Player Types: Power Gamers and Murder Hobos

Greetings all, welcome to the start of a series on the different types of players in TTRPGs.
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[@seannemo8076]

As a player who "power-games" (I love min-maxing), I am always conscious of ensuring that my character _is_ a specialist. My characters are good at what they do, but just as importantly, are willing to lean on other characters in areas that they aren't good at, even if it's with an arrogant "isn't that _your_ job?" As an example, one of my favorite 'combos' is a wizard with a level-drop into cleric. This means that they can wear armor and doesn't overly impact their spellcasting, but rather _enhances_ it with a handful of low-level cleric spells. The limitations are that this is a combat-mage build, designed to get into the fight and inflict damage. Their spells are rarely support or non-combat, and I ensure that I don't take over the healer's role (unless we don't have one). And being a squishy wizard, they can't dive into melee, but must used ranged spells as a rule. The armor simply makes it harder to hit them _if_ the enemy gets in close, increasing survivability, and I usually have Inflict Wounds on my cleric spell list to make them regret it. But if they were to get swarmed... They're gonna need the tanks and DPS to back them up and fast. It's also important to be aware of this in non-combat encounters as well. If I'm playing a noble, then _that's_ their expertise... But they're going to have some issues dealing with commoners, regardless of their Charisma, simply because its not in their wheelhouse. At the end of of the day, it's just as important for the players to be aware of how their characters mesh with the party. These games are *cooperative* games. As such we must _all_ cooperate.

[@harpernerys7345]

All well put. I also enjoy playing a specialist, especially when it comes to skills in 5e. Half-elves, Rogues, Knowledge Clerics, Warlocks. I've often been tempted back into a specific archetype; that character who lacks most worldly skills because they spent their youth in a monastery or collecting books, you are reliant on the party for most things that come up in an adventuring lifestyle. This can present a counter to the adventuring mindset and encourage reacting to things like a person, likewise the inexperienced character will be forced to adapt to the lifestyle. It's a beautiful dialectical practice in character development every time. On the Wizard/Cleric note, I've been thinking to play a member of a cult of voluntarily possession, binding demons within themselves until the right cosmic alignment for a proper banishment. I thought it'd be interesting to initially forgo any offensive spells, after all how can you be expected to resist the corruption of Evil if you can kill with your mind? While the character's personality and the inspirations from Arabic mysticism & Kabbalah led me to choose Wizard as the class, the cult is an explicitly religious one emulating a Lawful Good hero-god. I've found taking the Magic Initiate feat to grab Sanctuary off the Cleric list is irresistible. Weakness and restrictions based in a character's psychology & physiology, rather than those imposed by D&D's iconic archetypes are what most often creates the most interesting moments of drama with and reliance on, the other players.

[@pubcle]

I love designing out & optimizing a list of elements for a goal, but I typically optimize for some strange idea that I have which isn't at all meta. I just have one idea in mind I want to execute the best. When my group switched over to D&D for my friend's game (I'm the usual GM & I mostly play other systems, not a big fan of 5e. Designing one myself right now though so everything is on pause while I sort that out) I optimized for role play, character's a military officer with a mind for maps & strategy, ranged support focused battle master with keen mind as the variant human feat.

[@ERBanmech]

I know as a power gamer that I just love pushing the theory of what can be done in a game, not in a test RP boundaries but mechanical ones. I have a rogue / cleric multiclass that has a 28 passive perception and it’s entirely designed to allow him to be this detective-style character who can just see things, our DM turned that singular powerful skill into a means to push the story instead of bypass the story. So in my head I want to do exactly that, allow their skills to enable new scenarios instead of make light work of existing ones.

[@AussieGriffin]

Most of this is solved in a Session 0. Looking at the vibe / theme of the game you want to run vs. the kind of game the players want to play in. If you can't find a match, then tell ém to keep walking. A.G.

[@Armystrong996]

I replace treser items in chest with assassin's that only target my power players.

[@vicnedel02]

I tackled this problem by switching to a system that doesn't have countless videos and reddit threads that teach noobs how to min-max and a genre that focuses on anything but combat. Call of Cthulhu is not designed for action. Good luck finding an "optimized build" for the Alien RPG. Oh, you don't wanna play min-maxxer? Damn. Such a shame to lose you.

[@rickeymariu1]

That's very true, Mork Borg doesn't have this problem either.

[@Tony-nt5zd]

A lot of what gets called murder hobo these days is also a byproduct of liking a style of play that was more popular in the past than it is now: some folks, myself included, just really like the parts of fantasy RPGs that take place in the dungeon. I like managing my light sources, camping supplies, rations, and other resources against the time, hazards, and environment of the dungeon. I like having to stop and think about whether a room might have a lurking ambush predator in it, I like when the game is about sneaking up to see if the monsters in this room seem like a threat or if we could take them out with minimal risk, and I like dealing with traps, mazes, and other things you can find while traversing the ruins of some insane wizard's laboratory or ancient city-turned-tomb. I don't really care for character dramas and schemes and intrigue. Usually between media literacy and a life of having to manually study social queues I can sus out the guy who's secretly evil or has some other secret anyway, and I know the GM and the other players aren't going to enjoy their plot twists if I go "oh hey Rudolphus is definitely plotting something, see X Y and Z reasons why" and ruin the reveal. Since I do a lot more GMing than playing these days I've got a few things I know can keep the murder hobo happy while letting more social players get their kicks in where I create the opportunity for them: mainly, these people want to feel useful and accomplished by doing something that is more in line with the subculture of "professional dungeon delver" that a more civilized/domesticated person would never think of or would assume wouldn't work. Murder hobo types tend to want to feel unacceptable or unconventional by normal standards but skilled in the lifestyle they chose in a way that makes them valuable. More destructive or counter-productive behavior like robbing storefronts or bullying friendly NPCs tends to be an expression of feeling like the fantasy of being a dangerous, uncouth outsider isn't being met. You can feed this in a lot of ways. Maybe the NPC your players want to talk to has a bodyguard who needs to be kept busy, so you set it up where the murder hobo can get their attention and intimidate them into breaking their focus. Maybe your group will need a distraction at the fancy get-together and sending their foul-mouthed ruffian friend to go goad the young military commanders into starting a fistfight is just what can buy you some time; just remind them that it'll be a lot easier and cheaper to bail them out for punching someone than it will be for putting a knife in a nobleman's ribcage. Maybe you give your party a need to get somewhere unannounced, and while the murder hobo might not be a great person to be seen on the premises, they remember seeing the exit of a sewer system directly underneath where they need to go and can be the one who gets their team in and out without having to deal with checkpoints and guard patrols. Things like that can make it feel like your role pays off, and that satisfaction helps a lot.

[@gimnagray8522]

I dealt with a DM that had a game that was almost instant death and impossible to kill all the enemies in encounters. I came up every time with counters, and he came up with bs to stop me. As a gm my self and its no fun. But the power gamer groups are fun. I have one now. Who came up with an evil set to put the combos on the entire game day? Lol. An they almost killed them selfs. Took a mountain down on a great worm

[@ixildentertainment8972]

wow nice dice i had to rewatch the dice throw at the start 3 times to admire them

[@Eruidraith]

Many annoying behaviors in gaming of all types can be good when redirected into social ends. Power gamers have driven me nuts, but power gamers also helped me build my first character so she could be as cool as I wanted and also, like, function as an actual character. It can be really fun to have someone who is really fixated on making number go high sharing their knowledge with others open-endedly--even to the DM. I have a power gamer right now who does exactly this and clowns my encounters often. But he's also a resource for us, helping with builds and rules--and sometimes as a person I can pick for ideas for nasty stuff to use when designing new bad guys. Working with him rather than against him has been so much more fun--he gets to clown me in new ways when I find a way to circumvent his previous innovation, the party has more cool wild abilities they wouldn't have considered before, I get to let go of balance a bit because its all rocket ball. It can be a lot of fun.

[@jeffreybond9327]

One of the good things about DnD 5e is that your character will always have crippling weaknesses no matter how much you minmax them. Both in and out of combat. Even if you max AC...Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, and Cha saves will completely bypass your defense, putting you on an equal level with everyone else. And every build will have at least 2 vulnerable saves. The only issue is that it takes a DM actually engaging with that system in order to keep things balanced. If a DM ignores saving throws and just has every enemy using attack rolls, then you will easily see imbalance between characters that have maximized AC and those that didn't. But when an enemy with Dex saves rolls in, suddenly everyone is on the same playing field. Same thing goes for skills. One person can't be a master of all skills. But it actually takes a DM working in multiple skills fort this to actually matter.