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Old 02-09-2020, 08:31 AM   #21
Donny Brook
 
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Default Re: Murderiest Hobo?

I see a few potential subcategories emerging.

In my case:

-murder-hoboes:
--my D&D party poured a full-size barrel of lamp oil down each of three entrances to a mountain orc habitation and lit the place up. Body count probably 500-1000

-murder-hoboes in space (old Traveller imperial fringe)
--est. hundreds killed in person using handguns, grenades, etc. in bank robberies and escapes (Character A, a barbarian)
--est. 2000-3000 in star ship combat (Character B, a corsair captain)
--unknown millions-billions of aliens killed unintentionally by igniting a planetary atmosphere (Character C, a retired naval intel officer)

-non-murder hoboes:
--de facto designated marksman for post-apocalypse squad, c. 60.

Last edited by Donny Brook; 02-10-2020 at 06:53 AM. Reason: reviewed notes, found more accurate numbers
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Old 02-09-2020, 08:53 AM   #22
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Hmm... not a Murder Hobo in the classic sense, but the political fallout of a character:

1. - uniting five 'GURPS Russia' horse tribes in the opinion that the opposing would-be warlord lacked the qualifications to lead as he could not ride Grandfather Horse (not being either The Kurgan or his granddaughter, or a maiden girl),
2. - that his horse was clearly not the huge horse the character was riding, and
3. - he had failed to gain the Five Favours that the Kurgan's sons (the original heads of the horse tribes) had also failed to gain, which the character had gained...
led to -
4. - all who would follow him being led off to fight the Empire of Shou without the rest of us.

So, by careful attention to myth and history, good preparation and use of the gift of the gab resulted in an army of horse barbarians, not to mention their victims, being killed in the process of maintaining peace and good relations with the city of Nevatekrun and the surrounding peoples.

I just hope the Empire of Shou is a divided as we hear, and that the paperwork gets lost or something. ;(
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Old 02-09-2020, 10:32 AM   #23
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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post


Certainly, prior to modern forensics, an intelligent, capable, sane, functioning person who killed people without any personal connection or apparent motive could get away with quite a lot. Most real murderers are impulsive and are immediately the most obvious suspects, even when they don't confess right off (which many do).
Some hitmen from the old Murder Inc. outfit claimed upwards of 500 kills, though obviously that's hard to verify.
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Old 02-09-2020, 04:15 PM   #24
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sgtcallistan View Post
Hmm... not a Murder Hobo in the classic sense, but the political fallout of a character:

1. - uniting five 'GURPS Russia' horse tribes in the opinion that the opposing would-be warlord lacked the qualifications to lead as he could not ride Grandfather Horse (not being either The Kurgan or his granddaughter, or a maiden girl),
2. - that his horse was clearly not the huge horse the character was riding, and
3. - he had failed to gain the Five Favours that the Kurgan's sons (the original heads of the horse tribes) had also failed to gain, which the character had gained...
led to -
4. - all who would follow him being led off to fight the Empire of Shou without the rest of us.
All who would follow the opposing would-be warlord were led off to fight the Shou, and the Character persuaded "the rest of us" to stay on the steppe? Or all who would follow the Character were led off to fight the Shou, and the "the rest of us", unpersuaded, stayed on the steppe?


This reminds me of one of my RuneQuest characters, Hermod the Silent. As an eighteen-year-old he contributed to persuading his Sartarite tribe to rebel against the Lunars and ambush and annihilate a provincial legion. Then he got called away on an adventure by some NPC having had a vision. When he got home there was nothing left: the Empire had sent a heartland legion on a punitive expedition, and the whole tribe had been killed or led off into slavery. Hermod conceived a grudge against the lunars, their empire, their religion, and their gods which nothing ever happened to diminish. About nine years later he was on the verge of becoming and extraordinarily dangerous and misolunar Sword of Humakt, but the GM terminated the campaign. I do not count him as having killed all the people that somebody else killed for doing what he persuaded them to do.
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Last edited by Agemegos; 02-09-2020 at 04:22 PM.
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Old 02-09-2020, 04:31 PM   #25
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Originally Posted by Donny Brook View Post
Okay, so not all PCs are murder hoboes, but nevertheless, what is the highest body-count for any character you've played? What system, and what's their story?
I had a character smoking hole a planet, killing millions. But that was due to a series of bad fumbles.

Up close and personal? probably my middle school D&D characters.

Most enjoyable? my current goblin killing psychopathic river hobbit. He's found his way to Rivendell, and (mildly) impressed Elrond. Enough to have him as a patron... Kill count? only 10 goblins and 2 wargs, a spider, and a marshman. And participated in killing another 20 goblisn, 2 more wargs, and another spider. Argil Goblincutter, of the North Lorien Plain. (The plain just north of the Lorien Forest, west of the Anduin, east of the mountains.)
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Old 02-10-2020, 07:54 AM   #26
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
All who would follow the opposing would-be warlord were led off to fight the Shou, and the Character persuaded "the rest of us" to stay on the steppe? Or all who would follow the Character were led off to fight the Shou, and the "the rest of us", unpersuaded, stayed on the steppe?


This reminds me of one of my RuneQuest characters, Hermod the Silent. As an eighteen-year-old he contributed to persuading his Sartarite tribe to rebel against the Lunars and ambush and annihilate a provincial legion. Then he got called away on an adventure by some NPC having had a vision. When he got home there was nothing left: the Empire had sent a heartland legion on a punitive expedition, and the whole tribe had been killed or led off into slavery. Hermod conceived a grudge against the lunars, their empire, their religion, and their gods which nothing ever happened to diminish. About nine years later he was on the verge of becoming and extraordinarily dangerous and misolunar Sword of Humakt, but the GM terminated the campaign. I do not count him as having killed all the people that somebody else killed for doing what he persuaded them to do.
Did not need to persuade them to stay on the steppe; the warlord was an exile, a cuckolder of his brother-and-Khan's wife (who loved them both, a shame), and his advisor was a stranger (and probably one of the 'Big Bad's of the game world: the Black Dogs).

At the centre, this was a case of a city being resisted by a barbarian warlord, who had a genuine grievance against the city, once being enslaved there, and his advisor being an opportunist who mis-read the value of a library.
The war-lord had a point, and would have been the hero in another campaign from his point of view.
We tried to say that the problem of slavery was being solved and he could do something else than lead his followers against an empire; we even let him know what we knew of the empire of Shou- but his personal grievance was too great.
He's probably reduced the horse tribe's ability to fight as well, being an unaligned mercenary leader.
If he'd proposed marriage, or believed me when I said he was richer than anyone in the Empire, or... but no.
Is my character responsible for all the present and future deaths?
She feels she is, but will not choose someone else's destiny for them, even if it leaves the tribes poorer for it.
It was a tough one, I had a 'helmet fire' during these 'simple' negotiations. Ouch.
I think it was probably the best likely result, though.

Last edited by sgtcallistan; 02-10-2020 at 08:03 AM. Reason: Unclear bits
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Old 02-11-2020, 06:46 PM   #27
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I don't think I've personally killed more than three people with any given character. Or even three creatures. Probably the closest I've come to is (ironically) with my character that avoids killing; In one situation, she gave someone ATR and ETS to help survive through a dark area, but instead he used it to kill everyone there. In another she increased the mana level of a large area (hamlet-sized?) to help herself stop an army, but the high mana actually helped the magical races she was trying to protect and they unleashed massive power, killing half the army (roughly 2k people?).

Among my players, one character might have pulled the nuke option once or twice, but personally killed would definitely go to the longest run character since I've been roleplaying. Before 4th edition, I was working on my own system (I had a lot of issues with 3rd edition) and on my character sheet I had a spot for 'kills' because that party of players liked to keep track. This character I think hit 2k before no longer keeping track, and definitely went well over that after.
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Old 02-11-2020, 06:50 PM   #28
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sgtcallistan View Post
Did not need to persuade them to stay on the steppe; the warlord was an exile, a cuckolder of his brother-and-Khan's wife (who loved them both, a shame), and his advisor was a stranger (and probably one of the 'Big Bad's of the game world: the Black Dogs).

At the centre, this was a case of a city being resisted by a barbarian warlord, who had a genuine grievance against the city, once being enslaved there, and his advisor being an opportunist who mis-read the value of a library.
The war-lord had a point, and would have been the hero in another campaign from his point of view.
We tried to say that the problem of slavery was being solved and he could do something else than lead his followers against an empire; we even let him know what we knew of the empire of Shou- but his personal grievance was too great.
He's probably reduced the horse tribe's ability to fight as well, being an unaligned mercenary leader.
If he'd proposed marriage, or believed me when I said he was richer than anyone in the Empire, or... but no.
Is my character responsible for all the present and future deaths?
She feels she is, but will not choose someone else's destiny for them, even if it leaves the tribes poorer for it.
It was a tough one, I had a 'helmet fire' during these 'simple' negotiations. Ouch.
I think it was probably the best likely result, though.
"He" is ambiguous. Who led the invasion of the Shou? Did the "would-be warlord" lead the invasion of the Shou? Did "the Character" lead the invasion of the Shou?
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Last edited by Agemegos; 02-11-2020 at 11:13 PM.
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Old 02-11-2020, 11:08 PM   #29
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Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post

This reminds me of one of my RuneQuest characters, Hermod the Silent. As an eighteen-year-old he contributed to persuading his Sartarite tribe to rebel against the Lunars and ambush and annihilate a provincial legion. Then he got called away on an adventure by some NPC having had a vision. When he got home there was nothing left: the Empire had sent a heartland legion on a punitive expedition, and the whole tribe had been killed or led off into slavery.
What's that? Realistic political consequences in an RPG? <faints> :lol: Was Max Weber the GM?
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Old 02-11-2020, 11:19 PM   #30
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What's that? Realistic political consequences in an RPG? <faints> :lol: Was Max Weber the GM?
No, but now that you mention it I realise that the GM was rather inclined to talk about Weber.
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