Mayday, Miss Marcy! The Madame's Mug, Flavor Flub, and Murder Hobos

Welcome to another February edition of Mayday Miss Marcy, where we look forward to either the continuing Winter or oncoming Spring, or even Summer, depending on where you happen to live on this rock that orbits the Sun. As usual, I've got a slew of questions for you to read over this week, and of course, answers to go with them, provided you only seek them out yourself. Which means read down below.

A little unusual for this column, though, is that I am going to answer a question right off the bat!

Dear Miss Marcy,

yo is that Madam Z on your mug???

--Voyager Cultist

A keen eye you have, Voyager Cultist! For those unaware, the mug in my portrait is actually a real mug that I possess! See? Here it is.

The Madame Z that Voyager Cultist mentions is a character from a mobile game that I quite enjoy called Reverse 1999, which is perhaps my favorite mobile game on the market currently. When I found out this mug existed, I had someone help get it to me from China, and it made its way into my portrait here on Goonhammer. Hats off to you, Voyager Cultist, and may your pulls in Reverse be blessed.

If you'd like to ask me questions of any sort, you can do so by following the instructions below:

Have a question you want answered on just about anything you’d need advice on in this grand hobby space of ours? Board games, 40k, AOS, TTRPGs, MTG, anything and everything that we cover, we can help with!

For some examples, take a look at previous editions of our column at this link with a handy tag to see all previous questions and answers!

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If you’re not a Patron, or just don’t want extra steps, you can comment on this article, or e-mail Marcy directly at marcy@goonhammer.com!

And now, on to this week's questions, which are all TTRPG themed!

Poisoned Taste

Dear Marcy,

I play in a TTRPG group that has been meeting for about a year now over Discord. We've been having a great time and generally I really enjoy the time we spend together, but our DM has currently introduced a conflict into our campaign that I am having quite a lot of trouble navigating. To be clear, it is very obvious that this is supposed to be drawing on "Real World Events", but the framing feels off. Essentially, a governing force is using extreme tactics to silence critics and those it views as undesirable, and I just find myself disconnecting from the narrative and the game because of it; not because I'm not aware of or care about modern events, but kind of for that exact reason! I want to play my elf and pretend I live in a world that doesn't suck quite so fucking bad! Am I being a baby? How do I bring up that I don't like this storyline without invoking the X card and torpedoing the campaign?

Elf'd Up

Dear Elf'd,

I suspect that starting from your final statement, your group uses the X card as a nuclear option that would end whatever the thing is, or that you're saying that the current narrative storyline they're working on would be completely dead if you X'd it, and you're trying to avoid hurting feelings? I think you're being generous and considerate, and perhaps your DM wants to use this Ripped From the Headlines style of storytelling to tell an alternative version of real life in which the Good Guys And Girls And Thems actually win and things like justice are real concepts. If that is the case, which I would hope it is, I would perhaps suggest that instead of X'ing the concept entirely, you bring it up with some of your trepidation of the narrative and be honest about your feelings. Maybe ask if they plan on having this storyline continue for a long period of time, or even if there is a way perhaps your group (or your character) could participate in something else for a bit (I don't know the size of your group though). You could also state that you're trying to find compromise to avoid the X card, but that can come across as manipulative, "if I don't get my way I'm nuking the campaign". That said, the X card is a valuable and important part of roleplaying; if you aren't comfortable, you need to speak up, and then the group needs to navigate how to make you comfortable again.

Murder Hobos Still Exist?

Miss Marcy,

My roleplaying group recently took in a new member, and while the person seems lovely, their playstyle is essentially Murder Hobo-ing [Editor's Note: A Murder Hobo is a D&D term for a character or characters who use violence as the only solution and just wander from place to place to do violence, but 'good'] their way through things. This has been kind of an issue because they are trying to play it off as their character's personality, but it just makes them incredibly difficult to navigate around when the other players in the group prefer roleplaying that explores conflict in non-violent means (or violence last means). I enjoy rolling dice and casting spells as much as most people but I do find that their constant attempts to cause actual violent conflict is getting to be too much. Do we just give them the boot?

Conflict Avoidant of Conflict

Dear Conflict,

I mean, politely, you need to just tell this person to stop being a jerk and railroading your game, or your group leader or DM needs to. There is a slight running joke in the Discord that many of the questions in this article could just be solved with actual communication between people, but this is a prime example: why are you letting the new person dictate the mood and behavior of your table? If they are constantly causing in character fights but "seem lovely" out of character, they're just doing it to be a jerk and getting away with it by being "nice". Your DM (whoever that is), assuming they are equally annoyed, should be punishing this character with their constant violent behavior in ways that will either discourage it or just kill the character off. The old saying is "play stupid games, win stupid prizes", and the concept of TTRPG table wreckers is not new either: if a character or player is being highly antagonistic to the table, then they need to go, because there's a chance you risk losing your table for taking them in.

Narrative Nausea

Dear Miss Marcy,

To keep this simple, I'm pretty sure that our DM is using our TTRPG games as either a testing ground for their Romantasy novels, or something. Every time we meet, we end up having characters introduced and at times their conflicts and interactions are the primary story of the game itself; in some cases, these characters end up being part of the narrative in the sense that our DM is playing more than they are directing.

Not Looking to be in a Novella Nancy

Dear Nancy,

I feel like maybe your question is a little... well, I don't want to say mean, but you are sort of assuming that the DM is injecting their characters and worldbuilding into your campaign, but is that not what a DM is supposed to do? I assume that you are not all collaborating to build a world together (a step I actually suggest for TTRPGs), so you are probably asking or leaving it to them to do, yes? If that's the case, then... why would they not include characters they've made and crafted and then want to play them alongside you all? You could argue maybe they are getting too into it, but if the narrative is moving, is there really an issue?

That being said, I will say that if you do think they have 'writerly' intentions to turn your campaign into some sort of novel or book scheme, while that is maybe the worst way to write a novel I've ever heard, I'd worry more about it if it ever got to that stage, but also... I guess my problem with your question is I don't really know what's wrong with that? Are you asking that you be given some sort of authorial credit for your role in the story development, or your name in the credits? I have to admit this one has me stumped a bit because you didn't really elucidate what your issue is. If you feel you're being used as brainstorming fodder, then you should probably consider why that bothers you; I think in some ways I'd be a little flattered if someone told me that our roleplaying had made them inspired to write a novel; in the event they become a multi-millionaire off of it, maybe you could ask them to take you to dinner or buy you something nice as thanks if your character plays a central role? Otherwise, I think you might just be a little jealous that you aren't the main character.

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Tags: mayday miss marcy