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

[Fenris-77]

You can't remove a play style. You can find more interesting ways to play, and you can find ways to play that don't incentivize a style you dislike, but you can't remove it. I don't think the general thrust fo the thread was to remove anything, it's just about finding other ways to play.

 

[Weiley31]

Just declare that when the enemy hits zero hp, declare it as a non fatal blow.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Realistically, I imagine that dragon is going to be mysteriously assassinated in its prison before it reaches the adult age category.

Unrealistically, or fantastically, or even fictionally, what else might possibly happen that would result in a better story? If instead of a D&D campaign you were writing a story, and this is where the story led, what could happen next that would surprise and delight readers?

Because maybe that's what should happen off-stage, while your players are off having other adventures.

 

[Campbell]

A big part of what makes murderhobo play what it is requires approaching it uncritically. When the table takes the violence or the rootless wanderer part seriously and those things are reflected in the ways characters are treated and how the players view their own characters it becomes something quite different in nature.

 

[Manbearcat]

4E tried to introduce skill challenges, but they never felt nearly as organic as combat. You needed a certain amount of "passes" to succeed in the skill challenge, and arguably the same is true with combat, but the whole narrative aspect of just how much or how little you have made progress with that success could never really exist in skill challenges the way they do in combat.

I don't want to detract from the lead post, but I feel like it actually dovetails (because it hooks into "how do we fix this" which is something I wrote about directly above this and then went further later on). Thoughts on this part of the post:

I'm sure that they felt that way to you. However, empirically they are not that way. Many, many 4e GMs and groups had significant success with Skill Challenges.

Broadly, why did this happen (some groups struggled with noncombat conflict resolution in 4e, while other groups flourished)? My take on this remains the same now as it was when we were having so many discussions on this back then:

1) The groups that flourished had significant exposure to and success with scene resolution mechanics from other games. 4e's noncombat scene resolution mechanics (the Skill Challenge) were clearly kindred with so many other indie game's scene resolution mechanics.

2) Those that struggled did not have that same exposure and that same success.

3) The initial DMG release wasn't great (it wasn't awful, but it certainly wasn't good) at explicating the principles and techniques that underwrite successful noncombat scene resolution:

a) Adjudicate intent first, task second. What you're trying to accomplish is more important than how you try to accomplish it.

b) Dynamically change the situation and evolve the scene at each moment of action resolution. The gamestate and fiction should change with new obstacles that interpose themselves between the PCs and their path to goal realization or an escalation of a present obstacle (even if it morphs) on a failure. Always Fail Forward (new and interesting things need to happen on failure).

The situation should ALWAYS change. Not what is at stake or the goal of the conflict...but the fiction that hangs upon it.

c) The fictional momentum should be an expression of the gamestate similar to Freytag's Dramatic Arc. If you're right before denouement, the fiction should be that desperate and filled with tension...things hanging in the balance.

4) DMG2 improved dramatically in its instruction and its expression of the principles and techniques that underwrite successful noncombat scene resolution. Finally, RC basically pulled it all together (and introduced some new tech). Unfortunately, by that point, the edition war was a full-throated cry of revolt at that point. Baby and bathwater were indistinguishable.

 

[Manbearcat]

A big part of what makes murderhobo play what it is requires approaching it uncritically. When the table takes the violence or the rootless wanderer part seriously and those things are reflected in the ways characters are treated and how the players view their own characters it becomes something quite different in nature.

Agreed.

And it doesn't need to. There is absolutely nothing wrong with pawn-stance delving, trying to beat a threatening, contained obstacle course with hostile denizens, traps, and resolution mechanics meant to test guile, skill, etc.

 

[pemerton]

What are some recommendations for RPGs that don't use combat as the primary mechanism of conflict resolution or interacting with the world? A comparison and contrast between those and D&D, and the tropes that emerge from those differing styles of mechanical resolution, might be a worthwhile venture.

Adding to some other replies you've received:

Burning Wheel has robust action resolution for non-combat as well as combat. So does Prince Valiant (although it may not feel like a session of Prince Valiant without at least one joust or clash of arms!).

Cortex+ Heroic is in some ways similar to Fate, with symmetric and interlocking resolution for all modes of conflict. HeroWars/Quest is a bit less like Fate but is another system where this is true. Apocalypse World is rather violence-laden in its tropes and has plenty of scope for post-apocalyptic combat and warbands but its resolution framework is robust in respect of non-combat and even non-violent options.

There are also more traditional systems that do no need to prioritise combat as the primary mechanism of conflict resolution. Rolemaster is one, though it's non-combat resolution, while pretty robust compared to most versions of D&D, is a bit wobbly compared to modern games. Classic Traveller is another, and I think it holds up better than RM because its maths is tighter overall. (Either through better design or just sheer good luck!)

4E tried to introduce skill challenges, but they never felt nearly as organic as combat. You needed a certain amount of "passes" to succeed in the skill challenge, and arguably the same is true with combat, but the whole narrative aspect of just how much or how little you have made progress with that success could never really exist in skill challenges the way they do in combat.

I agree with what @Manbearcat posted in response to this just a post or two upthread.

The "passes" to succeed are quite analogous to hit point ablation (and in contrast are quite different from approaches to combat that emphasise the imposition of either mechanical or in-the-fiction debuffs). But because there is no ablation on the player-side, because the players roll all the dice, then the GM needs to use techniques of narrating consequences and imposing mechanical consequences where necessary similar to how that would be done in AW or DW.

That is how the "narrative aspect of just how much or how little you have made progress" is handled.

 

[Mirtek]

I can't wait for Battlefield 6 next year. I hope they add attempts at non violett solutions, as war is hell.

So each 64 player battle will be iniated with a 2h diplomacy attempt where we chose classes like ambassador, adjutant, foreign affairs minister, etc.

Only if that fails would we break out the tanks and planes and select assault, medic, etc

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

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.

 

[Sadras]

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.

I think posters are defining murderhoboing very differently to each other.
Some people define murderhoboing as almost completely destructive to the campaign, others simply define the general adventuring lifestyle as murderhoboing. Ofcourse there are the various grays inbetween.

I mean what you described in your second paragraph does not seem like a fun table, no offense. Perhaps we just have completely different definitions of the word.