RPG Evolution: What if I just kill him?

Image courtesy of Pixabay.​

We've heard the term before: "murderhobo," player characters that lead a nomadic existence defined by indiscriminate violence and a lack of social ties. These PCs are not merely a choice but a symptom of a deeper cognitive disconnect: the assumption that an NPC's authority is derived exclusively from their hit point total or combat statistics.

Where do murderhobos come from? In my weekly Dungeons & Dragons library game that's open to the public, I've discovered they're out there, and I have a better of idea why.

The Digital Legacy​

My encounters with murderhobos usually happen after the second game, when a player has gotten comfortable enough to ask. In-game, an authority figure tells them what to do (usually a sheriff or judge), and the player asks a simple question: "What if I just kill him?"

The murderhobo does not emerge in a vacuum. Though it's existed before video games were common, it surely nowadays comes from the digital sandbox. In most computer role-playing games (CRPGs), players are conditioned to interact with the world through a binary interface. An NPC can be classified as a Static Quest Giver, often rendered unkillable by the game’s code—the aforementioned plot armor—or an Enemy, whose sole purpose is to be reduced to zero hit points for experience and loot. This binary creates an interesting dynamic where players only respect what the software forces them to respect.

When these players move to the tabletop, they often test the limits of the Dungeon Master’s world by attempting to kill low-level authority figures, such as town guards or local magistrates. If the DM has not established the institutional weight of these characters, players assume that a weak stat block implies a lack of importance.

The Hit Point Hallucination​

A core tenet of the murderhobo's logic is the Hit Point Hallucination: the belief that the capacity to take damage is the ultimate measure of an NPC’s worth. Historically, hit points have always been a nebulous abstraction. Since the original rules, they have represented a combination of physical durability, luck, and the will to survive. As the rules have evolved, particularly in the 2024 revision, this abstraction has been clarified to include "stamina, resilience, and endurance".

When a player looks at a king with 10 hit points and a dragon with 500, they often conclude that the dragon is important and the king is not. This ignores the reality that hit points do not determine effectiveness in battle until they reach zero. A king with 1 HP can still command an army to fire a thousand arrows. The fallacy lies in treating hit points as meat points rather than a narrative resource.

The core of the murderhobo problem is the belief that the player is the only "real" person in the world. In a collaborative narrative, the NPC's reality is maintained by the DM and the shared imagination of the group. If the party kills a beloved NPC, they are not just "clearing a mob"; they are destroying a piece of the shared world that everyone has invested in.

But to be clear, there has to be a world in the first place. A player can't be blamed for threatening every guard when they've been eyeballs deep in dungeon monsters for weeks. Conversely, if the game is hack-and-slash only, this may well be acceptable (there's a visceral thrill in playing a chaotic, violent campaign, though it probably doesn't last long) and as long as that's the goal of the campaign and everyone agrees, being openly violent can be fun.

Most times though, it's one player who is new to the game or gets bored with it, reacting to the lack of stimulus or the frustration that their character can cast miracles, but they have to listen to this (surely low level) NPC. Depending on how resilient the DM's campaign world is, they might not be wrong to think they can get away with it too. When players know that the world reacts logically to their actions—that killing a shopkeeper leads to the closure of the shop, the loss of a supply line, and a permanent Hostile attitude from the merchant's guild—they begin to see the world as a persistent entity rather than a disposable playground.

The Authority of the Shared Dream​

The murderhobo mindset can be a mismatch of expectations for those who have not yet learned to trust the DM or the world. Authority in a TTRPG is not a number; it is a story. It is the collective agreement that the king’s decree matters, that the merchant’s life has value, and that the party’s actions have weight. Conversely, not killing everything should matter; this means rewarding non-combat solutions, making NPCs feel like living people with goals and fears, and using the 2024 Influence rules to show that Charisma is just as powerful as a +1 longsword.

"Can't I just kill him?"

Sure, I respond with a smile. "But then you have to deal with the consequences." And that's usually enough to make the player change their mind.

Your Turn: How do you deal with murderhobos?

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:
Folks,

A couple of you are making this personal - speaking about each other, rather than about the positions. This is a great way tot start an argument in which folks see more red text, get removed from the discussion, and so forth.

So, please, dial back the personal hostility, before it is dialed back for you.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

To me, that's a perfectly legitimate in-party discussion/argument/conflict to have. Some of them want to turn the villain over to justice while one declares "Out here, we ARE the law" and tries to put the villain on drumhead trial right then and there...or just executes the villain, whatever.

Sit back and let 'em fight, says I.

Talk over the decision, debate it, absolutely. Throw hands, not a chance in any of my games. My steadfast rule is no PC rolling against another PC. Now, if the group makes a decision on something as a group and one player decides they want to completely go against it, depending on how people are reacting, I might step in. It's one thing to allow player agency, another to sit back when bad feelings are brewing as a result at the table.

IME the super-LG character tends to cause far more problems than the super-E.

In my experience, though I've had a few hardcore LG characters cause headaches at the table, by far more have come from people playing Evil characters (unfortunately, that's also including out-of-character issues like the dude that got booted for posting racist memes in the chat).

Very much this. It comes from tha game having a flatter power curve. Flip side: even at low level you should present at least some slight risk to the dragon.

A smart low-level party that encounters a dragon could try stealing off some of its treasure, like Bilbo did. A not-so-smart party ends up dinner.

That, and the zero-to-hero journey kinda loses its point if the 'zero' part gets skipped.

I think that all highs in a game are made that much more thrilling by being paired with the lows. The feeling of taking your PC from struggling to defeat a Kobold or boosterganger with cheap iron to taking on dragons and elite corpo troops is something you miss out on when you start off powerful. When you're not presented with challenges early on.

 

[Scott Christian]

I find this entire consequence discussion interesting. The campaign I am running now has been built off consequences. Although, I have been very clear about it since their individual solo sessions that kicked off the campaign. They saw, as clearly as anyone can make it in a game, exactly how their actions during their solo sessions came back to them in the first group session. From then, I have had several distinct "built-in" consequential moments. Some were extremely clear: "Save the warrior or grab the orb" type of thing. Others have been seeds of foreshadowing. In all cases, the players seem to enjoy them, not rebel against them.

Of course, to be fair, no one is being a murder hobo either. But then again, they have seen how difficult the real world is (and combat) in this system. (To complement the players, they wouldn't murder hobo anyway. They are too intelligent and mature to try and ruin other people's fun. After all, there are seven players.)

 

[MarkB]

I find this entire consequence discussion interesting. The campaign I am running now has been built off consequences. Although, I have been very clear about it since their individual solo sessions that kicked off the campaign. They saw, as clearly as anyone can make it in a game, exactly how their actions during their solo sessions came back to them in the first group session. From then, I have had several distinct "built-in" consequential moments. Some were extremely clear: "Save the warrior or grab the orb" type of thing. Others have been seeds of foreshadowing. In all cases, the players seem to enjoy them, not rebel against them.

Of course, to be fair, no one is being a murder hobo either. But then again, they have seen how difficult the real world is (and combat) in this system. (To complement the players, they wouldn't murder hobo anyway. They are too intelligent and mature to try and ruin other people's fun. After all, there are seven players.)

One thing to consider is that a player taking to the murderhobo lifestyle is, in itself, a fundamental rejection of consequences. They've been blocked from proceeding by the town guards, or they're unable to afford the shopkeeper's wares, or they just haven't been presented with an opportunity to try out this cool new spell that turns people inside out. And rather than accepting those consequences, they've chosen to carve their way through them.

So a player who's doing this already doesn't really care about consequences, because they think they can just blow right through them. Attempting to correct their behaviour by presenting more consequences is likely to be met with a similar response.

 

[Scott Christian]

One thing to consider is that a player taking to the murderhobo lifestyle is, in itself, a fundamental rejection of consequences. They've been blocked from proceeding by the town guards, or they're unable to afford the shopkeeper's wares, or they just haven't been presented with an opportunity to try out this cool new spell that turns people inside out. And rather than accepting those consequences, they've chosen to carve their way through them.

So a player who's doing this already doesn't really care about consequences, because they think they can just blow right through them. Attempting to correct their behaviour by presenting more consequences is likely to be met with a similar response.

While the sentiment of your statement may be true, it really just shows lackluster GMing and playing. A player that can't afford the shopkeeper's wares still wouldn't just "kill" the shopkeeper. They have a hundred other ways to get the wares: break in at night, make the shopkeeper sick and leave the store unattended, have an affair with the shopkeeper's spouse or the shopkeeper themselves, use illusion to trick the shopkeeper, etc. The list can go on and on. But you get a player that says: "I can't afford this armor, I kill them." Heck, they could even kill them secretly, say via shocking grasp, and claim it was a heart attack. Call in help from the guards, but then insist that you paid upfront for the armor weeks ago. So many ways to get around the "I kill them" mindset. But the players that can't think outside that are not just rejecting consequences, they are rejecting the fact that this is a group game. Same thing with the GM, although this might be a bit more tricky. There are players that are never happy with what the GM gives them, even if they are the most laden party member in the group. But it is the GMs job to keep a sharp eye out for a player's needs and fit it in the story.

 

[Lanefan]

I've found that one way to at least make it known that conseqneuces can be, well, consequential is to make it fairly clear in how I present the setting that no matter how big and powerful the PCs may get, there's always going to be a bigger fish.

After that: murderhobo away, my friends; but know that it could easily come back to bite you somewhere along the line.

 

[tetrasodium]

One thing to consider is that a player taking to the murderhobo lifestyle is, in itself, a fundamental rejection of consequences. They've been blocked from proceeding by the town guards, or they're unable to afford the shopkeeper's wares, or they just haven't been presented with an opportunity to try out this cool new spell that turns people inside out. And rather than accepting those consequences, they've chosen to carve their way through them.

So a player who's doing this already doesn't really care about consequences, because they think they can just blow right through them. Attempting to correct their behaviour by presenting more consequences is likely to be met with a similar response.

This is a good description of the player outlook behind why players knowing that their PCs required things like regular upgrades to their gear, a warm comfy inn, and a professional whatever for long term care§ was so important. Once a player made that choice and crossed those lines they automatically started lighting those future opportunities on fire.

§ I think it was in adnd2e too but has a different name and PCs still needed a lot more than just starting geay

 

[Lanefan]

This is a good description of the player outlook behind why players knowing that their PCs required things like regular upgrades to their gear, a warm comfy inn, and a professional whatever for long term care§ was so important. Once a player made that choice and crossed those lines they automatically started lighting those future opportunities on fire.

This assumes the murderhoboes are ever planning to revisit that same location. If they're just passing through some random area far from home that they'll never see again, what the locals think of them becomes irrelevant provided they get their upgrades and care before they start casting fireballs into pubs.

Edit to add: the other place murderhoboes thrive and prosper is war zones, where things are a mess anyway and the murderhoboes just blend in with the invaders, defenders, and local looters.

 

[tetrasodium]

This assumes the murderhoboes are ever planning to revisit that same location. If they're just passing through some random area far from home that they'll never see again, what the locals think of them becomes irrelevant provided they get their upgrades and care before they start casting fireballs into pubs.

Edit to add: the other place murderhoboes thrive and prosper is war zones, where things are a mess anyway and the murderhoboes just blend in with the invaders, defenders, and local looters.

Yes it does to a degree, but the burning bridges is not a high bar because growing a relationship to get the good stuff needing time is just as easily believable as it is for that path to power from working with NPCs who trust you at a low level. With 5e they didn't just take away the path to power that NPCs provided through gear upgrades and such, they designed the whole game for the expectation that starting gear was the norm with a full set of gear being covered by starting gear
With that starting gear change there's not even a period of need to show the path to pot during the rats in the basement phase where players with PCs still fragile to mundane security recognize the relationship between NPCs and new gear.

Adding the fact that sleeping in a ditch every night being perfectly great for any and all needs as the combo creates PCs that are more outsider/aberration than any monster with those creature types ever was. Heck we spent a decade where one common+effective background choice granted the ability to pretty much automatically provide enough food and water for a 5 person group and multiple other common+effective backgrounds told players that they got automatic success getting a place to stay from NPCs

 

[jasper]

While the sentiment of your statement may be true, it really just shows lackluster GMing and playing. A player that can't afford the shopkeeper's wares still wouldn't just "kill" the shopkeeper. They have a hundred other ways to get the wares: break in at night, make the shopkeeper sick and leave the store unattended, have an affair with the shopkeeper's spouse or the shopkeeper themselves, use illusion to trick the shopkeeper, etc. The list can go on and on. But you get a player that says: "I can't afford this armor, I kill them." Heck, they could even kill them secretly, say via shocking grasp, and claim it was a heart attack. Call in help from the guards, but then insist that you paid upfront for the armor weeks ago. So many ways to get around the "I kill them" mindset. But the players that can't think outside that are not just rejecting consequences, they are rejecting the fact that this is a group game. Same thing with the GM, although this might be a bit more tricky. There are players that are never happy with what the GM gives them, even if they are the most laden party member in the group. But it is the GMs job to keep a sharp eye out for a player's needs and fit it in the story.

D&D had always flirted badly with murderhobo due to the combat and HP difference between PC and NPCs. IF the NPCS were powerful, why do they need me, Oofta, Bob, and Brian PCs to help out.
And if we are so powerful why do we have to listen to those sissy city folk?
Trying to get any new person regardless if they a tween or in the retirement home, to remember it is a group game is chore. And I wish, more information were in the core books on how to handle this.