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The murderhobo as I've understood it: The character whose behavior is informed more by the "kill things and take their stuff" model than anything approaching actual morality.
Or even one whose morality twists back and forth to enable "kill things and take their stuff" as the default mode of behavior.
A friend once told me that he had serious issues reconciling characters being Good and engaging in all sorts of essentially sociopathic behavior, going out and home invadin' for phat loots and using the flimsiest of excuses to justify murder. Having to kill to stop active evil, sure, fine. But the Jimbo and Ned style of "It's comin' right for us!" adventuring and the double standards often employed by many allegedly "good" characters just does not click as heroic.
Personally, looking different, being of a certain race/nationality, or even detecting as evil isn't enough reason to straight up murder someone. "They have stuff we want" isn't enough to justify killing. Playing a xenophobic absolutist plunderer whose moral code resembles some hatemonger's from WH40k or like some absolutist Rand/Goodkind-ish "protagonist centered morality" type just never felt heroic or at all appealing to me.
When I hear "There's this medusa living in a cave out yonder", I want to learn more about that character. It's not very fun if you're paired up with "Those have treasure/EVIL MONSTER! Let's go kill it!" all the damn time by default, no matter the circumstance. It's no fun at all to try and play a good cleric tending to ailing goblin bystanders, some of them children, while other allegedly good party members start butchering them "because they're goblins!"
Thinking about it some more, this is what pisses me off about murderhobos:
Moral Dissonance
Moral Myopia
Black and White Insanity
What Measure Is A Non-Human
Designated Hero
Protagonist Centered Morality
Honestly, I just expect actual Good to rise above "us vs. them", "hate the Other", and the monkeysphere game.
My Good characters kill, but they never get off on it. They try to find another way when possible. And they have to have a damn good reason to do it besides someone saying the game is about "killing things and taking their stuff".
The murderhobo as I've understood it: The character whose behavior is informed more by the "kill things and take their stuff" model than anything approaching actual morality.
Or even one whose morality twists back and forth to enable "kill things and take their stuff" as the default mode of behavior.
A friend once told me that he had serious issues reconciling characters being Good and engaging in all sorts of essentially sociopathic behavior, going out and home invadin' for phat loots and using the flimsiest of excuses to justify murder. Having to kill to stop active evil, sure, fine. But the Jimbo and Ned style of "It's comin' right for us!" adventuring and the double standards often employed by many allegedly "good" characters just does not click as heroic.
Personally, looking different, being of a certain race/nationality, or even detecting as evil isn't enough reason to straight up murder someone. "They have stuff we want" isn't enough to justify killing. Playing a xenophobic absolutist plunderer whose moral code resembles some hatemonger's from WH40k or like some absolutist Rand/Goodkind-ish "protagonist centered morality" type just never felt heroic or at all appealing to me.
When I hear "There's this medusa living in a cave out yonder", I want to learn more about that character. It's not very fun if you're paired up with "Those have treasure/EVIL MONSTER! Let's go kill it!" all the damn time by default, no matter the circumstance. It's no fun at all to try and play a good cleric tending to ailing goblin bystanders, some of them children, while other allegedly good party members start butchering them "because they're goblins!"
Thinking about it some more, this is what pisses me off about murderhobos:
Moral Dissonance
Moral Myopia
Black and White Insanity...
^Yesh, all of that.
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My Good characters kill, but they never get off on it. They try to find another way when possible. And they have to have a damn good reason to do it besides someone saying the game is about "killing things and taking their stuff".
Just curious, do you think someone was saying the opposite of this? Or was this just a clarification of stance?
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My Good characters kill, but they never get off on it. They try to find another way when possible. And they have to have a damn good reason to do it besides someone saying the game is about "killing things and taking their stuff".Just curious, do you think someone was saying the opposite of this? Or was this just a clarification of stance?
Primarily clarification of stance, since it was starting to seem like different definitions for the terms were being used by different posters.
There was probably a bit of the former as well though. IIRC the "wipe out the monstrous village/tribe and let the gods sort them out" bit came up and that's easily one of the most offputting things some push as part of the default mode of play. That's actually a big part of what drove me from the game during my earliest experiences.(the good character trying to save goblin noncombatants surrounded by genocidal PCs example has happened to me more than once)
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Yeah, I think some of the "let the gods sort them out" were tongue in cheek.
I think part of the failing of real world morality and ethics is that black and white does exist in the game world. Angels, barring special stories, are always good. Their actions by very nature are either good or neutral. Same with the inverse of devils and demons. A game that is presented as good vs evil is going to allow the killing of evil as a good act, because eliminating evil is necessarily increasing the proportion of good in the world.
A game about shades of morality will be more like the real world. Angels aren't inherently good, some are going to be evil, even though they're still on the side of good, they just use harsh methods to achieve their ends.
I've never liked the killing goblin babies. It's a morality trapped used by GMs who want their players to fail.
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Not murder hobos!
I have heard so much about Lodoss and it is almost untraceable in the UK.
amazon.co.uk has US DVDs for about £250... ridiculoid!
Not murder hobos!I have heard so much about Lodoss and it is almost untraceable in the UK.
amazon.co.uk has US DVDs for about £250... ridiculoid!
One of your brethren Brits was commenting in another thread that he watched it on youtube.
Cheerio!
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Is there a difference between a "Good act" and "an act that is not Good, might even be Evil, but is never going to affect your alignment because of the reason you performed the act"?
If there is a difference, then would "killing a creature that is Evil" fall under "Good act" or under "an act that will not change your alignment because of the reason you performed it"?
Yes. I like to call them 'Neutral Acts' myself. And killing an Evil creature would fall under that header.
Not murder hobos!
A fine video, brings back memories.
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adventurers in general, regardless of alignment are Glorified Bandits
What Do Bandits Do?
They Kill intelligent beings, loot the corpses for useful supplies and wealth, trade anything deemed useless, and some might even disrespect the dead and may keep or trade slaves.What do Adventurers Do?
the exact same thing.
in other words, there is nothing Heroic about adventuring except to those who benefit from the Bandit's effort.
the humans in Hillshire might be excited that their orcish neighbors are being slain by the dozens daily, and deem the bandits responsible heroes. but to the orcs, those "Heroes" are cold blooded murdering sadists and if those same adventurers were motivated to attack the people of Hillshire, their view of those "Heroes" would devolve into "Greedy Murderous Savages who cannot be trusted."
So basic moral equvilancy, no one is better then another?
Why again do you play RPG games?
There is way too much sympathy for the poor beleaguered enemies here, some type of anti-colonialism against the profiteering heroes, identification with the Other even when they are attacked back for what they are already done.
I've seen some dms try to play the "you are horrible people for killing these monsters and their children", look how evil you are. I just sigh, it drains enjoyment out of the game, this moralising. It takes me back to a game so I'll give the full story.
Kobolds taking trade caravans, killing all involved, taking all the stuff back to their HQ. We see their handywork in the caravans they kill, then we find the base, take out the guards, get in. Sweeping through.
Come across a room of women and children, which proceed to arm themselves and form into swarms. :/
They are combatants of a faction attacking their neighbours, so we get stuck in. They almost tear two party members to pieces, eventually killed and routed. Dm plays the poor kobolds card. Survivors sigh, yeah, they were real innocents. Hold on while I put my arm back on.
Head into the caves, find the real raiders, which double as miners. Kill the lot of them.
Find another tunnel, and a scared kobold boy blasts the party rogue (my char) with a fire spell who was ignoring him and not attacking. Okay, so they have child spellcasters now. Great, hope the damage was worth it = dead kid.
And thus the threat to the traders and merchants was over. They won't be killing any more caravan drivers and stealing their shi*. Now the dm made out we were evil, and it got pretty grey because of the emotion lent to scenes, but we were fighting evil combatants constantly there from an evil tribe that had attacked its neighbours. So f*** em.
That whole session could have had an entirely different and more enjoyable feel to it, more complex characters, less of all being combatants and it could have gone better. Instead we follow up on a quest, kill the crazed tribe and the dm paints us as villains. *shakes head at the memory*
I think in our current intellectual climate, it is very easy to take away fun and insert moralising about how evil the players are, as they try to combat evil in a dark fantasy world, and profit by it. They are murder hobos invading homes. Yeah? Well what is the larger picture? Are they trying to set something right? Remove threats to the region?
Trolls and kobolds don't get to retire fat on the spoils of Chaotic evil rampage. At least that is the case when I play a good adventurer.
I get people love to prove they are educated, here here for readings on cultural relativism; but it can be taken too far with the result that the fun of the players is what decreases.
Now whether the forces of good are actually good, that is an excellent opportunity for rp. I've had some chars that have argued against the established notions of what is good in game or the accepted standard. That can bring something and wake people to new rp opportunities (today we lecture against that church of Callistria and shame them), but then some dms don't like the world they have built being questioned. You are saying their baby isn't beautiful.
So I'll say strive forth, be heroic, have fun and try not to get too affected by relativist dms trying to make their games tutes.
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Yes. I like to call them 'Neutral Acts' myself. And killing an Evil creature would fall under that header.Doesn't that lead to the same conundrum where everything has its alignment gravitate towards Neutral?
I mean, if an act is always neutral no matter what, but everyone has reason to perform that act on at least a few occasions no matter their alignment... does that not make people that have to do that thing often basically guaranteed to be Neutral?
No act is always neutral unless everything about it is exactly the same as last time. If you make your toast with butter every morning, it will remain a neutral act until the day you decide to switch to non-fat infant blood.
Why should there be a gravitation towards Neutral? Alignment is not a straightjacket and Good characters are allowed to perform Neutral acts without having to count beans on a cosmic balance to determine their alignment.
I agree that good aligned individuals should look to methods of non-killing first. However, if the situation is risky not just for them but also their loved ones, innocent people and and others, perhaps its time to stop taking the -4 to attack and do lethal damage. If low level enchantment isn't working in slowing them down, time to crank up the juice and start throwing more powerful spells. In a campaign where the dm hangs the permanent effect of "evil can go all out but good never can", no one would want to play a good aligned character. The only reasons for doing so would be the playing desiring a real challenge in role-playing, or the player wants to control a cowardly softcock pacifist.
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Let's work with an example to see if I understand you.
Based on your post about calling them "neutral acts" when quoting my post, you would say that a Good character killing an Evil creature for a Good reason is a Neutral act... right?
And if it is for a less-than-Good reason, does it then become an Evil act or remain Neutral?
If there is no "bean counting", then when does an alignment change become possible?
I assumed, possibly incorrectly, that you are working with an alignment system that matches that in the book which includes alignments shifting based on the way the character is portrayed. I'm trying to gauge exactly how and when an alignment change happens (or how it doesn't happen) when one assigns an alignment to acts rather than to motivations and attitudes.
When the DM determines it is warranted. It can be ruled by gut instinct or meticulous accounting of actions, whatever suits your style. Alignment has always been the purview of the DM, and that is why groups should make sure they are all on the same page as to how they view the different alignments.
For the examples, slaying a bandit that has ambushed you would be Neutral. Executing the bandit after he surrenders would lean towards Evil but is not definitively so. Performing the execution he is sentenced to would be Neutral. Killing him outside the courthouse after his acquittal would almost certainly be Evil.
It's not that motivation isn't considered, it's just that the method of the act is considered as well.
Let's work with an example to see if I understand you.
Based on your post about calling them "neutral acts" when quoting my post, you would say that a Good character killing an Evil creature for a Good reason is a Neutral act... right?
And if it is for a less-than-Good reason, does it then become an Evil act or remain Neutral?
If there is no "bean counting", then when does an alignment change become possible?
I assumed, possibly incorrectly, that you are working with an alignment system that matches that in the book which includes alignments shifting based on the way the character is portrayed. I'm trying to gauge exactly how and when an alignment change happens (or how it doesn't happen) when one assigns an alignment to acts rather than to motivations and attitudes.
When the DM determines it is warranted. It can be ruled by gut instinct or meticulous accounting of actions, whatever suits your style. Alignment has always been the purview of the DM, and that is why groups should make sure they are all on the same page as to how they view the different alignments.
For the examples, slaying a bandit that has ambushed you would be Neutral. Executing the bandit after he surrenders would lean towards Evil but is not definitively so. Performing the execution he is sentenced to would be Neutral. Killing him outside the courthouse after his acquittal would almost certainly be Evil.
It's not that motivation isn't considered, it's just that the method of the act is considered as well.
Alignment is in the eye of the beholder. For this bandit, I am not saying this just to argue, I'd see it very differently.
Killing a bandit that has ambushed you, ending the life of the type of person that waylays others, that is a good act. Executing him after he surrenders is chaotic, dishonourable and evil only if torture is involved. Performing the execution he is sentenced to is lawful, killing him outside of the courthouse after his acquittal is chaotic good (justice failed, thus you became justice and stopped his brigandage). You know, adventurers knocking off bandits regardless of what the law says, chaotic good fellows.
Fascinating how we have such different views here.
Thank you for the explanation, TriOmegaZero. It actually seems like we hold the same basic ideas about alignment, but use different ways to reach the same conclusion.
You say killing a bandit that ambushed you is a Neutral act - I say killing is an Evil act that can be tolerated by your alignment given appropriate motivation for the act and attitude toward it, such as in self-defense and feeling at least enough guilt about that you don't brag or seem proud for having done it.
Got to put it here, the character behind the good alignment can matter. I can't see a lawful good samurai chopping down an attacking bandit and mourning over it. Why should they mourn for destroying evil and the fulfillment of their duty?
This bandit exists simultaneously as a multiple-case lawbreaker, a threat to the people of the daimyo, a predator upon the merchant and peasant classes (which are vulnerable to an armed and violent bandit), a dishonourable cad that attacks from ambush. All this warrant the bandit's death and makes it a lawful good act for the samurai to kill them. Bandits and their killing is a combat staple of heroic samurai, check the films and stories, samurai anime, whatever you please. Their heads are up for grabs!
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You say killing a bandit that ambushed you is a Neutral act - I say killing is an Evil act that can be tolerated by your alignment given appropriate motivation for the act and attitude toward it, such as in self-defense and feeling at least enough guilt about that you don't brag or seem proud for having done it.
Indeed, callousness can be a strong indicator of evil. The line between indifference and callousness is a thin one, but an important one. Movies like Platoon show how easy it can be for war to twist you across it and take you from soldier to murderer. I see no reason why it would not apply to adventurers.
What you do after the battle matters, but Platoon had some specific points it was trying to push very hard. A sam/barb/fighter/whatever killing some bandits and then heading off to do more good, is not stepping even close to evil or Platoon. Different setting, different views of good and evil, as much as we can try to force the square peg of good adventurers into the round hole of evil murderers. I'm not seeing a fit yet.
Although the quote is lost to me, I am reminded of a cool line in a samurai film. Something about when the swords are drawn there is no murder or morality. If an evil bandit sucker had a go and lost to adventurers, they got themselves killed and their little brigandage adventure is over. Mourn the bandit? They were parasites on the people of the region. The adventurer just swatted a bothersome fly that hoarded gold and food they earned through pillage.
I sure love killing bandits, just saying.
A bandit swinging a sword at a samurai was historically a death sentence.
There is no going overboard, the bandit tried to end the samurai's life, and they might have done it if they got a crit or a sneak attack. Instead they got killed. This is quite simple and there is no unlawfulness or evil here. Evil has been killed.
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Desperate people get driven to banditry.
Some people are born into it and have known no other way of living.
Some bandits have the capacity to be better than they currently are.
Some bandits turn over a new leaf if given a chance.
Some don't.
And some sociopaths leave banditry to do more socially acceptable bandit hunting because it's a safer outlet for their bloodlust.
I'd rather Good characters were mindful of those possibilities rather than sweeping it all under the rug and acting like some Goodkind-written absolutist.
Some bandits get banzai charged and decapitated, and their loot goes to the more deserving and those in need.
What you do after matters, if you donate plenty of bandit loot to the poor villagers that is a really good act. Selfless and helpful. So now you have killed an evil bandit and helped poor villagers. This is good yeah?
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To save space, I don't want to quote, but 3.5 Loyalist, the kobold story you shared sounds like a nice example of one possible problem with the alignment system (Personal opinion incoming).
The DM should not really be criticizing your character's actions. Outside of alignment requirements for certain characters, particularly the religious ones like Paladins, who need to uphold certain tenets, the DM shouldn't honestly care about what your characters do. (Edit: Consequences for actions notwithstanding).
In game, alignment can be a magnificent basis for roleplaying. A group of predominantly good characters, who are forced to kill 'innocents' probably should feel bad about it. In game, maybe they can try to find alternative methods to handling this. Maybe they simply mourn for what they were forced to do, I dunno, it's up to the characters and their players.
Alignment shouldn't be a stick for the DM to beat players over the head with. It should be for players to make reasonable decisions about how their characters act in certain situations. It is rather difficult to quantify what is a good/evil act, although some may be simpler than others. If it's pretty simple that a player is acting 'evil,' almost without a doubt, over a long period of time, then okay, their alignment can shift. If it's something of a one-off, with undesirable circumstances and poor options, and the player had to make a choice they didn't like? There's no reason to radically alter their alignment.
I think the biggest problem in discussing alignment isn't really a matter of what your past actions amount to, via some bizarre karmic history sheet. It is simply what your character believes and most accurately adheres to. If a good character needs to perform some evil acts, simply because they didn't have any better options at the time, why should their alignment shift at all? Are they suddenly that much more likely to slaughter a town full of NPC's just for the Evulz?
Yeah, good stuff.
A poor dm I knew changed a character's alignment to chaotic evil (from chaotic neutral with a good heroic bent) because we killed some goblin babies. Well my char did it so they wouldn't starve and be a problem later, he also wept as this wasn't what he signed up for! The dm let out an evil smile and changed the character's alignment, but I told him I wasn't interested in playing a chaotic evil character and I would not be playing him as chaotic evil since it was just one act. On the game went, the dm got to change what was on the sheet, but couldn't change how I ran the character, oh noes evi-lulz.
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That touches on something I always find odd about the eternal alignment debate- Outside of alignment restrictions, why are people so concerned about their character being labelled evil? It doesn't change how you have to play your character, it's a label being stuck on your character based on how you're playing already. Mechanically, the only really noteworthy effect it's going to have is that if you end up fighting demons and devils and such, and they start throwing around all the anti-good stuff, you're totally unaffected, or even benefit from it.
At that point, all you have to worry about is your public image, and that's going to be a concern regardless of alignment.
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I didn't punish anyone or make their Good alignment turn to Neutral or Evil in Kingmaker for killing the horrid bandits in Kingmaker.
Does that make me a bad DM? No, it does not. I think the worst DM was in that story Loyalist shared about that weird morality DM of his.
There is way too much sympathy for the poor beleaguered enemies here, some type of anti-colonialism against the profiteering heroes, identification with the Other even when they are attacked back for what they are already done.
I've seen some dms try to play the "you are horrible people for killing these monsters and their children", look how evil you are. I just sigh, it drains enjoyment out of the game, this moralising. It takes me back to a game so I'll give the full story.
Kobolds taking trade caravans, killing all involved, taking all the stuff back to their HQ. We see their handywork in the caravans they kill, then we find the base, take out the guards, get in. Sweeping through.
Come across a room of women and children, which proceed to arm themselves and form into swarms. :/
They are combatants of a faction attacking their neighbours, so we get stuck in. They almost tear two party members to pieces, eventually killed and routed. Dm plays the poor kobolds card. Survivors sigh, yeah, they were real innocents. Hold on while I put my arm back on.Head into the caves, find the real raiders, which double as miners. Kill the lot of them.
Find another tunnel, and a scared kobold boy blasts the party rogue (my char) with a fire spell who was ignoring him and not attacking. Okay, so they have child spellcasters now. Great, hope the damage was worth it = dead kid.
And thus the threat to the traders and merchants was over. They won't be killing any more caravan drivers and stealing their shi*. Now the dm made out we were evil, and it got pretty grey because of the emotion lent to scenes, but we were fighting evil combatants constantly there from an evil tribe that had attacked its neighbours. So f*** em.
That whole session could have had an entirely different and more enjoyable feel to it, more complex characters, less of all being combatants and it could have gone better. Instead we follow up on a quest, kill the crazed tribe and the dm paints us as villains. *shakes head at the memory*
I...
I bet he would have also had them backstab you if you had spared any. Sounds like the kind of DM to pull off s*** like that.
That touches on something I always find odd about the eternal alignment debate- Outside of alignment restrictions, why are people so concerned about their character being labelled evil? It doesn't change how you have to play your character, it's a label being stuck on your character based on how you're playing already. Mechanically, the only really noteworthy effect it's going to have is that if you end up fighting demons and devils and such, and they start throwing around all the anti-good stuff, you're totally unaffected, or even benefit from it.
At that point, all you have to worry about is your public image, and that's going to be a concern regardless of alignment.
You cannot play a Paladin without being Lawful Good. Also, you guys seem to forget Evil is much more than just killing in self-defense.
That touches on something I always find odd about the eternal alignment debate- Outside of alignment restrictions, why are people so concerned about their character being labelled evil? It doesn't change how you have to play your character, it's a label being stuck on your character based on how you're playing already. Mechanically, the only really noteworthy effect it's going to have is that if you end up fighting demons and devils and such, and they start throwing around all the anti-good stuff, you're totally unaffected, or even benefit from it.
At that point, all you have to worry about is your public image, and that's going to be a concern regardless of alignment.
Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the +5 longsword.
Evil can be quite an adept combatant of evil, course, now you can be smited and you just got some vulnerabilities that rarely come up.
There's also little things like what happens when the party cleric decides to drop a holy word on the demons you're fighting...
My spleen! My beautiful boggard spleen.
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It's amazing how much people will argue over the moral actions of characters in a fantasy world
Play pathfinder drink beer eat pizza have FUN
But if we say our characters are Good and kill the Evil guys, we're doing badwrongfun and that's bad, and wrong, and not supposed to be fun!
No such thing as badwrongfun in gaming just different types of fun and if others don't like it then that's there problem
Its all about having fun and spending time with your China's
My earlier post was totally not sarcastic~
I know but there's probably a whole host of people who agree with it
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Not murder hobos!I have heard so much about Lodoss and it is almost untraceable in the UK.
amazon.co.uk has US DVDs for about £250... ridiculoid!
One of your brethren Brits was commenting in another thread that he watched it on youtube.
Cheerio!
So... this is how you make me late for work!
Well-played, sir. Well-played.
Why am i not surprised by that statement Toz ;-)
