murderhobo

English

Alternative forms

• murder hobo
• murder-hobo

Etymology

A clipping and compounding of earlier murderous hobo. It stems from early Usenet discussions observing that Dungeons and Dragons primarily supports a play style in which all of the characters are unattached to communities and solve all of their problems by killing. In contrast would be role-playing games in which skill used to resolve issues is a central focus and working to develop your castle or clan or temple roots the players in a community.

Noun

murderhobo (plural murderhobos or murderhoboes)

1. (roleplaying games, derogatory slang) A player character who wanders the gameworld, unattached to any community, indiscriminately killing and looting.
   • 2014 November 17, Alex Augunas, "Guidance – GMing 101: Murder Hobos" on Know Direction:

     In a nutshell, being a “murder hobo” refers to the idea that in many games, the players are nameless heroes who sort of just wander around killing everything they see... For some games, like Legend of Zelda, being a murder hobo isn’t all that bad... this is a major point that people who cry foul on “Murder Hobos” often ignore: the archetypical “hero’s journey” story requires the hero to be homeless in the sense that the character can’t return home until after the story is completed.

Verb

murderhobo (third-person singular simple present murderhobos, present participle murderhoboing, simple past and past participle murderhoboed)

1. (roleplaying games, derogatory slang) To act like a murderhobo: to wander a gameworld indiscriminately killing and looting.

See also

• hack-and-slash