D&D General Violence and D&D: Is "Murderhobo" Essential to D&D?

[Phion]

Modern Monopoly has taken an educational game, and stripped it of its context and debrief. It is the equivlanet of using a dining room chair as a long-term office chair. The chair isn't bad for what it was intended - that you use it for the wrong thing is hardly the chair's fault, now is it?

Fair point. I wonder if the message was removed because the context/ debrief was off-putting or if it was removed because the owners did not want it highlighted that they have the monopoly on that type of gaming system? Questions for later

 

[Flamestrike]

Circling back around, I understand why we want to have moral absolutes in D&D. If there is something that is evil, irredeemably and unalterably so, then it makes sense to kill it. There can be no argument, no quarter given, no moral qualms whatsoever about the just use of violence.

Only the Sith deal in absolutes.

To use the easiest example, if there is a demon that is unalterably evil, then destroying that demon must be good.

False logic. Slaughtering a Demon is only Good if you define 'Good' as 'the slaughter of Evil creatures.'

Thats not how I define moral goodness, it's not how the world generally defines moral goodness, and it's not how DnD has defined moral goodness for some time now.

DnD tends to define morally good as 'altruism, charity, mercy, compassion and self sacrifice'

Given D&D is a game that is inextricably tied into violence, then, there might be some questions raised when it is not a demon, but a human or humanoid; perhaps it is as simple as an 80s film, and in this fiction, by opposing the protagonist, they must be put to the sword. Or perhaps not.

DnD is a game of violence for sure.

But there are no 'questions raised'. If your PC are slaughtering things because they're there, or for no other reason than on the grounds of different race or ethnicity or social status or sexual orientation or differing cultures or gods (even evil ones), or killing out of fun or profit, then your PCs are evil.

PCs of Neutral and Good alignments should only ever be resorting to violence when in self defence (collective or otherwise).

Seeing as nearly all monsters dont just sit there and offer PCs a cup of tea when the PCs encounter them; they tend to charge in breathing fire, swinging swords, trying to eat brains or otherwise kill the PCs in one of a billion horrible ways, this makes self defence a no-brainer.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The dark powers who rule the demiplane of the dread love the hobomurder, and these are welcome to their domains.

Seriously. They are lots of villains from fiction who believe they are beyond good and evil, but they are totally wrong. Nietzsche with his ideas about the Übermensch and slave-master morality was a j**K and maybe a psycopath. Morality isn't subjetive, and I don't mind authors of World of Darkness could say to me. The characters from G.R.R.Martin's "Games of Thrones" and Garth Ennis' "The Boys" (an acid satire against the superheroes) are good examples of how would be the Übermensch's behavior.

The true key about this matter is the coherence with the Natural Law, with eternal and universal ethical values as the respect for the human dignity, the basis of our rights as people and citizens.

What is evil? Causing a seriou injustice willing and without mitigating circumstances of guilt, or too serious actions against the human dignity even against no-innocent enemies.

* Hasbro published a socialist Monopoly. You can find it in internet.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

If it looks like, talks like, and largely acts like a person, claiming it isn't a person becomes difficult to make plausible.

That's a pretty significant conditional. There's no reason that the opposition in a D&D campaign needs to look like, talk like, and/or think like a person would. We have constructs, aberrations, and actual demons we could be fighting.

 

[CleverNickName]

1) Conflict is necessary to adventure fiction. The DM creates imbalances in the world which trigger potential adventures.

2) D&D has always had Morale rules. Fleeing, surrender and negotiation with the opponents are a thing in my campaigns. This is a roleplaying game after all.

3) Senseless hack & slash killing is boring. Play a computer game instead.

Agreed on all points. The only things I would add:

• It is possible to have conflict without combat,
• Combat doesn't necessarily need to end in death, and
• Senseless actions (violent or otherwise) should have consequences.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I don't know. I have never tried hobomurder before. Are there any hobo camps near where I live?

But seriously, I have not enjoyed the stereotypical murderhobo adventure since I was a teenager, over 30 years ago. I am not sure the hobo part ever applied even then, as I think all the adventuring parties from all my past campaigns have always had a home base/city of some kind, so they were never just randomly traveling around and killing for XP.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I don't know. I have never tried hobomurder before. Are there any hobo camps near where I live?

But seriously, I have not enjoyed the stereotypical murderhobo adventure since I was a teenager, over 30 years ago. I am not sure the hobo part ever applied even then, as I think all the adventuring parties from all my past campaigns have always had a home base/city of some kind, so they were never just randomly traveling around and killing for XP.

I tell ya, there is nothing worse than hobomurder gentrification!

I much preferred the old neigborhood, with wandering murderers. Nowadays, all those murderers are buying up the real estate, driving up prices, so that they can claim some type of "home base" that they can use to venture forth and commit murders.

It's the Williamsburg of hobomurdering. Pretty soon, we are going to get rid of Ye Olde Hobomurder and Rumour Inne and replace it with a high-end cocktail lounge.

 

[shesheyan]

I've also found that changing to ACP rather than XP dramatically changes the tone of the game. When RP is equally valued as combat for purposes of advancement, that changes things. Yes, there are people that still like combat. I enjoy combat. But your advancement is no longer tied to how much murdering and violence you do, nor how much coin you acquire (in past editions).

Bad game design: I was talking about Monopoly. Not D&D.

But I agree with you. Since the second half of 2e I've been handing out XPs based on the number of hours played. That changes player behaviour completely.

 

[shesheyan]

Agreed on all points. The only things I would add:

• It is possible to have conflict without combat,
• Combat doesn't necessarily need to end in death, and
• Senseless actions (violent or otherwise) should have consequences.

That is also what I believe in and apply in my campaigns.

 

[MGibster]

I can scarcely envision a D&D campaign which fails to include a liberal application of violence. The game is simply built with the premise that characters will be engaging in violence and each of the character classes reflects that. I don't see that changing any time soon.