D&D General Who coined the phrase "murder hobo"

[Maxperson]

Homeless orphans with zero ties to any family or any friends (outside of other murderhobos) wander from town to town, killing things and taking their stuff.

More accurately, they wander from town to town taking odd jobs to kill stuff. That makes them murder transients.

 

[der_kluge]

Anyone know how to do a usenet search? Apparently, I'm too stupid to figure it out.

 

[der_kluge]

Ok, I figured out I could search usenet via groups.google.com
I searched "rec.frp.games.dnd"

This is what I found that was relevant:

from: Apr 1, 1997
to the rest of the 1st level fighters but compared to a 5th level fighter he's a hobo w/ a sword.

"Hobo" prestige class

"Hobo of doom"

Murdering Hobo... sorry, Adventurer. "

murder hobo attitude most D&D games seem to turn into."

The phrase "Murder hobo" doesn't actually appear in this group until 2013, although "Murdering hobo" is REALLY, REALLY close (from 2009).

Happy to search other usenet groups. I'm not super familiar with all the groups in usenet, so folks will have to recommend other groups for me to search.

edit: sorry, some of my formatting seemed to have gotten screwed up, and I'm apparently too stupid to figure out how to fix it. The "Murdering hobo" reference was from Apr 3, 2009.

 

[Ancalagon]

More accurately, they wander from town to town taking odd jobs to kill stuff. That makes them murder transients.

Exactly - nomadic providers of violence for hire.

 

[LordEntrails]

If you are not looking or finding results from the 1980's, you're not finding the right results. Or your results are not really relevant. There are several of us who have stated we remember the term being used in the 1980's. Not sure how you would find such references directly, perhaps interview folks who were around then and ask them what they remember.

 

[Iry]

Definitely used it during the days of AD&D. Both murder and hobo would be pretty common things to attribute to adventurers, so it's probably independent discovery by many different people/groups.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

I didn't start playing till 1997, but it defintely seemed to be an established and known term that had been around a while then.

 

[Wasteland Knight]

I prefer the term "freebooter" myself

 

[Quartz]

I wonder if the term comes from 'murder(ous / ing) hobbos' i.e. murderous / murdering hobbits? And then got shortened to the current form? Dark Sun might have been an influence here, or it might have riffed on the pre-existing idea.

 

[der_kluge]

I wonder if the term comes from 'murder(ous / ing) hobbos' i.e. murderous / murdering hobbits? And then got shortened to the current form? Dark Sun might have been an influence here, or it might have riffed on the pre-existing idea.

Why Dark Sun? Does it mention murder(ous) hobos somewhere?