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Cases Please! (Patreon)

Published:
2024-06-13 15:16:11
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Hello citizens! Big Bailiff Jake here to let you know that the Supreme Crit is convening this very afternoon. Please submit your brief (I beg!) case on this thread and we will bring you sweet justice.

Comments

Brock

To the Noble Clergy of Dice Christ! i come before yall not with a confession, but with a question because no matter what you decide im still gonna keep doing it. So i have a pretty common learning disability; dyscalculia which makes even the simplest of math problems embarrassingly difficult and uncomfortably long to figure out especially during something you wanna keep fast paced like combat. Unfortunately im also cursed with a pretty bad case of Murphism and can often go through whole 4 hour sessions without rolling above a 10. So to combat my awful math abilities i’ve started using Dnd Beyond to roll my dice which will automatically add up all my damage or proficiency bonuses. However i have also noticed now that im using an online roller im rolling astronomically better, and critting multiple times a session! So i ask the church, do i walk with the dice devil now that i have strayed away from physical dice and prevent the other players from hearing the click clack everyone keeps talking about? or am i just being blessed by dice christ through the power of the internet? or have i finally killed god with my machine? ps hate the show and ive never listened to it and if i did, it probably wouldn’t help me laugh when im at my lowest

Kal and her cats Portland, Star, and Berlin

I present the case of Aaracockras v Murph To the Crit, its subjects, and all in attendance. 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). What of a heron healer avoiding opportunity attacks to aid their allies? And have we forgotten that while they can fly up to their movement speed vertically, they can still be hit via reach or ranged weapons? 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 simply impossible to play with a passerine pc is a farce. 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. Aarakokras provide a unique and fun challenge for DMs and just 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. PS, I actually played in a campaign with a cleric aaracockra and he was the most buttoned up of the bunch.

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.

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, 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.

Krysha Syrin

Mighty & merciful justices of the court & bailiff, Hank Hogfish, I bring a case of Christmas-based tomfoolery, oppa 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.

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.

Gabriel Felix

To the cute judges and Jailiff Bake. 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 longer 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 he had 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 Bake, 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.

Samuel Ryan

To the intelligent and articulate supreme crit justices and their eye candy strongman Bailiff Jake - I present to you the case of cut short campaign. My friend was DM’ing a four shot for our usual group while he worked on our next larger campaign. It was a low stakes setting where the goal was to open up a business and financially thrive in a world where high level spell casters had a strangle hold on all forms of commerce in the city of Brachious. We, the players, loved the idea and spent a lot of time retooling classes and spells into “big business” variations of their high fantasy counterparts. The issue came extremely early, when the joint venture between the marketing exec (Bard) and the plastic surgeon (Artificer) was revealed - they were going to use localized enlarge/reduce spells to offer BBL’s (Brachious Butt Lifts). The rest of the table had a laugh, but the DM got really quiet for a bit and then called for a break. About 10 minutes later he said he was going to call the campaign there, a mid 30 minutes into session 1. Turns out, his plan was to have a major corporation trying to vie for our store fronts. That store would have been Big Brachios’s Erotic Growths, or the BBEG. He felt us having a BBL business stepped on the toes of his joke and didn’t feel like continuing the four shot anymore. We were all disappointed as we had put some work into it, but we also didn’t want to disrespect our friend’s lack of desire to play. But, to be honest, we’re all still a bit salty. So my question to the court - was the DM justified to call it quits there? Or should he have pivoted and continued the campaign? I humbly await whatever decision you make

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.

Walker Hawthorne

May it please the court and the humble bailiff, I bring you the case of the reincarnated gnome. a few years ago I was in a campaign where my PC, Dalen, was traveling with his mentor, a gnome named Jarl. Our first quest was rescuing Jarl after he was kidnapped. While rescuing him, Jarl and the party’s half-orc barbarian named Brunch had a disagreement. When Brunch tried to leave the argument, Jarl forced him to come back with Command. Brunch was already on edge and didn’t know Jarl well, so in response to being kind of controlled he ended up killing Jarl (Dalen was unconscious). I wasn’t upset with the player since I knew she was just acting in character and it started some interesting narrative conflict, and honestly none of us really liked Jarl that much as an NPC. But I think it may have annoyed the DM, because next session he brought in a new dwarf NPC who revealed himself to Dalen as actually a reincarnated Jarl in a private chat without the other players, which kind of felt cheap. Later, after the campaign ended and we stopped playing with that DM for other reasons, I told Brunch’s player about Jarl’s reincarnation and we both agreed that it was kind of petty (She and I are still friends and have an awesome D&D group where she DMs). Are we right that Jarl should’ve stayed dead, or was the DM right to bring him back?

Jose Mercado Ortiz

To the awesome justices of the court and Tucker and Jill's babysitter: I humbly ask: Should monks be allowed to move? Our forever DM needed some time to recharge, so we were playing a one-shot run by one of the regular players. I was very excited about playing the Dragon Monk I built for the one-shot. During our first combat encounter, I attacked an enemy with my Action, and then decided to use Flurry of Blows to follow up with more damage. The first hit from my Flurry of Blows actually knocked out the enemy, so I tried to move on to the next enemy to use my second punch from Flurry of Blows. To my surprise, the player DM-ing stopped me and declared that I couldn't move between punches. He explained that, as written, the ability did not allow for anything to happen until Flurry of Blows was done because it reads: "Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn, you can spend 1 ki point to make two unarmed strikes as a bonus action". In his eyes, the fact that the rules use the word "immediately" means that you can't move, talk, interact, or do anything until both unarmed strikes are done, and, therefore, I could not move to hit another enemy. I just said "Ok" and looked sad, but otherwise let it go in the moment. However, I think about it every time I want to build a monk because I'm scared DMs wont let me move. I ask you, was the DM correct in his interpretation? Or should monks be allowed to move and make full use of their class features?

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.

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?

Xavior

Dear almighty and powerful justices and the swift hand of punishment Jake. I bring to you the case of the discord Prince. My group were playing every Saturday but some wanted to play during the week (small things here and there) so we started a discord channel. I couldn't join in because of work. Well two weeks later one of the other players turns out to be a prince. Wouldn't be bad if when faced with a challenge he tries to use his wealth or army to get out of it. Mighty judges I ask what do I do?

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.

Darkrisky

The Daddy Killing Patron 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. PS sorry if this confusing. I had to condense a lot.

Riley Wesson

To the esteemed justices and the effervescent 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.

Jake de Medeiros

May it please the court, I present the case of the incessant taunting. It all started in a fight with a young blue dragon. I put scattered piles of debris around the battlefield that my PC’s could use as cover from the dragons breath attack. Instead, the fighter used his movement to get behind a pile and pop his head up “duck hunt dog style” to point and laugh at the dragon, taking full damage from the breath. Both the cleric and ranger joined in and it turned into a pretty fun fight as I role played the dragons rage at the taunting making it more vulnerable, they won, and I thought the bit would stop there. Judges, it didn’t. They’re obsessed with taunting. Just last session the fighter used an action surge to eat a goodberry, and the cleric *healed an enemy* as an “ally-oop” to the ranger who shot him next turn. At one point I made the mistake of telling them a pirate captain they were fighting was on low HP, the ranger heard that and said “oh good, we can really drag this one out” and the party stopped attacking him, then she killed him after two rounds of actions spent on deeply personal insults and movements spent on frontflips and dance moves. Judges I think this is hilarious… and I’m glad they’re having fun, but I also want to run more difficult encounters. I worry that if I increase the difficulty, their behaviour won’t change, and it’ll result in a TPK. Is it selfish of me to rain on their parade just because I want to DM more nail-biting moments? Thanks.

Swordmaster of Ginaz

100% agreed, I never understood the aaracockra hate from the fandom and the court

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.

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.

Elf0004

To The Pope-Justices Axford, Murphy, & Tanner; and the Bishop-Bailiff jake, I write to you today not to confess a sin, but rather a temptation. I have been playing in a Wild West style campaign where I play a Warforged Gunslinger. A while ago I was online looking at cool dice (as one does) and I saw some cool metal dice that were d6s in the shape of bullets. Naturally I thought how cool it would be for my gunslinger to roll bullets for damage; however none of the guns in the standard Gunslinger’s arsenal use d6s. I showed those dice to my DM and he agreed they were cool and we hashed out a way to switch out the damage dice for my characters weapons; the 1d10 pistol would become 2d6, the 2d8 shotgun would change to 3d6, and the 2d12 rifle would instead deal 4d6. To maintain narrative continuity we decided that we would wait to implement these changes until my character got new weapons as part of a reward for completing some objectives related to his backstory. Well, I have the dice and we are close to wrapping up the events concerning his backstory and I should be getting the new guns soon. However, I recently started wondering if using different dice would offend Dicechrist? Your Holinesses have opined previously about the Heresy of using d30s or d12s for attacks or skill checks, but what of damage dice? Will my switch to these bullet dice doom my immortal roll, or do you think Our Lord of Randomness will also see how poetic (and badass) it is my for my metal man to roll damage with metal bullets? I eagerly await your council on this matter, ~Nicholas C. (not that Nicholas C.) P.S. When I first had this idea I wanted to submit it to the Tortle Tank, but you guys haven’t done one of those in over a year so I reworked it into a Dicechrist Confession.

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 who is all of the Meeses with 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. Wrong. Due to player fuckery, cancellations and extended encounters, it is now mid-June and we’re only at the ghost of Christmas present. Justices, am I wrong for wanting my game back? How do I 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 6 months aside? I humbly await your ruling.

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 various items go missing in the night, occasionally weapons as well, which would result in us having to acquire more through various means. Our rogue would often offer to buy some of the things, most of the party assuming he had a secret noble background or something that would let him afford them. It wasn’t until about 3 sessions of this happening I was allowed by 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 or almost lost multiple battles by not being able to have the proper weapons, and got side tracked from missions trying to find crucial items for them that went missing. Any pvp that was attempted against the rogue was thwarted by the DM, and multiple players left angry and confused, and about 4 out of the 7 of us quit. 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.)

Star_Drek

Is a fistfight irl ever okay with two consenting adults at the table

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!

Clairodactyl

May I submit a case for absolution from Dice Christ? I am part of a two person party and we each play 2 characters. One of my characters got disintegrated by a Beholder's eye ray and I had my other character misty step to be able to reach the Beholder and she killed him (thank you crit and smite damage) BUT the Beholder had cast a cone which prevented magic happening within it so I shouldn't have been able to misty step. It was an honest mistake (I was genuinely upset!) but I still feel guilty about it.

Jay Dragonborn, Guardian of the Vibe, Honoring the Cock

Hello to the authentic, brilliant, and charming Justices Axford and Tanner, and to the awe-inspiring, brave, and cunning Bailiff Jacob Herwitz. Oh, and that fourth guy, Bradley Munchy, I guess. I present to you, the case of the stolen Nat20 that went forever unnoticed. So, my DnD group, comprised of people from all across the globe, had just begun to play Dragonlance with a brand new DM. I was his first DM, and I was excited to, as Bradley and the prolific Brennan Lee Mulligan once called it, "69" with him. This case stems from a moment when I was sparring with an NPC who viewed my Dragonborn barbarian as his better, but, mechanically he was much stronger than me (To note, I had a +2 in STR, and was level 3, and this character had 2 attacks). During said spar, I was missing most of my attacks when, low and behold, I finally rolled a Nat20! I was elated! I finally got a hit in, and a crit to boot! But then, our party sorcerer cast silvery barbs, and, while I still hit, the sting of losing a Nat20 still stung. But this is not where my issue lies. My issue lies in that, later, when I role played having noticed the sorcerer cast the spell on me, so that losing my Nat20 wouldn't go in vain, and there could be a nice story moment about it later, the DM claimed I hadn't noticed it! I protested, saying that she hadn't casted it secretly, nor did she use subtle spell. The DM then made me retroactively roll to notice the spell be cast on me, and of course I failed, leaving my Nat20 to be absolutely useless, combat- or story-wise. Was I wrong to think my character would have noticed a flash of silvery sparkles, and that it could be a good bonding moment later to reconcile over the slight PvP? Or is my DM correct that the spell was cast discreetly and my barbarian was just a dunce in the heat of combat, leaving the Nat20 wasted? I humbly await your verdict, and if I am found guilty, am ready to accept my punishment.

Ricky the Moist

To the honorable Bailiff Jake and the lowly judges Saxford, Stanner, and Mutt. I bring before you a wrongful accusation of murder. In the Tomb of Annihilation in the final dungeon my party came across an invisible Beholder. This beholder had petrified my buddy who at the time was a bird. I pocketed said bird statue to fix the issue at a later time. However I had dropped my fire sword in the room to escape the beholder and we never killed it. I figured I could sneak back in to get my sword back man. However I did not make the check and the beholder disintegrated me with one of its eyes. Apparently all your belongings turn to ash, essentially making this a double kill. My buddy blames me for his character dying too. I say it was a simple mistake and I just really needed my cool sword. Was I wrongfully accused? Or am I a bhole?

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.

Easton Moore

To the most honorable judges Axford Murphy & Tanner and the insufferably mid bailiff Jill; I bring to you the case of the droid foot vs fleshy head. I was pretty new to DnD & had never DM’d before but started a Star Wars 5e campaign taking place 500 years after TFA with 1 friend & some of his friends. During a fight in one of our early sessions one of the players, who plays a Operative HK Droid Unit and is the person I knew and had the most experience out of the 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 said yes! He hit and when I asked for the damage he said “he’s not dead?” I told him I need the damage to know and he protested and said, as a droid with metal legs/feet it would have crushed a humanoid skull killing them instantly. I was new & he was experienced so I was confused but stuck to the rules. 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?

Tyler L

Dear Honorable and beloved Crit Justices and the psychically vulnerable bailiff Jake, I come to you with a player on player crime. In my campaign we had a Javelin of Lightning that we had for most of our 2+ year campaign. Our rogue, who felt like they no longer needed a ranged attack after getting a wand that allowed her to use Eldritch Blast, decided to give the Javelin of Lightning to our Paladin. In the same session that the Item transfer happened, LESS THAN A HOUR LATER, we had a underwater fight with a morkoth. Our Paladin, unable to get close to the creature and against the party's advice, decided to throw the Javelin of Lightning at it. We argued that if he missed it would likely be lost forever in the ocean and if he hit the javelin would be stuck in the creature and it could swim away and we would lose the Javelin. He rolled a natural one on his attack and we lost our very first magic item to the void of the ocean below. After getting back to town he tried to find a replacement but was only able to find a Knock off, Imposter, magical spear. It cost him most of his gold to buy this weapon. This is where the crime comes in: He told the rogue to split the cost with him on the new weapon. His argument was that it would help out the two non-ranged players and the party in the long run and didn’t see an issue in splitting the costs. The rogue, feeling bad about the Javelin, agreed to split the cost. My question to the Justices, was it wrong for the paladin to split the cost after losing a beloved item that we had most of our campaign or should he have sucked it up and paid in full for his poor choices? PS: In remembrance of the hoglidays the Javelin was also used by the rogue in a one shot we played to kill Santa. THE DM OF THE ONE SHOT WAS THE PALADIN.

Posey Mehta

Forgive me Dice Christ for I have sinned. The Dice Devil tempted me and I was proved wanting. I had taken a brief hiatus from one of my home games. When I was unexpectedly able to make a session very last minute, our DM gave me one of the big bads to run in combat, rather than contriving a way to get my character there. Now I am a notoriously bad roller, to the point that I dramatically underperform the rest of my party in combat, despite being a crunchy min-max queen. But justices, I crit on nearly every attack. Of the creature's 3 attacks per round, I crit on at least 2 of them, every single round. As someone who never rolls well, this delighted me and I got a little caught up in finally being able to flex my knowledge of the system, ultimately TPKing the party. The rest of the group, though, were very dejected and felt I had taken too much joy in killing them all, which led to us having a long discussion on our group chat about how I needed to be more emotionally aware. When I rejoined the group, the DM had explained the TPK in an "it was all a dream" scenario, I went right back to rolling like trash and we all settled back into our groove, but I have never forgotten the time I succumbed to the temptation of the Dice Devil. P.s. this was also the day Queen Elizabeth died, so we feel very strongly that her spirit was rolling through me that evening.

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.

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 prostrate my wormly self before the almighty court and plead that you bring the gift of Dungeon Court to Cream City!

Snailis The Eldritch Snail

Your illustrious honors and the guy who reads these thing who’s name I can’t remember. I bring forth a case of invisible insta stunning. I played in a group for a campaign a few years ago in which myself and my party fought a permanently invisible assassin. None of the party had any way to see them as none of us stocked see invisibility. How ever that is the tip of the iceberg. For whenever the assassin got close enough to hit we could see it but if we showed any sign of seeing them and telling the other party members it would get an attack of oppurtunity knock our character unconscious instantly but having an illusion of us in its stead. Since the campaign was online we were dm’d when we saw it and were dm’d if we were knock out and had to roleplay our character not doing anything in the fight. We would only be knocked until another character interacted with us. However due to the nature of the encounter I was knocked out for up to five turns because I said theirs a weird bird and the sorcerer of my party asking me to clarify multiple times. My glorious kings and queens was I unjustifiably roofied due to another player? With honor and respect this random person

Russell Phillips

To the infallible justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner, whom I deeply respect and admire, I extend the same affections (thanks to a severe case of Stockholm syndrome) to the lordly lordly lordly bailiff Jake and submit for your judgement, the case of the Hell-shaking, twin-spelled, Divinely destructive chain lightning spell. I DM for an excellent group of people every second week in a homebrew world, with a lot of homebrew items, abilities, feats, spells etc etc. The group currently consists of a loveably dopey Drake warden ranger, a rock-gnome barbarian/wizard, a yappy fighter/bard, a Glory paladin and a evocation wizard/tempest cleric. The party finds themselves at level 13 rolling through hell on stolen motorcycles and cars, on a mission to bring down one of the hell's devil-lords whose soul is intertwined with the party's paladin. As they drew nearer to the lair of the devil, they encounter one of its defenses - a death dragon patrolling the firey skies with some of its shadowy lackies. They successfully hid, set up a lure and managed to get in a surprise round where they set themselves up for a proper dragon-spanking. As a DM, I thought this was a perfect creature for them to fight. It's undead for the paladin, it's a dragon for the drakewarden. Everything was lining up for a slightly challenging encounter. The Glory paladin was up in the dragons face, the ranger at a safe distance, but the wizard/cleric acted first. She casted Chain lightning. With destructive wrath from her cleric subclass, and twinned spell from a homebrew item. That's an automatic 80 damage normally, per target. Twinned to an automatic 160 per creature, of which there were 5. The lackies were incinerated, the dragon mortally wounded, and hells positively ripped asunder not by the spell, but by the collective thump of our jaws hitting the floor. We all laughed, continued on and the party lives to die another day. The following day, I did a bit of research to verify in greater detail how twinned spell interracts with chain lightning. The great Lord Google has produced mixed results, and so I humbly await your superior judgment: how does chain lightning and Twinned spell interract?

Brandon Maier

Good Afternoon, Illustrious Justices and Jailiff Bake. Today, I bring before you the case of Groom v. Groomsman. Just yesterday I celebrated my 2 year wedding anniversary with my wife (sorry for not sending a Save the Date) but I’m still haunted by something that transpired at my Bachelor Party. The party was a low-key affair with my closest friends and my best man tasked another friend with DMing a one-shot adventure as part of the festivities. The game was great with each of us playing ourselves, having been sent to a fantasy world, a luck-thief BBEG, explaining my lifetime of Murph-esque rolls, and a full suite of drinking rules to give me (the groom) advantage. The trouble, your honors, was with one of the other groomsmen. The game opened with us getting ready for my wedding at the venue and the first thing this groomsman says is, “I try to sleep with the bride.” Cut to later in the game which required us to gather a bunch of keys, the same groomsman refused to let us use his key and instead held onto it until my best man and other groomsmen wrestled it from him with a series of grapple checks. Do I have a right to be miffed in this scenario or should I just let it go as roleplay decision. I throw myself at your mercy.

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.

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?

Jon Snider

To the dogmatic church: today I dare not prostrate myself but stand before you in defiance, for today I bring to you 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?

Ross Gilliland

May it please the court and the unconventionally handsome bailiff, I present to you the case of the unrepentant player. Once in a session I was DMing, 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 someone he had just met earlier that day, 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. Important context for this is that I started this session by reminding the party—6 of my silliest friends—that D&D is a game about consequences, and going forward if they said that their character did or said something, I wouldn’t be giving them a second chance by asking the classic DM warning: “are you sure you want to do that?” Most lawful court, did I make a mistake by showing leniency after my friend so obviously challenged my authority? I humbly await your decision.

Jack M

To the benevolent justices and the Selfish Bailiff Jort I ask am I a big baby? I joined a campaign that my friends brother was running through discord, the DM took it very seriously but they didn’t know all of the rules perfectly. I am fine playing loose but when they claim to be going “by the book” I get annoyed. In the 3rd session I Crit on an eldritch blast, I went to roll double dice and he said “spell attacks don’t crit” I told him I’m pretty sure it does and maybe we should look it up. He said “No RAW spell attacks can’t crit” so I said okay. And then quit after that session.

Baz C

To the jolly justices and baby boy 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?

Yashuntafun

To the Uniquely Wizened justices, and to the respectably workmanlike Bailiff (I think it was Jay something?): If it pleases the court, I present the case of "Verbal Vs Volume." In an online campaign I'm playing, my character was scaling the side of a building along with our party's tiefling rogue, to spy on some nefarious activity without tipping the enemies off. The DM described a guard walking through the alley beneath us, and told us we had a moment to do something to prevent him from looking up and spotting us. The tiefling rogue, looking at his abilities, offered to cast Thaumaturgy, using the feature that allows you to create a sound at a different point in range, to distract the guard. I loved the idea. The DM asked us, "Are you sure?", but not seeing any obvious flaws, we both said yes. The DM proceeded to gleefully narrate that "Temporarily forgetting how his spells work, the rogue YELLS the verbal components of the spell, and the guard looks up and spots you both immediately," resulting in our presence being exposed to the enemies, to both our frustration. While the DM had told all of us that he expects us to know our spell components, does "Verbal" always mean "A loud incantation?" I always assumed that with spells like Message, or this usage of Thaumaturgy, the verbal component represents the sound that happens when you 'throw your voice' with the spell, NOT an additional incantation. What else would this option of Thaumaturgy even exist for, OTHER than to trick someone by creating a noise coming from somewhere other than your location! Justices, I prostrate myself before the court to ask for a verbal volume verdict. Who's wrong? Me and the tiefling, for not knowing he had to shout "ALAKAZAM!" before magically making a distracting sound; or the DM, for enjoying thwarting our success a little too much?

Michael Beck

To the esteemed justices and the sexy yet dishonorable, reprobate, bailiff Jake, I played in a game as a dual class fighter and war cleric, I had the spare the dying cantrip which was my primary mode of healing as all my other spells and techniques were geared towards killing. This is relevant as we had just ran into a drider which my character wanted to keep as a pet, in order to keep it my character beat the drider to 0 HP and used spare the dying on him to keep him at 0. My DM allowed this at the time but it was a point of contention for the rest of that campaign. Should he have allowed me to use spare the dying? Or was I right in thinking that I could spare an NPC that I was fighting.

Matt A

To the honorable Crit, I have an update to the bean campaign. My players and I listened to your ruling and as such, they have received a bag of “Hard-Nuts” which act as a bag of beans with a few caveats, given that they were cultivated by the Archmage for his purposes. The primary changes are that they activate instantaneously when crushed using an action, so that they are more viable as a combat trick, and the Hard-Nuts use a different d100 table than the beans so that it stays fresh over the rest of the game. As an additional aside, the next session involved the PCs exploring the pyramid that they had created, as it had an active Mummy Lord and was right next to the settlement. That adventuring day left 2 PCs unconscious and cursed with Mummy Rot, 2 PCs badly wounded, their NPC mage completely out of spells, and everyone walked away with a new respect for what can happen from a bag of beans.

Christina S

To the elegant justices and the guy standing ominously in the corner, I bring you the case of the goodberry debate. My player wants to take goodberry as a ranger, and wishes to do so for a specific loophole. The spell states that: “The berries lose their potency if they have not been consumed within 24 hours of the casting of this spell”, and so they argue that if they remember to cast it every 24 hours, the berries will constantly rejuvenate, and the party can therefore have a pool of 100 points on healing in 10 in game days. I have been hesitant to say yes to this, and so I ask for your ruling: should I allow the phrasing of this spell to create infinitely stackable goodberries? I wait humbly for your judgement and will accept any punishment you deem necessary.

Jakob Hoffmann

To the honorable and renowned justices, and the other guy who reads these I present the case of the Mad Monk. I DM for a group of my friends, one of whom plays an Aarakokra Monk (stay calm justice murphy, it’s her first time playing so I allowed it). During a climactic combat with an embodiment of wild magic known as the Weave Wraith the parties Monk, named River, got hit with a dominate person spell and failed the saving throw (even with advantage from being in combat). The Wraith used its action to command River to “take out those who are attacking it” but when it came to her turn she said she used stillness of mind to end the charm. I argued that stillness of mind takes an action, and she is being commanded to use her action to do what the wraith is telling her. She retorted that if that’s the case, the ability could never be used to end charm. I was perplexed, unsure of what to do I looked at the spell and it said “the caster can use its action to gain full control” so we came to the compromise that she would have to use her action to carry out the Wraith’s command, and after doing so she could end the effect with stillness of mind before she received new commands, as long as the wraith didn’t use its whole turn to take control. In the end the monk did down one of her companions, but the wraith died soon after and the party made it out just fine. However I still feel like I might have made the wrong call, and seeing as there’s still much more campaign to play I implore the court lead me to the truth and set a precedent for future cases.

SyrupSampson

May it please the court and that little guy who hangs around them sometimes I bring you the case of historical bias. In one of my home brew worlds I thought it would be fun to add historical bias to my map, drawing land boarders from the perspective of the controlling religious monarchy, changing the name of places from its native name to its colonialize name, and throwing in small errors. When I gave this map to my players I made sure to tell them “this is the map your character would have in the world”. Once they started exploring they began to complain about the inaccuracy of the map, arguing that the map is a tool for them as players not as characters and they should be able to see an accurate representation of the world. Was I wrong to purposely mislead them with the map for world building reasons? Is the map a tool for the person playing the game rather than the character themselves? I await your omniscient judgement that will decide if my next campaign has some cheeky map secrets.

Chuck Mangione's Horn

O great Lord Murf, the esteemed justices, and the withered appendage jordan. I bring before thee the case of the non-committal party! I have been running a homebrew campaign via discord for some friends back home for over a year now. I've based the story on the Warp Riders album by The Sword and have spent countless hours in prep and worldbuilding, creating factions, cities and worlds for these three to play in. After over a year in this campaign, I still have to fight to get the party to commit to doing ANYTHING that will move the story forward. I've set the stakes for them and spelled out that what's happening is so much bigger than just them and their personal belongings. One PC is incredible, he's carrying the team and playing his character like a goddamn star. The other two on the other hand will not help anyone unless a sum of gold (it doesn't even have to be a lot of gold) is involved. I've even tried rewarding them with cool and functional magical items but all they want is gold. It's beginning to feel like the two PC's really just want to play a shopping sim with unlimited funds. I ask, how can I drive the story forward while making it fun for them AND me? Because things are dragging each session, I'm finding it more and more difficult to find the inspiration and motivation to write and continue to create such an in-depth world and storyline.

Benjamin Dale IV

The Case of the Failed Astral Pirate: Hello Honorable Judges and Daddy Bailiff, I played in a campaign where the premise is essentially a villainous Hogwarts. The DM put me and another PC in a situation where we had to fight to the death. Being uncomfortable with PvP, I told my DM before the session I was planning on escaping to the Astral plane to avoid the combat altogether and was fine playing a new character and writing this one off with a new backup character prepped. I looted the school's magical items, said my goodbyes to my closest friends, and used a portable hole and bag of holding to launch myself into the Astral plane with the intention of becoming a planar pirate. My DM said after 6 hours in material plane time, I appeared back in the same spot from where I had left because my character decided to come back. Since our game was streamed live, I didn't want to fight him about character motivation online even though I felt it made no sense. In the end, both PC's were killed as the victor of the fight was hit by a power word kill by the school's headmaster. Our bodies were then tossed into lava destroying any chance of revivify along with all of our magic items. I ask you, was I wrong for trying to avoid the combat and send off my character the way I wanted? Should I have accepted the PvP and put my feelings as a player/friend aside in an "evil" campaign? P.S. the DM's now fiance told me he had said the session before that me and the other PC "are cockroaches who refuse to die"... I eagerly await your decision.

Steph P

A testament to the power of dice Christ To the highest clerics of the church of dice: I come to you with a story of the true power and inspiration of the church. I’m studying abroad in Greece (yia sas!) and dm’d a couple sessions with fellow students. One of these was a first time player who I thought would be a natural for DnD, and whose PC was Noam d’Bard, Esq., a gnome bard with a criminal background (blackmail). Important detail: this person had never played before, and had never listened to naddpod. We played a 2-shot of wild sheep chase (from winghorn press), and at one point my players came to the wizard’s tower guarded by polymorphed orangutans and one bear shitting in the wooden outhouse. Two of my players decided to sneak around the clearing to check it out, but apparently the divine spirit of Beverly Toegold IV came to Noam, who chose to minor illusion an orangutan mating call, complete with sound effects from an elderly woman on YouTube. I could barely hold it together at this point. The gnome bard rolled high (I think a natural 17 or 18) and successfully distracted the guards, luring them into the woods in the other direction. At this point I had to pause the game, almost crying laughing, to tell them about Bev and the bullywug incident in the early episodes of naddpod. It was a great time, and now (even though we haven’t played again yet) this player is a DnD fan, has since listened to the bullywug mating call episode, has already bought two sets of dice, and is thinking about groups to play with back in the US. Maybe I can convince them to come to a live show next time you’re around Philadelphia (and who knows, maybe I’ll be there too). This truly affirmed my faith in the church of dice, and I’m working on bringing in more converts. May all your 20s be natural. In the immortal words of the sacred canon: fuck you, I love you, eat a rat. PS-love the show. Y’all have been my company on long bus rides (actually where I wrote this) and kept me sane and entertained. If you do an international tour again before June 2025, please come to Athens! I can guarantee at least two asses in seats ❤️

Elias Roessler

To the incredible justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and also bailif Hake Jurwitz Today I present a tale from the world of D&D discord servers. About six months ago I decided to join a game with a few people on a discord server. It was pirate themed and starting at level 10. I decided on a harengon(rabbit folk) swashbuckler battle master for the pirate vibe. The first session my character was asleep as a crew member on the pirate ship. The player who had been given the title of first mate decided this was not okay and woke my character up with a shocking grasp. Unprepared for pvp i had my character wake up and despite my own attempts to avoid it ended up in pvp with this total stranger. In an attempt to escape I used the rabbit hop feature to jump into the rigging, at which point the first mate cast sleep on me and without rolling the customary dice to determine if it met my hit points to put me to sleep, he said “there’s no save you’re just asleep now”. The DM proceeded to roll falling damage. Already a bit fed up I faked an emergency and left the session, we then never had a session again. Was I wrong to leave or was this a bad situation?

Andrew Fournier

A good day to the most highly esteemed Judges in all the land, and I think there was another guy? I bring you the case of the neglected barbarian. I used to be in a campaign, which was my first time playing DnD, that met every single day of the week, which consisted of a warlock, a fighter, a monk, and my wild magic barbarian. A few weeks into the campaign, I noticed that when we were in scenarios which called for individual scenes, the other 3 members would have lengthy and fun scenes but when it got to me, they would complain that I was getting too much focus and they were bored so my scenes would get cut short, which I didn’t mind. I enjoyed the combat so if it got us there quicker I was willing to take the hit. However, later on we entered a coliseum in a new town, they had different categories to enter in: the monk and fighter entered a team combat and I had to enter solo because magic was barred from the fights. We spent roughly 1 hour per fight narrating and fighting for the team combat, but when it came to me, I was typically cut off after 15 minutes and had the battle ended with a single roll because the other players were bored from not getting to participate. After this happened for 3 of my 4 rounds in the tournament while they had their full fights, I felt defeated and left the campaign a few weeks later (partially because I kept missing sessions because I couldn’t do 7 sessions per week) So I ask you, the most wise and powerful court in the land, was I wronged by the rest of my party, or should I have just sucked it up.

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?

Jor Elare

May I bring before this illustrious body (+Jake, depending how we feel about him) the case of the wrongful possession. My party and I are almost 3 years into a homebrew campaign where one of the large threats is hordes of undead. Important note: my party consists of 2 clerics, a paladin, and a warlock. This makes undead a little less than threatening. Recently the paladin picked up a cursed object that would make them very strong upon falling to zero hitpoints but allowed one of the BBEGs to begin to possess them. After finding out that they were going to lose their character if they did not listen to the BBEG's instructions the paladin was distraught. Due to a miscommunication, the clerics believed they were incapable of casting remove curse on the Paladin and the grip of the BBEG has since tightened, now the Paladin has to choose between finding the undead a new body or sacrificing themself. I ask, should I be more forgiving here? Should I allow some ex machina to get out of this scrape? Or should I lay down the law and continue watching my player squirm?

The Mortal Slayer

Dearest justices and the homie Drake. I'm not sure whether this falls to the court or to the church. Many a year ago at a comic con I had the privilege of meeting dice Christ whom apon meeting I asked for him to forgive me of my sins to which he said no. That night as I dm for my group all my baddies where rolling bellow a 12 the whole session. That's where I thought my curse would end but my whole campaign went into flames. My friend of 20 years left our friend group crippling my campaign. We ended up ending it on a note that was worthy of it but I lost my entire third act. I tried making a new campaign but my heart still belongs to Cranzar and I cant escape the thoughts of all the adventures that could be and all that characters that will never see the light of day. The pc the person played was important as they all had intertwining arcs but he constantly played the poor me card. We flow better without him, but how do I release the campaign for good? Please judge me or set me free.

Julia Waldron

Most esteemed justices and also Jake, I come to you with the case of bowls and unpaid labor. My party and I had recently reached a high enough level where one of us could cast Heroes Feast, for which the material component is a 1,000gp gem-encrusted bowl, which the spell consumes. At this point in our journey, we had acquired many gems. We asked our DM is we ourselves could craft the bowls, to try and lessen the price we would have to pay. Our DM said, with the proper rolls, we could make the bowls ourselves, but we would need to put in 1,000 gp of gems for it to work as a spell component. This is where we drew issue. We rolled high on our checks to make the bowl, and yet, our craftsmanship of the bowl itself gave nothing towards the final value of the bowl. Only the gems encrusted upon it. We argued with our DM that we had put time and labor into this bowl. The spell does not state “encrusted with 1,000 gp worth of gems”, it says “a gem-encrusted bowl worth at least 1,000 gp.” Surely our craftsmanship would add at least some value to the final product!! In the end, we bent to the DM’s will, resigning ourselves to playing in a world where time and labor are irrelevant in the worth of an item. But I come to you judges to ask, humbly, who was in the right?

Josh

To the steamy justices and the icky sticky bailiff. I come to the court, not seeking judgement, but request a bounty on my players. After a decade of wanting to play I finally started got a homebrew campaign together with my girlfriend, her best friend and two other friends. None of us had played before so I thought we'd all take it fairly straight forward. Session 0 the two other friends want to play a Changling Bard and a Plasmoid (blob) Warlock (That only spoke in questions). I allowed it thinking I could wrangle them and make them normal. For the first two sessions those two players fought everyone, dominated every social interaction with any NPC and left any puzzle I made to the other two players (who are normal and i love them) Before session three, all my players ask for less combat, more puzzles and more interactions. "Fine" i said, another friend wanted to join anyway and this would be a good way to introduce them. I design an underground prison with a simple but fun puzzle and some cool world building. UNFORTUNATELY I also put two tunnels that were plot hooks/world building. IMMEDIATELY the Changling and Plasmoid go down a tunnel each while my other two angelic players work on the puzzle and free our other friend. The Changling is now ALONE in a church full of cannibalistic, death worshipping self mutilators. And the Plasmoid is in an infected swamp with an insane God roaming around. I ask the court. May I slaughter these two players as an offering to Dice Christ? Or is the punishment for my hubris in Session 0 to basically run 3 campaigns until they somehow meet up?

Devin G

May it please the court and the tempting bailiff. I bring you the case of the begged resurrection. In my first home game several years ago, I ran a campaign for three brothers and an old coworker. The party was tasked with saving a village of Orcs from an evil Empire that was attempting to harvest them for their natural magic. And while they were successful the oldest brother’s monk , Ja’uul, was killed in the melee. The brother and I sent several messages on his new character, and he came to like the idea of playing one of the Orcs he had helped rescue that he had some fun RP with prior. I loved this idea and gave him free rein of the character, allowing him to do whatever he liked with him. Here’s the problem, the Orc was completely obsessed with one thing and one thing only. Finding someone that could resurrect Ja’uul. Every town, every npc, and every bit of roleplay was the Orc attempting to revive the previous character. This had been discussed in any of our prior conersations on the character, so it was a little off putting when several sessions after his death this was still coming up. I asked him if he had anything planned out for the future of this Orc which was met with “no, I just want my monk back.” I ask the court; should I have allowed Ja’uul to be resurrected since my player obviously wanted nothing more than to play him, or was he in the wrong for not being willing to play a new character? I humbly await your objectively correct decision. P.s. the youngest brother; playing a necromancer, offered multiple times to reanimate Ja’uul, to allow for roleplay moments between the characters or to keep him as a familiar of the Orc; but this did not sate him either.

ChappyThoughts

To the unassailable Justices and the bailiff who either is or isn't lowly at the opening of this case (Schrodinger's Jake), I present the case of the Player for Christ. When I was a new DM, one of my players and best friends (who introduced me to D&D) decided that his patron deity was nome-other than Jesus Christ himself (the J-dog). I was reluctant to allow this for a variety of reasons. It wasn't overly disruptive in the end but it did create a weird vibe at the table. Should I have been adamant about the separation of church and fantasy-church or was it acceptable to allow the breach of Evangelism into my game. I await your judgement.

Eric

Hello effervescent Judges and dull Bailiff Jake I bring to you the case of the Fiends dispelled Familar. The BBEG of our campaign was a powerful wizard, with a cute ray familar named Snitch, who ended up spying on the party of on multiple occasions. It was clearly obvious he was spying on us but no one wanted to hurt the cute little rat to stop it. On one of these occasions it came out that Snitch did not like working for the evil wizard, so I cast dispel magic hoping to free him from service. The dm told me to roll for it and I rolled high, and he proceeded to tell me that I dispelled all of the magic on the rat, including the spell that made him intelligent and capable of speech much to the parties dismay, leaving snitch to be a completely normal rat, (that later died off screen.) I am still razzed to this day about effectively killing Snitch’s personality. Judges was I wrong to think that I could have freed him from the bad guy without completely obligating his consciousness, or are you going to Cast dispell magic on me and obligate my consciousness?

DK492

Dear benevolent justices and that weird guy on the pod that breathes funny into the mic - jake, i think it was? I live with my DM and another player, and have 2 other players take a substabtial bus journey over to our house to play on a saturday. The campaign is going great (just met God and became colourblind, the usual), but my issue is that i have taken it upon myself to cook delicious meals every session! I love to cook and provide for my friends but there are a few dietary restrictions so have to make gluten-free and vegan meals for this group. If i ever lapse, the group seems disappointed and the session is lower energy. If i do cook however, it takes time, creativity and leaves ME lower energy for the session. I'm also running out of recipe ideas that fit the dietary restrictions so my question is two-fold: 1) what would you do? 2) got any recipe suggestions? Thank you justices xoxo

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?

Blaze Sura

The court if it may the please! I played a bard of creation that was already kind of bonus action heavy the problem is my party kept giving me magic items that are bouns actions to use and I was razzed to the berry bush for not using everything I was giving Was I in the wrong for not being able to use everything I was given our just teased for my bonus action I leaved the case open to be shut.

Carrboro Chapel Hill FPV

As a player and Dm of over 30 years I am still surprised at some of the ideas that come up. Zach that is a great item. I have had player before like that as well and well sometimes you have to throw them off the cliff instead of a little nudge. Fire elementals or just straight up have them wind up in a fire plane AKA hell.

Flying Mongeese

To the astounding, amazing, awe-inspiring judges and that guy who likes to hear himself read cases, I bring to you the case of the Twin Spelled Fireballs. My cousins and I started first playing DnD together a few years ago. I DM’d and didn’t fully understand Magic or all class mechanics yet. I told my cousin who played a Sorcerer that he would have to figure out Magic since I only knew how spell slots worked. Jump forward many sessions, the Sorcerer started using Twin Spell Fireball. I thought it was crazy OP, but figured it must just be how the game works. When I finally got to play a Sorcerer in another campaign, I discovered that Twin Spell only works with spells that target, not AOE spells. I joked with my cousin that we were handling it wrong in that first campaign. He smiled and said ‘I kind of figured that out half way through, but decided to keep going with it.’ I was shook. Now I wonder who was in the wrong. Was it him who took advantage of a new DM? Or was it me, who did not take the time to fully learn what a sorcerer could do with magic? I humbly await your judgement.

Jay Bird

To the esteemed judges Murphey, Axford and Tanner and the honorable baylif Jace; I bring you the case of the very observant paladin. Several years ago in a new group of players I played a rogue who's backstory was that she was a jewelry theif (for the history. She always returned the jewelry after studying it if it was boring) I did a slight of hand check to steal some jewelry/money off a table while everyone was arguing and rolled a nat 20 (for a total of 30) and the paladin rolled to notice me doing it and only got a 12. The player then decided they would have noticed anyway and the dm agreed and my character was killed and another player revived me. Was my dm correct in allowing the other player to notice I was stealing? Or should I have been allowed to collect my bounty and be on my way? I've been told by some people it's the dms call and others have said I won the roll and it was wrong of them, please honorable justices hear my case and let me know once and for all of I should be allowed to steal.

Johanna Hanchar

May it please the illustrious judges and the ill favored baliff Jake. I present this case for my sister (the barbarian) who had brought charges against me (the DM). 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?

IVthatGuy

To the 3 great sponsors of Deep Blue Hole and the creature that lives at the bottom of said hole, I bring you the case of the wasted resources. Me and my party were on a mission to retreave the hand of vencna and Recently we have defeated a Lich that was wielding said hand and a Demegorgon For months it has been stated that I (the gnome wizard) should get the hand as it would be fitting but our evil (cursed to be evil) bard took said hand amd ran away to ally himself with Loth. After some in game hours of searching for him, we found the bard about to jump through a portal to the Abyss along with his Drow allies. Before he was able to jump, I asked the dm of I could cast Hold person and she allowed it. When doing so (at 3rd level as I was out of 2nd level spell slots) I heard no dice being rolled. Thinking I must he wrong, I then tried using Silvery barbs (using my last 1st level slot) on our bard and paid attention if a dice was rolled. There was no dice rolled and I believe she hand waved the saves so the plot can continue. This would t have rubbed me the wrong way usually but keep in mind that We just came out of a Lich and Demegogan fight before this, with no long rest, and all I had was that 3rd level slot, and 2 first level slots left. (We are level 14 btw) I'm I justified to be a little miffed at this? Edit: The bard was being controlled by the DM because he was out at the time.

AbyssFriedDuck

Dearest Justices and Jakestices of the Court, I bring to thee, a matter of unsportsmanlike behaviour. I played a gloomstalker ranger/assassin rogue elf called Maevya in a home-brewed campaign with my friends.. She was badass. My DM rolled her stats and they were busted. With her build, she became very powerful and only moreso with her stats and the luck I had with getting items in the game. A young dragon was attacking a village whilst our characters were sheltered in one of the houses, I decide to sneak around and fire at it from a distance. With some crits and good rolls, it becomes very clear that I may win the fight by myself. I was 200ft from the dragon. I had sharpshooter so this was fine for my range and then had used my bonus action to hide, getting a natural 20 for a total of something like 35. My DM then describes the dragons turn of it getting a crit on its perception check which I believe is an action to look for someone, then it flew all the way over to me and took a full round of attacks, critting on one of my characters. If it wasn't for my party's quick thinking and awesome characters, I would have died from what I think was just cheating. I confronted my DM and he firmly and confidently stated that "it's too big of a story thing for you to get to win by yourself" Should I accept that my character just isn't cool enough to solo a dragon or was I cheated out of being awesome. I await your verdict humbly

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?

Daveman

To the distinguished justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy: May your L’s be small and your haters malnourished. And Jake, please just get your shit together. I bring you the case of the DM vs The Mindfreak. I have been running a low magic political campaign where anything fantastical comes from different strains of fungus and how they interact with bloodlines. All spells and class abilities have been reflavored to fit this world. But one of my players is using the novelty of these powers to “mind freak” my NPCs. He is a changling rogue/bard multiclass with the actor and telepathic feat and claims due to these abilities he can perfectly mimic the NPC’s own voice telepathically and scream “YOU'RE GONNA DIE!” “I’m gonna use your skull as a cereal bowl!” over and over in their head. When he sprung this on me the first time, I thought it was hilarious and so rewarded the creativity, but now he does it to at least 3 people every session. and with his maxed our deception at advantage, not a single insight check to figure out it is a trick has passed so far. I humbly ask your aid and accept any advice and/or punishment.

Fergus Woods

Justice bros and bailiff dude (I guess), I beg of you to consider this case, which I call: the case of the reluctant monk and the possible railroad. I play with an online group, whom I love and adore, they each bring their own quirks to the story and I love it. HOWEVER. We were playing recently, and it was going to be against the big bad of our first arc, almost a year after starting. I had communicated that we were coming up to this big big session for a couple of weeks, and that they should be prepared for a fight. It took place in the lost mines of phandelver, with a big bad necromancer who had been secretly following around the party after their various fights and stealing the souls of their enemies (and even some friends). I described the scene as the players had been hearing chanting for a little while and it got louder as they approached a room with a heavy metal door that opened into a seemingly empty looking room. None of the players trusted it, and after doing some tests, all but one of my players ended up going through, finding themselves in an alternate plane of souls where they faced their old enemies on familiar battlegrounds. All but one person. Our monk, who is an excellent roleplayer and person, refused to go through the doors, as the other players disappeared when they went through and she couldnt see them. In an attempt to get her moving, I narrated the doors slowly closing in her face. Still. She. Refused. I then asked her do an insight check, which she did well on and I narrated that her connection to the rest of the party told her that they were fine and it was safe to go through the door. Guess what. She didnt go. Feeling like I had to stick to my guns, I narrated the doors closing in her face, and locking. DM panicking, I started to describe the scene the others were seeing, while trying to think. I cut back to her, and narrated a spirit that had been with them for a while helping her push the door open and urging her through, and eventually, she went. All went well and the bbeg battle was a success. I ask you: should I have locked the door and kept her out, and made her think of another way in? Or was I right in relenting and “railroading” her into the bbeg fight.

Mitchell Behunin

To the Handsome justices and Tucker’s Procreator: I DM campaign of about eight months to all relatively new players. I got into DND about a year ago because of NADDPOD. One of my players happens to be my younger brother. He, a half elf Paladin (and of noble background) and the rest of the party found themselves in a large city in the Shadowfell. They were searching for an important NPC contact who happened to be the city guard Captain. However, their progress was halted when they got to a checkpoint to enter into the more Noble sections of the city. Being the “noble“ my brother’s paladin to be, he attempted to speak with the guards at the checkpoint and persuade the party through. When he failed the persuasion check, he got hostile with the guards, spat at their feet and walked away. This turned into a real life discussion about nobility on a different plane of existence doesn’t necessarily mean your noble to ALL planes of existence. So, as the DM, I decided that an appropriate response from the city guard would be to apprehend the paladin, cuff him, and start an escort to a petty criminal prison on the lower levels of the city. My brother IRL got quite pissed at me because he believes nobility is nobility, and in layman‘s terms, “real recognize real“. After our table discussion, my brother grabbed his dice, his player sheet (which I usually hold onto by the way) and stormed out of my apartment. My question to you perfect justices, was I right to apprehend this hostile paladin or is nobility recognized on all planes of existence? I await and accept any forthcoming punishment.

Thomas Rawls

To my friend Jake, and the other ones, I humbly present to you the case of Grenade Vs. Gravity. Me and my friends were in the throws of a Star Wars edge of the empire campaign, when we were attempting to escape an encounter via our starship picking us up. As we were leaving, one of our party members wanted to drop an incendiary grenade out of the door, onto the enemies below. Our DM asked him to roll, and he failed the check. The DM narrated that the grenade fell out of his hand and exploded before hitting the ground. This is when all hell broke loose. The player was insistent that if he dropped a grenade it would have been able to at least make it to the ground first. He then went on to give us a physics lesson in terminal velocity that explained exactly how the grenade would’ve fallen to the ground in 3.6 seconds, which is well within normal timing for one of these grenades. This argument went on for 20 minutes, eventually leading to the DM telling the player to “get the f*** out of my house” and the game ended. We never played another session again after that. I come to you now to ask, could this have been resolved? Was the player wrong to bring common sense into the equation?? Thanks, love you all. - tom

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 ever playing d&d again. This is a cold case 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 explained that we had all been hired to escort a cart of goods from one town to another through dangerous woods. He narrated us setting up camp, and then asked us to describe our characters. 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 past who was broody and stand offish. After I described my character I waited for someone else to take over, it was again my very first time playing and they had all played together before. 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. 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 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 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.

Felix Principe-gillespie

To the Jedi Justices and padawan bailiff, I come to you with a simple case, can a prequel have stakes? My party have just finished our first multi-year long campaign! In the final battle, it was revealed that they had actually all fought this villain together in the past before, but last time the villain had wiped their memories rather than kill them. Now we’re gearing up for a prequel campaign and everyone is really excited to play slightly different versions of the same characters. One player however is not. They claim that this means this new campaign will have no stakes and will be the ultimate railroad. So I ask you justices, can a prequel story carry weight, or will this just be the ‘ultimate railroad’

Zachary Armstrong

To the prestigious Justices and the (Murph's Choice) Bailiff, I present the case of Stolen Summons. My party and I were fighting in the final of a Tournament of Champions. We were level 5 and challenging the 5 year reigning champions, the mysterious Twins. This would serve as the end of this campaign. My fellow players and I prepped for months for this. The main plan, was for my Circle of Stars druid to cast Conjure Animals and hope to summon 8 wolves. My DM allowed me to roll a Wis Save to see if my character could bend the weave to his will and choose the conjured forms. I rolled very well and was very happy with my 8 good boys.. On the first Twin's turn, my DM described my wolves bowing to the now transformed Werewolf twins. I mentioned that they are fey spirits in the form of wolves but my DM shut that down with wolves are wolves. The wolves turned to face me and my party. Was my DM right in stealing my goodest boys from me? Or would Alpha Wolves command anything in the form of a wolf? I dismissed the wolves and randomly summoned Bloodhawks on my next turn. The Bloodhawks were massive in keeping the battle in our favour and we left as Champions. I await your rightful judgement. It's worth mentioning that my DM is my cousin who Jake threw a D10 to at the Perth live show and I snatched it out of the air inches from his hand, selfishly. Jake was a legend and threw my cousin a d6 afterwards. I introduced my whole DnD group to naddpod, you are all the reason we play! This idea was heavily inspired by Moonshine's summoning of the pixies to womp Murph in the battle with The Horseman of War.

Nicolas Lee

May it please the court and bailiff Jorb, I dm for a party including my wife and two close friends. Last session, they were investigating an abandoned mine while being pursued by an archfey wild hunter. The party came to a very suspicious and rickety rope bridge. I had set up the encounter so that, after stepping onto the bridge, the archfey hunter would ambush them and launch a volley of arrows with galeforce winds that would risk blowing the party off the bridge. If they failed a dexterity saving throw, they would fall and be hanging from the bridge, and failing a second throw would cause them to fall if they weren't pulled up by another party member. Sounds fun, right? After some checks, they realized that the area around the bridge was warded to prevent teleportation or magical flight, to which I thought, checkmate biatches. Not so. My wife, who is playing a mothfolk paladin, exclaimed that she could fly, and with her strength score carry an object of up to 240 pounds. The druid then added that she could summon two giant eagles, which could carry the other party members as well. They then proceeded to use these various methods to circumvent the bridge entirely by flight. That's where things got dicey. While they were all flying, the archfey ambushed them and launched an arrow that summoned galeforce winds, which was a reflavored version of a spell that would knock targets prone on a failed dex save. Both eagles and my wife were in the area of the spell, and all three of them failed their dex saves, causing them to be knocked prone while flying. Had they been on the bridge, they would have been able to hang from the edge of the bridge and possibly recover. However, they were flying directly above a 100 foot drop. According to rules as written, creatures knocked prone while flying fall to the ground. I rolled the 10d6 fall damage, which came out to 60 damage, which would have killed the whole party. I asked the party if anyone had feather fall, to which they said no. Drenched in DM sweat, I told the party that both eagles and my wife's mothfolk could make a dexterity saving throw to partially break their momentum and take half damage. Fortunately, everyone passed and they were able to survive. While I feel like I was fairly generous with this outcome, my wife argues that knocking a flying creature prone doesn't make sense to begin with, and that they all should have been able to recover more easily, possibly falling a short distance instead of all the way to the ground. Judges, I ask you, should a flying creature knocked prone fall to the ground, or should they fall a short distance and then recover? Or, maybe dice christ was telling me something when I rolled 10 sixes, and I should have let the party die? I impale myself upon your mercy.

Andrew Morris

May it please the court and the bailiff who I assume is forcing you to include him for some reason. I present you the case of the stoned Druid. During the pandemic our game was forced to move online and my wife looking for some human connection asked to join the game and play for the first time. Our group had asked her to play before so this wasn’t an issue. The main crux of the case happens when we enter a dungeon about 15 minutes into the session and enter an encounter. My wife’s Druid is turned to stone by the villain we were fighting. The fight quickly ends and the cleric asks to take a long rest. So he can stock a spell to turn the Druid back from stone. The dm says no since we had just long rested. With no way to turn the Druid back my wife is just forced to sit there for the rest of the session practically in tears for us to be able to get to a spot to long rest. I ask you was the dm wrong for not letting her turn back from stone?

Malapa

Good Day Judges and the dutiful bailiff who keeps us unruly plaintiffs in line. I bring the case of the potentially annoying rules lawyer (me). I played in a years long campaign with several other STEM PhD students. We were all pretty into rules, math, and optimization, so we played a pretty by the book and rules as written campaign. Later in the campaign, the party's wizard took his "rightful" place as a powerful mage, leaving the lowly "stick swingers" in the dust. Occasionally, I would notice that the wizard's reading of a spell went a little differently than mine, or sometimes they'd cast something that clearly stated it wouldn't work as he was hoping. I would sometimes sit on these cases, the DM, of course, is the final arbiter of the rules of the game and I didn't want to step where I didn't belong. But I would also occasionally bring up the inconsistency. We'd then address through discussion, sometimes the DM just said it was fine, sometimes the wizard would agree it wouldn't work and do something else, it always resolved fine, and I don't have a specific example I remember that created any lasting contention My question is, is it ever appropriate to "rules lawyer" against other players in your party? I know DMs have a lot going on and don't always have time to just sit and read spell cards mid game, but should I just keep my mouth shut and let things flow more freely, even if it means the overpowered wizard gets more overpowered? I humbly await the court's judgement. P.S. I'm not just complaining because the wizard was more powerful than me, I played a fun/weird ranger/rogue/cleric multiclass that was fun and good, I just think the general state of things is that full-casters like wizards are better late in the game, and I think that gap gets bigger as limitations of spells are ignored.

Gabagooblin

To the venerable Justices and their trusty sidekick Bailiff Boy, I present the case of the noxious fart. A few hogliday seasons ago, I DMed a New Jersey-themed one shot for a low level group of me and my older sisters friends, wherein the party had to journey through the treacherous Barren Pines to wrest a powerful gubernatorial artefact from the hands for Christophus Christien, a fleece-clad ogre. The party took a long rest and I asked them to describe their morning routine to encourage some roleplay. My sister, playing a gnome named Gnart, described how our friend's character, a sexy tiefling named Chad, ripped ass so loudly that it startled everyone awake. Our friend immediately argued that she couldn't just narrate that, indignantly insisting that it was completely out of character and hot Chad would never do such a thing. As a compromise, I said that I would allow the fart if everyone within 5 ft (most of the party) made a Con save against 1d4 of poison damage. Eventually everyone agreed to take the damage and the session moved on, but it gets brought up every time someone mentions DnD and our friend is still a little salty about it. I ask the court, was I correct to honor my sororal bonds or should I have protected Chad's sexy dignity?

christien

May it please the court and cause the baby bailiff to cry tears of Soy I present the case of the angry forest and an the unintelligible bard: My players were flying on Pegasus back to investigate a forest of several hundred foot tall sky scraper high trees who were beating the shit out of everything within reach. After making the "plan" of swooping along the river into the forest they rolled initiative and made it 180 feet into the forest. On the trees turn they were swiftly beaten to mostly unconsciousness saved only by the fact that the random attacks mostly targeted the fighters corpse over the surviving players (She was a doppleganger getting ready to assassinate them anyway) The bard cast invisibility on himself and the rogue and said "I follow the plan" the rogue said "I swim down the river outside of the forest" Both I and the Rogue assumed the bard meant they swam upriver according to the original plan. This is NOT what the bard meant and the party was separated I did offer to let the bard change the outcome but they said no. The result was the bard who was only 2 sessions in was the only witness to their original character of 2 years being resurrected by the sacrifice of their druidic mentor and I could tell they were salty about it. Was I wrong to assume I knew what the bard meant. Should I have pushed harder for them to join up with their other member because I knew what was at the end of the river?

Forrest Johnson

Justices, I am in need of petty recompense. During a campaign that featured multiple floating castles, magically-infused landscapes, and frequent airship shenanigans, my DM described a scene thusly: “Four cloud giants fly in on rocks and land in the clearing next to you.” After a long scene interacting with these giants, our characters were invited to climb on these rocks. The DM described the rocks’ wings, at which point I realized he had been referring to a ROC, r-o-c, an enormous bird like creature. I told him that I had been envisioning the giants riding atop huge flying boulders. Justices - the DM proceeded to bust my balls. When about half the table took my side in defense, agreeing that in such a world, it was equally likely that giants would ride on boulders as on birds, the DM doubled down on the ball-busting so I fired back with my own loud and aggrieved busting of balls. After a while, we got back into the campaign, but this exchange still comes up to this day, some four years later. Justices, whose balls ought to be the most busted? A few notes that may sway opinions: at least a couple players at this table listen to NADDPOD, so this ruling WILL be known; in case Justice Murphy was too much on my side, my character’s name was Dilf D’Lorien; and finally, the DM is my younger brother.

Cat K.

To the cutie patootie justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the sweet baby boy bailiff Jakiepoo: I present the case of the blocked Identify spell. I play in a dnd group with several friends from undergrad and our campaign is over 2 years running. Recently, our group found a dungeon underneath our characters' magic high school with a jail cell and an old beheaded skeleton manacled to the wall. Mage hand attempts to investigate the skeleton revealed that it seemed fused to the stone floor and wall. After a brief conversation with my party members, we decided it might be worth it for my sorcerer to cast Identify on the skeleton to hopefully be able to tell what type of race the skeleton belonged to (as we had no head to help us deduce it otherwise) or maybe what their name had been to figure out why they ended up here beneath the school. I cast Identify, and my DM said that my character immediately went unconscious - no saving throw requested. Initially I was intrigued! It felt like something exciting was going to happen. However, when my DM didn't follow up with anything else, I asked, "Did Identify not work?" He said, " No it worked, but give me an INT saving throw." I failed the saving throw with a 6, and my DM narrated, "In a fraction of a second, a blur of images flashes through your mind, but you are unable to glean any information." I asked, "Are we able to tell if a boobytrap counterspell type thing happened?" My DM said, "No, there was just too much information for your brain to handle so you passed out and weren't able to learn anything." I was upset about his ruling, but I didn't push it any further. We continued playing as my party members had to evac my PC's unconscious body from the dungeon and then wait 30 minutes in-game for her to wake up. My question here is: should my DM have honored my Identify spell RAW and given us some information about this mysterious skeleton, or was it okay for him to prevent the spell from working in this way (for reasons still unknown)? I await your benevolent ruling.

Sam Catterall

To the most dashing and humble court and the bailiff who may or may not be popular depending on the courts whims. I bring you the case of the spell fly ending a campaign. I was playing 5e for the very first time and loved the idea of a wild magic sorcerer, an orphan who grew up on the streets blessed by magic with the inability to control it entirely. We were playing decent into avernus and had just entered a hell wasp hive to save an NPC when a bad roll caused my wild magic to flare up to an insane degree. (I rolled a 1 on my d100). After summoning a unicorn and growing in size my party started to worry about being near me incase of accidental TPK from fireballs and lightning. On my third and fourth roll I cast fly, this is where the problem truly begins. The party decides "let's split up (INSIDE A HELL WASP HIVE) and wait out the rest of these rolls and explore THE HELL WASP HIVE" This lead to one party member finding the boss of the hive and the rest of us racing to catch up and being slowly picked off one by one by giant hell wasps. The DM blames my love of wild magic for causing the TPK and I blame the spell Fly. We still play together to this day but both of us believe ourselves to be right, and the argument rears its ugly head on a very regular basis. What say you oh beneficent justices?

Sorrell Oberon

To the honorable justices and the super cool gamer James, I present the case of the overpowered avatar monk vs a regular level 3 Goliath. I was a player in a campaign that was centered around our party being members of a heroes guild, so many of our sessions were mini quests to allow for a rotating, monster-of-the-week sort of campaign so if people couldn't make it to a session, it wasn't a big deal. One quest we had was to simply beat this very strong monk in a wrestling match, she was super strong and looking for training, and a challenge. I was playing a firbolg druid so i didn't participate, but our path of wild magic Goliath barbarian felt up to the task. They square up, and it seemed obvious that this was a fight we weren't meant to win. The DM kept saying the monk (who was very obviously Korra from Avatar) was super fast and strong, and she hit the Goliath for a ton of damage. The player asks the dm if he can use Stones Endurance to shake off some of the damage she dealt, and the DM said no because "she was moving too fast for you to react." I felt like this was just the DM trying to make an already unwinnable fight even harder for no good reason. Justices, was my barbarian wronged, or is it okay for something to be going too fast to shake off the damage? I humbly await your ruling.

Bridget Adams

A confession for Dice Christ: Several sessions into a new campaign, I realized that I had chosen a two-handed weapon for my paladin, and therefore should not be able to use a shield. The campaign has been a slog, with the DM rolling consistently well and the party rolling badly. I have not brought my error to the DMs attention because I really really need that extra 2 AC to stay standing. I plan to switch weapons as soon as we find appropriate loot, but I beg forgiveness from Dice Christ for keeping quiet about this mistake.

BenMightSmite

To the Honorable justices and one bailiff GoatWitz I bring to you the case of the snacky dragon. To set the scene it’s fresh out of lockdown and I’ve just binged the 90 episodes of campaign one and I’m ready to play dnd for the first time. I go to my local game shop join a game. I play a oath of glory paladin named climb, at first everything is going fine but about a few months in we get caught in between a dragon civil war and there’s a tower we need to climb to get the phylactery of a undead dragon. So I decide why climb when I can summon a griffon(named Razorlight of course) but the dm said that’s okay but the dragons will love the tasty little snack of a griffon while in battle but I argued if it’s truly fighting another fully grown dragon would he really be worried about trying to eat mid fight and he said that it needs it’s energy to fight. And the other players agreed and I had to spend two turns dashing which allowed the dragon time to reassemble into a dracolich . Your honors should the dragon really have had the time or action economy to waste on a single griffon flying so close to a tower I humbly await your verdict. P.S I was a brand new player to dnd and only 20 years old. everyone else was a middle aged man or older who’s been playing since first edition unimportant except letting you know the tables vibes

DOOFINIUS

Dearest and most revered crit justices, and that nat 1 of a walking human jork I bring the case of oh captain not my captain. In a semi homebrew saltmarsh campaign i played a lovable tinkering kobld from a cave community named kaboom artificer artillerist who dreams of tinkering the best weapon and armor to help his clan, the other player in question is a drow wild magic sorcerer and swashbuckler rogue. Drow are rare and so some mystery surrounds this player as he came with a dmnpc his pirate captain fox. The story arcs were going well our dashing rogue/sorcerer eventually took over captain duties and our dmnpc retired to be more helpful and give us the spotlight. It seems though maybe another party member should've been captain. As our rogue/sorcerer was slowly getting frustrated with gameplay and decisions made usually mine. I have doubled back on a couple fun ideas such as proclaiming our crew the scallywag and trying to put our name on the map but the captain seemed bothered, and even times when I try to save npcs I have been talked back to not in character but with actual agitation. This came to a head twice once when our dm got sidetracked and our captain basically shouted at him and our last seisson where i noticed him shut down in agitation and tried to include him more and he shut down again. He claims we have decision paralysis but everytime I make one he seems to be more agitated. I reached out to our dm who agreed it's a bit much and he reached out to the player. The player then reached out to me and apologized and I explained that I just want everyone included and that he chose to be captain so I defer decisions to him. I asked what I can do better as I want everyone to have fun and that him shutting down and then aggravated at my decisions leaves me bewildered and unsure what to do. He never responded and this was 3 weeks ago. I pulled out of the campaign because im not here to babysit a tantrum throwing adult who won't communicate and I don't feel like stepping up as we don't do this at my house but our dm and I don't want everyone feeling awkward If I take charge. He is closer to the dm as well and I can't say for certain but ever since he started bringing a lady around to seisson he's been different and more agitated. So I ask was I in the right to expect better communication from a captain, should I have stepped up and caused a mutiny. My heart just wasn't in the campaign felt lower than davvy Jones locker and I've since had more time with my soon to be fiance, I lay myself at your chopping block.

MokeyTokey

To the honorable Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner. And the one who reigns them in bailiff Jake. I present the case of back story throw out. I joined a sea based campaign about 2 months ago with a stoner Sea elf Monk, Tasumi. Wrote a back story that he was from a group of islands and his parents owned a small shop. Well after 5 sessions in, the party arrived at the Elemental plane of water and once we got to the main city I found out my dad is apparently king and I'll take the throne after finding my mother. I would have been fine being a royal but nothing was ever said to me by my DM. Now I have a new character rolled up inspired by the myth of Wukong. Justices am I in the wrong for feeling that my time was wasted and my character of robbed of what he was going to be?

Austin

May it please the elegant and venerable Crit Justices and Baliff Papa John. I offer the case of the Player vs Player mugging. In a campaign I have ran for about 1 year, one of my players unfortunately had to leave the campaign. No hard feelings or any animosity there, but issues started to arise when another PC (Warlock named Stain) demanded all the magic items and gear from the leaving PC (Monk named Aloe). The leaving Player was not at the session, so I was controlling their PC Aloe, and had planned on saying that Aloe got a letter from home. Which is why they had to leave the party. What was supposed to be a lovely sunset retiring of the character turned into Stain the Warlock asking for all their gear and items. When I told them that Aloe would need their gear for their own journeys, Stain was quick to cast Hold Person in order to mug Aloe of all their belongings. Rolling for Aloe I had passed the save and used some monk abilities to quickly beat the snot out of Stain and escape. The Stain Player has never let me live this down and while I don't think he is that mad, it makes me wonder if I should have just given him the items considering Aloe was no longer in the campaign. Was I wrong to deny Stain the chance to mug a retiring party member or was his prompt butt kicking the proper way to deal with this? I leave my fate in the soft supple hands of the court.

Kalen Woolwine

May it please the quite remarkably well-coiffed justices and the bed-headed bailiff, I present a half-case-half-confession: the Kentucky Fried Kobold. I play in a home game that takes place in a steampunk island city. The party (Level 2 at the time) was scouring the city’s sewers for a monstrosity they were chasing down as their current objective. They ran into a duo of battling gangs and entered the fray. This, however, is where I done hecked it up. My party consists of fully full casters (save for one Paladin) and I rolled a Nat 20 on the creature’s stealth check against their Passive Perceptions. Not only that, but our lovely kobold Druid rolled horribly on their Dex save against the flaming explosion this creature caused, and I, having forgotten their -2 con score, dealt 19 damage outright. This was one damage enough to end them outright. Luckily everything ended out alright and my players are all good about it now, but I (justly) have been razzed about it since. I humbly accept whatever punishment befalls me for my crispy catastrophe, and prostrate myself at your mercy.

Elizabeth Humphries

What up, party parrots. I bring before you the case of the missing Feather Fall. In a campaign a few years ago, I was playing a bard/barbarian multiclass who knew the Feather Fall spell. One of my party mates was wearing (unknown to him, because he didn't do any sort of investigation check before grabbing the shiny object) a homebrew Ring of Defenestration that he'd looted off a body. In the session immediately prior to the one in question, I burned all my spell slots casting Feather Fall on this character (the cleric), because he kept being magically thrown through windows as a result of wearing the ring. Fast forward two weeks to the next session, when the party decided to climb to the top of a 200 ft lighthouse. The cleric was, of course, once again magically thrown through the window as he was still wearing the ring. In a fit of pique (and also because I thought it would be funny), my character cast prestidigitation to play Tom Petty's Free Fallin' instead of Feather Fall. After a bunch of failed attempts by other party members to catch the cleric, the DM allowed the cleric to cast Banishment on himself instead of falling to his death, which caused the cleric to be transported to a dungeon guarded by an aboleth. This chain of events led to the party attempting a rescue which ended with a TPK. My question to you is, am I ultimately responsible for the TPK? No one has ever explicitly blamed me, but comments have been made, even though my group has played several campaigns since and I've never even come close to killing everyone again.

Haybale

Oh holy high church of dice christ and its emissaries, I have a confession that has weighed heavily on my heart for years. During my first-ever DnD campaign, I played a tiefling rogue who escaped the circus she was raised in. During a major character arc that brought the party back to the circus, my character ended up in possession of the deck of many things. She pulled a card during the fight with the ringleader and drew Eurayle, which gave her a -2 penalty to all saves, which nearly killed her during the fight. Scarred from that, my character (and myself as a player) was wary about the deck thereafter, as was most of the party... except the paladin. He wanted to draw a card so badly, and pestered my character about it any chance he got. Finally, when we arrived just on the other side of the mini-boss fight, nearing the end of the campaign, the barbarian started supporting the paladin's quest to pull a card. I eventually caved, with the mindset of "if he fucks around, he can find out," and find out he did. He drew the void card and his soul was yeeted from his body immediately. The barbarian exclaimed she was joking out of character, and the DM said we had to go into the mini boss fight one man down. We almost had a TPK thanks to the loss of our paladin, which I feel responsible for because I let him pull a card. Was dice christ punishing me by nearly ending the campaign due to my decision? PS our wonderful DM extended the campaign to get the paladin's soul back and we got to defeat the final boss with him having kind-of learned his lesson

John Richards

To the Magnanimous Justices and their lil buddy jack, I present to you the case of the public school problem player. I teach at a high school and run a DND club for some of the kids. In a recent campaign we had a real problematic player (he rolled for stats at home, and got 5 20’s. What are the odds…). Lots of little stories, but the real issue came when the kids were exploring a dungeon, and found a puzzle that included a pool of water and some giant man eating sharks. Our problem player wanted to befriend the sharks, and cast speak with animals. The sharks said, and I quote, “MMM, you look tasty! I’m gonna eat you! I’m a man eating shark. I’m gonna eat you”. The player insisted he still get to roll an animal handling check to pet a shark. Rolled 16 or 17 and proceeded to pet the shark. The first shark grappled him and drug him under water, the other three sharks proceeded to tear him to shreds, and, as promised, eat him. Long story short, my problem player proceeded to cry foul and try to raise his compatriots in a revolution against him. When no one budged from their seats, he decided to go above my head. He filed a report with the school’s principal, claiming that I “bullied” him! Nothing really came of it, but it was a very awkward closed door meeting with my school's administrator and HR as I tried to explain the rules and nuances of DND. In hindsight, I probably could have had the shark “nip at him” as a final warning, or maybe had them not kill him out right, but this player was super obnoxious, and I honestly cherished the opportunity to mercilessly merc this kid’s PC. Please, tell me justices, was I justified in killing this twerp?! Or should I have been “the mature adult in my room” (as my principal said) and let the little shit head live? PS This player went on to start his own rival dnd club in the band room, and I heard through the grapevine that his BBEG was basically coded to a be less-than flattering version of me.

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.

Mediogre

To the fiscally responsible justices and the grossly overpaid bailiff Jake. I present the case of "The Whomping 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 we had the encounter and at the beginning of the fight the party druid went down and proceeded over the entire battle to roll death saves. Combat was 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, rushing to their aid. 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. 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.

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 thrown off a cliff for their transgressions? I am at your mercy, and await your judgement.

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 campaignand 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 6 months and 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?

Luna-Azalea

To the highest court in all the land I wish to humour the court with my case. I am a current player in this campaign. We built our characters together and we made backstories. I have a sailor who was a captain on a ship and violently mutinied upon (Jack Sparrow style). I chose this for 2 reasons, cool pirate and the world relayed on sea travel so I hoped to put my sailor skills to use. I made these intentions clear to the party. Upon reaching the campaign another character is a sailor, at first whatever. But then it became a dance of argument and heated debate because I wanted to captain the ship, that’s what I made my character to do, but he wanted to take my place, and the party sided with him regardless of my pleas that I made my character to be the team’s ship captain. I ask the court for their judgement and wisdom to help alleviate this issue. PS: it is starting to actually annoy me despite trying to settle this with words

David Pazmino

To the esteemed Justices and that one shadow-dweller, Jog: May it please the court as I present the case of "Feathered Frustration" In a Raveloft campaign, I played an Owlin beastmaster ranger as an archeologist and zoologist dedicated to the study and taming of large avian creatures as companions. Commencing with a Large Toucan, adapted from the stats of a Large Owl within our narrative, the game thrived at the beginning of the campaign as we weren't in Raveloft yet. Yet, the narrative took an abrupt turn upon our party's unwelcome relocation to Ravenloft. The crux of the matter rests in the DM's assertion: birds, by their decree, did not exist in this realm. A realm called Ravenloft did not have a single annoyance species not even a single raven! Moreover, there was an expressed disdain towards avian-like entities such as Owlin and Kenku. Consequently, my character's backstory, deeply rooted in a passion for understanding and befriending large birds, was summarily disregarded. Should the DM have metaphorically clipped my character's wings, or am I perhaps overreacting here?Admittedly, the situation does hold a hint of absurdity – an archeologist stranded in a realm devoid of birds and seemingly harboring a grudge against them.

Samantha Solboe

Honorable Bailiff, I present to you the piss case. I DM once a week for a group of my friends who are all pretty new to dnd. Last session the group needed to distract a guard so they could sneak past. One member of the party suggested to make the guard piss herself using the create water spell (by making water appear in her bladder). The wording of which states that you can create 10 gallons of water from an "open container". I thought this was pretty clever, but of course, out of the question as I would not consider the human body an open container. Every single player at the table disagreed and tried coming up with explanations for why, the main argument being that the body is indeed an open container. My player asked "Is her mouth open?" I answered "Sometimes" And my player somehow thought this would justify her proposal. Judges, am I in the wrong? The issue was not that I didn't find it hilarious, I did. But it was impossible for me to justify with the wording of the spell. I will accept any ruling you decide.

A Spicy Lad of the Shadowkeep

To the esteemed Justices and Will-Be-A-Real-Justice-One-Day Jake, I present the case of Banishing Boss Baby. I ran a campaign with a group of friends who had been burnt by D&D before; think fun-squashing DMs, stories that don't consider their characters, and so much rule lawyering that they could have inadvertently passed the bar. In this campaign, one of the DMs who conducted all of the above sins joined as a player, and while the rest of the group took time to immerse themselves in the world and story with their characters, this ex-DM outsourced his character to his high school students. They were clearly taking the piss and he didn't seem to care, as the end of result was almost literally beat-for-beat, Boss Baby. This continued to dampen and ruin the campaign for both me as the DM and the players. One session, I decided enough was enough, and through a few fudged rolls behind the screen, ended up banishing Boss Baby in a gem. He seemed a bit peeved but the rest of the players were openly relieved. I ask, am I an asshole DM for railroading a PC into a prison gem? I humbly put myself at the feet of the court (and Jake).

Brendan

To the honorable and mighty justices of the high court and my good friend who I'm sure you'd like if you got to know him, Bailiff Jack, I pose both a case and a deeper question: How to handle a player whose desires and actions are at odds? In the mists of old Barovia, a young halfling barbarian met a kindly old dark power and was granted her greatest wish: to use the power of song for magical purposes and become a Bard. All for the low low cost of becoming embroiled in the dark power's plots and machinations. In speaking to the player, they have expressed a desire to break free of their deal and have a redemption arc but in practice, every time the dark power shows up they immediately cave and do whatever is asked. In general, they are a very passive player at the table and tend to freeze up when the spotlight is turned their way. So I ask you, fair and wise arbiters, what is a DM to do when a player keeps refusing to pursue what they have said they want? Or am I wrong for putting this poor player in the spotlight at all?

anniemurphs

To whom it may honorably concern if we're doing intros, or not if we're not- I bring you a question: How does Reliable Talent work when a nat 1 is rolled? My party and I were in a tournament where we got sent to an extra-planar, haunted-ish house to search for treasures and complete the task: kill all the mimics in the house. I, a level 15 swashbuckler rogue, was searching the attic and was told to roll a perception check, which I had proficiency AND expertise in. I rolled a nat 1, but luckily I had reliable talent. Or, at least I thought it was lucky. Judges and Bailiff Jaques, my DM told me that a nat 1 was a nat 1 so I was not able to rely on my Reliable Talent for this check, and I not only failed but was then sneak attacked by a mimic. The definition of the ability doesn't say anything about rolling a nat 1 (just a roll ≤9 is treated as a 10), or if it's at the discretion of the dm. I also asked a few other people, and got mixed answers so I thought it best to bring it before the court. What say you? I humbly and lovingly await your judgement.

Fabrizio Moreno

Dear high judges and Jason from accounting, I present you the case of "the Jawa Incident" Some years ago, we began playing Star Wars ttrpg with some friends; we were all new, but I became the GM because it was my idea to play. In our first session, the wookie ranger found a couple of jawas in the backroom of her store, and here is when things started to go south. Because of some anxiety, the tense moment and some wild Wild Rolls (nat1 and nat2 intimidation and nat19 and nat20 on attacks), all the jawas died in two rounds and here I panicked. This wasn't a fight encounter; they were the ones to give them their first mission, and I didn't know what to do, so when the half-human soldier got a Nat20 investigation (WILDS ROLLS), I told them everything. The jawas were a married couple that escaped an illegal slave ring, leaving their kids behind, and were looking for some people to help them. In the end, the players saved the slaves and destroyed the bad guys, but the party was traumatized, especially the ranger and to this day, the "jawa incident" is part of an obscure part of our real lives. So I ask: Could I've done something different? Or was I correct in respecting the rolls?

Gunnar Bach

To the ever omniscient supreme crit justices, and the little guy they keep around (Jak?). I bring to you the case of the forgotten damage modifiers. One of the last campaigns me and my friends ran together involved a group of us traveling through a gigantic forest by wagon and defeating monsters and encounters on the way there classic stuff. What I write to you today happened about 3 sessions into our campaign (of not new players whatsoever) where our Ursine barbarian finished a fight with a large damage roll around level 3-4. Our DM kind of looked at the barbarian sideways for a second and asked to see his character sheet (online). He looks at it and asked why the Ursine rolled double damage dice if he didn’t crit and asks if he took a feat for that. Ursine looks confused and says I rolled normal damage. DM insists he got confused and the Ursine says I’ve rolled like this the past 3 sessions? DM is instantly annoyed at this point and says that is incorrect and makes a snide comment about how it makes sense the combat was so easy for us up to this point. This launches a snark off between the two in which the Ursine says that the DM doesn’t have a right to be all snippy since he should have realized that he was doing it wrong. DM says that he shouldn’t have to track every dice he rolls and trusts us to at least know our damage dice or to ask when confused. The Ursine is steamed and instantly goes basically silent the rest of the session. The next two sessions they call off and for the 3rd we decide to cancel the campaign since it got so awkward after that moment. We haven’t played together since it’s been about 2 years. So I ask the humble judges and Bailiff was the dm wrong to snark the player for an easy mistake or was it the players fault for lashing out after a simple error and blaming the DM. I await your humble judgement and will deliver it swiftly to the party you decide.

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?

electric gnu

To the highly embossed justices and the jowly bailiff Lake, I bring the case of the Campaign Criticism. I am finishing up a game with my friends and I have heard those words that every DM longs to hear: a player is excited to run their own campaign. A Western-inspired heist-themed campaign, sounds great! I only have one problem with it: that it takes place in the world of Dimension 20’s Fantasy High. Not a world inspired by FH, the literal world of Spyre 20 years after the end of fantasy high. This bumps me in a couple ways, one that I don’t like it as a writing choice (why not just come up with an “inspired by” original world?) and second that I, like the esteemed Justice Murphy, hate references. The player loves reference humor to the point where his Way of the Ascendant Dragon monk worships the Blue-Eyes White Dragon in our current game. Also, the setting is in another part of the world far away from Elmville which to me means the DM has done the hard part of writing the campaign but not the easy part of coming up with a fantasy-sounding name for the area, rather choosing to make it a reference. Does he not have faith in his own ability? Should I bring up my issues with this prospective DM like a pretentious critic or should I let the cheap Mick Foley-style pops just wash over me? Or should I take the secret third option and name my character Rizeroth Faegak and lean in to it? P.S. I am the only other member of our play group that has seen Fantasy High, if becomes relevant

lawless-crows

To the stunning judges and that one guy who was a special guest star on 8-bit book club, i present to you a three-way case. I play a pirate barbarian in a campaign dm’d by my long term partner and some friends from high school. we arrived at a haunted circus and my barbarian immediately failed the intelligence saving throw to not be charmed. i then spent 45 minutes sitting around doing nothing while the rest of the party tried to solve the case. when the time for the fight came around, my dm generously offered for me to run the mob’s turn so i could be involved. he had previously mentioned that there were 400 people and 1 ELEPHANT who were charmed, so i said we were going to make a human pile to catch the PC succubus character who was flying 90 feet above the fight. my dm argued that i could only get up to 60 ft with the mob, i argued i should make it to 90, and the other two PCs argued that i shouldn’t be able to make a human pile at all. i took the dm’s ruling for 60 ft, but i humbly lay myself at your feet — shouldn’t i have been able to reach 90 ft with 400 people and an ELEPHANT making the pile? i await your righteous ruling.

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 (which 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.

Crash Griffin

To the honorable judges and the (little l) lowly bailiff Jamiroquai, I bring to you the case of the Butthurt Invisible Autognome. To preface: I am in a game group that plays board games weekly, but in one of our d&d campaigns time between sessions is very long. I created an Autognome hedge wizard and instantly fell in love with my character and all the shenanigans he could get up to. Toward the beginning of this campaign we met a giant in a floating tower that was then besieged by a dragon. During battle on my turn I cast the Rope Trick spell to try and give myself and my party members a safe place to hide from battle…except I was the only one that ended up in the extra-dimensional space. The tower ended up plummeting to the ground below and everyone else was graciously knocked out instead of dying. I assume the DM intended for the entire party to end up knocked out, but there my character was…fully conscious. Instead of rousing my party members, I decided that my character was more interested in learning a bunch of spells from tomes littered among the wreckage. The DM then described how my character heard many footsteps approaching the area, so I cast invisibility on myself…naturally. The footsteps were from a group of soldiers sent to retrieve my party and throw us in the dungeon of a nearby prison. The session ended with this idea, and I had a brilliant idea that my character could break them out of prison at the start of the next session, because I was invisible and therefore safe. The next session started in medias res and everyone was locked up in prison without their belongings…including my character. After much protesting on my part, the DM said that my character had all of his belongings but he was still locked up with the other party members. I played through the session grumbling the whole time, but I was amenable and didn’t throw a *huge* fit. Now, was I just being too salty to a newish DM that didn’t have a plan for anyone to be left out of the prison, or am I justified in my butthurtedness and the thought that my character was robbed of this big heroic moment? I graciously await your judgment, Crash AKA R.O.L.F. The Autognome

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

Cameron LaMack

For what it's worth, that sounds like an absolutely awful experience, but an EVEN WORSE first DnD experience. Absolutely no empathy from all 3 folks, plus perfect storm of combative/prescriptive DM + anti-social edgelord + anti-social joke character. I hope you find a group to try again. You are absolutely cut out for DnD, it's a game for everyone.

Dean Rick Sassafrassley Winchester

To the honorable justices of the court and that one guy I bring the case of the murder hobo in denial My husband the love of my life is a murder hobo. He insists that if he only steals things that really he is a theiving hobo and I feel he is missing the point. I want to play dnd with him but when we are with family or friends I am so stressed everyone is going to hate us because of his shenanigans. He does not comprehend my concern. Should I accept that we are better off playing separately or should I take this as an opportunity to be less of a people pleaser. I await your judgement

RobotMeteorite

To the high clerics of dice christ, I come to you with a confession: My friends and I all have wildly different schedules and have all recently moved to separate states. As such, we have the plight of many working adults in that we very rarely are able to schedule sessions to play. During one such rare time we could sit down to a session I bore witness to a sin of the highest order; I watched my friend gently place a die in his rolling tray, 20-side up. When it came around to his turn he rolled as normal then pointed at his planted die instead and proudly proclaimed, "Nat 20!" I didn't want to hang a dark cloud over the session so I kept quiet and celebrated with the group. This is not a joke, I have not rolled a single natural 20 since that session (4-5 one-shots of play since then). Holy emissaries, this has been weighing so heavily on my mind for months, what can I do to repent for my silence and bring back the light of dice christ into my life?

Dave 3D Art

To the honourable vigilante justices of the court, and Jake the bailiff wonder. I present the case of the missing elephants. My DM let me purchase three war elephants at a great price in our current settlement building campaign. Elephants are functional for beasts of burden, and defense. I paid the gold. But every time I bring uo my elephants, the DM ignores me and changes the subject. I'm just a humble minister of agriculture, and these elephant are my means on conveyance. Am I being robbed of my elephants? Yes, I am. Punish them.

DMAN

In honor of the recent Mother's Day, and in observation of the upcoming Father's Day, I have a case regarding generational trauma as expressed through tabeltop, or, "What the actual Hell is wrong with my mother?" I have been running D&D for a long time, across many different editions and across all of the pivotal years in my childhood. When I was 5 my mother had me watch her play with her friends, when I was 10 she invited me to play alongside them, and when I was 13 I ran my first-ever campaign with my mom, her friend, and my friend down the street; I never looked back from that point In total this is 25+ years of experience, and I have it all to thank to my incredible mother, who regularly went to Dragoncon and got AD&D beta rules, has all the swag from the 80's, and altogether curated my journey. Which brings me back to my initial question, but first, the actual story: Myself and my younger brother (then 19) and his partner were visiting my mother for the holidays, and my brother, my mother, and his partner all expressed interest in a small oneshot using 5e (a system my mother despises, but agrees is more accessible to new players like my brother). She approached me with this idea, and once the other two were on board it became set in stone. I told my mother to make a level 1 character that was good-aligned, and I would make characters for the other two players as they had never tabletopped before. This plan is set weeks ahead, but every time I asked her about her (completed) character, she just said "you'll see". Day-of arrives, and I find out that her level 1 good aligned character is ACTUALLY a level 3 Neutral evil Warlock/Rogue/Fighter with both the optional human variance, AND the normal rule version. Justices, when I told her that the session I had written couldn't survive that character, she took her character sheet and lit it on fire in front of me, my brother, and his partner. We were shocked, to say the least, but since I had a spare level 1 that I had made, I just handed my mother a lawful good light cleric dwarf and we started. She spent the entire session absolutely trolling both of her children, complaining about being forced into being lawful good, and actively chose to fight against the party in the final fight against the hyper-intelligent harpies that had been terrorizing the town. It was a difficult session to DM for, because one the one hand she IS a very good roleplayer, but on the other hand I was also trying to stop her from ruining the first-time experience of the other two players. At the very end of it, against all odds, the two new players triumphed and had a great time. After the session I pulled my mom to privately ask her what that was all about, and, guys I wish I was making this up, she put her hand on my shoulder and said "You're ready now". This was 3 years ago and I can't forget it. Every time I try and bring it up to her she handwaves it away with the reasoning that "Everyone at the table had fun, so it doesn't matter", and basically insists that the DM has no place trying to decide what "type" of fun an individual player has, and that "since I didn't kick her out at the start, I was obligated to make sure she was having fun as well". My younger brother has said that if he has children, he intends to do the same thing to them that my mother did to me, and just absolutely troll. Justices, all of this to ask: I may not agree with her methods, but does she have a point? By choosing to not boot my own mother from the game, was I signing the death warrant for the idyllic introduction to D&D that I was planning for my brother? Is it more important that all of the indivudal players have fun, than the DM having more "control"? Normally I would say yes, but being on the receiving end made me better understand hardass DMs now. Thank you for your time and consideration, and please hug that cute dog that you brought on stage in Orlando last year, we loved that dog Edit: Is it possible that they all planned this together? They all deny it, but I can't help but wonder.

Fredrik V

Honorable Judges, and baller Jake. I bring to you the case of the Water Walking Ripcord. Im the DM in a campaign that brought my players to the bottom of a deep lake, fighting a cadre of Sauhagin guarding an artifact, and to offset the issues with being underwater they had obtained an item called the Bubble Stone, which I described as a 10ft radius Sphere that keeps all gases and liquids inside it at time of activation, and repelling all outside gases and liquid, creating a bubble for underwater adventuring. They had activated at surface level, bringing with them to the depths a splashy amount of water for their boat, but enough air to breathe. While fighting the sea creatures, they needed to flee and the Druid in the party cast Water Walking, which let's you rise up to the surface of a body of water if you are underwater when casting it. I panicked when I realised that this should probably not have worked for those inside the Bubble, as there was another surface of water inside that Bubble, and I handwaved the logic, letting the Bubble of safe air shoot up with them like a bullet of compressed air. Should I have forced them to abandon their bubble on the bottom of the ocean, or made it harder for them to escape, I kindly await your judgement. Especially Jake, I like you the best

Will H

To the honorable judges and balif Joke, I present a simple case. One of my players in an online D&D game wanted to use shield of faith by holding their action and waiting for an attack to be triggered. I said that this was sort of what the Shield spell is for but for reactions. I made the ruling that I wouldn't allow it, but now, weeks later I disagree with my ruling. Can you settle my internal backflip?

Reese

May it please the all-mighty justices and may it bequeath upon the bailiff a sense of dread. I present the case of DM vs. Easily salted player. I DM for a group of 3 players (two of my friends and a friend of one of them) and they’re currently at level 5. One plays a fighter, one a Barbarian, and one a Cleric. My Fighter and Barbarian just got their second attack which has made combat much more fun and interesting. But my Cleric (the friend of a friend) is salty that all they got for level 5 was the class feature destroy undead. He also wanted to get a second attack, and said if his character can’t get a second attack then why play… I even offered to let him have a second attack as a feat at level 8. He protested again saying “I don’t intend on waiting that long for a simple fix” Judges… should I just give the sad sap an extra attack and be punished for my lack of generosity or should I just let him kick rocks. I humbly await your judgement, and may Bahamut keep you and the babayaga… wait wrong show..

Clever Innuendo

Dice Christ Confessional: To the Dice Elders and the Acolyte that always wakes up with a Solid 9, may I present a confession that comes deep in a vital campaign fight: We were up against a dragon we *needed* to take down right here as part of a greater battle.  We were well spaced out to avoid breath attacks, and strategy seemed to be going well.  However, once we started to get it to death's door, the Dragon unleashed an Wing Attack on the fighter to knock prone as a Legendary action, and then had it's turn next, choosing to dash-fly away, leaving it 200 feet away from us total. It seemed we had no attacks that could in that range without dashing. A hush fell over the group as the Fighter was lamenting she and had been so close to taking it down head on. Fortunately, it wasn't her turn; it was mine, and I saw an opportunity only my character could do! I was playing a Trickster Cleric / Rogue Mastermind multiclass, so first I bonus-action dashed 60 feet to put a hand on the Fighter.  Then, with a Jens Lyndelle-worthy flourish, Dimension Door'd both of us onto the back of the escaping Dragon!  I immediately got yeeted off by the Dragon's Legendary Action to a significant but non-lethal amount of damage, but the Fighter stood strong, got their turn, and Action-surged the Dragon into the dirt!  The time I had invested into my Multi paid off in a huge way, and I can still hear the roars of the table.  ...But here's the confession: Forgive me, Dice Elders, but I was *65* feet away from the Fighter.  I had enough turns to sit there, plot out this epic plan, and realize I couldn't.  Never the less, when it was my turn, I went with it anyway, sliding my mini across the board to the target.  Normally our DM watches move distance with care and/or scorn, but I think the fact I only needed to move in a straight line concealed the slight of hand on my part.  No one else at the table was any the wiser. To this day, I have to admit... I'm glad I did it.  However, I acknowledge that memory comes with an asterisk, and that it looms in my brain enough that I think about it every time a Dice Christ comes up, so I figured it was time to atone.  I humbly await your whomping. 

Saleana Judd

May it please the Illustrious justices and merely lustrous bailiff Jake, the Case of the Knife-Wielding Problem Player: My group of nearly eight/nine 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 story beats from other players too, leaving them feeling like their stories are cheapened. 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 and worrisome. 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.

itsellie

You're being robbed

Magerdamage

To the honorable and not at all impotent justices and the undeserving of adjectives even negative ones bailiff Flake. I submit to you the case of no session zero. In our current campaign we started without a session zero. This was because our DM was 'tired of doing session zeros and the campaign fizzling'. However without the session 0 we're continuing to find issues with how our DM wants to run the game that were not ever communicates to us. I'll also say that others have gently volunteered to DM but the DM declared that they really only want to play if they DM. Some of the issues we've had are as follows. We don't do death saves. We just flip a single coin after a round of combat's worth of time has passed. This was announced to us the first time one of us went down. Not before. We argued. The player flipped and survived.  We've all specialized in crowd control and defensive skills and spells and treat every encounter very defensively much to the irritation of our DM. This coin flip does not apply to NPCs. If they go down they're dead forever. Our DM decided to tell us as we reached level 4 that feats had to make narrative sense for our characters and would be awarded when they felt satisfied this was the case. When one player tried to take the ability score improvement then because it could push their main stat to twenty. It was ruled that having a 20 stat at such a low level didn't seem right. They were told that they could take a single point and maybe get a feat after a few sessions. Our wizard is playing a divination and wanted the lucky feat for of obvious reasons. They were told they'd have to be lucky in the game to earn this narratively. Well two sessions later we come across a shrine to the goddess of luck. Honorable Justices the wizard rolled two nat fucking 20s for their portents. They offered up the lucky portent rolls to the goddess of luck. They were met with 'a warm glow of approval'. That's it. We're level 6 now. No feats for any of us. We can't multi-class without explaining how we are learning the other class in game and it has to be described in detail for how our characters are spending their downtime. Wizards can only learn spells from scrolls if they have the number of those scrolls equal to the spell level. Attuning magical items requires visiting a high level enchantment wizard NPC. If a skill check is to happen only one of the group is allowed to do it. We can't all roll perception or investigation. So if the druid rolls a bad attempt at looking for clues our ranger doesn't get to take a stab at it. Lighting magic affects anything or anyone in water nearby the target and fire magic sets things on fire nearby regardless of what the spell description says. Any spell or ability that has multiple possibilities for what happens is left to be rolled on a table. Find familiar, find steed, chromatic orb, etc. While using invisibility we have to make stealth checks for making sound. Every DM roll happens being a screen without preamble or explanation. Seemingly to curtail any ability we have to modify an NPCs rolls. Our wizard is contemplating trying to get killed on purpose to come back as something else. We're very close personal friends as a group for the most part and I just don't know if we're being wronged here or if I'm just being whiny. It seems like the other players (the DMs partner, the DMs childhood friend, the DMs cousin, and the DMs college roommate) don't mind any of this. I humbly await your judgement. May Dice Christ look upon you all with 'a warm glow of approval'

ChromaticMars

May it tickle the radiant, magnificent, and omnipresent? Judges and the lowly lowly lowly lowly sad wilted side salad of a bailiff, Jarkson. I present to you “Justice for Papa.” I am 1 of 6 party members in an online Dnd game, I joined an already existing random group on discord and thought it would be fun to meet new friends online. Boy o Boy, am I having 2nd thoughts. So my DM has a habit of splitting up the party leading to one of us being left out for entire sessions, sometimes even 2 sessions. Ive been playing with them for 6 months and it’s happened around 5-6 times to myself and maybe once for a couple other people. He always says that “he will get to my scenes soon” but end up getting enraptured in the other party members combat/scenes and we have to wrap up the session before even getting to me. Meaning I spend 5+ hours in a discord call, saying absolutely nothing. I am still expected to join the online session and am “checked up on” from time to time, but never really given my scenes. So the problem began when a grueling combat with all party members except me that lasted the last 4 hours of the entire 5 hour session. My character was put into a magical coma, so I figured I wouldn’t be role playing any time soon. While the rest of the party was playing, I decided I wanted to play my favorite internet computer game, Papas Freezeria, one of many in the Papas games. I was having a grand ol time making those tasty treats, until my DM checked up on me but once I told him that “I don’t mind, I’m keeping myself occupied with a game” He got really weird towards me and didn’t check in the rest of the session. His mood noticeably shifted to annoyed and they finished their combat, as expected I didn’t get my chance for a scene before the session ended. After the session the DM messaged me privately and told me I was being rude and disrespectful for not paying attention. I told him I always take notes during other peoples roleplay scenes but not during combat, especially when I’m not involved. I also mentioned that I wasn’t playing anything that took too much of my attention and I still heard everything that was happening it was just Papas Freezeria. He then said “That’s stupid and that if im not interested in actually playing Dnd that I shouldnt be in the party anymore”, i got kinda heated and told him that I can’t play Dnd if my character is constantly left out. The conversation back and forth was unproductive, I did use the fact that it wasn’t like I was playing a game like Baldurs gate, it was just Papas Freezeria. So I ask of thee, am I in the wrong for seeking some sort of entertainment through the wholesome game of Papas Freezeria while practically being in a time out or should I have payed attention to the hours of combat I’m not included in? Also should I probably take the hint that no one likes me and just leave the group? I await your wise wisdom.

Bgn87

To the Sexy Justices and the Bouncer Bailiff Jack, I bring you the case of the coward dragon. I play in a group of four people all together and we were on a quest to "handle" a Young Topaz Dragon that was acting a menace to a far off town. We made our way by sea and by land and once we made it to his lair we faced him honorable combat. HOWEVER, once the dragon reached near death after my barbarian layed into him, the DM narrated as the dragon took a dash action and flew away! I protested and mentioned I should get an opportunity attack as the dragon did not disengage! The DM replied to me saying, "He can disengage as a bonus action, I said so." Our DM is not one to homebrew monsters and with the way this situation was handled, it seemed to me our DM was more interested in having a recurring dragon antagonist than following the rules, and made up on the spot the fact that this dragon can disengage as a bonus action. Now I ask YOU the Supreme Crit, is it right to spit in the face of RAW in favor of a recurring villain? Or should I be cast into Avernus for being mad at my DM's hodge podge hombebrewing?

Jonah Wilkinson

To the supreme crit justices and the dutiful yet underwhelming bailiff Jake, I bring to you the case of the curious tween: I run a D&D club for a group of 5th graders (and one awesome 2nd grader) at the school where I am an anchor sub. I have been leading the group through wild beyond the witchlight and they have been enjoying it a bunch, particularly interactions with the NPCs. This is where the problem comes in. A boy at my table is playing a parakeet aaracockra barbarian named Wobbles who has taken to the satyr NPC Vansil. Wobbles insists on trying to date Vancil because he’s always wanted to date a boy. While I have no problem with people using D&D to learn more about themselves, I don’t necessarily want to play my 5th grade students boyfriend (for what I hope are obvious reasons). Wobbles brings him up multiple times every session and is set on finding him. So I ask you, with one session left, should Vancil continue to evade Wobbles advances, or should I allow my player to finally get the boyfriend he’s been longing for? I humbly await your decision. Calloo Callay, Jonah

Keanu DRAMAFACE

Dear council of Jorts and the mildly acclaimed bailiff Joaquin Phoenix’s the joker, I bring to you the case of The Call Out. I have been a forever DM for quite some time. I inherently know quite a bit of monsters by heart. I’m an artificer in another game, and I suggested to the DM they should use some more esoteric monsters since I know many of the classics by heart and didn’t want to accidentally meta game. Fast forward several sessions and we are fighting an adult dragon. I don’t think you need years of DM knowledge to know not to group up when fighting a dragon. My DM called out my strategy and said I was meta gaming. I know you’re on my side at this point, but what happened next might tilt the scales. I told the DM that only a moron doesn’t know how to fight a dragon. This turned into a lowkey argument through gritted teeth. We fought the dragon and the session ended. I found out later they continued without me. THOUGHTS?

Devon Grimes

To the honorable judges but especially to those who prefer forks and the bailiff Jaeke. I present the case of The Talentless scum Dm vs the uncultured players I am a new dm and started so some of my friends and my fiancé could start playing. It has been going really well except I think that just combat after combat has been getting stale. So I set out to add some puzzles and such, however I am talentless and so I have shamelessly stolen puzzles from Justice Murphy since my players don't listen to Naddpod even though I have recommended constantly (hence them being uncultured) So I ask the court should I be punished for stealing Murphs beautiful work or should my played be punished for not taking good recommendations. I humbly await and accept any punishment

Ross French

To the most esteemed, magical, beautiful bailiff, and the other guys, I bring forward the case of the 65 foot player. A few years ago, I played in a game where we used a battle map. A fellow, experienced PC told us that the majority of ranged attacks and magical effects that enemies use have a 60 feet range. So he created a tactic which still grates me to this day. He was an archer, the rest of us were melee, so in combat he would always stand 65 feet away from the fray. On his turn he would walk forward 5 feet so that he wasn't imposed with disadvantage for being out of range, take a shot, then walk back 5 feet so he couldn't be effectively targeted. I always found this to be so immersion breaking. How would even the most skilled ranger be able to measure 60 feet so accurately as well? Would you allow these kind of weird shenanigans in your games? How would you effectively punish a player who does this? Or maybe I'm in the wrong, and I should be punished for thinking this wasn't an okay thing to do. I look forward to hearing your judgement.

Laura !

To the illustrious judges and whoever else it concerns, what I have today is not a case or a confession, but perhaps some legal counsel. In previous cases, the point at which a spell is cast has come under fire (rope trick cast on a box, banishment cast on the deck of a ship, etc). Without getting into the rotation of the earth, I believe I have a simple fix. I come from a theatre background, and generally the way we differentiate a prop from a set piece is how you interact with it. If it is stationary and an actor sits, stands, or perches on it, it is a set piece. If they hold, use, or carry it, it is a prop. Ergo, my proposal is that a spell can be cast on a "set piece" but not a "prop". If it is cast on a prop and that prop is moved, the spell does not follow it, but remains on the closest logical "set piece" (ie if a spell is cast on a box, and the box is moved, the spell remains put, and the point of casting is now the floor underneath where the box was). This is of course subject to case by case deliberations, but listening to these cases always baffled me, because I have been ruling spells this way unconsciously the entire time I’ve played. Take the counsel or leave it! No sweat if it doesn’t tickle your litigious fancy. :-)

Anna S

To the most esteemed worm-wife/justice Axford, honorable justices Murphy and Tanner, and Bailey Jim, I present the case of The Uncommunicative DM v. The Players Who Cannot Read Minds. I play solely online with groups found through Discord. This has worked out great for me most of the time, however I recently left a campaign after only one session. Normally I don’t think twice about leaving situations that I’m not vibing with but for some reason I keep thinking about this one. The campaign was horror themed. During character creation we were told that humans are the most prevalent in this city and while we could play other races, it might negatively impact our interactions with NPCs. The first session was a combo of a session zero and a session one, starting with rules, expectations, etc, and then moving into roleplay, where we were told to roll initiative for intros. I waited for a pause in conversation and then said my initiative out loud. The DM immediately snapped at me that her “biggest pet peeve” was when people “shouted” their rolls at her and to wait for her to ask for it, despite this not having been mentioned in the rules and expectations at all. That’s fine. We moved on. Eventually the party went down into a sewer where it was pitch black. The DM asked if anyone had darkvision. Only one of our four party members had it (the two human PCs and my Kenku did not) and the DM laughed at us and said “This is a horror campaign, why did you build characters without darkvision?”. We asked to light a torch and the DM told us we could do that but it would make our location immediately obvious to anyone else in the sewers. What followed was a 30ish minute exploration phase in which only one of our party could see anything and had to explain everything he saw to the rest of us out loud. Justices, was I right to be frustrated with this lack of clear communication, or was I being too sensitive? PS. The following two sessions were canceled by the DM with zero notice. After the cancellations I sent a message to the DM respectfully stating that my communication style didn’t vibe with the group’s and that I would not be continuing. I still have not received a response.

Thortron

To the [today’s #1 Justice title] & the [today’s #1 bailiff bless/diss], I come to you with a case of potential Precrime! Current 5e campaign I DM has gone on for ~3 years & we’re in the final stretch. We’re normally weekly, but due to IRL stuff it’s been monthly-bimonthly for a few months now. Using a NYE 3000 rager they organized as cover, my party has launched an assault on the evil crime syndicate that’s plagued them all campaign. Right now they’re poised to disable the generator, and potentially shut down their whole operation. Except that that is where the Precrime may have been committed. See, none of the party knows that once the generator goes out all manner of arcane runic traps (ya glyphs of warding, ya guards & wards) will activate turning the area into a kill box as part of the crime boss’ plan to capture a half-dragon party member for plot reasons. They’ve identified some inert runes, and know *something* is off, but with all the time off I fear they’ve forgotten key callouts that were made before. Last session I heard them reading out notes trying to remember what one *massive* hint to this all being a big ol’ trap was, and they ultimately just shrugged it off. I’ve somewhat subtly tried to get them to think on it more by referring to the notes later & mentioning a “strange similarity” to what they wrote down; however, I can’t tell if I’m just being too subtle or not 🥸 [Previous honorific for Justices & bless/diss for bailiff], I beg for your completely fair, impartial, never once bit-based judgement in this matter. Am I a filthy Precrimer that deserves the punishment of the milk bathing oracles, or is a trap months in the making allowed to work when the PCs forget some vital info & aren’t reminded when you prod them? P.S. the trap won’t kill them (despite being a kill box), it’s sorta a “Calder in the helmet” plot device that moves us to the finale if they fall for it. P.P.S. Part of the dilemma comes from the trap being so well hidden by 5 hidden nat 20s by the BBEG orchestrating it when the PCs tried to pry. Is this not further proof Dice Christ wants the kill box?

Elana

Elana, she/they. Hello glorious judges/priests of dice christ and the other one there with a microphone. I bring you an update with the "betrayal twist" case. I do not play with her anymore although I do occasionally talk d&d with her and bounce ideas around but we agreed we're not good to play together, in the past when she was a player in my campaigns she's committed many tabletop sins such as refusing to engage in the game during combat, murderhobo behavior, and extreme main character syndrome by not paying attention or playing the game if what's going on doesn't have anything to do with her character or someone from her backstory. One campaign I had the party working on a mystery arc trying to solve who released a monster in a school. During this mystery mission, there was a long stretch of down time that went for a few months and I asked the players what they were more interested in doing during the time jump. Everyone else said they were investigating or working on their social connections but this girl decided that her bard would "fuck off and leave the party alone" and that she wasn't interested in hanging around the others....needless to say that campaign fell through shortly after the first arc was concluded with her having contributed nothing to solving the mystery.

Ben Kullerd

To the Justices who are keeping it tight and the Bailiff who's probably trying his best, I present the case of the Feather Fall Fiasco. I DM a homebrew campaign, and in a recent session, the party was set to jump from an airship into a demon-infested village where they hoped to rescue some allies. My DMPC bard thoroughly buffed the party and cast Feather Fall on them as they leapt off the ship. To keep the encounter interesting, I narrated several demons taking flight to approach the party from below and threw a complication at my players: falling at a magically reduced rate meant that they couldn't move laterally unless they got creative with their spells or abilities, teamed up to push each other in a certain direction, or succeeded on Athletics or Acrobatics checks to perform a controlled freefall. To my surprise, my usually agreeable players HATED this mechanic and spent the entire encounter waiting for enemies to get within range of their attacks and spells. Even after they whomped my monsters, they still gave me shit about not being able to move and were disengaged for the rest of the session. Was the gravity of my encounter really that severe, or were my players being a bunch of featherweight wimps?

Cavan Edwards

Behold I am the herald of gruumsh, great uniter of orcs and men. The court will bow before me. Shout-out to the bailiff. I have a simple question: should my DM allow me to crush up and snort soul coins? I obtained a large quantity of soul coins after winning a bet with a demon in the nine hells. During a dangerous escape, I attempted to crush up a soul coin and snort it for a speed burst powered by concentrated human souls, something the DM had previously allowed me to do for NPCs with only a few of them burning up in hellfire. He allowed me to use the coin but subsequently made me without a wink or warning roll on the madness table and left me, a spell casting cleric unable to speak for 24 hours in a dangerous dungeon. Was my DM reasonable to punish me so excessively or should I be allowed to crush up and rail soul coins for a small bonus once in awhile without suffering major consequences? I await the Court's decision.

Celeste H

To the brilliantly radiant judges and the okay guy Joe, I present the case of the cursed mess of goblin nest quests I’ve been playing with a new D&D group for a few months, we met online. We’re all fairly new players, the DM included, but we really get along well. I play a dwarven cleric that was sent for by a small temple in need of a healer because of a strange curse that afflicted a small boy. This premise is how our party met up. However, after locating the source of the curse via destroying a cursed crystal and killing a nest of cursed goblins, we found out that the boy we intended to save was already dead and the temple tried to hide it out of shame. The DM has hinted that there was some element of the curse that we hadn’t figured out in time, however, we ran several investigation checks, inspected all parts of the cave, and even ended up being arrested because of how much time we spent with suspicious objects while trying to find more information. We had several good rolls, including checks from our artificer, who only learned that we could remove the magic from the crystal after several arcana checks. I can forgive all of that, if not for the fact that we haven’t gotten a single hint about the curse since. This is relevant to me because my character really has no reason to be in the party apart from investigating this curse. We’ve been leveling up and going for bulletin board quests for cash, because we otherwise can’t afford our stay at the inn of this town. The only lead we’ve gotten four levels and several goblin nest quests later is that there are scholars in another town that may know more, but we currently can’t afford to go because the other town is a ship ride away. I don’t know what to do with my character at this point. Even the other players are starting to get tired of the goblin nest quests. Is there anything I can do to hint at the DM to give us a little more of a plot to follow? Or should I just quietly go along for the ride and hope we slay enough goblins to find a clue?

JayTDK

To the esteemed Crit Justices and Amir’s friend, may it please the crit, I bring you the case of the newbie DM. About a year ago I started running my first campaign with 3 of my friends. I have played the game only once before but I’ve listened to many D&D shows so I thought “I’ve got this”. During our first combat our level 1 Goliath Barbarian stated that he delt my little weenie enemy 27 points of damage. I’ve heard of PC’s delivering wild amounts of damage so I let it go. After this however it seemed that all of my PC’s were whomping my enemies and they easily won the encounter. After the session I asked how everyone was calculating damage after and learned that my Goliath and everyone after him was using the “hit dice” block to calculate how much damage they did. This started a bit of an argument after I reminded them that hit dice were expended during a short rest to regain health but they thought this was was “more fun” and that since I was the DM, I should’ve caught it earlier and not at the end of the session. Judges I ask you, was it my duty to explain how hit dice works and how damage is calculated to my Goliath who’s played D&D longer than me?

jordy v.

Intro no more 2024 except to three out of the four (hi Murph, Emily, and Caldwell) hear the tale of 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,” and our DM wouldn’t even let us roll to see it. 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, with the same 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.

Graham Hogan

To the honorable judges and the guy who shines their shoes, I bring you the case of the no homebrew dm. At the beginning of our Princes of the Apocalypse campaign the dm instructed all the players we should all bring our A game for character creation as he had wanted to play a higher difficulty campaign. What resulted was our PCs absolutely whomping any challenge we came across. With our dms annoyance mounting, someone in the campaign suggested he change some of the encounters to better fit the ability of the party, he refused citing that he hates homebrew. Everything culminated during a random encounter in which our paladin crit on a divine smite on a bandit leader killing him instantly, causing the dm to pack up 2 hours early and leaving as we beat everything too easily. Was our party too OP or is it the dm’s fault for refusing to change anything about the module? (P.S. after some other incidents, everyone left the campaign and we started our own campaign without the dm)

KSutt711 7

No case here, don't have a case, I just wanted everyone to know that I found a little brewery that has highland cows so you can sip on beer while greeting cows and I found it delightful. Also, sup?

Kerri

To the wise justices and sensible bailiff, jasper. We play a campaign together, we’re all mostly longtime friends and coworkers. Our dm, who recently became our manager at work is great. He does his best but two of his mechanics drive us crazy. He requires a full action to get up from prone, which is an affront to the rules and especially egregious to our monk, that gets an ability to only spend 5 feet of movement to do so. The other thing is, he rolls our death saves behind the screen. so no one knows even the player whose character it is, if they’ve failed. Is there a compromise for these harsh rules? Are we being whiny weenies?or should I just like get a new job or something. We await your wisdom- carebear

Zach Snyder

To the mighty humble justices and the bailiff Jake too. I present the case of Barbarian vs The Failing Nat 20. In a campaign I played in last summer, we were very poorly flying an airship over a sea of spores. A single spore would sprout violently the second it came into contact with water. Unfortunately we bumped our airship into the sea and got a bunch of these spores on our deck. The DM had us roll athletics checks to sweep the spores up quickly to prevent danger. My barbarian rolled a natural 20 for this check. I’m a bit of a Murph roller myself so nat 20s are very rare for me. I was expecting the dm would describe my character heroically removing these spores and looking cool doing it. Instead, I was told that I was working too hard and a drop of sweat fell on a spore. Resulting in a giant vine shooting through my leg and body. This made the situation worse and nearly got me killed. I was a good sport about it at the time but is it fair for a DM to turn a nat 20 into a situation where you do too good and turn it into a failure?

dh

to the omniscient and magnanimous Justices and Mr H, I play in a 5e PvP league as an Artillerist Artificer, one of the other characters is a Pact of the Chain Warlock (with Sorc 1 + Fighter 1 dips). For the most part characters are not allowed to prepare anything before combat starts. However, the head ref has determined that the warlock can ritual cast find familiar before the game starts because it is not reasonable to ritual cast during the game and the pact should allow them to cast find familiar without using a spell slot, but I am not allowed to summon my Eldritch Cannon in the same way because the spell slot free version only takes an action. Am I being unfairly required to spend a precious action to summon my cannon or am I just being a whiny baby? extra info: we play at level 5, four players at a time, and try to play as RAW as possible besides a few homebrew tweaks to accommodate PvP. We also play in a tattoo shop and it's rad as hell. PS: Murph, thanks for the sincere engineer rec

Bakuraptor

To the Juicy Justices and the Burbling Baliff, I bring you the case of the fatigued face. I recently finished DMing my first in-person campaign, which, after various shenanigans, ended up being about my 4 (all first-time) players setting up and running a nightclub for ghosts. As you do. One of the players quickly decided that she really wanted to be the group's "face". Everyone was fine with that - but then the sleepiness started. After about an hour, the "face" would start yawning; twenty minutes later, she'd lie down on the sofa to "rest her eyes"; and then she'd be out of it for the rest of the night. I tried to work around this - for example, by suggesting, to no avail, that we should play at a table - but it was really hard to keep my players engaged when one of them was snoozing half the time. When I eventually asked if she could try to keep awake, she apologised, but said that she was always really tired from work and couldn't help it. The campaign wrapped after a few months. However, when the face asked if I could run another one, I said that I didn't really fancy it: when pushed, I admitted that this was mostly because of the sleep situation. Was I right to put my foot down - or should I have tried to work around my player's tired tendencies? I submit myself to the Court's jurisdiction and await your merciless judgement.

Mark Elton

To the high lord justices and the sweet baby bailiff, I present the case of Sight versus Sound. I play a warforged bard that was previously employed as the entertainment in a family restaurant and thus often goes into battle dressed in an animal mascot costume while casting spells via singing songs and telling jokes. Early on in the campaign, the party ran into a situation where the villain cast darkness to try and escape. While the rest of the party had darkvision, I did not. When it came to my turn, I attempted to cast hideous laughter to immobilize him and prevent him from getting away. However, the DM declared that since I could not see the villain, I could not do so. I countered that since my spells are sound based, the villain only needed to hear me to be affected. He then allowed me to move into the darkness field to try and restrain the villain by hand while the rest of the party was able to cast and attack freely. Fast forward a few months and two party members and I are ambushed and outnumbered by some dark dwarven brutes trying to relieve us of an artifact we’re keeping safe. At the time, I had the artifact safely hidden hanging from a belt around my waist on the inside of the oversized mascot costume. While the monk had been lured away, the Druid had been quickly dropped. I run in to try and distract them from killing the Druid when they demand to know where the artifact was. Realizing I could use this to save the Druid, I cast mirror image on myself to help in avoiding the opportunity attacks that came from running away from those brutes and shouted back “I have it!” After that, one of the dwarves yelled “come back here” and DM asked for a will save. I asked why. The DM said that he was casting Command. I asked the DM if that would work since I was hidden amongst three other identical illusionary duplicates and he wouldn’t know which one was the real me and therefore couldn’t reliably cast at the proper target. He argued that since I only needed to hear the command, it would succeed. I then proceeded to fail my will save and was forced to approach the mob that had beat down my Druid friend in search of the artifact hidden under my suit. We ultimately succeeded in escaping and reclaiming the artifact after the rest of the party arrived, and have had many sessions since, but I still wonder: was I cheated out of my spell in the dark, or should I have been able to evade the command spell during that ambush. I leave the matter in your expert hands. PS - thank y’all for what you do and giving me something to look forward to and get me pumped for work at the end of every week!

Sad Hot Chili Pepper

My dearest Supreme Crit Justices and their little French boy Jacque, AND venerable dice cardinals of Dice Christ, I come to you with a combo case and confession seeking guidance. I play a high level Glamour Bard in a campaign that’s going on 5+ years with longtime friends, and has been mostly virtual for a lot of that due to everyone living in multiple time zones. Back at level 10 I learned Counterspell with my Magical Secrets ability, something I was desperately looking forward to as the only full caster in a party of 6. Per the wording of Counterspell, you make an ability check with just your spell casting modifier if the spell is a higher level than the level you cast Counterspell at to see if you succeed. All Bards also get an ability early on called Jack of All Trades, which states that for any ability check you make that you aren’t proficient in, you can add half your proficiency bonus rounded down. Rules as written point towards being able to combo these abilities, however my DM stated that this combo shouldn’t work bc it “would make Bards too powerful compared to other casters”. I disagreed with him but ultimately conceded to DM discretion… or did I? One of our first arcs after this decision was a dungeon crawl ending with a boss fight against the BBEG of another PC’s backstory. I proceeded to attempt a Counterspell roll in this fight and did not roll high enough to succeed with just my charisma mod alone, but decided that I still truly believe Jack of All Trades should work so I added half my proficiency to the result and succeeded the Counterspell. The roll itself wasn’t super pivotal to the fight but tbh I needed a win with the way the fight was going for my character. Fast forward to later in the campaign in another boss fight during an undead siege of a city we were protecting. The BBEG this time attempted to cast a 9th level Psychic Scream that would surely have killed at least one party member. I announce my intention to Counterspell and roll high on the dice, high enough to succeed with JUST my charisma mod. It was an awesome feeling and a highlight of my character’s campaign. I took the roll as a sign to stick to my DMs ruling (wrong as it may be) and have not added Jack of All Trades to a Counterspell roll since. Dear justices/cardinals of a joint church and state, was I wrong to initially go against my DM’s ruling or was I justified in going with rules as written? Did Dice Christ send me down the righteous path or do I still need to atone for my sins? I eagerly await your ruling.

Dragon

To the greatest Supreme Court Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner as well to The Total Badass Bailiff, Hurwitz! I come to you with a case of Player vs Player from a team of U.S. Army Soldiers deployed in Qatar back in 2022. I believe I did right by my Chaotic Evil, Eldritch Knight Hobgoblin character. His back story is to never cast judgment or disrespect to anyone but those that disrespect him he will never let it go and therefore will take the heads of races he hates and the tongues from those he doesn’t hate. Gunther Ritter was the lonely survivor of his clan in a battle against Elves. He carries with him the banner of his clan at all times attached to the back side of his chain mail armor as memory. While on an adventure, we were in a mystical mansion that had petrified statues that were shrunken to size of wine bottle’s height. We were searching for clues to continue forward to open a magical door and Gunther picks up a statue of an Elf and with disgust throws it onto the floor to shatter it. Seeing an aura floating upwards and through the ceiling, he ascertained that it was a soul departing. Therefore, Gunther started running around destroying every Elven statue in the mansion. My party’s Paladin said to stop it when we were in the library seeing that souls were departing. Gunther ignores his request, so the Human Paladin snatched up two statues and refused to hand the one that was an Elf over to Gunther. Gunther sneaks around the corner climbs up and onto a bookcase to be out sight and shoots an arrow from his crossbow into the statue in the Paladin’s hands destroying it. The Paladin casts Command on Gunther and makes him freeze in place. Then he walks up to him rips off his banner from his backside and told him he was sick of his games and needs to act more professional. Then he crumbles his banner and throws it on the ground and stomps all over it telling Gunther that your clan should be ashamed. That night in the tavern. Gunther goes to bed two hours earlier than the rest of the party. Wakes up two hours earlier and prays to his Gods while heating a magical silver dagger by the hearth fire. Goes up to the Paladin’s room hog ties the Paladin and then pulls out his tongue, which this is when the Paladin finally wakes up and Gunther cuts his tongue out with the hot blade cauterizing it and tells the Paladin, “You’ve disrespected Gunther for the last time and therefore as punishment I take your tongue.” Then he eats the tongue so the Cleric couldn’t cast greater restoration later. Paladin challenge Gunther to a dual or fight to the death after it took him two more hours to get out of the hogtied position. Gunther tried to make the argument he no longer has any grudges against the Paladin and that they shouldn’t fight. Paladin refused and Gunther said he will but he doesn’t want to. Gunther rolled lower on initiative but the Paladin missed every opportunity and on Gunther’s turn, he slain the Paladin in six straight blows. (Action Surge) Gunther walks away and party’s Cleric revivifies the Paladin. Accepting defeat and that Eldritch Knight Fighter must have been right due to the result of the duel, and he decides to parts ways from the party forever. (Player re-rolled a new Character) Was Gunther Ritter in the right to take his battle buddy’s tongue after he conducted the upmost disrespectful thing to him? Or was the Paladin in the right knowing Gunther’s policy on disrespectfulness and his backstory of how much his banner meant to him, but still tries to test the waters by teaching Gunther a lesson that wasn’t needed over little petty petrified statues? I leave the judgement in your hands my Supreme Court Justices and Badass Bailiff Hurwitz! -DragonSoldierGJ

Kyle G

To the glorious judiciary comity and Mr. Hurwitz, I present the case of the accidental ice murders. I was playing a ice sorcerer kobold. Up to this point we have been on very few combats where the party didn't wipe the floor with the enemies. We got kind of a reputation for murder hoboing so I actively started to pair down my spell casting. Then comes the side quest to rescue the local sheriff from a gang of mercenaries. We get to the cabin they are hold up in and knock on the door asking politely to talk things out. We are answered by the door swinging open and a fireball flying at our faces. I manage to counter it and step into the room. I ask what I see and get a 14 on my perception check. The dm describes 5 gang members standing around the sheriff tied to a chair. I cast one of my lowest spells Ice Slick and cause the gang to slip and take a few points of damage. Well it turns out it was actually a gang of preteens one of which who was just able to cast fireball. They had commoner stats so I end up killing 3 of the 5 kids instantly. This put a huge damper on the session, but luckily one of our party members had a wish sword that brought then back to life. I feel going out of my way to not be overly aggressive and a 14 perception check would have let me seen that the "Gang" was a bunch of kids. We eventually parted ways after more more differences in play styles, but was I wronged with the accidental child murder. I think the dm was just angry I counter his surprise spell.

WatchThis

To the honorable court and most noble Bailiff Jake: To be honest, I may or may not have a case. If I do not, please advise on what you would have done differently. I am a first-time DM that has crafted a 12-ish session campaign for my 6 players, all new to DnD as well. Each player picked a favorite hero, fiction or non-fiction, to be isekai'd into this campaign. For example, Obi-Wan was dropped into a half-elf body and is an Oath of Redemption paladin since he was blipped right after his fight with Anakin on Mustafar (Darth Vader being his personal boss for the plot). My qualm comes from an interaction between Geralt of Rivia (eldritch knight) and Teddy Roosevelt (ranger). The party had just commandeered a flying pirate ship when Teddy heard scuffling in a barrel that was lassoed to the side railing. It sounded like a baby moose. Teddy had previously expressed interest in having an animal familiar, so he was excited to hear this moose. However, Geralt was also excited to hear this moose. Both characters moved towards the barrel, and in my judgment to favor Teddy, I decided to have him get to the barrel first and make a strength check to open it. Teddy failed an easy check, Geralt very easily passed the check, and a sabertooth moose excitedly jumped out of the barrel. It felt a bit awkward as it happened quickly, but Geralt was trying to claim an obviously designed familiar for another player. So, I initiated competing animal handling checks to see who the moose would pick. I assumed Teddy would have the better modifier as a ranger who had expressed interest in animals, however, Geralt had a higher modifier and, once again, big dicked Teddy. Geralt bonded with (stole?) this familiar. It ended up being chalked up to friendly antics, however, Geralt has been very disinterested in this moose ever since. This could be from my inability to playfully roleplay the moose familiar well enough, however, I wonder if I just should have been a heavier-handed DM in that scenario. Am I to blame for Teddy's missed familiar or did Dice Christ just speak his will? it has plagued me ever since.

Choc DISCO

To the once decided judges and the baby bailiff Jake Cake, I bring you the case of the triple leveled player. I was spectating a Pathfinder 2e game (don’t ask). They were going through the Beginner Box’s module, playing the pre-made characters with their own twists, when it was revealed that one of the players was playing a third-level version of his character. Apparently, he had misunderstood the email sent to him describing what abilities he would have IF they leveled up, and rather just leveled up instead. The group laughed, and as he hadn’t used any of the second or third level abilities yet, it didn’t seem to cause too many problems, but I still feel that it was unfair, and created a level of distrust among the other players and the GM, as the GM didn’t do anything about it. Am I wrong to think that the encounters were unfair and that the spotlight might’ve been taken from the other players, or was this just a casual session and just a funny mishap? I shall await your judgement. PS: I fully expect Jake or everyone else to carry out the punishment as described

Iain Standing

This is a confession. Illustrious dice Christ, please forgive me. While using roll20 during a massive vampire battle in a manor that required us to destroy the vampire’s resting place. As a goof, I decided to stress test the dice rolling system and rolled 10 trillion dice at once completely crashing my DM’s game with load times extending beyond 10 minutes and causing the system to duplicate character pins over and over again, making the system unusable. I figured out a way to clear the cache and apologized to the DM profusely after we nearly ended. But I feel terrible.

Brian Downey

To the reknown and all might justices and the great Jazoo, assuming Emily can see him. I present the case of Druid vs broken Detect Magic. I play in a Pathfinder 2 Campaign where the setting is a post alpcolyptic world where all natural magic has dried up. All magical items still worked however, and are continuously remade and cobbled together to keep society running. Our party started out gaining magical abilities after finding an ancient supply cache in the mountains, allowing us to level up in hero classes like normal. I played a wild shape druid, and have the detect magic cantrip. When casting detect magic at 3rd level in PF2, you are able to sense the presence of magic and learn the school of magic. My DM said however that since his setting has "Broken magic" that whenever I cast detect magic I only get nonsense information like "you smell a whiff of burning bees" or " the item seems to insult your mother ". Effectively, my cantrip is completely useless! Am I wrong to expect some useful information from my spell, or should I just accept that my DMs messed up world? -Disparaged Druid

Isabella Tyre

A Contentious Case of Carpet Conniptions To the honorable judges and the ever so slightly lower of status bailiff, I present to you the controversial case of the afghan carpet. The case begins in my first ever DnD campaign where I was the DM, and my players were in the FeyWild visiting the “Traveling Tiefling Circus” after they caught wind of a rumor that one of the pc’s missing mom’s could be there. The paladin Alias, who has been playing dnd for 10 years and hosted, left the table a couple times to sit in their room after bad rolls. I felt uncomfortable during this, but the table wanted to continue playing. It all came to a head when the Alias split off from the party with the rogue to search for the mom on their own. They found a tent where they heard the mom talking to the owner of the circus and went in once the tent went silent after a bad player stealth roll. The tent was described as such- “the canvas tent is strangely empty with the exception of two wooden chairs, a small table, an off kilter afghan rug”. Alias demands for a perception roll and rolls a 2. I didn’t tell them more than I already had with 2, and i asked if they would like to interact with anything in the room. My paladin proceeded to tell me that I have to tell him something if I want him to know something, and that their boyfriend doesn’t lock information like this. They locked their bedroom door and the session ended. Justices, I ask: Was I wrong to want my players to interact with the environment or should I have told them to look under the dang carpet?

Duncan Mckeith

To the Honorable and courageous Judges, and that guy (i think his name is joe?), I present the case of the puzzle lord dm. Me and my playgroup have played for about 5 years (finishing a campaign and starting a new one recently) and overall it has been a great time. However things have started to take a dark turn. Our Dm has brought in very challenging and near impossible to solve puzzles which continue to stump all players. A good example of this is the most recent one where our DM has introduced both a sliding block puzzle mixed with shifting and rotating platforms with complex levers. Mind you this is without a clear map... The struggle is only amplified when he introduces combat and tells us this artifact were pushing around gives all people vulnerable within line of sight nearly tpk us. Near the end of the session we were all tired of this puzzle and I along with several others told him how the puzzle and combat felt like a railroad excuse to get beaten up. This made our dm to tell us "if we don't like it that dnd isn't meant for everyone." At this point everyone left and were all feeling a little emotional. Now I raise the question Is it our fault that we don't want to solve complex puzzles while under the fire of enemies or is it the fault of the dm for making this combat extra difficult while solving a extremally difficult puzzle.

Magnus Marklund

To the bold and beautiful supreme judges, and that friggin ding dong Jonk. I ask you, am I trapping my friend in a wierd "uno-reverse" psychotic mind game? Will try to be brief: I am one of three players in a roleplay heavy campaign with a very talented player. She is very good at driving the stories of her characters and keeps coming up with fun ideas and plothooks (with the aid of the DM). Her latest character (a Dhampir) have been possessed by an old villain we defeated a while back, a full on Vampire. Thus making her characters struggle with morality and hunger that much harder. She has pretty much put the responsibility of saving her character from this curse on us, the other two players, while she is struggling with split personality, memory gaps etc. My character have fallen prey to her vampire schemes (warlock, very prone to making "bad deals") and is being manipulated and drained for blood and life on a regular basis. It's toxic, "gaslighty" and problematic.....I friggin love it! I'm a sucker for tragic stories. But here's the dilemma. I have been looking for a way to end my characters story and feel this opportunity is very apt. I want to force her character into a narrative corner where he will have to kill my character. But is this something a campaign can survive? Am I being a true psycho? Would it put a too gloomy and sad of a vibe over the rest of the campaign or her character? Should I put more energy into saving her character instead of looking to escalate the tragedy and drama? I realize now that there are no defendants, or even a case? Just me asking for advice, so I guess if you find me to be trying to escalate the narrative too much, you can sentence me too whatever grim fate you deem necessary. I kindly await your judgement.

Nexacon

May it please the minds of the Avatars of Order that call themselves Judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, as well as the Hand that in-acts that order, Bailiff Hurwitz. I present the case of sunlight vs. the daylight spell. I was a player in a campaign of Curse of Strahd playing as a Druid. When I decided on this character through collaboration with the DM, he warned me that Strahd had control over the weather system of his entire domain. He and I both agreed that, despite this, playing a Druid would still be a good idea regardless. We played a bit of a session, and among other problems we came across at that table, the book called for giving the party a Driftglobe, which can cast daylight once every dawn and the light cantrip whenever the command word is spoken. The DM ruled that, under the obvious understanding of many people under the ever-cloudy landscape of Barovia, sunlight hurts vampires. That being said, he changed the globe so that it could no longer cast the Daylight spell explaining Strahds control over the weather as for its reasoning as a means of not handing us an incredibly powerful item, but something about that seemed strange that the book would give this item if it was so broken. Judges, I will admit that at the time, and even now, my DM and I did not have any grand arguments over this, and I do not wish them ill. However, I do feel vaguely slighted by the now understandable ruling. Further research has told me that the spell Daylight doesn’t say it produces or is sunlight, while other spells, such as Dawn, do give that very specific effect. Should I have been able to cast Daylight either myself or through the magic item, or was my DM correct in its limitation to keep a horror campaign suspenseful? I wish to play again within that setting at some point, so I have not looked at Strahd’s control of the weather, so I humbly await the court’s decision.

Robert Kirkpatrick

To the Clergy of the Dice Christ and their flatulent and delicate altar boy jork, I come seeking forgiveness. I have committed a mortal sin. A year ago, I started playing in a campaign with an old highschool friend and his roommates. The campaign started of fairly fun with all new players. At the same time I started a new job. I suddenly had less and less time and instead of letting my friend and DM know, I ghosted the campaign. I caught up with my friend about a month ago to hear that the campaign was going extremely well and my character had been narratively removed via an abduction by a wizard. I fear that Dice Christ will not allow me to return to a table or run my own campaign, or worst of all, condemn me to be ghosted in the future. I throw myself at the altar and beg for forgiveness.

Dan Esposito

Justices Murphy, Axford, Tanner, and the sublimely mediocre bailiff Horowitz, may it please the court to rule on the case of the disgruntled DM. Many years ago, I began a campaign DM’d by an older friend who was an “old school D&D” guy. He had been in the game since at least 3.5E, but maybe even earlier. The players, including myself were all pretty new to the game, and had only ever played Fifth edition. Our DM, Bryan, had made some comments about how the game had become too easy, or “soft,” but begrudgingly accepted that 5e had brought in the new players so we thought it would be fine. However, once the game began, it became clear that he was working out some frustrations- our characters were Bruvayne, an drunken, ethnocentric, Dwarf monk; Wilbur an overly polite Druid; Jimmy-John a schizophrenic rockabilly bard; and my character Gareth, a ancients paladin youth pastor. We were all up for a pretty goofy, light-hearted adventure. This would not be the case. The campaign started out centered around a mysterious virus that made people transform into feral, skinless, cannibalistic beasts. One of our firsts quests was to save a local mayor and his city from this plague. We uncovered the plot to infect the mayor, identified a traitorous assassin, but ultimately failed because the DM said the mayor had been infected before we ever arrived in the town because we took too long while traveling there. We barely escaped from the town as the mayor and most of the townspeople transformed and massacred the whole place. We continued tracking down leads about the origins of the virus and how to stop it. We also learned that children were being kidnapped from each infected city prior to all hell breaking loose. All of the clues Brian gave us pointed to a desert to the south. We bought travel rations and horses and headed to the desert. At that point two sessions passed of us just aimlessly wandering in the desert, I don’t even think there was any combat, just Brian repeatedly asking “what do you do next?” And us saying “we keep looking for anything interesting” and him saying “you only see sand.” He eventually told us we had acquired multiple levels of exhaustion because our food rations had spoiled and there were no food sources in the desert (even though multiple characters were expert survivalists). Our horses died and we continued on food. Finally he told us we saw a strange looking grove in the distance. We were thrilled, even though any combat would certainly TPK us in our exhausted state. As we approached the grove, he told us that each tree had a kidnapped child entwined in its trunk and seemed to be draining them of blood. Of course we tried to rescue the children. Brian didn’t allow it, saying “the roots have become part of them.” Ultimately dejected and nearly dead from exhaustion, we just had to leave the grove and head back the way we came. Yep, despite extensive exploring Bryan said we found no hidden doors, no antidotes, not even a clue…we left COMPLETELY empty handed. Around this time, Wilbur’s player was moving back to the UK and we had asked Bryan to give him a cool send off in game. In the next session as we were walking back through the desert, heads hung low, Ryan described a giant, scaly arm, grabbed Wilbur the polite Druid by the throat and dragged him under the sand never to be seen again. Despite searching, digging, casting every spell in our arsenal at the ground, he was just gone. This was also near the beginning of the session, so his player just had to hang out and watch after that. I ask the esteemed judges, what did we the players do to deserve this? Should we have adjusted our characters to match the grimdark tone of the world? And most importantly, what the hell were we SUPPOSED to do at that grove? we never played again at that last session, and Bryan never told us. Thank you in advance for your judgment

KSutt711 7

Update: the cows' names are Hamish and Fergus

aMeanSquirrel

To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the bailiff of fluctuating esteem, I present to the court, the case of the purchased party plunder. We were playing Curse of Strahd, I was playing a druid and the accused a rogue. We also had a ranger and a bard in our party. While trying to sneak into a werewolf den to rescue an NPC, our rogue decided to distract the werewolves from his sneaking by throwing a bell to alert them to the rest of the party. Needless to say things didn't go well and I had to sacrifice my druid by transforming into a wolf to lead the pursuing werewolves away from the fleeing NPC and party. Which is why, as my new character, I didn't feel I was able to intervene in the debacle that arose next. Our party had been gifted a powerful sword (before my untimely sacrifice) which the rogue had taken as he was the only character using a short sword. However, our DM was disappointed with the rogue's anti-party actions and decided that the full power of the sword could only be wielded by one displaying a good alignment (less to do with alignment mechanically and more as a prompt to curb his behaviour and get the party working together) Well instead of changing his behavior the rogue decided to sell the sword, which had been gifted to the whole party by a travelling wizard and was crucial to defeating the Dark Lord. Not to an NPC, the town was broke, he sold it to our party, and the ranger actually paid him for it! My new PC, a Barbarian, was not yet part of the party, just another guest at the inn, so I was unable to interact with this party discussion and point out the lunacy of this move. The game came to a premature end a few month later with my DM trying to race to the finale, and to this day I refuse to play with the rogue's player anymore, but I ask you Justices and... Jeff was it? Who was at fault here, the selfish rogue or the ranger that went along with his bs and bought a party item from another member of the party? I await your magnanimous and indisputable ruling

Mike Conroy

To the fit and hearty judges and that other guy, I think he’s friends with Amir? I present the case of the TPD (Total Party Drown) This is a case from a while ago, at the end of my senior year of high school. I had been in a campaign with a couple of friends for about a year, and a few other people we knew were interested in trying out dnd, so we decided to start a another campaign with everyone. Someone else from the original campaign volunteered to DM, because he had been cooking up an idea for a pirate campaign. We were all super excited to be the crew of a pirate ship; I created a Parrot Aarakocra (sorry Murph) that was the navigator of the ship, which during creation quickly became my favorite character that I was hyped to be able to play as. The first session went pretty well, while there was a learning curve for new players there weren’t any issues that came up at the table. The problem came as the school year came to an end. Rather than having anything big for a graduation party I had just a few friends over for a game night: 4 people came, 2 being players from the dnd game and 2 were not involved with the campaign. However, at some point in the night the dm had texted one of the players, and they mentioned they were hanging out with me. The dm said “Oh, I didnt get an invite”, and later that night reached out about scheduling the next session. We played the next weekend, and the session had a weird vibe. The dm kept looking at his notes with what I can only describe as dark eagerness. As the session came to a close, our crew set sail. The dm then described that a different ship came in next to us too fast for us to notice, and shot all of their canons. Before we could try to react and do anything to defend ourselves, the dm said that our ship was destroyed and we all were knocked out under the water as the other ship raced away, and ended the session. I asked “if we’re unconscious and sinking in the ocean, does that mean we’re all dead?” The dm responded with just “maybe, we’ll see” and packed up his things. After some time I reached out to the group to try to schedule another session, but the dm just kept saying “no I can’t” to any proposed day, and wouldn’t say more about when he’d be available. To this day we have not played a third session and I still mourn my Parrot Aaracokra pirate. So, did the dm unfairly kill our party for me not inviting him to a small hangout with friends, or did we deserve this retaliation for such a grievance offence

Nate Earl, Unfunny Oaf

The case of Not another D&D podcast To wise and just Supreme Crit Justices and the vigilant bailiff Jack, During the pandemic my college friends and I started doing a Zoom-based D&D game. This launched a series of campaigns with us currently being on our fourth arc. Because we are online and many of the people involved are parents, we record audio of our sessions so people can keep engaged. Dear judges this is where my problem arose - my friends won’t stop joking about our “D&D podcast”. Any technical issues are met with calls to “stop the podcast”, pre-game banter is referred to as “patreon content”, and we have even riffed full, in-character ads for your typical mattress and meal delivery kits companies. This is all good and well, but it has started to eat into our game time, up to an hour in one case, and is on top of our usual catching up before the game. Your honors should we put a moratorium on the podcast talk or should I just enjoy spending time with my friends?

electric_claire

To the honorable Justices Axwell, Murphy, Tanner and…. This case happened a while ago but it has weighed on my mind ever since. I was in a fairly long-running campaign with friends playing a street thug from Sigil. As a fighter with 8 Int I was the group's muscle, leaving the thinking to other members of the party. While investigating a Wizard's tower my fighter ended up trapped in a room with a life-size game of chess which he had to win to escape. My DM gave me the option to roll an intelligence check or play him in a *real life game of chess*. There was no way I was going to make that roll and I while no GM, I was confident enough in my chess abilities that I knew I could beat him. Justices, we proceeded to play chess for the next 30 minutes while the other players sat around and watched us. It was never close but I wasn't good enough to pull off a quick checkmate and my DM wasn't well-versed enough in chess to resign when he was significantly down material. Should I have just taken the roll and role-played my character's stupidity to avoid putting my friends through the most boring 30 minutes of their life or was I right to take the option with a greater chance of success even if it sucked for everyone else?

Nat

May it please the exalted justices of the court and, um, is there a bailiff? I don't remember if there's a bailiff or not. You should maybe think about hiring a bailiff. I bring to you the case from a few years ago that haunts me to this day. I was DMing for a group of friends, including my very very close friend who I will call Jake. I don't know why I thought of that name, I can't think of anyone in real life named Jake, it just came to me. Things were going really well with the campaign, we were a couple months in, when Jake developed a kind of embarrassing medical condition that he did not want to share with the group, but he shared with me. Jake had to miss several sessions without much notice, and he would always text me to tell me what was going on, but he would always make up some other reason in the group chat. "My landlord is sending someone over to fix the refrigerator, so I can't leave the house," or "I forgot I told my friend I would watch their dog today," or "my cousin came to town for a surprise visit and I need to spend time with them." Just really terrible lies that everyone else in the group obviously got upset with. The rest of us would meet for the session, and everyone would spend the whole time complaining about Jake! He's too disorganized, he's a total flake, he obviously doesn't care about his friends, etc. Only I knew the real reason Jake was missing sessions, but I couldn't tell anyone without betraying his trust. I would try to vaguely defend him like, "oh, maybe he has something else going on that's making things difficult," but then they would get upset with ME for defending him, saying that I should be the most upset of all because as the DM I put a lot of work into planning, and Jake was being disrespectful to me. When Jake did show up, people started acting colder towards him and wouldn't share their notes on what happened last time, making passive aggressive remarks every time he asked a question that he would have known the answer to had he been there. Eventually the campaign ended because of covid, and it became not my problem anymore, but I have to know whether or not I was in the wrong. Judges, please, should I have done something differently? Is there a way I could have both protected my friend's privacy and kept everyone else from getting the wrong impression? Or should he have simply been better at lying?

Annika

To the lavender-scented judges and the pea-scented bailiff Jonk. I bring forth the case of the illiterate pseudodragon. My pact of the chain warlock and party were in a trial that involved stealing an egg guarded by a dragon and her magical wards. For my turn, I had my lovely pseudodragon familiar (who can understand common and draconic) fly to the egg and read the draconic glyphs guarding it, then translate the deets to me via our telepathic bond. My dm (who is also my partner) ruled that my familiar can’t read because “although it understands draconic, it cannot speak”. I lost the argument but have since stayed salty. Judges, am I wrong to be offended on behalf of my son who is a very smart and special boy?! I prostrate myself before your 80 foot tall bench.

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 is going to retcon 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 nat 20s of summoning but horrible endings it has brought.

DK Donkey Kong

I pray to Almighty Dice Christ and his brother-in-temple, Polyhedron Moses, a question of faith and ask the Clergy of the Church to guide me. We have just started a new campaign using the Eve of Ruin module, and I, as the DM, was so excited to begin rolling with my new patented NADDPOD campaign dice. My players, all level 10, came in swinging, and during an encounter with a water elemental and 2 water weirds in a pool, our cleric called lightning. I rolled saves for all three of the elementals at the same time using the campaign dice, and rolled THREE 13s, meaning all 3 failed and took 33 lightning damage. I ask if I have done something to anger all that is good and holy with such luck, or if I should be amazed at the 0.0125% chance of rolling lucky number 13s across the board. I prostrate myselves before you and ask for advice on how to charge my dice to turn those 13s into 20s.

casey eats pizza

May it please the incredible judges and the bailiff who I guess is doing his best. I bring forth the case of the Tabaxi and the tadpole. I DM for a party who were just hired by mindflayer hating dwarves to hunt down the last remaining mindflayer in the city. The party found him mind controlling a druid to resurrect dead mindflayer tadpoles and then teleporting them away to infect more people. After the fight was mostly over, the tabaxi, a hexblade warlock with a pact with a death goddess, then ate one of the tadpoles and then jumped into a portal, he had also just been infected with lycanthropy but we hadn't got to that yet. When asked why he did that his only answer was “Because I’m a cat”. I then ruled that he was out of the battle and then continued the fight. Afterwards he asked me what happened to his character, to which I said that I would need to think about it because I was not sure how to move forward. I asked to roll a new character while we figure it out and the party tries to reach him, but he said no and that I should create another adventure for his tabaxi. I said that I needed time to figure out the ramifications of his actions to which he told me that I should have known that before introducing the mind flayers. He still refuses to make a side character while I try to figure out a tabaxi, werewolf, mindflayer, warlock combo. Judges, am I wrong for being caught off guard or should I have expected these feline antics beforehand?

Bystander Bard

To the Resplendent Justices and the Slightly Grimy Bailiff Jimmy, I bring you the case of the Grumpy Ranger. This group had been playing D&D for several years, and started a new campaign in a classic setting. We were wrapping up the first arc, around level 3 or so, when our ranger asked to take a quick call at the beginning of a session delving into the arc's main dungeon, a classic evil wizard's tower. This 'short call' lasts for an hour, and when they return they apologize but explain nothing, then proceed to sit down and immediately roll initiative without prompting. Ok, we just roll with it. The rest of us, thinking that we are about to implement the plan we had been eagerly discussing over text for 2 weeks, rush in quietly to enact the plan. Suddenly, the DM looks at their phone and then asks the ranger to talk about something in the other room. After several minutes of hushed argument, they return to the table, with a face of forced calm. The DM calls out the turn order, starting with the ranger, who just nods and says "I stealth." The rest of us proceed into the first room, managing to keep silent so we can try to get the jump on this BBEG later, but the ranger never appears during combat, merely saying on his turn "I proceed". After, one of us steps outside to look for him and spots the ranger climbing the outside of the tower with a heavy sack, about 100 feet up, almost to the top. Then have narrated to us that he stole all of our alchemical supplies, hoisted them up as we fought, and seeing the BBEG through a window, hucks the full bag into the tower and attempts to shoot a 'fire arrow' into it. The whole table goes quiet for a moment, and the DM asks "Are you sure you don't want to do anything else first?", to which he says no. Then the DM narrates several things: First, whatever is in the sack shatters on impact. Second, the ranger succeeds in shooting it with lit arrow, but nothing happens, the DM saying "you only had healing and buff potions, literally no one in the party even had oil let alone a bomb" (this might be true, although we did have an alchemist whose alchemist kit got chucked into said bag), as the ranger bwgins to protest the DM says "you also just let go of your handholds to fire your longbow, so make a dexterity save"... shout out to the 2 crew. The ranger then plummets to the ground and the DM rolls damage behind the screen, claiming the ranger instantly dies on impact (a later examination of this math would have required this to be within 1 of the absolute maximum possible roll). An hour long group argument begins, shorthand being everyone is upset arguing *out of character* about what just happened. It comes out that call was the friend getting a new job in a city a few hours away, something they had been wanting for a long time and that we would have normally been very happy to celebrate with them. After we resolved this, we all turn to continue the session, rushing up the tower (sans dead ranger who quietly stews in a corner). Upon arriving in the BBEG chamber, they are gone. The DM claims that while we were arguing outside the door (I remind you, an entirely out of character argument) they escaped through an escape hatch and tunnel with all the loot. From the top floor. Since they insisted this was true and refused to elaborate, rather than argue any further, we decided to call it a night. Needless to say, the campaign did not continue. The ranger and DM argued about this bitterly for years, each saying the other was to blame for ruining the apex of the campaigns first arc. I ask you in the name of the victimized players, can you help settle the argument? Should the ranger's ploy to detonate all of our health potions and supplies resulted in a glorious mutual death? Did the DM overreact when killing the ranger and having the BBEG eacape while we talked OOC? But most importantly... who is legally responsible for the death of the campaign so that we can force them both to stop asking us to rehash this insane session. May RNJesus ever bless your dice with interesting 20s and 1s, The Bystander Bard PS: Murph may be pleased to know that we did indeed get new friends and play without this DM or player, and have enjoyed many years of drama free D&D.

Colleen Brenner

To the illustrious supreme crit justices and the hot bailiff, Jack, Please accept the case of no case. I hereby plead guilty to being unable to get my friends to commit to playing dnd. Even though I have multiple ideas for campaigns and one pretty fleshed out, even though most of my friends are die hard nerds who get really stoked when I bring up the idea, I have been unable to move these plans from the hypothetical to the calendar invite. I request that in your wisdom, my sentence may include a path I should follow to restore me to the path of righteousness. Humbly, Alone at the table

nandrusin

To the studious judges and the alright bailif, who's a big dragonball fan, I present the case of the Suprise Monk. Half way through a session the DM suprised introduced his friend as a type of cowboy/assassin/bounty hunter coming after us, complete with a drawl and 2 Katanas . The Guy was playing a Kensi monk sent to hunt us down. He was level 5, same as the rest of us. He proceded to absolutely beat the shit out of the party dropping 4/5ths of us to death saves in just a couple rounds of combat. He 1v5'd us and handedly kicked our asses. He took out my dwarf Fighter Lecha with 49 HP and 18 AC in one round. He then proceded to take some of our key magic items a walk off into the sunrise whistleing a tune, telling us to visit the king to get our stuff back. He also beat the shit our of our NPC, a kid named Charles. To make matters even more interesting, this was a guest appearance, he only showed up to kick our ass and steal our stuff. He ALSO just broke up with his long term girlfriend hours before the session in a reportedly messy break up, so the DM probably felt bad for him. We laughed alot, He seems like a good guy and felt bad about mollywhomping us. But judges, I ask, was this ok for the DM and player to suprise whomp us like this and steal out Key/Quest items?

Isi Fish

This campaign sounds like a lot of fun. You're doing an awesome job especially as a first time DM.

Isi Fish

Outrageous I demand a punishment

SirensSingSongs

To the honorable and distinguished judges and baby jake, I present the case of the Lady’s butthole. I have recently started DMing the new planescape campaign and my players are obsessed with the infamous Lady of Pain, more specifically whether she has a butthole or not. I have tried to explain that the Lady is an enigmatic being capable of barring Gods from entering her domain! But the players remain insistent that even Gods must have buttholes. I maintain the Lady is a step above Godhood and would therefore not be beholden to this nasty logic they’ve put forth. But the players insist that even if having a butthole is a choice, it’s a choice the Lady of Pain would make. It’s gotten to the point where they have even asked their in world guide at LENGTH about the Lady’s anatomy and I’m over it! I have agreed to uphold whatever judgment the all knowing Crit rules, so please Justices- does the Lady of Pain have a butthole?

GrandmaCurlyFry

To the classy judges and that oh-so-sassy bailiff, I present to you the case of 16 wolves. I’ve been playing in a DND campaign with this DM for over 5 years and have an absolute blast with him. He is a great DM and an amazing storyteller. The issue occurred in our previous campaign, where I played a 10th-level Circle of Blight Druid. His younger brother reached out and suggested that I maximize my Foul Conjuration and Defile Ground ability by summoning 16 wolves with an upcast of the spell Conjure Animals. Foul Conjuration makes it so when my wolves died, they actually blew up for 1d4 necrotic damage, and if they were in the Defile Ground and got hit, that would be an additional 1d6 damage. He worked it out to be 32d4+16d6+32 per turn (not a math major, so I'm not sure how this all checks out). Also, since they were wolves, they had pact tactics. When we first pitched this idea in combat to my DM, he chuckled and loved it, but after the 3rd time, he got angry and asked me never to summon wolves again. I was a bit saddened by this, as I felt really fuckin powerful at the moment, but I understood his frustrations. So I ask you this: Are 16 wolves too many wolves? Should I have followed the advice of the power-hungry meta gamer younger brother or summoned an appropriate amount of wolves? I await your just verdict.

Ashton Ellis

The the honorable crit justices and the unforgettable... Jack? I present the case of the New DM vs. The (Angry) People I am a new player and DM to ttrpgs and had finally built up the courage to run my own game after my sister asked me to write and run a one shot for her 21st birthday. (Listening to Naddpod for years since covid gave me the confidence I needed and I've always had a love for story-telling) Everything started fine and I had dropped a few hundred dollars on minis, learned to paint them myself, and even homebrewed my very own world for my 4 players to enjoy. During session zero before I spent all that money I made it clear to all of them that if I am going to be sinking all this time and money into this, the very least they could do was purchase a mini to represent their character. They all seemed hesitant at first, but as time passed they conceded and ended up getting their minis custom made from HeroForge. (I ended up painting two of them) We played a solid six sessions in a row at a frequency of about one or two sessions a month. Every session was held at my house, where I gave everyone the option of showing up early to eat dinner that I had made. Eventually though, one player decided not to show up at all, and after that we had at least one player not show up every session until the campaign fell apart and everyone stopped even using our group chat or responding to me about our campaign in general. The last session had them encounter a corrupt priest in a church that I had set up to challenge the players and to counter (just a little bit) my friends min-maxed build. At level 5 his AC was so high that a lot of my bad guys would struggle to hit him without rolling a nat20 and he would steamroll anything that wasn't the big bad. To counter this I had the party get funneled into a room with my boss and his henchman on either side of the door. The henchman had a shove attack that didn't roll to hit, but had the players roll a dex check to not be pushed in a line. They all failed eventually and the priest, a Deadeye fan, used piercing shot to roll and shoot through all of the party since they were now in a line. He hit all of them after rolling high 4 times in a row. Putting everyone on the back foot from the start of the fight. This was the bosses only mechanic and it was only meant to work the first turn of combat to put the players on the back foot which it did. So much so that the min-maxed player began to get visibly frustrated and later in the session started to cuss cuss because of "bullshit they shouldn't have to deal with at level 5." And said that I was a shitty DM. I have been friends with this player for close to 11 years and I overlooked this. We finished the fight and the story went on. Sadly that was the last time everyone was together. At the end of the day I wonder, was I in the wrong for making it mandatory for my players to get their own minis as it seemed to give the players that first bit of contempt. And was it wrong of me for building an encounter to challenge them and somewhat counter a min-maxers build when everyone else was just playing their characters for fun? I humbly await your judgment. (Excerpt from the description of my world, Halysis) The planet itself was breaking apart and taking on catastrophic changes that caused major shifts in climate and affected the evolutionary path most creatures took. Eventually, the outer crust of the planet began breaking off into space, and to combat the rest of the planet from following suit, a long, man-made connector between the two largest portions of landmass was built to hold them together. Ironically, this stretch of land became part of the only inhabitable place to build a structurally sound city. And thus came to be the main Port City in the outer Rim. This city governed the comings and goings on the planet and eventually its corrupt officials began to wheel and deal here. The sandy, mountainous terrain that made up the rest of the outer Rim was nearly uninhabitable and was overrun with giant lizards, insects and the roaming Mana Worm that bore holes into the planters outer crust. The second, blue layer is made up of mainly water. It's Icy Tundra is home to the remaining population of mutated fish folk, merlings, and wildlife that thrive now in these frigid conditions. Like the Outer Rim, this middle layer is almost completely devoid of cityies on its surface. The blizzards that ravage the landscape makes it near impossible to build here. Though, life always finds a way, and eventually different peoples began to build their cities beneath the ice and among the natural structures that shielded them from the elements, and the lurking Leviathan and sirens beneath the frozen waters. And finally, the last innermost layer is a contrast to the other two. It's lush green forests and prairies grow to know no bounds. With the limited sunlight only coming through the hole in the second layer, most of the plants and wildlife here evolved to be bioluminecent and to need minimal sunlight. The days here are passed in quiet solitude among the glowing leaves, mushrooms and even the fauna that call this layer home. Being closest to the core of the planet, this layer stays in a perfect incubative temperature to be humid and damp, and many of the more docile insects and fauna live here. The easiest lifestyles are also pursued here, though despite that fact, the accumulative population of all of the villages and towns on this layer pale in comparison to the massive city on the Outer Rim. However, despite it's seemingly edenistic state, it isn't without danger. In the darkest recesses of the forests lies a nest of mind grubs, led by their queen who wants nothing more than to rot the planet from the inside out and convert all of it's residencies into part of her hive-mind. This layer is where our adventure begins. In a small village named Westwood.)

Alex C

To the honorable bailiff Jeff and the esteemed court who honors the cock, I present you with case of Should My Character Be Dead. We are in the final arc of a 4 year 5e campaign and are traversing through a puzzle and trap filled dungeon to the BBEG. Our kind DM gave us a diary with a list of vague clues that could be helpful through the dungeon crawl, one of them being “Avoid the cold door”. At the end of one session we were all a bit tired and having gone through multiple doors forgot about this clue. Our barbarian opened a door before investigating at the end of the large room. We found the cold door. Behind this door was a black void that began sucking everything and everyone into the void. Our DM asked for strength saving throws to not be pulled in. The barbarian saved! And was in the door frame blocking most of the void. I however rolled a 4 and described how a 3ft tall gnome torpedo began flying at the barbarian. My DM let the Barbarian make a check to catch me before flying into the void. Natural 1. My DM not wanting to kill my character says that our Warlock who I was standing next to could also roll and try and grab me. Another Natural 1. We are all laughing hysterically, the DM is sweating, and I am prepared to accept Dice Christ’s decision and make a new character. Our ranger asks if he could try and shoot my character in the butt and tether me to a wall (which is an ability he has). The DM allows him to roll an attack. Natural 20! I am saved and quite hurt from a critical hit arrow in my ass. In the joy and laughter of being saved I can’t help but feel we may be going against Dice Christ who chose my PC to die. Should our DM have allowed for the ranger to shoot me in the ass after 2 natural 1s? Or should I be making a new character for the final battle? I will accept any decision and punishment you see fit, honorable court. P.S. I thought of having my character, a circle of moon druid, wildshape into a mammoth to be too large for the door but that likely would have killed the Barbarian so I decided against it.

Ashley Meyer

Hello and good fortune to the esteemed justices Axford, Murphy and Tanner, and a lukewarm “sup” to I think his name’s Jeff? I bring to you the case of The Stolen Kill. For context, this happened very early in a new campaign, with a DM that I didn't know overly well prior to joining. I was the only woman at this table, and I brought in my fiance (boyfriend at the time) to help fill out the party with the DM’s approval. Our adventure took us to a small town of friendly monsters being hunted by evil poachers. The party decided to help the town by ambushing the poacher base, killing almost everyone there. After a few rounds of combat, the party has the big bad bloodied and nearly one-shot when the overpowered werewolf NPC that sent us on the quest swoops in out of nowhere, without rolling initiative, and goes into what he described as a "blood rage" killing the main bad guy without rolling to hit or anything because of the narrative nature of the kill. I ask you, most revered justices and lowly bailiff, were we wrong to be upset by the "narrative" kill, or should we have been able to deal the final blow? I throw myself at the mercy of the Supreme Crit.

Johny Dude-Kay

To the super cute judges, and the beautiful bailiff Jake, I present the case if Quiting before Getting Fired. I have been DMing the same Pathfinder game for almost 3 years now. While the cast has changed a little bit over time, these players are all among my best friends. The player and friend in question, whom we will call Magus, is one of my oldest and closest friends. We have always leaned on each other for emotional support, as well as play all kinds of video games together and share all of the same interests and hobbies. I even got him into TTRPGs about 10 years ago. I was the best man at his wedding. He is like a younger brother to me. However, over all that time, Magus and I pretty consistently come into conflict at the table. In our most reset campaign, we have had 3 seperate incidents where his characrer's unnecessary hostility and arrogance has directly lead to Near TPKs, and even cost the ship's captain(another PC) his life and cost them their ship. After multiple reminders that his character is supposed to be Chaotic Good, realistic in game consequences and reactions from NPCs, needing to put a session on pause for a full 30 minutes to build a encounter with another Pirate Captain that was meant to be a boss fight several levels down the road, having to call a session early to rewrite a social encounter as a combat encounter that wouldn't kill the whole party but woul still make sense narratively, and several arguments at the table about Magus not understanding the mechanics of his own character and becoming frustrated when both RaW and Rule of Cool werent on his side, things finally came to a head. We finally had a heart to heart, where Magus explained that he felt like it was just "what his character would do," and that this was his idea of fun, and that he felt stiffled by the rest of the table, especially me as the DM. After I explained thelat his behavior was really bothering the rest of the table and giving me actual panic attacks as I kept being forced to rewrite whole scenarios on the fly in order to avoid tanking the entire game for everyone, he apologized and I thought we had finally gotten onto the same page. I was wrong. The very next session began with Magus attempting to use the Open/Close cantrip to open a locked door, something that the spell expressly cannot do based on the language of the spell. Shortly there after, Magus got upset when I wouldn't let him make an attack of opportunity against an enemy that was out of range and RaW, had not provoked an attack of opportunity. But the final straw was when the enemy Magus was grappling set off a bomb in her hand in order to try and take the party with her when she died. Magus first insisted that he shouldn't take any damage because he could use the the enemy to shield himself from the damage. Pathfinder has feats for that sort of thing, so I told Magus that this wouldn't work and that at best, he could get a bonus to the save for half damage. Magus said my ruling was stupid and the session ground to halt has he continued to argue. When the rest of the players backed me up, he walked back his statement and insisted that he never said he wanted to avoid all the damage and never said the ruling was stupid, insisting that I was making a bigger deal about it than it needed to be. Ultimately, I ended up rolling for damage and calling the session. It was just about our end time anyway and the mood was sufficiently killed. I intended to speak with the rest of my players and ask if they felt I would be justified in kicking Magus from the game. However, before I got the chance, later that night Magus texted me to let me know he was dropping out because he didn't understand why I kept being so mean to him and treating him like he has never played before and that he wasn't having fun. I let him know that i felt that this would probably be best, especially for the sake of not souring our friendship. My question for you, judges, is could I have handled this better? Did I give Magus too many chances? Should I have respected his desire to be aggro with every NPC and reworked the campaign to better allow for this, even though it wasn't the direction discussed during session zero and wasn't my idea of fun? Do I chock it up to by table chemistry and try to salvage my strained friendship with Magus or take his gaslight-adjacent resignation as a sign that maybe our friendship has run its course. I await the judgement of the court, or the guidance of dice christ, if that feels more appropriate.

Crescent Minor

Wait ... was the DM arguing that the creature can't read and understand the glyphs, or that it cannot speak to tell you what it read? I'm confused, because it's phrased like the pseudodragon not being able to speak is a piece of supporting evidence for it not being able to read. And that makes no sense.

Drew Borecky

To the righteous supreme crit justices and bailiff who shall not be named. I seek a ruling on a case from before the pandemic called "who killed Rosie?" I was dming a 2 person game for my partner and best friend. In a race to protect a city from an invasion of Dao (earth elemental genies) they were riding their horses quickly through the streets. I narrated that the Dao were summoning earth elementals to invade homes and cause general mayhem. My partner's cleric (and her horse, the aforementioned Rosie) decided to attack the elementals to help stop the havoc. We rolled out the battle map and rolled initiative. first turn my partner specifically rode Rosie up to an earth element and attacked it using Rosie's hooves, I asked if she wanted to move after her attack, but she decided to stay and specifically "make sure that Rosie was between her and the elemental." The next turn, the earth elemental attacked Rosie, who had damaged it last and was in between it and my partner's cleric, and absolutely demolished Rosie in one round killing the horse outright. I was, am still to this day, called a monster when Rosie comes up, despite my partner specifically placing Rosie as a meat shield between her cleric and a raging rock monster. All in all, Rosie was revivified at the end of the combat and was cherished for the rest of the campaign all the way through level 20. However, am I the monster? Or should my partner recognize her role in this negligent horse-slaughter. I await the court's ruling. P.S. I'm a graduate student studying music and TTRPGs and Emily music for the show is *chef's kiss*

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.

Neil Dutton

To the tongue filled judges and their human girlfriend, Jonk: Many years ago I found a new 4th edition game. We would be meeting in person, and none of us new each other. Five players and the DM who was hosting. I arrived, getting a ride from one of the other players, finding a table set up in their kitchen which we all squeezed around. Totally normal home game scenario, but with two additional audience members, sat 5 feet from the table in the tiny living room: the DMs glaring wife holding their incredibly newly born baby. The wife was not happy that any of this was happening. The baby seemed chill. The vibes were excruciating. The DM messaged a few days later saying that he would no longer be able to host and the game fell apart immediately. Should I have offered to host? Should the baby have put in more effort? How long after a c-section should you wait before asking your wife to help move two tables together for a D&D night with strangers? I await your swift judgement.

Yes Ma'am Kablam

Hello to the stars of the show (Justices Axford, Murphy) and the guest who's overstayed his welcome a bit (Jake). I present to you the case of the Bad Bad Book. I DM a Curse of Strahd campaign for 6 of my friends. We've all been having a great time, and after a climactic fight they managed to find a legendary Tome. Said Tome was, per the module, a written account of the villain's (Strahd) history. However, I read about an interesting option online where instead of just giving a written history to the players, they dive INTO the book and live out key moments. I loved this because I thought they would enjoy getting to talk with Strahd before he was evil and also get to see what the cursed land they're stuck in was like before the eponymous Curse of Strahd. The plan was for the story to play out roughly as it did historically, but the players could fight, speak to, and steal from any historical figures they wanted to. To my surprise, as soon as my players entered the book they were upset when they realized the events were pretty much set in stone. Two of my players even pointedly had their characters sit in one place doing nothing until the story ended. I tried to add small events and magic items for them to glom onto to keep things interesting, but they didn't seem to care about anything I introduced. I rushed the story so they could leave, but even after leaving the book it feels like the momentum has left the campaign. My question to the court is this: was I foolish to attempt this Wishbone-esque plotline, or were my players too obstinate to give it a fair shot? I breathlessly await your verdict.

Mrbigboy5

To the longstanding grudges, just kidding I have dyslexia (I do not I meant what I said) and the load bearing bay lift Jauqe. In an ongoing online campaign, me(player) and the rest of the party were tasked to free a clan of orcs that had been captured by unseelie fey. During this encounter in the unseelie’s underground dungeon lair we had fought some pretty hard battles and one pc almost died. The party agreed this was a rescue mission, not an extermination as we were only level 4 at the time and this seemed like a much higher CR dungeon. One player, a gith wizard bladsinger artificer who I’ll call Mini Maxillion, attempted to take out an enemy fay. The DM asked if he was really going to do this and we as a party did not go with him as we planned a stealthy approach and protested. MINi MAXillion replied “Don’t worry guys, I have a plan, really trust me I can do this” then casted blur. The dark hallway containing the single patrolling enemy single enemy was revealed to have multiple other assailants that, even with disadvantage, turned this man into a big ol pile of piss and blood. After the DM described how Min Max died he immediately left the session and texted “this orc could kill a god, no way he killed me so fast” I and the dice beg to differ. In Min Max’s defence the DM did not hint specifically that there would be multiple enemies nor did the party expect it, myself included. I leave this case in the hands of you, bountiful and hate filled grudges. Was it fair to add more enemies to the encounter even if the forever dead pc was forewarned?

Christian M.

To the premium tier justices and “free with ads” bailiff Jake, may I present the case of the testicle catapult. I was a player in a 9 person campaign, mostly comprised of newbs. I won’t bore you with the details, Jake, but we were essentially cops. One player in particular had what we call “main character energy”. Every chance they got they would use the phrase “do you even know who my dad is?” To get what they want, but that’s not the worst part, Jake. The worst part is during battle, they would CONSISTENTLY use random NPC’s off the street as human meat shields, and when they died would remove their testicles and cast catapult. We’re cops, Jake. Cops. Justices, were we in the wrong to fake scheduling conflicts and quit the campaign or was this testicle catapult thing just way too far? Ps, hate the show, this whole thing was a lie Pps, just kidding about the ps thing.

Annika

He was arguing that it can’t read the glyphs - like it never learned that skill because it’s an animal and can’t speak only “understand” as it says in the stat block. And I agree, makes no sense 😔

Lordkanik

Hello esteemed justices Murphey, Axford, and Tanner, and a hearty wassup to my lowly homie, Jake. I bring to you the case of The Falling Plot. This case begins with a member of our party missing a couple sessions and the DM needing to find a good way to re-introduce them. In this case, when we start the session, we looked up to see him in a cage dangling from an airship, yelling to be saved. We quickly determined who could fly and who needed to be carried, but one character with flight refused to carry anyone, claiming "it's not what they would do". For context, this player joined a few sessions into the campaign and was a young dragon in disguise up until the previous session when we discovered his secret. His refusal to carry us meant that myself and my fiance had to remain on the ground, too far out of reach to help, while the other 4 members of our party went up to save our friend and confront the npc that ended up being a major villain later on. The issue comes when one of the other characters on the ship threw a corpse off of the airship. At this point, my fiance and I had decided to have our characters move into a nearby barn and have my sorcerer resume teaching her paladin firebolt, as she had just taken the magic initiate feat and the DM required her to roll arcana checks to learn the spells from others. While in the barn, he told me to roll a dex save. I assumed it was to avoid her hitting me, so I wasn't too bothered by rolling poorly and didn't use a luck point to do better. It wasn't until I heard the number of dice he was rolling that I got concerned. When I asked what was happening, he informed me that I was just hit by a falling corpse and due to the height, it was a lot of damage. Despite a small argument breaking out, he ruled that we didn't make it clear that we were in a building before he rolled and since the roll already happened, I had to take the damage. I ended up going down for the first and only time in the campaign, but it is still being brought up to this day as a joke at my expense. Am I wrong for being upset by how the session went, or should I be more open to the humor of it? I humbly await your wise judgement on the matter.

Jay Landen

Before the case is brought before the court I would ask that Justice Murphy please step down and take his place in the defendants chair. To the remaining Supreme Crit Justices and the newly promoted Jake, I bring before you the case of the Super Mean Murph, but only in a dream/nightmare I recently had. I recently had a dream I was invited to play a session with my favorite podcast and Band of Boobs and it really was a dream come true. The dream quickly became a nightmare when at the end of the session Murph for some reason called on all to role a D4 to determine if our characters would survive the night and into the next session. Not understanding exactly what was asked of me I rolled 2D4 for some dream reason and Murph called me out as a cheater! The rest of the Boobs came to my defense, but Murph insisted that we continue the session while he watched over my shoulder to, “insure the giant cheater at the table doesn’t cheat.” The rest of the night I was reassured by Em, Jake and Caldwell that it was a simple rules misunderstanding, but Murph could not be reasoned with and took every opportunity to call me a cheat. I was almost in tears because I knew that I would never play with my favorite person (Murph) in another game again. I ask the court, is the defendant liable for somehow seeding these thoughts in my head as I listened to him over the years? Even if not, please find the defendant at fault because it would be funny to sentence Murph for a strangers dream! (You really are my favorite Murph)

Fif

To the honorable, fair, and irreproachable supreme crit judges (and their dubious bailiff Jake), I ask for your advice on the case of the stubborn students. I teach in a small K-12 school and work for its after-school program, where I run D&D for interested middle and high school-aged students. I've got kids who come and go, of course, but for the past 2 years I've had a dedicated group of around 6 kids. All was going well until a few months ago, when the previously agreeable group stopped working together and would not agree on a common objective, fracturing my ability to give the group a storyline they all wanted. For example, some wanted to try and lead a city while others wanted to take a boat and explore new lands. No one was willing to compromise and, with one hour a week to play, it made my life a hell of a lot more frustrating. Moreover, I could tell it was irritating all these angsty teens during what should be their collaborative, fun after-school time. It even started to affect their relationships during the school day, where they are basically around each other all the time. Please, could the court help me figure out how to handle these headstrong hooligans before the next school year starts?

WatchThis

That is very kind. When you have listened to nearly every piece of Naddpod content there is, something is bound to rub off lol

Max Griffin

Hello Justices and the ever present yet oft missed bailiff. I bring to you the case The Disappearance of Dripping Droop. This unfortunate incident took place several yrs ago when I was running my first ever campaign from the D&D starter set! Droop was originally meant to be a helpful yet dumb npc goblin found in a dungeon his ideals are being a coward and following whoever is strongest. The players had rescued droop via a drinking competition with his bug bear captors. Droop then helped the players out in the dungeon with directions such as was his roll. The players finished the quest and of course took Droop along for the ride as he had become a pretty funny guy to have along. They went to a store and dropped a bag on getting their new homie absolutely dripped out, and Dripping Droop was born. However one of the party members a human fighter with the "Folk hero" background named Anchor was predisposed to hate goblins as they had infested his former hometown after a dragon destroyed it (backstory) Later in the campaign the group faced off against a green dragon and of course on his first turn Dripping Droop ran away and hid as he often did. The party had been told MULTIPLE times that being a coward was mostly Droops whole deal, and all accepted this and welcomed Droop apart from Anchor. After the battle with the dragon the party reconvened with Droop and had a good laugh as usual, but Anchor had other plans. Later that night Anchor led Droop away from the rest of the party in an attempt to murder him. He was successful. The other players were astonished but of course their characters couldn't have known what happed as they had been asleep. Anchor successfully passed on a deception check against the parties' insight the next morning but due to some truly 2 crew worthy rolls Anchor's secret was kept safe... This of course later sowed division in the party has they all described his behavior as Anakin in Episode 3 Revenge Of The Sith. Anyways the campaign soon concluded and all except the player controlling Anchor played in the following campaigns. So justices I ask you this. Was Anchor justified in this killing? Should the party have done more to correct these series of events? Was I the DM wrong to have allowed Anchor to carry out this deed or was this always going to happen no matter what course correction took place?

Slyfox

To the esteemed Crit Justices and that guy named Jed, I think? I present to you the case of “wow, you guys are really bad at this.” I am the regular DM for my group, and one of my players ran a one shot. (He is our former DM, so he does have experience.) We were supposed to find a group of our friends who disappeared. After a convoluted series of NPCs, we finally entered a bar. When we did the logical thing and asked if anyone had seen our friends, the entire bar immediately jumped us and started combat. After that combat, the DM told us it was “an optional combat that wasn’t supposed to happen” and that we “should’ve been more subtle”. A while after that, we found an old lady who we knew had information. Even after I rolled a 25 on a persuasion check, she still wouldn’t tell us anything. At this moment, the DM says, “Wow, you guys are really bad at this.” It turned out we needed to show her a picture of our friends, even though doing so got us jumped earlier. Because of these events, the session ran so long that, after 6 hours, we hadn’t found any clues as to where our friends were being kept. We ended up having to split the one shot into two sessions, completely derailing our regular campaign. So were we wrong to be wary of this old lady? Should my high persuasion check have been enough to get her to tell us the information? Are we actually really bad at this? I humbly await your judgement.

Matthew Sturm

To the ever fair and objective Justices and the insignificant/honored bailiff (whichever works better today), I present the case of the Resurrection Potion Boondoggle. In my first ever campaign, my older brother DM’ed a 4E campaign with loose plot and looser rules. In one session, he allowed our resident chaos player to steal an absurd number of resurrection potions from a magical chest that was meant to give us each a special item “when we were ready for them.” He decided to give him the potions in the moment after the player surprised him by raiding the chest. Unfortunately, this was the last session my brother DM’ed before asking me to take over so he could be a player. In order to maintain player interest, I decided to just make my campaign directly continue from the previous campaign. I didn’t even think about the stolen potions until the player convinced the rest of the party to kill an ally NPC to see if he was a doppelgänger, citing the ability to use one of the potions on him as a safety net in case they were wrong. This kicked off a string of failed attempts maintain stakes in the campaign as no situation could stand up to a horde of resurrection potions. The campaign eventually fizzled, and I now roast my brother every chance I get for putting me in that situation. Was my brother in the wrong for giving out so many potions and then passing the consequences to me, or am I for roasting him when I didn’t figure out a way to work around them? I await your judgment.

Peyton McDaniel Davis

To the esteemed justices, and bailiff Joink. I present to you the case of the surprise hostage. Last year, I played in a campaign with five players, most of whom had never played before. I played a timid, bookish firbolg barbarian, named Tim, whose wild magic rages turned him into a professional wrestler named Rainbow Blight and one of my friends played an impulsive halfling rogue, named Chester, who was nine years old. (Sorry, Murph) Our campaign started in a mansion full of traps and monster that we were trying to escape. During our first few sessions, Chester would impulsively run headfirst into rooms with the aforementioned traps and monsters, and my character would try to stop him, so we could make a plan or gather more information. I’d roll athletics against Chester’s acrobatics, and we’d proceed from there. After our third session where we finally escaped the house, my DM, who’s also my boyfriend, made a comment to me that my constant interference could be seen as stepping on my friend’s gameplay and decision making. My thought was that I was making in-character choices, just like the other player was, but I took his words to heart, because the last thing I want to do is make the game less fun for someone else. During our next session, we were trying to find our way back to the nearest town, making survival checks to avoid getting lost. We encountered a woman on the road who was being pursued by a bandit. We saved her from the bandit and started to ask her some questions about her travels. As soon as she told us that she was coming from the town we were headed towards, Chester immediately pulled a knife, held it to her throat and demanded she guide us there. The party was stunned, as was our DM. He looked at us and said, “with a guide, we can’t get lost.” We tried to reason with him, saying we could just ask for directions and he insisted on keeping a hostage. Finally, the warlock asked my DM if we were allowed to cast spells on each other. She cast suggestion and Chester failed the save, so he had to let her go. After the session, my boyfriend said, “I can’t believe you took part in kidnapping an innocent woman. That was crazy.” I said I didn’t want to step on her decision making. He continued to razz me about being a kidnapper for the rest of the week. Justices, am I to be blamed for my complicity in this crime, or is my DM accountable for for traumatizing this NPC? I humbly await your judgement.

Sido Hikami

To the honorable justices Murphy, Axford, and Hurwitz and their newly baby frog baliff Caldwell, I present the case of Warlock v Town of rosemary My roommates and I had a campaign going for a few months. Our Ranger had a friend that wanted to join in because he hadn’t played in years and my DM reluctantly said Yes. He was mostly reluctant because he didn’t know this person and how they play, so he was on edge incase they were a maniac, but our ranger vouched for him. Judges, this person made a Chaotic Evil Warlock in a party of Neutral to Good characters . Myself, the Dm, and our other friend all Side eyed our ranger but gave him a chance. The warlock, within 5 minutes of play, uses crown of madness on a child to get information. My character spear tackled him and he was attacked by every guard in town. When he asked us for help, we, including the ranger, said it was his mess. He then said we were ‘breaking immersion and not respect what his character would do’ Judges, I ask was the warlock justified in this actions or was he taking things way too far? I await your humble judgement (P.S. regardless of judgement this manic was kicked and we never saw him again)

John Thomas

To the beautifully perfumed justices and the foul-stench of a bailiff, may I present the case of the Salty Bard. My friends and I sought out a friend to DM a campaign for us in addition to the campaign we were already playing. We quickly found some differences in DM style; while we tended to like time to RP and develop our characters, he seemed more focused on his own story. He had specific things in mind for our characters had to do, NPCs we should be friends with/think were funny, even down to subclasses and story arcs our characters had to follow. If we ever veered off, we would half-jokingly hear his complaining at the end of sessions about not doing what we were supposed to do. Attempts were made to communicate our want for more time to role play and have some agency, and we thought we had been heard. In the final session, however, we were railroaded to a location where the bad guy magically froze us (no chance to roll) so he could monologue at us for a few minutes. After disappearing and unfreezing us, our characters were now all framed as enemies of the state. A decent story hook, but the final instance of lack of player agency I could take. My character, a vagabond Bard, decided I would desert the party in the face of danger, given that the party had no other bonds than the ones forced on us by the DM. A number of NPCs were thrown at me as I fled down the road, attempting to turn me back to the party, but I persisted until stealing an airship and flying away. The mood was sour and the campaign disbanded after that session. Justices, was I too salty in my attempt to regain player agency or was I just salted enough in reaction to this situation? I await your judgement

Classic Vlasic

A Testimony of Dice Christ's Blessings (I've been incredibly fortunate to play with party-focused players and an excellent DM, so I've never had anything good to write in for these before. But I have to share this story. Genuinely the odds of these rolls in context of real life and the in-game narrative are so astronomical that I'd have had a better chance of winning the Powerball.) I write: To the holy and wise keepers of the faith, I write to you my testimony of the goodness of Dice Christ. I seek your guidance in how to best honor the miracle worked at our table. I'm in a home game that began in 2017. For years we met consistently every other week. We kept the campaign alive through PC deaths, COVID, new jobs, and new babies. Eventually, life added up and we've been on an unintentional hiatus for over a year and a half. Last week was my birthday, and I told my wife (our Tiefling Ranger) that I wanted to celebrate with a D&D session. It's important for you to know where we left off. We were near the end of an arc that had been largely focused on my character, a dwarven Battle Smith Artificer named Montgomery Marblecarver. Monty, a divorced father, had been plagued throughout the campaign by a mysterious nemesis. To make a long story short, our party eventually discovered that this nemesis was a rival dwarven Artificer, who had gone as far as to marry my ex-wife in his effort to destroy my life and career. The last session we played in September of 2022 was the final part of a dungeon right before we were to have the "boss fight" against this rival. Another important piece of information is that the rival used an army of constructs to try to disrupt our quests at various points throughout the larger campaign. For years, we had used the "Mace of Smiting" to fight these constructs. The Mace does extra damage to constructs and does a ton of extra damage on crits, immediately destroying them if the attack leaves them with less than 25 HP. Your holinesses, in years of use, none from our party had ever crit on a construct with this weapon. Hundreds of attack rolls, no nat 20s. Then, last week for my birthday, in the throes of battle against the dwarf in a mech suit who made my beloved imaginary magical mechanic into a cuckold, I crit. All at once our party (including the DM) remembered our years of suffering with this weapon. Elated and with much anticipation, we gathered damage dice. Between sneak attack from my level-dips into rogue, a recently cast Absorb Elements, a combat inspiration from our bard, and my final use of Arcane Jolt, I managed to do over 60 damage in the first attack on my turn. We waited, hoping that this brought the enemy's suit to the 25 HP threshold. But alas, he remained standing. As I went to roll my second attack, happy with the damage I had just done, but disappointed that we didn't get to see the final effect of the weapon, I reached for a different D20. My wife stopped me. She handed me the dice that had just rolled a Nat 20 and said, "Why are you switching dice?". Then she gave me a nod communicating her undying belief in one of the church's most important mantras: "The Dice Tell a Story" (amen). Then... A second consecutive crit. More damage. An instantly destroyed mech suit. Cheers (that luckily didn't wake up sleeping toddlers). After many years of wandering in the wilderness, Dice Christ gave me not just one, but two, of the most narratively satisfying Natural 20s I may ever experience. On top of that, the session reminded us all how much we missed playing, and we've already made plans for the next session in a few weeks. So, I ask you, as the leaders of the faith, how can I properly say thanks to Dice Christ for this blessing? Should we retire the Mace? Retire the D20? Should I build a monument in my living room? I humbly accept your wise counsel.

Krista 'Birdy' Bertrand

To the esteemed justices and that bailiff jick, I bring you the case of DM spite. I would first like to note that I’m a forever DM and this was my first time playing a character in years. I was playing curse of strahd as a tiefling sorcerer named Anamis Darkrunner and I as a real person suffer from chronic pain. I had to miss a session due to intense migraines and when I returned next session found out the DM had made anakis sleepwalk out into the fog which then caused me 2 levels of exhaustion before I could get back to the house. I then in character was roleplaying when we entered the town and didn’t want to enter a house where there was a shrieking coming from within because again I was in character and Anakis wouldn’t have gone in. My friend stayed behind with anakis and she decided to attack us with 2 direwolves. We were level 2. I left the campaign after another session because I just couldn’t understand what her problem with me was but maybe I’m in the wrong? Just to add it was also her first time DMing. I thank you for your consideration and await your judgement.

Kirk Rounsville

To the Honorary Justices, and the 6 month old baby bailiff Jake. I present to you the case of the little druid that should. I love DND and when my friend wanted to run a module he asked me if I wanted to play and since it was his second time DMing and we had newbies if I would want to join and help them learn I agreed and made this autumn eladrin circle of the moon druid that specializes in loving all things nature and any critter living in it. In the opening scene the DM explained that we were in a carriage pulled by two horses and I thought it was a good time to show the newbies you could roleplay so I cast speak with animals and then asked our horse companions if they were hungry, thirsty or tired and wanted a break and in return I got "What is hunger?", "What is thirsty", and lastly "What is tired?" I shrugged it off and was a little salty then on break we were all eating pizza talking about our characters and when I told them I couldn't wait till I could speak with plants, a third level spell, my DM told me that he would roll in front of everyone when I cast that and if it was low I'd have "a dumb flower" to talk to after I said it was a waste of a third level spell he shrugged and said he thinks it'll be funny. I decided later that I wouldn't even stock those spells or even charm person because I didn't want to know what punishment he would have for me was I wronged, or was it justified I humbly await your sentencing.

Someone McMystery

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices, and the one so beneath them, beneath all of us, as to stand anathema to that which we hold dear. The great failing of our nation, our civilization, of humanity itself. He who stands as proof against God, for what creator would mar their work with such a blemish. The worms of the earth squirm and writhe in anguish, knowing that one exists so beneath even them. The wretched, the foul, that is to say, the lowly bailiff Jake. I missed a d&d session to go on vacation, and when I got back, I learned that my party had adopted an NPC who happened to share the same name as my ex, who I am not on speaking terms with. I pointed this out, and they refused to change the name because "it's just too good of a fantasy sounding name for a character like that." I didn't want to make too big a thing of it, so I bit my tongue, despite not wanting to think of my ex so soon after flying back from seeing my long distance boyfriend. Ultimately the NPC died, so it's a happy ending, but should I have pushed harder for the name change, or was Bronson just too good a name to pass up?

Heidi Artigue

To whom it may concern: I confess! I recently finished DM'ing a multi-year campaign for 3 players. One was a long-time player with very optimized fighter who regularly did 100+ damage in a round. Another was his wife, who played an very unoptimized druid and was clearly just there to spend time with her friends. Throughout the campaign, I regularly fudged enemy hit points to redistribute the number of killing blows that each player got. If I had not done so, the fighter would have dealt the final blow probably 80% of the time, and druid 5% or less. I gave the fighter around 60% of the killing blows and the druid around 15%. I also generally had each PC slay people or monsters who were particularly relevant to their personal quests. I never took down a PC by having a monster keep going when it should have had 0 hit points, and my players never caught on. Have I sinned in the eyes of Dice Christ? I only want forgiveness if I need it. PS: How do you DM for players with wildly different skill levels who want to play together?

Classic Vlasic

Not to belabor the point, but the 1/400 odds of Two Nat 20s is one thing. For it to happen 1) with the Mace of Smiting 2) against a "boss" construct 3) with my character against his "personal" BBEG 4) at a point in the fight where 60+ damage was not enough to bring him to 25 HP (therefore providing the opportunity for the second roll) 5) at a point in the fight where two crits was enough to bring him below 25 (I only did 22 damage with the second attack) 6) on my birthday 7) after a nearly 2 year IRL hiatus to end a major campaign arc Make it the most unlikely series of rolls I've ever been witness to.

Beano Nintendo

To the Fergielicious Justices and the 2000-and-Late Bailiff Jerome, I submit to you the case of the Principal vs Oni. I played in a campaign where every PC came from the real world and got magically transported into a medieval fantasy setting. My character was an orc paladin named Rhonda who had been an elementary school principal back on Earth. Early on in the campaign, we came across a village protected by a giant oni named Jori. When I first met him, 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. Jori 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, he demonstrated his 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 he was planning on eating them after. The table argued with me that Jori 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 between Rhonda and Jori to clear the air about the whole “eating people” thing. In that conversation Jori revealed that he actually DID used to eat people and that he only stopped his cravings thanks to a Wish spell. 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.

Kaitlyn S

To the Honorable and indomitable Justices and the bailiff that is either dirt or epic depending on the Justices’ whim. I bring you the case of the “Challenging” BBEG Battle. My party was in our final battle of a year and a half long campaign in which we traveled into the weave to bring down an evil wizard attempting to take over the world. The DM had been hyping up how crazy this fight was gonna be FOR MONTHS.The first half of the fight was fun and interesting and we were having a great time. Then the BBEG hit their final form….and only did 3 things every single turn. 1) cast blade ward around himself 2) created a psychic storm and 3) used their “mythic” action (aka 3 legendary actions in 1) The first 2 spells were annoying but easy enough to handle by gritting your teeth and baring the damage or using dispel magic. The mythic action however, was so egregious I had to seek the counsel of this court. The BBEG would target a creature and do massive damage if the creature failed a wisdom save (totally fine) then a shock wave went out from that creature and everyone within 30 feet had to make a Wisdom save DC 25. If they failed they had to give up a spell slot of 3rd level or higher or be stunned until their next turn. And he did this EVERY SINGLE ROUND. This would have been fine if 4 out of the 7 PCs had not been fully martial builds with no spell slots to offer up. They all failed 2 or 3 times and 2 of the PCs could only hit the DC if they rolled a nat 20 and ended up spending the last 5 rounds of combat stunned and out of the fight. After the session our DM asked us how we felt about the session and we did raise our frustration at the stun condition that left our martial friends out of the fight and how repetitive the combat was. His response was that “he wanted this encounter to be challenging”. We informed him that we were all for challenging encounters, but when several of our teammates were out of luck for an entire stage of the fight and the BBEG only did 3 things it wasn’t very fun. Justices I ask you, was our DM justified in his argument that this was a challenging encounter? Or were us players correct in our belief that challenging encounters should be fun and interesting for everyone? Any suggestions on what our DM could do for challenging encounters in the future without rendering multiple characters inactive for rounds on end? I lay myself at your mercy

eggos

To the esteemed Justices and their hype man, Jan: I present to you the case of The People v. Expeditious Re-railroad. This incident happened in a Pathfinder 2e game, and I feel I can ask now that the Court has jurisprudence in this area. Our party completed work at the request of a wizard's university and decided to rest in town for a few days. My party member spent our downtime investigating her nemesis, after learning that he had attended the university and was well-acquainted with one of the professors. My character assisted her. We found the guy performing magic tricks in the town square on the last evening. As we approached the stage to confront him, the wizard university tower behind him erupted into a chaos of explosions and screaming. This wizard nemesis was clearly involved, and as he turned to flee my character took action. I had purchased Potions of Expeditious Retreat in my downtime. The description of this potion says that when you drink it: "you become Fleeing for 1 minute, and you gain a +40-ft status bonus to all Speeds for the duration as long as you are fleeing. You immediately Stride." As the court is aware, in PF2e you have three actions per turn which can be used in any combination. My first action was drinking the potion; my second action was to Stride, which allows me to move up to my Speed with modifiers; and my third action was also Stride. With a base speed of +25-ft plus my Fleeing speed of +40, I should have moved 130-ft in my turn. There are no stated limitations on which direction you flee in the potion description, and my character had good reason to run to the tower even if the wizard didn't. Additionally, even if the wizard had +30-ft for his base speed and used all of his actions to run away, he would still only get 90-ft of movement. In my opinion I should have easily overtaken him. However, my DM ruled that before I could catch up the wizard reached the tower and the mob of guards that suddenly surrounded it. My DM did not make it clear how far the stage was from the tower. The guards allowed access to the wizard but not me, for plot reasons. We ended the session there. I'm conflicted. The session was getting late, it was the last one before we took a break for the holidays, and it was a really cool cliffhanger to leave us on. Overall, everyone was thrilled with how the session ended, and I spent three weeks thinking about how to kick that wizard's ass. But part of me is still outraged on behalf of my character -- she wasted a resource, and I felt like using the potion that way was a clever choice in an otherwise impossible moment. I don't want the end result to be any different, but was my character owed any recompense for having a plan nullified for the sake of story? Is that just the price we pay for cool narrative moments? PS in case it matters: my character was looking after two children who were in the tower, so the explosion and inability to access them was highly distressful on top of the charge of DM tampering. As my character's counsel, I am seeking emotional damages should she win this case.

Tyler Hall

Dice Christ Confession Esteemed Cardinals of Dice Christ (and altar boy Jake), I’m here to beg forgiveness from Dice Christ and MORE IMPORTANTLY FROM MY FRIEND WHO LISTENS TO THIS PODCAST, for I have committed the most grievous sin - the sin of being an asshole. It was my first ever campaign with some college friends. I was playing an orphaned moody chaotic neutral Drow elf fighter named Varys who didn’t trust anybody, because it was my first time playing dnd and I was an annoying asshole. My friend was playing a lawful good paladin, who just wanted to be a hero and help everyone, because my friend is just a really good dude. There was naturally a lot of tension between our characters, in every session. In game, I made a conscious choice to dispel the tension between our characters. We had a drink or two, and then joined a third party member who was smoking magic weed. Upon entering the room, my friend rolled a nat. 1 and passed out from a serious contact high. I thought the opportunity was too good to pass up, and I decided to prank my friend. I stripped his armor off (again I must stress that all of this was IN-GAME), covered him in honey and feathers from one of the room pillows, and used a rope to make it look like he had passed out during auto-erotic-asphyxiation, before leaving the door open so the barmaid he had been flirting with earlier would see. All the while, my friend was failing CON save after CON save to wake up. After this, the tension between our characters eased, we remained friends, I apologized, and the campaign moved on. But I could tell he didn’t enjoy the session, and I have carried this shame for nearly 8 years. For the sin of being a bad party member/friend/person, I now beseech you & Dice Christ & my friend (whom I hope is listening) for forgiveness. I will perform whatever penance Dice Christ requires, and I hope my friend knows how much I love him.

Kylie

To honorable Justices and Esteemed bailiff who I think could do a sick kick-flip. I write you the case of the Fantasy Punnet Square Problem. Years ago my group and I were starting a new Heist of Waterdeep campaign. I created a half-elf storm sorcerer who's parents were former adventurers who sailed the Sword Coast. During my introduction of my PC I mentioned that her parents were both half-elves. I was immediately interrupted by my friend at the time, saying that I would be a quarter-elf. She knew this because Critical Roll used a table from 3E that had mixed lineages for potential PC's. I told her that I used a Punnet Square and that two half-elf parents could have a half-elf kid and that it shouldn't matter because the parents are there for plot hooks. The discord call was immediately awkward, and we just kind of moved on from my introduction and my DM allowed my PC's parents to remain half-elves. Am I wrong to still be annoyed at being interrupted during my PC's intro or should I have had a tradition human/elf couple. I await your judgement. Ps: the interrupter and I stopped being friends shortly after and that campaign fizzled out.

Tales of Galoria

To the gilded in gold justices and the little copper coin of a baliff, i present to you, the case of the ruined vibe; I have a goup of friends that I've played with for about 3 years, a teensy weensy, 10 player 1 GM group, im the GM, so i decided to make a session with all of them as a big event, but 2 other guys joined that session, making it so i now had to change my plans to add 2 people, they absolutely destroyed the vibe being overall obnoxious in and out of game, being loud all the time and acting like they are the only MCs in the game, the worst part of it all, it was my birthday, and i prepped that session for a month, because it was the final boss battle, and i had to give them a "deus ex machina" where they could do something similar to what caldwell did in the "Proposal Impossible" ep, where they could go to things in the past, and it somehow became a good session, but they were making it so hard to do, when i already had to modified prep for 12 players. Am i wrong to have banned the 2 intrusive players from my game? Or should i have let them have fun? I eagerly await your judgement (i still have contact, often, so i can make assure it is accomplished).

NADDPOD fan and barmitvah'd man, it's Dave O

To the esteemed Justices and the Mensch who protects the Bench (unless we are being mean to Jake in which case the Schmuck who may be a cuck? idk) I present the case of the cursed reward and the meiser of a DM. I've been in an online game for the last few months with some people I met through the looking for group subreddit. We are now 16 sessions in, and the DM has been a bit skimpy when it comes to rewards. The whole group felt that way and we even brought it up, and he said "you guys keep missing them". We as a group disagree but we decided maybe we have and just decided to asking to do more investigation checks. Well lo and behold the next session we clear an ancient dwarven forge and we find a bag of holding filled to the brim with goodies; a flametonue longsword, a ring of x-ray vision, a spiderstaff and a cape of protection. I'm excited, everyone gets what they want, we leave the forge and make camp and attune to the items. We wake up the next day, and we come to discover they're all cursed. Each one, and all the gold we found too? Gone because the bag of holding turned out to be a tricky bag of devouring. I was pretty mad after all that, and still am as this only happened a few days ago. Am I right to be angry about our one cool reward being poisoned goods? Or am I just expecting rewards too much? I leave my fate up to the court.

Sahidian

To those Right Honorable Justices and their “Most Improved” award-nominated Bailiff, I present the case of the Too-Good-to-Fail Plans. I am a player in a biweekly Discord game where we play a group of snail adventurers on a mission to find a cure for snail lycanthropy (it turns you into a bug instead of a wolf). On one fateful session, I and my fellow players conspired to kidnap and interrogate a professor whom we rightfully believed was withholding information from us. I got a little carried away writing plans, and ended up devising an entire Jigsaw-style trap sequence to capture and interrogate the professor with, complete with in-character costumes and out-of-character theme music. Justices, I needed this plan to work. I had put too much time and effort into writing it—I wrote a full speech to read to the professor in-character as snail jigsaw (jigsnail, if you will). The problem? To get to the professor, we had to get past a guard keeping watch by his door. Hoping to avoid a lengthy combat encounter that might jeopardize my trap sequence, I rolled to pretend I was university staff on my way to deliver news to the professor… and came up with a 2 on the dice! Justices, there is no easy way of saying this: I panicked and I lied to the table. I said I rolled a dirty 20, and because of that single, crucial deception, the scene of the trap and its resulting chaos went off without a hitch. It was everything I had dreamt it would be, and more. We all laughed and cheered as the professor confessed his crimes, unknowing that I had gone against the will of Dice Christ. The game is still running, and it is the most fun and engaging campaign I have ever played, but I cannot live with the guilt of knowing that my character’s greatest moment was predicated upon deceit. Justices, was I wrong to lie to my table? Were my plans funny enough to merit fudging the dice, or is pride the true curse that plagues me? I humbly await your richly-deservéd judgment.

Lorelei G.

May it please the lordly Justice Murphy, the divine Justice Axford, the kindly Justice Tanner, and Jeak Hamwits, I present the case of the verbal contract. Our 10th level party of 6 had just been brought back to life by our beloved goblin paladin NPC, Craig, after a brutal TPK, and we were returning to the city that we had been working out of. All of our equipment was missing, but we were mostly just happy to be alive. We returned to the city, and that night, Craig had the idea to use Locate Object to find a magic item that one of the PCs was distraught to have lost, a sort of magical bestiary that he had been writing. We followed Craig, and eventually found ourselves at a black market magic item dealer who we had encountered before. He had all of our magic items (one per character), which had been sold to him by the redcaps that TPKed us. After haggling, we agreed to a contract, in which we would do three jobs for him, then he would give us our items back. Our DM typed up the contract in the Discord chat to make sure that everything was documented, and we signed it. The session then ended with the DM having Ingot, my kobold forge cleric, roll an Insight check, and realize that the written contract did not specify a number of jobs that we had to do for the magic item dealer, and we had essentially just signed a contract that bound us to his service indefinitely, and which would paralyze us magically if we failed to follow his orders. The magic item dealer is also a rakshasa, with immunity to nonmagical b/p/s damage and all spells of 6th level or lower, meaning that there is very little that we can do to him. After a grueling dungeon that included several PC deaths, we are now gearing up to beat his ass, but I would argue that the Insight check should have occured before we signed the contract, rather than after, and that the magic item dealer not putting a time limit on the contract should have been more obvious than it was from the DM saying it but not typing it out. The campaign is still going fine, and I'm still good friends with the DM, but my forge cleric is still bitter and despises the magic item dealer now. PS: A few in-game hours before the contract fuckery, both of my cleric's arms and one of his legs got ripped off and his holy crucible amulet was stolen, so in fairness, I was already not having the best time when this happened.

Sara Morello

To the honorable justices and that other guy too I guess. To be fair to this case, please know that it has been months since we last played due to life situations, and there may not be hope of continuing this campaign. I would like to present the case of the Deer/Ent. The party and myself are relatively new players, currently lvl 2 characters, and have somehow found ourselves in an overrun elven town. Survivors have collected into one of the tree-like buildings and we have been tasked with protecting them. A hoard of undead are on the attack lead by this cannibalistic deer creature our DM came up with. As we're defending the Survivors, the Deer charges at the tree in attempts to knock it down. As we're dealing with hoard, and deer, suddenly there were rat assassins coming from the tree tops as a reward for looking? Anyways, we manage to kill the majority of the hoard, the assassin rats and "disappearing" the deer creature. Half of our party was down at this point. Our DM admitted to us that we weren't supposed to kill the deer right away so it's just not there. Instead an Ent showed up and successfully knocked the tree over as a second hoard came rushing out. Sadly this was our last session. I'm not super familiar with D&D, but I know each DM runs things a bit differently. Is this unfair to newbies or is this something I should come to expect? Ps: I'm not the only player who thinks the DM is on a power trip...

cat with coffee

To the honorable justices and the graceful bailiff. I bring to you not a case of my own but one dictated to me by my younger brother. "I was the DM, my players had found themselves in a battle of of the bands of sorts. We were playing over roll 20 because it was the pandemic. Therefore, because they were fighting a punk rock band, it was the natural choice for goth Logan Paul to represent one of the enemies. My player (Valrais- a half elf bard) managed to land the killing blow on Logan Paul. Me being the courteous DM that I am, when he excitedly asked to narrate his killing blow I allowed him to. This was a mistake. He then proceeded to narrate how he skinned Logan Paul's face and wore it as a mask while singing "mask" by Dream (the minecraft youtuber). The session ended right there and I never played with that group again. Was this fair of me?" ps. My brother still DMs for and is friends with Valrais, but it is in a different campaign because this one was deemed unsalvageable .

Dag Swanials

To the honorable justices and the beautiful bailiff, is anymore Twilight Sanctorum on the horizion?

Runal

To the honorable justices and the dubious bailiff Cake, I present to you a colder than frost cold case of the Salty 4eva Chicken Mush DM Several years ago I was invited to join a DnD group by my former coworker This was exciting as DnD podcasts were gaining traction and I was itching to try out the game! Session 0 is planned and she offers to drive me to her home since I didn’t have a car. I meet the players and introduce mine, while I can sense a bit of apprehension from the party’s warlock, everyone seems friendly enough. The DM goes over the rules and we run a goblin camp encounter where I learn very quickly the thrill of playing- I found myself making a necklace out of goblin ears for advantage on intimidation checks- and I definitely learn fast these aren’t things players encourage at the table, so I ease back for the remainder of the 8 hour session (which in my opinion, as fun as it was, way too long) At 5PM we take a break and our DM mentions that we’ll have a dinner break and I was under the assumption I would simply order takeout No. The DM mentions they have had chicken and rice cooking in a slow cooker all day and proceeded to serve us mushy mildly seasoned chicken AND THEN asked us to venmo her roughly 10$ each.. after begrudgingly eating we returned to playing and end the evening with her driving me back as I rave about what a fun time it was Sessions go by and she has been regularly picking me up for each session despite asking if a webcam join would be easier. She says no, in person goes best After a while I grow tired of her chicken meals and ask if I can order takeout to which she agrees and I buy pizza but get crossed looks from the warlock whenever I offer, subjecting herself instead to the chicken meal In one of my final sessions, we meet two new players, one of whom was a fuckboi bard who called my ranger lady ‘fat and ugly’ after I’d mentioned he wasn’t her type since she’s a lesbian, and a wizard with a custom ironman subclass who had the tankiness of being in a mechsuit without any of the drawbacks- as well as the ability to destroy enemies with ease After meeting and traveling, our party arrives in a city and stays at an inn where the bard attempts to woo the warlock but the warlock establishes that she is not interested in his character at all. He then asks the DM if he can cast a spell to seduce her, she says yes, the warlock rolls a save then says ‘I failed my save so yeah Im seduced by you’ and they both proceed to roleplay the scene out of hooking up in the sleaziest way possible The night ends shortly after, thank god, and my DM drives me back— during which all of a sudden she berates me for having to pick me up; gas, time, money and that getting takeout instead of eating her chicken didnt sit well with her as well as a number of other things Im shocked and apologize and offer to venmo her what she thinks is the right amount for gas money and we sit in silence with her fiance in the car for 30 minutes after which I promptly left the car and said ‘until next time’ fully knowing in my heart that I fully intended to avoid her from then on and moved on to start my own campaign with my dear friends whom I love and respect

Madz

To the honorable justices and Mr Hurwitz: I give you the stolen goat My players where in there end game and had collected many items one included a home brew item called call of the goat. It was a goat mount for a gnome pc to go riding into battle that could be summoned with a horn. My PCs had gathered an army and where camped out before heading into there final battle. I had an NPC who had gotten close with the gnome but was evil steal the horn along with some other magic items. To be less suspicious they replaced the horn with a replica. Stealth checks where rolled and perceptions checks also and with only a 10 stealth i some how beat the party. The day of battle comes and the gnome blows the horn and no goat appeared. My player got into a huge screaming fit when i explained the goat didnt appear and how he saw in the distance it being ridden by the NPC. He then proceeded to yell at me saying he didn't want the NPC to have the goat. FULLY NOT UNDERSTANDING IT WAS STOLEN. He then stormed away from the table saying because he didnt have his goat he would not play and left taking his girlfriend with him. Am i wrong for taking his mount? (Each player had an item close to them stolen he wasnt singled out)

MitchySlaps

To the three beautiful and honorable justices as well as Jay-liff The Bailiff, I was introduced to a party that had been playing together for quite some time and I was invited to their group by a friend. The group is fun to play with and the shenanigans are abound but there’s one guy in the group who is unruly to the point where I lose interest. Last session he built a guillotine to decapitate a thief we already turned in for the bounty. I said no, so did others. Couldn’t convince him otherwise. So we sit there for literally 30 minutes while he argues and still attempts to go through with this plan. The NPC in charge is not budging so I decide to tune out and watch playoff hockey instead. I lost all interest. The rest of the session went fairly smoothly and the guillotine bro actually fell asleep on zoom. Do I message the DM and ask if these “shenanigans” can be cut short to move on with the module or should I have a second hobby on hand for when this inevitably happens again?” Looking forward to your verdict, Mitch trying not to bitch

Reece Grogan

To the benevolent and mighty ancient red justices and that wyrmling Jonk, I bring to you the case of the melted mithril. I am DMing my first campaign with some friends, all of whom are happy to roll with the punches bar one, an experienced DM Swords Bard who seems to have issues often. The latest one arose when he triggered an acid trap that melted his mithril half plate, giving it a -1 to AC. After failing his save and learning his precious armour was damaged, he privately messaged me during the session to tell me he had forgotten to add proficiency, so he had actually saved. I was suspicious, but after reviewing the trap I realised the corrosive effect took place regardless and the save was for half damage, so continued on. His gripe continued when he brought it up again in another private message during the following session. I told him once more the armour was damaged and he seemed to accept it this time… but i was wrong. Messaging the group chat the next day, he insisted the party wizard cast mending on his armour. When the wizard said he didn’t have that cantrip, the bard pointed out his Hat of Wizardry, claiming he had heard stories of its power so it wasn’t meta gaming to ask him to fix it. Annoyed, I jumped in to put down my DM foot. I said mending wasn’t going to cut it as acid had melted away huge parts of the armour, but if he were to find some mithril ore and a skilled smith, it could be salvaged. This then sparked an argument about the mechanics of the trap, whether or not mithril was a magic item and immune to acid, and whether or not mending would work. Stewards of the court, I lay myself at your mercy. Was I in the wrong to melt this armour, or is my player being miserable over some mithril?

Andruw Carney

To the wise and honorable justices and the big and beefy bailiff who reads these; I offer to you what I hope is a quick and easy case on behalf of my client, a dear and old friend who I believe has been greatly wronged by members of your own audience The accused malfeasance occurred whence my client was traveling to visit family. A substitute was chosen to play their character whilst they were away, a substitute that happened to be their own ex-boyfriend. In addition to this, which was perceived by my client as 'fucked in its own right' during the session in which this occurred my clients characters pet rat was killed by the dm during the session. And so I pose two questions for the court as posed to me by my client, is this worth quitting a campaign over? Should they get new friends? I humbly await your wisdom and hope for a favourable outcome for my client, who didst not need this shit. p.s. you know who you are, and you know what you did

BethKF

Love D&D court but, sadly, all happy here. Started playing D&D with 2 other total newbies, 1 experienced DM but inexperienced player and our DM through StartPlaying in February. We meet weekly on discord 🗣️ & owlbear & are having an awesome time. Our DM is really encouraging us & helping us develop our characters, generally be so giving of his time & passion, and encouraging us to think about DMing too. I had this week, a really, really cool idea for a setting for D&D/ttrpg and he’s already offered to workshop with me and is encouraging me to think of developing a oneshot for us one week! I really love our wee crew, hanging with them is probably the single most fun bit of my week. Great for me but useless for D&D Court - unless the justices needed to hear that somewhere out here there are D&D parties still having a great laugh and top shenanigans 🤷‍♀️😊

Ethanis

To the esteemed justices and bailiff Jerk Hurwitz. I have been running a WW2 era necromancy empire game in which my players are rebels trying to overthrow the empire's leadership. I made it clear from the get-go that they were going up against extreme odds, and they were down with the idea. But it did mean that they took extreme measures to make sure they weren't caught for any of their various shenanigans. During one mission where they had to break into an apartment in a relatively sleepy town, they ended up spending a lot of time at the scene of the crime. In an effort to move things along, I had a soldier arrive to investigate the suspicious behavior. When the party's deception checks to get the soldier to leave failed, the soldier tried to run. The party ran them down and captured them. What then followed was conversation in which the party, in quite realistic detail, discussed how they would take the soldier out of town to murder them without arising suspicion with the rest of the army in town. Listening to my close friends plan a fairly realistic abduction and murder made me, I feel, a reasonable level of uncomfortable. I stepped in and tried to resolve the situation by hand waving it, but my party was worried about the consequences of being found out. I had to profusely assure them that this situation would not affect their notoriety, just please stop planning this murder. This situation caused me to change the structure of my game, making most soldiers of the empire undead and scaling back on the darker themes of the setting. We still play the game several years later, but this experience makes me wonder. Did I overreact to the murderous tendencies of my friends, or was I justified in pulling back on the themes and refactoring some of my world to prevent these kind of situations in the future? I await 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.

Shane Murphy

To the Worm Wife Justices and the Worm Cuck Bailiff. I bring the case of the too cute cat. This past year I've been dming a trio of first-timers and everyone's having a ball. Including my 13yo tuxedo cat named Tink who gets extra pats and is adored by all. However, one member of our party has started leaving the table during scenes to go sit with the cat. It's gotten to the point where last session I had to ask them directly to come back and sit down They protested, saying they could hear fine from next to the cat. When I insisted, they sulked for the rest of the session and have pulled out of next week's. Justices, did I crack the whip too hard or can I reasonably expect my players to sit at the table while I DM?

Beav

To the benevolent Justices and secret heir to the throne Bailiff Jork, I bring before you the case of… FANATICAL FOCUS V. HEIGHTENED SPELL A few months back, I was DMing a short campaign for a group of randos online. One of the PC’s was playing as a multiclass Sorcerer-Warlock optimized for damage-dealing. In one of the boss fights near the end of the campaign, the group was facing off against a Barbarian demigod whose stat block had the “Fanatical Focus” feature. In the sorcerer’s first turn, they cast an AoE spell and used “Heightened Spell” to give the raging Barbarian disadvantage against the save. The boss failed, so I decided to utilize their stat block feature to reroll. Just before the dice left my hand, I noticed the wording of Heightened Spell states that the disadvantage only applies to the “first saving throw made against the spell.” To me, this seemed pretty clear cut that my next roll would instead be made flat, but the PC argued that a “reroll” is redoing the first roll, thus the disadvantage would still apply. Not wanting to spend precious playtime arguing, I just went with my interpretation of the rules. The player was clearly pissed they had wasted 3 sorcery points, but the party ultimately prevailed in the encounter. The next morning, I awoke to a MURPH-LEVEL FREAKOUT on Discord. This absolute wall of a message included a formal explanation of why their interpretation of the rules was correct, a declaration that I intentionally wanted to embarrass them, and an accusation that I was jealous that they had designed “the perfect PC.” And yes, this blowup was as out-of-the-blue as it seems. So Justices, was I correct in negating this Sorcerer’s Metamagic or am I, in fact, a cruel, heartless, and jealous DM to this online player that I had known for a total of 21 play-hours? I humbly await your insight.

Cameron Davis

To the Honorable Judges and Jungle Boy Jack Perry, I present the case of the Denied Misty Step. I DMed for a group of 4 level 6 characters—Fighter, Barbarian, Warlock, Rogue. In an encounter that saw the Barbarian, a Halfling lady named Bizkit talk quite the amount of shit to the Half-Dragon Bandit Clan the group was fighting. After a few rounds, Bizkit found herself down with one failed death save. The Bandit Leader uses her life as a bargaining chip for all their valuables, but is serious about killing her next round. The Warlock, a purple Tiefling named Amino (played by my irl best friend) ran up to her, saying he was casting Misty Step to get her out of harm’s way. I denied him this, telling him that Misty Step has both a Range and Target of Self. Amino argued that I should “just like, do rule of cool”. I denied him but said he could reset his movement to do something else with his turn if he’d like. Should I have let him have the moment? Or was I right to enforce the RAW? (P.S. Bizkit made it out alive, and they barely fought out a win against the bandits. Good potion usage makes all the difference.)

Smash

Church Confessional Oh great clerics of the mercurial Dice Christ, may my Lamentations reach him in the Heaven of Crits. Several years ago, I was running a side mission session for a friend who was returning to multi-year campaign after he took a short hiatus. He was teamed up with one other PC and an NPC cleric, going up against a false hydra. The battle was immensely close, with both PCs being brought down at least once. Towards the end of the fight, the cleric also went down and went to death saves, failing the first one. His second death save... Was a nat 1. However, I made the express decision that I wanted my friend to be able to return to the game with his original character as this adventure tied closely to his backstory and declared it was a nat 20, allowing the cleric to pop up and use a powerful healing spell, keeping everyone in the fight just long enough to win. The campaign came to a close due to scheduling about 6 months later, but may see a true resolution soon and I have felt the weight of this sin upon my shoulders. I have never fudged another die roll as a DM but I still must confess, and leave my dice at the mercy of the church.

Mark A-L

To my Kings and Kween, and my former nemesis Yacob, The Case of the Too-Strict DM. I stand before a man accusing himself. I love the rules of DND. As a player, I have really enjoyed building and role playing characters, and a big part of my joy is from doing something creative and awesome within the mechanics of the game. I'm also a first time DM, my campaign has had about 15 sessions. I assumed I'd be a relatively RAW DM, and communicated that in our session 0. My players were fine with it. But as the campaign goes on, I find myself wondering if I'm being a Too-Strict Buzzkill. It's easy to tell my ranger he can't hide on his turn because he already used his action (especially because he's about to dip into rogue). But another time someone wanted to misty step from the ground to the top of a wall 30 feet away. I said they couldn't, because the top was more than 30 feet away--that's how triangles work. But they pushed back because it's magic and, annoyed, I relented. Recently, I had them fight several mimics. If you hit them with a sword, I wasn't sure if the sword was automatically stuck them (and would take an action to remove?) or not. So I ruled that the weapon did get stuck. But for each attack you would make a strength check and if you passed, you'd be able to pull it far enough away that you could make your normal attack. Fail, and the attack was wasted. One of my players wanted to do acrobatics instead, and I said no. There's some other examples too - all are relatively minor, but I keep wondering if I'm being a hard ass for no reason. Just because I enjoy the mechanics of the game, that doesn't mean all my players do. I beseech thee, pass judgement on me. Am I right to be strict, or should I let my worms wriggle?

Resido

To the regal Crit Justices Ashford, Murphey, and Tanner. (Presumably read by some unimportant stooge who shall remain nameless) May it please the court to present the case of "Deus Ex Your Dead". As a long-time DM, I was excited to finally PLAY an Alchemist crafting build in a Pathfinder Kingmaker campaign. One of the side effects of the build is my character ended up with insane knowledge checks. By level 8, even on a natural 1 I would get a 20. He was completely broken. One session my DM narrated I was out purchasing alchemical supplies by myself. I stated I would probably have a lackey handle these types of tasks, but could see he was trying to bring in a story arc so offered "perhaps there was something specific nobody was able to find." I entered the shop to find nobody there, so I left a note and went to leave only to find the door locked. After rolling an 20 on the die for a perception check and failing, an assassin dropped down from the rafters and attacked. After getting a 19 on a con save and failing, the single attack killed my character. Furthermore, the assassin used disintegration dust on my corpse to prevent me from being able to be revived. I asked to see the character sheet for this assassin and while he did present a valid character sheet it would be a non-functional character in society. The DM clearly made this assassin just to end my character, with no vengeance arc or strings available to find. The other PC's at the table were dumbfounded by this sequence. I ask the court: Was I in the wrong for creating a character with an unintended but awesome side effect? Was Cato so damaging that he needed to be removed from the world? Or did I get godsmote for just playing the character of my dreams. I await judgement from the court. PS: this was 5 years ago... and I'm still scratching my head...

thesorceress

To our most honorable justices and Jakes, I present to you the case of the murdered barkeeper. I, two party members, and our DM, have been having a friendly disagreement about a situation that occurred several years ago that we just call ‘The Bar Incident.’ Our party members at the time were a sorcerer, a Barbarian, and a bard and we were just stopping at an inn in the middle of nowhere. As we were leaving, our sorcerer thought it would be funny to scare the barkeep by illusioning the money we paid into spiders, in a country where most magic is illegal. This freaked the bartender out and he ran outside into our barbarian. Now the barbarian had something the player rolled for himself called confusion dice. It was basically a self imposed rule by this player where he rolled a dice which had question marks on it and if he rolled a question mark on it he didn’t understand the situation. So when he rolled the dice and got a question mark, he decided that running away meant he was a bad guy and murdered the bartender. After this my bard decided I needed to clean up this mess so I went around and Geased the patrons at the bar to walk away and not tell anyone what happened or die to the Geas I put on them. We wish the court to settle this dispute: which of our characters committed the worst crime? We await your punishment.

Alien butt puppet

To the Omniscient justices, and the human doormat Jake. During my first campaign I played a Ranger. Due to some unfortunate rolls during an encounter, one of the other players fell off a cliff into a lake of lava. The dm said we have 1 round to save him before he takes lethal damage. Acting quickly I attached a rope to an arrow with the idea to shoot it down next to him to let him climb up. I rolled a nat 1. The dm narrated how the arrow stuck into the top of his head and killed him. We laughed it off and he rolled a new character. Years later after DMing myself, that call bothers me. I ask the court, is a nat 1 justification enough to ignore a players AC and kill them, or was it a bad call? I lay myself at the foot of the court.

Hannah

With thy bless, I must confess. Dear holy trinity plus 1 (you can figure out who is the plus one). My heroic partner did me the birthday deed of organising his first DM session and our 4th dnd session. One would think that snacking and slurping on multiple dnd podcasts and eating a variety of dnd shows I would not commit the sin I have. In a moment of utter brain farts I thought my dungeon cutie had said, if you have proficiency you can roll with advantage. Which I happily did, nothing huge came out of it, and I have confessed to my lore lover, but I felt like I should have known better. Please absolve me of my stupidness.

BigSpoon4U

To the most Honorable Justices and that guy who rode Amir's coattails to a decent living. I present the case of the Urgent Sending Spell. I am currently playing a Life Cleric in a Curse of Strahd campaign. I will avoid spoilers as much as I can for anyone who might be planning to play. My party is in a town and we got word that a woman we've befriended has been kidnapped by the head of the town's guard and been brought back to the mayor's home where he resides. We have to figure out how to get into the home and get her out without just rushing in because we are already at odds with the mayor. I decide because we have befriended the mayor's son and he's expressed the want for the head guard to be killed due to his cruelty, that I would get him to let us in. So at the start of the day I cast Sending to message him in his mind that we need his help, it will involve taking care of the guard he hates and to meet us at the church. Once I send that the DM says you wait two hours and nothing happens. He has me roll an insight check and tells me "you feel maybe your message wasn't urgent enough to convey he needed to come right this moment." I just stare at the DM and say "I think someone using magic to directly send a message into your mind shows quite an accurate amount of urgency." and the DM responds "not to an absent minded wizard who mostly spends time in his room." We are only lvl 5 so I have two third level spells slots a day....but I use my second to send "GET HERE NOW!" Fast forward and because our wizard cast mage armor "loudly" my negotiations turned into an all out fight. Int his fight our Barbarian's head was "smashed in" We won, but because I had to use both 3rd level spells just to get the son to us to have a way into the home, I now couldn't Revivify (I had the components) our party member. I ask for your judgement, am I wrong for thinking the first message was enough to have someone come see what is going on right away? Or was my DM correct in basically tricking me to waste my final highest spell slot right before we got into a fight that he even deemed "the boss fight of this arc"?

AaronG

To the honorable justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and the lowly but lovable bailiff Jake, I humbly ask for your judgement in this case involving a clever teenager PC and an NPC Berbalang. I run a DND campaign for my son and 3 of his friends, which started 2 1/2 years ago when he was in 7th grade. I only played a few times as a teen myself, so I am not an experienced player, but thankfully my son has just about memorized the PHB and there's always the internet. The encounter that is the subject of this case happened well over a year ago, but since I've started listening to the DND Court episodes recently, I realized you may have some wisdom to bring to bear on this issue. The adventurers were working their way through a spelltower that was overrun with aberrations and fiends. I chose a Berbalang as one of the creatures they would encounter in the tower, because I thought its 1/day Mirror Image ability was really cool and would present them a bit of a challenge combined with its ability to fly. At first the combat went as expected - the dwarf fighter charged in and, with a few lucky dice rolls, did nothing more than dispel some of the imposter mirror images. However, the wizard in the group came up with an idea and simply blasted the area where the Berbalang was flying with a Fireball. At first I did the Mirror Image roll to see if the real creature was affected, but he argued that since it was area of effect and the images were all in the same space - easily within the radius of his Fireball - the Berbalang should do the normal Dex save, effectively nullifying the Mirror Image spell for this attack. I saw his logic, and plus it was hard to say no since he had only recently leveled up and learned 3rd level spells, so I didn't want to throw a wet blanket on his excitement in casting the spell. So the Fireball dealt massive damage to the Berbalang and that particular encounter was over pretty quickly. What say you? Did I buckle too easily and let him cheese his way past my interesting baddie? Or was it right to allow this wizard a cool moment where he cleverly employed one of the coolest spells in the game?