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

[Benjamin Olson]

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

Well, technically it did exist before the 90s, but that history is really neither here nor there as nobody is searching pre-90s internet.

While predating the internet would explain the origins not being revealed by internet research, it wouldn't explain how the term would not be attested in internet usage for many years of the internet being in wide use, with tabletop gamers not being particular rare on it.

Are you asserting that variations on the term were in common use, or that the precise term "murder hobo" was in common use going back to the 80s? Once again I think it is perfectly believable that variations on the term were in use, but the specific phrasing is grammatically improbable to have won out without some form of mass communications at it's back, which would leave us with primary source attestations.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Well, technically it did exist before the 90s, but that history is really neither here nor there as nobody is searching pre-90s internet.

The records from the various ARPENET groups and other proto-internets do not exist in digital form. Whatever was discussed on those groups prior to the 90s is lost.

While predating the internet would explain the origins not being revealed by internet research, it wouldn't explain how the term would not be attested in internet usage for many years of the internet being in wide use, with tabletop gamers not being particular rare on it.

D&D went into decline from the late 80s until the release of 5e in 2014. "Murder Hobo" is specific to D&D, it never referred to tabletop gaming in general, not even other RPGs, which where not usually based around the idea of itinerant adventurers wandering into town to kill monsters for profit. Case in point, I was playing FASA Star Trek RPG in the 90s, which was based around the idea not killing.

Are you asserting that variations on the term were in common use, or that the precise term "murder hobo" was in common use going back to the 80s? Once again I think it is perfectly believable that variations on the term were in use, but the specific phrasing is grammatically improbable to have won out without some form of mass communications at it's back, which would leave us with primary source attestations.

I was playing D&D in the 80s, I remember it being used. Before the internet people used to talk to each other. Using words. That where spoken. No record of those conversations was ever made.

Words and terminology where able to spread perfectly well before the internet - that's how the vast majority of words we use today entered the language in the first place.

 

[Aldarc]

I was playing D&D in the 80s, I remember it being used. Before the internet people used to talk to each other. Using words. That where spoken. No record of those conversations was ever made.

Words and terminology where able to spread perfectly well before the internet - that's how the vast majority of words we use today entered the language in the first place.

No record, no credit.

D&D went into decline from the late 80s until the release of 5e in 2014.

And only in 2007 did players of D&D consider re-introducing the word "murder hobo" to their online discussion amidst this decline?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

No record, no credit.

That's the thing - the vast majority of history has no record. You still have the benefit of living testimony, which true historians would rate ahead of written records.

During the 2nd world war children used to melt down scrap metal to make toy aeroplanes. How do I know? Is it written down anywhere? No. I know because my dad was one of those children and he told me.

 

[Maxperson]

That's the thing - the vast majority of history has no record. You still have the benefit of living testimony, which true historians would rate ahead of written records.

I bet they're Scotsman, too.

 

[Aldarc]

That's the thing - the vast majority of history has no record. You still have the benefit of living testimony, which true historians would rate ahead of written records.

The majority of history is not what we are discussing here. We are only talking about forty to fifty years of the most recent history, a time when we are not at a shortage of available records. If "murder hobo" was as ubiquitous of a phrase of common parlance among D&D circles as we would be led to believe, then we should be able to find it in the written records as well. It needs more reliable attestation than decades old hearsay.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

You still have the benefit of living testimony, which true historians would rate ahead of written records.

Both types of historical evidence are problematic in their own ways and "true historians" don't have a blanket preference. But no historian would prefer an assertion that something was true about language usage to an actual recorded instance of someone using it.

 

[Rabulias]

D&D went into decline from the late 80s until the release of 5e in 2014.

You gloss over 3e and the d20 boom that began in 2000. The origins of this very website started in the lead-up to 3rd edition in 1999.

Personally, I did not hear the term until 2009 or 2010. I fully believe that the term may have been in limited/regional oral use for many years before that, but I do find it hard to believe that it would not have found its way onto the Internet in some way before then unless this usage was extremely localized and insulated from the digital world.

For those who know the term from the 1980s or 1990s:
Where was this that you heard this? What country/region?
When did you and your fellow users of this term begin using the Internet?
Did you use or see this term used on the Internet prior to 2007?

An additional avenue of research might be to consider other distinctive "D&D-adjacent" terms and find the earliest references to them in the online records.

 

[der_kluge]

I don't want to dismiss people's recollections, which is why I'm interested in understanding where those people are from. If everyone who recalls using the phrase happens to come from north-central U.S., perhaps the origins could be traced to a specific Gen Con, for example.

But it seems obvious to me that general and accepted usage started around 2007. Even on this site, if you do a search for "Eric Noah" (the "EN" in ENWorld), you find references going back to 2002. "Murder Hobo" doesn't appear here until 2012. That's 10 years of searchable data in which ZERO references to "murder hobo" can be found. Ten years.

"Murderous Hobo" appears in this thread in 2010: Accomodatin players who are motivated by power fantasies in a heroic fantasy campaign and he indicates that he's heard adventurer's described in that way (but this is the variant "murderous hobo" variation.

Another interesting thread here:

MurderHobos

I actually prefer "Transient Genocidal Superhuman Kleptomaniacs" In fact, I think that is what I will call game night from now on. TGSK Anyway, I was looking for artwork of adventurers looting corpses, and I put in the phrase Murder-Hobos, and I found a forum [The RPG Site] from back in 2011...

www.enworld.org

Where someone asks about the phrase "MurderHobo" from 2013 - and several people indicate having never heard the phrase before, but liking it.

This thread (from 2012) also references "Murderhobo". 13th Age Discussion: A Love Letter to The Best Parts of D&D
Seems like "Murderous Hobo" and "Murderhobo" were variations prior to the more accepted "Murder Hobo".

But again, at least 8 years of searchable data and not a single reference to any variant form of murder hobo, and so while I can't completely dismiss people's belief that they'd use the term for "decades" prior to the initial, online record of 2007, it HAS to have been very, very regional and isolated.

 

[der_kluge]

Incidentally, I found posts on rpg.net going to back to 2001 (although I'm not sure how far back it actually goes). And the earliest reference there for "murderous hobo" is still 2007. That's at least a full 6 years where it apparently hasn't yet entered common parlance.