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Murder Hobo
In Starfield, I roleplay exclusively as a murder hobo. Oddly enough, Wikipedia has an entry on that:
murderhobo (plural murderhobos or murderhoboes)
- (roleplaying games, derogatory or humorous) A character who wanders the gameworld, unattached to any community, indiscriminately killing and looting.
I was reflecting on this the other day. I found myself on a planet and inexplicably, irrationally, exploring. Everything is procedurally generated, there is zero environmental storytelling, and the payout for fully scanning a planet is not even remotely worth your time. But… I do it occasionally. So there I was, walking towards a Point of Interest, and then a ship landed nearby. These are technically a random encounter, but the ships often leave the area stupidly quickly, making you wonder why Bethesda bothered programming them in.
So, I zip over there fast as I can, expecting some pirate action. Instead, they were neutral NPCs. I talk to them, they say they are low on supplies, and ask for some water. I give it to them. Then I check out their ship. Lockpick my way past the hatch, empty their cargo hold of cash and valuables, and then… look at the captain chair. Then I sit in the captain chair and blast off into space. A few menu screens later, I land the ship in New Atlantis, register it, sell it, and then fast travel back to the planet I was exploring originally.
In the abstract, I think this sequence was literally the most psychopathic thing I have ever done in a (non-Rimworld) videogame. This small group of people landed on an uncharted planet, desperate for supplies. A random passerby graciously gave them water. Then, moments later, they had to watch as their only means of survival is stolen out from under them. They are literally stranded on a desolate planet with no breathable atmosphere, no shelter, no hope.
Also, no consequences.
Now, obviously that is the problem here. I do not usually murder hobo my way through Baldur’s Gate 3, or Cyberpunk 2077, or Mass Effect, or really most other games. I was thinking about that though: why don’t I? What is enough of a consequence to augment my behavior? Some kind of automatic karma penalty like in Fallout? That often led to some arguably more murder hobo-ish behavior insofar that stealing from “bad guy” was apparently worse than just killing him and taking the now-ownerless items. Companion dissatisfaction? That can certainly be annoying, especially when you want to be a bit more “Renegade” in your dialog choices. Often though, this can be gamed by simply selecting different companions, doing what you wanted to do, and then swapping them back in once you’re done.
Honestly, I think it comes down to the possibility of accountability. I do not know every permutation to your choices in Baldur’s Gate 3, but I have read enough posts and interviews to know that characters you interact with in Act 1 may or may not show up in Act 2 and Act 3 based on your actions. That leads one to a different posture when it comes to negotiations; the more people survive, the more possible quest givers exist for the late-game. This requires a certain level of detail though, which is not always possible in a more sandbox-lite environment.
One method I would like to see though, is almost a metagame appeal to empathy. Every named NPC in Starfield carries 800-1200 credits, which is kind of a lot for how easy it is to pickpocket them. If you lose the roll, you get caught, and have to Quick Load your way out of consequence. But if you succeed… nothing happens other than credits in your pocket. What if NPCs had dialog lamenting their loss of credits? About how they won’t be able to make rent payments? What if they asked other NPCs (or even you) for help looking for a lost Credstick or whatever? What if that group of now-stranded civilians put out a mayday asking for rescue? Or really just a personal appeal to return their ship?
Sometimes being a murder hobo is its own reward, but often I think it is just a natural consequence of game incentives/lack of disincentives combined with a failure of immersion. If NPCs don’t matter, it doesn’t matter what happens to them. You can make them matter using elaborate penalty systems or story hooks, or make them matter by making them “real” enough to care about.
Or maybe this is all just me, and I have a bit of the Dark Urge IRL.
[Baldur’s Gate 3] Too Late Now
One of the infographics from Larian regarding Baldur’s Gate 3 (BG3) is how over 93% of players created a custom character for themselves. I… did not. And it is very clearly a mistake. One that I cannot possibly “fix” now that I’m like 45 hours deep into Act 1.
Why did I not create a custom character? I thought that the game was going to be like Divinity: Original Sin 2 wherein there were very specific story beats that would be better with an Origin character. Although, to be fair, I am not exactly certain that was the case even in that game. But it seemed important enough to do there, so I did so here as well, picking Gale.
If you are one of the overwhelmingly vast majority of players who haven’t rolled an Origin character, let me explain why it is a mistake: your character doesn’t speak. Yes, custom characters don’t speak either, but I am assuming that Gale has a lot more to say about things beyond 1-2 quips at the conclusion of side quests. I have no clue how much of his background is normally explained by the end of Act 1 (around where I’m at), but I assume that it’s more than practically nothing. Beyond talking to a cat with wings about my mother – of whom I know nothing and have no reason to care about – all this “origin story” business appears to be about as deep as the blurb you read on the character select screen.
Maybe things open up in the later Acts? But what I’m worried about is how that plays out narratively. Are there exclusive scenes that you only see if you are playing as Gale? That would be the ideal, I imagine. But I’m also worried about how much any of that really matters in comparison to just doing his companion quests. For example, I was all down for smooching Shadowheart until the awkwardly direct Karlach literally stole the show. What about Gale though? What is his personality like? What kind of hilarious banter would he be getting into with my current party? I’ll never know, because I am him, and I don’t say shit, apparently.
Well, I choose all the dialog, but you know what I mean. It’s not the same.
Kinda makes me wonder if this is a uniquely Larian game problem. Most other RPGs don’t have “Origin” characters, right? Or they do, with no option for a custom character, so you’re not stuck in this dilemma. Which apparently is only impacting me and the other 7% suckers. Oh well.
In An Age 
Night (City) and Day
Oct 17
Posted by Azuriel
Sometimes it ends up being the little things.
I was playing Starfield last week and wanted to rest in my bed (10% XP boost) before exiting my ship. Except one of my companions was standing inside the cockpit hatch. I literally couldn’t move past them. It wasn’t quite as bad as this, but it was close. “Why can’t I just sort of shove past them like in Cyberpunk 2077? That always felt satisfying.”
About an hour later, I was patching Cyberpunk and bought the Phantom Liberty DLC.
Granted, I was always planning to go back to Cyberpunk eventually, especially after the Skill revamp in 2.0. But let me tell you: being able to walk through a crowd of NPCs and not constantly be collisioned is exactly as satisfying as I remembered. And also reading random notes left on tables. And being able to have ammo. And having interesting dialog, set pieces, weapons, item modifiers, plot. You know, the “little things.”
I’ll probably be back to Starfield eventually. Bethesda also says Starfield will be supported for “years to come.” Cool. So… I guess I’ll see you in a few years then. Meanwhile, there are better games to play.
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Tags: Collision, Cyberpunk 2077, Little Things, NPC, Starfield, What Am I Doing With My Life?