this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025
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Is anyone else tired of murderhobo being ascribed to anytime a party kills anything? "How dare you murderhobo that mindflayer!" "How dare you murderhobo that zombie!"
Now, while I get the point of the post is that the bandits are still people, my comment doesn't refute that point. The point of my comment is that a DND is expected to kill in the campaign sometimes, and calling the party murderhoboes for doing so every time it happens is kinda condescending. In addition, the bandits deliberately attempted to murder the party for their money. The adventurers fought back and weren't able to pay attention to how lethal their strikes were. It adds more realism to do as the post describes, but it doesn't make the bandits better people than the party
Back in the D&D 3.5e days, I was on a kick where I thought alignment systems were very silly so when playing D&D I'd pick an alignment and play it to a logical extreme. In one case I was playing a LN character who was a city watchman (later watch captain) who was so lawful that it became a hurdle for the party to deal with because if they committed crimes I would investigate and then arrest them. My character was also very specialized in subduing enemies without killing them, though killing in self-defense was permissible I made every effort to avoid that, not out of compassion, but because the villains should be captured and brought to justice.
One time we were beset by bandits and some were killed in the skirmish, this wasn't a problem but the party went to loot the bodies and I stopped them. Just because you kill someone doesn't mean you get their belongings, the gold on their person would have to be catalogued and determined if it had been stolen, personal effects would go to their next of kin, etc. The party had no claim to any of it. The DM had to step in and have the King award treasure to us because I was preventing the group from getting stuff off our defeated enemies.
Ultimately, my insistence on jurisprudence and constant arresting PCs who stepped over the line resulted in the party being forced to adopt tactics to play around me. The Sorcerer picked up subual substitution (which turned out to be broken anyway since it bypassed energy immunity) the rest of the party picked up disarming, entangling or enchanting abilities to avoid me bringing the law down on them when we got back to the city.
All-in-all 10/10 would fuck with my party again. While sometimes frustrated by my antics the group agreed that I made the entire adventure a lot more memorable and interesting and we still talk about it years later.