Murderhobos gonna murder


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5/5 5/5 *

I was wondering how common this is, because it keeps happening at my tables.
Anyone ever run/play a scenario where part of what you are trying to do is save an NPC bystander or take an enemy NPC alive and one of the players intentionally kills them? This has happened to me five times that I can remember, with four different players, and I was the GM 4/5 times.

What do you do about that kind of thing as GM?

Sovereign Court 5/5 5/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, 2011 Top 32

If the mission is to keep an NPC alive and they kill them, they fail. They get no XP, no prestige and no rewards. Good day sir!

The Exchange 5/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

James, that's simply not true.

A party certainly gets XP if the characters go through three encounters. If they've found the NPC they need to save, that's probably the case.

They get the gold they would have earned for those encounters. If they got through to the last encounter, they probably receive full gold.

Prestige is dicier. I would expect that the PCs fail their primary mission, but maybe not. Read the scenario (and the Secondary Success document for earlier-season adventures) and determine the matter on a case by case basis.

Just this weekend, I played a recent scenario that had the assignment "Rescue the NPC". We killed the NPC in question. Not only did that not cost us any rewards, but keeping the NPC alive would have cost us our secondary success condition.

5/5 5/5 *

But not every scenario has a penalty for killing the NPC; a lot of them just assume the players save them/take them alive. There was even one I ran where the plot screeched to a halt because the players were sent to take a certain NPC alive and they needed that person to get to the next part of the scenario. The scenario outlines what to do if they took the NPC alive and what to do if the NPC got away, but provided nothing for if the players just killed her.

My concern isn't about running games where the party loses their second prestige. The issue is that sometimes players go out of their way to intentionally kill NPCs they were told needed to be alive, and it happens regularly to me when I GM. Does this happen to anyone else with regularity? Do you do anything about it other than just let them go and withhold prestige/boons on chronicle sheets as proscribed in the scenario?

Sovereign Court 5/5 5/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, 2011 Top 32

Chris, I post corrected!

Paizo Employee 4/5 Developer

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You should not need to do anything other than withhold any prestige noted in the adventure; however, context is important. If the NPC died because the PCs killed him in plain sight of civic-minded witnesses or guards, that may result in the PCs' arrest. More and more, scenarios that I develop include special conditions to discourage the murderhobo phenomenon, whether in the prestige calculation, as a form of censure during the adventure, or as a negative boon on a Chronicle sheet.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne

This thread may help you some in dealing with Murder Hobos.

Scarab Sages 5/5

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trollbill wrote:
This thread may help you some in dealing with Murder Hobos.

The amount of wealth these characters carry around, it isn't really apt to call them hobos any more

how about just psychopaths?

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Yeah, I haven't had a problem with it. It is probably a local cultural thing.

Out here we are more likely to have a halfling* running around the table yelling "Don't kill them!!!" every battle.

*Okay, it is a little racist of me, but it does seem to be consistently halflings.

1/5

We have a couple of players locally who ignore the briefings and simply want to kill everything but they will listen to the other players if they tell them that some NPC needs to live.

Although tbh that is really annoying as well. To spend time prepping a scenario and then when the players sit down you know that a couple of players will be ignoring you until you announce "roll initiative" no matter what you do.

5/5 5/5 *

John Compton wrote:
You should not need to do anything other than withhold any prestige noted in the adventure

I wasn't thinking in terms of how to/permission to slap them down when they do something wrong, more of wondering how to nudge in the right direction beyond just going, "Are you sure?"

I'll list my examples

Of Kirin and Kraken:
The party diplomacied their way past the Kappa, and learned of his missing friend and that he was probably captured by the cult. When they got to the final room, the box text only describes the room, not the creatures in it. I tried to distinguish the hostage from combatants through mini choice. Once the Squizard made his presence known, the sorcerer goes.
"I fireball all of them."
"Make a Perception check."
*rolls bad*
"Make a Heal check."
*rolls bad*
"Make a... Sense Motive check?"
*rolls a double digit number, finally*
"This guy is paralyzed."
"I fireball all of them anyway."
"These two are dressed like the cultists you fought earlier, this one is dressed in rags and was being held by the arms when you walked in."
"I fireball them anyways."
Life Oracle: "Let's please try to save this guy."
"I fireball them anyways."

This conclusion, rewards, and reporting of the scenario do not change whether you save the NPC or not. He seems to be there just so the party can't lob fireballs in from the safety of the previous room (clearly didn't stop them).

God's Market Gamble:
The part where the party runs through the city with Cayden's Keg to intentionally get ambushed. One of them got confused during the instructions for the ambush, so I stated plainly they were to get attacked and either let the attackers get away with the keg or take their attackers alive.
The party got very frustrated during the combat until they realized there were twins. The bloodrager got a full attack off on the one that picked up the shrunken keg.
"First claw attack." *rolls*
"Okay."
"Second claw attack." *rolls*
"She drops."
"Bite attack."
"She DROPS."
"I still bite her." *rolls*
In the enemy tactics/morale, if one sister drops, the other surrenders, but if death is imminent, they run away and leave town. She saw her sister get knocked unconscious and then continue to be attacked, so I took that as she knows her sister is already dead, thus she hits herself with her Invis wand and flees. The bloodrager had a level of hunter, and used his Animal Focus thing to get scent and tried to follow her. After a lengthy discussion on how scent works (that it's range is not infinite and using scent to track is not like following footsteps in fresh snow), we continued.
But, the sister that had the keg on her is the one who died. So there was no way for them to find the warehouse. The scenario assumes the players are able to find the warehouse. I just hand-waived it as the living sorceress stopped by the warehouse on her way out of town, even though the scenario specifically says she doesn't do that.

Also, at no point in the combat did any of the players even attempt to do nonlethal damage to either sorceress.

The Forbidden Furnace of Forgotten Koor:
A sorcerer ignored the visible Marid and exclusively focused all his attacks (mainly Scorching Rays and no See Invis up) on the Greater Invis'ed Undine. The Undine they knew was ensorceled, were sent to bring back to the Society alive, that the Life Oracle begged to stop attacking, and that everyone else was attempting to do nonlethal to.
They got both prestige points because the Life Oracle was really committed to RP and paid for a raise dead on an NPC

Voice in the Void:
Final combat. It was established that she had fast healing and was under some kind of external control. They knew their job was to save someone who would be attacking them. She was knocked unconscious, and while they were trying to cut off the tentacles, she came back up from the fast healing. The Aldori Swordlord made a full attack on someone who was unconscious the previous round that he knows needed to live.
And, of course, the Aldori Swordlord was the one to complain the most about losing the secondary condition on that one

The Silver Mount Collection:
I was a player in this one.
The guy playing the Seoni pregen was causing problems all game. He and I were already butting heads because the GM let him Glitterdust my fighter when I was away from the table.
In the final combat, we were fighting a guy being puppetted by a techno-swarm. He dropped, after the party was very careful about it. We knew the swarm was still alive, so he then decided to cast Scorching Ray on the unconscious man. I strongly objected, explaining that 1) We are trying to save the guy, 2) Scorching Ray will not harm the swarm, and 3) There's a robot over there, still attacking us. He decided to Scorching Ray the prone and unconscious guy instead.

I know there's nothing else I could have done in the situation as a player, but it serves as another example of this pattern of behavior I've seen.

trollbill wrote:
This thread may help you some in dealing with Murder Hobos.

Oh, jeez, THAT game (I was at your table).

That's not even the worst thing that character/player has done.

Grand Lodge 4/5 Venture-Agent, Texas—Houston

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TheFlyingPhoton wrote:
John Compton wrote:
You should not need to do anything other than withhold any prestige noted in the adventure

I wasn't thinking in terms of how to/permission to slap them down when they do something wrong, more of wondering how to nudge in the right direction beyond just going, "Are you sure?"

I'll list my examples

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **...

Yikes! Sounds like some players need warnings that evil alignments are not playable, and that is what they are on the road to becoming.

Liberty's Edge 4/5 *

I agree with Kelly. If you are seeing a pattern of wanton killing, note it on the chronicle as a warning the first time, and tell them that another act may result in the character shifting to Evil and being declared unplayable. If they continue, follow through and make sure other GMs know about it.

1/5

I have a few anti-murderhobo characters in my arsenal to counter this tendency at the locations I play at.

Murderhobos may want to murder but diplobard says "Lets skip this encounter, and the next, and....oh alright you can murderhobo that one guy, he's pretty bad, but then I am back to making friends."

The Exchange 5/5

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IMHO: How do we fix this problem? The same way we handle this on the kindergarten playground....

As a player, I would think twice about playing at a table with this player (or players) again. And warm my friends to avoid him (like you have by posting here). If it gets to be a habit, (and it seems like it has) I never sit at a table with him.... Yes, I have gotten up when someone was added at the last minute (3 other players also got up and that table dissolved - yes the player being avoided was that bad. Life is to shot for bad gaming).

As a Judge, I'd point out to the player that there are other players that might not play with him again....see above.

This problem can only be fixed by the players who are doing it...The problem child will need to fix this, or eventually he/they will not be welcome at games (or will move on to another group - or my friends and I will).

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

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Lab_Rat wrote:

I have a few anti-murderhobo characters in my arsenal to counter this tendency at the locations I play at.

Murderhobos may want to murder but diplobard says "Lets skip this encounter, and the next, and....oh alright you can murderhobo that one guy, he's pretty bad, but then I am back to making friends."

The problem is it takes diplo bard 1 minute to disarm the encounter. It only takes murder boy six seconds to trigger it.

The Exchange 3/5

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I assume the people here who mark it down as potentially evil on chronicle sheets also mark down when you do particularly good deeds to shift your alignment toward good?

John has the best solutions here.

If you are a player who particularly cares about this try the Cry of Mercy feat.

1/5

Why is everyone assuming that the players are just being disruptive? I don't think everyone is being fair to these player when they aren't here to tell their side of the story. OP mention that one player constantly to throw a fireball in a room with a NPC being held prisoner. Let look at this from a possible player perspective. The GM describes the scene says there is enemies in the room, and ask what the party is doing. Player decides to launch a fireball. GM calls for many checks to see that some of the enemies are prisoners not combatants.(At this point those checks could been called for before the GM ask what the party actions where.) Player fails a few checks till they finally make one. At this point the player feels it would be meta-gaming to chose another action then what was his first impulse, so he stubbornly stays the course. The player knows they will suffer inconquences for their actions and accepts that.

1/5

FLite wrote:
Lab_Rat wrote:

I have a few anti-murderhobo characters in my arsenal to counter this tendency at the locations I play at.

Murderhobos may want to murder but diplobard says "Lets skip this encounter, and the next, and....oh alright you can murderhobo that one guy, he's pretty bad, but then I am back to making friends."

The problem is it takes diplo bard 1 minute to disarm the encounter. It only takes murder boy six seconds to trigger it.

Calm emotions is great for sapping the murderhobo right out of your blood covered barbarian ally.

Also, just the point of going into combat and not train hopping aboard the murderhobo express shows players that there are other ways of solving encounters.

4/5

jtaylor73003 wrote:
Why is everyone assuming that the players are just being disruptive? I don't think everyone is being fair to these player when they aren't here to tell their side of the story. OP mention that one player constantly to throw a fireball in a room with a NPC being held prisoner. Let look at this from a possible player perspective. The GM describes the scene says there is enemies in the room, and ask what the party is doing. Player decides to launch a fireball. GM calls for many checks to see that some of the enemies are prisoners not combatants.(At this point those checks could been called for before the GM ask what the party actions where.) Player fails a few checks till they finally make one. At this point the player feels it would be meta-gaming to chose another action then what was his first impulse, so he stubbornly stays the course. The player knows they will suffer inconquences for their actions and accepts that.

The GM was clearly giving the player an opportunity to change his action. If the player felt that this was metagaming or otherwise unfair, then I'd hope the player would have actually said that, so the response would have been more like "Well, I already said I throw a fireball, so we're stuck with it" than "I waste him with my crossbow!"

As far as the multiattacking bloodrager, I usually suggest that players with multiple attacks roll damage for each attack as it hits rather than roll all the attacks at once. While rolling all the attacks first and then rolling the damage is often suggested as a way of speeding up combat, it locks the player into attacking the same target even if the target drops. First, it encourages the murderhobo attitude, but it also forces players to waste attacks on a downed creature, which is bad strategy--so it's really a lose-lose.

And for what it's worth, I didn't get the impression that the OP felt the players were being disruptive, just that their characters were being needlessly violent and recklessly destructive.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Dorothy Lindman wrote:
. While rolling all the attacks first and then rolling the damage is often suggested as a way of speeding up combat, it locks the player into attacking the same target even if the target drops.

As a matter of practicality, either the player can state "if he drops i'll move onto the next one" or the DM asking for multiple rolls at once can ask after the fact.

1/5

Dorothy Lindman wrote:


The GM was clearly giving the player an opportunity to change his action. If the player felt that this was metagaming or otherwise unfair, then I'd hope the player would have actually said that, so the response would have been more like "Well, I already said I throw a fireball, so we're stuck with it" than "I waste him with my crossbow!"

As far as the multiattacking bloodrager, I usually suggest that players with multiple attacks roll damage for each attack as it hits rather than roll all the attacks at once. While rolling all the attacks first and then rolling the damage is often suggested as a way of speeding up combat, it locks the player into attacking the same target even if the target drops. First, it encourages the murderhobo attitude, but it also forces players to waste attacks on a downed creature, which is bad strategy--so it's really a lose-lose.

And for what it's worth, I didn't get the impression that the OP felt the players were being disruptive, just that their characters were being needlessly violent and recklessly destructive.

Whatever conclusion you are making about the players still shouldn't be made. Most people committing weren't there, and are judging(by the advice being given) that these players are disruptive. You all wouldn't judge a GM like you are judging these players.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Yeah, we kind of would.

The difference is that in your thread, where we refused to condem the GM, no one's character was hurt. In many of the above cases, the other players lost prestige / boons because of one guys actions.

The line we are drawing is "no harm, no foul."

1/5

FLite wrote:

Yeah, we kind of would.

The difference is that in your thread, where we refused to condem the GM, no one's character was hurt. In many of the above cases, the other players lost prestige / boons because of one guys actions.

The line we are drawing is "no harm, no foul."

Funny in many of the examples there was "no harm, no foul", yet the players are still being judged. I don't understand how you can judge these players yet tell others not judge a GM. My thread was never to judge the GM, but to find out if the action done could be done. The fact that many people acted like I was judging the GM is why I pointing out that people here are actually judging players who can't defend themselves. That isn't right.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

I have played 4 of those 5 scenarios, and GMed 2

five examples. One I haven't played or GMde, so I didn't read that one.

1. I believe killing that NPC might make other things harder elsewhere. But I have only played it, so I am not sure if it affects the difficulty of the thing I am thinking of.

2. haven't played

3. PC forced to pay for raise dead or everyone at the table loses 1 (or 2?) PP

4. Whole table lost 1 PP

5. Whole table lost 1 PP. Whole table got a nasty negative Boon that costs 2 PP to buy off.

That is a lot of harm. Assuming 5 person tables, that is 25 PP of harm.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

FLite wrote:

I have played 4 of those 5 scenarios, and GMed 2

five examples. One I haven't played or GMde, so I didn't read that one.

1. I believe killing that NPC might make other things harder elsewhere. But I have only played it, so I am not sure if it affects the difficulty of the thing I am thinking of.

2. haven't played

3. PC forced to pay for raise dead or everyone at the table loses 1 (or 2?) PP

4. Whole table lost 1 PP

5. Whole table lost 1 PP. Whole table got a nasty negative Boon that costs 2 PP to buy off.

That is a lot of harm. Assuming 5 person tables, that is 25 PP of harm.

Correction: 3 costs every one at the table 2 PP. So that is 30 PP of harm.

1/5

Lost of possible PP isn't harm. They are choices of the game, many of which the players aren't aware of how to completely fulfill. I seen it discuss many time on these threads that players should expect 1.5 pp per game not 2 pp. If losing even 1 pp is harm then why is the expectation of PP only 1.5 pp per game?

Harm has been seen in many of these boards as death to a character or party death.

Hence every example has been "no harm, no foul". This is of course you are now defining harm differently as anything that negatively impacts the players. A GM who uses blind, and the player has to pay for it to be removed would be consider harm the player, and not just a typical tactic of game play.

5/5 5/55/55/5

jtaylor73003 wrote:
Lost of possible PP isn't harm. They are choices of the game, many of which the players aren't aware of how to completely fulfill. I seen it discuss many time on these threads that players should expect 1.5 pp per game not 2 pp. If losing even 1 pp is harm then why is the expectation of PP only 1.5 pp per game?

Campaign leadership expected 1.5 pp per game. They underestimated their players..

-obsessive compulsive tendencies and need to get the A++ on every test , making them go all out to get that second prestige point. (i have been accused of hyperbole for things our groups did for faction missions...)

-making characters especially for the campaign. Instead of a party relying on one merisiel to make all the checks players made more diverse characters with lots of skill bonuses.

-cooporation. The factions were originally set at odds with each other, but that mattered less to the players than the people who were sitting around the table with them. Players working together could accomplish each others missions far more often than a player could accomplish theirs alone.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

If four of the players at the table are saying "we should do it this way, so we complete our mission" and one player is saying "heck with that, fireball"

Then that is not about the party making the wrong choice, that is about everyone being punished because one person took the choice away from them.

Character death costs 24 PP. I just pointed you at a loss of 30 pp. By your own chosen standard, I have demonstrated harm. One of the characters in the party was forced to pay for a raise dead. Again, by your own standard I have demonstrated harm.

I feel like you are still upset because you came to the board with something you felt was a major issue, but everyone else felt it was a minor inconvenience, and now you are trying to trivialize things that do seriously impact other players enjoyment of the game because you couldn't get us to understand that you felt personally hurt by something that most of us have dealt with, and were not unduly bothered by.

It is not swaying me to reconsider your issue. It is just convincing me that you lack perspective on what things are serious problems, and what things are minor issues that should be avoided where possible but do no lasting harm.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Additionally, there are multiple levels of harm.

A GM who blinded a PC when there was no Blind in the adventure. Or one who made a PC pay to have it removed when the scenario said it ended after a day would have done harm. It would be less harm than a GM who blinded the character when there was no such effect and as a result the character died.

No harm, no lasting harm, and minimal harm are not the same thing.

In your case you posted earlier, there was no lasting harm. (Your enjoyment of the game was marginally reduced, but there were no lasting effects on your character.) In example one there was no apparent harm (Although from what I remember of the scenario, I am not sure that is true.) In example 4 there was minimal harm. (As you said, one prestige point here or there makes little difference.) In example 5 there was fairly substantial harm. (A negative boon that costs 2 prestige to remove, 1 prestige lost, and a fairly awesome positive boon lost on that character and no way to get it back.) In example 3 there was the most visible harm (someone had to pay for a raise dead.)

1/5

FLite wrote:
If four of the players at the table are saying "we should do it this way, so we complete our mission" and one player is saying "heck with that, fireball"

We don't know that happen. We don't know what happen at all because the player aren't here to defend themselves.

FLite wrote:


Then that is not about the party making the wrong choice, that is about everyone being punished because one person took the choice away from them.

Again we don't know what happen or why. In the first post op seem to be talking about entire party just killing NPC's no matter what. Later posts had examples of one player at odds with another player, but not the party. I seen many times one player make a choice for the party without input for the party, yet I see rarely anyone complaining about that choice.

FLite wrote:


Character death costs 24 PP. I just pointed you at a loss of 30 pp. By your own chosen standard, I have demonstrated harm. One of the characters in the party was forced to pay for a raise dead. Again, by your own standard I have demonstrated harm.

No you didn't. No where did op state that the same player was doing this on multiple tables with the same party. Actually it seems from op posts that many players do this. Again we don't know what really happen or why.

FLite wrote:


I feel like you are still upset because you came to the board with something you felt was a major issue, but everyone else felt it was a minor inconvenience, and now you are trying to trivialize things that do seriously impact other players enjoyment of the game because you couldn't get us to understand that you felt personally hurt by something that most of us have dealt with, and were not unduly bothered by.

I didn't bring up my board. You did. You did so this discredit my opinion without address my opinion. I expect this community to hold consistent values. If we don't judge the GM because we don't know what happen then we can't judge the players without knowing what really happen. You again only bring up my thread because you wish to discredit my statement instead of addressing it.

FLite wrote:


It is not swaying me to reconsider your issue. It is just convincing me that you lack perspective on what things are serious problems, and what things are minor issues that should be avoided where possible but do no lasting harm.

I don't want you to, nor did I bring it up. You did. Losing 1 pp is not an serious issue. Judging people who aren't here to defend themselves, while you weren't at the table to see what happen is.

The Exchange 5/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

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jtaylor73003, I can't speak for anybody else, but I don't want to speak about particular individuals. I don't want them here, defending themselves. (Indeed, I'm not presuming that the incidents that the OP describes are the result of a single player.)

Rather, I would like to speak of classes of actions, taken as a whole. "I have a problem when people do this kind of thing... how should I handle it the next time it comes around?" rather than "I had a problem when this one person did this thing ... what should I do about that situation now?"

Do you see the difference?

Shadow Lodge *

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
FLite wrote:


5. Whole table lost 1 PP. Whole table got a nasty negative Boon that costs 2 PP to buy off.

*And* were prevented from getting a really amazing positive boon. A boon that several players in my area still complain about having missed out on nine months later. (And they missed it due to bad luck/planning. If it had been missed due to a player's purposeful action, there would likely have been some extreme reactions.)

4/5 *

Ragoz wrote:

I assume the people here who mark it down as potentially evil on chronicle sheets also mark down when you do particularly good deeds to shift your alignment toward good?

I hope not, because that is not a rule in the Guide to Organized Play under Alignment Infractions. Noting evil acts is, though. Becoming evil gets you kicked out of the campaign.

4/5 *

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nosig wrote:
IMHO: How do we fix this problem? The same way we handle this on the kindergarten playground....

I used to believe this, but I've come to realize it's a false analogy. Because, the "problem child" in the analogy just goes to a different Kindergarten (table, game store, convention) where people don't know about them, and does it all over again. Or, they just bully the GMs and players into accepting the behavior and keep doing it. It destroys fun for a bunch of other people, and it doesn't stop until someone stops it.

I also realize that it is just shuffling the problem off to the next GM, and onto the next table of players, because I chose to not deal with it.

So now, here's what I do. Murderhobos at my table who murderhobo in public get arrested, and can pay 5PP for a body recovery, unless they were so egregious that they were marked evil and reported as dead.

If they try to murderhobo by interrupting another character's diplomatic (or other non-violent) action, I say, "No." When they say why, I explain that the game has a "no PvP" rule, and the murderhoboing action is giving the other players no possible choice except violence to prevent the action. It places the other players in a catch-22, and *that* violates the "don't be a jerk" rule.

It's happened a couple of times, and in all cases the person modified their destructive behavior (sometimes after a bit of a group discussion). I find that once the other players know that the GM has their back, they are more comfortable speaking up against this kind of anti-group or anti-social behavior.

Don't just let a murderhobo destroy your game for you and your players, and walk away to do it all over again. GMs have the responsibility to allow fun for everyone, but sometimes different definitions of "fun" are incompatible.

[Disclaimer: when the whole group is into murderhoboing, I usually just suck it up and let them go, and chalk it up to a not-fun-for-me game. This discussion is for the murderhobo-as-solo-artist types.]

1/5

Chris Mortika wrote:

jtaylor73003, I can't speak for anybody else, but I don't want to speak about particular individuals. I don't want them here, defending themselves. (Indeed, I'm not presuming that the incidents that the OP describes are the result of a single player.)

Rather, I would like to speak of classes of actions, taken as a whole. "I have a problem when people do this kind of thing... how should I handle it the next time it comes around?" rather than "I had a problem when this one person did this thing ... what should I do about that situation now?"

Do you see the difference?

Yet you all aren't suggesting what changes the GM can make to help this murderhobo trend from happening. You all are just putting up to the players being disruptive. These players op talks about aren't here to protect themselves or even to tell why they did what they did. That is what I am pointing out. Go ahead and inform the GM how they could change the way they do things, but it isn't right to just assume that the players are being jerks.

5/5 5/5 *

The pattern I've noticed is not with a single player, just more of a pattern among organized play in general. Of the above stories I've told, only two of them were with the same player, the others were all with different players; so among the 5 stories I could think of off the top of my head, it was all 4 different players (+1 to those numbers if you include the story in trollbill's link). Each incident was fairly spaced out time-wise, as well.

Most of the times this has happened, it seemed more about a moment of stupidity/carelessness than an act of malice/ongoing attitude of malicious intent, so I never really considered alignment infractions when I was in the moment.
Every once in a while, a player forgets the goals/point of the particular adventure due to things like zoning out in the middle of a particularly long box text, getting distracted by getting themselves set up at the table or stuff happening outside the table, or by getting lost in a particular early encounter that they forget about everything else (it happens to me as a player, too). This is usually solved by players asking something along the lines of, "What are we doing again?" or "Who is this guy again?" Sometimes, as GM, I'll need to do the reminder unprompted. It's just happened a few times that losing sight of what's going on in the adventure beyond the dice rolling has resulted in unnecessary/anti-productive NPC death, and an "Are you sure?" hasn't been enough to stop it. I was wondering if there was any more I could do to keep things pointed in the right direction.

As far as the individual players go, I have no problem with any of them individually (exception: one, and not because of what happened in the story I told; issue resolved by us not normally gaming in the same area). I have no problems playing with or GMing over any of them again - in fact, it's likely I will for each and every one of them, minus the exception.

As far as the fireball incident goes, the manner of refusal to change his action is something that player does a lot. It's come up several times where he says, "I do/say this," and another player will come in with, "Whoa, before you do that, let's do this first/instead," and he'll refuse to change his action. Even in the face of prodding by even the GM to do something different, he'll sit there and go, "I said it." This happens with choices in the full range from minor to major. It's not an anti-meta-gaming thing, more of just a quirk of his personality/personal decision-making process. When the result is something bad, it's usually something minor; this was the only time it resulted in the death of a hostage.
He did feel really bad about it after the game, though.

Silver Crusade 4/5

TheFlyingPhoton wrote:

Most of the times this has happened, it seemed more about a moment of stupidity/carelessness than an act of malice/ongoing attitude of malicious intent, so I never really considered alignment infractions when I was in the moment.

Every once in a while, a player forgets the goals/point of the particular adventure due to things like zoning out in the middle of a particularly long box text, getting distracted by getting themselves set up at the table or stuff happening outside the table, or by getting lost in a particular early encounter that they forget about everything else (it happens to me as a player, too). This is usually solved by players asking something along the lines of, "What are we doing again?" or "Who is this guy again?" Sometimes, as GM, I'll need to do the reminder unprompted. It's just happened a few times that losing sight of what's going on in the adventure beyond the dice rolling has resulted in unnecessary/anti-productive NPC death, and an "Are you sure?" hasn't been enough to stop it. I was wondering if there was any more I could do to keep things pointed in the right direction.

A couple of years ago, I was at a convention where a venture captain taught a GM-101 session. Best piece of advice she gave was for when a player tries to do something really silly or outrageous.

Don't just ask "Are you sure?". Also, don't just stop them from doing it. The best approach is the "You can do that, but ..." approach. Let them know of possible ramifications before they take the action. This may include reminding them of a crucial piece of plot information that they had forgotten in the heat of the moment. ie "You can toss the fireball in there, but that guy tied up the corner is the NPC you're supposed to be rescuing, and you'd probably hit him, too."

I still remember one time I was playing at a table with that VC as the GM, and she actually used this approach with a friend of mine. We were raiding a pirate ship, and there was an enemy alchemist up at the top of the main mast toss bombs down at us. So my friend, playing an alchemist, decided to return fire in kind. Her response was "You can do that, but if you miss, your bomb might come down on your group's head". He went for it anyway, and my PC ended up getting hit by friendly fire. It wasn't a particular deadly encounter, so it was just something we laughed about, but I could see a similar situation where you could accidentally kill a plot crucial NPC.

1/5

When this starts happening you need to address it as a people issue first. Take the player aside and let them know that actions have consequences and that being a murderhobo can result in your player having to spend resources to atone and worse being reported as dead. If they continue on with being a murderhobo, give them the consequences. Mike has given clearance to arrest player characters who do obviously illegal stuff in public. If its minor you can have them pay 5pp to "recover their body" from jail. If it is as bad as murder, then you arrest them and shift their alignment. At this point you can either declare the player dead or allow them to atone by paying 5pp for the recovery and then paying for an atonement to be cast as well as the extra 2500gp murderhobo uncharged to reverse their alignment shift. I would suggest that said atonement be performed by a lawful good cleric and thus characters new alignment is lawful good.

The Exchange 3/5

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GM Lamplighter wrote:
I hope not, because that is not a rule in the Guide to Organized Play under Alignment Infractions. Noting evil acts is, though. Becoming evil gets you kicked out of the campaign.

Good to know there's no chance to balance out evil actions with good deeds on a neutral character.

The rule actually says the GM must warn you if you are deviating from your alignment. This doesn't just mean evil as hard as it is to understand that someone might be shifting toward good, lawful, chaotic etc which is relevant for many classes feats spells etc.

Scarab Sages 5/5

Ragoz wrote:
GM Lamplighter wrote:
I hope not, because that is not a rule in the Guide to Organized Play under Alignment Infractions. Noting evil acts is, though. Becoming evil gets you kicked out of the campaign.

Good to know there's no chance to balance out evil actions with good deeds on a neutral character.

The rule actually says the GM must warn you if you are deviating from your alignment. This doesn't just mean evil as hard as it is to understand that someone might be shifting toward good, lawful, chaotic etc which is relevant for many classes feats spells etc.

How do I maintain my Neutral status? This came up for me before, and here's my answer from then...

I don't know about the rest of you, but to keep my Neutral Alignment active with my Diety (Nivi Rhombodazzle), after a week of:
Casting spells with a Good discriptor, saving people from death, slaying demons/devils/etc and just generally saving the world;

I have to go kick a few puppies, and take candy from the kids at Auntie Baltwins Home for Recovery (she gives me a special rate for the service). Looking forward to the Demon Fighting around the Worldwound coming up, I may have to look into volunteering down at the Hellfire club on my days off...

But how are the rest of you maintaining your Neutral alignments?

The Exchange 3/5

I don't care how you stay neutral because I wasn't going to shift you toward evil. I assume you do a mixture of both good and evil like many normal people. Question the people who think this only applies to the evil alignment much like I did.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne

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TheFlyingPhoton wrote:

The pattern I've noticed is not with a single player, just more of a pattern among organized play in general. Of the above stories I've told, only two of them were with the same player, the others were all with different players; so among the 5 stories I could think of off the top of my head, it was all 4 different players (+1 to those numbers if you include the story in trollbill's link). Each incident was fairly spaced out time-wise, as well.

Most of the times this has happened, it seemed more about a moment of stupidity/carelessness than an act of malice/ongoing attitude of malicious intent, so I never really considered alignment infractions when I was in the moment.
Every once in a while, a player forgets the goals/point of the particular adventure due to things like zoning out in the middle of a particularly long box text, getting distracted by getting themselves set up at the table or stuff happening outside the table, or by getting lost in a particular early encounter that they forget about everything else (it happens to me as a player, too). This is usually solved by players asking something along the lines of, "What are we doing again?" or "Who is this guy again?" Sometimes, as GM, I'll need to do the reminder unprompted. It's just happened a few times that losing sight of what's going on in the adventure beyond the dice rolling has resulted in unnecessary/anti-productive NPC death, and an "Are you sure?" hasn't been enough to stop it. I was wondering if there was any more I could do to keep things pointed in the right direction.

As far as the individual players go, I have no problem with any of them individually (exception: one, and not because of what happened in the story I told; issue resolved by us not normally gaming in the same area). I have no problems playing with or GMing over any of them again - in fact, it's likely I will for each and every one of them, minus the exception.

As far as the fireball incident goes, the manner of refusal to change his action is something that player...

To answer your original question. I think you are just experiencing normal PFS. And by that, I do not mean that murder hoboing is normal for PFS. Rather that the nature of organized play means you are going to play with a wide variety of people who have a wide variety of playstyles and those playstyles may even change based on who else is sitting at the table or even how bad a day they are having. I can think of at least one player in our area that is normally well behaved but can turn Murder Hobo if work is going particularly bad for him. You have played and GMed dozens of games. So while those 5 incidents may stand out in your mind, they don't really account for a large number of your games. Overall, I would say our area is fairly light no Murder Hobos compared to some others I have heard of.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Starfinder Superscriber
jtaylor73003 wrote:
Yet you all aren't suggesting what changes the GM can make to help this murderhobo trend from happening. You all are just putting up to the players being disruptive.

Have you read the thread????

1/5

rknop wrote:
jtaylor73003 wrote:
Yet you all aren't suggesting what changes the GM can make to help this murderhobo trend from happening. You all are just putting up to the players being disruptive.
Have you read the thread????

Yes. It changed after I pointed out this fact. Funny I wonder if you actually read the thread??

1/5

jtaylor73003 wrote:
rknop wrote:
jtaylor73003 wrote:
Yet you all aren't suggesting what changes the GM can make to help this murderhobo trend from happening. You all are just putting up to the players being disruptive.
Have you read the thread????
Yes. It changed after I pointed out this fact. Funny I wonder if you actually read the thread??

Lets keep things civil both of you please. I have already had 1 thread I was interested in locked down by Chris for petty bull shit insults.

Sovereign Court 5/5

pH unbalanced wrote:
FLite wrote:


5. Whole table lost 1 PP. Whole table got a nasty negative Boon that costs 2 PP to buy off.
*And* were prevented from getting a really amazing positive boon. A boon that several players in my area still complain about having missed out on nine months later. (And they missed it due to bad luck/planning. If it had been missed due to a player's purposeful action, there would likely have been some extreme reactions.)

Argh that one. When I played it we had an investigator who told us exactly what was going on with the guy, told us to do nonlethal, and a grappling brawler got hold of him - and then the halfling mounted ranger comes zooming in with all his favored enemy damage and other bonuses multiplied by spirited charge - took him straight to dead from full HP.

"Didn't you hear us say 'nonlethal'?"
"Didn't seem possible to do nonlethal with a lance."
"Couldn't you do something else then? Like hit the [thing with substantial hardness that a big lance hit would be good against]?"
"I, um, that's not what I did."

And I'm playing a disposessed noble trying to rebuild her house - I was so mad....

5/5 5/5 *

trollbill wrote:
You have played and GMed dozens of games. So while those 5 incidents may stand out in your mind, they don't really account for a large number of your games.

Yeah. I came here out of a sense of, "here's a problem I haven't figured out how to deal with yet." Since it's not really an issue of problem players or ill intent, just an issue of rare bad decisions/temporary insanity, it seems the answer to "How do you keep this kind of thing from happening as GM?" is "Don't."

I suddenly have a rough character idea for a Merciful weapon-wielding, Cry of Mercy user. Not to combat these kinds of incidents as a player (they're too rare), but because side comments give me ideas.
Probably going to have to make him a halfling, too.


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TheFlyingPhoton wrote:
Every once in a while, a player forgets the goals/point of the particular adventure due to things like zoning out in the middle of a particularly long box text, getting distracted by getting themselves set up at the table or stuff happening outside the table, or by getting lost in a particular early encounter that they forget about everything else (it happens to me as a player, too).

There is a GM in Pirate Rob's area that has recently taken to solving this by folding 3x5 cards (or 4x6 cards) in half to make a little tent-like structure. He writes on the side of the tent the main objective in as few words as possible. For example, "Save Venture-Captain Sharrowsmith." Then he'll use additional cards to write any other objective or warning. For example, "Don't kill the kobolds."

So as the game plays, there are 2 or 3 (or 4!) cards in front of his GM screen, each with a short warning in big letters. It has made things MUCH easier. I intend to copy what he's doing.

1/5

outshyn wrote:
TheFlyingPhoton wrote:
Every once in a while, a player forgets the goals/point of the particular adventure due to things like zoning out in the middle of a particularly long box text, getting distracted by getting themselves set up at the table or stuff happening outside the table, or by getting lost in a particular early encounter that they forget about everything else (it happens to me as a player, too).

There is a GM in Pirate Rob's area that has recently taken to solving this by folding 3x5 cards (or 4x6 cards) in half to make a little tent-like structure. He writes on the side of the tent the main objective in as few words as possible. For example, "Save Venture-Captain Sharrowsmith." Then he'll use additional cards to write any other objective or warning. For example, "Don't kill the kobolds."

So as the game plays, there are 2 or 3 (or 4!) cards in front of his GM screen, each with a short warning in big letters. It has made things MUCH easier. I intend to copy what he's doing.

Stolen

yoink!: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (19) + 2 = 21
nice

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