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

[Fenris-77]

I would argue the purpose to so that you know what a balanced encounter is. There is no requirement in the system to provide a balanced encounter.

No, I'd call it more of widely held expectation and commonplace occurrence. A lot, perhaps most, campaigns use that system or one like it I would wager a guess. In those campaigns I think it does what I said it does. That doesn't make it a flawed idea really, it accomplished what it sets out to, I just think there's downside there beyond simply the struggle to use a somewhat fuzzy system. If players know that encounters aren't balanced to make them all achievable in combat, and especially if the game has moved away from monster XP as the primary XP tool, the result should be more nuanced encounter approaches and less combat-as-default, to one degree or another.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Gollum wasn't absolutely evil. He was a hobbit that had been twisted by Sauron. That was a story of redemption and forgiveness. I'm not sure those themes extended to orcs. But that's probably beside the point.

No, it's not beside the point at all! It's the entire point!

They didn't know, with 100% certainty, if Gollum was totally evil. Therefore he had to be given some kind of benefit of the doubt.

Does that extend to orcs? Do they know, with 100% certainty, that orcs are absolutely evil?

We debate that constantly, and we have the benefit of having read the Silmarillion, Tolkien's letters, etc. And we still don't know. (Well, some people think they know, but as a group "we" debate the point constantly.)

How would a Hobbit who hasn't read all that lore have any kind of certainty? Remember that the beginning of LotR Frodo thought he had that certainty (about Gollum). Turns out it was more complicated than that.

 

[Krachek]

Here is my counterspell attempt

officially DnD is build around 3 pillars, exploration, social and combat. So violence is only 33% of the game.

currently the best face character of the DnD party is Matt Mercer. I can’t see him as a ambassador of free violence and murderhobo.

If I compare DnD to the other games offer around, the battle royale, the shooter game, the build kingdom games, I see in DnD a cooperation game much more than a competitive game.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

No, it's not beside the point at all! It's the entire point!

They didn't know, with 100% certainty, if Gollum was totally evil. Therefore he had to be given some kind of benefit of the doubt.

Does that extend to orcs? Do they know, with 100% certainty, that orcs are absolutely evil?

We debate that constantly, and we have the benefit of having read the Silmarillion, Tolkien's letters, etc. And we still don't know. (Well, some people think they know, but as a group "we" debate the point constantly.)

How would a Hobbit who hasn't read all that lore have any kind of certainty? Remember that the beginning of LotR Frodo thought he had that certainty (about Gollum). Turns out it was more complicated than that.

Yup, I agree. I didn't mean, 'It's beside the point 'knowing who is good and evil'. Looking back, I'm not sure why I wrote, 'It's beside the point'. I do remember trying to decide whether I should keep that sentence in there.

I think I meant that it was beside the point of what the previous poster was trying to communicate. He made a bad example and you jumped on it instead of understanding what he was trying to say. I think that's what I'd intended.

In any case, Orcs are tainted Elves, if I remember correctly, and you could argue that, if Gollum could be saved, maybe an orc could be too. Then I could argue that the hobbit was born 'good' and then tainted while the Orcs were born 'evil' and so the Hobbit had a frame of reference and something come back to and then we could get into a discussion of Original Sin...but that would all be beside the point. Because, I think, @toucanbuzz was trying to communicate that he doesn't want to think that hard about it when they are playing. I mean, Gandolf kills lots of goblins. So, while there is a sub-plot about redemption, there's also lots about just killing evil dudes.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Yup, I agree. I didn't mean, 'It's beside the point 'knowing who is good and evil'. Looking back, I'm not sure why I wrote, 'It's beside the point'. I do remember trying to decide whether I should keep that sentence in there.

I think I meant that it was beside the point of what the previous poster was trying to communicate. He made a bad example and you jumped on it instead of understanding what he was trying to say. I think that's what I'd intended.

In any case, Orcs are tainted Elves, if I remember correctly, and you could argue that, if Gollum could be saved, maybe an orc could be too. Then I could argue that the hobbit was born 'good' and then tainted while the Orcs were born 'evil' and so the Hobbit had a frame of reference and something come back to and then we could get into a discussion of Original Sin...but that would all be beside the point. Because, I think, @toucanbuzz was trying to communicate that he doesn't want to think that hard about it when they are playing. I mean, Gandolf kills lots of goblins. So, while there is a sub-plot about redemption, there's also lots about just killing evil dudes.

I get what Toucan was saying, I just think Frodo is an especially bad example of the laissez-faire attitude toward combat for which he is advocating.

 

[jgsugden]

I'm beginning to think there is a simpler answer.

If you want a game where humanoids fairly mirror the real world, just assume that they're all chaotic evil with a few exceptions. That seems to be a pretty accurate reflection of the real world recently.

 

[CleverNickName]

@jgsugden For the same reason, I always advise my players to just choose Neutral for their alignments unless they are going to demonstrate a different one.

Clears up a lot of unnecessary arguments.

 

[Phion]

No, it's not beside the point at all! It's the entire point!

They didn't know, with 100% certainty, if Gollum was totally evil. Therefore he had to be given some kind of benefit of the doubt.

Does that extend to orcs? Do they know, with 100% certainty, that orcs are absolutely evil?

We debate that constantly, and we have the benefit of having read the Silmarillion, Tolkien's letters, etc. And we still don't know. (Well, some people think they know, but as a group "we" debate the point constantly.)

How would a Hobbit who hasn't read all that lore have any kind of certainty? Remember that the beginning of LotR Frodo thought he had that certainty (about Gollum). Turns out it was more complicated than that.

But Gollum actually remained evil and would have never been allowed to join if Samwise had his way. Frodo had empathy for Gollum as he understood how the ring was twisting his own soul and it could be argued he wanted Gollum to be saved as a reassurance that there remained hope for himself. Of course ironically without Gollum (despite remaining evil) the quest to destroy the ring would have ended in failure; if anything this point shows that we are at the mercy of destiny and theres nothing to say that evil can not inflict great damage to other evil things i.e. Stalin/ Russia vs Hitler/ Germany or the blood war within d&d (devils vs demons)

 

[Morrus]

It's murderhobo, not hobomurder.

 

[Guest 6801328]

It's murderhobo, not hobomurder.

Funny I didn't even notice it was inverted.