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Bartmanhomer
2019-09-27, 11:44 PM
I have heard the term murderhobo million times and I have no idea what it is? Does it have anything to do by murdering a hobo or bums or something? Somebody, please tell me, the suspense is killing me?

Koo Rehtorb
2019-09-27, 11:45 PM
It's not really worth it. Hobos aren't worth a lot of xp and usually have little to no loot.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-27, 11:48 PM
No its a hobo that murders people, a casual/slang term for adventurers that don't interact with the world aside from killing people and traveling around, that the internet latched onto because it sounds like a meme.

CriticalFailure
2019-09-27, 11:50 PM
Players whose primary interaction with the world is going around killing things and taking any loot they can, whatever the situation and no matter whether the other creatures have done anything to deserve it. This player basically wants to role initiative against any NPC that exists.

Feddlefew
2019-09-27, 11:53 PM
Players whose primary interaction with the world is going around killing things and taking any loot they can, whatever the situation and no matter whether the other creatures have done anything to deserve it. This player basically wants to role initiative against any NPC that exists.

They're also usually PVP instigators.

False God
2019-09-28, 12:14 AM
As said, it's players whose primary character response to anything is violence.

Friendly NPC wants to give them a quest? Kill the NPC, loot his body, raid his house, kill anyone who stands in their way, take whatever they can and move on to the next town.

There's a problem that can't be solved with violence? It's impossible, the party leaves and goes somewhere they can kill stuff.

They are called "hobos" because they have no ties and no self-respecting town will let them in. Even loosely organized groups of murderers such as pirates or mercenaries find the party too violent to deal with. They have no real investment in the game world and often don't even keep much wealth (even for all the stuff they kill), they often avoid challenges, preferring to harass and antagonize things much weaker than them.

NNescio
2019-09-28, 01:10 AM
I have heard the term murderhobo million times and I have no idea what it is? Does it have anything to do by murdering a hobo or bums or something? Somebody, please tell me, the suspense is killing me?

Heroic fantasy PCs tend to be wandering homeless vagrants (i.e. hobos) whose default approach to solving problems is "kill people and take their stuff".

Ergo "murderhobo".

Ravens_cry
2019-09-28, 01:46 AM
An alternate term might be M&Ms: Murderous mendicants. Barbarians and Bards being 3Ms: malodorous and melodic, murderous, mendicants, respectively.
Just don't call a certain wanderer with an orange bandana and tunic, twin katana, and a spotted dog who is arguably smarter than he is, that, or he just may mulch* you!
*a process of inbred fertilization which employs certain decomposed organic materials--including but not limited to animal sediment--to blanket an area in which vegetation is desired. The procedure enriches the soil for the stimulated plant's development while, at the same time, preventing erosion and decreasing the evaporation of moisture from the ground.

Particle_Man
2019-09-28, 07:03 AM
Well done Groo reference!

LibraryOgre
2019-09-28, 09:54 AM
I have heard the term murderhobo million times and I have no idea what it is? Does it have anything to do by murdering a hobo or bums or something? Somebody, please tell me, the suspense is killing me?

As others have said, it's a somewhat dismissive nickname for a certain brand of player characters.

It's not just that they kill everything. But they also have no real roots, and no real connections to the world save through quest-givers, weapons, and money.

Even the guy who spends all his free money on ale and whores is less of a murderhobo than a true murderhobo. The true murderhobo saves all his money to spend on more weapons, armor, spells, etc.

Imbalance
2019-09-28, 01:28 PM
Literally a lethal vagrant with no other wont than to fight and slay.

Bohandas
2019-09-28, 02:01 PM
Its an RPG character who behaves like a character in a videogame/computer RPG. Whose interactions with NPCs are very shallow and generally limited to clicking through to accept hatchet-man jobs. Imagine the protagonist from Diablo II; they come from nowhere and don't stay anywhere very long, and the only interactions that they have with the world around them are (in descending order of prevalence) to fight things, smash things, buy and sell weapons, and accept quests; no other interactions are possible.

Pleh
2019-09-28, 04:01 PM
The true murderhobo saves all his money to spend on more weapons, armor, spells, etc.

It can get worse than this, too. Some murderhoboes don't bother paying any merchant if they can instead get away with killing the vendor and stealing whatever they would otherwise have bought.

It would be rare to see a pure, unadulterated Murderhobo in actual play. Most ACTUAL Murderhobos live on a spectrum of just how far they push the concept. An absolutely pure Murderhobo takes the Combat as War aspect of the RPG debate and pushes it to the extreme of RPG itself as War. Every decision made to optimize the player's chances of "winning" even when the NPCs are not intending to provoke a contest.

At its core, Murderhobo traits lead to Adversarial PC activity, just as Adversarial DMing often leads to Railroads, Overpowered Encounters, and other confrontational play styles.

This is a large part of why most Murderhoboes in the wild only stray a small ways into the spectrum. Most people would feel bad being that much of a jerk at the table (notable exception being the Tale of Old Man Henderson, which was actually a response to Adversarial DMing).

What tends to happen is the Player gets motivated (by whatever source) to play the game more tactically with the Meta Game in mind and begins to actively dismiss the Setting implications of their conduct.

No brains
2019-09-28, 04:05 PM
One thing to keep in mind while discussing murderhobos is while there can be legitimate problems with incompatible play styles at the table, if the table agrees that murder-hoboing is how they want to play, then there is nothing inherently wrong with it. Don't instantly associate murderhoboism with 'badwrongfun' and don't talk down to people who enjoy a jaunt of murder while ridin' those hobo rails.

Not to mention that not all cases of murderhobos are intentional. Messing up conversations, running out of money, escaping prison, going to any lower plane, or having a DM who doesn't give the right choices can quickly turn an epic into a murderhobo ballad.

Willie the Duck
2019-09-28, 07:43 PM
Another thing to keep in mind while discussing murderhobos is that the term gets used pretty broadly. Pretty much anything where violence is the primary problem-resolution tactic, and the characters don't have significant roleplay-based ties to the world. So we can get really specific about what we think the word means, but there's really no guarantee in the wider D&D-forum discussions that it will be used that way.

Mutazoia
2019-09-28, 08:05 PM
There's a problem that can't be solved with violence? It's impossible, the party leaves and goes somewhere they can kill stuff.

"If violence isn't solving all of your problems, you are simply not using enough of it."

Or, if you prefer....

"If violence is your last resort, you are not resorting to it soon enough."

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-28, 08:09 PM
Another thing to keep in mind while discussing murderhobos is that the term gets used pretty broadly. Pretty much anything where violence is the primary problem-resolution tactic, and the characters don't have significant roleplay-based ties to the world. So we can get really specific about what we think the word means, but there's really no guarantee in the wider D&D-forum discussions that it will be used that way.


And sometimes it just plain gets misused, such as in "all adventurers are murderhobos" or "your character isn't reluctant enough about killing, must be a murder-hobo".

Mechalich
2019-09-28, 08:29 PM
One thing to keep in mind while discussing murderhobos is while there can be legitimate problems with incompatible play styles at the table, if the table agrees that murder-hoboing is how they want to play, then there is nothing inherently wrong with it. Don't instantly associate murderhoboism with 'badwrongfun' and don't talk down to people who enjoy a jaunt of murder while ridin' those hobo rails.

Dealing with Murderhobos tends to be unfun for the GM though, since it deprives them of the ability to do anything other than generate waves of monsters and piles of treasure. More broadly - if you want to play in the style of Diablo, Borderlands, Destiny, or any other shooter-looter, just play those games. They have co-op modes and a far better designed to provide the satisfaction of high-octane slaughterfests than tabletop.

Murderhobing was a viable thing to do in the previous century, when video games hadn't yet cornered the market on the experience yet. Now, its a waste of the capabilities of tabletop.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-28, 08:52 PM
Dealing with Murderhobos tends to be unfun for the GM though, since it deprives them of the ability to do anything other than generate waves of monsters and piles of treasure. More broadly - if you want to play in the style of Diablo, Borderlands, Destiny, or any other shooter-looter, just play those games. They have co-op modes and a far better designed to provide the satisfaction of high-octane slaughterfests than tabletop.

Murderhobing was a viable thing to do in the previous century, when video games hadn't yet cornered the market on the experience yet. Now, its a waste of the capabilities of tabletop.

Pretty much. Videogames have improved upon the murderhobo experience, and are perfecting it more and more each passing year. Skyrim is probably the closest to the classic fantasy murderhobo experience now, and I'm kind of surprised that we haven't gotten a new game that improves upon it yet.

Tanarii
2019-09-28, 09:26 PM
Another thing to keep in mind while discussing murderhobos is that the term gets used pretty broadly. Pretty much anything where violence is the primary problem-resolution tactic, and the characters don't have significant roleplay-based ties to the world. So we can get really specific about what we think the word means, but there's really no guarantee in the wider D&D-forum discussions that it will be used that way.I prefer murderhero for certain kinds of directed ultra-violence ... PCs with roots, but who primarily use violence to solve their bad-guy problems. :smallamused:


, that the internet latched onto because it sounds like a meme.I was gonna say it's been around longer than that, but apparently it widely spread due to usenet. But given Usenet post-dates D&D, and was popular among exactly the same kind of students that were likely to play D&D, I'm not surprised that a term like that would spread quickly through the player base.

(Edit: personally I count Usenet as the first instance of "the Internet" but I'm sure there are some people that would disagree.)

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-28, 09:30 PM
I prefer murderhero for certain kinds of directed ultra-violence ... PCs with roots, but who primarily use violence to solve their bad-guy problems. :smallamused:

I was gonna say it's been around longer than that, but apparently it widely spread due to usenet. But given Usenet post-dates D&D, and was popular among exactly the same kind of students that were likely to play D&D, I'm not surprised that a term like that would spread quickly through the player base.

(Edit: personally I count Usenet as the first instance of "the Internet" but I'm sure there are some people that would disagree.)

A fellow exile from the last land of Usenet?

I miss Usenet.

Bohandas
2019-09-28, 09:44 PM
It can get worse than this, too. Some murderhoboes don't bother paying any merchant if they can instead get away with killing the vendor and stealing whatever they would otherwise have bought.

Often the vendor being alive is a necessity for the retrieval of their wares from hammerspace.

DrewID
2019-09-28, 11:11 PM
And sometimes it just plain gets misused, such as in "all adventurers are murderhobos" or "your character isn't reluctant enough about killing, must be a murder-hobo".

Yes, this. Is sometimes just means "this character/player cares less about role playing than I do (or even just in a different way than I do)". Or even broadly dismissive of an entire rule-set (referring to any/all D&D characters as "D&D murderhobos").

DrewID

Particle_Man
2019-09-29, 02:13 AM
A fun parody of murderhobousm and/or grinding can be found in the game progress quest.

Anonymouswizard
2019-09-29, 03:44 AM
Imagine the protagonist from Diablo II; they come from nowhere and don't stay anywhere very long, and the only interactions that they have with the world around them are (in descending order of prevalence) to fight things, smash things, buy and sell weapons, and accept quests; no other interactions are possible.

IME most murderhobos don't have as much backstory as your average Diablo protagonist. Otherwise it's a pretty fair comparison.


One thing to keep in mind while discussing murderhobos is while there can be legitimate problems with incompatible play styles at the table, if the table agrees that murder-hoboing is how they want to play, then there is nothing inherently wrong with it. Don't instantly associate murderhoboism with 'badwrongfun' and don't talk down to people who enjoy a jaunt of murder while ridin' those hobo rails.

This. A lot of the bad rap murderhoboing gets us from GM'S who want to run games where violence is not always the answer. I've seen the opposite before, a GM annoyed that violence wasn't high on our list of solutions (which was: running away, building something, grabbing whatever we need and running like Daffy Duck, talking it out, fortify the workshop, run it over, actually take our weapons out we guess, pray for divine intervention).

Bohandas
2019-09-29, 09:32 AM
IME most murderhobos don't have as much backstory as your average Diablo protagonist. Otherwise it's a pretty fair comparison.

But even their stories are pretty murderhoboish. The Diablo I protagonist becomes the new Lord of Terror when his body is taken over by Diablo between the first and second games

HouseRules
2019-09-29, 09:50 AM
1)
There's greater reward for killing opponents than to win by diplomacy, bluff, intimidate, etc..
For humanoid opponents, they have equipment that worth money when winning by killing.
For non humanoid opponents, killing allows for treasure, while by diplomacy, bluff, intimidate, etc. would only give experience.
That's because the non-experience reward have to be looted from the corpse of enemies.

If the enemies are reasonably humanoid, they should be able to use those rewards as personal equipment and increase their combat effectiveness by 20%.
However, equipment and consumable item rewards are rolled when looting the corpse of enemies.

2)
Rarely would players stay in one place, and there are few games that reward staying in one place except for some campaigns where it makes sense.
Thus, player characters are homeless.

Pleh
2019-09-29, 10:27 AM
However, equipment and consumable item rewards are rolled when looting the corpse of enemies.

Not always. Sometimes the monster has no reason to carry loot. Sometimes looting the goblins won't be worth the extra carry capacity (the Skyrim effect). They probably have crummy equipment that gets outdated by the PC's gear pretty fast. You can only carry so many small sized, poorly maintained, trashy short swords before the blacksmith's market is saturated with weapons no one wants to buy.


2)
Rarely would players stay in one place, and there are few games that reward staying in one place except for some campaigns where it makes sense.
Thus, player characters are homeless.

Definitely depends on the campaign. The default tends to be, "adventure is out there," but many of the best sandboxes instead say, "here's a complex playground for you guys, leaving the location is your character's exit from the game, do what you want." This second set tends to encourage players to build something for themselves, so they're not constantly renting at the same room at the inn.

Jakinbandw
2019-09-29, 10:30 AM
"If violence is your last resort, you are not resorting to it soon enough."


"If violence wasn't your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it."

Bohandas
2019-09-29, 10:42 AM
Also it should be noted that murderhoboism does not necessarily preclude the adventure from having a narrative and being dramatic, theatrical, saga-like, or even vaguely poetic.

I cite the heavy metal band GWAR as an example here. Their whole discography is a series of interconnected tales of supernatural muderhoboism. Of particular note are "The Song of Words", "Whargoul", "We Kill Everything", "Abyss of Woe", and "War Is All We Know"

HouseRules
2019-09-29, 11:02 AM
Not always.
Some game masters would pre-roll the loot.
However, it remove some of the suspense of the game's randomness.
Other times, loot is not even rolled at all.
Some players forget to look for loot and only care about experience.
If they only care about experience, 3 rounds of skill checks could complete an encounter faster than combat.



Definitely depends on the campaign.
There are many games where player's goal is to make their own homes.
In such games, the game-play is clearly different.
Longer campaigns try to make the world a living world, and thus, players usually have a home to return.

No brains
2019-09-29, 04:39 PM
Dealing with Murderhobos tends to be unfun for the GM though, since it deprives them of the ability to do anything other than generate waves of monsters and piles of treasure. More broadly - if you want to play in the style of Diablo, Borderlands, Destiny, or any other shooter-looter, just play those games. They have co-op modes and a far better designed to provide the satisfaction of high-octane slaughterfests than tabletop.

Murderhobing was a viable thing to do in the previous century, when video games hadn't yet cornered the market on the experience yet. Now, its a waste of the capabilities of tabletop.


Pretty much. Videogames have improved upon the murderhobo experience, and are perfecting it more and more each passing year. Skyrim is probably the closest to the classic fantasy murderhobo experience now, and I'm kind of surprised that we haven't gotten a new game that improves upon it yet.

Again, be careful of saying that murderhoboism is wrong for TTRPGS. Skyrim and Diablo can provide a more expedient murderhobo experience, but some people just like getting together to tell a murderhobo story. It isn't completely wrong to mix the improv interface of a GM with a weird experience.

As a GM, I can understand that a group liking just one thing could get stale, but when the story facilitates murderhoboing, I'm glad that I can give myself a break and prepare for just that eventuality.

A third option, GMing a murderhobo game allows people to experiment with doing something else when the opportunity arises. I'm only ever going to be able to kill that orc in skyrim who calls me a milk-drinker, but what if the game wasn't bugged and intimidate actually did something?


IME most murderhobos don't have as much backstory as your average Diablo protagonist. Otherwise it's a pretty fair comparison.



This. A lot of the bad rap murderhoboing gets us from GM'S who want to run games where violence is not always the answer. I've seen the opposite before, a GM annoyed that violence wasn't high on our list of solutions (which was: running away, building something, grabbing whatever we need and running like Daffy Duck, talking it out, fortify the workshop, run it over, actually take our weapons out we guess, pray for divine intervention).

*Shuffles papers behind my screen* Are you sure you don't want to kill everything? I have the XP totaled right here already! :smallbiggrin:

5crownik007
2019-09-29, 04:42 PM
I specifically use it as a term for:
A PC who has no home or character goals who also travels around killing most everyone they meet, with the possible exception of their traveling companions. Typical features include failure to role play, ****-eating grin and they screw up your campaign, and getting kicked out of the party as soon as possible.

Of course, your usage may vary by country, as I'm using the Australian English definition(sanitized for readability and family friendliness).

NNescio
2019-09-29, 04:48 PM
I specifically use it as a term for:
A PC who has no home or character goals who also travels around killing most everyone they meet, with the possible exception of their traveling companions. Typical features include failure to role play, ****-eating grin and they screw up your campaign, and getting kicked out of the party as soon as possible.

Of course, your usage may vary by country, as I'm using the Australian English definition(sanitized for readability and family friendliness).

You mean... murderderro?

(Bonus points if they also happen to be D&D Derros.)

Lord Raziere
2019-09-29, 05:00 PM
Again, be careful of saying that murderhoboism is wrong for TTRPGS. Skyrim and Diablo can provide a more expedient murderhobo experience, but some people just like getting together to tell a murderhobo story. It isn't completely wrong to mix the improv interface of a GM with a weird experience.

As a GM, I can understand that a group liking just one thing could get stale, but when the story facilitates murderhoboing, I'm glad that I can give myself a break and prepare for just that eventuality.

A third option, GMing a murderhobo game allows people to experiment with doing something else when the opportunity arises. I'm only ever going to be able to kill that orc in skyrim who calls me a milk-drinker, but what if the game wasn't bugged and intimidate actually did something?


1. I give zero cares about that.

2. do what you will

3. then they wouldn't be murderhobos, because they aren't solving the problem by killing.

Bohandas
2019-09-30, 12:42 AM
Dealing with Murderhobos tends to be unfun for the GM though, since it deprives them of the ability to do anything other than generate waves of monsters and piles of treasure. More broadly - if you want to play in the style of Diablo, Borderlands, Destiny, or any other shooter-looter, just play those games. They have co-op modes and a far better designed to provide the satisfaction of high-octane slaughterfests than tabletop.

Wouldn't a pure shooter like Doom or Quake technically fit the definition even better.

Or the Half-Life series even moreso. There's an involved (albeit slightly hackneyed) plot, but it happens to and around the protagonist. People talk at him but he never talks back; his only interactions with the world are to shoot and to smash things, (and occasionally press buttons, drag things around, or drive to places). And in the second game he wanders far abroad.



Again, be careful of saying that murderhoboism is wrong for TTRPGS. Skyrim and Diablo can provide a more expedient murderhobo experience, but some people just like getting together to tell a murderhobo story. It isn't completely wrong to mix the improv interface of a GM with a weird experience.

Indeed. Tabletop - as I mentioned before - has at least the potential (although not a guarantee) for a sort of heavy-metal lyric theatricality...


Also it should be noted that murderhoboism does not necessarily preclude the adventure from having a narrative and being dramatic, theatrical, saga-like, or even vaguely poetic.

I cite the heavy metal band GWAR as an example here. Their whole discography is a series of interconnected tales of supernatural muderhoboism. Of particular note are "The Song of Words", "Whargoul", "We Kill Everything", "Abyss of Woe", and "War Is All We Know"

...Also, I think a DM could (again, depends on the DM) better convey the innocent bystanders running off screaming. Videogames often fall short in this regard.

Although this is an idealized scenario, there's at least the potential for it, whereas if a videogame attempted it it would quickly become repetitive

Mechalich
2019-09-30, 01:53 AM
Wouldn't a pure shooter like Doom or Quake technically fit the definition even better.

Or the Half-Life series even moreso. There's an involved (albeit slightly hackneyed) plot, but it happens to and around the protagonist. People talk at him but he never talks back; his only interactions with the world are to shoot and to smash things, (and occasionally press buttons, drag things around, or drive to places). And in the second game he wanders far abroad.

Those are single player games. Tabletop RPG play is a group experience, so the appropriate comps are other group activities. The modern shooter-looter co-op game mirrors the classic RPG murderhobo experience almost exactly: gather group of people with limited association linked only by the pursuit of money and loot, charge into some thematic location brimming with enemies who fight with nigh-suicidal ferocity, slaughter them all with extreme prejudice, face down their leader, pillage thoroughly, then leave. Borderlands, in particular, might as well be called Murderhobo: the video game, with many of its playable characters extreme examples of the archetype - I'm currently playing Borderlands 3 as Moze - an ex-solider who has no family, all her friends are dead, and willingly describes her life as 'go places, kill stuff, get paid.'

Look, it's certainly possible to run a fun murderhobo style game in tabletop, but doing so is decidedly not playing to the strengths of the medium. Changes in technology has simply allowed video games to offer an experience that allows moar killing, moar loot, moar faster than any tabletop experience can possibly convey. This sort of thing happens in the arts all the time. In the late 19th and early 20th century the most popular form of live theater in the US was the melodramatic epic - Ben Hur was the most successful stage play in the US for the entire Gilded Age - but when movies came around they simply proved better at it than theater was capable of being and over time theaters largely abandoned melodrama and left that to the silver screen. You could still stage an epic in live theater if you wanted to, but it just seems kind of bizarre as an idea. In the same way, running a murderhobo-based game in tabletop seems really kind of wasteful and involves the GM doing a lot of work for relatively little reward (IMO GMing a game of this kind, where the players make absolutely no effort to engage with the plot at all, is a miserable affair).

Tanarii
2019-09-30, 01:24 PM
In the same way, running a murderhobo-based game in tabletop seems really kind of wasteful and involves the GM doing a lot of work for relatively little reward (IMO GMing a game of this kind, where the players make absolutely no effort to engage with the plot at all, is a miserable affair).
Running a PCs-murder-everything-then-loot oriented game takes less work, not more.

Thats why its still the most popular way to run RPGs.

Lord Shark
2019-09-30, 01:40 PM
1)
2)
Rarely would players stay in one place, and there are few games that reward staying in one place except for some campaigns where it makes sense.
Thus, player characters are homeless.

Murderhobo characters may tend to have no family, no friends other than the rest of the party, and no home because the player sees those things as disadvantages. If the DM only involves your family in the campaign when they're demanding favors from you, or only uses your hometown when it's being invaded by monsters, then it can be easy to come to the conclusion that being a hobo is the smart way to play.

HappyDaze
2019-10-02, 01:09 AM
"If violence wasn't your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it."

"If you're finding that violence isn't the answer, then you're asking the wrong questions."

weckar
2019-10-02, 01:19 AM
"If you're finding that violence isn't the answer, then you're asking the wrong questions."

"If all you have is a hammer, you should be raiding a hardware store."

Pauly
2019-10-02, 01:55 AM
You mean... murderderro?

(Bonus points if they also happen to be D&D Derros.)

Possibly murder-swaggies, since derros tend to be more sedentary. Although if they had a hotted up kingswood ute they could be murder-bogans.

Glorthindel
2019-10-02, 03:26 AM
Again, be careful of saying that murderhoboism is wrong for TTRPGS. Skyrim and Diablo can provide a more expedient murderhobo experience, but some people just like getting together to tell a murderhobo story. It isn't completely wrong to mix the improv interface of a GM with a weird experience.

As a GM, I can understand that a group liking just one thing could get stale, but when the story facilitates murderhoboing, I'm glad that I can give myself a break and prepare for just that eventuality.

Ultimately, a "pure" murderhobo game doesn't need a DM. If the players don't intend to interact with a single npc beyond them being a price list, and just want waves of monsters and loot, a set of random dungeon generation, encounter, and loot tables can replace the DM, and let him join in the carnage, if that all everyone wants (and its perfectly fine to want that).

I remember a few board games in the early days that allowed you to remove the DM role (Advanced Heroquest immediately leaps to mind)

Corneel
2019-10-02, 08:59 AM
And then you have the murderbobos who only kill reactionary monsters in culturally acceptable ways, and afterwards discuss in an artsy café in Montparnasse about how their experiences would make a perfect theater play.

Misery Esquire
2019-10-02, 06:52 PM
"If all you have is a hammer, you should be raiding a hardware store."

I prefer the following adjustment;

"If your hammer is big enough, then all of your problems are nails."

Feddlefew
2019-10-03, 07:03 AM
IMO, It's a matter of what percentage of the party is murder hobos and how far down the murder hobo hole they go. If the entire party is murder hobos, then nobody is a murder hobo. But if one PC is far more murder hobo-y than the rest, then that character is the murder hobo.

Eldan
2019-10-03, 08:39 AM
We did once play a campaign of murder hobos. Everyone gestalted barbarian, so we ended up as a barbarian/rogue, a barbarian/ranger and a barbarian/fighter. We took those characters out whenever someone was missing from the group or the DM hadn't had time to prepare much. We pretty much travelled from place to place, killing monsters, starting fights and occasionally burning villages down. A sort of three-man barbarian horde.

It was fun.

Rhedyn
2019-10-03, 10:12 AM
Sometimes it's literal like a Rifts Hobo with a shotgun.

LibraryOgre
2019-10-03, 10:29 AM
Sometimes it's literal like a Rifts Hobo with a shotgun.

Vibro-shotgun.

No, it doesn't make sense. But neither does Rifts.

Tanarii
2019-10-03, 10:31 AM
No, it doesn't make sense. But neither does Rifts.Neither does the Palladium system. Neither does Kevin Siembieda.

But despite all that, it was still a blast to play in High School and College years. :smallamused:

Anonymouswizard
2019-10-03, 10:46 AM
Vibro-shotgun.

No, it doesn't make sense. But neither does Rifts.

I thought you were underpowered without at least a vibro-laser-shotgun?

LibraryOgre
2019-10-03, 11:18 AM
Neither does the Palladium system. Neither does Kevin Siembieda.

But despite all that, it was still a blast to play in High School and College years. :smallamused:

Oh, trust me, I know. We played the hell out of it college. But, then we grew up.

Drascin
2019-10-05, 02:57 AM
Basically, it's a character with practically no ties to anything (you know, classic backstoryless orphan with no home or living relations, because having ties only means the GM will use them to screw you) whose first choice for solving any problem is violence, and gets frustrated when violence doesn't work. Inasmuch as your average murderhobo participates in social encounters, it's to find out exactly who he needs to kill for maximum profit or success (murderhobos that just murder everything are rare in my experience, most of them seem to have enough wits to realize you don't kill questgivers, they're the ones who point you to where the loot is).

deuterio12
2019-10-05, 03:07 AM
Most D&D adventurers fill the hobo part in that they don't bother to spend any of their money on fancy food/clothings or a home or related appliances. They spend most if not all of their income in tools that'll help them murder stuff better.

And well, most D&D players are probably going around murdering stuff for a living. They may not murder everything in their way, they may be picky about what and who they murder, but they're still packing tools of murder and more than able and willing to murder anything that stands in their way with a bit of motivation, and it should be their main source of income.

So basically from your normal NPC's point of view, the average D&D PC party are a bunch of homeless people in dirty rags that are often hired to go murder stuff and anybody who dares to mess with them ends murdered often enough too. Hence, murderhobo.

It's a direct result of the D&D rules giving little incentive for the players to spend money in anything besides combat gear. Why buy expensive fancy clothing and jewelery when you can be upgrading your murderstick for +X?

Tanarii
2019-10-05, 04:16 AM
It's a direct result of the D&D rules giving little incentive for the players to spend money in anything besides combat gear. Why buy expensive fancy clothing and jewelery when you can be upgrading your murderstick for +X?
Thing is, there was plenty of incentive to spend your money on other things at the time the term arose. Training, Henchmen, Spell Research ... Strongholds & Mercenaries. So including things that would give you roots and make you less hobo-y.

It's just that lots of folks didn't play the game using those things. Thus the perjorative.

deuterio12
2019-10-05, 05:18 AM
Thing is, there was plenty of incentive to spend your money on other things at the time the term arose. Training, Henchmen, Spell Research ... Strongholds & Mercenaries. So including things that would give you roots and make you less hobo-y.

It's just that lots of folks didn't play the game using those things. Thus the perjorative.

Training for murdering stuff better.
Spell research for murdering stuff better (and that's just an option if you're an actual spellcaster).
Henchmen/mercenaries for murdering stuff better, certainly not buttlers or cooks.
Strongholds were pretty overpriced in 3rd edition and didn't help you murder stuff better so yeah most people didn't bother. And I don't recall any official rules for spending money on such things at all in either 4e nor 5e.

Tanarii
2019-10-05, 10:12 AM
in 3rd edition I'm pointing out your mistake is thinking the term has anything to do with 3rd edition.

Certainly encouraging being a murderhobo is the direction the game has gone. But that's not how it was when the term arose. The entire point of the game, the entire endgame purpose you adventured for, was to stop being a murder hobo by putting down roots.

It's just that people enjoyed murderhoboing so much it became the most important part of the game, and remains the most common way to play RPGs.

Alcore
2019-10-05, 12:13 PM
But even their stories are pretty murderhoboish. The Diablo I protagonist becomes the new Lord of Terror when his body is taken over by Diablo between the first and second games

Not really. The Diablo I character does in fact become the new lord of Terror but that isn't the backstory. He is a NPC by Diablo II. So is the rogue (Blood Raven) and the mage (The Summoner? Hinted but unconfirmed).


Those are examples of character growth into villains.


All Diablo protagonists, while acting like it, all have homes or a higher ideal to strive for. They may be Murderhobos but they have breath and depth that the game chooses to ignore. (And the players can't expand if they wanted too)

Anonymouswizard
2019-10-05, 03:39 PM
All Diablo protagonists, while acting like it, all have homes or a higher ideal to strive for. They may be Murderhobos but they have breath and depth that the game chooses to ignore. (And the players can't expand if they wanted too)

This. All Diablo protagonists have a place where they come from, a reason why they left it, and a reason they got involved in the plot in the first place. Some might have more, but it's more than the murderhobos I tend to see (who might not get past 'half-derro Barbarian/Paladin' as a backstory*).

Which is kind of the point. Murderhoboism isn't bad if the game is set up for it, Diablo 2 and 3 was a great murderhobo experience (unfortunately I have never played D1). There was a surprising amount of backstory to the three games but the games didn't really consider it important, I don't even think there was an in-game encyclopedia. I don't need to know that the Diablo 3 Wizard was thrown out of magic school because she was studying forbidden arts (or whatever it was), I just know that she revolves around short and frequent bursts of high damage with her quickly regenerating Arcane Energy.

* Not that a lack of backstory is a problem, it just tends to go hand in hand with murderhoboism.

hamishspence
2019-10-05, 03:47 PM
This. All Diablo protagonists have a place where they come from, a reason why they left it, and a reason they got involved in the plot in the first place.



While there are hints of backstory in D1 "Thank goodness you've returned! Much has changed since you last lived here, my friend..." it wasn't till D3 that the D1 Warrior protagonist's story really got fleshed out.

Cluedrew
2019-10-05, 08:25 PM
Personally I always thought of murderhobo as what happens if you seriously consider the in-world-view of a character who is being run by a player who only considers the mechanics of the game. They never do anything with their free time, they just wait until the next event. They are orphans with no attachments because that is quick to describe. The buy from the equipment list instead of a store.

They may handle quests effectively, but that isn't socially adjusted by any means.

No brains
2019-10-06, 06:59 AM
'half-derro Barbarian/Paladin' as a backstory

If the player had an idea what percentage of human, dwarf, and whatever else they were as a 'half-derro' that would be entirely enough backstory already. :smallbiggrin:

Max_Killjoy
2019-10-06, 07:52 AM
If the player had an idea what percentage of human, dwarf, and whatever else they were as a 'half-derro' that would be entirely enough backstory already. :smallbiggrin:


I wonder if there's ever been a setting where at least one location where all the interfertile "races" have been living together there for so long that almost everyone has very blended ancestry.

LibraryOgre
2019-10-06, 07:00 PM
I wonder if there's ever been a setting where at least one location where all the interfertile "races" have been living together there for so long that almost everyone has very blended ancestry.

Mongrelmen?

Max_Killjoy
2019-10-06, 07:08 PM
Mongrelmen?

Maybe the Races of Destiny version?

I really wasn't conceptualizing the idea as people with crab claws and randomly sized eyes and such.

Cluedrew
2019-10-06, 07:15 PM
The Edge Chronicles called anyone who couldn't explain their ancestry simply as a Fourthling. Your blood comes from all four corners of the map.

Its a really weird setting for that term to come from because the setting is obviously triangular.

Mechalich
2019-10-06, 07:39 PM
The overwhelming majority of inter-fertile 'races' in D&D are human variants of some kind. Additionally, in pretty much all D&D settings humans massively outnumber all the other 'races' and breed considerably faster than most of them; the big exception is the 'goblinoids.' Our real world understanding of hybridization in cases like this suggests that, over enough time, the numerically dominant and faster breeding species will simply hybridize the other species into extinction with the result of a modest increase in genetic variance of its own.

So what you'd probably get is a human group and a goblin group that both incorporated some non-traditional features. For instance, these new humans would probably have potentially longer lifespans, a possibility of pointed ears, the potential for unusual shades of hair like green and blue, and so forth. The goblin group would express considerable variance in size, skin tone, and probably dental structure. All the other 'races' would disappear unless they were able to sustain reproductively isolated populations somewhere.

Of course, in general, most of the D&D races have natural reproductive isolation in that standards of attractiveness differ massively across 'racial' boundaries and keep the amount of mating between the groups quite low (there are cases of inter-racial attraction, but they tend to be asymmetrical in frequency, ie. humans find elves far more attractive than elves generally find humans).

Pleh
2019-10-06, 07:48 PM
The Edge Chronicles called anyone who couldn't explain their ancestry simply as a Fourthling. Your blood comes from all four corners of the map.

Its a really weird setting for that term to come from because the setting is obviously triangular.

Gives a whole new meaning to Triangulating.

LibraryOgre
2019-10-06, 09:04 PM
The Edge Chronicles called anyone who couldn't explain their ancestry simply as a Fourthling. Your blood comes from all four corners of the map.

Its a really weird setting for that term to come from because the setting is obviously triangular.


Gives a whole new meaning to Triangulating.

Or the "Three Body Problem". ;-)

LordCdrMilitant
2019-10-07, 03:14 PM
I have heard the term murderhobo million times and I have no idea what it is? Does it have anything to do by murdering a hobo or bums or something? Somebody, please tell me, the suspense is killing me?

Murderhobo is a derogatory nickname for the profession which most D&D characters practice, referring to their tendency to solve problems via violence as a first resort and their itinerant nature wandering between towns leaving a trail of carnage behind them, killing people and taking their stuff.

Felhammer
2019-10-07, 03:34 PM
I have heard the term murderhobo million times and I have no idea what it is? Does it have anything to do by murdering a hobo or bums or something? Somebody, please tell me, the suspense is killing me?

An itinerant work-for-hire day laborer who is often (but not always) paid by the wealthy elite of cities, towns and castles to invade rural people's homes, to murder the occupants and steal the recently deceased's possessions.

Max_Killjoy
2019-10-07, 03:38 PM
The overwhelming majority of inter-fertile 'races' in D&D are human variants of some kind. Additionally, in pretty much all D&D settings humans massively outnumber all the other 'races' and breed considerably faster than most of them; the big exception is the 'goblinoids.' Our real world understanding of hybridization in cases like this suggests that, over enough time, the numerically dominant and faster breeding species will simply hybridize the other species into extinction with the result of a modest increase in genetic variance of its own.

So what you'd probably get is a human group and a goblin group that both incorporated some non-traditional features. For instance, these new humans would probably have potentially longer lifespans, a possibility of pointed ears, the potential for unusual shades of hair like green and blue, and so forth. The goblin group would express considerable variance in size, skin tone, and probably dental structure. All the other 'races' would disappear unless they were able to sustain reproductively isolated populations somewhere.

Of course, in general, most of the D&D races have natural reproductive isolation in that standards of attractiveness differ massively across 'racial' boundaries and keep the amount of mating between the groups quite low (there are cases of inter-racial attraction, but they tend to be asymmetrical in frequency, ie. humans find elves far more attractive than elves generally find humans).

Given which "races" can interbreed in many fantasy (or even "science" fiction) settings, there's probably a bit of "fantasy genetics" going on anyway, so while you're right, I think we could leave room for other outcomes in a game setting.

...

Does this need its own thread at this point?

Tvtyrant
2019-10-07, 03:54 PM
Harry Potter and the Natural D20 did a great job of this, I think. The main character is an optimizer/murder hobo who sees a vision of his future where he succeeds at his goal of climbing the level ladder, but then has nothing to do so he brands every object in the multiverse with his name. Power for its own sake is a trap.

I tend to play muderhobos, being a bit of an edgelord and enjoying accumulating power. I had a Rogue who used all of his wealth on magic items and a menagerie of poisonous monsters that he could collect weapon poisons from, he was paranoid to the edge of insanity. Fun to play but would be terrible to live as.

darkrose50
2019-10-08, 11:02 AM
Traditionally a hobo is a migratory worker. Today it gets blended in with homeless and vagrant. The word has a lower-class connotation associated with it.

During the great depression hobo's would travel the US by hopping train freight cars. These were overwhelmingly jobless men looking for work.

PC's are usually migratory workers. However PC's usually eventually have considerable treasures. PC's tend to be highly skilled. Slaying monsters is not seasonally picking apples.

It is a tongue-in-cheek reference to how PC's wander around taking random jobs, and kill things.

wingnut2292
2019-10-22, 02:34 PM
Murderhobo I thought was an Exalted playstyle.
Players spent all their bacground dots on charms, willpower and a 5 dot artifact.
The thing they didn't buy? Any dots in resources what so ever.