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Dungeon Court Cases Please! (Patreon)

Published:
2024-05-15 15:27:31
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Greetings! HIGHLY Bailiff Jake here to let you know that the Supreme Crit is convening this very eve. Please submit your brief (I do beg!) case on this thread and we will bring you swift justice.

Comments

3 Minions in a trench coat

May it please the most glorious and shining bailiff, without whom this court would fall to chaos, and the little L’s on the bench can weigh in too, I present the case of the cheating cleric. After finishing a 2 year campaign and starting another, one of my players has decided that they want to be a cleric, but just worship money. They are chaotic neutral at best and seem to only want to gamble rather than follow plot hooks, and insist on cheating at every turn, citing “my backstory is as a con artist.” They feel punished when casino security catches them, even when they roll poorly on deception and sleight of hand. I have repeatedly tried in and out of character to nudge them towards being more of a party focus and less insanity but it falls on deaf ears. Am I right to continue to set clear in game boundaries that cheating at gambling will get them into hot water? I will honor the justices and Bailiff John’s verdict.

dat_rogue_baddie

May it Please the Noble Justices and the kind of ok bailiff Josh: I present the case of the Zephyr Sike. I have been playing in my first ever campaign for about two years now via discord. Eight months into the campaign we added two additional players to our party (bringing the total to 7 players), one of which is swiftly turning into a problem player. He is now a level 10 Paladin and has switched his subclass 2 times but has not fully learned his character sheet and this causes him to he take 5-10mins during his turn in combat every time. As a relatively new player, I sometimes research on my fellow players' builds to learn more about the system. A few weeks ago he used Zephyr Strike in combat even though his subclass changed and that was a spell from his old subclass (or so we thought). During session, I texted the DM and two other veteran players about it and after the session we asked him about this spell. We learned he should have never had the spell since it is a RANGER spell and he is strictly a Paladin. He said he isn't sure how he got it but would remove it. Well, last week during combat we had all 7 players present and on just the second round of combat we were over an hour into session. His turn came around and he once again took over 5 mins looking through his sheet. At the END of his turn he announced he casts Zephyr Strike AGAIN, when asked he said it was from a feat he took. When it wasn't my turn in combat I looked up what feats might give him this spell: the answer was none of them. After session we once again asked him what feat, he stumbled over his words and didn't have an answer until another player said "Is it Magic Initiate?" to which he replied "Yea! That one!". I interjected that Magic Initiate does not give you access to Ranger Spells and that Zephyr Strike is only on the ranger spell list. The group kind of moved past it but I texted the DM about it and he removed it from the player's sheet himself. I ask the court: did I overstep as a player or do I have a duty to hold my fellow players to a certain level of integrity? I await your judgement.

Ashen

To the honorable justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and I guess also to Murph’s DMPC “Jaek.” I present to you the case of the Difficult Druid and the Bleeding Bard. My partner and I have been in a campaign for over two and a half years with four level 8 PCs: a wizard, a monk, a druid, and me, a bard. I should say up top that we are all great friends and there is no bad blood here. Anyway, our dragonborn druid refuses to wild shape, and instead hangs back to use her acid breath or spellcast. Of course, the wizard stays out of melee range and the monk, with over 50 movement, moves out of range each turn, leaving me, the bard, as the easy target. The druid never wild shapes and only uses her acid breath or the spell Wind Wall in every situation. ONLY Wind Wall, every time. To encourage the druid to wild shape, the DM created a home-brew ability for her to wild shape into a young dragon, which the druid has only used once since getting it two years ago. As the only PC up in the mix, I get absolutely rocked. The wizard sometimes takes hits so I don’t have to, and the monk has stopped using evasion to draw hits away. To add insult to injury, we all watched the DND movie together and when the druid in the movie wild shaped, our druid said, “that’s so cool, I wish we had someone in our party who can do that,” to which I responded, “you can turn into a fucking bear.” I prostrate myself before the court and ask if we should get over our tank not tanking or if we should trap our tank in a wild shape a la Tobias from Animorphs. P.S. don’t play, hate the show

Mars Sink

Dear benevolent judges and the all-mighty bailiff Jake. Let it please the court and I pray that the person this story is about does not listen to NADDPOD. I had a DM, we will call Cam. Cam was hosting a DnD 5e campaign that frankly, for the time I was there, was wild. I am all for bending the rules in DND but this made my head spin for me and my partner. We did end up leaving the campaign but this haunts us still. This DM’s sins include: - Not letting us roll initiative causing 3 of us to almost die. - Gave me an overpowered level 18 Wizard GF (just wanted a hot GF, not an overpowered one) (we were level 5) - Having said OP GF saves us twice instead of balancing encounters. - OP GF also just gave me a fancy necklace which got rid of my curse in session 3. This was supposed to be kind of a big deal of a curse in which a demon was stuck inside of me and I had a lot of exciting ideas that my DM also loved and was incorporating into the game. The necklace felt like my character arc got cut short, idk why she nerfed my inner demon. - Making the DC incredibly high for story-based events, which would either cause a) the game grinding to a halt or b) us only receiving half of the information we needed unless we rolled Nat 20s. There are so many other issues I and others at the table had with this DM but I have to keep this brief. Can dice Christ save this unholy DM? Is Cam the dice devil in disguise?

Dan Healey

To the Hot Supreme Crit Justices and the not so bad himself Bailiff Josh, I present the Case of the Blue balls PVP My DM told us a while back that he had a fun PVP idea for our group of 6 PCs. He told us we should come up with lvl 20 characters for "coleseum style" PVP, not our actual characters so we could be any race and any class we want. In the following months, he hounded us to finish our character builds and be ready. The day of it, we started at noon and finally at 5:30pm, he had our avatars enter the arena and introduce ourselves and then he revealed a Tiamat figure on the table and said, " I don't think PVP really works well in 5e and I didn't have time to really prep so you guys are going to fight Tiamat instead." No one was stat'd out for a legendary CR 30 fight, we prepped for PVP. It went poorly, and worse, the whole time, he was shit talking us about how bad we were doing and about our character choices. After 45 gruelling minutes, he said, "Ok, Tiamat disappears and I guess you can fight each other now. Half the party was either already dead or almost dead. The guy who won only won because he was farthest away and rarely got attacked. Once it was over everyone pretty much got their stuff and said, "well, it's getting late..." And bolted. Judges, were we wronged for not getting our satisfied PVP or should we have planned better for a Tiamat fight we didn't know about. I thank and trust your judgement.

SemiHuman99

To the honorable justices and the curator of shitposts, Jake. I ask if I was wrong for not letting a player roll to persuade an NPC he just revived to his marriage proposal because he was the one who killed her? I was DMing for a group in a homebrew world where they were visiting the elven hometown of one of the players. One player an Orc from the D&D official Swordcoast world that got magically teleported to my homebrew world, went to the local library trying to find a book the war between elves and orcs (there was no war, nor had I ever given any hints towards a war between the races). When he couldn't find a book he asked the librarian who had no clue what he was talking about, he then promptly killed her and tried to run but the party's elf, who’s hometown they were in, cast web to stop the Orc's escape. When the authorities arrived, the Orc told them he could help the librarian and was allowed to cast revivify on her. Immediately after he revived her, he dropped to one knee and proposed to her, saying that he saved her life. She responded with a slap to his face and ran away from him. The rest of the party showed up, heard the story from the Elf, Orc, and authorities and offered to make amends by executing his character as this wasn't his first incident. Afterwards the player was mainly upset that I had not let him roll to get the librarian to accept his proposal as her “savior”. I ask again, was I wrong for not letting him roll to "persuade" his victim into marrying him?

Easton Moore

e group playing & DMing, successfully got an enemy in a grapple and on his next turn asked if he could stomp on the enemies head. I told him of course! He rolled and hit and then when I asked for the damage was he said “he’s not dead?” I said I needed to know the damage to see and he protested and said, as a droid with metal legs/feet it would have crushed a humanoid skull killing them instantly. He had a ton more experience & I was still new to DMing so I wasn’t really sure what to do but from what I read that wasn’t how it works so I told him that. He tried to argue but I said that just wouldn’t be fair for him as a droid because then he could just do that for every encounter with humanoids & that his teammates lightsaber doesn’t just cut people in half & that’s why we have dice. He stopped after a bit because I wouldn’t budge but was quite the rest of the session. We’re close so we talked about it later & I said I should have givin him a 1d4 of extra damage but couldn’t do more than that. He still protested but accepted. Was I wrong for not wanted a droid to just one shot stomp all my enemies faces in?

Skillful Ferret

**Nods** Your Honors… jake… Our DM likes to give us really great equipment early and balances it with stronger more interesting monsters. They also use Nat 1’s on attack rolls to be auto crits on allies. Should a Nat 1 be so powerful? Shouldn’t the attack roll still have to beat our player’s AC? It hasn’t caused any TPK or happened in any tragic scenes or nothin' but it has steered my character away from being a high AC build. I’m a Sorcerer/Hexblade Warlock and usually attacked from afar with Eldrich Blast and had the high AC to stay safe despite my low health. But I’ve had to change to a glass cannon build since I wasn’t usually taking damage outside of friendly fire.

Kat

Not a case or a confession. Simply your daily reminder to respect the cock.

JakesRamenShop

Honorable, beautiful, and inspiring judges, and I believe that’s everyone, I stand before you to present a grievance involving my former Dungeon Master, who attempted to disrupt the climax of my inaugural one-shot adventure. For roughly two years, my D&D group engaged in a campaign until our Dungeon Master expressed burnout from the role and ceased operations. Seizing the opportunity, I volunteered to assume the mantle and host thematic one-shots coinciding with holidays such as Christmas and Easter. During my very first one-shot, themed around Mrs. Claus kidnapping Santa in an attempt to cancel Christmas, the players had just vanquished Mrs. Claus. As I described her frantic and manic state, screaming at the party, a perception check revealed a mysterious black shroud, which Mrs. Claus recognized and began to plead with. It was at this critical juncture that my predecessor interrupted, suggesting he perform a 'funny' to shoot Mrs. Claus in the middle of my explanation, thereby undermining the narrative's tension in the moment. I said no and they looked upset that they couldn’t do the “funny” and then the shroud promptly “disposed” of Mrs. Clause. I seek your esteemed opinion: Is my frustration with my former DM's interjection during this pivotal moment of my one-shot reasonable, or am I acting like a little whiny piss baby? Your judgment is eagerly anticipated.

Ev Schmev ✨️

Dearly beloved judges and poopoo peepee baby boy bailiff, Presenting: The Case of the Stolen Backstory Please understand that this was everyone's first campaign, and we were not doing it quite right: we were misunderstanding mechanics, there were 11 players to 1 DM, many of us had unnecessarily tragic/complex backstories, etc. My character was a Draconic Half-Elf Sorcerer named Nylo. She was adopted, and grew up the only elf in her community with scales and a tail. Her whole motivation for adventuring was to find her parents and understand the source of her magic. She shared this with the party a few times, and even attempted to question an enemy dragon NPC during combat once to no avail. After spectating most of our sessions, Player #11 joined half-way through the campaign. He took over a talking horse NPC that the party had fallen in love with, building him up into a real character. He built Foghorse Leghorse (so named because of his silly Southern accent) as a Sorcerer (horse-erer), and revealed that he was ALSO draconic heritage and looking for his parents........this was mildly annoying but, I let it go because it didn't really matter and "adopted person looking for their parents" isn't even a very original backstory anyways. Y'all. Here's what steams my beans, almost 6 years later: during the final session, Foghorse Leghorse spoke in draconic during combat to an enemy dragon NPC. The DM and player then role-played a touching scene where the dragon NPC revealed that Foghorse was his long-lost son, and he was so happy to be reunited that the combat immediately ceased. The campaign ended with Foghorse happily riding off into the sunset with his dad, and Nylo still having no clue who her bio parents were. Judges (and Jrark), am I right to feel robbed? Or should Nylo just be happy that someone got to find their bio parents, even if it wasn't her?

MC

May it please the honorable justices and the beautiful baby boy bailiff Jake, I present the case of the (Attempted) Pulled Punch. Near the end of a one-shot I was DMing for a group of friends, the party was fighting my BBEG, a mind-controlled adult red dragon. Near the end of a very long fight, the dragon used their breath weapon and all the players passed their dexterity savings throws except for one, my friend who was a brand new player. I knew she was low on health and didn’t want to kill her in her first adventure, so after I rolled the damage, I lied and said the damage was much lower than I actually rolled. She was thrilled that she was going to survive the encounter! Unfortunately, one of the other players could apparently see around my DM screen and blabbed that I was pulling my punch and lying about the damage. This sucked the energy out of the table and eventually led to the player taking the full damage and dying in her first adventure. The other player stood firm that I should be fair about dice rolls and not play favorites, or else what’s the point of the game. Fair justices, was it unfair to the other players for me to lie about a damage roll, or was I right to try and get that player through her first adventure?

Omnis

To the Honorable Justices and that guy I either Hate/Love depending on how Justice Murphy is feeling this week, I bring you the case of the unintentional player killer: It was my first time playing D&D with a group of friends from college, in a campaign affectionately dubbed "Kevin's Souls" as the DM was known for making things incredibly hard - all players except for me had played with him before and were bracing themselves for chaos. During our second dungeon diving expedition, we encountered a group of cultists who, alerted to our presence, cast a Dominate Person spell on our Dwarf Warrior. Through a series of errors, failed rolls, and poor insight checks, my character was lead to believe he had been permanently turned and couldn't be saved. Thus, when the time came to choose between fighting our friend or allowing him to harm another, I fought back - and with a Nat 20, I did enough damage that he fell, along with his death saves. My friend insisted I did nothing wrong and the DM later clarified where I had misunderstood, but the campaign soon fell apart just due to adult life taking priority - even so, I have been racked with guilt ever since that my poor thinking caused the end of the campaign as well as my friend's Dwarf And so I submit myself to the mercy of the court - was this a case of an inexperienced player just trying to do his best, or a negligent murderhobo in the making?

Fuzzboxx

Hello my Honorable Judges and the nubile Bailiff Jack today I present the case of the deadbeat Dad My cousin joined my already running campaign and his character's goal was to rescue his kidnapped 6 year old son. In real life he is an incredible father. I had the fun idea of making the boy vital to the main plot of the campaign. He however never brought his missing son up to the rest of the party. After about 25 sessions it finally got brought up. Everyone in the party was obviously shocked that he never mentioned it. He said there was more pressing things to do. There were not. After another 6 months they finally beat the person capturing the son and he was free. My cousins first reaction was to get rid of the kid immediately, he wanted to put him in an orphanage, a school for magic, even a brothel?? The party was obviously shocked by his deadbeat dad behavior. I had made the son a vital part of the campaign and he was meant to travel with them everywhere but he wants no part of the boy. Am I wrong for having made the 6 year old boy a major part of the campaign expecting my cousin to be all for it or should I have waited to find out what kind of relationship with the boy my cousin wanted to have?

Corey Brown

Doesn’t get any shorter than this

Nnamgork

Honorable Judges and the guy that reads cases (whose name I will not try to remember). I bring to you the case of the tea-bag check. I was running a session with good friends, and in this session they were escaping/robbing a large mushroom factory (mushrooms are potions in this world). During their escape they found themselves in a warehouse and decided to hide amongst the boxes. The rogue rolled stealth easily, then the wizard cleverly cast invisibility on the fighter, and crit on their own stealth. Sensing my surprise and feeling as though they had tricked me the wizard shouted “I roll to tea-bag”. Rolling a natural 1. I took this and narrated them tea-bagging and subsequently triggering an alarm, which set off a gas trap (that I already had built into the room) forcing them forgo their stealth and run. Justices I ask you: was I wrong to rob this wizard’s clever spell casting and good stealth check because of a nat 1 rolled as an annoying joke, or was this some sort of divine intervention punishing the punk wizard and allowing me to use my cool trap.

IMRYAN

May it please the court The masterfully magical genius judges And bailiff Jake the Jerkwad I present the case of the boomerang arm I’m running a campaign with my sister, girlfriend and 3 other friends. In the most recent session after defeating a group of enemies whose bodies morphed into monster creatures one of them was left behind and reverted to his human form but retained a backwards broken elbow. After questioning and killing him my sister decided she wanted to cut his broken arm off and try to use it as a boomerang I told her that if I let u do this you’ll have disadvantage on attacks this upset her and the party as they all thought it would be hilarious we ended with her using it as a slapping skeleton hand as a strength weapon with 1D4 damage. Should I have let her use it as a boomerang or were they being a group of silly geese. I await a response and a punishment for the sentenced.

Riley Wesson

To the esteemed justices and the unsteamed bailiff, I bring before you the case of the fortune-predicting paladin. I’ve been DMing a homebrew campaign for my friends for the past 3 years that’s been a blast to play, except for one recurring event that has me a bit annoyed. Early in the campaign the party met a divination wizard who gave all of them a homebrew item called Fortune Cookies of Fate. Each player rolled for a cryptic fortune, and if a player dies in a way similar to their fortune it turns into a revivify scroll, basically a bit of extra insurance for early on in the campaign. Two of the player’s fortunes have been used, creating really tense moments that they were able to come back from which was very exciting and exactly what I’d hoped for when giving them these items. The problem lays with our paladin, whose fortune has yet to be used. Upon opening her cookie she found a fortune that said, “Mortality is shed as quickly as skin or clothing”. Since receiving it, the paladin now will, at the slightest hint of peril to her character, entirely strip their clothing off in an attempt to make the fortune come true and be able to be revived, even now when their characters are level 9 and have access to revivify themselves. I told her that this was metagaming and out of character, as taking off all of one’s clothing in the middle of a fight is quite strange in most circumstances, but she argues that after seeing her fellow party members come back to life after dying in specific ways, her paladin would realize what happened and do everything it takes to survive. So I ask you justices, am I in the right for asking my player to cover up and let fate decide, or should I allow her to continue with her nudist survival tactics? I humbly await your judgement.

Casey Alexander

To the honest and true judges and bailiff jam. I present the case of the chowder incident. I play dnd with my partner and large group of friends. We always have a super great time and we play about once a week. If it’s not dnd it’s for board games or drinks. One evening near the end of session our Dm, who’s house we play at, wonder up stairs and returned with a mystery mug. It was a mug of cold fish chowder. Instantly I become nauseous from the smell. My partner is a vegetarian and was also very uncomfortable and sick . However the rest of the party did not agree. His brother and partner vouching that the chowder smelt good and they wished to partake. The session end very shortly after as the smell began to circulate through the air conditioning. Fish oder filling the room. My partner and I went home honestly a little unwell after everything went down. However my dm refuses to believe that a mug of cold chowder is a weird choice of snack for a dnd. It still gets brought up. Even insisting he’d probably do it again. Was he wrong to drink this at the table? Am I wrong for reacting so much to his strange choice? Especially when it’s his home. I await your humble decision.

Rebecca N

Hello great emissaries of Dice Christ, and the guy that left the door propped open. I realize this is perhaps not a confession for Dice Christ, but it weighs heavily on my soul, and I must confess it somewhere. My party is running through a Pathfinder module where we're investigating a creepy lighthouse. The first time we were there was during the day, and based on the clues we found, we decided to rest and then come back the next night to continue investigating. As soon as we got back, I personally lead our party straight to a room that had a huge bloodstain on the floor, which hadn't had anything going on during the day. At night, the space turned into a Haunt, a special type of encounter that often can't be defeated by typical means. After a series of bad rolls on our part and the ghost dealing a lot of persistent damage, I and one other party member limped out of the lighthouse, Ghost not defeated and our other Two party members dead. I am asking for forgiveness as I feel I have the blood of those two party members on my hands. In my enthusiasm to lead us on in investigating the mystery, I perhaps failed our other party members, and their deaths weigh heavily on my soul

Matthew Coots

To the Radiant Supreme Crit Justices, and the Fringe Baliff Jobber, I present to you the case of the furloughed finale. May it please the court: I played in a weekly online campaign for over 2 years. In that time, we met for game nearly every week. Normally, if one player was to miss a session that wasn't a major plot point, the DM would allow someone else to control their character in combat and would narrate minor uses of the characters utility and such outside of it, and otherwise state that the character was busy working on other things to explain that they weren't heavily involved in roleplay. A few months ago, we wrapped up the campaign with a two session final dungeon and multi-phase boss fight. At the end of the first of these sessions, I reminded the DM that I wouldn't be available the following week because of some holiday season obligations, something I had told the group about a few weeks ahead of time. The DM insisted that we would go on and have the second half of the boss fight the following week as planned, and someone else would have to control my level 20 character for the session. I was floored. My fellow players stood up for me and pressured the DM into holding off until the following week when everyone could be there for the finale of the campaign, so all was not lost, but I was still hurt by the situation. Am I wrong for being bothered by this, and bowing out of this DM's next campaign which started up in the following months? I await your judgment.

Phil B

Judge, Jury, Executioner, and Jake: I'm submitting a formal complaint about My First DM for prematurely killing my hobby as a DnD player. Following the early hype around 5e, a friend group decided to give DnD a shot. I offered to DM, but a friend pulled in their coworker's boyfriend instead. He had DMed for some game con circuits like 15 years prior, but hadn't played any recent editions. Some vignettes from our first few sessions: • My friend introduced their rogue who had scars all over their face. The DM replied, "What are the scars from? You have 0 xp so you've never been in a fight." • I min/maxed as a tanky paladin - but all attacks were handled as flat opposing rolls from attacker and defender. Everyone essentially had a 50/50 chance to hit. The DM hasn't read 5e rules yet and was just winging it "for now" • 15 minutes after our first battle, the DM told us what items we missed out on since we didn't explicitly ask to check the corpse for loot • For Lore Reasons, the DM let us look at the stat sheet for some monsters we fought. He was using a 1.5e monster stats You're probably imagining several other Nightmare DM tropes, and yes, half of those happened too. After struggling through an unintuitive puzzle for a full 2-hour session, I quit that group, and I gave up on playing tabletop games. Is it fair to demand the death sentence for this crime and the emotional toll it's taken over the years? Or do I need to seek forgiveness from Dice Christ for these dark thoughts? Hoping for the guillotine, Phil (Follow up: I recently moved to a new city and finally decided to give DnD another shot. I joined a two-shot at a friendly neighborhood game store and had a blast playing a scenario from Keys from the Golden Vault!)

Fuzzboxx

"poopoo peepee baby boy bailiff" sent me

Michael Uken

To the sensual, brave, noble, witty, erudite justices and- actually, intros are BORE 2024. I have discovered a grave and terrible secret about my DM. My DM does not follow dice Christ, for he fudges the numbers . . . Like a lot. We play through Roll20 and Discord as the party lives in different states, and the DM insists on rolling his physical dice instead of using the feature within Roll20, claiming it is not random enough. The other party members are newer to the game, so I decided to try something out of my comfort zone with a purely supportive divine soul sorcerer with only a Fireblast cantrip to deal damage with as a last resort. The rest of the party is a paladin a rogue, a monk, and a barbarian, so quite a few attack rolls. I first noticed the DM's heresy when the AC for enemies seemed to change depending on who was hitting the enemy. I messaged him about it instead of unmuting, assuming he made a mistake and he replied that he didn't want the newer players to get discouraged when they couldn't land an attack. Fair play, run your game how you see fit, right? However, EVERY TIME, I have tried to use a spell to avoid a combat or solve the situation without violence (sleep, charm, command, anything with a spell save) the DM rolls off screen and the target passes. He's a great DM in every other aspect, and the rest of the party is having a great time fulfilling their power fantasies of being badass heroes, but I've been relegated to the healbot as none of the other spells have worked so far. Am I right to feel slighted or should I accept my position as the good little healbot?

Dylan Jackson

To the most renowned justices and the amazing baliff tucker (tell Jill I said wassup!) I bring the case of the secret g-spot. A while back I was in a campaign where one of my fellow players was in an intimate moment with their Romantic interest. (I'm sure you know what I'm talking bout tucker!) The PC wanted to cast locate object on the NPC's g spot. We all laughed, but one of the players jokingly said that they should be using locate creature, since it is technically a bunch of nerves. (aka living cells) This never became an actual problem, but it brings up the question. Would a G-spot require a locate object, or locate creature spell? I await the judgement of the court.

Dean Rick Sassafrassley Winchester

Greetings to the honorable crit justices and to Jake also. I bring you the case of the murder hobo in denial I have been playing dnd with my family for a few years. When I met my now husband I was excited to have him join our campaign and get to know everyone. It was over zoom and we were on a stealth mission in the middle of the tyranny of dragons campaign. Nearly the first thing he did was sneak off by himself in the middle of a fight and investigate a carriage. Unfortunately he set off a trap causing a massive explosion which resulted in several dragon eggs hatching and escaping the cultists/burning down the camp. However he had high enough stealth he managed to escape without notice and there was no feasible way for our characters to really know it was him plus we were so concerned with trying to maintain our cover/save dragons that we didn’t really have time to address it. He wasn’t even able ti continue joining that campaign because of work conflicts so he just showed up caused massive chaos and then left. His actions have caused some social anxiety for me as I do not want everyone we play with to hate him or me and I am used to a much more … cooperative play style. When I have tried to tactfully address this in private he truly does not seem to comprehend why I would be concerned about his play style or choices and has cited that “those are the decisions my character would make” and “this is how I have always played “ when I asked him if he would be embarrassed about me posting this his only objection was that “I never killed anyone so I’m not a murder hobo if anything I’m a thieving hobo” My question for the court is this, should I take this as an opportunity to be less of a people pleaser or should I accept that our play styles are too different and we might have more fun in seperate games? P.S. even if he is a murder hobo he is the love of my life so I guess you can’t win them all. At least he’s a good cook

bailey albrecht

To the delectably delicious council and the droopy bailiff Drake, I DM for a group of friends and this is all of our first time playing together. I more or less feel like a bad DM because I will set up a story for my adventurers just for them to want to do something else. Whether it be an NPC interaction or a fight with a guild of bandits they would rather always be doing something more mischievous or “Not according to plan” my question is, “How do I get them to follow my story and plot points without telling them what those specifics are?” I bed for your wisdom.

Extremely High Elf

To the honorable Justices and Murph's very best friend, Jake. Today I lay my case at your door to ask for judgment. I've been playing DnD for a few years now and my main build is often some variation of a boxer. Recently, I joined a new group and made a Half Orc Drunken Fist monk, but I asked my DM if I could reflavor it so that he's simply a pit fighter instead of a drunkard. The DM said "Yeah, you can call it whatever you want, as long as the mechanics stay the same" so I went through and renamed my abilities to sound more like techniques than alcoholism. (For instance, Drunken Technique was now Bob and Weave.) It was awesome until one player started adamantly "correcting" my ability names while we were playing. I would say I was going to use Slip a Punch and he'll loudly chime in with "No. You don't. You use Tipsy Sway" And then laugh like a little bitch. I've tried to talk to him about it and he refuses to just let it go. I dunno. Maybe I should also let it go. I accept all punishments. Please. Punish me Murph. I'll beg.

DowdMusic

To these absolute knobs, May it challenge the court and upset the power they wield. I bring you the case of "WTF High Crit, you got a problem with me?" I have written in in the past for your assistance and all you do is punish me. My players fill up a bag with bombs - my fault. My player brings and OP roided out charisma laden God bird to the scrub match - my fault. My players name them selves all Tyler - not only my fault - but justice Murphy says he must make an example of me and creates the first NADDPOD precedent in my name. Furthermore, Justice Axeford openly stated on record she wished to torment me. I have clearly been targeted and I demand retribution from this kangaroo court. I ask YOU NADDPOLES if this tyranny should continue. Good day. P.S. I don't even like this show.

Flying Mongeese

To the esteemed Crit Justices and the Jakebroni, I give you the case of the unfortunate campaign finale. I was playing a TTRPG called Monster of the Week with my cousins and uncle. My one cousin played a kid named Jack with shadow powers that he discovered were from his evil ancestor’s spirit who was trying to revive himself. Throughout the campaign, Jack had continually tapped into this power knowing that this force was evil and it could possibly overtake him. It made for some really awesome role play moments. In the last session, Jack chose to give into the shadows and failed a save to control it, resulting in him attacking the party. He was pretty excited with this outcome. In response, the party tried to seal away the evil spirit to save Jack. Jack, however, did not want this. Eventually, Jack and the spirit were both sealed away. Everyone felt sad about losing Jack, but felt it was a satisfying ending. Everyone but Jack. He was upset as he felt everyone had turned against him, even though he had turned against them first. He left the session upset and from my understanding, was telling the other players how he was still miffed about it. Was I wrong to let this conclusion happen? Should I have done more to appease Jack? Or should Jack have accepted this ending since he chose it? I humbly await your judgement. PS. My cousin usually plays the ‘rebel’ kind of character. Take that as you will.

ImmortalCrow786

May it please the eclectic and awe-inspiring justices and jalapeño the bailiff. I plead the case of the three boobed charmed death, one of my players wanted to play a 3 boobed female stripper orc named slopper, he was adamant cause it was funny, and on a nat 20 to charm a sniper I said he walked off the edge to his death. Should I have allowed a crazy boob charm effect, not a power just a ask, or have had the sniper so something more interesting than die. sincerely to all but jalapeño, Bryce

Kal and her cats Portland, Star, and Berlin

I present the case of Aaracockras v Murph Throughout the tenure of this court, we have heard a multitude of cases against our feathered friends, that have painted these bird folk and “nonsensical shenanigan starters” I bring forth the argument, that the idea of flight at first level being “broken” is ludacris (not the rapper). It is a poor craftsman who blames their tools, and I feel that the cases and complaints that have been heard in this court against aaraokras proves this statement. If a dm cannot work around a character who can fly, then they are lacking in creativity. Of course, if you drop any character into a different campaign, they won’t mesh as well, but the idea that it’s impossible to play with a passerine pc is a farce. Aarakokras provide a unique and fun challenge for DMs and simply because a few bad apples have gravitated towards that race, does not mean the tree is rotten. I would like to see the attitude of this court shift to allow for nuance and compassion when hearing cases for aarakokra. I feel so passionately about this that I forgot to insult Jake. Insert insult here.

Jason Ramirez

Greetings to the clergy, Forgive me Dice Christ for I have sinned. For the finale of my campaign the BBEG fight went on super long. My party was great and toughed through an extra 2 hours of play(7 hours). My final encounter had Frey mechanics (like Dragonlance) that introduced new (sometimes damaged) enemies, allies, and even random AoE effects. Since the game was running so long and I could tell everyone was getting tired. I ultimately I had to started flubbing rolls on my BBEG end just to finish things up. I beg forgiveness for possibly robbing my players of a more satisfying/dramatic ending.

Heather Sanders

To the rays of sunshine Supreme Crit Justices & the just fine court case reader Jake. I present to you, “The case of the unicorn horn maybe being too horn-y” I play a halfling ranger named Elderberry with a Drake companion named Honey (does this matter to the story? No, but I think Emily would appreciate the names). In a battle with a hag on an island in the middle of a lake, Elderberry & Honey failed Wisdom saves & were Mass Suggested to “swim a long lap around the island.” To overcome the suggestion, the party had our two unicorn allies deal damage to us. Our DM then went to roll attacks on both Honey & Elderberry, critting, & causing damage. Thankfully it did not knock out Elderberry or Honey, & we eventually succeeded in the battle, but I immediately told the DM he could have done an unarmed attack for 1+Strength Mod. The question is - can a unicorn do an unhorned / unhoofed attack? Could the unicorns have just booty bumped Elderberry & Honey, or should the Drake warden & her companion take the damage as a consequence of being Mass Suggested? PS Elderberry herself had re-horned the unicorn after someone stole it from him, & was then attacked by the same horn. Horn, horn, horn.

JC

To whom it may concern, and Jake, I present to you a case of the most insane and impossible monster encounter I've ever experienced. We were visiting the hometown of my PC, a little mute goblin named Candy who was raised by giants, when we were ambushed by the BBEG. He trapped us all in a force cage at a distance that didn't allow us to counterspell so we were effectively trapped instantly with no save. Then, the BBEG, after giving a quick speech, opened portals to another dimension summoning multiple tarrasques. Multiple in this case being dozens. However, that was not all. There were also ancient prismatic dragons, illithid dragons, and Orcuses (yes there was multiple of the same demon lord). Candy watched in horror as her hometown was annihilated by this sea of CR30+ monsters before the players were imprisoned in a jail without a save. Thankfully, this led to us doing an epic prisonbreak where we inhabited zombie versions of ourselves to rescue our prime bodies, BUT... did the DM go too far with making this encounter impossible or was their cool story enough to justify an unwinnable interaction.

Mister_Darkly

Oh Lord and Savior Dice Christ, forgive me, for I think I have sinned and I don't know when or how. My name is Matt, and as a Forever DM, I've run long campaigns for years. For my first game (Curse of Strahd), I bought a set of cheap dice that I've kept in a wooden coffin box. For eight years, these dice have been my faithful storytelling partners, rolling fairly but fiercely, creating memorable challenges for my players. I love these simple dice and always use them when I'm DMing. My issue is with the dice I use when I occasionally play as a character. I always buy new sets of dice for each new PC, usually the pricier ones in metal or those with inserts or glittery liquid cores, but they always roll catastrophically for me. I know is it the fate of many Forever DMs put there to have bad dice rolls when they're a PC, and I welcome the occasional failures for the good storytelling they provide, but my I'm starting to think I may have angered Dice Christ. How else can I explain such terribles rolls? My current PC, a Tiefling Eldritch Knight, rolls so many critical fails that "Matt Ones" have become a running joke at the table. I'm starting to resent the dice I chose for her, wondering how she became the Tribal Princess Folk Hero I've introduced to my fellow players with her consistently awful luck. I've tried everything to gain Dice Christ's favor, from singing and praying to exposing my dice to April 8th's Total Solar Eclipse. But try as I might, my luck only worsens. I'm at the point where I'm considering leaving my gorgeous player dice at home and showing up to my next session with the cheap sets I use as a DM, but I'm afraid doing so will extend my curse to my trusted DM dice. I ask the Church: what sin have I committed that leaves my characters rolling so poorly, and how can I exorcise this curse from my beloved dice?

ChappyThoughts

To the honorable justices and the bailiff who is either lowly or not when this episode opens (Schrodinger's Jake), I bring the case of the Inexperts. During a post-apoc, viking themed, Forgotten Realms game, my players encountered a dragon turtle. I knew they couldn't kill it but figured I'd they fought well then the greet beast would consider them too much trouble and run away. They did and it did. Then one of the players wanted to give chase but I said they couldn't track it through the ocean. He claimed they could. Here's the thing, he's a real life wilderness survival teacher but I am a Navy veteran submariner and neither of us are marine biologists. We ended up having a great campaign after, but he never really let it go, even sending me articles about how native Alaskans would track whales for days across the sea. Was I right in refusing to let them sail into the empty beyond or should I have let them face the consequences? I await your judgement.

Felix Principe-gillespie

To the famous judges and infamous bailiff I come to you with the case of Orgug the Witch-Hunter! I offered to DM for my brother and my roommate, I bought one of the started packs as I’d never DM’d before and we gathered to play. The session was madness, we didn’t cover anything in the book and the players went full murder spree, but, it kinda worked for a while and we all had fun. Until, Orgug the Witch Hunter, who hated his teammate and sought only to kill was killed by a group of townsfolk. So here’s the case, this was my brother, Orgug’s first ever DnD game and the experience appears to have largely put him off ever playing again, was I right to have the village team up for revenge, or just kept things going and maybe suggested a new character down the line, I await your judgment.

jade

To most honorable Judges and Jake: I present the doppelgänger case. Last year, I ran my first DND game for a few of my friends. They really loved it and asked me run a sequel campaign about the same characters. We ended at around level ten so I figured it would be easy to keep progressing their story without affecting combat too much. In the first session, one of my players said they changed their class, etc. This was fine. We kept going, and noticed that their character was different - they had a newfound love for looting corpses and t-bagging. At the end of the first session, they revealed they weren’t their actual character, but a doppelgänger from an alternate universe. I was so confused. Judges, would I be wrong to be peeved off at this?

Andrew Fournier

To your honorable, esteemed and quite dashing judges, is that a new haircut it looks great, and that guy jvlin, I present to you the case of the never ending campaign. I joined my friends for my first ever campaign where we played over discord. We played our first session that we had agreed upon and following that game, I received a notification that the next session would be held 12 hours from the end of that session, which would be 2pm the following day. I said I sadly could not attend as I work 9-5 Monday-Friday and to either please delay a few hours or go without me. They chose to go without, and then that same ping for a game the very next day came at 2am. This continued for months were I had to miss sessions because I simply couldn’t play 7 days a week, and after 3 months of this I bowed out of the campaign. My leaving was met with some criticism and mockery, but judges, am I in the wrong for not wanting to or being able to play dnd every single evening, or were they crazy for having a session every evening. To this day they still play every day for the past year and a half, and I believe are only level 11

Gicky

Dear esteemed justices, there was a strange whiney boy outside the courtroom asserting he was a bailiff but I could tell from his stature and general snotty attitude he held no authority in this court. I have not played DnD in a long time after moving to London. Yesterday we had people view a room in my flat and one guy said he ran two games a week and "made weird voices". My dream. He didn't end up taking the room and I have no way of contacting him. Justices is it weird to ask my landlord for this man's number so I can ask to be part of one of his games and experience his weird voices?

(s)PAM

DEAR SUPREME CRIT (No intro 2024) I DM two games: a game for kids and a game for adults at my local library. Because I started both of the adventures out of the same fantasy town, I decided that both games are occurring in the world at the same time. One time as a goof I asked the kids if I could use their character sheets as the final opponents in a magic tournament against the adults, and their characters attempted to win by cheating. The kids loved it. After that, they specifically asked for a quest to assasinate one of the main NPC's in the adults game. It was funny and fit well with the story, so I let them. Since then, they have delivered an evil relic to the BBEG of the adults game, and created a flesh golem out of donated organs specifically to track down and attack the adults group as they are sleeping. No one from the adults group has complained specifically, and the kids love it, but I know that the adults are always a little wary that the children are going to invent some new way to screw them over. I ask, am I wrong for enabling the chaos goblins to the interfere in the adults game? Or am I just adding heightened drama and chaos? I await your judgement but don't punish me punish the kids instead Lich of the library.

Gianni Pappas

To the Esteemed Judges of the CRIT, and Jarkie the handsomest Baliff. I present the case of the Ruined disguise. I was running a train heist one shot and the group was looking for a way to infiltrate of of the closed off cars (Which was a bachelorette party trap). At the last stop before the mountains pass which gave them the best opportunity to make a quick exit the rouge decided to follow a waiter into the station bathroom to steal their outfit. Now being a 8th level rouge and rolling 26 on stealth there were thousands of ways to get this outfit. They could have knocked them out, strangled them, used the sleeping potion they brought with them, or even threatened them. But no my rogue decided to sneak attack crossbow shot them while they’re standing at the urinal. Of course they had advantage and CRIT. The rouge did 5x the npcs health in one shot, now here is where the argument among friends arose. I narrated the waiter falling into the urinal getting covered in piss then immediately blood soaking into the outfit. The rouge said they aimed for the head but either way to me that outfit was getting covered I blood and other things. Am I wrong for ruling this way when there are so many other options available?

Chuck B

To the illustrious deacons of dice Christ and the lil alter boy, Jake. I have a confession. I was playing a game of Symbaroum which uses a reverse D20 (where 1 is a success and 20 is a failure). We were in the middle of a big battle and one of our three party members was already down and I was about to drop. I rolled an attack and landed on a 20. I announced it was a crit out of habit and rolled damage instead of correcting it. We pulled through but I still feel the guilt. Can I be absolved of this travesty against dice Christ

Jacob Peterson

I bring you the case of the "goo guy" May it please the esteemed judges and uhhh, jorts, I think I have been dming for a party of 4 players for around 3 years and in total we've played 2 different campaigns. In the first campaign the bbeg was juiblex, a slime demon lord that was causing a plague to destroy entire villages. After that campaign fizzled out due to scheduling conflicts, I started up an entire new world with what I thought was a super interesting premise. The BBEG of this new campaign is amassing an army of undead using a ritual that involves a "black tar-like goo." I thought this idea was very interesting and cool, but my players have been razzing me for being a "goo guy" and saying all my campaigns involved goo. Judges do I deserve to be taken through the razzberry patch or should my players let me be a gooey little guy in peace?

Thyme

To the most supreme and honorable and most ineffable crit justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner and to the only slightly less honorable but still supreme Bailiff Jake, I write to you today with a wrongdoing so severe it pains me to speak about. I'm a player in a high-fantasy homebrew campaign and recently we found ourselves in a massive city with a corrupt government. The party wanted to distract the government and first responders so that we could attack the mayor. We had the great idea to attack the two very tall clocktowers near the heart of the city so that everyone would be focused on that. Our DM would not let us do this as it would break the "no 9/11 rule" we have at the table. We assured our DM that it wasn't 9/11 but they simply wouldn't hear it! We ended up having to fight so many guards and it was nearly a TPK. Justices, I plead, I beg, was it wrong of our DM to prevent us from attacking the two tall similar looking clocktowers in the center of the city or were they correct in their ruling. Thank you dearly for your time.

Jen

What’s up justices!! A long time ago in Icewinddale, my 45 year old tabaxi cleric who is the size of a house cat rolled a nat 20 while looking for a scuba suit his size. He was rewarded with having the tightest bod and a bubble butt that looked great in the suit. I am not complaining I just wanted everyone to picture an old cat with a hot dad bod and a big butt. Thank you for your time. XOXO go piss girl

Oily Josh

May it please the Highly Esteemed Justices and Bailiff Jorqué, I've been running a homebrew campaign for a about a year now and have run into a twist on a classic DND problem. I have given my players way too much cool stuff but instead of using it to whomp me to the (Flint)Stone Age I find myself needing to remind them that they have items and abilities they can use against me. Am I at fault for doling out cool magic items driven by my own ADHD fueled want for cool new shit or should the players suffer for forgetting the gifts I have bestowed? I lay my humble head before you for judgement. Sincerely, Loquacious Loot Lover

Alex Henderson

To the three Justices of Whoville and the nasty green bailiff, Jinch — This one is a legal curveball, so you might not be qualified to rule. (Just kidding, you’re the only ones who are qualified.) The real life U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has just ruled two days ago that, quote, “Grinch is not a protected class” and therefore Grinches are LEGALLY ALLOWED to be HARASSED in the workplace. What do you think about this? Please hand down a definitive ruling to settle this legal crisis once and for all. SOURCE: https://www.law360.com/corporate/articles/1836399 (P.S. Yes this is a real case.)

Jenneryy

To the supreme crit justices and their loyal bailiff Jake (who has great calves), I submit the following chaos in “The Case of Contagious Horse Narcolepsy”. I’m DM’ing my first homebrew campaign after playing D&D for over 20 years and in one of our earliest sessions I had the party on a long carriage journey between one town and the next. The horses got spooked and it turned into what SHOULD have been a fun “runaway carriage” session where they needed to rescue the injured driver and calm the horses with animal handling checks. Instead, one of the party members cast sleep on the horses. I was not prepared but followed physics and horse stats, so one of the horses dropped unconscious and having a 1,000 lb horse suddenly collapse in front of a racing carriage would obviously crash the carriage horrifically. Surprisingly, characters made their dexterity checks and used what few low level spells / potions they had to save the NPC driver and the direly injured horse. However, the character who cast the spell refused to admit they did it! I even had them roll deception and no one beat their roll, so since this incident the party is (in game) convinced that there is a raging pandemic of horse narcolepsy that has since spread to random bar patrons, guards, etc. This character continues to make deception checks, but the party now CHOOSES to fail their perception checks to notice the player casting sleep. Should I keep letting the horse narcolepsy pandemic ruse continue, or insist the players roll for perception to make our Bard/Rogue admit they’re casting it and there is no pandemic? I wait humbly for your ruling, and hope that none of you catch a case of horse narcolepsy.

thepurplehippopotamus

to the supreme crit justices and the super duper mega cool baliff jake- i bring the case of the petty monk. one time my college was running a dm workshop and at the end of it they had the dms come up with a oneshot in thirty minutes. they had asked for volunteers to play, so i signed up. i made a level three way of mercy monk and i was the party's only healer. we also had a fighter, a sorcerer, and a wizard. the entire time we were playing, the sorcerer kept trying to tell the dm how to run the game and me how to play my character. (for context i was the only feminine presenting person at the table). it was a little annoying imo but i ignored it. during the boss fight he decided to only focus on me and tell me exactly what i should do with my character. at one point he started lecturing me on "the most optimized way to run a monk". i got completely fed up. his character ended up going down and taking some extra damage, so he was at two death save fails. i had one ki point left but instead of bringing him back, i decided to heal the figher. his character ended up stablizing, but when i told my friend this story they said i was too petty and it was just a one shot so i should have healed him. was i too petty? should i have brought him back up? i humbly await your judgement.

Nick Lech

To the high supreme crit justices and their overly used dish rag of a bailiff Jake. I bring the case of the overly romantic ranger. During COVID I joined an online group. Some of the players were already friends in real life but most of us were total strangers, so we were all getting to know each other. We were playing Hoard of the Dragon Queen, we were hired to help protect a caravan as it traveled up the sword coast while tracking down a lead on the dragon cultists. It was during this travel time where the DM introduced a female elf NPCnpc that our ranger immediately wanted to start investigating her. Everything seemed normal while the DM and the player roleplayed their interactions; but, things started to get a little weird once the Rranger started asking questions about what the NPC’s hair smelled like and how she looked in her clothes. To the DM’s credit he handled the situation well and tried to transition back to the other players, but the ranger kept yanking the spotlight back to his budding romance with the NPC. After multiple attempts to get things back on track by the DM, it was clear that the Ranger really wanted to play Dudes and Damsels. The awkward feeling started to compound when the Ranger continued asking more and more intimate questions about the NPC. I was playing a Kobold artificer and based on some clues knew that the cultists were hiding amongst the caravan occupants. During the night while the DM was trying to “fade to black” like a video game romance scene, I took the opportunity to use my explosives to sneak around and blow up part of the caravan, forcing the story to move from snow plowing pillow talk to combating the exposed cultist. Justices, was I wrong to cock block the Ranger by blowing up the mood?

Dylan C

To the Most Honorable Justices and the Cool Cool Bailiff Jeff (Geoff?), I have been playing dnd with the same group for about four years. Our usual set up is three players and a DMPC to help balance the party. One of our players was really new to dnd when we started so we tried to go out of our way to cater to them. We let them drive the party choices most of the time, we regularly bent rules that were too complicated for them, and we had to institute a no pc death policy since they found the idea of their character dying really upsetting. This special treatment has persisted to this day. Recently we finished a campaign, and that player asked if he could try DMing a one shot before our usual DM started a new campaign. We agreed, and he told us all to roll level 7 characters. As soon as we started playing it became clear that our Interim DM had not prepared. We were supposed to spend five nights in a haunted hotel, fighting the monsters. Instead we were subjected to a long, incoherent, and confusing shopping episode in the town around the hotel. This happened multiple times and stretched the “one shot” into six sessions. When we tried to go back to the hotel at night to fight the monsters, we were not allowed to fight them. They instead made idle threats but ran away and vanished once the party tried to fight them. And we got the feeling that the Interim DM didn’t have any stat blocks prepped. We tried to be patient since this was the first time he was DMing, but then came the final fight. Despite telling us to roll level 7 characters, he had us fight: a bone devil, two nagas, four skeletons, and four ghasts all at the same time. He kept targeting my Paladin because I was the only one with healing abilities. He never attacked his own DMPC, claiming that he “forgot he could do that”. The fight resulted in a TPK where only his DMPC survived, and the DM was both smug and gleeful about killing all of our characters. Judges, I know that DMing is difficult, but was this unreasonable? He literally cackled when our characters went down. I humbly await your verdict. [Jake, please wait until the moment you think it’s funniest to reveal this] PS: Our Interim DM is my 10 year old nephew.

LastStandGaming

To the Honorable Justices of Respectable Titles and that Crummy Crabster Curmudgeon. I present to all of you the "Case of the Ghosting Party" A couple of year ago, I ran a game inspired by Celtic Folktales, it went pretty well for awhile, but as life began to pick up the momentum of the game sorta died down, unfortunate, but it happens from time to time all GMs know this. So the five of us decided to place that game on indefinite hiatus, and start a different one fresh. This isn't even remotely the issue. I myself am constantly writing different campaigns and systems, to the point where I probably have my own little Alexandria. After putting a few options on the table in a chat, what I received was not any answer or direction of what people are interested in. No. I received radio silence, crickets, a fartful breeze in the fields. After a couple of weeks with no response I decided it was best for me to move on as I was running four other campaigns: A Star Trek Adventures, 2 other D&D games, and a V5 game. Judges what I am about to tell you is beyond baffling and insane. Que the insanity. After what was probably four or five months after that group essentially ghosted me, one of them responded ask when another campaign would be ready, as the I quote "Had been waiting for months", I had to reactions: Confusion, because of course I had nothing ready I had already moved on and no prior interest was shown. My primary reaction was more along the lines of white hot rage, because the wording irked me beyond belief. There was some back and forth, but I eventually put my foot down and told them: "I was more than happy to run a game, but at no point is it my job to constantly chase down players to ask their interest." I was told I was being completely unreasonable along with a few other potential derogatory terms. I have chosen to block that group and move on to what feels like a healthier situation. But I ask you judges should I have tried harder to get player input? Or am I in the right for moving on the way I did? I humbly await your roundabout rulings.

Olivia A

May it please the court and the weirdly endearing bailiff John. I present the case of the Esophagus Escape. In a recent oneshot, our warlock (named Boyfriend) was swallowed by a sea monster and had just enough hp for a single turn before he would be dissolved by stomach acid. The sorcerer (me) thought to try and get him out using the spell Dimension Door, since the spell itself says nothing about seeing or touching the creature you take through, just that you have to be within 5 feet of them. Our DM ruled that since it was called Dimension *Door*, the spell manifests a physical door that you have to step through, and therefore our warlock would have no way of accessing the door since he was, you know, in an esophagus. In the end, I went for a damage spell and our party was able to kill the monster and get our partially-digested warlock out in time. No harm no foul. However, in a separate campaign with the same people but a different DM, that same person who originally ruled that I couldn’t use dimension door that way has, as a player, vetoed the other DM’s ruling that the spell could be used to get someone out of being swallowed. I beg you, esteemed judges, is my friend right to stick by her Dimension Door guns in all universes, or should our arcane casters be allowed to create an escape pharyngeal flap?

Breanna

To the hot babe justices and the smoke show bailiff - I lay the case of the wronged familiar at your feet. I’ve been playing in a 3 year (!) campaign as an Eldritch knight, a build I chose bc we all like to do damage and also have a little magic. Knowing I only get a handful of spells, I wanted to choose carefully and maximize potential. So, I chose find familiar as a first level spell. My familiar is one of those big pink parrot looking birds you’d find in Australia, and the DM agreed it can have eagle stats. I named her Cherry. Now every time I spend 10 minutes to summon Cherry and use one of my very precious few spells, the DM finds a way to kill her instantly, before she can be of any help. It’s often some pathetic excuse like “she hits an antimagic force field when scouting for bad guys.” It’s been three YEARS of this. If I had known it would be made useless, I wouldn’t have taken it. I am tempted to just switch out that spell slot without telling the DM. Justices - do I try to change slots? Do I demand justice for Cherry? It makes me not even want to play anymore. Ps. I am the only girl in this group, and the DM lets others get away with bullshit all the time.

B Drake

To the court and not bailiff Jake, I would like to present the case of the similar character. I've been playing an eldarin bard elf who is young maybe 80 moody teenager. He has a situation ship at home, an eladrin mum who tells him stories of the fey and is specialising into mind bending magic (detect thoughts, ego whip etc.). We've been playing this game for about 12 months and another player has decided to retire his character and make a new one because he didn't like having morals. When he wrote a new character he made this one a young half elf eldritch knight, whose been told stories by his mum about the fey, who also has an interest in mind altering (mainly shielding) magic. Then in the first session tried to make sure he was younger and taller. I find this quite tedious as I have spent a large amount of time characterising my character and have really had the wind taken out of me with this carbon copy. He plays his character as being moody with mine to the point we can't get anywherethen blames the party for his lack of morals. I have tossed up making a new character but don't want to, and the party mum/barbarian has offered to crush his skull, in game of course. Am I being moody just like my elf or should I try and embrace and differentiate myself?

The angry cat

To the honorable judges and the bird bailiff who somehow has a human child I think. I bring to you the case of the power word stun and the bald monks. I was playing a one-shot DMed by my long time DM and friend and decided to play a way of mercy monk. We’ve played together for about 10 years, and this one shot was to introduce the new partners of a few of the usual players to D&D. In total we had 3 new players and two experienced players (me and another friend also playing a monk). During character creation my DM was joking saying that all monks should be bald and thus we should have no hair, we said absolutely not and he said ‘ we will see how that goes during the game’. This was all in good fun, however, comes final fight on this very long game (8 pm until 4 am) on the first round the villain, a very OP warlock casts power word stun on me. For the rest of the battle I did nothing, I failed my save every time (the DC was very high). The BBEG then goes on the water and ‘hovers’ above it, the other monk tries to walk on the water and hit her, but the DM said she was flying way above and he could not reach her. The two experienced players end up not doing anything during the whole fight which ends with both of us dead (the two monks). I, not being able to lend a single hit on a 10 round fight, ended the night sleepy and kinda mad, to which the DM said ‘If you were bald maybe you would have survived’. So I ask the judges am I in the right to be kinda of resentful or was this all fair play, since I failed all checks and the DM warned us against having hair? Ps sorry for my bad English shout out from Brazil

TEDDYTENARION

To the honorable judges and the the other guy... Jed, Jort, J-something. I bring to you the case of grounding of the wayward broom. I was in my first online campaign as an Arcane Trickster rogue. In this DMs universe, magic shops were common and it was a luck check based on rarity to see if the item you asked for, was in stock. I managed to pick up a Broom of Flying (an uncommon level item) in the Feywild and proceeded to have a grand time with the eternal flight, increased speed and ability to recall within one mile much to the irritation of my DM. My DM became increasingly frustrated amd eventually one day an earthbind spell brought me to ground. Except this one never ended and my broom was forever grounded because that's how earthbind worked "that one time" Am I in the wrong for being salty that my favorite toy was torn away or should I accept the ruling that this one casting was exceptional. Awaiting your judgement... Wait.. His name is Jared...right?

Ryan Janes

To the honest and all-powerful Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Tanner and Axford and Jake or James, however we’re feeling today ; I present to you the case of the Deceptive Decedent. My son is 7 and has watched D&D from afar; collecting dice and remaining infinitely curious about the game. I recently got him a small mini dice tray at New York Comic-Con and he keeps it in his car seat cup holder so he can “roll on the go.” While I drive, I will make up a “D&D lite” sort of game; simplified checks, no modifiers etc. He will battle things we see on our drive such as trees, other cars, and of course, the BBEG; the dreaded bridge overpass. But being that my hands are safely 10 and 2 and my son is the only one in possession of a dice tray in the backseat, I have to trust his rolls. He’s young, and we’ve discussed how the fun of the game comes from the honesty of the dice and how we react to said dice, but things seem to always edge in his favor. A perfect 24 points of damage on a 4d6 roll of damage in our latest battle with a gas station pump comes to mind. But soon, he will be able to sit down and play for real seeing that we recently acquired his first mini for actual play. As his future DM, I am planning to introduce him to full rules with soft hands and some minor fibbing behind the screen in his favor to allow his interest in the game to flourish. His mother however thinks it is high time to learn the harsh reality of dice christ and TPK this kid. Am I wrong to edge wins his way to encourage his love for the game at his young age? P.S. we usually assume lvl 2 Fighter stats for my son because Fighters are easy for children to understand James.

Laura Balan

May it please the court, the honorable judges, and my favorite bailiff, (yes even more favorite than the one from Judge Judy): I was playing in my first ever campaign with a group of people I met online. We had been playing for months every week on Saturdays for sessions that could go up to 10 hours. In December, there was a real shift in the game. The wild magic barbarian got really angry with the characters in our party. She spent half of the end of our special Christmas session (when we were supposed to exchange gifts and attend a party) screaming at us and telling our characters that we were all bad people. The problem is, this attitude continued every session until March. She would constantly berate the party for things like accepting potions from “needy” NPCs instead of giving them our gold, not talking to town leaders before leaving, and even checking on the child NPC who was traveling with us, telling us to “leave her alone”. She would scream at us until she was at the point of tears. It got so bad that her character abandoned the party and she left the discord. The rest of the party talked at length outside of session about how uncomfortable we were and how it wasn’t fun to play. However, she was the DM’s girlfriend, so none of us felt like we could say anything to the DM since he didn’t seem to have a problem with it as it continued for literal months, and he even praised her for not “metagaming” and “doing what her character would do”. My question is, isn’t there some level of metagaming that has to be involved in playing D&D in order to get along with other PCs? Or am I just a new player and this behavior is normal? I await your judgment in this case.

Aaron W

To the Esteemed Justices Axford, Murphy and Tanner, and the Creepy Uncle Energy No One Wanted At the BBQ Bailiff Jake, I present to you the case of the Purloined Unicorn Horn gone awry. I was playing a campaign where our DM NPC was an orphan journalist who followed us around and had a mystical unicorn horn he wore as a necklace whose origins were shrouded in mystery. As we prepared to enter a haunted house, it became clear the unicorn horn would be necessary to defeat the BBG inside. However, my fellow players were so protective of the NPC they refused to let him enter. When I tried to ask for the pendant, the orphan freaked out and drove away with our carriage. I hung on, the carriage drove off a cliff, and I was so far away I failed my death saves from falling damage. Was I wrong for asking for the pendant that was clearly telegraphed as requisite? Were my fellow players right to keep our little orphan newsie safe at the expense of the planned adventure? Yours in Unicorn, Aaron at the Unfair Adoption Center

Lord Of Zoinks

To the honorable crit justice and that guy that still hasn't been on 8-Bit Book Club: I present the case of Jawn Deere I just started a 5e campaign with my fiance and some of our friends. Several of them are first time players getting used to the total freedom of a TTRPG, and in our session 0 one of them asked if instead of walking along a road to where they would all eventually meet, they could find a mount in the woods. I said yes, as they were able to speak with animals, and so they found the subject of the case, Jawn Deere. After riding him throughout session 0 they have made it clear they cannot let him vanish from the campaign. Am I on the right track to write him in as a secret villain, or am I setting myself up for much booing and hatred thrown at me by some Deer obsessed PCs? Please help, for this improvised fauna is quickly becoming the main character in this group and I cannot have a Deer DMPC derail the story I have written.

Ryan Gallagher

To the benevolent and most transcendental justices and Bailiff Jonk: I present the case of the crossbow wielding dog. In a world of Warcraft inspired campaign, I am a PC alongside a fellow PC playing a home brew race that is basically an Awakened Dog. His backstory is that he was an animal companion of a wizard who awakened him and then disappeared so he is searching for his master. The dog plays a fighter who has so far had no problems wielding a long sword, but in a recent combat with a floating enemy, he attempted to use his crossbow that came with his fighter class. The DM immediately said “no you don’t.” All of the PCs were stunned, but the DM said there’s no way for a dog to load and shoot a crossbow. We argued that he opened the door to the looney tunes type shenanigans by allowing a dog PC in the first place and it felt crazy to limit his abilities now when there have been no problems so far throughout 10+ sessions. The DM stuck to his guns and said that it was the PCs fault for choosing a race that couldn’t wield the weapons assigned to his class and we moved on with the session but it has always felt a bit unfair. Justices, I beseech you to give us a ruling, was it reasonable to limit the Dog’s ability to shoot a crossbow but not to swing a sword with deadly precision? PS as a third year law school student, DM court is such a great way to relieve stress, thank you for your hard work on the bench Justices! (and also the average bailiff Jeff)

Samuel Ryan

Dear dank as hell (positive) supreme crit justices and dank as hell (derogatory) bailiff I present the case of the vindictive D6. My DM was running a session that could be summarized as “oops, all surprise rounds” regardless of how well our party rolled perception or stealth. We had been waylaid by a group of goblins, a bundle of bandits, and a gaggle of ghosts. Each group surprising us and focusing fire on a party member based on a roll of a D6. It just so happens that this D6 had vowed an eternal feud with our party’s sorcerer because it came up on him every. Single. Time. We managed to keep him alive throughout this all, but at this point it was pretty clear he was frustrated by having his entire session delegated to death saving throws (because, even if we got him up, the DM had ruled that the enemies would focus fire on the initial target still). So when our party was hunkering down for a long rest, we were not too surprised to be “surprised” by a final breaching Bulette. One clattering of a D6 later and the Bulette is hauling ass towards, you guessed it, our sorcerer. He sat there silently making death saves to stabilization while we whittled down this final foe with no more access to healing spells, as we were all tapped for the day. Our sorcerer said nothing as he left but sent some colorful messages to our group chat later. The DM was pretty adamant that it was all just bad luck, but I felt that he could have at least fudged the last roll considering the dower mood of our sorcerer at this point. I see your dank as hell (reverent) read on this: should our sorcerer have just accepted that fate was his foe this day or should our DM have maybe given the poor guy a break? Your judgment is the one thing I am living for

Darkrisky

To the incredibly badass judges and the plain bad bailiff Jared, I give you the case of the patron-less daddy killer. There’s a lot to this case so I will keep it as brief as possible. I played a sea elf fathomless warlock of a noble background with a surfer/stoner vibe and a distrust of authority. She’s at a school to get away from her overprotective parents who sent her there with a necklace of sending. (I have explicitly said to my DM I am excited to play this class and that I did not want an evil patron.) During their adventures, my character was given a flute by an evil entity. Not wanting the responsibility, she destroyed it. As she did, her patron began to scream into her head something about freedom and “destroying all the sea elves”. Concerned, my character decides to use her necklace of sending to call her dad to ask if he knows anything about her patron. When she contacts her dad in a FaceTime-y way, her dad screams at her that she has doomed her whole city by destroying this flute. Turns out that destroying the flute resulted in her patron being released from the plane her city elders were keeping it. A tentacle then rose from the water and skewered her father. (Keep in mind my character saw all this in a “Facetime”.) My character ran to the headmaster of the school to get help and he opened a portal to her home city which was being destroyed by my character’s patron. Suddenly, my patron got sucked into the sky without any explanation. My DM then turns to me and says I’ve lost all my warlock levels and had to choose a new class! He stood there smiling at me waiting for my answer. He was surprised when I said my character killed herself and then I quit the campaign. He quit DMing this campaign after this because he “got bored”. So I ask this of you judges, was I wrong to be miffed and should have waited to see where the cool storyline he supposedly had planned went or did I have every right to be upset? I await your humble ruling.

Big Papa

RE: Update on the Ceral Bran Curse hi again honorable justices and that other guy! just to clairfy from my last submission i had made characters one and one with everyone except for my friend who made albert and told me on the call to make her character that she uses the same character for every campaign and wouldn’t change him bc he was already an established character in her other games. I tried to play a session after listening to some of your advice and embracing the curse and even writing in caldwell cursed ceral factory and creating a whole town of sad drone like Kenkus who were also under the curse! However Albert ended up completely derailing my campaign when he decided during the first fight of the game that his character would be a pacifist and would spend every turn hiding and failing performance checks to play a song that would stop the fighting. I tried my best to play along with the silliness of the character while also keeping the game fun for everyone but after albert had started rolling death saves on the first fight because he wasn’t fighting back and then failed his death saves he accused me of railroading him bc i had issues with his character. He then showed up to the next session uninvited with a new character named Balbert that was his characters long lost twin brother. long story short me and my other players have had to start secretly planning sessions and sadly cut out their partner’s character to stop them from finding out even tho we all enjoyed having a badass Drow paladin in a party of new players who needed to be healed a lot. 😭

emilythecoffeewench

To the resplendent Justices of the Court, and the lukewarm bailiff I guess, I come with a full party's admission of guilt. My dnd group has two weekly sessions, one being our main campaign and another night reserved for short games and oneshots. In our last main session, we established that our cleric's god looks like a yellow Keith Haring figure, but can manifest a dick when he wants, and the dick can walk away. We promptly lost the last quarter of the session to this goof. 6 days later, on our oneshot night with two people not in the main game, we brought this up again, laughing our asses off. I, in partnership with others, made a gif of said golden Godly penis walking off the Keith Haring figure and off screen. We once again lost a lot of time to laughing about our own dumb joke, while the other two players were just sitting there politely. I come bearing our groups sins and humbly ask for forgiveness .

Angus MacIver

Honorable Justices and sneaky little tricksy bailiff guy whose name escapes me, I present the case of the blind wizard. A few years ago, I joined a group of seasoned D&D players for what would be my second campaign at the time. Being very interested in characters with depth, I always like to weave cool aspects that couple well with race and class. For this campaign, I decided to make a divination wizard name Gus Humphrey who happened to be an extremely elderly man who was also blind. (It’s not a novel concept. He can see into the future but not the present. Sue me I’m not mark twain or some shit.) So I create this character with an owl familiar who he can through the eyes of via the Find Familiar spell as a way to magically crutch his disability. This way, he can cast ranged spells based off sight and not be totally useless. I see this as a pretty cool way to write disability in but understand it’s not fool-proof so I also prepare certain self cast AoE spell so I have something to fall onto. I shit you not: Session 1, in the very first round of combat in the campaign, an enemy archer shoots and kills my familiar. Not ideal but I prepared for this, and I blindly move forward to cast my AoE spells in range of the enemy. Only problem is, my spells also affect adjacent party members. They get pissed, PvP ensues, and between session 1 and 2 I work with the DM to write Gus Humphrey’s death into the story and bring out my new character, the barbarian Bus Dumphrey, who is too beefy for anyone to dare PvP with. I didn’t end up playing past session 2 because I lost interest in the character I had. My question is: was I wrong to write a character with such a disability? Are my party members ableist bigots? Should the DM have had the archer target my familiar so quickly? I humbly await your sentencing.

Zeno is a Paradox

To the honorable justices and however we are referring to the bailiff today, I present the case of the soggy golem My party was searching a missing wizards house for clues to a local plauge after encountering some animated objects and a living fireplace we encountered the boss monster, a golem made of bread that smelt of garlic. Like any good dnd party we tried to make our enemy literal toast with fire spells this set off a secondary effect on the monster that turned it into a living calzone man and only made it more powerful. Our bard had the idea to use the alchemy jug we had to pour the full amount of salt water it can on it to power it back down. We ended up doing this but it had no effect on the calzolom which started a (fun) yelling argument that making the bread soggy should do something. It got loud enough that the owner of the shop asked us what we were all yelling about when we left because we could be heard through the door. Your swift judgment is appreciated as we are finishing the fight in a week. Ps we are level 3 and this thing has magic resistance (non of us have magic weapons) and most of our spells are also doing half damage

Toni Conge

To those fake internet judges and maybe actual balief Jake. My character was investigating a mural next to a stone coffin that the barbarian was trying to break into. When the barbarian busted it open the DM had me take 2d6 damage from the coffin shards flying everywhere. I think my character would have the common sense to realize she was in a construction zone and I simply didn't move my character on the map to show my interest in the mural. Judges please sentence my DM to have a nice meal!

Matt Rajala

Honorable clerics of Dice I have a confession to bring to the church. During the finale battle of our pirate arc I may have committed a sin by omission. I play with a group of 5 brand new players and we had been meeting pretty much weekly for about 6 months at this point. I find myself constantly helping them with the intricacies of the game and their characters throughout most battles. As well as consistently being whomped by them even after inflating hps prefight. They all seem to love this. Recently I told them that I want start increasing stakes and as part of that I would help them less. As part of a climactic naval battle where I was trying to balance 2 scales of combat as well as about 40 total minis I let them use their NPC friends to give siege weaponry advantage on attacks. As they were once again whomping my ass they took a shot at my main boss with a siege weapon without rolling advantage and missed. The hit would have definitely killed my bad guy and I wanted to keep the stakes up at least one more round so I neglected to remind them of the advantage even though I had been throughout the fight. I told myself this was part of increasing the difficulty at the time but I know that supporting them throughout the fight and pulling it away was unfair. I beg forgiveness for my sin of omission

JessMayWin

May it please the court and the absolute bae-liff. I bring the case of the bungled bathroom ambush. In a game a few years ago we were tasked with kidnapping the daughter of a wealthy merchant to get information about the location of a valuable artifact - the only problem was, according to the DM, 'she never leaves her mansion and has at least 2 guards with her at all times and if they are alerted or attacked the entire guard force will be mobilised immediately and you will all be imprisoned and later killed'. We spent around 2 sessions trying to solve this issue in a variety of ways, which the DM continued to shoot down (ok can we infiltrate the merchant's militia and try and get on her guard shift? No. Start a fire at her estate to smoke her out? No. You get the idea). In desperation I suggested that I, the bard, polymorph into a fly and try to sneak through a crack in the window while she was on the loo and then dimension door out of the mansion, as I reasoned that surely she would have to be alone while doing her business. The DM flat out refused, saying the guards would also accompany her to the toilet. The whole thing left us feeling pretty.... crap.... to be honest. I humbly ask the court - would someone being guarded at all times expect their guards to be with them when they are on the can, or was my idea, as gross as it was, a viable one? How do you deal with a DM who seems to have a very specific idea of how a problem should be solved? p.s. after this same in-game day continued with no further success for another 2 SESSIONS i followed Murph's cardinal rule and got some new friends to play with - they really are the shit

BookWyrm37

Steamed justices and Highly Bailiff Jort, I present the case of the Sleepy BloodHunter. A few years ago when I was a freshman in college a friend and I joined a dnd table for a one shot night in a club we were part of. This was our second time ever plating dnd and so we joined the highest level table of the night, that being a level 5 horror one shot. One of the people in the group played a bloodhunter which, being new to dnd, I'd never heard of and it sounded super cool. He named this character Zenitsu, after a character from the anime Demon Slayer. Not knowing anything about it, I thought nothing of it. That was until we got into combat and he proceeded to narrate his character PASSING OUT and running something crazy like 80 feet away and not helping with combat at all. The rest of us kept fighting kind of annoyed by this, and after we had done most of the damage to a big enemy he shows back up just in time to do the final blow! The rest of us at the table were kind of annoyed by this, and did talk with him later about his character, though he never felt he was in the wrong. So tell me justices, were we the crazy ones for wanting his character to be a bit more useful?

Alex Smith

To the deep steamed justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and the bay leaf Jud, I bring to you the case of the technical 20. I was playing in a Ferngully/Avatar style game where our party was attempting to take down a colonizer BBEG who was attempting to urbanize our forest. We had enlisted the help of some of the forest folk and a few creatures but our plan hinged on convincing a hippo-crocodile hybrid (termed by us a “hippodile”) who acted as a kind of Aslan leader-of-the-forest creature. We had to complete several persuasion-related rolls to fully convince the creature in a way that we knew it wouldn’t leave or turn on us during the battle. We flubbed enough of the rolls that we had one last roll for all the marbles that our DM told us would need to be a natural 20 for us to succeed. We had been going around taking turns (similar to initiative) during this interaction and the next player in the line did roll a natural 20!! Unfortunately they were the only one in our party with a -1 to animal handling. The DM said that because they didn’t actually roll a 20 after the math that we didn’t succeed and thus almost all died escaping from the hippodile. I ask the court, were we wronged by having our DM take this potential alliance away from us on a natural 20? Or do modifiers make the final call? Thank you as always for your wisdom and service!

King Karl

Hello Honorable Justices and Bailiff Jacklyn, May I present the case of the Shitty Distraction. I run a homebrew campaign with my friends from college, the party is level 6, and they were infiltrating an old castle full of bandits/smugglers. As they were sneaking through and assassinating the sleeping occupants, they encountered a guard captain in the dining hall that was looking towards the next room they were going to assassinate people. To distract guard captain the sorcerer and the wizard both used prestidigitation, one to create the sensation of warm liquid in his pants, and the other to create the smell of shit in the air. I made them roll arcana checks and both rolled very high, so I described the captain (who was supposed to be a tougher encounter) leave the dining hall embarrassed to go change his pants, allowing the party to get into the next room and assassinate the sleeping guards without the alarm being raised. Was I wrong to allow a cantrip to foil a tougher opponent and set a dangerously shitty precedent going forward, or is my party just slightly unhinged. P.S. I had the guard captain come back several minutes later after changing pants and the party was able to ambush him and kill him without difficulty. P.P.S For Jacklyn: How does the human brain ignore the the second the?

Holden Farrar

To the Resplendent Justices, and ... I wanna say it was Tom? I played in a short-lived campaign where I played a wood elf bladesinger wizard/paladin(sort of an arcane dragon-knight). Part of the reason I went full elf instead of half-elf was to be able to trance and get my spell slots back faster. But the first time we rested, the DM said that I could still be aware of my surroundings, but that I would still have to rest for 8 hours. I brought up a tweet from Jeremy Crawford that clarified trance meant a 4 hour rest, but the DM said that was too hard for him to balance around. I deferred to him since it was his game, and the campaign fizzled for unrelated reasons, but I still get salty thinking about it sometimes. Justices, was this some bullshit, or was the DM right to make me nap longer? Humbly yours, Salty Swordmage in Charlotte

Katie Lillemon

To the esteemed justices and the neutral bailiff jessica, I present the case of the pocket almonds. May it please the court: Two years ago, I played in my first ever campaign, which was being DMed by my experienced roommate. She did an amazing job writing her own story and creating challenges for us, knowing that she was tabling for a group of two first-time players. She made a number of complex puzzles in addition to enemies since we were unexperienced with combat and a bunch of science nerds. She even made us our own dice boxes with a laser cutter and engraved them to match our characters. I was super excited to be playing in such a cool setting and spent time crafting my character, a dragonborn paladin on a quest to recover their ancestral library. One of the players at the table was my Physics professor, and I can only describe them as an agent of absolute chaos. Whenever we encountered a puzzle, instead of solving it they would throw daggers at everything and refuse to participate in the solving. When we would fight enemies, they would throw almonds from their endless supply of “pocket almonds” at them and refuse to battle, often resulting in serious casualties, and in one instance, a TPK. Additionally, they constantly made inappropriate sexual jokes involving said almonds at the table, generally making me and the DM uncomfortable. I knew that this was their first campaign and didn’t want to tell them how to play, but they were my professor, and it made our professional dynamic weird after, even though we were playing in a casual setting outside of class. Additionally, it spoiled my first experience playing and made light of a super cool homebrew our DM made. Should my professor have tried a little harder to engage with the world, or were they right to be a pocket almond agent of chaos? I await the swift judgement of the court.

DorkRoll

To the Blessed Bishops of our Lord and Savior Dice Christ and agent of the Dice Devil Jake, I come to you with a confession. Knowing that dice are almost never completely balanced, I decided to see if any of my d20s had a particularly strong bias. After thousands of test rolls and some number crunching, I found that I have some real gems, as well as some absolute stinkers. Your eminences, I fear I've looked beyond the veil, gaining insight into the Dicey Divine that no mortal should ever have. Can Dice Christ forgive my impertinence? Or do I have to stop using these profaned dice, some of which have a lot of sentimental value? Your servant, DorkRoll

Matthew

To the extremely hot judges and the strange looking bailiff I bring you my case of the campaign ending counter spell. While playing in a pirate campaign we had planned a stealth mission to get some documents for our pirate boss. This compound we are attempting to raid was surrounded by cliffs, we decided to attack from above and target the biggest threat. We were able to successfully sneak to our positions and waited for our bard to cast hold person on a surprise round. When hold person was cast the boss was able to counter spell without knowing the hold person was being cast ruining our plan. We argued that since the enemy had no clue the spell was cast it wouldn’t work but the dm wouldn’t even give his reasoning for counter spell working. This made everyone kind of lose interest in what was happening in the session. After that along with other issues we had with the dm as a person we stopped playing that campaign for good. So I ask you judges who shall have to spend eternity in davy joneses locker me crew or the dm

Zach Snyder

To the supreme crit justices and the honorable bailiff Jake. I present the case of the falling monk. I’m DMing a group of friends and recently they lost an airship battle. While they were falling to the ground I was letting my players figure out how to survive the fall or prepare to heal anyone who went down from it. One of the players, a monk argued that he should be able to use deflect missiles to prevent some of the damage. His logic is that from a point of view, the surface was a projectile weapon and that he should be able to deflect it when he hit the ground. It was a silly moment and he eventually backed down on that hill but he still jokes about it from time to time. Is there any way you could see yourselves letting that happen. I almost let it go cause it was funny but I think ruling that would eventually come back to haunt me

The Fun Yaunt

To the Supreme Crit Justices Axford and Murphy, the Sweetest of Blue Holes, and the deeply mediocre bailiff, May it please the court, I present the case of the bardic imposter. Last October I DM’d my first session, a one-shot for my regular D&D group. I planned a spooky adventure in which a group of cousins entered the mansion of their great-aunt, a witch that left them all a generous inheritance (should they successfully pass her trials). I asked each of my players to text me about their characters in preparation. To my surprise, one player told me she’d like to play a Changeling Warlock named Scylla who likes to take on the appearance of her friend, a sea-elf bard. I thought this was a strange detail, but didn’t think it was particularly important what appearance the Changeling chose. However, I soon learned that I’d okayed her character before fulling understanding it— this player intended to play a Changeling Warlock that was fully impersonating a dead Sea-Elf Bard (and the real niece of the witch). The character would also carry a necklace containing the soul of the deceased friend in hopes she could revive her one day. Her backstory seemed too complex for a one-shot, but she was excited about the character and I’d technically already okayed it. I asked her what her plan was for when other players asked why she wasn’t casting bardic spells— she said she doubted it would come up. Unfortunately my concern was merited— during the session one of the other players became increasingly frustrated that the “bard” refused to give bardic inspiration and heal. This other player, a rogue, stole the imposter’s necklace out of annoyance, derailing the session for a time while the imposter disregarded the mission to look for her necklace because “it’s what her character would do.” The rogue eventually dropped the necklace in a trashcan for her to find once he realized that the “bard” wouldn’t continue the one-shot without it. The players and I had fun overall (and I incorporated revivify into the witch’s inheritance), but I ask you— was I in the wrong to allow my player to play a character with such a complicated backstory? I humbly await your judgment.

Ian Vega

Dear Honorable Justices, and most important of lowly bailiffs. This past weekend, I was running a session where my players were investigating a base for clues and stumbled upon the magic items the Eversmoking Bottle, and the Decanter of Endless Water. One of the players asked as a hypothetical that if they were to jam an open smoke bottle into the mouth of an enemy, would they suffocate? I explained that even if the smoke expanded the 60 feet, that since it's just smoke, not toxic, and isn't void of oxygen, that it wouldn't work that way. They then proposed a similar question for the decanter, to which I said that I would actually work with them with some contested rolls, since one of the features shows that it shoots a geyser of 30 gallons, but it still wouldn’t gaurantee instant death, especially if the enemy isn't a weenie and isn't low in health already. The player who asked about the smoke asked if they came up with something creative, shouldn't it be rewarded with at least a roll. Am I being too much of a hard ass and not letting my players be creative? I rest my fate in your hands. Ps. The party of 5 are level 14.

Grisby's Pal

Forgive me Dice Christ, for I have sinned. It’s been 40 years since my last confession. In my last campaign I played a cleric who was raised by werewolves. On a visit home, I got bit by my childhood nemesis and ended up developing lycanthropy. My DM homebrewed a cool werewolf mechanic, where in exchange for being pretty OP as a werewolf I had to roll a D20 at the start of each turn, and on a Nat 1 I would go berserk and attack whoever was closest to me. My party found ourselves exploring a cave when we came across a Flesh Golem who kicked our butts. When the golem picked me up and started using me as a weapon to club the other party members, we decided it was time to cheese it. While running away, our wizard used an ability that froze the golem for several turns, but the effect would be canceled if the golem took damage. I started my turn next to the frozen golem and was about to run away when my DM reminded me to make my berserk roll. I accidentally rolled the D20 into my entire dice pile, and claimed that I couldn’t tell which was the dice I rolled, so I had to reroll it, ultimately saving and allowing us all to run away and live to fight another day. Please forgive me, I did know which dice I rolled, and it was a Nat 1. I should have gone berserk and attacked the golem, which would have woken it up and greatly limited our ability to escape. I will happily accept whatever penance you think is necessary for me to atone for this grievous sin.

Johanna Hanchar

Esteemed judges and the weak ankles Baliff Jake, I am submitting the following for my sister because she does not have a Patreon. And yes, I am the DM she is submitting her case against. " I play a home game that my sister DM's. My level 4 half-dwarf barbarian was in a colosseum tournament. The winner of the tournament would get to make one request of the level # Pirate King of the island. The plan was that if I won, my request would be that the pirate King duel Rolf (an NPC we were working with to infiltrate an animal trafficking ring) and I would be Rolf's second. I won the tournament and when it was time to make my request to the Pirate King, I said "I challenge you to a one-on-one duel on behalf of Rolf." Instead of agreeing to duel Rolf, the Pirate King immediately attacked me in a surprise round. I went down twice and my second had to step in while I made death-saving throws. It actually ended up being an awesome fight and my character won (only because her second had a wild magic surge that manifested a unicorn, which my sister-the DM- allowed me to use as a mounted combatant). Even though it ended up being more fun the way it played out, I did almost die twice, so my question is: was my sister's response to the phrasing of my request appropriate, or should the Pirate King have fought Rolf?" We await your judgment and will respect your ruling.

Zack Murphy

Hello pious justices honorable bailiff Jark. The case lies not during a DND session, but before. I bring you the case of the Mike's Harder. My DND group has been playing for about a year and a half. We play at our DM's house. We will go over there about 2 hours before a session to just hang out and talk. Usually, one of us players (generally myself or my boyfriend) will decide to get snacks or something to drink to have during our session. One day, my boyfriend stated he wanted to go to the gas station and get an ICEE. I decided to come with him. Before we left, I asked everyone, including the DM, if they wanted "anything." The DM stated that he was good and didn't want anything. When I was at the gas station, I walked by a beautiful can of Mike's Harder Lemonade and decided spur of the moment to get one. I hadn't previously known I wanted alcohol until I saw the luscious can of hard lemonade. When we arrived back at the house, our DM saw the Mike's Harder and was upset. He said "a Mike's Lemonade??", which I responded with "No, a Mike's Harder." The DM then said "Well if I knew we were getting alcohol, I would have asked for some." Here's where the case lies justices- our DM states that when we asked if anyone wanted "anything," this did not include alcohol. The other players and myself are on the side that "anything" includes ANYTHING. We are a very happy DND family who still razz our DM about this to this day. But should we let this razzing lay to rest? I wait humbly for your judgement.

Dale Durham

To the justices Magnificent Murph, Effervescent Emily, Courageous Caldwell, and the surprisingly kobold-adjacent bailiff Jank: I bring you the case of the murderous bard I've been DM'ing a weekly campaign for me and my college roommates/lifelong friends for about 7 months now, and one of my friends' behavior is starting to get to me. He is playing a "morally grey" half-gnome, half-dwarf bard named Nuts Bolts. As a part of my campaign setting, there are these teleportation pads that can send inanimate objects back and forth with a pin-based system which is used for trafficking illegal goods by the mafia. Nuts bolts wants constantly to use the mafia teleporters to "send a ton of bombs into their headquarters" but the problem is the players dont know the pin to enter that would lead to the mafias hideout. They also teleporters at their fronts, many of which are normal shops, businesses, and even hospitals. Ive let him know that if he randomly puts bombs through the teleporter, he could end up killing innocent people, but because he's playing a "morally grey" character he doesnt care. How should I as a DM go about saving my friend from the path of murder-hoboism? Should I just let him do it and potentially kill innocent people for little to no reason in my made-up brain world? I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

Gabagooblin

To the venerable judges and their trusty sidekick Bailiff Boy, I present the case of the DM Screen Incursion. I DM a casual game for some friends, all of whom are new to DnD. There have been some moments of culture shock as someone used to DMing for more experienced players, such as having to explain that they shouldn't google a monsters stat block and read it aloud to the table during combat. These things usually turn into a funny learning moment for everyone, but there is one player who just doesn't seem to get (or doesn't want to). In a previous session, they repeatedly peered over the DM screen to look at my NPC rolls and I explained that keeping some rolls secret was part of the game and that I also kept other things hidden back here, like clay minis and item cards that I made to reveal at certain points. They said they understood, but in our most recent session they reached behind the screen to rummage through my container of minis and put one on the map for every NPC I described, even ones that weren't engaging in combat. Judges, am I being a petty hardass in getting annoyed at this behavior? Or has this gone beyond a newbie's faux pas? I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

Marc Delucchi

To the beautiful beacons of Dice Christ, I am at a crossroads and seek your guidance for fear that I am being tempted by great evils. A PC in a campaign I'm running has been developing romantic chemistry with an NPC and the pair went on their first date. Independent of their budding romance, my PCs are allowed to determine how hot their character thinks another character is by rolling a D10. This more realistically captures differing attractions and allows me to DM without having to stop every time a new NPC is introduced to answer whether they are hot. However, during our last session, one of the players asked how hot our PC was to the NPC they were on a date with. I rolled behind the board half-jokingly. Despite rolling with advantage, I rolled a 1 and a 2 on the D10. I did not tell the party what I rolled and the session played out in such a way that I wasn't forced to engage in further role play after these rolls. I am now torn between whether I should treat these rolls as cannon or not. I had been playing the character with genuine interest and feel bad about ending a romance because of a roll I wasn't taking seriously. Is my NPC now canonically bound to have been turned off on this first date? Or is there a way to remain in the glowing light of Dice Christ and let this romance continue?

TrailWag

Our tale begins at our first in-person DnD session in a year, we've been playing for about 3 years now, started in the pandemic and play a weekly game online. Every 6-12 months we try to get in person to play at the same table. It's fun! Our DM has been playing since he was a kid, and is one of those guys who is always like, "well based on this, that doesn't work" as well as just flat out saying no, to perfectly reasonable requests. Does our party sometimes engage in shenanigans? Yes. But I would say no more than the typical table, and most of the time I believe it's kind of creative problem solving! As an example, I played a barbarian rogue, and at one point I wanted to smash through the wooden floor of a tavern to drop on an enemy and help my party. Crazy. Perhaps, but I like to think of it as creative problem solving. I feel like there could've been a cool way to play that up rather than just crushing all my dreams but I digress. Our main issue seems to have started at our in person game two months back. We were fighting frost giants, and our party survived by the skin of our teeth. Every character went down multiple times, and most left the fight with multiple levels of exhaustion, and very low health. We left that fight with the DM saying we could level up at the next session, "and he was surprised none of us died" That should've been our first hint that treachery was afoot. Please keep in mind none of us had a discussion about character death at this point and what was and was not acceptable for us as a group. Our next online session, he said not to level up and we came out of the cave from our near deadly encounter from the in person game, to find the evil group of cultists we've been working against waiting for us to exit. We've been trying to find these masks, scattered around the world, and they want us to tell them where they are. We of course said, go fuck yourself. Our DM in turn made me roll a wisdom save at disadvantage to throw my very special sword over the side of a cliff 🫠 And that's, dear justices, where we should've known EVEN MORE, that something was afoot. Why? We had no idea. But our DM was out for blood. Our characters woke up in a dungeon, shackled, with all of our equipment removed. We tried breaking our chains, looking for ways out, we weren't allowed to cast spells with somatic components. Everything we tried was rolled at a disadvantage due to the exhaustion levels we had, and no matter what we tried, the answer was a laugh and "no". The evil cultist guy would come in every hour, ask us if we'd tell him where the mask was and we of course said, no! Because our characters weren't no bitches. And to be honest, the longer this went on, and the more we received the answer, no, the more bitchy we got back in return. At one point, my barbarian told the cultist leader he maybe wasn't as cool as he thought he was, and he came over with a cup of liquid. He proceeded to throw it on my shackled character, I asked, "hello, can I please roll to see if I can kick the cup of water out of his hand, my arms are shackled but I assume my legs are free," and I got a flat out no. Like... What? Each time the cultist leader left, he'd be gone for an hour, and our entire party would take another level of exhaustion. He'd come back and ask again, and we'd say fuck you. Rinse and repeat. Eventually, our entire party just felt like, what the fuck is even happening? We left that session wondering what we could've even attempted. The next session was more of the same bullshit. At one point my wild magic barbarian used magic sense to try and see if there was anything maybe we hadn't seen. Low and behold! We see what looks like someone in the corner. Has our DM come to their senses and given us a way out? NOPE! Why give your players hope when you can just make another evil, shitty ass character put in the dungeon with us to listen in on our conversations so we couldn't even lie to the evil cultist leader if we wanted to. This went on and on, eventually we did wind up getting out of our shackles, and a fight ensued. 3/4 of our party was murdered (one character took 60 points of damage from an arrow lol like was that necessary after torturing us for two sessions?) I only made it out cause I threatened to snap the neck of the hidden character that had been in the corner of the cell and told her to dimension door me out. The real kicker for me was he ended the session basically playing out how my companion animal he gave me was wandering the world, sad and abandoned, how our city fell to the dragons and the majority of our party was dead. Cheerful eh? Before we signed off he said, stuff like this just happens sometimes and there's nothing you can do. He then said he'd reach out to some people individually. He never did... eventually sending what I considered to be a non- apology, saying there were ways for us to succeed we just didn't find them. When asked point blank what they were he didn't answer. So my esteemed justices, tell me did he just want to murder our party for no reason? Like... I've never experienced anything like this in all the campaigns I've played. I know characters die but this just seemed punitive for punity's sake. How do we even handle this going forward? I've taken over with a new campaign so someone new can DM and try to repair the damage to our party but the question remains... What the fuck happened?

Trevor

To the Supreme Crit Justices and the hopefully soon to be reinstated bailiff Jack, I present to you the case of the Un-Undead. My party and I were escorting a caravan and had made camp for the night. There were four of us all level 6. While keeping watch I got a high perception check and noticed something approaching the caravan. I used my divine sense and the DM said I didn't notice anything. I woke the resr of the party and the grave cleric who used his eyes of the grave to see if he could catch anything. These creatures, which the DM described as basically huge skeletal dogs with wings, kept getting closer but he wouldn't let anyone make anymore perception checks. They ambushed us and instantly took down an npc guard we had with us and dragged away our rogue. The cleric upcast a healing spell to get the npc back up and did a whopping 36 healing and the DM described the npc as "at 0 and stable." We eventually beat all the creatures and tracked down the rogue. But I ask should we have been able to prepare for the ambush, especially with the seemingly undead creatures and two casters who specialized against them?

Baz C

To the juicy justices and bouncing baby bailiff- I run an urban fantasy neo-noir campaign set in a fictional city in modern day America. A while back, I thought it would be a good idea to add a therapist NPC to help the characters talk through the assorted moral crises they were going through. There was only one problem: I am not a therapist, I would make a terrible therapist, and after a couple in-game sessions, the players decided that this woman was so comically bad at her job that she had to be evil and actively trying to sabotage their mental health. After finding out that she was an ex-member of a cult they were investigating, they took this as proof of her ill intent, and one of the PCs decided to break into her house, tie her up, steal her gun, and hold it to her head to threaten her for information on the cult. She told them everything she knew, but as the PC was getting ready to go, she told them that, since they broke into her house and threatened to kill her, they should go fuck themself and she would no longer be comfortable treating them, or either of the other two members of the party. My players protested, and said that while it was reasonable for her to draw that professional boundary with the one who broke in, my therapist NPC should still treat the other party members, since they weren't part of it. I maintain that as their therapist, she knew the party was very close and would reasonably be uncomfortable being near any of the three of them, but the players disagree. Judges, was I right to leave my PCs to deal with their own psychological torment, or does everyone deserve mental health services regardless of the violence their friends inflict on their therapists?

Ross Gilliland

May it please the court and leave the bailiff feeling satisfied, I present to you a very deadly combo. Warning: this is a crunchy case and the books will be needed. One time I played an Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, mainly for the purpose of using the Ancestral Protectors subclass feature. In our first session, my friend who was playing a Cavalier Fighter discovered that their Unwavering Mark feature applies the same effect (disadvantage against everyone other than the PC that applies the mark). He then suggested that we use both of these features against a single enemy, ensuring that said enemy has disadvantage on EVERYONE (ourselves included). Though the Ancestral Protectors feature doesn't use the language of "applying a mark", I tried to argue that though RAW that could work, it definitely shouldn't be allowed RAI. Ultimately, our first-time DM decided to allow it and we cheesed the final fight of the session so bad that we never played in that campaign again. O just and impartial court, how do you read and interpret these rules and mechanics? Should we have been allowed to carry out this campaign-killing whomp?

zach stewart

To the divine and benevolent judges, and the illustriously mundane balif, I present the case of the one trick wizard. I DM have been running a campaign for almost 3 years now. My player's characters are level 11 and I have been very generous with cool homebrew items. I gave the wizard a "Grimoire of Hunger" a sentient grimoire that feeds on other spell books, consuming them, taking spells for free and adding them to the book. The wizard has over 130 spells available to him, and yet he only ever casts fireball. I've tried to put them in situations where other spells would be great and useful but he keeps his spell list the same and doesn't really cast anything besides fireball. Am I wrong to be upset that I've given him what every wizard player dreams of, a way to amass a huge collection of spells, only for him to just cast an unoriginal spell even on single targets? I kneel at you're feet and await judgement.

Blaze Sura

To the uncrustable justices and regular crust jailiff bake I bring to you the case of the devoted blood hunter half ork dad named Trank lizer (me) I have been in my current DND group for more then 5 to 6 years humble brag I admit so to keep a long story short I play a dad character too well that most of the time Trank keeps getting hit on and he's in a very happy relationship with his wife but i fear my DM and other players might want me to have and I quote " a fun sad dad divorce ark" I swear that no matter what happens I will play my part the best I can but will fight for.my changeling wife and 3 kids

JasperSilver

May it please the honorable justices and be read by that guy Jim or whatever his name is: May I present the case of the Barry the Bearbarian and the unread character sheet. I was playing in a weekly campaign with a pro dm through my local game shop when my character pulled cards from the deck of many things and drew the void card. The DM ruled my level 12 Druid was entombed in the Beastlands. I knew the consequences, thought this was both fun and a bummer, and rolled up a new character. The DM said to make the most broken character I could, so I made a level 12 BearBarian (level 7 moon druid/5 bear totem barabarian) who I said was my original characters old roommate who had died and was already in the beastlands. I designed the character to utilize the barbarians extra attack feature while wildshaped and selected magic items following the DMs guidelines to make him to scale with the party. I chose a flying chariot to buff my AC while wildshaped as well as a horn of Valhalla for melee support. I sent the DM the sheet ahead of time, confirmed the extra attack and rage worked while wildshaped because they should work RAW but mid combat the DM heavily nerfed my character by saying horns of valhalla aren't allowed at the table, I couldn't get the chariot up the steps to the top of the pyramid where the fight was and wouldn't allow extra attack to work with wild shapes (I was not trying to mix multiattack and extra attack, just doing two melee weapon attacks with the wildshape Allosaurus statblock). Then the enemies we were fighting flew up out of reach out of most of our characters. At this point I felt I couldn't participate in combat to rescue my original druid, as I couldn't use a flying wildshape, and I didn't stock any ranged attack spells. I got visibly upset at the table but did my best to keep my cool and didn't storm off or yell, but dropped my wildhape and rage and healed another party member. I understand broken multiclass builds may need adjustments for balance but I would have built a different character if I had feedback before the session(like a druid 9/barbarian 3 if i cant use the multiattack, then i can get flying wildshapes). I ask the court are these mid combat nerfs fair for balance or was Barry the Bearbarian unnecessarily stripped of his cool stuff.

verityisoki

Oh great judges and the ever-so ruggedly handsome bailiff, I present you with my case of "The Pros and Cons list" Recently I DMed a last minute one-shot for my group, a friend of one of our players had begged that he and his girlfriend join us for a session. Since our other DM had just spent the week prepping for our regular campaign I stepped up to help them out. I only had three days but I managed to prep what I thought was a fun one shot including a cypher they had to solve in real life with a five minute timer. I tried to give ample space during the session to get them comfortable with roleplay and the rules of the game since they are new, I also made sure to ask during breaks if they were having a good time and every time I asked they would respond along the lines of "yeah I'm having a lot of fun". So the session wraps up and they head home so we decided to blaze and chill a little bit but to my surprise less than 30 minutes later we receive a message in the group chat saying that they made a "pros and cons list for the DM", I was so frustrated by the blatant two-facedness of this that I completely left them on read and they ended up only sending the list to the group member they were close with (it included things like "we weren't able to explore our characters" and "the fight was too easy" keep in mind this was a oneshot that only had one major boss fight that lasted 2 hours), it felt really shitty to put so much work into making sure they had a good time only for them to turn around and complain when we were no longer face to face. Was I wrong to do this? Should I have gladly taken their list? I humbly ask the court to decide

Kuzco's Poison

To the milk-soaked pre-cog Crit Justices of the Future Crimes Division and the "little L" lowly bailiff of the Future Traffic Crimes Division, I fear I may have committed a future crime. As far as my group is concerned, I am playing an over the top Githyanki space pirate warlock/sorcerer.  In actuality, I'm a deep cover changeling impersonating a Githyanki to infiltrate the NPC group we all work for.  Only my DM and I know this.  We specifically decided that I would be on a fact finding mission, simply trying to rise up through the ranks and get sensitive info.  This way I won't be working at cross-purposes with more sincere group members.  Should I ever die, I will revert back to changeling form and the jig will be up.   I'm concerned a specific very emotionally invested group member may take this in-character lie as an OOC betrayal.  I don't want to hurt them, but I am also having a lot of fun.  Should I have been upfront with the other PCs? Is it okay for past me to setup a minor heel turn that may upset future them? PS- We all got to start with a magic item so I'm publicly rocking a ring of mind shielding that simultaneously marks me as shady while hiding all the most obvious clues.

Marrow

Dear honourable justices and wee little bailiff Jabe. I come with the case of the xp thieving NPC. A session had ended in our long running strahd game and the DM commended us for avoiding a combat encounter and instead using deplomacy. He was giving out xp then stopped after giving a number stating "oh wait, it should be divided between 5 not 4. I forgot about the NPC!". We were confused. This NPC had done nothing for the whole session bar helping my character brew a pot of tea. We all agreed the choice made no sense and it was made worse when the DM said the NPC won't be getting levels during the campaign. A heated argument began and eventually the DM changed the decision but everyone was left feeling thougherly awkward. Justices. Were we wrong? Did our DM deserve the grilling or should we have respected his blatantly wrong decision? I wait to be graced by your verdict.

Josh Zellers

To the wonderful justices and the tuck(er) cuck jake hurtwitz. I bring you the case of the toxic player, this case is from a friend. He and his group were starting up a dnd campaign through discord and he didn’t have a server to start playing. So one of the players added them all to her server. One session she couldn’t make the game so he asked her if she wanted them to wait. She said no so they went on playing. She came back and yelled at everyone deleting the server and blocking everyone saying “ you played without me” justices was my friend in the wrong here for was she just outraged

Leanne Crawford

To the magnanimous judges Murphy, Axford and Tanner and the illustrious bailiff Jeff, I bring to you the case of the Wild Magic Murder. This occurred back in the days before NADDPOD, while I was relatively new and and still finding my feet playing DND. I played a wild magic sorcerer and in a relatively high stakes battle, I rolled a 1 and got to roll the wild magic surge table. Luck was with me, I summoned a unicorn! A little back story, in previous sessions, it had come up that our DM did not agree with how fall damage was calculated in 5e and had mentioned making the damage higher, a couple of the other players agreed but I and another had stayed silent, I was too new to DND and the mechanics still felt complex enough that I was not ready to have any input. Also, my DM, knowing my glass cannon status, had recently gifted me a flying broom. I'm sure you can see where this is going. I was 90ft in the air on the fateful day when I summoned a unicorn to a space within 5 feet of me. It was briefly, a truly magical moment which became suddenly horrifying when we realized that no, unicorns cannot fly (or cast fly) and it suddenly plummeted. This is when my DM announced that he had decided that fall damage will be doubled starting now and going forward. My unicorn was mercilessly splattered on the stones below. So I ask you, the wonderful, compassionate, clever judges, and Jeff, should I still be suffering from splattered Unicorn PTSD, or did my DM do me dirty? P.S. Jeff have you considered being a guest on 8 bit book club? You might be funny.

Nick P

Dear noble justices and slime boy: I bring you neither a case nor a confession, but seek your legal advice on a build I am considering. I play an Order Domain Cleric, a subclass based on using Enchantment and buff spells offensively. The main feature of the subclass is Voice of Authority, which allows an ally to use their reaction to attack if I cast a 1st level spell or higher on them. My question is about how this interacts with Silvery Barbs, which I am considering getting through a feat at level 8. Silvery Barbs uses a reaction to give disadvantage to an enemy roll and then grants advantage to an ally on their next attack. It would be incredibly cool if this synchronized with my Voice of Authority feature and allowed the ally who was granted advantage to immediately attack, but the language of Silvery Barbs makes it unclear who the spell is actually targeting. Justices (and slime boy), can I take Silvery Barbs to grant disadvantage to an enemy and allow my ally to attack with advantage on that enemy's turn, or are the targeting mechanics of Silvery Barbs vague enough to make it unable to properly interact with my class feature since I am technically not casting it on my ally? I await your wise legal counsel.

Nick Powell

To the esteemed Justices of the Court, and the unflappable Bailiff Jorb, long time listener first time plaintiff. I present to you the case of the RAW-Abiding PCs. Like many groups of friends, my buds and I got into D&D during Covid as a way of staying connected. I became a first time DM in March of 2020 at the ripe age of 33, and ran a game for my 5 friends through the majority of covid over a period of 3 years that finally fizzled out due to scheduling conflicts in Fall of 2023. However, to this day there is a session that haunts my memory. In one session about a year into the campaign, the party was investigating an underground pit fighting ring in order to get in with the thieves guild and uncover a plot to overthrow the government of this large town. In order to do so, they decided to fight in the pits, hoping to earn the attention of one of the guild bosses who was the sponsor of the current top 2 fighters in the circuit. The party's level 10 Goliath Barbarian and Eladrin Rogue entered the competition against the twin Half-Orc Monks that were reigning champs (I used the Jade Tigress stat block from Candlekeep Mysteries, but only made 2 attacks with multiattack, and didn't use the posion dart ability or the self-healing), knowing they could usurp them as champions and earn an in with the thieves guild if they could defeat them (in addition to a handsome purse of gambling winnings, as the rest of the party bet nearly every gold piece they owned on the 2 winning). However here's where things went off the rails - to make the fight more interesting, I gave the half-orc monks the Relentless Endurance racial trait native to the half-orc race available to PCs in the PHB. Essentially, both monks could pop up at 1HP the first time they would drop to 0. Although a racial feature, I intended to have the ability tied to a magic ring that the PCs could acquire for themselves after the battle. My thought process for this was that as Monks, they would be faster than the rogue and barbarian, but also softer - and both the rogue and barbarian were doing much more damage per attack. It was my expectation that the monks would very likely go down first, but then pop back up and surprise the players, continuing the fight for what would likely be just an additional round before going down again. It was a way to inject some drama into the fight, and potentially give the PCs a really cool ability for one of the squishier characters to use in fights moving forward. However - the fight was actually much much closer than anticipated, with the monks doing much more damage per attack than average, and hitting much more often than they should have given the AC of the PCs. In my mind, this was actually great - when the Monks used their abilities, it would actually be even more dramatic, with the stakes feeling even higher, and the PCs would feel even more excitement and relief at knocking them down one final time and escaping the fight by the skin of their teeth! Surely! Wrong! The barbarian and the rogue were both dangerously low on HP when the first monk finally went down to 0. I narrated that the monk fell to the dirt floor of the fighting ring, but grunted, spit out blood, and popped back up woozily, looking like he had powered through what would have been a winning blow, to fight for one more round at most. That monk was next in the initiative, and his next punch crit, knocking the barbarian unconscious. The rogue quickly dispatched the other Monk and then the Monk that Barbarian was fighting, and so the PCs did win the day. However what felt to me like a cool bit of drama and narrative to inject into the fight, quickly became a huge sticking point for the party - the session devolved into the barbarian player trying to call me out, asking to see the stat block of the monk I used, asking me what rule let them do that, telling me I was cheating, and that I intentionally wanted to make the barbarian feel stupid for losing to the monks and let the rogue player win a pit fight, when the barbarian should have been in his element and womping everyone as fighting was "his thing". Justices - was I in the wrong for trying to ramp up the drama with new abilities added to a statblock in a fight? Or should I have considered the role of the barbarian player more in planning the encounter, and let them take the W with more ease, to play out that fantasy of being a big badass fighter that womps people? I humbly await your judgement and will allow my haters to snack or feast at your discretion.

Ross Gilliland

May it please the court and the unconventionally handsome bailiff, I present to you the case of the unrepentant player. I once started a session by reminding my players that their actions/words have consequences and informed them that I wouldn’t be asking “are you sure you want to do that?” after everything they said, as they had been getting a little too silly in their role-play and I didn’t want them to get themselves killed for no reason. Later in this very session, my most problematic player—a tortle named Hektor—snuck into a friendly vampire’s crypt and beseeched him for his assistance in a very personal quest. The vampire, who had his own obligations and no real motivation to help Hektor, politely declined and retreated into his coffin for the night. Hektor’s next words have lived in infamy ever since: “I light the coffin on fire.” While the CR 13 vampire easily could have killed my best friend’s level 3 tortle, I (somewhat regrettably) showed mercy by having the vampire simply mark Hektor as a thrall whose service could be called upon at any time. Most lawful court, did I make a mistake by showing leniency after my friend so obviously challenged my authority? I humbly await your decision.

Mel B (not the Spice Girl)

Dice Christ Confession: I don't know if this is the place for it (sorry if this is spamming an already-busy thread), but my past sins have weighed heavy on me for many years. I was playing in a campaign with my co-workers, and we had a friend join us as a temp player for one session. He joined because he and the DM were crushing on each other HARD (the DM loved DnD, and my friend had never played before). Since I was an experienced player, I was charged with taking him under my wing and helping him play/learn the ropes. Unfortunately, Dice Christ was not on his side that day- his rolls were consistently low, so he kept failing ability checks and missing attacks in combat. I tried to help him make the most of the rolls, but like a lot of new players, his mindset seemed to be "low roll = nothing happens." I could see him getting frustrated and less talkative and engaged. To try to lift his spirits, I committed an egregious sin: I told him I'd been wrong about his proficiency bonus and that it was actually a +4, not a +2. I didn't explain why (so as to not teach him the wrong rules) and he didn't ask. He started to succeed on more rolls and was clearly having more fun, and started to take whatever failed checks came his way in stride. I'm glad he had fun and had a chance to connect with the DM over something she enjoys, and a couple months later he and the DM started dating! However, I can't shake the feeling that Dice Christ had a plan for my friend & his rolls, and my modifying the proficiency bonus means that I changed DC's desired outcome for multiple rolls. Can I be forgiven for blaspheming against Dice Christ in the name of love? P.S. I am going to be a bridesmaid in their WEDDING this fall

ZZ Digital

If it pleases the court, i was running a short horror based campaign. I tasked my players with stealing a gem of planeshifting from the villains. One player stumbled onto one early and was accidentally sent to hell, where they began rescuing friends of the PCs, which included the husband of one of the other PCs. the other players found one of the villain leaders, who offered them a gem but told them a different way to use it. My players took the bargain, and were trapped in hell until rescued. They were furious with me, because i didnt tell them the villain might try to trick them (despite very openly admitting to be evil), their entrapment meant a beloved NPC died, and most importantly, the player didn't get to be present in the scene her husband was rescued in. As a DM, was i ok to expect the players to ask questions and puzzle things out, or am i not worthy to lick the lowly (apply as needed) baliff's shoes for not being more hands on in guiding them? I await your judgement.

Nicholas Sturch-Flint

May it please the gorgeous Justices, and cute Lil Bailiff, Recently I started DMing for an old college friend online because I wanted to playtest a homebrew encounter I made before playing it with my usual group (it is a minecart/dragon chase directly inspired by C1 NADDPOD). It was very last minute, and my bud was pretty good in accommodating me. We ended up having so much fun that I said I'd be willing to DM for them more frequently, even going as far as to finalize his character and write completely new material for him. Where I believe I went wrong is that I had asked him what kind of culture he wanted his character to have come from. He said, "nurturing but hardened." At another point, he made mention IN CHARACTER that he'd been forced to fight by his parents since being a child. Cool. I went to work a made a culture that was honor first and battle oriented, I gave my player a history with his parents where he didn't identify the abuse he endured because of a good relationship with his parents, thereby giving him the background he wanted and allowing myself room for nuance. The villain was going to be his opposite, a child abused and grown into a vengeful man on a mission to destroy the culture and save the kids still present in the cycle, but going about it in a too-destructive way. It was supposed to be a way to have my player realize the reality of his background, recognize the negatives and still be able to fight for it. When I got to the point that I needed to ask him questions, I let him in on some of what I'd written. He was appalled that I wrote his culture as so "spartan" and that he'd told me he’d wanted tough love. I told him he mentioned he was forced to fight as a kid, and I can't see that as anything but abuse, still I wanted to show the positives and negatives of his story, and give him something to change for the better in his culture and traditions. He didn't care, he was totally dejected and told me he couldn't trust me at all anymore. That I'd pushed him out of his comfort zone with his character (a Viking themed barbarian, very much his normal DnD character) and that he didn't want to play with me anymore. I ask you, Justices, to fairly dole out punishment to the party you believe to be wrong. P.S. This argument was the straw that broke the camels back and ended a years-long friendship. Punish me if you wish, but my therapist already told me I made the right decision, so I will accept what comes.

Linella Rose

May it please the extraordinary judges and the ordinary guy who somehow got a hold of the cases, I present to you a simple logistics case. I am a DM to a party of four very indecisive players. When making a big decision the players will discuss with each other how they want to proceed. After a few moments they’ll all agree on which path to go with and I will confirm by asking something along the lines of “You’re sure? This is your final choice?” to ensure that they won’t change their minds and I can continue to narrate what happens next. The players often get upset at me for asking this and say I should go about confirming it differently, even though I have explained my reasonings for doing so and have told them it is in no way a question meant to make them second guess their decisions. Am I such a tricky fey lacking in charisma or should my party cease reading into a simple clarifying question? How else am I to know the minds of these enthusiastic players?? I humbly await your reasonable and honest decision.

Robert Rea

To the honorable and never cantankerous judges and the guy that would make a great guest on 8-bit book club, i submit to you a case of creativity. I've been playing with a group of friends for a few years now and when we first started i was playing a druid that came directly from the beastlands, it was a homebrew campaign and so my dm would allow me to improv what the beastlands were like in his world, much like moonshine and the crick. Heres the problem, over the years all of our campaigns would take place in this same homebrewed world, i really enjoy playing animal and nature themed characters and so i took it upon myself to always have some ties to the beastlands, small or large. After countless druids, rangers, and even a few barbarians my friends would start to roast me about my lack of creativity. While many of my characters have a very clear nature or animal aesthetic, i do try to make their personal stories unique and varied. Im certainly not the only player to have a favorite character vibe but after a while their criticism did start to get at me and so now im wondering, is it ok to have a general theme or look for all of your characters? Or as players should we strive to be as creative and different as possible? P.s. All roasts are in good fun, we've all been friends for many years, no murph i dont need new friends.

Brendan Reese

To the tubular and frikkin rad Supreme Crit Justices, and also Jake Gyllenhaal (Big fan, can't believe they got you on the show), I present the case of the Pissing Gnome and the Sneaky Shapeshifter In my first ever campaign, I was playing as a Gnome Barbarian named Gorrog in a party of four, with our DM being new to the game as well. We were traveling through the Underdark, and near the end of our journey, we came across an isolated decrepit home in the middle of nowhere, in which was a guide who promised to show us to the way back to the surface. As we were following the guide up one of the massive cave walls (hiking style, not rock climbing style), our party stopped to camp, and my character Gorrog, who was a bit of a freak, separated from the others to take a piss off cliff wall. Our new guide followed me, stating that he also had to take a leak as well, but once we were out of sight and I started pissing, he pushed my Gnome over the side of the cliff! (There was a contested strength check involved, so this was all above board.) This event happened during a one on one session between me and my DM, who then revealed to me that the guide was actually a Shapeshifting monster (I can't remember which one in specific...) who was going to try and take my place within the party! My DM asked if I would be willing to play as this Shapeshifter pretending to be me so that the rest of the party wouldn't realize Gorrog had fallen off the cliff, and I excitedly said yes! It sounded like a fun session idea, and I'm always up for trying something new when it comes to my player characters. So, after I returned to the party as Fake Gorrog, and I told them that the guide had attacked me and I'd had to throw him off the cliff to save myself, everyone bought it and the party moved on. I acted mostly like Gorrog had acted around the guide, and acted confused whenever a previous event from our adventure was brought up, to hint at the potential trickery. Everything was fine there. The issue arises a couple session later, halfway through a combat encounter, when the DM describes the Shapeshifter as suddenly turning on the party in an effort to kill them while their guard was down, and took over the Shapeshifters action economy. This left me without a character to play for the next 2 hours of the session. Most bodacious of all Crit Justices, I kneel before you in supplication and humility. Should I have been allowed to play as this Shapeshifter on behalf of the DM, so I could still be involved in the game, or are my hopes and dreams flying too close to the sun? I away your judgement with baited breath.

Gabriel Felix

To the cute judges and Bailiff Jork. I bring you the case of the Stolen Pc. I played in a friends 3 shot over a year ago, along with a married couple, my sister, and one of the couples father. We decended beneath the sewers of Waterdeep and was confronted after a bit with intellect devoures. As lvl 2 pc’s this combat was tough. We won the fight but the wife of the couple was downed with an unknown amount of death saves or fails. One of the Devourers vanished, and soon after our downed pc woke up. But it was no long her talking. It was the dm speaking through her and later we found she had been taken over by the creature. She quit before the next session began because she felt her losing character agency was crossing a line. When the dm heard this, he shut down the game. I talked to him a few days later and he was so upset that hurt her feelings that he was going to quit dnd all together. After talking with him for a few hours and talking to the couple separately, I was able to get him to feel good enough to continue playing. We’ve played together in several one shots since then. Justices and Jork, was the pc right to feel like a line was crossed? Is there a better way the dm could’ve handled it? I leave the righteous decision in your capable hands.

Lia

To the pantheon of law and their divine messenger of order. I come to you with the case of an interrupting player. I ran the dnd campaign ravnica module for newer players and an experience one. Krenko was the final boss, but I modified several sections of it. I had a player (who did introduce me to this podcast) who was highly suspicious of most if not all my homebrewed items and original npcs. They interrupted a tense moment of negotiation in the shop several times (to where I had to introduce security to throw them out) by grabbing items, touching a lot of things, and interrupting roleplay moments. During the campaign I had these gauntlets that had spell charges the enemies wore, they could summon mephits using these gauntlets, and almost did a tpk during that fight In order to balance the final fight (and reduce the risk of a tpk) I modified the npcs, the shop keep followed them to the hideout and claimed stakes in an old fued with Krenko for a shipment that should have been hers. She set an explosive trap which did blow a hole in the hideouts wall, and all three parties fought. The player then exclaimed "I KNEW IT, YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED" which kind of felt like diminished call back to the rude behavior the moment a bit since I didn't plan on this originally and felt a litle jaded by the interrupt of my description. High council, was I wrong to feel a bit discarded by their reaction after being rude to other players, or should I have let them have the moment and felt good about drawing them in with my twists? (PS this helped me work my confidence into building my own world)

MaeIsntClever

To the omnipresent justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy, and the kind've funny sometimes bailiff, Jape. I present to you, the case of the self-limitating barbarian. I had been DMing for a group of good friends for about two years. Like a proud parent, I got to experience the party evolve from bright eyed naive adventuring academy students to hardened, badass heroes of the realm. We had settled in and started a new story arc; one that was to take place atop flying gnomish sky-cities, and our heroes were tasked with establishing political connections for between their ground based kingdom and the sky gnome tinkering society. To my surprise one of the players, we'll call him Tom, started voicing concern before the party even reached their first flying township; he was worried that his character wouldn't be equiped for a political game of tact and intrigue, because his character was "too dumb". Tom was playing a gnomish barbarian from the surface, think a wildling from beyond the wall in Game of Thrones, and I thought that perhaps his character could be a bridge between the affluent sky society and the common folk on the ground but no. Instead, Tom refused to participate in RP, saying his character didn't know fancy concepts such as "trade embargoes" and instead elected to stand and wait by the door in game "in case any assassins interrupted the politics or something". I tried to offer up the idea that his barbarian could relate to political alliances between cities and kingdoms by comparing it to how different tribes interacted in his homelands, but Tom said that this was too confusing and "not how his character would think". The group ended up disbanding a few months later, unrelated to the obstinate barbarian, but I always wondered; was there anything different I could have done to placate Tom and the un-thinking berserker? I humbly await your judgement.

Brogan

To the other worldly judges, bringers of justice in this noble court and Jort, today I bring you the case of the money laundering rogue Last year I had a huge falling out with my friend group which meant I lost my dnd party. I decided to join a dnd club at my university to. Be able to continue to play and to work on my social skills. The first few sessions went great, but I noticed throughout the session our rogue character would roll anytime we rested and would tell the DM the number. I thought it could just be an ability thing and didn’t think much of it. Over the next few sessions, characters would have their weapons or items go missing in the night, which would result in us having to acquire more through various means. Our rogue would often offer to buy some, most of the party assuming he had a secret noble background or something that would let him afford them. It wasn’t until I asked the dm to stay up one night on lookout that we realized the rogue was stealing our items at night and selling them, something they orchestrated with the DM. I asked if he was trying to insight pvp, but the dm said no, he just thought the bit was funny. We had lost multiple battles by not being able to have the proper weapons, and any pvp that was attempted against the rogue was thwarted by the DM. Judges, were we the players right to be mad at our dm and rogue for this thievery, or was this a fair play. (To add detail, we found out the rogue would roll a slight of hand every night, and if he passed, the dm would pick one of our items at random and then tell him what gold he’d received during breaks.)

2fastBicurious

To the most honorable justices and my burpless brethren the baby bailiff. . . Brad? May it please the court and give you all the most supreme crit. ;) I'd like to submit the case of the quiet Kenku. My table was running a home brew campaign and we were getting close to finding and fighting our BBEG. Our party included a kenku, Crowbar, who played by the mimic rules that he could only repeat words and sounds he had heard before. The BBEG was hidden away on another plane and to get to him, we had to enter a cave full of grueling puzzles and traps to reach a portal. We barely made it through alive. At the end of the cave, our DM announced that we would be silent and communicate only in written form or telepathically, (though no one one in our crew had the message cantrip). We were presented with a written riddle (think "speak friend and enter" style puzzle). Part of the riddle was solving for the answer, the other part was determining who could say the answer. If we answered wrong, or the wrong person spoke we were told the reaction would be TPK bad, and we were very weak already from the cave. We sat around the table passing notes, and determined the answer to the riddle was "Onomotopoeia" and the person to give the answer was a choice between either the youngest member of our party, or the physically smallest member of our party. The problem? Crowbar was both. Crowbar vehemently insisted there was no way he would have heard the word onomotopoeia before and therefore could not speak it. Our DM knew going into this that Crowbar was both the smallest and youngest and seemed to be gleeful about our predicament. After several pleas to both the DM and Crowbar to try to find a loophole we conceded we could not solve the puzzle currently. I suggested we take a long rest, exit the cave, teach Crowbar onomotopoeia, rest again, and come back, as it seemed the only solution. In the process, we ran out of potions on the way out, and on the way back our cleric, the party's only healer, went down, and she failed her death saves. My hexblade warlock attempted to call upon my patron for help without success. In the end only 3 party members of our 6 member crew, including myself and Crowbar made it to the end concious. Crowbar triumphantly said Onomotopoeia and the gate opened. Our session ended feeling empty and hollow. In real life there was a fight after the session. The players expressed we were upset at Crowbar for being so stubborn and at the DM for intentionally putting us in this situation. Crowbar argued that's how his character has always been and we shouldn't expect him to change because of a bad in game situation. The DM argued that we could have been teaching Crowbar words throughout the campaign before this so we wouldn't be here. I said it was an intentionally obscure word and we had no reason to teach it. Our DM laughed at me for being so upset, so I got up and left with the cleric, saying we were going to start a new campaign. Later, Crowbar texted me and said I had overreacted to a simple difficult scenario, and that if that's how I reacted when things didn't go my way, then no one would ever want me in their dnd party. I feel justified in being mad, but wonder if I didn't react too strongly. So I come to the mercy of the court asking, was I wrong to take the Murph response of "find new friends" or was my DM being unreasonable? I humbly await your judgement and accept whatever punishment I may receive.

Courtney F.

Bless me Dice Disciples for I have sinned. It has been 20 tepidly tormented years since the events of this confession. At the tender age of 15, I inadvertently ended a campaign when I quit because....well, essentially because my fighter wasn't cool enough. I can recall neither the rolls nor the reasons leading up to my leaving, but I remember the breaking point well: when MY strength check failed to save an ally teetering on the edge of a cliff but the FUCKING WIZARD pulled it off. I couldn't take the embarrassment. I left and the campaign ended. Dice Christ has walked beside me through these past 20 years when I have played any other class but a fighter. In my most recent campaign when we hit level 16, I - a full Life Cleric - briefly contemplated multiclassing into Fighter...and then the DM abruptly ended the campaign citing familial duties. Oh wise Disciples of Dice Christ herself, please, tell me, when will I have paid my dues for my 15 year old table flippin' 'tude? When do I get to be.. A super bad ass fighter in a D&D campaign?

Gabi H

To the high and mighty justices and (checks notes) Bailiff Jake Hurwitz, I bring you the case of the animal-loving cleric. I am the DM to a group of brand new players. We’ve met for 6 sessions and each has been more fun than the last —with one moment of exception. My players just entered a mystical forest, where the buried bones of a forgotten war of the gods create a fertile and abundant ecosystem. It is also home to my moon elf cleric. Seconds after describing the beautiful and rich forest, my sorcerer shot a giant bird out of the sky, killing it. She retrieved the bird, tossing it into the wagon with a quiet “You’re welcome.” The table laughed at this weird character moment, but my cleric was deeply offended. We moved on in the game, but she has since brought it up multiple times and texted to ask if our sorcerer is “actually a bad person in real life.” Now I’m freaking out. My cleric did mention that she did not want our game to include any animal cruelty, but this didn’t qualify in my mind. Should I have paused the game anyway? Was it wrong of my sorcerer to kill the bird? Should my cleric chill out and/or remember her character has heals? And, because I want to be sensitive to my players’ triggers, how do I run a forest arch without them fighting a single animal? (We’ve only fought monsters and humanoids so far.) *pronouns: she/hers all around*

Emily Hoodenpyle

May it please the court and whoever else is present, A few years ago, I ran a campaign for my roommate and some friends in which I used a random encounter generator for most of the sessions. While the group was still low level, I rolled an encounter with a purple worm. Not wanting to betray the dice, I played the worm as though it were asleep and my players were too low level for it to even register them as a threat. I thought it would be a fun moment of exploration and then we would move on, but my players spent the entire session trying to provoke the worm, and seemed disappointed when the session ended without a fight. Should I have let my players enter into a deadly battle, or done some on the fly modding, or were my players in the wrong for not taking the hint and moving along? I humbly await your judgement, An inferior Emily

Jordan Holl

To the immaculate Fathers Tanner and Murphy, esteemed Wife Worm of Dice Christ, and the shaky choir boy who struggles with bravado, forgive me for I have sinned. I DM for a group of some of my best friends in a Wild West/ Steampunk Fantasy campaign and am usually very good about preparing my sessions in advance. One particular week, however, I was not able to get a really thought out session and had a player unable to join us that week so I decided, "Fuck it, it's filler episode time." I decided that for a "filler" episode I would have the party explore the town they have been staying in, where numerous role-play events would occur. Naturally, the party went to the saloon because no good story starts with everyone being sober. In said saloon, I had a Gnome who had the Deck of Many Things, where they could draw cards and see what happens. My wife had bought me an IRL deck to use for my games, and I admit, I was a bit trigger happy. Let's just say, it changed the entire scope of the campaign when I set the price for a card to a easily 10GP a card (because much like Father Murphy, to me 1GP=$1). My players bought 5-7 cards EACH. This led to one of my players becoming level 9 amongst their level 5 compatriot, one player lost all of their memory, one has a wish spell in his back pocket, and the other completely destroyed the town with a Typhoon just before getting sucked into a gem. I know now that I was a very bad boy, but I must attend for my sin of unreadiness. But please punish me further. Perhaps a spanking.

jordy v.

To the incomparable judges, and the comparable bailiff, I present The Same but Different Tabaxi. A few years ago my friends and I were running a homebrew campaign. My friend, who we’ll call Tony, joined our campaign mid-way as a Tabaxi Ranger, who was primarily a stealing-hobo. He would steal from notable NPCs, who would then distrust the party by association, and often steal from party members. When he would steal from us, rather than doing a Sleight of Hand check against our passive Perception, he would just say “… but nobody notices.” It was a little annoying but whatever. Fast-forward to a time-skip in-game, and Tony decides to play a new character. A completely different Tabaxi Ranger, same subclass and character sheet. But this time, a murder-hobo. His reasoning was he had forgotten to reroll a new character for the session, and decided to just reuse his sheet with a new character. I was visibly and verbally annoyed at this, and have since jokingly/seriously banned Tony from playing Tabaxis, Rangers, and Tabaxi Rangers. We are still friends and laugh at this situation from time to time, but was he right to recycle his character and play it off as a different one? Am I right to limit his character choices in future games? I await your ruling. P.S. He also listens to this podcast and will ride the high of this tale being said on air.

Rick

Dear Justices of the Supreme Crit and the bailiff Jakobeus… I respectfully request you cast your minds back to pre-Covid quarantine. I was a first time DND player and also the DM desperately trying to keep up with all the info and figuring out how to balance encounters. We knew the quarantine was coming soon, and we knew we weren’t the kind of group to meet online so we agreed to a long final session. I had the BBEG (a fiend) hidden among them as a young boy apprentice to the wizard. We had a quick break where I left my notes open on the table. When I returned the Paladin was standing by my notes but quickly went and sat back down. We kept playing but a few minutes later the Paladin said “I wanna use detect good and evil” - which detects fiends. I thought it was weird since there was no current hint that he needed to use that ability but I was honest and told him about the BBEG. He immediately attacked, causing the bbeg to transform, revealing the fiend. They fought him before I was able to give them the cool items they needed to actually defeat him (since it was the final sesh (I was going to help them out with cool stuff for a neat fight.) because they were underpowered, the game ended in a TPK instead of a tough victory. Justices, should I have rebalanced the encounter to help them win earlier than I planned? Or did the Paladin cheat and cause the downfall of the party in his hubris? I await your judgement

Maxx Davidson

To the critically acclaimed justices and the bailiff with a 12% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes I present the case of the reluctant reverse mermaid. I DM for a group consisting of my wife and a few of our mutual friends. In character creation most of the group went with a standard cast of fantasy archetypes with the exception of my wife who asked if she could play a reverse merman by the name of Fish Realman. The tone of the adventure was light, so we made some quick homebrews and gladly ran with it. Being a fish headed creature, she wanted her communication to be limited to when she was submerged in water. I accepted this condition and made a note to add elements early to the campaign to allow for easy party interaction. Judges. She has rejected every bowl of water, each fountain and lake in front of her and opts to remain mute for the entire adventure thus far. There seems to be some sort of perverse pleasure for her as the rest of the party struggles to comprehend her physical gestures. While she participates in the fights, she offers no aid in advancing the story or solving puzzles. I beg of you, should she be allowed to continue her reign of silent sabotage or should I push further for more willing contribution?

Side Quest Studios

To the jazzy judges, Magnificent Murphy, Altruistic Axeford, and Tantalizing Tanner (and I guess the bitter bailiff, Jaded Jake) I present to you the case of “The Unaware PC’s with Bad Bit Etiquette.” I DM for a group of 5 PC’s set in a relatively traditional high fantasy campaign setting. In this particular campaign the intended tone lends itself to be more serious and on the darker side (maybe more similar to the tone of a Critical Role campaign rather than a NADDPOD one, although I’m a huge fan of both). This was communicated to my PC’s ahead of time and everyone’s backstories that they came up with fit right in to that tone. Before I get to the main point, I want to say that I am a big comedy fan. I love doing bits and making jokes as much as the next guy (probably more than the next guy if I’m being honest). But I feel I have the awareness of when and when not to make a joke. Now that we are over 15 sessions deep, I’m finding that several of my more immature and less comedically-aware PC’s have a tendency to make “jokes” at the most inopportune times. It is typically when I am narrating the story forward with some important lore that their characters might need to be aware of that they find it funny to make “that’s what she said” jokes or make sound effects with their mouths for “immersive purposes” even though I’m describing scenes with vivid detail. It is both distracting and annoying and makes me feel like they don’t appreciate the work I put in to create a fun world for them to play in. Again, I’m a big fan of bits and jokes, but I’m not a big fan of a good story being interrupted by bits that aren’t even that funny. Justices (and that other guy that reads these things), what should I do to keep my PC’s from interrupting great story moments with bad bits? Or do I shift the tone of the campaign to fit their juvenile attempts at comedy? I humbly prostrate myself at the feet of the great comedians and honorable justices and await your just sentencing.

David Heintz

Hey weirdos, I present the case of Heat Metal vs Sanctuary. During combat, the DM's Pyromancer sorceror cast Heat Metal on my PC's scale mail, while I had the Sanctuary spell cast on myself. I amiably assumed that "Heat Metal" was a 'harmful spell' that should be deflected by Sanctuary, and was excited that casting that spell had paid off. But my DM (and best friend) politely pointed out that because "Heat Metal" targets an object, not a creature, that my armor was the target and thus Sanctuary could not deflect the spell. I cordially countered that surely, even if Heat Metal wasn't technically targeting me as a creature, it was cast on MY armor, and was clearly intended to be harmful, which would make Sanctuary work. The DM respectfully remained firm, stating that because 5e has such a clear distinction between "objects" and "creatures", we had to go pure 'rules-as-written' and treat the object - my armor - as the target of Heat Metal, and myself - a creature - as the target of Sanctuary. Since Sanctuary protects creatures, and not objects, it's protection did nothing against Heat Metal. I goodheartedly groused "what the hell man?" Shouldn't we be considering the intent of these spells instead of clinging to language that leads to pretty weird outcomes?" What say you justices? Should Sanctuary take precedence in this situation as Heat Metal is clearly intended to be a harmful spell, or should Heat Metal take precedence as it targets armor, not a creature? PS: We settled it with a roll: odds, Heat Metal worked; evens, Sanctuary. My DM rolled a 15 in front of the table and my low-level cleric took 11 fire damage in the first round, contributing to that characters later death in this combat. (I was later resurrected with a magic acorn I'd gotten from a friendly tree spirit, which I guess was my DMs plan all along, and this is just one of many fun, amicably settled debates we've had at the table, but I donno man it still seems hinky) I maintain that when we're talking about people wearing armor, the semantic difference between targeting an 'object' and targeting a 'creature' occupies some pretty middle school energy: like when your friend swings a foam bat at your head then says "you can't be mad, I was swinging at your HAT, not YOU".

Muqtadaa Miandara

present the case of the Game Show of the Floating Lich!   Honored justices Murphy, Axford, Tanner, any potential guest justices, and our estimable Bailiff Jank Howitzer, thank you for your time.    My players recently faced an undead lich guarding the sarcophagus of a dead god, whose heart my players needed to get to stymie the BBEG from retrieving it for their own purposes. The lich told them they would have little to no luck unsealing the god's sarcophagus, as he'd been attempting the very same for nearly 2000 years. Instead, in his boredom, he engaged them in a game-show style trivia competition I had setup to get the players back into the groove of the campaign. We hadn’t played in months because life is busy, so I wanted to have them actively remember lore and backstory, and thought a trivia gameshow was a fun way to force them to read their damn notes. The players ended up winning some loot, using skill checks and abilities to communicate info to each other for questions that were harder for some players than others, and the lich bid them good luck exploring the tomb. confident they would be unsuccessful.   The players found the sarcophagus and were quick to discover with incredibly high investigation and perception checks totaling 30+ (damn reliable talent and bardic inspos) the presence of a pressure plate that, when stepped on, unsealed the casket. The players did so, retrieved the shard of a divine heart, and were confronted by the infuriated lich, who confronted the players and attempted to take the heart for himself. This turned into a fight that my players managed to win. My players began asking how and why the lich had failed to unseal the divine sarcophagus in 2,000 years of investigating it, and I realized I had no good explanation. In all honesty, I didn't have a mechanic for why the lich hadn't stolen the heart, or how the sarcophagus was sealed, I just wanted to run a game show and improvised the rest around that once I had the players in the setting and interacting with things. Then it hit me, he’s a lich, he floats! He never deigned to walk as a lesser mortal would, for 2 millennia he floated over it. My players flipped shit.    One player in particular complained that I was destroying their immersion and their suspension of disbelief, and I know it's a stretch, but what do you all think? Do I need to more carefully craft layers of intrigue and puzzle to explain why their enemies are stymied where they succeed? Am I in danger of copyright infringement if I start a show called Yet Another D&D Godcast (a hyper-Christian version of NADDPOD Campaign 1 yes exactly)? Will Jill and Tucker ever tell Jake about their third, Emil? As I look forward to these answers, I also humbly await the judgement of this esteemed crit.

Eric Pfeifer

Esteemed justices & suspicious Bayliff I will present the case of “going so right it goes wrong” In a dnd 5e campaign with myself (as the dm) and 5 of my friends. We are set in the classic city of waterdeep, the party was split so 3 members went searching for the other 2 when they entered a wuffee hut (24hour breakfast diner) this wuffee hut had a secret tunnel leading to where the other group members were suspected to be. Only thing standing in the way was wuffee hut employee. After some discussion one player named Reginald decided to “put the employee in a sleeper hold” He rolled a nat 20. So I described how the swiftly and quietly he was able to subdue the employee leaving him unconscious. After reconvening with the rest of the group they emerge from the secret tunnel back into the wuffee hut a couple hours later. To which city watch were investigating the death of the employee. This shocked Reginald as he just wanted to put him to sleep for a short while. The PC’s evaded the police without any incident but was I wrong to think that a Nat 20 sleeper hold is executed perfectly to the point it warranted a NPC death? Or does a Nat 20 allow the PC to maintain the delicate balance of life and death I place myself before the court and will distribute any related punishment dutifully

Jack H

To the esteemed justices and the steamy bailiff, Jazz. My party was early in a campaign and recently dismantled the crime empire of their first Boss, a cruel bandit leader named Purnette (remember this name for later). Several in-game weeks later, they started a new arc centered around a squirrel with a bowtie named Peter Nut. They immediately became enamored with Peter Nut and helped him gain power in the criminal underground. They went five sessions with this squirrel without realizing his name was an anagram for Purnette, their recent villain who secretly has been using the party to regain power through her fancy rodent minion. Mysterious circumstances culminated in a massive hint that they should investigate Peter Nut’s name. They floundered with this, and even the note-taker said “Well it can’t be a respelling of Purnette.” It turns out that this player had been misspelling her name in the notes, even though there was a pinned discord message with correct character names and I had a miniature labeled with her name. I spoon-fed them the answer which took all the fun out of the reveal. Was I wrong to use a puzzle that requires the party to know the correct spelling of an NPC? I throw myself to the will of the court.

Liger Zero

To the noble justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner and the court jester phil, I humbly present the case of the regular churchgoer: I played my very first game of DnD in highschool, I was invited by a friend, I was excited to play, and when I began I chose to play a simple fighter. cut to a few sessions in to the campaign and the party was to set out on a boat the following day. I decided I would roleplay going to a local temple to the sea god and leaving an offering and a prayer to them for safe passage. I was asked to roll a religion check and I got a natural 20. naturally the very next day we were caught in a wild storm being attacked by monsters. I asked if my nat 20 had amounted to anything and the dm said "well you arent a cleric or a paladin, so not really" I argued that my character didnt need to be a cleric or paladin to have a connection with gods, and that in a fantasy setting your average person would have a healthy respect for the entire pantheon in a similar way to how greek gods would have been worshipped, and more than that I asked why I was asked to roll a religion check if it didnt matter. I understand if the storm is just what the dm had planned for that session, but for it to have zero effect at all seemed a bit much, especially because this ended up getting me tossed overboard and becoming incapacitated for several sessions before dying. justices, should the gods only care about clerics, or does your average pious PC deserve a little miracle sometimes.

Sean Boyle

To the Highly Venerated and Repected Crit Justices and their pool boy Juice. I'm the DM of a game that includes, my cousin, brother, best friend, and some of my cousins friends. In our most recent session the party was tasked with helping an Orc clan retake a fortress that had been taken by a rival clan. The mission was to sneak into the gatehouse, kill the guards on duty, disable the alarm, and raise the gate so that the rest of the allied army could storm the gates. They managed to get into the fortress and sneak up to the doors to the gatehouse. The Kenku bard, being played by my cousin, decided to sneak into the gate house on his own. He passed his stealth check and entered the gate house to find the three guards sitting at a table playing cards. He then proceeded to shout at them that he was disappointed by how poorly they seemed to be doing their job. I said that the guards stood up startled and looked around and then gave him another chance to hide. He did not hide, instead he attempted to continue shouting and made it clear that he was trying to make them think he was their superior officer I Asked if he had disguisedhimself and he said no. I narrated that the guards moved for weapons and that he had a moment to cast a spell. He asked of he could cast prestidigitation to make it seem as though he had a badge of authority. I told him that the guards were already swinging their swords and he needed to cast somthing offensive or run or he'd be hit. He seemed a bit surprised and dismayed and asked if he could at least roll for it. I told him that the guards would have instantly known that he was an intruder because he was a Kenku and there were only supposed to be Orcs in the fortress. In the end he accepted my ruling and chose to cast hold person at 3rd level so that he could target all three guards and then let the party come in to finish them off. The rest of the session went without a hitch and there were no hard feelings. But I am curious if I should have At least allowed for a roll even though It didn't make nay sense in the situation. I humbly leave it to the mercy of the court to decide my fate.

Chris

To the noblest of justices and the little baby bailiff, Jake. I bring forth the case of rogue's reliable talent. I play a scout rogue news boy (oppa newsies style) in a 1920's magical New York (inspired by another show that shall not be mentioned here). We are level 10 so my rogue has reliable talent but my DM has ruled that a NAT 1 is always NAT 1, class feature be damned. Judges, is my DM screwing me out of a super cool class feature or should I suck it up and revel in the joy of a crit fail? I await your judgement.

David de los Santos

To the sensible minion justices and the bailiff grinch, I bring to you the case of the bank heist gone looney. I joined a group that ran one-shots at a FLGS. I was informed that it was western themed and that I would be the sheriff. When we began playing, it quickly became clear that this was going to be PVP, sheriff vs bank robbers that I was not prepared for .I was placed in charge of taking turns for 3 other deputies and myself. The worst part is, it was insane. Paladins could knock down walls with one punch and even a fart, the cleric could bring the wrath of the gods and deal 5d6 to all players with a bonus action, and spiritual weapons had reactions, actions, and could be used as a bonus action. Was I wrong to leave the group chat when asked if I would be coming back for a second game? I place myself at the mercy of the court.

InternationalAssassinKevinHarvey

The Case of the Non-Consensual Cyborg Boyfriend To the Supreme Crit Justices and the guy who they have make the snack runs, I present the case of the Non-Consensual Cyborg Boyfriend. In the middle of our current campaign, our group suffered a horrible defeat at the hands of High-Level Artificer and his Black Knight Automaton with an electric sword that could stun you on a failed Constitution Saving throw. At the end, the entire party was making death saves around the field, and my Oath of Vengeance Paladin was the last to fall to the Automaton, to whom I had repeatedly said, I would knock his jaw off. To finish me off, the Automaton Knight picked my character up by his bottom jaw, and punched me so hard in the forehead that my jaw remained in his hand and separated from my head as I skidded across the ground, dead. As this was basically a TPK, the DM had the Artificer and his knight flee from our allies who arrived soon after our fall, one of whom was another Artificer we had befriended. The friendly artificer replaced my bottom jaw with a rough, but functioning metallic bottom jaw. It was rad as hell. I also multiclassed into Bard and served as the group’s unwilling player piano for when things got boring on the road and was forced to sing songs IRL to my chagrin. About 20 sessions later, we had our rematch with the Artificer and his upgraded knight. For the majority of the fight I was facing the knight one-on-one, and we got each other down badly. Our wizard cast Telekinesis and was able to wrench the Stunning sword out of the knight’s hands, which we cheered around the table for. But I saw our DM hold back a grin. On the knight’s next turn, she said that since he didn’t have a weapon, he was, “initiating grapple mode”, and asked me to make a Dexterity Saving Throw. I failed. And thus, the knight used both hands to grab me at the upper arm and shoulder, and ripped my sword arm off my body. As I was left with only my shield arm, I was at a loss for what to do. But then I had the thought to ask the DM, “can I make a bite attack?” They realized too, smiled, and said yes. I had another idea, and asked, “if I take the damage too, can I cast Heat Metal on my bottom jaw to add the fire damage to the attack?” To this, she also said yes. “Can I smite with my teeth?” Yep, I could. 2 heated bite smites later, and my one-armed man had chewed through the automaton’s neck, crumpling it to the floor. My victory was short-lived however, as at the end of my turn, the DM told me to make a Constitution saving throw. I failed, and dropped unconscious from blood loss. The evil Artificer’s turn was next, and used it to pull out and stab a tuning fork through my character’s eye, Plane Shifting away with my body, but not before saying, “you’ll make an excellent replacement.” I’ve been playing a Tiefling Warlock for the last 3 sessions now, looking for my first, presumably even more borg’d character. That’s the cool first bit, now here’s the real dilemma that has me wondering. After the first loss against the artificer, our DM started talking to me more. Friend of a friend, she’s very cool and punk rock, and we started hanging out more in general. She has a lot of posters around her room, including one of Raiden from Metal Gear Revengeance, and Cherie Darling from Planet Terror. I started to catch on that she likes a lot of cyborg-related media. And then, following our last fight that left my character even more tragically cyborged, as the rest of the table talked very cheerily about how awesome the whole thing went and then trailed off onto other topics, I felt her foot stroke my leg under the table. Realizing, I looked over at her, and she was staring me down. Nervous, I kept interjecting into the group’s conversation to keep up appearances, and still making a lot of eye contact with her till the end, I left for the night. So, very very conflicted, I was left to wonder, besides having the fear of trying a relationship with the DM and it failing and ruining the game for everyone, more pressingly, am I just a proxy for her to live out her cyborg sexual fantasy? Does this entire game now solely exist to satisfy these urges of hers? If I reject her advances, will she shut the game down and find another victim? And will this tension only increase more and more as she inevitably replaces more and more of my character’s body with robot parts? She’s really hot. I leave my eager but currently non-polymer crotch in your warm grasp Justices.

Jack Francis West

To the Supreme Excellences who are not named Jake and the HIGHLY Bailiff who IS named Jake. I present the case of CRIMES AGAINST GOOFMANITY. In my first ever campaign, I played a disgraced beauty pageant queen and my best friend Jordan was playing an idiot paladin named Godfre the Perfect. We were all newbies so the vibe was goofy and chill. Then the DM let his friend join, a veteran player, whose min/maxed homebrew Half-Giant storm barbarian quickly de-goofified the game with boring “giant lore” and shifted the tone of the table (he also punched my PC in the face!). In protest, Godfre murdered a random prisoner (in order to liven things up), was sent to jail and then abandoned as the party just left town! This forced Jordan to improvise an elaborate series of new characters, who the DM would repeatedly kill in unexpected landslides. The final improvised character was a lively body percussionist who undercut the veteran player’s emotional backstory scene with rhythmic body slapping and clapping. Jordan was kicked from the group that had originally supported his comedic tone and I soon followed. It became a huge source of trauma around D&D for him. I lay our goofs before the court. ❤️

Noah Soule

Greetings honorable justices and bailiff Jecht. My case is an old case possibly even a cold case but I was discussing it with a former party member and thought I would ask the court their opinion. During an arc in a hell-like lava island ruled by an evil king, a member of our party, Jabaa Tehoot (Jabba the Hutt), disguised himself as a member of the king’s guard before our big final battle. We were unsure what he was planning but we continued on to the battle with one of our party members pretending to help the king. The only thing was he wasn’t pretending. Jabaa began actually attacking us in an effort to gain the kings favor. After we defeated the king, Jabaa came out of disguise self and tried to claim that he got lost in the disguise and didn’t know what he was doing. After a short discussion the party decided to kill Jabaa because he was clearly insane. Were we right to kill a party member for attacking us and pleading insanity? Also in our recent discussion, he said that he did it because he was bored of the collaborative party dynamic and wanted to spice things up.

Olivia S

To the pretty cool judges and the alright bailiff John, I have one question… can I please kill my sisters character? I recently started a new campaign with my siblings. My older sister playing a halfling ranger named Helga. My brother, a half-orc barbarian, Big Dan. My youngest sister was going to come and play, but she got sick last minute and couldn’t come. Instead of canceling the session I just decided I would make a DM PC, just for this one session. I made Mort, a teifling paladin. Helga decided that she wanted to approach Mort as soon as he walked into the tavern saying “join my cause, I’m apart of a group called the circus”. In her back story she wanted to be apart of a ranger group called “the circus” that was out for revenge on another ranger group, after they killed their leader. I had Mort say “no thank you, I am already apart of my own organization, serving our Lord and Savior Pelor” she then argued with Mort about why he should leave his group for hers. It took 10 minutes, while my brother was sitting there doing nothing. I finally reached a point where I just had mort walk away and go sit at the bar next to big Dan. After some more time at the bar talking and what not, the barbarians I had in there to fight came over and started bullying Helga for being so small. Eventually, we all rolled initiative . During combat big Dan could not hit any of the barbarians, leaving Helga and Mort to do all of the damage. The only time he would hit was on the killing blow, my brother, and I found it to be very funny how he was whiffing so bad up until the killing blow. My sisters was getting irritated at him, like it was his fault. At the end of combat, which was brutal, I narrated Mort going and hugging big Dan and crying because it was his first battle and it was overwhelming. My sister snapped, she legit started crying and screaming that “Mort shouldn’t have hugged big Dan because big Dan barely did anything.” I told her that it wasn’t a big deal that Mort hugged big Dan, instead of Helga. Big Dan was just the closest person to Mort and he wanted a hug. She didn’t respond and just sat there, angry and crying silently. I moved on because it seemed ridiculous. We then had our characters go to their rooms and I had it set up so that when they woke up guards would be asking about the brawl in the tavern. My sister narrated that while everyone was sleeping, she went into Morts room and stole his belongings and ran to go back to the circus. I had her roll for stealth and slight-of-hand to get into the room and steal his stuff, both of which DC she passed. So I let it happen. She ran off into the night and when big Dan and mort woke up the next day, they went with the guards who wanted to take them to the king. my sister got frustrated again, started crying again, saying “Mort should’ve gone to find his stuff and come looking for me” I told her that “no he wouldn’t, he would go with the guards.” The session ended shortly after, with my sister sitting there enraged. Her behavior didn’t entirely surprise me and after talking with my brother, he didn’t exactly love her behavior either. I decided that I kind of wanna kill her character so that she can’t play with us anymore, but I feel bad because she was really wanting to play. But I don’t really feel like dealing with her attitude. so I asked you beautiful judges, can I kill her character? PS to the worm, wife, Emily, my one year year-old son‘s favorite songs are One Big Bed and Riverboat Shanty, we listen to them all day every day.

Matt A

To the honorable Supreme Crit and Joe, if he is so lucky to be in the courtroom today, I humbly present the case of the Campaign of Beans. I DM for a group of 4 player characters in a campaign sprung up from a level 5 one-shot. At the end of the one-shot, the PCs gathered a rather large amount of gold and I allowed the spellcasters to work together using Xanathar's rules for magic item crafting to generate 1 Magic Item of Rare or lower rarity. Judges, they created a Bag of Beans, and have since used them to derail multiple major encounters. First, they planted one in a cursed fae forest, which grew into a Chaotic Evil Treant and awakened the massive partially undead tree in the middle of the forest, creating a Kaiju that the local archmage had to deal with immediately. The second bean caused a Bullette to burrow up from the ground in the middle of a mini-boss fight, adding a combatant no one could have expected. The final bean they planted disrupted a ritual that the BBEG was using to control a hive-mind creature, by growing a PYRAMID WITH A 60-FT BASE, disrupting the fight entirely and allowing them to kill the Archmage several levels ahead of normal. All of this is fine and dandy, everyone has a blast rolling the d100 and watching chaos unfold in dire circumstances. My main problem is that when I rolled on the loot table in the DMG for the archmage, it was another bag of beans. I'm hesitant to give this to them, as they still have 9 left and effectively doubling them will turn the rest of the campaign into nothing but beans. I ask you, should I reroll this loot, or do I reward these antics with more ammunition? I await judgement.

Court Davies

To the effervescent justices and bailiff Jorf, of varying degrees of lowliness, I bring you a philosophical quandary regarding the ethics of animating dead. Our party includes a lawful good paladin and a chaotic neutral circle of spores druid. One of the druid's favored strategies is to cast animate dead, to which the paladin fervently protests every time, claiming it to be immoral dark magic. The druid defends her actions by saying that in this context, the reanimation is natural and beautiful. Her class ability describes it as a corticep-like fungus merely taking control of a soulless meat mech. The paladin refutes by saying it is still disrespectful to the dead, and has even gone as far as to warn the druid that if she continues, he may eradicate her new undead followers to put the bodies to rest. So I ask the honorable justices, do you side with our paladin, who believes our druid is committing an evil act of dark magic regardless of the context, or do you side with our druid, who believes she is simply a perpetuator of the natural cycle? We anxiously await your qualified ruling!

Saleana Judd

May it please the Illustrious justices and merely lustrous bailiff Jake: the case of Three GMs and the knife-wielding problem player. My group of nearly eight runs a rotating series of three campaigns between three GMs. It gets complex, it gets crazy, but we click easily. Save for one player. He's loud, he wants to be the center of attention, he talks politics when we've put our foot down that real world stuff is not welcome at the game table. He spends combat glued to his phone, and when it's his turn, his default response is "fuck it, magic missile because I can't do anything else." Even when he has abilities that would help out the next player(s) turns. He's copied other characters' actions in roleplay moments, making the original player feel cheapened. He recently revealed that his character has "attempted multiple times to kill a certain character," but that hasn't happened at all, in game or in game discussion. In our last session, the GM had been planning for *months* a series of very personalized scenarios of "happily ever after" temptations to pump up the emotional impact of the looming campaign finale. All of us were absorbed by our little snippets of perfect moments... Yes we were supposed to resist, but we all played into them to varying degrees just to experience where the GM had gone, see how he'd tailored the visions. The problem player, however... His experience came last (we rolled initiative), so he saw what the rest of us experienced. His response before it even began was to pull out his (sheathed) knife and slap it down on the GM's table and state "so I can stab you later, you son of a bitch." And then he refused to engage with the experience beyond being aggressive and angry. Meta gaming, I'm sure, but what we're all upset about is his actions of pulling a knife and threatening the GM! The GM felt uncomfortable, we all did, but he "did it in a haha funny" way. Most of us know he wouldn't do something like that, but it's getting ridiculous. I feel guilty for inviting him to our game nights over a year ago, and now I don't know how to ask him to leave. Both I and our other two GMs have asked him on multiple occasions to cool it, but it doesn't seem to stick. One of our players still tries to see the best in him, but the rest of us can no longer stand his antics. Should we proceed with our plan to ghost him via a new discord channel? Should our GM kill his character with an 8th level magic missile to see if he gets the hint? We await your judgement and sound advice.

Thorbjorn

Dear high justices and bailiff honk I have an issue with my brother in law dm that after I hade rolled 11 rough characters (so I can balance the party of relatively new players) at our last session said he was going to do point buy for scores after not telling me that was his plan when I started making characters after talking to him.

Santa Grinch Hugging HumBaba and two Fairies

To the Highest and most honorable and Heavenly Blount rotation i present to you this a confession I empathize with Jake having trepidation about dming for the first time how do we honor Dice Christ and tell the Imposter Syndrome Imp to go kick rocks

ZZ Digital

Hey there supreme crit justices, and howdy bailiff Jake! I have a player who always plays as their fursona. It's not actually a problem in of itself. She does always ask that her homeworld setting is included in the lore and if her fursona changes i have to come up with a reason her character changes to match. We usually play games with lighter rules than DnD, so i can usually accommodate. But the real problem is this: despite playing together for years, i dont know much about her character. When i try to write plots for individual characters I'll ask questions and she'll either give me a very barebones answer or a "don't worry about it." I want to keep enjoying games together, but she can make it frustrating to work with. Please help

All the Things

To the esteemed Justices and the effervescent Barliff Jank, I bring to you the case of the loathsome list First some background: About 20 years ago ( I was 25 ish at the time) I joined my very first RPG game, with an established group who had been playing for quite some time. I don’t recall the system, but it was a space odyssey and we, the players, were bound together on a space station to complete some mission and get back to our shared home world. The class I chose for my character within this system described them as religious zealots, always trying to convert others to their religion, and their order would punish those who acted outside of their laws. My character was Yoshua Ben Yosef, and even though I hadn’t played any RPG in my life to that point, I did have a background as an actor and so was very interested in the performative side of the game. Most of the players in the group were more on the math side of things. My character started keeping a list of anything any other player would do that would be punishable back on the home world, and I would openly tell my fellow players what they had done and why I was adding it to the list- and if we were successful in our mission of leaving the space station and getting back to the home world, they would need to face the consequences of those actions. My fellow players decided that I was too great of a risk to their well-being and after about 3 or so sessions, they forced my character into an airlock and then opened said airlock and left me to die in space. I was given the option to create a new character- so I basically made another zealot , but my fellow players did not give him a chance at all, also killing him off immediately. I tried to talk to the DM about it. I explained my idea that it was all going to be part of my characters arch to eventually find friendship and challenge his ideals. He was a “players decide what they want to do” sort of fella. He offered that I could make a third character, but instead I bowed out of the game, and did not play another RPG until nearly 15 years later. I now have a great group and an actual play podcast , so it all worked out in the end. However, I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about this experience, even to this day, and wondered if it could have been handled better- either by myself or by the DM and fellow players. Now, over half the group have failed their real-life death saving throws , and I don’t really talk to the other players that much. However, if this council finds me to be in the wrong, I will accept any punishment that is levied by this high court. So tell me supreme crit justices, should I have adjusted my play style and character to the group, or was I wronged by their fear of fake retribution? I humbly await your decision.

Nicolas R

To the skybound and lawful judges and whoever they have guesting as the bailif this week, i bring the case of the Homebound Master. Our old dm came back into town for a few days and wanted to run a one shot. We were all generally somewhat hyped about this but it did come with some mixed feelings. The campaign he ran was a good fun time, but he had a tendency to design encounters and bosses as if we were playing world of warcraft, with extremely complicated arena abilities and 0 room for creativity. We decided to indulge him since he was only gonna be in town for a few days and we knew how much fun he had putting these together. Only to be blindsided by the 11 page study guide on his one shot boss that we were not only expected to read but also to explicitly build around. We were even warned that if we didn't come prepared with min maxed lv 15 characters built specifically for this encounter, that we would almost certainly be wiped. None of us read the guide. The day come and for some horrid reason we only get to starting at 12:30 am. The players immediately lose all ability to take anything seriously as we are already exhausted from the day. We trudge through a few long rounds of combat only get stomped by every ability this boss throws at us. We run this until maybe 2:30 am where we all just decide to go to sleep. So I ask, was this sour homecoming our (the players) fault for not taking this session seriously? Or was it the fault of the returning dm or expecting so much of a group that never vibes with this style of game? Or was it simply the fault of that omnipresent bane of dnd... scheduling? I await your ever-righteous verdict.

Beardo

To the radiant judges and the unremarkable bailiff Jeb - I present to you the case of the Thunder Thief. I DM for my girlfriend and her cousins, we are all pretty close and have a great time together. One player shared very little with me about her backstory or what motivates her besides thievery (trickery domain cleric, ex theives guild member). For example, the players were once talking about breaking an NPC out of a prison, a high security magic prison of which the fighter of the group was fired from his job as a janitor. As I went to hand the map of the prison to the canonical ex-janitor, the cleric interjected, saying that she did hard time at this prison and would know the layout, so she should have the map. She refused to elaborate on what crime she had committed or if she realistically took the time to map the whole place out, demanding she see it first. I will note she did not say this line in an edgy-rogue way, more of a frantic blurb to try to redirect the conversation towards her. This type of thing happens frequently, where she absolutely shoe horns herself into another PC's backstory without consulting ANYONE about it beforehand. The players have expressed to me that they feel that it steals their thunder when they're clearly having a cool moment. Justices, I beg of thee, what is the cleric getting out of this? Has the thief reached too far in trying to steal their thunder, oppa Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief style?

Greatest Alive

To the Ethereal and Godly Justices and the disgusting mortal johnathon. I am playing in a campaign run by my longtime friend from college. This is his first time DMing a whole campaign and I came in maybe 10 sessions after its beginning. It had come time for the final confrontation with the big bad, who had been the party’s patron and collector-revealed-to-be-Evil-Guy of the campaign’s stones of power. When we got to the lair, the bad guy did a cut scene monologue (we were literally told “You are all paralyzed and have no choice but to watch”), then revealed the stones were the ancient prisons of many different dragons. He unleashed 5 of them and then we rolled initiative. We were level 16, so the odds were not *entirely* insurmountable and our plan was to essentially Professor Duddle the collector and stave off the dragons using status effects. That was, of course, until the DM used a legendary resistance and I told my party the dragons only have 3, to which he responded “Not my dragons.” I thought it might have been a mistake, but he confidently revealed that each of the dragons had unlimited legendary resistances. This, combined with a home brew black dragon that had an instant kill breath with no save, ended up making a fight where our party attempted to optimize and endure for almost 3 hours, only for it all to be for nothing as the collector used another legendary action to teleport the final party member in front of the breath and we were all wiped out. It ended up leading to a fun arc where we’re journeying through the layers of Hell to kill the devil, but I still feel rather chaffed by this fight to this day. Justices, do I move on and let the frustration wave over and through me or should I hold a grudge? I await your divine judgement.

Jake Sudnick Photography

Esteemed Justices and the bailiff guy that reads the cases I present to you the following: I recently attended a local one shot. It was held a snazzy local sushi joint they close down once a month for a D&D night. A group of DMs from around the area take tables of 4-6 players and you can sign up online for their one shots! I want to state this clearly the event was AWESOME. As a person who typically DM's I was super excited to be a PC and will admit my player I brought was min maxed. BUT they fit all of the few guidelines the DM gave. AND upon arriving I allowed them to view my character sheet prior to us beginning the session. It was clear after my Hexblade Bard made a few decisive persuasion / deception checks (+10 mod) the DM wanted me out of the way. When we encountered the boss of this I tried to lie our way out of the fight. My roll was so successful the DM narrated my character leaving the fight with the boss to another room in which they removed me from the encounter for over the next hour plus while the group proceeded to fight without ever cutting back to my character! This DM didn't use initiative so it was quite confusing and eventually the party asked where I was an hour plus later... in which we did eventually finish out the session. Judges was I wronged to be absolutely sidelined? If not I accept the punishment you see fit. I am also a Jake so please be mean to me Murph. Thanks

Daveed

Right off the bat, you know murph is gonna absolutely roast you for this lol

Sparster

To the Illustrious Eminences of the high crit and the guy who does that thing with Amir, We recently started a new campaign and during the second session our life cleric proudly announced he was going to heal the party after combat using goodberry (which he acquired through a feat). He explained that due to his Disciple of Life feature, each berry would heal an additional 3 hit points. The result is that a goodberry, a first level spell, does a flat 40 points of healing. When I said we would need to discuss this as 40 points of healing from a first level spell is insane, he got defensive. I offered alternatives to make it more balanced but he said if it was nerfed at all he would change characters because he had built his entire character around this one broken interaction. Am I being a no fun DM for not allowing this, or is my player being unreasonable?

The Wizard Syndicate

To the judges in their infinite glory and the bailiff in his limited capacity I ask for judgement on the case of “Reasonable Requests” I DM for my 3 friends and when this case came about we had been playing for some 2 years. We played mostly online after work, roughly every other week. The party had been split in a new city because the Rogue wanted to go meet up with his thief friends while the Wizard and the freshly rolled Bard went to a church to do some recon on some holy items they would need to fight a devil that was chasing them, and had recently kidnapped a beloved NPC. Since this was the Bards first time playing a magic user (the player had just sacrificed his first character in an epic last stand to save all his friends and raise an undead army to help in the finale) and we’d just come off of a huge fight last session, I didn’t want to do any combat during the session if possible. So when the wizard and bard went into the church they listened to a sermon about the majesty of these 3 magic items wielded by grand heroes, and how they were laid to rest here at the church as holy relics. They went to talk to the cleric running the sermon after and she showed them the cases holding the items. The wizard then cast mass suggestion and said “give me those”. Above the table I told him that the wording of the spell says you specifically have to make it a reasonable request so what exactly do you want to say? He responded “I tell her ‘give me those’”. I told him that “give me those” was a strange request for 2 complete strangers to ask of this holy woman, so she wouldn’t immediately just hand them over but instead the spell would make her more willing to help and she gave them her signature on a paper and told them that if they showed that to the king he could give them an audience and could be persuaded to help allow them to take the holy relics. (This was a way to allow the players to regroup and would let them meet the kings court which had some people who were important to the wizards backstory although he didn’t know that yet.) The wizard argued this was his first 6th level spell and since the spell worked on 12 people it should be 12 times as effective on 1 person which I disagreed with and said if he wanted to cast regular suggestion that could work but short of dominate person you weren’t going to make someone give you holy relics. The Bard then said that I was taking the fun out of it, and the wizard said he cast cone of cold on the cleric. I stopped everything there and we talked about everything and continued on later, but I’m curious. Judges was I taking the fun out of the wizards spells? Or did my players overreact to my table rulings? We still play to this day and we completed that campaign nearly 3 years ago now, but it still bothers me sometimes.

Izzy R

Hey besties (Supreme Crit Justices) and worstie (jake), one of my best friends has decided to dm a clue themed one shot for us to play. I’m very excited about it as I love both the board game and the movie. The only problem is that we’ve been waiting for approximately six months for my other best friend to turn in their goddamn character sheet. Every time I text them to ask if they’ve turned it in I get radio silence for at least a day, and I keep forgetting to ask if they’ve done so when we’re together in person. How do I approach this situation without being completely insufferable? I await your valuable advice with excitement. Ps. I do make them listen to dungeon court often and we even attended the most recent dc show together :)

Joe S

JUSTICE Hurwitz is no longer a lowly bailiff! He is a full Justice of the Crit and that is a lifetime appointment! He may be the newest member, and thus handles more of the Crit's administrative duties like soliciting petitioners and reading cases into the official record, but he is NOT a Bailiff any longer!

Haasenater

May the bailiff be highly esteemed this day. To the Judge of the animals, Lady Axford, the Judge of Shenanigans, Sir Tanner, and to the Judge of Cold Hard Justice, Sir Murphy, I bring the case of the ignored nat 20. My half-orc barbarian Borrow finally landed a nat 20 and confirmed the crit. The DM said my attack missed due to the fact I was in their realm. Is that true? Or was I denied my awesome lighting powered strike upon the demi God? I felt slighted against for many abyear now, please put me at ease. I await your judgment. P.S. we were playing 3.5 E.

Winters

To the honorable crit justices and the magnanimous bailiff Jake. I would like to present the case of friendly fire… I was playing a low-level online campaign over Discord with my friends for our first time in DnD. There were 4 of us, a human, a half-orc, a dwarf, and myself an air genasi. The first two don’t matter too much but the dwarf we will call Rocky. We were in a dungeon chasing an evil wizard who had information on some missing dwarves. The wizard, we will call him Glass, happened to be an ex-member of a guild who wished to recruit my character. During the encounter, I recklessly pursued Glass, passing his minions and taking attacks of opportunity but stopping my DM’s NPC from fleeing like he had planned. (ha DM get rekted). I was downed and brought back with 1 hp. But due to my party's quick thinking and highlight moments from each of them, we cleared the dungeon and took the wizard captive. While tying the mage down he had some sour words to our dwarf, rocky, when asked where the other missing dwarves were, the wizard calling him something like “filthy” and “dumb” (note, rocky had no ties to the missing dwarfs other than they were the same race). I pleaded with the group to hold off on turning the man in for our reward until I had a chance to ask him some questions as I wanted to know more about the group recruiting my character. The party agreed and parted to have a long rest while my character got a moment to shine and question Glass, who was now tied to a tree. We didn't get far into the questions, however, when the jaded mage said, “You can’t trust people, not a guild, and not your party”. This seems to be true judging by what happened next. Rocky had messaged the DM privately during the roleplaying asking to sneak back to where I was and shoot an arrow at the wizard. My DM allowed me to roll a perception check and which went well enough that I just heard the arrows release as they passed through some leaves. Knowing we needed the wizard alive for more information and for a reward I told my DM my reflex would be to put myself in front of our captive (remember that 1hp?). I died to Rocky’s arrow. Who then promptly looted part of my body, killed the wizard, and then finally performed a medicine check on me after one or two death saves were rolled from time passing. I plead with the court, was Rocky’s revenge for being called a “filthy dwarf” worth my characters life and trust? Or was my character unjustly put down for doing the right thing? I humble await your verdict.

Eugene

To the Honorable Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner and surprisingly tenured Bailiff "jake", I present the case/possible Dice Christ confessional that is my catastrophic DnD career (one game ending in a legitimate court case) . I have never had a group last more than just a few sessions, as both player and DM. The first game i was DM, and a player died while running off on his own claiming "this game is too easy." The cleric then refused to heal unless paid HANDSOMELY beforehand. 2nd game was DM'd by a player from my first game (not a player previously mentioned), with the introduction of a few new people. That ended after a few sessions due to many arguments between players/DM over rules, and half of the group quitting early out of pure distain for the DM. The 3rd and most recent game started very well. I was DM for my gf and 2 friends who were roommates. The 2 sessions we got thru went spectacular, but the 3rd session had to be canceled due to the roommates entering a civil court case where the Rogue was trying to evict the Paladin and sell the house out from the other roommates. Weirdest part was the Rogue reached out asking if we could still continue the sessions somehow. Justices, am I just doomed from having a simple DnD game? Am i the common cause that jinxes all games? (I have notoriously bad dice luck, arguably worse than Murph) I humbly await your ruling/prostrate myself in the name of Dice Christ in hopes to finding a functional group one day

McSandwich

To the effortlessly lovable judges and... I think I'm forgetting someone. Oh well, they must not be that important. I bring to you the case of the trapped door. My wizard and rogue were on a stealth mission, invisibly scouting out the dungeon they were to head to next. They entered a hidden chamber with a single door, and upon attempting to open the door, I, the DM, told them that the floor opened out from under them, preventing them from getting up to the door as the room started filling with noxious gas. One of the players questioned this, saying that I should have had them roll perception checks. I insisted that since they didnt make an effort to investigate the room, this sort of situation is exactly what the Passive perception and investigation skills are exactly for. This is something we still disagree on to this day, and I feel like I'm completely right, but have started to doubt it. I ask you, is this what the Passive scores are for? Am I misunderstanding this entirely? And if not this, then what purpose do they serve? I welcome any punishment that comes my way. Side note: they made it out fine, only taking a bit of poison damage, no one was truly pissed about the situation. Oh yeah, the bailiff. Joke Turdshitz, right? That's who I forgot eariler, I think.

theodor c

Oh highest and most esteemed judges, and their shit eating bailiff, Jacob Hurwitz, I present to you the case of the doomed romance. I, the forever DM of my group, have surrendered my role to my dear close friend, who wanted to try her hand at DMing. During the character creation process, one of my other friends, lets call him Jirt, wanted to play a younger version of a character he had played in one of my campaigns, essentially treating this campaign as a prequel to his story. The fresh baby DM approved this, and I personally had no qualms with the idea, thinking that this campaign would be a different world and story to the one I had DMed before, and that we would not be tethered to the events of that campaign. Soon after we started playing, my character was presented with a love interest (which my DM and I had not discussed beforehand) and went on a date with him. However, at the table, as soon as my new love interest’s name was revealed, Jirt gasped, clearly knowing who this character was, but refused to give further information. After questioning both him and the DM after the session, they revealed to me that my character’s new love interest would become Jirt’s husband prior to the events of MY campaign, and that this was true of this world as well. I was conflicted, as this meant that my character and his love interest had a predestined fate, no matter what choices I make in game, but ultimately I continued to try to develop the relationship despite this. However, in sessions since, Jirt started to flirt with my character’s love interest (and his future husband), to the point that I lost interest and ultimately gave up on their already doomed relationship. It’s my DM’s first time running a campaign, so I’ve excused many of the DnD faux pas committed thus far, but am I right to be lightly peeved that Jirt and my DM have used my character as a minor plot point in the backstory of Jirt’s preset marriage? Does my half-elven pirate deserve a fair chance at love? I submit myself, humbly, into your judgement. Amen.

ann_the_mann

To the honorable justices and that little guy Jake, I offer you the case of the "accidentally" murdered mom I write to you today to try the murder of my character's NPC mom, who was killed during a battle in a campaign I play with some friends. My character's mom, a commoner, was having a panic attack in the corner of the room while a battle against a soul shaker was being held. My friend, who plays an aberrant mind sorcerer, was growing frustrated with the fight since he kept rolling low and his psychic abilities were not effective against a monster with no mind. On his next turn, he decided to cast suggestion on my character's mom, telling her to 'be useful and join in on the fight". Her turn immediately followed his, and before any other player could try and intervene, joined the fight. She (a commoner I remind you) tried to unarm strike the monster, and failed the attack miserably. The monster's turn was immediately following hers, and since she was the nearest person, attacked and killed her (again, a commoner with no armor), instantly. Not just downed her, but hit her for more than double her hitpoints and perma killed her. To add insult to injury, her soul was also trapped forever by the soul shaker. No one in our party had the ability to revive her, and so, my character's poor mother met her end. What I am asking judgement for is this- did the sorcerer who cast suggestion kill my character's mom, or did the monster who ultimately attacked her? This has been quite the disagreement since it happened. I, of course, view it as unquestionable murder. My friend, however, says it was "just a shitty consequence" and he didn't actually kill my mom, the monster did. So judges, who is ultimately culpable for the massacre of my mom? The aberrant mind sorcerer who forced my mom to fight, or the monster who laid the killing blow?

Spencer Murphy

To the overwhelmingly radiant justices and the merely whelmed bailiff Jameson, I present the case of the unannounced roller. I've been running a campaign for 3 years now, which has had a few player additions and departures for various reasons. One of these players, who no longer plays with us, had a recurring problem where he would simply roll for any action, regardless of if it would even require a roll, if I asked for a roll, or even if I knew he was rolling. During one such occasion, the party was traveling to another city via a carriage system run by Stox, an incredibly terrified yet monotone Goblin who believed everyone was trying to kill him at all times. As I was narrating them leaving the wooded area surrounding their departure city, this player looked up and said "17 for Athletics." Exasperated, I simply replied, "for what, exactly?" "To climb over the carriage to the driver's seat," he replies, as if this is a totally normal interaction. Keep in mind, this carriage was moving at a literal walking pace, as there were people walking alongside it. From that point on, I would not accept any roll unless I explicitly asked for it, although this player would still often do this, much to my chagrin. I inquire you honorable judges, was I too harsh with this new rule? Or should a player be able to make a roll whenever they desire? I accept any thrown croissants in lieu of any punishment.

John Dean

To the honorable judges and extremely humble bailiff [REDACTED] I present the case of Falling Pudding in Castle Ravenloft. A few years ago I started a Curse of Strahd Campaign for my friends. Everyone enjoyed making their characters except one player who wanted to use a character from a previous campaign, Tapioca, because he didn’t want to make a new character. The campaign started off really well and everyone was having a lot of fun. Fast forward to the part where Strahd invites the party to have dinner with him in Castle Ravenloft. Beforehand, everyone agreed to dress up and make food, with one player even making a beef Wellington. The beginning of the session was incredibly immersive and was my favorite session of DnD I’ve ever played. After the dinner, Strahd allowed the party to explore the castle as he didn’t see them as a threat yet. The party split into two groups of three. Eventually Tapioca’s group encountered the giant tower with Strahd’s crystal heart in it. As the other two players discussed what they wanted to do, Tapioca interrupts and says: “I jump from the stairs onto the heart” I let him know at this point that this is a very large drop that could kill his character if he missed and that if he wanted to go down the stairs some more he could make an easier jump. He refused. And this is where I beg for your judgment. In my head, I set the DC for the jump at 15. Tapioca rolled a 14. I didn’t want to kill a character, so I allowed him to land on the heart. He then tried to attack the heart. He was not successful, but this caused Strahd to find him and ask what his deal was. Tapioca then tried to attack Strahd. The other two players in his group then immediately ran away as they were only level 5 and didn’t want to die. Again, not wanting to kill a character, I had Strahd view this as an inconvenience and had him thrown out of the castle. Tapioca was furious that no one would come and back him up. I found out later that Tapioca’s player was planning on leaving the campaign soon and wanted to end it for everyone right there. So, honorable judges and the bailiff, I guess: Should I have allowed Tapioca’s roll to succeed? I humbly await your judgement.

elena

To the magnanimous and regal judges of the court, and the bailiff, who's just a guy, I present to you the case of the main character energy torpedo player. I, the DM, have been running a campaign for six friends for close to two years now. For a lot of the players, this campaign was their first so it’s been a learning experience for a lot of them. One player in particular has little experience and has been hogging a lot of game play for their own storyline. It is sometimes difficult to get this player to focus on the more cooperative aspects of the story, constantly going on their own side quests or spending huge chunks of session trying to seduce a minor NPC. And this player also tends to have bad player etiquette — one day during a session she dropped a huge backstory that changed the trajectory of the plot without discussing it with me or other players beforehand. We discussed this behavior one-on-one earlier on in the campaign, and things did get better, but they've picked back up again in recent months. How should I deal with this? I await your divine judgement.

Emma

To the most honourable most supreme most judges and the lowliest Bailiff Jerb. I bring you the case of the opposable thumbs. In an early session of a new campaign our DM (it was his first time DMing but not his first time playing) had us fighting a manticore. Said manticore ended up trashing a shop and potions went everywhere. In the middle of combat the DM said that the manticore uncorked one of the potions on the floor and drank it, giving himself extra HP. I was outraged by this action as I stated that manticores don't have opposable thumbs. Their body is a lion and lions don't have opposable thumbs. The DM argued that manticores are mythical creatures and therefore DO have opposable thumbs, so the action was perfectly legal. In hindsight I think the DM should have rolled on a random potion table, because the chances of the manticore finding a healing potion in the middle of the mess would have been very slim. But that's besides the point. Oh most high and mighty judges - can you rule once and for all if manticores have opposable thumbs or not?

Swarm Of Rats

To the honorable justices and Nate (or something similar). I present the case of Jake the Chameleon and the Blinded Condition: I recently DM'd the first session of a campaign that started with the player characters — small animals — witnessing and hopefully stopping an ambush helmed by a chameleon mercenary named Jake. Jake wanted to steal the royal artifact, a Nokia Phone, and kill the squirrel king. I was ready for the group to prevent either of those, or else I would not have made it a fight, and a narration instead. But I did expect it to end in Jake's favor. Honorable justices, they wiped the floor with Jake. After one and a half rounds, he was already down to half his hitpoints, all minions at his side were gone and the king was in full cover. I was quite optimistic he'd still steal the phone and then just leave. But then the warlock, a crow named Astariel, said that he'd make a 30ft. sphere of darkness appear around the artifact. He was level 2. When I asked "How?", he said "It's a warlock thing." and read the description out loud. It had no concentration, unlike darkness and was twice as big and still magical darkness. And I, the fool I was, allowed it. Given how powerful that spell was I tried to see if there is an interesting way for Jake to work around this. And this is when I uttered a phrase that I've come to regret so deeply — "Well, he's technically not blinded. He just can't see.". The players immediately all jumped on me and started complaining that I'm being unfair, before I could even add "However, he still suffers the effects of being blinded.". But once I said that they still kept up the discussion, saying that that is a stupid distinction, acting as if I robbed them of something. I still gave them the advantage, and Jake the disadvantage, but insisted that he does not have the Blinded condition. Am I in the wrong for giving Jake the effects of the blinded condition — which still left him stumbling around aimlessly and eventually losing — without giving Jake the blinded condition, because not being able to see does NOT make you blinded? I humbly await your verdict. PS: According to the rules the wording for heavily obscured areas is "Creatures within that area effectively suffer from the blinded condition." PPS: It turned out the "Warlock thing" was an overpowered homebrew feat.

YourAnimeDad

To the Erroneous and Erotic judges and lowly baliff Jake the Cake, I humbly and furiously submit the Literally Drunk with Power DM I'm part of an ongoing weekly campaign with a group of 6 in a party. It's resource heavy, story driven, and overall a great time. But. When we get to our climatic encounter for an arc we tend to make it an event. Either meeting in person or celebrating with food and drink. Sometimes our DM gets a little, sauced and needless to say, he loses the thread. On our most recent, and most dangerous encounter yet against a shadow possessed dragon, we pulled off some outstanding research and social rolls, weakening the mythical threat, but as the fight began and we busted out all our preparations and magical items, our sweet sauced up DM called for a quick "shit" and when he returned and we subdued the dragon freeing it from its curse a shadowy abomination took its place and began hit and run tactics, with an emphasis on running. A lot. Primarily. Killing beloved NPCs and hiding in shadows. Our party unable to deal and damage for or fallen comrades as our DM cackled in delight as he removed all tension and deflated the encounter. We ended up having to calm a break as 7 rounds of combat and lair and legendary actions killed my husband NPC. My question is this, should we as a party have called the game 3 rounds in? Or did this Mad DM take this womping too close to the heart? I await your ruling

Bam Bambi

To the wonderful Martha May justices and the bloody faced baby grinch bailiff Jerk, I come with the case of the Charisma Crisis. A few years ago, my coworker invited me to join a new campaign they were DMing for their close friends. I created a character that was a Changeling Bard, had a pretty serious backstory, and whose father ended up being tied up with the Big Bads. In the very first session, I discovered the other members of the campaign created characters that were HILARIOUS and incredibly silly. For example, there was also another bard who was a bumblebee who did fuck all and had us crying with laughter every session. I was very surprised as I had made the character in a 1-on-1 session 0 with the DM, and they never clued me in to the vibe of the rest of the party. Over the course of the campaign, I got very overwhelmed by the pressure to be the face of the party, pushing forward solving the mystery. Particularly because, as a changeling bard, I had high charisma and could shape shift to do recon. To add to my anxiety, I have ADHD (didn't know this at the time) and was having trouble remembering key details. I decided to tell the DM this, and ask if I could play a different character that could match the silly energy of the party. The DM said that my character was too tied up in the plot and the campaign needed my character. I ended up leaving the campaign a few weeks later, and the DM basically never spoke to me again. Justices, was the DM unfair in not letting me make a new character? Should the DM have given me more insight to the vibe of the other characters? Or should I have let go of my performance anxiety for the betterment of the party? If so, do you have any tips on how to do so? I humbly await your judgement.

Stan BW

To the mellifluent justices and stupid ugly bailiff Duke ‘The Cake’ Hogdick. I play in a Zoom campaign that started as The Lost Mines of Phandelver with some additional homebrew content. One such addition was a currency used by the goblins which comprised of slices of their own castrated penises. The currency had an in-depth value system based on different coloured slices and full penis sets which could be used to influence goblins, as well as ingested to regain hit points and were known to have magical properties. Myself and the players became heavily invested in collecting full penises of each of the seven colours, with the Wizard being particularly interested in studying their magical properties. Once we reached the titular mine of Phandelver, we had obtained all of the colours of goblin penis and found a room which allowed a ritual to be performed to unite them into some sort of magical crown. The Wizard had somewhat lost interest in the penises by this point but, after some encouragement and visible disappointment from the DM, undertook the ritual. This gave him a nerfed Wand of Wonder (penis-themed), a penis-brand on his forehead, and turned his chin into a pair of testicles and tongue into a penis, which the DM explained meant he could no longer talk, or therefore cast spells. This meant he was restricted to quarterstaff strikes during the final boss battle of the starter campaign. He seemed to acquiesce to the ruling at the time and, after becoming distant in following sessions, our DM removed the mute aspect of the curse if he washed off the penis-brand each day - with the outright removal of the curse being an impetus for the next story arc. Not long after this, the wizard stopped playing and has since then claimed loudly in front of strangers at a mutual friends’ wedding that the DM, to put it politely, “abused [his] character’s modesty”. Did our Wizard overreact, or should the DM not have cursed a PC with such a significant restriction? For context, our DM claims that making the wizard mute was a joke about how the wizards’ player didn’t speak for the first three sessions because he was playing in his parents’ living room and said he therefore couldn’t talk. For further context, the player plays this Wizard in all D&D games, and is in his late thirties; as are the rest of the players who are all also married, fathers, and university lecturers.

Sean Kregor

To just Jake, Why are you the way that you are? Sincerely, Sean

Dave 3D Art

To the honourable judges, and the outside the law vigilante bailiff Jake I present to you the case of the Four missing elephants. I (Swarmkeeper/Phantom reanimated scarecrow) am currently a player in a campaign in which we doing a lot of settlement building and maintaining. As the Minister of Agriculture I purchased several elephants for use in farming, and defense of our settlement. A part of our outpost is currently under siege by an army of goblin/orc, and my elephants are no where to be found. The Dungeon Master insists that they are fine, just currently tilling the fields to the North but logistically I would have at least traveled with one to other parts of the settlement. I should at least have one. As a treat. I paid for 4 of them. Am I right or am I right?

Karl

To the Supreme Crit Justices, and that guy named Jason or something. I bring the case of the saturated firbolg. I was playing in a short lived campaign that was DM'd by a friend of mine, a first time DM. There were 4 players, including myself, and besides some minor discussion of classes, we didn't go into detail on what characters were going to play. When one of the other players introduced his character, I realised that we both rolled beefy boys - me, a gentle giant firbolg ranger, and him your classic goliath barbarian. I decided to lean into it, and deliberately introduced my character as being 2 inches taller than his, and from that moment on, the rivalry was sparked between our characters, which we both found very fun. One session, the goliath attempted to push my character off a pier, I resisted and the DM called for opposed athletics checks. I rolled a 23, and he rolled a 25 - quite high rolls for our low level characters. Due to our high and close rolls, I was expecting the DM to narrate a drawn out contest of strength, culminating with him slowly gaining the upper hand before managing to push me into the water. Instead the DM narrated my firbolg getting immediately womped and handily thrown into the water in truly embarrassing fashion. When I protested, he pointed out that I lost the roll. I decided not to press it further because it was just a roleplay moment that didn't affect the story but I'm still bitter about it years later. Did my firbolg deserve better, or does the Fast and Furious "it doesn't matter if you win by a inch or a mile - winning is winning" logic apply here. I await your magnanimous judgement.

Gunnar

To the dumbfuck corrupt circuit judges Nurphy and Tanny, to the recovering balif Axford and to the host, penn or cooper or something I bring to you the case of the destroyed magic item. So in a campaign set in a frozen world my DM said that birds don’t exist and flying is rare. I am playing an awakened cat spellcaster and curing character creation asked my dm for a broom of flying. The dm obliged. Later in a pre session 1 solo session with my dm, his villain destroyed my brook offlying. All of the other players started with an uncommon magic item except me since my broom of flying was s destroyed. Later in a further session the party found a treasure room where we rolled for magic uncommon magic items. I rolled and got a 59 and my dm gave me a common magic item. I brought up that he said that the items were uncommon and he had me roll again. I rolled 3 times all being common magic items. I eventually asked if I could have a broom of flying from the treasure horde and he oblidged. The party now all has at least two uncommon magic items while I am stuck with one. With my broom I am not allowed to fly more than 30ft due to an enchantment in the settlement. (I have done no disgusting shenanigans other than fireball Ing from 30 in the sky .) Judges is my dm in the wrong for denying me my righteously promised equipment or am I in the wrong for trying to obtain such a powerful uncommon magic item when he gave the warning of flying is rare.

Styx

To the Right Honourable Supreme Crit Justices and the Wrong Dishonourable Bailiff Jake. I present the case of the cowardly bear barbarian, may it please the court. A few years ago I was part of a homebrew campaign DM'ed by a friend of mine. I was roommates and friends with one other group member but the others were only acquaintences to me. Because scheduling DND sessions is hard, my friend couldn't make it to one session but she agreed we could continue without her with the DM controlling her tiny ranger. In game the group was hired to retrieve an object that had been seized by a "loan shark" who was a reverse mermaid with a shark head. We agreed to a strategy to ambush the loan shark in a narrow alleyway by having the bearfolk barbarian jump down from a rooftop and attack the shark. My cleric and ranger were stationed on the ground with the other caster (a wizard if I remember correctly) and meant to act as bait to trick the shark into dropping his defences. Upon the shark and his goons turning aggressive, the barbarian refused to go through with the plan. Despite having verbally agreed to it and offering no objections until we were already in combat, he instead stayed on the rooftop with half-cover taking potshots at the shark with his crossbow, a strategy that took absolutely no advantage of his much stronger melee strength-based abilities and left the rest of the party defenceless. I as the cleric rapidly depleted my spell slots bringing the wizard back up from unconsciousness round after round, and ended up tanking the most damage as the goons couldn't hit the barbarian. The entire table was frustrated with the barbarian player who continued not to intervene even as I narrated my heavily injured cleric attempting to shield the wizard's unconscious body. The DM seemed at a loss for what to do and let the shark continue waling on my character, who eventually was knocked unconscious. At this point the barbarian finally jumped down and delivered the finishing blow to the shark. The session ended and neither the barbarian character nor player showed any remorse for his (lack of) actions. To my recollection the group never even discussed meeting up again, and the absent friend is the only one of the group I still talk to. Where does the fault lie for this session and group falling apart? Was I right to be angry about this in real life? I humbly await your judicious ruling. PS. I have since found a much better DND group where I on purpose play a fighter/barbarian who aims to absorb as much damage for the other party members as possible, which I consider to be a cathartic experience.

ASortaOkayBuilder

A kindly "Howdy" and a tip-of-the-hate to the judges, and a playful but slightly too aggressive push to Bailiff Jacques. Today I bring you the case of the Dirty Rotten Feat-Thief. I play with a group of friends, and we're currently playing in a higher level campaign, which has allowed for picking up multiple feats. We are overall having an incredible time, but there's another player that has doubled up on feats that my character took at a previous level (A few characters are lagging a level behind due to story reasons). When I pick a feat, I often try to have it make thematic sense, unlocking a new ability through a story beat, or past choices culminating in a new skill specific to my character. For the next few sessions, I have the opportunity to do some cool clutch moments with my new feat, however, the next opportunity the other player has had to level up, they've picked the same feat. They have done this twice now. When asked what made them pick that feat, they've responded with "I don't know, it just seemed neat." and are otherwise dismissive. Neither of the feats really make sense from a character development perspective, nor do they really synergize in a sensible way with their character class either. It now feels like a race with the other person to fulfill the specific niche the feats cover, either resulting in me feeling like they're stealing my thunder, or me feeling like I'm stealing theirs. Justices, am I too high on my own bullshit, and should find a way to comfortably share the feat-based spotlight with this other player? Or should they be hucked off a cliff for their transgressions? I am at your mercy, and await your judgement.

hannah

To the honorable and majestic crit justices (I’m respectfully looking at you Justice Axford) and the highly highly highly Bailiff Jake, I bring you the case of my druid’s fatal decision. Yesterday we played a session of our online campaign over discord. During the session, my druid was dominated by the BBEG, and both of my fellow PCs went down and died. like dead dead. The BBEG made my druid try to drown herself which took a lot of time to recover from. After I came out of the dominate person spell and got back onto the dock, my DM made me choose one of them to revivify (we use Tasha’s extra spells for druids so it includes revivify). I had to choose between a barbarian/paladin who generally makes bad decisions against the rest of the group who is my friend IRL, and a fellow druid that also makes bad decisions but maybe not as bad and I’m not as close to him. The player of the druid texted me and said to let his character die, so I did, only to have the other player, my IRL friend, berate me and tell me how I made a bad decision and let the other character die and it’s my fault. The player whose druid died did end up revealing later that he had texted me, but I still feel like I fucked up. Was I wrong to pick my friend’s character when it was an impossible decision?

Magnus_Scelus

To the gorgeous and clean esteemed Crit Justices and the dirty bailiff boi Jake, I present the case of the “Background Sessions Curse” Our party consists of 5 players playing 3 times a week rotating DMs on different campaigns and all but my partner work fulltime jobs. Two of the players are married and have regular background sessions in their free time with their respective campaigns that they DM for. Occasionally, other players are invited to participate but most decline as we need to get that bread and already play 3 times a week. This would not be a problem if they didn’t do campaign relevant roleplay and puzzle solving without the rest of the players in their free time to fix major campaign subplots or add drama for following sessions. One of the most egregious background session happened to cure a curse for a major beloved NPC that the rest of the group has been trying to help cure across 3 campaigns as a subplot without the majority of the party’s involvement. Other side effects of the background sessions usually results in players having a lot of meta knowledge of the current campaign, overpowered NPC’s or old high level PC’s conveniently having the solution to the current PC’s problem at hand, and a clunky disposition from a PC of additional relevant knowledge. I throw myself before the court on behalf of my fellow players and ask, Am I wrong for thinking sessions should be played during the session and not in the background?

Luke M

To the Honorable judges, and how ever lowly the bailiff Jak is today. I bring you the case of the greedy dwarf. I was in a campaign about a decade ago with my buddies where I played a dwarven fighter who was adventuring for riches and glory. We were fighting a boss of a dungeon we had just explored and was a subordinate of the main evil guy we were looking for. About halfway through the battle the dm has a short monologue of the guy tempting our party with something their characters desired. Everyone declined till it got to me. I thought that my character would have turned at the opportunity of what he desired most. So I looked me DM dead in the eyes and said “If you’ll give me gold and glory, you have my axe.” And he gave me the most DM smirk I’ve ever seen. So the battle continues, and I kill the parties monk and Druid before they killed me and boss. The rest of the player where slightly irked but the DM was in such a good mood I got an extra level on my new character (we usually started our new character after character death a level or 2 lower then the party’s average). The rest of the players argued that I shouldn’t be rewarded for turning on the party and it’s still an event we talk about when we get together ever so often and debate what should have happened. I ask you justices, was I wrong for turning on my party in the name of roleplaying or did I deserve to be rewarded even tho I killed to members of my party? Ps. The players I killed were revived by a DM Pc after the battle do they did t lose their characters.

CanibalisticPenny

To the awe-inspiring crit justices and that naughty little mouse of a bailiff, Jake. I present the case of the banished wizard. I was playing Icewind Dale, and during combat my DM had given me control of an NPC that was traveling with the party to make his job easier. The NPC used abjurer wizard stats and was closely tied to another player's backstory. We were fighting a group of Remorhaz (big hot worms), and the NPC ended up being swallowed by one of them. Seeing that he had the spell banishment, I quickly devised a plan to have a cool moment where he banished the Remorhaz from inside of it and was left unharmed. However, upon casting the spell I was surprised to hear my DM, without missing a beat, say that the wizard was banished along with the monster that swallowed him. At first I thought that was a fun ruling, until my DM reminded me of the established fact of the campaign that anyone banished by banishment was magically captured by the BBEG and did NOT come back after a minute like the spell describes (I confess that in the moment I forgot about this). The NPC never came back, and ended up dying offscreen. Justices, I ask you: Should my fun idea have resulted in the death of an NPC from another player's backstory? Shouldn't my DM have at least asked me "are you sure?", or did I simply blunder by forgetting an established rule of the world? I await your justice with twiddling thumbs.

Isabella Tyre

Greetings to the effervescent justices and the slightly lesser bailiff. I present to you the case of the Princess of the Continent, Secret Warlock Aarakocra. The case begins in my first ever DnD campaign, where a group my friends were taken on an incredible high fantasy adventure, and all was well outside of one PC-our druid/warlock Zaelyn. The campaign came to a close a couple months ago in a 14 hr session. Our first two encounters were great, defeating the enemies of our pc friends, but we saved as many of our spells/abilities as possible for our heavily anticipated battle against BBEG Lolth. To understand the crimes preceding, you must understand that the bird in question, who declared themselves the princess of the continent in session 2, had an arc where they secretly became a warlock of Lolth. Later, she killed her parents, so, queen of the continent. Also, Zaeyn gave flower crowns to everyone each session, and in the last session, she was looking for the perfect flowers for her crown. Round one of combat, we’re pumped; Lolth and a mind flayer beholder fight us in a massive, web covered cave. At Zaelyn’s turn, she is “controlled” by her patron, and pvp ensues. Our players turn from using our cool spells to do grapple checks. Round two begins a cutscene. Our DM describes Zaelyn breaking her contract with Lolth and “pushing both Lolth and the beholder with her body into a Moonbeam like light”. And in the burn spot where the light incinerated them was, you guessed it, the perfect flowers for the crown. It’s not over. After, Zaelyn’s steward presents us with a will. In her will, our communist monk etc. What did my PC get? A stable. Justices, I plea: Were the rest of us robbed of having satisfying send offs? And is the DM at fault for allowing the player to careen the campaign?

Elias Roessler

To the Honorable judges and Honorable Bailiff Jerkwitz. I bring you the case of the heat metal buff. For my first campaign I was playing an artificer. Our first session of being at third level, we were in combat and I decided to cast heat metal on an enemy weapon in an attempt to make them drop their sword, as it says in the wording of the spell. However, after casting the spell, the DM then narrated how the bad guy was unaffected, and proceeded to deal extra fire damage on his attacks because of the spell, leading to me wasting one of my few spells. When I asked him why he said “Because only the blade gets hot none of the swords I have contain metal all the way through”. Dejected I ended the spell, uncertain what to use that spell for in the future as a DND noob. Was this a correct interpretation of the spell or was I unnecessarily sad? I leave myself at your mercy.

Mason N.

May it please the Grand Court of Crit and that guy who plays Jake from Jake and Amir. I propose to you all the case of the killer life domain cleric. I played in a 10 person campaign and am playing the party's healer, a Life Domain Cleric named Coach Hawke Barski. As part of his backstory, he was always bullied during school and thus became a coach to put an end to bullying. While the party was exploring, Coach Hawke Barski noticed a group of teens bullying a kid. He went over to confront the group and ended up getting punched in the nuts and getting table topped by the teens. For flair, the DM put him into a flash back of that exact thing happening to a young Coach Hawke Barski, and in the flashback he retaliated by punching the bully in the face. But in reality, he chose to be doing a 1st level Inflict Wounds uppercut to the teen bully in charge. It immediately killed the teen (who had commoner stats), and as a result, another party member, a Zealot Barbarian, did a reckless attack on Coach Hawke Barski and downed him. Once the tension settled, and Coach Hawke Barski was brought back up, he used all of his money and some of the other PC's money to do a Revivify on the teen and we moved along with the campaign. I get razzed about it from time to time, but I need to ask the court, am I in the wrong for playing along with the DM's flashback scenario and getting triggered by the trauma? Or should I have taken the high road and not retaliated? I await the court's decision in shame.

Luna-Azalea

To the honourable justices and bailiff Jank Hengwots I have a case I wish to humour the court. During an ordinary dnd game I was a player. This game is online and we used DnD Beyond for dice rolls. I had to make an investigation check looking for clues to prove the Governor was behind the plague that was sweeping through the nation. I rolled a Nat 20 and found nothing, that’s fine. After the session I was talking about how I didn’t find anything and the DM said that I didn’t roll high enough. Justices I am a rouge that has expertise in investigation and have a +12 meaning I rolled 32. The DM said that the DC was 25 but decided not to give me anything because I had found most of the clues (My character was a detective) I got angry and defensive, and probably got a little heated and the party agreed with the DM. I ask the court was my DM justified in not giving me any info and the party razzing me or was I wrong to roll every investigation check that we came across. I humbly wait your judgement

Carissa Piercy

To the most auspicious and abundant (whatever we refer to y’all as in the church, sorry I forget). I come to you all with a different kind of confession than you might expect. I’ve been dming my first home game for about 9 months now, and the players recently had their finale battle for the first arc of this campaign. They were fighting a quori and several NPCs they had grown fond of that the quori was possessing, one of which being a player’s NPC girlfriend. On his turn, this player was able to break her out of the possession and got her fighting on their side. She acted on his initiative, hexblade’s cursing the quori then eldritch blasting. I rolled for her attack behind my screen, and she rolled a 19 to hit (a hexblade crit) and then double tens on her 2d10 of eldritch blast damage. The quori only had 10 hit points left. I have felt guilty about this NPC getting the killing blow on the BBEG for weeks now. I strive to use my DM powers of fudging rolls or adjusting combat design behind the screen only for good, such that it would aid the players. I can’t help but feel I should’ve fudged the roll so she missed and a PC would get the ability to finish off the big bad. I come to the church of dice Christ on my knees, asking if I did the right thing by honoring the sanctity of RNJesus and not fudging my rolls, or if my guilt is justified and I have dishonored the church, I humbly ask to be absolved.

Beano Nintendo

To the Fergielicious Justices and the 2000-and-Late Bailiff Jerome, I submit a controversial case based on fantasy race. I was a member of a campaign where all PCs came to the fantasy realm from Earth and had their bodies transform upon entering. So, for instance, my character, a middle aged elementary school principal named Rhonda transformed into an orc paladin but, despite this change in appearance and abilities, me and the rest of the party still knew very little about the world we had just entered. Early on in the campaign, we came across a village protected by a giant oni. When I met him for the first time, my DM told me “Rhonda remembers a story she heard back on Earth about oni eating humans” but, because he didn’t seem aggressive and actually wanted to help us, I didn’t act on it right then. This oni did end up becoming a major npc in our campaign (our Balnor, if you will) and so my roleplaying strategy was to approach my preconceived notions about him in a way that a real person might, by keeping a watchful eye on him and making the occasional snide or concerned remark to my teammates. At one point in the campaign, the oni demonstrated their brutality in combat by mercilessly decapitating and bisecting several humanoid enemies. He then took some of their decapitated heads back with him to cast speak with dead and I chose to use detect thoughts during this to see if the oni was planning on eating them after. The table argued with me that the oni was our friend and that I didn’t have to do this but I chose to do it anyway because it felt like what Rhonda would do. I soon got a concerned message about “the direction of my character” from the DM on Discord . Since I had apparently alienated the group with my actions, the DM and I agreed to a one on one session where Rhonda and the oni have a chat to clear the air about the whole “eating people” thing. But, in that talk, the oni revealed that he actually DID used to eat people and that he only stopped thanks to a Wish spell and every other oni in this world does, in fact, eat people. So, in other words, Rhonda had reason to be suspicious all along! Before you tell me to “get better friends,” I did want to let you know that I ended up leaving that campaign after a few more sessions due to other creative decisions I disagreed with but still I must ask if I was in the right for “yes and-ing” the DM’s initial suggestion of prejudice or if I should’ve just forgot about after that early session. I humbly await your judgement.

frogwithhumanhands

To the turtle expert judges (thanks to your advice I buried my turtle!) and the zooted bailiff, I'm DMing a game for my 3 younger siblings and my sister's boyfriend. Only one of them, the youngest, knew anything about DnD (after I introduced him to your show!) and so I just used my DnD Beyond to create their characters so they'd have access to everything I had on my account and I helped them build characters that were pretty optimized for the role they wanted to play in the party so that they could have fun playing their characters and I just printed their sheets for play. They're to the point where they understand their stats and how to build up their characters without too much help, and whenever they level up, I end up having to send them a million texts about what spells or abilities they can take so they can read through them and pick what they like. I said they should start taking control of their own character sheets, in part because I'd like to be surprised when they bring out new spells and abilities because it keeps me on my toes. But they don't *want* to handle their character sheets. I don't mind, as my prep work is more overhead versus in the weeds, so I can improvise more easily if they don't do what I expect, and I don't reference their sheets to make fights super hard, but I think it would be more fun if I didn't know what they had. Is it fine if I handle their characters or should I make them do it themselves? They are all over 18, not sure if that makes a difference. I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

ChickenTooTasty

May it please the severely underrated Bailiff and those other court people, too, I guess: I present the case of RAW DM v The Players Who Just Want to Move Together: Our 9th level party, along with some NPC druids helping us, had chased the major villain, an adult red dragon, into his lair on the Elemental Plane of Fire. To prevent us from taking constant fire damage while we were there, we had with us a few potions of fire resistance and an Amulet of Comfort, which provides a radius, centered around the wearer, of perfectly climate controlled space where we would take no damage from the environment. The size of the affected space and the size of the party meant that we were cramped together with very little room to move. If any of us wanted to move, everyone would have to move with them to keep everyone inside the amulet's protective space. Here's the problem: as we understand the rules, the only way to move outside of one's turn is to perform the Ready action, triggered by when the amulet wearer moves. This sucks up everyone's actions and reactions, so no attacks, spells, or opportunity attacks from anyone except the amulet wearer. I proposed that since everything was technically happening simultaneously, we should be able to move at the same time, letting the amulet wearer "drive" our movement on his turn. The DM said no, insisting that we follow the rules as written. Both the wizard and my ranged-focused rogue were downed by fire salamander goons in one round before ever getting an attack in. The only reason we survived is because, after all but one of the druid NPCs and half the party members were downed, an NPC adventurer party, seemingly immune to fire, appeared from the Astral Plane, killed the dragon for us, then demanded the first three picks of magic items from the dragon hoard as payment. Was the DM being too much of a hard ass for the rules of turn-based combat, or was I being a whiny baby for not wanting to follow the rules? I await your just decision and possible punishment uwu

Doctor Ransom

To the unfeigned Crit Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and the mealy-mouthed cake-based bailiff Jakeathan, I offer the case of the Drow John Wick. I was DMing a oneshot online with some close buds of mine. They were a party of four high-level heroes being tailed by a heavy hitting band of drow bounty hunters. Their dice were rolling high and they were absolutely whomping all of my baddies, that is until a much higher-powered Drow Mage stepped into battle. He sent his Grandpa-faced yeth-hound after them and one of the players mercilessly butchered it without further hesitation. While one half of the party stayed to fight, the rest of them decided to flee 100’s of feet away from battle. The remaining fighting players got taught a brutal lesson in not killing someone’s dog John Wick style. After the Drow Mage downed the yeth-slaying player with a legendary action, one of the fleeing players inadvertently drops from our voice chat saying the fight was unfair and there’s no hope of winning even though they were four overpowered 14th-level characters, and he chose to leave his allies to die. Who was in the wrong justices? Was I being a big meanie retaliating too hard with legendary actions against my players or was this player just crying yeth-hound tears? I await your forthright judgement.

Maxwell Keiles

To the high born judges and the scrappy under dog bailiff I bring the case of the IRL seduction check. I was dming a game for my then boyfriend. During the campaign between sessions , we broke up as we decided it just wasn’t working. Though it was clear that I was being dumped. We were and are still are best friends and it was a fully amicable situation. One problem. The literal next session after we split up he tried to put the charms on an npc to get something from him. I then had to role play someone flirting with the person that had just left me. I basically gave them exactly what they wanted and didn’t require any roles so the scene would end. Judges, was I justified in giving them an easy out or should to save my heart or should I have used my head and given a satisfying social encounter. I await your judgment.

Noah Kyle

To the justices, the bailiff, and a guy whose name is literally Hugh :/ I present to you all the case of the Russian Crick Elves. For an in between mini game I decided to run Bahumia for my group until our main DM was ready to run the next real campaign. Everyone was stoked. One player in particular was very interested in being a Crick Elf. She said she wanted to be the daughter of a ranger guard; no problem, I can homebrew them in. She said she wanted to be half orc, half elf; no sweat, we can make a custom race. She said she wanted to have a Russian accent. At this I balked hard. I told her if she wanted a Russian accent she had to be from the Frigid North, people from the Crick have Southern accents. After a fair bit of back and forth she relented and said she’d do a Southern accent, which she was ungodly terrible at. I felt ok about this for a while but thinking back I feel like she talked very little during the game and I’m thinking maybe it’s because I made her do the accent. Justices, should I have thrown the regional dialect out the window for this player or should she have had more hospitality?

ZZ Digital

I would like to submit the case of time expectations. Our DM runs a text based campaign, one alleged benefit is our characters can easily go off on solo quests. However, the DM is bad at responding outside designated game time. So, once between missions she stated that we were going to take 2 sessions to clear out the side quests that had been building up. The first night came, and i waited for her to update my quests. And i waited and waited. The session ended with everyone but me having something accomplished. I asked the DM why i didn't get anything and she responded everyone else was much more invested in their quests than i was. Probably true, roleplaying is not my strong suit, but i try. I let her know that was fine, and I'll just sit out the next session and come back for when the main game resumed. She promised me she'll give me some focus, so i shouldn't skip. The 2nd night begins, and she updates my story 2 times, before abandoning me again to focus on others. Am I wrong to be bitter, as said, I'm not as invested as everyone else, but i still enjoy playing.

Azalea Angel

If it pleases the Court, I Present to the Beautiful and Handsome Crit Justices and The Gorgeous Bailiff Jake, The Case of the "Evil Twin's Magical Ape Trickery" This happened a long time ago (2019), but I'm still a little upset about what happened in this campaign. The party consisted of 4 players and it was a homebrew one-shot so not all of the rules of DnD applied to this game, I played an Angel Cleric, and My best friend, (we'll call her Ali) played a Demon mage named Trixie. Our characters were Twin sisters, and they got along well, but Trixie liked to play a lot of Tricks on me, which in most parts were Harmless but kinda of annoying. This particular game started with all of our players being stranded on a Tropical Island. We investigated and found a camp with clues saying that there was a strange secret thing going on at the Volcano in the middle of the island, so we started our journey to the Volcano, but along the way, we essentially ran into King Kong! The rest of the party immediately went into fight mode, but since my character loved all kinds of life, I asked if I could try to calm the beast instead (My thinking was that if I could gain King Kong's trust we could ride him to the volcano), the DM granted my request and I rolled really well! My plan was working, but then My TWIN decided to cast Polymorph on me and I turned into a giant Female Ape. The DM and everyone else thought this was really funny, so the DM said that King Kong fell in love with me, grabbed my wrist, and started dragging me away to his nest. I wanted to protest but since I was very shy and didn't know how to stand up for myself yet, I let it happen. eventually, after reaching a certain distance, the Polymorph wears off and I become my normal Angel self, but I'm still very much captured. I don't really remember what happened in the game because I was silently fuming over the fact that I essentially couldn't play anymore, but essentially the party makes it to the Volcano and at this point, our Anthropomorphic Dog Rouge suggests that they go looking for me, but Trixie convinces them that I'm fine and they could find me later. So they continue and they discover more about the strange happenings of the Island (That I didn't pay attention to). After about one and a half hours since my capture, they found a puzzle that required a cleric to unlock, (I think the DM started feeling bad for me) so they turned back and found the cave that I was in. King Kong had left me there to find food or something, so I was able to quickly leave the cave without entering into a fight. I solve the Puzzle and we are teleported somewhere else and the Game ends. After the game, I finally turned to Ali and asked her why she had to do that to my character, because I didn't really get to play and she just shrugged it off saying that she'd thought it'd be funny. the other players told me that these sort of things happen in DnD all the time and that if I didn't want to get captured I should have joined them in killing King Kong. That's my story, I leave their judgment in your glorious hands. But before you make their judgment too harsh, I have to say that I'm no longer seeing this particular DnD group. Soon after that game, we all went our separate ways. Ali is the only one I still talk to but even our conversations are very rare since she's a mother of 2 and lives in a different state now. I'm gonna be DMing my very first DnD game on the 25th of May this year and I'm very excited to get back into the game! Love you lots and Hope you guys have a great week! (Also Sorry if this was very long, I had a lot to say lol)

The Overthinker

A case of Sith-staken Identity Greetings esteemed and magnanimous judges and the just ever so lowly bailiff Jake, bless his heart. I bring a tale from a long time ago, and a galaxy far, far away. Our group was a munchkin-ed-out pack of space mercs. A Wookie in power armor, an Avian force-wielding sniper, a human with ‘really good rolls’, my min-maxed bug-person techy, and a feline bounty hunter with four arms and twenty guns. While the campaign was riddled with pvp, threats, and a sound aversion to story or plot in favor of chasing bigger guns, the first is perhaps the funniest, so I submit it for your judgment. Our group had recently come into wealth, having discovered an unsalvaged battlefield from the Clone Wars and sold the location to the rebellion for salvaging. We had started setting up a base on a remote world and making contact with nearby planets, one of which was home to several traditional Sith houses, carrying out their political machinations with fancy masks and red lightsabers. My character found almost everything fascinating and was quick to spend a few credits on a full robe and gold mask, as well as a training saber. When he returned to the base to show off his new outfit, the Wookie player asked if I had radioed ahead about my costume, and I said it would have spoiled the surprise. The Wookie player then turned to the GM and said “I see a guy in back robes, wearing a gold Sith mask and a red lightsaber? I shoot him.” My insectoid techy was hit square in the chest with a bow caster shot, killing him instantly. The GM ruled that with force healing and an available hospital setup in our base, I could be saved, and I was bullied for a while for making such a foolish mistake. So I ask you, was I wrong to try and prank the other PCs or did the Wookie player overreact? P.S. This campaign was rife with chargeable cases, and if you so wish, the cases of the Absent Telekinetic, the Granade Brawl, and the Fall to the Dark Side are all ready.

Jon Snider

To the dogmatic church: I bring to you today not a confession, but a grievance. Following Emily's moon dice advice got me KILLED. I am a forever dm and had the first chance to play in years when my brother decided to run Dark Dice's Domain of the Nameless God for our group. Spelljammer had recently come out so I created a lunar dragonborn (so sick) as a twilight domain cleric who was completely moon themed, his holy symbol a moon rock, little spectral floating moon rocks for the light cantrip, etc. After a few sessions of poor rolls, I decided to take High Priestess Axford’s advice and cleanse my dice in the moonlight of the first full moon of 2023. I set my dice out when the moon was brightest, highest value facing up so they can learn. Reinvigorated with celestial grace, I felt Atrus ready to take on anything. The hubris.. The first session after the full moon, I did not roll a single check or saving throw above a 10. Over the next few sessions, Atrus slipped into insanity via the madness rules from the DMG, and ultimately succumbed to the horror of the Nameless God being birthed into the world. While fleeing the sight of a ritual to bring the God back, my dm gave us a choice: do you flee or do you turn back to look? After everything that led to this, Atrus could only turn back. The dm asked for a wisdom saving throw and i rolled a natural 1 with wisdom being my highest stat as a cleric. Completely broken, Atrus sat down and laughed at the inevitably of everything as the rest of the party fled. This also led to another PC death where the bard of our group tried to drag Atrus with him but also rolled a natural 1 on his wisdom save, being left behind as well. Years later my faith in dice christ is still shaken and I am cursed by that which inspired what was my favorite character of all time. Can I ever heal? Can I ever trust again? Has dice christ truly forsaken me or am I another Job or Jonah or that one monk who rolled 7 nat 20 dex saves?

Magerdamage

Had to delete, my wife was uncomfortable with this one going out.

Michael Hubbard

To the Geriatric Justices and the Baby Bailiff, I humbly submit the Case of the Confusing Almonds. In the 5e campaign I play in, we recently confronted the vizier of a kingdom known for their almonds (thsi will be important) who, surprising no one, turned out to be evil. He attacked us in the throne room, and our split party only had three PCs to try and fight him. Our Fathomless Warlock (played by my wife) ran in close to the vizier so she could then teleport away to a better position using Thunder Step, damaging the Vizier in an explosion. While she was next to the Vizier, my wife looked for anything else she could do with her action economy. There was no one she could take with her on her Thunder Step, so she decided to ask to roll Sleight of Hand "just to see if she could steal something from this asshole." She succeeded, and the GM declared that she was able to take the almonds this guy had been snacking on, oppa Brennan Lee Mulligan style. The next round, my Artificer is hit by a Confusion spell from the vizier, making me mostly useless for the next several rounds. However, while we looked up the spell description in order to roll what the effects of the Confusion would be, one of the players happened to notice the material components for the spell--*three nut shells*. The table lost it with laughter, insisting that my wife had just stolen all of the Vizier's almonds, meaning that he had no materials with which to Confuse me. Our GM, while a good sport, was not convinced. Judges, I know that most spellcasters have component pouches or foci. But, I still ask you--wouldn't have been extremely funny if my wife stealing his almonds meant the Vizier had no nut shells with which to Confuse me? I humbly await your judgment.

Joe S

I hope they take this case just so they have to explain what Honor the Cock means.

Alan Hickman

To the infallible judges and the very much fallible bailiff I present the case of the experienced liar. A couple of years ago I was running a short campaign for three newer players, or so I thought. I had been DMing for 2 years and was getting confident with D&D. I advertised on Reddit for some new players I could pass on my newfound wisdom to and run a small campaign for. One of the players that claimed to have never played before would constantly do things that didn't line up with a new player. He would ask about obscure rules, took a UA fighter class without asking if it was allowed, always seemed to know a monsters weakness or gimmick, told other players what spells and feats to take and how what to do in a fight. When I asked he said he watched a bit of critical roll and had looked through a players handbook before. The campaign only lasted level 1 to 6 but it all came together when he revealed during the final fight that he had taken the sentinel feat. I thought nothing of it but then noticed stacked with another feat, yes that one, that he had become an unstoppable killing machine. He had made the infamous tunnel fighter with unlimited opportunity attacks both when someone enters and leaves range and 10ft reach. After he easily defeated the final fight, I asked players to narrate how each of them ended the adventure and everyone still seemed to have a good time. After the players asked me if I would DM a full campaign but I was hesitant, I asked the problem player how much experience he really had with the game and he admitted he had played in a few campaigns over 3 years. I was annoyed and told the players I was too busy to run a campaign, then promptly found new players to play with. Was I fight to walk away and punish all players for one person failing to disclose their prior experience?

PlanetPanic

Oh Justices, my Justices; I beseech Caldwell "Toon Hat" Tanner directly. The honorable "Crit Leg" Axford and "Goof Hunter" Murphy can chime in at their discretion, and the cabin bailiff "Jakey the Clown" should really get back to swabbing the poop deck. I bring before you, the case of "The Sunken Smile." My college friends and I are all fans of the series "One Piece," and we collectively made a 5e homebrew system to play in that world. Our crew - the Jade Rat Pirates (named after our rat-Mink captain who ate the Jade-Jade fruit) - was in a deadly encounter with Comadore Cruncher on the deck of our ship. Ol' Crunchy used a concentrated blast of Cereal-Cereal powers (a reflavored Eldritch Blast) to knock the captain (who was in Jade-form at that time) off the ship via a Repelling Blast invocation. Rules are: Devil Fruit users in the water gain the Paralyzed condition, so the heavy Jade-man helplessly sunk to the bottom of the ocean. I am playing a Fishman swordsman, so I dove off the side of the ship to rescue them. When I caught up to the captain in 2 rounds, I asked to use Athletics to swim with them back up to the surface. The SM (Sea Master) had me roll, and on a 19 plus 8 from a Musician Inspiration I had a total of 36. I was confident in the success, until the SM described how "try as I might, the captain was simply too heavy to lift, even if I had gotten a crit." To my confusion, they revealed a previously undisclosed feature from our latest level up two sessions prior, which read that the Jade poweres "did not allow the user to be moved unwillingly," and since the captain was Paralyzed the SM ruled that they could not will themselves to be moved by me. Our two other crewmates finished up combat the next round (before I could try anything else), and the SM narrated how I had to watch our beloved captain drown with nothing to be done. However, as the captain died, it was narrated by the SM (not the player) that they gave a big smile and was revealed to have the Will of D. The session ended, but the player was silent since the new feature blindsided then as well. They did ask how the Comadore moved them if that feature was in play, to which the SM said they had a Haki feat that nullified that part of the captain's abilities for the attack. I argued that I also had Haki and should have been able to use it to swim with the captain on another attempt before the narration kicked in and killed them, but the SM said that the one Athletics check covered all attempts over the period of drowning. The group left the SM's house saddened by our loss, and the captain's player (my IRL roommate) was fuming on the drive home, saying that they never were told about the new feature beforehand and that it was never in his backstory to have the Will of D. We've developed a theory that the SM may have acted as a dishonorable bilge rat when he killed our rat captain using an enemy designed to move the immovable, suprise PC features, and a cutscene drowning, all to set up something about the captain the player never intended to be a plot point. This landlubber asks you to enact Oda-san's will and rule on if we should mutiny at the table to make the SM walk the plank for these crimes, or if everything was above deck in a deadly encounter and we should just let sunken rats lie?

Chrome Moxwell

May I prostrate myself in front of the freight train that is the dice Christ’s judgement. In 2022, I DMed for the first time, with a near-entirely homebrew campaign set in the Faewyld but with a Willie Wonka + The Magicians horror aesthetic. The story being the fey and shadow crossings were opening up for the first time in 200 years and this threatened the material and fae planes. I had reconnected with a friend from high school who was a forever DM, and he adopted the “leader” role in the campaign filled with 5 other somewhat novice DnD players. His Bard, Ike, was a mid-level bureaucrat sent with the rest of the party to develop interplanar trade. In the second session, the gang was ambush by a polycule of a Druidic Neil Patrick Harris who was missing teeth and smelled of shit, two dryads, a pixie, and a sprite. Ike was charmed by one of the dryads, and could not get out of the condition, causing him to take a lot of focused damage when the other players spread out to avoid attacks. Despite having 6 players against 5 NPCs, 3 players were downed. In the last round of combat, Ike rolled his second death save after having failed the first, and rolled a nat 1. Some of the other players were goofing off, and despite my urging, did not spend actions to assist their downed party members during the fight. My friend, who had gotten an commissioned portrait done of Ike before the campaign started, now had to figure out a new character about 6 hours into a campaign because I made a slightly too hard encounter. The campaign fizzled after about 15 sessions, with the greatest enemy of DnD campaigns, scheduling, becoming an insurmountable force. I feel as though I should have fudged something, or done anything to avoid a PC death in session TWO, but I just couldn’t anticipate such bad rolls or think fast enough to pivot well. What do the clergy feel would be the most appropriate form of penance for my sins?

Luke Mullinax

To the Highest Crit Court in the land, to the Hallowed Halls of the Dice Christ Cathedral; and to the bailiff, who is actually looking pretty tall today; I present the Curious Case of the Unencountered-therefore-Uncounterable Spell -- I was playing in a campaign as a Divine Soul Sorcerer. As a battle turned in our favor, the chief enemy attempted a spell. Suspecting the spell was to aid in their getaway, my Sorcerer attempted to use Counterspell -- only for the DM to tell me I wasn't able to counter the spell, because I couldn't be sure what spell was being cast. They had never required knowledge of the spell being countered for Counterspell to be effective before. I did not argue and the battle soon concluded with our Barbarian running down the enemy (who did indeed attempt to teleport away) and beheading them. I beseech you -- that's some old bullshit, right? Also, I may need to beg forgiveness from Dice Christ related to this case. You see, after being denied my Counterspell, I swapped it out for another spell the next time I leveled up; however I never told my DM I had done this, and would occasionally bluff that I was going to counter his spells throughout the rest of the campaign... Am I a naughty Dice-Christian who deserves Murph-rolls for eternity, or was my deceit blessed by the Nat20 Messiah?

M Weisberg

To the most honorable justices, and to the bailiff whose self-talk needs work, I bring the Case of the Dubious Rope Trick. Our rogue cast Rope Trick while on a moving airship. Our DM said the ship would leave the Rope Trick behind because it stays where it was initially cast. The artificer argued that if Rope Trick stayed in its absolute location, it would not follow the planet's rotation or orbit, and would immediately be left behind in space. Therefore, Rope Trick's location is not absolute. Whereupon the wizard added that if Rope Trick were cast while standing on a moon, the Trick would remain upon the moon, not the nearest planet. Thus, "planet" is not the important part, but rather the surface where the caster is standing. If it can follow a moon, couldn't it also follow an airship? Ultimately, the DM ruled that it would be more fun if Rope Trick followed the ship, and let us have it. However, that set a dangerous precedent, and Rope Trick has now been cast upon a glider, an elevator, and the inside of a giant cauldron while it rolled down a mountain. Now the rogue wants to cast it on a box carried by the paladin (me). I fear this Rope Tricking rogue cannot be stopped. So now we come to the real question. I think it's hilarious, but the paladin in me feels guilty. Is this just good fun, or are we bullying our kindly DM?

Alexandra Ferguson

To the most honorable justices, and a man I suspect had to take Bailiff night classes 3 times to get a pass, I bring the case of the artificial heart. I’m playing in a high level campaign where our main mission right now is to destroy cities of flesh grown by demons to invade the material plane. The way to do so is to take out the beating heart of the main tower. The final fight began a few weeks ago, and our characters snuck into one of these towers, only to be caught in a teleportation trap surrounding a fake mechanical heart. We spent a couple of rounds trying to take it out as fast as possible before it went off, and noticed nothing. Some reasons I feel aggrieved by this: 1) My character’s passive perception is 25 2) In round two, I was offered a medicine check, and on a 29, learned only that, “the blood was moving oddly” 3) I had summoned fey who cast shatter on the heart, and the heart (previously ruled a creature) did not roll their save with disadvantage. I don’t mind the teleportation trap, and we had a fun couple of sessions getting back afterward. But I still feel like my DM cheesed me on the heart and I should have noticed something before I poured so many high level and long lasting spells into it.

Cain Bowman

To the phantasmagorical judges and the (footnote1) bailiff Jake, I present the case of Leaping Before You Look. I DM for the Fantastic Band of Idiots, a party made up of my closest friends, and we are in our 6th year of our campaign. I know them very well, both as players and characters. I know, for example, that they'll be more enticed by a roll on a random trinket table than a hefty sum of gold, and that if I want them to listen to an NPC, I have to make the character art hot. This predictability makes planning sessions easier, but has recently become a problem. While exploring the rim of a huge crater that was so deep that neither their darkvision nor torch light could see the bottom of, an enemy patrol rounded the corner. To avoid detection, the barbarian dropped down and held onto the edge. The rest of the party misheard that last part, however, and decided to run like lemmings straight into the unknown. They managed to survive, but since then, every time they see a hole, they IMMEDIATELY jump in it without worry of consequence. A magic portal opens and swarms of spiders are crawling out? They're in. A dark burrow in the Feywild? They're down. Recently, there was a staircase circling around an abyss. They didn't even make it down a single flight before electing to jump! Now, judges, I might play some fault here, because sometimes jumping in the hole is the solution to my puzzle. That previous example with the stairs? That was an infinite staircase, oppa Escher-style, that the abyss was the escape from. But they're defaulting to what should be the last resort, and it's throwing off the pacing of my sessions. We're either getting derailed because they're jumping into things they shouldn't, or are immediately finding shortcuts. When I try to tell them that they are making insane choices, they razz me because they have always survived these rash choices. Judges, I fear that they are learning that there are no consequences for their hopping-mad actions. Unless I'm crazy? These players have already made me ban barrels from my world; should I ban holes next? Or are they the insane ones who should think things out before leaping to conclusions? Footnote 1: lowly, lowly, lowly (at the lowest part of my submission)

Cain Bowman

(Abridged) To the phantasmagorical judges and the (footnote1) bailiff Jake, I present the case of Leaping Before You Look. I DM for the Fantastic Band of Idiots, a party made up of my closest friends, and we are in our 6th year of our campaign. I know them very well, both as players and characters. This predictability makes planning sessions easier, but has recently become a problem. While exploring the rim of a crater that was so deep that their darkvision couldn't see the bottom of, an enemy patrol rounded the corner. To avoid detection, the party ran like lemmings straight into the unknown. They managed to survive, but since then, every time they see a hole, they IMMEDIATELY jump in it without worry of consequence. A magic portal opens and swarms of spiders are crawling out? They're in. A dark burrow in the Feywild? They're down. Recently, there was a staircase circling around an abyss. They didn't even make it down a single flight before electing to jump! Now, judges, I might play some fault here, because sometimes jumping in the hole is the solution to my puzzle. That previous example with the stairs? That was an infinite staircase, oppa Escher-style, that the abyss was the escape from. But they're defaulting to what should be the last resort, and it's throwing off the pacing of my sessions. Judges, I fear that they are learning that there are no consequences for their hopping-mad actions. Unless I'm crazy? These players have already made me ban barrels from my world; should I ban holes next? Or are they the insane ones who should think things out before leaping to conclusions? Footnote 1: lowly, lowly, lowly (at the lowest part of my submission)

Mynne Maxine

May it please the illustrious court, as well as the do nothing justices and the overworked, yet still over-appreciated baliff jeb I bring to you the case of rock and roll vs channel divinity I was playing in a 3 shot rock and roll campaign opa pick of destiny style with some friends. My PC was a war domain cleric (bassist) whose deity was none other than the rock and roll devil (forgive me Dice Christ). After defeating the Grunge band in the battle of the bands the most obvious twist was revealed to our party, that our manager was the devil the whole time and gave us otherworldly powers only to demand our souls at the end of the campaign. We decided to challenge him to a rock off and combat ensued. During combat I claimed I was going to use my channel divinity to use war god's blessing, but my DM claimed I couldn't channel my divinity against my own deity. The campaign ended well, and it was a good time. But I still wonder if this is some bullshit. I argued that the Devil would want us to challenge him, as is his nature. Was my DM in the wrong, or am I the fool for not picking Dio to be my deity. Xoxo hags

Nyx

I have no confessions but I beg the church and Dice Christ themselves for aid! I am in need of an exorcism. I am cursed and cannot roll in a statistically average way. I have a pre-session ritual where my bestie and I roll 5d20 to see who rolls higher. I have lost every. single. time. Rolling a minimum of 15 below the average all while she stays consistently average to good. You might think I have dice that are poorly weighted, but I own no dice and only using digital rollers because I DM digitally. I borrowed my besties die and we rolled them to test my curse. Every single die roll below the average on multiple rolls. Even her cat playing with her dice rolls in a more average way than me. It has gotten to the point where I need to balance my combats around my bad rolling and my curse has become a razzing rich curiosity along my friends. Honored members of the clergy, I beg you, please exercise the dice devil for me so I may finally bask in the light of Dice Christ’s statistically average rolls!

Carson Kleinbeck

To the Highly esteemed judges, and to the weak ass punk bitch bailiff, I bring forth the case of Campaign Deja Vu. I’ve been playing with a group for several years now and our most recent campaign is “completely homebrew”. It’s a fun dark survival campaign in the frozen north (not Bahumia related) and I’ve been having a blast. We’re almost a year into the campaign and I discovered something terrible. I had DM’d this exact campaign for a different set of friends. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that our DM had simply thrown in some homebrew items and monsters, renamed all the NPC’s and names of places. I realized the campaigns were the same when the DM introduced an illithid ship that had crashed in the ice, which is an exact encounter from the published campaign. I have yet to tell my group that I have in depth knowledge of the campaign and where we are heading, and i don’t know if I should or if my DM is simply lifting encounters from the campaign that has such a similar setting. I don’t want to stop the campaign because I’m having lots of fun as a player, but I feel dirty that I may know where powerful loot is or secrets about our NPCs. I’ve played three sessions since my realization and more things keep adding up. Should I tell my group? Or keep quiet and let everyone have fun even if I have a leg up? Is my DM in the wrong for selling his “homebrew” campaign as homebrew? Or is lifting encounters normal? Should I call him out? Should I suggest that we completely end the campaign and play Curse of Strahd? Please punish me gently if I’m in the wrong!

Witpending

OH MY GOD this is so scandalous

WhistlePig

All glory be to the Supreme Justices of the Crit and a miniscule amount of renown for Bailiff Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz. Kudos even. I bring before you a case of Massively Misconstrued Magic. I play a level 14 Goliath Barbarian and our party was tasked with proving our strength to a monastery of giant fighting monks in return for their aid. Our final task was to have a friendly, no-fatalities arena battle. Our party against their best fighters. After landing in right in the center of our initiative order, when my turn came around, I raged and used Instinctive Pounce (extra movement after raging) to get behind their party and right up in the healer's face. I crit on my first hit and landed my 2nd blow after that. I rolled high damage, like I fuckin' do, nearly taking the character out immediately. I narrated that my character smiled and said, "You buncha pansies, show us a real fight". My DM apparently took that personally, and next in the initiative order was the healer and then their wizard. Surprisingly, the healer didn't move, but both she and the wizard cast spells that seemingly had no effect. On my next turn, I went to finish off the healer. I rolled high again and started to roll damage when my DM stopped me and said, "you swing your sword and it bounces off an invisible wall. I tried to use my movement, but was told that I was trapped in a 10x10 Globe of Invulnerability. What's more, upon the Wizard's turn, I found myself trapped in my invisible globe of rage with a Faithful Hound cast behind me. An invisible dog that I could not attack or escape from. My party couldn't dispel anything bc they were engaged in combat and my DM loves a little thing called Counterspell. I was trapped like an idiot and, what's more, right after getting cocky. I couldn't do anything and just got attacked for 10 rounds. I couldn't even take the dodge action bc it requires you have to be able to see your attacker. My DM bragged that he read online that a guy took out a dragon with this spell combo. Curious and with a some newfound time on my hands I looked up the spells and tried to find the story. Turns out, THAT'S NOT HOW GLOBE OF INVULNERABILTY WORKS. It's a shield against spells and that's it. I also found the story about the dragon and it indicated that two casters used Wall of Force in conjunction in order to box in the dragon with the invisible hound. I tried to *politely* bring up that the spell description doesn't say it keeps creatures from passing through, just spells, but the DM insisted that "No, it's a globe of 'i-n-v-u-l-n-e-r-a-b-i-l-i-t-y' so I couldn't do anything to it." My party laughed at me, said I was Meta gaming and told me to "just taking the L, dude." My haters were feasting upon me. We ended up getting our asses handed to us and it was a inconsequential fight anyways. Justices, is my claim that "dis some bullshit" justified or do I need to learn to take my L's and not question the authority of the DM? I prostrate myself in your reverence and accept your judgment.

Witpending

I come humbly before dice Christ this day and ask the clergy to rule on a matter of scripture, for I fear I may have sinned. For Christmas, a friend from my table bought me liquid core dice. When I brought them to our next session and showed them to my DM, he suddenly assumed a suspicious air, saying reluctantly, "I'll allow it." He went on to say that he's "played at a lot of tables where the DM wouldn't have allowed those." With all deference, I inquire of Dice Christ through his oracles: are liquid core dice a sin against righteous rolling? And if so, um, why??

Lucia V.

O holy church, I might have sinned. I lusted after 2 sets of gemstone dice at a medieval fayre, but I could only afford one! I decided to roll the D20s and let Dice Christ choose: the smoky purple amethyst dice rolled a 14, and the green-grey labradorite rolled a 17. I felt my stomach drop, so I decided that Dice Christ was testing me, and I bought the amethyst dice. Did I correctly interpret an instance of divine mischief, or did I roll a 1 on insight? Clear me of my confusion or absolve me if my sins, please!

Logan Stacey

To the tubular justices who are all invited to my birthday party. Oh, hey Jake, if you could pick them up at 8 that would be awesome. I present to you the case of the worthless Crit-timidation. 7 years ago, I was playing in my first D&D campaign as a half-elf sorcerer geared towards intimidation. At a later point in the campaign, and we ended up running away from a Gnoll army that was hunting us on the prairie of a large wilderness area of the world. To try and scare them off, we decided I should try and intimidate them away into thinking I was a flame god that could easily kill them with fiery vengence. My bard cast Tensor’s floating disc to raise me twenty-five feet into the air, and the druid used control flames behind me, silhouetting my sorcerer, and with the booming voice of a titan (flavor for my spell casting all campaign), my sorcerer then twin cast fireball to destroy two large sections of the army, and cause the Gnolls to panic. Upon rolling the intimidation check, I crit, and with my bonuses, it totaled at a thirty-four. Our DM began to narrate how the Gnoll army began to lose morale, and they started to turn and run away in panic. But, before they could run, the warlord stepped forward, yelled at the army, and they immediately lost all fear and began to charge at us again, the DM stated that the warlord had an ability that made him immune to fear and inspired the rest army to not be afraid. Justices, was I robbed of my intimidation? Or should I just let this go and assume the DM had a fun encounter planned and wanted to run it no matter what? I ultimately let it go to keep the session moving along, but to this day I still bring it up to others and it gets me a little heated. I accept whatever judgement you will deal, oh honored ones and Jake.

Luna P.

I throw myself to the mercy of the court. I am in a 5e Western-themed campaign where I play a down-on-her-luck teifling bard. However, I have such terrible luck when it comes to rolls, rolling 4 nat 1's in a row. It got to the point where the DM told me to roll with advantage on my performance check to distract the bartender (and character's sister) because he felt bad I was rolling so poorly. I thought it was hilarious and so aligned with this character. Ran away from home to be with her love, who only used her as a distraction so he could steal and then abandon her in the desert so she is forced to return home and beg her sister for a job. Of course, she's failing every check and her heart isn't in the performance right now. I turned down the advantage. When I rolled at got another nat 1 on that performance check, fell off the stage, broke my banjo, and cheered that the bar was laughing at me. This led to another player getting caught trying to fill barrels of beer with his own wine to "help" the barkeeper and another player got caught trying to get some information from a performer in the back and shooed out front before we got the needed information. Was I wrong to turn down advantage and put my party at risk because I thought all the nat 1s were hilarious and telling a wonderful story? I am ready to accept my punishment.

Kevin Piening

To the courageous Justices and their trusted servant Jack, over a decade ago I was playing a 4th edition Warden, a kind of druid/paladin hybrid that is a damage sponge with a few druid spells. I wanted a couple of healing spells because there were only 2 other PCs, but there weren't Warden subclasses with them, so I picked the Earth spell subclass. A few months later an official expansion came out with the Life Warden, that had healing spells. I wanted to swap out 2 spells but my DM refused to let me switch, and gave no reason why. We were only level 3, it 100% wouldn't have broken the game, and it wasn't a subclass when I created my character. Was I being greedy, or was he being a hard ass? P.S. My wife Melissa and I love all you do, and she has a MASSIVE crush on Emily as well.

Tuesday Cross, only here for the surf n’ murph.

DIVORCE COURT: 💔 To the distinguished justices and that guy who reminds me of a hiccup– I humbly lay the fate of my marriage at your feet. I am a huge fantasy nerd. My husband is the kind of guy who believes cinema peeked with Jason Bourne. I have been listening to NADDPOD for the last three years of my ten year marriage, but hid it from my husband because he doesn’t believe in ‘ superfluous’ listening. I was finally outed after I couldn’t disconnect my phone from the car quickly enough, and Hubbs heard Caldwell describing himself as a ‘berry boy.’ I then had to explain NADDPOD *and* what DnD even is. He firmly told me that it sounded like the biggest waste of time, and was worried what it said about me if I liked it. Over the next year and a bit I slowly worked on him, because ultimately I would love to play DnD myself, but can’t do so without his support to look after the kids. He never warmed, so when NADDPOD live came to Melbourne, I planned to go by myself. When I told him about my plans, he was hurt I hadn’t invited him. So I did, and he agreed to come! He even bought us awesome seats. He had never listened to you guys, and only had the foggiest idea of what DnD even is, so I suggested we listen to a few episodes. He refused, saying the only time he had to waste on that would be on the actual drive to Melbourne. On the day, I did put an ep on in the car, and in hindsight made the mistake of putting on one of the Deadeye eps (which I had chosen because I knew Hubbs would like that character, and maybe get into it more.) He frowned a lot, then when we parked, said ‘I didn’t like any of them really, but if that Brandon guy is going to be there tonight then it’ll probably be alright.’ Hubbs then proceeded to get very drunk indeed. Then it was showtime. I cried literal tears when you guys came out on stage. I love and admire what you do, even if y’all dumb as hell sometimes. Hubbs was silent, slumped back in his chair, as I hooted and hollered along with the audience. When it was over, I wanted to buy a shirt, and asked Hubbs if he wouldn’t mind stopping. He ignored me, and kept walking. I followed, as he had our keys. We made the fifteen minute walk back to the car, and following two hour drive, in complete silence. He didn’t speak to me until the next day, and even then the most he’d say about the show was that ‘if that’s really what you’re into then we should think about a divorce.’ He’s cooled down since then, but I ask the judges, should I cut this duke loose and ride into the sunset? Or should I stay for the sake of the kids, understanding that a little ‘seriousness’ is important to balance out my whimsical nature? I humbly await your legal and binding advice. P.S. A bit of a confession. I’ve been getting up at 4am on Saturdays to play DnD online for the last 1.5 years. I tell him I’m working, as it’s the only way he’ll look after the kids on his own. I also bought my own Mother’s Day present, a seat on the council of Elders. When he asked me what it was I said an online fitness subscription. Please, wash me clean! Edit: Gotten a few comments now and just want to clarify, other than not being able to stand anything to do with DnD, the Hubbs is a great guy and a wonderful dad. ❤️

CharlieNewHaw

To the highly respected judges and the lowly lowly lingering tag along, Jikk. I bring you the case of the Perverted Milk Man. I’m currently planning a homebrew fantasy western campaign (that will start in August) set in an alternate universe where magic and mythical creatures have somehow merged with the normal world. I will be the DM to 6 level 3 players and they all came up with interesting ideas. However, one of my friends required more help as they asked if they can be a milk man. Not a man who delivers milk to people from town to town, but a multi-class Rogue Druid called The Milk Man, who drinks milk and experiences small buffs from different kinds of milk depending on the creature it came from. I agreed as it sounded fun which lead to me researching which animals are milk-able and my mum catching me and questioning “what the hell is wrong with you.” We came up with a mechanic for how long milk will take to expire and depending on how fresh the milk is that he drinks, he gets better buffs from it. Also, lowering some stats to make him more balanced. All was well. Until, he started to ask questions on whether he could drink milk from women in the game. I said “Sure, I guess if you find a brothel or something and roll high checks to persuade them.” His Expertise is now in Persuasion. I’m worried he might keep succeeding checks and make it a running theme to keep asking NPCs if he can suck their breasts for a temporary stat buff. So I’m asking at what point into the sessions should I start saying no to this player and do I quickly need to hit them with an intolerance curse? I await your judgement, as well as your punishment if you see me as a yellow bellied DM that has said yes to too many ideas

Aalexander Knight

To the lawful good judges and the awful bad bailiff; I bring to you a case that is most unlike the typical Dungeon Court case- in fact, I'm unsure whether it's case at all. Regardless, this is certainly a matter that would benefit from the sage advice of the justices. I work in a women's prison. (Not in the US- I'm in a country with better prisons, so don't jump on me for that. The prisoners are treated like humans.) Prisoners are expected to attend education classes on weekdays to show that they're making an effort to gain skills that will help them once they're released. Unfortunately, the classes tend to be quite rudimentary and a lot of the prisoners get bored of them very quickly, so attendance is an issue. I'd like to broach the subject of a D&D activity to the Governor of the prison, but I need your suggestions so that I don't just get laughed out of the room when I do so. At first glance, it DOES sound like a strange idea- but D&D is not only an excellent creative outlet that you can do without the need for a lot of expensive supplies, it's also great for building and maintaining relationships which could really help some of the more vulnerable women I work with. Prisoners who already have a basic grasp of mathematics and English would have something to look forward to each week, and they'd be practicing both of those skills in a way they'd actually enjoy. Do you think it's a good idea to suggest this, or am I living in a fantasy to think it'll even be considered? How can I make my point without just sounding like a weird nerd who wants to play D&D at work?

CamSmall

To the Supremest of Crits and the Bailiff that Prevents It From Falling into Chaos, I humbly present the case of the unlucky TRex. I was DMing a game of Curse of Strahd, and my players characters were of the mind they need to destroy Strahd's coffin before him to prevent vampire regeneration. In THE FIGHT with Strahd in Ravenloft at the end of the game, the druid of my party who was out of wildshapes for the day decided to polymorph themselves into a TRex. I think this is cool as hell, and we move on, after a minor "no, you don't get to turn yourself into a TRex AND attack on the same turn" discussion. On their next turn, the druid TRex made a bite attack against the coffin, which I had told players had a higher than usual coffin AC because it is the coffin of Strahd. They understood, and decided to attack it anyway. They rolled a natural 2, and even with a TRex's bonus were unable to meet the AC. Then the player asked if they could use their Lucky feat to reroll. I looked at the language of polymorph, and initial gut reaction was no. It specifies mental abilities and the target of polymorph are now those of the chosen beast--essentially being the beast themselves. My players argued that a feat isn't a mental ability. I argued that a the druid was not the druid anymore but a TRex, who doesn't have the lucky feat. I also thought it rad as heck that a player--who, for the first two and a half years asked what die to roll every time I called for a skill check, attack roll, or saving throw--wanted to use a feat they took and hadn't really used before. I ultimately decided to let Dice Christ decide. I said "Roll a d20. On a 15 or higher, you can use a luck point and reroll the bite attack." They rolled a 7. I narrated how the TRex leaned close to the burning coffin (because the party wizard was a little fireball crazy), but the heat caused it to turn away before it could do any meaningful damage. I now turn to the court: was I wrong to deny my player the ability to use their feat as a polymorphed TRex? Or was I, as I feel, generous to allow them the opportunity to be lucky and the dice simply didn't want to tell that story?

Kyu C

(I use they/them pronouns! Also my name is pronounced like Q) To the willowy and dextrous judges and their wretched little slugboy bailiff, I bring to you the case of the fireball dodging priest. During Curse of Strahd my party met an NPC priest in the starting town of Vallaki named Father Lucian who my DM chose to play as cowardly and generally unhelpful. As a result of this, we loved to bully him constantly (a la Denny Pebblepot) and grew very fond of him! Cut to a few sessions later, we were following up on a sidequest when the sky suddenly fell dark with ominous clouds swirling around the church. After the party rushed there, my DM narrated Strahd bursting through the stained glass window riding a spectral steed composed of smoke and flame, giving a classic bad guy monologue before turning his attention to the cravenly father. As a show of power and to intimidate us, Strahd cast Fireball on the hapless priest, intending to down him in one fiery blast. At our behest, our DM rolled Father Lucian's saving throw in front of the table, letting us know that she was using the Priest stat block in the MM and he added nothing to the roll. Nat fucking 20. We all started screaming and cheering, only for her to stop us and say she still had to roll damage, which she also agreed to do in full view of everyone. She rolled astronomically low, and with a successful save, the father had survived the encounter against Strahd! However, before we could celebrate too much, our DM then narrated Strahd, looking angry and flustered, casting another Fireball. The priest was not so lucky the second time and failed his save, now taking enough damage to kill him outright, reducing him to a charred corpse. We then initiated combat, fighting off some undead goons while Strahd made a shameful exit. Afterwards, I as the cleric tried to Revivify our beloved fallen punching bag, but as the Fireball had happened before the start of initiative, our DM ruled that too much time had passed. Oh esteemed members of the High Crit, was this an injustice? Was our pathetic priest ripped way from us too soon? Or was his life a fair trade for the titanic hit to Strahd's status and pride? I humbly await your righteous judgment. P.S. I was at the Milwaukee Live Show and it was fucking amazing, I would like to bribe the Crit (and the stinky bailiff) with a cartoonish jug of the Delayed Blast Fireball drink if y'all would consider bringing D&D Court to Cream City <3

Grant

To the sultry justices and the little boy doing his best to read these cases. Good job, J-A-K-E. I present the case of AADnD. I was a virgin DM for 4 virgin PCs. Playing with two good friends, we started a campaign at my house. The first two nights went great and we had momentum but I noticed our Ranger, my friend's friend, was drinking more than he could handle. 4 to 6 beers deep each session. Lazy eyes, pissing alot. Delayed play and thought. Some sessions later it got worse with even more beer. Eventually leading to him bringing his own leaky cooler to park by his side. Ruining my floors. Floors be damned the drunker he got the more vital NPCs were harrassed or killed. Which just led me to use more combat and less story near the end of sessions. His wife was the fourth and my other two friends knew him better but they were wanting me to start an I-N-T-E-R-V-E-N-T-I-O-N of sorts and tell him he drinks too much. Via whispers when he was out of the room peeing. But I dont know him and this is... his shit. The group disbanded around my first scapegoat newborn baby but I didnt really want to start back the campaign again mainly for this reason. We were having fun in spite but this part just sucked. I hated working around the Rangers drink count. And again, I barely know him. I ask, am I responsible for this goobers sobriety as the DM? Or do they need to get their boy? I'm fine with the silly liquids but dude could not handle it without delaying the game or bullying NPCs. So justices, I humbly await your O-M-N-I-P-O-T-E-N-T order. Should I have become a licensed therapist just to remedy my campaign?

Paj, the dumb bunny.... Artificer!?!?

To the honorable and God like supreme crit justices... and also jake I guess. (With love) I have a feeling I was wronged by my DM on my very first game during my first ever campaign. I was an archer, and i went to attack a drow woman who was targeting our rogue. I rolled a 7. Not horrible, but definitely a miss. My DM told me to roll my damage. Confused, I rolled. They then proceeded to tell me that I did miss, but because the rogue was next to them, the arrow hit her instead. The party and I argued that I definitely missed, but it wasn't a nat 1, so I should just miss. I was told that missing with an arrow with someone near by is dangerous. A mild argument followed but they didn't back down. I eventually moved on, but my mood was soured that session, and it left me hesitant to attack anyone that was near a party member. I ended up disliking my character because I couldn't do much without risking the party, and ended up making a new character all together. I humbly ask for your judgement, and we'll accept your vertict with honor.

Amy Boyle

Girl - what the actual?? If your partner doesnt support you and encourage you in all the things you like and make you happy ... 🚩 my partner doesnt like some of the things i enjoy doing, but never would belittle me or my interests. This is what makes us different and what makes the world interesting!! If you have to lie to him to have the time to yourself so he does dad duty, I am so sorry. Do whatever makes you happy! Be whoever you want to be! Life is too short to waste pretending or scurrying around the edges! (This feels odd writing back on this form of media, but I couldnt scroll past...i hope you find your way to whatever decision makes you happiest!)

Tuesday Cross, only here for the surf n’ murph.

Thank you, Amy! I know all that makes him seem like a horrible guy, but truly he’s a gem and a great dad. Literally his only ‘flaw’ is that he cannot stand gaming or anything remotely related to gaming. If I developed an interest in horseback riding and wanted to take lessons on the weekend, he’d buy me a saddle and take the kids to the zoo. I think this post is an actual a genuine question from me in the guise of humour- if the one thing my partner doesn’t support is me wanting to enjoy DnD, is it worth pitching out 10 otherwise great years? Is his inability to look past his own prejudice and see the joy that this brings me a big enough red flag? It’s a tough one. Thank you for the comment, I sincerely appreciate your thoughts!

Mediogre

To the fiscally responsible judges and the grossly overpaid bailiff Jake. I present the case of "The Blood Thirsty DM". I've been DMing a D&D campaign for a little over two years. When we started, everyone was new to the game, including myself. Sometime during year one, the party were all at level 3 and was a large group at 7 players. They were tasked with taking care of a "little lizard" problem for a local druid. This turned out to be a young green dragon. I had plenty of ways prepped for them to "get rid" of the dragon without needing combat, necessarily, although I felt they could handle this. They readily chose a path of violence with no plan, which led to a player death. The party cleric charged up to the dragon and casted blindness. The spell worked, but the player was within the dragon's blindsight range and proceeded on its next turn to hammer the cleric into the ground like a Tom and Jerry bit. He subsequently rolled death saves of an 8 followed by a nat 1. It was dramatic and kind of comical, so nobody was mad. The player had a new character for next session and we were good to go. Now, up to this point the characters were still getting to know each other and were largely not trying to help each other out with heals or medicine checks when down, despite being aware of the rules. They were largely cautious in more intense combat encounters, often erring on the side of self-preservation. So I planned another encounter meant to push them with the primary goal to get them to rely on each other more. Two sessions later and another level up for the party, I had the village they had been helping, mostly for coin, get raided by an organized group of goblins during a spring festival. The hobgoblin raid leader had a single fireball spell to start the encounter off with a bang. At the beginning of the fight our druid went down and proceeded over the entire battle to roll death saves. Combat was 5-6 rounds and they kept going back and forth on death saves (i.e. success on one round, failure on another, etc…). I was hopeful one of the six other characters would have a change of heart in the face of yet another party member dying. I was wrong, they did not, and the druid died alone on the battlefield. While nobody was mad at me, they believe that I'm now a blood thirsty DM and that the death was more on the difficulty of the encounter than anything else. That player does not play anymore mostly due to work/life conflict, but will occasionally come hang out and we continue to play monthly to this day. Were my expectations misplaced or should I have toned back that violent village ambush and even tweaked the original dragon encounter? I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

Gabi H

Happy belated Mothers Day! You’re clearly an amazing mom who wants the best for her kids. I hope that you are able to pursue all the things that bring you joy this year, with or without him.

Tori the Tungsten Dragoose, Dr. Dog's assistant

To the elegant, effervescent, elucidating, erotic, and ever effective bailiff. Oh, and whichever little doo-doo heads are on the bench this week, I guess. I present a case of what I believe to be wrongful ejection of a member from a DND group. And the very reason Cats the musical is a banned topic in the group. A while ago, shortly after I joined my current DND group, a player left our five person party on good terms. They suggested a replacement, who excitedly agreed to join a one-shot to test the fit. Fast forward to a little over an hour into the session, and it's been derailed by an argument about whether or not CGI buttholes in Cats 2019 would be found off-putting by most viewers. While they were the one to bring up the topic, the new player barely participated in the nearly 49 minute argument, only occasionally, but adamantly, stating they thought it might add to the ambience. As far as I'm aware, no one has contacted, or been contacted by this player, aside from me. With another player leaving the table after finishing a years long campaign, should I reach back out the butthole advocate? They were an otherwise delightful fit for the table, and its horny unhinged comedy. And it should be noted that while the argument lasted quite a long time, it never got heated, and everyone at the table was laughing throughout. I eagerly await your ruling. -Tori, ambivalent about buttholes P.S. This also led to my favorite exasperated DM quote of all time when the the topic came up at the next session, and was promptly banned in perpetuity. "Please, I beg you. We can NOT get back into the buttholes."

Amy Boyle

Sounds like you just need to chat to him about it and make him see it makes you happy 😊

Ryz

To the most honored judges and the hot white dude who is sometimes a guest (Flake…maybe?) I present the case of the weird wisdom. Years ago I was playing in a party with a DM who was running two games in the same world. One party was made up of the DMs friends and my party was made up of other folks into D&D, but we actually got to play more often. At one point because the other party wasn’t available their cleric briefly joined our party…but the dynamic wasn’t great. The cleric from the other party had a better grasp of combat tactics and positioning, but rather than sharing that with us he would do stuff like, move to the side while the rest of us were in a line and when we got hit by a lightning bolt would just tell us it was because we were dumb. So our party wasn’t super thrilled with that character or that player. But halfway through that session we got quest information from an NPC while the Cleric wasn’t present and I had thought it would be a good time to play out this dynamic, a bit. The cleric would have to ask us for the quest information and we could point out he wasn’t actually trying to work with us so maybe we could try working more as a team in exchange for giving the plot info. However in the next scene the cleric just explicitly stated the information that the player had heard but his character wasn’t present for specifically where we had to go next to for the quest, and I raised an issue because this removed the impetus for him to actually talk to us and also it seemed like a pretty bad moment of metagaming, because there wasn’t anyway for the cleric to just…know this. However I was shot down by the DM who stated “He has higher wisdom score than everyone else in the party so he can just figure this out.” Which seemed kind of absurd because I don’t think the wisdom score has any utility for…reading minds or figuring out plot information your character wasn’t present for. I don’t play with any of these people anymore, my party eventually just split off and starting gaming by ourselves independent of this two party same world set up. But does it make sense why this was a frustrating moment to me? It really felt like the DM just favored the other party, who had twice as many sessions scheduled at us, and had this random wisdom based metagaming so the player briefly spending time with our party didn’t have to actually talk to us or even function as a party member.

PlausiblyPJ

May it please the wise keepers of the holy crit and that guy who stands at the confessional and announces our sins, I come to you with a confession. 3yrs ago, I started playing in a Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign where I met my fellow players for the first time during session 1. It has been fantastic and we are all the best of friends now. However, I made a bold mistake very early on that has weighed in my conscience ever since. During our 3rd session, we were locked in a depate among the party on whether or not to assist a town in need or to allow the town to turn against the mayor which would assist the medieval Mafia that our party was loosely affiliated with. All but 1 of us was on board to become "made men" and helping the criminal organization. This player (lawful good) was threatening to rat us out if we went through with it. So... I casted Sleep on them. We then proceeded to tie them up, lie to the towns people that he was delusional and a danger to others, and left him on the side of the road penniless and alone, kicking the character out of the party and causing the player to create a new one, which they were happy to do as it was very comical. This was the point that I realized my mistake. I was playing a bard, and I didn't realize bards can't prepare spells each day. So, Sleep was not on my original spell list. I added it after a rest for this plan to work... Luckily, the campaign has continued and has been an experience we will remember forever. Our DM even made the abandoned character an ongoing villain hell bent on revenge! But I always wonder what could've happened if I hadn't accidentally broken the rules and changed my spells... I kneel before you hoping for absolution, but accept any punishment you see fit.

Tori the Tungsten Dragoose, Dr. Dog's assistant

He suggested divorce because an interest of yours didn't align with his? That's gonna be a yikes from me. Honestly sounds like a bluff he doesn't expect you to call, to get you out of an interest he disapproves of. And to do it about something so wholesome as DND? Get outta there, and just do the best you can to make it easy on your kids.

Michael Beck

Honored justices and sexy but lowly, debased, reprobate bailiff Jake, I present a case of rules as written versus rules as interpreted logically. I was playing a lawful evil cleric/fighter way back in the days before i became forever DM, at the time we were fighting a driver and my cleric wanted to keep it as a pet. I knocked the drider down to zero hp and then argued with my DM to let me use spare the dying until I could heal it properly. Now my DM at the time let me do this, but rules as written I don't think it works, should my DM have not let me keep the drider as a pet? I am at your mercy and beg your fair and just decision.

flypaper13

To the righteous and reasonable justices, and that one weird guy in the corner eating a pickle. I bring you the case of angry hobbit and the over powered doll. Me and a few of my friends decided to start a DnD club in high-school. This was my first campaign ever so i was very excited. Our science teacher ( Who is a long time DnD player) said we could host it in his classroom and if we had any questions we could ask him. A little back story we used to razz this teacher about a few things but mainly his height (aka Hobbit). He would also razz us back so it was all in good fun and nothing serious. So we started our campaign and we were having a good time. I played a half orc barbarian who was not too smart ( who would have guessed). On our 5th or 6th session We were exploring a dungeon below a tavern when I came across a doll in a room. I had to make a perception check and an intelligence check to see if I should mess with the doll or not. A 3 and a 1 respectively. So I touched the doll and it cast banishment on me without a saving throw. Now mind you we were level 2 at the time. which is fine I was the only one in the room so there was no combat. Since we weren't in combat or in initiative I asked if I would just comeback. My dm said no that I was just effectively dead and would never comeback. I protested but there was no give so I stopped going to the club I started. It turns out that the teacher told my dm to kill me off because he didn't want me there anymore. Now I ask you is it my fault for razzing the teacher or the teacher and dms fault for colluding against me instead of just asking me to stop. I beseech your judgment oh great judges

Bearnardo

Dearest High Priests/Priestesses/Rabbis and bailiff Jeremy, I bring to you a confession of the Bar Mitzvah Dice. Over the pandemic I was hired to DM for a group of 4 boys over zoom. They’re a fun bunch and somehow we’ve kept the game going all the way to the point where now they’re all celebrating their bar mitzvahs, which has made me very weepy and proud as their DM. However, I sent them all dice as little gifts to celebrate their big days and may be regretting it. We usually have only used virtual dice to keep everyone honest, but now the kids have been rolling their gift dice and have been rolling an unnatural amount of 18s and 19s. Each time they do they say something to the effect of “wow, these dice you got me are SO good!” I can tell they are fudging their rolls, but at the same time it feels kind of nice that the kids are lying to me in a way that makes me out to be this really good gift-giver who gave them all magical dice, so I haven’t pushed back on any of these rolls yet. I ask Dice Christ- is this a sin? Have I helped turn these boys not into men, but big old cheaters? I await his and your judgement.

Dean O

Greetings from Australia to the Lordly Justices and the yea Na not bad bailiff Jake I bring to a question about rogues and their door rights! In our DnD campaign we were searching a castle for a kidnapped dryad. We found a door to get past and the barbarian immediately broke down the door, which frustrated the rogue as she wanted to pick the lock. Later on we found a key to the drayads cell, but before she even got the chance to speak up about using it, the artificer picked the lock with an Allen key of all things! I ask if rogues get first dibs on any door they find, or is it first in best door? I humbly await your judgement PS: the DM has decided that if we ever roll a Nat 1 picking a lock with an Allen key, it'll summon a pit fiend named Allen

Andrew, Crick Elf Monk, Way of the Honored Cock

To the most honorable Justices, and Bailoaf Cake. I was running a Christmas themed mini campaign, in my friends' created unsleeping city based setting. "Gateway" which is about the magical world behind the city of Jacksonville FL. (with a cameo by wally btw.) Now it was the first time I ran for experienced players in a long time. So I tried to make the encounters fun, hard, but not too hard. So the mini bosses were all corrupted winter spirits, leading up to facing the avatar of fall the evil Jack Avarice. This particular case involves Befana, who was corrupted into a lich. So in the earlier battles, I unintentionally hit one character a few times in a row. By which I mean, my friends said I was targeting, but it wasn't intentional targeting they were just the closest or what have you. After getting razzed for targeting I started rolling a d4 to randomly see who the monster was going to attack. At one point my Lich went to cast Power Word Kill so I made my random roll, and it landed once again on the Bard I'd been accused of targeting earlier. Thus the razzing began all over again. Do you think my players are razzing me fairly even though I let fate determine who would be in my sights next? I throw myself at your mercy, and slip Cake a 20, not to rough me up to much.

Tuesday Cross, only here for the surf n’ murph.

He has this weird moral ‘thing’ when it comes to games. He believes that, as an adult, it is morally wrong to spend time doing anything unproductive. We don’t watch TV in our household, he doesn’t even read for pleasure. So when he mentions divorce, he means he’s worried our values don’t align at a moral level. (Which is pretty true tbh) It honestly hasn’t been a problem between us until now, really only brought to light by this live show incident. I feel it more acutely now than in past years, because in the past, I’d just keep my hobbies to myself, but DnD is such a time taker, I *need* buy in from him to make playing in person a reality. Thank you for your thoughts, Tori- I appreciate it!

SmoothTurtle

To the justices most high, and the tallest bailiff with the thickest of quads. I lay my dice at your feet, please hear my plea. I started a campaign with my wife and 3 other good friends. Only one of the previous friends has played a campaign prior, and I am the DM after only doing a 1 shot previously. I play with very creative people and asked them all to write their own backstories and to send them to me so I can do my best to incorporate something for everyone in the story. I even provided prompt questions to give them something to go from. The player who was the only one who played DnD prior, gave me the bare minimum on their character and absolutely nothing about the characters past or secrets (which were both prompts) that the character may have. When I asked the player why they didn’t provide that when the rest did, they said that’s for them to keep secret. I said I understand why you’d want to, and it’s probably cool, but I’m the DM and if I don’t know I can’t work with them to incorporate it. They still refused. After listening to Nad Pod extensively to get the hang of DnD I created our first quest where the crew had to rescue a town from a crypt of animated skeletons. They did very well and after beating the boss of the crypt I had a phantom apparition appear and claim to know the player that refused to give me their backstory. I made the phantom make a vague statement about how they have a history with the player and how they will pay for what they’ve done. My thought was this would force this player to then have to cough up some information on their past through conversation, either with the enemy or their party. I thought, this being the only veteran player, they shouldn’t be that caught off guard and it was my attempt at holding their feet to the fire for refusing my earlier request. WRONG. The player froze, didn’t know what to do, and the party IMMEDIATELY turned on them and had them at knife point worried they were a traitor. I’m proud to say after a lot of in game trust exercises the party is still together and happily playing, but they player in question thinks I was wrong for putting them on the spot for not giving me their backstory. Did I do them dirty, or should they do better to work with the DM in the future. Honorable justices, I leave my dice in your capable hands.

Borple

To the Justices with the...Mustices? And the bailiff Jailiff. I bring to you the case of construct or non-struct? My co-DM was running a level 20 fun-shot where we would be fighting a bunch of various illithids, the mightiest of which being an elder brain dragon. I wanted to build my character based on its defense against the EBD's Brine Breath weapon, which has no effect on undead or (important) constructs. So, I made a warforged character. When the time for battle came and we were all inevitably stricken with big bat's briny Breath barrage, I confidently stated that I was not affected by its infection effect. My DM denied my plea, stating that because warforged are able to be affected by healing magic, and are not listed specifically as constructs, they are susceptible to the dragons devious detriment. Was I right, or was my coyly-constructed character doomed to dragon destruction?

Chantal Kling

Good eve honorary justices and JACOB. I present the case of the pointless bird companion death. My lovely husband came up with an amazing campaign for his sisters and me. I’m talking research, late nights, and custom maps. After many moons of prep, we completed two sessions (that were a lot of fun) but due to scheduling issues, we never made it to session three. In one session, a tiny bird named Piddy (he wore a hat) rescued my character from restraints. The details do not matter, but I loved this tiny bird (and he had a high pitched New York paper boy accent). Since we did not get to complete this campaign, I had high hopes we would be able to complete it with another group. My husband was determined to give me spoilers since he worked so hard on it and wants me to know what happens. I told him I didn’t want to know anything. He eventually told me that I was going to carry Piddy in my front pocket (PawPaw style) and was going to have me do intermittent dex checks to see if I ever tripped. He was going to eventually have me TRIP AND FALL to SQUIDH AND KILL PIDDY. When I asked why, he said he wanted to “play with my heartstrings” - I ask of you judges, should DMs have us complete checks with the only goal of eventually creating an emotional response? I most certainly would have cried. Please punish him lightly. Divorce is off of the table since I love him very much.

Trash Man

Blood Fearing Count Chocula To the holy supreme enforcers of justice and Jake, today I bring forth the case of the blood fearing vampire sorcerer Chocula I was a player in this game as a dragonborn paladin and we were a "criminal" organisation looking to overthrow the corrupt nobles and bring justice to the common people In every single combat Chocula would pass out making every combat ridiculously harder, the other players and dm talked to this player about passing out and she responded with too bad It all came to a head when an ancient vampire was awoken and Chocula betrayed the party and went to join the ancient vampire, the dm begged her not to do that, but she refused. The dm left for 30 minutes then came back and said that we are now in pvp and gave Chocula some buffs. In character I asked are you sure you wanna do this and gave her a chance to not join the vampires She screamed fuck you I'm not afraid of blood any more and rolled initiative, I rolled higher, misty stepped over to Chocula and critted on a smite dealing twice Choculas health killing her instantly (I also had a sword that did extra dmg to undead) Silence fell at the table and the fight was considered over we have not played that campaign in over 2 years now Justices did I go too far with my righteous execution or was Choculas betrayal justified (ps Chocula was the dms girlfriend)

Crescent Minor

I'm failing to understand why any DM wouldn't greet exactly that ending to this kinda annoying joke character that their girlfriend is (playfully) trolling their game with.

Nemo_Nihil17

I have no case. But I really love you all and appreciate everything you do

Crescent Minor

I take out my phone, block your number, and dump you at the table. That's my pet. That's my imagination pet.

Riley M

To the most honorable justices and the actually slightly more honorable (if you really think about it) Bailiff Jafe. I present to you the case of the Eternal Muppets Christmas Carol. I’m DMing a game with my sister-in-law and her friends. In mid December, we’d just reached a new arc in the campaign, and my sister-in-law asked if she could try DMing a Christmas themed one-shot. I happily obliged, and she told me to make a PC based on the Muppets’ Christmas Carol. I watched the movie and created a swarmkeeper ranger but instead of being a single character, I am all of the Meeses who have no cheeses introduced in the first song. Being that this was her first time DMing, she came to me with her plan. This plan including multiple encounters for the introduction, an encounter for each of the ghosts of Christmas, and a final encounter for the resolution of the story. I told her that I love the idea, but having DM’d for as long as I had, I knew this would take multiple sessions and wouldn’t be just a one shot. I was fine with this and figured we could possibly be wrapping up by New Year’s. Boy, was I wrong. Due to player fuckery, cancellations and extended encounters, it is now mid-May and we’re only at the ghost of Christmas present. Justices, am I wrong for wanting my game back? How do interrupt this eternal Dickens tale and get us back to regular D&D? Or am I wrong for not wanting Gonzo and Rizzo ride out this campaign aside for 6 months? I humbly await your ruling.

Server Rav

The case of the Neglected Cousin To the Highest of Justices of the Land and the Exalted Nutmegger Bailiff, I bring forth the case of alleged neglect of my cousin. I was the DM for a game involving my wife, cousin, and several friends. We would begin playing at 1pm and end at 10pm, which involved a break for a potluck dinner taking a solid hour+. On the event of the alleged crime, my cousin attempted an undercover infiltration of a gang which he went in solo and without consulting the group. He rolled poorly for Persuasion and the criminal rolled high Insight. They let him tag along, knowing he was an undercover adventurer and I had secret plans to have them jump him. As the NPCs and cousin walked off, we broke for dinner. While everyone was preparing food, I took my cousin to the side and talked to him about my plan and if he was cool with it. He thought it was fun, and we collaborated to have him kidnapped. We came up with the idea that he lost combat, was abducted, and he then would not interact with anyone at the table until they figured out what was going on. We all ate, got back to game, and my cousin sat quietly for the next 4 hours and then into the entire next game! It wasn't until the end of that next game that I had him dumped on the road side by the party and had him rejoin. As my cousin and I laughed and explained what happened, my wife promptly turned to me and accused me of ill intent and wrong doing. She still believes this to this day , 7 years later. Oh wise and hopefully reasonable Justices, did I abuse my cousin or does my wife need to admit it was hilarious that no one noticed a grown man sitting at a table for nearly 12 hours not saying anything? I leave my fate to your infallible decision. PS: Jake, if they do sentence me, can you help a fellow Whitneyviller out and just look that other way as I make a break for it?

Crescent Minor

Please Baliff Jeremy! Make these people debate how to build a teaching moment into the game that can punish a high roll unexpectedly. A nasty surprise, but if they cheat Dice Christ, then he must take away their ill-got gains.

Tori the Tungsten Dragoose, Dr. Dog's assistant

Ultimately, the choice is yours. And bear in mind any advice you get here is going to be inherently biased in favor of playing Dungeons and Dragons. Not that that's a bad thing, just something to keep in mind.

Crescent Minor

Hoo boy. I think it's very bad instincts from a goal of comforting him to have strangers there. Do they want witnesses for some reason? Maybe they want you to share how his problem has affected the game? Again, it would be terrible for calming me down and making me listen better to an intervention for someone who barely knows me to be talking about how he can tell what my problem is; I'm not seeing their motivation for asking. And then yes, on a personal level for you, this is too much for your friends to expect. There are probably a lot of details about how this messes him and his close ones up that you're not going to want to hear, barely knowing him and all. You have moral clearance to bow out of hosting an intervention for a very new friend, for sure.

Molly Rose Fargeorge

The case of the PC coup May it please the justices and no one else in the room, I present to you the case of the PC coup. When I was in high school we had a DM who put a lot of time into a 3.5 campaign. He had all the books, maps, and supplies. However he was a bit of a bully at the table and at school. Giving wedgies, but also killing PCs who wanted to do something contrary to his plans. Once killing our rouge for trying to befriend a giant dire wolf, even after multiple acrobatics and a fantastic animal handling check. As we were quite invested in our characters, but not the DM, we staged a planned coup one session. We took not just our charter sheets, but also his notes, and instated a new DM to run the campaign. This, unsurprisingly, lasted only one session after. All these years later I can’t help but think we went too far. I await your judgment. - Moku

Christopher Chow

The case of the DM accent failure May it please the justices and candy ass jabrony Jake. I come to you with the case of the DM's accent completely sucking everyone out of the mood of the campaign. We're playing a survival horror campaign whwre we are the last army fighting against and endless siege from the undead. Think game of thrones if the white walkers made it past the wall. As a result of this setting there are a lot of cronenberg-y monsters and creatures with horrific descriptions. One of these monsters that are now the main enemy type that we run into are called "horrors". Here lies the problem: all of us life in southern Canada where the accent makes it so that there virtually no distinction between he word "horror" and "whore". Its hard to take the fear and desperation of the setting seriously when we keep running into swarms of "whores" and having to push back gainst the "whore" army. Justices, what should we have our DM do? Should we ask him to permanently change the way he prounces words or should we be content with our campaign of whore slaying, oppa Danny Devito style? I await your judgement - Chris

Logan Nash

The case of a precog crime sup Todd, Sheila and Richard and the one who wasn't cool enough for dinosaur office In the campaign I'm dming I wanted to add a bit more stakes to death, essentially, if a character dies they become a sort of zombie version of themselves that either they fight then and there or will stalk them, however, I don't want to have that just spontaneously occur, This will be my first time dming so I don't want to completely wallop them but I also want death to have some more stake than just " You died, pick a new character for next session" I was thinking of having a npc either explain it or have that npc die and them have to fight them, or does surprising them add to the experience? additional question. they choose to fight them then and there, should I let the player who just died play as the zombie or should I run it myself with different enemies planned for each character?

Kormoison

A psalm of lament to dice Christ When playing Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, we had to face a boss creature who would revive unharmed if we rolled a 1 on a d6. I had just defeated said boss and rolled the d6. It had bumped one of the deck of cards on the table and thankfully landed on a 2. But then, one of our members said because it hit the cards it was cocked. He then went to exclaim “You gotta honor the cock”! Not wanting to disobey a high priest of dice Christ’s most important epiphany, I rerolled. 1. The boss is back alive and does damage to the whole party. The next player defeats him. Another 1 and the boss is back again. More damage to the group. Next person goes, another 1 on the d6. Our party would be TPK’ed the next round if we roll one more 1. It’s the last turn of the entire game. We defeat the boss for the 4th time in a row. The whole game of the past year is reliant on a roll of a d6. 1…. We all die. Has honoring the cock made dice Christ forsake us?

Adam C

Good morning/evening Justices, I have a story about a table destroyed by a literal and imaginative duck We were a new table staring the Decnt Into Avernus Campaign, during the campaign we found a powerful magic duck, our ranger ended up rolling a nat 20 to have the duck join us much to the DMs despair. We were all so excited we couldn't believe it. Come the next session the DM reveals he has purchased a real duck and he brings the baby duck out and plops it on the table. We were ecstatic! Unfortunately, our DM and some other people at the table lived together, the duck repeatedly shit on other people's property and generally made a mess. This caused a breakdown so bad the friendship ended and the table broke up. I ask you justices, who was in the wrong here? The DM who purchased a literal duck, or the destructive water fowl that ended a table and a campaign?

Barticus von smarticus the third of his name

To the highly esteemed court of justices… I come to you with a case of injustice and tomfoolery… THE CASE OF THE OVERLOOKED OPOSSUM I listen to a podcast almost every day which I dearly love, called Just Another DnD Podcast (JADDPOD) and they do this thing called dungeon dilemmas, where they solve cases sent to them from there fans. Anyway, in their first campaign, a character called moonshoon sideburn had a pet opossum named paypay who was known for being a member of court. However, in all the years of dungeon dilemmas, they have never once mentioned the amazing paypay! Is this a crime against the rolling gods? Or is it just another one of the shiny math rock demon’s tricks? I rest my case. PS JUSTICE FOR THE BUCKET HATS

Lucia V.

At face value, this reads as unhinged behaviour. Obviously there's more your hubs, but it reads that 1. You have a difference in values. 2. His are... 17th century puritan style (only mentioning this because maybe there are resources for interreligious marriage that might be transferible to you). 3. You adjust to make him feel comfortable and support his values in your family dynamic, he doesn't support yours even when they don't affect him (him taking care of the kids so you can do things you want/need doesn't affect him, imo, that's a normal part of parenting, I bet you do it for him). Should you throw away 10 years of marriage over a difference in values? You shouldn't be asking us but I'm gonna answer anyway haha. You can absolutely make this difference in values work, but you should never tolerate having to maintain secrecy in a marriage, and him proposing this ultimatum is a deal breaker: he is so unwilling to let you enjoy something benign that he's willing to use divorce as the stick. You're talking about your kids like the carrot, but your kids deserve to understand something: D&D is useful. It provides psychological enrichment that allows us to use and rest parts of our brain, trains us to handle unfamiliar or intimidating social situations in a safe space, provides a safe emotional outlet, it feeds creativity, and it teaches us about the world around us (the cultures, creatures and history this game uses). When I go to the zoo, I can go home and use home-brewing as an exercise to understand it better. It's okay if your husband wasn't smart enough to see all that, but IMO your kids need to have that sort of thinking modelled and be able to decide for themselves whether e.g. the zoo or TV is useful. If your husband is willing to model his values, respects and is grateful that you uphold them in the household even if you don't share them, will support you in your needs, can have an honest relationship with you without disgust, and is willing to let the kids be mature and find their own path... Sure, you can make it work. That's reasonable. You're waking up at 4am to play a game. It's not a want, it's a need, and it's useful to you for your own reasons. If you can't have and be honest about your needs without judgement, you should explore what that would look like. Even as a thought exercise. It could liberate you from a lost cause and bring you joy, or it could save your marriage and build it back stronger and more authentic. [edit: clarified last sentence]

Tuesday Cross, only here for the surf n’ murph.

This is such an awesome comment, Lucia- thank you so much for your insights. I’m laughing to myself a bit because I shared my story mainly because I thought it was pretty funny- but it’s turning into one of those situations where maybe I have been too close to the forest to see the trees. Like you say, this isn’t a conversation for strangers on the internet, but it has been surprisingly refreshing and helpful to have the POV of outsiders. Obviously best next steps is to have a very honest and candid conversation with the Hubbs. You really hit the nail on the head with many of your points, thank you again!

Caroline donnelly

May it please the sweeties of the high crit and the unalienable Bailiff. For my first ever DnD session I joined a party of 6. I was so excited to present my lioness tabaxi fighter to the group. During my first interaction with the world I was talking to the bartender to try and gather some information about any suspicious people around. I narrated how my character winked at the bartender and the DM out of character proclaimed: “I dont want to roleplay this anymore” we all laughed it off and moved on but the cringe still haunts me a year later. I never went back! Beloved justices, was the DM right to end the conversation because I winked or was I being WEIRD?? I will embrace whatever punishment you deem necessary.

Krysha Syrin

Mighty & merciful justices of the court & bailiff, Hank Hogfish, I bring a case of Christmas-based tomfoolery, Naddpod style. Myself & other members of the Naddpod discord played in an online Christmas-themed one-shot during the pandemic. It was in the midst of Campaign One & my Elven Druid, inspired by Moonshine, & our party found ourselves fighting a Sentient Christmas Tree in Santa's workshop. I had cast Flaming Sphere (sorry Murph) & because trees are flammable, it was highly effective. Herein lies the case. On their next turn, the tree used Ice Knife on my Druid. However, at the end of my turn, I had moved the Flaming Sphere in front of me, hoping it would be a shield from any tree-based attacks. I posited to my DM that the Ice Knife spell wouldn't work bc the ice would melt as it passed through the flames but my DM said the tree had just been burnt by the orb & would know to cast the spell in a way that avoided the fiery orb and that the spell isn't actually Ice, just a spell flavored as Ice. Judges, did my Druid pull a Zirk before Zirk existed or did my DM just want his Sentient Tree to get a few swings in while our party continued to be attacked by living Gingerbread Men & Krampus, kidnapper of Santa Claus himself? I humbly await your judgment & also shoutout to DM Nemo & our amazing crew of Naddpoles who came together during a difficult season & brought the joy of D&D to one another with Christmas shenanigans.

Dirt Person

TOO MANY FACTIONS High Priests of Dice Christ, I come before you a wretched sinner clad in penitent rags. I throw myself specifically NOT at Prior Jake's feet, and only address the remaining three priests. I am a DM in a Post-Apocalypse 5e campaign. While, for the most part, I belive I walk in the light of Dice Christ, and my players are too kind to really bring this up as an issue, there is a transgression that I commit again and again: There are too many factions in this campaign and I genuinely cannot stop myself from adding more. Why just inthe ciry of Kalamazoo, there's an occupying army, a resistance faction that's actually three separate factions, factions within those factions, factions from other cities that wish to influence events in Kalamazoo, and there are even factions in space. This has almost nothing at all to do with the main story of the campaign, which is essentially a story about warring factions of tech witchs. Help me turn away from this needless indulgence and seek the divine embrace of Dice Christ, I beg you!

Hardtooth unsureleg

Too much smoke! Dear justice axford Murphy and cald, and also that one guy who my friend thinks is kinda funny. I run a campaign at my friends house for about a year now, recently this friend picked up a large mod vape( the used to use a small one) and has insisted that our battle map needs a bit of “ pizzazz “ then blows smoke all over the map, I’ve asked him to stop but then he says “ my house, my rules”. I humbly ask, I’m I crazy or is it ok?

Kal and her cats Portland, Star, and Berlin

ALSO! Reach and jump are constantly ignored when it comes to attacking aarakokra. Just because they’re 30 feet up doesn’t mean an enemy can’t jump to attack them OR use a ranged weapon. Don’t blame the birds

Lee Lemieux

Honored justices and to the bailiff that we might be being nice to today. I bring before you the case of my first DM session. I wanted to be a DM and so I got some of my closest friends together, we had all played DND before and our longtime DM was very excited to finally be a player. I created a world where they would all be meeting up for an underground rebellion against a gang that had taken over their city. The whole session I had planned was for some guards to show up and then they would fight them. This fight was there to take up the session as well as to introduce an NPC that would later betray them. I had not planned future sessions because that's the advice I had received and I didn't want to be too focused on MY story and wanted them to get to tell theirs. However, my best friend walked up to the biggest gaurd (who genuinely was the "bigger boss" in this fight) and cast suggestion on him and told him to go wait outside. I rolled my saving throw and FAILED. I gave him the help action from a different guard I had and he succeeded and the game went on. However, what I'm bringing to you today is that my best friend later admitted that he "knew his suggestion spell would mess up my whole session and did it anyways because it would be what his character does." When i said to him that he's the one who told me to only plan for 1 session at a time and what did he expect me to do as a first time DM he replied that he thought it'd "be funny" and he essentially won't apologize for what his character did. Justices, I understand that it was within his right to cast suggestion and I should have realized what he could have done. However, this was my first ever time being a DM and my friend purposefully wanted to screw up my session cuz he thought it'd be funny after being the one to tell me to only plan one session at a time and knowing how anxious I was about this. I have never DM'd since and this campaign died immediately. Am I right to still be upset that he admitted he wanted to do this to be funny after being the one to tell me planning one session at a time would be best? I have been too afraid to DM since because I don't want to mess up my players fun with my lack of preparation. I humbly await your judgement.

Walric Stormhaven

Family Therapy Case number 823: Dearest Justices and my favorite baliff who shouted out West Des Moines. I was the guy who always wanted to play d n d and finally got the opportunity to play with a friend I met playing final fantasy online. They said they love dming and would love to give me a taste. They invited their 67 year old mom and husband. I made this incredible backstory about a reborn ancestoral protector barbarian from Neverwinter whose long family history was knight commanders who summoned ancestral protectors in battle with a family shield. My character died and was raised by a radical necromancer who died while raising the character up making his soul trapped within the barbarian causing both souls to be trapped within. Husband made a corgi artificer who just talks about adventure and the mom made an eladrin ranger with a drake pet. Every time I play, there is a showcase of bickering off game about small things like "Husband fetch me a soda" "Fetch me the book" "why didn't you change the diaper" and the mom is sometimes not there due to recreational substances makes her forget things and have to redo RP 1 out 4 times and battles take longer due to us thinking she is thinking but she is actually not sure where she is and her pet drake. She has also hasn't rolled under a 15 since I've kept track starting March. *We started October 2023. I'm hoping this isn't putting a damper on my d n d and waste my backstory and character. Should I communicate this to the DM and hope they don't take it the wrong way or should I leave the group entirely. News: I have started dming for my wife and her friends and they are enjoying their time. Im still playing with the normal group.

OrlaTheOrator

To honorable justices Murphy Axford and Tanner and the abominable bailiff jake I come to you with the case of the off the rails cleric. My friend was DMing for the first time for some of his colleagues, all new to the game. After a few sessions he asked would I join because he was struggling to teach new players while Dming at the same time. As a forever DM I jumped at the chance, he immediately sent me a character sheet; a human fighter. I was disappointed and asked could I not make my own character but he said their party was in need of a fighter and since I was going to spend my time helping the others my character should be simple. I agreed just happy to play. At my first session it was clear the players were very green and I was helping people a lot, so much so I almost missed the cleric saying she was casting a third level spell. We were all level 3 characters so I asked "how do you have a level 3 spell slot?" She says "I'm level 3" I say "but that doesn't mean you have a level 3 spell slot" and she says "what's a spell slot?" I almost choked. After some more questions we learn that for the past 5 sessions she has been playing as though she has unlimited spells and access to all spells up to level 3 at all times, no preparing the spells. Now all other spell casters were using spell slots so this was only the cleric but we had to stop the game so we could go over the basics. Over the next 2 sessions the cleric is clearly not enjoying playing what is now a very limited character in her eyes. Away from the table I suggested she ask the DM to let her change characters but she was told no, that the DM had planned the story around her character. I tried to negotiate and offered to play the cleric but got a frankly nasty message from the DM accusing me of back seat DMing and telling me to know my place. So I suggested to the cleric she simply stop playing like a cleric, so her character could die and the DM would have no choice but to let her roll a new character. Since then she has been throwing her character into danger at every turn and the DM is bending the laws of physics and d&d to try keep her alive. The DM blamed me and tried to kick me out of the game but the other players defended me. I fear I have become my own personal nightmare player but I also think he was being an unfair DM. So I ask the court should I have respected the DMs decision to not let our cleric change characters or was I right to revolt against his totalitarian regime. I humbly await your decision.

OrlaTheOrator

Update: I have posted this in the last few calls for cases and I wish I had some sort of resolution but there is none. We have not been able to play for weeks because the DM is blatantly trying to schedule sessions when he knows I'm not around. But since he is being so obvious the other players are not letting him get away with it. 2 of the players have messaged me individually suggesting I start a new session as DM but don't want to poach the party. I also only agreed to get involved so I could play.

Taylor Manes

gentle judges, and yass and slay bailiff: my group and i have been playing dnd together for about a year. we are planning on starting a new campaign. one member of the group wants to play their favorite fictional character as a pc — not based on the character, but the character themself. the other players hate this idea, and have expressed this to me privately. i also really dislike it, as i feel it impedes story (my friend has done it in shorter campaigns with other groups we’ve played with) and roleplay. should i suck it up and let wanda maximoff from marvel comics battle dragons, or tell my friend it’s a non-negotiable no-go at my table? i humbly await your judgement.

some loser

To the honorable judges (and I think there was a fourth guy? Bailey, maybe? The name escapes me), I present to you, the case of the AI-generated Bard. One day, discussing chatGPT in a Discord call, my friends and I decided on a whim to start a session of DnD to see just how easy it would be to have AI do all the prep work for us. I fed chatGPT a series of prompts to have it generate a one-shot outline, stat blocks, and key NPC profiles. Each player also had a character generated, including a small blurb for appearance/personality/background. For context, I only had about 2 sessions of DM experience and most of the 5 players were just as new to DnD. *Now that I'm editing this, the fact that this was AI-generated is largely irrelevant to the trial but I already wrote it and it makes the story kinda spicy so I guess it's staying. The story began in a small forest town where a merchant tasks the party with finding a precious family heirloom that had been stolen by bandits. In the first wilderness encounter upon entering the forest, the Warforged Bard cast Speak with Animals in order to speak with the enemy spider. In the moment, I remember attempting to give him some kind of pertinent information for the scenario (i.e. "you don't look like the humans that usually wander here"), but I would not be surprised if the cue ended up being too vague to feel substantial to the player. However, the player then tried making peace with the spider amidst the otherwise regular combat (giff axeing vineblights, vineblights needling tabaxi, etc), to which I responded by having the spider repeatedly declare that it was going to kill and eat the party (they used multiple actions to verbally engage the spider). Out of character, the player simply asked, "Wait, so I can't befriend it?", to which I said yes, and explained that it was a wild, hungry beast with prey in its territory. The player conceded and things resumed normally (albeit with later antics), but I could tell he was quite disappointed. Since then, I've heard advice on Dungeon Courts about simply yes and-ing if that's what your players want. The other players seemed ready to just play a typical game of "kill stuff, do quest" DnD, but I'm sure would've been down to play something a bit more whimsical. I also was obviously super not prepared to pivot. Should I have tried harder to satisfy the bard? Or was the spider whispering a little too out of left field? I humbly await your judgement. P.S. I don't mean to sway the vote but PLEASE punish me daddy and/or mommy.

Brother Lagniappe

Howdy there most esteemed Judges, and to whomever else may be there, a curt head nod. I bring to you the case of Wild Shape vs a cow. I DM a game for my wife & our friends for the past 2 years. The setting is a low fantasy colonial story, set in a dwarven merchant family’s new mining colony in far flung lands surrounded by goblins, kobolds, bullywugs, etc. My wife plays a fairy, circle of the shepherd druid, but she wanted to be an actual shepard with a herd. In DnD ‘Owlbear’ style, she came up with Geep (goat - sheep). She really leaned into this dairy farmer schtick, bavarian dirndl dress, flavored all her spells dairy themed. ‘Goodberry’ became ‘Good dairy’. Instead of making berries there were little cheese curds. Her character had a name, but I forget it because the whole time she went by “Dairy Fairy.” To help her further immerse she wanted a herd bull as a companion. Luckily the game accounts for this with the Wild Companion druid optional rule, however she did not want a summonable familiar. She wanted a big regular animal. So the compromise we came to was her bull geep, Beep would be a real beast, that if he dies he doesn’t get plot armor & she could not wildshape at all. We used the Cow CR 1⁄4 as that’s the same CR for Wild Shape. To make it more goat/sheep-like I adjusted its stats so it has less STR/CON & higher DEX & gave it regular movement in non-magical difficult terrain (snow, mud, etc). Now we come to the problem. I am fortunate enough to have an assistant DM. For privacy sake let’s call him Pevin. Pevin, is my closest & oldest friend, but he lives across the country. We routinely call & text discussing my campaigns, he reads over/edits my notes, we 1v1 will roleplay & roll dice to see what happens ‘off screen’ & even helps me playtest complicated encounters multiple times before I run them. The problem is Pevin tends to find any/all homebrew overpowered. He has brought up multiple times how giving her a whole other set of movements & attacks from a separate CR ¼ is much more than a familiar could do. I often highlight while the party has been able to use Beep effectively like having the party’s slowest dwarf spore druid (the Dairy Fairy’s in game neighbor) ride Beep into their mutinous revolution in our season 1 finale, they have had equally hard time with having another body to keep up with as when the party’s bugbear barbarian (Dairy Fairy’s romantic interest) struggled for three rounds to get Beep from one mine elevator to another in the depths of the mine as they fled a horde of kobolds. Is Pevin trying to ruin my wife’s fun? How wrong is Pevin? How should Pevin be punished for his insolence as a lowly lowly lowly assistant to the DM? PS - None of this matters because I listened to Justice Tanner in the Trinyvale speed run of Moonstone & melted all my kobolds down into a kronenberg dragonflesh abomination. I spiced it up with the engulf mechanics from a gelatinous cube for our Season 2 finale boss. Beep fell to this nasty fake dragon by engulfment. My wife being the amazing improviser that she is, used this with having held the campaign’s mcguffin artifact, the Eternal Flame, to emerge from the fire shield the artifact had given her, at the end of the fight like a fire cocoon, as the Fire Fairy. Swapping her class to draconic bloodline sorcerer. But still I feel Pevin should be punished.

Ferniliar

Greetings benevolent, gracious, handsome justices and... Yea. So my case is a clusterfuck of chaos so I will do my best to sum up the injustices perpetrated. I was the only one in my friend group with any interest in D&D, when one day my friends Brother In Law, expressed interest in playing so that roused some interest in everyone. He chose to DM and the rest of us would be players. In total 5 players including his wife/my friends sister. Our first session begins and it has become abundantly clear, BOL has no familiarity with D&D at all but still wanted to DM. I applauded his bravery, I was just happy to be a player so I went along for the ride and tried to offer any help if he asked (he never did) One of my friends showed up with a Pathfinder character sheet, and the DMs wife had a homebrew character/class he made involving spells with several turn cooldowns instead of spell slots. Again, no experience with D&D, don't even think he's listened to a podcast. Going to go through the rest of what happened as briefly as I can. -Another player rolled a nat 1 throwing a lantern. DM ruled he fucked up so bad he threw it backwards, hit me, and set me on fire. -Another PC and I were teleported into a cave and lost, rolled several times for any sort of help on what direction to go. Rolling between 13-18 each time, that still wasn't good enough to get an idea of where to go. This took about 2 REAL TIME HOURS of just saying "we wander this way I guess" until we reached an exit. - Lastly, and the most egregious offense, me and that PC find some sort of crab mech suits, and managed to roll high enough to get them working. Each one with 50hp (this is important), being low level this was a boon. Until we get to our first encounter. First attack, the other PC rolled a nat 1 on his first attack and the DM ruled he whiffed so bad, he not only destroyed his mech but mine as well with that attack. At this point I had to interject. Arguing that even with a crit these things are incapable of dealing 100hp worth of damage in one attack. The DMs compromise was, only one mech was destroyed, and the other was left functional with 1hp... Justices, even Jack, yea I knew you were here too. I am begging you! Was this new DM in the wrong or am I just a D&D snob who listens to too many beautifully crafted epochs, setting my expectations for fairness too high?

Grant

Thx! Thats how I felt. But it definitely felt like they wanted me to ice break that "u have a problem" speech with the DnD session. He wasnt IRL combative... so I wondered why the ppl closer didnt interject for me. He was just a terrible PC after a few brewskies. Shame really.

Xavior

Greetings most high council of justices, and the silent fart of a bailiff....I bring forth to you the case of the disappearing wizard. So because of my crazy work schedule I knew I'd miss some get togethers so we made it where my wizard character was cursed and would sometimes disappear to other planes, which explained my absence. This worked out fine and we even had small jokes when I was actually there like my character disappears before hooking up or something silly. Well this leads to me disappearing before a story boss and missing the fight. The DM says I didn't get experience since I left and wouldn't explain further. I WAS SITTING AT THE TABLE! Justices please give me your guidance, will except my fate if this is my fault.

Dead King

I must confess my sins and transgressions for my part in damming 2 different campaigns and being known as the god summoner. Please have mercy on me. In my first ever campaign I played a drow elf who was chopping his enemies up and gifting them to his goddess Lolth. For several sessions I did this until I sacrificed one of my parties ncp characters. She was revived and came back as all the body parts mashed together, with some bad gameplay one player managed to summon and entire mountain on her. Effectively sending her back to her realm but pissing the party off so much for there was no big bad fight we stopped the game and that player no longer invited for several years. Then in my next campaign on accident, again I summoned an eldrich horror goddess by using my fire Druid to burn several people. This goddess was from the first campaign (who was a different party member but in her weak form at the time). That goddess murdered us due to unexperienced dming effectively ending that campaign for a while, the DM retconned it to continue it. Now my friends who find it funny don’t trust me because I keep summoning gods since I’ve done it a third time in a third campaign (this time it saved us though). Please forgive me for my great roles of summoning but horrible situations.

Roz

To the honorable judges Murphy, Axford and Tanner and the tolerable bailiff Jake I guess. I bring you the case of the session that scared me off of ever playing d&d again. This is a cold case, one that happened about 9 years ago, but that still haunts me to this day. It was my first time ever playing d&d and I was very excited although a little nervous. My party was my younger brother, my boyfriend at the time, and the DM was their mutual friend who I had never met before until then. I was playing a half-elf rogue and the session started in medias res, the DM narrated that we had all been hired to escort a cart of goods from one town to another, through dangerous woods. Our first day of travel was already over and we were setting up camp, none of our pcs had any relationship to one another, and he asked us to describe our characters. So far so good. Trouble struck soon after though. My brother's PC was a barbarian that was so stupid he only knew how to say his name and instead mainly spoke in grunts and howls. My boyfriend's PC was a warlock with a mysterious troubled past who was boody and stand offish. After I described my character I kind of waited for someone else to take over, it was again my very first time playing and they had all played together many times before, I figured someone else would take the reins. However when no one spoke up the DM looked directly at me and said something along the lines of "You're supposed to be role playing right now, why aren't you talking to anyone. Say something" I, taken aback and even more nervous now said "Oh I don't really know how to start, can someone else?" to which my brother just grunted in character like a monkey and my boyfriend said "My PC doesn't like talking." I shot back with "Ok well then my PC doesn't like talking either." and the DM then said "No, its in character for your boyfriend's PC to be quiet, but not in character for your PC. You have to talk". Now, sweating bullets and I'm sure bright red from embarrassment and anxiety I finally just narrated that my character went to sleep by the fire so as to get past this awkward moment. Immediately after the DM asked the other two PCs to roll perception checks and combat with a pack of wolves then started. When he asked the table to roll initiative and I went to pick up my dice he said "No not you. Your character is asleep." I argued that I had only just fallen asleep and would definitely wake up to the sound of a pack of wolves attacking. The DM just said no, and then I had to sit there and watch as the rest of the table ran combat. I asked if one of my party members would please wake my PC up on their turn so I could play too, and the DM told me to stop meta gaming. The session ended after combat, I didn't even get to roll a single dice. This was my one and only session with them. I never saw the DM again thankfully, and also about a year later realized I was a lesbian and broke up with said boyfriend (you live and you learn). Also I guess younger brothers are just Like That sometimes so I cant blame him too hard. However this one session was so bad that I've been forever too scared to try playing again with a different table. So I ask you judges, was my table in the right and I'm not cut out to play D&D, or should I just get over this one really really bad session already.

Lia

As someone who had a partner of 10 years as well, the last 4 of them we both realized that we made better friends and would never agree on a direction on how we wanted to live, and in fact had totally different wants and needs. Her and I had a hard time admitting this and breaking it off, it took a while for us to cool down, and was incredibly hard to live with each other after we did. But you know what? You both deserve someone (or one's for the the ENMs here) who you can truly connect with. After we lived apart from each other it was way easier to see just how much we lived for necessity rather than love, and really were holding each other back. She's one of my council (my term for best friends) and I feel I can trust her with anything, and now we connect on books and lore dump. I had an abusive relationship post us dating, and she was there for me to talk to, because honestly she knew me more than anyone (even my family). I can't say it will be like that, but I can say you MUST be honest with yourself, if it isn't working out, there's nothing wrong with going seperate ways. Even in situations where your lives are tied together via finances and such. You both deserve happiness if you aren't, and if you really feel this way, be honest to yourself. Much love from PA, this is not at all an easy decision. But you know your wants and needs better than anyone in your life. PS: a favorite quote of mine is "We have thousands of versions out there living in others heads of us, but only we have the version we know best"

AlexanderTheBoss

To the honorable judges and jeff I think, I bring you the case of the aggro warlock. Me and my brother we’re playing in a one shot (level 15) of guide to ryoko's island and we fought a dragon and we had one player go ginormous and I was playing a monk that was on its back the whole time and yet it always attacked my brother the warlock and at the end of the battle I was still above half while the squishy warlock was in a death state and through the whole battle the warlock didn’t hit it once and yet it sill attacked him, was the dm ignoring the rest of us and going for the warlock or am I overthinking this. I await your swift and just verdict

Lopiena

Sounds like you had a case of "the worst of the worst" problems with stinky DM and players! Moody and non-verbal characters are next to impossible to deal with on a good day, and the fact that you asked someone to please wake up your character was deemed "metagaming" is a clear sign of a very bad DM 😮‍💨 It is truly unfortunate that these types of players/DMs exist, but I hope you're willing to roll the dice again and find a better group. Make sure any group you try has a Session Zero to help distill good vs bad... Session Zero will help show what kind of characters you'll be playing with, and a DM that refuses to hold a Session Zero is a big red flag. Good luck and happy gaming!

Tuesday Cross, only here for the surf n’ murph.

Thank you for the kind words, Myka! Sounds like you understand how tough the decision is. Ten years is a long time, it makes sense that we’ve both grown as people, and not necessarily in the same directions. I think a proper conversation is in order with the Hubbs, and then take it as it comes. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and your time 🙏🏻

ZZYZZXX

To the Honorable Justices of the Supreme Crit and the bailiff [REDACTED] I come with a question of gods and their worshipers In a session of a home game our DM had an army of frost giants assaulting the city that our party resided in. Before combat started our DM had us select random upside down character sheets to play as secondary characters who if they survived the assault would provide to our main characters some boon or something of the like. When I looked at my new random character, I noticed that he was a head priest of the God Torm a god I was unfamiliar with. Having rolled initiative and being low in the order, I decided to look in the back of the PHB to see what Torm was all about learning that he was a war domain God with emphasis on self sacrifice. This excited me as the DM had described, I was in the middle of a sermon to a full chapel when the Giants attacked. I asked the DM if I would be allowed to bring my congregation into battle as a sort of mini army to confront the Giants head on and he said that that wasn’t feasible for every member of my congregation to want to go to war and instead had me take a small number of priests Into battle. My question lies in the fact that I wasn’t allowed to roll a persuasion. Check to inspire my congregation to walk the walk of our God. It was still fun and I had no issues really I was wondering how you would rule in a similar situation.

Kevin Piening

Regardless, good luck. Maybe a couples counselor or therapist could help facilitate communication? If he flat out refuses to that's not a particularly encouraging sign, but I'm a parent too and know it's not easy to walk away in a situation like that. I will say that hiding your joy from your partner can chip away at you over time, as shame just builds up and can sometimes lead to long term resentment, and kids can pick up on that vibe. That being said, in your struggle just remember "Keep your chin up, some day there will be happiness again" ~ Robin Hood

Christian M.

To the honorable justices and wittle baby jakey, I present the case of the testicle catapult. I was in a campaign with about 8 players, many being first timers. To keep it brief, we were part of a police force and were tasked with essentially overthrowing a dictator. One of our players utilized catapult, flavoring it by grabbing random NPC commoners, removing their testicles and using them as ammo. Because of this, one of our paladins fully had to change his character because he was lawful good and couldn’t see a world where he would align himself with someone like that, and we all eventually quit the campaign. Are we in the wrong for ditching this Testicle flinger or should we have stuck it out? I humbly await your verdict. P.S., be nice to Jake, he’s just a wittle guy and it’s his first day.

Mak

Honorable justices and somewhat honorable bailiff, I am here not asking for your ruling but more of a consultation. This is a few years back now, and I’d just love some feedback. While playing a game with friends as a sorcerer. We used metamagic rules for sorcery points, and I was using a spell that had recurring damage (storm sphere). My DM and I were trying to figure out if I could use Careful Spell for the area of effect to excuse my friends. He said it was too powerful to only expand careful casting once, so I agreed to spend points every turn I kept the spell going. I think it would have been better to do careful spell once as the wording does not specify that I need to re-cast or the length the careful spell lasts. Thoughts?

Armadon the only

Probably too late for this Honorable judges and the talented, the efficient, the one and only clerk/bailiff of the court Jake legal judge in Boston and Fort Lauderdale. I ran a campaign where the enemies were a race of spiders. Every spider threat was a typical monster just skinned to be a spider. One battle was a tarraque Tarantula with battlements and soldiers on his back. One player decided to dimension door on his back and before attacking I said the spider guards were waiting for someone to show up and attacked. I was overruled by the whole table because they thought no one would have expected that. Just to move the story along I capitulated. In a world of the insane were these players right? What says the highest authority on this?

jonathan meurer

To the Venerable Justices and the Vulnerable Bailiff, may it please the court, I bring you the case of the 3 Bowls: Some friends and I recently put together a D&D night for a work friend who was going through some hard times. Though none of us had ever played with him, we knew he was a big fan of problem-solving style games, so I volunteered to build and DM an Escape Room style one shot. I got a little carried away and before I knew it, I had built a 27-room dungeon with different puzzles to solve in each room, laid out in a 3x3x3 cube of equally sized rooms, and in which the rooms would move in random ways (using a Rubik's cube to track rooms relation to one another) every time they entered 1d6 new rooms. Realizing that I might have gone too far, I started the players three glass pearls that could be shattered to either receive an answer to a question or create a simple item. Our friend immediately shattered all three pearls to create three large metal bowls, saying that as an Artificer, the bowls would be very valuable to him. I said nothing (we were doing this for him after all) but knew the party was now likely screwed. Many hours later, the party did manage to escape the dungeon, but I did have to break immersion at least THREE times to give them hints and tips. I ask you, should I have stepped in after the first bowl, or does it only matter that our friend had a good time? P.S. -The bowls never came into play.

Bubbalo Dee

Dear bailiff hogdick, and to the very cool judges, may it please the court, I bring you the case of the bait baby. I was running a one shot for my parents and younger sister, where they had to save a village from zombie goblins. After I explained the goal of the game and started then in a tavern my mother immediately asked if she could find a baby in the tavern they were in, her first roll and she got a nat 20, she then used the baby to bait the zombies and get a surprise round each combat. She now won’t play dnd again unless she gets the baby she had, and says she deserves to have the baby from the nat 20 Should I suck it up and let her have the baby to get her to play dnd again, or should she have to roll again

Tuesday Cross, only here for the surf n’ murph.

Thank you, Kevin! Yes I think a professional is a good idea- just easier to have a neutral party to help us both understand where the other is coming from. You nailed it- the kids are my main focus. I just want them to have a good life, and if that ultimately means letting go of some things that bring me joy, then that’s fine- it’s them who matter most. I’ll just start DMing for them in a couple years 🥰 Thank you for your comment and thoughts!

Ian Holden

To the omniscient judges and the deficient baliff, I present the case of the flammable powdered sugar. We started a campaign with two arakokra, one deep gnome, and one sorcerer. Throughout the campaign the one arakokra refused to really engage at all, threatening multiple times to kill the deep gnome, saying “I’m gonna kill the dwarf”. In every building our party stopped at he asked to check for powdered sugar. We thought this was annoying but harmless. Then in one fight (after refusing to fight a dragon that was attacking a town because “I have no beef with him) he flew into the air and threw the powdered sugar and claimed to light it on fire. He claimed that powdered sugar is flammable and this should create and explosive kind of effect. We could not handle the absolute insanity of this, or the DM allowing this, and the party split up shortly after. Were we being dramatic or is this a gross misuse of resources. We humbly await your ruling

Mad Dungeon Mama

To the judges Ryan Murfee, Emaly Asksfurd, and Allswell Tanor, and the meh Baliff James Herwits, I present to you the case of the inconsiderate party: I think I'm gonna have to break up with my IRL DND party... It takes me 2 hours/76 miles to get to the residence of choice. We *were* playing at someone's house that was "only" an hour away, but one of the guys further north said it was too far for him 😑 so we switched to another other couples house. So now it takes four hours, just driving, not to mention actual game play, out of my Saturday. We're frequently having to reschedule cuz I'm the only one with older kids who actually have things going on (sports, birthday parties, etc) and they make me feel guilty when I say I have other things going on on the first Saturday of the month. And I don't like one of the guys who's a metagaming min maxing "it's what my character would do" kinda guy... Am I okay to tell my friends it's not worth it? Or should I muddle through and continue use Duck Team to keep me awake on my 2 hour drives home in the middle of the night?

Madman Mattigan

To the esteemed Justices and that baywatch bailiff Jaques, I bring to you the case of the neutered sneak attack. I am a player in a friend's first homebrew campaign. They have DM'd before but as a fellow DM from a concurrent camapign, and player at their table I had a disagreement with a ruling, civilly of course. We were 4 hours in a session when we got a surprise round on a few bhaalspawn enemies. I play a tortle cleric, and cast hold person on two enemies (upcast at 3rd lvl) one succeeds, the other fails. This is fine. Our rogue goes in to do damage, and we allow a little meta gaming at our table. As the rogue is a newer player, I tell them they can get sneak attack on the characters my cleric has used hold person on, as this gives them advantage from being paralyzed. The DM says that this DOES NOT give the rogue sneak attack due to reasons as they are not "sneaking up" on the paralyzed enemies. I go to look for the rule on sneak attack in between turns and let this issue sit. Then, our fighter flanks the other enemies, and our rogue is on the other side of them and I say again to try and use sneak attack, as RAW, sneak attack says you deal an extra 3d6 damage to one creature you hit with a finesse or ranged weapon if you have ADVANTAGE on the attack roll. You don't need advantage in the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5ft of it, that enemy isn't incapacitated, and you don't have disadvantage on the attack roll. I tried to argue with the dm that this effectively nueters our rogues ability to play the class, as their class doesn't get 2 attacks like our fighter or our ranger. The dm insisted that in the scenario because they didn't "sneak" up on them, sneak attack doesn't work in either case. I eventually cede, but can't help but feel that our rogue is being actively hampered on being able to play their class. Justices, is my DM wrong in their ruling? Or am I wrong for arguing with the DM on behalf of the new rogue player? I lay myself before you to bring justice to our rogue.

Matthew Bowers

To the honorable judges Murphy, Axford and Tanner and the everyone's least favorite camper, Jake. I present the case of the DND at Summer Camp. I'm the director of a summer camp and for one of our sessions we let campers pick a skill based activity to spend every morning on instead of the usual stuff like arts and crafts or hiking. These usually include things like learning guitar, outdoor survival, fishing, and this last summer I offered DND. As a seasoned DM outside of camp, I didn't know what to expect. I ended up with 10 high school boys excited to play DND, 8 of them for the first time ever and 1 with an elaborate backstory he'd been workshopping since I told him about it months before.. It was heavy on "rule of cool," for example the kid playing a warlock picked the '96 Chicago Bulls as his patron. Towards the end they were set to fight a harpy that was guarding a sunken ship filled with treasure. Before rolling initiative, one kid asked what a harpy was so I pulled it up on google. Their responses to the pictures were "ooo, she thick"... "is she a baddie?"... and "but what that mouth do." I was horrified. As they all discussed rolling persuasion checks to see if they could "rizz" her up, I stopped the session early and made them go outside and touch literal grass before we went for a walk. They were upset I canceled things early. Justices... was I correct to make these petulant teens touch grass, or should I have rolled with it and let them take a half bird/half woman as a lover?

Alex Niederpruem

To the most honorable justices of all time, Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and that odd fellow I see sometimes or maybe just once in 8 bit book club, Jock. Not a case but a dice Christ confession. I started to run my very first game as a DM, and it’s not in DnD it’s a home brew created game that picked a bit off of Rifts and stuff that my friend made. It’s set in a Fallout like world (post apocalyptic, radiation is a factor and the world itself while ravaged is technologically advanced.) The players are my two closest friends and my friends wife-it’s based on D100 rolls (I have charts I can show you if you’re interested) where you actually want to roll lower to do better. 01 is the best roll while 100 is the worst. My confession stems from my friends wife not taking proper starting equipment and charging a irradiated Alligator/Scorpion hybrid monster for a bounty. She had a lead pipe, even though she could’ve taken a better melee weapon, and I also offered everyone a laser pistol to start with. She fumbled and fell underneath said giant monstrosity. My next roll to attack her was an 01 (think nat 20 on steroids) and it’s a “special success” which would have finished her off. I did not tell them I rolled well, instead I played it as more of a “slightly off” hit that does slightly less than normal damage. I didn’t want to murder my friends wife (her first time ever playing any sort of roleplaying game like this) first session, even though the dice wanted her gone…was I in the wrong?!

Adam O'Neill

To the esteemed Justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner and the other guy, I present to you the case of Timmy the exploding toddler. I was a PC in my brothers first campaign as a DM. Around 10 sessions in it became our task to take down a munitions plant, and to get the key we needed we had to sneak in and steal it from the lead guards home. As a twist my brother had this guard have a family, we failed our stealth checks and woke up the family, and his son Timmy. We intimidated the key out of him and then left a glyph of warding with a clear warning that stepping outside the glyph would cause it to explode. This was to stop them from warning the base about our impending arrival. We expended around 40 minutes real time coming up with and executing the plan. Not five minutes after however, the DM rolled a dice behind the screen and then narrated little Timmy running out the house before it exploded, killing Timmy, the family and alerting the munitions factory. The DM claimed that Timmy failed an intelligence check to understand his situation. I beseech you oh humble one's, was the DM in the right having Timmy turn into a fireball, or am I justified holding onto this injustice years later.

Garrett Bokrossy

To the steamed dumplings and take out Jacob, i present the case of the decked out bard. Im running a pathfinder campaign for a group of new players and i myself am rather green at the role. With lots of cool inspirations to pull from, i gave my players different magic items, some of which homebrewed. The bard discovered a gambit style deck that can be used in tandem with his telekinetic projectile spell. It puts a cool RNG varient on a damaging spell, we all love when he draws a good card and applys wild magic type bonuses to the throw. The issue is this, our support class is always throwing cards. I feel like i gave him something that is fun and strong, but now want to have him lean more into the musical spells that he and his team have built around. Ive dug myself an even deeper hole and introduced varients of the deck that he earned through different boss battles... I lay my neck under the church and states guillotine and am bumbling towards a just future

Clover Giles

to the beautiful, regal justices and peasant john. i present the case of the no fun DM. i was in an campaign with some online friends. i was playing a wood elf bard who was a fuckboy that was 121 years old named Friendgary gary. Friendgary flirted with basically everyone he came across. in the first session it was the “get the party to team up” and i was going over to other players and talking with them. two players were playing female characters and my character went up to flirt. all i said was “aha soooo u come here often?” to which the other player happily played along with the RP. the DM promptly stopped me to ask how old my character was and how old the other players character was (hers was a sayter who was 24). when the DM heard the ages he told me i could not roleplay like that and to speak more “appropriately”. from then on, any time my character started to act like a fuckboy the DM would stop me. this never made sense to me bc in previous campaigns my friends and i would say that elves over 100 were considered “adults” since they live so long. i was trying to make him human 21 years old. so i ask the court, was i being a creepy wood elf fuckboy or were the goofs justified?

AutoReroll

To the esteemed justices and [to be read in a cheesy Aussie accent please] ol'mate Jacko, I appreciate you taking time to hear my case. After saying an emotionally and narratively satisfying goodbye to my grumpy dwarf Gravel Strongback the party took the best of the items left behind with the remainder to go to my new Tiefling Battle Smith Artificer (named Major Arcana). This was all well and good until I remembered that the DM had given us an antimatter rifle with 3 shots worth of ammunition that nobody used because we lacked proficiency with firearms. Not only do Artificers have this proficiency, but they also have an infusion called Repeating Shot that makes unlimited magical ammunition and removes the loading property. This means that I would be going from a character that could fire a single +1 crossbow shot (1d8 damage) to a character that could fire two antimatter blasts per turn (6d8s x 2) as well as attack with my robot pet (Ticky the Steel Kangaroo). I raised this issue with my DM, but she insisted that I roll with it and that it was her job to balance it and high damage would just make me a target. I ended up caving and asking her to find a plot reason for it to be destroyed lest the table think I was trying to show everyone up. I throw myself at the mercy of the court, was I right to nerf myself or was I over reaching and stepping on my DM's balancing decision?

Mac

i don't think i heard this case read out on the episode, but if i may... i think it sounded like your DM was fully okay with you having it and already had ideas for how to counter/deal with it. i mean artificers dishing out damage is not necessarily a bad thing. guess it just fully depends on how you feel about it, if you're not comfortable being a step up from the other pcs then either destroy it or just don't use it. maybe try and come up with an in-game reason, like this much power in the wrong hands could be devastating and shouldn't be used.

AutoReroll

I followed up with her recently and she admitted to mixing up the damage rolls for Anti-Matter Rifle and the stabdard rifle. I should also add that we were around level 6 at the time, so 1 player outdamaging fireball twice a turn at 0 cost would be hard to balance for!

Drucilla Saxton-Wallace

This is such a common issue! The best fix I've found is to rename Sneak Attack "Dirty Tactics" or similar. Fixed the issue for me!