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Calling All Cases! (Patreon)

Published:
2025-09-03 14:26:42
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Hey, folks! Bailiff James here, to announce that the Supreme Crit is convening imminently. Please submit your brief (I beg!) grievance and or table top drama on this thread here and we will bring you to justice!

Comments

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 Once during a withdrawn, outside of combat he randomly attacked a PC because he “needed the good stuff”.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

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?

Jordyn N

Dearest Supreme Crit Justices and also the Bailiff, I present to you a case of the Accident Oathbreaking 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?

benji b

Honorable Justices and also that man nearby, I bring to you the case of Joel, the coward, gifted a firearm I was running a game some friends (3 brand new players, and veteran), and in a small town they came across a local halfling named Joel (inspired by scoutmaster Denny), and convinced him to show them the way to the tower of the wizard they were hunting. On coming to the tower, Joel insisted that he was too scared of the wizard, and that he shouldn’t continue with them, openly admitting his cowardice. The rouge, named Hush Hush Harold, gave Joel an impassioned speech about being courageous, culminating in hush hush Harold handing Joel a revolver, with the words “Joel, you’ll know when the time is right. Do not hesitate to use this on those who oppose you”. So into the tower he went, armed with his shiny new six shooter. Inside, there was a library that was guarded by 2 roaming gelatinous cubes. The party, all passing the save to see the cubes, decided to attempt to stealth past, so I called for initiative to track the encounter. Joel rolled highest. At this point I must clarify, no one made an effort to tell Joel to be stealthy, and none of them spoke in character while the decision was made. I gave the DM wink by saying “are you all sure everyone here understands your plan?” And I was assured that everyone did. At the beginning of Joel’s turn, I had the party roll an intelligence check and a “courage” check for Joel, using his charisma bonus. Judges, Joel got a 2 on his intelligence, and an 18 on his courage. So Joel, seeing an enemy and for the first time in his life having a weapon fight with, stepped out from cover and fired at one of the cubes. Hell broke loose. The table erupted, saying it was an unfair call, and that surely Joel would know better. But judges I argue, is that not what the intelligence check was for, to know if it would be a stupid idea to stand up and fire? Judges, I ask, was this a fair call? Did my players give Joel too much credit, or was Joel finally being courageous for the first time in his life? P.s. in the same encounter, Joel Died, due to being absorbed by a cube while pinned between two bookshelves. The party was distraught, however, I maintain that Joel died an honorable and worthy death. This death also served the purpose of them not keeping Joel the rest of the campaign.

Rover Bernhard

May it please the court: I present the case of the held action hold-up Our party was in a showdown with a coven of hags holding our ranger hostage. The ranger’s player was out with appendicitis and the character was knocked out off screen and held at knifepoint. The DM said that the hags were readying an action: they would plunge the knife into the ranger if anyone tried to cast a spell. The wizard cast “wither and bloom,” hurting themself and healing the ranger with the same spell. They thought that the one of the hags would act before the wizard since the hags had readied actions. However, the DM ruled that the hag waited until after the ranger was healed, essentially sequencing events against the ranger. The party all eventually made it out alive, but I ask you judges: is it bullshit that the DM changed her mind about when the hag acted?

The Wizard Cass

A warm salutations to you justices and a slightly warmer greeting to the bailiff. I bring to you the case of the relationship ending campaign setting. 5 years ago, I DM’d a campaign for a group of my friends in my homebrew world of mine. It only ran 4 sessions before going on a summer hiatus, during which the couple broke up and the campaign ended. 2 years later, the same thing happened again. I tried to run a short campaign (8 sessions) in the same world. I took 1 week off to prep the finale and during that break, two group members had a nasty break-up and the finale never came. Another 2 years later, it happened a third time. I ran a game in the same world, and it ran for 10 sessions before going on a brief holiday hiatus. The two guys, we discovered, were cheating on their girlfriends with each other, resulting in both couples breaking up, and the campaign never resuming. I cannot stress enough that these were all different groups of people, and that I’ve run other games in different homebrew settings that did not cause break-ups. The seeming only constant is this homebrew setting. Now, several of my friends, including a couple, want to play D&D and I miss DMing. The consensus around the desired genre and vibe fits this world perfectly, and I am quite proud of this world I’ve built over the years. Is it wrong of me to use this world I love and potentially curse their relationship to end? Or must I abandon this setting and create a new steampunk world from scratch.

Ashen

To the honorable justices and I guess also Murph’s DMPC “Jaek.” I present to you the case of the Difficult Druid and the Bleeding Bard. I have been in a campaign for nearly 4 years with four level 8 PCs: a wizard, a monk, a druid, and me, a bard. We are all great friends and there is no bad blood here. Anyway, our dragonborn druid refuses to wild shape, and instead hangs back to use her acid breath or the spell Wind Wall. ONLY Wind Wall, every time. The DM home-brewed an ability for her to wild shape into a young dragon, which she has only used twice since getting it two years ago. As the only PC up in the mix, I get absolutely rocked. The wizard takes hits so I don’t have to, and the monk has stopped using evasion. To add insult to injury, we all watched the DND movie together and when the druid in the movie wild shaped, our druid said, “that’s so cool, I wish we had someone who can do that,” to which I responded, “you can turn into a fucking bear.” I prostrate myself before the court and ask if we should get over our tank not tanking or if we should trap our tank in a wild shape a la Tobias from Animorphs. P.S. don’t play, hate the show

Ambrose Blanchard

to the honorable judges and the bailiff who isn’t into cake yet, i beg for your intercession to dice christ. three years ago, my parents gifted me the special edition box set of curse of strahd (the one where the box is shaped like a coffin, includes the tarokka deck, maps, barovian post cards, and so on). i was so excited to run the campaign for my closest friends. we played once, had fun, but our friend group broke up dramatically within the next few months. i tried again *two years* later, assuming i had shaken off my funk. we played four sessions, had fun, and experienced a dramatic friendship breakup. do *i* have the curse of strahd? please, i beg for forgiveness so i can yet transport my loved ones to barovia. (ps. i’m still close friends with two of the people involved and in a long term romantic relationship with another)

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?

Bakuraptor

To the Supreme Justices of the Crit and rightfully demoted Bailiff Jonk, I ask for either your endorsement or your judgment: Was I wrong to punish one of my PCs with explosive diarrhea because he refused to roleplay his Nat 1s? I've been DMing for a group of five for a year and it's been great fun: my players are really invested and I've loved creating a world for us to tell their stories in. One thing I ask my players to do is to roleplay their nat 20s and nat 1s: I love hearing them explain how they succeeded wildly (or how they totally beefed it) and I think it helps us be more invested in our storytelling. However, one PC (a gloomstalker ranger) hates narrating his failures (but is more than happy to narrate his Nat 20s). Therefore, to help motivate my PC to lean into narrating Nat 1s, I came up with an innovative solution: if he refuses to narrate a Nat 1, I now always rule that the Nat 1 happened because his character suddenly and violently shits himself. I've only had to follow through on this threat twice so far - once in a tense negotiation and once when he failed a nature check (I said he felt nature's call far more strongly than he'd expected). My PC is now much more involved in our collaborative storytelling thanks to this threat, but I fear I have merely coerced this cooperation. Was I wrong to punish his impudence with involuntary incontinence? I 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.

CamSmall

Greetings Judges and Bailiff, I humbly present the Case of the Unlucky Barovian 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.

Noah Kyle

!!UPDATE!! To the justices and the bailiff I bring to the court an update AND a new case, the case of my players v. the Supreme Crit The Recap: I am the starfinder DM with bad self-talk who took the mulligan on a soul projection prison break when my player’s questions made me realize I did not like this plot thread. You sentenced my players to have cat John Cena threaten their lives and then jizz in the back of their car (it was a weird episode) The Update: we have had the prison break since this case was submitted and it went exceedingly well. The prison played many cerebral tricks on my players and in the end they broke the backstory character out only for an assassin, who was assigned to kill the character if she ever got out, to kill the NPC, the player that knew her, and another PC who sacrificed themselves so the rest could escape. It was rad as hell and has started a super fun goth arc in our campaign we’re all very excited about. A New Case: I was extremely excited to share with my players that we had been featured on my favorite podcast; I have been listening since ~Ep 50 of C1 and have mentioned something from the show to one or more of my players at least once a week. I tell you this to tell you that I can not do that anymore because to my players NADDPOD’s name is mud. They were all some combination of incredulous or enraged at the Court’s ruling that they were “pedantic” and that you should not question the DM’s story for logic. They are especially mad at justice Murphy, who in the episode was staunchly against asking questions at the table, saying things about him like”fuck that guy”, “that question hating chode”, or, “Murph, that 5 foot 3 bitch”. Any mention of the show or their punishment has me taken to the razzberry patch, specifically because “we didn’t sue you” and how dare I submit a case to a court that must have someone punished? Justices, should I explode my players? They’re talking mad shit, and I have a lot of power as their PC’s God, so should I just wreck their shit? Or have I done my players wrong by misrepresenting them in the highest crit of the land?

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

Claire

May it please the whimsical Justices, and the little baby boy….. James? I beg your righteous judgement in the case of First Ever PC vs Current PC. My partner of 4 years has DMed the only two games I’ve ever played in. In the first campaign, I played a Grung (due to mine and my partner’s love for Frog and Toad) named B, and I loved them like a little piece of myself. Unfortunately, the game fizzled out due to scheduling, so I never got to finish B’s story, or even use their new spear they got in our final session, called the Brittany Spear. In our current campaign, our party is making our way through the temples of the gods to gain enough boons to take down the demonic “Dark Mother”. I was late to a session due to my Environmental Justice class (I hope you don’t let my noble studies effect your decision), and my party was exploring one of the temples when I arrived. I was shocked to hear my partner describing the party from our old campaign as the opponents in this temple. The battle came down to my Necromancer wizard, our party’s paladin, and my old character, B, and I was devastated, unable to kill my beloved first ever DND character. My partner had even leveled them up higher than I got to play them, and used B’s Brittany Spear, which I never got to use, against my current character! I ended up sucking it up and our paladin took B down, but I’m still a little sad about having to fight my old PC. Justices and baby boy Jakes, am I allowed to be a little sad about this? Is my partner wrong for making me watch my current party kill my first ever DND character, while using their cool new stuff that I never got to use? PS: I subscribe to the Patreon and my partner doesn’t, if bribery helps my case…

Miles Studenick

My party used “Hold Monster” on a vehicle because I made the mistake of calling it a “Monster Truck.” Am I a pushover for allowing it or was there merit to this claim??

Bakuraptor

To the Supreme Justices of the Crit and rightfully demoted Bailiff Jonk, I ask: Was I wrong to punish one of my PCs with explosive diarrhea because he refused to roleplay his Nat 1s? I've been DMing for a group of five for a year and it's been great fun: my players are really invested and I've loved creating a world for us to tell their stories in. One thing I ask my players to do is roleplay their nat 20s and nat 1s: I love hearing them explain how they succeeded wildly (or how they totally beefed it) and I think it helps us be more invested in our storytelling. However, one PC (a gloomstalker ranger) hates narrating his failures (but is more than happy to narrate his Nat 20s). Therefore, to help motivate my PC to lean into narrating Nat 1s, I came up with an innovative solution: if he refuses to narrate a Nat 1, I now always rule that the Nat 1 happened because his character suddenly and violently shits himself. I've only had to follow through on this threat twice so far - once in a tense negotiation and once when he failed a nature check (I said he felt nature's call far more strongly than he'd expected). My PC is now much more involved in our collaborative storytelling thanks to this threat, but I fear I have merely coerced this cooperation. Was I wrong to punish his impudence with involuntary incontinence? I humbly await your judgment.

Gabriel Felix

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

Rebecca

To the bone dry justices and the slightly soggy bailiff, I bring to you the case of the OP spider. I’ll cut straight to the point. It was our final session. I was playing an Elven Warlock named Alanis, as it is a dope ass name and whoever came up with it is quite cool. We were trying to finish up the quest we were given and had ended up in a field equidistant from a wizard tower (our end goal) and a random city. So we determine to go to the tower. This was apparently contrary to what the dm had planed. The DM groaned a bit about us not going to his cool city, then got a funny look in his eye and narrated my character’s shoe getting stuck in the mud. So I narrate taking my foot out, pulling out the shoe, and then putting my foot back in. SURPRISE! In the shoe was a spider that then bit me and poisoned me without a save. That poison PARALYZED ME INSTANTLY and the DM was adamant that I would be unable to move for the next three days. And that’s how the campaign ended. A full year of play finished with my character paralyzed in the mud with no story arcs completed. So I ask you this, was the DM right to “railroad” us in such a way? All in all it doesn’t really matter, this is just a thing that will come to mind every once in a while and I’ll get pissed off all over again. I await your response. PS: I have many examples of this dm being……interesting in his rulings but that is a case for another day

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

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? This still comes up with my friends occasionally and they still stand by their decision not to tell me. I leave this up to the court and will abide by your ruling.

Francis D

To the illustrious justices and the odious little bailiff, I bring to order the case of the lazy table. For two years I have been DMing a homebrew campaign for a table of six. It is all of our first experience with DnD, and for the most part it has been a wonderful ride, but there’s a huge issue I can’t move past; my players will not learn the rules, and they will not role play. It’s especially strange considering they all tell me and everyone we know how much they love to play, how excited they are for the next session, but their characters have no discernible personality traits, and they don’t speak a word to each other unless it’s to decide what to do or solve a puzzle. Justices, I have to tell them what to add to their roll every single time they roll. No one knows their spells or abilities, and I have to walk them through every step of their turn during every instance of combat. Am I wrong to be upset that my players don’t engage more with the game or spend some of their free time learning the rules while I’ve put in hours of work every week prepping sessions for the last two years? I’ve stopped asking that they try at the risk of coming off as an angry teacher. Please justices, I prostrate myself at the mercy of the court, supine and primed for judgement.

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 connotations?

UnionizeYourWorkplace

Justices, First time sharing, still in Campaign 1 listening in order. Sharing my current DMs Reddit post which was his, my wife and I’s first DnD campaign. Which our previous DM picked Tomb of Annihilation for a big group (9) with many first timers. All only Lvl 7 when we got into the tomb. “Look, I get it. "The DM makes the rules, blah blah blah". But when you have a DM removing stats from ability checks, trying to remove the Rangers ability to not get lost in their favored terrain because it's "overpowered bullshit", and overall just having a bad attitude unless they're "winning", it gets old. I have no issue approaching disagreements head on, and would take time after each session to have a conversation about things that myself and other players didn't like with the DM. They would dismiss literally everything, one point even saying "The other players suck at dnd, so it makes sense that their characters are stupid". I was speechless at that statement. Many sessions later, each with their own accompanying horror story, we reach the topic of conversation. So the party reaches an area in a large, inescapable dungeon. This area has an npc spellcaster that is.... amicable, if not snooty. Literally everything in this dungeon has tried to kill us with no exception, so my character shuts the door to the room and confers with the party that "we're definitely killing this guy, right?" Party agrees. As we're discussing, DM says "suddenly the area around you is filled with darkness" and I ask "does this look similar to the darkness we've seen our Warlock cast?" Dm hesitantly says yes, so I tell the group in character that "as soon as this drops we rush the bastard", and tell the DM that the moment the darkness drops my character is rushing through the door. After a minute or two, DM says "Everyone make a Dexterity saving throw". We all ask why, they say that a wall of fire is hitting all of us. Mind you, the darkness is still up, the door's still shut, and we're all in a twisting hallway. I bring up that both wall of fire and darkness require concentration, and wall of fire requires line of sight. DM spends 15 minutes reading each spell, then says the darkness falls, but the wall of fire still hits all of us. We ask how he's casting it through the door, DM says it simultaneously burst through the door as he cast it. I state since the darkness dropped, that would've triggered my movement, but DM argues that it happened too quickly to react. WHAT. We're all flabbergasted at this shenaniganary, and ask since wall of fire requires line of sight to cast, how did he cast it through the door, through the darkness, and through a twisting hallway with pinpoint precision to hit everyone. "He can see the layout of the dungeon in his mind". WHAT. After some back and forth, DM's now shouting "YOU ALL FREAK OUT AND NEVER LET ANYTHING PLAY OUT!" So we calm down and say alright, let's let this play out. Our sorcerer is up and says they throw a fireball in the room. "You can't see in there due to the flames". WHAT. Some more back and forth about the insane flip-flopping on rule interpretations. Eventually DM relents, and the fireball is cast. Our rogue, who's playing through discord and can't quite see the map, started in the fire, so they took damage. They then ask to move out of the fire, and ask the DM if they're out of the fire and won't take damage. DM, with a smirk, says "Yes, you're out of the fire and safe". I know how wall of fire works, but keep my mouth shut, because SURELY the DM wouldn't tell a player they're safe when they're not. Nope. As the turn ends, " You take 36 points of fire damage." Rogue is asking why, DM is saying they're too close to the fire. Everyone is asking why the DM thinks the character is so stupid that they would stay where they're actively being burned. DM says since it's magical, they don't realize they're burning. WHAT. At this point I'm packing my stuff up, DM says we're moving on to Banachops turn. I say "nah, I'm out. I'm done with these insane combative rulings". Everyone is begging me to sit back down. I say "I know exactly how my turn will play out, but let's find out for fun". For visual imaging: my character was nearest the door, about 15ft away in a straight, 5ft wide hallway. The wall of fire filled said hallway, the only way out being to continue through the wall of fire. I sit back down. My character started their turn in the wall of fire, so they already took damage. I say "I move through the wall towards the wizard dick". DM says you take more fire damage. I ask how in the evergreen fuck do I take more damage. Since I never left the wall of fire, I can't "enter" as I move through it, so no damage should occur. They're argument? "You entered a new SQUARE in the wall of fire. So you take more damage". This is exactly how I anticipated they'd rule it. So I packed back up to leave again. DM relents on that decision to get me to sit back down. Against my better judgement, I do. My character rushes in and smashes the NPC's head in, ending the fight. Session continues and ends shortly after. Sidebar, a character died in a previous session, and DM says "too bad that fireball went through, the way to find players new character was in there". Okay bud. We played one more session after that one, culminating with another character dying to some more combative shenaniganary. So now that campaign has ended. Now, I DM for most of the players in that group, much to their satisfaction, with far less (none) DM vs Player rulings. I'm posting this right before I go to bed, and will answer questions (if any) when I wakeup.”

Drew P

Dear Bailiff Jake, noble, jacked hero of the proletariat, My character, a scrounging goblin wizard named Grub, recently popped like a water balloon of blood. In building my next level 8 character, a bard/sorcerer who was abducted to the Feywild as an infant, the DM let me pick some magic items to catch up with the party. One item caught my eye, the Mizzium Apparatus. Essentially, it lets you roll a variable Arcana check to cast any spell on your classes spell list, regardless of if you’ve learned it or have it prepared. A failed check wastes the slot on a random spell. This item is a bit controversial, so I checked with my DM first, making the case that it wouldn’t be that broken for my specific character (as I was limited to just the Bard and Sorcerer lists with good-not-great Arcana) Somewhat surprisingly, the DM not only allowed this with no hesitation, he also gave me the option to make it MORE powerful: turning it into my character’s “signature magic item” and allowing me to us it cast to cast ANY spell, regardless of class list. This allows it to surpass even the broken-ness the D&D internet feared and I specifically tried to avoid. With shame in my power-gaming ways, I gave into temptation and accepted the balance-busting item. Jake, am I the Devil? No better than those vile bourgeois justices you bravely stand against, with their robes woven of the blood and sinew of the working man? Should I have rejected this DM boon in order to avoid overshadowing the rest of my beloved party, some of which are very inexperienced without very optimized characters? I trust you with my very life, Jake, and prostrate myself before your virile judgment. (Just a note if further context is needed: this happened very recently, so the item hasn’t had any game-changing moments in session yet)

Tabaxi Druid Sarah

To the Most Excellent Supreme Crit Justices and the Most Bogus Bailiff, I was playing with some friends and we encountered a gelatinous cube. My un-dexterous cleric got engulfed by it and I asked if I could cast misty step to get out. However, misty step has a verbal component, so the debate began - can you cast it inside the cube? Point for: - it's gelatinous, not liquid, so it wouldn't immediately rush into my mouth and since I would have taken a deep breath prior to engulfment, I should have enough air for one spell Point against: - you can't talk without air, so you can't cast the spell After some debate, the DM ruled a compromise: if I passed a DC 15 CON check, I could cast it. Naturally, I got a 10 and with my -1 strength, I couldn't get out. I then continued to comedically fail every subsequent save until the cube died. This was all friendly because we're adults who like each other, but I'm writing because we tried googling to see if there was anything online clarifying the rules of this and there wasn't. So, I'm writing to the court to ask for them to consider setting the Gelatinous Casting Precedent. Many thanks. Sarah aka Tabaxi Druid P.S. My cats Trixie Meowtel and Jake Purralta asked me to say hi to all the 2 Crew Critters

AnonymousDM

Benevolent Justices and, *clears throat*, I bring the case of the fireproof satyr. In the 51st session of my soon-to-end homebrew campaign, the party fought imperial snitch wizards on a warship. After one injured mage got pushed into the bay, he Fireball-ed the only PC in sight — my friend Jack’s satyr ranger Tumnus Spanakopita, and his wyvern mount. As a satyr, he gets Magic Resistance, so advantage on saving throws against magic. But does that mean advantage saving against Fireball? The advantage totally makes sense to me for a Flesh to Stone or Suggestion, but if a magical AOE drops an ice storm or a fireball on him, why should he get advantage? Jack’s rebuttal: idk i’d def argue it’s magic fire.

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." I'm in a campaign based on 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. He left put time frame, urgency, and location details becuae, 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...it was on fire and burning to the ground when we got there. He blames the rest of the party because *we* knew what the party were supposed to do. We blame him because he chose not to give our characters the information. Judges, who is at fault for this mishap?

Bakuraptor

To the Supreme Justices of the Crit and rightfully demoted Bailiff Jonk, I ask: am I wrong to threaten one of my PCs with explosive diarrhea when he refuses to roleplay his Nat 1s? I've been DMing for a group of five for a year and it's been great fun: my players are really invested and I've loved creating a world for us to tell their stories in. One thing I ask my players to do is to roleplay their nat 20s and nat 1s: I love hearing them explain how they succeeded wildly (or how they totally beefed it) and I think it helps us be more invested in our shared storytelling. However, one PC (a gloomstalker ranger) hates narrating his failures, but is more than happy to narrate his Nat 20s. Therefore, to help motivate my PC to lean into narrating Nat 1s, I came up with an innovative solution: if he (or anyone else) refuses to narrate their Nat 1, I now always rule that the Nat 1 happened because the character suddenly and violently shat themselves. I've only had to follow through on this threat twice so far - once in a tense negotiation, and once when he failed a nature check (I said he felt nature's call far more strongly than he'd expected). My PC is now much more involved in our collaborative storytelling thanks to this threat, but I fear I have merely coerced this cooperation. Was I wrong to punish his impudence with involuntary incontinence? I humbly await your judgment.

DoodBroMcManGuySir

MY DM TORE MY ARMS OFF? Good Morrow, my gracious juctices. And, I guess, the extremely stinky and gross bailiff Jacque... I have a case in which I feel my DM wrongfully stole my arms. And yes. I am not kidding. My Dm tore my characters arms off. For context, my character is blind like toph from ALTA, in which she has some vision but it's like outlines of things she can feel. Our group recently went to my father's house in the campaign and found a magical vault in which I stole a weird magical book (the necronomicon). After this we went to another party member's family's home to find out more info on the cult we were semi hunting. With this info we realized the book has more to do with the cult than we thought. With that information we decided to try and make our way into the magical dimension the book was from. Even though we had been talking about going to this dimension for a couple sessions our DM seemed very caught off guard when we decided that we were going this past session. She repeatedly tried to get us to go somewhere else but we were very determined. With that I decided to ask if I could create a portal with the book. Obviously I know the Nerconomicon has consequences so I asked if I rolled arcana could I better understand the spell. I rolled a natural 17 with a +6 so well over 20. She told me the consequence was quote "not great but not terrible" so with that and how high I rolled I assumed something minor. I cast the spell and she proceeded to describe how both my arms were torn from the sockets and morphed into the necronomicon. Making my character not only blind but armless. I was immediately upset but tried to stay calm. Mostly just having a 'stankface'. I'm sure she noticed as I she then started backpedalling and said I now had nubs forming from the magic of this different dimension, and that they were not great and the magic from them was going crazy. After the session everyone was making jokes but I think we all were upset by what happened and I just ended up leaving with the two party members I had drove with. In the car we all agreed it was wild and uncalled for. During the drive she messaged in our group chat and personally called me out saying if I was upset that we could talk about it. Which felt very bad to me as I felt like a spotlight was placed on me for being upset. Since then we have worked it out and come up with a better mechanic for the necronomicon going forward and the end of our last session was retconed out. But, my Gracious juctices, was I right to be mad and did my DM make a bad choice? P.S. I love you guys very much and I really hope you guys get to read this! Love, your humble viewer, Chrissi

Cody W

Dear mighty Just Justices and the pretty cool bailliff Jak 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, XX 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 scale just her PC, 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 9 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 their father is the reason they started the adventure. However WF was recently having irl issues with 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 creative things with a character you spawned

Steve E

To the Honorable and extremely attractive Judges, and that guy who played Ace in Ace and Jocelyn: I present to you the Case of the Omnipotent Interloper. Several years ago in my college days, I was part of a DnD game with some friends. It was our first session, and we were all very excited for the campaign. The problem arose when the DM brought his non-player girlfriend to the game, and said she was just there to "observe". The problem is, I knew this girlfriend very well by this point, and I knew out the gates that she was going to do far more than just "observe". I told her up front that, while she could be part of the discussion between roleplaying, she was not a part of the game since she did not have a character to play, and thus could not contribute to in-game discussions. She said she understood. Evidently (and predictably), she did not. It took her no time at all to begin adding her two cents to party discussions, saying things like "you guys should do X" or "don't forget about Y". I explained to her multiple times (admittedly a little less friendly each time) that she was not a part of the game, and that her input broke immersion and hurt the roleplay. She never learned her lesson, and the session eventually came to an end. We never continued that campaign (or ever started a new one), and I can't help but feel like it was at least partially due to the tension created by my repeated scolding of the DM's girlfriend. Nobody else, including the DM, ever said anything to her about it, but that is most likely because most of that friend group were introverts who likely did not want to rock the boat . We never spoke about the session again, but I am confident that my fellow players felt the same way that I did about her transgressions. Judges, was I right for calling out my DM's intrusive girlfriend while admittedly bringing some negative vibes from past interactions with her to the table, or should I have allowed this omnipotent voice from the heavens to continue to speak to our party? I await your absolute judgment.

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; 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.

Fewzie7

Formidable justices of the crit and the feeble bailiff, Jacob. I have been running Curse of Strahd, using Dragnacartas Reloaded (shout out!) for the past year. The paladin missed a few sessions and had to join the party in vallaki, so I had Ismark lend this player a horse to meet the others. They 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. Now almost a year later, the party returned 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 almost tears at the table and our sorcerer’s Very Close Friendship with Ireena came 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

Here’s a quick one for the fickle judges and the guy at the door with toilet paper stuck to his shoe. How much time should you give your DM to add another player? Recently in a home game I run for my sisters and their friends (the whole thing takes place on their shared college campus) and about 3 hours before the last session, one of my sisters told me one additional person was going to join for the game. I was able to make a character sheet out of an NPC they saved along the way, but I was stressed the whole time. Ultimately, the new player said they had fun and wanted in on the next session. So judges, I ask for my own sake and the sanity of other DMs, how much time should you give your DMs if you’re going to add another player?

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. 

Kellyd

To the high crit and jonk! I submit on behalf of some friends i was playing with. Our DM was running a light hearted "girls night" one shot, where all our characters are also friends going to a casino for a night out. An NPC, a waitress at the casino, asked us all if we wanted a shot. One of our friends, who does not drink in real life, declined the NPC's offer, and our DM immediately got nervous and insisting in and out of the NPC's voice that they take the shot. Our non-drinking friend thought it was weird and kept declining and emotions kept heightening until the DM said that they MUST take the shot because it was really a sleep spell in liquid form and the whole one-shot was built around us waking up the next day and having to fill in the blanks of what happened, Hangover style. The non-imbibing friend said that was the DM's problem, not theirs. Who was more in the wrong?

Michael R

May it please the court, To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices who need no introduction and Bailiff Jacob Hurwitz of Spring Glenn, Connecticut I present to you a case of patricide: Last session, my party and I were fleeing a horde of invading Shadowfell monsters by jumping through a portal, which we knew was very unstable and could close at any moment. Despite this, another PC (my actual, real-life little brother) was attempting to haul the unconscious body of his character’s father (a very father who, may I add, was unconscious after we beat him in an encounter where he used a modified “gift of gab” spell to gaslight us). While dragging this dastardly dad, the BBEG appeared, healing the problematic progenitor, who then promptly KO’d another party member along with my brother’s character, and resumed gaslighting us. My turn came, where I was able to heal one player, and then turn to attack the pugnacious poppa with my bow. After rolling a Nat 1, which I re-rolled as a halfling, I rolled a Nat 20. This wasn’t quite enough damage to do it so I rolled my second attack, rolling a second Nat 20. Our DM allows us to deal non-lethal damage, but I felt I couldn’t justify letting my brother’s offensive old man walk away, so I said that I shot an arrow through his forehead, leaving him dead. After our escape, my brother seemed disappointed that he wouldn’t have the chance to reconcile with his deceased daddy, who he had believed (after an Insight check), may have been magically compelled to fight us. Did I do the right thing in putting down this persecuting padre? Or did I rob my actual, real life brother of an opportunity to role play an important moment for his character? I surrender myself to the wisdom and mercy of the Justices.

Charlie Penn

Highly Honorably Justices and The Bailiff I like but wont admit to it for fear the of the Court not liking me: I have an appeal to a case you heard a few months ago. A player brought a case of their DM turning their DnD game into Commander. I have found new evidence for this player to help them at Commander night. A Youtuber, Quips&Guac, has made a Commander deck that makes you the DM and forces your Commander game to be DnD. Basically, your Commander is Riku of Many Paths who buffs when modal spells are cast, then you run a bunch of the Forgotten Realms modal spells like "You Meet in a Tavern". I ask, should a player forced into a new game be able to force the rest of their table back in a DnD session? Note: I am in no way affilated with the previous case, I just saw this deck list and thought of Dungeon Court. Deck List and Youtube video links attached as evidence. https://archidekt.com/decks/15576694/dd https://youtu.be/BAY4HD4raHY?si=7PT7KlGuUa3kKk4P

Nathaniel F

To the most esteemed Bailiff Baby Boy-Witz, beloved judges, and the lowly Byron Smurfy. I beseech you to sharpen your executioner’s axe(ford) and hear the case of my thieving DM. Several years ago, in my groups first campaign together, we were hired by a simulacrum-like illusory wizard who wanted to become a real boy. The dead original had started making an “illusion-made-real” machine. Our Artificer and Wizard fixed it up, and to test it, the Wizard made an illusion of a pile of platinum bars, totaling some 500k gp or something. It worked, so we used it on the illusory Wizard. All seemed successful. As we happily skipped our way back to town, our DM told us the platinum had a half life of one hour, and is starting to disappear (but the now-real wizard was fine). As he mentions this, a little red devil guy, complete with evil mustache and French accent, pops out of our PC wizard’s watch. He taunted us or whatever and disappeared. We shrug it off as a later problem and we book it to the town bank. There, We set up a deal with the bank teller to launder the disappearing money, and hand her the platinum. At that moment, said little devil guy pops back out, pushes the teller into the bank vault portal, jumps in after her, and locks it from the inside. Sealing our money, nay our joy, away. We have played many campaigns in this world, and the bank is “still investigating” - Real world and in-game years later! Were we wrong in expecting to benefit from the system he put in place? Or is he the Scrooge we’ve all believed him to be?

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

Guy

To the dear justices…I bring you the case of the long line. I am the DM for a noir inspired campaign. My players were trying to get into a hopping bar and had to wait in line. One of the players characters wouldn’t have been allowed in due to their past dealings with the owner. They suggested that they should be able to hide in their bag of holding and be carried in. Justices, it was a Friday, the second hardest night to get in, and I said that the line would potentially be too long and they would suffocate within the bag. We agreed to a roll to see how long the line was before he enacted the plan, with a natural one being twenty minutes, two being nineteen, etc. Justices, he rolled a three. He started complaining that he should be able to poke his head out of the bag. I said that he wouldn’t be able to do this without being seen. He started yelling at me and we almost got kicked out of the library we were playing in. Should my player have been able to sneakily stick his head out of the bag or not? PS, he had invisibility and snuck in anyway.

Ali

To the Gold Medalists in When-Did-This-Come-Out Justices and the Semi-Pro Bailiff Jake, I present the case of the D&DUI: Early in my now 5-year campaign, as a first-time DM, I handed out a Decanter of Endless Water. Over time, I let the players "upgrade" it in different ways. It was too late before I realized they now had a Decanter of Endless Booze that was filled an Elven wine that healed you. Through the muskiest of DM sweats, I tried balancing it by adding a Con Save to avoid "drunkenness" (poisoned + 1 exhaustion), scaling with the amount healed. Punishing enough, right? Wrong. Judges, my players are always drunk. They pregame every fight with keg stands of their decanter to top off their HP and regularly teeter on the edge of death—not from enemies, but from alcohol poisoning through increasing levels of exhaustion. One nearly died mid-fight by getting 6 levels of exhaustion, saved only by bardic inspiration. So, Judges: Was I wrong to hand them the decanter? Should I have cracked down on their spiraling upgrades? Or should I just let them drink themselves to death while my BBEG stands there like their designated driver?

Jesse Dunlap

Oh dice Christ! Oh dice Christ! I am a sinner and a hypocrite! I must confess that I have fallen prey to the same sin that I had judged. I submitted the story of my player “Fat Bastard” in which I had ensured his death at the hand of my other players. Years later I’ve been playing in a campaign for the eye of vecna as a rouge/warlock detective. With great stealth, persuasion, insight, and a free cast disguise self I can basically “become another person” That’s right I’ve been quoting another SNL alumni Dana Carvey and his beloved character The Master of Disguise. My Dm has not seen fit to kill me off so I seek either punishment or forgiveness from dice Christ’s faithful servants. I ask one final time. Is it funny to quote movies or is Brian Murphy just a sour puss.

Rebecca

To the delegates of Dice Christ and Dan, I come asking for forgiveness. My party and I play with opt in massive damage rules so if an attack deals more than half your hp, you can opt in to roll on a massive damage table to have something extra happen, like a scar or the loss of a limb. Basically a simple way to add more flavor to combat. Through a series of unfortunate accidents, the rouge ended up 1v1ing a six headed hydra. The hydra, through six attacks, dealt more than half the rouges hp. Before I could say otherwise, my player joyfully exclaimed, “Hell Yeah! I love consequences!!” And then rolled before I ever told her to. What she rolled was to have her characters arm ripped off. Judges…she was overjoyed. She was so excited that I couldn’t bring myself to clarify that because the hydra had six attacks, it wouldn’t count as massive damage because it has to be done in a single attack. Instead of playing by the rules, I simply narrated the hydra ripping off the rouges arm and have carried this lie with me ever since. It weighs on my soul. May I ever be forgiven?

Egg

Hello esteemed justices and the regrettably present Baliff Jack, I bring to you the case of the ruinous ruins. My DM at the time had a habit of dragging out combat encounters and filling areas with too many enemies, despite our campaign using gritty resting rules (8 hours for a short rest, 3 days in a town for a long rest). We had just recently come from a town where we spent over 6 sessions just in the sewer system dealing with all the issues, and were heading through a forest with a monster related to a DM NPC traveling with us. Our firdt encounter in the woods nearly ended in a TPK, with us retreating outside the forest to rest up. Upon returning inside, the DM narrated us stumbling across an abandoned prison, and heavily hinting we should go inside despite nothing about it seeming promising to anything we were doing. We begrudgingly agreed to, but upon getting inside and smelling the stench of death and beginning to see some undead, our traumatized characters turned and left to continue our quest. The DM in response then had the DM NPC who was crucial to the current quest turn and go inside after we left, to try and force us to follow him and clear out the area. The campaign fell apart shortly afterwards but I ask you, was it wrong of us to dodge an optional dungeon in a deadly area, after having slogged through sewers for multiple months IRL? I throw myself at your feet and beg for forgiveness.

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?

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

Laura Balan

Hello honorable justices and the less honorable but still tolerable bailiff, I bring to you the case of the impossible persuasion check. My friends and I were playing through the Lost Mine of Phandelver. Myself and the DM had played quite a bit, while the rest of the party were brand new. We were still squishy at level two and had come from a pretty rough fight, with most of us still at half HP, when we encountered a band of very strong (compared to us) red cloaks in the town square. These red cloaks are like the town guard/mafia and were threatening us with violence if we did not pay a certain sum of gold, which between all 4 of us we didn’t have. I was playing a swashbuckler rogue and had the highest charisma in the party, so I beginning bargaining on our behalf. I was doing everything I could to keep us out of a fight. I rolled pretty high on my persuasion check (a 21). The DM then narrates that the red cloaks reject my bargain and for everyone to roll initiative. We made it out alive luckily - but the DM and I still argue about it to this day. He says the red cloaks were not open to hearing my case from the get go, and that only 20 would get them to leave us alone, but I argue that if I had the opportunity to roll given to me by the DM, then there should have been an opportunity to succeed. (The DM is also my boyfriend, and this argument comes up at home quite frequently even though we love each other) Judges, I beg you, who is in the right here? We are in dire need of justice so we might have peace in our home!

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

To the all loving and wholly good court and the sheep that puts the Ba in Bailiff, may I present a case that happened to me a few years ago. I had joined an online game that ended up being surprisingly great, we ended up going for over 20 sessions and completed the DM's first arc. The DM wanted to do a time jump and the first session we came back to, he truly whomped us. Through a big bad that not only one shot a few of the party, but also made us all roll saves to not have our magical items we had spent so many sessions obtaining disenchant. I even rolled a crit to save for my belt of fire giant strength and he said that wasn't good enough, which left me a bit upset. After the session it was very evident none of us had a good time, and the DM announced he was going to be traveling for a month for work and we would not meet again until he got back. I figure I'll go back to the same subreddit and see if I can find a one shot to play while we are on hiatus, and lo and behold I find a post for the very same game I'm in asking for new players. It turned out the DM wasn't traveling, but was trying to replace us all before ending the game. I bring this up to the rest of the party, who were totally unaware, and we confront the DM in our discord. Immediately we are all blocked, the channel disappears, and we never hear from him again. I'm still left a little salty from this, it was a good campaign up until that last session. Did we deserve to have our DM go out for milk to never return because we didn't like being whomped? I await your judgement.

Peppy Pippin

COMPANION MURDERED FIRST SESSION: To the pet-loving, honorable justices of crit (and also Jill’s guy- where ya been loca?), may I present to you the case of Plum. My lovely friends began a Strahd campaign and I was ecstatic to show up with my dirty little grimey girl Primila Pibblepabble, deep gnome artificer with an urchin background, thus of course, accompanied by her little baby pet mouse Plum- an immediate group favorite. IN THE FIRST SESSION baby Plum DIES by STRAHD because I sillied too close to the sun, feared for my life, and shamefully narrated Plums presence with me in front of a menacing Strahd in hope it may save my PC.....it worked but at what cost. Justices!!! Is my creative, beautiful, intelligent, but OPPORTUNIST DM guilty for killing off my poor baby girl Plum in the FIRST SESSION of our new campaign?!? Am I guilty for my spineless attempt at self-preservation?! Or are we all victims of dice christ's cruel yet powerful journey. I humbly await your verdict alongside Ms. Primila and her new mechanical mouse homunculus servant, Plumbo (big ass ears), cause she’s an artificer and we’re level 4 now baby!!

You Yee’d your last Haw

Honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly Bailiff Jebediah. I present the case of the campaign that has just gone on for too long. My home game features me, my brother, a couple friends, and is DM’d by my girlfriend. We started this campaign back in 2020 virtually during pandemic. It was your traditional campaign we started at level one with our DM’s goal to finish level 20. But now we’re going on five years and we’re only level 12. I worry that the pacing will mean ten years will go by before we end the campaign. I don’t know how to tell my DM to speed it up without them feeling like we’re rushing the story. Sometimes it’s so slowly paced we spend 3 sessions in a row just traveling and rolling random encounters in between story arcs. One player regularly FALLS ASLEEP during sessions because they’re bored. Judges, am I being impatient? Or should the DM be more wary of pacing? I await your humble ruling.

Michael Graham Abernathy

I don't have a case currently. But my DM just gave us an immovable rod, so I'm sure I'll have one for you next time. Lol

Jojo_

to the supreme crit justices and the other guy, may it pleasure the court. I present the case of the death wish player. my self and another friend regularly take turns to dm for our group. we are both at our wits end with one player. he is amazing at role play but needs a lot of support with character creation and rules. fine. we both love the game and making it supportive for our pal. the problem is he has around a 2 session life span for each character. he will deliberately seek out situations to kill off his character every couple of weeks meaning we need to take extra time out of planning for games to have a 1-1 session 0 to create a new character with him. this came to a head during a recent high stakes combat where our death wish player yet again put his character in harms way to try and kill them. myself and the other dm gave him a choice, he could kill his character and sit out the rest of the campaign, or keep his character and we'd try to keep coming up with ways to make it fun. the other players said we were being too mean and should let our death wish player have as many characters as he wants. we eventually relented but it really sucks making new characters and finding ways to incorporate them into the campaign every couple of weeks. who was right?

G.X. Barnett

DearJustices Baby Fawn Jake, I was once in the presence of an absolutely sadistic DM who at one point put my newly formed level 5 party of 5 in an encounter with a pack of 6 wolves and 3 dire wolves all with pack tactics. Needless to say we were getting pretty soundly womped. 2 of us were Aasimars and were able to fly so we were temporarily safe and our Druid wild shaped into a wolf so the pack was momentarily fooled but the DM said that the wolves were making perception checks every turn. As our wizard went down the DM casually mentioned that this encounter called for 1d4+1 wolves with 1 dire wolf but he had brought all these minis so he was going to use them. Luckily the encounter ended when I rolled a Nat20 deception check while using a thaumaturgy spell to make it sound like an Owl Bear was coming for all of us, but I ask you justices, was this level of asymmetrical warfare necessary or should my DM be tried at The Hague?

Justinius

To the beloved justices and the croissant bird king Jake (I’ve just started campaign 3) I just started DMing for friends who are new to DnD and we meet in person. I live an hour away but bring all my stuff and am happy to travel. I spent the week putting together some adventures. And like most new DMs went overboard with planning. Most recently the host was texting and made a list of things I can bring. Snacks, beer, etc. I felt a bit overwhelmed. Is a DM supposed to bring foods and drinks to the event too? It seems a bit lopsided I did tell her I kinda spent the week surrounded by books putting together something for us to play…maybe I have some leftover beer in the fridge? Am I wrong for feeling annoyed overwhelmed?

Jason Ramirez

I come the holiest of churches with a confession of character "murder" (not death but removed from play) I DM several campaigns and am usually OK with letting my players goof off with characters especially if they are temporary. Recently one of my players main PC died heroically saving the city of Waterdeep. His body was disintegrated by a warforged collosus operated by the BBEG. The party went on a quest for a wish spell to revive him. Flash forward to the following week when this player introduces his temporary character, Sh'Dynasty (Shuh-Dine-asty) the bard. This PC immediately caused distractions and would hit on female Npcs bragging about silly things to others. It became a distraction, and after a few weeks it became overbearing. So when the party attuned to a powerful artifact and a diety took notice sending one of his angels (Empyrean) to take it away. Sh'Dynasty opted to "rizz" up the angel to avoid death. He got a 30 on his charisma check, and seeing my opportunity I had the angel take him back to her celestial home effectively removing this PC from campaign. (death by snu snu style) The player loved this character and I couldn't bring myself to ask him to change. I saw my chance and I took it. I prostrate myself in front of the altar. And await judgment.

Sovash Chetty

The Honourable Lords and Lady of the Supreme Crit. I shall make no mention of the bailiff, because as I recognise this as a real court, I will treat it as such. I bring you the story of how a plate of pancakes ended a DM's career. The accused...is me. I am the forever DM of my group, who only play online via Discord. One December, we decided to book into an Airbnb and play DnD. While other board games were on the agenda, the main course was a weekend of glorious in-person DnD, something that we had not been able to do as a group previously. I offered to DM, but was quickly shut down by a different friend who wanted to take a crack at DMing for the first time. When the time came, it was very clear that he had done little to no prep for this in-person session. Over 5 agonising hours, we made no progress. Eventually fed up, I decided to make pancakes for the table. I told everyone to keep playing, and I would be back soon. When I returned with a plate of piping pancakes, the group had disbanded, and everyone had retired to their own corners of the room. We did not play any more DnD that entire trip. My friend has not DMed since the incident, 3 years ago. I ask my Lords and Lady, was I wrong to leave the table in my frustration, leading to what I believe was the death of that game and my friend's enthusiasm to DM? Or should I have stayed to try and at least give him a chance to redeem himself? With Love from South Africa Sovash P.S. I am an actual Advocate who appears in court. While preparing for the Bar Exams, I used to listen to the Campaigns on repeat. Thank you for keeping me company during those long, lonely nights of studying.

SicBoi

To the honored and venerated supreme crit justices Axford, Caldwell, and Murphy I present to you the case of the insta kill puzzle through the peoples mouth piece Jaque Hurt-a-tit. While DMing for my very first time I had a group of new players that all insisted on brute forcing their way through the elaborate puzzles I spent weeks toiling over. They would flat out ignore all clues and go as far as saying “nah I don’t want to read that I bet we can just guess or blow the door up”. So I decided to make a puzzle that they could not force their way through. While in the treasure room of a God hating king ruling a kingdom that appalls religion they ran into a chamber with two doors and an open tome. The tome was a holy text open to a highlighted passage that said “shrink yourself before god and only then while her light shine on you and absorb all you are.” The two doors (one of normal size and one but inches tall) had a small bowl of holy water between them which would shrink any who drank it. Shrinking would allow them access to the smaller door but because this king hates the gods the passage is a warning not an instruction. If the players drink and open the small door a holy light extends from it casting the disintegrate spell on the creature that opened it. My players ignored the text completely opting to not even read it and then split into two groups and decided to open both doors at once to see which was correct. This resulted in a player death that was challenged greatly. So I ask you diviners of justice, was the puzzle too much? Or should my party start trying to interact with my puzzles correctly?

Hugo Wull

Good day, I have come to confess my sins. I run a couple of different games, and to add some elements of chance and randomness to travel, I often have my players roll on a random encounter table to see what they come across. What they don’t know is that the rolls don’t matter: no matter what number they roll, I always run the scene that excited me the most as the DM. I know I could just narrate what they come across as they travel and have the same effect, but I feel like the suspense of not knowing what might have gone differently had they rolled a different number adds to the experience of traveling in dnd. Please accept my confession, and help me to see a better way. May Dice Christ bless us all, except the bailiff, may he be eternally harangued by Jafar.

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.

Bagofchips123

Hiiii you hot and hunky bailiff!!! Also the guys over there that are also hot. My crew had a bullywug friend named bellubba! And they wanted him to all of a sudden have a giant lizard come out from the ground, and have bellubba ride it perfectly like a noble steed. I said that's unrealistic and stupid, so i said 2 nat 20s to make it happen. It didn't happen, but now EVERY SESSION at the start they roll for it, even though we are now in our new campaign where bellubba is long gone. Am I a fun killer, or should they respect dice christs wishes to not give bellubba a random lizard steed. Stay Jazzy you epic gamers!

Tyler Kraft

To the honorable and most fair Justices, and that handsome feller Jake that totally carries the show. I ask for your opinion on the matter of letting your DM play. It’s me, I’m the DM. I want to play more. I started DMing about 3 years ago because the DM at the time had a falling out with the group I just joined and being my first time getting into this awesome hobby, there was no way I was going to just stop. My friends/players have said many times that they would DM so I could play, and they do… inconsistently. I haven’t played in over 18 months and tbh, every time someone else DMs it’s just a one shot. I want to be involved in something more long term, so I told them for every session someone else DMs they get TWO inspiration rolls. This worked for a month. I’ve now told them I will only DM 2 sessions in a row but if they’d like to continue our campaign then someone has to step up. I’m told maybe this is a bit harsh. I leave my judgement in your hands. Murph u gotta be on my side right? PLEASE. LET ME PLAY. Much love from Iowa 💙

kitty heite

To the Distinguished Devotees of Dice Christ and the sniveling stooge Snake or whatever.... I have agreed to DM a short "serious" Strahd campaign for some friends. We are all experienced to varying degrees and have played together before in different games but not all together. I am usually the class clown in any campaign (Caldwell flavored shenanigans) and am not a hardcore rules lawyer. Two of the players have already committed the 2024 edition to memory. I am now facing anxiety about a) being serious and b) messing up the rules as we play. I understand that this is 90% iny own brain and it will probably be fine (my friends are nice). What rituals/prayers/offerings can I do to honor the spirit of the Almighty Strahd and ensure a smooth and spooky time at the table? And any tips for shortening the campaign would be nice the subreddit was frankly overwhelming with the amount of help.

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?

Joshua Goguen

I humbly prostrate myself to the justices, and prostate myself to the bailiff. Judges today I find myself feeling uneasy about my campaign this past weekend. My group (three players that have been the same campaign for three years now! And a new player who has been in the mix for about 6 months) are coming off an Empire strikes back level defeat. They lost against the Unseelie Queen, and our Druid princess watched her father get killed and her step sister in the process. Her step mother, the Seelie queen, escaped execution but is now lost in a forbidden forest. This heavy loss came from the Cleric (our new player) insisting that the conflict (pending execution) can be solved by “talking it out” instead of trying to stealth or even plan an assault. Once he was the center of attention, the comment that really made the Unseelie Queen snap was, “so you’re just jealous” so Murph style I had to have her start the execution immediately. The Seelie queen was eventually found and when she was talking with our Druid princess, the fate of her husband and step daughter came up. She couldn’t bare hear the news and asked Flora (Druid) to not tell her what happened. The Cleric then started yelling “yo man dead, yo man dead”. Judges, I ask you today, do we cut this loose cannon free? My other players are genuinely disturbed by his other grievances; trying to impregnate women in the name of Pelor, pissing on cursed lands in hopes that Pelor will “flow” through him, and lining up monkeys “negan style” and doming them because they couldn’t be rehabilitated. Thank you for your time in this matter. You guys ROCK

ant the knee

to the justices who smell oh so good, and the bailiff who also smells, i present the case of... i present the case of.... ... SURPRISE you chuckle clucks! not really a surprise round when you sit down knowing a surprise is coming you cluckle chucks. You are waiting for your Uber which says it is 2 minutes away. You receive a message from the driver saying "hey buddy, just checking are you allergic to bees?" You check the driver and he has a 5.0 rating but the picture on the site appears to be that of a hundred or so bees. Sure enough, the car pulls up, and you see that either this man is made of bees entirely or covered by bees in a way that you can not see any sort of skin. You know that if you call another Uber, you will be at least 15 minutes late to an incredibly important meeting. Do you step in the vehicle? Your phone is at enough bars to make the Uber app work but nothing else.

AwkwardFish L

Greetings Justices, and the glamorous bailiff Jank. I bring you the case of the “tortured” fighter. A friend of my wife’s was getting married. My wife was a bridesmaid, and a fighter player in a campaign I DMed was a groomsman. When it came time for the wedding rehearsal, the groomsman didn’t show up and when texted, he compared the rehearsal to a graphic torturous act. This made bride cry, and sowed anger within the wedding party. After the wedding, my wife insisted that I killed the groomsman’s fighter character as punishment, but I did not think it was fair to punish the character for actions outside of the campaign. So tell me, o high and mighty court, is my wife right? Or am I right? PS Murph will be happy to know that I have since gotten better friends to play with.

Lis Telep

Omg I'm in the same boat, would love an answer to this 😩🙏

mav

Dearest darlingest judges and Jeff, I come to you with a case that may be more of a confession. How do you not feel like a failure when you roll low? Like you are letting everyone down? I have fudged many a roll (not proudly) because in that moment I feel so ashamed of myself that I rolled low.

Jesse Dunlap

Quotes from MOD “Lil weenar and some tiny nuts” “And I not turtley enough for your turtle club” “I got some man sized meatballs” “There’s a dark side? Just like Star Wars?!” Highly recommend this terrible movie for a view crew

Ali

Dice Christ Take the Wheel, for I have sinned. I have DM'd for a campaign for the past 5 years. And I fudge rolls. I only do it when the character deserves a huge win or is trying to pull off something cool. But the last time we played, our Rogue went into a Vampire's lair alone and got caught at the dead-end on the other side of the exit. Nearly a dozen spawn came rushing at him, clogging the pathways to his escape. It was a hard fight to get through the crowd, so I fudged a little. I let him get through a few more vampires than I should have, just enough that he had a chance to get out but still could easily fail. But then my Wizard said, "if the Rogue gets out of this, you're going too easy on us, DM." And I couldn't let that stand. Not because he was wrong or rude, but because I was called out and it was embarrassing. So I stopped fudging. And the Rogue died. Thou Holiest, we're almost at the end of the campaign. I didn't want my player to lose a character that he's been playing with for five years to die alone, ripped apart by vampires on the cold stone floor. Especially not one session after he was accepted by his family and took his late father's title as Lord of his ancestral House. I know that fudging is wrong, but should my Rogue have to die for my sins? I lay myself at your little toesies, at your mercy.

Jam

To the honorable Justices and a man

Laurel

Mighty duck justices and mini duck bailiff, a question. If I got a bachelorette treat from my DM to trade out one feat for another (elven accuracy for skill expert) is it right that my DM then declare we would be changing systems just one week later? To be clear, we’re going from dnd 5e 2014 edition to dagger heart. Not only does my character not fit into any dagger heart class (we used MCDMs illrigger) my one bachelorette treat will never even get used. This is not a birthday treat, nor did I ask for any in game celebration, to cut off justice Murphy’s objections. Need I get married again to ensure I receive my just reward? Or should I just accept the inevitability of change and that my character as imagined and my bachelorette treat are forever lost to me?

Dingdongdang55

A case of future crimes or my future confession of sin. Glorious Justices & Super Casual Baliff. I bring the case of future crimes or my preemptive sorrynotsorry confession. As the DM, I plan to have my fighters parent die at the hands of a vengeful god who will then turn the PC into a lycanthrope as is their species' divine birthrite. This has not been discussed with the player. Am i taking automany away from my player by commiting to this surprise twist? Or is my player wrong for being the subject of my machinations. Your victim, Dingdongdang

Alex T

To Jake and the Judges, I bring the case of the humbled 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.

Hunter The Gatherer

To the honorable supreme crit bailiff and the lowly lowly lowly justices. I bring to you the case of the twice disintegrated newbie. My first two D&D characters were both killed by a beholders disintegration ray. As a new player, I felt like I was being targeted by the DM. I left that party and have since joined two other groups and even began DMing my own campaign! I don’t regret leaving my first group but I still wonder if I overreacted to the bad luck of the dice or was I the victim of a malevolent DM

Kevin

Good day, Supreme Crit Justices and the bailiff, who we probably don't need anymore. I learned how to play D&D by listening to NADDPOD. It was a beautiful and hilarious introduction into the D&D world. During my first ever combat in a real game, I asked my DM if I could make a perception check to see what else was around; you can imagine my surprise when he stated that was it for my action! He explained that perception checks were an action once in initiative. I was disappointed, because I was used to NADDPOD where checks are more flexibly used as free interactions. We are all imagining this combat in our heads, and perception checks help us explore the space and engage in the DM's world. Can this court please establish some leading case law on this topic? I don't want to see my DM punished for the rules of their table, but I believe this court has an opportunity to create a precedent that other tables could cite. Sincerely, a real-life lawyer who saw your live show in Toronto

Mediogre

To the honored justices and the [remember to insert something nice about the bailiff] I bring to you the case of the impossible insight challenge. A year and half into the campaign I'm currently running, the party were infiltrating a goblin army's keep. They chose the stealth route and made their way into castle with good checks and splinter cell precision. The party bard, who's character (not the player) was new to the party and acted mostly in his self-interest, came up with a clever plan. I narrated a small goblin coming out of a kitchen, carrying a tray of food for their king. The bard quickly turned into a goblin, via disguise self, and persuaded the other goblin that he could carry the food to their king. He rolled well and the party's plan crystallized all the more. He eventually made his way into the king's quarters where he immediately sold out the rest of his party, saying that there were people sneaking through the halls. This ended up leading to a fun encounter where the rest of the party barred themselves in a room with only two entrances and managed to hack their way through waves of enemies. Once the dust settled, some of the other players made insight checks against the bard's deception. The bard won the challenge every single time. The party went on with the game, but I could sense there was still tension with some of the players at the table, given that they can't meta their way around contested checks. Justices, should I have absolutely offered up this bard to the party using shenanigans for his tomfoolery or should sleeping insight checks just lie?

Gort Munchman

To our Mightiest Supreme Crit Justices and Foreign Exchange Bailiff Jacques, I submit to you the case of the Suspiciously Swelling Sorcerer. One of my table-fellows is playing a Wild Magic Sorcerer Leonin, using the alternative rule where every Wild Magic roll increases the threshold for a Wild Magic Surge by 1. In game, the player represents this as the Leonin becoming, for lack of a better descriptor, increasingly rotund, until he is nearly bursting; a status which the player will act out with groans, complaints of belly pain, and saying they "waddle" instead of walking or running. When he finally has a wild magic surge, it escapes the Leonin as "a huge prolonged burp of chaos energy." This commentary is minimally disruptive to the table, and at worst a bit gross. HOWEVER, recently this person shared a screenshot of a reddit post they saw, which happened to include their username which was a minimally subtle reference to both the furry community and the inflation fetish. Snooping around their profile a bit more, I found multiple fanfic style posts describing their Leonin character in EXTREMELY raunchy inflation and belching fetish situations. While they are not explicitly horning it up at the table, most of us including the DM are not naive to the implications of their roleplaying flavor. Judges, should we allow this roleplaying to continue? Or is it time to put a pin in this Lion-shaped balloon? I humbly await your judgement-Sincerely, Belchless in Buffalo.

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.

Gabriela Sofia

To the most high in esteem Judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, (and since we’re being kind today, to the adorable cutie-patootie Bailiff Jake), I bring to you the case of the Forever DM Rules Lawyer. I’m a relatively new DM, though I’ve been a player for a long time. My boyfriend and I recently moved, and we were excited when some of his friends from work wanted to start a new D&D game. They asked if one of us would DM, so I volunteered. At first things were great! Our first three players and I had a fun Session 0 and some good sessions. Then we added two brand new players who had never played D&D before. Naturally, they had a lot of questions about what they could do and how the game worked. That’s when the Forever DM from their previous group started stepping in. He answers questions before I can, corrects me when I make rulings, and even interrupts skill checks to tell the group what a skill “isn’t for.” One time he corrected my boyfriend, who is also a PC, even after I had already said twice that what he wanted to do was ok in my book because of the rule of cool. It’s getting frustrating, though. While sometimes it’s helpful for the new players to get extra explanation, it often feels like he’s overriding me as the DM. So I bring this to the court: Do I tell the Forever DM to back off, or just let it slide in the name of helping the new players? Signed, A DM hanging on to her screen for dear life

Tom the Calm

To the highly esteemed justices and the Bailiff called Chafe. I present to the court, the case of the practically invisible min-maxxer. My friend was trying out DMing for the first time and had me and my other friend roll up some fifth level characters to start. First combat round of the campaign the other player spends fifteen minutes debating over how much damage the Grease spell should deal if you ignite the oil on the ground. The DM eventually settles on it dealing half as much damage as a fireball spell…he wipes the room with a first level spell slot. Every encounter that followed, the player would bonus action hide at the end of his turn, getting upwards of 31 on his stealth checks. Whenever the DM would say there’s no where to properly hide, he would spend his action to create a fog cloud. So honorable judges, I must ask- is the player’s min-maxing pretty buttoned up or should the DM refuse to be complicit with this behavior. I lay the fate of my campaign in your hands.

Noah Coleman

Hello to the Esteemed Justices and a side-eye the cowardly baliff Jim. I bring the case of the Tortorous Teammate. Back in my college days, I agreed to DM for a few of my friends as a first-time DM running the Lost Mines of Phandelver. A few sessions in, and one of my buddies asked to join as a first time player, wanting to play an oath of devotion paladin "because I looked it up and they were the strongest". What followed were all the stereotypes of a toxic player(describing in-depth torture of defeated NPCs, PVP, as well as threating to kill our beastmaster ranger's familiar after a fight for taking the loot he wanted). Me and the two more experienced players at the table agreed that something had to change, but there was one problem. Everyone at this table played for our college football team, which I was the proud captain of. While we wanted to remove him, we didnt see a world where this was turned out well for the team's chemistry, especially with me as the teams leader. In the end we had him change subclasses as his actions didn't much fit an oath of devotion paladin, but all these years later I wonder if I should have done more? So judges, was I right to resign my football friends to a toxic teammate, or did I commit a 15-yard penalty by allowing unsportsmanlike conduct at the table?

Rylander23

Greetings Honourable Judges and our unsung hero Bailiff Jake. I present to you the Case of the Bookstore Cultists. I was living in the UK during the pandemic and once things began to open back up again, I decided to sign up for the local bookstore DND campaigns. I thought this would be a great way to meet some new friends and play the game I love.. The session was run by a lovely DM and there were 6 players in each party. In my party, there was a couple who had clearly played lots of DND before, myself (a forever DM) and three other new-ish players. It became very clear that the couple (Let’s call them Jack and Jill) had decided before walking in to the session that they wanted to play evil chaotic characters and would stop at nothing to accomplish this task. The DM began running this really cool heroic Steampunk campaign, but at every turn, the couple were trying to recruit people to their warlocks cult, and were killing and kidnapping NPCs all over the place. They also were demanding that if anyone was given any magical items, that they would hold on to them all until we required them. They would refuse to give the PC their item until they deemed it necessary stating “it’s not what my character would do. We’re all about our cult” The DM tried to mitigate this, but ultimately the new players were kinda pushed along this route, being railroaded by Jack and Jill. As a DM myself, I noticed the group losing morale over time and really leaned into my heroic wizard character to try and bring the party back to the heroic narrative the DM was trying to tell, and it was clear that the rest of the party wanted. Jack and Jill were not fans of this. I had to go away for work for a couple weeks and when I came back, our party was at a large dinner party for the king we were meant to be protecting. During this session Jack and Jill decided they wanted to murder the king. I didn’t love this, and in a moment of frustration announced that I cast “Darkness” around the king and launched forward to stop Jack and Jill’s Dastardly Plan. This resulted in the rest of the table supporting me as we engaged in a fun PVP encounter at this royal Dinner. We saved the king, and the party took a heroic turn for the rest of the campaign. However, Jack and Jill were displeased and ended up leaving the party after the next session. The DM actually thanked me for this intervention, but I still feel guilty. Justices I ask thee: Was it the right decision to grab the narrative steering wheel and try and lead these newer players to heroism? Or was I wrong to PVP and ruin Jack and Jill’s experience? I humbly ask for your judgement.

Scramble Ma’am

No good bad time To the Deacons of light, I am a YAunt with a confession. I ran a one shot for my husband and 15yo niece and nephew. This session can only be described as one frustrating cluster. These children of thunder tested me and I failed. My niece was constantly taking selfies and would get up to dance around randomly, while my nephew was caught cheating and watching music videos. My husband asked if they wanted to play and they kept saying yes. Here lies my sin. Towards the end of the game, I lost it. I yelled at them, full ugly shouting. I stepped away to collect myself then we finished the one shot. Is there grace for me or am I bound to end up in the 5th level of hell with the other rotten DMs?

Riley M

Dearest Bishops of Dice Christ I do not write to confess a sin, but instead to exalt in the incorporation of Dice Christ in our matrimony. Since we began dating my partner took an interest in my hobbies and I got to introduce her to NADDPOD, D20 (we went to the Seattle show!) and D&D in general. I’ve been DMing a long term campaign that has spanned since early dating until recently when we got engaged! We found the perfect venue and are set to be married next July. We had the options of the 11th or the 18th, but we were split on the decision. After some discussion, we realized there’s no good way to choose, so she suggested we “Leave it up to Dice Christ”. We took turns rolling D20s until one of us landed on the options. After minutes of intense rolling, lo and behold, we will be married July 11th. Praise be to Dice Christ for blessing our sacred day and for putting someone in my life cool enough to leave our wedding day up to the rolls.

rollinginthecrits

To the beatific justices and the divisive like cilantro bailiff John (?) - I submit a Minority Report style case for a Future Crime: The Murder of the Hot Fuckboy NPC. I am DMing a game for over a year and in the very first session, I introduced a blue tiefling who was the police warden of the prison where most of my players’ characters met. He was snarky and sardonic and condescending and I never expected to play this character again, once they left the prison. Naturally, my players fell in love with him to the point where they ask about him regularly and one of the players asked if there was a time in the campaign timeline where their character could’ve slept with this tiefling. I said yes as this player is a friend of over a decade and it didn’t help my case that the art was hot. I have built a way to kill this character off that makes sense to the narrative, but since there is ANOTHER beloved NPC who will be killed off (not as hot) I have to wonder if I’m being too brutal. (For optional additional context: the tone of the campaign is more serious, heavy with political intrigue and the party is investigating the murder of two princes at the moment.)

Chief Parma John (Nate B.)

To the Honored justices who have a stick so far up their ass I don't know how they sit in that bench, and the coolest handsomest baliff Jake   I bring to you the case of the hungry player   I have been playing D&D with a group of friends over Discord for several years now. One of our friends in particular has a habit of missing, or disappearing in the middle of our sessions to eat dinner. Once he DMed for our group, and halfway through the session said, "Roll initiative," muted himself, and never came back. Recently, said player failed to show up to a session and cited his absence because he was "eating ribs." When berated about his absence later, his only defense was, "I was eating MF ribs."   Judges, is this a valid excuse to miss a weekly session with the boys? Our typical session is 7-9pm and I feel like there's plenty of time to eat before that.   I humbly await your judgment.

You Yee’d your last Haw

IM SO GLAD IM NOT ALONE🫠 I keep asking like, hey when are we going to see this villain or, when are we going to have our masquerade ball that I’ve been promised for years. And all I’m told is “don’t worry we’ll get there” and I’m like okay but WHEN. I want to play different stories and characters and I feel so trapped.

Brett Daffron

I killed a fellow pc on accident. May it please the worm wife and her fellow city pigeon justices. And may Jerk read my case favorably. I play a half giant fighter flavored as a samurai with a blindfold, think daredevil with katanas. One of my fellow players plays a mischievous goblin named Foot. I believed foot to be a fighter and often threw him into combat to stir up chaos but during this particular session found out he was a rouge and infact very squishy. We had been spelunking and fighting various foes when the floor beneath us began to crack. Thinking it was in line with previous interactions between the two characters I proceeded to pick up Foot and throw him at the crumbling floor, forgetting to secure him with a rope and believing him to be tankier as a fighter. The dm rolled some dice made some interesting faces and then narrated a Foot shaped hole in the previously cracking floor. He then proceeded to ask for Foots character sheet. This sent me into a spiral of bad character decisions but mostly I spent the next 20 minutes apologizing to Foot's who had been laughing hysterically the whole time and was actually excited to make a new character. After a few more minutes of gameplay however we found out Foot was actually just unconscious and were able to save him. Here is where it gets bad. Aparantly our dm had been wanting a more serious tone for his game. He freaked out Murphy style and over the next few days sent me 20 to 30 minute long video messages explaining his disappointment with the session and that he was considering quitting as the dm. I calmed him down and convinced him to continue but should I keep playing with these people I'm really good friends with most of the players and Foot specifically is one of my best friends. But I don't really want to be lectured for days after making a dumb decision that I already felt bad about.

Hadley Evans Nash

To the court cuties, Not so much a case as a pre-conceived crime. My DM is running a crown of candy themed campaign and has decided that we are to be shepherded through by two traveling vegetanian bards, bob and Larry. Yeah, cause veggie tales. Am I the world’s greatest villain if I point out that bob, as a tomato, would not be a vegetable? I worry that this may be some surprise twist planted in the soil of the campaign, and I don’t want my little chocolate covered strawberry rogue/sorcerer to be lain low by this fructeran fuckhead.

Grace PM

To the heroic judges and THE guy that reads the cases I present the Ghost DM. I joined a ttrpg society at my university and joined a party with a new DM. We met for our first session and it. was. chaos. Everyone talked over each other and my poor hermit farmer druid was attacked by another party member because he ‘just didn’t like her vibe’. Our DM tried his best to reign everyone in and I tried to help by backing him up but the session ended early as he walked out with his laptop. The rest of the group left and went home and I was left to clean up and return all the materials to the society cabinet. When I got home our group tried to organise another session but our DM didn’t reply. Thinking he probably just needed to cool down after a wild first session, we agreed to give it a few days. Judges and other guy, he never replied at all. He left the group chat and blocked us all. I was ready to put it down to just bad syenergy but I have recently learnt that he was never a part of the university in the first place. He wasn’t registered and no one knew how he got onto campus and in the society in the first place. Judges did I help scare a newbie DM off? Or did a ghost haunt our first session? I look forward to your judgment!

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.

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 peasants to turn into her spider army. Judges, they agreed to do so. 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 monkey's morals or was I right to lash out at my party for their decision? (PS. The guest who played the spider queen was my 23 year old sibling. The one who was married to my brother in-law)

Kayla W

Dear highly esteemed Justices Axford, Murphy, Tanner, and slightly esteemed Bailiff Jake: I bring to you a cold case from the year 1998. It was the era of AD&D (Advanced D&D). I was 7 years old playing for the very first time with my dad as DM. As wholesome as this is, my grievances are two-fold: 1. When I wanted to play as a unicorn, my dad told me I couldn't because "unicorns are considered monsters." He proved it to me by showing me the monster manual. This revelation shook me to my horse-girl core and was an enormous injustice to unicorns. 2. I began playing as an elf wizard named Moonbeam (save wavelength as Emily!!). I took character creation very seriously and even drew her a portrait. In the very first session, an old-school dungeon crawl, I was attacked by a giant centipede and KILLED. The next time we played I had to role a new character. Was my by-the-books DM wrong to crush his 7 year old daughter's hopes and dreams in this way, or was he right to teach her the harsh realities of D&D so that she would treat the game with reverence... I await your judgement... P.s. I went on to play many fun-filled campaigns with my dad as DM which was such a gift, and think back on this with humor, but I always have wondered what it would have been like to play a unicorn..

Jordan Innerarity

Forgive me, Justices, for I have sinned. I was a first-time DM, running Curse of Strahd after discovering D&D during covid with my brother and nephew. I thought I was ready to take the mantle, but among my players was my brother’s friend — a Tabaxi monk who tested my patience from the very start. He refused to use our virtual tabletop roller, yet somehow averaged about ten natural 20s every session. He refused to turn on his camera. He refused to do much beyond what he wanted, and I overlooked it all for the sake of keeping the game together. But after a year of play, the party finally reached Strahd’s castle. In the depths, the monk discovered the Tome of Understanding, which would grant him a bonus to Wisdom — if only he read it for forty-eight hours over the course of six days. Naturally, he demanded the party stop everything and wait while he read. Naturally, they refused. Strahd was hunting them. The final battle was upon us. And so, the monk threw a fit…and then refused to participate in the climactic fight. Here is my sin: I stooped to his level. I abandoned the VTT dice. I pulled out my real dice, and when Strahd attacked, I claimed natural 20s — and I focused those critical blows on the monk until he was dead. It was not the story that killed him. It was not the dice. It was me, my pettiness, and my DM’s wrath. I humbly ask you, Justices, for forgiveness.

Birthday Girl Cara

Oh dice christ! I fear I have committed a sin too great for your forgiveness. And yet I come before you, lowlier than Jake himself, and ask you to hear me out. I am the DM and we were in the final battle of a 2 year campaign. Each party member was commanding a section of an army and their battles would conclude with them 1v1ing a powerful enemy. They insisted the DMPC also run a battalion and when it came time for him to go up against his enemy... I ignored the dice and narrated this beloved DMPCs death. You must understand!! The other choice was a drawn out battle between me and myself and given that it was the final session, I felt there would be more gravity from the loss of the party dad than me winning against myself. With no revivifies stocked, the DMPC was made a martyr and the party vowed to take on his personal quest and adventure in his name. I ask you, should I have left his fate up to dice christ? Or was the opportunity of an impactful climax too great for any DM to pass up?

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?

Sam P

May it please the wise, noble Justices, and the probably AI Bailiff, I present before you The Case of the Unreasonable Teleport. Years ago, I ran my very first D&D campaign for five players, including my girlfriend and her teenage brother, an Orc Outlander Barbarian of… questionable temperament. As a naive DM, I let him get away with several choices: killing an important quest-giver NPC, claiming as his Outlander trophy the penis of a drake, and distracting a prison guard by… enthusiastically entertaining himself in his cell. Shockingly, the campaign did not survive. Fast-forward two years. I have a new 5e group in the final battle against rival devils, coerced into service by a powerful Archdevil. At the last minute, our flaky druid cancels. I’m despondent — but my girlfriend suggests her now-adult brother could fill in. Against my better judgment, I agree. To my surprise, it’s mostly fine! He wild shapes into a bear, helps defeat the devils, and the party proceeds to the Archdevil’s lair for their well-earned reward… when Bear-Brother climbs atop the desk and defecates upon it. In disgust, the Archdevil instantly teleports the entire party away — no rewards, no answers, no closure. Justices, was I justified in banishing the party to bed without dessert for one player’s sins? Or did I unfairly punish the many for the chaos of the few — and, perhaps, for the crimes of campaigns past? I await your sagacious ruling. Ever your weary DM

Jessy G

Oh holy Reverends of the Rolls, I seek a blessing from Dice Christ! I currently play an elven Arcane Archer (level 8) with a +11 to hit, yet I cannot hit to save mine, or my friends lives! I MISS 75% OF THE TIME! I have the sharp shooter ability (-5 from the roll to add +10 to damage) and I rarely use it because my rolls are so bad it's too risky. It's become an ongoing joke that anytime I do hit, no other characters saw it, thus my legolas type character is more of a lame-olas who is half decent at tracking. I have changed dice many times, I left them out in the moon, and we even had D&D dice and elements included in our recent wedding! Yet still I remain CURSED! Please oh true and noble judges / clerics, bless me and save me from this DAMNATION!

Wyred

May it pleasure the court and tickle the bailiff's fancy until it wets itself... I present the case of the Bullseye Druid: I joined my lady friend's group, two Rogues and a Barbarian, so I rolled a Grass Druid built for stealth. The DM was running the same module with another group and thought it would be fun for both parties to race to retrieve a Macguffin for a town festival. There was a clearly stated rule that no one would die from PvP. Parties ran separate sessions through an under water grotto with potions to breathe. Our party used Pass Without Trace to avoid most combat. DM said both groups went the same speed, so we reach the treasure room from opposite sides at the same time. I ask at the start of our joint session if we can roll stealth since Pw/oT is still up. DM says no, roll initiative, I let it go because the session has about 10 players. The Macguffin is an amulet attached to a shark. Our party uses Psychic Whispers to plan an underwater grab and dash. While everyone is fighting the shark, our Soul Knife Rogue manages to get the amulet so I cast Invisibility on him. He hands off to our Arcane Trickster's Mage Hand, she double dashes. Other party thinks Soul Knife still has the amulet. Their Wizard, who is the DM's husband, table talks "Focus fire the Druid to break concentration" even though none of them have a way to communicate under water. I get focused down by six PCs ignoring the shark. Rogues escape, Barbarian stabilizes and scoops my body. We "win" but I'm salty as the sea. Should we have gotten a Stealth vs Perception role before combat? Should the DM have stopped the table talk to uphold the no PvP killing rule? I await your ruling with potion-baited breath!

The one they call Barlo

To the ever-hot 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 decide to play nice, have dinner and gather some intel on the enemy. 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 if 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 sided with the sorcerer because it was funnier to agree with him, and argued what he did was not honourable but not necessarily evil. What say ye? P.S. sorry Jake. P.P.S. Last session the same sorcerer did end up pushing a fellow prisoner/slave into a snake pit to keep his cover regarding a rebel uprising he was planning with our fellow prisoners, so I may have backed the wrong horse after all. Hate the show x

Wyred

Oh holy ones of Dice Christ, I must confess a shameful secret... For more years than I care to count I thought that the "Role" in RPG referred to the dice, not the players' performance. Worse, part of me still clings to this belief. Can the Church forgive and absolve this RNJesus heretic?

Zaq Putnam

Hello party judges and the "get off my lawn" bailiff, I present the case of "Passing with a trace" I was a baby dm, my first real session and it was a pretty simple point a to point b cave with some traps and cultists along the way. My party comes to the first obstacle, a handful of disposable grunts to take out and the druid pulls out pass without a trace. In my mind, they are in a narrow cave with very little ways to stealth and I hint that maybe it wouldn't be a very good use of a spell slot seeing that they were only like level 3. The druid saved the spell for later but seemed annoyed that their plan wouldn't work but moved on with no issue. Later on I read the spell card for pass without a trace and I am 2nd guessing myself. was I too heavy handed, did I rail road or was there no where to hide. My fate is in your hands.

EmeraldDreamDruid

To the Supreme Crit Justices and the Supreme Crit Bailiff Jake the highest rank of all bailiffs forever more: I bring you the case of the always rolling for something rogue. I am a newer dm for a group of old coworkers, friends of the coworkers and friends from high school. Our game is a home brew campaign setting that takes place in a world that is heavily dragon based. I dm two different campaigns, one online and one in person (the in person campaign has the troublesome rogue). The events of both campaigns happen at the same time just in different areas of the world. Now on to the dilemma: for the live campaign group the player who is playing a rogue has about 20 years of experience, unfortunately part of the problem. Due to rogue’s knowledge after playing for so long min maxing, basically murder hobo behavior, loot everything and everyone and rolling for literally no reason is the M.O. during our last session the party faced of with a Dracohydra and 3 dragonells. Where this battle took place was in a massive war room with a large table and chairs big enough to accommodate gargantuan sized dragons and other creatures. The rogue does as rogues do and immediately decided to hide because there were some shadows casted by the large chairs. Did not announce that they want to do a stealth check and hide in the room. Just rolled the dice, announced the roll and hid. Another player who is really good friends with the rogue called out the rogue saying you can’t just declare what you are doing after you rolled backing me up. I let it happen so other players can explore the room before the upcoming battle. When battle started and I had everyone rolled initiative. Now the rogue gave me two rolls, one for initiative and another for a stealth check to hide. Other player piped up and said “we just rolled initiative and you can’t do anything else until your turn”. Battle ensued and they won no problem. My question for the Supreme Crit is how can I get the rogue to stop the stereotypical roguish behavior without just out right targeting the rogue? Am I being too soft of a dm by not putting my foot down hard enough? Since this is the play style of the rogue and how they enjoy the game do I interfere with that?

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 present to you the case of: Dog Day Afternoon I am part of a D&D group filled with Sunday brunch laughter and joy that plays every couple of months. However, things have recently divulged into chaos. The player whose house we play at has two delightful children (1 and 4) as well as two puppies. I know how this sounds - but judges these sweet babies and puppies are out of control. In the last session, mid deep sea witch big bad battle, I stopped the 1 year old from biting a lamp cord and pulling a tv on themselves, while the parent player talked his 4 year old down from a meltdown, and my friend, another player, tried to stop the two dogs from attacking the arriving mail man literally si-mul-tane-ously. 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 to us.” 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 and simply shrugging, and us unable to finish our battle. I feel like a terrible person because I'm upset over actual babies and puppies, two of the most well known good things on the planet. Am I evil? Is there anyway out of this other than Murph's get new friends plan? I eagerly await and accept your punishment/decision. *For added info: I am about a decade younger than the rest of my group - they're 40 and I'm 30 (in a couple of weeks, shout out)*

tori

well i don’t know who the fuck james is but since this isn’t a court case I guess it doesn’t really matter! hey james can you pass along the message to jake that unless it was retconned and I missed it (or i’m misunderstanding dnd mechanics) Nyack does not have a -1 to constitution. In the final episode of the first trinyvale campaign when buying new armor to go up against Cash aka Coin aka Mercurio Delurio, Nyack is given a box cereal to eat to improve his constitution and he rolled a nat 20 which brought him not only back to 0 (#spoongoon #backtozero) but also gave him +1 to his AC!

Beepboop

Hello triple black diamond slope crushing judges and butt-scooting green slope Jake, I bring to you all a case of the luminescent snake shibari'd Paladin. I'm playing as a slightly Welly-inspired gay disaster religious trauma-Paladin at a new table with a first-time DM and new-ish players. During our first ever session, we had to save a poor cat from a tree surrounded by nasty snakes, and I of course charged in first (my mistake?). After me in turn, the ranger cast faery fire, and the druid entangle, and the DM asked no follow-ups like "where" or "are you sure" and simply let my paladin be turned into a luminescent shibari burrito, also grappled by snakes. It led to amazing RP, and was hilarious. I lost both saves fair and square, dropped to 0 but got brought up. My question: how much should I ask my DM questions in the future FOR my spellcasters, if any at all? This time it was fine and fun, but I did lose out on most of the battle. Am I allowed to ask "can they hit some enemies but not me"/"do you mind holding your turn so I can disengage" or anything similar, or is that overstepping? Its fully theatre of the mind, by the way. End note: DM is doing amazing. I just want some pointers on how to communicate in the future, when the glowy snake burrito paladin feels overdone.

WesKane

Confession: Dear merciful judges and super judgey bailiff! I have spat in the name of dice christ and beg for forgieness and to remove and bad dice vibes i may have spurned. I was making some dnd npcs and while rolling stats for them got 4 (20s) on one cleric's stats. Having one tough bad guy npc is one thing so i kept those stats. When rolling for the next npc i rolled even better. I threw away those stats because i dont want my npcs to be too powerful. Have i cursed myself by ignoring good rolls? Please give guidance on my 4 nat 20s.

Kaggi

The case of the entire party decided to be evil without telling me. Jawsome day cute justices and cake boy! This case happened many many years ago. A dm I was vaguely familiar with and 3 friends I hung out with daily. I was a warlock with a fey-ish covenant and there was another player that was a rogue(the rest of the classes don't matter for the story). Things were okay at first but it really went downhill when I had to attend a fey meeting to discuss if I were to keep my powers after an earlier rp moment. Dm reluctanly gave them back and admitted to not reading my backstory thus, not knowing my relationship to my patron. While I was gone for a session, which was also when I was meeting with the fey, I came back to an obliterated city and it was then I learned by a party member "I rolled a nat 20 so I summoned an ancient devil god and he leveled the city". This was how I learned 2 members were evil. The others came when, in one of the last sessions during a battle while I was low the rogue came up behind me and killed me outright. After the cofusion he simply stayed, "I'm a mage slayer". The campaign petered out after this when the "mage slayer" had a solo campaign. So justices I ask, this is some buck wild shit right?

Ryan Janes

to the esteemed judges and they’re absolutely begging bailiff. I bring you the case of the Absent Assassin. I am currently dm-ing for a table of 4 players. All of which have their own perspective young families and busy jobs. this year, it has become harder and harder to schedule dates of play as we wish to be in person; passionate about physical gaming with minis and a true tabletop of curated maps. We are playing a dungeons of drakkenheim campaign and we are about 10-15 sessions in and things are getting very hairy as the table has chosen their faction to ally with. our tables assassin rogue is in real life a very busy person and has begun to be the crux of our scheduling conflicts. what was once a biweekly occurrence has spread to once a month or even every 2 months. our rogue is a first time player but he has an absolute knack for the game; a true wordsmith and he has embodied his character as a persuasive and suave leader and manipulator. The faction that the parties have allied with has become sworn enemies with a rival gang led by our assassins father. the story is just getting good. but the rest of my table has grown weary. they wish to play and every time we’re able to get back together, half of the table is struggling to remember plot points and as several are new players, forget some of the more meaty components in their character sheets. i will admit, one of the players and myself, have begun to conspire off the table. we have begun to spin the in game death of the assassin; a tragic accident that would allow my table to finally play again. at first i was very against removing this player from the table, as again, he is quite talented, but now, fiending to play again, i have begun to agree that he must be snuffed out. Perhaps there is a storyline where I can craft his disappearance for several sessions but where we are in the module, the players will be deep in dungeons and consumed for several sessions at a time and trying to manage the tables immersion into the story and real world schedule is i will admit, daunting. Am i in the wrong for conspiring with my players to assassinate this absent assassin or should the storyline make way for my player who is causing the game to stall and grow lackluster.

Benjamin Riddle

Oh sweet and merciful Cardinals of the Crit, Murph the Magnificent, Caldwell the Charismatic, Jake the joyous, and of course Emily the Egregious (the archaic definition that google is showing, thanks AI). I have come to confess my sins. My devious deeds done in the attempt to create a story rich in mystery, magic, and might for my party has strayed from the teachings of the powerful polyhedron in the sky. I have played TTRPG’s for years and have always respected the law of the dice. I find myself now as a fairly new DM leading my first ever campaign set in a world on the brink of destruction as a prequel to my friend’s post apocalyptic setting. My table is compromised of my wife and my closet friends. They are excellent players, even less experienced players (my wife (she is pretty dope)) have inadvertently created some of the most OP and unintentionally min/maxed PC’s I have ever seen. There is but one caveat, they roll like absolute buttass, not even the fun failures either, like rolling a 7 over and over again for anticlimactic middling failures. I find myself continually lowering DC’s, giving out advantage like crazy, or allowing them to painfully slog through necessary interactions multiple times after failure. In an attempt to mitigate the boring rolls I have even brought out a misprinted die that has 4 crit fails and 4 crit successes on it, all to no avail. Rolls still stink like poop from a butt! What have I done to anger the keeper of the Crit? What can I do to atone for my sins and lack of faith?

Alex Fishman

To the honorable supreme crit justices which unfortunately includes Jake as this is a case coming out of Boston. I bring to you the case of the unobtainable spell components. This case comes from a strahd campaign where I played a nature domain cleric. I had prepped ceremony which was approved by the DM and I attempted to use it at the church when we were burying the burgomaster. The DM told me the spell didn’t work since all of our silver disappeared when we crossed into Barovia. After a back and forth I asked to just switch out the spell for another since it wasn’t usable, but they wouldn’t let me. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but i always felt a little slighted that the spell was approved and I wasn’t allowed to use it. Was this fair play by the DM or should I have been able to provide a proper burial for the burgermaster?

Help_I_Can’t_Sleep

To the most honorable justice Axford, the honorable justices Murphy and Tanner, the bailiff Justin (or something), and the court stenographer Tucker, I bring you the case of the “meta-gamed” riddle. I was recently playing a winter Eladrin Oath of vengeance paladin who worshipped the moon goddess. The campaign was going great, I loved my character, I had worked with the DM on a great backstory, we were having a grand ol’ time. One session, the party was separated and the DM presented my character with a riddle, and then cut away to a different character so I could have time to work on cracking it. I was really struggling, so when they came back to me, and I hadn’t solved it, I asked my fellow players for help. We worked together to solve it, but I noticed one of my party members and friend had gotten really quiet. I figured she just wasn’t much of a riddle person, and didn’t think much of it, as we were nearing the end of the session anyways. After the session, I received a message from that friend saying it wasn’t fair that I asked my fellow players for help with the riddle and accusing me of meta gaming because “if you’re not smart enough to solve the riddle then neither is your character”. Before I even had a chance to respond, I had been blocked from her. An hour later, I received a message from the DM saying I had been kicked from the table because my fellow player would no longer play if I was there. (The Dm and this player were dating) And thus died my favorite character I’ve ever built. Justices, I ask you, was I meta gaming by asking my friends for help with a riddle, or was I screwed over for no clear reason? I humbly await your judgement, Wren (they/them) P.S. I had never had any conflict with this person prior, nor any conflict with anyone else at the table P.P.S. I loved my Paladin character so much I based the outfit I wore to prom on them

Neal Cragg

To the scrumptious justices and the bailiff we’re all a little sure is being “Ratatouille’d”, I bring you the case of Oops All Twig ‘n Berries. My first ever D&D campaign was in 3.5E with high school buddies, and our DM had us pick full starting equipment for our characters. Our party’s Cleric (let’s call him Remy) described spending nearly all his gold on rope, carts and donkeys to his own character’s detriment, and our DM let it slide. Cut to our first challenge as a brand new party: figuring out how to cross a chasm with a cut bridge. Remy the Cleric gleefully pulled the blankets off of his now-caravan to reveal his plan: he had stuffed every cart to the brim with holly twigs, which in the 3.5 equipment list have no weight and cost nothing, and planned to dump it all into the chasm to give us a way across. Our DM protested but the party found it so funny that we demanded it stand, especially since Remy had tanked his character by not getting more reasonable equipment. Our DM eventually gave in and Remy the Cleric got his triumphant moment- and I do mean moment, because as Remy would soon learn 3.5 is not a forgiving system to not have proper armor. The Holly Canyon lives large in our group lore, with the DM saying he should have been harder on ruling against this happening, and the players (me included) saying Remy tanking his character to exploit a dumb loophole was punishment enough. Let the Court decide: have we been Wrongfully Razzing our DM for years? Or should our DM acknowledge Remy’s ingenuity and massive supply of holly twigs? We await your judgment with bated breath and empty carts

Just Aiden

To the highly appreciated, priests and priestess's of Dice Christ and the pretty appreciated bailiff Jake I come to you seeking help, no this isn't about players not getting along, or mechanics being broken, I myself seem to be the problem, I have ran 3 different episodes 1's cause a lot of my friends have been wanting to dabble. My Lord's and Lady, I have total party killed EVERY party I've tried dm-ing, I am a newer DM, only DMing these 3 sessions, but I've tried everything, meticulously looking over and over to make sure I have a good number of enemies that won't overrun my party, ret-conned potions being in inventories, missing hits that should've landed and even changing hit points drastically! Justices, HOW DO I STOP KILLING MY SQUISHIES SO I DON'T FEEL LIKE I HAVE TO BACK PEDAL ON MY IDEAS! ~ Lots of love, Aiden

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)

Resido

To the intercessors of Dice Christ, i beg forgiveness and seek absolution. As a DM almost 5 years ago, there was a player, let’s call him Weyland. Weyland would very often fudge his rolls in his favor, he was using a dice with unclear numbers that looked cool, but would also frequently change a 6 to a 16 and things like this with some slight of hand. At one point during play, I had gotten so fed up with his cheating that I would roll the dice, then just call out the number I knew would beat his AC or DC save. The player got salty after a while of this, and eventually left the playgroup. Was I justified in bringing about dice-Christ's judgement on this heathen, or is it up to the high-roller themselves to bring about justice? I’m certain Weyland will rot in eternal misfortune for his transgressions, but am I equally as guilty for my indiscretion, targeted though it was? I prostrate myself and my favored dice before your merciful judgements.

Maya

To the ever honorable Jayliff Bake and his sweet, sweet, justices, I present the case : “Dungeon Master: Not God” May it please the court! After years of listening to actual play and secretly worshiping Dice Christ, I joined a DND club at my high school. I was ECSTATIC! My DM, although very inexperienced, was always excited and mostly prepared for most sessions. I tried to bring the same energy! Unlike the two other players in the group: one a rogue, and the other a paladin. Let’s call them Huey and Dewey, respectively. They were clearly friends outside of this group, as they would text during sessions, watch TikTok’s loudly, and they’d pester the DM into submitting to bits that railroaded the campaign. Dewey was consistently mentally absent from the campaign, while Huey was unfortunately tuned in. My issue comes on Session Date 4, your honors. We were both paladins (I don’t know why either), and I asked Huey who they worship. They said the DM… I am a slightly confrontational person, so I said that it wasn’t possible. This argument escalated to Huey shouting at me, defending their stance. I prostrate before the court and ask, is “the DM” a reasonable answer? Was I too strict on new players? For the record, the DM agreed with me, your honors! And after that evening, I stopped attending the club.

Emil

To the high priests and their shining choir boy, I bring you an update and a confession. (I was the DM whose table had two exes, who I set up and helped break up, that were constantly fighting and a third friend who was uninvolved in the drama, from the August 15th episode.) I decided to take Caldwell's advice. I recently started medical school, and I told the party that I was too busy to DM. They were so understanding that the ex-girlfriend offered to DM instead so I could keep playing. I thought maybe if one of them were the DM, the fighting would get better because they would be talking directly instead of as their characters. I was wrong. Instead, the fights were super personal with constant sniping about the rules and allegations of unfair targeting and being annoying, and since I was a more experienced DM, they would demand I take a side, and get mad at me when I did. I really wanted to get out of it, and I was desperate enough to sin. During a battle in the second session, during which both made several passive-aggressive comments about the other, my cleric went down. On my second death saving throw, with one failure already, Dice Christ blessed me with a natural twenty, and I should have popped back up. Instead, I lied and said I rolled a natural one. I narrated my cleric bleeding to death on the battlefield then made an excuse and left the Zoom call. Later, the third player texted me to let me know what happened after I left. I hadn't considered that I was the only healer in the party. The ex-boyfriend went down the next round, and the ex-girlfriend DM had minions attack his unconscious body and take all his death saves. The third and final player, who was never part of any of this drama, slogged through six rounds of combat alone before succumbing to her wounds, resulting in a TPK. All three of them have been trying to get together with me to build a new party since then, and I've kind of been weaseling out of it. Holy ones, I feel really bad. I am a liar, a coward, a blasphemer, and now also a murderer. Is there absolution for me? Does the fact that I lied to avoid a difficult conversation mean I'm going to be a bad doctor? What must I do to be normal with my friends again? We've been friends for six years now, and I feel bad that I have basically enabled endless drama and ruined our friendship, but the idea of hanging out with them is miserable to me now. Is there any way I can blame this on Caldwell?

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. With no forever DMs, 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 every time. I 100% believe in the wonders of DND escapism from everyday life, 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, but can't help but feel this illegal. Am I the asshole, or is there beauty in recognizing a friend in every universe? I humbly recline my chair to kneel before your judgment.

tori

i already commented the same thing on one of the previous trinyvale mini arcs (my apologies if you’ve already seen this) (i can’t remember if it was moonstone or the adventure with gex) when I first clocked it but I wasn’t sure how that would factor in now since everyone was de-leveled for strahd and nyack made the switch to gloomstalker ranger! Anyway I hope either this makes a difference or someone can tell me im wrong! #justicefornyack #spoongoon #backtozero

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.

Craig Farrell

Is my 6 year old daughter more powerful then my level 5 Monk? Lady lizards and Gentle Geckos of the Supreme Crit. And that slow-worm of a bailiff that I saw steal a croissant from the pigeons outside. A simple question: Is my 6 year old daughter more powerful then my level 5 Monk? In our epic adventure, our DM ran an encounter with a Lizard folk encampment. We chose diplomacy and were welcomed into their camp. As we sat around a campfire, one of the Skinky boys fired his tongue out and caught a fly. Desperate to show off to these rugged Reptiles, my Way Of The Kensi Monk wanted to show off her blade skills and catch a fly too “Roll to Hit” said the DM. “22!” I exclaimed confidently. “You failed”, replied the DM. I was sad not to impress my new zard friend, and sheathed my blade. Ashamed. The problem is, not a 10day later, my daughter, who is NOT a Way of The Kensi Monk, caught a fly whilst I was reading her a book. So, is she more powerful then my Monk with 19dex. Or, has has the DM set the DC too high for a fly?? Or has Kiri Kuzi discovered her Big Bad Evil Fly Guy??? I must return to writing my wedding speech and push DnD from my brain. Thank you

Thefindingmoon

To the judgy Justices and Jorb, I bring to you the case of Bob’s Fiery Fate! May it please the court. In the last few sessions of our curse of Strahd campaign, we rallied a town of commoners to join us in facing off against Strahd. On the way to the castle we fought some monsters and sent a group of commoners ahead of us in the battle. The result, we managed to keep all 5 commoners alive and Commoner B AKA Bob, got a killing blow on a large fiend. We asked if we could have Bob become a level 1 fighter that we controlled and our DM gave this requested agency to our comrade Bob. We love Bob and in the next fight before Strahd he even scored armor and a flail that upped his AC to 20 and gave him solid fighting stats. I now bring to you the injustice. In our final fight against Strahd, Bob was knocked unconscious, on his third death save he rolled a nat 20. Everyone was elated. I said so Bob can take his turn right and the DM and one of the other players said very matter of factly that a nat 20 death save brings you to 1 hp but at the end of your turn. It really isn’t a big deal and if it’s a house rule fine, but they were saying it as if this was RAW. Bob ultimately survived 2 more rounds of combat, coming back to full with a second wind, gaining temp hp from an ally, surviving another strike and then met his demises to a high level fire ball. If Bob would have gotten his turn at the appropriate time, I believe due to posotioning he may have survived. At the end of the day we all had fun and I chose to revivify our paladin with my last 3rd level spell instead of Bob and we invoked a statue of him, but was I in the wrong for not speaking up for Bob or was I right to accept my DM and player’s incorrect ruling. I already had to smash one of my DMs counter spells due to the 60ft rule and wasn’t trying to be that guy, but I fear Bob’s fate may have been in my hands. I await your ruling.

Gary J

To the always fair judges and the Bailiff that seems solid and I hear gives good substacked advice I bring party drama and an upset player request for thre party ruling. I dm a campaign set in the Witcher universe’s and it’s close to wrapping up after 16 months. During the course of the campaign I have had a player who had to leave due to behaviour against both one of my players (who ALSO is my wife ) and the game itself by arguing over story elements and dm calls (such as not having advantage on rolls due to ‘story reasons’ and not changing the result of a failed roll, long standing rule if you rolled it we roll with it) resulting in him being asked to leave the game at about the 7 month mark. Two other players who also had a problems in the past with this person then joined the game saying they would now be happy join in given this person was gone. I happily accepted to run a game of 4. Fast forward and one of the original players is now lamenting the story line of this player who was killed off screen saying they wanted to see it resolved as it affected both of their arcs heavily at first. I have spoken with them aside saying since it was almost a year ago it makes no sense no to revive at this point as I don’t want to continue a narrative for a person no longer here, additionally that two of four players have never interacted with that character either, the player pointed out the last arc has a lot of spots it looks like was written for this person and they are correct, I hadn’t been able to fully change everything to remove that persons entire existence just stopped using them in any narrative/story and past actions still happened. I ask the court, was incorrect to either kick the player off the table at all, and if not should I have continued the story to let it resolve in the final arc for the sake of completeness?

Cam Valpoop

To the honorably adorable judges and the… Jake, I bring you the case of the failed Mulan-ing! I was DMing the Lost Mines of Phandelver for my party of experienced players. The group just made it to the ruins of Thundertree, where they were asked to help scare away a Young Green Dragon who was keeping his hoard there. The party devised an incredible plan to “Mulan” the dragon by using one of the party’s 2 sorcerers in the role of Mushu, as he was playing a tiny dragonborn named Slippy, who was reskinned as a salamander (a Salamancer if you will). Slippy unleashed a 2nd level Dragon’s Breath spell into dragon’s room to fill it with smoke, while the other sorcerer used prestidigitation to silhouette him in the smoke and the party’s cleric used prestidigitation to shout at the dragon to flee from the tower. I had the cleric roll Performance for what he said to the dragon and had Slippy roll Deception to appear as a giant dragon in the fog, and then let them use the higher of the rolls to scare it away. I set the overall DC for the check to 30 without telling them, because in my mind there was no way outside of a nat 20 that this would work. However, after slippy rolled a 21 on his deception and I said it failed, my party grew upset with me. Now alerted to their location, the green dragon unleashed his breath weapon on the group, nearly TPKing them all if it weren’t for some high CON saves. Battle ensued and the party got pretty beat up. I eventually spared them by saying the dragon flew away after going below half HP (which he didn’t even reach), but then they got mad at me for not letting them slay it. To this day, they still say I took away their “Mulan Moment” and didn’t even let them win the battle. Judges, I ask you: was I too much of a stickler for realistic gameplay and crushed the creativity of my players, or were my players too engrossed by the hit 1998 film Mulan to see how foolish their plan was to scare away a dragon? I leave my fate to your swift and fair judgement. PS @Jake - London is Blue

Craig Farrell

Please say hi to Heidi. She listens to "One Big Bed' almost every night. I'm so proud to be DMing for her OP charecter, Daisy Peligan.

Zack Collins

Aloha and Shalom judges of the Supreme Crit and Barely Lift Jake. I start my defense with a question: how scared would you be if 24 horses ran past you? I cooked up a scenario where a group of highly trained assassins masquerading as vagabonds were guarding the BBEG's base. My players sniffed out their disguise, but rather than fighting them, the bard cast conjure animals in an attempt to scare them away from the entrance. He at first tried summoning 8 horses and made them run past them. I ruled that horses wouldn't really scare a hardened group of assassins and the spell doesn't have any fear component. He became disgruntled at this ruling and instead of switching tactics, doubled down and upcasted the spell summoning 24 horses. He didn't want them to engage in combat so he just had them run around a bunch. Eventually the guards were called because of the horses running amok and the players ended up having the horses fight the guards while they fought the assassins. Judges, should I have let their scheme work? What should have been a short obstacle became a large session consuming argument. The player is still salty months later and I wonder if I should have just let it work.

Parker

To the High Priests of Dice Christ, I come to confess and seek forgiveness for a pre-cog thought-crime. However, my plea is not to The Holy Roller but to High Priest Murphy directly. I had an incredibly vivid dream recently, in which I saw Murph and Emily at a movie theater. The two of you were on your way out and I tried to stealthily intercept you both by making Murph "accidentally" bump into me. He apologized, and instead of responding, I took a few steps away, turned, and said "I am a huge fan of YOU" in the absolute sweatiest tone possible. The expression on dream-Murph's face was somewhere between holding in laughter and "Huh?" Emily did not notice or acknowledge me. High Priests, I fear this was not a dream but a vision of future events. How likely is this? Near impossible, as I don't typically go to the movies & live in Wisconsin. And yet every time I shut my eyes I see Murph's incredulous face & I worry that any potential IRL interactions would be tainted with this memory. I beg of you, release me from this subconscious social faux-pas so I may sleep easy once more.

One-Eyed Girl

Hello lovely lovely justices (and I guess Jeb can be a bit lovely too), I come to you today with the case of the Boss Whomping. Last year my group finished a campaign that has been going for 7 years (I only joined ~4 ago). After a number of setbacks (two people got cancer) and losing members (three people left about two months before the finale), the four remaining players got together to finally stop the betrayer God Hiddukel from destroying the material plane in his quest for vengeance. To make up for the lost people we got to pick 3 NPCs from the campaign, leveled to 20 with us, to assist in the fight. After weeks of debating who we would bring, we said our goodbyes and headed off to the fight. Except, in the service of expediency, our DM played all of the NPCs instead of letting us, which was the original plan. We then proceeded to whomp the betrayer god silly with the only death being a noble sacrifice by one of the NPCs. My complaint is that, while going by a bit quicker, the fight turned into mostly the DM playing against herself and everything ended up a bit underwhelming in the end. Do we deserve a proper redo of our stories epic conclusion, or should we just be happy to still be together and playing our new campaign, (based on an alternate universe where we didn't win the fight).

Steven Pyles

To the effervescent Justices and Juck (don’t screw it up, buddy): One year, the first-ever campaign I was in did a special Halloween homebrew one-shot. My character was bitten by a hippo, turned into a werehippo, and was not cured by the end. I asked if it was canon and the DM said yes. I leaned into lycanthropy a bit like an addiction problem. I started getting more wary of my party and was becoming more hostile. I wanted to set up an intervention-style story. A few weeks later, the DM suddenly started the session by saying the moon was full and I turned into a rampaging hippo throughout town. My party knocked me out and I had to make death saves. I rolled a nat 20 to revive with 1 HP. The DM made me transform again before I could be restrained. Then, after I was knocked out again, a party member decided the safest thing to do was kill me. I took it very personally for a while, it was my first character after all, and there were some arguments after the fact. Ultimately, I was making a character choice that didn’t pay off how I wanted and I accept that. This case is not against the player who killed me. Justices, was it ok for the DM to spring the full moon on me at the start of a session, let my character be fully killed, and then expected me to sit there for the remainder of a 6-hour session without anything to do? I wasn’t warned so that I could maybe have a new character ready, I wasn’t allowed to play the DM PC, my death was moved on from after a few minutes and then he started running them through an adventure he had prepped while I was just kind of there. Or, did this hippo deserve better? I leave it in your capable hands (just do your best, Juck).

Binky Fiasco #1 Fan

To the exalted judges, and their loyal and widely respected bailiff Cake: I have been a member of a dnd group for over four years, spanning multiple campaigns with rotating DM's from our group. Our most recent DM has been running a campaign for over two years, building on extensive lore and the world we created, with the games being hosted at his apartment. However, our DM began dating a player at our table several months ago, which was a shock to the rest of us, as we would have not suspected they would be a good couple. As time went on, we noticed tension growing between them, with the girlfriend intentionally pushing the DM's buttons, and the DM getting visibly aggravated with their girlfriends in-game shenanigans, which included asking if their stinky farts delt poison damage to enemies. A few days after a particularly tense session which ended on a cliffhanger, with us at the precipice of finishing a long quest and about to face off against an ancient dragon, we received word that the DM and the player had broken up with a lot of drama. This schism marked the end of our dnd group, as the DM needed time away and their now ex girlfriend was the driving character of the story. Judges, am I wrong to think that the DM should have waited to break up with his girlfriend until after finishing the campaign, or at least until after resolving the cliffhanger he left us on? I humbly await your judgement.

joanie

your splendiferous honors and our rigorous bailiff: was our dm wrong for railroading my character into getting kidnapped? i play a dnd campaign set in the world of percy jackson, where our pcs are demigods. in our most recent session, we had stopped with our 1970s volkswagon van (trust me, this is important) at a gas station. two of us stayed behind to gas up the van, while the other five went into the station for snacks and intel. the two of us who stayed behind got approached by someone who asked for $2 to help fill up her gas tank; we then had to make a wisdom saving throw. my friend failed, and got possessed; i passed, and my character went to get help. at this point, the enemy's partner emerged, the enemy stole the keys to the van from my possessed friend, and the partner teleported into the van. we THEN rolled initiative; i got to go first, so i sped to the van and hopped in, thinking i could threaten them from the backseat. here's where the issue lies: my dm said they would give me a reaction to get out of the van before it drove away. i asked if i'd be able to stab the tires as i get out, and they said if i rolled a nat 20 i could stab the tires. i got an 11 on the die and forgot to add my modifier. the dm then said that i was locked (?!) in the van (reminder, a 1970s volkswagon van!) and that the enemy and partner drove all the way away with my character in the van before anyone else could do anything. i do admit fault in not adding my modifier and not seeing the dangers of getting in a van with a stranger, but justices, what 1970s volkswagon van speeds off and becomes unreachable in a matter of six seconds? so i return to the question: was our dm wrong to kidnap my character in a cutscene while it appears like the rest of our party just stands there awkwardly for six seconds? your wisdom would be greatly appreciated. (and thank you for all the great episodes! long time listener, first time caller 💕)

James Pettipas

I hope this finds the illustrious Justices and and the actually pretty cool bailiff Jaques well. I bring to you the case of the unkillable evil ghost. Last year I joined a long running weekly game at the beginning of a new campaign. I became fast friends with everyone at the table and for the most part it's always a good time when we play. Early on in the campaign my halfling barbarian who was cousins with another characters halfling artificer met gruesome deaths at the hands of evil ghosts who inhabit magical clothing items. My barbarian is possessed and kills our parties paladin after he goes down in combat escaping into the wood and I roll a new character next session the artificer receives a letter from the barbarian to meet him alone (the don't know he possessed) the barbarian restrains the artificer and tortures him to death cooking him alive with a magic insta pot. The barbarian is later found dead by suicide. The player of the artificer was so upset by this he missed the next 2 sessions and maintains to this day the DM took things too far while the DM maintains he was setting up a brutal villain with early deaths. I ask the court was this too far or is the player too sensitive.

Justin

To the esteemed steamy judges Murphy, Tanner, and Axford, and the sopping wet baliff Jake. I present to you the case of the starving vampire in space. I was a player in a DND spelljammer campaign where we were given a spaceship to explore the cosmos. In the first couple of sessions we bought an item that would give us infinite rations. Of course we spent all of our gold on it so that we didn’t have to stop for food. A few sessions later we get an additional player. This person was playing a Dhampir (vampire race) and could only eat blood. I asked the dm if it was okay for them to use rations too and he said yes. Well…the Dhampir refused to eat them causing us to make constant stops on different planets just for blood. The kicker is they wouldn’t even take it from living creatures. We had to find black market “blood sellers” to satiate their hunger. Judges, am I justified in thinking someone’s role-play shouldn’t hinder the whole team or was it okay for them to play out their Twilight fantasy? I await your decision.

Penderpeen

To the esteemed judges of the supreme crit and Tuckers nanny, I bring you the case of rigorously requested rolls. I currently DM a condensed Curse of Strahd campaign (shoutout) with my party who has played together for seven years. We are attempting to run through the major locations of Barovia in eight sessions, leading to awesome hours-long weekly games to send off one party member who is about to move across the country as a final farewell. One of the players, lets call him Jeff, is incredibly detail oriented. Jeff often carries the table through complex puzzles and remembering snippets of information from multiple sessions ago. The problem - Jeff insists on rolling for everything. Sometimes this is great for immersion - if Jeff rolls a perception check on a snapping twig and reveals a pack of wolves tracking the party through the fog. However, with the speed we are trying to run Strahd in, this is becoming cumbersome on the group’s momentum. Recently, Jeff asked to roll an insight check on a disembodied voice whispering to his character mentally. I told Jeff that as there was no person to perceive or interaction to investigate, he could not roll because even on a nat 20 I would not be able to provide any more information. This only encouraged the table to request more rolls and now we find ourselves hitting the “theres no more information to be found” wall more frequently. To the crit I ask, how many rolls is too many? Am I being too hard on a fully engaged player or should I ask him to tone back his requests?

Gurt

To the three untouchable justices and the flappable jnco wearing bailif jorts, I bring to you the case of that time I ghosted a girl because of dnd. Back in college, I met a girl at a comedy club meetup and hit it off. She was funny, smart and seemed into me which was as unlikely as Jorb becoming a justice. Anyway, we went out a couple of times and had a really good time. Well the time came to introduce her to the friend group and invited her to a couple options: A movie night, a general hangout and or she could come to dnd night. She opted for dnd. I was the DM and helped her whip up a character and got her ready to go. Justices and jingle, she proceeded to mock and tease everyone. In character, out of character, and in between. I did my best to wrangle that while my friends were also trying to balance her and also not ruin the campaign. After a very frustrating session, I took her home and dropped her off. Justices. I never texted her again. I saw her at club meetings and sketch shows but never mentioned that we went out or played dnd. I acted as if this had never happened. Justices, Jeremy, was I wrong in not saying anything and just ghosting her (emotionally, if not literally)? Or should I have tried harder to address what the issue and get to the bottom of it? I prostrate myself before the mercy of the court and your wise judgement.

Snail Man

Esteemed Judges! So glad you could make it! Oh you brought Jake? I guess that’s okay. I bring you the case of “The Bard Who Wanted to Die” I was running an encounter with my party that involved them escorting a princess (Dina) through a war torn city towards a boat where they may escape. Upon reaching the boat, the party ran with Dina towards the vessel, only for it to be a trap set in place by the kingdoms sorcerer. Springing his trap he cast Disintegrate on Dina, however our Bard (Valik) stated he wished to jump in the way of the spell. I told him if he rolled a Nat 20, he could block the spell with himself, but he would automatically fail the save. He eagerly accepted the challenge, rolled a Nat 20, and having already taken damage travelling through the city, proceeded to turn to ash before the parties eyes. This was an emotional death that had us all shedding tears as we had been playing this campaign for over a year. Valik even revealed to the party after his death that Dina was secretly his younger half sister, and he was so happy he got to have a fun character moment. It was after 15 minutes of this that our party Cleric came back from his smoke break outside, and after learning of Valik’s death stated “wait no I cast Death Ward on you, your fine.” The room went quiet and then dissolved into a debate on if Valik should be dead. The Cleric and half the party argued rules as written Valik should live, but the other half of the table including Valik said it makes the story so much better if he were to stay dead. I eventually made the ruling after talking with Valik, that the death ward activated after the disintegrate, turning him into an Ash ghost Revenant of sorts who didn’t have his memories. He seemed very pleased with the compromise, but the rest of the party wasn’t happy with my as they put it “half measures” and “unnecessary compromises” Judges, Should I have let Valik die for the story? Did I make the wrong call not following the rules? I can’t stop thinking about how I messed it all up. I await your ruling and eminent punishment.

Samson

To the Justices On High and the Tiny Baby Baliff George, I humbly present the case I'm affectionately calling "Caught Reddit Handed". I've been DMing an online game for the past year or so, and during our last session I got into a slight argument with one of my players - the player in question, a human barbarian named 'Junk', claimed he should be able to grapple a goblin with advantage as he was double it's size. I said no, conceded that it would have a low DC but having advantage isn't how it works. This went back and forth for a while, and eventually Junk reluctantly backed down and we went on with the session. Later on, during a pee break, I was still thinking on the decision as he seemed genuinely dejected by it, so I took to Reddit to see if anyone had any thoughts. TO MY DISMAY, I discovered that the player had already made a post about this decision, and more specifically about ME! It was mostly a rant about DMs going on power trips, and ignoring - quote - "real life physics for the sake of winning one over on their players". He wrote "surely the DMs should pass an IQ test before they can run their silly little games" and signed off the monologue with "well, I guess stupid is as stupid does. Cheers" After reading it, I laughed and said "what the fuck [Junk], did you post about me?" Your honours, he denied, denied, denied. When I said I was literally looking at the post, he said maybe someone else just posted something about a similar situation, and even had the BALLS to suggest I should "read it over, you might learn a thing or two". By the time the others got back from their breaks, he had deleted the post and kept saying "He must be making it up, lol, I can't even find anything". Justices, I know I am in the right but I feel like I'm going crazy here. Please give him a harsh verdict so I can make him feel bad. P.S by the time I saw the post it had already been up an hour - it had zero comments and just one upvote. On the official D&D sub Reddit. Thanks, Sam

Heather

To the beautiful, beautiful judges and the other guy. I bring you the case of just a lot of real life drama, and the players in the dark. I have been playing in a Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder game for nearly 6 years now. Our group has survived players and DM moving to different parts of the country, moving to a remote style of play, and multi-month hiatuses. One thing we may not survive though, is our DM's new girlfriend and a lot of drama. You see, one of our players used to date the DM. It was a toxic relationship on both sides, and it did not end well. But they still play together for the sake of the game. However, the DM has a new girlfriend, and she is not happy about our DM spending time once a week with his ex, even though we're playing over Zoom and Roll20. New girlfriend wants our DM to kick the old girlfriend out of the group. DM is considering it. Now, there's a whole lot of real life drama that has happened in the background between 2 of the players (myself included) and the ex girlfriend. Friendships are rocky. However, there are 2 players completely unaware of everything that has happened. They think we're all good, and that the two just broke up amicably. And they are understandably confused about why she's getting kicked out in the first place. Judges, do we tell the players who have been in the dark all the dirty details of what's been going on with this ex girlfriend player behind the scenes in hopes they understand why she needs to be kicked out? I await your judgement

Prof

To the supreme and esteemed and soon peeved justices, and to the balif John I bring the case of the min maxed robot A few yrs ago when I was but a wee little inexperienced DM I ran a Star wars campaign using SW5e. One of my friends said he wanted to run a droid barbarian, specifically a magna guard, I said sure. This friend is known for making insane characters so I kinda was ready but clearly not enough as in session 1 he brings a PC with 36 AC, 6 reactions and resistance to all damage. I'm pretty sure the last one was a misunderstanding by me and him but still insane character, I said no, gave him like 22 AC and a vulnerability to shock damage as he's a droid. He agreed but still argued he did it completely legally. We are still friends and still play together but I still raz him about the droid and he still defends it. Judges was I right to nerf this droid and continue to raz him or was it "completely legal" and the razing should end? PS he said he's down to send an explicit of the build

John Bakker

To whom crit may concern: Am I the right DM for this table? I recently moved to LA and have been invited by a new friend here to DM a table for his friends. I love to dm, especially for new players so I was happy to agree, the problem is every time I chat with my friend, he has ideas about the campaign story, characters to include and how to handle the players (his friends). I don't know if i am I the best DM for this table! I've asked my friend if he wants to dm a few times and he keeps bashfully saying "he's only apprenticed as a DM a few times" I'm worried if I want to play at this table I'll have to DM when clearly my pal is better suited to play. Judges, Am I obligated to run for this table or does my friend need to pull up his big player shorts and start DMing?

Ivan Kay

Good morning Bailiff Jake, and the others too I guess. Today I bring less of a case and more of a question: How many people can be missing before I cancel session? I'm running DnD for a university research group I'm part of. We've had three sessions that all have been fun as far as I can tell. The problem is that we struggle to have all 6 players be there for a session. More often than not, we have one or two people unable to come, usually different people each time. I keep cancelling, but at a certain point I feel bad for the people who can consistantly show up. Should I start running sessions without everyone there? What's the limit? I need answers. P.S. If you need to sentence someone, sentence me for my sins. I beg you.

Lugi

Hello. I would like to submit a case I like to call "refusing a direct order". I was playing an Eberron campaign with a group of friends, with my best friend DMing for the first time. He did a great job, was extremely open to our ideas, and we were having a great time goofing around and exploring the city of Sharn. However, during an encounter with a bad guy in a ruin, things took a turn for the weird. A few rounds into combat, and after some ridiculous banter, the bad guy up-cast the command spell on the tabaxi rogue and on my air-genasi sorcerer. We both failed the save. When we asked the DM what command the bad guy gave, he said, “Fuck you,” picking up on the preceding banter. “Fuck you” in german is the same as “fuck yourself.” The tabaxi player quickly jumped in to describe his character licking himself, as cats do. Now, I see how that's funny for the tabaxi; however, I was really invested in my character, and imagining my bookish, sad-boy, orphaned-prince sorcerer blowing himself at the command of this random bad guy made me feel sick. I informed the DM that my character would not interpret this command like that and would instead use his turn to “fuck off” and spend his action and movement running away. The DM did not press the issue further, but after that the vibes were off, and the campaign soon fizzled. Was I being too uptight by refusing to entertain what was clearly meant as a harmless goof? Or is it criminally weird to use the command spell to have someone perform auto-fellatio? PS: All people involved are guys, so at least there’s that. PPS: @Murph: yes we ignored the one-word command rule, as the imperative in german often splits a verb into two words (stem + prefix) PPPS: Yes I used chatgpt to check that last bit. Greetings from Switzerland 😊

The Open Road Before Me

To the vigorous and vascular judges and the vain and vapid bailiff Jeff, I submit to you the case of the Gobbled Up Ice Goblin. I play as an ice goblin druid in a heavily homebrewed Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign. We're all strangers who've been playing online together for nearly a year. It's a wonderful and caring group (players and DM); we've already navigated a couple of interpersonal blips at the table with maturity and respect. Sometimes our DM can be a little heavy-handed with the story and the effects of our characters' actions. Usually it's fine... She's a great storyteller and we enjoy the conflict and failure required to make our story interesting. This week, though, a line was crossed. We were in the second stage of an epic boss fight, all of us battered and drained. My druid is one of our party's two tanks. The aberration we were facing managed to incapacitate me, and rather than waste my turn, I used my movement to close with the monster and climb up his legs. I told the DM my intention was to distract the monster to keep him from attacking our barbarian, and she asked for an athletics check. Your honors, I rolled a natural 1. The DM narrated the monster grappling me and lifting me in the air. This is all fine... It was an entertaining cost of failure. I still had ~35% of my HP and an ability that lets me drop to 1 HP instead of 0 if I would otherwise go down. However, on the monster's next turn, the DM asked for my last words and narrated the monster putting my cute little goblin in its mouth, chewing her up, and swallowing her with no rolls of any sort. I assumed the DM wanted to keep the party in suspense, so I went along with it and privately messaged her to make sure she remembered my ability to stay up after a mortal blow. When my friends slew the monster and pulled me out of its gullet, the DM narrated that I was fully dead and mangled after suffering a "lethal blow". Again, there was no saving throw, no attack roll, no damage rolled, no death saves, and my magical ability was ignored. Your honors, I felt slighted! Should a critically failed skill check on MY OWN turn be the only thing between my beloved character and oblivion? Or was my little scramble-girl wronged by an overzealous angel of Dice Christ? I humbly await your judgement. P.S. my fellow druid was able to make a devil's bargain with the DM to cast revivify without a spell slot to bring me back, but she had to sacrifice her familiar in order to do so. It was a beautiful story moment, there were multiple people crying at the table, and my druid and the other wrote each other very sweet journal entries after the session.

Tom

To the fine, upstanding Baliff, and the distinctly unproblematic Supreme Crit Justices; I present “The Case of the Pushy Roleplayer”*: My crew and I have been playing for well over a decade. Recently I’ve noticed a level of lackadaisical character roleplay that’s new to the group: players sharing “my character explains the staff of the magi” in place of a character-to-character interaction. Leading this fervor of nonchalance is none other than our longtime dungeon master. I’ve had conversations with them about enhancing the RP aspect. But, they fall back to explanation over conversation. As my only way to combat this, I’ve only engaged the team in character while we’re playing. Last session, while my character (Silt Fuds) and another (Gideon - no last name) were on watch, I asked them about their backstory, and where they came from. They panicked at first, but ultimately we were able to have a good moment between characters. I’ve had such conversations with NPC’s piloted by the DM. I ask, am I overstepping by backseat DMing, and being a general weirdo, pushing my friends into silly voices on a weeknight? I prostrate myself before your opinions. *It’s me

YourAnimeDad

To the Nat20 Justices and the "I rolled a 10" bailiff Cake I present: The case of the Full Turn Fingerguns: Representing myself V. My DM I play in a Eberron campaign with some friends from work every couple weeks or so with a focus on building up our Wizard’s Mobile Food Truck. It’s been a BLAST playing with relatively new players thinking outside of the box, throwing hot boiling canisters of soup as flavor for spells, a Paladin w/Dino mount smiting with a great hammer, and a smarmy savvy business focused Druid. What hasn't been a BLAST is my DMs ruling on a spell. Inspired by their freedom from not knowing the rules I’ve dedicated this character to be a support character, a Bard/Rogue multiclass to provide support in and out of battle with some non optimal spells. My issue began when I chose an odd spell called “Finger Guns” spell (3rd Party stuff), a cantrip that allows you to turn your finger into a weapon. It’s funny, fun and kinda useful. But then my DM made a ruling that stops it from being ethically used in combat. Judges I would have to use my bonus action to ACTIVATE the spell and my action to attack each time i used it. I’m not a huge fan of D&DB but in it’s interface it allows for a bonus action only to pop off. At first I let it slide because I did well enough in combat with all my other abilities, but as the sessions went on and I insisted that maybe the wording is misleading my DM wouldn't allow it, insisting that I use all my action economy on this 1 CANTRIP when I wanted to use it. In the end DM wouldn’t budge and I dropped the cantrip for Prestidigitation, but having a quick draw and killing a guy with just a point of your finger sounds so funny and I will never get a chance to do it. Judges, am I in the wrong for not honoring my DMs decision and insisting I be able to use this as a bonus action ONLY or did I simply miss “THE POINT” of this blasting spell? I humbly await your swift and righteous judgement in this lawless wasteland

Matthew Sturm

To the honorable Justices and everyone’s favorite Jake, 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?

Matthew Sturm

To the honorable Justices and that bailiff guy, 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?

Max W

Hello to the palling bailiff and his three titillating justices. I have a case for my campaign before the campaign, I’m running a campaign in the one piece world. (Yes Caldwell, you can join). My player thinks he should get to choose his devil fruit, I think he should roll on a table twice and choose whichever he likes more. Who is correct?

Matthew Sturm

To the honorable Justices and the other one, 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?

Jordanne Stahl

I have a Dice Christ Confession, if I may.

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!)

Jay

Honourable judges and bailiff (I'm sorry, I'm too autistic to be mean T.T), may it please the court My mom, teenaged sister and I recently planned a vacation in Greece. We live across the country from each other and seldomly get to spend a lot of time together, so I asked if they were interested in trying a DND one shot and they really liked the idea. I made a quiz to find out ther preferred playstyle and classes, assigned each class to a Greek god, crafted spell cards for their classes and planned a story revolving around Greek myths and history, with historical personalities and real places we were going to visit. During planning, I talked to them a few times about the game and they both seemed excited. One day before the trip, my mom tells me that my sister decided weeks ago that she didn't want to come with us after all. Of course we could play DND some other time when I visit, but since everything was planned for the trip to Greece, I feel like playing it anywhere else wouldn't be as good. Honourable judges, was I justified in being more disappointed for needlessly spending so much time planning this game and not getting to play it, than I am at the fact my sister has cancelled her trip without telling me? Was it okay of me to refuse to play with them when I stayed for a few days after the trip? Should I have just been happy that they wanted to engage in my obsession? Or was my sister a rebellious teenager that should rightfully be punished by the law for wasting my time and effort? I await your judgement

hobblelobble

To the honorable court and the lowly bailiff john: the case of yo mama. I just ran a one shot this past weekend for some colleagues at a professional retreat. One of my players INSISTED on being a bard. I remember her doing the same last year, I remember hating it as much then as I did now. The problem with her playing a bard is she speaks with the cadence of what I can only liken to a saltine cracker. I took a deep breath, for the good of the one shot, I said “yes of course you can be a bard!” I decided to be a patient DM and just hold her hand through it a little more. She cast Tasha’s hideous laughter and I asked her kindly to describe what that looked like. She said “oh it’s a spell.” I said, “Yes. your spell makes someone laugh so hard they fall down and are incapable of doing anything. What do you as a bard do to make them laugh so hard?” She thought for a minute and said “I tell him ‘yo mama so old she was a personal friend of jesus’” Honorable judge- it took every ounce of strength I possessed to yes-and that BUT I DID. Flash forward- talks of another one shot post-retreat is in the works, or possibly a small campaign. I deeply want to forget to add her number to the text chain… am I a terrible person and/or DM? I just can’t yes-and any more yo mama jokes from the blandest bard I’ve ever met, but this is a group of colleagues who I professionally network with and I will undoubtedly see her next year at the retreat. I await your advice patiently. PS- I recruited a woman in her mid fifties (quiet and unassuming) to play this one shot because she told me she listened to Eldermourne with her (teen) kids as a bonding experience. She played our barbarian and was an absolute badass 10/10 no notes.

Anthony

To the Avatars of Dice Christ, I bring to yous a “What If?” that creeps its way into my thoughts every so often regarding my first, and only, tpk as a DM. It was a glorious run of a weekly campaign that had seen the characters go from level 3 to level 13. So many amazing times were had exploring my homebrew world of Ral’Sterra and many seeds for countless different adventures the party could choose to go on. In the world of Ral’Sterra, the humans are the “bad guys” and after defeating one of the Evil Wizard’s generals the party found his map! They eventually decided to go to the nearest treasure marker - which was marked in the middle of open ocean. When they arrived they realized it was a Sea Dragon’s Lair. My party’s “murder-hobo” instincts were too strong and after I described a ritual circle on the center of this tiny island they found, they spilled blood on it which triggered the dragon’s feeding. The water ran red and sharks began to swarm as the dragon came up to eat. When the dragon breached the surface my party attacked. It was an intense fight but the dragon got all of it breath recharges and was able to essentially tpk them - one pc escaped to the Shadowfell thru Gate. My players all had fun and didn’t want to undo it and we even played 2 more campaigns in that world after that and the PC that escaped to the Shadowfell became a baddie in C2, it was really fun but we were never able to match the excitement of that first campaign… I often ask myself if I was wrong to keep blasting them with the dragon’s breath even though that’s what the dice and my party’s actions said to do… can I be forgiven for questioning Dice Christ so often about the dice allowing for so many breath recharges?

Michael Huit

The Case of the Cocky Druid To the effervescent, effeminate, empassioned judges (and our cutie patootie bailif), I dredge up my minor drama of many eons past for your deliberation. May it please the court, I am the Cocky Druid in question. Our campaign started in 2019, ran by a friend. Usual teething problems, but overall fun! To simplify relevant things for campaign; we all died, we all got resurrected 30 years later, the world had changed and been claimed by a dictator, my Druid’s Deity of the Lakes was dying, and we stumbled into becoming rebellion leaders. Druid’s main goal from this point was to bring back the deity. At one point, we had to seal a gate to hell. My Druid managed to use Sunbeam to burn through Zariel’s Legendary Resistances, and then successfully blind her after a series of lucky rolls, giving the party enough time to escape before closing Hell off from the Material Plane in that region. A few sessions later, future events teleport us and bodyswap us into seemingly unrelated creatures and people, where our bodies and powers are changed with little broader context given to us. After fending off attacks we don’t understand from an ocean we’ve never seen before, a giant, Cthulu-esque monster rises from the ocean and grabs my Druid. Here’s where the point of contention arises; after blinding Zariel, my Druid’s hubris has grown massively, as has mine. When it asked me for a name, I said “Nunya”. When it sought further clarification, I doubled down and said “Nunya Business”. My character was then hurled off at mach speeds so the monster could talk to the rest of the party uninterrupted. It was very funny at that moment. However, it immediately came out that this monster was an evil God of Oceans. It was connected to my Druid’s deity, and the only one capable of bringing her back. I picked up on the connection, but my character was far away and wasn’t allowed to contribute at this moment. The others didn’t pick up on the connection, and used the one gift offered by this monster to move a different plot point forward, wiping a future bad guy off the board. I felt very short-changed, being excluded from the most important moment of the campaign for my character. It was a result of my hubris, but I also feel the punishment was too severe to continue having fun with the character. I can see how taking a powerful, imposing moment and treating it like a joke must have upset my DM, but to be removed from one of the few scenes relevant to my character’s backstory was honestly, deeply personally upsetting. I beseech thee, justices - were my foolish words worthy of such severe character punishment? I humbly await your decision. P.S. I tried to leave the campaign, or even change characters, but the DM refused to engage in any conversations around it and blanked the topic.

Dirt G

To the honorable Emily, and the Boys, I bring a case of utmost urgency — to stay a death sentence or carry out an execution. In two weeks time from when this message is posted, I will be narrating a scene in which a PC is given a choice to fulfill their arc and save their loved one but, unknowingly, at the cost of their very soul, shredded beyond any hope of resurrection. I come to you now to ask if this is a just punishment for the crime. The crime? Being absent to nearly every single session without warning, and occasionally deciding to go grocery shopping, or go to a different friend’s board game instead, leaving the party in the lurch, and often unable to even proceed — turning to Jackbox or *gasp* VtM. While I and everyone love the player and this character, it seems untenable to continue carrying on like this; a mission meant to take three months dragged on for over a year due to their absence and there’s no real signs of it stopping. I have warned the players that their PCs may die or become unplayable at any moment, with one PC already being captured by the Spanish (Magic) Inquisition and almost everyone having backup PCs. The PC also is suffering from an extreme ruidium/radiation sickness and so death is ever present. My hope is this will give their character a nice arc and allow the player a chance to decide if they’d like to bow out or continue with a new character (as originally they were only planning on playing with us for awhile anyway!). Please be aware by the time you discuss this, there’s a chance our lovely Directra will be dead and gone so a moment’s silence in her memory. I throw myself on the mercy of the court — is this death just?

PJ

To the honorable justices of the supreme crit, and I guess that other guy if he's still hanging around, I present to you the case of the sneaky giant army. In our last session a few weeks ago, the party was leading a small army of frost giants (about 140) through the vast and labyrinthine lair of an ancient white dragon. It is important to note that these tunnels are slightly bigger than ancient dragon sized (about 25ft diameter), since the tunnels are a result of the ancient dragons burrow speed. This size of tunnel would mean that the frost giants were proceeding 1 or 2 at a time - parade style if you will - and with 140 of them, they would be trailing behind the party for a good distance. The party's paladin declared as they entered the first tunnels of the lair that the party should proceed stealthily. I informed the party that if they wished to proceed stealthily, they would have to go ahead of the army they were leading, as an army of frost giants could not move stealthily as one large unit. There was some light protest, and my players seemed disappointed, but ultimately the party accepted my ruling. This issue came up a few more times throughout the session, resolving the same way each time - light protest but ultimately respecting my ruling. Justices, even though the outcome was favorable to me, I can't help but feel that I let my players down, and find myself feeling uncertain that I ruled correctly. Should I allow my players to make stealth checks with their army in tow, or was I correct to say that the sounds of 140 frost giants would alert even the most unperceptive wyrmlings to their presence? P.S. It may be important to note that the person who seemed saltiest about my ruling and protested the most was the paladin, aka my boyfriend (P.P.S. our relationship is healthy as ever)

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.

Maeve Pagan

To the sweet, supple, and sensuous judges, and the man in a shockingly realistic Bailiff Jake costume—Hell, it could be Bailiff Jake himself— I present to you the case of the vampiric vibe avoidant PC. About two years ago, my amazing roommate DMed a vampire hunting one shot for our friends which was set in late 19th century Transylvania. She was meticulous in curating a certain spooky aura for the evening, even lighting candles throughout the otherwise dark room and wearing a black cape throughout the session. With a story taking place during such a specific time and place, one would assume that the players would create characters that at least somewhat match the energy, but one friend (let's call her Z), a first time player, insisted on role playing as a valley girl-esque 21 year old interpretive dance major at UCLA named Chastity, all the while being adamant that she’d maintain a toxic long distance text relationship with her boyfriend Chad back in California. Upon frequent gentle yet exasperated reminders from our saintly patient DM that her intention was for us to play a Victorian gothic horror session, the friend argued that she could play whatever she wanted as long as she was still hunting vampires, even if that involved her role playing texting her Californian situationship. Wise judges, was my friend in the wrong for refusing to adhere to the DM’s carefully curated vibe of the one shot, or am I just being too grumbly towards a first time player exploring the magic of dnd? I seek your wisdom and prostrate my humble self before your greatness.

Jaime

If it pleases the church I have a confession for the holy Dice Christ priests and the alter boy James- My party and I were making our way through a gingerbread house that was filled with candy themed monsters, having just saved a gold dragon we were low on HP when we came across a room with a candy mummy that proceeded to attack us. My fellow player, an artificer, got cursed by the mummy and began turning to candy. We had a scroll of greater restoration that would heal this, and was our only option as we were low level so no one had that spell available to cast. I was the only one able to use the scroll as you need to have access to the associated spell to use a scroll. I needed to roll to ensure the spell worked - 10+ the spells level. My fellow players right away said “oh you need a 13” meaning it would be level 3, I rolled a 14 and exclaimed that it worked! Fathers, mother, James, this is where I must confess, I knew greater restoration was 5th level, which meant I actually needed a 15. But I did not want to waste our scroll and I did not want to doom our artificer to a life being made of candy. Please forgive me, if you must please turn me into your preferred candy as punishment.

Michael Huit

Hey, I'm sorry if commenting on other cases is against etiquette, but if you do this by complete surprise without asking the player to step away first, this could really genuinely impact your friendship. If it frustrates you that he just makes other plans, it could be better to ask him to leave the table and make next session the last one rather than just cut him out. Talk to your other players, talk to this player. Unless you're a Goofs and Gaffs table where people are there to laugh more than storytell, this might not go down well. Either way, rooting for you and your campaign to have massive success!! <3

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?

Sym

To the honorable judges of the crit and the bailiff Jacuzzi, I bring to you the case of the secret backstory: I ran a 2 year homebrew campaign with a group of friends. One of my players, a sorcerer/warlock got really invested in his backstory and would send me out-of-session messages to workshop his ideas. This was great! It helped me develop a lot of lore that became relevant to the campaign and a couple juicy plot hooks for his character. He then chose to ignore every single plot hook related to his backstory. He avoided the halfling family that took him in after his parents died in a mysterious accident, he did not choose to investigate his parents’ deaths at all, and cast disguise self when he found himself in the same room as his drunken uncle that viewed him as the curse that led to his parents’ deaths. I will remind you that this was all workshopped together and he LOVED this backstory. So I ask, is it okay for my player to extensively workshop his backstory with me, weaving it into the narrative and lore of our campaign, only to then choose to ignore every single plot hook? Or am I in the right for feeling a little salty that this juicy story never came to light at the table for everyone else to enjoy? I humbly await your judgement.

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?

Michael Greene

Good day illustrious judges Axford, Murphy and Tanner and salutations to the wonderful bailiff Hurwit. I bring to you the case of the forgotten loot. Many moons ago my players had just completed a dungeon and were pilfering its vast hoard of treasure. I had made a table of various magical rewards and gave them out based on what the players rolled. My Cleric rolled a nat one, and I presented her with a set of legendary dwarven plate armor, forged by the very gods themselves. For-told only to be worn by the greatest of dwarves. The catch, no one in the party was a dwarf. Thus, the fates that be would magically remove the armor if any of them tried to put it on. When I narrated the cleric pulling the glistening armor from a chest, she was ecstatic. Then she paused and said, “Wait, this is Plate armor? I can’t wear this until my strength is 15.” She was correct, however I -not wanting to prolong a dumb joke- countered “Well, you could always just try it on now, to see if it fits.” She declined, and I was distracted by another player asking about their item and promptly forgot about it. Six real life months later, the party had just leveled up to level eight and she cheered! With sparkles in her eyes she told me she finally had enough strength to wear that armor she found. A pit formed in my stomach. I watched hours of joy from an amazing session drain from her face as I sheepishly narrated the helmet popping off her head as ghostly dwarven figures lightly chastised her for trying to put it on. Ultimately, she sold the armor for an immense sum which she used to buy custom made magical armor that actually fit her character, but I still cringe thinking back on it. After the session a fellow player remarked, “Couldn’t you have just given it to her?” And I have come to agree. Judges please settle this matter, have I failed in the eyes of the court? Should I have dropped my months old goof in favor of a better outcome, or was I right in sticking to my notes at the cost of my clerics joy. I humbly await your sound judgement.

Wyatt S

To the holy representatives of dice Christ, and the one representing the dice devil, I come to you with a confession of using D&D for my own selfish ways. There's this one person, let's call him Benny cause that's his name, who is *that* kind of guy/player. Min/max, micro(even macro)managing other actions, lying on dice rolls, the whole package. Long story short, I ended up beefing the damage of minions up to ensure he got beat down, no one healed him, minions killed him before he could get a *very coincidental* nat 20, and he left the call. I feel bad not for my actions but for using D&D, and fudging stats a little, as a means to do Justice Murphy's law of "find new friends" (or in this case drop one). I only wish for Dice Christ to be forgiving in punishment if it so must be mete I humbly kneel before the church (Slightly irrelevant context in the reply to this to separate from the post )

Null

Greetings oh wise justices and the electable bailiff. I am running a homebrew campaign, where the very first thing the party noticed in session 0 was that their memories had been wiped. For the last seven months, they have been in the campaign with retrieving their memories as a top priority. They just discovered that they have actually been living inside of a time loop , much like Groundhog Day except controlled by a wizard, who is using it to achieve immortality. Everything went off without a hitch and exactly according to plan, which is good because I swiftly realized how many ways this concept could be spoiled for my plans. However, now that they have figured out the mystery. My players are finding holes in my time traveling logic. I would say 98% of their questions have a very good explanation that I worked out, however, there are at least a couple of points where I have had to say “I don’t know man, he’s a time traveler, wizard, it’s time magic, don’t think too hard.” I feel fairly proud of myself for being able to keep a time travel campaign on track for seven months while keeping it a secret from my table, but at what point can I just use “It’s Magic” as an explanation without it being a cop-out?

Logan Nash

Good tidings judges and Baylor Jack, This is a partial case partial query, A friend of mine asked me to join them in a campaign the day of and I created a changeling CoS Bard with the slasher feat, I didn't realize rapier Was piercing damage, which I will attest is my own fault, however I've since asked my dm if I can change the feat And he said no, I even offered him $100 let me change it to no avail, he would not let me change the feat. My next plan was to find a scimitar because I learned that that was slashing damage however he gave me a magic rapier And so now I'm kind of stuck with a feat that doesn't benefit me whatsoever. I know typically it's up to DM's discretion regarding restating characters but I feel like since I was only given a few hours to set up a character I should have been given a little bit of leeway to rework my character after realizing my mistake. I lay humbly at the court side waiting for your unbiased and pious decision making.

Wyatt S

Just for more context! The last session with him, during a fight I had narrated the bad guy commander focusing him due to how much damage he has done (5 nat 20s and another hit out of 6 attacks) and most of the minions had damaged him throughout the round. When his turn came up next he did his 3 attacks (2 crits!!), action surged, attacked 3 more times (only 1 crit :( ) and tried to disengage. He thought it was a bonus action (which action surge also is anyway, I think). Also hiding behind his squishier party members (even though he's fighter), cause he "didn't want to get hurt" in fights And also moving across the country with a girl he knew he was going to break up with cause he wanted to move to that city for "free" Also he cheated on that girlfriend with his cousin (that's when I fully cut him off)

Dirt G

As mentioned, death is on the table for all PCs. This won’t mean they HAVE to leave, it’ll just give them an off ramp.

Stig

I don't know your GM, but he sucks, booo

Jordan Washington

If it may please the court, honourable supreme crit justices; Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the lowly bay leaf jaffa cake. I will be representing my dear friend and fellow nerd in the case of the The Dragon, The Egg, and the Eyeball. They have been in a pathfinder 2e campaign with their friends for over a year now, where they play a leshy (plant person) named peanut, the rogue and beloved silly little guy mascot of the group. My friend couldn't make it to a session, which was tricky, because in the last session, they were just about to enter a large battle. Instead of conveniently knocking them out before the fight, the DM offered to do an online one shot another day. They accepted, which saw Peanut teleported to the Elemental Plane of Wood. To return to the Material Plane, a strange giant eyeball told Peanut to steal and eat a leaf dragon egg. A recall knowledge check revealed that the eye was not native to that plane, but Peanut didn't think much of it at the time, and determined to return to his friends, he stole and at the egg as instructed. The team survived the battle and was reunited with Peanut, and things went on as usual. Later in another session, they returned to the Plane of Wood, where they ran into the mother leaf dragon, who understandably wanted revenge. In the following fight, Peanut landed the killing blow. It was revealed later that the eyeball from before was an eldritch being trying to tunnel it's way into the Plane of Wood, and that the mother leaf dragon was the only thing suppressing it. The dragon was the last of her kind, and with her death, it allowed the eye to grow, slowly withering the life in the plane. The party's druid plans to solve this eventually, and he even saved one of the eggs to raise on his own, basically guaranteeing himself a cool new mount down the line. The problem is, now party are constantly razzing Peanut every session, saying things like "oh, don't give that to Peanut, he'll eat it", "oh, are you going to kill another endangered species?", etc. Which my friend see as unfair, as the party as a whole has done many other questionably violent things. But mostly they are sad that the other characters don't see Peanut's silly antics as endearing anymore, instead reacting with annoyance. Judges, was Peanut right to hastily eat a dragon egg, naively wanting to get back to help his beloved friends, and unintentionally giving the DM the opportunity to plant new interesting plot threads for the future? Or is the razzing rightfully deserved, after foolishly obeying the first strange being they encountered in a new location? We humbly await your judgement. PS. My friend and their group/DM are fine outside of the game, the razzings are always in character

Rin Carranza

Baby Bailiff, Judges, and esteemed fellow troll wife Emily, I come to this court of glamour in seek of judgment of myself in 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 and I have been pickpocketing our fighter (with dm approval). As time went on, the fighter was getting frustrated as we've been passing a lot of sleight of hand checks over the fighter (we've been very lucky). Once we stole a good amount, 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. 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 too far and was frustrating but loved it nonetheless! Esteemed court, did we go too far in our Mischief?

Gilbemesh

DM v Lootmongers: May it please the court of high justices and remind the lowly bailiff of the heights he once stood upon before his precipitous descent into, at best, mediocrity. I DM'd a remote campaign using Discord and Roll20 during COVID lockdown for some of my closest friends and then-fiance (now wife, despite this story). Just before the final battle of the story arc, our wizard cast Leomund's Tiny Hut for a short rest. Allowing this proved to be a colossal mistake, as the players would literally duck into the hut mid-battle to avoid being targeted by the big bad. While the party put on a masterclass in cowardice, I had my DMPC, Nondrak, take to the shadows for sneak attack opportunities. The boss ultimately found Nondrak, making short work of my DMPC. When the players downed the big bad, Nondrak had already failed a death save. After the fight, the players valiantly busied themselves with looting while Nondrak failed two more death saves. Mid-looting, my fiance left for a restroom break and it wasn't until after my fiance returned that the party remembered Nondrak existed. When asked, I told them that he had gone down in battle, and died as they were looting. An uproar ensued, and my fiance argued that it was unfair that Nondrak died as we were clearly heading into a break. Nobody liked my argument that their looting before the break (not to mention the subsequent discussion of what to do with the boss's cool swords) took much longer than two more rounds of combat. Was Nondrak's off-screen death unfair? Or was it negligence that did him in? I lay myself at the mercy of the court and am willing to distribute punishment as necessary. Unless it’s for me, in which case I request Jake receive any punishments in my stead.

Aydin Prineapple

May it pleasure the Smokeshow justices, and displease the Itty bitty baliff, Jake. Allow me to present the case of the elusive noggin. When I was but a young lad shortly after Quarantine started, I had joined an online game that would go on to last over two years. About a year in, we had the climax of an amazing arc of trying to combat an opposing group of more experienced adventures. This climactic battle was a ship battle where we had managed to track down the enemy party by using their still "alive" decapitated necromancer's head. In a pivotal moment in the battle, my kobold, oath of vengeance paladin, sworn to kill the group's leader, had final managed to get the "hold person" spell off on the leader so she was stuck in the water beneath the ships. I used the opportunity to get two smite crits on her, nearly killing her. However once I ended my turn, the DM described my character looking down at the bag of holding that contained the Necromancer's head and described it floating out of the bag and mouthing words of arcane script and casting dimension door on the leader, teleporting both the Necromancer and the injured leader back onto their ship. After looking up the spell, I argued that a head would be unable to bring a full medium sized creature with it because it's just a head, a tiny sized creature. Admittedly, I don't recall what my DMs rebuttal was, but I only remember him over ruling my argument. I relented and continued the battle. Justices (also Jake i guess), am I wrong for keeping this petty chip on my shoulder all these years later? How shall the court punish me so? P.S. The battle resulted with my Lil paladin being the only death for either side.

Phil E

To the sexy judges and the pretty but approachable bailiff, I submit the case of the final session backstab. I recently played my farewell session before moving as a fey ranger in my friend’s campaign. One of our friends had her last session right before and ascended to the fey high court. I let him know that my character had a full life and was open to whatever closure he saw fit, including death. He said cool and the only campaign related communication I had from him before our session was him sending my a Titania (my ex’s) stat block. The session was interesting; instead of planning with me he had a devil we opposed, mammon, sign an in real life multi-page contract with another player assuring my death in exchange for several boons. I later found out that they negotiated outside the table for several hours. This player was evil in a good aligned campaign but right before our mission I tried to reconcile, show trust, and even gave him my custom bow, the queensguard. I survived but all I could do during the session was encourage my teammates to let me die so they could escape hell. I feel duped and like the session ended anticlimactically. Am I overreacting and not appreciating my amazing dm’s efforts or should I have been involved differently?

Cinnamon's #3 Fan

I come begging for the spiritual guidance of the Supreme Pontifficrit with a confessional. I fear I may have ignored the wisdom of Dice Christ. I have been running a Pathfinder 2e Kingmaker campaign for a little over a year. Minor Kingmaker spoilers to follow. Recently, the players were investigating a misty island in hopes of finding a forgotten relic on it. As they approached the island, a shambling mound swam out to attack them. The party having done research on what was on the island prepared for battle in their small boat, a mere 20 feet from the dock. When it came to the turn of the Ghoran Witch, instead of casting a spell or cantrip at the mound, or steering the boat to the nearby dock, he jumped into the water to swim up and swing at it with his -1 strength score and magic staff. The rest of the party ended up struggling to keep him alive. At the beginning of the next session, still in this combat, a party member who had missed the week before sailed up on a second boat, having been right behind the others. Since he didn't realize the Witch was (foolishly) in the water, he sailed right through his space on the battle map, and I ruled that the witch had to make a Reflex save at a very low DC. He rolled a natural 2 and was beaned by the boat for minor damage, but went underwater. On his next turn, underneath his ally's boat, instead of swimming up to oxygen, he decided to cast a one action spell, expending all his air. He used his next action to attempt an Athletics check to swim, and critfailed twice, meaning he didn't move and began to drown. The rest of the party moved to drag him ashore but left him unconscious (since he'd been dicking around), and I had his familiar attempt to slap him awake, only to roll another crit fail. When the party medic finally went to stabilize him, he critically failed as well, and they had to expend a healing potion to wake him, since he began making recovery checks due to the botched healing. Noble servants of dice christ, my question is this: should I have killed this clownish plant man? Did I ignore Dice Christ's will by ignoring the multiple critical fails? I humbly await your wisdom in this matter. (PS the witch is no longer in our campaign due to this and many other foolish shennanigans)

Andrew A

To the Highest Crit, I submit an appeal for a decision rendered last session, in which you punished a Curse of Strahd DM with a strict no summoning rule. I was not involved in this case, but i cannot abide the gross miscarriage of justice. While I have several issues with the way this case was presented, the crux of the issue is this: the player you ruled in favor of wanted to cast conjure woodland beings mid combat, but in doing so has inadvertently admitted to cheating. Druids are prepared casters. If the DM does not allow summoning spells, how could this spell have been prepared in the first place? I have checked every official druid subclass and none of them offer this spell, or any similar titled spell, on the list of free spells. I demand this ruling be reversed and the player punished instead.

Mr Fez

The case of the Water Railgun To the dignified judges and I guess Baliff? May it please the court I was playing in a lost mines of phandelver campaign organized by me and run by my friend. I've been a forever DM for some time so I got my only friend interested in DMing to run the module. We made it to the goblin hideout at the start and hear the classic water trap about to hit, I a lawful neutral necromancer cast mold earth to construct cover from the waves, one of my party fails to save and is swept away, when my turn comes back around I tie a rope in place and leap after into the rushing water to save my comrade, when I’m about to reach (I have 30 feet of rope and my party member is 20 feet away) the DM describes without a roll my teammate getting pushed further along. I’m quite confused as why they moved on my turn and why I wasn’t even given the option to roll. I ask the DM why they moved on my turn as the water should only apply at end of a players turn or at the end of the round, he explains no the waters push applies every turn, as in everything in the turn orders turn. This sparks an incredibly heated argument in which I draw multiple diagrams for him explaining how time works in the game. His only response “Whar?” I continue to draw diagrams of the 6 seconds in a round and not 6 seconds per turn and 2 of the other players who are completely new get it but the DM who has played several times before still didn’t. I was trying to make a point of not arguing with the DM but this was not an interpretative spell or ruling, this was a critical misunderstanding of the core rules. I explain that if his ruling is true then I a necromancer could have several mob enemies inflate the turn timer causing rivers to move people at super sonic rates. He once again does not understand but my fellow players do. I decide to drop it as I’ll just abuse the system for him to see its fault. So I ask him cleary “yes or no does water apply at the end of the turn”. Then proceeds a 30 minute argument in which he tries to explain what we all don’t understand and for me to cut him off and repeat my question. After 30 minutes of me repeating Only the question he finally answers. I, quite heated at this point, reply thank you. He confused by how quickly I relented is then angry about how I just wanted a yes or no answer but that argument dies quickly. So now I plead with the judges and I crazy? Or does the DM not understand the concept of time. I humbly await freedom from this time trifle

Gabe Terronez

I beseech the Holy Clergy of Dice Christ to weigh on the sins of my soul. I bring you my sin of The Quelled God Goof. I was DMing my Mesoamerican campaign. The level 3 party was tasked to stop unsanctioned sacrifices at a temple in the jungle. A cult was trying to summon the God of Death to the mortal plane. They quickly dispatched the minions with some wild intimidation shenanigans and vollies of ranged attacks. The cult leader, atop a pyramid, was felled by the cleric, Don Julio’s, moonbeam. In his dying breath he offered himself as the final sacrifice as his blood spilled on the altar. The God was summoned in the air above the altar. The cleric asked if he was in the moonbeam, he was. He asked if it hurt the God. I decided to roll the saving throw and got a 10 but I decided he would probably add at least 5 to CON and that he didn't take damage. The God laughed in his face and shortly exited the scene by disappearing. I had no stat sheet for the God at the time. They were disappointed that the goof fell flat but told a few NPCs they goofed him anyways. Should I have let the God be goofed or will Dice Christ absolve my sin of protecting a God despite my low roll? I humbly await your judgment in purgatory.

Jeff_Plagues

Good tidings to the high-brow judges and the often sneered upon bailiff. I bring to you a case of the forever no show. Back during Covid I was running a homebrew campaign with my discord group of 5. After months of prepping we played our session zero for characters and everyone seemed pumped. During session one, one of our players (let’s call him Tim) had to leave early due to a “family emergency”. We understood so we put the game on wraps for next week. Session 2 came around and we once again had everyone. During combat when he was rolling poorly he quickly muted his mic and then came back saying he had to take care of something and abruptly left. This continued for about 6 sessions with the part eventually unraveling because they were tired of waiting. Fast forward to early this year and Tim has agreed to DM a game. 3 sessions into his game and this has began again with consistently ending sessions early due to “family emergencies” or “something came up” Justices what should I do? Am I being to abrupt and not understanding enough or should we exile him and run without him. I humbly await your response

William Blankenship

To the all powerful crit and that Substack guy I guess. I bring you the case of the Botched Bachelor One Shot. I am getting married in November and my best man helped host my bachelors party weekend. The main part of the weekend was a level 20 oneshot he had been talking about for months! It was his first time DMing as I’m normally DM but he wanted to and had other DM friends help or so he said. The oneshot started with everyone drawing from the deck of many things where we the players did the drawing and looked up the meanings, he spectated. I got the card that let me ask the universe a question which is important. Then turned into someone stepping on a Snom Pokémon and dying as they are gods apparently ( his fav pokemon not mine). We then ran around his house without dice as he tried to remember who the giant talking to the party was. He said we had 3 rounds and the first one was confusing as it was described as bad guys in pods who are spread out enough to only hit 5 with AOE spells. He then was reconning on paper the hit points and acs of the 100 enemies which took a while as we were allowed our dice at this point to fight. Then he said we heard the voice of a goddess say we are fighting in her mind? And there is an answer to what she can’t see so I used the card to ask what it was. Apparently it was a picture of a Furry that if we googled the pic and showed him the second trail was over??? ( we were give no clues so lucky I had that get out of jail card ) and then final trial after months of telling us to prep for NO PVP bc I didn’t want it and we asked about it. He then announced our main characters were all turned to bad guys with no saves and that our backup characters we made in case we died had to go in and fight the main ones. He didn’t control them because having 5 level 20 characters with whatever magical items we wanted was to hard to run ( obviously) so we the players just controlled two characters at once our good one and our bad one. Once the bad ones died he said it was over. Justices and Jace am I justified in feeling bummed and wanting to address it with him or should I let it go as it was his first time DMing? I apologize for the long confusing case it was even more so in person.

Bumbler

Dear your honors, I am a DM and I had an NPC make an off the cuff remark about how her cousin was an apprentice to a "diarrhea wizard", i.e., a wizard who specializes in the elemental plane of ooze (and/or possibly a guy with a shit fetish). My players immediately gravitated towards this one piece of improv and demanded to go see the diarrhea wizard. I put it off for as long as I could, but now we are on a Willy-Wonka/Saw mashup adventure to see the diarrhea wizard. Pleadings: I beg the court for a finding against both myself and my players for allowing this to happen

Jeff Plourde

Dear your honors and the handsome man Jake. Shoutout New Haven I’m also from the area. This actually happened in apartment in New Haven. I tried to DM a game for my friends and it was one guys first time playing and he really wanted to be Lighting McQueen. I tried to tell him that he can’t be a literally car and offered to home brew a War forged shifter that could work like a transformer but he refused and kept yelling “Kachow.” I eventually gave in and let him be Lighting McQueen. The day came to play and I started the session at the bottom of a well and everyone needed to climb a 15 foot ladder to get out and obviously a car cannot climb a ladder so I narrated him being stuck and slowly rusting away. I guess that really killed the mood because no one wanted to play after that and the group quickly dissolved and they have never asked me to DM or play with them again. Was I wrong for killing off Lighting McQueen as soon as I started the session?

Stig

Mmm, I think Huit's got the right of it. From what's provided here, it feels like the real driver for this story event is to nudge the player toward the door irl. If you scripted-kill their character (without so much as a prophecy planted beforehand), it'll be a lot harder to have a conversation with them after if they choose to stay but you're like "...no" or "okay, but only if you fix these behaviors". It'll be apparent you killed their character to boot them and move on playing with the rest of your mutual friends. So valid if you don't want them at the table anymore, but - especially if this has been going on for a year and they haven't received any feedback before - I would really recommend the honest, irl talk. I low-key shadowbanned a player once and it turned what could have been an awkward but productive convo into years of stress and awkward encounters. 0/10, would not recommend. It can be so tricky when you and a friend aren't looking for the same thing / don't vibe in a TTRPG context. Best of luck, Dirt.

Jason Rodriguez

To the high shaken member of the supreme court and the lowly stirred bailiff. The case i present today is of the bitter player stats. As a forever dm, im always looked to for rulings and thoughts. So when my wife wanted to run a oneshot for open table, she asked me to look over a players rolled stats. The player in question was always lucky when it came to rolling, both physically and digitally. His dnd beyond stats were all over 11 and at least 2 were between 15 & 18. Since she's a beginner dm, and I honestly didnt trust the player, I suggested that she have the player reroll 2 of them. A day or 2 later, he shared his character sheet in a group chat and all his stats were below 7. He claimed that he was joking, and my wife wouldn't budge saying "If that's what he wants his stats to be, than fine." Due to other personal reasons, this player was removed from the group before we ran the oneshot. What im wondering is who was wrong between my beginner dm wife and the bitter stat pc?

Imi B

To the glorious crit and the gormless bailiff. I bring before you the case of the co-opted PC. The background: I have been playing D&D with my mates for over a decade. Midway through our most recent campaign (started off as Strahd, is very much not any more) I finally got a job in my field but on the other side of the world. A 7 hour time difference was too much to overcome and my DM and I planned my PCs exit, to retire to an Abbey and work on her garden. The character: my level 11th cleric, a little old lady halfling named Boots the Cleric with a bawdy attitude and the goal to make the world a better place than she found it. The context: we have a house rule where you can trade a level of exhaustion for an extra 1st level spell slot/trick shot/smite etc. The scene: having already taken a beating from a bunch of ghost pirates, we decided to round off our day in campaign by taking on a kraken (it made sense at the time). With all but Boots down, instead with DM concent, I gained a level 6 spell slot back, cast heal on the paladin and promptly died of exhaustion. The paladian was able to get everyone else out and the party escape. Neat ending right? Wrong. I have discovered that the party has now gone to great lengths to have Boots reincarnated and she is now an NPC heal bot. Am I right to be miffed that Boots' has now neither had her dramatic final action to go out on OR been allowed to retire peacefully?

LansingLibra

To the smoking HOT judges and the tepid NOT bailiff. I give you the case of Nondetection Nonsense. Our paladin was going through a messy (in-game) break up and in order to protect their privacy, I cast nondetection on them. Later, the paladin rolled a pretty gnarly natural 1 which prompted the divination wizard to change it with their portent roll. The DM decided that the nondetection spell would prevent the wizard's portent from affecting the paladin, and the paladin should use the natural 1. The paladin and the wizard disagreed with the ruling, but I kind of loved it, and the four of us negotiated an outcome. Everything turned out perfectly fine, but do you agree that the nondetection would prevent friendly divination magic from its intended purpose? If you need an idea for a punishment, you can sentence me to a romantic lunch with Jake, because despite my previous statement, I think he is really quite handsome.

Doctor Ransom

Good day, may it please the divinely anointed and prodigious justices of the Supreme Crit, I present the case of the Interjecting Paladin. I'm currently DMing a Curse of Strahd campaign and one player in particular seems to grind my gears just a bit too much. This player is a Paladin and his IRL significant other plays the Cleric, who is a fairly new player to D&D but she’s learning the game really well. Whenever combat breaks out, Paladin loves to butt in on the Cleric's turns "suggesting" what she should do on her turn - spoiler alert it mostly involves casting Spirit Guardians! He barely lets her get a word in before he interrupts with what he calls “battle advice”. He’s even telling the party’s Bard what to do as well, saying she should use Cutting Words or Silvery Barbs against any attack that only hits him. It's become so glaringly annoying and I feel helpless as the DM. Justices I plead for your most sagacious and forthright judgment on this case. What ever shall a poor DM do to correct this pestiferously peremptory Paladin’s impropriety?

Rover Bernhard

You did the right thing, man. Kicking a problem player is always a good idea, and it looks like it made the table a more welcoming place.

Mars E

Esteemed Justices and Substack guy, I bring before you the case of The Sleepy Player: My best friends and I have been playing together for about 10 years. Back in our teenage days, we had the time (and energy) to pull all-nighters every weekend, sometimes even going as far as to do two 12-hour sessions in the same weekend. But now, adulthood has struck. We all have jobs, responsibilities, and very different schedules. Here lies the problem: my job requires me to get up way earlier than the rest of the party, and as a consequence, I go to bed much earlier than they do. When we gather to play, they want to start sessions very late. As a result, I start dozing off at the table, especially during combat, and it feels like I’m dragging the whole session down. I’ve tried pleading for earlier start times, but something always pushes the game back. We inevitably begin ridiculously late, and what was once my favorite hobby has begun to make me feel guilty, as if I’m ruining my friends’ fun. So, Your Honors, I ask: should the party make a greater effort to schedule games earlier? Or must I accept that I’m the minority and should accommodate what works better for the majority of the party?

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.

Caleb

To the dearest judges and darndest bailiff of the supreme crit, I have not a case, but a confession. In my first homebrew campaign as a DM, my friend Gabe played a human fighter named Mateo who during an adventure, attempted to save another party member from a Bag of Devouring. As Mateo attempted to save the other PC from the bag, I had him roll a DEX save to try and escape the bag’s grasp, which he succeeded, but my true crime was after he rolled successfully, I realized he should’ve rolled a STR save instead. I had him reroll, which he then failed, leading to both Gabe’s character and the other PC both dying to the bag. Since then, we’ve played many mini campaigns and have had many great adventures, but Gabe has often reminded me (though I’ve grown enough as a DM to know when the rule of cool matters more) how much he liked Mateo and how brutal it was for him to die an unceremonious death. I pray to Dice Christ that he may lead me in the right direction of actually reading item cards properly in the future, and will accept any judgement for wrongfully killing my PCs. (P.s. this all began due to the other PC hiding in the bag of devouring from an enemy, not rolling a high enough investigation check to realize it was anything other than a regular bag of holding. Mateo has also since been revived in a multiverse arc during our current campaign and I left the door open for his return later down the line)

JetstreamSamBestWaifu

To the extremely good-looking judges and the just okay bailiff John, i bring you the case of the anti-magic field. Our 3.5e party encountered a nabassu demon and over the course of the fight, 2 thirds of the PCs (it was a party of 3) were killed by its death-stealing gaze supernatural ability. but when the demon used the ability the second time to kill the ranger, the wizard of the party cast anti-magic field on it and the ranger as a reaction with some special ability, which the DM ruled only suppresses spells. therefore, when the the anti-magic field wore off, the DM rationalized that any spell or magical effect previously taking place within the field was essentially delayed until the fall of the field, all taking place at once. i thought this was absolute nonsense, but nobody else had any real complaints and the ranger ended up killing the demon before the field fell and he died from the gaze ability. was the DM wrong to think the anti-magic field just delays magical effects?

Coltiano Reeves

To the benevolent judges, and the unfortunate baliff: Shake Hertitz. I bring you the case of the Chosen One Player. We have a buddy in our group that likes making characters that have some sort of unfulfilled destiny in almost every campaign we do. Normally I wouldn't mind a character having some sort of prophecy they'd fulfill during their journey, but when all of your characters are basically carbon copies of the "edgy, mysterious, hidden chosen one destiny" it crimps the game flow a little bit, because theres always some new lore that they love to just throw out there without talking to the dm at all. They do other things like playing video games during sessions and getting actually mad at players rather than pc's when something minor happens, and love being "silent and stoic" when actually prompted to share character information. Judges, I ask, with how this persons playstyle is, how do we let them know that we'd rather not have them in our next campaign. We like hanging out with them, but their dnd antics have put us down a few too many times.

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!

Michael Huit

Regardless of whether it was fair or not, if my character was insta-killed with 0 foreshadowing, I would be upset. In your own text, you are punishing a player for the crime of not turning up. (Of course a lot of the text is hyperbolised, I know you don't *actually* want to punish your friend) If you want to allow this off-ramp, either a foreshadowing of consequences or a real-life chat with your friend could go a long way to keeping your friendship group secure and communicative. This isn't just "death is on the table for all PCs", this is "death will be doled out as and when I see fit, with no way of countering it". Even practically, this could cause problems; for instance, what if the player changes their mind for some reason, and the character doesn't do what would be expected of them? Now the PC is still alive, narratively unfulfilled, and the habits won't change. You won't be happy with that outcome.

Isaac Poirier

To the Sexy Supreme Crit and the Saxy Bailiff Jonk, I bring you the case of the hopeful King Copycat. This happened awhile ago so I do apologize for the lack of some specifics, but I will do my best! It was my friend's first time DMing and we were playing with a group of close friends. We had just finished clearing out a castle where we had slain the orc(?) king and were making our escape. We exited out of the front of the now mostly empty castle when we ran into a scouting party that was coming back to report to the King. Seeing as we were incredibly injured and knew we couldn't take on this scouting party without a rest first, one player (who from here on we will call Jake) had the great idea to pretend to be the King in distress attempting to leave the now-unsafe castle. His character had an ability to perfectly replicate a creatures voice that he had heard/interacted with, which we had fulfilled before slaying the King. Jake's character's entire identity was built around forgery and charisma, and had a slew of abilities that allowed him to pretend to be someone else. When the scouting party encountered us, Jake hurriedly informed the scouting party that there were intruders in the castle that were attempting to assassinate him, and ordered the scouting party to go an reinforce the remaining guards and attempt to end the would-be assassins. After making an incredibly high (i believe it was over 20), successful deception check, the scouting party leader straight up said "I don't believe you unless you show me your face", and took Jake's hood off. This led to the scouting party absolutely demolishing us, along with 4-5 nat 20s ofc, and were TPK'd. So I ask you judges: should we have gotten away without having to battle the scouting party? PS: We were actually taken hostage and stripped of all gear. We awoke in the castle, attempted to escape, had a miscommunication where half of us went to get our gear, the rest left, resulting in both Jake and my characters being fully killed.

Kendall Bailey

May it please the crit, I submit the case of the concentrating spellcaster. I was playing a level 5 half-elf wizard in a one-shot with some friends. We were in combat and I cast Melf's Minute Meteors, I explained how six meteors floated around me, and then used my bonus action to send two meteors at an enemy. When it came back around to my turn I did a melee attack with my staff and then attempted to use my bonus action to send another two meteors at a different enemy. My DM asked, "Are those meteors a concentration spell?" I said yes. He responded, "Okay. Then all of your meteors went away when you attacked." I said, "A melee attack doesn't break concentration." He said it did. I began to protest, since this unexpected change in the rules would nerf me hard in combat. But another player at the table, who has never played as a spellcaster, spoke up and said, "He's the DM. He makes the rules." I let it go at that, not wanting to ruin the game for anyone. Later the DM and I talked about how concentration works and landed on me having to roll a check to maintain concentration during combat. It wasn't rules as written, but it was better than nothing. Problem solved, or so I thought. Fast forward to our next session, a one shot where we played level 10 characters - mine was a multiclassed College of Swords Bard/Swashbuckler Rogue tiefling. I should have smelled trouble in the air when, speaking to a devil, my DM asked what language I was using. I told him infernal, since I'm a tiefling, I have infernal heritage and can speak the language. My DM replied,"Tieflings aren't infernal, they're usually druids." I was at a loss, but he allowed the interaction with the devil to continue, so crisis averted. Then we got to the final fight with the BBEG. In combat I successfully cast Hypnotic Pattern on one of the BBEG's underlings, rendering them useless. None of the other "bad guys" attempted to free their comrade. It came around to my next turn and I asked the DM, "Do you want me to roll to maintain concentration on Hypnotic Pattern before I attack with my swords?" My DM responded, "No, you can't attack and keep concentration." I replied, "Didn't we agree I could roll for it during combat?" The DM responded, "No, I don't think you could keep concentration and do something else." Then the, "The DM makes the rules," guy from the previous session who, I remind you, has never played as a spellcaster, chimed in, "Yeah, that makes sense." I was flabbergasted. But again, rather than make it a thing, I let the spell drop and used a spell attack instead. Am I too stuck on the rules as written? Or was the DM wrong to alter such an important rule of my action economy? I await your judgement.

Tim Nelson

To the deceived crit justices and the deceitful bailiff, I bring you the case of the bailiff archer! In episode 8 of Strahd when you guys were fighting the werewolves, I believe Jake should have had disadvantage on bow attacks when the werewolf was next to him, despite attacking the other werewolf. In 5e and 2024 you get disadvantage if someone’s hostile next to you no matter the target. PS Sorry to tattle, im sure there was no deceit, but I thought yall should know.

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.

William Wood

Hey Jake, I have a problem that I'm calling, for no real reason, The Case of the Surprise Cleric. I had been DMing a campaign in a homebrew world and I had a player who had to drop out for life stuff. She was a Paladin and the party's primary healer. The session went fine and the player was able to reunite with her long lost family and leave the party. After the session I mentioned that it was going to be different to design an encounter without a real healer in the party, no big deal. Before our next session I got some texts from one of the other PCs asking some questions about the world and characters. This player was a wizard who never remembered his spells and had to be regularly reminded of what was going on. So obviously I was thrilled he was taking interest. I answered his questions and if there was anything I could help him with in regards to where he wanted to go with his character. He said he was good so I left it at that. Next session starts and I’m recapping what had happened and where we were and when I mentioned his character, he said, “Oh, I’m not playing him anymore. I built a new character.” Jake, I was speechless. I told him that, if he wasn’t happy with his old character we could talk about ways to work it into the story (I’d already done that with someone else) but he couldn’t just change PCs. He said he thought it was fine because I said they needed one, I did not. He agreed to shelf the new character for the session and played the wizard. Once the session was over, he never came back. I’ve talked to him a few times since but whenever I try to bring it up he just changes the subject. Jake, I implore you, should I have just let him be the Cleric of his dreams or was I right in standing firm and not letting him play character roulette with my game?

Nyx

To the honorable supreme crit justices (also the bailiff I guess) I present to you the case of ‘the stabby not so bard, bard’. I run a post apocalyptic 5e game. This game has been incredible and they are now level 14 with wonderfully overpowered items leading to epic encounters with massive mechanical monstrosities. In these combats lies my particular problem. One of my friends is playing a an eloquence bard named Jeb. Despite being a wonderful roll player, he does not use any of his abilities and almost exclusively stabs things. He doesn’t use bardic inspiration, he has cast maybe 10 spells throughout the campaign, he doesn’t use his feats or any of his items. Because of this he is severely underpowered. IF Jeb hits in a fight he is doing 1d8+3 a turn at level 14 making him look super weak and sad next to the monk, ranger, and cleric turning enemies in to scrap metal. Noticing his play style, poor damage, and several deaths (shout out to revivify), I asked if he would have more fun playing a different class that fits him and he responded with a “nah I’m good”. I even gave him a powerful a sword that incentivizes him to use bardic inspiration and spells to so that he can be better at stabbing and he still doesn’t do any bard stuff!!! I love having him around and Im not going to tell him how to have fun but I would love for the court to.

Rob's Wit

Judges, I bring to you the case of the Skank Dragon. My players recently disrupted a ritual which had been set up to grant the BBEG her "Final Form." -- that of a terrifying and fearsome adult gold dragon. Judges, i was very proud of them for disrupting the ritual. The BBEG was a backstory insert for one of my players. The two women (PC and BBEG) had long loathed one another. This is what I wanted. I had planned that if they were able to disrupt the ritual, the BBEG would instead become a Shadow Dragon. Still a threat, but less so. (CR 17 vs CR 13 of the Shadow Dragon). Here's the issue. As I was so proud of my players -- instead of announcing this descriptively, I was inspired to ask them "What kind of Dragon do you all want her to become?" Judges, I am sure you know what they said. SKANK DRAGON. This totally broke the tension and turned the dramatic moment into a hilarious one for the whole table. (I was laughing too). But I wonder if it was my responsibility as DM to deliver on the drama before bringing the players in? So, should I have followed through with the Shadow Dragon description and held that tension? Or does the fact that the players had a good time make up for dropping the ball on a key dramatic scene with the BBEG? PS -- Now, the session is pending and I need a statblock for the Skankiest of Dragons. I appeal thee to aid me in my endeavor to bring the Skankiest of Skank Dragons that have ever been.

Aima Arek-Bawa

Good evening sweaty Justices and the better once you get to know him Bailiff Jiminy, I bring you the case of the anachronistic halfling. Before the third and final arc of our main campaign, our party sorceror is running a one (turned four) shot and when I asked him what the tone of it was, he said he would accommodate for anything. Me, an avid NADDPOD listener, went to the most extreme case and decided to make a new York mob boss arcane trickster Halfling who sells used potions called Shwaps McGee, thinking everyone would also go ham. I cannot emphasize how much they didnt. The most strange deviation is another party member is playing a cannibal, who is still firmly in the default medieval setting of the world. Everyone else has been a good sport about it, but I cannot emphasize how difficult it is for me to take serious moments seriously when I end every sentence with "Nyah See". The plot is a mix of humor and drama, but Im finding it difficult to find the balance. We still have two more sessions to go, should I change characters out of consideration, or should I stick with what I have? Your noble wisdom is much appreciated Jonk

Caroline

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the Little Baby Jakey Guy, I present the case of the "...Accidental" Cheating. My close friends and I play two DND campaigns: our main campaign, which has been going strong for three years, and our more casual side campaign that we play when one of the players has to miss a session. We skipped a session zero for the side campaign, and all the players aside from myself chose to build their level 10 characters on the free version of DND Beyond. After our last side campaign session I asked to see two of my friends' character sheets. Justices...Jakey...the bard had a +7 to charisma, and the fighter had at least a +3 to all of his stats. I don't think either of my friends would cheat on purpose, but I DO think they took advantage of every bonus that the website gave them. So...If I were to tattle to the DM, or just straight up tell the players that they're cheating, would the court sentence me to death? Or is letting them play their overpowered DND Beyond min-maxed monsters the worse crime?

Ethan

To the blue humored Judges and scholarly Bailiff I present the case of the axe head flip out. A few years ago during quarantine my best friend and DM said that they were starting to feel burnt out on DMing and as I had an idea for a campaign I volunteered to DM. It was set up as a Western style of campaign where the party would be traveling from town to town dealing with bandits and such while uncovering the greater mystery surrounding the long drought. The problems started in character creation, everyone had made characters that felt like they fit in the world; there was a star Druid looking for their brother, a conquest paladin trying to bring order to the Wild West, and a warforged sorcerer on a journey of self discovery, and the Minotaur barbarian looking for treasure. As a reward for everyone making such cool characters I made them each custom magic items suited to their character. For the barbarian I made a great axe that allowed them to cast enlarge once per day. As a fun hook I described the axe as being single bladed with the other blade having been broken off. The barbarian wanted their axe to have two blades but as I had plans to expand on the magic items on the future and I didn’t want to spoil anything I said no. The barbarian kept asking and I continued to say no until eventually the barbarian said “okay then I quit the campaign”. I said “okay, if that’s how you feel”. We eventually moved on and did the campaign (it only lasted a dozen sessions) but never really cleared the air. I worry that I might’ve been a jerk because I was anxious about DMing for the first time and someone was giving me a lot of guff about one of my rulings and I might’ve bit their head off. P.S. I don’t listen to your dumb nerd show or play this shit game. P.P.S Sorry Bailiff Turdwitz paid me 30,000 eggs to say that.

Ty

Dear Judges, in your presence, one feels the very weight of honor and lineage, and to the guy over there, I hope Jill is remembering to feed you. Today, I bring you the case of the "Pink Misted" NPCs. A few years ago, my friends ( 5 PCs ) and I thought it would be fun to try out D&D and run through a module campaign to start with, as none of us were very experienced. We got into the groove of it, and after 5-6 sessions, we were full steam ahead. We were at a point in the story where we, the players, had to defend a village from a horde of Hill giants and goblins. This battle was set up and we were told it is probably going to take 2-3 sessions of nothing bot combat to get through it. It was at a scale that our DM assigned an NPC to all of us to help us get through everything. And at this point, we were basically told to keep them alive to get better loot in the end. Keep that point at the top of your mind. So the battle starts and we are rushing through an open field, taking dash action after dash action to get close to the hill giants, who were from 200 ft away, catapulting armored goblins at us. During this charge, 3 of our 5 NPCs were to quote "Pink Misted" by an impact from said armored goblins. We were upset but kept moving and eventually killed everything in true murder hobo fashion. Once the fighting was over, our DM casually commented that he didn't know why we didn't try and stabilize those NPCs. The table got silent, and we all looked at him, confused. We quoted him back, saying they were "pink misted." How could there be anything to stabilize after describing their deaths like that? He then said it's D&D, and you can always investigate to see if they are, in fact, dead or not. Judges, I ask you, if a death was described in detail, how an armored goblin flying Mach Jesus slamed into a body and they were "pink misted," should we not assume they are totally dead? Should we have been robbed of better loot? Should our DM have to go repent at the closest Spudfuckers? I humbly await your judgment.

Gary J

Thanks! If they don’t pick this one. I’ll call this my third party review to my player they all listen too

Goobersteen

Dear supreme and amazing judges, and shoe cleaning boy jack, I come to you to present the case of the woopsie moon beam Awhile ago I had a session where my warforged druid was waiting in line at a magic item shop, during the wait 2 people tried to strongarm him for his spot, the dm said they were reaching for their weapons, i asked if anyone was near them, the dm said no so I casted moombeam on them, after 2 rounds of rolling well, they died, but so did 2 villagers waiting in line, the dm then proceeded to say if was a evil act, and that i killed them with no care, and was forced to move my alignment to evil Judges, I ask, was I too moonbeam hungry, or was my dm full of shit P.S, I apologise if we are being nice to the Bailiff today, but if we are not i meant what I said :3

The Grinch (feral)

Not only did you have every right to kill him but you did a public service to everybody else at your table and to the public at large. Jesus Christ

Gabriel Jones

Happy belated Labor day, esteemed judges Murphy, Axford, Tanner, et. al. Long-time listener, first time caller. I played my first game of D&D not too crazy long ago, and was "Really Feelin' It" at the end. The two other players and I are good friends and we keep in constant contact, so I decided to try out something I had seen done on D20, in A Court Of Fey and Flowers, the Epistolary Phase. I wrote out three in-character letters to the other two (we had canonically parted ways at the end of the adventure) _and_ two (one in code) for the DM for a pair of key NPCs that he played. The idea would be that every so often our characters would write back and forth to each other while they lived their seperate lives, and part of the thinking was to give the DM potential plot thread ideas or if nothing else to get people back into the characters' headspaces for a bit between sessions. I ran all the letters past the DM who was down for it, and sent them as a notification that the other players "had a letter addressed to them", leaving for them to open at their convenience. Of the two players, one of them opened the letter and read it and hasn't responded, and the other assures me that they do want to read it but have asked me to hold off on sending it until they can dedicate time to reading it. Justices (etc), it has been about a year or so. I don't want to poke the other players so I have only sent a few (two or three) reminders in the time between, but I really really really really really want to keep playing in any small amount that I can, the fever has overtaken me. Was I expecting too much? Should I poke harder? Send reminders? Continue on sending letters from the character's perspective that they never opened them? The DM has agreed that an amount of clerical magic makes sense in the universe, so there's a sort of "read-reply" spell on the letters that just tells my character Zamanzam (big Zam) whether they've been opened or not. Awaiting your reply hopefully, Insert Funny Pun Name Here.

Barney

Honorable Justi' and Jake-y Jake and the Funky Bunch. 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?!

Kobolds4lyfe

Dear Supreme Eternal Judges and their mundane but strangely alluring pool boy Jackie, I present, in the spirit of old Court Cases, a Recess! I recently began a DnD home brew campaign with three good friends, two of which had never played DnD before, and although we have only had one session so far, it was incredibly well-received, all players very excited to investigate the local rot at the old keep and a growing tension of goblin tribe v townsfolk over a shady ambush incident. But this is not what I write about exactly! One of the party members went to college for her writing and has a couple books to her name, but ran into a massive writer’s block around Covid time and it never went away. After our first session, she excitedly told me that she had made progress on her novel for the first time in five years. It never ceases to amaze me how DnD can stimulate creativity and allow us to express ourselves in ways we’d never think to try. And your podcast, your endless creativity, your collaboration, and your love of the medium is what inspired me to give DMing another try. Thank you for everything, don’t you ever stop

BigBod LillGray

Hail thee Judges of might and valour, an the balif whose and alright fella. I bring the cases of conflicted interest or HAGging doubt I am a very proud daddy DM who after DMing a campaign for my friends led to them beging to DM there own games. One friend ran CoS (avoiding spoilers) we had a run in with 3 Hags.I, still running our other campaign, had been looking at hags for an arc in that story. I had put it from my mind. We were always going to struggle and planned a sneak attack. My barbarian distracted, while our monk and wizard climbed in through a window to save some kids and Ireina. It blow up in our faces immediately. Here is the moment of my potential crime. Our wizard cast sleep on the hags. DM rolled and the hag failed. I then remembered that hags have fey resistance and cannot magically be put to sleep... and said nothing. To this day never did. In the end we had our shit rocked my barbarian and the wizard died (to be brought back mysteriously). But the monk got the kids and Ireina away. Judges am I protected by the fact I did not want to rules lawyer a fellow player. Or did I fail as a daddy DM to help one of my fledgling DMs in their first games.

2fastBicurious

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

AutoReroll

To the most noble Judges and the special guest bailiff for this week Mr Juk, I present to you the case of the Skippable imprisonment. The level 8 party for whom I dm recently tried to ambush a coven of hags and had the fight turn against them. By the end of the night 1 frontliner was dead and the other 2 were alseep. The mood was so dire that I asked if they wanted to start a new campaign. But no, they all roared for vengence and the chance to escape these foul hags. I also asked if they wanted to be put to sleep or experience a miserable, guelling, hopeless imprisonment and they all insisted they wanted tonexperience prison sonthey had a chance to escape. So I set to work planning. 2 hours into the next session, the party had lost another member, then agreed to a cursed contract to escape the hags prison (spiked oubliette with magic shock collars and a hag guard), and the mood was bleak. The session ended with some hope on annulling the contract, but the party was miserable insisting that they didn't know it was going to take most of the session and that there was no hope of escape. I told them that, yes, that was the point of a prison, but they still acted like I took away their choice. Was I right to think that a dire loss needs dire consequences, or are repercussions railroady?

Aedan

To the bailiff Jemily Haxford or whatever, and the ragtag group of judges, I present the case of the Undead Murderer. My brother-in-law created a character for the campaign im currently in: a Leonin Cleric named Theodore, Hunter of Undead. This name is important. His character was mostly good, but made it clear to us, and the DM, that he wanted ALL undead to die, due to childhood trauma with a lich killing his parents. Flash forward, we're in a dungeon where we know there to be a lich, and suddenly, a room is thrown upon us that is a tavern deep underground with undead and other patrons. Of course, he ends up attacking the undead. The problem? The DM seemed confused and even upset about this, and narrated the undead suffering, and the DM's partner, playing a War Cleric, stepped in and stealthily dragged their token NINETY FEET forward while he was casting a spell. My BIL's character ended up leaving the party after the scuffle and he's making a new one, but i must ask: was he done dirty by the DM, who likely forgot his character did this? Or should he have made a less offensive character? I prostate myself in front of y'all or however you say it

Gicky

To the Justices Murphy, Tanner, and Axford... meow ;). To the bailiff hssss! In my early days of DMing I was really worried about making fights unbalanced (either too hard or too easy) so I would not give my monsters hit points. Instead I would determine behind the screen, without my players knowledge, when it felt "right" for a monster to die. It went well for my games so I posted about it on reddit, only to be lambasted and promptly dressed down by the community for fudging rolls and railroading my players. One person even wrote an essay of a comment in which they said my players were lions and I was refusing to let them hunt. Over time I've learned to let go of control over combat to such an extent but I still remain quietly adamant that for a newbie DM this was perfectly acceptable. I leave it in the paws (we can have fun here) of the court. Was I wrong to deprive my lions of their hunt, or was I right to protect myself from getting bit.

John P.

Dear Priest-Justices, I am not sure if I have sinned against Dice Christ or not. Please tell me if I have and what I should do to make amends. Every time I make a new character if I roll my stats alone, I roll so high I am worried my friends will think I am fudging the numbers. But if I re-roll in front of my friends, I roll so low the character isn’t even fun to play. Currently, I am playing a werewolf with a -1 to their claw attacks. What I am to do? Thank you for your heavenly wisdom, John P.

slop eater

Hello murph and jork. I was dming a campaign this summer and my friend insisted on his character being capital I Italian from Italy. I agreed but I was not happy about it, would it have been ok to ask him to not be Italian?

Child Parent

Oh, Justices of the Great Weave, and also that guy who won't stop doing a Jake impression: I present the case of the Dubiously Dirty Double Standard. I was playing in an online Ravnica D&D campaign, and early on in our story, we encountered an angel captain of an opposing guild. One of our PCs asked to make a persuasion check to try to prevent a violent encounter. He then described how his Rakshasa PC walked up to the angel captain and immediately started groping the angel’s junk, including what his upside-down Raksasha paws were doing with the angel’s dangle. I was not expecting that level of detail, as those sorts of boundaries didn't come up in a session zero or anything of the sort. I quickly mentioned that I was uncomfortable and didn't want to hear any more. It felt like me shutting that down – rather than the phone sex-style narration – made things awkward at the virtual table, but we eventually kept playing. Several months later, I made an offhand joke about how my shitty Simic hybrid PC – a mess of self-experimentation gone awry – probably had weird cum (nothing descriptive about it, just that it was probably weird). The rest of the table immediately got quite escalated and called me out for getting upset when our Rakshasah ranger started giving an angel an HJ several months earlier. Justices, I ask you, am I a prude-narc-hypocrite for alluding to weird Simic semen while also being averse to spoken-word softcore at the table? Or is it a false equivalent to compare a vague jizz joke to a detailed celestial grope sesh? I await your unrelenting judgment. Oh, also, this other PC who was narrating giving an angel a handjob – he’s my brother, and the other PCs were his husband and their presumed third. Power to them if that's what their into, but I prefer the option to opt out of that audio. And no, I don’t play D&D with my brother anymore.

Dirt G

There is both quite a lot of in universe and out of universe foreshadowing for this, as I’ve been considering doing it for awhile and her character is designed to be tragic — she’s an orc suffering from, essentially, radium poisoning who has nearly died in every fight. I’ve also had deep discussions with all of my players — all of them know that there is a chance that every single session might be that character’s last session, and have back-up characters prepped. It’s also not a force. She will have a choice to save her loved one at a cost, she just won’t know what the cost is. If she doesn’t save em, she doesn’t and we have a conversation about whether she wants to continue playing, take a break, or how she feels. But we’ll have that conversation no matter what happens. I’m not worried I’m going to hurt my friend or our friendship. I just think killing the character may or may not be the right way to deal with this gordian’s knot. I don’t think killing the character will make the player sad though, and it won’t mean that she can’t play with us anymore. It’s just a way to give her an out if she wants one. I promise we’re all friends who are like chill, this will not hurt any relationship here.

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. Justices, was I wrong to knowingly listen to the Triplets with my windows down, or was this motherfucker an absolute maniac? PS: thank GOD it wasn’t dragon pussy

Mnixon

The justice Jake Thank u Xoxoxo Thank u Emily murph and well

Michael Huit

That's cool then. Seems like you've got it all figured out. I hope the session is an emotional rollercoaster <3

Bison Black

To the esteemed crit justices and the beautiful baby bailiff burdened by bountiful blue collar grit, I present the case of the threatening adventurers and the misplaced key ring. I was running a campaign based on the witcher 3, modified to accommodate 4 players. It was my first time DMing and I was excited, I even hand drew the game map on canvas for the players. We had a few good sessions and progressed to the point where the players needed to go to the crossroads inn to find out the location of the nilfgaard spy. The problem started after the players were insulted by the Baron's men and they killed them, when the innkeeper ran up to them panicked that the village was in danger the players decided that the best course of action was to threaten to kill him and any villager who snitched. They then left, before even asking for the intel on the spy. When I pointed this out they all claimed they had no idea they were at the plot critical village because I had forgotten to move the key ring I was using on the map to show their location and demanded I retcon the whole session. I may have forgotten to move the key ring, but I also announced that they were at the crossroads when they arrived! So I refused, they were pissed and we ended up never playing again. I ask the court, should I have rewound time because I forgot to move the marker or should my players live with the consequences of their actions?

Ryz

Dear Justices, Injustices and Unjustices as the case may be. I bring to you the case of the disposable Druid. I was playing an elven Druid who grew plants with mind altering effects. I had a captive human man for assisting me with my with my horticulture, who was kept calm and compliant through the use of the aforementioned mind altering herbs. Our party was attempting to sneak into a fortress city and for that purpose I had crafted a Haze Bomb, using my Druidic talents to provide cover and disable the guards, so the rest of the party could kill them with ease. However the night before our attack on this fortress, the Rogue of the party came to my Druid to demand the release of my herb addicted assistant, before we began our assault on the fortress city. She stated that slavery is immoral, and that her character would not stand for immoral actions in the party. I pointed out that I had seen this rogue water board someone to get information out of them; which was also immoral. However the Rogue’s in-game (and out of game) Ranger boyfriend came to back her up, and they informed my Druid that if he did not comply with this demand then the two of them would kill him immediately. The Ranger stated that because I had already made a haze bomb for them, they didn’t really need to keep the Druid around. My Druid released his herb slave, to avoid being killed himself. However during the night the Druid snuck into the parties belongings, took back his Haze bomb and departed into the night. I asked the DM if I could roll a new character. The DM said no, and alongside the rest of the party berated me for “having a temper tantrum” telling me I wasn’t being a team player. I pointed out that the Ranger and Rogue had told my Druid he was disposable, and it didn’t really make sense for him to help them after that. However it was stated that my actions were worse, because the Rogue and Ranger had only done something harmful to my character, whereas I had hurt the entire party and should have made up a roleplaying reason for the Druid to be fine with being treated this way. I left that group and found other people to play with, but members of the court: Was I wrong to have my character have a reaction to these events or should I have found a reason for him to stick around and keep helping the people who had just threatened to murder him in cold blood due to *his* lack of morals?

Marissa

Dear Supreme rad judges, and Jills husband. I bring you the case of the thieving cowardly cleric. Having only played d&d once before and considering giving up because the DM I found made me uncomfortable, another nearby table welcomed me into their group. I didn’t know enough as a player at that point to ask what level everyone was, so my lv 3 cleric was suddenly playing with level 11-13 players- and staring at a dragon. I decided at that point to play my cleric as a coward and heal people from behind cover so I didn’t immediately die. They found it funny at first, but as the months went on and I didn’t drop it they started saying things like “shouldn’t you be brave by now” or “no, heal me from here”. It wasn’t until 6months later that the DM realized I was wildly different levels than everyone else. I thought it was odd that story wide my character went up 8 levels in one session, but at that point I was also just happy to play. The table I was at was huge (would love the judges opinion on when a party is too big), and had 17 people showing up weekly. I would sit in silence for 2 hours waiting for my turn to maybe heal someone. Hence the thievery. As a petty epilogue I left the party, took my notes with me, and the players I thought were the best who also had zero playing time, to start my own campaign. We’ve been playing for a year now, and everyone is the same level and gets equal speaking time. I do know that my old party was thrown for a loop when I not only took 5 players but all of my notes that I know my old DM relied on heavily. Was I too caught up in petty revenge or was this justified? I humbly await your sentencing. (Jill’s husband, please add something to get justice Murph on my side)

Sammy

Most radiant justices (and Jake), I come to you with an update on the case of the Inept DM Wingman. As you recall, my friend Riley and I were attempting to set up our friend Ingrid with Riley’s brother-in-law Karl. In summary, you guys thought Karl ruled and that we should leave him alone. Well, that matchmaking one-shot was several months ago at this point. Ingrid and Karl did not get together, but recently Ingrid did get with another player at that very table: Riley’s brother Taylor. You might think this would cause some weird family dynamics, but Karl was truly so oblivious to the matchmaking that it has not been an issue at all. They immediately hit it off, and their second date was even to an escape room! It turns out puzzles really are the best way to get to know somebody, at the table or out of it. Thank you oh wise justices for your ruling, and may this update tickle your drama-loving hearts.

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.

Mac Enders

To the most esteemed Crit Justices on high who are also mighty fly...and the lowly bailiff who's name I believe was Jesk? I submit to you the case of the stolen Apparatus of Kwalish, and the bitter MURPHesque DM. The year was 2020, and the world was on fire. Things looked dark and then a light at the end of the tunnel! A friend from grade school decided he would host a D&D game for his buddies who had never played before. He created his own campaign and world, but added in a modified version of the adventure in Gnomengarde from Dragons of Icespire Peak, thinking this would be a simple adventure to get us more acquainted with the system after some pretty basic sessions (One of which I apparently one-shot his BBEG with a critical smite...Why was he so weak?) Justices this is where everything went wrong for the DM and when he basically turned into Murph and punished this entire party of noobs, the noobiest being myself, just for womping him. As the other justices and Bailiff Jim know, Murph is a sore loser and hates being razzed and getting womped, and this is also true of our DM at the time. We proceeded to enter Gnomengarde, defeat excessive amounts of mimics, persuade all of the gnomes to love us, avoid getting shot with ballistas, and easily saved the gnome king. The DM was annoyed, but he soon became enraged as our artificer/rogue had the audacity to try to hijack a modified version of the Apparatus of Kwalish that was being used for mining purposes. The DM first said “yeah go for it because the check is super high and you’ll never hit a NAT 20 stealth check to get by the guards and escape with your lives.” Our Artificer hit said NAT 20, and the DM's response was an immediate, “I meant a NAT 20 with disadvantage…” The artificer proceeded to roll another NAT 20. To be clear, these rolls were not in question as they popped up directly in front of everyone’s quarantined eyes as they appeared on the screen of our DndBeyond game. The party erupted into laughter and booze filled celebration immediately! The celebratory beer flowed like water from an endless spring…until the DM finally said, “well this thing only has a move speed of 2 feet per turn and you have a long journey to get back to your hometown and you have three injured gnomes to care for…ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN ON THE ROAD!” I, biggest noob of the party offered the protection of my Oath of Ancients Paladin, declaring I would walk beside my tiny, tinkering friend, and defend this little Artificer inside of his behemoth crab-themed tank, which also had a massive drill attached to it, while the rest of the party ran ahead to get those that we rescued to safety! The DM’s response was that I could not possibly walk so slow to stay with my friend because "as a Half-Orc paladin, my stride was far too long"…We argued as a group, but the decision of our MURPHesque Dungeon Master was final. I begrudgingly walked alongside the rest of the group, constantly looking at my friend who, with Hardwon style determination, decided to make the journey on his own in order to keep our beloved new crabby tank. The following session we chose to wait at the town for our friend and our new toy, at which point our DM’s giant shit eating, Brian Murphy grin appeared as he told us that Grimble, our lovable goblin artificer who had the Apparatus of Kwalish, had died horribly. He “fell in a pit trap on the road and just died....” That was the full explanation and the DM refused to explain further. Our friend playing Grimble was notably upset as were we all. We pleaded with the DM to change his mind and even said we would be willing to give up the crab tank if he let Grimble return to his friends, but to no avail. Grimble was dead and so was my first experience of playing Dungeons and Dragons. We boycotted the DM who took personal offense to our offense and the game ended abruptly. I plead with the court to divvy out the justice that is deserved for the Murph style DM that kills players simply because he hates getting womped and razzed! PS: I love everyone on NADDPOD, and you guys inspired me to not only pick D&D back up after this lame first experience, but to also DM the campaign that I have been running for more than 2 years now. Sorry for the razzing Murph, I know how much you hate being razzed. It was also simply a joke that I forgot Bailiff Jordan’s name;)

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.

Lorelei and Kyra Newly Weds

Greetings and good tidings to the Supreme Justices and that guy who I think washes their cars? I bring to you the case of "the Cursed but not really crown" I was playing in a Decent Into Avernus Campaign online and was playing a cleric who had lost their family due to story reasons. She was a jewel fanatic and would take any loose rings or gems to wear or sell when the party needed funds or to barter. During one quest we were fighting a group of cultists to a murder god in the sewers somewhere and had just wrapped up combat. scouring their belongings I found a crown with 5 different colored dragons atop it. As a player I knew this was Tiamats, but as a character I wasn't sure so I used detect magic "there is nothing magical about it as far as you can tell" were the Dms words. Okay cool right? Crown time, or so I thought. Upon putting the crown on the DM calls for a wisdom Saving throw, Nat 20. He then proceeds to inform me that if I had rolled any other roll I'd have died on the spot. In addition, the crown didn't have any magic effects and it could be donned or removed freely? So i ask you Humble justices, was I wronged?

N Keck

To the pre-cognizant justices WormWife, Blue-Hole, and Normal Ass Dude, and Tuckers Girlfriends Ex, I present the case of the Aggressive Role Player. A few years ago, I dmed for a group that was made up of 3 co-workers, one of the co workers wives and another of the co-workers friends. The party had a mix of experienced players and brand new players. One of the brand new players, a dwarf rogue, who was not proficient in intimidation, thought he should handle all the NPC interactions, and from then on proceeded to try to intimidate every npc they needed to question, to find information on a stolen item, that would lead them to their overarching quest. He failed these checks almost every time, and when the NPCs turned hostile, would out of character, accuse me of “being an asshole,” and “intentionally making my NPCs unhelpful”. Your honors, should I have gone easier on the oft-failed intimidator, or was I correct to roleplay them as unintimidated, and therefore undisclosing NPCs?

Wayne Sisson

To thine justices and honored jet blue plane-tiffs Jak & Nayakster, Case: meta gaming vs meta gaming This was years ago, but there is still beef to this day because of it. We were playing an rpg (non dnd) that lasted well over a year, where we instantly devolved into pvp bc of a player we will name Adam. Adam (playing an aspiring cult leader) instantly betrayed the party and ultimately he was so combative his character was turned into an NPC that at the end was the BBEG (we all liked this it was fun). He then played gonzo, a drug addled idiot that caused trouble for everyone. That character got killed, and he was building a new character. For context, I was at my 4th character at this point, so this wasnt out of left field. Adam immediately said that he was going to play an illusionist and try to deceive the party. So our high powered ‘artificer’ (we’ll name Barry) made illusion dispelling goggles when he leveled up before Adam’s new character was introduced. This was all within the rules, and it was one of the three upgrades Barry could make to his character. Adam still to this day accuses Barry of meta-gaming. I would argue that it was his fault for consistently being combative to the group, and us trying to have any kind of reason to not kill him on sight was the right move. I know you guys dont like pvp but we were actually pretty cohesive with the exception of Adam. Adam is also married to Carol who was an all around great player and they both hosted all the sessions. It all got buttoned up and we continued playing and had a great time, but Adam is to this day still actually mad at Barry because of this “meta gaming”. I insist it’s his own fault, and that he only has himself to blame. But he insists he is right in his indignation. Judges the verdict doesn’t matter, I’ve made up my mind, but I’ve been listening since your first year podcasting and thought you would want to hear it.

Roberto with a Concerto

Good tidings to the Supreme Justices of the oh so honorable crit, and also that guy that gets to talk occasionally, I bring you the case of the drunken murder. Back in high school, my friends and I in the gaming club started a D&D campaign, and in our first session our DM was describing us walking through the forest. I foolishly thought something was happening and asked to climb a tree and look around. Our DM played off this and threw a zombie encounter at us. We all almost died but somehow got through it. Afterward, our monk (way of the drunken fist) was describing punching one of the other party members, annoyed and in a stupor. Our DM told him to roll and he crit, then killed the rogue instantly, as he was at 1 hp from the previous fight. The rogue became furious, pounded the table and left the room. So I ask, who was at fault, the DM, the Monk, or me for climbing a tree? I await breathlessly for your judgement.

Ash Vance

Howdy Ho benevolent justices and hey you hoe to the sniveling bailiff. I bring before the court the case of the XP suicide. My wife was running a campaign in high school with a bunch of her friends and this story always rubbed me the wrong way. She was DMing for a large group, about 9 players who would swap in and out as they played damned souls in Hell winning a chance at life. The gods would give them challenges and they would complete them together and gain XP. They played when most of the party could attend and would write off the others by saying they were on their own personal challenge. One of the players, Angel, was new to the game and was a bona fide power gamer. He played a minotaur fighter who only cared about fighting and winning. During one session, he let the party know (after they started without him) that he wouldn’t be there. My wife said that was fine but he wouldn’t get any XP. The rest of the players leveled up, Angel did not. He was pissed. He asked if he made a new character, would he be the same level? She said “I guess so, yeah” even though he wouldn’t level up this next session anyway. Angel decided to lay dead and let the enemies kill him so he could just build a character the same level as the party My wife wonders to this day if she handled this correctly. What say you?

sphiggs

Your honours, havest thou considered a tidal wave? My party and I were gearing up to sail to an island where my cambion character's ex devil girlfriend had begun to amass an army. It was set to be a semi climatic moment for our characters. Before we could set off, an NPC announced that a tidal wave was incoming, straight for the city where my entire family lived. This was the first time a natural disaster had even been mentioned in our campaign. This was met with stress and confusion, and my DM got upset that we weren't stoked about this curve ball. They later sent a message to the GC saying were vetoing the idea because of our reaction

Liam Follett

Fair tidings to the grand Justices and foul tidings to the little boy. I bring before you the case of the bug boy incident. I’m a relatively new DM, and I recently started my first campaign with 3 players. My partner, my close friend, and a coworker who I wanted to get to know better. We’ll call him Jay. Jay doesn’t have a car so I pick him up from his apartment and bring him to mine every Friday for our session, about an hour of driving overall. A couple months into the campaign, I drive to pick up Jay and as I’m driving us to the session I see a big fat bug on him. I roll down my window and say “there’s a big ass bug on you man, get it out of my car” to which he replies “oh shit I’m sorry man, I have bed bugs…” your Honors, I have never turned a car around so quickly. After some deliberation (Jay was also just a problem player, typical rogue bullshit and bad communication) I decided to make the call to kick Jay out of the campaign. He then responded by messaging me five times between 11pm and 4am, calling me a “snake bitch” and saying “prolly on sight if I see you gangy” Your Honors, am I wrong for ejecting the infested man who tried to fill my home with parasites? I have two cats by the way.

Spencer Stevenson

May it please the court I bring to you the case of the doppelganger player. It was my wife's first time playing dnd, she built a moon druid because she thought transforming into animals would be of great utility. The problem was that a powergamer player in the party decided to play a character with the exact same race class and background. And did not hesitate to use his superior stats and knowledge of the game to steal the spotlight every time a druid could be used. Sounds like a cut and dry case but my wife informed me that we left the group because she could tell how much I was frustrated by it and she did not care and was having fun anyways. Am I the asshole by finding better friends?

Neilsen

Fair and honorable justices and the one they call Lowly, I come to you for guidance through a tale of frustration and exhaustion Enter: one of my players and friends, let’s call her Lacey. Before starting our campaign, she asked if she could join the campaign that I was DMing at the time, a Star Wars campaign using SW5e. Despite my warnings of a slightly different system from regular 5e, I ultimately accepted as she is a big Star Wars fan and I never want to exclude new players. At our session 0, I relayed as best as I could the mechanics of normal DnD and the difference between the two systems, sent her some background information about the world and even lent her my Player’s Handbook so she could study. At session 1, she muddled through combat and because she thought she was a force sensitive, she could mind control people without establishing any contact or looking through her spells (I recommended a melee class as her first time, but she insisted on using force powers, even if she didn't know half her spell list.) We finished the campaign, had lots of fun and chalked it up to a first-time experience. Our second and third experiences have been less so, as out of game, she is 15-20 minutes late each session and takes the next 10 minutes to explain her week and talk to everyone. During the games, she has been completely lost; regularly confuses wildly different characters and plot points, argues with other players and their decisions, and rolls uncalled for. I'm not really confrontational, but I laid out proper DnD etiquette rules and she said she understood. Now Im DMing our 4th campaign together and I continue to see problems; I reminded her about a spell’s distance and she replied “Whatever” Judges and Lowly, is it time I face the facts and apply the ban hammer on my friend/player, or is it possible to absolve her sins and teach her a new path? I humbly await your judgement

YourAnimeDad

To the Nat20 Justices and the "I rolled a 10" bailiff Cake I present: The case of the Full Turn Fingerguns: Representing myself V. My DM I play in a Eberron campaign with some friends from work every couple weeks or so with a focus on building up our Wizard’s Mobile Food Truck. It’s been a BLAST playing with relatively new players thinking outside of the box, throwing hot boiling canisters of soup as flavor for spells, a Paladin w/Dino mount smiting with a great hammer, and a smarmy savvy business focused Druid. What hasn't been a BLAST is my DMs ruling on a spell. Inspired by their freedom from not knowing the rules I’ve dedicated this character to be a support character, a Bard/Rogue multiclass to provide support in and out of battle with some non optimal spells. My issue began when I chose an odd spell called “Finger Guns” spell (3rd Party stuff), a cantrip that allows you to turn your finger into a weapon. It’s funny, fun and kinda useful. But then my DM made a ruling that stops it from being ethically used in combat. Judges I would have to use my bonus action to ACTIVATE the spell and my action to attack each time i used it. I’m not a huge fan of D&DB but in it’s interface it allows for a bonus action only to pop off. At first I let it slide because I did well enough in combat with all my other abilities, but as the sessions went on and I insisted that maybe the wording is misleading my DM wouldn't allow it, insisting that I use all my action economy on this 1 CANTRIP when I wanted to use it. In the end DM wouldn’t budge and I dropped the cantrip for Prestidigitation, but having a quick draw and killing a guy with just a point of your finger sounds so funny and I will never get a chance to do it. Judges, am I in the wrong for not honoring my DMs decision and insisting I be able to use this as a bonus action ONLY or did I simply miss “THE POINT” of this blasting spell? I humbly await your swift and righteous judgement in this lawless wasteland

MeowMan

To the Supreme Crit Justices, Goddess Emily Axford, and the guy who reads the cases, all of whom lull me gently to sleep at night, I bring you the case of Dragon-Obsessed Player! One of my DMs is taking a break for football season, so I get to jump back into the DM seat after a few years break. I'm creating a homebrew campaign and I'm challenging my players to play unique races and classes they've never gotten to play before. Here comes the problem. One of my players wants to play a dragon. Not a dragonborn. A full-blown dragon. I approved a book called Battlezoo Ancestries: Dragons for her to use because it seems balanced enough for the type of campaign I want to run, but everything she tells me she wants doesn't line up with what's available in the book! When we last discussed it, she wanted to play a dragon-type described in a totally different book meant for building enemies, not PCs. Then she was discussing her class selection, even though the only class she can take as a dragon is DRAGON (physical or magical damage trees). I feel at fault here because I did say I wanted them to pick unique races and classes, but this just feels like it's going to slide into one player being overpowered and more special than the rest, which is not the vibe I'm going for. How do I nip this in the bud gently without crushing the hopes of one of my dear friends? Love you all. You're perfect. No notes.

FaeArnold

High Priests of Dice Christ, I come to you to confess my come to Dice Christ moment. A few years ago I was playing as an Orc Wild Magic Barbarian named Thurk who was a failed experiment to create magic super soldiers by an evil group of wizards. Elders, Thurk never crit. I would attack recklessly constantly, and use other mechanics to grant advantage but nevertheless, natural 20s eluded me. It got to the point where I rolled so many 18s and 19s they began to leave a greedy, bitter taste in my mouth. I would bemoan my success because I felt I deserved more. Here in lies Dice Christ’s message - the dice tell the story. One of our final fights was against a group of evil wizards - the very ones that had tortured Thurk years ago. Your Grace’s, Thurk spent most of the fight banished - yet again in their clutches. His party broke concentration just in time for Thurk’s turn. I then proceeded to roll FOUR natural 20s in a row to defeat the remaining wizards. Never before have crits felt so narratively correct, punctuating the rage and vengeance my character was experiencing. This moment opened my eyes to Dice Christ, and since I have been on a path of Dice Enlightenment. It was also cinematic and rad as hell.

Wings of Silver

To the ethereal justices and the much more corporeal and therefore lame baliff Jim, I present the case of the evil cleric. One of the first times I played d&d, my best friend played as a cleric. He's a great guy, but for whatever reason in game as a cleric he was super awful. He would only heal our party members if they promised to give him gold, and he killed and then later zombifyed my fox animal companion named Spinifex. I didn't know much about d&d at the time but it felt like there was nothing I could do against this most heinous act. Justices, I feel I don't need to ask, but was my evil cleric friend in the wrong? Thanks for your time, love your content :)

Agathon

Dear Justices and Bailiff Cake, I was at a table with a DM who did not prep anything and did not understand how dice rolling worked. Our party was tasked in finding out if the BBEG was using this ancient crypt as a hideout. So we cleared the dungeon and he wasn't there. In the next session we go to another location hoping to find him. It's another crypt, but with the same layout... We cleared it and he wasn't there. We found clues to a possible lead on where he might ACTUALLY be. Lo-and behold it was another crypt. Same design. And the BBEG wasnt there. We went through 5 of these to the point where the DM would just say "let's fast forward to the end". One time he ran a one shot to introduce a new guy into the game without interfering with the campaign and the rest of the regular group was there too. What session did he run? THE FIRST DUNGEON WE HAD ALREADY DONE AND CLEARED. Oh what about rolling dice? Whenever his npcs or enemies attacked us he would grab a scoop of dice out his little dice box with both hands, shake them, and drop them all on the table. The thundering clatter of tiny plastic would burst our eardrums. He would then start sorting out the highest results and telling us they all hit. One time another player asked him "what the fuck does all this mean? I thought the goblin was only attacking us with a sword?" And the DM replied "well I roll to see if I hit.." as if this was normal. Justices am I just being delulu or was I just supposed to follow in Justice Murph's legendary advice and find new friends? I leave my fate in your delicious hands.

Scottee

Judgestices and baeby-boy, I come to you with a case. I ask you: when does one roll for Stealth? Foolishly, you might think as soon as a player advises that they would like to sneak around, but I disagree heartily. To roll for stealth immediately is oft to know if one succeeds or fails immediately, and is often portrayed as a character being spotted instantly. This can be fitting. It can be. However, I subscribe to a different school of thought. When my players asked to roll stealth to sneak past a drow raiding party, I nodded serenely and allowed them to move their tokens. They were trepidatious, and when they asked to roll stealth, I informed them that it was not yet time. It was only at the apex of tension, when getting caught might have spelled a moment of disaster, that I finally asked them to roll. Thus did they roll a four, a five, an eleven, and a natural one. They were caught out, poorly positioned, and though they succeeded in battle, it was a difficult fight and one character was nearly dragged away into the darkness by a giant spider. My players complained that they should have rolled and been seen right away, not when they were caught awkwardly between two subgroups of drow scouts, but I disagree. Should a failure of stealth not represent a true failure, being caught out of position, mid-sneakery? When we roll to attack with our greatswords, we do not do so from thirty feet away. We must get close and seek danger and glory! Thus do I also present this idea for the Tortles! I know you're hiding under those powdered wigs. I'm accepting potential partners for my patented Don't You Roll That Dice Yet system, where the roll is typically not made until the chance for Drama presents itself. Give me eggs a la mode. To start. Okay love you bye.

tiny little rat

Hi Judges! (Also, hi Bailiff!) I’m currently playing DND with a group of people in their 20s-50s, except for one of the players: the DM’s teenage son. He’s very good at DND and playing optimally, but he is also incredibly locked in to rules as written - to the point of correcting the DM if he gets the lore wrong, not letting his fellow players use spells or magic objects creatively, and insisting things like “all drow are evil” and “kobolds can only be slaves to higher beings because that’s how they’re written.” He obviously loves DND a lot and I do too, so I don’t want to suck the joy out of his game (especially since he’s a kid!). I’m afraid that if I ask him to chill out and let people be a little looser with the rules, I’ll be ruining a lot of the fun that he gets from playing DND and having such a clear rule set to follow. And in no world do I want to go above his head to the DM (HIS DAD). But also I feel crazy every time our party says “let’s put a pizza oven in the garden!” and he brings everything to a halt to insist that we aren’t allowed to do that, because pizza ovens aren’t in the DM’s Guide. What do I do?!

Macks

Dearest Judges and the Highly Esteemed Bailiff Jarsh, I present the case of the Absentee Thri-Kreen. I have been playing with the same DM for the last seven years, though the cast of players has shifted and changed. Besides our DM, myself and a friend are the last remaining members of the original group. We recently started a level 0 campaign, and are now level 2. Said friend has become increasingly absent from our weekly sessions, despite a consistent schedule and frequent reminders. Our most recent session, my friend's absence meant his Thri-Kreen fighter was piloted by the DM during a combat involving a gelatinous cube and a river. After our cleric reminded the DM that the fighter might want to do something on his turn, the DM moved the fighter exactly 15 feet away from the cube and did a ranged attack with a javelin. On the cube's turn, it moved 15 feet and enveloped the fighter, who used his turn to escape. The cube used it's next turn to attack the fighter and crit, making him go down. Our bard used Healing Word to revive the fighter, and the cube enveloped him again, knocking him down, again. This time, my sorcerer tried to pull him out of the cube but failed the strength check, which sent the unconcious fighter into the river, sweeping him 5 feet downstream. He was finally revived with another healing word from our cleric and was able to get himself out of the river, and we escaped. Throughout the combat, every player basically gave the DM permission to lie about rolls in order to avoid killing this character, and the DM insisted that they had no control over the situation. My question, dear Crit, is should the DM have gone easy on a character that they themselves were in control of? Should they have flubbed the rolls? Should we have let the bug man die as punishment for his absence? I patiently await your judgement.

Lucia

Hello to the beautiful and radiant members of the court,be they judges or not, especially the multiclassing loving judge, May it please the court i present to you the Sorcerer who wanted to study a wizard's book: I am playing a lvl 6 now going to 7 Sorcerer and back when we were lvl 4 we almost got tpked by some baddies. The dm included the spellbook of the wizard in the loot we recovered and I started thinking, I have 15 intelligence, I could dip 2 lvls into evocation wizard and not worry about frying my party w a fireball, and also have the luxury of knowing spells that are utility and not just utilitarian. The spellbook in question includes: mage hand, prestidigitation, clairvoyance, mage armor, shield, see invisibility, sending, Gust of Wind. The biggest drawn to me was sending, as we are on an island separated from the rest of the world and our families by a big magical storm and no one else in the party could learn it besides me. The dm agreed that I could use the book as my spellbook if I multiclassed in wizard, and have access to the spells already written in it. However it seems we read a part of the rules differently. The text for what spells a wizard can prepare from their book is: The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. I assumed that as a full spellcaster multiclass I could prepare and cast any of them, as I would have spell slots of lvl 4 even, but he reads it as wizard spell slots available. Me, the dm and 2 other players spent an hour or so after a session discussing it and reading the same words of the rules to no clear conclusion. The druid suggested making me do an arcana check for it, similar to casting higher level spells from a scroll, but the dm wasn't feeling like it was fair. I also mention that the campaign will only go up to lvl 8 so those 2 levels of wizard would have been my last. I agreed in the end to keep leveling up in Sorcerer just to not overly complicate it for everyone, but my heart still longs for the possibility of having more than 7 or 8 known spells to my name and having more value than just making stuff be on fire and hasting 2 of our 5 players at once. Judges, was I greedy for too much power, just like evil wizards tend to be, or a reasonable gifted kid wanting to give book learning a go?

Patrick

May it please the court and the bailiff with whom I have no beef. I bring to you the case of the unsatisfying investigations. When delving a dungeon we are of course always on the lookout for traps. However, regardless of what we roll, one of our DMs always tells us "You are positive that there are no traps ahead". His rational for this is that if you looked and found no traps (even if some were there), you would be confident that there were no traps. Unless you rolled very well or very poorly, the roll seems almost useless. While this has caused no serious drama to date, it does make my eye twitch a little. Judges, should the DM be clearer on whether or not you have successfully cleared the DC or does his rational have merit?

Kevin Jones

May it please the court, the majestic judges and that other guy who is probably AI, I bring you the case of the roleplay railroad. We were playing D&D again after many years, me and two friends, playing at long distance because we live in different places. I wanted to play a pre-made campaign because I'm a notoriously poorly prepared DM, so i chose the Into Avernus campaign because we'd all played Baldurs Gate 3 and the campaign is supposed to be a prequel to that. My 2 players were each running 2 PCs because the campaign is balanced for 4 characters. (some light spoilers for the campaign) . My players have always been more crunchy and focused on power than heavy role-players, and we all know that. But, at the beginning of the campaign, the basic idea of the characters motivation was they were mercenaries that happened to get recruited to fight for the good side. At one point, the characters follow up on a lead, and they're asked by the NPCs to go to Hell and rescue a city, which is very heroic but also extremely suicidal, so not really in line with the way they'd been playing it as mercenaries in it for the money. At this point, I basically just said to them, you go to Hell now, because that was the path of the pre-made campaign. There was a bit of confusion like 'What, why??' from the players, and I felt really bad about it, but I didn't have anything prepared for them if they decided not to go. We played for several more sessions and it didn't come up, but I can't help but feel like I railroaded my PCs into something that their characters would never have chosen to do. I submit myself for your judgement.

Lee030

May it bring immense joy to all 4 lovely members of the court the case of the uninterested irritating player: My partner was running a Pokemon campaign for some of our friends with a system he made himself!! This guy (lame) was interested in playing so we invited him to join, and every session he went so out of his way to have completely misaligned goals from the rest of the already established party. There was once I remember one of the other PCs tried for what felt like 30mins to try to at least somewhat align interests with him. One session in particular, my partner had planned a super fun battle session, and this lame ass dude says “my character wouldn’t do that. I want to go on a solo stealth mission so you should run that for me instead.” It was online so I immediately texted my partner “what a dick lol” and the campaign didn’t last much longer than that bc my partner lost motivation for it (I wonder why), but I think I should be allowed to punch that guy in the stomach if I see him again. What do you guys think?

Zandor

May it please the court and tease the bailiff; I started a d&d 5e session a few years ago as a new DM, having watched and listened to a lot of d&d live play media such as yourselves. I was running the mines of phandelver, the starter set adventure with a couple of friends from discord and my partner. When they arrived to the first cave after being ambushed by goblins, they successfully snuck up on two goblins that were supposed to be guarding the entrance. The stealth roll was very high and they asked what the goblins were doing, so i improvised that they were playing a made up card game. I must have made them too cute, because immediately they wanted to "adopt" (kidnap) one or both goblins. They tried multiple times to do persuasion and intimidation checks, all which failed until one of the goblins was killed in battle, which intimidated the other one to go along with them. This was fine, as i made sure that the goblin wouldn't contribute much, except for maybe giving away some information about the cave they were guarding with more persuasion and intimidation checks. The issue began when a new player joined, also a friend of all of ours, a couple sessions in after the fact, and pretty much immediately killed the "pet" goblin. It really soured the mood, as it immediately split the party between "should we be keeping this probably evil creature as a pet, it would have betrayed us" (which they probably would have as soon as it could find a safe chance to) and "but its our friend and we can redeem them" (which also could have happened if enough work was put into it) Im not sure if I should have allowed the goblin to be attacked, or if i should have let the goblin join them in the first place; i was new then and i'm still not sure what the correct choice is, i haven't DM'd since. I submit to your judgement as wise and powerful dungeon dragoners, what is your stance on goblins and adopting hostile npc's in general?