, lizard folk, and all the humanoids that couldn't flee except the kobolds. I half expected them to just kill the Kobold with a white flag that approached them to plead for a truce in exchange for information.

Edit: however they also freed a bugbear renegade held prisoner in the bugbear cave and worked with him for a while. So I guess they're not totally embedded in 'kill humanoids on sight'. Otoh they also killed an Orc and Gnoll prisoner in the Hobgoblin cave out of hand, while freeing the (Demi)humans ones. Can't remember what I had the Bugbear renegade say that persuaded them.

Unoriginal

2017-10-24, 06:53 PM

I mean... the rules don't allow for you to get a stronghold for free, such as a druid grove or a house.

Yes they do. Marks of Prestige section, DMG p.228-30.

Unless you meant "but you have to pay the upkeep anyway", but that's splitting hair.

Sigreid

2017-10-24, 07:05 PM

Meta

2017-10-24, 07:12 PM

Potato_Priest

2017-10-24, 07:30 PM

I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume anything about statistics in how other groups play. Maybe the majority of groups enjoy fighting everything. Maybe most don't. Perhaps the average player never remembers or cares about diplomacy and stealth or maybe only the clumsiest of players lets the situation devolve in to combat. Obviously we all have different experiences, and extrapolating what the 'typical' style is from such a small sample size has no guarantees of being accurate.

Man, this is so true. I moved recently, and in finding a new D&D group, found that they play an entirely different game with the same rules. There's so much more railroading and consistent story-like plot than I ever experienced back home. At the same time, they actually adventure in big dungeons that take more than one session. It's really a more dramatic change than I ever would have expected!

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-24, 07:34 PM

Or alternatively, you call them 'Exhibit A-F for why I hate PhoenixPhyre because I don't have a group of rational people to play with right now'.

Heh. I have been pretty blessed as to players. All my newbie groups are school groups (where I'm a teacher), and I tend to attract the theater kids (this year anyway), so they're more attuned to talking and roleplay from the get go. The high level group is some of my colleagues and their spouses. The one bad group I mentioned was a random group at a game store where I was auditioning as a DM. Not my style.

The only people that think this are the idiots that brag about having entire sessions with no combat, as if that's something to be proud of. Sure, you can solve lots of issues through non-violence (try DMing for a GOO warlock face character), but if that becomes the focus of the game you should probably play something else. UNLESS (as Tanarii points out often), you're doing an older-school style where fighting means you ****ed up.

Most of my adventures are the sandboxy "rumours that something wicked sweet is in the Cave of Caverns to the west, but it's dangerous" type, so "kill, loot, repeat" is synonymous with adventuring for me. Doesn't mean I force it and I allow non-violent solutions, but the agreement is that if we're sitting down to play, you're killing things and taking their stuff. But you're also expected to be sane and non-evil.

Don't get me wrong. We do plenty of killing and looting. It just usually happens as a side effect of the other goals and adventures.

It's also quite unusual in my experience to have new players willing to talk to humanoids unless you intentionally make them approach the players first.

Take the Caves of Chaos in Keep in the Borderlands module. One of the best tactics you can use is to ally with either the Hobgoblins/Goblins or Orcs/Gnolls against the others. In multiple editions, I've never had a group try to work with one side against the others. I have had some befriend the Kobolds, but I make them excessively non-hostile. But usually players invade the caves and attack on sight. And in BECMI, typically die brutally until they learn to be more cautious.

I even told my current 5e group I'm running in the Caves (playtest version) they were welcome to try talking to anything at any time when we started the campaign, that they weren't required to fight. They massacred the bandits, lizard folk, and all the humanoids that couldn't flee except the kobolds. I half expected them to just kill the Kobold with a white flag that approached them to plead for a truce in exchange for information.

Edit: however they also freed a bugbear renegade held prisoner in the bugbear cave and worked with him for a while. So I guess they're not totally embedded in 'kill humanoids on sight'. Otoh they also killed an Orc and Gnoll prisoner in the Hobgoblin cave out of hand, while freeing the (Demi)humans ones. Can't remember what I had the Bugbear renegade say that persuaded them.

I intentionally stress with my groups that most creatures (unless they have a reason to be otherwise) will talk. The goblins in that cave? Aren't very bright, so trying to bluff them is a reasonable tactic. It's a major setting conceit that not all X are good/evil. Even angels and devils--angels tend to the lawful side of the spectrum (and aren't generally concerned with collateral damage), and devils lean to the make a deal side. Demons are "evil" mainly because their goals are inimical to existence as we know it, but aren't particularly nasty individuals (necessarily--the Twisted One is a bit of a tentacled jerk face). Setting this out upfront goes a long way to reinforcing the "there are more than one way to get past this" mentality. Oh, and my games are notoriously non-deadly, mostly because my dice like my players. I can't roll worth crap when trying to hit them, and roll saves like crap as well :smallfurious:. I've killed (as in dead dead) one character--a level 2 solo against a CR 9 dire yeti is...painful. He brought that on himself by going and yelling in its ear while it was trying to hibernate.

I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume anything about statistics in how other groups play. Maybe the majority of groups enjoy fighting everything. Maybe most don't. Perhaps the average player never remembers or cares about diplomacy and stealth or maybe only the clumsiest of players lets the situation devolve in to combat. Obviously we all have different experiences, and extrapolating what the 'typical' style is from such a small sample size has no guarantees of being accurate.

I am honestly puzzled here. I'm not sure how this is apropos of anything in this thread. I don't think I've assumed anything about statistics or collective play style beyond my own experience. This is more of a counter-example to the idea I saw in other threads than a "everyone (or even most players) are like X."

Meta

2017-10-24, 07:50 PM

Honest Tiefling

2017-10-24, 07:55 PM

I have no idea if that's true, but it's presented as fact. In this statement what are the 'powerful choices' anyways? Is boosting con to survive? Extra skill proficiencies to avoid a fight altogether?

That's where the meta comes in, and for these to be successful strategies, you'll have to game your DM. Playing in their favored setting or gifts of the finest soda will also increase your chances of survival.

More seriously, depends on the game. Some are pretty RP/Skill heavy, others just break everything in their way. Neither is correct, but it's probably best to show up with a character built for the game for multiple reasons.

Jerrykhor

2017-10-24, 07:58 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-24, 08:17 PM

You mean like how the first and original class in the game is the FIGHTER? Whose job is the hit stuff till they die? And how every single class has combat capabilities?

I heard a quote from somewhere: 'D&D PCs are actually problem solvers, but if the problem can't be killed, it is not worth solving.'

Truer words has never been spoken.

Yes, combat is a major part of D&D. But there are many reasons to kill things other than "because things in dungeons (or in shops) have money and I want money".

Or alternatively, you call them 'Exhibit A-F for why I hate PhoenixPhyre because I don't have a group of rational people to play with right now'.

Would it make the hate worse if I mentioned that of the newbies I have, almost half are female (3/7)? Or that I had several players ask (unprompted!) for the website address I use for my setting information? :smalltongue:

Honest Tiefling

2017-10-24, 08:20 PM

Would it make the hate worse if I mentioned that of the newbies I have, almost half are female (3/7)?

I'm bi. Give me subjective data on the quality of butts and then I'll care. I've actually played with females at the table before, and man did my sample go full on murder-hobo/Assassin Queen.

Or that I had several players ask (unprompted!) for the website address I use for my setting information? :smalltongue:

...Now I'm jealous. None of my players ever did that. Heck, none of the DMs seemed ready for it.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-24, 08:44 PM

I'm bi. Give me subjective data on the quality of butts and then I'll care. I've actually played with females at the table before, and man did my sample go full on murder-hobo/Assassin Queen.

...Now I'm jealous. None of my players ever did that. Heck, none of the DMs seemed ready for it.

I need to clarify--the newbies are all high school students. There's no interest possibility there. Just that female players are stereotypically rare beasts, same with sane, thoughtful ones.

2D8HP

2017-10-24, 08:49 PM

Okay, obviously the problem is how do you define "Adventuring", fortunately I am well qualified and with the DEEPEST HUMILITY, having done the EXTENSIVE RESEARCH (looking at the dusty books my hall closet, and a Wikipedia article at lunch), and having the CREDENTIALS (within the space of a year I saw the Hobbit cartoon on channel 5 without missing any of it to go to the bathroom, I looked at the Dungeons & Dragons box at the toystore in the mall, and saw Stars Wars the most times of everyone in 5th grade, no way did Ben see it 15 times, where are the ticket stubs huh?) to answer the conundrum asked in this thread about Adventurin' (Just sayin'!).

Deep in the depths of time (1939) a story by

Fritz Leiber

http://encyklopediafantastyki.pl/images/d/db/Fritz_leiber0.jpg

(who's hand I shook, I told you I had the credentials dagnabbit! Good thing I'm so dang humble!)

was published titled "Two Sought Adventure"

In 1958 it was republished as "Jewels in the Forest" in the book Two Sought Adventure

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/14/Two_sought_adventure.jpg

To know what a proper Adventure is read:

Two Sought Adventure/The Jewels in the Forest (http://www.baen.com/Chapters/ERBAEN0088/ERBAEN0088___2.htm) by Fritz Leiber.

Read it?

Now do you know?

Good.

YOUR WELCOME!

Now DM with more treasure maps and less end-of-the-world-save-us-please claptrap!

Also NO HARPERS!

:amused:

Honest Tiefling

2017-10-24, 08:52 PM

I need to clarify--the newbies are all high school students. There's no interest possibility there. Just that female players are stereotypically rare beasts, same with sane, thoughtful ones.

Gaaaaaah! No! I take back my former statement, yuck. I think I got confused because it's obvious why someone would want rational players, but I don't see any particular advantage to female players, unless...Yanno.

I'm still considering if 'sane' is wholly necessary, however.

Deleted

2017-10-24, 09:05 PM

My experience is that players start to seriously murder hobo when they are either bored, or feel so railroaded all they really want to do is break the DM's plans. I'm particularly bad about that last one. If I feel the DM is being too controlling, I'll do just about anything to smash the setup....bad Sigreid, no biscuit.

Maybe they do it because of expectations with this game? Were these long standing D&D players or new players? Were they the type to rollplay or roleplay? There is a lot that goes into it. But I know one of the biggest reasons people murderhobo is because the game really lends itself to it. Between not being connected to the world (as D&D doesn't really have a default setting that the classes and backgrounds are tied to) and D&D rules revolving primarily around combat... I can't blame some people for falling into the murderhobo mentality.

It seems like a lot of people seem to go into the game actually expecting that murderhobo is the base gameplay mode, especially new players. D&D doesn't really do a good job connecting players with their character's lives. Backgrounds are a decent start but they don't do a lot to really make a player care outside of what they get from the background.

I think if D&D had its own specific setting and really really tied characters into that setting (and their character's lives), you would see a bit less murderhoboing.

Potato_Priest

2017-10-24, 09:21 PM

Now DM with more treasure maps and less end-of-the-world-save-us-please claptrap!

Preach it, 2d8HP!

Oh come ON! Are you telling me the fiends are trying to invade the material plane again?

Chugger

2017-10-24, 09:29 PM

I think we need a limerick to settle all this!

A scandalous cur named Bobo,
Was a terrible murder-hobo.
He said, "It's not hard,
I'm a chaotic-bad bard,
Who beats things to death with his oboe!"

:D

Easy_Lee

2017-10-24, 10:02 PM

Max_Killjoy

2017-10-24, 10:32 PM

Tanarii

2017-10-24, 11:07 PM

In 1958 it was republished as "Jewels in the Forest" in the book Two Sought Adventure
It was also expand and republished as Swords Against Death.

It's also been sitting on my bedside table for over a year waiting for me to pick it up and start reading it again. Because it's hard to read and jumps around too much, like the vast majority of 'hey day' old-timey fantasy and sci-fi. Even as an adult I feel like they tried all to cram too much stuff into too little pages. Moorcock's Melnibone is the same way. So is Heinlein's stuff. It all reminds me of something my friend once said about Frank Herberts 'Dune': he wrote the best stories, but he couldn't write a paragraph to save his life.

I know, I know, I'm a heathen.

Of course, I grew up on Hickman and Weis Dragonlance. At the time I thought it was the height of literature! It's really just passable teen lit. But it spoiled me for ever enjoying early sci fi/fantasy, because it's super easy to read, and actually contains narrative flow from one paragraph to the next.

Telok

2017-10-24, 11:30 PM

It should also be remembered that some of us do end up in groups where someone invited a friend who was "interested in D&D because someone mentioned it in <insert name of mmorpg>". Then you get to deal with a party including a character that wanders off to steal stuff or start fights because they are "bored of talking and can't remember any names" and you're actually relieved when the player starts playing their phone at the table because it means that the party might be able to do something more in-depth than just finding the next fight/dungeon.

Sigreid

2017-10-24, 11:41 PM

Maybe they do it because of expectations with this game? Were these long standing D&D players or new players? Were they the type to rollplay or roleplay? There is a lot that goes into it. But I know one of the biggest reasons people murderhobo is because the game really lends itself to it. Between not being connected to the world (as D&D doesn't really have a default setting that the classes and backgrounds are tied to) and D&D rules revolving primarily around combat... I can't blame some people for falling into the murderhobo mentality.

It seems like a lot of people seem to go into the game actually expecting that murderhobo is the base gameplay mode, especially new players. D&D doesn't really do a good job connecting players with their character's lives. Backgrounds are a decent start but they don't do a lot to really make a player care outside of what they get from the background.

I think if D&D had its own specific setting and really really tied characters into that setting (and their character's lives), you would see a bit less murderhoboing.

Mix of player experiences. Most enjoy some good role play. But, as I said, if people start getting bored or feeling like they don't get to make any choices that matter people (me included) tend to make their own fun in a very burn it down kind of way.

2D8HP

2017-10-24, 11:46 PM

...It's also been sitting on my bedside table for over a year waiting for me to pick it up and start reading it again. Because it's....

https://i2.wp.com/nerdbastards.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Screen-Shot-2016-11-23-at-5.44.00-PM.png?zoom=4&resize=345%2C260

Oooooh, the PAIN the PAIN!”

Spacehamster

2017-10-25, 12:37 AM

KorvinStarmast

2017-10-25, 08:34 AM

Well this were disappointing, came here thinking I would be reading a spicy rant on how your players did horrible outrageous things and just find a goodie two shoes story on heroic non violent deeds! :'( That's because they killed the posters who did the rants, and took their loot (aka, cell phones). :smallbiggrin: (And none of them had a pair of elven crocs, which is what led to the desecration of the corpses ...)

JackPhoenix

2017-10-25, 08:45 AM

So... Murder Hobo.

I take offense to that. Now, if you'd said Knockout Hobo...

KorvinStarmast

2017-10-25, 08:49 AM

I take offense to that. Now, if you'd said Knockout Hobo... Ah, I guess that you are a Monk, Open Hand. Do I win "What's My Line?" and get valuable prizes? :smallbiggrin:

(See how I did that? Win loot and kill nobody? :smallbiggrin: )

scalyfreak

2017-10-25, 11:47 AM

I need to clarify--the newbies are all high school students. There's no interest possibility there. Just that female players are stereotypically rare beasts, same with sane, thoughtful ones.

No, we're not. You just haven't met any.

Sane players, not females. Everyone knows all females on the internet are either unicorns or males.

Waterdeep Merch

2017-10-25, 12:08 PM

Regarding that quote, once again someone commenting on human behavior once again fails to understand the difference between "usually" and "typically" on one hand, and "always" on the other hand. Universal statements by pop-psychologists are nothing new, and usually stupid.
Ad-hominem attacks on forums are nothing new, and usually stupid.

Addressing the point, here's a good research paper that delves deeper into reward structures and their effects on players (http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/11310.20247.pdf). It's more of an introduction to the field than anything, but there are a plethora of fantastic theories and articles on the psychology behind games and gamers.

This isn't even a new field of study. One of the most famous psychological tests came from B.F. Skinner in the early 1900's, often called the 'Skinner Box'. It simply has a lever that, when pulled, delivers food. Sometimes it also gives a shock to the creature inside if they don't pull the lever. It's a fairly simplified version of what I'm talking about, but similar metrics are used to this day

Speaking of Skinner, he had an interesting result from a different reward experiment involving pigeons that showed how creatures- humans ultimately included- can become more addicted to seeking out rewards when you sometimes withhold them. Meaning, using the Skinner Box as an example, if the lever only granted a reward less than half the time you pulled it, you'd actually be more likely to pull it. This is also used in modern gaming, sometimes by very unscrupulous game designers (ever play a mobile or Facebook game? Or slots?).

What this all means is that if you offer a reward that they want, a player will usually reach for it. If you try to punish a player for doing something, they will generally avoid that. And weirdly, leaving your reward schedule up to random chance can hook players much better than always offering what they want at easily determined intervals (and studies point towards a much greater chance that your players will play the game for the sake of enjoying the game itself, rewards aside). So if you're trying to get your players to interact with a game in a certain way, the best method for doing so is setting up a reward/punishment/threat system that actively encourages those behaviors.

Failure to do so results in that epic story you thought you were writing devolving into a Monty Python sketch about serial killers.

Easy_Lee

2017-10-25, 12:12 PM

No, we're not. You just haven't met any.

Sane players, not females. Everyone knows all females on the internet are either unicorns or males.

D&D women are less common than men. They're becoming more common, but they're still rare. If my game shop is representative, the ratio is something like six dudes for each chick.

The only people I've seen stereotype D&D ladies are guys who have never met one and the media.

Women are diverse, but you'd never know it from the way the media covers "geeky" hobbies. The guys range from knowing their stuff to not knowing anything but being charismatic. But almost every woman who gets coverage is pigeonholed into the same stereotype - manic pixie dream girl. She's always random. She's always doing cutsie things. She's always given a pass for dumb behavior. Should someone insult her, any men around will immediately rush to her defense, as if she belongs on a pedestal. It's frustrating. And I've seen male D&D players react to women with trepidation, walking in eggshells until they learn that she isn't a stereotype.

I think it's safe to assume women are drawn to D&D for the same reasons as men - escapism, social opportunities, and a love of fantasy games. But no two women are exactly the same, and we can't generalize D&D ladies as reasonable, unreasonable, socially inept, beautiful, ugly, unicorns, or anything else.

2D8HP

2017-10-25, 12:21 PM

....But almost every woman who gets coverage is pigeonholed into the same stereotype - manic pixie dream girl.....

Yes, that's been a big disappointment.

All the game playing women and girls (and boys and men as well) that I've known have been human.

Not a single pixie!

:annoyed:

Mister_Squinty

2017-10-25, 12:50 PM

Yes, that's been a big disappointment.

All the game playing women and girls (and boys and men as well) that I've known have been human.

Not a single pixie!

:annoyed:

From the tales, the Fae prefer games like "Let's Make a Deal".

Malifice

2017-10-25, 12:56 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 01:00 PM

D&D women are less common than men. They're becoming more common, but they're still rare. If my game shop is representative, the ratio is something like six dudes for each chick.

The only people I've seen stereotype D&D ladies are guys who have never met one and the media.

Women are diverse, but you'd never know it from the way the media covers "geeky" hobbies. The guys range from knowing their stuff to not knowing anything but being charismatic. But almost every woman who gets coverage is pigeonholed into the same stereotype - manic pixie dream girl. She's always random. She's always doing cutsie things. She's always given a pass for dumb behavior. Should someone insult her, any men around will immediately rush to her defense, as if she belongs on a pedestal. It's frustrating. And I've seen male D&D players react to women with trepidation, walking in eggshells until they learn that she isn't a stereotype.

I think it's safe to assume women are drawn to D&D for the same reasons as men - escapism, social opportunities, and a love of fantasy games. But no two women are exactly the same, and we can't generalize D&D ladies as reasonable, unreasonable, socially inept, beautiful, ugly, unicorns, or anything else.

I've been blessed in having a large (relative to the norm) proportion of female players in my DM'ing career. And you're right. People are people are people.

I was intending my comments about females being rare, and sane people being rare as two separate things that are both rare, not on whether females are saner (or less sane) than males. I've seen both and so refuse to generalize. I hope that was clear, if not, I apologize for being less than clear.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 01:03 PM

It's totally morally good to murder and torture children and nuns. With a blowtorch and an axe.

But only as long as the Devil tells you to, and its for 'the greater good'.

Just check the alignment thread on this board if you don't believe me.

Christ I am sick of these threads.

I, for one, said nothing about morality. Just actions and reactions. Especially not about alignment. I don't play with alignment enabled, and have carefully stripped out every mention of it from the rules (as a house rule). Not even my outsiders have fixed alignments.

But people do use "murderhobo" as a pejorative, in that they think it's bad play. Not inherently morally right or wrong, but a bad play style. And there were those who equated (in as many words) "adventuring" with "being a murderhobo."

Max_Killjoy

2017-10-25, 01:03 PM

Ad-hominem attacks on forums are nothing new, and usually stupid.

There was no ad hom in that post -- unless you think I was calling another poster a "pop psychologist".

Addressing the point, here's a good research paper that delves deeper into reward structures and their effects on players (http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/11310.20247.pdf). It's more of an introduction to the field than anything, but there are a plethora of fantastic theories and articles on the psychology behind games and gamers.

This isn't even a new field of study. One of the most famous psychological tests came from B.F. Skinner in the early 1900's, often called the 'Skinner Box'. It simply has a lever that, when pulled, delivers food. Sometimes it also gives a shock to the creature inside if they don't pull the lever. It's a fairly simplified version of what I'm talking about, but similar metrics are used to this day

Speaking of Skinner, he had an interesting result from a different reward experiment involving pigeons that showed how creatures- humans ultimately included- can become more addicted to seeking out rewards when you sometimes withhold them. Meaning, using the Skinner Box as an example, if the lever only granted a reward less than half the time you pulled it, you'd actually be more likely to pull it. This is also used in modern gaming, sometimes by very unscrupulous game designers (ever play a mobile or Facebook game? Or slots?).

What this all means is that if you offer a reward that they want, a player will usually reach for it. If you try to punish a player for doing something, they will generally avoid that. And weirdly, leaving your reward schedule up to random chance can hook players much better than always offering what they want at easily determined intervals (and studies point towards a much greater chance that your players will play the game for the sake of enjoying the game itself, rewards aside). So if you're trying to get your players to interact with a game in a certain way, the best method for doing so is setting up a reward/punishment/threat system that actively encourages those behaviors.

Failure to do so results in that epic story you thought you were writing devolving into a Monty Python sketch about serial killers.

The problem comes when someone presumes that specific results from studying some humans, indicate universal truths about every individual human... or even more humorously that studying pigeons and rats will give you information applicable to all individuals humans.

The assertion I often see, that you can manipulate every last gamer, let alone every last person, with the same set of tricks, is blatant and even odious nonsense. There are plenty of people who don't play mobile or fakebook games, or slots, precisely because the outcome is random and there's no connection between effort and return. Personally, I hate those sorts of games, and find them a pointless waste of time. Random "returns" are one of the best ways to drive me away from a game, or most other sorts of activities.

At least in the third paragraph you include "usually", "generally", etc.

(And Skinner's behaviorism... is like someone insisting that because they can only see the surface of the pond, the fish don't exist and only the ripples are real.)

Max_Killjoy

2017-10-25, 01:04 PM

Tanarii

2017-10-25, 01:09 PM

But people do use "murderhobo" as a pejorative, in that they think it's bad play. Not inherently morally right or wrong, but a bad play style. And there were those who equated (in as many words) "adventuring" with "being a murderhobo."As someone that doesn't see it as a pejorative, but rather a very common and appropriate way to kick off campaigns, but one that that quickly gets boring ... let me apologize if I gave you the wrong impression initially. I can totally understand where "slaughter NPCs for their loot and XP" is a problem, even if I don't use the term murderhobo to mean that.

For that matter, I can also totally understand where "slaughter monsters for their loot and XP" is boring at any level for many players, not their cup of tea. But that's not the same as looking down your nose at players that enjoy it. (I tend to look down my nose at people that do it from 1-20. Just a little. It sounds boring to me. I don't think that's a good thing that I do that.)

Malifice

2017-10-25, 01:10 PM

I'm sick of threads that have nothing to do with alignment becoming alignment / quasimorality threads.

Murderhobo implies murdering.

You know. A hobo that kills.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 01:10 PM

The problem comes when someone presumes that specific results from studying some humans, indicate universal truths about all individual humans... or even more humorously that studying pigeons and rats will give you information applicable to all individuals humans.

(And Skinner's behaviorism... is like someone insisting that because they can only see the surface of the pond, the fish don't exist and only the ripples are real.)

Agreed. We drastically over-generalize from animal models to human behaviors (even in the drug development world).

And I find the notion of crafting a game to "teach a lesson" or "improve behavior" or even "elicit specific behavior" (beyond "everyone having fun") to be a bit distasteful. I recognize that especially MMOs (and online games in general) engage in this, but that's the business side. I believe that, like seeking happiness directly, seeking "behavioral modifications" through games tends to lead to less of what is being sought.

Set a good world, have engaging scenarios, watch for people not having fun, and make alterations. What this entails will be very different for different groups. Some people (Tanarii, from what I've gathered) like the high-logistics, surviving is hard play style for D&D. I don't. Nor am I able to enjoy running a game like that. But that doesn't make that bad, or my style good. They're just different, and work for different people.

Focusing on "scientific" ways of eliciting the desired behavior is something that I've never seen work (and I'm an educator). The only thing that works reliably for true improvement with intelligent beings like humans is constant, steady reinforcement, modeling and a sense that the educator/caretaker/DM cares about the welfare of the individual learner. And intentional work on the part of the learner.

Sigreid

2017-10-25, 01:13 PM

Ad-hominem attacks on forums are nothing new, and usually stupid.

Addressing the point, here's a good research paper that delves deeper into reward structures and their effects on players (http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/11310.20247.pdf). It's more of an introduction to the field than anything, but there are a plethora of fantastic theories and articles on the psychology behind games and gamers.

This isn't even a new field of study. One of the most famous psychological tests came from B.F. Skinner in the early 1900's, often called the 'Skinner Box'. It simply has a lever that, when pulled, delivers food. Sometimes it also gives a shock to the creature inside if they don't pull the lever. It's a fairly simplified version of what I'm talking about, but similar metrics are used to this day

Speaking of Skinner, he had an interesting result from a different reward experiment involving pigeons that showed how creatures- humans ultimately included- can become more addicted to seeking out rewards when you sometimes withhold them. Meaning, using the Skinner Box as an example, if the lever only granted a reward less than half the time you pulled it, you'd actually be more likely to pull it. This is also used in modern gaming, sometimes by very unscrupulous game designers (ever play a mobile or Facebook game? Or slots?).

What this all means is that if you offer a reward that they want, a player will usually reach for it. If you try to punish a player for doing something, they will generally avoid that. And weirdly, leaving your reward schedule up to random chance can hook players much better than always offering what they want at easily determined intervals (and studies point towards a much greater chance that your players will play the game for the sake of enjoying the game itself, rewards aside). So if you're trying to get your players to interact with a game in a certain way, the best method for doing so is setting up a reward/punishment/threat system that actively encourages those behaviors.

Failure to do so results in that epic story you thought you were writing devolving into a Monty Python sketch about serial killers.

This seems related to The Prince where Machiavelli explains that you can't reward a subject every time they do what you want or it becomes viewed as pay. If you reward sporadically, but do reward, it's seen as generosity. People are not loyal to pay, they are loyal to a prince they see as generous. So by not always rewarding the behavior you want, you increase their loyalty.

Waterdeep Merch

2017-10-25, 01:13 PM

The problem comes when someone presumes that specific results from studying some humans, indicate universal truths about every individual human... or even more humorously that studying pigeons and rats will give you information applicable to all individuals humans.

(And Skinner's behaviorism... is like someone insisting that because they can only see the surface of the pond, the fish don't exist and only the ripples are real.)
Admittedly, it's theory. All psychology is. It's subject to review and revision, and it's highly possible that any or all of it could be proven unambiguously wrong.

For now, however, the research indicates that there is an underlying behavior in human beings that directs us to seek rewards and avoid punishments, and that we likewise tend to utilize the fastest and easiest method of doing so. I haven't seen any compelling evidence of this not being universal and have trouble considering this being untrue in any people that aren't extreme deviants (the technical term of deviants, not necessarily the mentally criminal). Moreover, this precise viewpoint has served me personally, though this is anecdotal and should be taken with plenty of salt, as any personal anecdote should.

Skinner's experiment interests me not for the obvious conclusions, but by all the questions it opens up. Why, exactly, do we seek reward? Why do we avoid punishment? And how do we do so? I ascribe to the theory that it's due to the way our survival instincts work and how they can be adapted to scenarios outside of actual survival. It fits, though I'm not aware of any actual experiments to back up this claim.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 01:19 PM

As someone that doesn't see it as a pejorative, but rather a very common and appropriate way to kick off campaigns, but one that that quickly gets boring ... let me apologize if I gave you the wrong impression initially. I can totally understand where "slaughter NPCs for their loot and XP" is a problem, even if I don't use the term murderhobo to mean that.

For that matter, I can also totally understand where "slaughter monsters for their loot and XP" is boring at any level for many players, not their cup of tea. But that's not the same as looking down your nose at players that enjoy it. (I tend to look down my nose at people that do it from 1-20. Just a little. It sounds boring to me. I don't think that's a good thing that I do that.)

My initial comments weren't really aimed at you because I didn't get the sense of condescension and derision I did from others. But I think that you're still coming across (intentionally or not) as a bit stuck in the old ways. Of all the campaigns I've heard about from players who started in this edition, dungeon-delving, "story-light", combat-and-loot-focused games are the rarest (even from level one). There's usually an attempt at some kind of story, some "grand adventure" that ties together all the other stuff. It sometimes devolves into murderhoboing when the DM loses his grasp on the evolution and players get bored/recalcitrant/etc, but it doesn't start out there much in my experience. "XP/loot grinding" as an intentional play style is something I associate with older editions (OD&D especially).

I find this edition is most natural when you don't think of it as a 1-20 progression. It's a set of narratives (avoiding the s-word to avoid a fight here). I think the most natural flow is a series of character-based arcs. These arcs may be based around a PC, an NPC, or a situation that flows from characters. They may only last a few levels each. But they're a sequential set of narratives where the PCs are protagonists. The rest of the world exists to serve as a stage, a backdrop, a foil for the characters. And reading through the first few chapters of the DMG solidifies that to me. It talks a lot about creating a flow--a beginning, a middle, and an end to the arc. The narrative ends when the characters are done with it. Sometimes, that's level 20. Sometimes that's level 5. The important thing is not to force it in any particular direction artificially. Let the characters and the world evolve together to make something beautiful and memorable. And most importantly, fun for all concerned.

Sigreid

2017-10-25, 01:20 PM

Murderhobo implies murdering.

You know. A hobo that kills.

I think in this context it basically just refers to people who don't engage in the game on any level but combat. A murder hobo can, but doesn't always just kill any thing or any one they come across. Some murder hobo players just sit quietly and wait for the next fight to start.

Max_Killjoy

2017-10-25, 01:21 PM

Admittedly, it's theory. All psychology is. It's subject to review and revision, and it's highly possible that any or all of it could be proven unambiguously wrong.

For now, however, the research indicates that there is an underlying behavior in human beings that directs us to seek rewards and avoid punishments, and that we likewise tend to utilize the fastest and easiest method of doing so. I haven't seen any compelling evidence of this not being universal and have trouble considering this being untrue in any people that aren't extreme deviants (the technical term of deviants, not necessarily the mentally criminal). Moreover, this precise viewpoint has served me personally, though this is anecdotal and should be taken with plenty of salt, as any personal anecdote should.

Skinner's experiment interests me not for the obvious conclusions, but by all the questions it opens up. Why, exactly, do we seek reward? Why do we avoid punishment? And how do we do so? I ascribe to the theory that it's due to the way our survival instincts work and how they can be adapted to scenarios outside of actual survival. It fits, though I'm not aware of any actual experiments to back up this claim.

Well, as I noted above, my own anecdotal experience is that I loath games like slots, and find them a pointless waste of time. Random "returns" are one of the best ways to drive me away from a game, or most other sorts of activities.

Malifice

2017-10-25, 01:26 PM

I think in this context it basically just refers to people who don't engage in the game on any level but combat. A murder hobo can, but doesn't always just kill any thing or any one they come across. Some murder hobo players just sit quietly and wait for the next fight to start.

If the only solution to a problem or obstacle is (murder and violence) then this has an alignment.

CE.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 01:32 PM

If the only solution to a problem or obstacle is (murder and violence) then this has an alignment.

CE.

I'm going to ask you nicely. Please do not bring alignment into this thread. We all know you have an idiosyncratic definition of what it means, and bringing it up here will only derail the thread. This thread is not about alignment, good, or evil to anyone but you. So just leave it at that, please.

Edit: that applies to everyone else as well. I've appreciated the responses and have learned from them. I'd hate to see it go down in alignment debate flames.

Malifice

2017-10-25, 01:39 PM

I'm going to ask you nicely. Please do not bring alignment into this thread. We all know you have an idiosyncratic definition of what it means, and bringing it up here will only derail the thread. This thread is not about alignment, good, or evil to anyone but you. So just leave it at that, please.

That wasn't nicely. More of a demand really.

I'll let you try again.

Mister_Squinty

2017-10-25, 01:53 PM

That wasn't nicely. More of a demand really.

I'll let you try again.

"Would'st thou like sprinkles on thy 'Pretty Please'?"

Malifice

2017-10-25, 01:56 PM

"Would'st thou like sprinkles on thy 'Pretty Please'?"

That works.

:)

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 01:59 PM

"Would'st thou like sprinkles on thy 'Pretty Please'?"

Consider that seconded. I apologize--I get a little too terse and direct when I'm annoyed, and especially on mobile. I'll attempt to do better in the future.

Snowbluff

2017-10-25, 02:02 PM

I play adventure league. RP is not consistently rewarded. Killing everyone and taking all of their stuff will often save you hours of aggravating parleys that are fruitless.

mephnick

2017-10-25, 02:04 PM

I play adventure league. RP is not consistently rewarded. Killing everyone and taking all of their stuff will often save you hours of aggravating parleys that are fruitless.

I've DM'd an AL adventure and played in one (SKT and HotDQ). There is no way in hell I'd make anything but a pure combat class judging from what I've seen.

Theoretically a combat class with lots of nova options because the authors don't understand the combat/rest pacing of their own system.

Tanarii

2017-10-25, 02:08 PM

But I think that you're still coming across (intentionally or not) as a bit stuck in the old ways.I've been in a grognard revival phase with 5e, ever since I caught on that the devs had really focused on taking this edition back to the basics of D&D. It happened to coincide with me looking into running a BECMI campaign in the old style (open table, vaguely west marches sandbox) out of game stores, and I realized I could use 5e to do it instead and access a much larger interested player base. Not only could use 5e for it ... 5e was specifically designed to allow (not require) that kind of play, with some minor tweaks. So it's not stuck in old ways. It's having intentionally brought them back.

UrielAwakened

2017-10-25, 02:11 PM

I've DM'd an AL adventure and played in one (SKT and HotDQ). There is no way in hell I'd make anything but a pure combat class judging from what I've seen.

Theoretically a combat class with lots of nova options because the authors don't understand the combat/rest pacing of their own system.

A party of Paladin 2/Sorcerer X can pretty much have its way with AL.

Max_Killjoy

2017-10-25, 02:13 PM

Agreed. We drastically over-generalize from animal models to human behaviors (even in the drug development world).

And I find the notion of crafting a game to "teach a lesson" or "improve behavior" or even "elicit specific behavior" (beyond "everyone having fun") to be a bit distasteful. I recognize that especially MMOs (and online games in general) engage in this, but that's the business side. I believe that, like seeking happiness directly, seeking "behavioral modifications" through games tends to lead to less of what is being sought.

Set a good world, have engaging scenarios, watch for people not having fun, and make alterations. What this entails will be very different for different groups. Some people (Tanarii, from what I've gathered) like the high-logistics, surviving is hard play style for D&D. I don't. Nor am I able to enjoy running a game like that. But that doesn't make that bad, or my style good. They're just different, and work for different people.

Focusing on "scientific" ways of eliciting the desired behavior is something that I've never seen work (and I'm an educator). The only thing that works reliably for true improvement with intelligent beings like humans is constant, steady reinforcement, modeling and a sense that the educator/caretaker/DM cares about the welfare of the individual learner. And intentional work on the part of the learner.

No doubt -- not only is it distasteful, it's also one of the quickest ways to drive some of us away from the game or other activity. This happens with fiction, too -- don't try to make me feel things or "ask questions". Just tell the damn story, I'll feel what I feel... think what I think.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 02:17 PM

I've been in a grognard revival phase with 5e, ever since I caught on that the devs had really focused on taking this edition back to the basics of D&D. It happened to coincide with me looking into running a BECMI campaign in the old style (open table, vaguely west marches sandbox) out of game stores, and I realized I could use 5e to do it instead and access a much larger interested player base. Not only could use 5e for it ... 5e was specifically designed to allow (not require) that kind of play, with some minor tweaks. So it's not stuck in old ways. It's having intentionally brought them back.

That's fair. But I'd still wager it's not representative of the wider community. I think that the devs were focusing on different parts than that particular play-style.

One question though (out of ignorance, really)--what percentage of games really continued in the old days past name level (when fighters got their castle, etc)? As I vaguely remember reading, it seems that, like in the current times, most play revolved around the high mundane levels (5e's tier 2) and players usually shelved (at least for most play) those high level characters and focused on lower level ones. Some must have continued, but how different was the actual in-game play-style? How much time was spent per session on stronghold maintenance, dealing with threats to the stronghold, etc? Or was it mostly a home base that they returned to and expanded every few sessions but still ventured out to do whatever.

As I understand the West March style (persistent world, episodic structure, no fixed party; recurring players often have a stable of characters of various power levels), it seems reasonable that a pyramid effect would occur--lots of low level (Tier 1 and low 2) characters, a few higher levels (mid-high 2) and very few high levels (tiers 3 and 4). That would mean that reaching Tier 3 would essentially involve retiring the character from session-to-session play and only bringing them out for special occasions. Is that true?

Honest Tiefling

2017-10-25, 02:18 PM

No doubt -- not only is it distasteful, it's also one of the quickest ways to drive some of us away from the game or other activity. This happens with fiction, too -- don't try to make me feel things or "ask questions". Just tell the damn story, I'll feel what I feel think what I think.

Yeah, um...If someone was saddling up a moralistic high horse to 'teach' me a lesson, I admit...I'd probably go full murder-hobo. I've had very bad experiences with DMs who want to put players in their place with a dash of poorly constructed philosophy. You do that, and I'll just put fire into it's place. Which is now everywhere.

I think it's just easier to make scenarios that are likely to happen. Real life is messy enough to make its own moral dilemmas, and I prefer the idea of using the game to demonstrate both sides of the coin rather then teach me morals when your only qualification is that you think you can wrangle players.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 02:19 PM

A party of Paladin 2/Sorcerer X can pretty much have its way with AL.

Man I'm glad I don't play AL. That's not a style I find much fun (same with the "stop talking to things because the module/DM won't let any other way work and neither will the other players" style).

Malifice

2017-10-25, 02:26 PM

Consider that seconded. I apologize--I get a little too terse and direct when I'm annoyed, and especially on mobile. I'll attempt to do better in the future.

I'm currently drunk at 3am here in Oz and can't sleep.

Seconded. (Thirded?)

mephnick

2017-10-25, 02:27 PM

I think it's just easier to make scenarios that are likely to happen. Real life is messy enough to make its own moral dilemmas, and I prefer the idea of using the game to demonstrate both sides of the coin rather then teach me morals when your only qualification is that you think you can wrangle players.

I think that's why I loved the Witcher series so much. The decisions aren't black and white, all options generally make sense in the moment but deal with messy issues where the outcome is unpredictable, and the true fallout is often not revealed until later in the game when it's too late to back out. These are generally just logical decisions (for a dark fantasy world anyway) that pop up throughout the game and they never feel like a GOTCHYA IDIOT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PICK OPTION A" that a lot of DMs throw into their games.

Xetheral

2017-10-25, 02:34 PM

My initial comments weren't really aimed at you because I didn't get the sense of condescension and derision I did from others. But I think that you're still coming across (intentionally or not) as a bit stuck in the old ways. Of all the campaigns I've heard about from players who started in this edition, dungeon-delving, "story-light", combat-and-loot-focused games are the rarest (even from level one). There's usually an attempt at some kind of story, some "grand adventure" that ties together all the other stuff. It sometimes devolves into murderhoboing when the DM loses his grasp on the evolution and players get bored/recalcitrant/etc, but it doesn't start out there much in my experience. "XP/loot grinding" as an intentional play style is something I associate with older editions (OD&D especially).

I find this edition is most natural when you don't think of it as a 1-20 progression. It's a set of narratives (avoiding the s-word to avoid a fight here). I think the most natural flow is a series of character-based arcs. These arcs may be based around a PC, an NPC, or a situation that flows from characters. They may only last a few levels each. But they're a sequential set of narratives where the PCs are protagonists. The rest of the world exists to serve as a stage, a backdrop, a foil for the characters. And reading through the first few chapters of the DMG solidifies that to me. It talks a lot about creating a flow--a beginning, a middle, and an end to the arc. The narrative ends when the characters are done with it. Sometimes, that's level 20. Sometimes that's level 5. The important thing is not to force it in any particular direction artificially. Let the characters and the world evolve together to make something beautiful and memorable. And most importantly, fun for all concerned.

Could you please define how you're using the term "adventuring"? You've spent a lot of time arguing that 5e best supports adventuring as the focus of play (and that DMs interested in including other things should go away and find another system), so what you mean by the term is rather important.

But after reading this thread (and the one that spawned it), and particularly the post above, I'm left without a good sense of just what "adventuring" means to you. Any clarity you could provide would be appreciated.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 02:50 PM

I'm currently drunk at 3am here in Oz and can't sleep.

Seconded. (Thirded?)

Understood and accepted. Sorry to be strident.

Could you please define how you're using the term "adventuring"? You've spent a lot of time arguing that 5e best supports adventuring as the focus of play (and that DMs interested in including other things should go away and find another system), so what you mean by the term is rather important.

But after reading this thread (and the one that spawned it), and particularly the post above, I'm left without a good sense of just what "adventuring" means to you. Any clarity you could provide would be appreciated.

To me, "adventuring" means some combination of the following:

A group of characters out doing something. This excludes playing Castles and Accountants.
Larger-than-life actions. Swinging from ropes, crossing dangerous gorges, exploring places no one has been in decades, yes, battling ferocious monsters, etc.
Interacting with a fantastic (as in fantasy, not as in excellent) world. Things you don't see in real life. Dragons flying overhead, two moons in the sky, floating islands, tentacled demons ripping open the sky and dripping acidic bile on the landscape (a real piece of an adventure I've run), etc.
Player characters as protagonists in their own stories. Not sidekicks, not onlookers, but protagonists. The stories might not be that big, but they're out there being active and forcing the world to react (or counter-act) to them.
Questing--performing services for somebody, possibly with a promised reward. Why are they questing? That's up to the individual character. But they're actively looking for a reason to interact with the world and help people they like (or looking to hurt those they don't like as they see fit).

I tend to gravitate toward a more cinematic, player-character-centered, epic or heroic fantasy. But the biggest component of adventuring is activity. Doing things that interact with the game world. Actively looking to bite on plot hooks. Choosing the "illogical" path if that's what keeps things moving. Finding motivations to engage, not building characters that are so fixated on goals and plans (or other such strictures) that they refuse to play along.

Playing merchant prince, or lord of the castle, or wizard-crafter supreme doesn't feel like adventure to me. It feels like work. And that's what the real world is for. Same with demands for gritty "realistic" verisimilitude. If I wanted reality, I'd go out and socialize. But I'd prefer to play D&D :smallcool:

Does that make more sense?

Tanarii

2017-10-25, 03:02 PM

One question though (out of ignorance, really)--what percentage of games really continued in the old days past name level (when fighters got their castle, etc)? Got me. The reason I'm enjoying trying it now, is I didn't get to then.

As I understand the West March style (persistent world, episodic structure, no fixed party; recurring players often have a stable of characters of various power levels), it seems reasonable that a pyramid effect would occur--lots of low level (Tier 1 and low 2) characters, a few higher levels (mid-high 2) and very few high levels (tiers 3 and 4). That would mean that reaching Tier 3 would essentially involve retiring the character from session-to-session play and only bringing them out for special occasions. Is that true?Yes. That's exactly what happens in official play based on chaining single-session (or just a few session) adventures in both 4e and 5e. And in an open table west marches campaign. Since people are making new characters all the time, it's easier to find groups wanting to run lower level adventures than higher level ones.

But at least the 'campaign' makes it to having higher level characters. In thirty years of D&D I've never played in nor run a classical "home play" single party game with high level characters, that didn't start at higher levels. Not even ones based on adventure paths. Although with 5e's rapid advancement, I probably could do that if I found an AL group planning on running a WotC adventure path to join.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 03:18 PM

But at least the 'campaign' makes it to having higher level characters. In thirty years of D&D I've never played in nor run a classical "home play" single party game with high level characters, that didn't start at higher levels. Not even ones based on adventure paths. Although with 5e's rapid advancement, I probably could do that if I found an AL group planning on running a WotC adventure path to join.

Funny. My only longer-running campaign (about a year now) is at level 15, and started at level 1. We don't really do XP, but we've been at about 2-4 sessions per level pretty consistently. My school-based ones don't get that high because we only play 1hr a week, and only during the school year (so we usually reach level 5-7). This year I'm going to be pushing through a little faster with them (artificially raising the leveling rate) so we can do bigger things (partially meaning encounter some more iconic creatures :smallwink:--it's hardly D&D if you don't encounter some real dragons, after all. Demons work well for this also.).

Waterdeep Merch

2017-10-25, 03:22 PM

Well, as I noted above, my own anecdotal experience is that I loath games like slots, and find them a pointless waste of time. Random "returns" are one of the best ways to drive me away from a game, or most other sorts of activities.
Complete randomness isn't the only way to utilize this model. You can also simply obfuscate the possibility of reward, something that works well in D&D- for example, if you're never completely sure if the person you're trying to help can actually give you a meaningful reward, or your reward is only hinted at in vague terms (like a 'wondrous' treasure buried somewhere), or if the rewards you acquire aren't always all that useful compared to others.

This is even more theoretical for me. The only way I've really used this information in any game was to hide possible rewards in unexpected places, usually for helping people or avoiding fights, and limiting the likelihood of finding anything of value off of enemies the players are likely to kill. I more do this to let them know in gameplay terms that their efforts will be rewarded whether they feel like killing or talking, and leave the method up to them. My games tend to differ a lot in action based on the players because of this, some parties rarely getting into fights and some enjoying wholesale slaughter.

Agreed. We drastically over-generalize from animal models to human behaviors (even in the drug development world).

And I find the notion of crafting a game to "teach a lesson" or "improve behavior" or even "elicit specific behavior" (beyond "everyone having fun") to be a bit distasteful. I recognize that especially MMOs (and online games in general) engage in this, but that's the business side. I believe that, like seeking happiness directly, seeking "behavioral modifications" through games tends to lead to less of what is being sought.

Set a good world, have engaging scenarios, watch for people not having fun, and make alterations. What this entails will be very different for different groups. Some people (Tanarii, from what I've gathered) like the high-logistics, surviving is hard play style for D&D. I don't. Nor am I able to enjoy running a game like that. But that doesn't make that bad, or my style good. They're just different, and work for different people.

Focusing on "scientific" ways of eliciting the desired behavior is something that I've never seen work (and I'm an educator). The only thing that works reliably for true improvement with intelligent beings like humans is constant, steady reinforcement, modeling and a sense that the educator/caretaker/DM cares about the welfare of the individual learner. And intentional work on the part of the learner.
This doesn't really disagree with my notions of utilizing a reward/punishment/threat system. The reason I keep saying reward and not treasure/XP and punishment/threat instead of death or debilitation is that different people enjoy and dislike different things. It's one of the biggest differences between human beings and animals; we have a much wider variety of interests, likes, and dislikes that have nothing to do with our own survival.

A video game has to be made with a certain amount of broad appeal to capture the largest possible audience's attention and interest. They create rewards that their target demographic typically enjoys and create challenges that they may like to overcome. Sometimes they add minigames or alternate routes or ways to play the game to appeal to a larger audience. Tabletop roleplaying games have the benefit of being made for a very personal group whom you can directly study and make notes of. Some people like the chance to really roleplay and get into character. Some people are basically collectors. Some love combat, some love mystery, some are there to interact with the party.

These are all useful things for a DM to recognize. If one player loves roleplaying, use that as the carrot. A grand ball where they might get a chance to hobknob with nobility is a great reward for them. If another in the same party loves a mystery, include a strange political murder and a coverup with a handful of clues and a trail to follow. If another gets bored when they aren't swinging their axe, make sure that playing nice can lead to a good opportunity to get into a fight with some cocky duke and his thugs that engineered the whole thing. Let all three approaches be ways to solve the issue at hand, and everyone enjoys themselves.

To tie this back to the Skinner pigeon experiment, never make it clear which method, if any, will offer any other sort of reward. If they don't know, they can enjoy the game for what it is instead of focusing on obtaining things that may not even exist.

Which is something I think any DM knows, even if they don't put it in words. Observe your group, offer them the chance to do the things they like. If one of those things could derail everything (a murderhobo in a political intrigue campaign or a pop culture-spewing jokester playing Call of Cthulhu straight), simply design realistic consequences for behaving that way and let them sort out not doing it (or leaving your game if that's what they enjoy and you don't, which isn't wrong on either end). Then instead of designing quests like automatic treasure dispensers, divvy up how often and how much they gain, and consider what the players might value beyond mere treasure and XP.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 03:33 PM

Snip

This reminds me of some good advice from the 4e DMG. That's at home, but I'll try to summarize and repost when I can get back to it.

Basically, it talks about different motivations for players and ways to take proper care of balancing the different motivations. I seem to remember there being like 8-9 basic types (more like scales where each person is more or less motivated by each of the types than like binaries) and it discusses strategies for interacting with those motivations and avoiding the pathologies that are commonly associated with each motivation (for example, the getting-new-gear-based motivation tends to devolve into an upgrade treadmill if fed too obsessively IIRC).

There was a lot of good system-agnostic info in that DMG...

Demonslayer666

2017-10-25, 03:40 PM

You are engaged in a "personal definition" fallacy. Regardless of how you'd like to use "murderhobo", that is not what most people mean by "murderhobo".

"Murderhobo" is most commonly used (by a wide margin) as a pejorative term for characters who are remorselessly willing to kill anything that gets in their way including innocent civilians and important NPCs who should have been allies, reject all connections to other characters, refuse to form any connection to place or location, and appear concerned with only loot and XP, etc -- characters played by players who treat the fictional world as artifice, as a gameboard and everything in it as cardboard playing pieces.

By a wide margin? Do tell! What official polls are you referring to?

Murderhobo is not a defined term by anything remotely official, so all definitions of it are personal, including yours.

The term loosely fits all adventurers, and that's what makes it funny.

If you are deeply offended by the term, that's perfectly fine. I think you should grow some thicker skin and not be so easily offended. You aren't any more justified in taking it in a negative way than I am in taking it as humorous. It's simply your opinion. Every time I hear the term it cracks me up.

Tanarii

2017-10-25, 03:44 PM

Funny. My only longer-running campaign (about a year now) is at level 15, and started at level 1. We don't really do XP, but we've been at about 2-4 sessions per level pretty consistently.For sure. That's what happens if you can keep a home campaign together long enough. At least, in 5e, that sounds about right for advancement if you run 1/week sessions on average. What I'm saying is with 30 years of experience, I've never personally known a "home" campaign go that long without falling apart. To me they're as mythical as unicorns. IMX it's close to impossible to find 5-6 people who are that dedicated.

Clearly it happens, because people like you experience them. But for me to understanding and comprehend that is next to impossible. :smalltongue:

Max_Killjoy

2017-10-25, 04:02 PM

By a wide margin? Do tell! What official polls are you referring to?

Murderhobo is not a defined term by anything remotely official, so all definitions of it are personal, including yours.

The term loosely fits all adventurers, and that's what makes it funny.

If you are deeply offended by the term, that's perfectly fine. I think you should grow some thicker skin and not be so easily offended. You aren't any more justified in taking it in a negative way than I am in taking it as humorous. It's simply your opinion. Every time I hear the term it cracks me up.

Good for you. Enjoy your meaningless postmodern solipsism.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 04:04 PM

For sure. That's what happens if you can keep a home campaign together long enough. At least, in 5e, that sounds about right for advancement if you run 1/week sessions on average. What I'm saying is with 30 years of experience, I've never personally known a "home" campaign go that long without falling apart. To me they're as mythical as unicorns. IMX it's close to impossible to find 5-6 people who are that dedicated.

Clearly it happens, because people like you experience them. But for me to understanding and comprehend that is next to impossible. :smalltongue:

Yeah, I'm coming to realize that the reason I'm so confused by lots of the posts here is that my experience has been anything but normal (and mostly in the positive direction from the norm).

I never really played D&D growing up, since my mom was of the "It's EEEEEEEEEEEVIL" persuasion back then. My brother and I did freeform story-telling RPGs (featuring us as the characters, played by ourselves, in new and strange situations), but no official systems. Played the crap out of Baldur's Gate, NWN, etc, read the books, but never played on a table-top.

Then I got asked to be the faculty mentor for a school-based club (about 3 years ago). The student DM failed hard-core (note--PVP arenas don't work well, neither does total randomness and no prep. Especially not in 4e, which is what they were playing). I took over, and ran another group at school as well. After that year I switched to 5e (which had come out while we were playing 4e) and played with a gaming group on the side (but left there due to disliking the world and some of the personalities involved).

The 2nd year of the club I ran two 5e groups (with a lot of recurring players from the previous year, but new campaign) and started my home game with some colleagues and their spouses. It's still going strong--I floated the idea of retiring and restarting because I thought I had run out of ideas, but this last campaign arc (which will probably take us through level 20) popped into my head and we've run with it, with breaks due to players (and spouses) having babies. Helps that I work with two of the four players and have become good friends with them, and one of them is really into it and keeps pushing me to do more world-building.

This year at school I'm running 2 groups and overseeing another (same student DM as before, now a senior and much more reliable. Man he's grown up nicely.)

Zale

2017-10-25, 04:09 PM

Stuff like this is in the thread:

"Game Design 101. Anyone engaged in a game will automatically, subconsciously, drift towards whatever strategy or gameplay elements best rewards them. As a player you may make the conscious decision early on and at certain intervals to intentionally take more flavorful choices over powerful ones, but during moment-to-moment gameplay, you will divert towards whatever the easiest and most profitable decisions are within those guidelines."

I have no idea if that's true, but it's presented as fact. In this statement what are the 'powerful choices' anyways? Is boosting con to survive? Extra skill proficiencies to avoid a fight altogether?

I completely agree!

So, part of the issue is that D&D has always basically been a game about murdering things and taking their stuff.

That is, really, the game's roots. It's about fighting- there's a reason most abilities players get revolve around combat.

You can, in theory, play a game of D&D (of any edition) without fighting or taking people's stuff, but you're diverging from expected gameplay to do so.

This isn't necessarily wrong! It's like using chess pieces to play a non-chess game- you definitely aren't playing chess correctly, but that doesn't mean you're having fun wrong.

Games provide pressures and incentives and tools to direct the gameplay along expected lines. D&D expects you to desire personal advancement, pursue challenges to gain advancement tokens of some kind, and employ the tools of your class/race/build to pursue those goals.

D&D does not, typically, reward you for having character arcs or engaging in complex roleplaying. There isn't a default system for setting milestones for your character's personal emotional development, and then being rewarded for doing so. Your mechanical tools don't care if you have meaningful relationships or bonds with anything or anyone.

The few classes and archetypes that care about character behavior traditionally do so in a very punitive way. "You did X, which is forbidden, so now you lose Y." Very few go, "You care about X, and thus you benefit."

I can think of games that do provide those incentives, and they play very differently. If the mechanics or rewards encourage you to behave in a particular way, or at least avoid punishing you for doing so, then you will be more inclined to act that way.

If the game provides you with lots of tools for interacting socially with people, for forging alliances and relationships, and for bringing people together peacefully- then of course you'll do so, because the game has made doing so much more engaging, interesting and easier than beating everyone to death.

D&D doesn't really provide those. It focuses heavily on combat, and generally non-combat options feel almost like an after thought.

D&D doesn't reward those things in-and-of-itself, or provide tools for it, or provide incentives to care about things. DMs can introduce those, or encourage that behavior, or provide ways to engage in that way- but that's not because of the system of D&D.

It's in spite of it.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 04:18 PM

I completely agree!

So, part of the issue is that D&D has always basically been a game about murdering things and taking their stuff.

That is, really, the game's roots. It's about fighting- there's a reason most abilities players get revolve around combat.

You can, in theory, play a game of D&D (of any edition) without fighting or taking people's stuff, but you're diverging from expected gameplay to do so.

This isn't necessarily wrong! It's like using chess pieces to play a non-chess game- you definitely aren't playing chess correctly, but that doesn't mean you're having fun wrong.

Games provide pressures and incentives and tools to direct the gameplay along expected lines. D&D expects you to desire personal advancement, pursue challenges to gain advancement tokens of some kind, and employ the tools of your class/race/build to pursue those goals.

D&D does not, typically, reward you for having character arcs or engaging in complex roleplaying. There isn't a default system for setting milestones for your character's personal emotional development, and then being rewarded for doing so. Your mechanical tools don't care if you have meaningful relationships or bonds with anything or anyone.

The few classes and archetypes that care about character behavior traditionally do so in a very punitive way. "You did X, which is forbidden, so now you lose Y." Very few go, "You care about X, and thus you benefit."

I can think of games that do provide those incentives, and they play very differently. If the mechanics or rewards encourage you to behave in a particular way, or at least avoid punishing you for doing so, then you will be more inclined to act that way.

If the game provides you with lots of tools for interacting socially with people, for forging alliances and relationships, and for bringing people together peacefully- then of course you'll do so, because the game has made doing so much more engaging, interesting and easier than beating everyone to death.

D&D doesn't really provide those. It focuses heavily on combat, and generally non-combat options feel almost like an after thought.

D&D doesn't reward those things in-and-of-itself, or provide tools for it, or provide incentives to care about things. DMs can introduce those, or encourage that behavior, or provide ways to engage in that way- but that's not because of the system of D&D.

It's in spite of it.

Here's my question, and the one that really prompted this thread. How are you defining "reward"? Must it be mechanical (items, XP, gold, power increases)? If so, you're ignoring the major motivations of people like me, for whom those things are purely instrumental.

I find D&D rewarding because it sets up a framework for engaging in the fantastic in a structured way. It allows overcoming challenges (which for some is a reward in and of itself), often in ways that weren't imagined by the creators of those challenges. Yes, many of these challenges are combat related, but not all, not by a long shot. It rewards me by helping me express the scenarios and worlds that burn in my blood in a way that encourages feedback loops and the enjoyment of others as they react to these situations. And it encourages me to reach for the new, the unusual, and to experiment with mechanical ways of constructing these situations. Does it do so better than other games? Maybe, maybe not. But it certainly rewards me in ways those other games do not (and not all about combat).

Tonight once I get home from this 14 hour workday (ugh) and am back with my 4e DMG, I'll pull that information about the different motivations. Being motivated by mechanical toys (power, gear, etc) is just one of the many ways they discuss. They also discuss how to cater to and temper the effects of all the various motivation patterns.

Tanarii

2017-10-25, 04:19 PM

So, part of the issue is that D&D has always basically been a game about murdering things and taking their stuff. Not so much. In theory, in BECMI and AD&D 1e, the absolute best tactic you can use it to avoid fighting as much as possible, and take stuff. Because killing things is worth minimal XP, recovering stuff is worth lots of XP, and killing things carries a serious risk of death. Talking or Sneaking your way to stuff is the better tactical approach whenever possible.

Of course, none of the people I played with back in the day played that way. We mostly killed things at took their stuff. :smallwink:

You can, in theory, play a game of D&D (of any edition) without fighting or taking people's stuff, but you're diverging from expected gameplay to do so.
With 5e it's certainly not broken for not taking people's stuff. You can get away with that no problem, because Gold is not required. That's the point from another thread that prompted this one.

And it's never required to kill things. You don't need to do that to get XP. Just beat challenges that require an expenditure of resources and carries a risk of failure being meaningful (or dangerous). I mean, that's most often combat, but not always.

But it's still not a system I'd try and use for political intrigue or something.

Zale

2017-10-25, 04:28 PM

Not so much. In theory, in BECMI and AD&D 1e, the absolute best tactic you can use it to avoid fighting as much as possible, and take stuff. Because killing things is worth minimal XP, recovering stuff is worth lots of XP, and killing things carries a serious risk of death. Talking or Sneaking your way to stuff is the better tactical approach whenever possible.

Of course, none of the people I played with back in the day played that way. We mostly killed things at took their stuff. :smallwink:

I remembered that a few seconds after posting, and wept bitter tears of grief, but decided to continue on out of stubbornness!

But yeah, as you can see- how an incentive is presented can radically change the desired playstyle, if you can get XP for advancement without having to murder everything, then you just might pursue that above combat!

With 5e it's certainly not broken for not taking people's stuff. You can get away with that no problem, because Gold is not required. That's the point from another thread that prompted this one.

And it's never required to kill things. You don't need to do that to get XP. Just beat challenges that require an expenditure of resources and carries a risk of failure being meaningful (or dangerous). I mean, that's most often combat, but not always.

But it's still not a system I'd try and use for political intrigue or something.

You're very right in that gold is much less important in 5e, but magical treasure still exists and it still provides non-insignificant (though not mechanically required) bonuses, which is an incentive to find people's stuff and take it.

But I disagree about the killing things- yes it's not required to murder things, but most of your abilities make you better at fighting.

It's one of those "When all you have is a hammer" situations- When all you're good at is disemboweling people, then you start to look at the world as something to be dismembered.

But, then again, my knowledge of 5e is imperfect! I could be wrong, and there be lots of non-combat abilities that all the classes have that allow them to resolve problems and engage mechanically in stories that don't involve fighting things- but I doubt it.

(As an aside, I think the idea of trying to run an intrigue game with any version of D&D to be barely better than just playing a freeform game set in a D&D setting.)

Tanarii

2017-10-25, 04:35 PM

But yeah, as you can see- how an incentive is presented can radically change the desired playstyle, if you can get XP for advancement without having to murder everything, then you just might pursue that above combat!Oh yeah, players definitely tend to pursue whatever lets them win the game. So it's just a matter of how you define "win". Or how the players define it for themselves, as the case may be.

You're very right in that gold is much less important in 5e, but magical treasure still exists and it still provides non-insignificant (though not mechanically required) bonuses, which is an incentive to find people's stuff and take it.

But I disagree about the killing things- yes it's not required to murder things, but most of your abilities make you better at fighting.

It's one of those "When all you have is a hammer" situations- When all you're good at is disemboweling people, then you start to look at the world as something to be dismembered.
#Truth on magical items, that's a good point.

And again, oh yeah. D&D players definitely look at combat as the hammer they know how to use. :smallbiggrin:

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 04:38 PM

But, then again, my knowledge of 5e is imperfect! I could be wrong, and there be lots of non-combat abilities that all the classes have that allow them to resolve problems and engage mechanically in stories that don't involve fighting things- but I doubt it.

(As an aside, I think the idea of trying to run an intrigue game with any version of D&D to be barely better than just playing a freeform game set in a D&D setting.)

5e is generally much better about being able to engage the world even in the absence of direct mechanical tickets than 3e or 4e was (in my experience). Anyone can (by default) try anything--skills and features make you better, but no one is completely excluded. Sure, some classes could use more direct non-combat features. But the discrepancy is much more muted than it has been.

And yes, I wouldn't play an intrigue-heavy game with 5e. It's just not suited to it at all.

Meta

2017-10-25, 04:40 PM

I think 'rewards' in DnD are like giving gifts in the generic sense. Know your recipient(s).

More of the nitty gritty mechanics of DnD are focused on combat, so unsurprisingly there's also more pages spent on detailing this magic item or this tool set. This works great for a 5e pick up game I'm in. ~10 players, rotating DMs, lots of dungeon delving, minimal world building, though some DMs do more than others. It's been really fun.

There's less info supplied about alliances, favorable trade routes, political favors, and the like, but that's okay too. That stuff is great as theater of the mind anyways, and if players like it, they're going to remember all your proper nouns and this nation's chief export or subconscious weak spot. I've played with the same 4e group for 43 levels across 9 years now. We went from 1-30, starting at scouting out goblin raiding parties for the walled city, Ironside and finishing by rallying a patchwork of city-states to defeat Tharizdun reborn. Now we picked up in the same game world 100 years later and are 13 levels in, working against a recurring villain bent on corrupting the primal spirits. That's been really fun too.

Sure the rewards may be less tangible in the second example from time to time, but what's your reward for finishing a great novel? It's the journey. Ask what your players want to get out of a game. Oblige them. You'll have fun. At the risk of sounding condescending, I think that's all this thread boils down to, really.

Xetheral

2017-10-25, 05:04 PM

To me, "adventuring" means some combination of the following:

A group of characters out doing something. This excludes playing Castles and Accountants.
Larger-than-life actions. Swinging from ropes, crossing dangerous gorges, exploring places no one has been in decades, yes, battling ferocious monsters, etc.
Interacting with a fantastic (as in fantasy, not as in excellent) world. Things you don't see in real life. Dragons flying overhead, two moons in the sky, floating islands, tentacled demons ripping open the sky and dripping acidic bile on the landscape (a real piece of an adventure I've run), etc.
Player characters as protagonists in their own stories. Not sidekicks, not onlookers, but protagonists. The stories might not be that big, but they're out there being active and forcing the world to react (or counter-act) to them.
Questing--performing services for somebody, possibly with a promised reward. Why are they questing? That's up to the individual character. But they're actively looking for a reason to interact with the world and help people they like (or looking to hurt those they don't like as they see fit).

I tend to gravitate toward a more cinematic, player-character-centered, epic or heroic fantasy. But the biggest component of adventuring is activity. Doing things that interact with the game world. Actively looking to bite on plot hooks. Choosing the "illogical" path if that's what keeps things moving. Finding motivations to engage, not building characters that are so fixated on goals and plans (or other such strictures) that they refuse to play along.

Playing merchant prince, or lord of the castle, or wizard-crafter supreme doesn't feel like adventure to me. It feels like work. And that's what the real world is for. Same with demands for gritty "realistic" verisimilitude. If I wanted reality, I'd go out and socialize. But I'd prefer to play D&D :smallcool:

Does that make more sense?

Your definition of "adventuring" appears to encompass your entire preferred playstyle. While you concede that the largest part of "adventuring" is an activity, I for one would normally define the word only in terms of an activity (and a different activity, at that).

The problem with your definition is that it's so broad that it encompasses (arguably unrelated) concepts like tone and campaign structure, but simultaneously so narrow that it excludes any tones or campaign structures other than the ones you have in mind. That makes your definition particularly unhelpful as a basis for conversation when you're talking with other posters whose own definitions of "adventuring" may be much narrower in scope and are necessarily not limited to your personal playstyle preferences.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 05:42 PM

Your definition of "adventuring" appears to encompass your entire preferred playstyle. While you concede that the largest part of "adventuring" is an activity, I for one would normally define the word only in terms of an activity (and a different activity, at that).

The problem with your definition is that it's so broad that it encompasses (arguably unrelated) concepts like tone and campaign structure, but simultaneously so narrow that it excludes any tones or campaign structures other than the ones you have in mind. That makes your definition particularly unhelpful as a basis for conversation when you're talking with other posters whose own definitions of "adventuring" may be much narrower in scope and are necessarily not limited to your personal playstyle preferences.

I guess I don't understand. I only ask that there be some combination of those bullet points. Some adventures may have more of one, others a balance of a few, some may hit all of them. Just that those are important features in the broad scheme of things. The non-bullet point parts are just my personal play style--I accept that there are other ways to play and other adventures.

But I keep going back to the words from the blurb on the PHB (the way they market the books) and the words in the introductions to PHB and DMG. "The world needs heroes, will you answer the call?" What call? The call to go out and be a hero*.

Adventuring is relatively broad, but doesn't encompass everything one can do in an RPG. It's not about internal angst or moral dilemmas, although those may occur as part of (or the result of) an adventure. It's not about the goals--it's about what you're doing. The locations you're exploring, the creatures and situations you're dealing with, the conflicts you're managing, and the challenges you're overcoming.

And in none of this is the mechanics of castle building, extended on-camera crafting, or buying and selling stuff. Those may be components of a game, but they're not part of the adventure. They're background, downtime. They're not the focus of D&D for me. And so having detailed rules for those that force them into table-time distracts, to me, from the main point of play.

The pushback (and the reason I started this thread) was that by claiming this I was only promoting "murderhoboism--killing things, taking their stuff, repeat." That is what didn't mesh with any experience I've ever had, or the printed material in any edition of D&D I've read (and I've read much more than I've played). And that's why I put that example forth. That's what adventurers do. They're not looking to settle down and manage an estate or a merchant empire, or even a thieves guild. That's what retired adventurers do. That or open a tavern. Active adventurers adventure. And usually for reasons that don't involve gold, treasure, or desire to meet new things and slay them.

*even if this means being a villain in most people's eyes. But you're the protagonist and you're not finding excuses to sit at home and not act. You're looking for ways to be active and engaged in the greater doings of the world.

Meta

2017-10-25, 05:51 PM

Active adventurers adventure.

Teachers do more than teach, fighters do more than fight. To me it is stranger to have characters be so one dimensional that the vast majority of their camera time is 'adventuring.' It probably takes 10 minutes when I roleplay my character checking in with her veil master, scoping out prices at Crazy Assad's Camel Emporium or sharing a private moment with her husband. I don't really consider that time wasted like you seem to. I don't begrudge it when my friends do it either. It adds new colors to the tapestry we're weaving.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 06:00 PM

Teachers do more than teach, fighters do more than fight. To me it is stranger to have characters be so one dimensional that the vast majority of their camera time is 'adventuring.' It probably takes 10 minutes when I roleplay my character checking in with her veil master, scoping out prices at Crazy Assad's Camel Emporium or sharing a private moment with her husband. I don't really consider that time wasted like you seem to. I don't begrudge it when my friends do it either. It adds new colors to the tapestry we're weaving.

Again with the condescension and the derision. All that stuff happens, just like the more mundane fixing breakfast parts. It just doesn't happen on-camera unless it benefits the group. And groups differ here. One group (one of my newbies) wanted to play out buying new gear. That's fine. My main group doesn't like that. They prefer that all that gets compressed and fast-forwarded. They're all about the action (not necessarily fighting, but doing things as a group. Moving the scenes forward.)

10 minutes per character is nearly an hour of table time, 1/4 - 1/3 of a session spent on individual things with no group input, just a single character on stage. That's 30 minutes (3 other players x 10 minutes each) when people get bored and check out. No thanks.

My groups' characters have plenty of colors. Their colors just come during the adventure. As I said, one of the best sessions we had was with the racist high elf learning to be not-so-racist because of a bunch of goblin kids. Completely unplanned and no combat or even dice rolls, but still part of the adventure (the social pillar).

I care about the character growth that happens while they're doing things as a group. My policy is that nothing is canon unless it was mentioned on-camera. Things that are specific to a single character (and no one else can participate) aren't things (in my opinion) that should really happen during a group session. I've done split sessions where I'm alternating between two groups that separated, that's fine. But running 4 serial groups of one person each? Ugh. It's a social game, not a game of serial monologues.

But as usual, that's just my opinion.

Tanarii

2017-10-25, 06:17 PM

And in none of this is the mechanics of castle buildingCastle building isn't the adventure. Using the castle is the adventure. But to get to that point, you need at least some idea of what it costs to purchase or build a castle.

Ditto for armies. The mechanics of raising an army isn't the adventure. Using the army is the adventure.

Personally I'm perfectly happy with knowing a Keep cost ~25000gp in 5e.

I did like the stronghold builders guide for 2e, and Rules Cyclopedia for BECMI, but that was more for whittling away hours in design pr0n, not for actually being a PC owning a castle. Just like 3e later on became all about character building pr0n, not actually playing the game. So I can totally see how some players, on the verge of building a castle, might want to draw a careful map of their castle, decide exactly what they can build given the costs.

OTOH more detailed mechanics for what happens when parts of the castle get attacked or when an army meets an army might be useful to a DM and players. Because that's something that gets used when the castle or army is used as part of an adventure. Or they can go with loosey-goosey rules for structural damage and seige engines (in the DMG) and hand-waving for mass combat. As long as they're comfortable with that. Hopefully they are, because it's in the 5e style.

Meta

2017-10-25, 06:31 PM

Some stuff

No derision meant. I prefer games that include some elements you don't like and that's fine. You'd prefer to focus on adventuring, and hey I like adventuring to, just maybe not quite so much focus. Also, fine.

I think your posts (and this thread's creation as a whole) are coming across as you feel the need to defend your play style. Why? Do you think you're playing the right way and other people wrong? Vice versa?

What I'm trying to get across in my posts is that there are a ton of different suggestions on how to play DnD in the books of this edition and others. Yeah, there's a hearty focus on the adventuring you like. But there's also stuff included that you don't seem to like, like magic item crafting or castle building. That's in there intentionally. Some people will use it. You won't. You're both playing DnD.

Dudu

2017-10-25, 06:45 PM

Honest Tiefling

2017-10-25, 06:47 PM

I care about the character growth that happens while they're doing things as a group. My policy is that nothing is canon unless it was mentioned on-camera. Things that are specific to a single character (and no one else can participate) aren't things (in my opinion) that should really happen during a group session. I've done split sessions where I'm alternating between two groups that separated, that's fine. But running 4 serial groups of one person each? Ugh. It's a social game, not a game of serial monologues.

I think I both agree and disagree with this. Firstly, yes, MOST play at the table should involve as many people as possible. No one likes a spotlight hogger.

But you could handle the social stuff in two ways, at least. Firstly, you can do things outside of the table, such as camp fire talk that the DM doesn't need to be there for. I'd be quite happy if my players were to indulge in that, but it's not for everyone.

The second way is...Just to bring everyone in. Have the missus meet the people you trust your life with on a daily basis. Introducing a band of complete weirdos to your loved ones should be a common enough RP experience. Why not also take everyone shopping? You shouldn't split up, and you should probably bring your face, your muscle and your knowledge guy on all shopping trips to ensure a good deal. And then bring the rogue for when you don't get a good deal. :smallwink:

Something I've never done, but occurs to me since the OP plays the game with theater kids: Why not have another PC play out an NPC for others? Most people don't appreciate this since it can be hard to coordinate backstories, but it might work for actors, especially those with good improv skills.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 07:46 PM

No derision meant. I prefer games that include some elements you don't like and that's fine. You'd prefer to focus on adventuring, and hey I like adventuring to, just maybe not quite so much focus. Also, fine.

I think your posts (and this thread's creation as a whole) are coming across as you feel the need to defend your play style. Why? Do you think you're playing the right way and other people wrong? Vice versa?

What I'm trying to get across in my posts is that there are a ton of different suggestions on how to play DnD in the books of this edition and others. Yeah, there's a hearty focus on the adventuring you like. But there's also stuff included that you don't seem to like, like magic item crafting or castle building. That's in there intentionally. Some people will use it. You won't. You're both playing DnD.

I think I both agree and disagree with this. Firstly, yes, MOST play at the table should involve as many people as possible. No one likes a spotlight hogger.

But you could handle the social stuff in two ways, at least. Firstly, you can do things outside of the table, such as camp fire talk that the DM doesn't need to be there for. I'd be quite happy if my players were to indulge in that, but it's not for everyone.

The second way is...Just to bring everyone in. Have the missus meet the people you trust your life with on a daily basis. Introducing a band of complete weirdos to your loved ones should be a common enough RP experience. Why not also take everyone shopping? You shouldn't split up, and you should probably bring your face, your muscle and your knowledge guy on all shopping trips to ensure a good deal. And then bring the rogue for when you don't get a good deal. :smallwink:

Something I've never done, but occurs to me since the OP plays the game with theater kids: Why not have another PC play out an NPC for others? Most people don't appreciate this since it can be hard to coordinate backstories, but it might work for actors, especially those with good improv skills.

To both of you (and everyone else)--thanks. This discussion has made me think why I play the way I do, and why it seems to differ strongly from many others. I think the answer is much simpler than I thought before. Time. My longest sessions are 3.5 hours (4 max) once per week. Two of the three games I DM for meet 1.5 hrs max (including set up and take-down time), mostly once a week. And even my long sessions are slowed down now because two of the players (husband and wife) have a 6-week old baby to take care of during the session. That means that anything that slows things down or spotlights one character too much is a huge (percentage) of play time. Even 10 minutes is a large chunk of my shorter play sessions. As a result, sessions either have all (or mostly all) action or all (or mostly all) other stuff.

For example, my most recent session with one group accomplished the following (they're traveling to get to a new home base after a tutorial mission):
+ Short description of a travel sequence between two towns (no events)
+ A short scene (~10 minutes) in a tavern involving a drinking contest. A throw-away flavor hook caught the players attention.
+ Another short scene (~10 minutes) in a tavern in another city where they pursue leads about that flavor hook that's now a big plot hook.
+ Buying gear (~3-4 minutes for all 3 players)
+ Arrival in town and meeting with the captain of the guard there (their "primary quest giver" for that new base). 5-8 minutes.

That's it. Total time? About 45 minutes with disruptions (students needing help, teachers interrupting me since this is after school, set up time, etc.). If one person took 10 minutes of that to talk in detail about how they swindled a drunk patron out of their cash (something that happened at tavern #1), we'd never get anywhere or do anything.

I guess now that I realized that I can be a lot more understanding of other's styles and less perplexed and defensive. Thanks everyone!

And because I'm now home (curse those open houses and 14 hour work days!), here's the short form of that motivation discussion from the 4e DMG (pages 8-10)

They name 8 different motivations and note that most people are a mix of these motivations and not always constant throughout play. They also give ways to engage that motivation and things to watch for (pathologies associated with the motivation). They also stress that none of these are better or worse, they're just different and need different handling to be successful.

Actor--emphasizes character development and likes to pretend to be the character. Often prefers social encounters to fights. Engage by emphasizing the character's personality and recruiting to create narrative elements. Watch for a tendency to bore other players by talking to everything or justify disruption with "it's what my character would do".
Explorer--motivated by seeing new things in the setting. Atmosphere is important. Engage by rewarding curiosity and using rich descriptions and maps. Watch for using knowledge of the world as a source of personal advantage or boring others with constant need for more detail.
Instigator--wants to make things happen. Gets bored easily, takes risks. Engage by inviting experimentation and rewarding risk taking. Watch for pvp or doing stuff that invites TPK.
Power Gamer--"thrives on gaining levels and loves the cool abilities that come with those levels. He defeats monsters to take their stuff and use that stuff against future enemies...Nothing is wrong with enjoying that in the game." Optimizer. Engage by using items/powers as hooks, include encounters that let his build shine. Watch for imbalance and greed, using other characters as his lackeys.
Slayer--Wants to kill things, but doesn't really care about their stuff. Puts the "murder" in murderhobo. Engage by having great fights and going into detail on how the slayer kills things. Avoid letting them rush past social and skill encounters to get to fights.
Storyteller--cares about narrative more than individual character motivations. Wants plot. Engage by including sprinklings of plot in encounters and events. Avoid letting him have narrative control over other characters or mary sue-ing his own character.
Thinker--motivated by solving challenges in creative ways. Focuses on tactics in combat. Happy to win without action, drama, or conflict. Engage with puzzles, rewarding tactical thinking and planning. Avoid letting them slow things down or dictate other's actions.
Watcher--motivated by the social aspects. Doesn't really want to be assertive or too deeply involved in the details. Engage by prompting if needed but accepting his desires to remain a bit apart. Avoid letting him distract other players or vanish at crucial moments.

I think that these are (while not exhaustive) a great list of possible motivations for players. I know I'm mostly an explorer and a storyteller, personally. I'm not much of a power gamer or a slayer. If I want to do that, I'll play Diablo for the sheer mindless fun of smacking demons around. But all are present in most people.

A combat as war gamer probably has a larger Thinker bent than others (learned or naturally). A murderhobo is more of a Slayer and/or Power Gamer. The optimization-lovers are more purely Power Gamer + Thinker.

The next chapter of the 4e DMG talks about types of DMs and the pros and cons. There's a lot of good stuff here, in my opinion, that would be valuable even though the systems are mechanically very different.

Psikerlord

2017-10-25, 07:53 PM

I think we need a limerick to settle all this!

A scandalous cur named Bobo,
Was a terrible murder-hobo.
He said, "It's not hard,
I'm a chaotic-bad bard,
Who beats things to death with his oboe!"

:D
we have a winner!

Psikerlord

2017-10-25, 07:55 PM

Man I'm glad I don't play AL. That's not a style I find much fun (same with the "stop talking to things because the module/DM won't let any other way work and neither will the other players" style).

AL imo is meant to be a temporary thing- you go there, meet some dudes, play a bit, check they're cool, then you invite them to your place for a proper campaign. And dont set foot in AL again.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 08:05 PM

AL imo is meant to be a temporary thing- you go there, meet some dudes, play a bit, check they're cool, then you invite them to your place for a proper campaign. And dont set foot in AL again.

That I understand. I'm still glad I found groups in other ways among people I'm already friends with. I've thought about looking for another group, but then I remember I don't have the energy. Getting older and having to go to work in the morning sucks :smallwink:

mephnick

2017-10-25, 08:08 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2017-10-25, 08:15 PM

I moved to a different town and I've been commuting to DM my old group but it's unsustainable. The thought of playing D&D with random people irritates me just thinking about it. I suppose I'll have to brave AL soon if I want to keep playing, but uggghhhh

That's how I picked up my rogue player in my main game. He moved in with his girlfriend (now his wife) who happens to be my coworker. The wife has no desire to play, but the dude had to leave his old group (since driving 30+ miles for games ain't gonna happen) and was looking for a new one right when I was asking around my work-place. The other three were newish players.

Ask around at work--there are lots more people who are interested than one might think since D&D has had somewhat of a resurgence. Of course, you might have to DM...<shrug>

FreddyNoNose

2017-10-25, 08:17 PM

murder-hobo is just another term of prejudice and bigotry.

Meta

2017-10-25, 08:25 PM

I moved to a different town and I've been commuting to DM my old group but it's unsustainable. The thought of playing D&D with random people irritates me just thinking about it. I suppose I'll have to brave AL soon if I want to keep playing, but uggghhhh

Roll 20 is actually pretty nice. Our college group still plays together a decade later.

KorvinStarmast

2017-10-25, 09:05 PM

Three pillars of adventure:
Exploration
Combat
Social interaction

The exploration part, when we used to map all of the places we went on graph paper, is still an important part of encountering the unknown and discovering parts of the game world.

Use of rumors, halves or quarters of old maps, legends, and casual conversation in taverns is a precurser to exploration.

I find that when someone says adventure is about fighting, that it's usually good to go back to the three pillars of the game.

The DMG for 5e has a nice summary in the beginning bits on page 6:
Know your players
Some like "acting, exploring, instigating, fighting, optimizing, problem solving, storytelling."
All of these feed the adventure and its sequels.

As to how old school was played, I remember we once spent two entire sessions trying to find the stairs down to the fourth level of a dungeon. Besides traps and those weird rooms where doors opened to other places, we tripped over most of the monsters on the level (we later figured out) when we actually wanted to avoid them and just get to the next level since the treasure map indicated (in a cryptic riddle that our monk players solved) that what we were looking for (a famous sword that we wanted to get for our fighter) was down lower in the old ruins. (That map was such a mess of notes and arrows that it was sorta hilarious ... we only figured out what the weird doors were doing when we re-encountered the dead body of two ogres we'd killed. As usual, the dwarf was the one who had the light go on first ... 1976. we weren't just murder hoboes. We were on a quest!