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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Amaril
So, because I'm intrigued, what kinds of games do you play and/or run instead? I fully agree that the frequency with which most adventurers willingly rush into dungeon-crawling murder-fests is pretty implausible, but a certain amount of that stuff is deeply built into many types of games.
It's not about the characters engaging in "dungeon-crawling murder-fests", it's about such activities being the beginning and end of the character. As in: no family, no goals (beside loot, murder, and sometimes power for their own sake), no life, no interests, no hobbies or even preferences beside those which improve game-statistics, will not even consider any activity perceived to be detrimental to murdering (drinking the cheapest ale possible is a common exception to justify these characters hanging around bars for quests). The murderhobo is simply an angry statblock, given the bare minimum of fluff or backstory which his player can get away with.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Slipperychicken
It's not about the characters engaging in "dungeon-crawling murder-fests", it's about such activities being the beginning and end of the character. As in: no family, no goals (besides, loot, murder, and sometimes power for their own sake), no life, no interests, no hobbies or even preferences beside those which improve game-statistics, will not even consider any activity perceived to be detrimental to murdering (drinking the cheapest ale possible is a common exception to justify these characters hanging around bars for quests). The murderhobo is simply an angry statblock, given the bare minimum of fluff or backstory which his player can get away with.
I know, and I think your definition, or something very like it, is more appropriate. As long as your character has a well-considered reason to put themselves through hell the way they do, and is sufficiently believable and complex, I don't think they can reasonably be called a murderhobo. Sartharina, on the other hand, seems to disagree, and I'm curious about how her definition influences her gaming.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
My entire party are murderhobos. The party started off as one CG character, (myself) one TN, one LG, and one CN. We started off traveling through a forest to get to a town. We encountered a huge tree with gnomes living in it. The rest of the party decided asked if they had any money. When the gnomes said that all they had were "Magic Mushrooms" the party brutally murdered the entire village and got high on mushrooms.
Meanwhile my character ran off into the forest screaming.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Amaril
So, because I'm intrigued, what kinds of games do you play and/or run instead? I fully agree that the frequency with which most adventurers willingly rush into dungeon-crawling murder-fests is pretty implausible, but a certain amount of that stuff is deeply built into many types of games.
Murderhobo games. There are actually a few systems that allow Not Resorting To Violence be plausible (FATE comes to mind, and it's possible to get away with it in Star Wars if you stick to the feel of the movies. Ironically, 4e's Skill Challenges allow players to not be murderhobos, but that ignores 90% of the system) - but really, not being a Murderhobo tends to be boring in most game systems. But that doesn't make it any less absurd.
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Originally Posted by
Slipperychicken
It's not about the characters engaging in "dungeon-crawling murder-fests", it's about such activities being the beginning and end of the character. As in: no family, no goals (beside loot, murder, and sometimes power for their own sake), no life, no interests, no hobbies or even preferences beside those which improve game-statistics, will not even consider any activity perceived to be detrimental to murdering (drinking the cheapest ale possible is a common exception to justify these characters hanging around bars for quests). The murderhobo is simply an angry statblock, given the bare minimum of fluff or backstory which his player can get away with.
We're arguing two different definitions of Murderhobo.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Sartharina
2. You find yourself jumped by three thugs in a back alley demanding your money. How do you react?
A) Comply with the threats, reasoning your money's not worth your life.
B) Run from the thugs to escape with your life and money, fighting only as much as necessary as to discourage pursuit.
C) Fight them to incapacitation/death, then either run before the authorities show up, or wait and hand the case over to the authorities.
Murderhobo) Kill all three thugs in a fight, take their weapons, ammo, and pocket change, cufflinks, fancy jewelry, and any other valuable belongings they might have on their person. Then, find out who their gang is, and take your new weapons and anything that passes for armor and go in guns blazing, any gang members you come across. Full Murderhobo Bonus - Sell your home and quit your job to use your new money and free time to hunt down every gangster, mobster, thug, and crook in your entire city, then county, then state, then country, leaving a trail of bloody justice.
Ah, I see. You turn into The Punisher.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Masterkerfuffle
My entire party are murderhobos.... the party brutally murdered the entire village and got high on mushrooms.
Meanwhile my character ran off into the forest screaming.
Classic, absolutely classic. I still like my guys though, the entire reason they weren't going to stop the demonic invasion and were going to kill the emperor instead was because they didn't like the tax laws. Stopping the world from being overrun by demons was less important than destroying a government that asked them to pay taxes.
In the game I'm currently playing in my character is the only one with any backstory (this is normal for this group), and we're staying the night in a dwarven fortress that controls one of the access points between the safe and civilized lands to the west and the monster/undead infested lands to the east. Anyways some drow showed up, we offed the ones that attacked our sleeping chambers and we can hear the rest of the fort fighting. Everyone else wants to either loot and leave, or loot and go back to sleep. I'm apparently the only person who thinks that having drow control one of the passes between cities full of commoners and hordes of city wrecking monsters might be a bad thing. And two of the other characters are elves.
I'm simply going to kill a couple of drow, grab something shiney, return to the party and say "Hey, these guys have loot!" Which is the only thing that will motivate them to actually keep all the NPCs from getting slaughtered. Luckily none of them are nasty enough (except the guy playing the sorcerer, and he's not competent enough) to kill everything, animate the bodies, and extort the local barony with the threat of opening the pass to spawning undead.
My party is full of murder hobos.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Telok
Stopping the world from being overrun by demons was less important than destroying a government that asked them to pay taxes.
Objection! Murderhobos are tax-exempt! By definition - they have no home residence, no citizenship, and no lawful income. They have no fixed assets to be seized other than the gear they carry around, most of which is extremely pointy and hazardous to the health of if you touch my sword one more time you will pull back a stump, do you hear me? They are the most tax-exempt beings imaginable. Even the Undead are more subject to taxation than they are. (And seriously, once you're up and walking around again, you're looking at centuries of back taxes owed... I hope you've got a job lined up, because you're going to need some serious income to pay that off.)
There are two primary reasons to become an adventurer:- See more wealth than most people see in ten lifetimes.
- Pay no taxes on it.
Possibly saving the world or destroying ancient evil is a distant third.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
SaintRidley
What Fel said, and the addition that Beowulf was a big gloryhound who sought fame and story through battle. He very well might have been something close to a murderhobo, since he showed up at Hrothgar's door and was like "I hear you have a monster problem. Mind if I take a crack at it?", but it is by no means clear that it's presented as a good thing in the poem. Dude dies an old man fighting a dragon for one more shot of glory, and he has no heir because he always put himself above his people. There's plenty of room to read Beowulf as being exactly the opposite of an admirable guy to the Anglo-Saxons, someone who took the "glory in battle" part of the warrior ethos way too far at the expense of the "care for your kin and kingdom" part.
There's room for that, but I don't think the text supports it very well. There's multiple instances in the story in which it glorifies the compact between a man and his thane: receiving gifts in exchange for pledging loyalty and defending your thane. The poem repeatedly emphasizes this as a good thing with both Beowulf and Hrothgar, and Wiglaf's chastising of his comrades for failing in their duty elevates him in the reader's eyes, and when he backs up his speech with action he attains the status of hero.
There's room to read him as vainglorious and fame-hungry to the detriment of his people, but that's more of a modern reading. Seeking fame was largely celebrated, as was the embracing of your wyrd. Both cultural conceits continued on despite the Christianizing of the Island, and this story reflects this. I think a stronger case can be made for Beowulf's attacking the culture of vengeance and blood-debt that plagued Anglo-Saxon society.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
True. I think you could make a good case for Wiglaf's improved esteem at the end being directly bound up in the fact that he was holding up his end of the thane-lord bargain, for the good of his kin and the kingdom, though. One of my friends has an article she's revising on this exact question and we've had some conversations - it's definitely a nontraditional and iconoclastic reading of the poem. That's for sure.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Red Fel
Objection! Murderhobos are tax-exempt! By definition - they have no home residence, no citizenship, and no lawful income. They have no fixed assets to be seized other than the gear they carry around, most of which is extremely pointy and hazardous to the health of
if you touch my sword one more time you will pull back a stump, do you hear me? They are the most tax-exempt beings imaginable. Even the
Undead are more subject to taxation than they are. (And seriously, once you're up and walking around again, you're looking at centuries of back taxes owed... I hope you've got a job lined up, because you're going to need some serious income to pay that off.)
There are two primary reasons to become an adventurer:
- See more wealth than most people see in ten lifetimes.
- Pay no taxes on it.
Possibly saving the world or destroying ancient evil is a distant third.
Luckily, my current group are very much not murderhobos. They pay taxes whenever they are asked (there is a toll on the city gates that they keep going in and out of - to pay for the upkeep of the city walls).
In my previous group, consisting of a paladin, cleric (of the paladin goddess), and alchemist - there was open combat between the group and a squad of royal guardsmen who tried to tax the group using the highway. Of course, we suspected they were being shady - but we only thought that because they were trying to charge us a toll.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
There is a subtle distinction between murderhoboes and more directed adventurers, as explained here by Belkar.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
I did not realize the term "murderhobo" had such rich and complex nuances.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
DM Nate
I did not realize the term "murderhobo" had such rich and complex nuances.
Almost as rich as the smell...
It's a style of play, with emphasis on killing and looting and little connection to a larger storyline. You don't need deep motivations when you're playing Small Armies: Post-Tolkien edition. This can be light and fun (Beer & Pretzels) or Serious Business (murderhobo style is heavy-optimization friendly). You can describe it as video-gamey, but at the heart the hobby origins starts with battle, so no blaming it all on GTA or e-cigarettes whatever it is that people blame everything on these days.
It's looking at it in the context of a living, breathing world and realizing "holy crap, these guys are nuts! And smell!" that brings the negative aspects.
I was originally going to suggest that the MH party face would likely invest in some sort of Masterwork Soap for that +2 circumstance bonus to Diplomacy, but then I remembered that "party face" isn't a typical murderhobo focus. (If you're the party face because you have the least negative social modifier... you might be a murderhobo).
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Joe the Rat
Almost as rich as the smell...
It's a style of play, with emphasis on killing and looting and little connection to a larger storyline. You don't need deep motivations when you're playing Small Armies: Post-Tolkien edition. This can be light and fun (Beer & Pretzels) or Serious Business (murderhobo style is heavy-optimization friendly). You can describe it as video-gamey, but at the heart the hobby origins starts with battle, so no blaming it all on GTA or e-cigarettes whatever it is that people blame everything on these days.
It's a dominant style of play, even in groups that think otherwise. Any game that has the heroes consistently killing absurdly large numbers of people (Disproportionate to their group size) outside of Military Action, and having the party spend most of its time wandering the world with little connection to any home they might have (Many don't have a home at all) is Murderhobo style of play.
Also - you can blame GTA and most video games on D&D, not the other way around.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
It's apples and oranges to look at adventurers like you look at normal people. Most of the human race manages to not murder anybody in the course of their careers.
But this is a game. Nobody wants to play Lawyers and Ledgers. People want to play at violence because we find fake violence fun. Why are there no First Person Hugger games? We want to blast aliens and terrorists and Nazis and Orcs and Zombies.
So, fantasy RPGs just build a world of fluff around a war game. That's why the concept of the adventuring party kicking in doors and slaying monsters and looting treasure hordes is central to the game.
You can play a more story based, political game where the party has to protect the city, or negotiate a peace treaty or diffuse tensions and avert a war. That's great if the players and DM want that. But that's the deviant playstyle, not the murderous dungeon crawl.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
mike_g
but this is a game. Nobody wants to play lawyers and ledgers.
objection!!!
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Joe the Rat
(If you're the party face because you have the least negative social modifier... you might be a murderhobo).
Point of order! If this (You Might Be a Murderhobo) isn't a thread, it needs to be one imminently!
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Mike_G
It's apples and oranges to look at adventurers like you look at normal people. Most of the human race manages to not murder anybody in the course of their careers.
But this is a game. Nobody wants to play Lawyers and Ledgers. People want to play at violence because we find fake violence fun. Why are there no First Person Hugger games? We want to blast aliens and terrorists and Nazis and Orcs and Zombies.
Still Murderhobos, though! But some people don't like being called Murderhobos even though they are.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Joe the Rat
...then I remembered that "party face" isn't a typical murderhobo focus. (If you're the party face because you have the least negative social modifier... you might be a murderhobo).
If your character has the most negative social modifier and is the party face then your friends are murder hobos.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
Technically, having the highest positive value is also the "least negative" one.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
D&D Basic sets generally gave the party a home base to operate out of (Freedale, back in 2e, was an example). It came across as less "hobos" and more "town's troubleshooters" - the local wizard asks the party to investigate a Problem (ogre chieftain hunting for an Orb of Dragonkind) and that's how the game starts.
Same generally applies as the party continues to level up - NPCs give them "Quests" to deal with some problematic issue, usually involving aggressive types threatening the NPCs and their town or towns.
"Pure murderhoboing" generally wouldn't involve these kinds of justifications.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
Given the term here, I have altered it just a bit for the group im in, Domesticated Murderhobos. We still wander and kill for xp and the loot, but we do actually use our abilities to avoid a fight once in a while or get our way truly diplomatically. That and attempting to use the Stronghold Builders Guide to make a big 'ol castle.
I use 'murderhobo' as a joke, as opposed to a form of derision, and the Domesticated bit if only because we're building our own home.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Vitruviansquid
What people derisively label murderhoboism is part of a long and glorious tradition in history and literature, though. Odysseus was basically a murderhobo, the Beowulf was a murderhobo, the Fellowship of the Ring were murderhobos, Vikings were murderhobos, conquistadors were murderhobos, ronin were murderhobos, and the list goes on and on. It's really only the imposition of a cocktail of modern norms of how war, justice, and day-to-day living should be done that makes murderhoboism a non-legitimate thing in fantasy settings.
A hobo is somebody with no fixed home, who is not trying to build a new one.
Oddysseus had a home, and was focused entirely on getting there.
Beowulf had a home in Götaland, and came to Denmark just long enough to save the Dames from Grendel and his mother.
Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry had a home in the Shire; Legolas in Mirkwood, Gimli under the Mountain, Aragorn in Rivendell, and Boromir in Minas Tirith. Gandalf was, of course, an angel.
Vikings were raiders who took the stuff home.
The conquistadors were trying to build a new home in New Spain. (The word comes from conquest).
Ronin are in fact hobos, but they are looking for a home and a master.
In original D&D, upper-level characters were expected to clear some land, build a fortress, and settle down. D&D characters whose goal isn't to save the country from the raiding orcs, or rescue the princes from the dragon and eventually settle down, but to just find creatures, kill them, and take their stuff are called murderhobos.
I try to let all my characters have some kind of home, and some hopes of retiring to it.
Gustav is trying to defend his northern forests from the frost giants.
Pteppic is trying to prove worthy to inherit the Egyptian throne.
Ornrandir was trying to provide a place for homeless outcasts (like he once was) to settle down and prosper.
Gwydion was a bard. He actually wanted to wander. But the goal was to go from castle to castle earning fame; the monsters were in the way.
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Originally Posted by
roko10
Yes, I get that, but my actual question is: why do some people use it as some kind of weird slur for adventurers?
Because the D&D characters who are not murderhobos have backgrounds and goals beyond killing people and taking their stuff, and the D&D characters who are murderhobos do not.
For instance, my Ranger has a masterwork axe. This isn't his weapon, it's a tool. I do not expect the fact that it's masterwork to ever effect the game, but the two people I've known who actually lived alone in the woods were both proud of the quality of their axe, so it seemed in character. He also has a skill point in playing the harp, just because people who live alone often make music.
Murderhobo characters have no characteristics that aren't specifically aimed at killing folks and taking their stuff.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
Are you sure people are sitting around gaming tables complaining about players not having homes in their backstories?
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Vitruviansquid
Are you sure people are sitting around gaming tables complaining about players not having homes in their backstories?
No. I think that's a grossly simplistic revision.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Jay R
No. I think that's a grossly simplistic revision.
I don't. It's what I do sometimes.
Point of data: In my current d&d 3.5 game the druid with the 7 charisma is the party face and the only character with any backstory. This is because he's the only one concerned with more than the basic kill-loot-repeat and the only one who does not talk to the NPCs like they were nameless mmo quest mobs.
Now that 7 charisma means that the druid has elven tourett's syndrome and constantly insults everyone. But apparently that's better than the rest of the party who won't even remember the names of anyone and only ask for quests or buying and selling magic items.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
Well this is my take. Murder; Adventurers kill enough sentient and non-sentient beings that they would be considered more like natural disasters than serial killers. In one story, my party and I just wanted to fast forward time a week so my dog could have some barding to wear. The DM didn't allow it due to plot reasons and in that one weeks time we killed 30 people. They were cultists of an evil god bent on controlling the world, but still, 30 people in a week. We counted. A normal person would be traumatized by this, have some PTSD, but in DnD the LG paladin wouldn't bat an eye at the number of people they killed.
Hobo: Now PF made a good rule that you can spent X amount of gold a month to have a reasonable level of life. 10 gold is average, 100g is really good, and 1000 gold has you living in castles and mansion on a daily basis. Here is the thing though, why spend that (outside of purely RP reasons) when most high level adventures sleep in Rope Tricks (or Magnificent Mansions) or are off in the wilderness somewhere far from civilization? Also, a lot of times the DM's story doesn't allow for staying in one place for any significant amount of time. The party is hoping from city to city, dungeon to dungeon, trying to prevent some world ending disaster. It is hard to get connected to NPC#54 in city #9 when the party knows they will only be there for a few game sessions tops.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
jguy
A normal person would be traumatized by this, have some PTSD, but in DnD the LG paladin wouldn't bat an eye at the number of people they killed.
I shudder to think what sort of PTSD your average D&D character would have by level 5, let alone 20.
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Originally Posted by
Jay R
Because the D&D characters who are not murderhobos have backgrounds and goals beyond killing people and taking their stuff, and the D&D characters who are murderhobos do not.
For instance, my Ranger has a masterwork axe. This isn't his weapon, it's a tool. I do not expect the fact that it's masterwork to ever effect the game, but the two people I've known who actually lived alone in the woods were both proud of the quality of their axe, so it seemed in character. He also has a skill point in playing the harp, just because people who live alone often make music.
Murderhobo characters have no characteristics that aren't specifically aimed at killing folks and taking their stuff.
I think this might be getting to the meat of the matter - a Real Roleplayer(tm) tries to make things more complicated for their character, with social entaglements and hobbies and such. A Murderhobo tries to simplify it, so there's nothing to get in the way of the killing and taking of stuff.
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Re: Why is being a murderhobo bad?
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Originally Posted by
Arbane
I shudder to think what sort of PTSD your average D&D character would have by level 5, let alone 20.
Muderhobo's PTSD. :smallcool: