D&D General Who coined the phrase "murder hobo"

[Hriston]

It looks like that post is from February, 2018. I think 2005 is the contributor's join date.

 

[der_kluge]

While "murder hobo" might be an unusual construction, the term, even if it was not used to describe a problem player but the archetype of it, is used in this 2005 post on something awful, where a contributor appears to do a playthrough of a video game . The author thought he didn't need to explain the meaning of the term to his audience at this time. Given the proximity between video and roleplaying gaming communities, it's possible the term was created before the 2007 first use postulated earlier in the thread.

Interesting. I can't tell, but Hriston could be right. The game itself that he's playing in that thread was released in 2017. He couldn't have reviewed it in 2005.

 

[der_kluge]

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I tried to identify, without any rpg keyword (to see if the term emerged in a gaming context or was used elsewhere before), web pages indexed by google with an old date (you can specify a time period when searching, not just "more recent than...)), so I tried 1980-2000, 2000-2002, 2002-2005 and found this one as the first google-indexed mention of the term. Apparently, google sorting mechanism was fooled, though.

 

[der_kluge]

That thread reads a lot like this thread - and some folks there did a lot more digging and found no reference earlier than 2007 - and their source points it towards rpg.net.

 

[der_kluge]

That user Sage Genesis appears to still be active on rpg.net. Not sure I have an account over there. Maybe I'll register and PM him to find out if he invented it then, or if he got it from somewhere else.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Awesome. Good job, @Galandris.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That thread reads a lot like this thread - and some folks there did a lot more digging and found no reference earlier than 2007 - and their source points it towards rpg.net.

The trouble is, it actually originates pre-internet, so there isn't a digital record to search for.

 

[Aldarc]

The trouble is, it actually originates pre-internet, so there isn't a digital record to search for.

Believe it or not, the internet existed before 2007.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Believe it or not, the internet existed before 2007.

It didn't exist before the 90s though, and "Murder Hobo" goes back to the 80s, if not the late 70s.