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

[The Crimson Binome]

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."

I could swear that I've read at least one edition where absolute alignments were in effect for certain creatures. Demons and devils, in particular, are Always Evil because if they weren't Evil then they wouldn't be demons and devils.

And just because orcs don't fall into that category in any given world, that doesn't mean it's true for every world. A setting where orcs are Always Evil is the sort of thing that a DM might want to implement, if they don't want the moral dilemma of killing orcs to come up ever.

 

[Cyrinishad]

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?

Well said, Elderbrain, well said...

You're absolutely right, there is no such thing as absolute alignment for any race/species/creature/monster/etc... One of my favorite D&D books of all time is the AD&D 2e Monster Manual... I still have it... and it says quite the opposite actually, on the very first page entitled "How to Use this Book", it says "Alignment shows the general behavior of the Average monster of that type"... The creatures in the book only have one alignment listed in their stat block, which means it's just the most majority alignment... The multiverse operates according to the Rule of Three, so it is unsurprising that 2 out of 3 is the quickest path to defining majority... That means we're talking about 65% of the population for the printed alignment any given creature... This is logic is reinforced on the same page of the Monster Manual in the Percentages presented under "Frequency"...

 

[Cyrinishad]

I could swear that I've read at least one edition where absolute alignments were in effect for certain creatures. Demons and devils, in particular, are Always Evil because if they weren't Evil then they wouldn't be demons and devils.

And just because orcs don't fall into that category in any given world, that doesn't mean it's true for every world. A setting where orcs are Always Evil is the sort of thing that a DM might want to implement, if they don't want the moral dilemma of killing orcs to come up ever.

You're right Saelorn, the D&D 3e Monster Manual included further differentiation of Alignments by introducing the terms "Always", "Usually", and "Often"... The term "Usually" remained, and reinforced the 2e alignment approach toward the populations of these creatures as the simple majority alignment, 2 out of 3 alignments... Then "Always" represented 99.99% of a creature population (never 100%), and "Often" represented a plurality of 40%-50% of a creature population...

...and it doesn't matter if there is a DM somewhere that wants to declare Orcs as "Always Evil" for their campaign to avoid moral dilemmas for killing all Orcs on sight, just like it doesn't matter if there is a DM somewhere that wants to declare all Humans as "Always Evil" to avoid moral dilemmas for killing all Humans on sight... We're talking about the baseline assumptions of the D&D game, which has been consistent across the editions...
The simple fact that Homeless Murderers are "Always Chaotic Evil"

 

[The Crimson Binome]

...and it doesn't matter if there is a DM somewhere that wants to declare Orcs as "Always Evil" for their campaign to avoid moral dilemmas for killing all Orcs on sight, just like it doesn't matter if there is a DM somewhere that wants to declare all Humans as "Always Evil" to avoid moral dilemmas for killing all Humans on sight... We're talking about the baseline assumptions of the D&D game, which has been consistent across the editions...
The simple fact that Homeless Murderers are "Always Chaotic Evil"

In as far as this thread even still has a topic, it's about how the game is actually played rather than RAW or even RAI, and I would posit that it's not terribly uncommon for some DMs to run orcs (or goblins, lizardfolk, etc) as Always Evil - such that the PCs who slaughter them mercilessly are still Good people (and not actually committing murder) by doing so.

 

[Elderbrain]

I could swear that I've read at least one edition where absolute alignments were in effect for certain creatures. Demons and devils, in particular, are Always Evil because if they weren't Evil then they wouldn't be demons and devils.

And just because orcs don't fall into that category in any given world, that doesn't mean it's true for every world. A setting where orcs are Always Evil is the sort of thing that a DM might want to implement, if they don't want the moral dilemma of killing orcs to come up ever.

That was in 3rd/3.5 edition... and even there, it allowed for one-in-a-million exceptions to the rule. There have been several named "fallen" Celestials (some of who became Archdevils, for instance) and Planescape mentioned a tiny number of "risen" Fiends that had abandoned Evil. Most such creatures don't make such a dramatic change; a Celestial might go from Lawful Good to Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good, for instance.

 

[Elderbrain]

RE: The "Is it a person" argument: Does it have an Intelligence score about the same or better than a Human's? Does it have a language? If it does, then in my book it's a person. That's doesn't mean it's automatically wrong to kill it - there are Evil Humans, after all - but it's not the same as killing a mindless monster.

 

[CubicsRube]

All i can say about alignment is that it worked much better as a mechanical effect than as a pseudo-moral statement.

 

[billd91]

I'm not a fan of the term murderhobo. For the most part, I generally see it as a term used by people to encapsulate the essence of D&D while appearing to be either edgy or snarky but who generally come across as being asshats.

 

[Bacon Bits]

To me it referred to a campaign style. One where the PCs went off into the wilderness and never seem to make it back to civilization. Alternately, it could be a campaign that focuses on combat and exploration to the exclusion of roleplay or narrative. Hero Quest and Warhammer Quest are murderhobo games.

I wouldn't necessarily say it's pejorative, but it's definitely not a term used in admiration.

 

[Tinker]

I think this sums it up for me.

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