Less of a “stop the murder hobo” and more of a “Darwin Award” story. A friend of mine ran a campaign and to get everyone’s feet wet, wanted to do a no-plot generic mission-based quest at a guild hall. The murderhobo saw that the people at the counter were constantly handing out a lot of money to the people going in and out, so he had the genius idea of robbing the place. He then proceeds to getting his shit stomped in by A LOT of higher level adventurers. He called bullshit, but my buddy then explained to him that he was in the main guild hall. Aside from security, more than half of the people coming in and out are adventurers from all walks of life. Did you really think some punk can just come in and demand whatever he wants?
I mean, even if you rob a bank you're just dealing with security guards and cops, but this guy did the equivalent of trying to rob a private military contractor's office.(Translation: mercenaries.)
GM: The high level NPC has already killed you twice because you attacked her, and caused you to lose your character. Have you learned your lesson? Idiot: I'm going to make a new character and attack her again!
Dude has to have the smallest, smoothest brain in d&d player history. It takes a next level idiot to refuse to learn their lesson even after the DM LITERALLY EXPLAINS WHY THINGS WENT DOWN THE WAY THEY DID
Reminds me of a dumbass who was killed by a beholder in a westmarch discord server, long story short, same exact reason as 12:43. They ended up being banned for a whole slew of reasons that didn’t just include the “iM mAkInG a ChArAcTeR tHaT iS tHe BrOtHeR oF tHeM aNd WiLl EnAcT aN oAtH oF vEnGaNcE aGaInSt AlL bEhOlDeRs” part, shortly after
@@lumberjack7178 that's godmode and lazy even for a dm, level 20 is extremely rare among playable races, and somehow i don't think the villagers are pitfiends.
@@lumberjack7178 if you wanna deal with it by basically breaking the lore of your game by having a unnatural amount of level 20's at that point you should just have them leave the table.
Honestly the concept of npc being previous adventurers is cool (considering it does make the world feel deeper ) could also be fun if you befriend them they help you in the final battle
Yeah, I mean what else do you do when you get too old to travel, or just get tired of it, it's not like a 60 year old fighter is going to have the stamina they did when they were 30. Ironically the most likely old adventurer you would find still traveling is a monk because they become immune to the negative effects of aging.
Did something similar once, because a silver dragon is a "people person" and liked [insert mundane task here]. Kept the stats on hand just in case, and the look on my murderhoboish's face when the less-than-skilled minstrel they dragged into the street turned into an adult silver dragon and smacked them through a wall was _priceless_
Take it a step further we actually encountered character we’d previously played as npcs, and a number of recurring npcs that could bite us in the ass if we gave them too much trouble.
Of they can meet an old monk walking down the road who gives a greeting as they pass. Remember, Monks don't suffer the negative effects from aging once they get high level enough.
The fact that I just started delving into D&D lore and understood these references gives me hope. Also: yeah, that's be a hell of a way to deal with murderhobos!
That's probably my favorite bit of D&D lore. Absolutely terrifying concept. For those unfamiliar, this is referring to Bahamut. The platinum dragon of justice, god/king of metallic dragons, rival/brother to Tiamat. The old man is one of the forms he may choose to take for traveling the planes. As scary as bumping into the incognito form of one of the strongest dragons to ever exist sounds, it's actually even worse than that because the gold birds are /also/ polymorphed gold dragons. Of course, he's only a threat if you attack him. Even if you are armed and threatening him, he's sooner talk you down. But if you still decide to attack him, well, hope he shows you the 'mercy' part of his dogma and not the 'justice' side of it. So as an anti-murderhobo tactic, it's perfect. You'd have really be asking for it, and you'd swiftly get a response equal to how you acted.
Misbehaving players start hearing church bells as a warning. If they behave too badly, a whole cathedral lands on them. Somehow. The rest of the party is unaffected, but the character is now a pile of bones and gory pulp.
Once ran a "trapped in an MMO" storyline, like .hack or SAO. Punishing the murderhobo player was easy and immediate - attacking innocent NPCs would summon max-level guard NPCs practically on top of him, and he was swiftly killed. He had to roll up a new character, who was just as much a butthole as the first guy, but he kept his murder-rage under control for a time. After the party had leveled up a few times, he went out during some downtime and started killing lower level players. When he did it a few times in rapid succession, he got a "Murderhobo" in-game title and was denied services by every NPC he came across. Other players could also hunt him for a bounty, and he was swiftly killed again. Didn't stick around long when it became clear I wasn't going to tolerate his nonsense.
A more realistic consequence would be a group of high-level players who's goal is specifically stopping people from murdering other players. Bonus points if your players heard about this group or even met them beforehand so that when murderhobo goes murderhoboing and is consequently hunter down by pvp-oriented bounty hunters you can basically tell him "You've been warned".
@starhalv2427 honestly both ideas work sense it's a game what is stopping it from working like that the same way a whole came of bandits will know your their even if just one sees. You in fallout or skyrim
My anti-murderhobo is Sir Willis, whom i named after my great grandfather, a former police chief. Sir Willis is a paladin of Tyr, very high level, and does not stop. If you go around killing indiscriminately in my game, he will find you.
I liked the concept behind the Anna hive-mind of sorts. And considering how they are all knowledgeable about what's going on with the others, I can already imagine if a Murderhobo SOMEHOW killed an Anna, all the other Annas would know, leading to that Murderhobo going from "Haha! I killed her and got everything she had! Yeah me!" to "Wait, why are all these other Anna's coming after me?"
@@chimera9818 this Anna character is a collective hive mind of characters from previous games turned into a hive mind god, and when they put the "murder hobo" in their place they chose to kill the character when he was walking away because they chose to flip the bird. Who's the one that's really triggered? Could've been the bigger person and give the person a chance to grow since they chose to walk away, in fact that's literally what Anna was doing, but since she was so offended by a finger she killed him. Sounds pretty triggered to me
@@kingshittheturd683 you good? she did give them another chance, twice, they chose to ignore it. and I don't think the players wanted that person at the table anyway
@@lucasmatheusoliveiradealbu9033 flipping someone off and walking away isn't ignoring the warning. They chose to walk away like they were told to and this overpowered hive mind god Mary Sue killed him off for it
I had a murder hobo a few months ago, in the world in which my groups play theres a small island called Aquariora, theres a place on that island that had heavy rumors surrounding it about overly keen adventurers going there to steal from the literal mountain of gold. When the party got there I introduced them to Alicia a little pixie type of creature who was struggling to lean the transfiguration magic that her parents were trying to teach her, she told them all about how she was struggling to do the basic metal into stone spell and then showed them as she tried to turn one of the gold bars off the floor into stone, the spell reflected off and hit a bird turning it to stone, she then acted very sad and was about to ask if the party could help convince her mother to let her pursue her gardening dream. The murder hobo immediately decided that if he kills this child then he can clearly just take as much gold as he can fit in his pockets and leave. So he does... 3 turns later and hes genuinly just beating up a like 12 year old girl and I roll for her to try and transfigure him into something that cant hurt her... nat 20, she turned him into a statue. Permanently. He lost his shit and flipped the table which lead to one of the bigger guys at my table grabbing him by the hood of his hoodie and launching him out the door. He never came back and that campaign is still running with the remaining 5 people almost a year later. (Id like to just mention that yes I sound like a shitty DM for doing this but he had killed literally NPC in the campaign so far for 3 irl weeks, he just did it cause he liked looting corpses? idk. I will not apologies for killing off someone who was doing an in universe genocide run)
Players. Read. The. Room. Murder hobo and evil campaigns CAN be great fun, IF YOUR DM AND PARTY IS PREPARING WITH THAT IN MIND! You are not the main character, you are not the center of attention, you are one part of a whole complete group. Be kind, respect others, and if you treat others like trash be ready to get thrown out yourself.
I know PvP is frowned upon but i would join her in that fight. I can't roleplay as someone who would be ok with child murder. I would just respond with "well thats what my character would do" like all shitty players do. Honestly NPC like Alicia sounds like treasure that i would value more than murder hobo
@@petrsukenik9266 They often times go back to the town to see her and I have little story arcs I write for her to tell them about her adventures of growing up, the pure joy reactions they gave when I told them after 8 months she had finally learnt to grow tomatos was one of my favourite moments of all time
The Anna story reminds me of how i introduce Diev, a major alchemist/potion seller in my world, at best shes introduced with a sign that reads "Hagglers pay double, Assholes pay triple, Thieves pay with their Lives" as well as a few skull decorations, and at worst a thief jumps out her window before she catches then drags the thief kicking and screaming for their life into her shop shrugging off attacks like they bug bites, by the time the party enters shes covered in gore and reading a cheesy romance novel
@@karisasani7006 well, then they have a pissed of reskin of Acererak(forner party member), an ArchFey(Dievs warlock patron and a partial symbiote), several Orc clans that kill demons and devils daily(her forner clans), her children one of which is a conduit for pure divine power, as well as House Jurasco(Basically the Doctors/Healers Union) and their allies as Diev is one of their biggest suppliers of non-standard potion. Not to mention anyone and everyone who is a devotee of the god The Fury as Diev is the mortal avatar of that god, and im not even taking into acount that shes based out of the largest city in to setting which is effectively a chuck of reskinned Corusant plop into a fantasy world
I cant imagine that campaign being particularly easy on the powerscaling. If there are casually people this strong in villages whats the point of even fighting a BBEG? Why cant said potion seller just do it instead? That's the issue I have with the "every NPC is suddenly stronger than the party" tropes. It ruins the point of the party. It sounds like you mostly just have a bunch of mary sue NPCs to keep the party in line, in which case I feel conflicts with the sandboxy ideal of DND. There are better ways to punish players for committing crimes. Such as..you know..law enforcers? It's different if an entire civilization is after the party because it keeps the story intact and the characters still feel relevant. It keeps them as powerful PCs, but lets them know that their actions do have consequences. Other merchants for example could close their doors the moment they hear of them approaching. I just can't vibe with using god's-hand characters to do the DM's bidding.
A common excuse I hear from murderhobos is that D&D "is just a game". Like their actions aren’t really a problem, because they're not actually killing anyone. Counterpoint: "Yeah, and the only point of this game is to have fun, _together._ And if you're ruining everyone else's fun, then tell me, why would anyone want to play with you?" Either they get very quiet and self-conscious, or they reveal that they never cared. In the case of the latter, exile them. But what if they're friends or family? Boot them harder. They should have cared from the start; and you should tolerate that shit even less.
My favorite way to deal with Murderhobos is send an army of city guard to apprehend them. Then hold a trial, present evidence, call witnesses. The other players get to be questioned. Months to years later in game they finally get to go to trial. I actually had an entire party arrested. They'd murdered someone who was trying to blackmail someone else, murdered someone else in a bar, murdered a man in his place of business after having him sign all of his property over to them... the list goes on. The detective who had been on their trail had been using magic to disguise himself while keeping an eye on them. If they had been a lot more subtle about it they could have potentially pulled off being successful monsters in the city, but most of their business was being done in broad daylight. Keep in mind, being murderhobos was the entire point of the campaign, so don't feel bad for me one bit. I literally asked for it.
Normally what happens at my table is the DM just makes them feel like a massive jerk. He's genuinely good at telling stories and getting across emotion, so if you say...kill a character's son...well be ready for their mother to come out screaming and sobbing. Basically just his way of saying "NICE WORK, ASSHOLE." edit: Also a lot of the players at the table generally lean Good far as alignment goes, so that'll usually result in PVP.
@spartanhawk7637 ..........Holy shit you're right, I'm basically playing omniman.....except he's a human fighter.......a human fighter that totally murdered his entire party full of wizards when he got charmed
I have two: (1) Make an enemy that keeps coming back and gets stronger everytime it dies (think the saiyan's Zenkai boost from DBZ) until the party finds a way to resolve the confrontation without violence. It will never attack first, but will retaliate if the party attempts to attack it. (2) The old Riverwood method. If the party attacks a chicken in the middle of town, the townsfolk will attack the party.
Ah yes, the Skyrim chickens, kill Alduin, stop the tyranny of the sun, and defeat Miirak? Barely anyone cares. Shout accidentally goes too far and snipes some random farmer’s chicken? YOU HAVE COMMITTED CRIMES AGAINST SKYRIM AND HER PEOPLE.
The level 2 Ranger got jumped by the brother of his best friend who’d died in a duergar attack. I made it clear the brother and his friends blamed the ranger for his death, and that he may be able to defuse the situation diplomatically, considering he’d known all 5 of the men for over a decade. Combat ensues, with the wizard and warlock barely staying alive and the ranger getting downed. The brother was about to finish him off when the bar tender, a retired adventurer, cast Magic Missile and knocked the man unconscious, followed by tossing the warlock a healing potion for the ranger. The others fled and the ranger decided to try and gun them down as they ran, the others talking him out of it. He, for some reason, decided that this was a “tragic secret that couldn’t get out” (despite being the victim????), so the bar keep almost jokingly asked “What’s my silence worth to you?” This dumb glue sniffer said, “How about I don’t kill you!” I had them roll intimidation. “Ha, I rolled a nat20!” (Totally believed that, for sure). “Great, well, you get hit by 3 darts of magic missile and are now on 2 death save fails. He stabilized you and looks to the rest of the party, as if silently asking if he need continue.”
I generally give people a good reason to not find out. Blacksmiths are articifers who pound metal into objects for a living they'll be able to wrestle down a barbarian with their bare hands. Apothecaries are often clerics, druids or wizards and while they are not always dangerous on their own often are good at stunning and running. Tavern owners are often old bards and usually are surrounded by tons of people. Even a level 20 has to bow down to action economy. Most street guards are fairly low level but SMAT (Special Magic and Tactics) exist for higher levels. And if Nobel guards or royal guards are called in expect a curbstomping. Finally the thieves guild often doesn't like unauthorized jobs. Those who are in the family that break the rules are lucky to live. Those who are not are lucky to be found.
A semi-unique way I came up with to deal with murderhobos is literally just the "Majima Everywhere" mechanic from Yakuza Kiwami. Make a random semi-strong NPC that the hobo chooses to fight at one point in time immortal in the sense that they always run away before they can actually die, always randomly appearing to fight SPECIFICALLY the murderhobo, fully recovered every time they encounter them. By "randomly" appear, I mean that they'll appear whenever the murderhobo decides to, well, be a murderhobo. And this would happen per individual NPC that the murderhobo decides to try to kill. The idea here is that there's a nigh immortal threat that is able to kill you, so eventually it will wear you down until you actually die. Never dm'ed by the way.
@@sidecharacter7165 I wouldn't necessarily want to kill them then and there, I would moreso want to make them tired of the same song and dance, that being having to fight the same NPC constantly if they wanted to be a murderhobo
Use the law of your realm you dont need "a retires lvl20 adventurer shopkeeper". You need the city watch wizard, "locate" spells and other divination spells, maybe necromancy spells, but you hav all the resources to investigate who is Guilty, and hunt him down. An Arcane CIA/FBI etc etc. and put them to judge. Either they run out of resurces running away, or they pay their sins. If you want to give them a hint, WANTED SIGNs, increasing the price with time, and send stornger and stronger Bounty Hunters.
@sidecharacter7165 you can make a great plot. Even make the bbeg take the bounty. But a TPK is not necessary. You dont need to kill them, just teach them a lesson. O rail the campaign into a ew adventure, of hide and seek from the law.
Yep, that's what I did. I reminded them, hard, that this was a magical world and just killing someone where there are no witnesses, or killing all the witnesses, is not going to stop anyone determined and even just mid-level from knowing exactly who is responsible, where to find them, where they are headed, and to send a message spell ahead. They're not the first person who lets a few levels and being stronger than other people get to their head and imagination, they won't be the last. The world got really good at putting down destructive elements. Why did you think so many of them are hiding out in swamps, dungeons, sewers and castles in the middle of a monster infested wasteland? As an added bonus, being hunted can be a very interesting experience for the party edit: Oh, and it wasn't just bounty hunters. Plenty of people will put down mass murderers for free.
The last murderhobo is like a guy who wants to kill the president for his money lol. Like a random dude trying to down a head of state with massive security measures. Then failing and being helped twice and STILL trying. Sone people lol
You role play it out. That's all it takes. They do the thing, the thing causes reaction, reaction causes chain event, chain event escalates into tpk. "Make new characters, please. I gotta go work on a new story for next game night."
Give them consequences in-game, and if that message doesn't resonate, give them consequences in real life. You don't have to play with someone who's not fun to be around.
Consider the game they want to play. If they find the roleplay to be less fun then - Fair enough, they can enjoy the combat when it happens. Maybe throw some more fights at that player, and just ask them - Hey, maybe don't kill the merchant the other player's talking to?
@@Naxthural You can tell someone it's a bad idea to jump off a cliff without featherfall, but that doesn't mean they'll listen. Some players have to learn by taking the fall damage.
@@Naxthural Why? Like, being honest, they can just go play some solo videogame. DnD and most TTRPG's exist specifically to channel collaborative storytelling. If you just want to do whatever you want without caring about the other players or the roleplay, why are you even playing? They should just go play GTA or even Baldur's Gate solo without anybody else.
@@ceejay1476 I believe you misunderstood my comment. Sure, they CAN go play a solo game. But people liking different aspects of a very vast game with a lot of ways to play it isn't a bad thing. Not everyone is down for roleplaying at the table or they aren't good at getting in character. You as a DM have the responsibility of ensuring your players' enjoyment. Even if that means telling them to not spoil the fun of others to kill stuff. You can change your style, give the players what they want. If that means throwing another fight or two in, so be it.
@@Naxthural idk man, I'm literally a battles and videogames AND turn based combat games junkie, and I still see 0 reason to play DnD if you're not role-playing. Like, combat can be fun, but this is like playing crusader Kings 3 while not liking the idea of managing your demesne, or playing classic Japanese rpg, but just not enjoying turn based combat mechanics lol. Like straight up why would those players want to play and why would you even play with those players? Seems nonsensical to me. Same as the whole murderhobo problem. If they dont want to roleplay their characters id tell them, you either do, or i kick you. Problem solved. Your character is evil and likes to murder people? Sure go ahead, but if you're somebody that goes around killing people there is an extremely high chance eventually you'll mess with the wrong person and they'll just kill your character right then and there.
I've never actually had to use him, but in my homebrew world there's a demon king known as Arriu. He's an ancient demon king who's whose whole thing is fighting and honour. You could compare him to Khorne from the Warhammer universe. He loves a good fight but also greatly prefers worthy opponents and will actively seek them out. He tends to have difficulty with this since he's so strong due to his age and all the power he consolidated during his life. He craves a fair, good fight but almost nobody in the world comes even close to a match for him. Gameplay wise the reason he exists is to brutally punish murderhobos. If my players go mad and start killing everyone, stories of their reign of terror and murder will quickly spread across the land...and Arriu is quick to pick up on rumors of a potential worthy opponent. How I intend to use him is if the party ever decides to murderhobo, and they keep at it for a few sessions, Arriu will hear about them and come out of his volcano lair to seek them out. Soon the players will start hearing stories of this unstoppable juggernaut just tearing his way through locations the party had recently been in, calling for (name of PC). Not long after that Arriu catches up to them. He'll first compliment them for the carnage they've spread (subtly informing them that him finding them is a consequence of them murdohobo'ing). He'll then announce his challenge and won't take no for an answer. He'll then proceed to deliver the godfather of beatdowns. To list a few of his talents, he's got 30 strength and constitution, with his other stats all at 15 or higher. His armour renders him invulnerable to physical damage from non-magic weapons, and he's also immune to fire, falling damage, explosions, and had ridiculous bonuses to his saving throws. In terms of his offensive output he makes 4 attacks on his multiattack and each of the 4 attacks has a huge hit modifier and 4 D10 damage. Each of the 4 attacks also has its own special ability which are knocking the target flying back 50 feet, causing them to burst into demonic flames inflicting a massive burst of extra damage, causing a DC 25 wisdom check that destroys the target's weapon on a fail, and healing Arriu for an amount equal to the target's total missing hitpoints after damage is dealt. I designed him to be literally undefeatable since I also scaled his health and damage to the party's level so he gets even stronger just as the players do. Fortunately for my players they've never murderhobo'd to begin with... ...but if they do? Oh boy, "ass whooping" is an unholy understatement for what Arriu will do when he gets his hands on them.
A side note: Khorne is very much not about honour ^^ The saying goes "Khorne cares not whence the blood flows, only that it does", which can still give you some cool ideas on how to deal with idiots who think their is dick is golden.
how do you deal with murderhobos? medieval punishments for medieval settings. theft? cut off their right hand. murder? death penalty. imprisonment is for important people that can be ransomed off to a noble, which you can't be. commoners aren't defensless cowards who run at the slightest hint of danger, they're armed and used to protecting themselves. Also back in older editions fighters got a keep at level 10, this means that lords were at a minimum level 10 fighters. Additionally, the god odin was known to disguise himself as an old man and his spear as a walking stick and wander the world, he'd knock on your door asking for hospitality and you'd be rewarded if you showed some, make of this what you will.
I have a friend who was a murderhobo in the making. He was apart of this enormous homebrew campaign that a friend of mine had been making and developing for a while. At first he thought it would be a good idea to not take it seriously at all and do silly things like backflips. During the scene of a prison escape, he did several backflips in front of guards. Outside of the prison in the middle of the street he continued doing backflips thinking nothing of it, which the DM then said. "A guard notices you, 'Hey is that (Insert name) the escapee?' A guard says as another looks over." This was then that he realized what he did in fact had consequences and it wasn't just all fun and games. He then made a new character because he didn't like how silly he was previously and made a complete 180. Going from silly and goofy to wanting to level up as fast as possible. It was to the point where he didn't even want to do downtime roleplay, he just wanted to kill things and level up. It was then that outside of D&D talks happened (In which i wasn't around for when it happened) But now he isn't a murderhobo anymore but an actual functioning member of the party.
Sounds like he was very new to the entire concept of ttrpgs. Both of those phases seem to be the obligatory phases every new player goes through. I haven't met a new player yet that didn't test the process by being as chaotic as the GM was willing to put up with.
I just…don’t play with psychopaths. Granted I have one player who will do the most idiotic things, but that’s mostly harmless stuff like pull pranks of NPCs and crack jokes at inopportune times.
The worst murder hobos I ever had to deal with were my sons in their very first d&d game. It was "Against the Cult of the Reptile God", which can be frustrating anyway, and the were only about 4 and 5 years old. I quickly saw what was happening, suspended play, and started the next day with a simpler module and a dmnpc that was there to help steer them if they got off track. It worked out well.
I introduced a village of jovoc's masquerading as tieflings to my players. The moment my problem player attempted their usual antics, I calmly stated, "Roll for initiative" with the sound of dozens of d20's hitting the table. For those who don't know what a jovoc is, it is a demon from an older version of D&D that when it was dealt damage it reflects half of it back to all nondemons within 30ft of itself. The look on the player's face was one of horror. Good times.
Ive been working on introducing a common traveling shopkeeper in my last few games; a Rakshasa, often initially mistaken for a Tabaxi, who either appears out of nowhere in towns or sets up a khajiit-like trading camp on the side of the road. Offers a bunch of magical wares and is willing to buy stuff from the party, or even to barter. Once all the sales are done (and all sales are final) he snaps his fingers and vanishes, alongside amything he brought that he didnt sell. Trying to kill him would be very difficult because of a Rakshasa's immunity to 6th level and lower magic, him having advantage on all other magic, and the fact he has bags of holding full of various magic items inside of his robes.
Anna's player here. She's a really fun character for me to play as. Most parties really love her as she tends to be supportive both personality-wise and gameplay-wise and a solid team player. For example, that Anna was a divine soul who frequently would do stuff like twin-cast haste and ensure that the party had ample healing. This guy was literally the only one I know of who has had a problem with Anna, Anna, Anna, or Anna in any form; and it was for all the dumbest reasons.
Forgive me for being a slight nerd, but Anna reminds me a bit of Pumat Sol from campaign 2 of Critical role, namely the fact theu both had clones/siblings all running the same shop
Out of slightly 'naughty' curiosity, has any PC tried seducing the Annas? It would seem a safer method of interacting with her/them, rather than murdering them...
@@scribblerstudios9895I mean, I’m pretty sure the DM of that show has voice acted in Fire Emblem games (where Anna comes from), so she could be an inspiration.
@@ethanwebster3764 fair enough if that’s the case. I was nearly noting what it reminded me of. If that’s the actual case, it’s still a cool thing for the character and a way to explain why Anna was like that
We had one in my party at one point. The very first NPCs we met were two nice dwarves along the path who told us about the dragon that had just moved into the mountains, but then someone in our party noticed they had sending stones (or whatever the walkie-talkie item is called) on them, and being a level 1 character with no money, it was pretty enticing. So cue combat. A few of our party members went along with the battle, so they teamed up and quickly killed one of the dwarves, but the rest of our party helped the second one survive. Eventually, we came to the compromise of chaining up the dwarf so he wouldn’t run to town and tell on us and stealing the sending stones. That night at camp, we put the murderhobo on watch since it felt like his responsibility and also he had the worst perception. He proceeded to roll a 5, and the next morning we discovered the dwarf disappeared. As we were discussing what to do, there was a big burst of light and in front of us stood a level 20 cleric and blood mage along with the entire town holding pitchforks and torches. We got taken on trial, and using a using a large diamond, the cleric resurrected the dwarf we killed. The blood mage then bound us to him and said that he would forever know what we were up to and that if we ever hurt an innocent again, he’d kill us. As our punishment, we were forced to serve the town until we did enough work to make up for the 10000 gold the diamond costed.
My warnings went unheeded for three sessions so on the fourth I sat the level 20 legendary warrior NPC, Malakai, in the same bar and prepped a speech. When the leader of my little band of psychopaths decided to try to rob the tavern, he spoke up and told him to knock it off. As expected, Murderhobo Prime turned his attention to Malakai and threatened to stab him. Malakai returned the glare with a disinterested gaze of his own and spoke in a deep southern drawl: “Son, I’ve been alive for 274 years, and I’ve been a warrior for 260 of those. I’ve killed more people than you’ve ever known - many of ‘em for a lot less reason than what you’re giving me now. So I suggest you turn around and return to yer seat. ‘Cuz if we fight, you will lose, and I will kill you. And I’m sure you’d very much regret headin’ to the hereafter without ever finishin’ yer last meal.” MH Prime didn’t take the hint, so Malakai ended him with the backup +3 shortsword he kept strapped to his thigh. Four attacks followed by an action surge made sure ol’ MHP was dead before he hit the ground. “But that’s not fair!” my player whined. “lol,” I replied.
"i'm sorry, i thought his speech made it pretty clear that it would not be a fair fight? not my fault you have 1 in both Perception and Intelligence IRL"
The real answer is a quick disclaimer: The players gain experience for encounters the GM wants them to have. If they cause a needless fight, they’re not getting xp for it. And there goes probably the biggest reason to be a MH. After that, just give them the full xp for “solving” an encounter, and you’ve taken away most of the reasons they exist. The other reasons could be fun to rp around, as long as everyone is okay with that stuff.
Man that Anna story is eerily similar to a conxept i had come up with based on a character from FTL: Multiverse. Meet Sylvan, the travelling merchant. He travells the lands with a simple cart and a small stock of a few related magic items. He somehow always knows where the adventuring party will be and just randomly show up and sometimes even offer a small quest. Now if you knos the Anna story you'll probably have guessed that sylvan is stronger than he looks, MUCH stronger than anything in the campaign (in the source material he is based off of he is basically a superboss should you decide to fight him). He'd be roughly a level 15+ sorcerer with a special magic item on him at all times that gives him a constant 5 seconds of foresight, and give him the ability to stop a character in time for about 10 seconds every 5 minutes or so, but losing the foresight while on cooldown. This would make it so that if anyone tried to attack him he would IMMEDIATELY freeze them in time no matter what they tried and basically just ask the party "are you sssssure you want to do that, sssstrangers?" Only then if the player(s) in question disregard this warning does he fight back (and presumably wipe the party almost immediately unless they know what they're doing).
I had my players go on a short stint as murder hoboes in my most recent game, almost immediately they got punished by their power bases nearly abandoning them. I run a setting where resurrection magic is quite easy, you can cast a spell at a temple with a few hundred gold pieces as a material cost, and next time your body remains dead for at least 1 hour, you get zapped back to the temple and resurrected. In this process, you also get a quick 2-3 minute chat with the god resurrecting you. The spell also has contingencies that it fails if your soul gets trapped, or if you anger the god resurrecting you. Now back to the story, the players went on their short stint of murderhoboism before diving back into a dungeon crawl. They wiped, and when they spoke to their gods, they got a stern lecture about what they did wrong, the paladin and cleric were threatened with their god leaving them if they did it again (pretty hard to survive the law without healing magic) and the party artificer who was bound to the goddess of revenge had a god level geass dropped on them as the cost of resurrection that if they killed another innocent, they would instantly drop dead and their soul taken by said goddess.
Basically my solution. In my homebrew world there's a demon king who's all about combat an honour, and one of his favourite things is a good straight fight. Problem is he's so ancient and powerful that there aren't many opponents available to him that are a fair enough fight for him to enjoy. If my players start going ham and killing everybody, word is sure to spread of the carnage they've wrought and it's only a matter of time before that demon king hears about them. So far I've never had to introduce him since I've never had anyone go nuts on the killing, and the guy lives in a volcano and only really comes out to look for a worthy opponent. I'd wager he's about 3 times stronger than the final boss of the campaign I'm running. If he does end up annihilating the party, well they've only got themselves to blame.
@@realwazdakkadakkaBut do you have a failsafe in case they keep rolling nat20's and you keep rolling nat1's if the demon king is SOMEHOW defeated? If so... what is it?
@karisasani7006 he has an aura that deals fire damage over time so even if he keeps missing you he'll still be steadily draining your hitpoints and will kill you eventually, and he has 2000 hitpoints so outlasting him is almost impossible when you take into account his wealth of resistances and healing abilities. But even if someone managed to nat20 their way to killing him, upon death he vanishes in a massive explosion of fire, and if the party survives that...well he drops nothing and doesn't give any XP. And he doesn't even die permanently, he just goes back to his lair to regenerate. He'll then just come back with an additional 1000 hitpoints and try again.
Haven't really thought that far ahead since I've never needed to use him, but I'd presume that he'd try again a few times with the knowledge of the party's fighting style. Maybe beating him 3 times and he'll leave you alone? I dunno, I'd assume it would never get that far to begin with.
It's so simple. Actions have consequences. Your characters are in a living, breathing world that doesn't revolve around you. The game, and myself, do not exist for your ego. IF you can handle that, then by all means, anything goes. Your character can try anything. Don't get pissy if you don't like the consequences.
I have played for over 12 years of games, off and on. I have luckily so far not had to deal with a Murderhobo. But I still have plans in place to deal with them. This world that I am making for my next campaign operates off of four key principles: 1) The world lives, and time passes. - The NPCs will go out and do things. Adventurers will go out, take quests, do adventures that the party doesn't. Bards will tell tales of the party's exploits, those of the NPC Adventurers, spread news from the kings from town to town, and report on relevant evils that have been done nearby... 2) You can achieve your dreams... What will you pay for them? - Whether it is for renown, power, love, knowledge, or something else... There is always multiple ways to achieve your goals. Some of them easy, some of them difficult. If your character wants something, they can get it... Are they going to pay for it with coin? With time? With the lives of the innocent? All of these are viable, but do not follow the same rules... 3) The powerful enact their will on the world. - Once a creature gets strong enough, the world changes to react to them. A bard inspires village after village to depose an evil king. A necromancer infusing a land with vile energies, raising the dead in newer and more deadly ways. A dragon unable to have children by normal means, accidentally writing a new rule into reality that slowly converts things near a dragon into a new dragon... 4) Anything you can do, I can do. Anything I can do, you can do. - These mountains exist to be climbed. These rules of reality do not just exist, something dreamed them up. Made them to be. They put in work, effort, and made it real. They were just the first. You can write new rules into reality... But, you are just the first to walk your path... Others can follow, discover the things that you did... If you find something new that can give an advantage, others will study it. Try to replicate it... Someone will succeed, eventually... Perhaps the greatest (and most relevant to Murderhobos) of those principles combining culminates in one of the keywords I use for my notes: DREAD Malevolence made manifest. One of the major tools to give the villains in my campaign a little bit of extra oomph, while also inspiring some sidequests for the party to handle. The villains go out and perform deeds. Going out and, say for example, slaughter a family of innocents? They accumulate some Dread. Perhaps they use it to curse the house the family lived in causing anyone else who lives nearby to revisit the act in their dreams, seeing the events through the family's eyes. Or perhaps, most likely for the Murderhobo... Empowering a favored weapon or accessory. Giving it new, interesting abilities. Making them stronger over time, slowly molding them into a new villain for the world... And villains fight heroes, don't they? And the world lives, and time passes... The Murderhobo *will* create a place of Dread, whether intentionally or building up so much it locks into a location "accidentally" (Read: DM Shenanigans). One day, in the middle of a fight, their Dread power flickers and stops temporarily... That Dread location they created? Just got cleansed by some heroes offscreen. They just got some valuable information, that Dread can be dealt with... Both theirs, and their enemies... If they want to be the villain, what are they going to pay? If they want to be the hero, what are they going to pay? Because now, if they continue causing Dread... They now know people are watching, and will actively going out of their way to stop them. It would take them a while to get to this point, maybe a couple levels under their belt. Up to this point, most of the things in the world the party would have faced are those that *don't* have the metaphysical backing of the stronger forms of power in this world. Mostly mundanes and lesser monsters. Maybe one or two things that *they* thought was a boss, but I would call an *elite*. Double health, better stats, and an extra action somewhere in the turn order. Something that can put up a good fight against an entire party if it needs to. So around the point where the Murderhobo has to decide whether or not they're going to continue working with the Dread mechanics... They finally encounter their first boss. A masked man walking down the road at them just after they finish their rest and pack up camp, the man and his unsheathed sword coated in blood. The man ignores everything the party might attempt to say, and just attacks them if the party doesn't declare combat first. This guy is an actual boss, and uses the Dread mechanics as well as part of his fight. From being a boss, he gets greatly increased stats, his health is multiplied by the number of people in the party, and he gets an action for every member of the party (typically he'll alternates turns with a party member). Now, his whole health bar isn't all used at the same time. It's split into two health bars, after depleting his first health bar he transforms. His body slain at the end of his first health bar, the mask possesses the corpse and drives it to continue fighting... The party does get to spend hit dice to heal during the phase transition, I'm not a monster... But it will very quickly kick their ass and make them realize that they've just completed the tutorial, and now we're playing hardball. Giving those that do decide to Murderhobo insight into the power this path can give, and one of the possible paths it can lead. If they want to follow this path, they can. But I have shown that I can make things difficult for them if I want to, and hopefully even the slower among them will start to realize that this path will have a target on their back. Edit: Accidentally submitted before finished... Added the things that were missing.
I've never played dnd, but when I do, and when I'm ready to run a table, I'd love to take the basic premise of dread and do some fun things with it. Infamy, renown, and dread could all be used in similar fashion, with dread being the most immediately powerful; infamy being far less useful, but more immediaely hindering to the party; and renown being a mirror image of dread, but with it being useful only late in the campaign, as your good deeds draw progressively more support from the populace and whatever higher powers you've got watching things. To summarize, dread gathers in places and people, infamy gathers in the party, and renown gathers in the populace. Each of these can do incredible things, but it's the party's choice which way they go. This triple system allows for more flexibility in how you respond to the party's actions, and promotes engagement with the world you've built.
Well,fortunately, I have never dealt with a Murder Hobo, but when DMing Radiant Citadel, I have a very easy solution to Murder Hobos: Let them know the technical ruler of the Citadel, Sholeh, is an Ancient Brass Dragon, and the entire Citadel is her lair, and she'll be a very powerful ally if they're beneficial to the Citadel...but if they don't, well, she's an freaking Ancient Brass Dragon with LAIR ACTIONS, and also has access to setting up the Regional Effects in the Citadel if she wants, and canonically as a Speaker of the Citadel (and the First Amongst Equals), can snap her fingers and basically shut the Citadel down if she wants to, and the players are still in Tier One. If any murderhobos still decides to cause trouble after THAT, well, that's on them... Even my rule abiding and generally really good party in my current campaign, understandably reacted rather terrified to realizing the unassuming old lady in front of them was a freaking Ancient Brass Dragon. This also works if you're in say, Sigil and end up deciding to cause trouble after learning about the freaking Lady of Pain.
I like the Anna approach. Maybe in combination with the retired adventurer barkeep approach. It would take a bit of extra prep to figure out who in each town is a retired adventurer or a hidden deity but it's definitely a good way to sow consequences for bad actors.
Generally, people like the idea of some in game forceful solution, but in my experience that usually only works on someone new to D&D and in a video game kind of mindset. The idea would be to shock them out of it and show that actions have consequences. However, a long time player acting out for whatever reason knows that what they're doing is wrong and doesn't care. For those kinds of murderhobos, any attempts to reign them in will only make them more defiant. As in the Anna example, they will dedicate an unholy amount of time to plotting to kill the victim that got away, and if they end up losing a character over it, they will dedicate the next character to either getting revenge or just ruining the game. That kind of resentment has the potential to seriously disrupt or derail a game. So you have a judgement call to make then. You have to be situationally aware of what is going on at the table, and act accordingly. Kicking the murderhobo is the easiest option, but it might not be feasible if he has co-conspirators among the other players or if the entire party just goes rogue. Or if he's just friends with everyone else at the table. In that case, sad and frustrating though it might be, it is best to pull the ripcord and end the game. Perhaps see if someone else wants to DM for a while. In the worst of scenarios, it might be time to find a new group. Don't try to salvage a game gone too far awry, whatever you do. Sometimes you just have to accept that the train jumped the rails and is on fire.
The merchant mimic sounds like a fantastic idea, not just for the murderhobo but like in general. I just love the idea of them selling armor they got off devoured adventurers, like they couldn't digest it or something.
I just start campaigns of with my players as commoners. That experience tends to set the tone well enough to the point that my players don’t hobo, since they view the world as inhabited by instant death.
I had a player that attacked my NPC orc war chief at level 3 because he wanted to disarm him. I asked "you sure you want to go down this road?" While all the other players were screaming "wtf?! Nooo!!" Then he complained that the module was broken because why would they put an orc War chief for a level 3 quest. Some people need to learn there are consequences for their actions.
Well I saw once a concept of necromancy being used. An encounter with necromancer looking specifically for murderers as he figured out how to summon souls of people killed by said murderer as his minions - the price was generally an opportunity for these souls to extract vengeance. It did happen later on in game after murderhobo killed a fair few people already. That would be time-limited encounter with shadow/greater shadow horde. We are talking something like 25 buffed monsters. As DM laid down tokens he named each one of them representing person hobo killed. And oh, they all had advantage on attacking murderhobo and only attacked other party members if they got in way. Some chose not to .
At my table, murderhobos are dealt with by a couple different methods: 1. They begin by getting a bounty placed on their head. The more they kill/the more important the NPC, the higher the bounty. The higher the bounty, the stronger the bounty hunters they are or how numerous they are. It never ends well for them. 2. The NPC that is getting attacked will be stronger than they expect. I had a player attempt to kill a thief guild leader at level 2 because they thought that it would be an easy way to get gold and take control of his guild. Little did the player know that the thief guild leader had a +10 to hit with a poison coated dagger. Even if the player was successful, the thief guild definitely would have taken retribution.
My solution was always something similar to the implication of 1:10 Basically if I saw someone descending into the madness that is the Murderhobo condition, I just ensure the next person they try to gank isn't as helpless as they appeared. This meant that humble shop keeper could turn into anything including but not limited to: the world's greatest assassin, a death god, a demon lord...even had one case where the NPC unfortunately had a curse placed upon him so that at the moment of death he would explode with necrotic energy, instantly killing anyone within a 10 foot radius. As a side note I also had a reoccuring NPC similar in purpose to Chest the Mimic Merchant. Mine was Lil' Flubber Blubbs. An adorable little baby harp seal that can be found flopping around in a random location early in the campaign. Quite out of place in most campaigns that don't take place in the frozen tundra, all Lil' Flubber Blubbs wants are cuddles and lovies. Pat his head, give him a belly rub, and he'll wiggle about making cute happy little sounds. Later in the campaign he'll show up at camp with some nifty gifts for those players that gave him snuggles and nothing for those players that ignored him. These gifts are usually quite powerful, but had a catch to them. For example: Ring of the Drunken Master. Equipping this ring made the person black-out drunk for as long as they wore it. They could no longer land hits unless they rolled a Nat 20, but they couldn't be hit unless the enemy rolled a Nat 20. Staff of Lyrical Wonder: all spells are cast as cantrips (so they don't require a spell slot) and don't require components, but upon equipping the staff it binds to them, and if they fail to speak in rhyme from that point forward they die immediately. For players that tried to attack him...well they won't be around later in the campaign. The reason being is that Lil' Flubber Blubbs is an ancient unknowable eldritch being. All attacks against it are nullified, and as a reaction it can use Lil' Flubber Lightning. An incantation echoes on the wind, coming from seemingly everywhere and yet nowhere: "Pudekcufuoy!" (read it backwards). The person that attacked the seal is then blasted by an irresistible bolt of black lightning that ignores damage mitigation and deals 10d20 of each damage type. And that's for the first offense. A warning shot. If the player is rezzed and they fail to learn their lesson the next time they see Lil' Flubber Blubbs there won't be anything left to ressurect.
Not a murderhobo, but a player whose character (Wild Sorcerer) was chaotic to the point where they were trying to create problems (they were the young brother of another character who got it into their head that people will help them (as in the party) if they help people out of a crisis, not realizing that people won't do so if you caused the problem in the first place) After a combat they started against the rest of the party as they were trying to run off to cause problems (ended only because they Wild Surge'd into a sheep for the next hour), the party made the smart decision to discuss what to do with the militia captain they've been helping. From there, I had them go to the local druid circle, who proceeded to seal the player's casting abilities. Unless a command word is spoken, leveled spells fail (no slots are lost on fail) and become cantrips (so action economy isn’t lost, for balance purposes) unless a Wild Surge occurs. This lasts until the command word is spoken again or 1 minute passes, and only recognizes the party, the militia chief, and the druid who placed the seal. The other option was the 9-year-old brother goes to jail. Not ideal, as their brother is still present. And I made clear that, if they continue to fuck around, they will begin to find out
I have my own Anna's. Created by my friends and I from a one-shot that became too good to not become cannon. Drajil, Nyx, Ares, and Silas. A Demonic Berserker, a cultest of the Great Old Ones, an Unholy Paladin, and a silver tongued Devil contractor. They are all 20's level respectively, and run their own mercenary company. Sometimes, they'll travel to hotspots where they can fight people, and this gives the players opportunities to meet them. If the players try to murder hobo any of them, the others will know about it. And that will spell bad news.
The very few times I’ve had to deal with rule breakers or unsportsmanlike behavior I just use lightning. That’s it, unblockable and unavoidable lighting comes down and strikes your player wherever you are and the damage cannot be reduced. Damage die depends on how bad the offense but it’s usually just a six, only had to do this like five times
So you break rules to deal with them and rule with an Iron fist? Just do what a normal person will do and talk post session or if what they doing ruining the whole groups vibe pull them aside and talk. If an agreement can't be met kick them. Sending lightning down just cause of one offence but NPCs when they act out of line down really sells you being against the players
@@jessewilliams3166 they get multiple warnings and discussions first, my definition of rule breaking is very lenient. Also it’s like 1d6 to remind them that’s not how the game works, not like it’s killing anybody.
@@jessewilliams3166 also I’m the DM, the rules are what I say they are. Which usually means rule of cool and letting the players do what they want. I’m an open world DM
I recently ran a Christmas themed one-shot for my family. It was everyone's first time playing, but it was as though my brother had googled "how to be the most annoying player". He was just really mean the whole time and kept trying to kill Santa's elfs. I asked him if he actually wanted to play and he insisted he did. I had put out a hard and fast "no PVP" rule at the start of the game, so my dad's wizard stood between my brother's character and the elfs. My dad still had fun and said that he'd like to do another one-shot in the future, but I'm just not going to play D&D with my brother unless he learns how to be a decent person. It's like you said at the end of the video- if someone can't have fun without pretending to kill innocents, then they need some serious mental help OTL
I have a very simple and effective way of doing it. Try to dissuade them, then ask them to stop. Then tell them to stop. Then the very next non-hostile npc they try to kill is what gets them permanently banned from my games.
Simply, Revenants. Revenants are great for dealing with murderhobos, great for players seeing the consequences of their actions, and giving a great story beat as the poor player runs for their lives having to deal with a never dying vengeful spirit.
I had a player who started a tavern brawl, forgot he had spiked gauntlets on, so when they pulled weapons on him, he figured he was in the right to kill them. The party did help him, but tried to only incapacitate people. 2 murders later, a smaller framed town guard shows up to investigate. My friend then drunkenly brags about killing the patrons, telling the guard exactly who in the party was guilty and with no concern bought a room in the same inn. Overnight the scrawny guard showed up with 13 other, burly, well-armed guards and arrested the 2 of them in their sleep. Unable to arm themselves before being entirely surrounded, they surrendered themselves and went to jail. The jail also had an underground tavern for retired vets that had an arena that hosted duels with prisoners for entertainment. The party was split into a group trying to track down and free the other half before they died for others entertainment. I was lucky to have friends who were able to RP with knowledge that their characters didn't have and still make character driven decisions. It was very satisfying to watch my murder hobo friend manifest the consequences of his actions, while the rest of the party raced against time to save him.
I'd start dropping hints that there crimes have become known, then escalate it to either sending lawmen directly after them or bounty hunters, or potentially another group of adventurers who've been given a quest to track down a serial killer. I would also make have the pursuers intend to take them in alive to stand trial, then roleplay the trial in game.
A couple of players in my group once decided they wanted to quit, literally going with a bang, and murdered the entire group (themselves included) while in a pocket dimension. The culprits became the recurring undead nemesis of the party for the rest of the campaign. I actually got one of the players to come back and play his character again for the final showdown.
When the players first meet up at a tavern, they meet my first character a 9ft, 1050lbs dragonborn that is absolutely JACKED. his favorite weapons, an oversized adamantine greataxe, a steel greataxe with a silver edge and a vampiric greataxe, all hang on the walls within arms reach of him behind the bar a high roll on a perception check will also reveal he has another weapon hidden beneath his apron across in the middle of the bar is a bear skull covered in high end gold and jewels. easily worth 10k gp in all. this is a test...and a trap for problem players. a smart player will look at the entire situation and realize that stealing from that bear skull is not a good idea a problem player will see the gp value and try to snag something. Queue a greataxe just barely missing his fingers. they get one warning from the PC turned NPC. As if his massive size wasn't intimidating enough, he's growling as he gives it, and blows a bit of hot smoke in their face for extra emphasis. the smart problem players will quickly get the hint and back off. the dumb ones will try something. likely stabbing him. it will be at this point they realize he is a level 20 retired adventurer if the entire party gangs up on him, they might learn he is a barbarian when he decides to RAGE. but no matter what they do...they won't kill him. just not happening. He is a zealot afterall the ones who die got multiple warnings and I will pull them aside after the session and tell them "consider this new character a second chance. try that again, and and you're gone" and I mean it
So, I will let it happen once in a while. Sometimes, we all need to blow off some steam. If there are witnesses or they keep going, they face the consequences. In a city, that means the town guard has more troops than you have spellslots, and they have special high level teams as well as deputized high level citizens. In a town that obviously doesn't have that, there are bounty hunters. The more they go, the higher the bounty until, borrowing from Firefly, two by two, hands of blue, they come for you. Blue gloved soldiers that always work in even numbered teams. Defeated two, now face four, eight, 16... it continues until overwhelming force grinds the player(s) down and dead or alive they face justice. I also don't award experience for murder hobo scenes. I award for creative thinking, awesome moves, and good roleplay.
Personally, I don't. As DM, I can just say "you die" and the player's character is dead from whatever I choose. "Murderhobo" is something that has to be allowed in order to actually happen; if a player wants to risk testing the waters, they may. If they keep in character, the world responds in kind. If they are just being an out-of-character dick for the sake of it, I declare their character dead (usually in a humiliating way) and remove them from the group. Of course, always discuss with players what the campaign is meant to consist of, and try to talk to players before removing them if there's time, but don't put up with people just trying to ruin your game. You and the rest of the players deserve a fun time, and whoever is murderhoboing doesn't deserve to enjoy themselves at everyone's expense.
Well rack up bodies and you make enemies. The Thieve’s Guild doesn’t like their protection rackets interrupted, Paladins don’t tolerate it, kings don’t like their taxes being destroyed,merchants pay a lot for protection, and Archmages see it as an easy bounty(it is) with some nice magical loot in addition to the reward. Murder-hobbling is extremely dangerous because you are pissing off EVERYONE OF INFLUENCE in the area.
@@sidecharacter7165 Yep. (Though all that depends on the setting. My current party is in a wild magic mega-jungle - think Kashyyyk from Star Wars, but with dinosaurs & almost everything has the Force - and being a murderhobo just means everything thinks you are a dangerous but tasty meal).
Thats just being a bad Dm ngl and thats not even from a players perspective thats from a for ever dm perspective like just talk to them like a NORMAL FUCKING HUMAN.@@DBArtsCreators
It's usually not too hard to punish a murderhobo in your campaign, if you're willing to confront a player that's being excessive. My usual method of shutting them down is to just have their character thrown in jail for an extended period of time, once they're caught. And if they're a murderhobo, they will get caught sooner, rather than later. It usually results in the player having to sit out most of the session doing nothing. He's free to try a jailbreak or something along those lines, but if he fails that and gets caught, it usually leads to a straight execution and the death of their character. Sometimes, if it's the same player who just refuses to learn their lesson, I'll just straight up tell them to stop playing that way or find another table that will accommodate their playstyle, because mine won't. This is exceptionally rare, though. In my 22 years of DMing, I've only had to do this twice and one of them eventually learned to be more of a teamplayer and has come back to my table on occasion. People do learn.... sometimes. You just have to be strict with your repercussions. Give them a warning the first few times and if they persist, start giving them harsh in game penalties, like jailtime or a temporary crippling of their character like having them roughed up in a fight by the guards, which left their body broken and battered in the streets. They will recover in time, if they get the right help, but they're out of commission for a while (IE, no playtime this session, at the very least). That's usually enough of a deterrent. If it's not, then you just kick them from your table and tell them to find one that will allow their way of playing. You just have to be firm.
Reminded of my friend who said a new player picked a fight with one of the other players former character that had just become a demi-god. That character wanted to blow off some steam since the character's wife had become the godess of thieves and him taking so long just to become a demi-god had made him frustrated. Lets just say that having a former wizard now demi-god who is frustrated by his followers being inherently less religious due to them all being wizards and him looking for ANYTHING to give him a reason to vent does not mix well with the edgy murderhobo suddenly trying to seduce his wife to become his sugar mama. They say his soul is still being burned by silver fire apparently.
Ever had a GM who played like a murderhobo? I remember my start in tabletop gaming involving a GM who thoroughly enjoyed making the stakes lethal no matter what was happening. At one point, he TPK'd the group after they had rolled up fresh character sheets again, because one of them had said something about a wookie (player character) in their hangar, and apparently an NPC who heard them say it immediately jumped to "Oh cool, I'm enslaving that for personal profit." They all tried to fight back, but they basically got the GTA 6-star treatment at level 1. This GM was proud of his kill count, and the fact that almost everyone who played with him had lost at least one character. So, obviously, one day I just decided to learn a new tabletop system and run it with the idea being "You're not only likely to survive, but you'll get to enjoy a full adventure." It worked out pretty well before scheduling conflicts started becoming a thing
My go to is a Mr. X style enemy called "Tia". She's an unstoppable wall that has a feature that that heals her if any roll against her fails or does less than 50 damage in an action. You can knock her down, sure, just be ready to fight a stronger version if you decide to keep it up. This repeats until they either a) stop murderhoboing or b) die. Works a treat and adds a great deal of tension for the other players as they are being chased by her. Highly recommended.
Important: Do not put retired high level NPC everywhere. The party will not feel like they saved the village/kingdom/world if there are 20+ people who could have done it
No, exclusively do this. If your characters are weaker than a good sum of the npc’s then it should be a firm reminder that the world does not care for your group and you aren’t the divine chosen heroes decided by fate to defeat the BBEG. What your group should have in abundance is the knowledge and creativity to overcome these challenges to make succeeding feel more rewarding. Most dnd worlds are inherently dangerous. It makes sense that npcs would be powerful enough to match said world. And actually gives more incentive for the group to be engaged with the social aspect of dnd.
@@TheTSense Like any narrative tool, it comes down to how the DM uses it. I listened to a similar campaign where that was more or less the case (but they dungeon master added a good twist where it turned out that the characters "god" wasn't as Lawful Good as they let on. And that the more powerful the player characters became the more they remembered from their past lives. Which created a lot of self identity drama and interesting conflict in ideology.
10:57 Anna: its so sad that Steve Jobs died of ligma. Murderhobo: Who the hell is Steve Jobs? Anna: Ligma Balls *cast Disintegrate* Murderhobo: *dies* Murderhobo player: NOOOOOOO!!!! ruclips.net/video/maAIWplFWUw/видео.htmlsi=6mDBLbmvdMERlNfT
I know this about stories and such... But honestly, most of the time, in game consequences don't work to deal with murder hobos, or any other problem player. The best course of action is to have a discussion before even starting the game. Session zero's are your friends. If they become a problem after agreeing to the pregame stipulations, remind them once of what they agreed to, and if it continues, kick 'em out of the game.
This only works if your players are honest about what they want and don’t lie to you so as not to “disappoint.” Then get passive aggressive and mad when you don’t give them “enough” combat.
Simple. My setting takes place in a harsh, lawless land. Anybody who still has a pulse is either fresh meat who recently arrived, or much more likely a hardened survivor. Heck, even the pulseless can still bite back.
I have a homebrew in development (never got the chance to propose/use it but I REALLY want to) of it set on a continent where you have to close something called the tear, that has destoryed almost all civilization on the continent. Your only true 'safe zone' is sanctuary, an extremely fortified coastal city. That city has 2 main military forces defending it; the Sanctuary guard; your average town guard so not that big of a deal, and the knights of the order of the sun. The Knights are centuries, if not millenia old, have weapons and gear that FAR outstrip the PCs, use magic, and even have special weapons like Combi-weapons or gear with various bits of Steampunk technology like Tesla cores infused into it. These knights are my intended anti-murderhobo mechanism.
I've not gotten to properly DM but I do like to listen to stories like this so I can think and plan ahead on how I'd handle these kinds of situations. I honestly think I'd have a range between killing the offending character to having the world around them change how it responds to the murder hobo. Wanted posters, people not trusting them, alignment shifts, etc. Depends on the person and what I think will get the message across in the most effective way.
Lorewise, getting the message and changing for the better wouldn't stop the revenant, and revenants only have 1 year to get revenge before they can't anymore, so the player can potentially just survive the revenant and stay the same.
Ohhh! I didn’t know murderhobo was like a term commonly used in dnd. I’m newer and joined a campaign and was a bit confused when they told me about one player who was a murderhobo. This makes so much sense loll
It might be better to just send a champion with his adventuring party or 10 Clerics and Paladins of the order. Look up Knights of the Radiant Heart from BG2 if you want a reference.
I feel like there should be room for an evil route in a campaign, but only if done strategically and if the other players are fine with it, like Undertale's genocide route or Deltarune's weird route, where the victims are spread apart and weak. If it's something ridiculous like killing a random citizen in broad daylight with everyone watching, that's going to end that character's spree early.
Not going to lie, I actually don't stop my players from being murderhobos. Keep in mind, all of us are basically playing DnD just to have fun and mess around. Doesn't mean they are safe from consequences. It just means they have to be careful to not get caught. If you are worried someone might not be having fun, you should watch them plan to figure out how to murder or kidnap someone. The three of them are always figuring out how to cause chaos, because that is what they want and they enjoy the consequences. Remember, if a player is not meant for a group, the same can apply for a DM. Of course, they always surprise me when they decide to be diplomatic.
I've never had a group like this. If I did, I'd just take the kids gloves off. If they're not going crazy trying to kill everything and are just interacting, then I'm not going to go crazy and try to end their characters. I use measured aggression, push them to the brink, but don't quite kill them. But I could always make it worse. Make it ruthless.
I have a 3 strikes rule, 1st strike is a in game warning, 2nd is out of game, 3rd and final is a massive shadow crocodile deity ripping their arm off via magical (no saving throw) means that make it impossible to replace or regenerate the wound till he makes ammends. The wound carries over to any transformation or polymorph
For the campaign that I have been working on, I anticipated that this was going to be an issue that could crop up eventually and even made it out as a hidden ending depending on if the players ever go all-out on the world-wide genocide aspect of just killing anything and everything. There is a warded sanctuary that serves as a fail-safe to reset the realm's time back to a certain point (ie, reset the game) should an undesirable outcome were to occur, all while cataloging desirable outcomes and locking those moments in stasis to compare which one is the more desirable future to harald the world forward. And this compound has a guardian that keeps it operational all the will, a silent watcher of the generations that go about their same repeating patterns, with only the Players having weight in how the events of the world play out. To the Players that want to "off" a bunch of NPCs, they can take it from the leveled opponents that they can encounter.., although for the truely detestable of world-enders, to find out that the game itself has a built-in protection that will undo everything they did thus far and that if they merely push a bit further, they can forever force a new chapter upon the ever-repeating world... seeking out this location and fighting the vigilant at the helm would be quite tempting. There is no way this place can be located except for going the "Genocide -> Extreme" route since it'll involve killing off a particular NPC that serves as a DM-NPC version of a Magic Mouth spell that is neither detectable nor targetable except while inside the chamber that character exists in, and having Unusual Nature means eating and sleeping are non-issue. The key is killing this NPC in the chamber for an alternative secret to be revealed there. Since quests to progress the normal portions of the game are fed automatically via visions at certain level as well as time intervals, the once chance of them not getting access to this NPC to dispose of is if those problem Players do not stick around long enough to play it out. Not to spoil anything further (in case any potential future players of mine read this), facing off against an old character of mine that has had access to anything & everything to prepare for this showdown. Choice multclassing, fully-kitted, stats for days, more than enough info on the intruders while proving none themselves all while homefield advatage will make this battle so one-sided. And *if* they all seem to overcome this opponent, there's only last dirty trick to by-the-book end their adventure. Is this build really that strong? Not really - I could have done better. That being said, I built this character over the years were it not for the 5e system that is in place to enable myself to conduct trial-&-error to figure out what would be needed to get to this point, yeaaah. Either ways, I have more than sufficient safeguards in place to avoid getting cheesed, I just worry how one-sided against the Players it'll be. They can Antimagic Field, Counterspell and Dispel all they want, high level spells will only come out once their Casters are down anyways and Antimagic Field helps high stat characters as much as harms magical equipment, so it'll tactically even out.
This is an idea I have for one day when I get to DM. Disa Guise, a changeling Assassin Rogue/ Way of the Shadow Monk. Basically, a character I can pull out at any time and, after isolating the murderhobo, take them out. Whether they use seduction or play a victim for a little bit, they will play off of their pride, setting them up as their next target, then will gut them quickly.
Less of a “stop the murder hobo” and more of a “Darwin Award” story. A friend of mine ran a campaign and to get everyone’s feet wet, wanted to do a no-plot generic mission-based quest at a guild hall. The murderhobo saw that the people at the counter were constantly handing out a lot of money to the people going in and out, so he had the genius idea of robbing the place. He then proceeds to getting his shit stomped in by A LOT of higher level adventurers. He called bullshit, but my buddy then explained to him that he was in the main guild hall. Aside from security, more than half of the people coming in and out are adventurers from all walks of life. Did you really think some punk can just come in and demand whatever he wants?
Even a BBEG wouldn't be dumb enough to do something like that, at least without prepping first.
I mean, even if you rob a bank you're just dealing with security guards and cops, but this guy did the equivalent of trying to rob a private military contractor's office.(Translation: mercenaries.)
Yeah your friend is a moron
This is like trying to rob a police station
@@andrewgreeb916 nah, more like trying to rob a New York police station, on their busiest day
GM: The high level NPC has already killed you twice because you attacked her, and caused you to lose your character. Have you learned your lesson?
Idiot: I'm going to make a new character and attack her again!
Run into a wall until your corpses stack and you reach the top
But this wall is like the hight of Mt. Everest
No better way to end that than with the DM delivering the line "find a new table!"
"I just want to play a character that's a piece of shit and a mass murderer, how dare you make him face the consequences of his actions!"
Dude has to have the smallest, smoothest brain in d&d player history. It takes a next level idiot to refuse to learn their lesson even after the DM LITERALLY EXPLAINS WHY THINGS WENT DOWN THE WAY THEY DID
Reminds me of a dumbass who was killed by a beholder in a westmarch discord server, long story short, same exact reason as 12:43. They ended up being banned for a whole slew of reasons that didn’t just include the “iM mAkInG a ChArAcTeR tHaT iS tHe BrOtHeR oF tHeM aNd WiLl EnAcT aN oAtH oF vEnGaNcE aGaInSt AlL bEhOlDeRs” part, shortly after
That murder hobo really thought "Nah, I'd win" after watching a woman turn into King Kong right in front of his eyes.
I always love the whole "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" way of dealing with shitty people.
A village were every villager is a retired level 20 adventure
I find most of these people tantrum when called on this crap.
@@lumberjack7178 that's godmode and lazy even for a dm, level 20 is extremely rare among playable races, and somehow i don't think the villagers are pitfiends.
@jamescopeland6802 the whole point of it is to deal with murder hobos and so far dms I've shared it to have helped
@@lumberjack7178 if you wanna deal with it by basically breaking the lore of your game by having a unnatural amount of level 20's at that point you should just have them leave the table.
You would think that "Disintegrate" is as self-explanatory as "Fireball" but what do I know.
Imagine having intelligence as a dump stat IRL.
Anna sounds like the concept of all orange cats collectively sharing the same 2 brain cells.
yeah, but she's from Fire Emblem too, so she a waifu.
Except those orange cats are lions
With literal bear traps for jaws
Imagine a level 15 orange cat. I think, i'll stick with anna.
Honestly the concept of npc being previous adventurers is cool (considering it does make the world feel deeper ) could also be fun if you befriend them they help you in the final battle
Yeah, I mean what else do you do when you get too old to travel, or just get tired of it, it's not like a 60 year old fighter is going to have the stamina they did when they were 30.
Ironically the most likely old adventurer you would find still traveling is a monk because they become immune to the negative effects of aging.
Druids have aging slowed to 1/10 at a higher level, and god forbid that is an Elf.
Did something similar once, because a silver dragon is a "people person" and liked [insert mundane task here]. Kept the stats on hand just in case, and the look on my murderhoboish's face when the less-than-skilled minstrel they dragged into the street turned into an adult silver dragon and smacked them through a wall was _priceless_
Take it a step further we actually encountered character we’d previously played as npcs, and a number of recurring npcs that could bite us in the ass if we gave them too much trouble.
I sometimes use my player's previous player characters if it's the same setting as NPC's. Where are they 20 years from the end of the adventure?!
If there is a muderhobo, they will meet a kind old man, with seven canaries.🧙🏼♂️🐤🐤🐤🐤🐤🐤🐤
Of they can meet an old monk walking down the road who gives a greeting as they pass.
Remember, Monks don't suffer the negative effects from aging once they get high level enough.
The fact that I just started delving into D&D lore and understood these references gives me hope.
Also: yeah, that's be a hell of a way to deal with murderhobos!
That's probably my favorite bit of D&D lore. Absolutely terrifying concept.
For those unfamiliar, this is referring to Bahamut. The platinum dragon of justice, god/king of metallic dragons, rival/brother to Tiamat. The old man is one of the forms he may choose to take for traveling the planes. As scary as bumping into the incognito form of one of the strongest dragons to ever exist sounds, it's actually even worse than that because the gold birds are /also/ polymorphed gold dragons.
Of course, he's only a threat if you attack him. Even if you are armed and threatening him, he's sooner talk you down. But if you still decide to attack him, well, hope he shows you the 'mercy' part of his dogma and not the 'justice' side of it.
So as an anti-murderhobo tactic, it's perfect. You'd have really be asking for it, and you'd swiftly get a response equal to how you acted.
@@IcyLucarioI seek to spread cursed D&D lore. I think you mean sister, rival, AND her object of "romantic" desire.
@@arnice2570 Goddamnit who let R. R. Martin into the writing room again?
Misbehaving players start hearing church bells as a warning.
If they behave too badly, a whole cathedral lands on them. Somehow. The rest of the party is unaffected, but the character is now a pile of bones and gory pulp.
Ah, an architect's "Rock falls".
The Curse of the Carilloneur
Once ran a "trapped in an MMO" storyline, like .hack or SAO. Punishing the murderhobo player was easy and immediate - attacking innocent NPCs would summon max-level guard NPCs practically on top of him, and he was swiftly killed. He had to roll up a new character, who was just as much a butthole as the first guy, but he kept his murder-rage under control for a time. After the party had leveled up a few times, he went out during some downtime and started killing lower level players. When he did it a few times in rapid succession, he got a "Murderhobo" in-game title and was denied services by every NPC he came across. Other players could also hunt him for a bounty, and he was swiftly killed again. Didn't stick around long when it became clear I wasn't going to tolerate his nonsense.
A more realistic consequence would be a group of high-level players who's goal is specifically stopping people from murdering other players. Bonus points if your players heard about this group or even met them beforehand so that when murderhobo goes murderhoboing and is consequently hunter down by pvp-oriented bounty hunters you can basically tell him "You've been warned".
You should have just sicc’d Haseo on his ass lol
@@starhalv2427 Sounds like a fantasy version of a S.W.A.T. team.
@@ronaldfinkelstein6335 eeh, more like mercs tbh
@starhalv2427 honestly both ideas work sense it's a game what is stopping it from working like that the same way a whole came of bandits will know your their even if just one sees. You in fallout or skyrim
My anti-murderhobo is Sir Willis, whom i named after my great grandfather, a former police chief. Sir Willis is a paladin of Tyr, very high level, and does not stop. If you go around killing indiscriminately in my game, he will find you.
Mind if I borrow this guy?
@@nolabratteig988 Go for it! Happy smiting!
@@nolabratteig988 Go for it! Happy smiting!
@@nolabratteig988 Go for it! Happy smiting!
My favorite way
Step 1: "Aquire Silver Dragon"
Step 2: "polymorph to human and make trader"
Step 3: * wait *
“Secret Silver Dragon traveling and ‘human watching’ under the pretense of a traveling Bard.” is my favorite thing to sneak into a campaign.
Don’t forget Bahamut’s common disguise.
I liked the concept behind the Anna hive-mind of sorts. And considering how they are all knowledgeable about what's going on with the others, I can already imagine if a Murderhobo SOMEHOW killed an Anna, all the other Annas would know, leading to that Murderhobo going from "Haha! I killed her and got everything she had! Yeah me!" to "Wait, why are all these other Anna's coming after me?"
It's inherently meta gaming
He got triggered that characters acted normally and in character and not played to his power trip
@@chimera9818 this Anna character is a collective hive mind of characters from previous games turned into a hive mind god, and when they put the "murder hobo" in their place they chose to kill the character when he was walking away because they chose to flip the bird. Who's the one that's really triggered? Could've been the bigger person and give the person a chance to grow since they chose to walk away, in fact that's literally what Anna was doing, but since she was so offended by a finger she killed him. Sounds pretty triggered to me
@@kingshittheturd683 you good? she did give them another chance, twice, they chose to ignore it. and I don't think the players wanted that person at the table anyway
@@lucasmatheusoliveiradealbu9033 flipping someone off and walking away isn't ignoring the warning. They chose to walk away like they were told to and this overpowered hive mind god Mary Sue killed him off for it
Chester as a concept is is hilarious
I was expecting it to be a play on words “Chester the mimic salesman” as in Chester who sells exclusively mimics . Steal one and it eats you .
I imagine chester sounds like patches from the souls series
@@justarandomguy983Definitely gives Patches or, as obvious as it sounds, Marvelous Chester also from Dark Souls lol
I had a murder hobo a few months ago, in the world in which my groups play theres a small island called Aquariora, theres a place on that island that had heavy rumors surrounding it about overly keen adventurers going there to steal from the literal mountain of gold. When the party got there I introduced them to Alicia a little pixie type of creature who was struggling to lean the transfiguration magic that her parents were trying to teach her, she told them all about how she was struggling to do the basic metal into stone spell and then showed them as she tried to turn one of the gold bars off the floor into stone, the spell reflected off and hit a bird turning it to stone, she then acted very sad and was about to ask if the party could help convince her mother to let her pursue her gardening dream. The murder hobo immediately decided that if he kills this child then he can clearly just take as much gold as he can fit in his pockets and leave. So he does... 3 turns later and hes genuinly just beating up a like 12 year old girl and I roll for her to try and transfigure him into something that cant hurt her... nat 20, she turned him into a statue. Permanently. He lost his shit and flipped the table which lead to one of the bigger guys at my table grabbing him by the hood of his hoodie and launching him out the door. He never came back and that campaign is still running with the remaining 5 people almost a year later.
(Id like to just mention that yes I sound like a shitty DM for doing this but he had killed literally NPC in the campaign so far for 3 irl weeks, he just did it cause he liked looting corpses? idk. I will not apologies for killing off someone who was doing an in universe genocide run)
Players. Read. The. Room.
Murder hobo and evil campaigns CAN be great fun, IF YOUR DM AND PARTY IS PREPARING WITH THAT IN MIND!
You are not the main character, you are not the center of attention, you are one part of a whole complete group.
Be kind, respect others, and if you treat others like trash be ready to get thrown out yourself.
I know PvP is frowned upon but i would join her in that fight. I can't roleplay as someone who would be ok with child murder. I would just respond with "well thats what my character would do" like all shitty players do.
Honestly NPC like Alicia sounds like treasure that i would value more than murder hobo
@@petrsukenik9266 They often times go back to the town to see her and I have little story arcs I write for her to tell them about her adventures of growing up, the pure joy reactions they gave when I told them after 8 months she had finally learnt to grow tomatos was one of my favourite moments of all time
The Anna story reminds me of how i introduce Diev, a major alchemist/potion seller in my world, at best shes introduced with a sign that reads "Hagglers pay double, Assholes pay triple, Thieves pay with their Lives" as well as a few skull decorations, and at worst a thief jumps out her window before she catches then drags the thief kicking and screaming for their life into her shop shrugging off attacks like they bug bites, by the time the party enters shes covered in gore and reading a cheesy romance novel
On the off-chance she is somehow defeated what happens?
@@karisasani7006 well, then they have a pissed of reskin of Acererak(forner party member), an ArchFey(Dievs warlock patron and a partial symbiote), several Orc clans that kill demons and devils daily(her forner clans), her children one of which is a conduit for pure divine power, as well as House Jurasco(Basically the Doctors/Healers Union) and their allies as Diev is one of their biggest suppliers of non-standard potion. Not to mention anyone and everyone who is a devotee of the god The Fury as Diev is the mortal avatar of that god, and im not even taking into acount that shes based out of the largest city in to setting which is effectively a chuck of reskinned Corusant plop into a fantasy world
@@Gale_WisenwoodIn other words if they somehow defeat her theyre going to get swarmed with a bunch of things coming their way
@@karisasani7006 Precisely
I cant imagine that campaign being particularly easy on the powerscaling. If there are casually people this strong in villages whats the point of even fighting a BBEG? Why cant said potion seller just do it instead? That's the issue I have with the "every NPC is suddenly stronger than the party" tropes. It ruins the point of the party. It sounds like you mostly just have a bunch of mary sue NPCs to keep the party in line, in which case I feel conflicts with the sandboxy ideal of DND. There are better ways to punish players for committing crimes.
Such as..you know..law enforcers? It's different if an entire civilization is after the party because it keeps the story intact and the characters still feel relevant. It keeps them as powerful PCs, but lets them know that their actions do have consequences. Other merchants for example could close their doors the moment they hear of them approaching. I just can't vibe with using god's-hand characters to do the DM's bidding.
A common excuse I hear from murderhobos is that D&D "is just a game". Like their actions aren’t really a problem, because they're not actually killing anyone.
Counterpoint: "Yeah, and the only point of this game is to have fun, _together._ And if you're ruining everyone else's fun, then tell me, why would anyone want to play with you?"
Either they get very quiet and self-conscious, or they reveal that they never cared. In the case of the latter, exile them.
But what if they're friends or family? Boot them harder. They should have cared from the start; and you should tolerate that shit even less.
My favorite way to deal with Murderhobos is send an army of city guard to apprehend them. Then hold a trial, present evidence, call witnesses. The other players get to be questioned. Months to years later in game they finally get to go to trial.
I actually had an entire party arrested. They'd murdered someone who was trying to blackmail someone else, murdered someone else in a bar, murdered a man in his place of business after having him sign all of his property over to them... the list goes on. The detective who had been on their trail had been using magic to disguise himself while keeping an eye on them. If they had been a lot more subtle about it they could have potentially pulled off being successful monsters in the city, but most of their business was being done in broad daylight.
Keep in mind, being murderhobos was the entire point of the campaign, so don't feel bad for me one bit. I literally asked for it.
Something about that seriously doesn't feel fair to the players.
@@greenapple9477 Being arrested for murder when you committed it directly in front of a bunch of people that they did multiple times?
An Evil Campagin?
@@georgemeyers7172 It was supposed to be a monster campaign. They turned it into eating everyone.
They seem to have missed the point of the entire campaign
Normally what happens at my table is the DM just makes them feel like a massive jerk. He's genuinely good at telling stories and getting across emotion, so if you say...kill a character's son...well be ready for their mother to come out screaming and sobbing. Basically just his way of saying "NICE WORK, ASSHOLE."
edit: Also a lot of the players at the table generally lean Good far as alignment goes, so that'll usually result in PVP.
My character is a literal fascist and commited genocides, but provides free healthcare and universal basic income for those who obey him.
@@ibraheemshuaib8954 So you're playing Omni Man?
@spartanhawk7637 ..........Holy shit you're right, I'm basically playing omniman.....except he's a human fighter.......a human fighter that totally murdered his entire party full of wizards when he got charmed
@@ibraheemshuaib8954 Sounds like a real Guardians of the Globe moment. XD
@@commandoepsilon4664 yep, he crushed the wizard's throat with his own spellbook.
I have two:
(1) Make an enemy that keeps coming back and gets stronger everytime it dies (think the saiyan's Zenkai boost from DBZ) until the party finds a way to resolve the confrontation without violence. It will never attack first, but will retaliate if the party attempts to attack it.
(2) The old Riverwood method. If the party attacks a chicken in the middle of town, the townsfolk will attack the party.
The first may fail if they smite it to be honest meaning you'd have to give it smite immunity
Ah yes, the Skyrim chickens, kill Alduin, stop the tyranny of the sun, and defeat Miirak? Barely anyone cares. Shout accidentally goes too far and snipes some random farmer’s chicken? YOU HAVE COMMITTED CRIMES AGAINST SKYRIM AND HER PEOPLE.
The level 2 Ranger got jumped by the brother of his best friend who’d died in a duergar attack.
I made it clear the brother and his friends blamed the ranger for his death, and that he may be able to defuse the situation diplomatically, considering he’d known all 5 of the men for over a decade.
Combat ensues, with the wizard and warlock barely staying alive and the ranger getting downed. The brother was about to finish him off when the bar tender, a retired adventurer, cast Magic Missile and knocked the man unconscious, followed by tossing the warlock a healing potion for the ranger.
The others fled and the ranger decided to try and gun them down as they ran, the others talking him out of it.
He, for some reason, decided that this was a “tragic secret that couldn’t get out” (despite being the victim????), so the bar keep almost jokingly asked “What’s my silence worth to you?”
This dumb glue sniffer said, “How about I don’t kill you!”
I had them roll intimidation.
“Ha, I rolled a nat20!” (Totally believed that, for sure).
“Great, well, you get hit by 3 darts of magic missile and are now on 2 death save fails. He stabilized you and looks to the rest of the party, as if silently asking if he need continue.”
I generally give people a good reason to not find out. Blacksmiths are articifers who pound metal into objects for a living they'll be able to wrestle down a barbarian with their bare hands. Apothecaries are often clerics, druids or wizards and while they are not always dangerous on their own often are good at stunning and running. Tavern owners are often old bards and usually are surrounded by tons of people. Even a level 20 has to bow down to action economy. Most street guards are fairly low level but SMAT (Special Magic and Tactics) exist for higher levels. And if Nobel guards or royal guards are called in expect a curbstomping.
Finally the thieves guild often doesn't like unauthorized jobs. Those who are in the family that break the rules are lucky to live. Those who are not are lucky to be found.
A semi-unique way I came up with to deal with murderhobos is literally just the "Majima Everywhere" mechanic from Yakuza Kiwami. Make a random semi-strong NPC that the hobo chooses to fight at one point in time immortal in the sense that they always run away before they can actually die, always randomly appearing to fight SPECIFICALLY the murderhobo, fully recovered every time they encounter them. By "randomly" appear, I mean that they'll appear whenever the murderhobo decides to, well, be a murderhobo. And this would happen per individual NPC that the murderhobo decides to try to kill. The idea here is that there's a nigh immortal threat that is able to kill you, so eventually it will wear you down until you actually die.
Never dm'ed by the way.
You could let them die and become a Revenant with their full abilities. That is canon and far worse for the murderhobo.
@@sidecharacter7165 I wouldn't necessarily want to kill them then and there, I would moreso want to make them tired of the same song and dance, that being having to fight the same NPC constantly if they wanted to be a murderhobo
Use the law of your realm you dont need "a retires lvl20 adventurer shopkeeper". You need the city watch wizard, "locate" spells and other divination spells, maybe necromancy spells, but you hav all the resources to investigate who is Guilty, and hunt him down. An Arcane CIA/FBI etc etc. and put them to judge. Either they run out of resurces running away, or they pay their sins. If you want to give them a hint, WANTED SIGNs, increasing the price with time, and send stornger and stronger Bounty Hunters.
I mean a single Archmage with prep time and spy-knowledge is a guaranteed TPK.
@sidecharacter7165 you can make a great plot. Even make the bbeg take the bounty. But a TPK is not necessary. You dont need to kill them, just teach them a lesson.
O rail the campaign into a ew adventure, of hide and seek from the law.
Yep, that's what I did. I reminded them, hard, that this was a magical world and just killing someone where there are no witnesses, or killing all the witnesses, is not going to stop anyone determined and even just mid-level from knowing exactly who is responsible, where to find them, where they are headed, and to send a message spell ahead.
They're not the first person who lets a few levels and being stronger than other people get to their head and imagination, they won't be the last. The world got really good at putting down destructive elements. Why did you think so many of them are hiding out in swamps, dungeons, sewers and castles in the middle of a monster infested wasteland?
As an added bonus, being hunted can be a very interesting experience for the party
edit: Oh, and it wasn't just bounty hunters. Plenty of people will put down mass murderers for free.
The last murderhobo is like a guy who wants to kill the president for his money lol. Like a random dude trying to down a head of state with massive security measures. Then failing and being helped twice and STILL trying. Sone people lol
You role play it out. That's all it takes. They do the thing, the thing causes reaction, reaction causes chain event, chain event escalates into tpk.
"Make new characters, please. I gotta go work on a new story for next game night."
Some people are really dumb about traveling shopkeepers. If they seemingly don’t have any form of protection then THEY ARE THE PROTECTION!
Give them consequences in-game, and if that message doesn't resonate, give them consequences in real life. You don't have to play with someone who's not fun to be around.
Consider the game they want to play. If they find the roleplay to be less fun then - Fair enough, they can enjoy the combat when it happens. Maybe throw some more fights at that player, and just ask them - Hey, maybe don't kill the merchant the other player's talking to?
@@Naxthural
You can tell someone it's a bad idea to jump off a cliff without featherfall, but that doesn't mean they'll listen.
Some players have to learn by taking the fall damage.
@@Naxthural Why? Like, being honest, they can just go play some solo videogame.
DnD and most TTRPG's exist specifically to channel collaborative storytelling. If you just want to do whatever you want without caring about the other players or the roleplay, why are you even playing? They should just go play GTA or even Baldur's Gate solo without anybody else.
@@ceejay1476 I believe you misunderstood my comment. Sure, they CAN go play a solo game. But people liking different aspects of a very vast game with a lot of ways to play it isn't a bad thing. Not everyone is down for roleplaying at the table or they aren't good at getting in character. You as a DM have the responsibility of ensuring your players' enjoyment. Even if that means telling them to not spoil the fun of others to kill stuff. You can change your style, give the players what they want. If that means throwing another fight or two in, so be it.
@@Naxthural idk man, I'm literally a battles and videogames AND turn based combat games junkie, and I still see 0 reason to play DnD if you're not role-playing. Like, combat can be fun, but this is like playing crusader Kings 3 while not liking the idea of managing your demesne, or playing classic Japanese rpg, but just not enjoying turn based combat mechanics lol.
Like straight up why would those players want to play and why would you even play with those players? Seems nonsensical to me. Same as the whole murderhobo problem. If they dont want to roleplay their characters id tell them, you either do, or i kick you. Problem solved. Your character is evil and likes to murder people? Sure go ahead, but if you're somebody that goes around killing people there is an extremely high chance eventually you'll mess with the wrong person and they'll just kill your character right then and there.
I've never actually had to use him, but in my homebrew world there's a demon king known as Arriu. He's an ancient demon king who's whose whole thing is fighting and honour. You could compare him to Khorne from the Warhammer universe. He loves a good fight but also greatly prefers worthy opponents and will actively seek them out. He tends to have difficulty with this since he's so strong due to his age and all the power he consolidated during his life. He craves a fair, good fight but almost nobody in the world comes even close to a match for him.
Gameplay wise the reason he exists is to brutally punish murderhobos. If my players go mad and start killing everyone, stories of their reign of terror and murder will quickly spread across the land...and Arriu is quick to pick up on rumors of a potential worthy opponent.
How I intend to use him is if the party ever decides to murderhobo, and they keep at it for a few sessions, Arriu will hear about them and come out of his volcano lair to seek them out. Soon the players will start hearing stories of this unstoppable juggernaut just tearing his way through locations the party had recently been in, calling for (name of PC). Not long after that Arriu catches up to them. He'll first compliment them for the carnage they've spread (subtly informing them that him finding them is a consequence of them murdohobo'ing). He'll then announce his challenge and won't take no for an answer.
He'll then proceed to deliver the godfather of beatdowns. To list a few of his talents, he's got 30 strength and constitution, with his other stats all at 15 or higher. His armour renders him invulnerable to physical damage from non-magic weapons, and he's also immune to fire, falling damage, explosions, and had ridiculous bonuses to his saving throws. In terms of his offensive output he makes 4 attacks on his multiattack and each of the 4 attacks has a huge hit modifier and 4 D10 damage. Each of the 4 attacks also has its own special ability which are knocking the target flying back 50 feet, causing them to burst into demonic flames inflicting a massive burst of extra damage, causing a DC 25 wisdom check that destroys the target's weapon on a fail, and healing Arriu for an amount equal to the target's total missing hitpoints after damage is dealt.
I designed him to be literally undefeatable since I also scaled his health and damage to the party's level so he gets even stronger just as the players do. Fortunately for my players they've never murderhobo'd to begin with...
...but if they do? Oh boy, "ass whooping" is an unholy understatement for what Arriu will do when he gets his hands on them.
i love how arriu would just do a "hey it's me goku! i heard you're pretty strong!" if the party gets too out of line with murderhoboing
A side note: Khorne is very much not about honour ^^
The saying goes "Khorne cares not whence the blood flows, only that it does", which can still give you some cool ideas on how to deal with idiots who think their is dick is golden.
how do you deal with murderhobos? medieval punishments for medieval settings. theft? cut off their right hand. murder? death penalty. imprisonment is for important people that can be ransomed off to a noble, which you can't be. commoners aren't defensless cowards who run at the slightest hint of danger, they're armed and used to protecting themselves.
Also back in older editions fighters got a keep at level 10, this means that lords were at a minimum level 10 fighters.
Additionally, the god odin was known to disguise himself as an old man and his spear as a walking stick and wander the world, he'd knock on your door asking for hospitality and you'd be rewarded if you showed some, make of this what you will.
I have a friend who was a murderhobo in the making.
He was apart of this enormous homebrew campaign that a friend of mine had been making and developing for a while. At first he thought it would be a good idea to not take it seriously at all and do silly things like backflips.
During the scene of a prison escape, he did several backflips in front of guards. Outside of the prison in the middle of the street he continued doing backflips thinking nothing of it, which the DM then said.
"A guard notices you, 'Hey is that (Insert name) the escapee?' A guard says as another looks over."
This was then that he realized what he did in fact had consequences and it wasn't just all fun and games.
He then made a new character because he didn't like how silly he was previously and made a complete 180. Going from silly and goofy to wanting to level up as fast as possible.
It was to the point where he didn't even want to do downtime roleplay, he just wanted to kill things and level up.
It was then that outside of D&D talks happened (In which i wasn't around for when it happened) But now he isn't a murderhobo anymore but an actual functioning member of the party.
ya they had to learn a set level of stupid is aloud just not that much and also no hardgrind sets eather
Sounds like he was very new to the entire concept of ttrpgs. Both of those phases seem to be the obligatory phases every new player goes through. I haven't met a new player yet that didn't test the process by being as chaotic as the GM was willing to put up with.
I do like that Anna idea.
I just…don’t play with psychopaths. Granted I have one player who will do the most idiotic things, but that’s mostly harmless stuff like pull pranks of NPCs and crack jokes at inopportune times.
The worst murder hobos I ever had to deal with were my sons in their very first d&d game. It was "Against the Cult of the Reptile God", which can be frustrating anyway, and the were only about 4 and 5 years old. I quickly saw what was happening, suspended play, and started the next day with a simpler module and a dmnpc that was there to help steer them if they got off track. It worked out well.
I introduced a village of jovoc's masquerading as tieflings to my players. The moment my problem player attempted their usual antics, I calmly stated, "Roll for initiative" with the sound of dozens of d20's hitting the table. For those who don't know what a jovoc is, it is a demon from an older version of D&D that when it was dealt damage it reflects half of it back to all nondemons within 30ft of itself. The look on the player's face was one of horror.
Good times.
Surprise magic cylinder on foot?
Ive been working on introducing a common traveling shopkeeper in my last few games; a Rakshasa, often initially mistaken for a Tabaxi, who either appears out of nowhere in towns or sets up a khajiit-like trading camp on the side of the road. Offers a bunch of magical wares and is willing to buy stuff from the party, or even to barter. Once all the sales are done (and all sales are final) he snaps his fingers and vanishes, alongside amything he brought that he didnt sell.
Trying to kill him would be very difficult because of a Rakshasa's immunity to 6th level and lower magic, him having advantage on all other magic, and the fact he has bags of holding full of various magic items inside of his robes.
Anna's player here. She's a really fun character for me to play as. Most parties really love her as she tends to be supportive both personality-wise and gameplay-wise and a solid team player. For example, that Anna was a divine soul who frequently would do stuff like twin-cast haste and ensure that the party had ample healing. This guy was literally the only one I know of who has had a problem with Anna, Anna, Anna, or Anna in any form; and it was for all the dumbest reasons.
Forgive me for being a slight nerd, but Anna reminds me a bit of Pumat Sol from campaign 2 of Critical role, namely the fact theu both had clones/siblings all running the same shop
Out of slightly 'naughty' curiosity, has any PC tried seducing the Annas? It would seem a safer method of interacting with her/them, rather than murdering them...
@@scribblerstudios9895I mean, I’m pretty sure the DM of that show has voice acted in Fire Emblem games (where Anna comes from), so she could be an inspiration.
@@ethanwebster3764 fair enough if that’s the case. I was nearly noting what it reminded me of. If that’s the actual case, it’s still a cool thing for the character and a way to explain why Anna was like that
We had one in my party at one point. The very first NPCs we met were two nice dwarves along the path who told us about the dragon that had just moved into the mountains, but then someone in our party noticed they had sending stones (or whatever the walkie-talkie item is called) on them, and being a level 1 character with no money, it was pretty enticing. So cue combat. A few of our party members went along with the battle, so they teamed up and quickly killed one of the dwarves, but the rest of our party helped the second one survive. Eventually, we came to the compromise of chaining up the dwarf so he wouldn’t run to town and tell on us and stealing the sending stones. That night at camp, we put the murderhobo on watch since it felt like his responsibility and also he had the worst perception. He proceeded to roll a 5, and the next morning we discovered the dwarf disappeared. As we were discussing what to do, there was a big burst of light and in front of us stood a level 20 cleric and blood mage along with the entire town holding pitchforks and torches. We got taken on trial, and using a using a large diamond, the cleric resurrected the dwarf we killed. The blood mage then bound us to him and said that he would forever know what we were up to and that if we ever hurt an innocent again, he’d kill us. As our punishment, we were forced to serve the town until we did enough work to make up for the 10000 gold the diamond costed.
i imagine chester when someone buys from him vomiting the item up and now I wanna make a mimic merchant that does this
My warnings went unheeded for three sessions so on the fourth I sat the level 20 legendary warrior NPC, Malakai, in the same bar and prepped a speech. When the leader of my little band of psychopaths decided to try to rob the tavern, he spoke up and told him to knock it off. As expected, Murderhobo Prime turned his attention to Malakai and threatened to stab him. Malakai returned the glare with a disinterested gaze of his own and spoke in a deep southern drawl:
“Son, I’ve been alive for 274 years, and I’ve been a warrior for 260 of those. I’ve killed more people than you’ve ever known - many of ‘em for a lot less reason than what you’re giving me now. So I suggest you turn around and return to yer seat. ‘Cuz if we fight, you will lose, and I will kill you. And I’m sure you’d very much regret headin’ to the hereafter without ever finishin’ yer last meal.”
MH Prime didn’t take the hint, so Malakai ended him with the backup +3 shortsword he kept strapped to his thigh. Four attacks followed by an action surge made sure ol’ MHP was dead before he hit the ground.
“But that’s not fair!” my player whined.
“lol,” I replied.
"i'm sorry, i thought his speech made it pretty clear that it would not be a fair fight? not my fault you have 1 in both Perception and Intelligence IRL"
The real answer is a quick disclaimer: The players gain experience for encounters the GM wants them to have. If they cause a needless fight, they’re not getting xp for it.
And there goes probably the biggest reason to be a MH. After that, just give them the full xp for “solving” an encounter, and you’ve taken away most of the reasons they exist. The other reasons could be fun to rp around, as long as everyone is okay with that stuff.
Man that Anna story is eerily similar to a conxept i had come up with based on a character from FTL: Multiverse.
Meet Sylvan, the travelling merchant. He travells the lands with a simple cart and a small stock of a few related magic items. He somehow always knows where the adventuring party will be and just randomly show up and sometimes even offer a small quest. Now if you knos the Anna story you'll probably have guessed that sylvan is stronger than he looks, MUCH stronger than anything in the campaign (in the source material he is based off of he is basically a superboss should you decide to fight him). He'd be roughly a level 15+ sorcerer with a special magic item on him at all times that gives him a constant 5 seconds of foresight, and give him the ability to stop a character in time for about 10 seconds every 5 minutes or so, but losing the foresight while on cooldown. This would make it so that if anyone tried to attack him he would IMMEDIATELY freeze them in time no matter what they tried and basically just ask the party "are you sssssure you want to do that, sssstrangers?" Only then if the player(s) in question disregard this warning does he fight back (and presumably wipe the party almost immediately unless they know what they're doing).
I had my players go on a short stint as murder hoboes in my most recent game, almost immediately they got punished by their power bases nearly abandoning them. I run a setting where resurrection magic is quite easy, you can cast a spell at a temple with a few hundred gold pieces as a material cost, and next time your body remains dead for at least 1 hour, you get zapped back to the temple and resurrected. In this process, you also get a quick 2-3 minute chat with the god resurrecting you. The spell also has contingencies that it fails if your soul gets trapped, or if you anger the god resurrecting you.
Now back to the story, the players went on their short stint of murderhoboism before diving back into a dungeon crawl. They wiped, and when they spoke to their gods, they got a stern lecture about what they did wrong, the paladin and cleric were threatened with their god leaving them if they did it again (pretty hard to survive the law without healing magic) and the party artificer who was bound to the goddess of revenge had a god level geass dropped on them as the cost of resurrection that if they killed another innocent, they would instantly drop dead and their soul taken by said goddess.
so basicly teh arti got a fat finger waggle and would just be gone from all of reality if they did not strighten the crap out
Here's an idea,introduce the said murderhobos to the Ebony Warrior from Skyrim.
Basically my solution. In my homebrew world there's a demon king who's all about combat an honour, and one of his favourite things is a good straight fight. Problem is he's so ancient and powerful that there aren't many opponents available to him that are a fair enough fight for him to enjoy. If my players start going ham and killing everybody, word is sure to spread of the carnage they've wrought and it's only a matter of time before that demon king hears about them.
So far I've never had to introduce him since I've never had anyone go nuts on the killing, and the guy lives in a volcano and only really comes out to look for a worthy opponent.
I'd wager he's about 3 times stronger than the final boss of the campaign I'm running. If he does end up annihilating the party, well they've only got themselves to blame.
@@realwazdakkadakkaBut do you have a failsafe in case they keep rolling nat20's and you keep rolling nat1's if the demon king is SOMEHOW defeated? If so... what is it?
@karisasani7006 he has an aura that deals fire damage over time so even if he keeps missing you he'll still be steadily draining your hitpoints and will kill you eventually, and he has 2000 hitpoints so outlasting him is almost impossible when you take into account his wealth of resistances and healing abilities.
But even if someone managed to nat20 their way to killing him, upon death he vanishes in a massive explosion of fire, and if the party survives that...well he drops nothing and doesn't give any XP. And he doesn't even die permanently, he just goes back to his lair to regenerate.
He'll then just come back with an additional 1000 hitpoints and try again.
@@realwazdakkadakkaHowever he will likely admit that the party actually lucked out if he is defeated is that right?
Haven't really thought that far ahead since I've never needed to use him, but I'd presume that he'd try again a few times with the knowledge of the party's fighting style. Maybe beating him 3 times and he'll leave you alone? I dunno, I'd assume it would never get that far to begin with.
The third one slick reminds me of Kung-Fu Hustle, where the noodle shop owner and the tailor are retired Kung-Fu masters
It's so simple. Actions have consequences. Your characters are in a living, breathing world that doesn't revolve around you. The game, and myself, do not exist for your ego. IF you can handle that, then by all means, anything goes. Your character can try anything. Don't get pissy if you don't like the consequences.
I have played for over 12 years of games, off and on. I have luckily so far not had to deal with a Murderhobo. But I still have plans in place to deal with them.
This world that I am making for my next campaign operates off of four key principles:
1) The world lives, and time passes. - The NPCs will go out and do things. Adventurers will go out, take quests, do adventures that the party doesn't. Bards will tell tales of the party's exploits, those of the NPC Adventurers, spread news from the kings from town to town, and report on relevant evils that have been done nearby...
2) You can achieve your dreams... What will you pay for them? - Whether it is for renown, power, love, knowledge, or something else... There is always multiple ways to achieve your goals. Some of them easy, some of them difficult. If your character wants something, they can get it... Are they going to pay for it with coin? With time? With the lives of the innocent? All of these are viable, but do not follow the same rules...
3) The powerful enact their will on the world. - Once a creature gets strong enough, the world changes to react to them. A bard inspires village after village to depose an evil king. A necromancer infusing a land with vile energies, raising the dead in newer and more deadly ways. A dragon unable to have children by normal means, accidentally writing a new rule into reality that slowly converts things near a dragon into a new dragon...
4) Anything you can do, I can do. Anything I can do, you can do. - These mountains exist to be climbed. These rules of reality do not just exist, something dreamed them up. Made them to be. They put in work, effort, and made it real. They were just the first. You can write new rules into reality... But, you are just the first to walk your path... Others can follow, discover the things that you did... If you find something new that can give an advantage, others will study it. Try to replicate it... Someone will succeed, eventually...
Perhaps the greatest (and most relevant to Murderhobos) of those principles combining culminates in one of the keywords I use for my notes:
DREAD
Malevolence made manifest.
One of the major tools to give the villains in my campaign a little bit of extra oomph, while also inspiring some sidequests for the party to handle.
The villains go out and perform deeds. Going out and, say for example, slaughter a family of innocents? They accumulate some Dread. Perhaps they use it to curse the house the family lived in causing anyone else who lives nearby to revisit the act in their dreams, seeing the events through the family's eyes.
Or perhaps, most likely for the Murderhobo... Empowering a favored weapon or accessory. Giving it new, interesting abilities. Making them stronger over time, slowly molding them into a new villain for the world...
And villains fight heroes, don't they? And the world lives, and time passes... The Murderhobo *will* create a place of Dread, whether intentionally or building up so much it locks into a location "accidentally" (Read: DM Shenanigans).
One day, in the middle of a fight, their Dread power flickers and stops temporarily... That Dread location they created? Just got cleansed by some heroes offscreen. They just got some valuable information, that Dread can be dealt with... Both theirs, and their enemies...
If they want to be the villain, what are they going to pay? If they want to be the hero, what are they going to pay?
Because now, if they continue causing Dread... They now know people are watching, and will actively going out of their way to stop them.
It would take them a while to get to this point, maybe a couple levels under their belt. Up to this point, most of the things in the world the party would have faced are those that *don't* have the metaphysical backing of the stronger forms of power in this world. Mostly mundanes and lesser monsters.
Maybe one or two things that *they* thought was a boss, but I would call an *elite*. Double health, better stats, and an extra action somewhere in the turn order. Something that can put up a good fight against an entire party if it needs to.
So around the point where the Murderhobo has to decide whether or not they're going to continue working with the Dread mechanics... They finally encounter their first boss. A masked man walking down the road at them just after they finish their rest and pack up camp, the man and his unsheathed sword coated in blood.
The man ignores everything the party might attempt to say, and just attacks them if the party doesn't declare combat first.
This guy is an actual boss, and uses the Dread mechanics as well as part of his fight. From being a boss, he gets greatly increased stats, his health is multiplied by the number of people in the party, and he gets an action for every member of the party (typically he'll alternates turns with a party member).
Now, his whole health bar isn't all used at the same time. It's split into two health bars, after depleting his first health bar he transforms. His body slain at the end of his first health bar, the mask possesses the corpse and drives it to continue fighting...
The party does get to spend hit dice to heal during the phase transition, I'm not a monster... But it will very quickly kick their ass and make them realize that they've just completed the tutorial, and now we're playing hardball.
Giving those that do decide to Murderhobo insight into the power this path can give, and one of the possible paths it can lead. If they want to follow this path, they can. But I have shown that I can make things difficult for them if I want to, and hopefully even the slower among them will start to realize that this path will have a target on their back.
Edit: Accidentally submitted before finished... Added the things that were missing.
I've never played dnd, but when I do, and when I'm ready to run a table, I'd love to take the basic premise of dread and do some fun things with it. Infamy, renown, and dread could all be used in similar fashion, with dread being the most immediately powerful; infamy being far less useful, but more immediaely hindering to the party; and renown being a mirror image of dread, but with it being useful only late in the campaign, as your good deeds draw progressively more support from the populace and whatever higher powers you've got watching things. To summarize, dread gathers in places and people, infamy gathers in the party, and renown gathers in the populace. Each of these can do incredible things, but it's the party's choice which way they go. This triple system allows for more flexibility in how you respond to the party's actions, and promotes engagement with the world you've built.
Well,fortunately, I have never dealt with a Murder Hobo, but when DMing Radiant Citadel, I have a very easy solution to Murder Hobos:
Let them know the technical ruler of the Citadel, Sholeh, is an Ancient Brass Dragon, and the entire Citadel is her lair, and she'll be a very powerful ally if they're beneficial to the Citadel...but if they don't, well, she's an freaking Ancient Brass Dragon with LAIR ACTIONS, and also has access to setting up the Regional Effects in the Citadel if she wants, and canonically as a Speaker of the Citadel (and the First Amongst Equals), can snap her fingers and basically shut the Citadel down if she wants to, and the players are still in Tier One. If any murderhobos still decides to cause trouble after THAT, well, that's on them...
Even my rule abiding and generally really good party in my current campaign, understandably reacted rather terrified to realizing the unassuming old lady in front of them was a freaking Ancient Brass Dragon.
This also works if you're in say, Sigil and end up deciding to cause trouble after learning about the freaking Lady of Pain.
I give murderhobos one in game warning and usually an out of game warning and if they persist past that stage its masked killer time.
I like the Anna approach. Maybe in combination with the retired adventurer barkeep approach. It would take a bit of extra prep to figure out who in each town is a retired adventurer or a hidden deity but it's definitely a good way to sow consequences for bad actors.
Generally, people like the idea of some in game forceful solution, but in my experience that usually only works on someone new to D&D and in a video game kind of mindset. The idea would be to shock them out of it and show that actions have consequences.
However, a long time player acting out for whatever reason knows that what they're doing is wrong and doesn't care. For those kinds of murderhobos, any attempts to reign them in will only make them more defiant. As in the Anna example, they will dedicate an unholy amount of time to plotting to kill the victim that got away, and if they end up losing a character over it, they will dedicate the next character to either getting revenge or just ruining the game. That kind of resentment has the potential to seriously disrupt or derail a game.
So you have a judgement call to make then. You have to be situationally aware of what is going on at the table, and act accordingly. Kicking the murderhobo is the easiest option, but it might not be feasible if he has co-conspirators among the other players or if the entire party just goes rogue. Or if he's just friends with everyone else at the table. In that case, sad and frustrating though it might be, it is best to pull the ripcord and end the game. Perhaps see if someone else wants to DM for a while. In the worst of scenarios, it might be time to find a new group. Don't try to salvage a game gone too far awry, whatever you do. Sometimes you just have to accept that the train jumped the rails and is on fire.
The King Kong part had me cracking up!
There's gotta be a drummer working at the Fire Emblem headquarters at that DND Campaign 'cause they got Anna 1, Anna 2...
The merchant mimic sounds like a fantastic idea, not just for the murderhobo but like in general. I just love the idea of them selling armor they got off devoured adventurers, like they couldn't digest it or something.
I just start campaigns of with my players as commoners. That experience tends to set the tone well enough to the point that my players don’t hobo, since they view the world as inhabited by instant death.
I had a player that attacked my NPC orc war chief at level 3 because he wanted to disarm him. I asked "you sure you want to go down this road?" While all the other players were screaming "wtf?! Nooo!!" Then he complained that the module was broken because why would they put an orc War chief for a level 3 quest. Some people need to learn there are consequences for their actions.
Just send Sans Undertale on them and play Megalovania on the loudspeakers
Dun-a-Lun-dun
Sand Undertall
What level Sorcerer?
@@MoonWeaver000 19 as a reference to Undertale Genocide.
Well I saw once a concept of necromancy being used. An encounter with necromancer looking specifically for murderers as he figured out how to summon souls of people killed by said murderer as his minions - the price was generally an opportunity for these souls to extract vengeance. It did happen later on in game after murderhobo killed a fair few people already. That would be time-limited encounter with shadow/greater shadow horde. We are talking something like 25 buffed monsters. As DM laid down tokens he named each one of them representing person hobo killed.
And oh, they all had advantage on attacking murderhobo and only attacked other party members if they got in way. Some chose not to .
Anna my beloved. ❤❤❤ I love the fire emblem games.
At my table, murderhobos are dealt with by a couple different methods:
1. They begin by getting a bounty placed on their head. The more they kill/the more important the NPC, the higher the bounty. The higher the bounty, the stronger the bounty hunters they are or how numerous they are. It never ends well for them.
2. The NPC that is getting attacked will be stronger than they expect. I had a player attempt to kill a thief guild leader at level 2 because they thought that it would be an easy way to get gold and take control of his guild. Little did the player know that the thief guild leader had a +10 to hit with a poison coated dagger. Even if the player was successful, the thief guild definitely would have taken retribution.
My solution was always something similar to the implication of 1:10
Basically if I saw someone descending into the madness that is the Murderhobo condition, I just ensure the next person they try to gank isn't as helpless as they appeared. This meant that humble shop keeper could turn into anything including but not limited to: the world's greatest assassin, a death god, a demon lord...even had one case where the NPC unfortunately had a curse placed upon him so that at the moment of death he would explode with necrotic energy, instantly killing anyone within a 10 foot radius.
As a side note I also had a reoccuring NPC similar in purpose to Chest the Mimic Merchant. Mine was Lil' Flubber Blubbs. An adorable little baby harp seal that can be found flopping around in a random location early in the campaign. Quite out of place in most campaigns that don't take place in the frozen tundra, all Lil' Flubber Blubbs wants are cuddles and lovies. Pat his head, give him a belly rub, and he'll wiggle about making cute happy little sounds. Later in the campaign he'll show up at camp with some nifty gifts for those players that gave him snuggles and nothing for those players that ignored him. These gifts are usually quite powerful, but had a catch to them. For example: Ring of the Drunken Master. Equipping this ring made the person black-out drunk for as long as they wore it. They could no longer land hits unless they rolled a Nat 20, but they couldn't be hit unless the enemy rolled a Nat 20. Staff of Lyrical Wonder: all spells are cast as cantrips (so they don't require a spell slot) and don't require components, but upon equipping the staff it binds to them, and if they fail to speak in rhyme from that point forward they die immediately.
For players that tried to attack him...well they won't be around later in the campaign. The reason being is that Lil' Flubber Blubbs is an ancient unknowable eldritch being. All attacks against it are nullified, and as a reaction it can use Lil' Flubber Lightning. An incantation echoes on the wind, coming from seemingly everywhere and yet nowhere: "Pudekcufuoy!" (read it backwards). The person that attacked the seal is then blasted by an irresistible bolt of black lightning that ignores damage mitigation and deals 10d20 of each damage type.
And that's for the first offense. A warning shot. If the player is rezzed and they fail to learn their lesson the next time they see Lil' Flubber Blubbs there won't be anything left to ressurect.
Not a murderhobo, but a player whose character (Wild Sorcerer) was chaotic to the point where they were trying to create problems (they were the young brother of another character who got it into their head that people will help them (as in the party) if they help people out of a crisis, not realizing that people won't do so if you caused the problem in the first place)
After a combat they started against the rest of the party as they were trying to run off to cause problems (ended only because they Wild Surge'd into a sheep for the next hour), the party made the smart decision to discuss what to do with the militia captain they've been helping.
From there, I had them go to the local druid circle, who proceeded to seal the player's casting abilities. Unless a command word is spoken, leveled spells fail (no slots are lost on fail) and become cantrips (so action economy isn’t lost, for balance purposes) unless a Wild Surge occurs. This lasts until the command word is spoken again or 1 minute passes, and only recognizes the party, the militia chief, and the druid who placed the seal.
The other option was the 9-year-old brother goes to jail. Not ideal, as their brother is still present. And I made clear that, if they continue to fuck around, they will begin to find out
Fight fire with hell’s inferno, I’m guessing.
I have my own Anna's.
Created by my friends and I from a one-shot that became too good to not become cannon.
Drajil, Nyx, Ares, and Silas.
A Demonic Berserker, a cultest of the Great Old Ones, an Unholy Paladin, and a silver tongued Devil contractor. They are all 20's level respectively, and run their own mercenary company. Sometimes, they'll travel to hotspots where they can fight people, and this gives the players opportunities to meet them. If the players try to murder hobo any of them, the others will know about it. And that will spell bad news.
are a couple of those names inspired by greek myth?
The very few times I’ve had to deal with rule breakers or unsportsmanlike behavior I just use lightning. That’s it, unblockable and unavoidable lighting comes down and strikes your player wherever you are and the damage cannot be reduced. Damage die depends on how bad the offense but it’s usually just a six, only had to do this like five times
So you break rules to deal with them and rule with an Iron fist?
Just do what a normal person will do and talk post session or if what they doing ruining the whole groups vibe pull them aside and talk.
If an agreement can't be met kick them.
Sending lightning down just cause of one offence but NPCs when they act out of line down really sells you being against the players
@@jessewilliams3166 they get multiple warnings and discussions first, my definition of rule breaking is very lenient. Also it’s like 1d6 to remind them that’s not how the game works, not like it’s killing anybody.
@@jessewilliams3166 also I’m the DM, the rules are what I say they are. Which usually means rule of cool and letting the players do what they want. I’m an open world DM
@@blakeetter280 Ah see with that clarification it's fine. I was thinking shock collar without warning mentality.
I recently ran a Christmas themed one-shot for my family. It was everyone's first time playing, but it was as though my brother had googled "how to be the most annoying player". He was just really mean the whole time and kept trying to kill Santa's elfs. I asked him if he actually wanted to play and he insisted he did. I had put out a hard and fast "no PVP" rule at the start of the game, so my dad's wizard stood between my brother's character and the elfs.
My dad still had fun and said that he'd like to do another one-shot in the future, but I'm just not going to play D&D with my brother unless he learns how to be a decent person. It's like you said at the end of the video- if someone can't have fun without pretending to kill innocents, then they need some serious mental help OTL
This is why I use ttrpgs as a human observation tool.
You get to see an awful lot of a person, in 4 hours of consequence-less power tripping
I have a very simple and effective way of doing it.
Try to dissuade them, then ask them to stop. Then tell them to stop. Then the very next non-hostile npc they try to kill is what gets them permanently banned from my games.
Simply, Revenants. Revenants are great for dealing with murderhobos, great for players seeing the consequences of their actions, and giving a great story beat as the poor player runs for their lives having to deal with a never dying vengeful spirit.
It’s super easy to correct this problem.
Some merchants, they used to be adventurers, they won’t go down easily.
Especially those in larger cities and towns, they have wards and protections that cover their shop.
Alarms to signal for the guards, ect….
I introduced a funny masochist npc which quickly stopped their actions
I had a player who started a tavern brawl, forgot he had spiked gauntlets on, so when they pulled weapons on him, he figured he was in the right to kill them. The party did help him, but tried to only incapacitate people. 2 murders later, a smaller framed town guard shows up to investigate. My friend then drunkenly brags about killing the patrons, telling the guard exactly who in the party was guilty and with no concern bought a room in the same inn. Overnight the scrawny guard showed up with 13 other, burly, well-armed guards and arrested the 2 of them in their sleep. Unable to arm themselves before being entirely surrounded, they surrendered themselves and went to jail. The jail also had an underground tavern for retired vets that had an arena that hosted duels with prisoners for entertainment. The party was split into a group trying to track down and free the other half before they died for others entertainment. I was lucky to have friends who were able to RP with knowledge that their characters didn't have and still make character driven decisions. It was very satisfying to watch my murder hobo friend manifest the consequences of his actions, while the rest of the party raced against time to save him.
I'd start dropping hints that there crimes have become known, then escalate it to either sending lawmen directly after them or bounty hunters, or potentially another group of adventurers who've been given a quest to track down a serial killer. I would also make have the pursuers intend to take them in alive to stand trial, then roleplay the trial in game.
A couple of players in my group once decided they wanted to quit, literally going with a bang, and murdered the entire group (themselves included) while in a pocket dimension.
The culprits became the recurring undead nemesis of the party for the rest of the campaign. I actually got one of the players to come back and play his character again for the final showdown.
When the players first meet up at a tavern, they meet my first character
a 9ft, 1050lbs dragonborn that is absolutely JACKED.
his favorite weapons, an oversized adamantine greataxe, a steel greataxe with a silver edge and a vampiric greataxe, all hang on the walls within arms reach of him behind the bar
a high roll on a perception check will also reveal he has another weapon hidden beneath his apron
across in the middle of the bar is a bear skull covered in high end gold and jewels. easily worth 10k gp in all.
this is a test...and a trap for problem players.
a smart player will look at the entire situation and realize that stealing from that bear skull is not a good idea
a problem player will see the gp value and try to snag something. Queue a greataxe just barely missing his fingers.
they get one warning from the PC turned NPC. As if his massive size wasn't intimidating enough, he's growling as he gives it, and blows a bit of hot smoke in their face for extra emphasis.
the smart problem players will quickly get the hint and back off.
the dumb ones will try something. likely stabbing him.
it will be at this point they realize he is a level 20 retired adventurer
if the entire party gangs up on him, they might learn he is a barbarian when he decides to RAGE.
but no matter what they do...they won't kill him. just not happening. He is a zealot afterall
the ones who die got multiple warnings and I will pull them aside after the session and tell them "consider this new character a second chance. try that again, and and you're gone"
and I mean it
The sad thing is, I just know there was at least one player who went right back with an even *better* plan to steal his weapons/kill him.
So, I will let it happen once in a while. Sometimes, we all need to blow off some steam. If there are witnesses or they keep going, they face the consequences. In a city, that means the town guard has more troops than you have spellslots, and they have special high level teams as well as deputized high level citizens. In a town that obviously doesn't have that, there are bounty hunters. The more they go, the higher the bounty until, borrowing from Firefly, two by two, hands of blue, they come for you. Blue gloved soldiers that always work in even numbered teams. Defeated two, now face four, eight, 16... it continues until overwhelming force grinds the player(s) down and dead or alive they face justice.
I also don't award experience for murder hobo scenes. I award for creative thinking, awesome moves, and good roleplay.
Smart way to show escalating consequences, and also a spine chill for me to read. That silly little rhyme... *shudder*
Personally, I don't. As DM, I can just say "you die" and the player's character is dead from whatever I choose. "Murderhobo" is something that has to be allowed in order to actually happen; if a player wants to risk testing the waters, they may. If they keep in character, the world responds in kind. If they are just being an out-of-character dick for the sake of it, I declare their character dead (usually in a humiliating way) and remove them from the group.
Of course, always discuss with players what the campaign is meant to consist of, and try to talk to players before removing them if there's time, but don't put up with people just trying to ruin your game. You and the rest of the players deserve a fun time, and whoever is murderhoboing doesn't deserve to enjoy themselves at everyone's expense.
Well rack up bodies and you make enemies. The Thieve’s Guild doesn’t like their protection rackets interrupted, Paladins don’t tolerate it, kings don’t like their taxes being destroyed,merchants pay a lot for protection, and Archmages see it as an easy bounty(it is) with some nice magical loot in addition to the reward. Murder-hobbling is extremely dangerous because you are pissing off EVERYONE OF INFLUENCE in the area.
@@sidecharacter7165
Yep. (Though all that depends on the setting. My current party is in a wild magic mega-jungle - think Kashyyyk from Star Wars, but with dinosaurs & almost everything has the Force - and being a murderhobo just means everything thinks you are a dangerous but tasty meal).
Rocks fall, you SPECIFICALLY die. Yes, in the middle of town, the gods just decided “fuck that guy in particular”
@@conwool2609
Probably Zeus.
ruclips.net/video/F4Tfvh7_fYU/видео.htmlsi=bB4qDPU9CJ5DAM6y&t=290
Thats just being a bad Dm ngl and thats not even from a players perspective thats from a for ever dm perspective like just talk to them like a NORMAL FUCKING HUMAN.@@DBArtsCreators
It's usually not too hard to punish a murderhobo in your campaign, if you're willing to confront a player that's being excessive. My usual method of shutting them down is to just have their character thrown in jail for an extended period of time, once they're caught. And if they're a murderhobo, they will get caught sooner, rather than later. It usually results in the player having to sit out most of the session doing nothing. He's free to try a jailbreak or something along those lines, but if he fails that and gets caught, it usually leads to a straight execution and the death of their character.
Sometimes, if it's the same player who just refuses to learn their lesson, I'll just straight up tell them to stop playing that way or find another table that will accommodate their playstyle, because mine won't. This is exceptionally rare, though. In my 22 years of DMing, I've only had to do this twice and one of them eventually learned to be more of a teamplayer and has come back to my table on occasion. People do learn.... sometimes.
You just have to be strict with your repercussions. Give them a warning the first few times and if they persist, start giving them harsh in game penalties, like jailtime or a temporary crippling of their character like having them roughed up in a fight by the guards, which left their body broken and battered in the streets. They will recover in time, if they get the right help, but they're out of commission for a while (IE, no playtime this session, at the very least). That's usually enough of a deterrent. If it's not, then you just kick them from your table and tell them to find one that will allow their way of playing. You just have to be firm.
However if its clear they won't learn regardless of the tables theyre in meaning they deliberately tick off the dms on purpose
Reminded of my friend who said a new player picked a fight with one of the other players former character that had just become a demi-god. That character wanted to blow off some steam since the character's wife had become the godess of thieves and him taking so long just to become a demi-god had made him frustrated. Lets just say that having a former wizard now demi-god who is frustrated by his followers being inherently less religious due to them all being wizards and him looking for ANYTHING to give him a reason to vent does not mix well with the edgy murderhobo suddenly trying to seduce his wife to become his sugar mama.
They say his soul is still being burned by silver fire apparently.
Ever had a GM who played like a murderhobo? I remember my start in tabletop gaming involving a GM who thoroughly enjoyed making the stakes lethal no matter what was happening. At one point, he TPK'd the group after they had rolled up fresh character sheets again, because one of them had said something about a wookie (player character) in their hangar, and apparently an NPC who heard them say it immediately jumped to "Oh cool, I'm enslaving that for personal profit." They all tried to fight back, but they basically got the GTA 6-star treatment at level 1. This GM was proud of his kill count, and the fact that almost everyone who played with him had lost at least one character.
So, obviously, one day I just decided to learn a new tabletop system and run it with the idea being "You're not only likely to survive, but you'll get to enjoy a full adventure." It worked out pretty well before scheduling conflicts started becoming a thing
My go to is a Mr. X style enemy called "Tia". She's an unstoppable wall that has a feature that that heals her if any roll against her fails or does less than 50 damage in an action. You can knock her down, sure, just be ready to fight a stronger version if you decide to keep it up. This repeats until they either a) stop murderhoboing or b) die. Works a treat and adds a great deal of tension for the other players as they are being chased by her. Highly recommended.
Important: Do not put retired high level NPC everywhere. The party will not feel like they saved the village/kingdom/world if there are 20+ people who could have done it
No, exclusively do this. If your characters are weaker than a good sum of the npc’s then it should be a firm reminder that the world does not care for your group and you aren’t the divine chosen heroes decided by fate to defeat the BBEG. What your group should have in abundance is the knowledge and creativity to overcome these challenges to make succeeding feel more rewarding. Most dnd worlds are inherently dangerous. It makes sense that npcs would be powerful enough to match said world. And actually gives more incentive for the group to be engaged with the social aspect of dnd.
@@Chromeberd But what if the group are actually divine chosen heros?
@@TheTSense Like any narrative tool, it comes down to how the DM uses it. I listened to a similar campaign where that was more or less the case (but they dungeon master added a good twist where it turned out that the characters "god" wasn't as Lawful Good as they let on. And that the more powerful the player characters became the more they remembered from their past lives. Which created a lot of self identity drama and interesting conflict in ideology.
10:57
Anna: its so sad that Steve Jobs died of ligma.
Murderhobo: Who the hell is Steve Jobs?
Anna: Ligma Balls *cast Disintegrate*
Murderhobo: *dies*
Murderhobo player: NOOOOOOO!!!!
ruclips.net/video/maAIWplFWUw/видео.htmlsi=6mDBLbmvdMERlNfT
I know this about stories and such... But honestly, most of the time, in game consequences don't work to deal with murder hobos, or any other problem player. The best course of action is to have a discussion before even starting the game. Session zero's are your friends. If they become a problem after agreeing to the pregame stipulations, remind them once of what they agreed to, and if it continues, kick 'em out of the game.
This only works if your players are honest about what they want and don’t lie to you so as not to “disappoint.” Then get passive aggressive and mad when you don’t give them “enough” combat.
I absolutely LOVE the idea of Chester, it's kinda refreshing compared to classics mimic encounters which are just gonna give your players trust issues
I would warn players in session 0, that there are many powerful people out in the world. Messing with random people could end very badly.
If they did manage to start killing minor NPCs, they would start having bounty hunters going after the murder hobo.
Simple. My setting takes place in a harsh, lawless land. Anybody who still has a pulse is either fresh meat who recently arrived, or much more likely a hardened survivor. Heck, even the pulseless can still bite back.
I have a homebrew in development (never got the chance to propose/use it but I REALLY want to) of it set on a continent where you have to close something called the tear, that has destoryed almost all civilization on the continent. Your only true 'safe zone' is sanctuary, an extremely fortified coastal city. That city has 2 main military forces defending it; the Sanctuary guard; your average town guard so not that big of a deal, and the knights of the order of the sun. The Knights are centuries, if not millenia old, have weapons and gear that FAR outstrip the PCs, use magic, and even have special weapons like Combi-weapons or gear with various bits of Steampunk technology like Tesla cores infused into it. These knights are my intended anti-murderhobo mechanism.
I've not gotten to properly DM but I do like to listen to stories like this so I can think and plan ahead on how I'd handle these kinds of situations. I honestly think I'd have a range between killing the offending character to having the world around them change how it responds to the murder hobo. Wanted posters, people not trusting them, alignment shifts, etc. Depends on the person and what I think will get the message across in the most effective way.
In the last story if Anna had been Adam the murderhobo would never have even thought about attacking.
Use a REVENANT Character. Have it be recurring theme in the game until he gets the message or it kills him.
Lorewise, getting the message and changing for the better wouldn't stop the revenant, and revenants only have 1 year to get revenge before they can't anymore, so the player can potentially just survive the revenant and stay the same.
Ohhh! I didn’t know murderhobo was like a term commonly used in dnd. I’m newer and joined a campaign and was a bit confused when they told me about one player who was a murderhobo. This makes so much sense loll
Usually have them get a warning from Tyr (god of justice) and if they ignore it, they fight him
It might be better to just send a champion with his adventuring party or 10 Clerics and Paladins of the order. Look up Knights of the Radiant Heart from BG2 if you want a reference.
I feel like there should be room for an evil route in a campaign, but only if done strategically and if the other players are fine with it, like Undertale's genocide route or Deltarune's weird route, where the victims are spread apart and weak. If it's something ridiculous like killing a random citizen in broad daylight with everyone watching, that's going to end that character's spree early.
Not going to lie, I actually don't stop my players from being murderhobos. Keep in mind, all of us are basically playing DnD just to have fun and mess around. Doesn't mean they are safe from consequences. It just means they have to be careful to not get caught. If you are worried someone might not be having fun, you should watch them plan to figure out how to murder or kidnap someone. The three of them are always figuring out how to cause chaos, because that is what they want and they enjoy the consequences. Remember, if a player is not meant for a group, the same can apply for a DM.
Of course, they always surprise me when they decide to be diplomatic.
12:00
And this is a great way to implement a D&D IQ test in a campaign. lol
I've never had a group like this. If I did, I'd just take the kids gloves off. If they're not going crazy trying to kill everything and are just interacting, then I'm not going to go crazy and try to end their characters. I use measured aggression, push them to the brink, but don't quite kill them. But I could always make it worse. Make it ruthless.
I have a 3 strikes rule, 1st strike is a in game warning, 2nd is out of game, 3rd and final is a massive shadow crocodile deity ripping their arm off via magical (no saving throw) means that make it impossible to replace or regenerate the wound till he makes ammends. The wound carries over to any transformation or polymorph
Does the crocodile have a name?
@@jojogacha974 Fafo the punisher
@@silverknight5569 sick name.
@@jojogacha974 yea it was born after dealing with a murderhobo dwarf for 3 sessions who couldn't take the hint that I didn't approve of murder hobos
For the campaign that I have been working on, I anticipated that this was going to be an issue that could crop up eventually and even made it out as a hidden ending depending on if the players ever go all-out on the world-wide genocide aspect of just killing anything and everything.
There is a warded sanctuary that serves as a fail-safe to reset the realm's time back to a certain point (ie, reset the game) should an undesirable outcome were to occur, all while cataloging desirable outcomes and locking those moments in stasis to compare which one is the more desirable future to harald the world forward. And this compound has a guardian that keeps it operational all the will, a silent watcher of the generations that go about their same repeating patterns, with only the Players having weight in how the events of the world play out.
To the Players that want to "off" a bunch of NPCs, they can take it from the leveled opponents that they can encounter.., although for the truely detestable of world-enders, to find out that the game itself has a built-in protection that will undo everything they did thus far and that if they merely push a bit further, they can forever force a new chapter upon the ever-repeating world... seeking out this location and fighting the vigilant at the helm would be quite tempting.
There is no way this place can be located except for going the "Genocide -> Extreme" route since it'll involve killing off a particular NPC that serves as a DM-NPC version of a Magic Mouth spell that is neither detectable nor targetable except while inside the chamber that character exists in, and having Unusual Nature means eating and sleeping are non-issue. The key is killing this NPC in the chamber for an alternative secret to be revealed there.
Since quests to progress the normal portions of the game are fed automatically via visions at certain level as well as time intervals, the once chance of them not getting access to this NPC to dispose of is if those problem Players do not stick around long enough to play it out. Not to spoil anything further (in case any potential future players of mine read this), facing off against an old character of mine that has had access to anything & everything to prepare for this showdown. Choice multclassing, fully-kitted, stats for days, more than enough info on the intruders while proving none themselves all while homefield advatage will make this battle so one-sided. And *if* they all seem to overcome this opponent, there's only last dirty trick to by-the-book end their adventure.
Is this build really that strong? Not really - I could have done better. That being said, I built this character over the years were it not for the 5e system that is in place to enable myself to conduct trial-&-error to figure out what would be needed to get to this point, yeaaah. Either ways, I have more than sufficient safeguards in place to avoid getting cheesed, I just worry how one-sided against the Players it'll be. They can Antimagic Field, Counterspell and Dispel all they want, high level spells will only come out once their Casters are down anyways and Antimagic Field helps high stat characters as much as harms magical equipment, so it'll tactically even out.
This is an idea I have for one day when I get to DM. Disa Guise, a changeling Assassin Rogue/ Way of the Shadow Monk. Basically, a character I can pull out at any time and, after isolating the murderhobo, take them out. Whether they use seduction or play a victim for a little bit, they will play off of their pride, setting them up as their next target, then will gut them quickly.
That Anna story was amazing xD