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

[QuentinGeorge]

Okay. Overall, there's something very fun about murderhoboing that makes it attractive to new players (Maybe it's the agency with no consequences). Additionally, the game seems to push people to murderhoboing, probably the "being made out of XP", which is solved by using not using XP (I'm sure there'll be tons of murderhobos still for other reasons, but the orc=xp thing seems like a major factor).

Murderhoboing is hard to handle. I typically play with newer players, who seem to be more prone to going around and murdering anyone and taking their stuff. First, I would talk to them. Second, I would kill their character, or give a severe penalty to them. Once they see there are benefits to not murderhoboing, it's likely that they'll stop, or do less of it.

I am all for playing your campaign how it is fun for you, but there is such a thing as a "problem player", but they normally depend on the table they're at. I think if D&D had a ruleset on XP awards based on roleplay, I think less people would be murderhobos, but the problem is also definitely deeper than just creating a new leveling up system.

Are there really DMs who award XP for killing random shopkeepers?

 

[Rdm]

Yes but the evil alignment is not 'is currently doing something wrong'. The evil alignment is 'likely have done something wrong in the past, and will likely do something wrong in the future'. It's a general statement of a creatures ethics and morality, nothing more.

I have always repudiated people who argue that 'good' and 'evil' are just teams, with both sides free to murder, torture, beat and do worse to each other.

If your PC is engaged in murder, torture, slavery, or harm of any kind, he is EVIL regardless of the alignment, or beliefs of his target.

however killing and murder are not synonymous. All murders are killings. Not al killings are murder. And at least in most games I am involved in, to add in a reply to a different post - it isn’t violence for ‘different beliefs’ but ‘different actions’, and that is a very key differentiator. Once the opponents in question have moved to raiding, killing, slavery and oppression of their own then they have moved well beyond the realm of ‘having different beliefs’ into a realm of actually being the ones who are what you are saying the PC’s are. They aren’t sitting there peacefully “having different beliefs’. They are trying to raise the Dark god Thron from his abyssal jail and initiate a thousand year reign of terror. They are trying to take all of the Viliager’s stuff because they want it. They are capturing children, executing them and implanting their souls as vehicles to animate their constructs. They are attempting to impose a permanent bitter winter over the known world. Not quite just sitting there picking flowers and placidly ‘having other beliefs’.

 

[Lanefan]

Okay. Overall, there's something very fun about murderhoboing that makes it attractive to new players (Maybe it's the agency with no consequences). Additionally, the game seems to push people to murderhoboing, probably the "being made out of XP", which is solved by using not using XP (I'm sure there'll be tons of murderhobos still for other reasons, but the orc=xp thing seems like a major factor).

Murderhoboing is hard to handle. I typically play with newer players, who seem to be more prone to going around and murdering anyone and taking their stuff. First, I would talk to them. Second, I would kill their character, or give a severe penalty to them. Once they see there are benefits to not murderhoboing, it's likely that they'll stop, or do less of it.

I am all for playing your campaign how it is fun for you, but there is such a thing as a "problem player", but they normally depend on the table they're at. I think if D&D had a ruleset on XP awards based on roleplay, I think less people would be murderhobos, but the problem is also definitely deeper than just creating a new leveling up system.

So you're directly equating murderhobo play with problem players? That makes pretty much everyone I've ever gamed with a problem player by your standards...sorry, not buying it.

Also, doesn't the bit I bolded above fight against the bit I italicized, in that you're in effect telling them to stop having fun?

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Are there really DMs who award XP for killing random shopkeepers?

I do. Otherwise I would need a better, objective standard for what awards XP.

If I rule that "killing things awards XP according it the threat of the opposition," I feel the need to be consistent. Otherwise, I am (effectively) cheating. I could more narrowly define what qualifies as an XP reward, but so far I haven't encountered the need to do so.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I do. Otherwise I would need a better, objective standard for what awards XP.

If I rule that "killing things awards XP according it the threat of the opposition," I feel the need to be consistent. Otherwise, I am (effectively) cheating. I could more narrowly define what qualifies as an XP reward, but so far I haven't encountered the need to do so.

Are random shopkeepers threats to heavily armed adventurers in your campaign?

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Are random shopkeepers threats to heavily armed adventurers in your campaign?

One well placed punch can take out a Navy Seal.

If a tiny bat is worth 10 XP, a shop keeper should be worth some too.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I do. Otherwise I would need a better, objective standard for what awards XP.

You mean an objective standard such as "XP is awarded for overcoming challenges and accomplishing goals"?

It is very easy to establish how to award XP - and even maintain the XP values assigned to stat blocks - without also allowing it to be beneficial to a player to commit random killings.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

You mean an objective standard such as "XP is awarded for overcoming challenges and accomplishing goals"?

It is very easy to establish how to award XP - and even maintain the XP values assigned to stat blocks - without also allowing it to be beneficial to a player to commit random killings.

Doesn't killing a shopkeeper require the PCs to overcome the challenge of "life and death struggle with a civilian" and accomplish the goal of "unprovoked murder."

The terms "overcoming challenges" and "accomplishing goals" are so broadly defined that they are essential meaningless. It's like asking someone to define culture. It's a meaningless term used to approximate something we don't understand.

 

[Derren]

Are there really DMs who award XP for killing random shopkeepers?

Murderhobo doesn't automatically mean that you kill everything in sight.
A murderhobo has no attachments to anyone or anything (hobo), uses violence and murder to achieve its goals and never faces any repercussions for it. And that is very much a D&D playstyle. The PCs arrive from somewhere, answer to nobody, set out to clear a dungeon with several combat encounters on their way there, murder everyone inside, sell loot, repeat.
Thats very much how D&D plays out in most cases.

 

[Coroc]

...

Even assuming that this young green dragon is six years old, the beginning point of its age category, by the time its sentence is over it will be 228 years old and in the adult category. At this point the now adult green dragon will possess lair actions while in his prison lair (summoning grasping roots, thorny bushes, fog that inflicts a short term charm affect). In addition, the region within a mile around the prison lair will spawn thicket mazes, and the adult green dragon will be able to see and hear through the eyes and ears of rodents and birds.

...

Yeaaahhh That is so unbelievable funny. Hahaha,
"Oh Sire one of your provinces requires some well armored and poison protected gardeners. They got some environmental problems in one of their prisons."

"They what? What is that nonsense? What for do I make laws in this country? I do that, so that I need not solve every problem in every corner of my empire on my own!"

"But...., Sire, ....... they insist, they followed your laws to the letter!"