this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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It's called teaching a lesson. Murder hobos do not respect the game. By giving them this encounter, they will get down from their high horses learning that sometimes things are not what they look like and they should be more careful and smart about what they're doing.
That's not the lesson they'll learn. The problem is that they don't care about the game as a living story, but as a game they can win through violence. Using this encounter will just tell them that the DM can cheat to win.
To quote the show Sharpe: "Flogging teaches a soldier only one lesson. How to turn his back."
The dm can cheat to win yes. That is also the lesson. Which means trying to beat the game is a hopeless goal. And if you think this is the game, you're gravely mistaken.
The comparison to flogging is simply dumb. It's completely irrelevant.
Now you can be a dumb player and refuse to learn anything from this encounter. It can spark a discussion then.
That's better communicated through... communication.
I don't know about you, but if I were playing a game to win and my "opponent" reveals that they can just cheat and instakill me whenever they feel like, I'm more likely to just stop playing the game than to try to play it for fun. Even if I did try to play it for fun, it would be hard to really enjoy it when I know that any encounter can just be a big middle finger.
If you don't explicitly tell people what they're doing wrong and how to fix it, it's unlikely that they'll figure it out on their own.
???
when is the DM an opponent?
Ok, 3 things.
First, who ever said that this encounter was ever meant to end in a tpk? Not me. Not anyone I read mentioning this encounter. Bahamut is a benevolent god, not a moronic asshole like murder hobos.
Second, murder hobos are not playing to win, they're playing moronic assholes in a power fantasy. But anyway, both murder hobo and playing to win make problem players.
Third and finally, this encounter is a narrative tool that can take a campaign back on track. A discussion alone doesn't have this power, because the characters changing their behaviour suddenly would break the story.
Whether it ends in a TPK isn't relevant. If you're playing capture the flag and your opponent reveals they can just teleport your flag to their base it'll have roughly the same effect. If the GM can just say "you lose now" it'll seriously demotivate anyone who is trying to enjoy the game, for whatever reason.
Overall, the difference between having an in-character "please stop being murderhobos" moment and having an out-of-character "please stop being murderhobos" moment comes down to how likely it is for the players to take the message to heart. If it's just some dude that's telling them to stop being murderhobos and is an unwinnable fight if the players refuse, that sets a distinctly different tone than the GM pausing things for a moment to explain the current situation to the players.
Both can work, but keeping it as a narrative element has a higher chance of failure, since it's possible the players could interpret this as just another NPC encounter instead of the GM's thinly veiled wishes for the future of the table.
Overall, the only people who care about the story are the people at the table, and having a moment of jarring change in the characters to set the narrative back on track is fine. You'd probably want to do something like that anyway to paper over the past behavior, otherwise the players could listen to you and be understanding of what you want, and still get punished for the stuff they've already done.
You should really try to understand what game you're playing. Ttrpg are not competitive games, so your comparisons with competitive games are missing the point entirely.
I'll state bluntly : if you consider the game as a competitive game, you are a problem player.
It is a good thing to show the players that the game is not a competition because as a dm you are the one to decide how hard it will be.
The game cannot be competitive. Do you get that?
It's just an analogy. Here; let me try one more time.
If you're playing a horde shooter and your friend reveals they can just spawn a boss on top of you at any time, it kind of kills your desire to keep playing - at least with them.
No offense, but you seem overly fixated on all the wrong things.
Lol how long will you reference games that have nothing to do with ttrpg? And then I would be the one focusing on the wrong thing?
Do you understand that the dm is fundamentally unable to cheat?
Do you understand that the dm can make things difficult just as much as he can make them easy?
Do you really expect that the player should never face anything they can't murder?
I'll drop the analogies since they're clearly confusing you.
You also seem to have lost the plot here. We're talking about the proper way to address a table of murderhobos and bring them back in line.
Sure, throwing an unwinnable encounter at your players to punish them for their behavior is potentially a way to do that - but in my experience it's more likely to foster an adversarial relationship between the players and the DM. Even if the players get the message it's possible that they might interpret it as "play my way or else".
If your players are all murderhoboing, there's clearly a disconnect in your expectations for the table. The best way to address these kinds of disconnects is through open communication. If you pause things to make it clear that people aren't playing in the way you'd prefer, you can have a genuine discussion about how to roleplay that can take as long as it needs to. You can come to compromises or draw attention to things much easier than if you just throw an unwinnable scenario at them to humble them. If your players are all murderhoboing and all want to murderhobo, maybe you're the odd one out and you need to change your expectations. Or find a new table. But you won't know for sure until you have that discussion on a level that a super-NPC can't get you.
Clearly we don't play the same kind of game. In my game, murder hobos are putting themselves at risk of death. And the old man and his canary is actually a safe encounter to through at them. Because the of the character itself, and because of the difference of power.
Again, you're missing the point of what is taught. You're hell bent on the unfairness and people acting like children. I play with adults. Setting the tone of the game is important to do in game.
This encounter is not a punishment. It is a lesson and a demonstration and an opportunity. It shows how big the game can become. It shows the kind of enemies they can make. It shows that the story can go any way they like, but they should not be stupid about it.
The problem with murder hobo is not that they are evil. It is that they are stupid. Stupidity should be a fatal mistake for the game stay interesting.