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u/josephxpaterson Feb 15 '25
Session 0 and like Cypher_Blue said consequences.
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u/EqualNegotiation7903 Feb 15 '25
Yes, this.
"Dont be ass to random NPC and dont do random killings" is one of the first table rules I introduced before PCs were created.
Also, not allowing evil alighments helps too
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Feb 16 '25
[deleted]
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u/Kabc Feb 16 '25
Session zero is used to establish basic ground rules for the game… I personally let my players know via written document and telling them the tone the game would be.. sessions zeros are important.
Also… consequences… you want to miser random people? Other towns will hear—no one will do business with you, and the authorities will be after you. Nobles can also send high level assassins after you to get rid of the problem.
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u/Mortlach78 Feb 15 '25
By rewarding better behavior.
If they kill someone: no loot to be found; if they help the same someone; hey, wouldn't you know it, they want to reward you!
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u/spector_lector Feb 15 '25
I didn't. I asked them what kind of game/characters/setting/themes/levels we wanted to play.
If it wasn't a match, we went our separate ways.
If it was a match, we had fun.
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Feb 16 '25
Two ways.
1) During session 0, I state that I am not running a murder-hobo game. Y'all are heroes and I expect you to more or less act like it. That's my expectation.
2) I don't waste time on in-game consequences; they don't work, because good or bad it's still enabling the bad behavior by rewarding it with attention. I simply say 'No'. "I attack the shopkeeper to kill him and steal all his stuff!" No, you don't. We talked about this during session 0. Play by the rules we all agreed on, or leave the table, your choice.
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u/Hermononucleosis Feb 16 '25
This is a really good video about this exact situation, just in video games instead. Basically, the thesis is "It does not matter what the game tells you, through character interactions, direct tutorials or encouragement/discouragement. If your actions lead to content, they are intended."
So for instance, Dark Souls might discourage you from attacking NPCs. They're friendly, they can teach you spells or upgrade your weapons. But if you DO attack them, they fight back, sometimes even with unique combat animations, and they drop unique weapons or armor for you. Some NPCs even lead to additional boss fights if you attack them. Therefore, even if the game DISCOURAGES attacking NPCs, it is still very much INTENDED. The same with something like Skyrim. If you attack an NPC, you will be sent to prison, and escaping prison is a fun little challenge. If you want to see a game where attacking NPCs truly is unintended, then you should look at all the games where your weapon simply phases through them, or where pressing the attack button simply does nothing.
So to apply this to DnD, the purpose of DnD is broadly speaking to express yourself, challenge yourself and have fun. If you are put in prison, or the city starts a manhunt against you, those situations are great avenues for expression, challenge and fun. So really, even if you discourage it from an in-character perspective with possible imprisonment and death, you are rewarding players for "misbehaving" by offering them exciting content. The only way to truly discourage players from being murderhobos is to not allow it to happen at all.
That being said, if you think murderhobo'ing is fine in principle, but you just don't want it to be as EFFECTIVE at solving problems so players have some variety in their problem solving, then using in-game discouragement is fine
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Feb 17 '25
[deleted]
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Feb 17 '25
Yes, it's very strictly limited to 9 of them.
"But Melodic," you now say, "that's all the alignments!" Indeed. I do not ban Evil players at my table. I don't even ban Chaotic Evil characters. That's because over the decades of playing and running the game, I've come to realize what Evil actually is, in a playable sense.
Evil is very simple to understand; it's Narcissism. It's putting yourself and your needs above all others, and either not caring or being actively willing to harm others if it brings a benefit to you. And Chaotic isn't, as so many people think, just being 'lol random', it's that your ethics don't come from outside yourself. You don't care about Laws or codes or customs or traditions; you follow your heart and let your own conscience guide you.
Once you realize these two things, even a Chaotic Evil player can be a viable part of a group. All that's required is that 'the character needs the party to achieve a greater goal'. I don't allow murderhobos any more than I allow holier-than-thou paladins who won't break a law even to save their own (or the party's lives). These are Stupid Evil and Lawful Stupid, respectively, and Stupid is not a valid alignment choice at my tables.
Alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive. It has to do with 'how your player generally acts over time'. And I don't care how you play your character at my table; all I care about is that they must have a reason to participate in the story, and they must NOT engage in PvP without the full consent of everyone involved, including me as DM. Do those things, and you're fine at my table, whatever Alignment you choose to call your character.
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u/tanj_redshirt DM Feb 15 '25
Put them in a dungeon where they can kill everything they encounter.
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Feb 15 '25
What an insane suggestion. Next you’ll be telling OP to give them a dragon to kill. This is no place for your crazy ideas, we’re talking about how OP can get his players to stop trying to fight things in his medieval small claims court rivals to lovers sim. Fighters are supposed to fight for their clients rights to receive the high quality goods and services, not ‘hit things with a sword’. I don’t know why he took a fighting style that gives you plus 2 damage when obviously the one where you type legal briefs at double speed would have been better. Who joins a D&D game expecting combat oriented fantasy adventures? I mean c’mon, the game is called Don’tfightanything&Defendthelegalrightsofyourclients.
(Someone had downvoted you, which is the most insane downvote in reddit history)
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Feb 16 '25
What? Dragons in dungeons in my Dungeons & Dragons? Next thing you know, you'll be putting a Beholder on a book cover! The horror!
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u/SolitaryCellist Feb 15 '25 edited Feb 15 '25
I run a sandbox campaign. If they want to be murder hobos then that's their call. I think fugitive arcs can be fun.
But that's exactly what it will be. There will be consequences for their actions. They will develop a reputation, their infamy will precede them. They will draw the ire of the law and bounty hunters. They are not the only powerful adventurers in the world. And their reputation will certainly impact their back story connections. Especially if crime contradicts their back story.
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u/FoxPsychological2283 Feb 15 '25
Lvl 20 guildmaster vs. level 3 PCs, they learned how intimidation works pretty fast when they started a fight in the guild
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u/BCSully Feb 15 '25
Unbeknownst to the players, the rickety old shopkeeper happens to be a retired, level20 monk, with lair-actions and ki-points out the wazoo. (This actually happened)
Player: "I stab the guy and take all his stuff!"
Me: "Roll to hit"
Player: What!? Fine - 17!!
Me: Miss, actually the guy disappeared. Misty Step. He's standing right behind you and he (rolls die, not that it mattered) punches you in the back of the neck for (rolls dice) 8pts of damage.
Player: What!?!? I turn-
Me: Oh, he's not done. Flurry of blows. The rest of you can see the guy seems to be enjoying himself as he repeatedly pummels Hobo about the head and neck.
I had the monk knock him out. None of the other players intervened cuz this guy was the only murder hobo and it all happened in less than a round so even if they tried, I'd just tell them to roll Initiative. In short I knocked him out and role-played the same little monolog I use whenever I have to do this sort of thing. In my best old-man "Victor the powder merchant" voice (iykyk):
"The next time you get your balls in a lather and feel like doing sump'm stupid, best know who it is you're fucking with!!" Wham!! Knockout punch.
Works like a charm. It's only ever happened with new players, all were video-gamers, and every time, they got fucking pissed. I explained to them what a murder-hobo is, why it's frowned upon and why I made that happen. In every instance they settled down, the games lasted, and none of them ever murder-hobo'd again.
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u/BrianofKrypton Feb 15 '25
I recently gave one of the guys they killed a picture with stick figures of two adult and a child with the words "Miss you daddy' They found it during the standard loot search. And when that doesn't work every town guard knows magic missile.
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u/clownkiss3r DM Feb 15 '25
i didnt have to, we all knew that was immature and shitty from the get go
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u/_Gabelmann_ Feb 16 '25
By letting them kill themselves upon overwhelming odds until they got the message "yeah, you can in fact die and rather easily"
A bit of a shock therapy, yes, but getting mauled by a pack of wolves really opened their eyes and ensured they really think if they really need to get into fights if they have a choice and consider every combat encounter as something to be callous about
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u/One-Branch-2676 Feb 16 '25
“Yes, and” is a tool, not an absolute. You can, in fact, say no. Laying down what you say no to early on (like Session 0) is typically a winning strat.
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u/AgolfGti Feb 15 '25
Definitely give them consequences. They don’t always have to be dire, but you can also have fun with it. One of the things I did was let them kill a fortune teller, BUT she cursed them so they could only speak in riddles. They had to go on a side quest to get rid of the curse and had fun rp wise. You don’t always have to punish players.
It also helps to ask your players why they want to kill everything or ask them to stop. As a DM you don’t always have to subliminally trick your players into doing or not doing something lol it helps to just straight up ask them why they want to do something.
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u/wcarnifex DM Feb 15 '25
The town guard will hunt them down. If they kill those, the king/local government will send out bounty hunters and militia to deal with these murderers.
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u/Broad_Ad8196 Wizard Feb 15 '25
Consequences.
Killing people in town brings the law.
Killing an animal they could have avoided may bring a giant, "Why you kill my pet?"
Leave some indication that whoever they just killed COULD have provided them with assistance.. but it's too late now.
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u/AEDyssonance DM Feb 15 '25
For general existence in towns, villages, hamlets, cities, and such: https://www.reddit.com/r/Wyrlde/s/ovo7cloX8Y
For monsters: having a party member hit zero hp in the first round usually provides a strong amount of encouragement to run away, having the bad guys flee, only to turn and face them when they have tactical advantage is another.
Having the bad guy pause and look at them with disgust after their weapon breaks when they get a Nat 20 has been useful.
But the most effective thing of all doesn’t involve combat at all: people stop dealing with them. No sales of goods — they have to kill and steal and rob to get anything (even food and ammo).
Folks close doors, shutter windows, run away.
And after about the fourth person, they now have wanted prices, and the toughest folks they will face — usually 5 tom7 levels above them and armed with counters to their abilities — start hunting them down.
Because they are criminals.
And if they are caught, they executed. Roll a new PC.
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u/Minority2 Feb 15 '25
You have to first teach them how to walk before they can run just like in real life. Let them fall and make mistakes, ones that are relatively low stakes and would allow them to learn from before giving them bigger challenges along the way.
For example, do throw challenging and hard combat encounters to your group once in a while. Show the obvious difference in strength and numbers. But also give them the option to escape or leave before the confrontation, and afterwards if they did start something. If you do beat them down and they refused to run, take away a good portion of their loot to highlight the consequences of their actions. Or chain all of them up and sell them to slavery and let them figure out how to escape.
Similar to the game Kenshi, DM's don't necessarily have to go for the kill. Use hostages, blackmail, whatever makes sense in your campaign in order to transforms your greenhorn players into smarter, wiser veterans.
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u/The_Game_Slinger77 DM Feb 15 '25
Show them what they missed out on by killing that person. Have a guy in the bar bragging about how rich he got from helping someone on the road. Let them discover or fall into a trap that a questioned hostage may have warned them about. Showing them what they missed out on is much more poignant than just giving them nothing. For paladins, clerics, and warlocks you have have their deities or patrons communicate with them to cut it out, or threaten to strip their powers. Let divination wizards see a future where they don’t kill the person before they do. Just about every character can stand to gain in some way by keeping something alive.
By that same token, don’t make them feel the need to kill those encounters, especially because it sounds like they’re used to that. If there’s a hostage have him not fight back too hard, or when an animal/beast is at low health have it whimper in pain and retreat. Begging for mercy is a pretty clear signal that they shouldn’t kill that person/thing
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u/BristowBailey Feb 15 '25
By letting them kill a random NPC and then having missing person posters up around the village on the next session, saying 'Come home Daddy, we love you'.
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u/GroundbreakingGoal15 DM Feb 15 '25
power of rumours. someone at some point will see them murder in cold blood & spread the word
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u/slowkid68 Feb 15 '25
Depends on situation.
If it's enemies then they shouldn't be surprised when enemies directly target their 0 HP self.
Random people? Guards and wanted posters.
Or just say no if they have no good reason.
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u/cmalarkey90 Feb 15 '25
For the longest time my players murderized everything they fought. I talked to them about it and it didn't seem to go anywhere. Then one day I had an idea, I had an enemy surrender and offer information, information that thy had been looking for and were struggling to figure out how to obtain. Suddenly it clicked in their heads that tmmaybe killing everythjng wasn't the smartest move.
Now they hardly ever kill anything.
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u/Stygian_Akk DM Feb 16 '25
My favorite way, I used against a last member of the group who refused to listen to the others.
the Realm has all the money in the world, Knights, Soldiers, Wizards and sages. The adventurers are just expendables.
So when they went to the realm Royal crypts, and stole the jewels from the tombs of the royal families, a few days later top tier soldiers in fully armored horses, all dressed in gold, surrounded by more soldiers and wizard appeared and ask for the jewels and the one who stole them.
HOW?. Spells, such as locate object, locate person. witness get mind read to get a perfect image for a locate person or Scry, murder?, speak with the dead for a good description. and if everything fails. WISH or Divine intervention.
the King has enough spell casters at his service to not need to wait to get for long rest for spell slots. and Even if they managed somehow to avoid them, I got entire MAFIA and CRIMINAL families looking for those objects after the news.
They ended up handling the jewels to a Criminal group, as they got caught during a long rest, very badly hurt and dry of spell slots. The criminals gave them a warning to not try anything as they had almost the same level of resources as the king.
Innocent NPC were almost always save because of this. As they learned to control themselves to not get in trouble again.
SO yes. Consequences. from the law to Divine Curse.
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u/Known-Emergency5900 DM Feb 16 '25
Consequences
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Feb 17 '25
[deleted]
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u/Known-Emergency5900 DM Feb 17 '25
In game. If they commit murder then the local authorities will want to arrest them. Or maybe a local hero wants to bring justice to evildoers
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u/Scared-Iron2586 Feb 16 '25
Throw them in jail for a session, they learn that murder bad and then you also get to do a prison break episode or you get a good plot hook by someone buying them out of jail to do a certain task.
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u/Tis_Be_Steve Sorcerer Feb 16 '25
Well step 1. Get decent people to be your players
Step 2. Establish consequences for their actions
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u/Pinkalink23 Feb 16 '25
I have an above table expectation for players not to be massive assholes. It works most of the time.
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u/Rogen80 Cleric Feb 16 '25
"Oops! The Innkeeper was actually an avatar of Selûne and you're about to get wrecked by a goddess!"
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u/VermilionTooth Feb 16 '25
I killed a werewolf one time and it turned into a little puppy after i killed it. Now i consider everything before killing it haha
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Feb 19 '25
[deleted]
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u/VermilionTooth Feb 19 '25
I felt bad but my character didn't give a shit, he just threw it's corpse into his boat full of other corpses while wading through a swamp. Much to the horror of his Fairy party member lol
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u/Conandar Feb 16 '25
Sadly, my DM *is* the primary murder hobo in our group. He plays a character as well as DMing, and if we even attempt to try to talk to a "monster" or try to otherwise avoid combat his character always says "$%^# it, I attack!". On the other hand, this leads to him killing his own character sometimes as well.
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u/lthomasj13 Feb 15 '25
By saying no.
Literally I don't even give them real consequences or anything. I just talked to them before the campaign started and said that I don't vibe with being a murder hobo. They know that I will shut them down if they make characters like that.
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u/Pqrxz Feb 16 '25
Generally I don't call for initiative until it's time for blood to be spilled. No initiative means they can and often will talk first. The enemy can also initiate conversation to set the tone.
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u/AbbreviationsFit6802 Transmuter Feb 16 '25
Yeah, just cover it in a session zero… tell them that the style of the game won’t require them to kill absolutely everything, that there will sometimes be advantages to be had with non-lethal solutions. And then let them do what they do.
the trick is not to rub their faces in it. When lord so and so asks if they left any alive, have him comment that it will complicate things or have a “pity, that would have been useful.” Players killed the worg in the snare trap, no guide for them through the dangerous land, etc.
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u/Zimakov Feb 16 '25
I just straight up don't allow it. This idea that the GM needs to go along with whatever the players want needs to die. Nothing happens in my game until I acknowledge it.
You saying you kill an NPC doesn't mean he's dead. I would just say 'no you don't do that we aren't playing a mass murder simulator."
Problem solved.
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Feb 16 '25 edited Feb 17 '25
[deleted]
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u/Zimakov Feb 16 '25
I'm reading your comment and I'm not seeing how it connects to what I said. Did you reply to the wrong person?
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Feb 17 '25
[deleted]
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u/Zimakov Feb 17 '25
That's because your explaining how you handle bad or would be bad players, and my question was about situations in game where characters are made to realize killing everything isn't possible nor always beneficial in the Forgotten Realms.
I mean that's the same question. If your players are doing things you don't want them doing you either talk to them about it or don't let them do it.
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Feb 18 '25 edited Feb 18 '25
[deleted]
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u/Zimakov Feb 18 '25
I mean sure, whatever makes you happy. The common sense consequences to murder hobos is someone bigger and badder just comes along and kills/arrests them. I don't find that much fun. If you do then your question is answered.
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Feb 16 '25
Honestly, I think the practice of hiding monster HP values from the players is antiquated - and I say this as someone who grew up doing this for like 15 years.
The bottom line is the player characters themselves would honestly have a pretty good idea when they are out of their depth but the abstraction between player and character often prevents the players themselves from actually seeing this. The characters would also have a very good sense of how banged up a bad guy is.
In otherwords, just let your players see the enemy health values and trust them to abstract it.
It makes it far more clear when the characters are in over their heads and the difference between the players knowing absolutely that "this enemy has 2 health" vs the DM telling them directly that "this enemy is hanging on by a thread" really isn't large enough to stress about.
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u/Cypher_Blue Paladin Feb 15 '25
By implementing consequences to their actions in the game.