How to Avoid Becoming a Murder Hobo

[ShroudedInLight]

I made a Murder Hobo once.

He was a Half-Orc Barbarian X/Cavalier 4 by the name of Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo used rage cycling along with Strength Surge and some other Barbarian Shenanigans (And tactician shenanigans) to tie people up very quickly. It was a two round tie up for a while, until he got Rapid Grappler.

He could have had it earlier in his career if he was willing to let his Animal Companion tank hits while trying to grapple people. It didn't honestly matter that much though since the AC didn't get to rage until level 8 which was so close to level 9 I decided not to rush it a level.

Bilbo had a single motivation in life, to gather as many people as possible into bags as he could.

Bilbo had an exciting career.

[Claxon]

thejeff wrote:

Claxon wrote:

Mikaze wrote:

For PCs: Don't play a sociopath.

For GMs: Have natural and realistic consequences for sociopathic behavior.

I.e. sociopathic murderers tend to be shunned by society once anyone identifies them and in the modern world police/military would be sent to arrest/kill them. In an overwhelming fashion, having virtually no chance at beating them and result in death or capture.

And remember, a little divination magic can go a long way at finding out whodunnit.

I prefer not to take that approach, since it lets the one player who wants to play the sociopath derail the whole campaign. Or turn it into PvP.

It's a metagame problem. It's player behavior. Deal with it on that level.

Eh, I think the way I'm imagining it and you're imagining it are two different things. I'm imagining higher level characters teleporting to where you are (in scry and die fashion) apprehending or killing the offender as necessary and communicating to other players that as long as stay out of this situation their association with the character shall be ignored (assuming they did not participate) but that the country of (whereever the crap happened) does have an eye on them. It's a bit heavy handed, but it is an option. I agree that it is actually better to deal with it in a meta way, but if the player persists despite such a discussion that is probably how I would handle it.

I do expressedly forbid PVP anyway as a GM. People who attempt anything tanatmount to PVP without the permission of the other player(s) are simply not welcome at my table.

[thejeff]

Claxon wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Claxon wrote:

Mikaze wrote:

For PCs: Don't play a sociopath.

For GMs: Have natural and realistic consequences for sociopathic behavior.

I.e. sociopathic murderers tend to be shunned by society once anyone identifies them and in the modern world police/military would be sent to arrest/kill them. In an overwhelming fashion, having virtually no chance at beating them and result in death or capture.

And remember, a little divination magic can go a long way at finding out whodunnit.

I prefer not to take that approach, since it lets the one player who wants to play the sociopath derail the whole campaign. Or turn it into PvP.

It's a metagame problem. It's player behavior. Deal with it on that level.

Eh, I think the way I'm imagining it and you're imagining it are two different things. I'm imagining higher level characters teleporting to where you are (in scry and die fashion) apprehending or killing the offender as necessary and communicating to other players that as long as stay out of this situation their association with the character shall be ignored (assuming they did not participate) but that the country of (whereever the crap happened) does have an eye on them. It's a bit heavy handed, but it is an option. I agree that it is actually better to deal with it in a meta way, but if the player persists despite such a discussion that is probably how I would handle it.

I do expressedly forbid PVP anyway as a GM. People who attempt anything tanatmount to PVP without the permission of the other player(s) are simply not welcome at my table.

Still raises all the meta questions of "If there are high level teleporting anti-bad PC squads, why aren't they handling the threat we're fighting? We're still weaker than he as and you can waste time on us."

Forbidding PvP and not dealing with the sociopath character on a meta level means the non-murderhobos can't do anything about him.

"That behavior isn't acceptable in our group. Give up or find somewhere else to play."

[baconwing]

if you want your players to not be murder hobos, dont make up a murder hobo campaign. which most campaigns are.

as a group, sit down with your GM, everyone come up with a plausible back story with multiple opportunities to intertwine with each other.

then the GM tailors a campaign around those stories.

If your playing an adventure path, or PFS episode, you'd literally have to have the GM write up a back story and tell you how to play your character so that the story intergrates your character, but then you end up feeling like your playing someone elses character and not your own.

some adventure paths overcome this better than others. wrath of the righteous has all sorts of information available in its players guide, as well as numerous books having information on mendev and the worldwound, and the mendev crusades, and a demon hunters handbook. I recently started playing WotR as a player and I found that with a little research I was able to flesh out a character backstory that gives him plenty of motivation to want to fight demons, and help his fellow countrymen.

Its much easier to create a compelling good guy backstory that gives you reason to help people in their times of need. its when you have a whole group of players that want to be "chaotic neutral" but still pretend to be good guys just so they can kind of fake moving the story along, but really they dont want an alignment getting in the way of them robbing and pillaging incase someone has something they want.

[kestral287]

Saldiven wrote:

Let's compare that to a hunting enthusiast today, to find something marginally similar. The modern hunting enthusiast doesn't merely want to go kill more animals. He does it because it's a connection to his past; he and his father went out hunting every Saturday morning during season, so he loves doing it as a connection to his dad. The hunter looks forward to being able to share that same experience with his son, one day. He loves the beauty of nature and the thrill of the hunt. He loves the visceral nature of providing meat for his family in a fashion far more ancient than visiting the supermarket.

And you almost hit the example I was going to use here. Dial it back, oh, a hundred years or so.

Big game hunters (British, American, what have you) in Africa. Consider:

Do they have any ties to Africa? Well, no. Not really. Unless they made friends with other hunters, their closest ties are an ocean away. Correspondence with friends back home is a multi-month affair for each set of letters.

Do they have any ties to their 'party'? Probably not. These are people they paid to help them find and kill things. They may or may not hunt with friends-- that, however, simply switches the paradigm to a party with a connection to each other but zero connection to the world around them. A party of murderhobos instead of just one.

Why do they hunt? Well, around the time period in question, it was sport. It was fun. It was something a rich man with nothing but time might just decide to do.

And if he hunts for the thrill of it... well, it's a hop, skip, and a jump from there to a personality.

[Ms. Pleiades]

Natan Linggod 327 wrote:

Anime and martial arts films have many examples of characters who fight/kill because that's what they're good at. They don't know how to live any other way.

If you want to go all deep and meaningful you could say the char is afraid to change because he doesn't think he can.

Sometimes I think this is a commentary on those sorts of characters, but keeping their narrative importance still relevant.

[Purple Dragon Knight]

Just play Skulls and Shackles, where you are EXPECTED to be a Murder Hobo (LOL: one of my player came up with an elaborate background for his Neutral Good character i.e. "secret spy from Taldor going undercover with the pirates of the Shackles", but in two games' time he fell completely into piracy and bloodlust and changed to Chaotic Neutral)

[Claxon]

thejeff wrote:

Still raises all the meta questions of "If there are high level teleporting anti-bad PC squads, why aren't they handling the threat we're fighting? We're still weaker than he as and you can waste time on us."

Forbidding PvP and not dealing with the sociopath character on a meta level means the non-murderhobos can't do anything about him.

"That behavior isn't acceptable in our group. Give up or find somewhere else to play."

It absolutely does raise the question. You're certainly right. It's possible that they have other things to do that are generally more important than whatever menial task the PCs are currently involved in, but reigning in a wayward individual who had previously been helpful, they have 5 minutes for that.

But mostly, what I was trying to suggest was a way to handle a player that you've talked to who "agreed" to behave but didn't. It's a nicer more plot aggreable way of "rocks fall, you die" in my opinion.

Yes first and foremost talk to a player who is misbehaving. Did you not see the part where I agreed with you that talking should be the first option? But I've seen players "agree" to behave only to continue their antics. That gets their character arrested or killed, and they get a chance to play another character that is not disruptive. Continued antics result in not playing with the group. I don't prefer to kick a player, especially when sometimes they really will change behavior if they have a new PC to play with a different attitude. Still, you have to always be prepared to tell someone they aren't welcome if they can't behave.

[countchocula]

roleplay?

[Neal Litherland]

Gallyck wrote:

All this looks like WRONGBADFUN to me and that just rubs me the wrong way. Since my latest character has been accused of murderhoboism because i killed a wizard for his spellbook i took great interest in reading the blog post.

But all it comes down too is wrong bad fun. And thats fine if the character you want to create are tropes. But maybe just maybe... we dont want to play like you? Maybe my character has legit in game reasons for feeling slighted and thinks he can take that item .It doesnt make the game any worse because a character thinks that way.

I'm not saying that everyone has to come with a Tolkien-esque back story, nor am I saying that playing a sociopathic murder machine is inherently wrong. But I think we'd all agree if you're playing a game that's all about story, and you're not contributing to that story, that you are in fact doing something wrong.

Let's take your example. So you killed a wizard for his spellbook. GREAT! Good on you, says I. It also seems that you had reasons for wanting that spellbook beyond the need to possess every item you come across that's worth more than a single gold piece. That's an easy thing to build character development on, particularly if you wanted to add in elements that the tome felt wrong because of how you acquired it. Perhaps you had to purify it and leave your own mark, scouring off the previous owners magic. That sounds pretty awesome to me.

People focus on the actual term "murderhobo" and try to defend either the fact that their character doesn't have a permanent home or the fact that the character's only stock in trade is killing. People also get defensive about any and all roleplaying advice being someone trying to "control the way they have fun." The point that I think people are missing is that if you just want to play someone who fights and loots there's no reason to come to a table at all. You can do it for free online and get roughly the same satisfaction. What an MMORPG can't deliver though is a story that's unique to you and your party, and which organically responds to the actions you choose to take. If you don't want to create story, and being asked to do so lessens your fun, then you're looking for the game minus the roleplaying.

[Neal Litherland]

baconwing wrote:

if you want your players to not be murder hobos, dont make up a murder hobo campaign. which most campaigns are.

as a group, sit down with your GM, everyone come up with a plausible back story with multiple opportunities to intertwine with each other.

then the GM tailors a campaign around those stories.

If your playing an adventure path, or PFS episode, you'd literally have to have the GM write up a back story and tell you how to play your character so that the story intergrates your character, but then you end up feeling like your playing someone elses character and not your own.

some adventure paths overcome this better than others. wrath of the righteous has all sorts of information available in its players guide, as well as numerous books having information on mendev and the worldwound, and the mendev crusades, and a demon hunters handbook. I recently started playing WotR as a player and I found that with a little research I was able to flesh out a character backstory that gives him plenty of motivation to want to fight demons, and help his fellow countrymen.

Its much easier to create a compelling good guy backstory that gives you reason to help people in their times of need. its when you have a whole group of players that want to be "chaotic neutral" but still pretend to be good guys just so they can kind of fake moving the story along, but really they dont want an alignment getting in the way of them robbing and pillaging incase someone has something they want.

There's some really good points here, but I'd venture to say that PFS provides you a faction and makes you a member of the Society SPECIFICALLY so you have fodder to work with for your story.

Are you an Indiana Jones style bard who trots all over the globe to "liberate" relics from those who would misuse them? Are you an Andoran freedom fighter seeking to sabotage slavery and prevent foreign agents from getting in your nation's way? Are you a Chellish nationalist trying to curry favor as a way to raise yourself and your family higher than the gutters, and you're serving the Society to that end?

There are all SORTS of things you can do, if you're willing to get creative with it.

[Weirdo]

Purple Dragon Knight wrote:

Just play Skulls and Shackles, where you are EXPECTED to be a Murder Hobo (LOL: one of my player came up with an elaborate background for his Neutral Good character i.e. "secret spy from Taldor going undercover with the pirates of the Shackles", but in two games' time he fell completely into piracy and bloodlust and changed to Chaotic Neutral)

That kind of rapid slide could actually be pretty fun to roleplay - especially if the GM throws one of the characters' old friends or allies from Taldor into the AP.

[boring7]

The carrot often helps. If a well-crafted backstory, or a campaign journal, or "good role-playing" get rewarded with mechanical benefits (GP, XP, or something like that) even the most sociopathic of murdery-murderhobos will come up with something.

There are still ways that murderhobos will try to cheat this, and a stick will also be necessary, but it helps. Generic AM Barbarian build #347 doesn't sting to lose as much as when Tovar the Lava King, destroyer of Dunnoch Death-Dealer gets killed.

[Saldiven]

kestral287 wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

Let's compare that to a hunting enthusiast today, to find something marginally similar. The modern hunting enthusiast doesn't merely want to go kill more animals. He does it because it's a connection to his past; he and his father went out hunting every Saturday morning during season, so he loves doing it as a connection to his dad. The hunter looks forward to being able to share that same experience with his son, one day. He loves the beauty of nature and the thrill of the hunt. He loves the visceral nature of providing meat for his family in a fashion far more ancient than visiting the supermarket.

And you almost hit the example I was going to use here. Dial it back, oh, a hundred years or so.

Big game hunters (British, American, what have you) in Africa. Consider:

Do they have any ties to Africa? Well, no. Not really. Unless they made friends with other hunters, their closest ties are an ocean away. Correspondence with friends back home is a multi-month affair for each set of letters.

Do they have any ties to their 'party'? Probably not. These are people they paid to help them find and kill things. They may or may not hunt with friends-- that, however, simply switches the paradigm to a party with a connection to each other but zero connection to the world around them. A party of murderhobos instead of just one.

Why do they hunt? Well, around the time period in question, it was sport. It was fun. It was something a rich man with nothing but time might just decide to do.

And if he hunts for the thrill of it... well, it's a hop, skip, and a jump from there to a personality.

Then why not take that "hop, skip, and a jump" to actually creating said personality?

[kestral287]

Saldiven wrote:

kestral287 wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

Let's compare that to a hunting enthusiast today, to find something marginally similar. The modern hunting enthusiast doesn't merely want to go kill more animals. He does it because it's a connection to his past; he and his father went out hunting every Saturday morning during season, so he loves doing it as a connection to his dad. The hunter looks forward to being able to share that same experience with his son, one day. He loves the beauty of nature and the thrill of the hunt. He loves the visceral nature of providing meat for his family in a fashion far more ancient than visiting the supermarket.

And you almost hit the example I was going to use here. Dial it back, oh, a hundred years or so.

Big game hunters (British, American, what have you) in Africa. Consider:

Do they have any ties to Africa? Well, no. Not really. Unless they made friends with other hunters, their closest ties are an ocean away. Correspondence with friends back home is a multi-month affair for each set of letters.

Do they have any ties to their 'party'? Probably not. These are people they paid to help them find and kill things. They may or may not hunt with friends-- that, however, simply switches the paradigm to a party with a connection to each other but zero connection to the world around them. A party of murderhobos instead of just one.

Why do they hunt? Well, around the time period in question, it was sport. It was fun. It was something a rich man with nothing but time might just decide to do.

And if he hunts for the thrill of it... well, it's a hop, skip, and a jump from there to a personality.

Then why not take that "hop, skip, and a jump" to actually creating said personality?

Who says I'm not?

But under the definition presented in the article, he's still a murderhobo. He may be a murderhobo with a defined personality and a backstory, but his role in life is to go around and kill all the things worth killing.

[Charon's Little Helper]

DominusMegadeus wrote:

The problem with stopping after you hit it big is that you can afford a small house of your own and feed yourself (10gp/month) for 80 years (9600 gp) with the wealth you have by level 5 (10,500 gp).

That's if you completely retire and don't even bother to be a blacksmith or fix wagon wheels or something.

Or as you adventure and see more of the world - you standards go up. That happens in real life all of the time. Once someone becomes an executive and starts making the big bucks - they don't save virtually all of it and then retire in a year or two. They start living it up - and they can't imagine living on what they made due with starting out. And frankly - they enjoy the power of their position.

The same could easily be true of an adventurer.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Claxon wrote:

I.e. sociopathic murderers tend to be shunned by society

Hm. If only there were some sort of profession that took you into lawless areas, allowed you to travel with an armed group that would generally protect you, and gave you a way to learn how to kill entire armies without breaking a sweat.

If only.

thejeff wrote:

Natan Linggod 327 wrote:

That's not a trap though.

That is exactly the thought process of a career merc who's been in a lot of battles.
He only knows how to fight and survive to fight again. He knows that if the fighting stops, he's got nothing to do. He knows that having the best equipment means being able to handle harder (better paying) jobs. He says "One day I'll retire and live in a cabin and fish all day" but really he doesn't want to because fighting is all he's good at and he can't imagine a time when he hasn't got someone/thing to kill.

Yeah, but the traditional career merc isn't shooting up the pay scale in the same way a PF character is.

It's not to long from I'll be able to "retire and live in a cabin and fish all day" to "I'll be able to buy a private tropical island."

Which isn't relevant to what Natan's saying at all. He's saying that at a certain point, it's not about the money to these guys. They want to keep fighting. A lot of people dread retirement because they inevitably get listless and bored with all that free time, or they don't want to feel old and irrelevant.

Look at the Hound from Game of Thrones. Through the first couple seasons (especially around the end of S2 and the early parts of S3), he's definitely got the murderhobo's mindset—just with a pretty title attached. He doesn't care about mercy or honor. He kills because he's really good at killing, and sticks by most of his allies mostly out of habit. All we really know about him is his hatred for his brother and his fear of fire (and some obvious sympathy for Sansa).

A PC can have a simple backstory, and dead simple goals, and still contribute masterfully to a campaign. Murderhobos make great straight men, comic reliefs, and Greek choruses, themselves never being too affected by the other PCs' elaborate romance or revenge storylines. There's a reason those tropes are so common: They're very useful for balancing out a story. And who's to say a no-account goblin chopper can't still get drawn into some more sincere roleplay from time to time?

Maybe Brutus the murderhobo ranger never shows any weakness not caused by a spell. Maybe he never opens up or evidences any particular care for the wellbeing of others. He refrains from murdering innocents mainly because he knows he has an effective setup with the current good-aligned party and doesn't want to have to find a new team. He watches his teammates fall in love, get in fights, break down and pull themselves back up, and never does anything in response save voice a crude joke.

But one night, everything goes wrong in a major battle. Several members are slain, and the villain escapes with an item that could allow him to triumph at last. The entire group is filled with despair. They're close to giving up.

Only Brutus, the mean old tracker, is able to harness his spite and anger, bring the rest of his emotions under control, and let loose at the rest of the party. He doesn't like people killing his murdering buddies, and he doesn't like losing. He tells his partymembers off until they're shamed into getting up and setting out for one final attempt.

[thejeff]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Natan Linggod 327 wrote:

That's not a trap though.

That is exactly the thought process of a career merc who's been in a lot of battles.
He only knows how to fight and survive to fight again. He knows that if the fighting stops, he's got nothing to do. He knows that having the best equipment means being able to handle harder (better paying) jobs. He says "One day I'll retire and live in a cabin and fish all day" but really he doesn't want to because fighting is all he's good at and he can't imagine a time when he hasn't got someone/thing to kill.

Yeah, but the traditional career merc isn't shooting up the pay scale in the same way a PF character is.

It's not to long from I'll be able to "retire and live in a cabin and fish all day" to "I'll be able to buy a private tropical island."

Which isn't relevant to what Natan's saying at all. He's saying that at a certain point, it's not about the money to these guys. They want to keep fighting. A lot of people dread retirement because they inevitably get listless and bored with all that free time, or they don't want to feel old and irrelevant.

Then they're not just motivated by the money.

Is the rest of the party paying him for his services? Are they only taking jobs for pay, ie is the whole group a mercenary outfit?

[Kobold Catgirl]

It doesn't matter if they are or not. As Haley Starshine points out, adventuring is incredibly lucrative whether you're "paid" or not.

And point about "in it for the money", but the fact is, you can always get richer. If greedy people stopped looking for cash when they reached a comfortable level, nobody would care to get incomes higher than about $200,000 a year.

As a sidenote, murderhobos aren't just about money—they're also about the killing. OOC, it's for loot and XP. IC, it's for loot and "the experience".

[Otherwhere]

You avoid it by wanting to NOT play one. Simple as that.

It doesn't need any deep, psychological motivation to avoid playing a murder hobo. You simply choose not to play that way. You have fun playing a different way.

People play murder hobos because: a)it can be fun; and/or b) because they're bored. (Ok, ok - there are tons of other reasons why someone wants to play a murder hobo. Some not healthy at all.)

But in answer to "How to avoid..." question, it's all about: what does that Player want out of the experience? And how does their desire mesh with the GM and the other Players?

It's not "bad wrong fun". It's just a game. Some people love to play video games on God mode. Ultimately boring, but sometimes - just to have fun with absolutely no investment - you do it!

[Captain K.]

Any PC who isn't a murderhobo becomes dead or a GM pet NPC.

If your party is any good, you should be fighting demons and liches by level 7 and Demiliches and Shoggoths by level 10.

There is no real debate with such enemies.

[Insain Dragoon]

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

DominusMegadeus wrote:

The problem with stopping after you hit it big is that you can afford a small house of your own and feed yourself (10gp/month) for 80 years (9600 gp) with the wealth you have by level 5 (10,500 gp).

That's if you completely retire and don't even bother to be a blacksmith or fix wagon wheels or something.

Or as you adventure and see more of the world - you standards go up. That happens in real life all of the time. Once someone becomes an executive and starts making the big bucks - they don't save virtually all of it and then retire in a year or two. They start living it up - and they can't imagine living on what they made due with starting out. And frankly - they enjoy the power of their position.

The same could easily be true of an adventurer.

Living it up by +2ifying their long sword?

If they were actually living it up maybe they wouldn't spend every gold piece they come across on the bare essentials to get by.

[chaoseffect]

Insain Dragoon wrote:

Living it up by +2ifying their long sword?

If they were actually living it up maybe they wouldn't spend every gold piece they come across on the bare essentials to get by.

Hookers, high class hotels, and the finest foods are all relatively cheap and adventurers are pretty damn wealthy. You can still have what could be considered an obscene by pretty much anyone barring Caligula "entertainment" budget and have it amount to pocket change for your character.

The majority of course goes towards new, fun tools for their true love: Killing.

[DominusMegadeus]

Insain Dragoon wrote:

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

DominusMegadeus wrote:

The problem with stopping after you hit it big is that you can afford a small house of your own and feed yourself (10gp/month) for 80 years (9600 gp) with the wealth you have by level 5 (10,500 gp).

That's if you completely retire and don't even bother to be a blacksmith or fix wagon wheels or something.

Or as you adventure and see more of the world - you standards go up. That happens in real life all of the time. Once someone becomes an executive and starts making the big bucks - they don't save virtually all of it and then retire in a year or two. They start living it up - and they can't imagine living on what they made due with starting out. And frankly - they enjoy the power of their position.

The same could easily be true of an adventurer.

Living it up by +2ifying their long sword?

If they were actually living it up maybe they wouldn't spend every gold piece they come across on the bare essentials to get by.

This, PCs don't live the high life when they adventure. They sleep in the woods or cheap inns and have to stand watch most nights. They eat trail rations or drink bad booze.

If they like the sense of adventure, sure, you may want to keep the exciting life.

But nothing about the way adventurers live is comfortable or high society. Your standards probably go down on average, which is why so many retired heroes are hermits and sages who live in stinky caves.

You can have a family, a home of your own and a much less dangerous business with a backup fund of "more than anyone in the country" gp.

[ShroudedInLight]

Insain Dragoon wrote:

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

DominusMegadeus wrote:

The problem with stopping after you hit it big is that you can afford a small house of your own and feed yourself (10gp/month) for 80 years (9600 gp) with the wealth you have by level 5 (10,500 gp).

That's if you completely retire and don't even bother to be a blacksmith or fix wagon wheels or something.

Or as you adventure and see more of the world - you standards go up. That happens in real life all of the time. Once someone becomes an executive and starts making the big bucks - they don't save virtually all of it and then retire in a year or two. They start living it up - and they can't imagine living on what they made due with starting out. And frankly - they enjoy the power of their position.

The same could easily be true of an adventurer.

Living it up by +2ifying their long sword?

If they were actually living it up maybe they wouldn't spend every gold piece they come across on the bare essentials to get by.

"Ok, I could have a personal Harem for the rest of my life...or get a better sword."

"Wait. If I get the Harem first, I won't make much money. But, if I get the sword first I can get more money by doing what I have been doing! Then I can get a bigger Harem...or MORE SWORDS! Man, this gold stuff is so much more useful than I thought it was...I wonder if other people know how to properly spend their gold..."

And that was how Investment Councilor became a profession. His office was perpetually covered in bloodstains and you think his desk was made of solid dragon bone, but that man gave you some really good advice on how to double your money in just six simple encounters.

[Tacticslion]

While weird and unsettling, it's interesting that PCs, even as murderhobos, are generally (to my understanding, at least) considered to basically be heroes. They fight the bad guys and, by purpose or accident, make the world safer.

This doesn't automatically follow, of course. But the primary reason the PCs need to spend their wealth on weaponry (or similar) is because they ultimately keep facing ever-more-dangerous entities on behalf of a people that would crumble under its onslaught.

EDIT: word-choice

[Captain K.]

DominusMegadeus said (sorry, on iPad, doesn't copypaste properly):

"This, PCs don't live the high life when they adventure. They sleep in the woods or cheap inns and have to stand watch most nights. They eat trail rations or drink bad booze.

If they like the sense of adventure, sure, you may want to keep the exciting life.

But nothing about the way adventurers live is comfortable or high society. Your standards probably go down on average, which is why so many retired heroes are hermits and sages who live in stinky caves."

The bold bit - they most certainly do not do that, unless there is no other option. A level 2 PC can afford to throw away 10gp to buy drinks for the entire bar. Actually, after halfway through level 1 there is no point in keeping track of SP or CP. Unless there is subterfuge there is no reason why PCs should stay in anything other than the 5 Star Ritz in any town they visit.

Yes, they have awful standards of tolerable food and hygiene... unless they have a level 1 Arcane caster in the party who will have Prestidigitation as a cantrip, giving unlimited free cleaning.

As a GM, I give Cha bonuses in social interactions for good clothing and make-up. If the PC has had the same set of free Explorer clothes they had at level 1 (yet with shiny magical celestial armour) they are treated as a dirty pleb accordingly.

[thejeff]

Captain K. wrote:

DominusMegadeus said (sorry, on iPad, doesn't copypaste properly):

"This, PCs don't live the high life when they adventure. They sleep in the woods or cheap inns and have to stand watch most nights. They eat trail rations or drink bad booze.

If they like the sense of adventure, sure, you may want to keep the exciting life.

But nothing about the way adventurers live is comfortable or high society. Your standards probably go down on average, which is why so many retired heroes are hermits and sages who live in stinky caves."

The bold bit - they most certainly do not do that, unless there is no other option. A level 2 PC can afford to throw away 10gp to buy drinks for the entire bar. Actually, after halfway through level 1 there is no point in keeping track of SP or CP. Unless there is subterfuge there is no reason why PCs should stay in anything other than the 5 Star Ritz in any town they visit.

At which point (or soon after), they're no longer adventuring so they can keep their high lifestyle. It can't simultaneously be so cheap that they barely have to keep track of expenses and certainly not cut into their gear purchases and so expensive that they have to keep seeking a bigger and bigger score so they can keep their expensive lifestyle.

That's a very common trope in some kinds of fantasy fiction - Conan generally drank his proceeds, but Conan didn't get larger and larger hordes or spend most of his loot on better gear. That really is a D&D trope. Mostly starting with 3.x, though before then much of your loot was better gear.

[thejeff]

This thread has also made me want to run an actual murder hobo game.

Probably in Call of Cthulhu, not Pathfinder. Actual Depression-era, freight train jumping hobo characters who wind up murdering people - in the eyes of the law of course. There would be perfectly good reasons in game. Cultists or some such.

[Insain Dragoon]

In the words of Favarro "It's my policy to spend my earnings the day I get them! Drinks are on me!"

He never cashed in big, but whenever he cashed in he partied.

[Ms. Pleiades]

All this consideration of going into a long line of arguments between settling down or continuing adventuring gives me great fodder for my concept for a Cleric of Feronia who adventures to support the many children he has had, over the course of his adventuring. It starts with wanting to be able to send support payments to all of them and their mothers, then wanting to make sure they all have houses in a nearby city, then a business, and eventually planning to move them all to a tropical island complete with a gate to a bountiful demiplane.

[Tacticslion]

I... I want to see that character, now.

[Ms. Pleiades]

Tacticslion wrote:

I... I want to see that character, now.

I've bounced between a few iterations, some more melee focused with either the Crusader Archetype or a fighter dip, all the way through to an Ecclesitheurge. I've considered other classes as well, including a druid (unlikely I want to play one again), an oracle (the curse seems like it'd hamper their habits quite a bit), to perhaps an inquisitor or some other such class.

[Mark Hoover]

Y'know what I never understood? Treasure. It's one of the prime reasons for being a murderhobo, but why does ANY monster ever have it? Where do kobolds, bugbears, and fire giants spend all of their treasure? For that matter, when they're not spending it why is it sitting around in chests in their living room?

Just once I'd like an AP to include a goblin bank, or kobold markets or whatever.

[DominusMegadeus]

Gold being the (inter)universal currency may not make a lot of sense on the surface, but if you look deeper, you realize why.

Magic runs on Gold and the world runs on Magic.

[Charon's Little Helper]

thejeff wrote:

That's a very common trope in some kinds of fantasy fiction - Conan generally drank his proceeds, but Conan didn't get larger and larger hordes or spend most of his loot on better gear. That really is a D&D trope. Mostly starting with 3.x, though before then much of your loot was better gear.

To quote WC Fields - "I spent half my money on gambling, alchohol, and wild women. The other half I wasted."

[Saldiven]

kestral287 wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

kestral287 wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

Let's compare that to a hunting enthusiast today, to find something marginally similar. The modern hunting enthusiast doesn't merely want to go kill more animals. He does it because it's a connection to his past; he and his father went out hunting every Saturday morning during season, so he loves doing it as a connection to his dad. The hunter looks forward to being able to share that same experience with his son, one day. He loves the beauty of nature and the thrill of the hunt. He loves the visceral nature of providing meat for his family in a fashion far more ancient than visiting the supermarket.

And you almost hit the example I was going to use here. Dial it back, oh, a hundred years or so.

Big game hunters (British, American, what have you) in Africa. Consider:

Do they have any ties to Africa? Well, no. Not really. Unless they made friends with other hunters, their closest ties are an ocean away. Correspondence with friends back home is a multi-month affair for each set of letters.

Do they have any ties to their 'party'? Probably not. These are people they paid to help them find and kill things. They may or may not hunt with friends-- that, however, simply switches the paradigm to a party with a connection to each other but zero connection to the world around them. A party of murderhobos instead of just one.

Why do they hunt? Well, around the time period in question, it was sport. It was fun. It was something a rich man with nothing but time might just decide to do.

And if he hunts for the thrill of it... well, it's a hop, skip, and a jump from there to a personality.

Then why not take that "hop, skip, and a jump" to actually creating said personality?

Who says I'm not?

But under the definition presented in the article, he's still a murderhobo. He may be a murderhobo with a defined personality and a backstory, but his role in life is to go around and kill all the things worth killing.

If your character truly does have a defined and played out personality that is interesting and entertaining, nobody's going to complain.

The problem is that the vast majority of "murderhobos" (in my experience, and based on opinions posted on threads here) consist of characters with no particular personality, motivation or backstory being played by people who only want to roll dice and see how much damage they did. While that may be tons of fun for that player, it's not terribly interesting for the rest of the group, hence the complaints.

[Saldiven]

thejeff wrote:

That's a very common trope in some kinds of fantasy fiction - Conan generally drank his proceeds, but Conan didn't get larger and larger hordes or spend most of his loot on better gear. That really is a D&D trope. Mostly starting with 3.x, though before then much of your loot was better gear.

In truth, Conan found himself destitute, penniless, with little more than boots, loincloth, and a long knife on many occasions.

[thejeff]

Saldiven wrote:

thejeff wrote:

That's a very common trope in some kinds of fantasy fiction - Conan generally drank his proceeds, but Conan didn't get larger and larger hordes or spend most of his loot on better gear. That really is a D&D trope. Mostly starting with 3.x, though before then much of your loot was better gear.

In truth, Conan found himself destitute, penniless, with little more than boots, loincloth, and a long knife on many occasions.

Exactly. But that's a style that really doesn't work in PF, it's way too dependent on gear.

You can strip people of gear for a special adventure, but you really aren't going to do it regularly.

I actually have a game in mind using that aesthetic, but I'd probably run it in Barbarians of Lemuria. Every adventure starts in media res, generally with you having lost whatever you'd gained in the last one. Very episodic.

[Charon's Little Helper]

thejeff wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

thejeff wrote:

That's a very common trope in some kinds of fantasy fiction - Conan generally drank his proceeds, but Conan didn't get larger and larger hordes or spend most of his loot on better gear. That really is a D&D trope. Mostly starting with 3.x, though before then much of your loot was better gear.

In truth, Conan found himself destitute, penniless, with little more than boots, loincloth, and a long knife on many occasions.

Exactly. But that's a style that really doesn't work in PF, it's way too dependent on gear.

You can strip people of gear for a special adventure, but you really aren't going to do it regularly.

I actually have a game in mind using that aesthetic, but I'd probably run it in Barbarians of Lemuria. Every adventure starts in media res, generally with you having lost whatever you'd gained in the last one. Very episodic.

Just give eveyone inherent bonuses equal to what they'd probably have from the 'big 6' and they'll be fine and you don't need to worry about it.

[thejeff]

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

thejeff wrote:

That's a very common trope in some kinds of fantasy fiction - Conan generally drank his proceeds, but Conan didn't get larger and larger hordes or spend most of his loot on better gear. That really is a D&D trope. Mostly starting with 3.x, though before then much of your loot was better gear.

In truth, Conan found himself destitute, penniless, with little more than boots, loincloth, and a long knife on many occasions.

Exactly. But that's a style that really doesn't work in PF, it's way too dependent on gear.

You can strip people of gear for a special adventure, but you really aren't going to do it regularly.

I actually have a game in mind using that aesthetic, but I'd probably run it in Barbarians of Lemuria. Every adventure starts in media res, generally with you having lost whatever you'd gained in the last one. Very episodic.

Just give eveyone inherent bonuses equal to what they'd probably have from the 'big 6' and they'll be fine and you don't need to worry about it.

You can make it work. Though it's not quite that simple.

The base aesthetic and the ridiculous power curve don't really fit either. Yes, I could also play E6. Maybe starting at 6th level. And give bonuses for gear. And probably make a bunch of other fixes I haven't thought of.

But I'm not desperate to find a way to use something vaguely like PF. I actually like other systems too.

[boring7]

Mark Hoover wrote:

Y'know what I never understood? Treasure. It's one of the prime reasons for being a murderhobo, but why does ANY monster ever have it? Where do kobolds, bugbears, and fire giants spend all of their treasure? For that matter, when they're not spending it why is it sitting around in chests in their living room?

Just once I'd like an AP to include a goblin bank, or kobold markets or whatever.

Most treasure I end up finding or making is almost entirely gear that the monster uses. Or an incidental. The carrion crawler didn't so much carry gold to its lair as carry its FOOD to its lair, and some of that food had gold in its pockets.

Market would be harder to write in...the main thing is that to have a market you need a fairly sizable population. I know "god PC can kill armies" but killing a town large enough to have a market seems like you'd have trouble. Or else you'd be so high-level and the targets would be so weak and unprotected there wouldn't be much to steal. The last "wipe out a community" encounter I recall in an AP (goblin village) was ultimately a tribal communist dictatorship. Whatever people needed they either had because of rank or did without. Or stole, since goblins' concept of property is a bit fluid.

Banks on the other hand I could see, but it becomes a bank robbery at that point. Because again, a community large enough to support a bank is probably too big for an adventuring party (if only because the LENGTH of combat would be dull). Robbing a hobgoblin bank isn't that different from robbing a human bank, except in the flavor text and what monsters you might find guarding the vault.

[DungeonmasterCal]

Mark Hoover wrote:

Y'know what I never understood? Treasure. It's one of the prime reasons for being a murderhobo, but why does ANY monster ever have it? Where do kobolds, bugbears, and fire giants spend all of their treasure? For that matter, when they're not spending it why is it sitting around in chests in their living room?

I'm about to dial back the amount of treasure, both monetary and magic, in my games. They've got tons of gold already and have come to expect magic weapons or stat boosting items every game. I realize I'm largely to blame for this, but they don't appreciate anything else I add to a hoard. They can start using the gold they have to have things made (you can't just buy magic items in "ye old shoppe" in my campaigns). I may actually lose a long time player over this, but if I'm not having any fun it's time to change things.

[Insain Dragoon]

For me the stuff I always didn't get was as follows:

Orcs keep raiding a trade route+small towns and looting them.
Players get hired to hunt said Orcs
Orcs die and players find tons of gold
Players keep gold

Isn't that gold stolen? Shouldn't someone be angry the players just took gold looted from tradesmen, towns, banks, ect?

[Charon's Little Helper]

Insain Dragoon wrote:

For me the stuff I always didn't get was as follows:

Orcs keep raiding a trade route+small towns and looting them.
Players get hired to hunt said Orcs
Orcs die and players find tons of gold
Players keep gold

Isn't that gold stolen? Shouldn't someone be angry the players just took gold looted from tradesmen, towns, banks, ect?

That's usually part of the deal when the players are hired.

[Insain Dragoon]

Thing is, they're usually hired by said trade company since a village generally doesn't have the funds, so what about the money the trade company doesn't speak for? The village's money that they probably desperately need to rebuild? How about if the orcs were human bandits and they let the people go in exchange for the money? Who takes that money?

Probably a legal grey area, but man it's slimy.

[thorin001]

Saldiven wrote:

kestral287 wrote:

Neal Litherland wrote:

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Yeah, I'm waiting for Part 2: How To Do "Murderhobo" Well. ;D

The answer is to play a character with motivation, personality, a connection to the world and party, and who feels real.

And why can "kill more monsters" not be a motivation?

Why can "guy who likes hunting and killing monsters" not be a personality?

Why can "these people help him find and kill monsters" not be a connection to the party?

These are serious questions.

Because it creates a two dimensional character lacking any type of real back story or motivation.

Let's compare that to a hunting enthusiast today, to find something marginally similar. The modern hunting enthusiast doesn't merely want to go kill more animals. He does it because it's a connection to his past; he and his father went out hunting every Saturday morning during season, so he loves doing it as a connection to his dad. The hunter looks forward to being able to share that same experience with his son, one day. He loves the beauty of nature and the thrill of the hunt. He loves the visceral nature of providing meat for his family in a fashion far more ancient than visiting the supermarket.

The RPG character who just wants to "kill more monsters" has less development than the average cartoon character. While it might be fun for someone to play such a character, it's entertaining for the rest of the group for about five minutes.

Edit for further clarity:

It's so easy to just take a few minutes and explain "Why" the character wants to kill more monsters. Was his grandfather a famed monster-hunter that has legends told about him, yet he disappeared 30 years ago on one of his hunts? Did monsters ravage the characters homeland while the character was a child, causing a deep seated hatred of all things monstrous? Does he believe in absolute racial superiority, only condescendingly accepting other humanoids, but wanting to exterminate any other type of monster?

You have never heard of the 'Great White Hunter'? The bored guy who hunts bigger and more dangerous critters just for the thrill of hunting dangerous critters. And mounting them on his trophy wall. Literature and film are replete with this archetype.

[Saldiven]

thorin001 wrote:

...

So, does that "Great White Hunter" styled character have ranks in various skills appropriate to that meme? Knowledges of the various creature targets, survival for tracking, profession: taxidermist for mounting trophies, etc.? Does the character actually take trophies and spend the game time making them into something that can be put on display? Does he have any place to actually display them?

As I mentioned to a previous posting, it's ok to play a "Murderhobo" is the characters motivations for behaving that way are a logical extension to their backstory and represented in their character design.

Unfortunately, most people who play that style of character seem too unmotivated to bother spending the time to make this type of complete player. They're playing PF like a person would play WOW.

[Gilfalas]

Neal Litherland wrote:

The murder hobo has been a problem for RPGs for years.

I have to disagree. This is not an RPG problem. It is an RPG player problem.

Play with people who want a murder hobo game and that is what you will get.

Play with people who want to do a shared story and put in effort to their characters stories then you get a more vibrant backdrop for all your efforts in the game.

[Purple Dragon Knight]

Bah! if you think keeping the gold stolen by orcs is morally reprehensible once the orcs have been dispatched (as a fee for the dispatching) then you have a problem with every governments that ever existed in the history of all time (crown lands, taxation, right of way, tolls, etc.)