Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Cases Please! (Patreon)

Published:
2025-08-11 18:42:43
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Greetings! Bailiff Jake here, to let you know the Supreme Crit is convening shortly. Please submit your brief (I do beg) grievance and or table drama on this thread and we will bring you sweet justice!

Comments

Michael W

May it please the Bountiful Bishops of Dice Christ and also Junior Choir Boy Jake; I am a man cursed by some sort of Dice Demon, and I need a blessing from Dice Christ to save my eternal dice soul (and also my dice rolls). I am known in my wider gaming group for having some incredibly unlucky rolls; I have started many a session with a nat 1, and rarely am able to roll well otherwise. In a recent session, I rolled 3 nat 1s in 5 rolls (4 attacks, and 1 desperate test of a new die). I have tried multiple methods to fix this; I have rolled on DND beyond, discord, and with multiple sets of dice, some of which I made myself. I even fostered some dice with a fellow player in an attempt to purify them. None of these attempts worked. In fact, the fostered die immediately betrayed me with a nat 1 the first roll back. The nat ones are usually very funny, but I'd like to succeed at least sometimes. I beg of you, save me from this curse so I can actually accomplish something in my games.

Wojtek

Supreme Crit Justices and the unfairly trodden-upon High Bailiff Jake, long may He reign: I bring you the case of the pre-combat held action and the forced-lore murder. Our long-running, primarily remote group had an in-person climactic session, taking place across a weekend with two good friends joining as guest players. After nearly 10 hours of play, the BBEG arrived to initiate combat in the treasure cave the party had been seeking for months. One of the guest players, Brian, then revealed he had been secretly working with the BBEG and harbored secret hatred towards the party bard, played by Hugh. Despite his dramatic declaration of revenge, Brian was immediately crit-killed on round one by an NPC before he was able to attack. As he dropped to death saves, Brian declared he had a held action from *before* initiative to crush a gem, summoning a fire elemental that directly targeted Hugh. The fire elemental killed Hugh after both downing him and attacking him during death saves while Brian shouted about past grievances to add to the lore. Hugh was furious about being targeted through what seemed like a questionable retroactive reaction. Our cleric could revivify, but the damage was done. Was Brian justified in his dramatic lore moment via undeclared pre-combat held action, and should our DM have allowed it? Or was Hugh right to be upset about the sketchy mechanics and being removed completely from a climactic fight?

Secret Grandpa

Dear First Team All-Pro Surpreme Crit Justices and that Waterboy Baliff Jarf, I come to you with a classic tale of DM antics gone wrong (Murph cover your ears). About a year ago I was prepping an Autumn Festival session and was admittedly in a wacky mood. Beyond the normal festival games, I created an NPC who would polymorph PCs into toads for a little harmless fun. As a secret option at the festival I hid a small toad sized hole, which when entered the PC would come upon a sacred seance with tiny toads in witches hats surrounding a pentagram. Said PC would be greeted as the chosen toad-brother or sister whose arrival was fore-toad by Toadstradamus. After a ritual the PC gained a leaping ability and the sworn allegiance of all evil toads. Here's the issue...before all this I mistakenly made the polymorphing NPC a shapeshifting toad, so naturally they swore allegiance to my chosen PC and travels in her pocket. Now my PC has near-unlimited access to toad polymorphs and has used them to get other players out of sticky situations by polymorphing them and tucking them in her pocket. She is amassing a small toad army and I fear there's no turning back. Please help.

Nathan L

What up Axford. Sup Murph. What’s cracking Tanner. Hi… Jake. May it please the court: I present to you The Great Wall of Force debate. One of my party members, a cleric, was restrained by a giant flying snake. She was extremely hurt and not looking good. I, a wizard, attempted to cast Wall of Force to separate her from the snake, describing the wall intersecting them both and choosing to push them to opposite sides of the wall to save the cleric, as the spell states I can choose which side of the wall a creature goes to. My DM said no, arguing the spell doesn’t allow the cleric to be magically untangled from the snake coiled around her and that the language of the spell doesn’t imply teleportation or forced separation. This sparked a lively debate at the table. Some of the party on the DM’s side, some on mine. Don’t worry it was all in good spirits, and I eventually conceded to keep the game moving. But, I still feel I was right and am seeking the highest court in the land’s opinion on the matter. Judges - how would you rule this? I await your succulent judgment.

Abigail Rickabaugh

Noble Justices and Jeek, I humbly present you with the case of the bard who was too in character. A few years ago in college I made a new friend who wanted to start DMing a campaign for her friends and she invited me to join. Several of the players were new to DND but the DM and I were not. There was one new player in particular, let’s call him Kyle, that everyone else at the table knew, but I had never met. Kyle was a music major and wanted to play a bard. He wanted to be charismatic, powerful, and have a dark past. Unfortunately, when we started playing, he only seemed to be interested in participating when he could romance female npcs, and frequently forgot major details of his backstory. He was somewhat attentive during role play but completely checked out during combat. I sat next to him to offer help with spells and navigating DND beyond when he needed it, so I could see that he spent most of the sessions designing his buff bard (with 10 strength) on hero forge. During one combat session, Kyle actually left the table and sat on the couch playing the guitar when it wasn’t his turn. As you can imagine this was disruptive, and I felt bad for our DM who did a lot of prep for each session. When we asked him to come back to the table, he brought the guitar with him and continued playing. Again, this was distracting. He did after a few months learn better table etiquette, and we had a lot of fun sessions, but to this day he proclaims that I “used to hate him” because he was new to DND. Judges, I ask you, was it wrong of me to be frustrated with Kyle’s behavior, or should I give more grace to a new player?

D Cord

May it please the Honorable Court, Justices Murphy, Tanner, Axford, and Baliff Jill’s Husband, I present to you the case of docking in town with Penial cancer. I play in a game with friends of mine in a world inspired by the Witcher. While rescuing a town from a cult that was turning the townsfolk into fish horrors, one player became infected by an enemy with a scarab in his back, a la the Mummy. The DM made the player roll for the number of days he had before consequences of the infection took place. Fast forward a couple of sessions, our group sailed to a to the closest town and was boarded before we could dock by the guards. The player with the scarab was in his cups this session. A bit buzzed he ranted about how we needed to dock and not pay the fee, it was urgent. He claimed to the guards his ailment was “dick cancer.” Bewildered, the DM made him roll a persuasion check. Natural. 20. We made it into the town, and everything is fine. But now the player does not like it when we meet new NPCs and the rest of the group informs them of this players recent diagnosis (the actual scarab has yet to be cured and the player has roughly 10 days in game to solve it). I humbly ask the Court: should we stop razzing this player for his outrageous claim, or should he have had more tact, regardless of buzz? We humbly await your decision.

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 to figure out especially during something you wanna keep fast paced like combat. Im also cursed with a pretty bad case of Murphism and can often go through whole sessions without rolling above a 10. So to combat my awful math abilities i’ve started using Dnd Beyond to roll my dice and do the math. However i have also noticed now that im using an online roller im rolling astronomically better! So i ask the church, do i walk with the dice devil now that i have strayed away from physical dice? 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

Jack H

May it please the court and mildly irk the bailiff: I play a halfling monk named Muggsy who is an aspiring young boxing champion with a mild to moderate case of CTE. Muggsy has always worn a set of grilles he acquired by defeating an elderly tax collector. Mechanically, the grilles do nothing but Muggsy tries his best to look tough and rich by flashing them all the time. Many sessions later, we were in a tough battle when a hefty stone was flung at Muggsy. I countered it using his deflect missiles monk ability to reduce the damage. For flavor, instead of trying to catch the rock, I figured it would be more fitting if Muggsy just took it right in the face like any good boxer would.  I was able to reduce the damage to zero. However, the DM made me roll a luck check to see how my grilles held up against the direct hit to my mouth. I rolled a 1 - no problem, with my halfling luck, I'll just reroll. But the unthinkable happened - I rolled a second, devastating 1. The DM informed me that my prized grilles were shattered and tumbled out of my mouth. I argued that this was out of line - Muggsy shouldn't lose his iconic jewels because of the flavor I added to how the missile was deflected (successfully, I might add). Had I not said anything, Muggsy's grilles would certainly be untouched. Eventually I relented. So I humbly ask the court: Do I have a legitimate grievance with the DM in that he punished my flavorful role playing by taking my favorite toy? Or is it fair that he countered flavor with more flavor, and I need to find a way to recover? I await your judgment. PS - sometime later, Muggsy was able to acquire new and expensive diamond grilles so he has his swagger back. However, unbeknownst to him, they are in fact made of cubic zirconium.

Denatonia (Haven)

Esteemed lords and lady, I present the case of the Forbidden Horse! A few sessions ago, our 5e campaign had a big mid-season finale fight. We had just reached lvl5, and as we approached the BBEG, my beloved paladin Esther cast "Find Steed" for the first time to help her in battle. Citing that he "didn't want to deal with an extra thing on the map", the DM randomly forbade this. (Note: his gf plays a druid in another campaign and frequently wildshapes/summons, and my ranger is also perfectly fine to fight with her dog, so this had no precedent. HIS paladin also recently summoned himself a steed). He said I should have discussed it with him first if I wanted to use Find Steed - a normal and common paladin spell. He's experienced and it wasn't a 'you'll be too powerful' panic moment. Am I right to be salty about this random decision? I also wouldn't ask if my cleric / wizard are allowed to have Cure Wounds / Magic Missile before I use them! PS: Esther died in the fight, Idk if a steed would have saved her but it definitely would have helped. The party knows of one resurrection scroll and are planning to one day bring her back. Except after I'd made my interim bard with an exciting but time-limited story arc, the DM suddenly decided that being resurrected would lead to Esther becoming an NPC and leaving the party (I do not want this, she would not, and I was not asked; I was excited to play out my first ever resurrection!). Normally this DM is chill. Esther was well-liked, the sort of leader of the party but not a showstealer, not a problem character whatsoever and smack in the middle of her arc. Wth?

Blubread00

A firm and respectful handshake to the sedulous judges and a seated finger grab handshake to the skylarking bailiff I’m running a new campaign for two of my lifelong best friends (small group, I know). The premise is that rift-filled tempests have been plaguing the world ever since a god died. One player is a wall guard for a small city, and the other is a farmer who left home looking for adventure. Session one started with a tense scene: the farmer sprinting for the city gates while fiends closed in, and the wall guard making sure the gate didn’t shut before he made it through. It was a great way to kick things off and get them invested. After some downtime and RP, I gave them the call to adventure—pretty standard stuff. The duke needed brave souls to enter the storm and investigate its source. Both players flat-out refused. Caught off guard and not great at improvising, I panicked a bit. After a long rest, I told them a royal decree had gone out: not enough volunteers had come forward, so the city’s wall guard (one PC) was being forced into the mission. That got one of them moving. The other still refused, so I started playing a bunch of NPCs—begging, pleading, guilting him into going. Eventually, he relented, but afterward they gave me a hard time for “railroading” them. So here’s my question: should I have just let them walk away and scrapped the session I planned, possibly spending hours rewriting everything? Or at some point, is it fair to expect the players to take the hook and go on the adventure?

SiteZero

Hello honorable justices who can not be bought unlike the Supreme court and the Bailff Justin who gives Florida energy (in the bad way) or if we are being nice future cake conisour Baliff Jake or Wife Worm Baliff Emily. I bring you the case of the Attempted Warhammer Hoodwinking, I am a long time DM who has started to introduce friends to the game that haven't had the ability to play before. Recently they have been having such much fun that they are surprising me with their friends (which I take as a compliment) this is not the case I present tho. I have run multiple books (which I alter significantly to kinda make my own campaign and just use the book for assistance with timing) and we were halfway through Out of the Abyss when one of these "new additions" asked if he could DM the next campaign. I was super supportive and excited to be a PC. This is when problems occurred. We have been running combat heavy comedic campaigns for the most part but the more we all keep listening to him planning (which he did very loudly during break times and forced conversations in that direction) he is planning a super serious Warhammer 40K political roleplay campaign and got super defensive anytime we tried to Crack anytype of joke. The other PCs and I had discussions that we didn't want to play that and voiced that to him but he just kept saying trust me yall will have fun. During the final session we all told him that another of the "new additions" wanted to run a Fallout new vegas esc combat heavy comedic campaign and that is the direction the group is deciding to go this was met with a "OH we'll see about that". The epic conclusion I had designed in my campaign was that the Demogorgon offered them a wish if they sabatoged a simple wedding and killed the Groom. What I didn't tell them and they didn't roll high enough to know is that the grom was Graz'zt and the bride was Juiblex (in a human form I made). They hijacked the systems to keep the wedding secure and weaked everything before rushing in the finish the job (kick ass right?). They all formulated the plan to finish off the the bride because she was significantly weaker. This is when "new addition number 1" (let's call him Corey) breaks formation as a monk and uses insane movement to barrel rush the groom way across the castle 1000's of feet away while saying at the table "I'm getting that fucking wish so I can wish us all into my 40K campaign, y'all will have to play it then". While the rest of the party was struggling to finish off the bride he rolls a higher initiative and gets first round of combat against the groom greatly weakening him (putting him on deaths stoop). I see that the rest of my party was about to defeat the bride, so I cheat and use Graz'zt teleport ability and just move him into the room with the rest of my party problem solved. That's when from across the table I hear "Um, Actually his ability only let's him move 120 ft" so I bullshit and say "Correct but he is using the spell which allows him to go anywhere he is very familiar with and since he was planning on getting married in the ballroom he would be very familiar with it". This gets me a sigh and his turns become I run 180ft while the rest of my party are slaying the groom getting the wish and using it to wrap up the campaign where they all either go back home or set themselves up with the life they were seeking. He refused to narriarate his ending and even took a six pack home that wasn't his. I await my sentencing for if my crimes of bending the rules to prevent someone for hoodwinking future campaigns.

Daniel Baskins

To the honorable Judges who defend the land and uphold the rule of crit and *looks Jake dead in the eye* literally no one else. I bring you the case of the fucked up cleric. About a year ago I played in a one shot that turned into a campaign (or at least it was suppose to). It was a VERY magic heavy setting so everyone was at minimum a half caster. We played this over zoom, and I had play with all but one of these people before. We all had slightly problematic but OP characters, for the bit, and we worked well as a dysfunctional family. That is except for the unknown player. He played a cleric who had a personally built customized d100 table of different drugs and their effects. When he wasn’t under effects from a drug he was suffering withdrawal and he was insufferable. Not contributing to the party and actively taking away from the narrative. On MANY occasions he would take a drug that would fully incapacitate him and just expect us to carry him through a dungeon. It was funny for the one shot, but as the campaign drug on (pun intended) the drugs seemed to get worse. One was that his healing spells had the opposite effect so instead of a healing word he did a harming word. Once during a withdrawal, outside of combat he randomly attacked a PC because he “needed the good stuff”. I tried to voice a complaint but he just steamrolled his addict cleric in no matter what. The campaign later fell apart, not exactly because of him, but many other players shared my frustrations, so it definitely had something to do with it. Judges, am I wrong to be frustrated with this character and this player who refused to help us in what was a really incredible campaign (with one of my favorite character I have ever made) or was he on another level of character creation/commitment that I have yet to reach? I await your verdict. P.S. Emily thank you for being the greatest D&D player of all time I will follow you to the end of the earth

Jamjam

If it may please the court, the hardworking justices and the hardly working bailiff, I present: The case of the questionable character choices A few years ago I played DnD for the second time in my life within a university game analysis course. I was excited, I baked cookies for the table and sat down for a oneshot where we all played premade characters (I was a gnome rogue, there was a human paladin, a halforc barbarian and a halfelf ranger) and it was fun until i noticed the halfelf ranger was using slurs when talking about other races, calling me a footscraper and later a female dwarf something i’d translate to “beard slut”. That second one made me really uncomfortable and when I said so, he pointed at his character sheet that stated the ranger doesn’t trust/like other races and said he was just roleplaying. i dropped it and the dm moved on, but it still felt weird. the only other girl at the table later also said to me that she felt it was crossing a line and thanked me for mentioning it, but both of us don’t really play rpgs, so I wonder: was I in the wrong for objecting to the way this player chose to play his character? Is casual sexism just something I’ll have to deal with when playing dnd? I bow to the court, hoping for mercy. PS: The guy playing the halfelf ranger was the professor

Molanarch

To the magnanimous justices and the kinda cute bailiff haha Jk. Unless? I present the case of the mildly moist fire. Years ago my group started the Elemental Evil campaign and after a few months of playing, fizzled out because life got busy. A couple years later we decided to restart the campaign with new characters and all agreed we would build our own characters around specific elements. I made a Triton Sorcerer who had all ice and water spells so I can be specifically useful against fire. A few levels in we entered an area where we encounter 2 greater fire elementals in an enclosed room. Our dm warned us before we entered this area that we were not supposed to be here yet and that it would be extremely difficult to make it through. We agreed and went in anyway. On my turn I cast the Tidal Wave spell which hit both elementals. After calculating the bludgeoning damage I asked if they take any extra damage from water which upon my DM checking, confirmed they do. They take 3 cold damage for every gallon of water splashed on them. There was a lot of arguing about how much water would actually be considered splashed on the fire elementals as the wave would technically fully engulf them. There was also the argument that magical water was not the same as normal water. After multiple online searches online with no Official™️ answers, my dm ruled that they only took 4 extra cold damage. They proceeded to whomp our entire party on the next turn and instead of being killed we were all imprisoned by cultists. Here the kicker. In the prison we encountered our previous characters from our first party to which our dm pulled out our old character sheets and declared we would play as those characters for the break out. After the break out we were given the option to either stay as our new character or play as our old character. So Justice’s, I ask, was I wrong to be upset that the specific strength I built my character around was stolen from me for my dms clever twist?

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?

Joey Simon

Hail Father Murphy in your brilliant omniscience and curse all who do not heed his wisdom. I confess to you the story of a dm who was punished for allowing his players to roll for something ridiculous. I dm for a party of 7. The players were sneaking through abandoned dwarf tunnels hiding from an ancient black dragon. They stumbled upon a dragon cult of kobolds led by a dragon born protecting the egg of the dragon. Ezzag (a kobold cleric in the party) asked the party to make a fake dragon egg larger than the one the cult was protecting. A few spells later I asked them to roll for the quality of the egg. They rolled a nat 20. Then Ezzag strolled into the room singing an impromptu parody of Prince Ali from Aladdin about himself. It was hilarious so I asked him to roll performance against bad guys insight. He rolled a 2 and I rolled a nat 1. This began a series of really bad rolls that turned my BBEG into a beta cuck and the party strolled right through the cult unharmed. Please Father Murphy forgive my sins for allowing these rolls that led to the funniest session of DND I've ever played and the throwing out of hours of prep.

MyrMonkshood

To those litigeous hotties in the barrister wigs, and to the half eaten cake next to the gavel, I bring you the case of the AOE spell vs the invisible BBEG. My partner was DMing a high school wrestling murder mystery campaign. The final battle involved keeping the CEO of the wrestling league from hitting a sacred bell with a sacred hammer. A wild magic effect, not on anyone's turn, caused this baddie to go invisible right before our bard's turn. Our bard wanted to cast shatter on him without hitting our very hurt cleric. Our DM said it would be a DC 18 arcana check to place the spell in such a way, even though there was no way the invisible BBEG could have moved yet. This spooked our bard from casting this spell at all! I only complained to say that my DM would see me in court, but we quickly moved on. So here we are. Please allow me to shower him with stale croissants!

Dakota Jahn

May it please the court, and Jake, I present the case of the neighbor-DM. My girlfriend and I briefly played in a campaign with a couple of neighbors. The DM was one of the neighbors, a cool goth guy. We played a couple of times over the summer holidays, during which it slowly became less fun. For one, the DM was very focused and didn’t like having to explain himself more than once and one of the other players, another neighbor, had never played before and was having some difficulties. The DM did not like spending time explaining to her how the game worked and when we tried to help, he’d continue on without giving her time to understand what was going on. For another, I was playing a cleric and my girlfriend a paladin, and when we asked about what pantheon the world used, he said “I haven’t decided yet.”. I played several sessions without knowing who my god was (I never actually found out). In the end, school got busy and my girlfriend and I weren’t really feeling the campaign. I kept cancelling, but in the end I finally quit, bc canceling several times was more unfair that just ending it, when I knew I wouldn’t have the time or energy. The DM never answered when I wrote him to quit. Now, whenever I see him, I awkwardly hide until he is out of view and it is getting pretty difficult. Justices, have I done wrong here, could I have done something different? I throw myself at your mercy.

Erin Perry

To the holy rollers of the highest church and little alter boy John, I come to you this day with a confession. A while ago in my current campaign, my DM gave us all custom feats after we reached an important story beat. Part of my feat was access to my very own familiar, but the stipulation was that she had to use the stat block of an abyssal chicken at all times for story reasons. While not the most useful for scouting, this little chicken comes in clutch in battle often, most recently allowing me to twin spell cure wounds, as my chicken and my PC were able to touch separate party members. Apostles... I recently found out that I've been using the unearthed arcana statblock this whole time, as it was the first result on Google images. If I'd paid just a bit more attention, I would've realized the image came from the unearthed arcana subreddit. The real abyssal chicken has blindsight in a 30ft range, but is blind beyond that, meaning that half of this chicken's clutch moves I would never have been able to do bc the chicken wouldn't be able to see the target to cast the spell on them or move to them. I have since begun to use the right stat block, but how can I begin to right this wrong?

Side Quest Studios

To the illustrious judges, Axeford, Murphy, and Tanner and the superfluous bailiff, Josh… or whatever. I present the case of “The heist that goes nowhere.” I am playing in a homebrew campaign with a somewhat new DM. I am usually the DM in another campaign we play together and asked if anyone would be willing to DM so that I would get a chance to play as a character (since I had never really played as one other than a a few one shots here and there). He stepped up and created a new group and this was our fifth or sixth session in this campaign. In the last session, we ended up in this unruly and chaotic pirate-like town and discovered that a powerful gem was possibly tucked away in the tower of the half-giant captain’s quarters in a tall towering structure in the middle of the town. So the party planned an elaborate heist during a gala that was being held in the tower where one member of the party performed stand up comedy to distract the people and the captain while two of us (myself included) snuck up the tower to the captain’s quarters on the top level of the tower, while another member of the party scaled the wall on the outside of the tower. Essentially trying to cover all our bases. We eventually and somewhat miraculously made it up to the captain’s quarters where we were met with riddles to open a safe. It took us 45 minutes to an hour in real time to figure out the riddles to open the safe doors (we were getting very frustrated and didn’t get much help or hints from the DM). But once we got into the safe, we searched for the gem getting high investigation rolls finding NOTHING. Then we were caught and taken captive by the captain. We worked so hard to plan out a pretty well organized heist and it was all for nothing! And the DM told us that the gem was never there to begin with! I felt a bit ripped off by going through all of that work for seemingly nothing! Am I justified in feeling ripped off, or am I just a bitter backseat DM thinking that this could have been handled better? I humbly await your incredibly wise and honorable judgment! (PS: We did have fun that session, but boy was it frustrating. And we left on a cool cliffhanger that makes me excited for the next session!)

Morb

To the esteemed justices, and Baby Jork I guess, I bring you the case of The Triple Were-Curse I'm running a long-term 5e campaign where the players travel the Astral Plane, restoring broken timelines across various fantasy worlds. In the very first arc on the Sword Coast, their gnome artificer failed a bunch of con saves over several long rests and ended up becoming a vampire-which the entire party found hilarious. Later, they also fought and defeated a clan of mind-controlled wereravens, and while the gnome was asleep, the rest of the party forced him to injust Were-Raven blood. He somehow rolled a series of incredible CON saves, and I gave in, letting him become a were-raven too. Thinking this would be the end of it. That kicked off an ongoing party joke-goal of trying to give this gnome every mystical disease known to man. Since then, they've added were-tiger and were-bear to the list, and at this point, he's basically a walking abomination, causing me to have to adjust how were curses work just to allow him to function. Justices, the players clearly love the gag, but I'm worried that if I keep allowing it, this poor gnome will end up mechanically impossible. Should I put my foot down and cap it at three were-curses, or let the bit continue for the sake of the chaos and the players enjoyment?

ZoeyHorse (Afterdark)

To the crit justices and bayliff Jake who reminds me of Spike from my little pony, I bring you the case of the cat who I don't like. I was playing DND for the first time at this specific friend's house who is no longer my friend because I don't like them. They would never stop talking about their cat. At one point during the game, the cat came in, and then suddenly the DND session stopped as my ex friend just made us all look at the cat for 30 minutes, refusing to continue the game despite my frequent requests. I love cats, but not this one. He was so mid, justices. So so mid. Should the DM have stopped the game for 'Kevin Time'? Should I have spent more time more time looking at the cat? Was I wrong for wanting to play DND? P.S Hi Caldwell how are the kids

CommonCatepillat

To the Golden Gods of the highest council, thy kingdom come, thy crits be done, and (50/50 chance here so I'll say) Amir. I come to you with a cold case from my youth. THE CASE OF THE PRIMATE V SPIDER At age 13, I asked to be in my brother in law's tabletop game with two other (adult) players. It was a magitech setting where our characters were recruited to be apart of a magical syndacit of people who stop evil. My character, Snap Clackers, was a Nature powered monkey who gained his abilities and sentience after being captured and experimented on. Me and the other players got along and played well off of each other and it was shaping up to be a fun campaign. At the end of one of our sessions, the DM (Brother in law) announced excitedly that there would be a guest who would play a villain next session which excited the rest of the table as well. However, me being 13 and getting shit grades on my report card, I was grounded that week and couldn't go to the session. The next session I was filled in by the DM what happened. Apparently, the guest played an evil spider queen who womped the party and demanded they bring her 100 slaves for her to do with as she pleased and they agreed. My character, who was present while I the player was not, was made to agree with them. You can see how this would be of big conflict to who my character was and, being new to roleplay, I simply played him dispondant and angry for the rest of the session, going against what the party was trying to do that session. The campaign shortly fizzled out due to other factors outside of anyone's control. Judges, should I have been more malleable with my marcupuals morals or was I right to lash out at my party for their decision? (PS. The spider queen session was the 4th session) (PPS. The guest who played the spider queen was my 23 year old sibling. The one who was married to my brother in-law)

Brendan

To the estimable judges and the inestimable baliff Jorp, I come before you not with a case that needs judging, but with a request for aid, advice, and succor. I am running a pair of games at the moment, and they're going great! Truly excellent times had by all, no problem players. We love to see it. We're still pretty early in the game (about a third of the way through Wild Beyond the Witchlight). Unfortunately, several of my players have let me know that they will be moving across the country in about six months time; likely not enough time to finish the module. So, gentle justices, my ask for you today: what advice can you give for bringing a game to an early--but satisfying--close? Shall I stomp on the gas and strip out personal hooks and side quests? Abandon the planned end rewrite the module? Any advice--and, if necessary, judgement--would be appreciated.

Bagofchips123

To Jake, the extremely loveable and hot bailiff, and i think the other people from the book club thing... I have a problem. Whenever there was a fight, one of my friends always persists on torture. When there's one more guy left he will be like... let's tie him up and cut off his legs or fingers to get information. And I'm just like... no just finish the fight and you'll progress naturally, no need for LITERAL TORTURE especially when he would break fingers and heal them just to break them again. Am I being a Squeamish dork for not liking it or is it just part of dnd. I await your amazing and jazzy sentence.

chlo!

Hello my dearest Judges and Baliff. My story is not one about a specific incident that happened within a game, but rather within the party itself. I played with the same DnD group for three full years in college and grew close to them. However, three of them lived in an apartment together after the first two years of play! Our group ended up falling apart for interpersonal reasons (our dm was nasty) but I only got the full extent of the other issues once the fallout had settled. As the story unfolded, i found out two of our players (let’s call them J and G) who were living together dated the same girl. J dated her for a while and asked G not to pursue her because the wound was fresh. Naturally, G went and proposed to her and now they are to be wed! I’m on good terms with all the other members except for G because that was simply insane to hear

feoran97

To the Ultimate Supreme Crit Justices, and the Baliff, I think their name is Tina, I bring the case of the one shot catapult. I am a long term player and DM (over 5 years) and I'm playing with a new DM and two new players (I'm a player in this campaign). The DM asks me regularly for advice, as he is new to the game and I have more experience. One of the new players (Banjo the tree frog wizard) was attempting to make ammo for the catapult spell by having the artificer make essentially shrapnel rounds that would burst into 6 projectiles upon impact. The problem was, he was trying to calculate the damage as 3D8 for each piece. This would make the damage 18D8 for a first level spell, and up to 66D8 damage for a 9th level spell. I argued that it would not splinter and split that damage, to which he brought up ballistic rounds for a firearm. I argued that the catapult spell propels something 90 ft in 6 seconds, or about 10 miles per hour, which wouldn't be fast enough to do the same kind of damage. His argument was that I was crushing his creativity and couldn't compete with my damage so was feeling left out in combat (I am a lvl 3 rogue and level 7 gunslinger inspired by deadeye). Am I wrong to get involved and save my new DM from setting a precedent that this was OK, or should I have just stayed out of it and let Banjo have his nuke? I humbly await your almighty wisdom and judgment.

CamSmall

Greetings Judges and Bailiff, I humbly present the Case of the Unlucky TRex. In a game of Curse of Strahd that I DMed, my players were in THE Battle with Strahd at the end of the game. The druid of my party polymorphed themselves into a TRex after being knocked out of their last wildshape. The next round, they tried to attack Strahd's coffin, which we had established as having a higher than typical AC for coffins because it was Strahd's coffin. They missed their attacks. The player then asked if they could use a Luck point to reroll. I originally said no because TRexes don't have luck points. After some debating back and forth between the other players and myself, we left it to Dice Christ to see if they could. Dice Christ decided no, and combat continued. My players made it out alive, but are still bitter with me for not allowing it. I feel allowing Dice Christ to decide was more than generous. My question is this: would a character who is polymorphed have access to Luck points (or other feats) in the polymorphed form? I await your judgment, and may Dice Christ save me if I have wronged my players.

Liam K

To the blessed apostles of Dice Christ, I come to ask for your forgiveness and absolution. A few months ago, I started DMing for some coworkers, mostly new players. One of the new players made a Paladin PC, super cool character with a developed backstory…and 9 Constitution. I thought about suggesting a different distribution of stats, but decided it would probably be fine. Fast-forward to our first full session - the party encounters a couple swarms of lobster-eel like monsters in the basement they’ve been hired to clean out. The paladin, already a bit hurt, steps forward bravely, and…the swarm crits. Hands sweating, I grab the pile of dice and roll them, knowing it will almost certainly instant-kill this PC. In a moment of weakness, my brain refused to add up the numbers, and instead say, “you’re down, but not instantly dead.” The party manages to survive the fight and the Paladin player is having a blast. I thought I handled the situation ok, that is until I ran a session zero for another group, including a non canonical fight to get some new players used to the mechanics and their characters. On round 1, I proceeded to roll consecutive nat 20s that, if I had rolled full damage, would’ve instantly downed both of the PCs they attacked. I fear I have been cursed to beat up lvl 1 PCs until I finally kill one. Dice Christ Disciples, I ask that you forgive me for my dice fudging before I am forced to kill a new player’s first PC, souring their first experience with this wonderful game.

chlo!

not in need of a ruling i truly just wanted to share bc ive been sitting on this

PawPaw’s Overalls

To the honorable justices and lowly, yet lovely, bailiff Jack I present the case of DM vs the Morally Ambiguous players My players were sneaking onto a docked airship that was hosting a party for the local inquisition guild. They were tasked with finding a MacGuffin somewhere on board. Little did they know there was a bomb waiting to go off. They eventually find the macguffin and after a perception check notice a ticking sound coming from behind the engine room door. Behind the screen I had set up a timer to give them 5 minutes once they heard the ticking. However, my disguised players didn’t open the door to check what it was and insisted on calling for the captain to come downstairs to look at it. Long story short, after getting the captain (and most of the crew) down to the bottom of the ship they open the door to find a timer with less than a minute on it. They ask if they can use the spell rope trick to essentially force the bomb into the extradimensional space. I ruled they couldn’t do this based upon RAW, so they decided to climb into the hole themselves after yelling to everyone who had gathered in the stairway above them “there’s a bomb, try and evacuate” with less than 10 seconds left on the timer. Through the portal they see a large explosion and after the smoke clears nothing is left of the airship as their portal sits hovering in mid air, with mass casualties reported in the news later that night. My players are insistent that: 1. They should have been given more time to act on the bomb despite wasting 4 minutes of time trying to bring down the captain and not checking to see what the ticking was until there wasn’t hardly anytime yet. 2. That they did nothing wrong since they provided a warning, despite not providing a time, drawing most of the crew downstairs closer to the explosion, and not attempting to help anyone actually evacuate. So I ask judges, was i wrong to have a hidden timer running behind the screen? Are my players culpable at all? I humbly await your judgement.

CoyDifference

Week 2 of asking for your consideration: Dear fantastic and all powerful bailiff and who ever the hell those judge people are. Me and my cousin were playing in a lvl 6 one shot hosted by a local game shop. My cousin had just gotten off of work and we had decided to go last minute so the DM offered to let my cousin use one of his own characters, a lvl 2 hedgehog named Albert. My cousin very enthusiastically agreed. Flash forward to the center piece of the session, we were tasked with protecting a mage tower from an army of robots. The DM narrated how we the players each had two runes we could place and they would do what ever we described. Naturally the being slightly degenerate the runes ranged from teleporting who ever steps on it to Avernus to giving the person flaming explosive diarrhea, both placed fairly close to the entrance. After a few rounds of combat the DM described the robots starting to breach our tower. My dwarf and Albert the hedgehog were the only two left inside so we did the only logical thing, I picked up Albert and placed him on the flaming explosive diarrhea rune and used him as a flamethrower. This injured him greatly and knocked him unconscious. Our Druid and Wizard entered the tower shortly after and, staying true to character, tried to help. The Druid used create water to put out the fire and the Wizard used a lightning spell to finish off the robot’s…forgetting that the robots, Albert, and I were all standing in a pool of water. This “helpful” action did kill the robots but also almost killed me and obliterated poor Albert who had already failed one death save. After the fight was over we hosted a small funeral for Albert which ended with his corpse being placed on the teleportation rune to Avernus. I humbly ask were we wrong for the semi-accidental murder of my DM’s beloved character that he was so kind to let us use? I await your judgement with a bowed head.

Tannicglint285

Hello honorable judges and equally honorable/lowly bailiff Jork (depending how the court feels today), I bring to you the case of the unoptimized Druid. I’ve been running my campaign for almost 3 years now and one of my players, a warforged Druid, is playing D&D for the first time with me. He has been part of the crew for a couple of months now, and I have noticed during the encounter/battle sessions that he is always leaning towards his sickles more than his spells. I have tried to balance this with upgraded sickles, which didn’t help much, and trying to lead him more towards his spells. I’ve also tried to encourage taking a level or so in barbarian (oppa Moonshine style druid-barbarian) to get rage damage. I’m not sure what else to suggest, but this really cool character feels nerfed within the world for the first-time player. So I ask this, how do I continue to help this player who doesn’t seem to be heeding my advice? Any suggestions will help, thank you!

Barney

Honorable Justi' and Jake the dirty little snake 🐍. Look under here.. under the podium. I have a Bat problem! In our Curse of Strahd campaign, we find our party clearing out a werewolf den. When sending the bat familiar (Bat-Aranth) to scout, hiding werewolves shot him down. The issue, he has blindsight via echolocation and these furry fluffs were hiding near the stalagmite ridden shadowy walls. Not behind any amount of significant cover. When I brought up to the dm that the bat would have seen them, he said they were hidden and that echolocation is not seeing... so line of sight means squat. No check, no rolls. My question to you! Was my bat unjustly murdered by a god who refused to let him see, his echo-y-way, or do I need to pay my 10 gold in materials and apologize to my batty boy?!

Jane Paintrain

To the Honorable Justices and the worm bailiff, Lowly - I present the case of the Marvel Menace. In the early days of our playgroup one of us wanted to try DMing for the first time with just me running two PCs. The practice session was fun and I agreed to another. What I didn’t know was that the DM invited a second player to the next session. I was nervous because my two characters were parodies of Marvel characters - funny for a one shot but far from what I would typically play in a full campaign. Of course, the new player comes in with Thor and Black Widow and a full campaign ensues. From there things only got worse as the second player created exclusively Marvel characters for all subsequent campaigns, one shots, and mini arcs in our larger play group. These PCs have not been well received at the table as we tend to play typical medieval high-fantasy adventures. Judges, I ask you - who must bear the blame for this superhero epidemic that has been going on six years now? Is it the second player for forcing his superhero fantasy into our forgotten realms, is it the new but overly permissive DM that enabled us, or must I make my way to a Dice Christ confessional and beg forgiveness for this superhero inception? Perhaps everyone is to blame and this case has no heroes after all. I leave the ruling in your capable hands.

Andy Kaplan

To the noblest of Judges, Axeford, Murphy, and Tanner and to the lowest of lows or highest of highs, depending on what mood Judge City Pigeon is in, Bailiff Jake (COYS), I bring to you the case of the Folding Fireball Boat. In our weekly campaign we are on the last level of Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and before we descended to the lowest level to face Halaster and his apprentices, we were able to exchange some of our inventory for other items that would help. 2 very rare items for a legendary and legendary for legendary or very rare for very and so on. Our wizard and paladin come up with an idea to get a folding boat (new version, not legacy) and multiple necklaces of fireballs and stuff the necklaces in the boat with the idea to use it as a molotov boat-tail. Our DM said we can roll a total of 12d6's per necklace, and we were able to stuff 35 total beads in the boat which would result in 136D6 worth of damage. We spent a good hour and a half of real world time deciding the rules of this boat bomb. The DM said it wouldn't work on Halaster because he was an archmage, but we could still use it on one of his apprencienes. Once the encounter happened that we decided to use the boat bomb, we opened the door and tried to toss the bomb in and kill Arcturia, a transmutation lich, only for the DM to tell us right when we threw it, Arcturia cast telekinesis on the boat and launched it back at us doing 458 points of damage. Luckily, our bard cast circle of power and we were in our Paladin's aura so we took no damage as we were all able to make the saving throw, but we were denied the joy of our boat bomb. I ask you judges, was the DM in the wrong for letting us take the time and effort to build the boat bomb knowing full well he was going to use telekinesis and launch it back at the party the whole time or should we have expected some DM shenanigans? I await your judgement, oh wise ones.  - Andy 

captainGeneral

To the great and incredible justices, please save me from an issue of great importance. I have a lovely dnd group that I have played with for a long time. We all have tried our hand at dming and currently we have 3 running campaigns with different dms. One campaign is an adventuring school, we were promised in the beginning to run through some classes, meet some classmates, and time skip to some adventures. Instead, we have run though every class, every meal, every evening of activities in our ~biweekly sessions. Pleas to speed it up have fallen on deaf ears. Egresiously we have had one level up in two years!! We had an 'adventuring fair' (science fair) where we went through every project of the other 15 groups of students!! Normally I would just leave, but this dm is very invested in their world and story and is a valuable friend and a great player in our other campaigns. He simply refuses to hear that this is getting ridiculous and keeps saying that we are 'about to get to the adventure'. Please definitively rule on this case to save me from yet another actual class lecture on lore!! Please give me some advice on how to handle this situation! Justices, I beg!! Thank you.

Ronan Cowsill

Dear Justices and Caleb. I bring you this case in which my PC of a year and a half was murdered. I played with some friends online for a while and after a year or so my pc was one of the only original party members left. One other player at the table had their pc ‘retire’ in their village after we freed it and the player made a new character for the party. After a while playing with this character our party got into a battle and after which their character killed my pc out of the blue. Justices, I was baffled. It turns out the other player talked to the DM and made this new pc SPECIFICALLY to kill my character (the last original party member). After they killed my character who I’ve been playing for over a year they laughed and narrated how they teleported away. The next session that had their original character show back up to the party in a awesome Thor lightning strike style and started talking about how he was so sad my pc died and now is the last member of the OG party. I was sad to lose my pc but I thought maybe this other character my friend played was going to be super important. Justices, it never came up again. Am I wrong or is it kinda fucked up for my buddy to just take a break from his pc to create a character just to kill mine, then once I died they just left and he resumed his original pc. Also why did the dm think this would be fun. I await your ruling, thank you and goodnight.

Jorge Fuentes

Hello justices and little baby bailiff bunting, I will make this quick as I know your time is important and the bailiff needs to take his nap, I come to you with the case of too many cancellations. Right now I’m running a dnd campaign (orbital blues is the system I’m using) and it’s been going great! I’m talking “I have a mini arc lined up for one of my PCs” levels of great. My issue is when this campaign is over my friend (let’s call him R) is wanting to get back into the saddle. Look justices, I love him, great friend, not so great DM. He always makes the worlds and scenarios he’s running to ambitious and gets burned out super fast, if we argue at the table he will leave to take a breath and if bad enough will just cancel his campaign (this is how I became a DM) and in preparing for his upcoming campaign he has switched systems 4 times and bought 3 more he thought “looked cool”. Justices, I cannot do this again, I cannot make a character that I know will be discarded in 2 sessions and will have to listen to him say how much he would rather be doing another system, I don’t feel like I can leave without hurting his feelings but I just can’t do it. I’ve stopped caring about backstory and character depth because of this. Do I just say screw it and leave? Or do I let the cycle continue and start prep on my next campaign as of right now. I await your judgement

PlausiblyPJ

May it please the wise keepers of the holy crit—and the guy at the confessional announcing our sins—I confess: three years ago, in my very first Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign with strangers, I made a bold mistake that’s haunted me since. In our third session, the party debated helping a town or siding with the mafia; only one lawful good player wanted to help, and when they threatened to rat us out, I (a bard) cast Sleep on them, tied them up, bagged their head, convinced the townsfolk they were dangerous, and left them penniless on the roadside—forcing the player to roll a new character. It was hilarious… until I realized I’d swapped Sleep into my spell list after a rest just for this plan, which bards can’t actually do. The campaign went on, the DM embraced the chaos, and it became a legendary moment, but the guilt remains, so I kneel for absolution—and will accept any meal you decree Jake must cook as penance.

Mica K

To the devout Clergy of the High Crit and the divisive other one, I ask to be purified in the eyes of Dice Christ. When my online campaign was doing war combat (similar mechanics to final battle in C3), we were supposed to be using multiple D6s to roll and to keep track of. I… only had a full set of dice near me, and I was already really snug. So, whenever I needed to roll more than one d6, I would roll a d8 as well, and treat the 7/8 as a reroll. I ask to be cleansed as I really could've gone to the other room to get it but didn't want to.

Clever Innuendo

To the Venerated Dice Elders, I present my confession, which stems from a powerful moment in a late-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 a 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 hit in that range in a single round. A hush fell over the group as the Fighter was lamenting she 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.  Nevertheless, 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. It was a huge moment at the table, but 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.  

Rook

Dear Honorable Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner as well as the questionable but endearing court baliff Jake. This was several years ago during one of the first campaigns i'd played so i was still pretty new. I was playing as a Cleric and the party was in a church when a fight broke out, the crowd immediately started panicking and fleeing. During my turn i casted an AOE spell (i dont remember which one) on a group of bad guys, the DM asks "Are you sure?" This of course gave me pause, but i couldnt figure out WHY I wouldnt cast the spell. I spent 5 minutes going back and forth with both the party and the dm trying to figure out why this was a bad idea, but none of them would tell me so i gave up and did it. Lo and behold, there were still civillians in the church and I ended up killing 5 innocents and injuring another. The rest of the party gave me shit for this move obv, but i had thought all the people had fled the church and while i dont necessarily blame the DM for not telling me, should my party have at least helped? I leave this up to the court and will abide by your ruling

Pop

Hello hello my gorgeous judges and … uh… is there someone I’m forgetting? I present to you all the case of the prankster dnd group I recently joined a new campaign, I have been playing dnd for a year now and understand the rules pretty well. This game had been going for about 3 months when I joined and everyone knew eachother, I just barely knew the dm. Walking into the house I sat down and dumped my bag of dice (blessed in the moonlight of course) and got ready to play, the game started and it seemed pretty normal until the person next to me was asked to roll a d8 to hit the enemy, they got a 4 which was a success. I was confused but thought, maybe I zoned out and didn’t hear them rolling the d20 that was until the person pulled out a d20 to roll damage. I was ultra confused and I turned to the guy infront of me and asked, “why did they roll like that?” And he said “wdym? That’s just how the game works” he said it loud enough so everyone could hear, i was so confused and a little bit mortified by the embarrassment of being answered out loud when the person next to him goes “have you played before?” and everyone laughed, i genuinely thought I’d gone crazy , maybe this WAS how you play dnd. We continued the session where I wasn’t asked to roll once, I left and got into my car where I received a text saying “pranked ya!” from the gc of all the players. I cried (socially anxious and honestly mortified about the whole thing) but session is in two weeks.. graceful judges… should I go?

Michael Critz

What up, my Tortles. Here’s a spicy meatball: I call it specializations. A specialization is a one or two word specification to a character stat. Here are some examples: - Survival: forests - Medicine: acid damage - Perception: Demonic lies - Intelligence: Fae puzzles When the character uses a stat in the circumstances of its specialization they get advantage. Thus, a good specialization must be specific so there aren’t too many advantage rolls in common situations. Example: “Medicine, first aid” or “Strength, fighting” are far too broad. I’ve play tested specializations a few times and what I think works best is for the DM and player to negotiate two specializations for a character during character creation to help build out the backstory. Then, the DM can allow characters to add more specializations as rewards for excellence in gameplay. This is a reward for truly awesome gameplay worthy of upgrading a character. The DM planned for the group to fight through a gang of dwarves, but the bard’s song was able to distract the kidnappers so the rogue could free the hostage without a fight. The DM can say, “That was awesome! How about we specialize your deception with ‘distracting music’?” Awarding specializations can be a fun negotiation The bard can say, “Instead of ‘distracting music’ can I specialize ‘performance’ with ‘captivating singing’?” I’m willing to sell you 49% of the business for a single, natural egg with the color and texture of the original Rose Trellis Fabergé egg from czarist Russia.

Giovanni Gabriele

To the holy disciples of crit religion or whatever. And the tall alter boy Jace. I somewhat humbly but also without much regret prostrate before you angling so I don’t accidentally bow to Joyce. We’ve been playing this really fun grimdark campaign which has high lethality and in which we have to keep track of our inventory. Your holinesses, I hate having to track number of javelins and make sure we have rations for a given number of days of journey and have to spend coins on beer and food. So umm I just don’t, not always, but in busier times when maybe the dm forgets and I just don’t remind them. Like if they ask me to mark down a rations (which takes up some of the limited inventory space) I will do it, but if we’re in the midst of stuff I just “actively” forget about it. Please be kind in your judgements because again I don’t think I care that much uwu

Nolan Kaiser

I throw myself at the mercy of the church, including its wonderful clergy and the guy who wrote the music for Lalaland. I am running a campaign for my family, including my parents and two younger brothers. The only one of importance to this story is the youngest brother, so lets call him Jake but Cool. I am using a module, “Hoard of the Dragon Queen” because I am a college student and prepping a full campaign is a ton of work, and my family seems to be enjoying it. Close to the beginning of the campaign, when the players are level 2, the party found themselves in the worst scenario possible. They pissed off a camp of fanatic cultists and are now under attack. Jake but Cool played a sorcerer with meager hitpoints, and so when I rolled to hit him with my two attacks I felt my soul leave my body as I glanced down at two nat 20s. I looked up from them and stared Jake but Cool in his hopeful eyes as I grappled with the morality of murdering his character, or fudging the rolls. Clergy; I don’t fudge rolls. Gakabogo was unceremoniously murdered as the rest of the party fled. I don’t ask for forgiveness from Dice Christ, but rather a curse from the Dice Devil. I want to never roll well again if it means killing beloved characters of my party members. I throw myself at your feet pissing myself and crying, begging for this to never happen again.

Hanna Dahl

Honorable Justices and Bailiff Jorts, today I bring to you the case of No Bugbears, Not ever, Not Even once. For the last six years, I’ve played at a table for with the my same crew from college, with the same Dm. We’ve played multiple campaigns, countless oneshots, and the DM has only ever had one rule, No Bugbears. He’s repeatedly stated he hates them and refuses to budge when I’ve argued against it many occasions. The DM claims it’s because of their ten foot reach and how with a glaive, it’s 15. Since we’ve been playing together for so long I can understand the hesitation to allow some power gamer shenanigans HOWEVER, here’s the catch: We play in theater of the mind. What does it matter? Why can’t the enemy just be 20ft away and not fifteen? I simply just seek to play a big fuzzy guy with comically long arms ala fozzy bear. So I ask you justices, is this embargo of bugbears a disservice or am I wrong for wanting to play a character race that Could Potentially be power gamed? hugs n’ kisses Hanna

ToddFortnite

Esteemed judges and that guy Tucker cucked, I bring you the case of the Schrödinger’s Baby. I recently started a campaign for my 3 roomates, girlfriend, and two other friends, and it has been going amazing! Two of my roomates, our Arcane Trickester Ratfolk rogue named Scruff Danger, and our college of Glamour dwarven bard Roxie Ironstring, decided that they would be ex’s at the start of the campaign, having broken up recently before the start of the story. One night, a day after a big reveal on how the BBEG had messed with the players lives from the start, Scruff came up to me and told me him and Roxie had talked about having had hooked up just before the start of the campaign and that Roxie may be pregnant. I was surprised, but figured if they had agreed on it, I’d find a way to make it work. During our season 1 “finale” (we’re in college so people were going home for the summer) I hinted at the idea that Roxie may be pregnant, and the idea KILLED! The session concluded, and I thought all was well. Over the summer, I’ve been having some one on ones with my players to talk about their characters and where they want to go. In my most recent conversation with Roxie, my roomate told me he was surprised that I had made that up without telling him!! We talked about it, including the theoretically baby “ratty” Scruff, and discovered that there had been a seriously drunken misunderstanding of what the two meant by hooked up. Obvious this will be retconned, as my 20 y/o male roomate does not want to role play as a pregnant dwarf, but am I in the wrong for jumping on this without discussing with both players, or is Scruff in the wrong for his premature pregnancy announcement?

jared Blewett

To the mighty Bishops and the tolerable choir boy. I come asking for forgiveness. I am a past problem player. I had been a long time player of the whitewolf game Exalted when a friend said they wanted to run a D&D 3.5 campaign using the Eberon setting. I made a character trying to be a monster hunter and boy howdy I made a lot of mistakes in the rules making this character resulting in a broken mess. Not only this not only this but my role play was awful, jumping to violence too fast, often getting drunk in and out of character. Constantly asking bartenders for their "biggest strongest cheapest drink" I have been reformed, mostly by listening to the show and now am dm'ing a strahd campaign with many of the players and DM from that game but I still feel awful for my past behavior. I ask to be resolved of these sins.

Jake de Medeiros

Hey Caldwell Emily and Murph! My name is Ashley A. and I’m pretty new to NADDPOD. I’ve been really loving the curse of Strahd episodes. The most recent episode reminded me of an argument I got into at a D&D table in college, and I was hoping you could relitigate it. The game I was in was a modern take on Curse of Strahd, where the cities were super modern with cars/electricity/etc but the story was the same. Basically what went down was the game got totally ruined and people started fighting when one player figured out that because vampires can’t get into people’s houses, if he lived in his car, he could drive anywhere and be safe from vampires. As soon as he started doing this, the game became way less fun, but the DM was actually really supportive of the idea despite it ruining their campaign because they thought it was funny. It ended up as a 2v2 interpersonal argument between me and my friend opposing the cars, and the DM/this guy supporting it. Me and my friend left the campaign. You guys are reasonable so I assume you’ll agree with me, but I don’t really know how to approach situations where I disagree so strongly with the DM! Were me and my friends guilty for leaving over this disagreement? Thanks. ps Which NADDPOD campaign do you guys think I should I listen to first? 1, 2, or 3. I haven’t actually listened to any of the arcs other than trinyvale yet because I started listening to the show as a big Drawfee fan and wanted to hear what Caldwell cooked up, but I’m excited to check out the main show.

JC

Honorable justices and to the irksome bailiff if I must acknowledge him, I bring to you the case of the defeatist PC. I am a DM for a mid level gestalt campaign (meaning players have two classes) and have a player who plays a pirate named Hondo. In every combat, and I mean every combat, if anything bad happens to his character, he immediately begins to complain that the combat is unwinnable, even if the combat is just starting or the party is objectively winning. This defeatist attitude causes him to even try to forsake extra attacks if he misses the first one, opt to do nothing if he's been knocked prone, and complains loudly if he is somehow debuffed or stunned. While my other players are wonderful and their attitudes are always positive, I can't help but feel like I'm failing when he is constantly not having a good time. Justices, how do I remedy this situation? Or do I just boot him? PS Jake if you would please hold your tongue, as I won't heed your advice anyway

Jackie E

Justices (affectionate) and bailiff (derogatory), I bring to you a civil case for which I mostly just want validation. This is mostly directed at Caldwell, but everyone can chime in, I guess. I play in an online game with an amazing group of people. We have no problems. Our DM’s homebrew world is great and full of compelling story lines. My grievance: we just finished a tournament arc where the party participated in gladiator-style fighting pits. The final group we went up against was a group of centaurs. Now, I am an artist and like to draw scenes from our campaign in my free time. I was excited to draw the tournament finale, but my horse-drawing skills are very “Jacob Drawfee”-esque. Justices, but mostly Caldwell, I deserve some legal compensation for having to think about drawing horses, right? I await your judgement.

Anninos

Most Esteemed and Admirable Priest of Dice Christ, My deepest D&D shame and confession: The first ever game of D&D I ever played, I was also the DM. I was in high school and I had no clue what I was doing. One of my NPC’s called one of the player characters a bitch after she said something rude and the PC said that that was sexist. I had no idea how to respond to that so I, as the DM said, “No, there is no sexism in this world.” It haunts me to this day. How can I atone or be forgiven for breaking the most basic rule of improv for storytelling?

Alec Posta

Sup Justies, Pretty sure I'm in the wrong here but hoping for an out. Our party had just gone through a big fight in which our wizard PC died. In the process we also lost a random Quasit NPC that we had just met that session. DEVESTATED by the loss, we poured all of our resources into ressurecting the Quasit. I (a cleric) declared that if I rolled a natural 100 my god would reasurect the unnamed creature (this is not based on any mechanics, I just wanted it to happen and the DM said fine). As it turns out, God is real, and answered our prayers with a beautiful natty 100. Our DM (a heathen) scoffed in the face of this divine blessing and said it did not work. Look, Justices...we all grieve in different ways. Did we focus on the PC who died? No. Did we stick to the mechanics of the game? No. But did our passion pierce through the veil that separates us from the divine to answer our prayers? I think it did...and I hope the court can see that enough to rule that our Quasit be resurrected and our DM turned into a bird or something. Thanks!

KoboldB0i

Oh highest of judges and the Bae-lif i request your judgment to see if I am a salty little binch. My wonderful little bean, A kobold necromancer/arcane trickster rogue, attended the burial of the former archmage (near godlike magic users, not 5e ones) of Divine magic and was gifted a divine inspiration. A free natural 20 on any roll. Fast forward to a combat encounter with the re-accuring villain country of Calagrin, ice people who wish to genocide magic users. Faced up with the emperor himself, my kobold did a short monolog and rushed the villain and burned his Divine Inspiration for a crit with his soul rending dagger called the Mors blade! Thats when he used his reaction to half the 70 points of damage with an ability. Judges, it is buttoned up since it is on his ability sheet but dont you think it would have been far cooler if my DM let the damage be? Whats 70 damage in a pool of 250+HP? Especially using a once per campaign resource? Im still pretty steamed about it since it took the wind out of my sails for the whole fight. I look forward to your heavy support, or my extreme punishment.

Lauryn

To the honorable supreme crit - the comedic heavyweights Justice Assford, SurfNMurph, and Tanney…… and Baliff Jake. I bring you the case of falling damage in water and the water walking spell. Where this begins - My wonderful players had an epic battle against mechanical dragon. One player cast water walking on the entire team pre battle. During battle, another one of them decided to mount the dragon because they’re a melee fighter and naturally wanted to get up in the dragons business. Well, the dragon flung him off, and since the battle was on the coast of a lake, he asked if he could aim for the water, to which I (the DM) said sure - make me a Dex check. He succeeded and promptly landed in the water. I ruled that hitting water from 100+ ft would be equivalent to hitting land, but he argued since he had water walking, he should at least take half damage because the spell would attempt to keep him on the surface of the water. Reading the spell, it says “move across any liquid surface as if it were harmless ground”, so I ruled that landing on the water would react like landing on the ground. This player almost died from drowning (he was stunned) but ultimately ended up barely surviving. My table still argues that the water walking should’ve reduced the amount damage he took. Judges - please settle this one and for all.

ZZ Digital

Dearest Honorable Crits, i present the case of personal hell. The party needed to steal a gem of planes-shifting from the villains. One player accidentally triggered one, and was warped to hell, where they began to rescue NPCs important to the party from personalized hells. The other PCs encountered a villain, who offered them a gem. Because one of the NPCs i mentioned was one of their husbands. The player was so intent on getting to that scene that she didn't ask any questions, and they were consequently trapped in their own personal hell and missed it entirely. As DM, did i utterly fail to reinforce this self-admitted villain may be lying, in seperating the party at all, or does the fault lay in another aspect?

Luke Polito

To the juicy sweatpants-wearing justices and the barely-tolerable bailiff Jerp, I present the case of the unavanged dwarf. During covid I was in an online Tomb of Annihilation campaign as Dougar Greystone, dwarven gladiator turned mercenary turned devoted follower of Moradin. In an effort to atone for his past and provide for his mother (the best blacksmith this side of Baldur's Gate) he embarked on the quest for...uh...I forget how that module is set up but basically there was a lich stealing souls and he had to be stopped. During the adventure we were ambushed by pirates who we may or may not had stolen from previously. The blood price must be paid and Dougar offered his head in exchange for the release of his companions, under the condition that his mother was sent his share of any gold. With that he was beheaded by the pirate lord, using Dougar's own sword against him. A very cool character death that rallied the whole party and I was excited to roll up a new one to help avenge his honor! But that's the thing. There was never another session. The campaign ended on a massive cliffhanger because the DM "got bored with this campaign." Dougar has yet to be avenged, his soul trapped with whatever the plot in that module is. Justices, what is a just punishment for such a terrible case of campaign blueballs?

Nathaniel F

To the esteemed celebrity Bailiff Baby-Boy Witz, honorable judges, and guest judge Byron Smurfy or whatever, I bring before you the case of the thieving DM- and I beg you to rule against him before he strikes again! Several years ago (in game and in real life), my group and I helped a Wizards Illusory double become a real boy (I don’t think it was a simulacrum, but maybe?). The original Prime Wizard died while making a machine to turn illusions real. Our Wizard and artificer fixed it. We tested on an illusion of some dozen or more platinum bars. It worked. So then we made the wizard real. Huzzah. We head back to town to deposit our absolute insane amount of money (bars totaled some 500k gold). DM says “you realize it’s fading! Seems to have a half life of 10 minutes- but the wizard guy is fine.” Then he has a demon guy pop out of our Wizards watch to distract us. We rush to bank, strike a deal with teller to launder money. She agrees. Opens the bank portal, only for the demon guy to jump back out, push the teller in, enter, and lock up behind him. Again, it’s been years in game and in real life. The bank is still “investigating”. And now we’ve looted some dragon hoards and suspect more foul play will occur. Please! Sentence him so that we might taste riches at least once! Thank you. (Shortened for brevity. Happy to give more details as needed)

Xavior

Hello honorable justices and even more honorable justice Emily. And sup to Jake. I bring you the case of the Discord Prince and lost friends. I started a bi-weekly campaign with my partner, an old friend and a good friend of theirs. We started playing a casual game ever other week. Well when I couldn't make a session they wanted to do side stuff on discord. My old friend the DM assured me nothing involving the story would take place. Well flash forward two missed sessions I found out they've created whole back stories without me. My partner was apparently a long lost prince and wanted to use their army to fight the bbeg, who might add was one of her ex's?! Like how much did I miss. I tried to go along but it seemed like my friend was favoring my partner throughout. When I went to say something it caused a huge argument between everyone and we stopped playing.....should I have said anything or should I have let my partner be the prince and just let it be because I missed sessions?

Pseudo

To the honorable supreme crit justices and that other guy who hangs out sometimes. I present to you the case of the overenthusiastic druid I'm currently DM'ing Curse of Strahd and we started with the notorious Death House module so that my party of 3 could get some experience with new classes they haven't played before. We're close to the end of the module and my players are standing before a desecrated altar while evil spirits surround them chanting "one must die! one must die!" Now… the party’s druid, and irl partner of the party’s paladin, had just learned of the rule where when a wild shaped druid loses their HP they get turned back into their normal form instead of going down. So, as a way of satisfying the evil spirits and solving the puzzle, the druid suggest the following: “what if I just shape shift and let you guys murder me on the altar! I’ll just shift back and everything will be fine!” My jaw literally dropped. Never in a million years would I have thought of something like this and I was incredibly impressed with the druid’s creativity. However… I also felt like the evil spirits of the altar wouldn’t be fooled by this if no-one actually died. And more selfishly, refusing to sacrifice a party member was to lead to a boss fight I was excited to run. So I nix’d the idea, but I’ve felt guilty about it ever since. Justices, should I have allowed the druid to let their friends and family murder them?t! was there a way I could have honored their creativity without just shutting down the idea?

Kate G

To the honorable justices and the honorable/dishonorable Jake guy, depending on today's vibe. This is the case of the "that's what my character would do" guy. I'm in a campaign based around the seven sins, it's a sequel campaign to a game I wasn't in. One player - the cleric - is playing the same character as he did in the original game. We were in a meeting with a tavern owner who was giving us a quest, the dm made our cleric roll for history (he got an 18) and after learning the information, this player elected to recant it to the group... incorrectly. In his words, 'this is how I think my character would remember it 100 years later.' With incorrect directions, we didn't get where we needed to be fast enough, resulting in dire consequences for the clerics hometown... he blames the rest of the party because *we as players* knew what we were supposed to do. We blame him because of the way he handled it in character. The cleric is also known to tell at us when he thinks we are metagaming, so we take lengths to make sure we don't. Judges, who is at fault for this mishap?

Kenzie

May it please the Crit (the bailiff can choose how to feel, I guess; I was only just told he was present): I present the case of the Unkillable NPC. I’m running a Wild West campaign, and in the party’s first ever encounter, the leader of the outlaws they fought (goblin boss stats) escaped. Over the last real life year of playing, this NPC has been a thorn in the party’s side, and has escaped death/capture no less than 4 times by my rolling Hail Mary Nat 20s, sometimes multiple times in a row. Most recently, the party hit the NPC with a horse tranquilizer and left her in a burning building. I crit twice in a row to have her wake up and escape. I get to cackle in delight as my players razz me. Justices: does my cockroach of a CR 1 goblin boss deserve a level up for surviving the unsurvivable? What should she get? Supporting evidence: on the day, I said “Nat 20 and she levels up.” I rolled in front of the board. I crit. :)

Fewzie7

To the venerated justices of the crit and pitiful beggar of a Bailiff Jack. I have been running Curse of Strahd, using Dragnacartas Reloaded (shout out!) for the past year. I had a player join a few sessions in when the party was already on their way to vallaki, so I had Ismark lend this player a horse to ride to meet the other adventurers. The paladin encountered wolves on the road (heavily bloodied from a fight the rest of the party won last session) that injured the horse. The paladin wanted to “mercy kill” the horse and get rations of horse meat. Later in the session someone made a joke about the Horse being Ireena’s pet and the rest of the party and I ran with it, including them casting sending to let Ismark know the horse was safe while lying to Ireena that the horse was back home. They have also been feeding Ireena meat from her horse without telling her. The story came to a head last session when they came back to the Village of Barovia where obviously Ireena and Ismark both learned of their lies. There was some very intense and dramatic role play of Ireena feeing betrayed by the party, for lying to her about not only killing the horse but Feeding It To Her. There was also a reveal that the horse was a gift from Ireena’s deceased mother, and ultimately there were tears at the table and our sorcerer’s Very Close Friendship with Ireena coming into question. the paladin felt extremely bad for everything. I’m coming to you to ask if I should have just let this joke in passing go, without having Ireena question her trust in them or if I was right for going head first into the bit and cranking it to 1000%. (To be clear this is all in good fun and everyone did laugh after the session about it but the paladin feels So Bad)

Mark G

To the Supreme Crit Justices, and the little guy in the corner that said he was the Baker Jim? I ask but one question, how long is enough heads up time to add another player. I run a campaign with my two sisters and three of their friends based around their college campus and old friends and enemies of the time of yore. They are all new players, and have been learning their characters as we’ve gone along. Here is the issue. Four hours before our last session, my sister told me that they had someone that wanted to join in. This new person had never played a TTRPH, and I hadn’t spoken to him before this interaction. He was a good enough guy, and seemed okay with just jumping in as one of the NPCs they saved in a previous session. It all ended well, I made a character sheet for him to play a cleric the group had saved in the first session (shout out to Emily, for she inspired his name. Benjamin “Binky” Fiasco). That being said, I fear that this has set a precedent I won’t be able to keep up, because I overheard a few of them mention adding another player, but nothing solid has come of that yet. So I ask again, Great Justices, how much time should I ask for in the future to be able to prep for another player?

Frank The Fickle Leaf Fig

May it please the judges and to a lesser extent the so so bailiff, I present the case of the One Shot One Kill. A few years ago my friend threw a one-shot for low level adventurers who had been investigating a mystery on an airship. After investigating we found that a Vampire was attempting to travel across lands. My one friend had been waiting for combat the whole session as his wizard he made had cool spells that he wanted to try. During combat he had rolled a low initiative and on the Vampires turn that came right before his the Vampire casted disintegrate, which completely obliterated his 32 hp killing him instantly. I was a bit mad considering that we were level 5 and this was the first time anyone else in the group had played leaving this player to sit in silence for the remaining 2 hours of the session. After “killing” the vampire and dumping it and its coffin into the ocean the session immediately ended with the DM then describing how the Vampire survived as it was apparently the prologue to a story he was writing. Judges am I in the wrong for still feeling mad that my friends forced sacrifice didn’t amount to anything or should I be fine in the fact my character didn’t get turned to red mist?

Andi

Humble representatives of Dice Christ, I come to you today with a confession of a sin performed repeatedly out of ignorance & confusion (and honestly, continuing confusion 😅) My party is about to hit our one year mark & I have recently discovered that I have not only had a misunderstanding of how proficiency & expertise works in skill checks, but I have also been leading my fellow players into committing the same sins themselves. For whatever reason, I thought having that E or P next to a skill meant that we were supposed to roll with advantage and then add the number next to the skill. It wasn't until recently that I noticed there was another stat on the sheet for proficiency bonus. I ask today for ways to absolve myself of my sins, if my absolution will extend to the innocent lambs I lead into a life of dice crimes, and maybe an explanation on how proficiency and expertise are actually supposed to function

Rylee

I feel as though I must plead for the forgiveness of dice christ, though I know not my sins. For the past 2 months in my home game my character has been trying to attune herself with a magic space crystal (the source of my circle of stars druid’s power). She needed to crit on an arcana check or fail and take damage. This most recent session was our last before the bbeg fight, the bbeg being her father. So she decided hell or high water she would attune herself, trying again and again and healing herself to stay upright through the failures. I rolled for 20 straight minutes and right after I burned my final spell slot, roll number 48, I got the needed crit. All of that to say I hope dice christ can forgive me for whatever my sins are and to bless my dice before this very emotional final fight.

Kaitlyn S

To the honorable and captivating justices, and the teeny tiny bailiff Jenkins, I bring to you the case of The Ultimate Backseat DM Context: My best friend is a first time DM for a rather big campaign. I host sessions at my apartment (it’s nice, centrally located) and allow her to focus on DMing not hosting. DM has been playing DnD with her dad as her DM since she’s was like 5. So this campaign is her “paying him back” for all the campaigns he ran for her throughout her life. Dad and one of his best friends (effectively uncle to DM) are PCs along with me, DM’s husband, and 2 of our other best friends (DM, husband, friends and I are all late 20s). It’s overall pretty fun…..most of the time The crime(s): Although this campaign is meant as a gift to DM’s dad, he is a horrible backseat DM and jumps in to DM for his daughter often. While that is bad enough on its own, he is stuck in the 3.5 rules while the campaign is being run in 5e. Whenever he does something from 3.5 that does not work in 5e he argues that he should be allowed to do it cus all the updates from 3.5 to 5e are “just cosmetic”. *cue everyone talking about how wrong that statement is* I can see her losing steam and her love for the campaign that was supposed to be FOR her dad BECAUSE of how her dad treats her DMing. He also does not fit in with the group at all. We, as 20 something’s are want to do, make dick jokes…a lot. Dads best friends also gets in on the jokes. But Dad apparently does not appreciate them, going so far as to calling his daughter to tell her to DM us better and tell us to stop the dick jokes. She texted the group chat and we were all like “weird but ok we’ll cool it”. At the next session, before we had all even sat down at the table DM’s Dad looked at DM and asked “Did you have a conversation with them?” We were all flabbergasted by him not trusting her to have talked to us. Needless to say we retaliated with dick jokes all session. Justices, I do not want to host this man in my apartment anymore. But I would be down to play with everyone else. What do I do? Do I stop hosting all together? Do I convince my friend to kick her dad out of her campaign? I’m at a loss and will follow your guidance and ruling to either kill or trim this campaign Our fate lies in your hands

Jay

Dear Honourable Justices and the bailiff who does their best, I bring the case of Is My Dad A Problem Player? A couple of years back my brother wrote and DMd a one shot for my dad's birthday, and I was one of 4 players. The intro of the session, designed to establish 5e mechanics for those less familiar, was going swimmingly, and his character (an ancient wizard waking from slumber) was introduced at the very moment that his place of rest was disturbed. Thick ice began to melt beneath our feet, releasing trapped fire mephits, and it was a race against time for us to escape the sunken keep and properly begin the quest. The goal of escape was HEAVILY flagged by both DM and players, but my dad('s PC) refused to move from his sleepy position in the centre of a room that was clearly collapsing. We tried to persuade him, we tried tying a rope to him to extract him, we tried everything we could think of, but he insisted on closing the lid on his coffin/bed, and letting it fall to the floor, where he promptly died, requiring us to climb down and revive him. He seemed confused at this result, but we pressed on, steadily making our way through the rest of the session, and rushing through battles and setpieces that would have been much better appreciated. Justices, am I right to be a little upset? I know that the "be grateful that you get to play with your family" precedent likely applies here, but I can't help feeling bad for my brother, who put together an accessible, fun one-shot, only to be left stressed out by a recalcitrant wizard, I await your ruling, Jay

Elwynn

To the glorious justices of the Supreme Crit and also Jake, I was part of a D&D crew that met once a week on our lunch break to play, as we all worked in the same building. The group recently fell apart due to personal reasons (moving, new jobs, etc.), so our case is one of restitution. Justices, our DM frequently nerphed our characters if he didn't understand their abilities (metamagic, in particular), manipulated our characters into evil arcs (insisting that our gods wouldn't let us heal our friends without payment, for instance), and generally wasn't fun to play with. All four players are glad the campaign is ended, but our poor PCs have been hung out to dry, frozen in a time with no chance for character growth or a resolution to their arcs. How do we honor our PCs, knowing that we won't be able to play again or revisit their stories as a party? P.S. All four players are now DMs or players in other, healthy D&D groups. For 3/4 players, this table was our first introduction to D&D, so I think we can all look back on this group as one where we learned to love D&D, albeit at a strange, stressful table.

nullfi3d

To the honorable justices and bailiff (or just Jake if we’re rude this week), I present the case of Fightless Barovia. I play in a Curse of Strahd campaign in person with my roommates and their family. My DM is a wonderful storyteller, and very experienced with roleplay. Every session feels haunting and wonderful. But, there is one thing I have noticed. My DM avoids combat. They are, at their own admission, bad at math. For me, this wouldn’t be much of an issue. However, the older folks at our table are all very combat-focused players. My friend’s mom is always itching to fight something, but we haven’t done more than three instances of combat in our almost 30 sessions. I worry that the old folks (3 out of our 6 players) are disinterested in playing without combat. Or, I worry that the fearful nature of Barovia is lessened in a meta-sense because I know we’ll never fight anyone or anything bad. The stakes are only there because we’re stuck; no one feels like they’ll die. Judges, I ask you: should a DM adapt their way of DMing to fit their players? Would it be rude of me to get my DM a calculator to help them with math in combat? Is this not my place to try and help? I leave this ruling in your combat-skilled hands.

CrangHead

Esteemed Supreme Crit Judges and the decrepit baelif Jacques, I present you the case of the Boring Bard About a year ago in a pirate themed campaign, my party and I had to beseech a pirate lord for permission to perform a search and rescue in his territory to avoid any issues with his crew. As the PC with the highest charisma and a good persuasion modifier I made the request The problem is here. I made the request and asked if I should roll persuasion. The DM said okay, I rolled high and with my modifier the result was in the 30s. The Pirate Lord simply told me he "didn't like me" And when I asked my DM about it he said: "You just said the wrong words" because I was too proper with my request Should my high persuasion roll be negated by the fact that I was too polite? And I (The Player) was not able to read the room? (The fighter in the group made the same request after and flexed his muscles and our request was granted no roll required) I accept your ruling with humility.

Jake T, #JakeArmyRiseUp

Deacons of Dice Christ, I beg absolution, for my faith hath faltered. When my table embarked upon a new Crooked Moon campaign, the idea of rolling for stats was proposed. I hesitated. But, loath to crap in my group's cornflakes, I rolled. Behold my accursed rolls in descending order: 13....(let that sink in), 12, 9, 8, 8, 7. Yea, four scores marred by negative modifiers. My DM, in a divine act of mercy, allowed us each to reroll our lowest and lo, I traded the 7 for a 15, praise be unto Him. Still, my silkborn dex fighter takes his fledgling first steps into the world, three-sixths encumbered. Even Emily’s commoner character would fare better in half life’s trials than I. I know this "could be interesting" but this truly feels like some Caldwell-level luck on my rolls which will make the next few years I play this character significantly less fun. So I come before you, trembling. I cast myself — with 8 Strength, 9 Intelligence, and 8 Charisma — prostrate at the foot of the icosahedron. I ask, has Dice Christ somehow turned all 20 faces away from me? I await your judgment, your pity, or your smiting. Yours in faith (what remains of it), A broken believer

Chris DC

To the high priests of dice christ, and the lowly minion of the dice devil, I have a confession for the church. I was running a first session of a brand new star wars 5E campaign and it was going pretty well. The party was having a good time and I felt like most of the combat had been pretty balanced. I had planned for the party (three level one characters) to recover a relic from an old jedi temple and face off against a dark force spirit. I had already nerfed the enemy since it was too strong for the party, but I didn't know some of my players had only 9 HP, and it rolled 2d6 +3 for its attacks. One of my players had already got knocked out as they were trying to escape the temple, brought back up to full health and was attacked by the enemy again. My prayer only had 9HP and I rolled 9 damage. Instead of knocking her out again, I said the ghost only hit her for 8 damage. The party was able to defeat the dark force spirit and escape the dungeon, and had a great session, but I know I committed a sin against dice christ for not downing my player a second time. Do the ends justify the means or am I damned to dice hell forever?

christopher belisle

To the venerable DM's of the court and the baliff who can really take a beating, Jake, I bring you the case of the wrongfully poisoned potion. May it please the court, during the course of my parties adventure through a tower that led to the BBEG, we found a vending machine that had potions that did various homebrew effects. Examples being a potion that granted a +2 bonus to AC against plants, a potion that cleared you of all current potion effects on you (some of the other potion effects weren't great), and an improved health potion, 6d6+6, that had a 5% chance to poison you, specifically rolling a nat 1. During our final battle with said BBEG, I was low health and need to take a potion to not die. While I was rolling out my hit die, our halfling fighter brought up that since he was lucky, should he be able to reroll the nat 1 on the poisoned health potions since he was lucky? The DM said that that was a little too broken because he would probably never be poisoned so he decided to change the ruling so that you got poisoned on a 2 instead of a 1 as I was rolling the dice to see if i would be poisoned or not. Justices, I could not believe the number that had showed up on that dice. For it was in fact, a shout out to the 2 crew. The DM ruled that I was still indeed poisoned despite having just arbitrarily changed the number so that our halfling could be poisoned. So I ask you, do I have a right to be a little peeved at this ruling? P.S. We never fought any plants monsters P.P.S. I've included the link to the potion effects https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xkRn_WRPSHtcq_nGhwNKQ6Vw0mBfm_lHRVhinFD4aMc/edit?usp=drivesdk

Ryan Bessette

To the honorable justices and the bailiff who inspires ambivalence, I present the case of the denied respec. In a group I no longer play with for other reasons I played a variant human bard, who at level 1 had the Metamagic Adept feat. This was done so my bard Gwynnth (Ok this was maybe GOOP inspired) could be a sort of medicine show charlatan with the subtle spell option at the start.(Subtle spell a healing word while someone drinks a strange tincture, look at the effectiveness of that potion, nothing else happening here!) Fun! Well fast forward a few sessions me and my in game fiance/IRL best friend are both downed trying to procure an aberrant artifact. By the luck of the roll I barely survived and my friend died although I was able to procure the artifact. I thought it'd be a fun narrative shift to multiclass into an abberant mind sorcerer after the whole situation, luckily next level up was at the end of the session, perfect! Or so I thought. When explaining I would be getting Metamagic as a sorcerer I asked if I could repick my initial feat. "No." Was all the DM said when I asked to ever so slightly respec. I just let it go, and the campaign fell apart before it really mattered, but judges should I have pushed harder?

Cole Kuiper

👈😎👈 To whom it may honorably concern. 2 years ago, I ran a campaign as a way to introduce D&D to some first-time players. At the end of it, I asked what everyone imagined was next for their characters. One player (our dwarf barbarian Angus McDangus) responded that within a year, Angus would be dead and buried in a shallow grave behind a tavern. We had a good laugh, got sidetracked, and no one else really responded to the prompt. Eventually, I started my own "campaign after the campaign" to show them the impact their terrible choices had on the realm. As new PCs, they're attempting to reunite the old adventuring party, and that player was devastated to learn that Angus died 30 years ago and is buried behind the local tavern. It doesn't help that that player experienced our group's first actual PC death in the session before that reveal. Was I too harsh by letting him unknowingly seal his character's fate when he made an off-the-cuff joke? (Angus's story will have payoff however, as the plucky goblin sidekick they recruited is secretly his half-dwarf son)

Bryant

To the most erudite Justices of the Crit and their shockingly literate bailiff, I’m unsure if this is a case for the Crit, a confession, or grounds for divorce; so I’ll give you the details and let you do the rest. I’ve been married to my husband Hayden for four years and he’s my favorite person in the world. He’s perfect, with one glaring flaw: he has zero interest in DnD. He’s not against it, he “just doesn’t get it” and “would rather like go climb a tree or something”. The problem is that I can think of nobody I’d rather take to a NaddPod live show. The first time (Nashville) was easy. That was our hometown, so I just told him I had tickets to something with no further details. He was a trouper and even found things to like about the show, saying “I thought it was funny how obsessed they were with Diesel jeans and I liked the robot voice”. Our second NaddPod show (DC) was harder. After I bought tickets I convinced him to get on a plane to “meet our newborn godson (who is adorable and lives in the area)”. Once we were there I mentioned that by the way I’d grabbed tickets to a show with Murph and Emily. He was suspicious and asked me if “they’re talking about ‘Hey U Up?’ (Our favorite road trip audio book) or playing DnD with ‘Campbell and the Jock-y one?” I assured them nobody would be playing DnD, not lying because it was Dungeon Court. Now is where I need some sort of help from you, esteemed Justices and America’s third favorite Motorguycle: is it wrong to continue tricking my husband into attending NaddPod shows in the hopes of eventually breaking his will and getting him to roll dice with me? Also how can I deceive him in the future because he’s become VERY suspicious. Humbly, with love and reverence for most of you, Bryant (he/him)

Matthew Sturm

To the honorable Justices and that other guy, I present the case of the invincible rats. I played a swarmkeeper ranger in a level 15 one-shot, flavored after the pied pier with rats as my swarm. The one-shot concluded with a PVP contest where we were trying to get a gift card out of an indestructible barrel. I had found the barrel and was carrying it up a rope trick under one arm. At the end of my turn, I used my swarm to give me a flying speed in order to avoid falling, describing it as the rats grabbing the rope and creating a rat chain platform. One of the other players tried to frighten everyone in the area, and after everyone had rolled their saving throws, he said, “But what about the rats?” My brother, who was DMing, and I tried to explain that the rats were just a feature of my subclass and weren’t really separate entities, so they couldn’t be frightened. After some arguing from the player, he eventually moved on and we assumed that was the end of it. On the players next turn, he tried to attack the rats in an attempt to make me fall off the rope. We once again explained that they weren’t separate creatures and couldn’t be hurt. The other players tried got upset and shouted, “So you’re saying the rats are gods!” After a lot of laughing from everyone else at the table, we eventually got him to stop going after the rats and try something else, although he was still in a pissy mood for a while after that. I ask the court, were my brother and I correct that you can’t target a swarmkeeper’s swarm, or was our friend correct that we incorrectly made the rats gods?

Cark with an M

Honorable Justices and wittle baby bailiff Jakey, I bring the case of am I wrong? My first DND group experience was last Summer and not the best. Another player in my group would prepare multiple paged bulleted lists of things we needed to do each session. And we would spend the first hour each session going through these lists. (Finding shops, recruiting npcs, asking for discounts, etc.) I thought at first this was helpful with me being new to DnD. But once I got comfortable and started roleplaying these things I would constantly be interrupted by ohhh don’t forget to ask about healing potions, etc. Or when I took actions, I’d be reminded “Are you sure? I would do this.” It even got to where he would tell me what spells I needed to stock and be annoyed if I went a different direction. Eventually I gave my first big role play speech and the player said “wow… AI is incredible..” I decided to bow out blaming it on work… but should I have tried to handle this at the table before bowing out. I really liked the DM and world, but couldn’t get past this. PS I now DM multiple campaigns inspired by y’all with my latest campaign being a Battle of the Bands through the nine hells, and DMing has been a blast!

Logan Nash

sup party people and party pooper (with the name I believe it was Jacksonville?) I have the case of The deck of many stings, in my current game with some of my friends I pulled from the deck of many things and pulled the ruin card, I was like "Okay cool I don't have much money on me or many resources at my disposal" and then a cohort at the table advised "Well aren't your parents nobles shouldn't they lose all their money as well?" And I responded "Maybe I get kicked out of their will for some reason and lose my pedigree but ruin has nothing to do with other members of the family, the DM took his side and I relented for the time being to relitigate it later when we aren't trying to go through a dungeon, when talking before next session I bring it up and he kind of dismisses it and is like "Why should you care what happens to your fictional family?" And I was just kind of dumbfounded because although the deck of many things is chaotic and fun I went into pulling the deck knowing what the majority of the downsides were but it feels kind of blindsided to add a caveat to it post de facto when that wasn't stated on the original card.

Jonathan

To the glorious Supreme Crit Justices and the (please have justice Murphy pick the adjective) Bailiff Joke. I present the case of the retconned Dad. I played in a half homebrewed Ghosts of Salt Marsh campaign as a Half-elf sword bard. My backstory involved my pirate parents dying and after burying them I went to go find long lost half siblings who all shared my dad, this was the other PCs in the campaign. As we finish the campaign in the final fight imagine my surprise when my father shows up riding a dragon as the head of a group of rogues taking over the kingdom, he also had multiple 5th level spells when he previously didn’t have magic. When questioned I was told he actually never died and although I buried him that was a bit. Am I within my rights to be mildly annoyed at this retconning of my backstory? PS: this was my friends first time homebrewing so don’t be too harsh if you side against him, if you side with him, I will take whatever punishment is presented.

Alex T

To Jake and the Judges, I bring the case of the selfish cleric. I was DMing LMoP and the party was almost to the BBEG. The cleric asked for a Talisman of Pure Good, that would basically insta-kill any evil aligned character if it failed a save. I said I was fine with them having it as long as it wasn’t used on the BBEG. They agreed. The party busts into the BBEG’s room and the cleric uses the amulet and insta-kills the BBEG. I could tell the rest of the party was upset, so behind the screen I changed the character that died to a doppleganger that was supposed to be part of the fight. Once the party says the BBEG again, the cleric was pissed and the party was ecstatic. Should I have allowed the cleric to have their kill or did I save the fight? I prostrate myself before you.

Matthew Sturm

To the honorable Justices and Jill’s roommate, I present the case of the barrel rider. I was playing in a one-shot that ended with a PVP competition to win entrance to Heaven+, a premium afterlife. We had to find an unbreakable barrel on an island full of barrels and grab the Heaven+ gift card out of it in order to win. After the barrel was found, I grabbed it and began climbing a rope trick with it under one arm. When I was one turn away from reaching the portal at the top, one of the other players attempted to misty step up to me. More specifically, he wanted to misty step onto the barrel, hoping that the extra weight would cause me to drop it. My brother, who was DMing, initially ruled that I would need to make a strength save to hold onto the barrel, and then the other player would make an acrobatics check to stay on the barrel if I held on successfully. After some further deliberation, he decided to reverse the order of the rolls, citing that the misty stepping player might just immediately fall off and make it easier for me to hold the barrel. He failed his check and fell off, which resulted in me having to hit a lower DC on my save due to only having to withstand the initial impact rather than having to hold a whole person’s weight continuously. I succeeded my save and was able to make it into the portal and pull up the rope on my next turn. The other player initially argued that he shouldn’t have needed to make a check to stay on the barrel because he teleported directly onto the barrel and that I was unable to move out of turn. My brother cited that he might fall due to the rope moving drastically at the fulcrum point of my grip, causing me and the barrel to tip because of the extra weight. The player then argued that my save shouldn’t have been easier even though he fell off, but was overruled due to the original justification for the lower DC. For the record, I rolled higher than the higher DC anyway, so the lower DC didn’t even matter. I’m glad things worked out for me, but did my brother make the correct rulings, or was the other player robbed of his cool moment?

Darion Aronson

I have a confession and a question. I am a DM for 3 players and have several sets of dice, but one consistently rolls better than the rest, they were a birthday present from one of my players. They aren't weighted, I've checked them a few times, but I've started using them more and more often even after I said I'd use my regular dice, it constantly whomps my players with good rolls on attacks even leading to a player death, am I fine to continue using my Blessed Birthday Dice or should I go back to rolling with my Dull Dice that get me whomped?

Tyler Goevert

To the justices living thicc as hell and twice as well, and the bailiff that I hope lands on his feet, I come to you with a unique situation: Trial By Combat IRL (also known as NADDPOD almost got my ass kicked) Recently, while listening to Trinyvale x Ravenloft I was driving home from work with the windows down. At a stoplight, there was a car coming in the opposite lane that wanted to turn behind me. I thought I pulled up far enough, but he rolled down the windows and wanted me to pull farther. I could not hear at first and said “what?” Normally this wouldn’t be an issue, but at the EXACT same time Jens said Spudfuckers and it sounded like I said “what, fucker?” He began to scream and threaten to kick my ass, to the point that he said he would follow me and fuck me up. I seek not a ruling, but a champion. Who of the 2 Crew will stand and fight, not only for my honor, but the honor of NADDPOD itself? PS: thank GOD it wasn’t dragon pussy

Matthew Sturm

To the honorable Justices and Bailiff John, I present the case of the rope trick robbery. I was playing in a one-shot that ended with a PVP competition to win entrance to Heaven+, a premium afterlife. We had to find an unbreakable barrel on an island full of barrels and grab the Heaven+ gift card out of it in order to win. After the barrel was found, I grabbed it and climbed up a rope trick and pulled the rope up. It took 2 actions to open the barrel and then grab the gift card, so on the first turn I opened up the barrel and waited for the next round. One of the other players directed a kraken, which had followed us onto the island and had been attacking all of us, toward the area of the invisible portal in the sky in a last ditch effort to stop me. My brother, who was DMing, had the kraken use all of its movement to get directly under the portal, then said that it made a grapple attack with its tentacle through the portal, rolling to see whether it attacked me, another player that I had charmed, the open barrel, or just the air. I argued that it shouldn’t be able attack inside the portal because it wasn’t inside the portal and attacks can’t pass through rope tricks portal. He ruled that it could attack because he thought you would be able to punch someone through the portal even if you couldn’t shoot them. He rolled a 1 on a d100, which resulted in the barrel being grabbed and yanked out of the portal. I attempted to save my plan by saying that the gift card might fly out of the barrel when it was yanked. My brother agreed, but gave it better odds to come out outside of the portal than inside. The card ended up falling out outside of the portal, letting the next player in initiative walk up and easily grab the card to win. Did my brother make the correct ruling by allowing the kraken’s attack, or was I robbed of my well-planned victory?

Wishfulthinker3

Dearest High Priests and Priestess of the Holy Crit, I bring you a matter in which I believe i may have avoided the influence of Dice Christ's Adversary.. In a mini campaign I took part in where i played as the charming John Constantine, when rolling for his stats, something odd occurred. We were using a slightly altered version of the normal 4d6 drop lowest where any 1's that appear are re-rolled until they stop being ones, and the lowest D6 is dropped as normal (this called Heroic Dice Rolls). While rolling, something strange occurred. 3 times in a row, I rolled a 12 total, with the exact same numbered faces appearing on different dice. I felt this odd, so started a new batch of rolls. Yet again, my first roll was a total of 12 on completely different dice. I asked my partner to try rolling, and even they got a 12 total on what was now the third batch of dice. We stopped using my dice tower, grabbed a fourth set of dice, and the 12's stopped appearing. However, none of this was cleared with my DM as it was only a 3 session mini campaign. Holy ones, I lay myself at thy feat and humbly ask, have I thwarted the adversaries of Dice Christ and properly followed the teachings? Or have a strayed into sin and dicebauchery. I humbly await your determinations

Cloutea Animated

Hello those of walking faith in dice Christ. I have a confession or a court case if you so wish: I am DMing an Alice in Wonderland campaign, and I willingly did a carnal sin in the TTRPG realm. I have an original character that is the BBEG, and her whole schtick is that she is essentially a paladin/demigod of madness. I told my players that this campaign would have some horror elements to it, and as apart of that I made a plan to purposefully break the fourth wall. I addressed the players by their real life names still playing as the BBEG, and even openly acknowledging as her that we were playing a game. I had the idea and wanted to try it out, and at the end of the session, I checked in with everyone at the table to get a read on what they thought of that move I pulled. Three out of four players said they really enjoyed it, as long as it was something used in moderation. I agreed. One of my players however was a little unsure. They didn’t out right say they hated it and it should stop, but rather said they were struggling to wrap their head around how this all would work. Ever since then, I’ve been struggling with whether I should bring in the retcon card or if I should stick to my guns and use it very rarely like I originally planned. Advice is very much welcome for this roleplay sinner.

Kathryn Maurer

To the honorable and venerated judges axford, murphy and Tanner and the bailiff befitting of the most generous of reads I bring to you the case of the blighted bagpipe bard. I was playing in my second ever campaign a one (accidentally actually 4) shot “hunt for the thessalhydra”. To my DMs credit it was their first time running a campaign. We designed our characters and sent them to the dm for approval/checks and I had chosen to play a Scottish bagpipe bard (complete with accent — no Austin powers references were made). I had no idea what the campaign entailed so for my very low level bard I chose one of my very limited spell slots to be speak with animals. FOUR SESSIONS IN A ROW I asked to do perception checks for animals to speak to for any clues about what had been going on in the area and every single time was told “there are no animals around” EVEN when I rolled a NAT 20. I can accept being punished by an ambush for my use of the very boisterous bagpipes. But no animals? Anywhere? I beg you to alleviate my suffering in having an entirely wasted spell slot in what was otherwise a lovely campaign by bringing retribution to this dm in whatever way you see fit. May your robes sway in my favor. Amen.

Sean Q

Hello, honorable Holy Rollers… and also Jake who I’m slipping 25 bucks as a bribe because the guy really looks like he could use it. This is actually a D&D court update about the case of The Boy Who Cried Unfair… turned into a Dice Christ Confessional. Very recently, the Fairy Tale campaign that was the subject of my first case has come to a conclusion. It was a wonderful ending, leaving most of the party in tears with a bombastic final battle against The Big Bad Wolf. I had taken into account Caldwell and Jake’s advice for the battle against the Wolf, thinking about strategic ways to challenge The Boy Who Cried Wolf that would allow him to focus on breaking a world altering ritual, as well as having hordes of weaker enemies for his snakes to incapacitate. I would’ve taken Caldwell’s advice and made them lobsters, but it didn’t feel thematically appropriate (maybe next time). However, much to my surprise, without having any discussion prior to the session The Boy Who Cried Wolf ALSO changed up his playstyle, opting to summon one giant serpent and trying to draw the Wolf’s attention in hopes of drawing him away from the rest of the party. Both of us changing our playstyles to suit each other’s criticisms was kind of heartwarming, and ended up making for a very interesting fight. However… this is where my confession comes into play. At the very end of the battle when the Wolf was left on 1HP, it was about to be Boy’s turn- but we were quickly reminded about someone’s turn in combat that we skipped over: Milky White, The Cow That Jumped Over the Moon and Jack Beanstalk’s familiar. Milky’s attack landed, and I think I was paralyzed for a solid 15 seconds of real life, pretending to add up damage while I was stuck looking at a single hit point. The end of the entire campaign would’ve been wrapped up with a cow beating the BBEG to death. But, then I remembered: The Wolf had an HP stealing ability that I actually forgot to use on one of his previous attacks, so I retroactively gave him that HP he would’ve siphoned. This left him back at exactly 1 HP, and led to The Boy killing him from within his stomach, ending the battle on a wonderfully poetic note. But still, it feels wrong because I normally do NOT allow retroactive uses of abilities from my players, but I did it just so the campaign wouldn’t end with a dud. And so I ask you, Cardinals of the Crit: was it right of me to make a way to end the campaign in a satisfying way, or should I have played by the rules and let things end as they were supposed to?

Jakewell Murphily

Greetings to the beautiful, sexy, steamy justices and the homeless guy they force to read these cases. I present: The Case of Preserved Momentum Last year I DM'd a high level 1-shot session with some friends. A classic heist type adventure during which my party encountered an adult dragon near the edge of a high mountain cliff (certain death if they were to fall). During the fight, one of my players decided to jump onto the back of the dragon (Rico style jumping on the tanker bug in Starship Troopers). I thought this was badass, but the dragon didn't. The dragon then took flight 80 feet into the air and just over the edge of the cliff to shake the player off. After a failed dexterity save to maintain balance and a failed athletics check to be able to climb back onto the dragon, my player fell to what seemed like certain death. However, they decided to use misty step to teleport back onto the cliff edge. I liked the idea but made them take 8d6 falling damage which caused them to be knocked out. My player disagreed that they should take any damage, arguing that misty step, being a magical teleportation spell, should be able to stop their momentum and prevent fall damage. I maintained my ruling and the fight continued. It came down to the wire but the party was able to rally and defeat the dragon. This player and I continue to razz each other about this encounter to this day but all in good fun. So justices, was I right to maintain my ruling that momentum should be preserved even when using misty step? Or was I trying to be "too realistic" in regards to the physics in the DnD world? I humbly await your ruling. Thank you!

Cody W

Dear mighty Just Justices and the pretty cool bailliff Bake I submit The case of the Far Futured Fanfiction I dm for my wife and her friend, a small two party game in a fairly magical setting Not long after we started playing, my wife informed me that her friend, WF (Wife's Friend from here on) Was writing a little story of their PC in the distant future, X years in the future as they're an elf. I was immediately a little sus of this type of thing, but after some back and forth and hearing a section of the story read aloud to me, it was a very low magic meet cute between WF's PC and a disciple, turned slow burn romance I reluctantly gave an okay, as it was small on that PC scale, and I didnt want to take personal expression away from them, a slippery slope i acknowledge The issue lies as WF has not only kept writing for the last 8 months continuously in this continuity, they also have been reading the Fic to my wife, and this has resulted in her mixing up npcs, as my wife's PC is also referenced and apart of this fanfic Recently they apparently wrote a touching moment with their character's father recognizing their growth for "the first time", who I've been trying to set up for a confrontation with as they are the reason they started the adventure. However WF was recently having irl issues their their father and a lack of communication, oof. Judges i seek collaborative story counsel, do I tell them to cool it? Do I just keep going and pretend I know nothing, grimising through my wife being my informant for what is going on and pretneding and hoping they take it as an alternative future? I plead guilty to allowing it in the first place, but I stand by the desire to want to do things with a character you created

Steven W.

To the undefinable Supreme Crit Justices and the guy who, let's be honest, you only keep around so we can make cheap jokes about a cheap man. I think his name is Jeb? I bring to you the case of Bart Simpson, the world's most hated NPC. I was DMing a campaign and the PCs were traveling to the Abyss to meet with a succubus warlord. During the meeting, I briefly introduced the warlord's bodyguards, which included a wispling (half gnome/half demon). I described him as “pacing back and forth behind the warlord, with his hands resting on hand axes” and “he has short and spiky hair. Kind of like Bart Simpson.” I got some light razzing for this description, but nothing else was said about him. The meeting with the warlord went well and the PCs were offered to stay the night as guests. That evening, the bodyguard was sent to deliver a message to the PCs. As soon as their room door was opened, the party fighter attacked the wispling, followed immediately by the party sorcerer plane-shifting him to their god's home plane, where the demon would be hunted for sport. Despite having never spoken a word to them, my PCs had unanimously decided to kill the bodyguard. After the session I asked how they came to their decision. One player said, “I knew he was going to die the moment you described him pacing with his hands on his axes.” Two others said it was when I compared him to Bart Simpson. Regardless, they all claim that their actions were justified. The bodyguard was supposed to back stab the party during a climactic fight, so it worked out that they just dealt with him before hand, but I ask you: Were my players wrong to kill my NPC before he technically did anything wrong, or are they just masters at sniffing out a traitorous Bart Simp-- I mean demon?

Robert Stegmann

To the cromulent Justices, Brian "Murph" Murphy, Emily "Wife Worm" Axford, Caldwell "Flip a DVD" Tanner and the unsung Baliff, Jake "The Cake" Hurwitz, I present the case of the Slime of the Century. This happened nearly nine years ago, but I am still a bit salty. My older brother was DMing for me and my friends in 9th grade, and we were all very new to the game. Our party consisted of my generic human rogue, a dragonborn sorcerer, a paladin based on DJ Khaled, and Shrek, a half-orc barbarian flavoured as an ogre. In our 3rd session, we were tasked with escorting the seven dwarves on a mining trip where we encountered two gelatinous cubes. Things quickly went south. I found myself with the rest of the party stuck in a cube and several dwarves dead. Our DM told us that we could try to succeed a skill check before an attack to do double damage. Desperate, I got the remaining dwarves to form a ramp so I could do an acrobatics check over the cube to do extra damage. I failed, and fell in. My dumbassery ended up having one of the party members being spit out, which resulted in the rest of my party surviving but my character being quickly dissolved. After the session, I looked up the stat block for gelatinous cubes and found they had a challenge rating of 2, making this was a very deadly encounter. I felt that this lead to PC dying unfairly. I questioned my brother about why he made the encounter so deadly and he said that because the cubes are so slow, he expected us to attack with ranged attacks and keep out of the cubes range. He pointed out that he showed us the stat block when our sorcerer rolled a Nat 20 looking for a weak point on the cube and that we had the dwarves continue to mine instead of fighting (even though they had commoner stats). Was I right to be upset at my brother for giving us such a deadly encounter, or was my PC's death the fault of our lack of strategy and my dumbassery? I await your righteous judgment.

Ilana Galpert

To the honorable justices and baby jake, Do you think unseen servants could rob a bank irl without the caster getting caught? I asked my friends if they could have any cantrip or first level spell irl, what would they choose, and one friend said he'd choose unseen servant so he could rob banks. I told him he'd get caught for sure--unseen servants don't have minds of their own, and even if they're invisible money isn't. He said he'd loiter outside the bank to watch the unseen servant, and people would be too confused by the floating money to react. He got upset because another friend and I both insisted he would get caught but...he would, right? He said that the servant would put the money in a drop location so he wouldn't be caught on camera taking it but...he'd still be loitering at the bank...??? Is he wrong or am I crazy? P.S. I would pick find familiar because how awesome would it be to have an animal friend for life

Big saint james fat camp

Dearest Dice Christ… DOES SIZE MATTER?!?! I cum to you with an urgent matter requiring your humble judgment. do the dicesciples honor 5% cock?? (Context: it was slightly cocked against the wall and had to be pushed down although slight was pushed down to flat)

Dennis J. Dolan

Salutations venerable Justices of the Supreme Crit and the- HOLY FUCK, is that Jork Horeshit?? I wish to present you the case of The Strangely Recognizable NPC I used to playing in a game where all of our characters attended a magical, multi-planar university. Because of its multi-planar setting, the DM populated campus with various different DND characters. Characters from Faerun, Strixhaven, even Critical Role. I was never really sure how I felt about about their inclusion given that there was A LOT of these characters at this school. But, I decided to hold my tongue for a moment because the DM had only just returned to DMing after a long hiatus. That being said, there was one NPC that still gives me pause. Early on, we met a goth character who are party had some snarky banter with. Their name was Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. At the time, I did not know who this character was. However one day, the DM cheekily asked us if we recognized who this character was. I looked it up and found out the truth. Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way is the Mary Sue lead of the infamous Harry Potter/My Chemical Romance fan fic, My Immortal. If I didn't know how to feel about the inclusion of other recognizable characters, I sure as shit didn't know how to feel about THIS (especially given the DMs excitement about whether or not we got the reference or not). So I ask the question to you, Justices. Am I right to feel like this is odd behavior or am I, to quote Professor McGonagall from My Immortal, just a "mediocre dunce"?

naur_body

To the glorious divinely appointed justices, and the-turd-in-the-yard-with-hot-sauce-on-it-so-the-dogs-won’t-eat-it-Hurwitz. I bring you the case of the neighborhood BLOAT party. Justices, I am a huge D20 & NADDPOD fan, and I’ve played as a PC in several long running campaigns. Recently, I decided to pupate into a baby DM for the first time, so I sent out a message to my neighborhood group chat. I was hoping to find a couple players that were local so scheduling would be less of an issue, and hopefully meet and make friends with more people in my neighborhood (I just moved). I was expecting to get one or two bites, but I’ve gotten many more requests to participate than I anticipated. 8 people have messaged me saying they want to play in my game, 5 of whom are not neighbors at all, but friends of neighbors (several of whom have mentioned that they might not be able to come consistently, despite that being the one request I made of prospective players). Justices — am I wrong to be firm about building the party that fits with the kind of campaign I want to run? Or am I being an Exclusionary Evelyn? How do I cut fat off of this party and not ruin relationships with my new neighbors, when as a baby DM I was expecting to run a game for 3, maybe 4 people? I await your sensual but firm judgement…

Cam The Spooky Frog Man, William Schitz Cousin

Dearest supreme crit and the lowly Bailiff honk honkfish I recently got on first shift for the first time since I graduated, this gave me a lot of excitement for doing DnD irl and not online (we all know how that goes) I joined a campaign at my local lgs that is dmed by the owner (I know him pretty well) We started level 1 in a world that is the result of a tpk. I recently missed a session due to needing to fix my bike and while i was gone the party made a pact with a fey queen and gained 2 levels. Problem is that because I missed my dm said I wouldn't have been there to make the pact therefore I dont get the levels, im now a level 2 with the rest of the party being level 4. Justices am I justified in being mad at my DM or is a missed session mean Im permanently behind

Ben Wilcox

Hello NADDFrogs, Naddpole here. I was playing in a campaign with a few new players and a few veterans, being my girlfriend (the party's rogue), myself, and my coworker (the dm). We got into combat in a small room, facing against a few hags. My character already got knocked down and a few other new players were not fairing well either. In hopes of doing big damage, the rogue made a successful hide check on their turn for that sweet sweet sneak attack for the next round's attack. Here comes our issue. Since the hiding spot of the rogue was more than 5 ft away from the hag, our dm declared that the rogue had to come out of hiding to hit the hag. Specifiacally, that the 5 ft in front of the hag was clearly in her line of sight and therefore the rogue was no longer hiding when attacking. I argued, that the stealth (hide) check was what determined if the character was hidden or not (the rogue could sneak out and stab the hag with advantage). Our dm ruled that since the rogue left the hiding spot into line of sight, they were visible. We argued for a bit and the dm allowed for sneak attack per another ally being close by, but denied the advantage on the attack roll (we were really hoping for that crit damage on sneak attack). Judges, do you get advantage from coming out of hiding if you go through the enemies line of sight, or does a successful hide check allow for any attack to have advantage. I humbly await your judgement. -Ben

Wren Rother

To the honorable justices and that relatively cool dude Jark. I submit to you my experience in my first ever dnd game I played that lasted longer than one session. I've listened to dnd podcasts for years (mostly yours) and had been trying to get in on a game for a while. My sister's group was going to be revisting a homebrew world for a oneshot, and invited me to join. I was told that it was going to be a bit of a horror setting and probably quite brutal, but had not been told any home rules prior to starting. The first session was good, we were traveling in a world full of shadow monsters trying to find resources in a land where the sun had burned out. We ended with the DM rolling to find out the difficulty of monster that awaited us in a castle cellar. It was a cliffhanger, and we picked it up for a 2-shot the next week. Here is where the fuckery enters. It's my first time playing with a group that cares and plays consistently, and I was excited to probably enter combat at the beginning of the next session. The DM had told us to stock spells that have a light or fire component for the shadow monsters, and I rolled high on initiative. I begin the session by saying I want to cast something, but then my sister and her friend's characters start trying to stealth away, so I reconsidered. Since I said I wanted to cast something (not specifying what), the DM made me cast a spell on my turn even though I had changed my mind. Because the vibes had shifted from combat to "oh god no we gotta get out of here", I casted rope trick rather than the sphere of flame spell I had planned on before the session. As we climb up, the DM leaves to go get food that had been delivered (we're playing on discord). We strategized and said we would stay up there for nearly the whole duration of the spell, but we forgot to tell the DM that when he got back and he didn't ask. Turns out, that mattered. My sister's character hopped out of the demi plane and got one shot insta killed by the shadow monster. The DM said after the session that if we had waited like 20 minutes, the monster would have been distracted by paladins of light outside and left. I left this session upset about two things: 1) being forced to cast a spell because I casually said I was wanting to before my turn, not being allowed to backtrack due to some table rule that I was not told 2) The DM not asking how long we stayed in the demi plane, even though it mattered for how his monster was going to act. Also, apparently he rolled a D100 for the difficulty and it landed on the hardest option that was actually attracted to/pissed off by light spells, contrary to what he had told us to prepare for. I hope this wasn't too long of an entry, I humbly await your ruling. -Wren

TheBritt

To the blessed Priest of our Almighty Dice Christ and the poor wimpy little boy Jake who helps out at church, I have sinned and need forgiveness from Dice Christ. I run a weekly home game with my brother and some friends. We had to postpone our game a couple of days as I was on vacation and wouldn't get back in time. My brother was set to pick me up from the airport at 11 pm, as my house is about 2.5/3 hours from the airport, so an Uber would be insane money in my area. This bastard forgot me at the airport and went to bed instead. I waited 1 hour, calling/texting nonstop before just paying an absurd amount to Uber home. The next day, he apologized profusely and offered to pay me back for the Uber. But this is where I sinned. Our next game came, and I was still pissed, so i purposely targeted his character, fudging my rolls against him to kill him... which I did. I would be lying if I said I was remorseful, I still think he deserved it, but my rolls have been shit since. So, like I guess can Dice Christ forgive me?

Tara

To the jiffy justices and bailiff Jerry A few years ago I was DMing a campaign for a few of my friends and at first things were great and very fun! It was my first time running something aside from a one shot so I was doing the best I could to flex my improv muscles and when a few players came to me asking to invite our mutual acquaintance to the game, I figured what could be the harm and let him in (let’s call him Denny). Denny had never played DND before so I offered him a session 0 before jumping in, to which he declined, instead opting to join in on the middle of a battle session with little to nothing filled in on his virtual character sheet. When it came to his turn in initiative, instead of trying to participate, his character walked onto a balcony while Denny himself decided to watch TikTok’s on his phone with his mic unmuted on discord. Similar issues went on for multiple sessions before one day he showed up and proceeded to “green out” to the point that we were all listening to him snore on call for 30 minutes before the rest of us deciding to cancel session entirely. I felt inclined to talk to Denny about his behavior but when I spoke to the same friends that asked me to let him join in the first place, they told me it might be better to let it lie as Denny had recently gone through a rough breakup. This rift ultimately ended up unraveling the group as a whole and now I’m just a bit bitter about the whole thing. I ultimately turn to your judgement Justices, am I wrong for wanting to talk to Denny about his behavior during something I worked hard on or should I have let him nurse his heartbreak at my (virtual) table?

Ash Vance

Dearest nasty Supreme Crit Justices and … I bring to you the case of the Scrying Teddy Bear I was running a pirate themed campaign in which the party was scouring a jungle island to find magic crystals that would open a treasure trove. It was a race against time to get there before the Pirate King and his First Mate, Silus (who is also the sorcerer’s estranged father). Then, big reveal, it turns out the Pirate King had the last crystal so they’d have to wait for his arrival to take it from him. The party had set up an ambush on the island, planning amongst themselves and setting up accordingly. When the Pirate King and Silus did arrive, they called out the party in their hiding places and had them come deal with them face to face. The party was surprised, but then Silus pulled out an old teddy bear that the sorcerer had as a baby and revealed that he had been scrying on the party for the past day. I had the sorcerer roll and random save at the top of the session, but with a -12 from Scrying it was immensely difficult. My wife, one of the players, felt a bit defeated. She enjoyed setting up the ambush but it was quashed by a random teddy bear. I said it was meant to be a shitty power play by this shitty father and there was a save. All the same, she felt cheated. Was I in the wrong? Was the teddy bear lame or was it a surprise tactic by the enemy?

Bebs

Gentlemen, Gentleladies, and Amir, A few years ago my husband and I played an online campaign with 2 of our friends (another husband and wife) and 2 of the wife's brothers. I was an air genasi hippie monk named Shila Puff, and the wife wanted to be an Owlin druid. Her husband was the DM and they homebrewed that the owlin's claws would be +3 daggers. We all thought that was crazy to start the campaign with 2 +3 weapons, but we didn't say anything. Throughout the campaign, the owlin wife would attempt to make jokes or comments that tended to fall flat. When this happened, she would interrupt her DM husband to repeat what she had said and then everyone had to acknowledge or laugh in order to move on. Problems like this continued but the kicker happened when I went down one combat and then rolled a failed death save. When it came to the Owlin druid's turn (note that she was acting as our main healer), she used her action to swipe at the monster with her +3 dagger and did minimal damage. My husband and I emphasized that I was down with a failure and if I rolled a 1 on my next turn I would be dead. We suggested her doing a bonus action healing word to bring me up. Folks.... she did not. She used to off hand attack with her +3 dagger, again doing minimal damage. I did not end up dying thankfully but I am still miffed after these years. Before you ask, yes she knew how to play dnd and had even attempted to DM before. And yes Murph we got new friends.

Ellen

To the honorable justices and/or forgiving clergy: i present the case of the charmed barb. or the confession, I’m honestly not sure which this falls under. May it please the court, 8 years ago I tried my hand at DMing for the first time. My players consisted of a few friends, my crush at the time, and her FWB. I was not a fan of the fact that my love rival was going to be playing in my campaign, but he was really excited to experience combat so I sucked it up for the sake of the game. We had a few fun sessions investigating disappearances near a magical forest, and the FWB playing a barbarian decided to chop a tree down to make his way into said forest. This triggered some dryads to pop out and yell at him which devolved into combat. Here’s where I may have flopped. Dryads have the action “fey charm” that charms you after a wisdom saving throw. Harboring jealousy in my heart and the knowledge that his character had a very low wisdom, I targeted the barbarian. He of course failed the save, and every future save, rendering him useless for the entire battle. At the time I felt giddy, I had one upped my rival in a battle in my mind; but now I look back and cringe, feeling that it was unfair to target him for my own petty reasons. I justify it to myself since he angered the dryads by chopping the tree down, but I know that wasn’t why I used charm on only him. Justices, was this the correct strategic combat move to make, or did bringing in my own personal grievances taint it entirely? I lay myself prone before the mercy of the court. p.s. The campaign went on and ended after a fun final battle right as summer break was ending, but I have never DMed since.

Jordyn N

Dearest Supreme Crit Justices and also the Bailiff, I present to you a case of the Accidental Oath-breaking Paladin. Our party has been wanted criminals and escaping the law for almost the entire 4 years we’ve been playing together. (We were falsely accused by a corrupt government.) Recently, we landed back in the country we’re wanted in to deal with a coven of hags. Our sorcerer, multiclassed into paladin, was informed recently by the DM that she ought to go to a church and officially register as a Paladin of Pelor. The paladin did so, but disguised herself and went under a false name so to not be arrested. When she first entered the church, the DM described a feeling of warmth and soothing calm coming over her. The paladin, reassured, proceeded to lie to the priest about her name and rolled a Nat 20 on her deception check for a total of 30. She was officially registered under the false name, and then when she stepped out of the church, the DM described Pelor’s anger with her and took all 5 levels of her paladin abilities, leaving her as now a functionally level 8 sorcerer amongst the rest of the level 13 party. The DM said it’s because Pelor values justice and truth, and the paladin lied. This seems incredibly harsh and unexpected, and most of the table thinks it’s an unfair ruling. Dearest judges, please, who is in the wrong? Did the Paladin not think through this enough, or did the DM mislead her?

Josh Kumar

To the magnanimous justices and the bailiff whose name l shamefully share, I bring you the case of Gary the Goblin. My players were in the second session of a twoshot, playing as Senators in the Orc government who were a part of a secret organization bent on bringing down the corrupt government. One of my players, a goblin named Gary, was on house arrest after being framed for murder. While on the tenth floor of a building, he walked up to a bay window, opened it to "goblin size", and then proceeded to mime jumping out of the window. The guard watching him tensed up and put his hand on his sword. Gary then said "Wouldn't it be crazy if I just jumped out of this window and escaped?" They rolled initiative, Gary did jump out the window, and was promptly killed after a slew of guards descended on him. His death ultimately derailed the session, forcing the other players to abandon their plans of intercepting a secret weapons convoy and instead try to sabotage the cleric who was going to cast speak with dead on the corpse of Gary to find out why he did this and if he had any other allies. This kicked off a comical series of events which eventually led to the deaths of 2 of the remaining 3 players (who laughed as they committed to a plan that I told them would kill them). Justices, I would kill Gary again a thousand times over, but I wonder if I should have let his consequences reflect on the rest of the party. On one hand, it would feel like railroading not to, but on the other, I could have just ignored it for the sake of the session. Ultimately everyone had fun, and also these guys are my close friends so no one is mad irl, but is it rewarding a problem player if their actions have no party implications, or is it ultimately punishing the party for the sins of a single soul? I lay myself at the mercy of the court.

Imi B

Stunning judegs and stunned bailiff, Jackie. I bring to you the case of the denied character death. I have been playing with the same group for almost 15 years. In this time we have run a homebrew exhaustion-for-spell-slots rule in most of our campaigns (you can take a level of exhaustion to regain a single spell slot or a second wind etc). We are currently about two years into our current campaign and sadly I am having to bow out due to getting a new job on the other side of the world. Myself and the DM agreed that my life domain elderly halfling cleric, Boots, would retire to her Abby, and spend her days farming and possibly making guest appearances if/when I was in the right time zone. She is tired of fighting, her story has been told and she just wants a peaceful retirement. However in our last game together, due to insanely bad rolls across the board in a drag down fight with a souped up beholder, we have 4/5 party members down making death saves and me the only one standing with one level exhaustion already and zero spells left. With agreement of the DM, Boots took 5 more levels of exhaustion to cast mass healing word. Of course this killed Boots but her sacrifce brought everyone up and the rest of the group survived the encounter. The problem is, the party refused to let Boots rest in peace. After a four session long quest to a druid, they have brought her back (now in elf form!) and she is now a DMNPC. My DM says she is trying to play her true to my characterisation but then why is she still with the party? Am I right to be miffed that Boots was denied her final moment of glory or am I just annoyed that I am no longer in control of a character I had already agreed to give up?

Justin

To the beautiful baby boy bailiff and his benevolent burger masters, I bring you the case of the Spelljammer Scandel. I was in a homebrew spelljammer campaign where we traveled to different planets trying to save the universe. On one planet we were tasked with slaying a dragon and collecting its egg. It was our first dragon after months of playing and we were understandably excited. After finally reaching it (after multiple encounters) we found it was asleep. Our ranger lined up a shot to start the fight and used all his abilities to deal massive damage. Well…we were met with disappointment when our DM said that the dragon was already long dead. Annoyed, we grabbed the egg and left. We never saw another dragon again. Am I justified in still being peeved about this after a year, or was this acceptable encounter design? I await your honorable decision.

yourdailymeg

To the Honorable Justices and the savant baby bailiff, Jake, I present the case of the piss-fueled character arc assassination. A few years ago, I joined an existing, in-person campaign. The DM gave me the necessary context: they were about to take on a marauding goblin clan and the party could use a rogue for the upcoming dungeon crawl. So, I rolled up a rogue that had personal beef with the goblins (they burned down her village), giving me a solid in game reason to join the party, and we were off to the races. Eventually, it came time to schedule our session for the big battle with the goblin boss and his cronies. The holidays were approaching and schedules were hectic, which made finding a day that worked for everyone nearly impossible. For scheduling conflicts in the past, available players would run one-shots, then pick up the main campaign when everyone was back in town. We all agreed to do that this time around, too. I went home for Christmas and thought nothing more about it. Cut to our next game. We picked up where we had left off—which was after defeating the goblin boss. Turns out, they had played the regular campaign without me and without telling me about the change of plans. When I asked what my character had done during the battle, the DM said that she’d “gotten so scared, she had ditched the party, hidden in a broom cupboard, and pissed herself.” Look, I’m all for goofs and silly character moments, but this is ridiculous (but this is ridiculous). You can’t piss my pants for me, you know? Not only did I feel like the butt of the joke, but my character’s agency had been stripped away and my investment in the story had been thrown out for a cheap bit. I had explicitly built and role-played a character whose entire reason for joining the party was to stick it to those goblins and I didn’t even get to be there for the conclusion of the arc. I stopped playing with this group shortly after (for a mix of reasons), but Justices, was my character robbed of her vengeance and wrongfully branded a piss-baby coward or is the DM within his rights to make a character piss themselves when their player is absent

Galen Graham, Local Talent

Hello to the Good Justices and Jailiff Bake; I present the case of the Forced PC Identity! A while back I was playing a game with friends, with our most novice GM leading the game. She was still getting the hang of things, and made a couple iffy calls. In our first session, when I attempted to restrain a street kid who had pickpocketed my cowboy/pirate cross over rogue, she ruled that because I had rolled using my weapon attack skill, instead of non-lethally taking the kid down as I had said I wanted to before rolling, that I HAD to deal lethal damage and cut this child to ribbons. I held my tongue because I didn’t want to argue with one of my closest friends about rules on session 1 when she was still new. Our healer fixed the kid up, and all was well. That is, until the next ten sessions came along. Every time our party ran into a child anywhere, my friends would in character tell me to stay away and that I was a danger to kids everywhere. They thought it was funny, and so did I the first time. However the joke started to inform actual game choices, with them going as far as to keep me from following a plot point I wanted to be included in, instead insisting I should hang back with another PC to do another task because “you’d just end up killing the kid anyway”. Justices, is it okay for my party to dictate my character must be an infanticidal criminal? Or am I in the wrong for being irritated, and just unlucky that there were so many child NPCs? P.S. I’ll never ask forgiveness from Dice Christ for anything I did in that game. This isn’t related to my post, I just want Murph to know I’m NOT sorry.

Valens

To the honorable judges and the guy I saw outside the courtroom muttering "this time they'll respect me" under his breath. I bring to you the case of the car dealership summons. I am a college of eloquence bard in a 3 year long campaign with my closest friends. We joke about almost everything together but I am afraid my most recent goof may have crossed the line. As part of the bard features I was able to add a spell from another class and the spell I chose was summon greater steed. This in itself has not been a problem and my main summon Brett the Peyton has been a fun addition to the party. However in a fit of what I consider comical genius, I summoned another creature and when I announced its name I declared it to be "2019 Ford Explorer". Judges, this campaign setting is solely fantasy, and though I got some good laughs for this naming, I didn't let it stop there. Now the party also travels with 2007 Jeep Wrangler the Rhino and 1990 Chevy Silverado the Sabertooth Tiger. My DM hasn't told me to stop but I feel this joke has broken some immersion in the game. Have I gone too far with the names of my summons or should my DM resign to the happy Honda days coming his way?

Tiffany Bailey

Hello court (I am not cool enough to think of a witty opening that makes fun of Jake, sorry) today I present to you: the case of the Manhandled Gnome. There's not much to this case so I'll get straight to it: the Shifter Barbarian will not stop trying to Toss me (a Gnome Wizard.) At first, it was funny a joke that I let slide because Gnomes are small and the original occurrence was one of our first sessions, but after it became clear to me that Barbarian was going to do this constantly as a bit- the joke lost its humor. I've taken to Misty Stepping away when Barbarian makes for my Gnome out of combat, but during combat there isn't much for me to do because Initiative. We are also only Level 5, so each time this happens I lose a precious spell slot. I've asked in character and out of character for Barbarian to keep their hands to themselves. Unfortunately, asking nicely isn't working, so I ask all present parties: how do I take justice into my small Gnome hands and unleash wizardry in a way that will make Barbarian rue the day they disrespected the mighty Gnome? Sincerely, Bimble Wenkla of Wobblehollow: Gnome who prefers the ground.

Tim Dominick

Justices, Jake, I have done something I’ve been feeling off about and want to bring it before the court. I’m a long time DM new player in a friend of a friends new campaign. Everyone else knows each other well, but I’ve known everyone expect for my friend and her husband for about as long as the campaign has been happening (3 sessions). I reached out to my group last week to ask about our dnd plans like normal, and ask where we’re going to play and what time. I received no response from the group for 3 days. On Sunday (the day we normally play) about 2 hours before I would be leaving to get to my friends house for the session, I got a text from my friend telling me “no one is good at communication so I figured I’ll tell you, my friends are gonna get married in DND today.” This was a little odd since our last session was us staring our first battle with the BBEG, so i responded “so we’re doing a one shot for today?”. Judges, to my shock, my friend replied “no they’re getting married in real life and I’m ordained, so I’m gonna marry them, but also I’m gonna marry their characters in dnd.” Judges, long story short, I did not go to the session/wedding. I felt awkward having only played dnd with these people 3 times and having known them for less than 10 hours, I felt suddenly forced to come participate in their eloping. Was it wrong of me to tell them I was uncomfortable and didn’t go, or should I have been a loyal party member and come anyway. I humbly await your judgement Ps. We haven’t played a session again since I didn’t go.

Aidan

Confession: May it please the fastidious clergy, especially Jonk: I was playing in a campaign as a level 16 aasimar cleric. My DM had previously asked a few sessions earlier for me to send him my character sheet and he specifically asked about me having truesight prepared. I said yes, but then after a few sessions and some days passing in-game, it never came up, so I changed my spells. Cut to our party seeking out a hag that had kidnapped a child from a nearby village, and we stumbled upon an empty lair. There was only a cauldron and no roll for investigation or perception could tell us where she’d gone. He kept looking at me as if I was supposed to know something, so I lied and switched my prepared spells so that I had truesight again and lo and behold, there was an illusionary wall that led to a ritual with a dragon and the hag. Am I going to hell for changing my prepared spells?

Wren Rother

Quick addition, When complaining to my sister about how the session went, she said that irl conversation time equated to double in-game conversation time and so that's probably what was assumed when the DM got back with food? She later backtracked and said that I took her too literally when I tried to follow up with the DM as she encouraged me to.

Noah Goodman

Oh Servants of Dice Moses, please forgive my sin. In a recent game, I've been running a gauntlet where characters level up after each battle, going 1 to 20 within a day and fighting random opponents. Some enemies I allow them to sway. In one case, there were some goblins, and they swayed the cowardly goblin Gib to their side. I told them he would turn heel at the nearest opportunity, but they wanted him anyway. Two fights in the future, the party is facing a Dragon. The Dragon is on low health, and Gib is up. I tell the party if Gib can kill the dragon, I will give him some character levels. Everyone's excited, as am I. He needs a 14 or higher to hit and has advantage. We're online but using physical dice, so I have my laptop camera pointed at my dice tray. I roll the first die, and it's low. I roll the second die, and it is in the tray but not on camera. I move the camera to show the result, and in doing so the dice tray gets knocked, changing the roll from a 6 to a 15. Everyone goes wild at Gib's success, chanting his name. Dice Deacons, I do not correct them. I let Gib level up, going with what I know was a dishonest roll as I could not bear to remove their excitement. Gib is now powerful and has not yet died, but I know he is living an unearned life. Please, cleanse me of my sins!

Daylynnrey

Hello Justices, Bailiff, Strange glowing thing behind Caldwell that he doesn’t want us to address. I bring you The trials and tribulations of teleporting with tarantulas. I’m playing as an Eladrin in a Ravnika campaign, another player at the table plays a Druid. We were infiltrating a factory and saw from a distance that there was a single sentry at the top of the staircase. The sentry hadn’t noticed us so I wanted to fae step up to it (I was in Autumn, hoping to charm the Sentry) and wanted to bring the Druid as backup. Naturally, fae step doesn’t allow you to bring a person with you, but I asked my DM if the Druid took the shape of a spider and was in my pocket, could we teleport together? The DM said it wouldn’t work, I accepted the ruling, and the game played on. The sentry ended up being an illusion and at the end of the session we defeated the caster and I got the breastplate with that illusion effect as an ability. No one is mad or bothered, we’re a solid friend group who has been playing together for years. But I’ve always wondered if the “spider in the pocket” loophole was a valid one. Could I fae step with a pocket spider or was my DM right about it not being a valid move? Thanks!

Patrick

To the revered Justices and Bong-Rip Jake- I present the case of Inter-party romance. I’m running a pirate campaign on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. Recently, we had two players join, an engaged couple who live together. They’re both very kind people, but there’s two problems- 1) they want to romance each other in-game, and 2) they have to be coerced to interact with other party members. Over the table, they’re very… affectionate, very touchy feely, shoulder bites, etc. I vetoed their romance request, and they have not shown up to sessions in the past two weeks since I said no. I ask the court- was I wrong to try to get these players to engage with the rest of their party, or do I need to walk the plank for my sin against love?

Alex Kennedy

May it please the justices and tickle the lowly bailiff, I present the case of the fishy persecution. I have been playing a multiversal campaign, which until recently had the party trudging through Avernus. Hell has been hellish, especially for my poor Asimar peace cleric who has lost all his memories, been blackmailed into changing divinities and has most recently been transformed into an undead zombie. As something of a palate clense, the DM has pivoted into a thematically lighter setting (a posh 1920's boarding school, accessed via a portal found in the intestine of a giant purple worm). We were told this would be a multi-session arc that would allow many of the party (including myself) to roll new characters. The DM put me under some gentle pressure to become a teacher (the rest of the party are students). I agreed, and rolled up a dwarf fighter/barbarian physics teacher. On the first session with the new characters, we rolled initiative to determine the order we woke up in. I woke up third, and the DM said "that fits perfectly with the session I have planned." I soon noticed that my new character wasn't any luckier than my hell-stranded cleric. The DM narrated how my desk in the staff room was covered in literal shit. I failed a saving throw and was told that I could only speak Russian. When one of the students (admittedly at my suggestion) attempted to speak to a squid in an aquarium, the DM made me roll a save, which I of course failed, turning me into a fish. This was resolved through a fun combat encounter, but has left my character with the penalites that 1) they turn back into a fish any time they get wet and 2) they need to spend at least 3 hours a day cleaning bathroom to repay the powerful entity that helped restore me to my dwarven form. I just can't help feeling a little picked on, y'know? I ask the justices, does my DM have it out for me? Have I done something to offend him? Or are these just the kind of wacky shenanigans a former angel turned dwarf should expect when they go to hell? I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

Jake

Justices—there is a blond sort of Lurch looking “man” in the corner, idk if you wanna pull out the flyswatter or something. This campaign I’ve been in for over a year has been running for almost four years; I’ve played DnD with the DM for years, they are a fantastic world builder, collaborator, and all-around my favorite person to play with. They have been so excited that this epic campaign is finally approaching its epic cosmic conclusion. We’re in the final few sessions, as in our last session was literally “okay it’s the night before we all plane shift to go fight the ultimate final BBEG and End This™️”. Mine and another player’s PCs encountered a time traveling wizard in the safe haven city we’re in who told us he had come back in time to find us and aid us; after about 20 minutes of conversation, he essentially told us that no matter what we do, the future of the world is still fucked; I and the other PC were dumbstruck, disheartened and unsure what to do with this info. The DM then cuts to the two other PCs. They say they want to go to a tavern and play card games; cue the next TWO AND A HALF HOURS of the session being the DM simulating low stakes card gambling, like “both of you roll 2d6 and whoever gets higher wins the 2 gold you bet!” We never cut back to our two characters, who were in the midst of a magical existential discussion of free will and the point of our years long quest; the session simply ended with the two gambling PCs. Important context that one of the gamblers had missed the last few sessions and the DM wanted to give him some time to do things, and they told us he had requested some “downtime”, which privately baffled me…down time?? We’re fighting the universe ending devil god TOMORROW, and he wants to spend a whole session simulating gambling in a game that is already innately gambling??? I know the DM dropped the ball on this, they are very kind and accommodating and wanted to give this player time to do what he wanted, but…to bring the momentum of the climax of a 4-year long campaign to a screeching halt to play little card games, is this not a punishable offense? Should we leave this PC behind and let him stay in the tavern to play with a hoop and stick while we go play the game and finish the campaign?

Thimo The Fool

May it please the court, greatly and deeply, sensually even. The bailiff may watch, if they have to. I present to you the case of "your character, but better" Recently my DM sprung a large battle upon us, outnumbering us 14 to 6. Note that this was the German rules of  DSA ("Das Schwarze Auge") not DND, but your judgement should be as guiding and truthful as always. In the battle, my heroic pirate, fighting dirty with a blade in each hand, squared up against the boss of a slave merchant group, who also boasted a dual wielding fighting style. Fast forward two rounds, and he had disarmed my character twice, in an advanced manoeuvre that I didn't even know existed. It was funny, as my character pulled out more and more weapons to be promptly disarmed again, but when the players pointed out the similarities between the characters, the DM, kind of proudly, maybe a smich apologetic said: "yeah, I constructed them as a better version of your character, who has been doing it for longer" Judges, I am not too upset about this, as it gave my boi and myself the chance to see where the journey might go, but is it fair to intentionally set up disappointment and defeat by someone that is just further down the skilltree? A player spoke up, she said "DM that is so mean, make your own damn character!" Should the DM be punished for stepping on my terrain, and on me, and on the group who got captured shortly after, or is this masterful set up for besting the guy later, I await your judgement excitedly, maybe too excitedly tbh.

Aiden S

TO THE INIMITABLE SUPREME CRIT JUSTICES and the positively imitable jonk, I request your ruling on the case of the caged werewolf. I was DMing a campaign for a table of friends. Two PCs, the party's wizard and rogue, wandered off to investigate the basement workshop of a local warlock. The rogue discovered that there was an enraged werewolf locked in a silver-lined wooden crate and convinced the gullible and imperceptive wizard to pick the lock and free the werewolf. The wizard successfully picked the lock, released the werewolf, and we entered combat. The rogue IMMEDIATELY bonus action disengaged and dashed from the scene, leaving the werewolf to attack the wizard and nearly kill him in a single turn. The rogue argues that she was just "playing her character." Judges, is bad characterization reason enough to abandon a friend being attacked by a werewolf?

Micah Heemstra

Honorable judges (and shoutout to lovable bailiff Jake Halfwitz…) Today I bring you *The Case of the discarded PC* I’m a DM who loves weaving campaigns around my players’ backstories. I was running a virtual campaign and one of my players, who we’ll call “Jeb” pitched Bobby - a guy who wakes up in a cave with no memories and a Venom-style symbiote inhabiting his body. I ran with it, privately fleshing out his backstory in which Bobby was once a rebel operative, killed by a contact in the cave, and reanimated by the symbiote dwelling within. But through the ordeal, his soul was trapped in limbo. Months in, Jeb decided Bobby was too goofy and rolled a new character. I was fine with the switch, but wanted Bobby to get a proper send-off. So when the party reached the rebel HQ from his backstory, I privately narrated to Jeb as they revealed his past and asked him to summon and defeat his limbo-maddened soul in order to regain his memories and rejoin the rebels. He said he was in. At the next session, after debuting his new character, I set the stage for Bobby’s send off. The rebels taking him to the fighting ring, a ritual performed to summon his soul, his Rebel friends and party members watching with baited breath… And… Jeb straight up refused to play. Total silence fell across the virtual table. Jeb then proceeded to watch YouTube shorts loudly on his phone while I scrambled to come up with a plan. Thankfully, another player kindly stepped in to control Bobby, who was promptly torn apart by his own soul. An unceremonious end to an abandoned character. Afterward, I told Jeb how hurt I was. He apologized and we patched things up, but the whole ordeal sapped my motivation to keep DMing. Jeb acknowledged that his actions were rude, however I can’t help but wonder: was I also at fault for pushing him to play out one last scene for a character he’d already walked away from? I await your impeccable judgement. Ah

Frith the Storyteller

To the honorable justices and good ol’ Jakey Boy, I present the case of the false suggestion. I’m currently DMing for a homebrew murder mystery campaign, where my players are hunting a serial killer in a steampunk city, Jack the Ripper style. At one point my players were following up with one of the suspects, a medical assistant who we’ll call Danny. The party trusts Danny, and wanted to convince him to help them enter a closed offed area of the hospital, ran by a suspicious Doctor. The bard in my party casted the suggestion spell on Danny to sneak them in the office. Now, the truth is Danny was working with the doctor, and was more powerful than the players realized. He had passed the saving throw, though I had him pretend he did not, and he led the party into a trap with the Doctor. After an intense fight, the party survived, but on a debrief, my bard argued that because suggestion was a concentration spell, he should be aware when his spell fails since he would not be holding concentration, and that Danny should not be able to pretend to have fallen for the spell. I argued that since the spell Zone of Truth explicitly calls out that the caster knows if someone passes or fails, and suggestion does not, then a smart NPC could pretend to fall under the spell. Thankfully no PCs died in the ambush and the mystery continues, so my party is having a lot of fun, but we want to resolve this question once and for all. We await your judgment!

Pablo

Honorable Justices and dishonorable baliff Joke, whose breath smells, I bring you the Tale of Two DMs: Me and one of my best friends have been DMing for the better part of 10 years and generally vary in style on a Caldwell to Jake basis. Consequently, one of our longest running discussions is on how, in a high-lethality low-magic setting a la Skaldova or Game of Thrones, a DM should handle a skilled fighter battling 100 peasants. He wouldn't allow it, and believes there would be no combat, maybe a roll to see how many peasants the fighter gets to kill before ultimately dying. I believe the death of the fighter should come down to dice rolls and leaning into the lethality of the system within combat (without necessarily rolling 100 times), since those are the rules the player would be expecting. While we both agree that it is something that comes down to style, I bid thee Justices, who is more right? P.S: if it helps as more context, this discussion started when using a very unfinished Game of Thrones system that gets very unbalanced with higher level characters.

Brian

If it may please the court, the venerable justices, and the disreputable baliff. I recently took my first stab at playing some D&D, with me DMing with for some friends. None of them had played before, but the first session went! The players building their PCs (a paladin, rogue, warlock, and fighter), some awkward first time RP (im a first time DM), and two combat encounters, getting them to level 2. Things took a downward turn the next session, though. I started by providing a quick bit of exposition to motivate the players to travel to and delve a nearby ruin and provided options for the party's route to the dungeon, one longer and safer through open desert and one shorter but more dangerous over canyons and steppes. Things ground to a halt when the rogue decided he didn't want to pay for climbing gear. The rest of the party quickly bought the gear and left to start heading to the actual adventure, but the rogue stayed to keep searching the backroom for the gear he refused to just buy. He eventually got caught, threatened the shopkeeper, and got the guards called. This annoyed the rest of the party. Eventually I hand-waved him out of there and we moved on, but by that point another PC, the fighter, was noonger paying attention. She repeatedly walked away from the table in the middle encounters, to the point that her boyfriend (the paladin) was rolling for her. Then, in their first combat encounter of the session, the paladin died while fighting a manticore, despite me fudging a nat 1 as just one fail, due to no one besides the fighter trying to stabilize him. The player was quite upset with me and the rogue player, and he didn't have a backup PC, so we just stopped playing and moved on to something else. My question - is this my fault? As the DM I'm in charge of pacing and providing interesting situations. Maybe I could've started them in the middle of some action to hold their attention better, or managed the rogue shenanigans better? Or do you think we were doomed from the start, and D&D is just not the right game for the group? I eagerly await your swift and fair judgement.

Mitch Rhook

To the highly highly highly justices and the weird but loveable guy following them around. I bring you the case of the orc loving tortle. I was playing in a homebrew campaign with some friends that are all fairly new to DnD. I was playing an autumn eladrin who as a child was sucked through to the material plane and trapped there, being found and raised by tribal humans who were always at war/being attacked by an orc tribe. My characters motivation for adventuring was to find out who/what I am. My friend was playing a tortle warlock (fathomless). The campaign, made and ran by another friend who had never DMd before, was that on a ship ride between continents, we all somehow crashed into these islands that don't exist and appear to have been shifted to a different realm. Needing to find a way home we adventured, found a map that showed a human kingdom and an orc kingdom among others. My friend playing the tortle wanted to go see the orcs, bringing it up every single interaction, with every stranger and in every silence to the point it got really annoying. I explained in character and out of character at the table why my character does not like orcs or want to see them and feels like they'd just kill us. He didn't stop. After the session I tried to explain again why my character doesn't want to see the orcs and wanted to know why he just wanted to railroad us into the orcs. He said "the game isn't just about your character my dude" and insisted what he wanted to do was what was important for us to all go and do. Justices am I wrong for not ignoring my characters back story and biases and avoiding the orcs? Is he wrong for not caring about what anyone else at the table wants? (I should note here that the DM hadn't built the orc kingdom out because he did not expect us to go there at all, and the other players were only interested in finding help and shelter for the shipwreck refugees)

JesterTheCleric

To the magnificent judges and bailiff, i bring to you the case of "my players keep razzing me about level ups." If i am ever so slightly late to our online sessions (which includes basically me not being first into the call) my players yell that theyre level 69 in every class and subclass. They also ask me for level ups almost every session (they leveled up and fought one (1) monster of a slightly higher CR than them and they were like "we get a level up right we go from level 4 to level 5 right are we level 7 now omg we're totally level 10 we gotta be"). Do I have any recourse?

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.

DetBenMalone

To the magnanimous magistrates and supreme gamer bailiff, Jorts. May I present the case of the chaotic alignments. My younger brother was the DM, I played a fighter, we had an automaton artificer, a ranger, and my older brother played a paladin (of sorts). We played over Zoom. The problem was, our ranger was chaotic neutral and his character was canonically perpetually high ASF. This was “role played” by him actually getting extremely high during the game and he would often zone completely out, fall asleep, or his character would wander off and sort of sabotage our goals. My older brother (paladin), decided to play a chaotic evil paladin. He would frequently attempt to roll stealth checks and light buildings on fire while the rest of our party talked to quest NPCs, again, sabotaging our goals. Judges, I ask you, am I being as vanilla as my human fighter “Michael” or am I right to be annoyed at constant derailing by our two chaotic players? How do you deal with a snoozing ranger and pyromaniac Goblin? Please punish these players as chaotically as their characters behaved. P.S. my older brother is usually our DM so I was especially confused as to why he chose to be Danny Derail in this campaign.

Tributary Tales

To the sumptuous Justices, and the perfidious ophidian Snake, I present the case of the doggy dilemma. My players were exploring an abandonded and ancient lich's lair. The experiments had long since broken out and an ecosystem had formed around these monsters. The players happened upon a group of sleeping scythe-hounds (praying mantis dogs). It is at this point that a furious debate erupted. Some players wanted to kill the sleeping monsters, some sneak past, some avoid the area altogether. This argument lasted over an hour, with our paladin Xander flatly refusing to have a hand in sharp-puppy slaughter. I as the Dm was prepared for any of their choices, but was not prepared for the entire session to be devoted to this argument, and eventually told them a passage way to the next floor opened up and they went through, skipping the encounter entirely. This argument is still brought up at times, so must ask, who was in the right? The players who wanted to clear the threats and slay these lich-made monsters, or the ones who wanted to protect these poor sleeping knife-dogs? P.S. If you want any more background, my player made a site about their dnd character! https://wodaro.neocities.org/soren-relationships

Ty

To the semi-honorable judges and that one guy who sometimes Jill lets out. I bring a grievance before you, so cruel to this day our table still talks about it. A few years ago, my friend group got into DnD ( honestly, thanks to Emily & Murph in fantasy high) and we decided to try a real campaign vs the one-shot murder hoboing we had been doing. My friend G was our DM, and while he had more experience at it than anyone else, he was still extremely new to all of it. While running Storm Kings Thunder, we found ourselves in our first real multi-session battle facing off against goblin hordes, bugbears, and hill giants. During this massive battle, our DM provided all of us with an NPC companion that he told us to keep alive if we wanted any good loot after. While making a heroic charge, the party & NPCs had run across a massive open field for close to two turns, doing nothing but dash actions. While running, the DM was using the hill giants to catapult "goblin cannon balls" at us. During this charge, 3 NPCs were to quote "Pink misted" by these Goblin cannonballs. Hearing the phrase "pink misted," we decided to push on, knowing in our hearts that we lost good friends along the way. In the end, we successfully defended the town and killed everything in true murder hobo fashion. And when it came to giving out the loot, our DM pointed out that we missed out on some good stuff because we didn't try and save our 3 downed NPCs. We were confused.... He literally described a scene of how a screaming armor-covered goblin soared through the air and "pink misted" them. Now, Judges, this is where our issue lies. Our DM thinks we should have still checked them and tried to stabilize them after all of the discripted narration. We argued based on how he described that our characters would have seen them beyond the point of help. Were we robbed at the chance of getting that sweet sweet loot, or was how our DM used the phrase "pinked misted" appropriate, and we should have still looked at our fallen companions? PS: I can't express my love for all of you, but know that even making a silly DnD podcast can change lives for the better. I listen to Naddpod in some way every day and have been for the last 4 years. You guys have helped me through some hard times, and some have been there with me through the middle of the night baby feedings ( I am like 85% sure Caldwell and I had kids at the same time, and I like to imagine they would be friends!), love and appreciate all of you. PPS: Please side with me against our dm and make his punishment something terrible like having to goon to Ismark the lesser.

Matthew J

To the honorable jakestices and bailiff whatshisname, I humbly bring before you the Case of the Dhampir Mutineer. A few years ago, our party was on a mission to cross the high seas and save our party’s Sorcerer after she was abducted. While she waited for her original PC to be rescued, the Sorcerer played “Maria,” an Artificer who was secretly half-vampire. One fateful session, my Paladin, who had been elected captain by the rest of the party, was keeping watch at the helm. When I asked the party’s Bard, “Trevor,” to take the wheel, Maria announced that she wanted to grab the wheel instead, prompting a contested Athletics check that Trevor won easily. Maria reacted by biting him with her secret vampire fangs. I tried to avoid full PVP by grappling Maria and asking for an explanation, but instead of answering any questions, she made her robot companion shoot me in the back. The party then collectively turned on her, and Trevor, convinced that she was a full vampire, finished her off while she was rolling death saves. After tying her up, we brought Maria back to life with a Revivify spell so we could get answers (and, out of game, to give the player a second chance with the character). For the next hour, we begged her to give any explanation about the vampirism or why we should trust her going forward, while she refused to explain herself, apologize, or acknowledge any wrongdoing. When our characters stepped off to the side to discuss how to proceed, she tried to break free of her bonds and escape. We knocked her back to 0 HP, and, seeing no other course of action that made sense in character, we ultimately decided to kill her. For additional context, this was not the only time that this player initiated PVP, but it was the only time that it resulted in a character death. Justices, were we wrong to kill our friend’s character twice, or were we justified in executing an unapologetic instigator? We humbly await your judgment.

The Wizard Syndicate

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

Caisson the Jester Jouster

Dear esteemed Crit Justices and the soggy baliff Flake. In the previous campaign I played in (2024 rules), I played a druid turned warlock who had begun to learn necromancy after being influenced by our necromancer wizard. As part of this, I took the spell Danse Macabre, a spell that let's you turn 5 corpses into either skeletons or zombies. At one point we were hunting down a serial killer baalspawn, and when we found her lair, it was perfect. Corpses everywhere as if they were there just for me. The encounter begins, and I excitedly cast Danse Macabre. The spell states it uses the Skeleton statblock, which includes an attack with a bow. Excitedly I go to have my skeletons all shoot at the baalspawn, but my DM says they can't because the corpses didnt have bows. I argue that the spell specifies it uses the skeleton statblock, and because it has bows, the spell should also arm them with bows as part of the magic. She stood her ground and wouldn't allow them to use bows, but allowed me to pivot and make them zombies instead since they were more resilient and didn't have weapons in their statblocks. Justices, I ask you was arguing the spell would create the skeletons with weapons in tact foolish, or did my DM rob me of the chance to use this spell in a cool ass way? I await your judgment. (PS I am on good terms with my DM and she let's me get away with many other things, so please be generous if she is at found at fault!)

A.B.C.D.E.M.P

To the honorable justices of the supreme crit and the infinitely lowly baliliff uh, “straight up DS in ma cup” murphy, i think it was? This case is not D&D related, however since there is no supreme crit for board games, I bring to you the case of the reluctant werewolf. Years back my friends and I were playing the IGN 10 outta 10 greatest board game of all time, Werewords, which is a mafia/one night werewolf style social deduction game combined with 20 questions as the main mechanic. It absolutely rules and tread so carefully if you ever want to introduce it at a board game night as everyone can easily end up playing it for 5 hours straight. Anyway, years ago on this fated game night a group of us were playing Werewords and it came time for one of our friends to be the Mayor/20-questions answerer. We’ll call them Watermelon. Watermelon loves being the Mayor but absolutely despised getting the Werewolf secret role while being the Mayor, the Mayorwolf, as we came to refer to it. Our house rule was to shuffle all the secret roles in the center and everyone selects their role at random. Justices, i kid you not, Watermelon drew the werewolf secret role 4 times in a row. I know this because each time Watermelon threw up their hands in frustration and pleaded that they not be the Mayorwolf. However, the fifth time around when roles were cast, Watermelon didn’t react to their role. I assumed they had finally gotten a non-werewolf role, and play went as normal. At the end of the questioning rounds and 5 solid minutes of deliberation and joking accusations being hurled around the table amongst the townsfolk, imagine our surprise when we discovered that Watermelon revealed that they had been the sole Werewolf at the table all along. Justices, I must admit, the helplessness I felt in that moment flared my temper to a degree I am embarrassed to admit. I ended up shouting “That is so messed up, bro!” at Watermelon which admittedly dropped the mood at the table. Justices, was the fact that unbeknownst to me there was a completely unwinnable situation at the table enough to excuse my sudden outburst, or was I in the wrong for not considering that my friend Watermelon could still be the traitor among us even after rejecting the role repeatedly? I do know for a fact Watermelon was not playing a long con with the prior rejections, they just got self conscious that we kept having to shuffle the roles and restart the beginning of the game and just wanted us to keep playing. PS - this incident caused us to implement a new home rule where if someone does not want to be the Mayorwolf, they pick from the pile of roles with the werewolf cards removed and then the werewolf cards are added back into the pile and shuffled for everyone else.

Grynk Grynkleton

To the wonderful justices Byron, Amy, and Cauldron, and what one may call an extension to the bailiff Jacques. I return to you, now that I’m payed and proper, with the case of the purposely forgotten about standup routine. In one off comment made by yours truly I mentioned that one of the NPCs performed comedy on thursdays at the local piggly wiggly inn and tavern. When asked what day it was I stupidly said Wednesday now chucking a wrench into my story plans. To avoid this I simply forgot about the stand up set by next session and continued the story. We finished the campaign and that NPC perished, but no one was the wiser. Recently a player “confronted” me about it during one of our most recent sessions where they were playing penguins of Madagascar inspired gmo super soldiers and asked why we didn’t see the session. I lied and said I completely forgot and moved on. Judges was I wrong for not wanting to perform stand up comedy on a Wednesday night after work or do I owe a Netflix comedy special to my party i annoyingly wait for your judgement

Emily Bocchino-Rojas (Emily BR)

For the beautiful full length, high waisted pants that are the justices, and the little daisy duke bailiff Jort - I have a case and partial confession for you to see to in your dual duty as arbitrators of justice and crit will. I present, the case of the Boss Baby Big Bad: For the last three years, I’ve been part of a pretty casual D&D group filled with Sunday brunch laughter and joy every couple of months. However, things have recently divulged into chaos. The player whose house we play at has two delightful children, one 4 and one that’s 1 year old, as well as two puppies. I know how this sounds - but judges these babies are out of control. In the last session, I stopped the 1 year old from biting a lamp cord and pulling a tv on themselves while the other player stopped his daughter from screaming for not being allowed to play with us (we’ve let her several times in the same session but were getting to the violent stuff) and my friend, another player, tried to stop the two dogs from barking as the mail man was passing - literally all. at. the. same. time. Judges - Our DM did not pause once. When I brought it up to her and suggested we pause, she said “ oh - I didn’t even really notice. We’re here all the time and it’s just sort of white noise.” I suggested we play at another house, and we did - but due to a child / pet care fall out the babies and dogs all came over to a totally separate house - completely unannounced - and it divulged into chaos once again - the DM not pausing AGAIN. When I brought it up, the DM said “what are you going to do?” With a shrug. My advice request, and partial forgiveness - is that I think the only answer here is that I have to leave the group? But I feel like a terrible person because our campaign is truly amazing, and because I’m leaving because of literally babies and puppies, two of the most good things on the planet. Am I evil? Will I burn forever in the 1 hells? Is there anyway out of this? I eagerly await and accept your punishment/decision/ earplugs that you may mail me. PS - in that last session the player announced that they are pregnant again…

Andrew A

To the extremely attractive justices and the halfway decent-looking bailiff, I bring you the case of the deadly swoopers. I play in a campaign that uses variant encumbrance, and the DM has a homebrew monster that haunts me. We have now fought them twice, the first time almost resulted in a PC death by massive damage if not for allowing me to ready a bonus action healing word. The second did result in a full death, but by then we had access to Revivify. These monsters are flying beasts called Swoopers. They make two attacks, and if both hit, the victim is automatically grappled. They also have flyby attack to avoid AoOs and a bonus action that lets them move an additional 30ft after attacking. Here's where it starts to get unfair: the swoopers have a "selfish hunter" ability that gives them advantage on attacks unless another swooper is within 5ft. The way the DM runs this ability, even when multiple swoopers attack the same target on the same initiative count, because each swooper takes its turn individually and can move after its attack, this essentially gives all their attacks advantage all the time (but when the DM has groups of monsters with pack tactics they take their turns all at once). Since all the swoopers have to do is hit twice, we get grappled nearly every turn. Once grappled, they carry us off with their bonus action and any remaining movement, and the DM always counts this as straight vertical movement so we take the most possible falling damage. These encounters start with the swoopers circling hundreds of feet above us, out of range of our spells and weapons, then on their turns can drop/dive any number of feet into melee range because "falling is free." I ask you this: given that the players face strict encumbrance rules and the swoopers use gravity to get free movement on a dive, should they be able to always fly straight up? Even when carrying a 450lb tortle? Should they be able to autograpple with advantage even when attacking the same target on the same turn? The aggregate of these mechanics and rulings have made these random wild birds the scariest thing in the campaign, which I don't think is intentional.

Nicole

To the honourable Justices and the alright Baliff, I’d like to file a complaint against my husband. We’ve recently joined a new dnd campaign set in Exandria. It’s been super fun so far and we’re heading into our 4th session. In our last session, our Monk found themselves in trouble with their abbey, and was forced to prove their fate with a creepy blood ritual. Our monk was visibly shaken when she returned, and our cleric offered to take her fishing to relax her. The cleric, monk, wizard, and myself (the barbarian) went fishing and had a very cute role play scene, while my husband (the sorcerer) went back to his in-game mother’s mansion. After the session I mentioned that he should join in with the role play. He said his character “just met us all and wouldn’t really care that the monk was upset.” He maintains that the adventuring party becoming instant friends is boring and bad story telling. Judges, am I wrong for thinking it’s weird that my husband ditched the party for hiss mom, or is my husband a just sociopath? I eagerly await your ruling.

spider_pasta

To the honorable justices of the supreme crit and the bailiff too i guess, i'm asking you today to way in on a case of several murder-most-fouls, I'm in a home brew campaign with a bunch of my buddies that i've known since highschool and we've been playing dnd together for going on 10 years now. Recently, we've been reaching the end of our 3rd long-form campaign together and I noticed a pattern emerging in our combats. I'm currently playing a Cleric, and recently, the DM has spent the first round targeting my charter to the extent that i've hit zero hp in the first round for the past 3 combats, sometimes before i've even had a chance to take my turn. During the last combat his home brew baddies incorporated a mechanic that stopped my character from being able to heal meaning i was stuck rolling saves and I'll admit i was a bit frustrated sitting unconscious for 2 hours for the combat. I made a joke after session about how i hadn't been able to do much of anything in recent combats cause i spent most of them dead, and he said that at this point in the campaign we're fighting smart & high level enemies who would know to take out the healer first. On the one hand, i get it, that makes logical sense and I've argued for that kind of logical gameplay in the past. It is more interesting when villains are smart and make the most optimal choices possible. On the other hand it isn't fun rolling death saves for the entirety of every combat and it sucks hoping the other players will use their turns to get me up to 1 hp just for me to go down again the next enemy's turn. I've tried playing smarter and making myself less of a target, even melding with stone in one case to hide from the worst of the combat, but was immediately popped out and downed by a shatter spell by my DM. Honorable justices, Am i a hypocrite who must surrender to the logic of high level enemies who know our party comp KOing me on round one? Or am i right to be a bit frustrated that I'm not able to use my dope level 13 cleric abilities. I rest my fate in your humble hands.

HP the Rat

Hi Jake et al., this is the case of Beginner's Behest. I am a veteran player and DM and one of my groups is also all veterans except one new individual. I dmed her first game last year and she wanted to try DMing herself. While she thought of the concepts and puzzles and make her monster's stat block, I helped her in lots of other ways as a person to bounce things off of and shared my experience based on how I've fallen short when I was first learning to DM. Which I was all happy to do. We all were very patient with her, as we should be. My complaint is that when we were playing, I was a barbarian for the first time and forgot that I get two attacks (lv10). During the player after me's turn, I remembered this and asked if I could do that second attack that I had forgotten. I had already quietly rolled it and hit for just 4 damage. We were 4 lv 10s fighting 3 CR16 enemies, so surely 4 damage is not too much to ask for. The DM however said no, that I should have known. Everyone concurred, but I pointed out that we were all gave grace to her while she was learning something new so why can't i get grace while learning this new class? she accused me of trying to manipulate her and i had to drop it. we are best friends and at the end of the day its just a game so its not a big deal, but was i right to feel offended, or was she right and i was being too emotional? ps, she also didnt give me credit for a cool mirror mechanic that i suggested to her for our final battle when praised by the others which miffed me further. i said nothing, but privately asked about it and she said she forgot i had given her the idea. at the end of the day, i love her dearly. But I await the court's judgement.

Howling Salt Sam

To the three Golden Mic Justices and the Lowly Turdy bailiff, I present the case of the Rude Teen PC. This has long plagued me. This happened in my first major campaign as a DM after years of not playing. We had 5 players. 2 were brand new, 2 had done some RPing before, and one who was a seasoned veteran that we will call Kevin. It is important to note that Kevin is a forever DM. Rarely a player and always locked behind the DM screen. In this campaign, Kevin opted to play a teenager Bard with a mysterious background that wanted to be a great hero someday. Pretty typical stuff as far as fantasy tropes go, but some character problems started to arise after the party completed their first mission. The mission was to find the source of a river that had dried up for a beer brewing community. I designed a whole town for the party to interact with, a cave dungeon to explore, I had twists and turns and a surprising betrayal from an NPC. I put a lot of effort into it (and I still run it as a one-shot these days). When the party was debriefing with their superiors back in the city, Kevin's character complained a lot about how the mission was lame and how he wanted to fight dragons. I was kind of shocked. I had put so much effort into this mission. Everyone had a great time and agreed it was a ton of fun. But here is Kevin shitting on my first act as dungeon master in this campaign! I tried to stay in character and talk to Kevin about why the mission was important, but he just kept mouthing off about how much it sucked! I finally snapped and told him to fuck off. He was shocked and said he was just acting in character, and his character was a rude teenager who would say stuff like this. He doesn't care about brewing towns. He wants to be a big hero and fight dragons! The other players were pretty uncomfortable as they were newer and tended to default to Kevin in role play moments. He and I had a big argument and ended up ending the session that day. Kevin and I made up, but eventually he left the campaign a couple months later due to schedule issues. So to the court, I ask you if in-character rudeness can be justified or was I wrong for breaking character and telling Kevin to fuck off for dissing my hard work? PS: shout out to all my Howling Salt Mine prospectors out there. Stay Salty!

Sam Jacobson

To the traitorous justices and the only king who i bend my knee to, the king in the Court Jake. My party in a campaign was looking for a information broker within a night club, which was a den of scum and villainy. The party decided to go wearing their military uniforms from one kingdom, poorly disguised, but with the badge of a Marshall from another kingdom. At the door they were refused for not stashing their weapons away. The party insisted that they should be allowed to come on in armed as they said "Peep the badge" (Note there was five of them and only the one badge) the bouncer said leave. They soon instigated a fight and were swiftly knocked out. A light hearted argument broke out so I must ask, was I just in saying the bouncer wouldn't let the sickos in? Ps, I just last week listened to all of Old 8 bit book club, im super excited for if Jake ever makes an appearance in the new ones

Heather Sanders

Dear Justices & Bailiff Jake Horseradish, This is not a D&D case but does involve the holy symbol, a die. At a recent Warhammer 40k Teams Tournament, a judge was walking around and found a D6 on the ground. After inspecting it, the judge discovered the die had two 6s on it. The judge quietly walked around and found the owner based on the set. The player was ejected from the tournament and banned from all future events. The offending player got in his car & went home, leaving behind the teammates he drove to the tournament and abandoning them hours away from home. Our friend group is divided - half of them understand, they wouldn’t want to wait a whole weekend in another state after being ejected. The other half (including me) says suck it up, you drove them there, so you have to drive them back. Justices, who is right? After being accused of cheating, should you stay for your remaining teammates or get the hell out of there? Would the teammates even want to ride with him? (PS, even though the opposing player had cheating dice, he lost every game before being ejected. We don’t know how the abandoned players got home.)

picsofish

A quick and dirty confession for the Supreme Crit Justices and their weird pet toad to ponder - As a DM, I wholeheartedly refuse to engage with the nonsense that is "DEX-based vs. STR-based" weaponry. If a player of mine uses STR as their primary stat, I will treat every weapon they use as a STR-based weapon, and vice-versa for DEX, regardless of range etc. There are already countless things to keep track of as a DM, so cutting small corners here and there makes for a much smoother experience, and I firmly believe this is a corner that should be sawed and sanded down without remorse. Likewise, as a player, it can become a nuisance to remember which weapons are which, and ultimately the ones with lower numbers get tossed by the wayside anyways I seek no redemption for my crimes, however if a compelling argument against such behavior is agreed upon by the court, I will consider revising my methods. Thank you for your consideration 💙🐳

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.

Agathon

To the honorable justices and to the beautiful bébé garçon Jacques. I bring forth the case of the No Prep DM. A first time DM from work started running a homebrew campaign for 4 of us. The first session was an intro level dungeon. No problem. Second session was a goblin ambush on the road. Classic. Then we met the King and Queen of the land who hired us to track down an evil wizard. When I asked what their names were, the DM's eyes went wide with panic as he opened his notebook and shuffled through some pages before saying "King Arthur and Queen Victoria." This happened alot. He panic searched his notebook every time we asked him for a NPC's name or any description. We met people like Masterchief, Count Dooku, and Princess Diana. That's not even the worst part. He made us play through the same dungeon from session 1, FIVE TIMES. And the Goblin ambush, THREE TIMES over the course of the campaign instead of coming up with anything new. When we asked him if there was anywhere else we could explore or any other quest to do, his response was "No, there is nothing else to do." One time I got up to use the bathroom while he was looking through his notebook, and I took a quick peek. Justices. The pages were blank. He hadn't written down anything and was pretending to look through pages and pages of prep work, only to make up some silly name or poor description. All of us quit the campaign eventually out of boredom. Justices, am I being a big meanie or can this DM be court-ordered to attend mandatory D&d school? I await your judgement.

Michael Griffith

Dearly Beloved Judges, To Murphy the Impressive To Caldwell the Uplifting And to Axford the Inspiring (and frankly one of my favorite PCs)... Also, to a legitimately solid enough Bailif Hurwitz I present the case of Improv over Roleplay I started taking Improv classes a few years ago, to both get better at my D&D experiences, as well as maybe start a campaign myself, with me as the DM. After finding another D&D nerd, we started up a campaign with our fellow Improv students, and it's been going good. The more people find out, the more people want to join. While we've capped it at 8 players (usually only 4 can attent at a time), one of the players seems a little too into the idea of how connected D&D is to Improv. Creating backstory is great, and to my understanding, is a conversation between DM & PC, but can also be filled in on the spot. But this player often just says the most wild things, which could work for Improv scenes, but not so much in a world of D&D. I don't love saying that what this PC is saying isn't cannon, but I don't feel comfortable about saying this Animal (turned half-elf) who's only been "Awakened" 30 days ago has had multiple partners, has a podcast, dabbles with AI, and a bunch of other topical things that are Anachronistic to D&D are real in this campaign. How can I support him as a DM, without just saying "No, but..."? Ps. We started this campaign with 2 DMs, but now it's just me, and I want to hit the ball rolling as a Solo DM

The one they call Barlo

To the ever-green judges and the bailiff only a mother could love. I bring the case of the Kobolds and the Fireball. Our party stumbled across a Kobold camp while traversing a lost city. After deceiving them that we also work for the BBEG Acerak (really bad guy) they invite us in a we have dinner and gather info. Shortly after, during a friendly farewell with the whole camp gathered to see us off, our sorcerer cast fireball on their entire camp. He vaporised every single one of them. This is where we find the case. Half the table erupted, accusing him of war crimes, and the dm suggested he may even have to consider changing his alignment to evil of he does something like this again. The sorcerer argued we now have a safe house in the city and have removed a large portion of our enemies with one awesome move. Personally, I'm with the sorcerer because it's funnier to agree with him. What say ye? P.S. sorry Jake. Hate the show x

Melanie Van der Aa

To the most honourable supreme crit justices and the lowly, lowly (please insert as many lowlys as the crit deems appropriate) lowly bailiff Jake. I present to you the case of the broken wizard and his magical half-brick in a sock. I DM for our group when our usual DM is too busy to run our usual Curse of Strahd campaign. We've been playing through the Candlekeep Mysteries modules. In the first game, my players surprised me by building characters based on the Night Watch characters from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, and it's been a blast. Our usual DM made a character based on the character Rincewind, the worst wizard to ever wizard. In the game, this character is a multiclassed wizard, rogue, sorcerer, warlock, and probably something else I've forgotten. He contributes to combat by casting Armour of Agathys and then running through groups of enemies, aiding other players, and when cornered, hitting enemies with a mace attack flavoured as a half-brick in a sock (all of this is totally by the book, true to the original character, and everyone thinks it's hilarious). The issue arose recently when the players decided to spend some of the loot they had acquired. The broken wizard asked if he could find a shop selling clothes of mending, and because they're in a major city, I said sure. He asked if he could buy a single sock, and I had him roll persuasion, which he passed. Not seeing where this was going, I allowed him to purchase a single sock for a couple of gold pieces. He then asked that if he put the brick in the stick, would this make it a magical weapon? This caused great debate amongst the group (all seasoned players and most having DM'd other games) and eventually, because this is an unserious game we play occasionally, I ruled that it counted as a magical weapon. However, I do feel kind of bad, because the other players were spending thousands to get their own magical weapons. So I ask you judges, have I shown unfair favour on this broken-ass wizard, or did I do the right thing in rewarding this creative thinking? I humbly await your ruling.

Rob's Wit

To the honorable Justices, I bring to you the case of the Backstory NPC Modified Memory Mishap. As DM, I like to incorporate my player's backstory in the main questlines and in this instance I wonder if I may have gone too far. We are in midst of an arc focusing largely on this PCs backstory. The PC: Kweenodah Castle. A few sessions back Kweenodah had mentioned off-handedly mentioned that she had a husband "back home" one session -- which was a surprise to me because the player had never mentioned it during character creation. With that arc coming to an end, I took note of the mention and planned to insert Kweenodah's husband.... Kingo Castle into the main questline. Now, Kweenodah's rival (Secretly an Arch-hag) was known to be a conniving and manipulative and I'd already foreshadowed the rival's appearance. It seemed like a no-brainer to bring Kingo into the campaign as a temporary villain through the use of Modify Memory to convince Kingo that Kweenodah had been killed and replaced by a doppelganger. He'd been chasing her on her adventures ever since. Recently, the big face-off occurred and more than anything the Player had an issue with the use of Modify Memory causing "such a big personality change", as he'd gone from peaceful farmer to vengeful fighter. I argued that his personality hadn't changed -- he'd just been convinced of something and then the experience of chasing after her had changed him into a more drastic individual. The player also argued that Kweeondah's husband was "Safe back home." While we eventually got to some good RP -- Kweenodah convinced Kingo of his error -- the argument against the spell took the wind out of my sails a bit. Judges -- was I acting accordingly within my DM rights or is my player right that I gave too much power to the effects of the Modify Memory spell?

JJ

D&D Court Submission The Case of the Ghosted Player If it so pleases the Honorable and most Magnificent judges and bailiff Jake, who is okay, I guess. I have been a player in a long-running campaign with a group who all gets along pretty well except for one player. He only engages in RP during combat, while the rest of the time he is playing games, looking at pornographic images, or watching videos on his phone. In addition, he spent an obscene amount of time picking his toenails and burping very close to other player’s faces. Nearing the final boss battle, I had my baby, so we paused the campaign for a few months while I recovered. When I was ready to play again, the group decided we were going to start a whole new campaign and simply not include the problem player. We essentially ghosted him, and our DM told the player we simply do not get together anymore when he asked when we would play again. I ask the court, was this ghosting justified? Or will my baby and I be haunted by Dice Christ for the rest of time?

Star The Mutt

To the Supreme Crit Justices who look quite nice today and the other guy who I can only describe as damp and pallid I bring to you the case of the Backhanded Backstory. I am in my first ever campaign with a group of friends in a homebrew world of the DM'S creation. We all had fun creating unique characters from all different cultures with many opportunities to explore the unique races and locations he had made. Worried about whether or not my own character could compare next to everyone else's as it was my first time, I made a Warforged Barbarian who was looking for missing memories as he had lost them, and essentially gave my DM a blank check to make whatever storyhook he found interesting. As we played we explored exotic jungle cities and dealt with one of our PC's overcoming their tragic family past, another we helped escape from an oppressive regime, and so forth. Eagerly awaiting my turn, imagine my shock to learn that when we came across a city in an underground shoal, we found my creator and learned that my character had been created to essentially be a Walmart greeter for the town. I asked for elaboration and my supposed creator had callously recounted how I had been a "welcome bot" meant to boost tourism but once that well dried up I was sold to a sailor who then got rid of me before the campaign started, shutting me down and making me lose my memories. I was floored, and when asked about this sailor who bought me I was given a shrug and we just moved on with a few jokes at my expense. Justices, I ask you this: if I gave my DM full power over my backstory should I be angry if that backstory was not as epic as I expected it to be? Or should I have just bit the bullet and made something original instead of leaving it up to chance? I await your noble judgment.

Owen

To the big dogs on the bench and the small mouse in the corner reading the cases, My case is the case of the dual wielding gunslinging kitty. In an old campaign I played a Tabaxi swashbuckler rogue wannabe pirate named Bok-Choi, when creating my character my DM let me use an off hand pistol to make a second attack with my bonus action at range. This was done with a combination of feats and taking a couple of features from Matt mercer’s gunslinger class and just adding them into my rogue with no drawbacks or levels taken as a gunslinger. My question is this, is it ok to dual wield a range weapon and have the two weapon fighting feat apply to add to ranged weapons to add your attack and damage bonus to the rolls, or is the purity of of class features sacred? This caused a moderate disagreement at the table about unregulated homebrew vs the rule of cool. Do you think my cat was allowed to pop a fool as his bonus action or was Bok-Choi too OP. P.S this was my favourite character to play ever, I had a lot of fun larping as jack sparrow with a silly khajit accent.

Adrian Naber

To the most Holy Pontifex's of the Church of Crit, and the altar boy that is somehow also fitting into this confessional. I humbly beseech thee for a performance of Last Rites given to the campaign of Darthon. It was a year and a half long campaign started over Covid with 6 players and myself DMing and while none of us were busy in those cursed times the weekly schedule wasn't too much on me but as we started to return to our capitalist hellscape alas the sessions began to peter out. Since then two of the players got divorced, one of those divorcees remarried another player in the group, myself and my beautiful partner who was also a player had a baby and I started a career in construction. I believe it's safe to say this campaign is dead. However I also have not felt the creative spark to start a new campaign since then, the ghost of this 18th level arc stopped right before the confrontation with the Eldritch horror set to consume Darthon haunts me and will not allow me peace. Please benevolent high priests exorcise this restless spirit and allow me to move forward with my love of the game without my sins weighing on my spirit. It is time to lay Darthon to rest so new worlds may rise. Thank you

christien

To the magnanimous and truly amazing justices and the bailiff who most reminds me of an unsatisfying dookie I took in a porta potty one August I bring the case of the gaes murder. The party was talking to a cult leader who was unaware if the evil nature of the God they worshipped. The cleric decided to use gaes to compel the cult leader to divulge any secrets she had. I decided she would see it as hostile magic to betray her God and she refused taking the damage which was enough to do double her HP (commoner stats) I could tell the cleric was put off "I just wanted her to answer our questions" so I ask the court did I make a mistake? Or was I reasonable. I prostrate myself before the court

Alexandra Ferguson

To the three mighty “mmm”s and the one little bop, I bring a case of PC insight checks and a ranger who doesn’t understand magic. In our Curse of Strahd game, we interrogated a noblewoman under Zone of Truth. She was plotting a coup (which we were fine with) but also owned a holy book linked to our wizard’s dead brother. She denied any role in the death, and her answers held up. Afterward, most of us left the room, but the wizard and ranger stayed behind. Things escalated. The noble said she'd keep giving the same answers until she died. The wizard replied, “Well, you might as well die then,” and went to cast Ice Knife. Cue: initiative. The fight was wild, but we eventually subdued everyone. Then came the hard part: deciding what actually happened. My artificer, who missed the opening moments of the fight, asked what went down. The ranger claimed the noble’s assassin attacked first. By initiative order, this was technically true, but it left out that the wizard openly threatened the noble and started casting a spell, only to roll like ass on initiative. I asked to roll Insight on the ranger, and he agreed. I rolled a 17, but he stuck to his version, saying his character didn’t understand magic, despite being a spellcaster. My DM and I reminded him of this, along with the fact that he had heard the open threat. The wizard’s player backed him up, saying her character felt attacked unfairly, even if she started it. So, in-character, I had no solid reason to push back when they executed the unconscious noble. But out-of-character? It felt like some bullshit. Was I in the wrong for calling for an Insight check on another PC? Or is it messed up for the rangers player to start claiming his PC has this weird ignorance/amnesia? (For the record, we later found out the noble was evil and had posession of a flesh golem made from the siblings' corpses. So they definitely weren’t wrong to have killed her in the end. But I still say we didn’t know that at the time!)

thatoneguy

To the High Priest of the Church of Dice Christ I bring to you this simple question, is it better to keep your DM honest or to let a man hustle? My first DM was the owner of a local hobby shop. He held games regularly and was pretty good at managing large groups of semi-unruly nerds. My second campaign with him had our party assault a city of halflings that had been overrun with ghouls. Many of the surviving halflings were now held captive behind stone walls strung up on poles along the main street in preparation for a coming feast. Our party spent much of the session in the planning phase and being a simple fighter/barb and fairly new to the game, I didn't have much to contribute as the nerds with spells planned our next move. Admittedly, what they came up with was pretty cool. Our party druid would polymorph several soldiers into giant apes so they could climb over the walls and then free the halflings quickly. The party cleric was using a high level spell book we got in an earlier quest to lay down this anti-undead field so that anyone that pursued the kongs would be vaporized. With no place in the rescue or the ghoul slaughter so far I elected to ask the druid if I could go ape and help beyblade halflings. The druid was cool with it, but the DM seemed slightly confused that I'd be interested. As this quest was homebrewed I think he was realizing that there had been nothing for martials to do yet. Plan DK went off without a hitch to the point that the Ghouls sent out a delegation of what powerful members they had left to try and negotiate and us being good murder hobos we elected to strike them down. As my centaur fighter galloped forward he was grazed by a devastating spell cast by another spellcaster in the party that took out most of the remaining ghouls. I was fine to take the damage as the attack was sick, but as I closed in on a high ranking ghoul the DM asked me how much HP I had left. By this point I had already seen a certain season of Dimension 20 and could sense the Power Word: Kill coming. But it came with an unexpected boon, the chance to roll a constitution save. I got a nat 20 in the moment and was hyped to have survived, but thinking on it later I think my DM just threw me a bone because I was paying to be there and wouldn't have gotten to do anything to help that day before charging the enemy to be killed immediately unless I had butt myself into the Giant Ape mission with the npc soldiers. It was a fun session and having my centaur die that day would have been hilarious, but I never called my DM out on it because I realized if he was giving me a pass as a player/customer, he was probably doing it to others to keep people pleased and coming back. So I ask you, oh, holy court officials, did my DM sin by fibbing to keep a paying customer in his seat? Did I sin for not revealing his deception to the table? Should we both be flogged? I humbly throw myself at your feet and promise to deliver whatever justice you deem reasonable (within reason).

wouldn't you like to know

To the magnanimous justices and the humble bailiff, I bring you a matter of grave importance. I was invited to join a campaign that a group of my friends had already been playing. I decided to play a Celestial warlock, and thought it would be a fun twist to pass her off as a cleric both in and out of character. The DM was enthusiastic about the idea, even suggesting I rename my Eldritch Blast to "spicy Sacred Flame" to lessen suspicion. When I sat down at the table, I learned that the party had specifically asked the DM to tell me to play a cleric, since they wanted a healer. A few months later, when my character's ex-wife outed her to our party, this created what I initially thought was amazing in-character drama with our monk, whose backstory involved the destruction of her village at the hands of the dark pantheon my Warlock was sworn to,. My warlock was barely able to convince the monk to spare her life. Although my warlock was totally on the party's side otherwise and even called on her patron to save us from a TPK later in the campaign, the monk was unable to get over the betrayal. My efforts to mend the relationship (which included training together as I multiclassed into paladin) were in vain, and the monk left the party over her differences with my warlock. It also became clear that the reveal hurt our IRL friendship. The player made a new character, but despite the new character having no reason to have a problem with mine, they were still frosty towards my warlock and mistrusted her implicitly. The final straw was our epilogue, where I narrated that my character (an elderly human) died the way she least expected to - of old age, surrounded by friends. The monk's player chimed in to say that her monk returned to spit on my warlock's grave. After seeing my reaction, she tried to walk it back as a joke, but when I told her it didn't seem like she was joking, she reluctantly confessed that she wasn't. Justices, I beseech you - was the in character behavior a justified reaction to my out of character lie? Or was the grave-spitting monk gravely overreacting? I eagerly await your judgement.

Penjamin

To the beloved justices, Daniel Bryan Murphy, Emily Snacksford, Enthralledwell Tanner, and... the other one who's having marital problems but I think is also wierdly your boss? I bring to you, the case of the silent zone. I was a druid in a party getting ready to have a climactic battle with our vampire BBEG at his castle. We came up with a genius Caldwell-ass plan in which our wizard would use Mirage Arcane to turn the castle into a giant aquarium with flowing water to prevent the BBEG from escaping and I would turn into a giant shark and the rest of our party would use potions of water breathing. We asked the DM if creating an aquarium with moving water was something we could do, to which he replied, "I'll allow it" Here comes the problem, when our wizard turned the castle into an aquarium our DM stated "You see a cloud of mist exit the top of the giant aquarium." This immediately sparked a heated debate. The DM claimed that the water was illusory and that it would have no affect on the vampire. The spell however states that the terrain is tactile, so if difficult terrain applies why wouldn't running water rules apply? ALSO, why would the DM approve our idea in the first place just for us to waste planning time on something that wouldn't work? Judges, I ask you, am I just some Jake-like cuck for my DM to step on? Or do I reserve the right to drown my enemies in the mirage arcana water created by my wizard?

Gian Bazail

To the bailiff whose voice can move mountains and the three guys that sit in chairs, I come to you with the case of "The Fallen Bard" A little over a year ago, I began running my first campaign for my very close friends who were all mostly new to DnD. While its gone immensely well so far, we recently ran into one of our first minor conflicts at the table. Lately, it had felt as if the rest of the party was taking our bard, Lee, a little for granted in-game. So I decided to push this issue to the forefront in the latest session and tie it into the character's arc. The party entered a tournament in which they would need to face off against a Drow Inquisitor who wielded a death lance à la Zalek from Campaign 1. I had it planned out to where if an opportunity to kill Lee presented itself, I would take it, as our Druid would be able to revivify him and the party would learn to value their kind and loyal bard more. Well judges, during the fight against the Inquisitor, Lee made the mistake of leaving himself open, prompting the Inquisitor to rush forth and instantly slay him with three blows from the death lance. The players were shocked, but none moreso than the Druid, who nervously looked up at the rest of us and reported that he had not prepared revivify before the session, despite having just gotten the material components to cast it last session. The rest of the players blew up at him for not preparing the spell right before a big fight, meanwhile I scrambled to figure out what to do as Lee's player was visibly crying at the table. I ass-pulled that an NPC ally of their's just so happened to have a scroll of revivify back at the nearby inn, but that he would need to retrieve it within a minute for the spell to work. I narrated as the NPC repeatedly closed short distances with Misty Step spells in an effort to waste zero time. Once he returned, the Druid used the scroll on the dead bard, leaving it all on one final medicine check to determine Lee's fate. He rolled well, and Lee ended up surviving, but the events of that session and what could've transpired continue to haunt me. Judges, I ask, where did it all go wrong. Was it my inclination towards killing my PC to help teach the party a lesson, was it the druid for not preparing revivify before a big boss fight, or was it my decision to ass-pull a scroll of revivify instead of letting the party live with the consequences? I leave my fate in your hands.

Luke Cullen

Hello amazing judge's and that cool guy Jacque, my player had 1hp and got hit by magic missile 3 times, our cleric came to heal me afterwards but the DM said sorry you're dead. Should I have been killed outright or is this magic missletake. I await your decision.

CarpeLiam

May it please the court and help the Bailiff get more into cake these days, I come to you not with a case. I come with a follow-up all the way from 2022: The case of the Neutral paladin V the Comedy Steed. To recap the case (and provide a few additional details about the game I was in), I, the player, played a Paladin / Warlock multiclass both sworn and indebted to one Deity that had been split in two by a fey curse- one good aspect and one evil. My character was torn between wanting to do good for the benevolent aspect while also requiring the power provided by the evil aspect, hence the neutral alignment. Whenever I would cast Find Steed, despite my wishes, my DM would never allow me a normal horse. He would always give me a ridiculous creature, most infamously a pedal car operated by a Duergar in the style of Fred Flintstone. Judges, the mini I made for this game was on horseback. I had even named my horse and included a backstory of how we had bonded escaping from bandits on the road. All of this was approved by the DM. We don’t play a lot, so it never seemed possible to bring up my horse debacle without killing the fun, but after receiving one too many absurd steeds (in this instance, a cigar chomping gibbering mouther) I begged my DM to just give me my beloved, completely ordinary, boilerplate horse. To my delight, the DM described the horse from my backstory finally arriving. He described a very theatrical scene of my horse galloping from the horizon. I was told via a bond only a horse and its rider can have that my horse was sorry for taking so long to show up, but that it was here now. I was elated, but my joy was quickly cut short, as after this scene, the DM told me that my beautiful animal companion would not stop shitting. For the entirety of the session, the DM would go to great lengths describing how the villagers in the town were shocked at how much my horse was pooping. He would explain children running and covering their noses at the mess my steed was making, and every NPC we spoke to would say something like “wow what do you feed this thing!” I was finally at the end of my rope. I pointed out all of the inconsistencies with how the DM had been ruling Find Steed. I asked how a spectral manifestation of a horse could shit, and he responded that “he simply wants to”. I grit my teeth and bore it knowing I wasn’t long for this campaign, but I didn’t want to ruin everyone’s fun. After all, I don’t see this group of friends very often. The conclusion came when the DM had me automatically fail a stealth check because the guards chasing us smelled my horse’s shit- no roll required. I made up a reason to leave early and quit out of the zoom call. I took Justice Murphy’s advice and found new friends (to play D&D with at least). Though my beautiful normal horse didn’t get a happy ending in this particular story, I have since added him to my own campaign I am running as a folk hero and patron saint of ordinary horses everywhere.

Druidic Graham

To the "meh" justices and the highly regarded and never disrespected bailiff. I present to you a case of the moving ship vs glyph spell. We are doing a pirate type expedition right now, as we are on our voyage we see pirates approaching our small ship. Our plan was to get on the small boat, after casting 2 glyphs on the boat from 2 seperate casters. To practically make the boat explode upon trigger. As we did the reach around on the bigger boat and took them from behind. Hoping to kill most in the explosion, and kill the rest on the ship and get a bigger boat. The DM let us do our thing, then when the time came, he said there was no explosion. Due to the fact the boat was moving and the glyph would have moved 10ft and break the spell, because the boat isn't enclosed. I argued if you nail a shoe to the floor board of a convertable,, the shoe is still in the same spot. Even wo the nail. It ended up w us getting our boat took, us imprisoned by the pirates, and now we have to figure out this fiasco. (For some reason the pirates had antimagic collers) This whole thing made the night bitter and sour. People stopped RPing and no one had after session talks like usual.. Who's in the wrong here? Should us players be punished for being mischievous or should the dm be punished for taking away a awesome moment.

Doctor Ransom

Good day, and may it please the Supreme Crit and also that unpaid intern dude that hangs around you guys, Jorsh or something dumb like that. I offer you the case of Drow John Wick: I was DMing a oneshot online with some close buds that I normally play in a weekly campaign with. They were a party of four high-level heroes being tailed by a crew of drow bounty hunters. Their dice were rolling high and each of them were absolutely whomping all of my baddies, that is until a much higher-powered Drow Mage stepped into battle. He sent his Grandpa-faced yeth-hound after them and one of the players mercilessly butchered it without further hesitation. While one half of the party stayed to fight, the rest of them decided to flee 100’s of feet away from battle. The remaining fighting players got taught a brutal lesson in not killing someone’s dog oppa John Wick style. After the Drow Mage downed the yeth-slaying player with a legendary action, one of the fleeing players inadvertently drops from our voice chat saying the fight was unfair and there’s no hope of winning even though they were four overpowered 14th-level characters, and he chose to leave his allies to die. Who was in the wrong justices? Was I being a big meanie retaliating too hard with legendary actions against my players or was this player just crying yeth-hound tears? I await your forthright judgement.

Aedan

To the ultimate bastions of justice and the guy Jemily Haxford who's reading this, I present the case of the Cleric just doing his job Around a year ago, we had some new additions to our d&d party, one of which was my brother-in-law. He had created a kenku grave cleric named raindrop who specialized in bringing people back from dying. Long story short, that character was decapitated the first session they were introduced. After this, he made a new cleric; this time a Peace cleric named Theodore, "Hunter of Undead" (this title is important) His new character was very helpful, and even heroic, but he came with a problem; his backstory involved some lich killing his family, so he sought to rid the world of all undead, believing them to be unnatural. This was made clear to the DM. However, just a few weeks ago, we were doing a dungeon crawl to fight some demons and a lich, and suddenly, we opened a door to find an underground tavern, which was filled with creatures of all types, including undead. You can probably see where this is going. He sprung into action, casting Conjure Celestial, using it to kill as many of the undead as he could quickly. The DM seemed visibly shaken by this and was RPing the undead suffering. The partner of the DM stepped in and actually cheated, silently moving their token while he cast the spell so they could intervene, attacking him. The rest of us tried to RP and convince him to stop in character, to no avail. The character had to be subdued and sent away through a portal. The DM is also a repeat offender, having multiple times greenlit a character who was very specific in morals, just to place them in scenarios where if they didn't break them, she would get upset. So, justices, I ask you; who was in wrong here? The DM for approving this character just to forget they had this trait, or the player for playing such a polarizing character and refusing to back down? Justices, I leave their lives in your hands.

Justice Bwr

The case of the AI addicted player. To the founders of Headgum’s most successful podcast, 8-bit book club, and that guy who never got to guest on it, I bring you the case of the AI addicted player. I DM a homebrew 5e game with some people I met through a friend. We are 25 weeks into the game and I have great players, including one that asks so many questions it inspires me to always be writing and working on this passion project. I have all great players, except one. Justices, this player is addicted to AI. During games he will interrupt moments to spin around his laptop and show an AI generated photo of whatever scene we are in or monster we are fighting, saying “does it look like this??” To which I respond, “eh, kinda I guess” and move on. His character sheet was AI generated, and it is riddled with errors and problems that make his character constantly need to be reassessed every roll he makes. One game the players were entering an ancient vampire poetry contest, and while the other players wrote things pertaining to their characters the AI addict remarked, “oh I’ll just ask Chat GBT” justices, as much as I want to kick him out, he hosts the games, and as a final twist, is married to my best player. What can I do? His obsession is genuinely detrimental and none of the other players appreciate it, often telling him to shut up during games. I leave this problem in capable artist hands.

Gicky

WARNING SPOILERS FOR LORD OF THE RINGS THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING. ALSO TW: SPHINCTERS. Dear honorable justices and new DM (but no less lowly) bailiff Jake. A friend of mine wanted to try his hand at dming, and I as a long time dm gave him some tips. I told him to be careful when describing the environment as it is often the case that what the dungeon master may think is a minor detail, the players mistake to be the key to cracking this whole thing wide open. Moreover I told him to never describe anything in a way that could be misconstrued as phallic or resembling a butthole as this WILL derail the session without exception. Cut to our first encounter with some eldrich flesh monsters in a strange fleshy cave. The fight is not going in our favor and the mood at the table is getting deflated. The DM picks up on this and in an expert move describes a horrifying howl coming from deeper in the dungeon, and has the flesh monsters suddenly stop and look panicked before fleeing ala the goblins in moria fleeing at the sound of the Balrog (note the spoiler warning). Unfortunately he had the monsters flee through a hole in the fleshy walls of the chamber, which closed "tightly like a sphincter". Judges was I wrong to encourage the party to spend 20 minutes lubing up and coercing the sphincter to open, resulting in us being attacked by an eldrich horror of flesh and bone? Or was this an important lesson for the DM to be careful with word choice? I await judgement. P.S we managed to get the sphincter hole to open but couldn't get our whole bodies in, just the tip.

Benjamin Dale IV

The Case of the Failed Plane Shift: Hello Honorable Judges and Little Buddy Babyliff, I played in a campaign where the premise was essentially villainous Hogwarts- complete with house ghosts, house parties, and teachers and students who sought eachothers' downfall in an effort to create the most dastardly beings possible. My generally jolly dwarven fighter named Bognak quickly irked many in the school for not matching their definition of villainy- especially since his most heinous offense to earn his enrollment was a frame job. By order of the school's headmaster, myself and another PC were put in a situation where we were told to fight to the death as a cliffhanger before our next session. I told my DM between sessions that I was planning to escape to the Astral plane to avoid the combat altogether since as a player and a character I was uncomfortable with PvP. I was fine playing a new character, and I even prepped a backup baddie. I looted the school's magical items, said my goodbyes to my closest friends and other PCs, and used a portable hole with a bag of holding to launch myself into the Astral plane with the intention of becoming a planar pirate. My DM said after 6 hours had passed in the material plane, I appeared back in the same spot from where I had left. Since our game was streamed live, I didn't want to fight about character motivation in the moment as to why I would want to return even though it felt contradictory to what we had discussed. In the end, the duel took place and both PC's wound up dead as the victor of the fight was hit by a power word kill by the school's headmaster. Both bodies were 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? Should I have accepted the PvP and put my feelings as a player/friend aside in an "evil" campaign? P.S. the DM's wife who played with us told me he had said the session before that the other PC involved and myself "are cockroaches who refuse to die"... I eagerly await your decision.

JS

To the luminous justices and the lugubrious bailiff, I bring you the Case of the Impatient Interloper I play a half-orc fighter in a large party of mostly new players (myself excluded) and a DM who is excited to finally get his friends into the game. The campaign has been going for nearly a year. Many of our monthly sessions have been focused on getting everyone used to the rules of D&D. There is an overarching plot, but honestly most of the inexperienced party members haven’t engaged heavily with plot hooks the DM throws their way, instead getting into goofs and shenanigans. The DM seemed okay with this for a while, but recently he made an impassioned plea for people to send him more details about their characters and ways they’d like to interact with the world, in hopes that he can weave their stories in and entice more plot engagement. After that, our most recent session started off with the party split up to complete a few tasks, and the DM had organized a few minutes’ focus on each scene/group for a special lore reveal or targeted character moment: an elf had a vision that revealed details of his murky past, a trio snuck into a thieves’ den, a duo ran into long-lost relatives, and my group got into a tavern brawl after some info-dealing dialogue from an antagonistic patron. I thought the DM did a good job managing time, but when it FINALLY came time for us to play the bar brawl scene (after the three other groups), one of the players from the thieves den piped up, saying that HIS character would probably be at the tavern, too. And he wouldn’t let it go. The DM clearly wanted each group to get some time for character development, and he reminded the player a few times that the thieves den was a bit of a walk from the tavern, but the persistent rogue wouldn’t drop it until they were allowed back in the tavern, interrupting combat narration with, “Don’t you think we would have arrived by now?” Or “I really think my character would know to get over there,” despite ending their scene having decided to go to an entirely different location. Justices, I ask the court to punish someone: me for being overly irritable with an eager new player, the rogue for insisting that they double dip in the bespoke scenes, or the DM for not managing expectations more clearly. I humbly await your judgment.

Kyle the Chaotic Stupid Wolf

I ask for guidance from the Supreme Crit and the Bearded Baliff Baby Man. I am a newer DM that has turned a one-shot revolving around kobolds serving a teenage green dragon into a campaign. In a recent session, one kobold brutally continued attacking the corpse of gnome (the kobolds most hated enemy and mine). This is a lore accurate response should I give the player Inspiration next session as a reward or will that make the other players bludgeon every filthy gnome they see to death with reckless abandon getting themselves into trouble? I await your guidance. May you always smell what The Rock is cooking.

Panner_Samuel

Dear might gods and the lowly, I have a confession I might make to dice Christ. I am running my own curse of Stradh campaign, and as to not spoil much, they met a very powerful woman in Vallaki that was going to be powerful to their story later on and would sort of be a enemy/friend that helps them. One of my players is a hot head and always wants to hit any NPC that makes them angry, but I did not want this pc to die or either start a whole out brawl within the area I had planned so neatly, but alas they rolled to hit and hit their AC head on….But I had said it missed. They later on realized the information she was holding out on them, and they got to use that to get to their next plot point. I PROSTATE MY SELF TO DICE CHRIST. PLEASE LET ME BE CLEANSED.

Mnixon

Thank u Mr Jake

Rainemaker

O Holiest of Cardinals and also jake, the bellhop. I bring upon you today, not a case, but a confession. I rewrote a fey contract and my players didn't catch me. During one of my games a while ago that I was DMing, I had the players visiting the feywilds. For some time before this, I'd had a plan to make my players very upset and mad at me. A handful of sessions prior, they went on a rescue mission, saving a tiefling child from a village of humans who hated her and blamed her for failed crops and poor fishing, to the point that the entire village just called her Anathema. Which, more or less gave her the name "Ana" All my players love and adored Ana. She was maybe nine or ten, and imprinted on this group of dorks who were the first people to ever truly be kind to her. She stayed with them and would help them occasionally fight (as a level 1 warlock of the fathomless) It got to the point that the group began basically calling her their daughter! It was honestly adorable and very heartwarming. But I am not a nice person. To gain favor with one of the Faerie Queens (the queen of Spring), they needed to make a deal with her. In my excitement and haste, I'd said that she would help them return home (they were stranded. Would make a long story longer) if they gave her their firstborn. What I had *meant* to say was their first child. I continued on as if I *had* said that they were to give their first child, brushing over my verbal typo and hoping nobody would press me on it. The Spring Queen took Ana from them, changing her from a fathomless warlock to an archfey warlock, keeping her locked in her keep. My players were able to talk to her again, and smooth things over a little bit (though she's still understandably upset with them) BUT! Cardinals! Have I erred in rewriting a fey contract even if nobody really noticed? Or should I have sucked up my own terminology and had one of the players have a baby at some point in our campaign? I await your judgement. I pray to be absolved of my sins.

katie potato

To the Luscious locked judges and the Scurvy Duke of Limbs that serves them. I bring before you the curious case of the dubious potato romance. So, thanks to NADDPOD, I play at a table with a few of my friends and I’ve harbored a serious crush on the barbarian for three years. The lore is complex but I think we are pretty close friends, unfortunately due to social forthcomings the vibes betwixt us were shrouded in mystery. Until 6 months ago, I kept my feelings a complete secret, pining away as Justice Iyengar might have intended. (cite the DRAMA case from the Dungeons, Doggos, And DRAMA ep) After this particular session, the party rogue — suspicious as ever — cornered me and somehow extracted a confession from me. Sworn to secrecy, I was sure the rogue kept my secret safe. (hahahaha) Fast forward to just a few weeks ago, and the social dynamics were just as tangled as ever. During the final session of our campaign, everything came to a head. Several rounds in, I was faced with imminent death at the hands of the BBEG. In my character's final moments, the bard leaned over to me and whispered, “Do not die with your music still inside you.” (Y’know, like that Wayne Dyer quote.) I did one final roll, and just as my Paladin frenched death, I rolled a nat 20, dice christ had spoken. I turned to my beloved barbarian and the tensely excited players — blushing furiously — and confessed my feelings. A minute of the most awkward and terrifying silence followed... and then he returned the favor. Chaos erupted at the table; and the game was completely forgotten. [Apparently, the other players had been scheming behind the scenes for months — without the barbarian’s knowledge — and I couldn’t have done it without their support.] All was well... but, After that session, I received a private text from the DM, asking me not to return to the table again, accusing me of ruining the game for everyone with my actions. I apologized sincerely, but the damage was done. So, I ask you, wise Justii: Was I right to confess my love, or should I have refrained? Did I ruin the game by mixing in real life and disturbing the battle? May your rolls ever be spicy and your siblings ever be peaceful, I await your magnanimous judgement x

Theycallmecheese

To the judges with Egyptian silk and poor baby boy Jokè This case is half of the players vs the DM Around 3 years ago under a full moon me and some friends were playing a session all going well, we got some cash so we decided to go buy some armour that supposed to be a quick trip right? This turned into a 3 hour bartering session after the DM described of the blacksmith “towering shirtless and glistening with sweat” The players engaged in strip arm wrestling Massaged based strength checks Buying war hammer in a post coital glow Two players rage quit mid session “claiming second hand thirst fatigue” and the rogue got canonically engaged to the blacksmith and delaying the MAIN quest for a 3 in day game honey moon and the rest of us had to sit there and do nothing AND when we were in the main campaign the dm will say that the rogue is elsewhere with his partner doing pottery classes The argument from the DM is that “we kept rolling Nat 20s I can’t punish success and the world is alive” Safe to say I never played dnd again I trust that the judges will sentence the right people

Anthony

To the impeccable justices and the peccable bailiff Jake, I bring to you the case of Real-Time vs Game-Time: Our party was performing a heist in a powerful Wizard’s tower - powerful enough to tpk us if a fight broke out. The DM had narrated that we could hear the Wizard return as we were making our escape and had us roll initiative to track our movements as we tried to escape before being caught. To add suspense, I guess, the DM set a real life timer for 1 minute and told us to go. The first player up spent the whole minute asking questions and making jokes and the DM declared we were caught. Justices, I have been thinking about this for years now because my character was built for speed - a tabaxi Ranger/rogue playfully referred to as “the Speed Kitty” - but because it was turn-based with a real-life timer I never got my turn, I could have left the tower in a single turn if I was given the chance. Instead we had to fight and we barely managed to escape without anyone dying. I understand using a real life timer, but not when we are also in initiative because each round is 6 seconds but it takes way more than 6 real seconds to take your turn.

Rin Carranza

Baby Bailiff, Judges, and esteemed fellow troll wife Emily, I come to this court of glamour in seek of judgment most worthy. I bring the case of, "The Teehee" I am a player of mischeif and chaos. To keep it brief, over the course of 6 months in our game (playing twice a week), another player [rogue] and I [cleric] have been pickpocketing our fighter (with dm approval) of one gold piece per game day. As time went on, the fighter was getting frustrated but the two of us had a plan you see. We've been passing a lot of sleight of hand checks over the fighter (we've been very lucky ngl) and been using sign language to the dm on when we're doing it so clean communication. Once we stole enough, earned enough from our adventures, and selling items and jewels, we came to the dm privately to buy a magical item while in a large city to buy an enchanted claymore for the fighter. We knew it was his favourite weapon, we designed the look ourselves, but we let the dm design the effect itself as we're not rules savvy and not sure what exactly we could've bought with our budget. The dm, not only agreed but loved the idea! He said he knew exactly what to do, told us what shop could have it and what the expect but we had to lead the scene and so we did! That session we planned to razz the fighter a bit on how much money we had, got to the shop and asked for the claymore and joked on how the rogue was going to use it. After a small combat encounter the night came and we placed the weapon in the fighters tent, with a handwritten note on it was us and upon looking at the sword, the dm gave a great description and amazing presentation. He even did an arcana check, miraculously passing (with his luck too) to find the runes encarved said simply, "The Teehee" He said this prank went to far and was frustrating but loved it nonetheless! Esteemed court, did we go too far in our Mischief?

Corkboard Podcast Network

May it please the honorable Judges, Emily Autumn Axford, Brian Tobias Murphy, and Caldwell Samantha Tanner... (And PLEASURE the delectable Baliff Jake “The Quad God” Herwitz) A little long, but I BRING YOU the Case of the Muskrat vs. The Raging Hawk Running a horror game. One player (who goes by “Hawk” after the old cop show) is a detective from the “big city” come to an Alaskan town searching for a missing reporter. The rest of the party are locals who had each been given a clue to the reporter’s whereabouts that when pieced together would reveal a mystery incriminating the town’s doctor as a practitioner of dark magic, murder and such villainy. Naturally, the party solved the mystery with only TWO of the clues, confronted and killed the BBEG, and cut the game several hours short. JUST AS the villainous voodoo Doctor was killed, outside, the “Vietnam Vet” PC failed his check, was surprised by another cast member in the dark, and accidentally killed them with a headshot. In order to keep the game going, I called a quick pause, pulled aside the player of the Veteran, and had him roll Willpower checks, which he failed, allowing the Doctor’s Spirit to SECRETLY possess him. The drama begins a short time later, when said player ran down the others with his truck, BARELY clipping the Detective, and dealing 1D4 of Damage (of about 28.) At this point, the 50+ year old player stands up, slams their laptop shut, and loudly proclaims “This is NOT how you play DND!” They then scooped up their stuff, and left. My bad? P.S. He left so quickly that he forgot his dog, and… IT WAS CHRISTMAS. 🎄

Prof

To the bodacious and beautiful baliff Jake, and the justices, I present the case of the insane droid A few years ago I ran a Star wars campaign using SW5e at I believe level 10, one of my players wanted to play a droid, specifically a magna guard, barbarian. I said sure. This player is known for making absolutely broken characters that are "perfectly legal" so I knew to be worried. Session 1 he brings an insane droid with 6 reactions, resistance to all damage AND 36 AC. Naturally I said no, no way, absolutely not, I brought him down to 25 AC and made him vulnerable to a type of damage in that system. we finished that campaign and still play together though I still raz him for it and he still says it's legal Baliff shall I continue the raz or was it being "perfectly legal" ok? PS he says he's down to give a breakdown on the build

Sam Ross

Wise Justices of the Crit, I bring to you an older case from my home game that has led to long term razzing I feel is unwarranted. This is an incident we now refer to as, 'Firing Plasma Torpedoes at the Plot'. My group was playing a SciFi game, and the party's ship had just warped to an asteroid belt where they wanted to save a plot-critical NPC. The players spotted the NPCs ship, and also several enemy ships hiding in the asteroids waiting to ambush. A brutal space fight followed, but with the PCs being forewarned, things were going in their favor. At least, until they decided to fire a volley of torpedoes at one of the enemies. In my defense, we were using miniatures and a grid, so the Players should have fully realized that the disabled NPC ship was directly behind their target, and so when the players missed their target, and the torpedoes continued flying forward, it was entirely reasonable for me to roll to have the torpedoes hit the NPC ship. Which they did... causing enough damage to atomize it, no possibility of survival for the NPC in need of rescue. The Players were incensed, but I contend then and now they did it to themselves. Explosives in motion stay in motion, Newton is the deadliest DM in space. Justices, who was right, who was wrong, who needs to be kicked out of an airlock? (PS if it matters - the game was Rogue Trader, a Warhammer 40k RPG)

Lili McGee

To the loftiest of justices and the silliest of goose bailiff. I bring you the The Fishy Defense. I’m playing an Astral Elf Circle of stars Druid in a Spelljammer. Last session, one of our party members was possessed by the ghost, Agony. To try and free our member, I cast polymorph in an attempt to turn him into a goldfish and end the possession. My DM said the spell didn’t work, as it’s written that the possessed creature can’t targeted by any attack or spell. But further down, it says that it’s only immune to being charmed or frightened and retains its Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma stats. Was my DM correct in not adding to the marine population or should I have been able to fishify the host?

Matthew Eisenberg

Dear Supreme Crit Justices and the little stinky boy Jack While preparing for my most recent campaign set in a world filled with lava, volcanos and specific wildlife acclimated to that environment a player reached out to me privately for some details about his character. He said when his character (an illusion wizard) creates an illusion, there's a chance the spell misfires and instead summons a tangible rabid dog he named "Face eater" who is hostile to everyone but his character and he can't control it. I told him I was going to need to know more about "Face eater" and ended up working with him to make it fit the setting more and not be so detrimental to the other party members. The processes however seemed very one sided and he frequently responded to my questions with just "I hadn't thought about that" after waiting days to reply. Judges I ask, was I wrong to feel miffed that this player dumped a weird and detramentail backstory mechanic on me that they clearly hadn't thought about much?  PS: It actually never never came up because when the same player encountered an enemy that wouldn't just tell them a piece of information about his character's mysterious past he decided to betray the party and cause a TPK. 

Nathan W

May it please the honorable justices of the court, as well as the nameless, faceless narrator. I bring you the Case of the Stubborn Garage Ranger. During the pandemic, while home from college, a group of my friends from high school decided to try out our first DnD campaign, with my buddy's new girlfriend offering to DM. The first few sessions went great, however things turned sour once we all turned Level 3. Our Beast Master Ranger unlocked the ability to gain an animal companion, and he was very interested in an enemy's wolf. In battle, despite his protests, the wolf ended up dying. As the party started moving forward, the Ranger said he wouldn't be going on until he found another wolf. The DM said we were nowhere near any wolves, but maybe if we continued on he would find one. He protested, and said he was going off on his own to find a wolf. Half-jokingly, to try to prod him to follow the party up the road, the DM told him that if he was going off on his own then he would have to go out to the garage while we continued our part of the session. Justices: he did exactly that. Our Ranger stood alone in the garage for over an hour while the rest of the party had a great time setting up a concert festival in the next town to make some extra cash. Then when it was "his turn," he came back and looked for a wolf, to no avail. By the end of the session, the Ranger had no wolf, but the rest of us had leveled up. The DM said if he rejoins the party then he could level up too, but instead he said he was going to stay and "grind monsters" (we didn't use experience points?) until he leveled up. I told him "hey it's late man, maybe you should leave my house and you can find your wolf another time" and he REFUSED! After another 15 minutes, when we realized he really was just going to sit at my kitchen table until he leveled up, the DM awkwardly cooked up a scenario where he could level up, and he exited, a full 30 minutes after everyone else had left. Justices, I ask you, was the DM wrong for not just letting the Ranger get his wolf? Or should the Ranger have trusted that maybe she had something planned for him, and followed the party? The campaign later ended from a completely different set of circumstances when we found out our DM was a very abusive gf and tried to push my friend into traffic.

Jason Ramirez

DICE CHRIST CONFESSION For give me DM(s) for I have sinned. I run 3-4 unique campaigns weekly. With life, music, and work going on also. I regrettably start prep for some of these games minutes before a session. Sometimes raw dogging the whole game, from recap to finish. After sessions, players thank me for my time and tell me how much they loved the game, but I can't help feeling a little dirty about pulling a game from thin air. I know my players deserve better and pray dice Christ will forgive, and aid me in my gameprep.

Michael

Dear beloved and respected Justice Murph, adored and wonderful Justice Axford, stupendous and esteemed Justice Tanner and the slovenly little bug boy Bailiff whose name I forget. I bring you The Case of the Wandering Eye and ask for judgement and guidance in these trying times. But, to be clear, no input from the Bailiff please. For context I have DMed a biweekly (the every other week kind) campaign for coming up on three years now which has, for the most part, been a fantastic time. Whilst the core five of us have been playing 90% of this time only 2 have been playing since the beginning, one of whom is the defendant of this case. This person came up with an initial character for the one shot we ran to introduce my friends to the idea of DnD and, understandably, wanted to come up with a different one for the longer campaign. In this time they are now on their fifth character of the campaign (I have not killed any of their characters, though one was captured for trying to take on an army single handedly and is currently working as an evil NPC.) They decided they were bored / had taken three of them as far as they could, one was captured, and the fifth is their current character. Of these characters their last two have both been quite maximised. The first was a Paladin set up to specifically counter my homebrew world's bad guys and now a bladesinger wizard with 16 AC at level 11 where I had to veto a multiclass into fighter after foreseeing some bullshit on the horizon. My issue comes from two things - one in balancing combat, and the other in running the campaign. The other two players (one has taken a step back after his first child) are both using characters set up as their first PC and so are far less maximised in a way that at times can make balancing combat that isn't going to kill them but challenges everyone difficult. I usually get around this by having a lot of combat with alternate objectives to just fighting but at times find it quite frustrating and like it robs them of moments since several fights are dealt with by one specific character. As well as this it is my now regular fear (which I've been assured is not the case after raising this) that in a few months they will get bored and I will have to relearn a whole set of character lore, NPCs, and figure out a way to crowbar the new character into the now multiple year long narrative. I do not feel I am DMing them to my full ability as I've now had to find a way to cram in a new character into the existing party three times and feel guilty that their character is often the odd one out. My question Crit Justices (and the skunk boy Bailiff if he insists on being here) is whether I'm making too big a deal of this and should allow my player the freedom to continue this? Or if I have been a big ol' baby and should put my foot down about both their current character and any future potential ones. I humbly await your judgement and my only request is no Grinch themed punishments, my heart simply would not be able to take it. Yours sincerely, Otter (he/they)

Hyperbolee

To the esteemed Crit Justices et al, I bring to you a simple question: should players be allowed to use the items the DM has bestowed upon them? I'm playing in a sea-faring campaign loosely based on the campaign Ghosts of Saltmarsh. I had to miss a session a couple of weeks ago and when I returned I was told that my character , a parrot-themed kenku rogue named Polly, had looted a magic item that boosted his intelligence from a lowly 10 to an impressive 19! During the next session our party was returning to town to turn in a bounty, but when we were talking to the NPC about our reward the party disagreed with what they were trying to pay but nobody in the party could remember what the actual agreed upon price was (I having the excuse of not having been there in person). I decided "hey, I have this new item that boosts my intelligence, maybe I can make a roll to have my character try to remember!" I asked the DM if I could do so and their response was "Well, Polly, with your new-found intelligence you suddenly realize that you never real paid much attention in the past." The DM laughed at his own joke and moved on with other PCs; no roll or any other way for my character to interact with the conflict. I was taken aback and more than a little offended that my attempt to interact with the game world was so thoroughly shut down . Judges, I ask you: should I have been allowed to interact and make some kind of roll to have my character remember a key piece of information, or was my DM right to refuse me? I humbly await your decision.

thelizbian

To whom it may concern (and one whom it most certainly does not), I present to you the case of the gambling rogue. During some roleplaying in my PF1E campaign, my DM asked each of our players (two in person, two online) what they were doing for the night. The one other in person player decided to gamble. Our DM, knowing that the character had a high sleight of hand, told him to roll a sleight of hand check. He did not ask the player how much he wanted to gamble. The player rolled a nat one and the DM rolled for how much money he lost, and it turned out to be 300 gp. The player looked our DM in the eye and said “I’m putting down that I lost 200” (we do often purchase gear, so money is important in this campaign). Our DM told him no, they went back and forth for a few seconds, the player saying that he wouldn’t have gambled that much, the DM saying that he rolled a nat one, and honestly got lucky that he didn’t lose more. I pulled a Murph and told the player he was being a maniac for straight up denying the DM’s instructions. He just shrugged and insisted he wouldn’t have gambled that much. The DM gave in, and let him only lose 200gp and we moved on because we are all normal people who wanted to have fun playing a game together. We ended up having a great session in which we pulled a real Duttle strategy and absolutely wrecked our DM’s shit, but I dearly love my friends and would delight in seeing one or both of them punished. I leave this matter in the hands of the magnanimous court. P.S. we ended up getting 25k gp to split between the four of us at the end of the session

Thunda down unda

To the benevolent and Powerful founders of the dice Christ church. I have a confession to make for I have sinned. I am a forever DM who has finally broken out and conceived a player to DM. He is great and we are all loving his game so far. However, he insists on us rolling with disadvantage on abilities we don't have a minimum of +2. He has asked me to help keep the other players in line when rolling this as we have a large group of players, last session we were sneaking into a gangs hideout when the players either side of me rolled clutch nat 20s to get past a watch Tower. However, I noticed neither of them rolled with disadvantage. Not wanting to disturb the wind in everyone's sails I kept quiet. Later that night the DM messages me and said how grateful he was that I was helping him with rulings. Was this a test from dice Christ themselves to see if I was faithful to my best friend DM? Have I failed him and inturn should take him out on a sinners confession dinner date?

Oskar Koernig

Dear Juicy Judges and Jake I present to you the case of the tragedy of the trapdoor; I am a player (Fighter level 4) in a Pathfinder campaign and when my party and I were fighting two strong enemies in an underground temple, I was beset upon by bad luck and a GM's strict adherance to data sheets. In the temple was a trapdoor that we detected and temporarily disabled by jamming it open so it could not close. We didn't know what it would do, just that the statues on either side would do something when activated. While fighting a anti-paladin and a floating dog enemy, I had the bright idea to stand in front of the trapdoor and try to bait an enemy onto it. However, the dog floated above it. No matter, on my turn I would press the trap and activate it myself! To my chagrin, a fellow party member struck the enemy with an arrow, killing it - dropping its lifeless corpse onto the trapdoor, activating it. Gates flew down on either side and the statues sliced the lifeless cadaver to ribbons. Disappointing sure, but I could deal with that. My next turn, since I was quite hurt, I hid around the corner and held an reaction to activate the trap again when the anti-paladin crossed the square. I had to roll to hit the trap in time as the anti-paladin jumped over the trap. I nailed it! But the trap has a 2-round cooldown time, so my turn was wasted. I was subsequently downed by the enemy. The boss was eventually defeated in a scramble on some stairs with our whole party downing at least once and an almost tpk at the very end. I was noticeably upset that I had wasted in total 3 rounds of combat trying to use a trapdoor instead of just whacking enemies and the GM reassured me they were following the rules and the trap statblock strictly. My question is simple: as a GM, they had the ability to hand-wave the trap cooldown, or to give me the opportunity to knowledge check the trap before holding my reaction, should they have done so? Or am I just being a sore loser? I humbly await your judgement - be merciless

Tane

To The Celestial Crit Justices and Jake The Snake The Case of The Dank Gummy Bear I created a homebrew story for my friends and their partners where they would play couples from folktale (Peter Pan and Tinker Bell, Beauty and The Beast etc.) I brought dice for everyone, helped create character sheets and explain rules. Half an Hour before the game half the table decided to take edibles. They swore they could handle the high They all fell asleep minutes before we were going to play DND. The rest of the party insisted we still play. Everyone ( Aside from those asleep) still had a great first time experience with DND I only ask this, High Crit Justices, sentence my friends to jail for making me adjust my combats and story minutes before we played.

Johny Dude-Kay

To the jovial judges and their sad boi companion, I would like to present the case of Cantrip Search Bugs. A few years back, I was running a game a few long time friends. There were 4 players, but only 2 are really relevant to the this story, Sorcerer and Barbarian. The party was ambushed by a group of Assassins and fairly handedly dealt with them. Eventually only one assassin remained a live as it became the assassins turn. I decided that the assassin would retreat, with the potential of becoming a recurring villain. I used their action to disengage, their move to run, and their bonus to hide, as the Assassin was statted as a rogue. All above board. When it became Sorcerer's turn, he asked if he could use the infestation cantrip to fill the tall grass the assassin had gone to hide in with buzzing insects. Despite not being how the spell worked, I let Sorcerer roll Arcana against the Assassin's stealth check to see if the plan would work. The Assassin got a 25. Sorcerer got a 21. I then described that, despite flooding the grass with an Arcane swarm of bugs, the Assassin seemed to have escape. The session carried on as normal from there, with no indicator of any issues, concluding with praise and gratitude from my players, same as always. The next day, I woke up to a message from Barbarian. He was his old group's Forever DM and one of my DMs when I first got started, so I usually enjoyed his feedback. This however, was not one of those times. Barbarian had sent me a massive block of text criticizing everything about, not just my DMing but my value as a friend for not allowing Sorcerer to succeed in his attempts to find the Assassin. Most of what he had to say was baseless and demeaning, and all of it was needlessly critical. I'm usually open to constructive criticism, but this wasnt that and was also completely unprompted. Even after I explained how the rolls went down, Barbarian insisted that I had been unfair and shut down Sorcerer's really cool moment in favor of "railroading" the game so that the Assassin could get away. I hardly knew what to say or where this was coming from. I even messaged Sorcerer to see if he was upset and if thats why this was happening. Sorcerer was blind sided as well. Sorcerer chocked it up to how the rolls went and appreciated me even letting him try, insisting that Barbarian should chill since it wasn't "his moment anyway." Justices: Should I have ignored the dice rolls and just let him succeed? Was Barbarian right to provide such unhelpful negative feedback? Or was I wrong for letting the Sorcerer try and be creative in the first place? I await your sound judgement.

Brodie Tumbleson

To the esteemed crit justices and that little cricket Jimminy. I ask you pass judgement on the case of the crazy coup. Two years ago a very good friend who I play a weekly game with invited me to join a second weekly game she was a part of. After telling her yes id love to play more she told me the DM would message me the details. Three weeks later I received a message saying "Do you wanna play dnd?" After replying yes he informed me that we were meeting in two hours for the first session if I could make a character in that time. Not wanting to miss out I wrote up a backstory and rolled stats at the table for my character. Hilde, a path of the beast barbarian based on Ramona Flowers, has become one of my all time favorite characters. But over the course of the two years there have been aspects of my backstory that have been flat out ignored, changed or ive been told I dont remember properly. When we went back to my home village my character who had trouble learning simple common found everyone spoke it fluently now and wouldn't DARE speak to me in my original language of orcish. After a few disappointments and my father flat out telling me I was an embarrassment before dieing, I just wrote it off as 'Im a last minute add. Must be hard to work my stuff in'. And took on the role as the comic relief background character. About a month ago my friend who invited me initially messaged me secretly and asked how I was feeling about the campaign. Through talking I found out that not only was he doing this to me, but he was doing it to everyone. He replaced the rogues enemies to lovers npc she came up with in her backstory to input his own self insert character (saying he'd been a changling the whole time) completely rewrote the origins of dwarves to go against the Dwarven clerics beliefs, and to his own admission, hadn't even considered the 4th member of our group. Not to mention not a single one of us could tell you after 2 years what our main quest was supposed to be. After asking my friend what we should do she said she was going to confer with the other members of the actual party. I took a nap and woke up 4 hours later having been added in a group chat called 'baddies' with the head message stating "Hey gang, this is where we plan our coup." Supreme crit, I ask you. Is it fair for us to cut ties with our old DM and form a new group? Should we have tried harder to save a 2 year old campaign? Or should we start our new campaign based on Dantes Inferno where we battle our way through different levels of hell. Which weirdly sounds more enjoyable then what we were doing. Thank you for considering this case, we await your judgement.

Grace Holland

To the almighty crit court and sidekick baliff, I bring you the case of unbalanced pvp: I was running a kids on broom campaign. I had 2 players that been playing for 2 years and a new player (new to our game, not new to ttrpgs) that had been playing for ~2 months. In lieu of traditional leveling up, I would reward characters with homebrewed abilities after completing an arc based on what happened in the arc itself. This was all fine until we ran a snowball fight pvp session and one of the old players brought out all their abilities to womp the newish player. The newer player complained he didnt know his party members had these extra abilties and it was unfair he didn't have any to which I replied since he joined the 2 arcs they "completed" involved war crimes and walking away because "it wasn't their problem" neither of which I wanted to reward so he hasn't earned anything special. Also secretely I didn't want to restrict the old player because this was one of the only times she actually used all her abilities as my players usually forgot about them. Judges, should I have intervened and limited my old player to even out this unbalanced homebrewed combat? Was I unfairly playing favorites? Or was it low stakes enough to say that's just how the cookie crumbles? I await your steadfast judgement PS: These two players later had an out of game falling out and only the og player stayed in the party, so there may have been other feelings at the table I wasn't aware of that it made so contentious.

Emil

To the justices, whom it is my honor to address, and the bailiff, who should be grateful to be addressed at all, I bring you the case of the table of exes. I DM for three college friends of mine. Two members of the party, the barbarian and the rogue, had an incredibly messy breakup shortly before we graduated two years ago. We started playing a year after the breakup, when they both approached me and said they would be interested in playing and thought DnD would be a good medium to try to become friends again. I agreed for some reason. The game started off well, everyone laughing and feeling like we were back in uni. Things took a turn during the third session when the rogue alluded to keeping a secret from the party (I had approved this beforehand). The barbarian immediately began rolling unprompted insight checks, culminating in a shouting match, all in-character. The two have been at each other's throats ever since, such as declining to use healing potions on each other, physically throwing each other into obvious traps, and complaining about the other to random NPCs. When I attempted to speak to them both privately after the first few times this happened, the barbarian angrily told me that the rogue is a problem character and that he needs to get it together. The rogue, on the other hand, told me that he has been having a lot of fun role-playing with her, saying that "the RP is so intense, it almost feels like she's really mad at me! She's so good at this," and that it reminds him of why they started dating. I kind of didn't answer after that. Justices, am I a coward for not wanting to intervene and have that conversation, or is it fine that I'm trying to just troop through it and hope they work out whatever this is organically and in-story? None of this aggression has extended to real life as far as I've seen, and the third player has said it's fine, but we keep making eye contact during the minutes-long arguments and I feel like maybe it's not. For further context, I introduced them to each other and was somewhat involved in the breakup. PS. Jake I really like your substack

Johnny

To Emily, may you be drinking plenty of delicious water, and to those other bozos in the room, I’ll have a cup of water with no ice, please. I bring to you the case of The Christmas Oneshot of Evil. Since my lovely wife and I moved back home, I’ve made an effort each Christmas season to host a festive oneshot for all our friends. The first year it was a PvP to determine who was the nicest on Santa’s list (4 players). The second year was a survival oneshot where other holiday patrons were invading the North Pole (7 players). This most recent session of 2024 is the oneshot in question (7 players), which has more PvP than the PvP oneshot. The theme here was everyone played a rejected, poorly constructed toy who all gained sentience and wanted to be delivered. The main issue stems from a couple of players who decided they were also motivated by more chaotic ambitions. One player, a funko pop with a football sized Megatron head and malfunctioning voicebox wanted to both become Santa Claus and mass produce more underlings…instead of getting delivered…like a toy…like we had all agreed. But judges, I’m not one to yuck on my players yum. My wife, always one of the players at my table, was a rotten potato named Spud who vowed to assist Megatron so that they might also deliver her spores across the world. Two other players are chaotic by nature and were simply down for the LOLs, while one of the remaining two players was passive, and the other was completely in shock. We’ll call this shocked player Gorf. The session involved finding Santa’s slay and getting into his gift bag. Along the way, they poisoned the elves hot chocolate, turned several elves into undead minions, nearly shoved an elf into a roaring furnace, and threatened to kill a chilly snowman for the trendy sweater he was wearing. All this pushed Gorf closer to the edge, until finally he attempted to cast Slow on the rest of the party when he was some distance away. The passive player then shot at him, only to quickly heel turn and support his side, then tried to fight off the other 4 chaotic players while Gorf ran away leaving them to fend for themselves. What followed was a quick take down of the passive player, my wife rolling death saves, and a mad chase after Gorf, who managed to reach Santa’s slay and trampled over Megatron with over 100 damage from 8 deers and the force of the sleigh. They were level 3 characters. Megatron immediately died, and the mood was only continuing to harshen. Eventually, Santa in the form of an eldritch horror (background plot) found his stolen slay, and ultimately the remaining players had to fight together, realizing that the only way to survive was for one of them to adorn all 6 articles of Santa’s outfit that they had found along the way. One of the chaotic LOL players adorned all the pieces, which I IRL gave physical clothing and props to the player to wear, turned into the new Santa Claus, and proceeded to smite the eldritch horror, and delivering the surviving characters except for Gorf. Judges, what the heck? I’m all for picking up on what my players are interested in and running with it, but poor Gorf was such a stick in the mud, that even when I threw him a bone for supporting his moral stance, he outwardly was distraught by the other players. My chaotic crew didn’t mind his opposition, but should I have tried harder to remind these Elf torturers what the true meaning of Christmas was all about? Was Gorf in the right, or was the rest of the party fair in wailing on him? P.S. The session started with them all gaining consciousness in a pile of failed toys designated to be burned, so this might have biased their views on their environment. P.P.S. Everyone left out 9 hour long session laughing and cheering each other for their antics. Ultimately, there were no hard feelings, and all my players remarked it was the best oneshot yet. But judges, just what the heck will I do next time to satiate my wild friends? Are they all on the naughty list?

Ben Rohrbaugh

To the Fair Jusitices and Bailff Jace. I bring you the case of The Doublecrossers' Debt. A few years back I was running a 5e campaign for my brother and two of my childhood friends. During one session, my players found themselves in a situation where the only way to book passage to their next destination was by completing a drug smuggling job for the nastiest crime lord in town. He told them "normally a job like this would pay 500 gold. If you'd like I'd be happy to give you passage aboard my ship as payment, it would normally cost about the same to book anyway." My players accepted the terms of this job then immediately went to the authorities and decided to help them spring a trap on the crime lord in exchange for passage about a navy ship. Fast forward to a tense scene where my players tell the crime lord that they have completed the job but will not require his ship any longer, and could they please have the 500 gold instead. He tells them "I agreed to grant you passage aboard my ship in exchange for completing the job. If you don't want the payment I'm offering that's your prerogative." Dearest justices. My brother STILL gives me grief, saying I " owe him 500 good" all these years later! Was I wrong to have the most wretched NPC in my campaign weasel out of paying a sum he never promised to pay in the first place? I lay myself at the mercy of your judgement. P.S. if you're wondering why passage was so expensive, there was an unprecedented wave of violence happening in my world and all travel was being heavily regulated and restricted. Basically Mr. Crime Lord was using this as an opportunity to prey on desperate people.

Stig

Idk, I think the rogue is right, Liz. Based on evidence presented here, at least. If nightly downtime is usually resolved as the gambling was in this case (a single skill check that the GM extrapolates consequences from with impunity) I would change my mind. Presumably the GM knew this end-of-session windfall was coming (and at y'all's table (or PF1E generally) nat 1's mean auto crit failure on skill checks), but I'd argue that the GM knowing the 100 gold difference was about to become a lot less meaningful creates even more reason to pivot or yield quickly upon realizing they'd upset the player. At the end of the day, as presented, this reads as an agency-grab. A GM's word is law, but the power of those governing comes from the consent of the governed. I would like to represent the player if this case goes to trial.

Jursh

To the 2/10 Justices and the 10/10 Bailiff: I’ve started playing in a new campaign with some friends, all having played before but never together. During a trip in town, I followed an NPC into a bathhouse to sneakily get some info from a clandestine meeting taking place. When I was required to strip down, as per the bathhouse rules, my DM made me roll a D12 for “length” check on my character’s manhood. I figured it was a joke and played along, rolling a 1 to everyone’s amusement. I thought it would be a quick laugh and nothing more but the rest of the table would not let it go for the rest of the day and brought it back up the next session constantly. To make it worse, my girlfriend is also playing and is one of the biggest contributors, telling everyone my character is a perfect match of me in every way. Justices, am I being a little baby by wanting these jokes to stop or should I just own the baby dick title and roll with it? My tiny manhood awaits your judgement.

Bb Woggle

Dice Christ, I throw myself at your altar seeking forgiveness for underestimating the strength of the deck of many things. I had used heavily homebrewed version of the deck to remove as many kill effects as possible and had replaced many of those effects with narrative penalties such as going blind or reversing a characters age by a decade. I thought this would give my players inspiration to help them better discover their characters stories and personalites. While in a few cases it has worked as intended, one of my party members still found a way to get killed. They pulled a card that had a trial effect where the player would admit to a crime and the rest of the party determined if they were guilty. My PC admitted to being a serial arsonist (a back story we had just worked on and I had planned to reveal in the finale) and the party chose death. While my player who lost their character enjoyed the outcome and the story is more juiced than ever, I can't help but feel I manipulated my player to their doom. I hadn't ever made the connection that working on a murder hobo back story and having the chance of a party judgement in the same week would go sideways before it was too late. Dice Christ can you find forgiveness for this lowly soul

thelizbian

I don’t necessarily disagree with you! I think that while my case reads pretty DM leaning, I don’t necessarily think the DM was right. I would add though, that the argument lasted for less than a minute, with our DM agreeing to 200 gp, and the player wasn’t upset, he was (and I say this with the utmost fondness) just being a stubborn lil ass. Also I should’ve clarified that 25k gp is a pretty typical end of session loot for us! That being said, this stubborn lil ass of a player absolutely deserves the best representation in court, and your arguing skills appear second to only PawPaw’s, so it would be an honor for you to represent him🙂‍↕️

johanna

Fair justices, fair bailiff, I ask your advice. I’ve DMd my share in the past and have been playing with my current party for about three years, as a player, not the DM. It’s now my turn, and one of my future players, aka my current DM, is having a hard time letting go of the reigns. He’s hesitant to share character information, wants to keep things secret from me (not a practice any of us employed when we began playing with him) and from what I can tell he’s going to be playing a character that, per usual, is a loner who doesn’t want to interact with the party . Without calling out this behaviour directly, doth your lordship have any suggestions for running a session zero where I can establish a better vibe between him and I? How can I encourage the type of play from him that would be conducive of good gameplay? And how the hell do I make the loner character have more fun in the game? We’re more roleplay than combat. I place this question at the feet of your excellencies.

Matthew Walker

To the tight grandmas and their shared grandkid Jenk: I bring upon you the case of the DM hoarder. A while back I was a part of a large (~9 person) campaign where people were mostly able to just come as they could make it, since our campaign was based on doing performances as a troupe made of people accidentally transported to hell, and then put on a theater train. The tone was very light, and we kind of just went along with the challenges and each others' goofs. We all met when the campaign started as part of a DND club and some of us remained friends after. However, one player (let's call him Jake) took the roleplay a few steps more seriously than everyone else. He wrote dozens of pages of lore surrounding his plasmoid rogue, sharing them with no one but our DM. When focus came to Jake's character, instead of meeting up with the others like the rest of us, he would have long conversations 1 on 1 with the DM about his character while the rest of us kind of just, sat there for about thirty minutes each session before our DM lightly prodded him with things like "and then, do you go to the theater car?" to which Jake joined the rest of us. When he did join us, he was quiet during the challenges except to occasionally chime in in character with judgements about our characters, for example my human artificer who serially abandoned his sons or actual Kermit the frog being an alcoholic. We offered to include him, and tried to get involved in his lore (i.e. I tried inspecting his mysterious bracelet with my +11 to arcana) but Jake never allowed us to. After a few months, we had a final session where two devils representing Pride and Envy ambushed our train and tried to kill us. The Pride devil took special interest in Jake's mysterious bracelet. We were losing badly, so I offered to make a contract with the Pride devil to try, not necessarily succeed, to get the bracelet in exchange for being allowed to live and free the soul of my reformed succubus lover who had my soul protected in a necklace under her ample bosom. Pride agreed, I tried to take Jake's necklace and accidentally knocked him out in one turn before he was saved by a fellow plasmoid and disappeared to his homeworld. The rest of us made it out okay after being rescued by Satan, one PC's dad (a very goofy campaign after all). We thought all was well, until Jake sent angry messages in Discord days later, upset at being attacked and at other characters receiving happy endings due to how bad we all are, saying that his PC hopes the others get their just desserts. Tell me, grandmas, could we have done more to ingratiate ourselves with this plasmoid? I await your stern scolding. P.S. Our DM had a fun "curses" mechanic where if we rolled a nat 1 we had to roll a d100 and act out a harmless curse, such as believing yourself fabulously wealthy or fully spelling out the last word in a sentence for a session.

Kitmar

The case of the unhelpful AI Art Generator Honorable justices and the guy who reads cases idk his name I bring you the case of the Unhelpful AI Art Generator A couple months back I ran a one shot for my dnd group before we started our first campaign. One of our players is a consistent user of generative ai, she uses it for work in an IT capacity and will casually bring up things like having it write emails or respond to dms for her, and on this occasion used it to make character art for her character in this one shot. This was totally fine, I am constantly telling everyone I know when it comes up about the environmental impact of AI, but I didn’t say anything not wanting to ruin my friends fun or engagement with the game. This got difficult as we played through the one shot. As everyone was describing characters she would put in prompts while other people were describing their characters to generate art of them, and even as I was describing settings, NPCs, or items. The other players were mostly fans but I honestly hated the unsettling art that didn’t feel like it fit in my world and it made setting the scene less fun as halfway through my descriptions we would all get half baked images of my troll bartender smoking a bong, or an anime pinup of the captain of the guard. (Now that I’m describing them they sound cool, they definitely were not.) I joked that I was instituting an AI ban if my player kept doing this and we all laughed and she asked if I was serious and I said yeah probably it’s kind of freaking me out. She stopped but seemed pretty despondent the rest of the one shot. It definitely took some fun out of it for her and I felt bad but didn’t miss the uncanny valley depictions of all of my NPCs. Justices, did I ruin my players fun for no reason or am I justified in my ai ban at my table? We are about to start a long campaign and she has offered to use ai to make everyone’s character sheets for them so they “don’t have to do any math” do I let my players make my NPCs into anime waifus or do I crush my players fun and force them to do math?? I humbly await your judgement

thef6pawn

To the honorable Justice's Caldwell, Emily and her worm husband. I hope y'all are nice to that guy Josh or whatever. I bring to you the case of the crippled 1 shot. 5 years ago I started to become interested in D&D. I got a new job where I worked with some old classmates (never talked in school) and to my surprise they played D&D. I started hanging out more with them and their cousin who was the DM. I asked if I could join their campaign and the DM told me that it was a big commitment. We decided we would do a 1 shot to see if I liked it and if I could be consistent in showing up. So the day comes and im excited to make my character only when I get there I get handed a character sheet with a poorly drawn man that's in a wheel chair. I was told "it would take too long to make a character". I brush it off and we start out in a bar. The other player comes up to me and narrates himself kicking me off my wheelchair then holding out a hand saying to "follow him". I had no idea how the game worked other than that it was roll play so I tried to go with flow. I told him no and began arguing with him(in game) and the player abruptly stopped, stood up and told me irl that "you're ruining the game, you're supposed to come with me". I was so shocked by this worried about what I got myself into I just stayed quiet and went with the flow. When it came time for my first roll the DM said that they have a "home brew" and don't roll dice. They just do what "feels right". This made no sense because the character sheet they gave me had stats and seemed pointless. Shortly after we were roll playing a scene in the bar and one of the players played a 5 min SoundCloud rap song that he made for the scene and we all sat there in silence until it finished. We didn't make it out of the beginning scene for the session. When I went back(I don't know why) for the 2nd session they were just there playing video games saying I could hang out if I wanted too but they weren't doing the 1 shot anymore. To the wise worm husband I did get new friends and stopped talking to them. I have yet to play another D&D session since and it has ruined my enthusiasm for it. However dear judges, did I ruin the vibe?

Lorelei and Kyra Newly Weds

To the honorable Crit justices and the lowly, shart filled pants wearing bailiff Jake today I bring you the care of the "Not Cursed Helm". A while ago I joined an online campaign and we eventually moved onto the Decent Into Avernus Campaign. My character was a teenager who lost her family to the events of the module and was flowing the path of the Red Knight to become a general one day. She was also a fiend for gems and shiny things, like most teens (she was 17). One session after dealing with an evil cult i found a crown with 5 different colored dragons on it. Curious I cast detect magic and was delighted to hear it had no magic on it whatsoever. Obviously I go to put the crown on and an immediately asked to make a Con saving throw... Nat 20, seen on our online table by all. The DM then says that the crown still doesn't have magic but if I had rolled anything other than a nat 20 I would have died instantly. We stopped that campaign shortly after and moved onto another one, but I have to ask if I was wronged here. If I did something wrong I'll gladly accept punishment, but all I was doing was playing a cleric powered by friendship. Thank you, I humbly await your decision.

Samuel

Dear Honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the fiiine helper Jake, I present to you the case of the drunken DM. I recently joined my friend's campaign with their coworkers and associated friends. The premise was a semi-goofy campaign with lots of bits but rewarding story beats. The first session I sat at the table for over an hour before the DM introduced my PC chained to a cave wall by some cultists. Eventually, I was freed and when we questioned the cultists as to why my character was abducted the DM said above bord "idk something about your spiritual energy or something" he then said "my bad I'm a little drunk" I wanted to give him another chance, but the next week, he was drunk again. His session prep included rastifarai orcs, a planeswalker sasquach, and an NPC who only communicates in Bobby Hill quotes (yes, that Bobby Hill) Am I wrong for wanting to leave this game? P.S. last week he slept through the campaign and several of us were waiting for him to respond to the group chat. This is an in-person game.)

Annika

To the lavender-scented judges and the stinky 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 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.

Maya

To the Jailiff Bakey (Or, mayhaps, Beef Jakey), and his delectable court staff snacks, I plead for guidance and advice in this case. I discovered the full extent of the world of DND in my sophomore year of high school. After stumbling across Dimension 20, I fell DEEP. Since then, my fire has been stoked by my dad. He’s a huge nerd and has generously paid for many of my DND “wants” (dice, a dropout subscription, and merch). For about five years, I’ve been begging him to play a campaign with me. For five years, he declined. In the past, I’ve tried on my own, but I’ve never been able to keep one going. Finally, after five long years, he graciously bought a beginners kit and today was our first session. I would love any tips and tricks you guys have with roleplay and opening up/ providing interesting dialogue for your character, since it’s just me and him. Neither of us have ever played a campaign, so roleplay is intimidating! For these reasons, I humbly request the harshest sentence possible for him. Something akin to a life sentence of DND, whimsy, and blessings from Dice Christ themselves. If I may speak on behalf of the accused: He’s one of most wonderfully kind and supportive people I have ever met! With all your might and wisdom, judge us fairly! PS: please feel free to razz him about not listening to NADDPOD or any DND media. For the failure to convert him, I would accept the full extent of the law, as deemed necessary by your honors (and Mr Jailiff).

Tyler

To the Honorable Justices and also Jake, who's actually a decent guy today only. I present to you the case of the justifiable total party killer. I recently DM'd a family 1 shot in which I provided all of my siblings, cousins, and our partners with secret roles detailing their character motivations 1 week before the game would begin. Before they all arrived, I warned the PC's to be wary of everyone and everything they encounter during the game and made the possibility of Pvp clear. What 4 of the 6 players didn't know, was that 2 of the backgrounds I distributed were servants of a demon, who was orchestrating a false wedding in order to gather sacrificial guests for a ritual at midnight. A few hours of excellent performances from my traitorous brother and sister later, and the party arrived at the climax of the mystery with the lost wedding ring in tow. Then the reveal, my kindly Cleric of a brother unveiled his plot and bowed to his lord, the Arch-demon Mammon. Combat ensued, and my sister betrayed the group as well by delivering the ring, in exchange for the release of her soul. The result, was a tense and thrilling battle after a good hearted screaming fit of accusations and broken trust. When the dust settled, the 4 deceived heros failed to stop the ritual as 1 of them was killed a single turn away from destroying the ring and banishing Mammon. I began to narrate the consequences of the defeat, and wrap up the 1 shot intending to spare my young cousins very first characters with a grim but at least uncertain fate, when my brother's betraying cleric interrupted me mid monologue and demanded that we were still in initiative and he had the right to finish off the rest of the party. I relented when the party majority agreed, and he proceeded to slaughter them all despite some fair resistance. A few of the players remain scarred to this day and none of them fully trust me or each other during our current games. So Justices, was I right to allow the slaughtering of the remaining PC's, or should I have railroaded the grim conclusion of the one shot for the sake of my younger family member's first D&D experience?

Maximus Jiron

To the glorious and effervescent justices, and the bailiff, I think it was jork, I present to you the case of the enabling DM. During covid my friend and I really started getting into how to play dnd, obviously we could only play over discord at that time but as restrictions lessened up we started looking for our first in person game. Fast forward we find one, make characters, and are super pumped to finally play in person, that was until we went to the first session. In the game was myself, my friend, two other random players, the dm, and his girlfriend; this is where the problems started. We started at lvl 3 which is typical, however the dm’s girlfriend had not one but two lvl 5 characters with magic items and feats from another home game. At first I was not too bothered but as we started playing it was obvious the story was meant to have her as the main character with everyone else as supporting cast. Once again as a first time in person player I was not too bothered just because I wanted to play so bad, however what finally got to me is when I realized she had completely stopped rolling to do anything and was proclaiming NAT 20s and damage that were supposedly rolled before it was her turn in combat because “she knew what she was going to do on her turn.” We didn’t want to be accusatory but we noticed this kept up encounter after encounter for a few weeks, ultimately taking away all of the stakes with the game. So we brought it up to the DM and he said he lets her get away with those things because she has a lot going on personally and he is only dming to bring her some joy so we could either like it or not. We chose not to like it and my friend and I completely ghosted them and finally convinced our friends to play with us starting up our group that still plays together today. But I ask Justices, should we have given them the benefit of the doubt or were we right to leave the game and ghost them? P.S. One of the girlfriend’s characters was a mute, that could only telepathically talk to her other character because they had a psychic link that was formed when they were younger allowing them to take actions on each other's turns basically giving each of her characters two actions and bonus action per round.

Myles McDonough

Earthly Representatives of Dice Christ on High: I bring you a pre-confession. I recently took part in my first fully online campaign. We rolled using DnD Beyond or other dice simulators, and self-reported the results. I am proud to say I remained true, and shared all of my roles accurately. And yet, Fathers, Mother, and Jake, though it shames me to admit it...the Dice Devil did tempt me to do otherwise. Having rolled a chaste 5, I would fain content myself with it—yet from the nether regions of that damnéd octahedron would beckon the voluptuous curves of an 8, whispering of untold storytelling pleasures should I but lay down my dry virtue. Guileful 9 would vie for the place rightly earned by 6, while lusty 12 mocked my steadfast 10. In my depravity, I did e'en ogle a lowly 7 when Dice Christ had seen fit to bestow a 17, tickled by the mere thought of thwarting His holy will. I ask you, lords—is there anything funny about SIN? Abstinent ones! Paragons of celibacy! I am as a Caldwell before an un-flipped Full House box set. How have you maintained your purity when the siren song of fudged roles calls so sweetly? How may I uphold my dice virginity in a world beset by intemperance?

Lamp

To the Benevolent Bishops, Judicious Judges, and Berated Bailiffs, I am submitting not a confessional, nor a case, but rather, a celebration. My youngest daughter started kindergarten this week. For the most part, she was excited - new friends to make, new teacher to see - but at this school, parents drop the children off at the door, and do not walk them in. In short, she was scared about walking into the school by herself. When the first day arrived, and her fears were yet again baring their fangs, the shirt I had chosen to wear that day was none other than the Sir Gunk shirt from the previous quarter's merch! As I described Sir Gunk's valiant efforts to protect and help those in need, and how he would likely be in a similar grade level to hers (i'm not sure if the fey wild teaches on a K-12 system, but I digress). It brings me no small joy to tell you how big of an effect it had on her! Her mission for the day became 'help the scared kids' on their first day, and walked to the door with confidence (and a teacher by her side) saying "READY TO HELP". I appreciate the time given in the courtroom for this proclamation, and from the depths of my soul, I thank you for being a gold standard for parenting by sending your child to school as a level 1 paladin.

Gicky

Played with a DM online who secretly recorded the session and fed the audio into a chatbot, to then generate images and animations of our game as a "surprise". Promptly left after

Justice Bwr

My player does that too!!! Literally records whole sessions and asks chat gbt to summarize important characters which it always gets wrong

Andre W

The Case of the IRL Devil Hello honorable, venerable and sexy Justices, I kiss the ground at your benches to glorify you and in hopes that the bailiff slips and falls in funny way. I present to you the case of the IRL Devil, I am a DM and have been running a devil focused campaign with a party of 3 PCs for about 9 months. One of my NPC villains, who is a devil, offered a deal to the party. The deal was to steal an ancient tablet of primordial magic in order to prevent a massive army of hellfire constructs from destroying a city. 2 of the 3 party members were adamant that they don’t make deals with devils no matter what and the party moved on. However after the session I received a text from the 3rd party member wanting hearing more details on this devilish deal. She said that she knew she couldn’t discuss it with her close-minded party members and wanted to make the deal without their consent. I offered a 1 on 1 session so that she could role play the way she wants without peer pressure and to make the treachery of a fellow PC all the more devastating. Is this going too far? Am I tempting not only the character but the person to betray their friends? Should I have this backstabbing be played out in front of the rest of the table even if it means that this PC won’t do whats in their character’s hearts? Have I become an IRL Devil in pursuit of being the best NPC Devil I could be? I seek your legendary guidance and lay myself at the mercy of the court. I will gladly accept any and all punishments, especially if they are doled by Justice Strong Caldwell himself. Love you byeeeeeee!

Juice

To the beloved justices and that other guy from CollegeHumor (man, I wonder what Streeter Seidell is up to these days...) : I have been an avid D&D fan since the pandemic, and even DMed a game for my graphic design club in college. Unfortunately though, I haven't had a chance to play since leaving school, even after several tries to get new games going with different groups. Recently, however, I was talking to some friends at work about D&D and things like Baldur's Gate 3, and several of them said they were interested in playing! Two of them said they had been wanting to play for a while but never knew anyone else they could play with. Great right? The third one, however, said she didn't really have any interest in the game. She isn't really into fantasy/ overall "nerdy" stuff, doesn't like doing math, and only really likes party-type games or drinking games. She said she just really wants to hang out with all of us, and that we could all bring drinks and make a party out of it. The thing is, she is a REAL partier, and I've had experiences in the past with players drinking too much (even had one pass out one time mid-fight, another player had to play their character for them in order to beat the boss.) We're worried she's going to "try" to play, but then decide she'd rather do a different activity and take us off the rails. We're worried that if we don't invite her, she'll feel left out and get upset that she wasn't included. Justices, would it be wrong for us to tell our friend we're playing so we can potentially have a better game for the rest of us? Or should we suck it up and see where things go with her to avoid upsetting our friend? Do you have any suggestions for how to engage players that aren't even really interested in the game? I humbly await your glorious decisions to rain down upon me!

Jamison

Hi Justices and Jakestice (Derogatory or not as your honors see fit), I offer you a simple, ten year old case from a good group of friends: the flying barbarian’s strength checks. We were all pretty new to DND and TTRPGs in general. My friend Dave was DMing and in one session as we traversed the underdark with a group of fellow escaped prisoners, we came across a lava flow that barred our path. We settled on my character, a level 7 wizard gnome, casting fly on our 20 strength Goliath barbarian with doubled carrying capacity. He could then pick us up one at a time and fly us across the 25 foot wide flow of lava. This cost me a very precious third level spell (Pandering to justice Axford). Our DM, my genuinely good realworld friend Dave, turned to our barbarian and told him to start making strength checks. I was confused and countered that he wouldn't need a strength check to carry any of us. He had 20 strength and him being a Goliath meant his carrying capacity was double normal. The DM said it was for the fly spell and I said the spell just lets you fly. It already has time and speed limits. We did not shout or fight for an hour. No one left the house or broke up (Though one of us was playing a different gender character and actually coming to terms with being trans. Hi Cay, love you.). We just trusted our friend and had fun. The barbarian raged, myself and our arcane trickster rogue misty stepped across and our monk managed to jump the thing himself. However, in the course of this, our weird lil NPC gambling addict deep gnome Jimjar, the only one of the prisoners we had escaped with that we actually liked, was dropped into the lava. He died. Even Dave the DM was heartbroken. We all like the little weirdo and his random little propositions for gambling on things. Dave the DM let us do some stuff to resurrect him a few sessions later, but this has always stuck with me. Justices, and possibly Jakestice, I ask, does a barbarian need to make strength checks to carry something while under the fly spell that he could carry normally if he were just walking? I throw myself at the mercy of the court and beg that you show some, but not too much leniency, to myself or Dave the DM. Jamison

vrtx

To the honorable Just-ices and Bayleaf Jake, I give to thee the case of the nerfed bloodhunter! After wrapping a 2 year campaign, our DM wanted to test his own TTRPG system on us, converting Curse of Strad from 5th Edition to his own take on a system called Index Card RPG. Many things were cool about it, helped speed some stuff up, but also really limited out choices. He said we could adapt anything to his system, so when I proposed a bloodhunter wearwolf, i thought it would be all good. He said my power would be delayed and I’d have to find it in the world, ok cool a side quest! But in the first few sessions we discovered…a few things…One, if every character and monster has 10hp and the same AC, you can get wiped easily! Two, in this world full moons happen every 7 days and last for 3 nights in a row. And Three, finding your hidden power can take months of play time! So when I found it I rejected this cursed power from a zombie viking! Needless to say I cured myself of lycanthropy as soon as possible and abandoned any hope of bloodhunter abilities. I made the best of it and my character was basically a champion fighter who hit like a train. But I ask thee!!! Like, what the hell man…

Elizabeth G

To the honorable honarable honarable justices and less honarable bailiff, I present the case of the unfortunate gust of wind. This case is from 10 years ago so please forgive me for the spotty details. My sister and I had just gotten into D&D. My sister decided to DM a game for a couple of friends and myself. Our party was exploring a cavernous dungeon when our ranger fell into a pit. The pit led to a chamber that, unlike the rest of the dungeon, was lush and overgrown with vibrant plant life. Before we could regroup, a pair of monsters emerged from the foliage and attacked. The rest of the party quickly secured a rope and began climbing down to help. The ranger decided to throw an arcane fire potion at the monsters but missed and set the plants a-blaze instead. The fire quickly spread and the party decided to retreat back up the rope. I was playing a gnome cleric or the air domain named Lasagna Toes. Being new to D&D, I didn’t fully understand all my spells but decided to cast Gust of Wind to try and snuff out the flames. I figured a strong gust of magical wind would be enough to slow or stop the fire, giving my party time to climb up the rope. My sister, as DM, ruled that the spell fanned the fire instead, making things worse. I was disappointed by the ruling, had I known the spell was going to do more harm than good I would not have cast it. The party was able to escape without taking too much damage but I was still a little annoyed about the ruling. And so, esteemed judges: am I right to still feel disappointed about this ruling after all these years? Or was my sister’s ruling entirely fair, and should I simply let this one be carried away by the breeze?

Cairan Finnerty

May it engorge the court and cure the bailiff of his erectile dysfunction, Once upon a time recently, the group I DM for had finished up the planned activities and still had some antsy energy left over. I made up a little side-quest where the local chocolatier had gone missing! Uncoincidentally, my beloved wife is the local chocolatier in real life, and with the missing chocolatier sharing a full name and other characteristics with her, the group felt very invested in securing her safety. They followed a chocolatey trail to where she had been secreted away from a fierce gang of bugbears who had carved out a home in the sewer. I had thought that this would make a nice little fight to round off the session with an easy win. However, the players visited such carnage and destruction upon the hapless creatures that my narration turned the player's actions sinister, lingering on the gory details of their slaughter. I began hinting that the bugbears merely wanted to learn the secrets of tempering chocolate from an expert that was happy to help, before the players arrived and brutally murdered them. The thing is - I hadn't planned on the bugbears being chocolate disciples until they were mid-decapitation, and the shift from faceless monsters to sympathetic students was very transparent, which led to complaints from the table. Should I have made my players feel awful about their actions which were, until I decided otherwise, the obvious right thing to do? Or was I right to make their actions and DnD at large a metaphor for a system based on violence leading to genocide?

grass_illusion

To the glorious divinely appointed justices, and the-turd-in-the-yard-with-hot-sauce-on-it-so-the-dogs-won't-eat-it-Hurwitz. I bring you the case of the neighborhood BLOAT party. Justices, I am a huge D20 & NADDPOD fan, and I've played as a PC in several long running campaigns. Recently, I decided to pupate into a baby DM for the first time, so l sent out a message to my neighborhood group chat. I was hoping to find a couple players that were local so scheduling would be less of an issue, and hopefully meet and make friends with more people in my neighborhood (I just moved). I was expecting to get one or two bites, but l've gotten many more requests to participate than I anticipated. 8 people have messaged me saying they want to play in my game, 5 of whom are not neighbors at all, but friends of neighbors (several of whom have mentioned that they might not be able to come consistently, despite that being the one request I made of prospective players). Justices - am I wrong to be firm about building the party that fits with the kind of campaign I want to run? Or am I being an Exclusionary Evelyn? How do I cut fat off of this party and not ruin relationships with my new neighbors, when as a baby DM I was expecting to run a game for 3, maybe 4 people? l await your sensual but firm judgement...

Dirtypotsticker

To the deacons of dice Christ and justices of the high crit, may the church and state never part. I bring forth the case of “convergent thinking”. I recently started playing in campaign with some close friends. During character creation one of us made a Goliath path of the giant barbarian hoping to dip into rune knight for more big boi flavor. I myself reskinned a duergar and flavored it as my sea dwarf paladin. Our third player said he would be playing a gnomish soul knife rogue. Before our first session our gnome rogue told us that he had changed something’s about his character to fit the story better, we thought nothing of it, but when we started playing he introduced his. DUERGAR RUNE KNIGHT. Justices, I ask you if we are over reacting, but the barbarian and I feel like he’s made a character that steps on both our toes and steals a lot of the flavor that we had put into our characters. We had planned to just deal with it, but popped off when he made hero forge renderings of my character with a scuba tank! Our dm knew all of our characters and still gave the okay on it.

Krispy Carebear

, I don't know if it's too late, and actually, this has probably just a question.In general, like I wanted to submit a court case.But it was actually geared as a thank you to naddpod, for helping in my journey in life, by their journeys.And if it's too late to submit, I was wondering if there was a way that I could reach out to them to send it as just a heartfelt, thank you.

Thomas Harris

Forgive me Dice Christ for I have sinned. I have only played one game of D&D and it was with my 3 kids. They were 5, 8, and 10 at the time. I did a session zero with them and got their characters all figured out, but I had never DM'd or played before so I didn't really know what I was doing or how to do it. I setup a little town and got their figurines all placed at a tavern. They were given a simple quest to help the barkeep takeout an evil gourd that was terrorizing people behind the building. I got confused with the stat blocks I looked up and gave this Evil Fire Gourd like 600hp and fire immunity, but weakness to water. They were all level 1. I didn't want them to lose, so I gave them all really busted artifacts and allowed my son to call on different wildlife to help with combat. Alongside that, my middle child was a cleric and I let her pray and use a divine intervention style mechanic that would deal damage or heal party members once per turn if she rolled odds or evens. My youngest wanted to do damage so I told her that she had water bottles that she could throw at the enemy doing 50 flat damage per hit. I thought that might make her like playing more knowing she could help. Well after failing her throws over and over again, she began to get discouraged. I started fudging the dice to make sure the beasts were doing max damage and I would use the Gourds turn to taunt and monologue instead of attack. After an hour, they finally beat it and they just looked exhausted.. we haven't played since and it's been 3 years. Am I cursed to never play with my kids again or should I use the knowledge I have now to setup a new game? Will dice Christ ever forgive me for lying about my dice rolls as a DM? What is my penance for these crimes? How can I be clean again?

Alinious

Honored court and also Jim, I bring to you a case that is outside the strict bounds of “dnd court”. My group and I have been playing a new ttrpg “Draw Steel” which more heavily emphasizes tactics and makes several major changes to traditional d20 games (ex. You can’t miss an attack but either get a tier 1,2,3 or crit result). Several abilities in this game are triggered by “forced movement”, so if an enemy pushes you you get a free reaction. The issue at hand is that a player in my group, playing a wizard equivalent had an ability that read “when you are forced moved you can teleport up to 10 ft”. When she was pulled 30’ and swallowed by a plant monster the dm ruled that because the plant monster’s ability didn’t include the key word “forced movement” it wasn’t technically forced movement. We argued that the spirit of “forced movement” is being forced to move, regardless of if the book bothered to explicitly call it that.

Ken

To the Sweetie Justices and the sour little bailiff, I give you the Case of the Robot Fucker. May it please the court. A couple months ago, I started a new d&d group with some coworkers. I have some experience as a DM, however all but one of my players are brand new. I was excited to foster a love of the game in the new players, and was hoping the self-proclaimed “veteran” would help encourage his party members. This “veteran” created a human fighter named Magnus with no backstory, stating “I’ve played every story, and I’m bored of them all”. The second session in, the party was infiltrating the laboratory of an evil scientist and were fighting security androids. The party managed to down one of the androids, and on Magnus’ turn, he says “I fuck the dead robot.” I gave him the DM “Are you sure?” and he said yes. Admittedly a bit annoyed by this, I decided that sticking one’s dick into a collapsed pile of frayed wires and metal would be similar to the effect of a lightning bolt spell. Failing his save, dropped. When our cleric’s turn was up, I reminded her that she had healing spells and could bring him up. Instead, she said “no, I think I finish the job.” The cleric stabbed down into Magnus, causing him to fail his last death saving throw. For the rest of the session, the player was withdrawn and despondent. Since this was fairly early in the session, I offered to let him play one of the NPCs, but he refused. High Justices of the Supreme Crit, was I wrong to go so hard on this sad man? Should I have discouraged the cleric from killing him? I generally do not like PvP and I never want my players to go home sad. Please pass down your fair but brutal judgement on this case.

Libby

Hey, to everyone equally apart from that one guy because it’s custom to be rude to one of you right and I’m a creature of habit so obligatory fuck that guy. I feel like my DM doesn’t know how to finish our campaign. Scratch that, he’s scared to finish the campaign. Every time it seems like we’re reaching a perfect place for a denouement - big romantic beats, in-world political achievements, one of the characters becoming the human/horse/bird hybrid in a way that had been telegraphed since the beginning - the campaign continues. Everyone at the table has repeatedly said they want a new campaign. He’s always been quite distant, and I worry that there’s something going on his life that means he’s scared to move on. Tbh, he definitely doesn’t vibe at the table in the same way as the rest of us players. There are other people that we want to play with, and it means time spent on him, which I think is a big issue. None of us want to be rude to this DM (he does work very hard), so should we keep the playing along in the hopes that he’ll soon stop this nonsense? Or should my fellow players and I conspire to ‘collapse the scrum’ (rugby metaphor - I am British). Thank you

Rafael Llinas

To the most excellent justices, and to the totally professional, completely effective and long suffering bailiff Jake. I am a DM who encourages fun back stories and asked for abilities and exceptions if players can explain to me why their character would have it . Always based on that well thought out history. I have other players who just roll up a character and play. Everybody has seen my pattern, which is Rule of cool and if you can support it, I’ll give it. Still there is a pair of players with less imagination who often complain that I give the other players things to support their character and not them.. Am I wrong to reward players for elaborate backgrounds and well defended reasons why their character should have X or Y, when the whole table knows that I do this. I submit to the ruling of the court. -yours DM Rule of Cool

Kody Ova

Dice Christ, forgive my Druid for I have sinned! We recently received a whomping against a Lord of the Hells, in which 5 of 7 party members died, and the only way we survived was by a last second Crit from the DMPC, a Slaying Bow wielding, Solar. While quickly regrouping my Stars Druid cast Reincarnate on our Dragonborn Paladin so he could cast Revivify on others… He came back as a Forest Gnome. This has nerfed his character in a comical, consequence filled way. Congregation, I realized I had Revivify prepped, WITH components as soon as the session ended. I am now filled with guilt and am going out of my way to pile him with the party’s magic items to make him functional. This past session I didn’t roll above a 7 during an RP heavy session and ended up collateral for a new Devil Contract.

Lordfourquad

Dear most honorable bailiff Jake, (and I guess the justices too) I present the case of the misread mind flayer. So I recently ran a Lord of the rings themed one shot that I changed names of stuff in middle earth to see how long it took them to notice it was essentially a copy pasted LOTR adventure with dnd monsters. (FYI it took them about 10 minutes in to notice) so I started the one shot and all was going well until I got to the BBEG fight which was a mind flayer. What my PC’s did was grapple the mind flayer so it can’t cast any spells due to not being able to use somatic components. I believed them and they effortlessly kicked the ass of my BBEG. later I realized its psyonic ability to cast spells without any components. Did I rob my players of a good fight by not reading my BBEG’s abilities or did they simply trick me for an easy fight. I await your judgement.

SicBoi

To the honorable defenders of justice and unquestionable authorities of morality Murph, Emily, and Caldwell please have your intern Jack read this Case in a Batman voice. I bring to you the case of the Magic missile crisis. I am a forever DM who has been teaching every person I come into contact with how to play D&D and I recently convinced several of my co workers to start a game. In this game one of my co workers plays and Eldridge knight based on Batman, despite him constantly insisting I give him a gun. The issue with this player is that they refuse to use any other spell than magic missile stating “I don’t want to have to roll to hit”. We have had 6 full session at this point and he still will only use the one spell and no matter the outcome of the battle he will insist that magic missile is the reason they survived. Anything short of a player death is seen as a success to him. I have even tried dangling monsters that are clearly vulnerable to his other spells and explained that they would take double damage from a spell like ice knife yet he persists. Finally last session I made them fight a monk who caught and threw back every single magic missile sent his way. My player then got upset and said I was specifically creating enemies to counter act his favorite spell and that I was cheating. To which I replied “nuh uh” as he called back “uh huh”. So ye honor bound trinity have but two choices for my one question. Am I cheating nuh uh or uh huh?

brightrune

To the honorable justices and the perfectly fine bailiff- I present the case of Pokémon nomenclature: I am the wife worm of an incredible forever DM who homebrews nearly every aspect of our campaigns. I respect his craft, but I would be lying if I said I don’t enjoy the occasional goof, especially during character creation. Over the years, I have played several mildly goofy characters such as a hot pink grung teen named Gur’lie, an Ooze cleric named High Priestess (HP), and most recently our real life cat who becomes a divination wizard when she falls asleep. All of these characters were for one shots or guest characters in campaigns where I’m not a main PC, and I always put in the effort to make them “real” characters beyond the initial goof. We’ve started making characters for our next full-length campaign. The story will have a gritty, dark vibe and the character I’m working on matches that vibe perfectly- The only problem is her name. I want to name her Altaria, which also happens to be the name of a Pokémon. I think it’s a great fantasy name, and this character has a secret identity so I really like having “alter” as part of her name. However, my beloved DM refuses to have a character “named after a Pokémon” in his game. I explained that while I know the name from Pokémon, this character is NOTHING like the flying dragon type of the same name. I truly feel this name fits the character I’m building. I even offered to use Altaria as her FAKE name at the start of the campaign to soften the blow, but he simply isn’t having it. So I humbly ask: judges, what’s in a name? Is it wrong of me to repurpose a solid name that originally belonged to a baby blue bird dragon, or is my DM wrong for dismissing the name due to its real world connotatioons?

Vinny Panzarotti

To the Arbiters of Justice and the guy whose name definitely starts with a J, but I cant quite put my finger on it. I present to you the case of the "Honey, I Melted the Kids" Our DnD group is blessed with 3 lovely DMs who rotate our stories so we all get an opportunity to play. I only say this because the other two DMs will definitely listen to this podcast, so shout out to them. Our current adventure has our group, the Vengabuds, going through a thoroughly expanded version of Descent into Avernus. My character, a wizard studying at the local wizard school, at one point had a devilish pact to free an Archdevil, named Garguath (Gary for short) from a shield that we wormed our way out of, by trapping Gary in a different magical item. Knowing that this item would not keep him imprisoned forever we decided to head towards Avernus' version of Mount Doom to cast him into the fire and destroy him for good. Along the way we acquired a different magical item, a staff that had the imprisoned souls of fellow students of mine, but was also inherently extremely evil. At the last session we played, I was unable to attend, but we finally made it to Mount Doom and the party decided to throw the item containing Gary into the volcano and destroyed him. The only problem? We also tossed the staff into the fire with the students souls inside the volcano. Which we definitely intended to free, but the players present OOC (including the DM) totally forgot that the souls of 9 innocent students were stuck in the staff. A fact that I *should* have remembered as it was tied to my characters story. The party did not remember until well after the fact and the act of retconning any further actions would seem pretty poor. The question is, what are the consequences? Should our good aligned characters be suddenly turned evil? Should we retcon the decision to throw in the staff? Should we have allowed there to be an opportunity for the kids to escape the staff possibly allowing evil Gary to escape as well? Should our DM have remembered that there were kids souls in the evil staff and warned us? As a group we decided ultimately that our out of character goof is hilarious and that the only way to move past this is to essentially ignore that we ever had the staff in the first place but we await your judgment.

Jake Dwyer

To the wise and benevolent justices on high and their handsome, yet weak-ankled Bailiff, I present the case/sin of the sneaky peek: My first time playing in a campaign, my college group and I were playing an official module. I played a Goliath fighter and I had a fantastic time until we reached the final section of the campaign, where a large percentage of the enemies we faced were elementals. Without a magic weapon, I was useless! I felt like the casters and paladins in my party were shining while I was left in the dust dealing half damage. After being a weenie for what felt like many sessions, I figured I would sneak a peek in the campaign book to try and find a magic weapon. While the book didn’t give me any leads on a weapon, I did read ahead to find the BBEG’s weakness so that I could be the hero in the final battle. When the pivotal moment arrived, I grappled the boss cultist, disarmed him of his cursed weapon, and threw it into the portal he had opened as the book indicated would save the world. The problem is, my DM didn’t follow the book’s conclusion at all! The portal remained open, an ancient earth Titan emerged, and we were all TPK’d as the Titan ate us. When we asked what happened next, the DM told us that the world would be destroyed after our failure. Justices - was I fairly punished for sneaking a peek in the campaign book, or should I have called foul on my DM for straying from the source material and ending my first campaign in utter failure? PS, we have played many campaigns since and remain good friends, and we still laugh about the conclusion. He still doesn’t know I read the book.

Roomba

Oh hey. Didn’t see ya there Dice Christ - I come with a confession of favoritism. I recently started my DMing my first campaign because our forever DM wanted to be a PC so I decided to try my hand at DMing and I’m loving it!! My confession is I find myself favoring him because I want him to have fun, I find myself fudging rolls by 1 or 2 to let him pass or fail because it would be better for his story. Should I be equally fudging for my other players or am I justified in my favoritism for our forever DM?

Folarin Akinmade

Confession of the High Variance dice. A few years' back, I got an opportunity to play in a game after having been a Forever DM for a long period of time. I rolled unbelievably well, a fact which some in the game commented on, but I didn't think too much of it. Until I did. I went back to my dice a couple of months after playing and realised my crime. I had used the High Variance dice I had bought because I wanted to create a Faustian pact between the players of one of my games and a god of luck, who would twist fate to ensure they either wildly succeeded or painfully failed certain rolls (an idea that I might have actually gotten from you guys at some point). Anyway, I was aghast, but have never brought it up with the players in that game (which obviously only lasted one session, anyway). I beg for forgiveness.

Dual Herron

IM SORRY!!! Not a submission but a quick notice for the Two Crew. Bluetooth is a tiny creature and should not be able to carry medium creatures. ESPECIALLY WHEN FLYING. If Murphy is aware and wants to invite the shenanigans then power to you all. If this is an accidental oversight I hope Emily changes her ways in order to prevent the wrath of dice Christ. #honor the cock

Felix Müller

Honerable Bailiff and Lowly, Coverdly and Deceaving Justices. Just a quick one in the new 2024 Monk „Deflect Attack“ Feature. Do you have to spend a Focus Point always or just when throwing the Attack back onto the Attacker? Below follows the wording from the PHB2024 Greeting from Mobius Level 3: Deflect Attacks When an attack roll hits you and its damage includes Bludgeoning, Piercing, or Slashing damage, you can take a Reaction to reduce the attack’s total damage against you. The reduction equals 1d10 plus your Dexterity modifier and Monk level. If you reduce the damage to 0, you can expend 1 Focus Point to redirect some of the attack’s force. If you do so, choose a creature you can see within 5 feet of yourself if the attack was a melee attack or a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself that isn’t behind Total Cover if the attack was a ranged attack. That creature must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take damage equal to two rolls of your Martial Arts die plus your Dexterity modifier. The damage is the same type dealt by the attack.

DJ Matty Lil Crits

To the Wife Worm and Wife Guys of the Supreme Crit, and whatever Jill is legally obligated to call Jake, I present the Absent Husband. We were a group of lv 7s fighting a lich and his minions. the DMPC cleric had thrust her sword into the lich's chest to absorb his magic so we would take only half damage to lower the difficulty of the fight. Knowing the lich couldn't remove the sword, my bard cast heat metal on the sword. After 2 rounds of my bullshit, my DM ruled that I'd heated the sword enough to melt it, even though that's not how the spell works. I was fine with it, and took it as a compliment for my spell usage. We won without any permanent deaths thanks to the cleric's revivify and her father, a Duke of Hell, dragging the boss to hell to completely skip the second phase. My actual grievance is that on the way home, the cleric's husband, an ancient silver dragon and my DM's pathfinder character, arrived to guide us home. As we celebrated our victory, the dragon cornered my character demanding I buy his wife a replacement sword, as the sword I melted had been an anniversary present. As a lv 7 bard, I did not have the funds to buy a new legendary class sword. He said don't worry, I can pay it off later. Judges, I do not want to buy him a sword. if he wants his wife to have a sword to defend her, I recommend he be more present in her life. What say you? I humbly await the wisdom of her worm-li-ness and the compassion of the court.

Revington the Third

To the esteemed and cake-stuffed Justices and the under-caked Bailiff Jorty, I bring before the Court the Case of the Enemies Abound Work-around. Several years ago I ran a campaign that took place in my own unique Domain of Dread in the Shadowfell. My party, a ragtag group of adventurers pulled from different universes, were working to dismantle the Cult of the Shambling Jester, a rival collection of villains from the multiverse. In one of the first, true challenges of the campaign, they ended up in a fight with a version of Grigori Rasputin. During the battle, our Warforged Beasthunter (a homebrewed class my friend was playtesting) was pursuing Rasputin relentlessly. My friend's character had been subjected to some cruel manipulations earlier involving visions of his dead battalion members and had vowed to personally end the mage. At this point, I was getting pretty womped, but as we entered the second phase of the battle, Rasputin cast Enemies Abound on the Warforged, who then failed his saving throw. Since he now had to view everyone in the battle as an enemy, I flavored it so that he was now deep in a flashback of when his soldiers were overrun by hordes of undead and he was the only one left. Now surrounded by horrors, I was excited to have him have to confront this trauma as well as explore more character growth (and maybe have a few stray attacks go towards anyone other than the BBEG). My friend proceeded to explain that it didn't matter, as he saw where Rasputin was when the spell was cast and could easily reason that whatever zombie was in that same place was the one he needed to attack. I told him that the spell was a mind-altering fear effect and that it's reasonable to assume he would be disoriented. He disagreed because it didn't say it RAW. We argued a bit, but I didn't want to ruin the vibe for everyone, so I proposed a compromise by letting him make Insight checks each round to see if he could deduce which fighter was Rasputin. He never failed once. While it seemed narratively fine, the battle soon ended with the spell having been basically neutralized due to logical reasoning. The players had fun, but it felt less like a "yes, and" and more like a straight-up "nuh uh, I'm too good" towards me as a storyteller. Am I wrong to think that he shouldn't have been able to logic his way out of the spell and avoid the possible story elements that could have come from it? Did I give in too easily? Or is my friend justified for this Enemies Abound Work-around?

Stig

Highly illuminating. In sharp contrast to the opening arguments, the defense was hard-pressed not to chortle upon learning that my client and his lil ass bothered to raise any kind of stink over 100gp when they are regularly pulling in such fat stacks. Delightful to hear further clarification that this was not a source of real umbrage at the table and congrats on having a dope game. And as well thank you for engaging in this discourse; I've had a great time. The Bailiff hasn't called me in yet, but I hope the Crit hears your case soon!

Rose

To the most respectable and glorious Judges, I present the case of the High-Elf High-Five. To the lowly bailiff ...your fly is down... May it please the court: I recently got a massage, during which my masseuse and I begin discussing D&D and I mention I am a DM. She gets excited, and asks if I could give her my opinion on the following DRAMA from her most recent campaign. Judges - I am face down, ass up, butt-naked on a massage table - thus I will defer to you. The party was meeting the Elven queen, they need her approval to travel her lands. To show deference, the Wizard and the barbarian both bend the knee to her mighty highness. However, the Paladin - who has a strong core belief that no one person is above any other and refuses to bend the knee to anyone - walks up to her majesty and says "Hey! Nice to meetcha! I'm Tag!" and proceeded to high-five her. The wizard, watching this go down, decided to cast telekinesis on the PC Paladin and force him to bend the knee. The Paladin - not knowing where the spell had come from - decided to draw his Warhammer and prepare for a fight. The NPCs in the room then descended upon the party. This interaction lead to a bloody slaughter, a complete derailment from the objective, and intra party conflict between the PCs and the players. I ask judges... who is responsible for the pandemonium? The Paladin refusing to take a knee? The wizard for forcing the paladin to go against his belief? The DM for not stepping in? The masseuse bringing up another table's drama during a massage? ME!?! (who has nothing to do with this and just wanted the tension worked out of my shoulders from dealing with my own players?) I await your judgement on this case, still heavy with unworked knots.

itsellie

Dice Christ forgive me!!! This year I got to play D&D on my birthday. For my birthday the DM (my husband) gave me a new set of dice. My first roll with these dice was a nat 20. Since its first roll I have not rolled over a seven. I have given these dice four sessions! I have since smuggled them out of the game room and to the bottom of a sock drawer. These dice were a gift, was I wrong to surreptitiously dispose of them??

ROMCOM

Dearest Jack, I kneel before the holy priests that Dice Christ speaks through, and ask that I may confess my sins. About a year ago, I started the first proper D&D campaign that I was a part of, and I was the DM. A few sessions in and I was borrowing *heavily* from the oneshot Frozen Sick, and the players had to investigate the home of a now dead dwarf. I had added one secret room for them to find. The Ranger rolled investigation and got a 19 (totalling a 24), so of course she found the secret room. Then she asked to roll investigation again, to look for another secret room. I, regrettably, said she could roll investigation despite there being no extra secret room. And when she rolled a natural 20. Being the naive little DM that I was I then fabricated a second, silly secret room. I know now that I either shouldn't have asked for a roll OR have had her find something that wasn't another secret room that shouldn't have been there. Revered Clergy of the Dice Christ Church, I beg for forgiveness on not one, but all, but both of my knees. I have learned a lot over the past year but this day still haunts me. Perhaps after confessing I will not wake in pools of my own sweat anymore; I thank the three of you graciously.

Jorge C

To the sanctities Murph, Axford, and Tanner, as well as the birthday boy, Jake (hope you had some cake), I have been living in sin and cannot take it any longer. A few months ago a friend of mine, a new DM, ran a one shot to give me, the Forever DM, a chance to play. After 8 hours playing, we got to face the BBEG along with some of his minions. Biggus Dickus, my monk, got first in initiative, closed the distance, and was able to get most of my Stunning Strikes on the BBEG. We were close to winning, however, by the sixth round one of my party members was down and the other was on death’s door with one hit of the BBEG. This is when I turned to the wicked ways of the dice devil. I knew I was out of Ki Points, but still went for a Stunning Strike, which landed. That gave us enough time to bring everyone up and make one last attack which made us victorious. After the session, my friend showed me the stats for the encounter. It was a CR 20 monster (plus minions) vs a party of three level 5 players. I convinced myself that what I did was fair given the situation but I can no longer live in sin. I repent and will take any punishment as Dice Christ sees fit.

Michael

To the esteemed justices, Murphy, Axford, and Tanner. As well as the bailiff whose name I forgot. I present to you the case of the PC green out. Last week I went to see some friends and over the course of the week prior, I convinced them all to play DND with me as they had never had an experience with it before. To my surprise everyone seemed very excited and put a lot of thought into their characters. I got there about 2 hours before the other friends that were coming and thus had some time to set everything up and finish prepping for the session. This is where things get problematic. Right as my friend who I will refer to as his player name (Rogar) arrived, he and another player, Gumpy. Both took edibles. The first 30 minutes of game play went very well. However, it became very apparent right before the first combat that both of these players were starting to struggle. Before the first round of combat was even over, Rogar was on the ground and began throwing up, while Gumpy laughed uncontrollably until he began throwing up as well. Soon after we put them both to bed and the other PCs were just as upset as me, especially Gumpy’s girlfriend. I and the remaining PCs then went and got food and tried to salvage the night. Am I the issue for expecting my very un-serious friends to manage playing a game that requires a lot of concentration, or should they have not taken the edibles in the first place and kept their composure. For context I have been working on making this campaign for a long time and this is my first time DMing

Agnatha2

Holy representatives of Dice Christ, I prostrate myself before thee seeking penance for being too good of a sister. It was my very first time DMing, and I was DMing my parents and my sister in a one shot for their very first time playing. I was excited to share my favourite game with them, and I wanted them to have a good time. In the final battle against a pack of awakened wolves, things were going very well. The fight was close enough to make it interesting, everyone was living out their action hero dreams (My mom was playing as Indiana Jones and my Dad was playing as specifically the Adam West Batman). I had confidence they would make it out without any PC deaths, that is until I crit 3 times in a row on my sister's witch, Wendy (shout out to the WBN witch class!), the only party healer. Now, my sister was VERY attached to Wendy and I knew it would completely ruin her experience if she died, so I thought that surely a little bit of fudging was better than her being so upset that she never played again. So, I counted one of the crits as a miss and brought her down to 1 HP instead. Looking back, I see that I could have let her go down and found a fun way to bring her back in the combat, but in the heat of the moment my mind went blank. I'm glad that everyone really enjoyed themselves, but I fear I've left a stain on our DnD journey that I can't erase.

James Pettipas

To the esteemed judges and the balif who's pretty cool once you get to know them. I submit to you the case of the hungry ghost. I play with a group every Tuesday and I am the newest member. I like playing with everyone and we generally get along great. Early into the campaign, which is based in a home brew setting going back many years, my halfling barbarian is possessed by an evil ghost and proceeds to kill our parties paladin and his own in game cousin, who is our parties artificer, and finally himself. This course of events was described very brutally and the player with the artificer ended up being upset because when the rest of the party found him his head was cooked in a magical cookpot. He claims the dm took it to far, the DM maintains brutality is sometimes part of the world. I ask you did the DM go too far?

Gracie

To the beautiful judges and beguiling baliff, I submit to you the case of the Repeat PC. I have been playing DND with my college friends for several years now. With no forever DMs, everyone has created a variety of dynamic PCs to match the different settings/TTRPGs we've played in. Everyone except for one player, who has consistently played a brooding PC with a mysterious, dark past, obsession with nature, and a small child to protect. That may sound vague, but mind you, he is always 6'2, elf-adjacent, ranger/rogue, viscious v, with a curious scar. You can always tell who his DM PC is, too. I've lightly encouraged him to try new classes, races, and personalities, but he reliably produces the same dude. I 100% believe in the wonders of DND escapism, I just can’t help but feel annoyed playing alongside the same guy and having to act shocked by his similar character development. At the end of the day, I want my friend to have fun. I can't help but feel that this is illegal. Am I the asshole, or is there beauty in recognizing a friend in every universe? I humbly recline my chair to lower myself before your judgment.

Autumn Sun

To the beautiful earthly representatives of Dice Christ, Worm Wife, Murphbot, and Tanny. Oh, and that Arsenal FC supporter, Jake. Forgive me, for I have sinned. Many moons ago, I was DM'ing for 2 new players who are my Wife's friends. My wife, an experienced player, was also playing and helping the newbies. All were starting at level 1. During the party's first encounter, I rolled well, too well in fact. I rolled a natural 20 on the first attack made on a new player. I then rolled another natural 20 on the second new player. I then rolled a nat 20 on my wife's character, too. This was 3 nat 20's in a row due to initiative order. I have never done this in my life. In fact, I usually roll like Murph. The players were well and truly whomped with the 2 new players going down. For the last of the Nat 20 rolls (on my wife's Cleric), I quickly lied and rolled again, explaining that I should have rolled with disadvantage because of a loose floor board of the tavern where the encounter was taking place (at this, my wife's narrowing eyes make me worry she suspects). My disadvantage roll was an 11, missing her character and allowing her to heal a downed player. Can I ever be forgiven by Dice Christ, and possibly my wife, for claiming a disadvantage was in play when it was not? Or did Dice Christ just not want these guys playing D&D?

TheGlassBook

Your honors: the Indisputable Justices, Emily, Murph, and Caldwell, and the humble Jailiff Bake… I present to you, “A Matter of Semantics.“ I am a bilingual player (English and American Sign Language). In a recent campaign, I gave my PC common sign language as one of their language abilities. My party and I we’re attempting to enter a fortress surrounded by a moat. Its one front entrance was at the end of a bridge guarded by armed trolls. The trolls did not speak common, so I attempted, using my common sign language skills, to negotiate with them in basic gestures. My DM argued that the troll wouldn’t know common sign language, and another player (as if I did not know -_- ) argued that sign language is more than basic gestures. My argument was that people who are skilled in visual forms of communication are more practiced and effective at bridging language gaps using shared gestures, expression, and body language. I would also argue that “common sign language “is a fantasy language that exists only in the world of DND, so my fellow players point about what is and isn’t American Sign Language language is irrelevant and kinda pedantic. In fact it’s worth noting that I intentionally did not use American Sign Language because none of my fellow players speak it and, OF COURSE trolls wouldn’t know ASL. My attempts to communicate with the trolls went unanswered and all that was left was to enter into combat. I haven’t bothered to use signed language skills in game since. Justices, I ask you, was I robbed of a role-play and persuasion opportunity? I humbly await your decision. Signed, The Beleaguered Bilingual

katie potato

I think this is too late this week (not sure though) which is so annoying but pleasepleaseplease resubmit i want to hear this argued over!!

Greyson Henry

Today I supplicate myself before the most revered case reviewers, the ever reputable & regularly irrefutable justices of the supreme crit - Axford, Murphy, and Tanner - and the least baleful but most playful bailiff there ever was - Jake - to spin my woeful tale of “The Little Rope of Climbing That Could (Have Lifted Me Out of a Sticky Situation).” The weekend before last, my party engaged a sticky foe in the depths of a cave system leading us into the abyss. We had been investigating an abyssal disease that had wiped out the majority of a nearby myconid hive when we stumbled across a creature who quickly impersonated an NPC important to one of our party member’s backstory. Upon further inspection, the facade collapsed and we found ourselves facing an intelligent and extremely deceptive slime creature. The DM gave this mini-boss a plethora of frightening abilities from an amalgamation of other deadly creatures across published source materials, including a psychic attack which consumed important memories if we failed a wisdom save. However, the specific ability leading me to make this inquiry was something much, much more detrimental… Based on a lair action of the juiblex, the creature spewed a fetid pool of slime in a 10-foot cube which had the unfortunate power to trap players (me) within it until they (me) were able to pass a DC 21 strength save. Now, my monk (named Ela, rhymes with Kayla) really likes to hit things with his quarterstaff, and being stuck to the ground made that really hard to do. Fair enough, the DM (my lovely partner and tormentor of monks) designed a good monster and challenge for our party. Here’s where the sticky gets tricky. Ela has a rope of climbing, which has come in handy many a time in our adventure thus far. Knowing that with my -1 to strength I would NEED to crit to escape the slime, I pulled out my trusty rope with the hope that I wouldn’t have to mope and simply cope until one of my party members was free to assist me and that I could instead nope out of there myself using some quick thinking. The rope of climbing responds to verbal commands, can move 10 feet per action, tie and knot itself where directed, and move the other end as a bonus action. I argued that if I used my action to tie the rope of climbing to the stalagtite not far above me, and used my bonus action to command the other end that I tied around my waist to raise me, I should be able to be lifted out of the slime without making the saving throw AT THE COST OF my action and bonus action for the round. My DM (who is shaking her head at me in disappointment as I write this) rejected my proposal and told me I would still need to pass the saving throw in order to have the rope lift me from the slime. I argued that a magical rope capable of lifting up to 3000 pounds should be capable of bypassing a strength check of 21 to carry my sticky monk to safety. My usually-wise-but-in-this-case-wrong DM rejected my line of reasoning and urged me to stop arguing, make the roll, and finish my turn (the other two party members, my best friends, looked about ready to throttle me for extended and hopeless negotiation with the DM). I sighed, rolled my 18-turned-17 strength save, and lost another turn down in the muck with my little rope that couldn’t. I beseech you, wisest, fairest, and most-talented-at-guessing-when-did-things-come-out justices, please review my case and let me know: did I place too much faith in my rope of climbing and should I be sentenced to death by DIY slime? Or is my DM wrong for the first time in her life? I await your sentence with eagerness, and prepare myself for the possibility of either punishment or vindication.

Shel B Kennas fav SG is welly’s number one felly

just a heads up-- they record within 1 day of posting these, so i recommend having it in your notes app ready to go and submitting within a few hours of them posting to have a good chance of them selecting your case

William Gallagher

Good morning Justices and a moderately respectful nod to the bailiff, Juipst. May it please the court, I present my case of a new-ish player versus a non helpful DM. My Paladin was brutally disintegrated by a Beholder. I was pretty sad. Life goes on. I had a decided on a tabaxi monk for a new character, as I had overheard a conversation at the table that they get a lot of movement speed. Let me clarify, this is my first campaign ever and have almost no player experience aside from Paladin. I listened to part ofCritical Role campaign 2 but that's my only exposure.I just wanted to play something that didn't rely on spell slots for damage or utility. Here's the circumstance in question. My monk was on the upper deck of a zombie pirate ship. A zombie mage had cast wall of ice on the lower deck of the ship. I thought to myself, what a cool anime moment it would be to sort of alley-oop myself and vault over the wall of ice back into the fray. My DM did not give me any logistical help here with my first combat as a monk. He rolled full damage to my character for *touching* the ice wall as I try to vault it. He did however give me a dex save, which I failed. It was a high level spell and my little tabaxi monk went down that turn. Judges, do you think my DM was a little harsh? I understand I could have argued, "step of the wind" to increase jump distance. Or attempted to completely jump over the wall of ice. Or even just move around the wall. I just wish I was as experienced as the rest of my table at that point and knew I had other options. Especially considering how mobile monks can be on the battlefield. It's been like 6 years since this moment and still it gives me a bit of agita when I think about it. Thank you, benevolent council of Justices, and Juipst for it's contributions. I eagerly await a verdict, as I would like to close this cold case by the end of the year.

Nina

This one shot sounds incredible! I'm sorry for how it ended but I want to applaud you and say that playing something like this it sounds rad!