D&D 5E What does "murderhobo" mean to you?

[Sunseeker]

So...er...you run an evil campaign but you won't let the PCs be, by your definition, evil?

I don't let them be murderhobos, no. It's difficult to go into depth without a large essay on Drow, suffice to say there are rules. Walking down the street killing people? That gets you in trouble in the Underdark just like it gets you in trouble above. With some exceptions everyone belongs to someone else, be they a slave, a soldier, a priest or someone importants boy-toy; players included. Beyond that, the Underdark is a high-magic microcosm. It is difficult to go any meaningful distance without running into a handful of people who could likewise kill you on a whim, and more often than not, those people could get away with it. Part of that comes with the connection of Houses and Families and so on. Killing a slave of a powerful House may get you killed, you might go to sleep one night and wake up the next session with the DM telling you to roll up a new character, or telling the whole party to roll up new characters.

As people have mentioned before, part of the reason murderhoboing happens is a lack of connection. In a Drow campaign connection is HUGE. You cannot survive in the Underdark without connections, either to many people or to powerful people, ideally both.

It's not that they can't be evil. But there are plenty of ways to be evil.

It's not that they can't be murderers. You can get away with murder if you're clever. (in fact, that's likely to get you hired to do more murder)

What players can't do is be hobos who flail around pointing their weapons at everyone who doesn't give them what they want.

I don't think I'm reading this right, because to me it says that killing for whimsy (as defined above) is not OK but killing for xp acquisition is.

What's the difference - particularly to those classes that gain xp via killing (e.g. any version of Assassin)?

Killing for XP is part of the game. I do my best to balance it out by rewarding XP for non-violent solutions but that's the trouble: some people want violent solutions to everything.
Barkeep won't give them a room? Kill the barkeep.
You went to the wrong room? Kill the guy there and take his room.
Violence for everything! Violence for the little things. Violence for the big things. Violence for the guards who don't let you enter the palace. Violence for the chickens wandering in the street. Violence for the drunkard who thinks they're a talented bard.
Even when these things don't award XP, murderhobos kill them because they can (hence the murder part) and because they have no investment (hence the hobo part).

You've said you won't run a murderhobo campaign. What about a mercenary campaign, or a holy crusader campaign?

Sure. Those are easy to run, and easier to still to keep out of murderhoboing.
Mercenaries rely on a reputation for getting the job done. They get paid better and get better jobs the faster, cleaner and generally more efficient they are. Sure, they may piss off X town or Y city, but those cities still do business with the people who hire mercenaries (who are often wealthy nobles, traders and the like who rely on Town X or City Y to keep doing their business, even if they hire the party to take out a rival).

Holy crusaders are similar. They're first and foremost connected to some kind of Holy Order. This Holy Order gives them well, orders. Kill those guys. Capture that place. Burn down this building. etc... Acting outside the orders, against the orders or killing without sanction gets them into trouble, from being revoked to possibly having the Order turn on you. The Order is more powerful than the players, has ways of keeping track of the players and their actions.

And generally speaking in both cases: the rewards from sticking to the contract or following orders results in better XP and better loot as well as other benefits (such as increased rank and its privileges).

It seems to me (and please correct me if I'm wrong) you're somewhat saying murderhobos have to be by definition chaotic evil, or close. Yet I'd hazard a guess we've all seen or run or DMed campaigns where characters of all alignments operate largely under a murderhobo ethic once they get into the field and it's them or us.

In my experience, murderhobos are almost all, if not are chaotic evil (or call themselves chaotic neutral).
I think when you start saying things like "operate largely under a murderhobo ethic" what you're really saying is that they're not really murderhobos, but with a little push they could be.
And really, ain't that true of real life even? Most people do what they need to do to survive and with a little push, they might just do a lot worse. The fact that the line between "wandering minstrel" or "nomadic adventurer" is fine does not mean the line doesn't exist. It's an important element of more robust games and less dungeon-crawley games. Walking that line, straying from the line one way or the other is what makes for good role play. In my experience, players who disregard the line entirely do so purposefully and by extension, their characters do so purposefully. They are not simply adventuers who have fallen on hard times and are trying to climb back up. They're players who immediately look for the bottom of the barrell and then revel in it.

"Something that is simply killable" may still have loot and still give xp, until and unless you as DM houserule that it doesn't.

And that's part of the problem. It shouldn't be a "houserule" that commoners have neither XP nor loot.

I also wonder if you're being a bit harsh with the term murderhobo in the first place. I certainly don't see it as meaning "psychotic bloodthirsty killer who most civilizations would lock away never to be seen again", yet that seems to be the level of revulsion you have for them.

That has been, rather consistently, the type of player and character that has embodied the term. Characters who are not that type will almost immediately bite on any sort of extension of social standing, roots-establishment and so on. They have goals beyond "kill everyone I see".

I mean, hell, Thorin Oakenshield's party in The Hobbit were by and large murderhobos - they had no home, and they sure did some killing now and then. But they - or at least Thorin - didn't turn evil until they'd got their home back; and even that didn't last. Ditto the main Party in LotR - between the time they leave Rivendell and the crowning of Aragorn they're pretty much - you guessed it - murderhobos. And there's a whole lot of Orcs who would agree, were they still alive to do so.

Lan-"by the time Pippin and Sam got to Mt. Doom they'd become mordorhobos"-efan

Personally, I'd call the Thorin and his dwarves refugees. They're not people who don't want a home they're people who want their home which was taken from them. They don't really initiate a lot of the killing either, though they are often attacked and then kill their attackers. I mean the whole quest was "lets get our home back" As for the Fellowship, they spend a great deal of time avoiding confrontation, especially since some of their enemies (the Nazgul) were like, super-way-more-powerful. Are they homeless? Not really. Almost every member of the Fellowship could have up and returned home if they wanted and they certainly weren't the type to start swinging their swords around when shopkeepers or guards didn't give them what they wanted immediately. The whole Fellowship often dodged off course because they wanted to stay someplace friendly.

If your definition of a "murderhobo" is "anyone who has ever left home" I don't think your definition is helpful.

 

[Tallifer]

A murderhobo is the typical (meaning almost every character I have seen played, regardless of their virtuous background story or current quest) rootless, violent, mercenary and loot-hungry adventurer.

A powerful person who bullies commoners is a nobleman.

 

[Lanefan]

Mordorhobos? Is there a way to give negative XP? Because I want to give negative XP.

P.S.: It's Frodo and Sam not Pippin and Sam.

I'll go crawl in a hole and hide now...

 

[Phototoxin]

Refusing to fit into society they use murder to solve all of their problems

 

[Elderbrain]

So you're saying that Evil-aligned characters are obviously going to go around killing people indiscriminately, because that's just what they do?

Well, it depends. Not necessarily indiscriminately (members of Lawful Evil groups work together more often than they turn on each other, for instance), but Evil PCs aren't likely have any qualms about killing as a Good Pc would (or ought to.) A Good Pc might hesitate before killing the helpless, unarmed Goblin begging piteously for his life - an Evil Pc isn't going to even think about it unless there's some benefit to keeping the goblin alive.

 

[seebs]

I do remember some hilarious Pathfinder-related discussion on whether or not "Profession (murderhobo)" was valid for Organized Play.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Well, it depends. Not necessarily indiscriminately (members of Lawful Evil groups work together more often than they turn on each other, for instance), but Evil PCs aren't likely have any qualms about killing as a Good Pc would (or ought to.) A Good Pc might hesitate before killing the helpless, unarmed Goblin begging piteously for his life - an Evil Pc isn't going to even think about it unless there's some benefit to keeping the goblin alive.

Just because it says Evil on the sheet, or in the stat block, does that necessarily mean they have no compunctions about killing innocent people? Is capital-E Evil synonymous with Murderer?

 

[Elderbrain]

In a world of absolute alignments, an Orc is a monster rather than a person; and killing a monster isn't murder, because it will definitely hurt innocent people if you leave it alive.

Sure - except that that's NOT what the rulebooks say. Nowhere in any edition of D&D will you find a statement to the effect that "If a creature is listed as having a particular alignment, every creature of that type that ever lived or will live has that alignment." Absolute alignments are an assumption of the Players and the Dm, not a game rule. For instance, Orcs are listed as Lawful Evil in the 1e MM. Halflings are listed as Lawful Good in the same book. Yet Halflings can be Thieves, which in the 1e PH were NOT allowed to be Lawful Good! I could list a half-dozen other such examples, but I trust my point is taken. Just as Halflings are not all Lawful Good - despite their being listed as Lawful Good in the MM - neither is every Orc every born obliged to be Lawful Evil (Or Chaotic Evil since 3e). And what about Half-Orcs - are they also fair game to be slaughtered on sight because one parent was a allegedly "always-Evil" creature?

 

[Elderbrain]

Well, let's see, I just played through the first Tales of the Yawning Portal adventure - Sunless Citadel, where the primary motivation for going into the home of a bunch of goblins and kobolds is to murder as many as you can and steal everything that isn't nailed down.

Started playing 5e with Lost Mines of Phandelver, again, your entire motivation for traveling pretty much anywhere is to kill whatever is living there and take its stuff. I mean, you start off the adventure on the road, get attacked by goblins which you follow home and murder en masse.

Now, considering that the term is a LOT older than just 5e, why would we limit ourselves to solely 5e modules when discussing the term? Not really sure what your point is. But, since murderhoboing as a baseline certainly exists in 5e modules, just like it does in every other edition's modules, I'm frankly flabbergasted as to what the issue here is.

Murderhoboes just describes a fairly beer and pretzel, kick in the door style of campaign. I LIKE that style of campaign from time to time. Nothing wrong with it. Tons of fun and a nice light hearted, campy break.

Sometimes I like great movies, and sometimes I like schlock.

But there's almost always some sort of stated justification for eliminating the Goblins, Kobolds, or whatnot, i.e. a piece of text to the effect that said creatures have been raiding nearby villages, pillaging, etc. You never see a published scenario which states "You enter the peaceful Orc village. You see a female Orc nursing her baby while a male Orc collects firewood and the children sing and dance. NOW KILL THEM ALL!" I remember at least one 2e adventure in which the Pcs were penalized for killing infant Koa-Toa (the "Night Below" boxed set).

 

[Elderbrain]

Just because it says Evil on the sheet, or in the stat block, does that necessarily mean they have no compunctions about killing innocent people? Is capital-E Evil synonymous with Murderer?

Well, no, it depends on the individual. Some otherwise Evil characters can and do have such scruples; likewise, some Evil-aligned characters might have a code of honor (e.g. a "Black Knight") that, say, prohibits them from slaying an unarmed opponent. And of course Evil comes in degrees - not every Evil character or monster is equally wicked. But as a gross generalization, Evil characters tend towards selfish disregard towards others (or at least others not of their "type", i.e members of the Scarlet Brotherhood in the World of Greyhawk don't generally give a fig about the well-being of Oerth's other human populations - only each other).