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Cases, Please! (Patreon)

Published:
2025-09-17 00:24:13
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Greetings! Bailiff Jake here to inform you that the Supreme Crit is convening on the morrow. Please submit your brief (I do beg!) grievance and/or table top drama on this thread and we will bring you swift justice!

Comments

Mnixon

Thank u Mr Jake

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

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.

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.

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 over three 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

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.

Ken

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 For the rest of the session, the player was withdrawn and despondent.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

Mnixon

My case is Thank u Mr Jake, Ms Anne from green gables, Mr well, and murph Kind regards Me

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.

Cam The Spooky Frog Man, William Schitz Cousin

Dearest supreme crit and the lowly Bailiff ismark the lesser 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

benji b

Honorable Justices and also … I lost my train of thought. Anyway, I bring to you the case of Joel, the coward with a gun 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.

Alex T

To the bailiff Hallux 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.

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

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

Fewzie7

To the 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)

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?

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?

Rook

Dear Honorable Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner as well as the questionable but endearing court baliff Jake. I bring to you the case of the dead civilians. 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 10 minutes going back and forth with both the party and the dm trying to figure out why this was a bad idea, but none of them would tell me so i gave up and did it. Lo and behold, there were still civillians in the church and I ended up killing 5 innocents and injuring another. The rest of the party gave me shit for this move obv, but i had thought all the people had fled the church and while i dont necessarily blame the DM for not telling me, should my party have at least helped? I leave this up to the court and will abide by your rulling

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. 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 I asked my fellow players for help (out of character). We worked together to solve it, but I noticed one of my party members and friend had gotten really quiet, but the session was wrapping up so I didn’t think much of it. After the session, that friend texted me saying asking my fellow players for help with the riddle was 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

Penderpeen

To the Church of the High Crit, I come before you with a confession. I have been playing DnD for 10 years. I have played atleast one version of every class and enjoy each as much as the next. However, when I have played a caster of any sort, I have never prepared my spells. I never understood it. It does not matter if I am a wizard, a bard, a sorcerer, or a cleric - I leave DnD Beyond’s spell list open and, when the moment strikes, I choose whichever is most effective or fun. I am not sorry, and do not regret, this transgression as it has led to many great moments for my parties. However, its probably best to throw it out there.

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 my case: 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 days, shout out)*

Bagofchips123

To the ever most hunky bailiff, and the justices over there finger painting, i bring thee the case of the noble steed! We had a bullywug character named Bellubba in our last campaign. When he was going to war, my players asked if a random lizard could appear from the ground, and become bellubbas mighty steed. I thought it was stupid that it would just RANDOMLY happen so I said 2 nat 20s and it happens. They didn't even get 1. But from now on, even into our third campaign, they ALWAYS start the session rolling for bellubbas steed. Justices am I just unfun, or should my players obey dice christ and realize that there's no way bellubba gets his steed.

Francis D

May it please the court 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.

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?

Tyler Goevert

I know this sounds insane and fake but it is 100% true

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.

KennyH

To the Honorable Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner. Oh I forgot that BARFLIFF guy? Anyways, I bring you the case of the burnt spellbook. My friend was a complete noob to DnD, joining a new campaign with me playing a wizard. This was ran by a veteran DM, most of the table were experienced. The DM's world was rough, and he was a stickler for the rules. Welp, my friend lost his spellbook three times in the campaign. The first two instances are a case for another time. Let’s just say, he was flat out NOT having fun playing a wizard without a spellbook. The third (and final) time he found himself bereft of his book of spells, I am ashamed to say, was by my own hand. His character had stolen my character's secret poetry book that I had been filling with poems she had written the past 7+ months we were playing the game, adding a new one each session. He had his character reading the poetry out loud to the party. Embarrassing her greatly. I did what I thought she would do, (a light domain cleric with anger issues) she stole his spellbook and threatened to burn it to a crisp, unless he stopped reading her poems right now. He continued to read the poems, so I said to the DM "I cast firebolt on his spellbook". The look of utter betrayal on my friend's face as my DM narrates his book being burned to a crisp, haunts me to this day. He narrated his character just walking away from the party down the road, ignoring any attempts to talk to him. Leaving the campaign. So I ask thee Justices, did I do my friend dirty? Did I perhaps go full nuclear when I could have gone more tactical? Should I have just torn a page out and burnt that? Or was this just a lesson that he had failed to learn twice prior, coming to an inevitable result? I beseech thee, give us a fair and just ruling, to save our friendship.

Jack H

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

Prof

To the esteemed justices tanner and the Axfords, and to... Oh hey lil guy who let you into the courtroom? I bring the case of the insane robot A few years ago I ran a Star wars campaign using SW5e, I was a little inexperienced at the time at dming but still we had an absolute blast, the problem came in the beginning of the campaign however. One of my friends is kinda known for min maxing to an extreme level, he said he wanted to run a droid, specifically a magna guard, barbarian, I said sure assuming the worst. Session 1 he brought a character with 36 AC, resistance to all damage types and 6 reactions. This was a level 10 campaign but still those numbers were insane. I said 22 AC vulnerability to like shock I think and I think I reduced the amount of reactions. He complied but stated it was perfectly legal in the rule book. We are still friends and still play dnd constantly but still joke fight about it, so I ask is he fine.... If it's legal? PS he said he's down to send an explanation of the build

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.

Lili McGee


To the highest Justices and lowest of bailiffs, I present to you the case of: The Possession of Trust. I play in a chaotic Spelljammer campaign with a party of six. We play every other week, with the rule is one person is absent, we can skulldrag their character. In a recent session, our DM brought in a substitute player to fill in for an absent party member. This sub had never played D&D before, but had always wanted to try and was very engaged, asking plot point questions which we assumed he was out of character. He started volunteering information about the character’s family—details that had never been established before. We laughed it off, and joked he was creating new lore for the absent player. Meanwhile, our DM kept having us roll for ship maintenance and daily travel checks. Everything seemed routine. It was not. The substitute viciously attacked a party member out of nowhere, revealing the character had been possessed by a ghost in the previous session. The maintenance checks- He’d been planting a bomb. We managed to defeat the ghost and disable the device just in time—but we rolled to see what would’ve happened had it gone off. It would’ve been a TPK. So now, honored judges, I ask you:
Was our DM within their rights to deceive us this way, hiding the enemy behind the face of a cheerful newbie?
Should we have seen through the ruse and suspected foul play, rather than assuming this was just an innocent beginner? I humbly await your verdict. PS we did have a great time and only argue about it in jest. But we will never trust the DM again.

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.

Ida Casmier

Benevolent justices and that quirked up bailiff Jerm (you’re alright)— I bring to you a simple and fast case. In 2003 Hugh Jackman had long flowing hair. He was beautiful. And he seemed super happy back then. Rn, he seems kinda mid level happy idk. I think the hair was super important to his happiness. Anyway. To me, Hugh jackman in 2003 is the ideal way to look. So, for the last few campaigns with my childhood friend I have used Hugh jackman 2003 with long hair as a reference when describing how my characters look. My friend thought it was funny at first. But going on 5 years she wants me to stop. But I don’t wanna. To me hugh jackman 2003 is the ideal way for any character i play to look. Also lowkey for a bit i imagined hardone looking like Hugh jackman 2003. Anyway. Am I in the wrong? Should I change it up? I throw myself at the mercy of the court. But also I’m not sorry. Kill me if you have to

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.

Peppy Pippin

COMPANION MURDERED FIRST SESSION: To the pet-loving, honorable justices of crit (and also Jill’s guy), 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 all 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 3 now baby!

Dave 3D Art

May it please the supreme Crit justices, and the bailiff who may or may not be a rude dude with attitude. I present the case of Tarrasque Tummy summoning. Recently in the epic level online campaign I've been playing in for the past few years we had an encounter with a Tarrasque in a pitch black cave. Long story short our cleric who is the only reliable source of light was swallowed fairly immediately. Luckily upon his first turn he thought to use a horn of Valhalla inside the Tarrasque Tummy to try and induce vomiting. Unfortunately our DM ruled that the Viking warriors could not be summoned within the Tarrasque, and had to appear outside. This encounter is actually still in progress, and we ultimately used the summoned Vikings, and faerie fire to resolve our lighting situation. But I do think there was plenty of room within the Tarrasque, and our cleric is still stuck inside. I await your judgement, and if you're listening to this Richard, your campaign is amazing.

Carlos Gonzales

Hello gamers and murph(I watched the Baldur’s gate stream and it was a tough watch so I have to believe Jake is better naturally), I play with a group of 5 others and a DM about 2-3 times a month from about 7-10. Once or even twice of these sessions per month the DM has to put his kid to sleep(completely understand, family comes before games). Sometimes though we don’t start the actual session until about 8 because of this which is kind of frustrating to the other players and I. I feel like it’s a rock and hard place because he’s the DM, sometimes host, and has his own responsibilities. It just kind of sucks to wait around and not play. Please help fellow gamers and if my punishment is to play games with murph then I accept.

Clever Innuendo

To the Venerated Dice Elders, I present my confession, which stems from a powerful moment in a late-campaign fight, with a high-stakes fight where we *had* to take a Dragon down to aid the rest of the fighting forces. We were well spaced out to avoid breath attacks and got it to the brink. However, the Dragon knocked the Fighter prone as a Legendary action, and then used its full turn to dash-fly away, leaving it 200 feet away from us. We had no attacks that could hit in that range. The Fighter was sure she could finish the fight if it had stayed in her face, but there was no chance of that now. Fortunately, I was playing a Trickster Cleric / Rogue Mastermind multiclass, and was exactly 60 feet away from the fighter! I bonus-action dashed to put a hand on her. Then, with a Jens Lyndelle-worthy flourish, Dimension Door'd both of us onto the back of the escaping Dragon! I immediately got yeeted off by the Dragon's Legendary Action to a significant but non-lethal amount of damage, but the Fighter stood strong, got their turn, and took the Dragon down with the last possible attack. I can still hear the roars of the table when it happened. ...But here's the confession: Forgive me, Dice Elders, but I was *65* feet away from the Fighter. I had enough turns to sit there, plot out this epic plan, and realize I couldn't. Nevertheless, when it was my turn, I went with it anyway, sliding my mini across the board to the Fighter. Normally our DM watches move distance with diligence, but I think the fact I only needed to move in a straight line concealed the slight of hand on my part. No one else at the table was any the wiser. It was a huge moment at the table, but I acknowledge that memory comes with an asterisk, and that it looms in my brain enough that I think about it every time a Dice Christ comes up, so I figured it was time to atone. I humbly await your whomping.

Wren

To the beautiful hydrated judges and the crusty dusty musty live action Denny Pebblepot Bailiff, I bring not a case but an inquiry that I have been secretly harboring from my DM. Dispel Magic and Counterspell counteracts spells like Haste, Enlarge/Reduce, etc. but if you drink a potion such as Potion of Speed or Potion of Hill Giant Strength, is it still a magical effect that can be cancelled out via Dispel Magic? Or because its in your bloodstream, would Lesser Restoration to remove "Poisoned" counteract the magic? Is it possible to cancel out a potion? I lay my inquiry at the Court's judgement.

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.

Scott Wall

If it pleases the exalted Justices, shining paragons of wisdom and fairness, and the pitiful, mewling wretch of a baliff whose very employment is a testament to this court’s unmatched charity I was playing in a Vecna: Eve of Ruin campaign with a friend, her dad, and his friends. Last session, I had to leave early to pick up my grandpa from the airport. No biggie, the DM was cool, and told me I’d only miss half of the final fight of the session, and then they would wrap up. Later, I got home to a text saying my Paladin had been killed unceremoniously by a Finger of Death spell while I was gone, and now I’m being asked to figure out what to do next. I’m honestly thinking about leaving the campaign. What should I do? Respectfully, A confused and slightly salty player

Joshua Lawerson

Dear hot bailiff Jacob et. al. Long story short, I just found out one of my players supports Trump, despite us living all the way in Australia. The rest of us are very left leaning politically, and it's becoming tense, What do?

Mitch Rhook

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

chris conway

To the spicy justices and the luke warm baliff, I submit to you the case of the first time player and the fiddle. I'm a fan of a great podcast which features live play dnd, in the very first episode, one of the players who shall remain nameless, when his character was introduced said "I'm standing there, drinking in the beautiful sound of the fiddle..." The episode before this point had started off very strong, and this line committed the crime of killing the vibe. Without the heavy weight improv skills of the other 3 hosts I fear the episode would have been lost, but thankfully they recovered. On behalf of the entire fanbase, I request the judges to weigh in to determine not IF there is guilt, but to determine the proper punishment for not having a better line prepared. I lay this nameless host at the mercy of the court.

Alex W

To the Supreme Crit and Bailiff Jorb, I’m telling on my players. I DM for a group of three, and we just recently wrapped up a major arc involving ridding a cursed forest of a magical disease infecting peoples dreams. At the end of the session, I gave them a list of the 5-6 open plot threads and told them they should think about which their characters wanted to do. They came back to the next session (~2 weeks later) and picked one where an empire across the sea was destabilizing governments on the continent they are on. Great! I plotted everything out and they went on their merry way, sailing across the ocean to go to this empire across the sea. Justices and Jonk, at the next session 2 weeks later, they forgot why they went to the empire. They literally asked me “why did we come here?” I’m not asking for judgement or anything, you just asked for tabletop drama and this made me laugh. My players are usually great, but they also are the bane of my existence sometimes.

Adriana B

SHELLO TORTLES-- Wait sorry, that’s not right… To the honorable Crit Justices and the “honorable” bailiff Jake. This is my story of the Tiger Who Should Have Lived. I play a level 6 Firbolg Nature Domain Cleric and had a fateful encounter with a White Tiger at the steps of an abandoned Giants Temple. I critically failed a check to influence this tiger, and that devastated me. This caused the tiger to flee, however, I returned the next session multiclassed into a level of Druid and I was ready to encounter this ethereal tiger again to make amends. As our group was traveling a treacherous vine-covered cliffside, our DM described us hearing the sound of something… a tiger falling to its death. I gasped and quickly asked if we would have heard it before it fell, because I have a PP of 17. The DM agreed and let us backtrack with an active check, which I did pass. I quickly cast Plant Growth to help stop the tiger from falling, hoping the overgrowth would give us a better chance at saving them. The next part of this session lasted a literal hour to save the tiger, who now was revealed to be a Tabaxi Druid. We used every spell and ability we had that could be useful, no one rolled any crit fails. Eventually the vine snapped and the tiger fell to its death… AGAIN. Even our warlock with a Broom of Flying with our druid, wildshaped into a monkey, on their shoulder couldn’t save this tiger as The DM described tufts of white fur in the monkey’s paws. I was frustrated and almost in tears after this. Oh, and we still had to continue the following combat encounter after this as the DM brushed past this. Justices, am I wrong to assume that after an hour+ of our entire party pooling resources to save this Tiger Druid that we should have been able to save them?

Maggie Myers

Justices, bailiff, et al.: Is a corpse a creature? My table recently ran into this issue when my paladin attempted to cast Zone of Truth on a corpse ahead of our cleric using Speak with Dead. Zone of Truth specifies it targets "creatures" and Speak with Dead specifies that "the corpse is under no compulsion to offer a truthful answer if you are hostile to it or it recognizes you as an enemy." This caused some debate at the table, as Speak with Dead only references a creature when speaking about the corpse's former soul. Our DM ruled in our favor and allowed it to work, but not without extensive discussion. Could the Court offer a final ruling for when we attempt to speak to the corpse again in 6 in-game days?

NG

Valiant Justices and Inscrutable Bailiff, 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!

John Richards

To the honorable crit justices and their friend that they brought. Several years ago, our dm started a campaign and insisted we all play monstrous races. At session zero I introduced my little tabaxi bard, Fancy. Fancy was (supposed to be) a short and chubby little guy who loved knitting and crafts (and always wore a big hat, irrelevant to the case, but a nice little detail). But I was informed by both my dm and my table, that Tabaxi were a sleek and athletic animal, slender and ferocious, and my fluffy little guy did not fit the mold established by Wizards of the Coast. After some negotiating, I was able to keep my visual design, but I had to use halfling stats (so reduced movement and no climbing speed). Joke was ultimately on them, because Halflings are low key my favorite, but all the same…justices, tell me, did my dreams of a chunky little boy deserve to be nixed by a table of feline haters?!

Amanda Sheller

To the High Justices, and the baliff whose status is not worth mentioning: We were playing a 5e campaign as pirates in the astral sea. I was hosting, mostly because I have the biggest couch and I enjoy providing snacks and treats for the crew. Our sessions are few and far between, maybe 4 or 5 a year, and during a dry spell I thought it would be fun to make Astral Grog for the next session. I mixed up a variety of a mai tai using grape juice to make it dark purple, and added edible glitter so it would resemble the Aether Sea. I even bottled it in individual corked bottles for maximum pirate vibes. Judges, here is where a crime may have occurred: the drinks were too strong for these salty dogs. Despite my warnings that the grog was stronger than it tasted, everyone downed their drinks quickly and the DM called for the mid-afternoon session to be paused while everyone sobered up. We ended up only playing one combat in our quarterly session. Was I in the wrong for mixing up such a potent brew? Or do my fellow crew mates just need to buck up and find their sea legs? Please send your verdict as a message in a bottle as I am currently lost at sea.

Thorbjorn

To the best court/church I don’t know which this is but I am a player that was asked to play to help the dm (new to dnd) with rules and help the new players with their character. The issue is I am loving helping everyone but I have not pointed out mistakes some players make in more stressful moments. Most notably our Druid cast two spells in a turn in order to save another pc that was down in a cloud kill last session

Kingofanchovies

To the silly goose judges and the super serious bailiff i present the case of the prissy boy and his goat milk. I joined an online campaign and session one our pcs met in a bar normal right? Well my pc orders goat milk and the others beer and the waitress gives me some attitude I was like oh maybe the dm wants me to interact with her so I did and asked why she was rude to me I just wanted goat milk and she said she said I was prissy and I was like OK ill talk to your manager. And then I talked to her manager and she got ij trouble I thought funny bit. But then the waitress threatened to kill my pc and stalked him the whole night, then a town elder told me off for telling on her and the dm made me lose 1 honor. I have since left this campaign after many crazy situations like dryad breeding and water so fast its still. Please justices did my pc commit a terrible sin or was this alot for a conversation i await your judgements perched and scared.

Sammy

To the illustrious justices of the Crit, I come to you with an update in the case of the Inept DM Wingman. To summarize, my friend Riley asked me to DM a one-shot to set up our friend Ingrid with Riley’s brother in law Karl. You basically told us to leave Karl alone, and you thought Karl ruled. Well, that one-shot was several months ago at this point. Sadly, ingrid and Karl did not end up getting together after that game. However, Ingrid DID get with another player at that very table! And here’s the kicker: he’s Riley’s brother, Taylor. What can I say, Riley has a lot of eligible D&D playing bachelors in her life. Ingrid and Taylor are going strong, and even successfully did an escape room on one of their first dates. As Justice Murphy posited, puzzles really are the best for bringing people together! I thank you, oh wise justices, for imploring us to leave Karl alone, because it led Ingrid to find her true match at that table.

RoleforThat

To the wise High Justices of the Supreme Crit, and their dutiful bailiff, Today, I come before the court with an unusual case, that is the Case of Jumping Down the Hole. My case is not about a specific incident, but of a pattern of behavior I have been noticing lately. I have been DMing for a group of friends for about a decade now, and have begun to notice that they have become very risk adverse when playing. In situations that I refer to as asking them to “jump down a hole”, that is asking them to take an action that they can’t immediately take back, they often dither about making any decision and will do everything in their power to learn about what the consequences of different choices might be before deciding, and even when they are successful at this, sometimes still try to avoid jumping down the hole. I have tried everything, from having NPCs bring up why they need to make a choice (I cringe internally every time I have to do this because it feels like some a new DM has to resort to) to outright having an OOC conversation with them, but they just can’t seem to get past being so risk adverse. I’m at the end of my rope here Judges, their desire to avoid any decision that might end in something potentially bad happening to them makes sessions really drag, and in my opinion at least is leading to the story I’m trying to tell with them to be very boring. Please grace me with your divine wisdom, and help me out of this situation!

Dave 3D Art

I use the term "tummy" for alliteration purposes.

lizzy with a y

To the beautiful, magnanimous justices, may it please the court. I was playing in a campaign with a group of friends about a year ago. Around six or seven sessions in, the DM said, "I don't really like running combat, so this is going to be a more roleplay focused campaign from here on out if that's okay with all of you." Three of the five PCs were happy about this, as they prefer the roleplay part of the game; myself (a ranger) and one of my other friends (a fighter) were a little disappointed. I was fine to go along because I was a beast master ranger and my animal companion (a hawk named Barley) gave me plenty roleplay opportunities. My other friend, however, was a champion fighter. She asked if she could switch classes to something with more options for roleplay, since her entire character/all subclass abilities were built around combat, but the DM said no. The DM justified this by saying that we had already played enough sessions that it would be weird to change it when her champion subclass abilities had already come up multiple times. The campaign disbanded a few months later (no other combat encounters were run) due to other issues*, but I still feel my friend was wronged and should've been allowed to switch classes to something that had more utility outside of combat once the DM decided to make the campaign more roleplay heavy. Was the DM justified in telling my friend to stay a champion fighter despite not running combat, or am I correct in thinking this was a weird move that just served to decrease my friend's enjoyment of the remainder of the campaign? *In case the court is interested in the drama, two of the PCs who were dating in real life had also made their characters romance each other in a way that was (kudos to our DM) very interwoven with the plot of the campaign. They broke up, didn't want to keep playing romance, and the campaign kind of fell apart around that.

NobodyWrites

Judges, jack and the worm wife. I am bringing to your attention the case of the dragon vanilla. I am running an arch in my long running home game heavily based on the dragon elf chronicles, my players had just killed a brass dragon and I helpfully reminded my artificer player that if he would like to harvest materials from the dragon I had a table prepared for him to roll on. My brother, who was not the artificer but playing a 46 year old locatha paladin named Chud, then asked if it would be possibly for him to extract oils from the anal gland of the dragon to make dragon vanilla. I told him no but he rolled anyways and got a 5. So I described him punctering the digestive tract and the issuing consequences but he wasnt discouraged and has vowed to try again with the next dragon they slay. I humbly ask the court should I stop him and if so how.

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?

clover

Hello, high priests Axford, Murphy, Tanner and choir boy jake. I have a confession for a sin I fear I may have committed on my players. It was all of our first time playing dnd (although I knew a lot from play shows). The party successfully completed their first mission of finding the culprit who was stealing valuables from villagers. At this point the PCs have had spent plenty of time together but didn't actually like each other, they bickered and fought and tried to kill each other regularly. I was unsure of how to get them to want to stick together to move on to other things so I crafted a plan. They were celebrated with a party and gifts which included stuff the thief left behind. This included a cursed sword which took the appearance of something each PC would want. I narrated them each grabbing their item and watching as it transformed into the sword which they could not let go of. To get the party to stick together I literally stuck them together. It ended up working well as they worked together to find a wizard to remove the curse but I feel guilty. The very least I could have done was to give them a wisdom saving roll but I took advantage of them not knowing the game to get them where I wanted them. Will Dice Christ forgive my sin or am I to burn in the fiery pits of dice hell...?

Aedan

To the +3 justices and the bailiff i wouldn't touch with the 10-foot-pole, I present the case of "you have 7 seconds, go" When i started playing D&D many years ago, we started some module, and I had a character planned. A half-elf paladin who was being sent away from home on a quest. Me and the other party member killed some zombies and made our way to the mansion atop the hill, where upon exploring, we found a horde of gold in a room with a hole in the side. Then, the DM described an adult dragon landing in the opening, and went "Who are you, explain yourselves" and we proceeded to go "uhhh... uh..." and the DM said "you have seven seconds, go" and counted down while we stumbled words. We couldn't think of anything to say, so she described the dragon melting our faces for more damage than we had health and we were killed instantly. Justices, was this a fair thing to ask of us? Personally, I think no, but maybe that bailiff guy thinks otherwise. We make lots of jokes about this to this day but I wish I had more time with the character. I await your judgement

Ryan Parkinson

Honourable justices and baby boy bailiff bake! I present a case of DM over-transparency. Me and my friends have been playing for 8 years and between core campaign sessions, we run a rotating DM, monster-of-the- week style side campaign to prevent DM burnout. Each of us has a PC and whoever decides to DM has their PC stay back to look after the shop our PCs run. One week, our friend set up a rad polymorph coliseum session - it was high octane action and great mechanically! However when we reached the final round, we faced two T-Rex's. The problem was that we had polymorphed into T-Rex's in an earlier round and to make that happen our DM has to share access on Roll20 to the creature token. This meant that in the final round we could see the T-Rex's HP bar. We polymorphed into a motley crew of gorillas and rhinos and absolutely shredded the T-Rex's. As we hit the killing blow on one, our DM narrated that "the T-Rex is looking a little worse for wear". The three of us turned into quiet cousins and said nothing. Meekly we continued to wail on the T-Rex's watching their HP meter stay at 0 the whole time, until our DM decided that they were good and dead. Justices - were we wrong to not mention the visible HP bar at the start of the encounter? It has been three years and the quiet looks between the three of us while our DM excitedly narrated the combat still haunt me to this day. She does not know this happened, but is a NADDPOD patron subscriber - so I suppose this counts as my confession.

h moon

May it please the Justices of the Court and Bailiff Jar - I bring to you the case of DM burnout turning into a crash out. My friend runs a weird west campaign that he recently said he wants to switch from DND to a new system because DMing DND is draining on him. During a talk about scheduling he presented a list of bullet point “boundaries” around the way he and I talk about the game outside of play, and the way I play my characters. He said no hard feelings but this has clearly been building up for some time, seeing as some of these are issues I can draw a direct line to from MAY. Some of these include that I’m victimizing my own character (she got in session killed by her mom and didn’t react the way he had planned) and I’m “planning scenes” ahead of time (I have told him some background stuff I’d like to see that he asked players to send). I’m the only one in the group he gave them to. I’ve told him I don’t want to discuss characters with him because I simply. Don’t have a good answer. I’m trying to do reflection but honestly I don’t know where some of these are coming from. Am I being too sensitive? Is this blatant targeting? Is it my turn to crash out? PLEASE justices help me figure out how to respond.

Patrick Ferris

To the principled judges and the putrid bailiff, Gustin: A few years back I ran a Curse of Strahd campaign for some friends where I tried my damndest to get at least one player to betray the party. Being the seductive DM that I am, one PC actually took the bait. The barbarian of the party, Mashi, accepted the dark gift of vampirism. At the time, my group followed a rule that so long as only one player was missing from the table, we would continue the session without them (5 player total). The session following Mashi’s infection, their player could not make it. I hadn’t planned for the infection to take hold quickly, so I expected Mashi to be around for at least a few more sessions. Honorable judges, the other party members IMMEDIATELY began scrutinizing Mashi at the beginning of the session. I, not wanting to fully roleplay a critical movement for one of my player’s, had Mashi run away and hide. The party pursued. Relentlessly. I was forced to play as Mashi, being berated by all of the party, before ultimately being told to leave and never come back. I tried to draw out the situation long enough for it to pick up in the next session, but the party would not back down, and Mashi’s player started next week with a new character sheet. Judges, wtf? Luckily we’re are all friends at the table, all though, I do still get razzed on occasion for allowing a player to miss such a crucial character moment.

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.

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.

Jorge Fuentes

To my dearest Baliff Jake who can do no wrong in my eyes and uhh *reads smudged hand* Surf, Baldwell and Homily? Anyways I bring to you all the case of the DLC arc, I’m running a game of orbital blues in which I have my players planet locked and they need to come up with the scratch to purchase a ship to escape the planet by taking on various jobs, this is a fairly lighthearted campaign so I’m very lighthearted with the tone, jokes about weezer and how the DMV still exists in this retro futuristic world. Well one of my players (let’s call him Charles) comes up to me and says he has an idea for something thematic he would like to do with his character. Being someone who likes to be fair I said I would think about it since I would have to offer everyone at the table the same thing. However he then offered to buy me food and reserve the space we were playing at. Justices. I am never one to turn down a free meal. So I lept at the opportunity and forsook any form of fairness to my other players cause I was being offered a free meal. Now I didn’t slack on this mini campaign either. I made a soundtrack and a soundboard and a hand drawn battle map with terrain actions and minis. They even got two magnets I bought online as a thank you for playing. But now I’m in a pickle, my player has rejoined the group and is talking about his big adventure and how he wants to find his war buddies and save them from the corporation they’re working for. The other players are upset because I admittedly gave him a good item that bumped up his armor by 1 (this is big as everyone is hit by a roll of 8 or greater and he now can only be hit by a roll of 9 or greater). So justices, is it really that bad that I forgot to tell everyone about being able to make seperate arcs for them to be in? Am I in the wrong for making something my player would enjoy? Is Murph wrong about inspiring me with his hex blood arc in elder mourn? I always your fair and fast justice

barbaric conversationalist

To the benevolent justice Axford and her lackeys, I bring to you the Case of Language Woes. I play a game with my Canto (Cantonese) speaking friends. We enjoy playing with each other as we can swap between English and Canto, even mixing in Mandarin and Malay sometimes. My friend's husband had joined our game. Before he joined, we warned him about the multilingual aspect of our table, especially since he didn't have the same language/cultural background as us having grown up in the states. But he had said it would be okay. Yet, when playing he incessantly complained about our table's multilingual aspect. He made comments like "uh oh i'm gonna need English subtitles for this" and "English please for the kwai lo (canto term for white man) at the table thanks" and even "Wow, didn't realise I needed a two year Duolingo streak just to play". The DM eventually killed him off and he left claiming his death was discriminatory. He now runs his own session and asked me to join the table since we're still on ok terms. Overall, this table is quite a bit of fun to play this, and he's a decent DM. He has an "English Only" rule with a big red sign to match which I don't blame him for, he should be able to play in a language he understands. I just feel a little uncomfortable since i'm the only player at the table the rule would apply to. Justices of the Crit Court, was his death a necessary evil or should we have done a better job to allow for him to assimilate into the group? Should we have tried to keep to just English for him? Should I just ignore the weirdness of the explicit language rule and sign? I humbly await your decision and will enact any punishment you see fit, even it is on me. PS: the first time I submitted this it was pointed out to me that the crit court may not have the best advice on this as an english speaking table. i would like to get the supreme crit's opinion on this nonetheless PPS: the husband is a great ally and friend outside the game, he just seems to be like this during d&d

NowWhatComix

Dearest holy clergy and Dearer altar boy jonk (pronounced honk), I come with a confession that I sort of feel a little bad for I guess. I had planned for my players a chase encounter involving falling through a town built into a canyon covered in bridges and nets, but before they even got to the edge to jump off, in my sleep deprived haze, I made the mistake of telling my players that they could in fact see the bad guy. With a full round, my players cast hold person, entangle, and a myriad of other things to stop my free-falling felon from ever bringing them to the encounter. I roll worse than Caldwell and Murph combined. Even worse, I hadn’t even pulled up their stats yet and we were running out of time. So I fudged like I have never fudged before. My 9’s became 15’s. I rolled two 3’s and a nat one and simply just rolled again quietly. Sorry dice Christ but I needed to succeed. Pls forgive me I promise I’ll only lie occasionally from now on.

Roz Rae Powers

To the honorable justices and our good buddy Jakey-poo, I submit to you the case of the Stonefaced Replacement (with a side of GM Confession) More than a decade ago, I ran my first TTRPG as GM (pathfinder 1e, Kingmaker adventure path). The players were fairly new too. Our rogue took the story feat "Nemesis," which grants the PC bonuses in trade for a dedicated nemesis coming out of the woodwork to destroy all they stand for; perfect for kingdom building! My confession is that, in my weakness as a fledgling GM, I introduced this nemesis through the medium of an assassin in the night. I didn't assassinate the PC who just gained a nemesis, instead I had the assassin go after the Summoner PC! There were a number of reasons I could give about why I wanted that character out of the picture, but my excuses don't matter (even if there were both in-game and above-game issues involved). The Summoner barely had any chance to survive a coup de grace in his sleep, and died to the assassin's cursed blade. The party killed the assassin and recovered the dagger, but it was too late. I was not a complete jerk about it though and worked with the player to bring in a new (more balanced) character he was still excited to play; this is where the case comes in. I introduced his character to the party by having them all come across a wagon of travelers who'd all been killed by a notorious wild beast in the area, and the new Inquisitor was already on scene investigating. The party asked him about himself, and he was stonefacedly silent. They asked him if he killed these people, and he just stared and said nothing in an attempt to be strong, silent, and intimidating. The rogue stepped up and demanded to know what was going on, saying that they would have to assume the worst if he didn't at least say something like "No I found them like this and we can follow these tracks to the culprit," and still he stuck to the mysterious demeanor. The rest of the party rolled initiative and attacked, killing him in a 1v5 battle. The summoner/inquisitor player left the campaign after that. I already regret my part in this and wish I'd shut it down, but like... Was the rogue right to be so suspicious? Was the Inquisitor right to play strong and silent even past the point of clear warning? This has bugged me for 13 years.

Grace Holland

I come to Dice Christ to ask for guidance. My current dm enjoys punishing nat 1's more than anyone I've ever seen. Ive rolled a nat one initiative and had my first turn skipped, I've rolled a nat 1 saving throw and had to argue to not be stunned for two rounds instead of the regular 1 round. Hardly any nat 1 is rolled without punishment, which is fun until it means skipping turns in combat or incuring extra damage for no real reason. This has made me wary to share when I roll a 1 instead maybe I should just say I failed. Would this be a lie of omission? Should I simply submit to the nat 1 punishments or gear up for the argument every time? Priests of the fickle Dice Christ, what should I do?

ChappyThoughts

To the honorable Crit Justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy and the bailiff who either is or isn't lowly this time (Schrodinger's Jake) I bring the case of the Battle of the Near Experts. I was running a viking themed, post-apoc Forgotten Realms game for my friends when their longship was attacked by a dragon turtle. I wanted to make the sea feel real and perilous by introducing a monster they couldn't defeat but could at least drive off if they fought hard enough. They did well and after about five rounds I had the turtle flee into the depths. My friend demanded that they should and could track it. I said that tracking something through the depths of the ocean, even so large a beast, wasn't possible. Here's the thing: he is a wilderness survival teacher while I am a Navy submarine mechanic veteran. Neither of us are marine biologists let alone marine herpetologists. Was I right in holding course or should I have let them sail off into either certain doom (at best)? I await your wise council.

Trinity V

To The Ultra Rad Justices and the allegedly Just-as-Rad Bailiff, I present the case of the Cheezed Christmas Puzzle. I was DM'ing Christmas-themed One-Shot for some friends and decided to include some (mostly) original Christmas themed puzzles for them to solve. One of which was a giant game of Mine Sweeper reskinned as a path of giant Christmas cookies with the key they needed at the very end of the puzzle. As the players started working out the puzzle, one player asked how far away the key was from the beginning of the puzzle. I didn't put much thought into the scale since we were playing theater or the mind, so I said each square was 5 ish feet across so the Key was just over 30 feet away. The player's eyes lit up and said that they only needed to solve the first row of the puzzle and their mage hand would reach the key. Justices, I must admit that I had made these puzzles without remembering that magic existed. I paused for a moment and said "I mean. Yeah you totally can.". I must have been making a face because the player quickly said they'll just solve the puzzle like normal. Before I could say anything, the other players announced that they solved the puzzle already and the session was otherwise a success. Justices, should I have put in more effort to reward this player for their problem solving? PS. The 17th is my birthday!

Lee030

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?

Aidan Henderson

To the ever-wise judges and J-dawg: I have been DM’ing a pirate campaign for almost half a year now. The players had all been getting along and having fun for the vast majority of the campaign, until recently. One of my players who had been the captain of this pirate crew had been making increasingly questionable decisions. At first these choices were funny and benign, so everyone just had a laugh and we all moved on. But his most recent decision ended with them bowing out of the campaign entirely. The partys wizard Zeta had been lugging around the corpse of a previously killed PC for the past couple sessions in hope of resurrecting it for vague reasons. It was entirely his own ordeal and nobody objected or interfered with it, and a few members even went out of their way to help him. As the crew was escaping the city through a blockade, the rough weather (assumably being caused by the Kraken) was impeding my players escape. The captain decided on his own accord to dump the corpse overboard to appease the Kraken, to raucous objection from every other player. Despite a general “Wait, why, what the fuck?” from everyone at the table, the captain dumped the corpse overboard. For the rest of the session our wizard was despondent and visibly upset. A few days later after a talking to from a fellow player, the captain announced he would be leaving the captain and gave a brief apology to our wizard. Judges, was I in the wrong as the DM for allowing this to happen? Is there something I shouldve done to prevent this abhorrent decision making? I await your fair and likely bit-centric punishment.

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.

Rebecca N

I brush past the Baliff Colby-Jake and kneel before the almighty Parma - Justices before he can stop me. Justices, I seek your ruling regarding a surprise level of Paladin. My group had been playing with one DM for a while, until another PC decided he wanted to try it out. We were all up for it, and so started a new game with him as DM. I built an enchantment wizard with the charlatan background who had lied her way into Wizard school with a false identity, but was discovered and had to run away once she'd realized she'd been made. She'd met the rest of the party while on the run. Late in the adventure, the party was investigating an item we'd found, and the ranger suggested I cast Detect Magic to see if it was, well, magic. I told him I didn't have that spell because "I feel like I can tell if something is magic by looking at it." This made the ranger furious, and he stormed all the way back to town, to the magic shop, and bought a scroll of Detect Magic for my wizard to learn it. When I went to add it to my spellbook, the DM rolled a die, laughed, and narrated that as I learned the spell, the aura of our Paladin nearby affected me and I gained a level of Paladin. His reasoning being that the ranger hadn't specified that he wanted the spell scroll for a Wizard, so the DM rolled to determine what class the scroll was for from a list of all classes that could learn the spell. At first I thought it could've been a fun direction to take my character in given her backstory, but there was never really a good way to work Paladin into her build, so it ultimately didn't go anywhere. Was this a fair way to make learning spells from scrolls work?

Maya

Dear Supreme Court Justices, Hurphy, Alldwell, and Memily, (And that sparkling bailiff, Jake.) I present the court with the case: “Elsa or Deku: The Stirge-Thunderwave Dilemma” Me and my dad are running the Dragons of Icespire Peak module. It’s just me and an npc (that I control in combat), while my dad is the DM. Both me and the NPC were clearing out a building when attacked by (minimum) 12 Stirges. As a level 3 Druid, my ac was laughably low. So naturally, these creatures hit their attacks. They can attach to the character, doing continuous damage unless removed (via your entire action). Eventually, I had three or four attached to me, and I was very low. Not wanting to expend a wildshape slot, I asked if I could cast thunderwave on myself, choosing to fail the save, just to damage or kill the creatures. DM said no. We went back and forth about the wording of the spell, as he brought up the Elsa Defense (Elsa spraying ice out from herself in the first movie), and me, the Deku Defense (Deku can hurt himself using his powers!). Eventually, I acquiesced. But judges! Was my DM right? Does thunderwave exclude the user on all circumstances? I humbly await your judgement. PS: Both me and my NPC survived the encounter, albeit damaged, and live to fight another day!

Gabriella

To the Supreme Crit Justices and Cheddar Jak. I recently was kicked out of an online dnd game. I had noticed a lot of DM vs Player action from the dm with monsters that never failed any spell saves and always hit or succeeded on our abilities. I pointed this out in session and out to the dm a few times and one final time I brought my own and the concerns of most every player to the dm. He just kicked me from ghe server and said I wasn't working out for their group. I spoke with another player who agreed with me and I am apparently being painted by the dm as toxic and a bad player. Did I overreach as a player (usually a forever gm) or is this just a blessing in disguise as no dnd is better than bad dnd.

Grace Holland

To the almighty crit court and sidekick baliff, I present to you the case of a spell of undo consquence and despair. During a campaign a pc had a missing fiancé that was spotted in a city a week's journey north. On our first day of travel that pc said they were constantly looking for their missing love so dm had them roll a perception check. After a bad roll, dm said they spotted the fiancé walking into the woods. Given our intel, i didn't believe this but rather than roll the same check myself I cast animal messenger to see if it lead north or into the woods. We gave the messenger a very detailed description* including long haired, dark blue tiefling with antler horns. The dm had the messenger lead us to a human solider wearing a helmet with antler horns who arrested us on the spot because magic is outlawed there. This severely derailed our quest and later the campaign ended abruptly without ever having found the fiancé. This felt like an unfair consequence for a leveled spell because the solider was so different from the description, but I didn't speak up at the time. Judges, should I have fought back on this or was it within the dms creative rights? I await your judgement on behalf of my darling druid genasi who wanted to be in a throuple with this couple *note: my pc had never met the finance and was using the other pc's description

gessicawithag

I address the benevolent Crit Justices and their buddy with a case of targeted rolls. I come to you with a grave tale from a current Curse Of Strahd campaign I am playing in. To set the scene, my party and I were in the midst of a battle with vampire spawn, after breaking into a weirdo's house to get some holy bones. My character is a tiefling paladin who worships the goddess Loviatar, a recipe for disaster in this kind of campaign I am well aware. She is eager to rush into danger and honestly enjoys getting bashed up, however she always makes sure to not die! Amidst this fight, she was doing her usual thing, and this wouldn't be an issue if the DM rolled normally. But on this day, my DM and friend rolled well only on attacking me (including a crit) and succeeded on killing my sadomasochistic queen. I posit to you not whether or not he was cheating, but whether or not he clearly hates me... I submit myself to your judgement. PS. don't worry, she was masterfully resurrected by our cleric in a very climactic moment after this fight. i'm just salty.

Nick G

G,day champions of Justice! And the tolerated Bailiff. I present to you the case of the "Chronic mommy harasser" I have been Gming for my group for about 5 years now and I have RPed multiple NPCs, how ever I run into an issue when ever I play a female NPC, the cleric in my game always tries to make a move on them. Every. Single. Time. The catalyst was my wife and another player were playing twins in a campaign, and their mother was a prominent polical figure integral to the campaign. Any time their mother was in a scene, this grubby cleric constantly flirted and tried to get with them. It's gotten to the point I hesitate to include female NPCs in my game to prevent this back and forth. Justices, I have told this player to relax and knock this shit off, and that I'm not his flirting training dummy. But he says it's apart of his character(s). Am I in the wrong to just want to play female NPCs without fighting off a lusting cleric everytime? P.S. I feel for women who deal with this in real life, on behalf of men, I'm sorry men like this exist.

Jeremy Stombaugh

Forgive me justices for I have sinned! Recently in the final turns of my parties intense battle against a wicked cult leader I used a battle master maneuver to trip attack to knock him prone and bring him to what my DM described as deaths door. With my second advantaged attack I rolled my first die which was a 18 and in my excitement immediately rolled damage knowing that it would hit, not knowing this would haunt me. After a horribly timed minimum damage roll the dm described how with 2 hp remaining the cult leader would use a legendary action at the end of my turn to cast a fireball on our party, catching our downed sorcerer in the blast and causing him to fail his final death saving throw. Justices, my next roll after the battle to search for anything valuable in his lair was a Nat 20. Was I punished for not using the second D20 roll Dice Christ had intended when I was granted advantage? Or was the cool cursed helm I found a sign from dice christ to forgive myself and move on? I beg for your forgiveness!

Boredom

To the prestigious crit justices and… um… erm… I feel like I forgot someone. Oh well, if I forgot them they probably weren’t that important. Anyways, I bring you the case of the Doomed solo mission. A few years back I joined a DND group who mostly played one shots. It was all fun until a new player joined the group. This player would constantly shout NAT 20 when he rolled bad, add +10 modifiers out of nowhere, try to make every interaction all about himself, etc. typical problem player. The DM had to constantly babysit him just so he can play right. He made every session awkward. This all came to a head on one night. This one shot was a PVP where one team was a crew of a cargo ship while the others were bandits. Oh, did I mention this was in SPACE!? me and this player were put on the same team and were discussing on how to infiltrate the cargo ship. Me not wanting to deal with this player, suggested that he should head to the front to start drilling a hole in the hull to infiltrate. He was hesitant because he was going in alone, but I continue to pressure him until he reluctantly agreed. He went off and was immediately gunned down because it was not meant for him to travel alone but in a fleet of ships. I knew full well that he was not meant to be alone and was glad I had gotten rid of a nuisance. He would sit there for half the session and stared daggers at me until the dm took pity and gave him control of a goon in our bandit crew. Back then I felt like I brought justice to the table but now I am unsure. Was it right for me to take away this player’s chance of playing or was it right for me to take justice into my own hands? I await your judgement and swift retribution. Ps. Now that I think about it I’m not sure why he wasn’t kicked out of the group in the first place

Nick McCornack

To the honorable judges Murphy, Axeford, and Tanner, and the little piggy jake. I present to the court the case of Meta Gaming Spouse. During a previous campaign the party were looking for a missing child. They found her in the clutches of some cultists and managed to save her. I let slip the slightest grin, imperceptible to everyone at the table but my wife. Eyes narrowing, she asked if she could make an insight check on the innocent little girl. I said yes, she rolled a 26, but not a nat 20. I told her the girl looked, scared, starved and generally unwell. She helped the girl and the party moved on. Later in the session the bbeg revealed himself to be the little girl and began to stab my wife’s character repeatedly in the back with a sharp knife. My wife protested, but I said she only knew something was up because she’s my wife, and so she needed a Nat 20. Should I have honored her original 26 and ruin my surprise, or was I right to disregard a very good roll for the sake of the story? PS: Also you read our story out at the DC live show (we were the Chilli case) if you’d like an update.

Matthew Harvey

Forgive me Bailiffs for I have not sinned. I come not with a confession but a hopefully inspiring story of staying trur on Dice Christ's path. I was running an encounter where I had established the enemies were going for deaths, not knock-outs and due to an unfortunate move by a new player at the table, our Sorcerer went down on the first attack from an enemy Monk...meaning he was in meele range, unconscious with the monk having 3 more attack. 3 attack all at advantage, any hits meaning two failed death saves, and not a revivify in site. I looked at the player and considered doing some DM-fuckery but, the established encounter and how seasoned my players were I knew they would know the only logical move was go for the kill so I rolled my first attack in front of the board...two natrual ones. Then I rolled the second, a 3 & 4, when the Monk only needed a 13 to hit. Judges, I fully thought I was about to permentaly kill this character for the integrity of the campaign. But Dice Christ shone down and I hope this can be a lesson to always follow their divine plans.

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?

Mirra Palindrome

The Case of the Definition of Murder To the honorable and magnanimous justices of the Supreme Crit, and Jork the dork. I bring you the case of the definition of murder. My party of level 7 adventurers was traveling through a perilous, time-distorted Feywild adjacent forest from which escape is nearly impossible. There they encountered a caravan of survivors from many different eras, who had banded together in search of a way out despite having no shared background. Within this caravan were NPCs connected to each character’s story. The Rogue encountered the lieutenant of the most powerful information broker in the criminal underworld from his home city. After a tense exchange in thieves cant and a sharp insight check, the Rogue discerned the man was ruthlessly self interested. This lieutenant might betray or even kill others to secure his escape, but he could also prove a capable ally if kept under watch. Between sessions, the Rogue conspired with the Paladin (his friend and irl coworker) and argued that this potential threat should be eliminated preemptively. They sought my ruling, and I allowed it, warning that such an act could bring serious repercussions in game for the characters. I now find myself regretting that allowance. At the next session the Rogue and Paladin executed their plan without consulting the other characters. They approached the lieutenant in his sleep, the Paladin disarmed his Alarm spell, and with the aid of a cursed sword, the Rogue slew him where he lay. When dawn came and the deed was revealed, the Rogue summoned the caravan and pled his case. By virtue of high persuasion rolls and the reluctant backing of his unknowing and confused companions, the caravan accepted his explanation, though more for the sake of stability and hope for survival than conviction in their justification. And yet, honorable justices, some PCs and several NPCs within the story have called it murder (because it was), and I too have recorded it as murder in my recaps (because it was). In the last session the Paladin objected, insisting I cease labeling the act as such, for in his mind it was righteous and justified. Thus I submit to this court: am I bound to silence, forced to adopt the Paladin’s framing, or may I preserve the ethical law of my world and call the premeditated slaying of a sleeping man for crimes not yet committed what it is — murder? For if murder for future crimes is acceptable, then I ask leniency now for my future crime of stranding the Paladin in a pocket dimension filled angry geese and old cheese.

NG

Top-Notch Justices and Base-of-the-ladder Jake, I bring you the case of the Overkill Betrayal. In the last session of our campaign, our characters were doing an escort mission - get a Pop Star safely from her show to her crew and away from potentially dangerous fans. Simple enough, and I did an insight check on her with a Nat 20 (we'd been betrayed before), so it all seemed ok. We were rushed pretty quickly after the concert (which had a combat) into the next phase, without much time to think - and she handed us some potions of haste to get through the next area. In the rush, two of our players drank these. The fight that came next was awful. We were betrayed, and every twist of the ensuing fight felt like a "fuck you for trusting me." First, there were a ton of enemies out of nowhere, which we started to handle. Then, the haste potions turned out to have a side effect - drop after two rounds and paralyze the player until they make a Con save (we had strategized such that half our party would teleport the Pop Star to the location, and the hasted characters would fly) - so they were behind and vulnerable. Then, when we finally had a good way to handle the main enemy, three warlocks show up out of nowhere who were invisible just to dispel our cool spell (Wall of Force + an AOE spell). Finally, those in the back attacked our downed ally and, before we could revivify him, stole his body. Also, this fight had a number of enemy casters throwing around 7th and 8th level spells. We're level 12. Am I wrong to feel that we should've at least had some inkling on the Nat 20 of betrayal? Or that this was far overkill? It felt like no effort we made mattered, and that we were more lied to by the DM about how much we can trust them as a person rather than the characters in the game. Notably, every quest we've taken from the DM has ended in betrayal, as opposed to quests our party takes for their own interests - so at this point I just plan on flat out refusing any quests the DM happens to present us. I await your judgment.

Lauryn

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

Ash Vance

Greetings yummy justices and the nasty, yucky bailiff. I bring to you the case of the Scrying Teddy Bear. I was DMing a pirate themed campaign and it was the final session. At the top of the night, I had the sorcerer roll and random wisdom saving throw and didn’t explain further when she rolled a 12. The party planned to ambush the pirate king and his first mate, both related to the members of the party. Their ambush was spoiled when the first mate (the sorcerer’s father) called them out of their hiding places, revealing he used a Scry spell on the sorcerer and used her teddy bear from when she was a child to focus the spell. Some of the players were deflated by the random Scrying teddy bear, but I thought it was a great story moment between the sorcerer and her deadbeat dad using a plush to track and kill her. My wife (one of the players) felt a bit cheated by this. Who’s right??

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? We've been friends for six years now, and I feel bad that I have basically enabled endless drama and ruined our bond, but the idea of hanging out with them is miserable to me now.

Aedan

To the fucking awesome justices Brian, Emily, and Hugh, and the Jake guy, too. I present the case of "Hunter of undead hunts undead" We had my brother-in-law's new character, a leonin cleric, join the party, and he introduced himself as Theodore, Hunter of Undead. His backstory was that his family was killed by a lich, and so he joined a church of Anubis in search of killing all undead. The DM approved of this, and everything seemed fine, until one fateful day. We were exploring a dungeon which we knew to hold a lich and many demons inside, and we opened a random door to find a tavern! Yes, an underground tavern, full of undead and other creatures. Theodore, having his mission, began to purge the undead with Conjure Celestial, but the DM seemed surprised and even offended by this. She was heavily stress-breathing into the mic and after we realized they were peaceful we tried to stop the cleric and had to knock him out. Now that character is gone and he is playing a less controversial character, but had a very hard time even getting the DM to reply to his messages to for ask character stuff and items. So I ask you, you so honoradorable peeps, should he have quit doing it, or was the DM wrong to have put this strange room in this dungeon? I'm so fucking excited to hear your response and punishment

Lee

To the great and powerful Justices and the Baliff who is probably the hidden hand in all things good and evil, I submit the case Cantrip Fuckery. I play online with my girlfriend and 3 other friends where 1 of the friends is the DM. He has decided that in his world (a combo of Infinite Staircase and Golden Keys books) that cantrips are castable as bonus actions. This leads to some funny actions like my Wizard girlfriend that can Shocking Grasp and stab with her knife at the same time (we call it the Tazer Knife 🤣). However, in creating my char, I didnt know this was a thing so I made a Battlemaster Fighter with absolutely no magic at all so I feel impotent as a character. If I miss my battleaxe attacks or run out of Superiority Dice, I feel like Im not even worth being there. Side note, our party is Wizard, Bard, Paladin, and Fighter so they all have magic but me. How do I play this that I feel more impactful?

Maximus Jiron

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

David Pazmino

To the Honorable Judges Murphy, Tanner, and Afford, and… uh… Balif John? Your honors, I come before you not as a mere mortal, but as a victim of narrative injustice. This is The Case of the Misnaming Dragonborn. I play in a campaign where your race and stats are random due to rolls and you're reincarnated from our world to dnd. Here is Carl: My purple dragonborn cleric with bad luck, worse dice, and the shortest life expectancy this side of a kobold in a wizard’s duel. Carl met an early grave, as is tradition for level 1s. And so, from the ashes of Carl’s tragic nat 1s, rose Randy — a new hero. A fighter. A fresh start. New stats. New class. New soul. But alas… not a new race. Dragonborn again. As if fate herself couldn’t let me escape Carl’s legacy. Here lies the tragedy: For nearly a year, I have walked the path of Randy. I have fought, bled, and roleplayed admirably in his scaled boots. And yet… my party those I trusted most still call me Carl. Not in passing. No, Your Honors. As a habit. A casual disregard for Randy’s existence. Every time they call me "Carl," another part of Randy dies inside. And while I correct them, they laugh. Tell me, your Honors — do all humans look the same to you? Are all elves interchangeable? Is this racial profiling?! Randy deserves better. And now I stand before you with a plea. A crossroads. Should I just embrace this mockery, give in to the peer pressure, and change my name back to Carl — thereby erasing poor Randy’s identity forever… or continue this struggle to be recognized for who I truly am, not who I once was? Your Honors, I am tired. Randy is tired. Even Carl’s ghost is tired of being misattributed. All I seek is justice… or at least a ruling. Sincerely, Randy "Definitely Not Carl" the Dragonborn Fighter

Adriana

CONFESSIONAL: I have a confession. My soul is soaked in shame and it needs the power washer of Dice Christ's forgiveness. But as the sin is still happening with no end in sight, I don't think I can ever be cleansed. I'm just hoping our Savior's favorite members of the clergy can put in a good word. One of my players is a fey, seafaring merchant. The player loves pirates, boats, etc, she even took a vacation where she crewed on an old timey boat. So I wanted to make sure I had a cool mechanic for the trade routes she wanted to set up between the feywild and the material plane. I had her meet promising traders and make contracts with them that were then attached to a CHA check. Did I know how the contracts or rolled numbers translated into gameplay or routes or whatever? No. Of course not. But I pretended I did. And I had plenty of time to figure out a very cool mechanic. Now this game started before COVID, then took a hiatus during COVID. Cut to it only starting up again last last year. Surely I could have come up with something magnificent in that time. But I didn't. The DnD forums and Reddit were useless when I asked for help. And you won't believe this, but a person who gets themselves into this mess is also bad at parsing walls of homebrew text. So far I've kept her busy with shopping, love interests, and murdering her parents, but soon things will settle and I will still not have figured out what to do with her contracts and no good excuse. I can only end my ever compounding sin by faking my death. But before I dig up the body of someone that can pass for me, I wanted to make a plea for forgiveness.

Jason Rodriguez

To the Dice Deacons and the dvd Dingus. While running a homebrew campaign, my players were sneaking towards a cabin in an abandoned whaling village where a minotaur npc had fled, after dealing with some magic artifacts that he stole from his home city. The party came to a cliffside where they saw the cabin in question below. The cliff was around 80 feet high, and the cabin was about 60 feet from its base. After deciding to use a rope to sneak closer, the druid casts pass without trace, and the wild magic sorcerer casts invisibility on the fighter. They rolled to see if it created a wild magic surge, and sure enough, it did. It just so happens that we used a different wild magic table from Kobold Press's Deep Magic. The effect that occurred next was unforgettable. The party was climbing down the rope single file, when a mule appeared 100 feet above the sorcerer and plummeted down the string of beads that were my players, spatting at the bottom of the cliff. I expressed the mule gave away their position as it was screaming all the way down to its end, causing the enemy to prepare it's cashe of stolen magic items to use against the party. Was I wrong to cause chaos in a potential ambush, or did the dice weigh heavy for this to happen. PS: "hee-haw"

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.

Joe S

Greetings Esteemed Justices, and the lowly Bailiff Jake, As you know, The Supreme COURT does not ever rule on matters of innocence or guilt, but they merely can review or reverse a ruling from a lower court. In doing so, they create a new law of the land. Similarly, I think the Supreme CRIT should rule on a hotly contested rule, and establish a new law of the land. To wit, rolling for stats is absolutely the worst and dumbest way to create a TTRPG character. With D&D the "standard array" is clearly the best possible way to make a character. A lvl 1 character gets a 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8 to assign to their ability scores before any race, class or other bonuses are applied. This is simple, beautiful and egalitarian. Every PC has the same chance to shine. No characters start with endgame level stats like multiple 18's. Every character is given a chance to shine. Every character has interesting strengths and weaknesses! D&D and TTRPGs in general are games of chance, and rolling dice is part of what makes them fun... But just as a DM needs to be judicious in calling for rolls (you wouldn't make a character roll intelligence to remember how to add 5+5 or strength to lift their backpack) so too must a DM be judicious about how characters are created. Rolling is too random for such a task. Point buy rewards power gamers. Standard Array is king.

Timothy Sloan

To the big buddy justices Murphy Kong, Emily Kong and Caldy Kong and their little buddy baliff Jakey Kong. I bring the case of the murdered little buddy / frog pal. I am a player in a Tomb of Annihilation campaign where we are anticipating multiple PC deaths and high backup character turnover. This is known and accepted. The issue arose when in our most recent session, the party walked into an ambush with my character in the lead. I am playing a pact of the talisman warlock and rolled a dirty 20 perception when I walked into this ambush. I asked the DM whether I needed to know I had failed a check to be able to add my d4 from my talisman. He said I would and in this case I didn't know I had failed. I accepted the ruling and we moved into combat, after a nat 1 initiative, I was downed before I got a turn and my character ended up dying. Worse than that was the loss of my frog pal NPC who also died in the ambush. I had rescued him from a ritual sacrifice situation a few sessions earlier and grown quite attached. Judges, should I have been able to roll my d4 to potentially see the ambushers and save my frog pal or was he justifiably murdered? The DM later did say that the ambushers had a 22 stealth. PS - please come back to australia!

George

May it please the most illustrious justices and everyone's favorite little guy: I present the case of the misguided fire bolt. I, along with several of my ski field coworkers, play in an in-person Icewind Dale campaign (aptly called Ski-N-D). Our first few sessions had about 9 players, almost all brand new to the concept of DND, and our valiant DM who had been a player in one campaign a year ago and is brand new to DM'ing. In our first level 1 combat, our sorcerer decided to throw a fire bolt at the bar in an attempt to warm up the frigid surroundings, ignoring the combatants around us. Unluckily for me, my old lady monk was crouched behind the bar; our sorcerer rolled a 12 on her attack roll, which our DM ruled would not be enough to ignite the alcohol as she had intended, but would be enough to hit me with my AC of 12. I bit my nails anxiously, glancing down at my whopping 8 hit points, and watched as the sorcerer rolled her D10 of damage - and wouldn't you know it, she rolled an 8. I went down in the first round of combat but was brought back with a potion by the NPC bartender a few rounds later. My DM claims that this was a great example for the rest of the party of what the death save mechanic does, but I steadfastly call shenanigans. I beseech ye, most honorable supreme crit: was my DM wrong to invoke involuntary PVP, or was I wrong to be a crankypants about going down in the first round? I humbly await your divine judgment.

Spencer Trubac

The Case of the Shunned Paladin To the honorable justices and the oft maligned Baliff Jake. I bring you a case of egregious DM overreach. I was playing an oath of ancients paladin in service of Pelor (shout out Bev). He was a prince who adventured due to being so far down the line of inheritance. My case lies in that, in service of our goals, my paladin would occasionally invoke his royal status to get an advantage for the party. My dm decided that petulantly saying "do you know who my father is" to a random guard meant that I placed my bloodline ahead of Pelor and so he took away my powers. After a lengthy redemption ritual he, through Pelor, instructed me to carry no shield and wear no armor as the light was the only protection I needed. Justices, it's been MONTHS and I still have no powers and have an AC of 12 with a shirt and pants. Am I being a whiny prince or did my DM overreact? I throw myself in the mercy of the court

Jay

I prostrate myself before the clergy to ask Dice Christ for a blessing. I don't think I'll ever be good at DMing. I tried a few times with different groups of close friends, but even in a one on one game with my mother I get stressed, anxious and my brain stops working correctly. After sessions I beat myself up because I went about scenes the wrong way or completely forgot story points because of my nerves. My friends tried to reassure me that they still had fun and nobody expects me to be perfect, but I expect myself to at least be able to speak without stumbling over my words instead of feeling like I'm holding a presentation in middle school. I like the position of DM in theory, I'm obsessed with DnD, I like putting a lot of time into building worlds for my friends to play in and people for them to interact with, I like setting up fights and challenges for them to heroically overcome, but I stopped playing with them because of the pressure I put on myself. So I now kneel before you and ask of you, oh marvelous earthly agents of Dice Christ, please offer a prayer in my name so that I might overcome this plight and finally be able to actually have fun playing DnD with my friends.

Nathaniel F

Esteemed Judges, Glorious Bailiff Baby Boy, and the one who thinks he’s the main character, Byron Smurfy? I present to you a confession. But not mine. I confess on behalf of my DM who is in need of salvation. In our first campaign, he fed us a quest to help a wizard’s simulacrum become real. We fixed up a machine meant to make illusions real, and tested it first with a pile of illusory platinum bars (not coins), with estimated value of 1 million gold. Very reasonable. **We rolled a 99 on a d100**, so it worked. Made the wizard real and booked it to a bank. Part way there, our DM told us the money was disappearing. Half life of 10 minutes or something. **but the wizard was fine**. (Some bs about Simulacrum vs illusion) When we got to the bank, a random little red French devil with a curly mustache pushed the bank teller into the vault portal and sealed it. Years later (in game and real world) and we still don’t have it. It’s vile and rotten because we rolled. It was above board. But I like the guy, so maybe he can find salvation instead of the Executioner’s Axe(ford)? Thank you

Emma Robinson

To the effervescent judges of the high crit and the little piggy toe bailiff, I bring to you a case of matrimonial PVP, to which I plead guilty BUT not wrong. My friend was running her first ever one-shot, and as a book lover she set our adventure in a town that reveres the written word. I was playing an elderly dwarf barbarian (a smashing grandma, if you will) and my husband chose to play a broody assimar warlock. My grandma barbarian was showing the town gatekeepers her meticulously crafted scrapbook of all her 19 grandchildren to gain entrance to the town when my husband roleplayed shooting a firebolt at my scrapbook, destroying it. I could see the DM was uncomfortable so I laughed it off and roleplayed that I had a second one, thus giving my husband a chance to do better. He did not, and we were denied entrance to the town because of his book-burning tendencies. My husband roleplayed his character being indignant and edgelordy about it, to which my character responded with a grandmotherly smack upside the head. Justices, I didn't realize he only had 9 hit points and as a Dwarven barbarian with a strength score of 18, I killed him. It was an accident, but I don't regret it. Ps. This was over 2 years ago I still play dnd with this friend. And while my husband supports my dice-buying, he has decided Warhammer is more his speed.

Zagreus

Dearest Judges and a milquetoast greeting to their butler Job, I have been in a dnd group for 4 years now and having a blast. There is however one slight problem that has been bugging me for awhile now. Phones and laptops at the table. I admit I am not a saint, if the DM goes on an hour tangent with the other members I read my book. (The timing is a separate issue that is being worked on) But judges it has been going too far! Even the DM is distracted by his laptop, watching different videos or twitch streams in the background as he is actively narrating what is happening or being an NPC. We as a group sometimes need a reminder to pay attention (a lot of ADHD players) but I contest that at the very least the DM shouldn’t be distracted when giving us quest info! I Humbly ask for guidance from the beneficent court on how to get the DM (and everyone else) to just pay attention when they are actively talking Dearest wishes to those that matter, Zagreus of the Widowed Moors

Andrew Lazarus

Here's the scoop, Jake the snake... The disgruntled gf. I dm for my friends, and one of them likes to play a little goblin guy, getting into character with a "raspy lil guy" voice. His girlfriend (not a player) says he is "not allowed" to do the goblin voice because it "gives her the ick." I say my buddy has the right to embody his goblin mode with a voice. The problem is that whenever we talk outside of our sessions about our game; the voice comes out, and the chasm between the disgruntled gf playing DND with all of us grows further and further. JUDGES, how do I get everybody to bring out the little goblin inside of them? Does everyone even have a little goblin inside of them? P.S we play DND at the disgruntled gf's house, so does she have the right to say no goblin voice on her property, or can I play the DM card: "my table" ?

Steven Pyles

I don’t have a case, but a plea to Dice Christ’s earthly representatives. My partner and I have been together for almost 4 years. Early on, we bonded over Dimension 20. When live dates were announced we bought tickets immediately to Vegas. This year I proposed to her and she told me that she would marry me in Vegas if we can get anybody from the Dropout/CH universe to attend. My request is if I can have the blessings of Dice Christ and have his acolytes attend my Vegas wedding? (If I sent you guys a save the date to the PO Box, would any of you consider attending my Vegas wedding the weekend of the D20 live show?)

Jake de Medeiros

Hey justices! My name is Ashley A. and I’m pretty new to NADDPOD. I’ve been really loving the curse of Strahd episodes. The campaign reminded me of an argument I got into at a D&D game in college, and I was hoping you could relitigate it. The game I was playing in was a modern take on Curse of Strahd, where the cities were super modern with cars/electricity/etc but the story was the same. One of the players was playing a man from West Virginia who lived in a mobile home. The DM let use his mobile home as a mount initially, but took it away after he started claiming that because it was his own private domicile, a vampire could not enter. He became frustrated and left the campaign, and I did actually find out afterward that that guy did actually live in a mobile home. Obviously it makes the game less fun, but by the letter of the law, was he right? Thanks, ps Which NADDPOD campaign do you guys think I should I listen to first? 1, 2, or 3.

rollinginthecrits

To the beautiful bringers of justice, 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.)

Ryan Steel

Dear Sweet Justices and a salty boy. I play in a DND campaign with my sister (the DM), her friend and my sister in law. Ihad just acquired an alchemist blade from unearthed arcana on a random table from a treasure chest. Allowing my level 3 assassin rogue to deal and additional 2D8 damage of my choice based on what component I choose during a short rest attunement. We get into an encounter with a group of assassin trees and I use my fire blade and I crit on the tree dealing an absurd amount of fire damage with 4d8 damage plus my regular damage and sneak attack. My sister asks me to roll a flat roll save and I fail with flat 14. She informs me that the fire damage is dealt to me also as she decided the weapon was too busted and I was downed and killed by assassin tree. She hinted it was cursed but didn't inform me how so until I killed myself with it. I was later revived and removed the curse but should the DC at least be much lower considering how much damage I was able to do with it? PS. Has Emily tried the new FF6 commander deck? I'm super curious!

Austin

To the splendiferous Judges and Baliff Papa John! I present the case of the Uncontestable Skill Check. Our party took a job from a shady fellow to get a valuable item from the back room of a casino. My plasmoid, circle of stars druid (yes, a Goo-id) eventually got into the back rooms alone and found the item we needed. But I was attacked by the same shady fellow we had taken the job from. I got hit with a bunch of damage from a throwing knife, so I retreated with the item and Misty Stepped under the door back to my friends. As the DM allowed me to do this he rolled a Sleight of Hand check at the same time and got a Nat 20, he exclaimed that I Misty Step and appear by my friends but the item was gone. I didn't know how he was able to take it in the first place, being at a distance when he attacked. I said since I had it directly in my hands that it should have been a contested roll. I would also have to roll a Nat 20 but the DM didn't let me try. Later on in the session, (because we roll digital dice on Roll20) I could see the Sleight of Hand modifier for the shady fellow was a +20. I was a level 6 character so I had no chance of beating it regardless. Was I roped into an unwinnable situation facing a +20 Sleight of Hand or was Dice Christ against me by giving the DM a Nat 20 anyways?

BigLoaf

Dear benevolent judges and…holy shit, Jake? Wow, good for you, man! Anyway, I bring forth a case of robbed glory and self sacrifice. Our group is running Curse of Strahd, and is currently a level 3 party of a Cleric (me), a bard, a wizard, and an artificer. The DM is running a tough campaign and had warned us to have backups ready. Cool, no worries. I was pulling double duty as the healer and frontliner as I joined the campaign late and didn’t know the party’s composition beforehand, so a lot of our combats were mismatched and I went down quite often, but always got back up. We were invited to Strahd’s castle after meeting with the Vistani, and in an effort to gather info on the Count and protect our two noble patrons, we went on to the castle alone. We reasoned he wouldn’t see us as too much of a threat due to our weenie level 3 stats and him inviting us personally. After entering the count’s radically edgy home, we talked with him just long enough for the bard to piss him off by flirting and bringing up his (allegedly) very dead wife/situationship, and he disappeared as we were beset upon by a horde of vampire spawn and a witch. Our level 3 party were trapped and quickly realized there was no chance of survival as all our attacks were instantly undone by the Spawn’s healing factor. However, our DM drew out the combat for over 2 hours, toying with us as we burned spells and any inventory shenanigans we could muster just trying to leave. We finally escaped the room and fled for the castle foyer, but were then met by 6 living dragon statues that blocked the exit. We all dashed, hoping we could skirt past the statues and vampire spawn, but our party ended up just shy of the door. Knowing there was no way we could all make it, and already frustrated by the pointlessly long combat, my cleric spent his last two spells to cast Healing Word on one person and Sanctuary on the Wizard who was furthest from the door, and turned to face the Spawn, hoping my AC would be high enough to hold them off for a turn. We role played the moment, my cleric slipped the wizard his book of short stories and said something along the lines of “publish these for me, if they’re any good.” The bard screamed after us, almost turning to run back before the artificer pulled him forward. However, two of the living statues used breath weapons to kill our wizard who had Sanctuary outright, and down the bard at the threshold of the exit. Thankfully the artificer was able to drag the bard outside, and they escaped. Judges, I beseech you and ask; after dealing with a 2+ hour womping, was our party done dirty and I cheated of one final cool moment? I will accept your judgment and any punishment you decide upon, Kelemvor keep my soul.

Ven (Unlike The Diagram)

To the benevolent and mostly-all-knowing priests of Dice Christ, I bring a confession and beg for absolution or fair punishment: I was running my very first combat in my very first D&D session for a level-one party of three—a druid, a cleric, and a barbarian. In a haunted forest, they encountered three possessed wolves (standard 5e wolf stats), and upon initiative, the barbarian came out swinging with a hit on the first wolf for 12 damage. Panicked, I asked for a minute and rolled HP for the wolves—and instead of the standard 11 HP, I rolled a 13 for the first wolf, which would allow it to just barely survive the grievous blow dealt to it by the barbarian. However, here is where I sinned: when I rolled HP for the other wolves and got below 11, I chose instead to use the higher standard HP. I didn’t want my wolves to get whomped, but I have carried the guilt of that choice ever since. I have learned to not fudge the HP of enemies or any other rolls behind my screen, but I still feel a weight upon me. My luck has been fair since my first session, with highs and lows as Dice Christ chooses—should I take this as a sign of forgiveness for a first-time DM’s mistake, or must I further atone in some way?

YY

Dear esteemed judges Emily and (two of the white men I can't quite tell apart) and lowly bailiff (third white man), I bring before you the case of the in and out of character loot division. I'm a player in a group that's been playing together for about two years. We've gone through the Curse of Strahd together (restoring the Spudfuckers franchise to Castle Ravenloft) and have recently started an Icewind Dale campaign. Throughout the CoS campaign we had good a group dynamic. Within the game, our characters were also friendly. We therefore had a very loose approach to dividing up loot, generally giving magic items out to whatever character they fit most. For the new campaign, the DM had us create more elaborate backstories with individual secrets. At some point I brought up the idea of generating ties between our characters, but we ended up just launching into the campaign with the four of us meeting at a tavern without any in-game connections. Unfortunately, two out of the other players (S and A) created kind of anti-social lone wolf characters, while I created an elf cleric who is charismatic and friendly but also has a superiority complex. This has led to some in-game banter between their characters and mine. In particular, during our first session, we encountered a pack of goblins using some polar bears to pull their sleds. Someone suggested hitting the bears to enrage them; S demanded, in character, that we do not harm the bears; since my character had just met hers, I shot the bears, pretending to accidentally miss the goblin that was driving them. The bears were injured but got away, and we kept going. We went through a few more sessions, with some in-chracer friction, which I thought was mostly in good fun. However, we continued to act as a cohesive party during battles, did not make any in-character arrangements for loot, and generally engaged in what I think is a reasonable level of metagaming to keep the game going and everyone having fun. A couple of sessions ago, we found a Tome of Understanding (a one use item which provides a permanent +2 to Wisdom). Specifically, it was S's character who found it, though she was searching the aftermath of a fight we were all present for (and where my character lay the killing blow). In keeping with the informal way we've been running things, S wrote it down on her character sheet. This is where things started to go wrong. I asked S if my character could have the tome, since I'm playing a cleric, and it would mean +1 to basically all of my combat rolls, as well as all healing checks I would roll for the party. S countered by asking what my character would do for hers to get the tome; I tried to explain that it was not my character asking for the tome, it was me, the player. We had some back and forth about it over the next two sessions, and finally, since I wouldn't have my character apologize for shooting the bears, she had her character use the tome. Judges, I feel injured by this decision. The person who wanted the tome was not some elf cleric having a fight with a bear-loving rogue; it was me, the player, who wanted to feel the rush of Numbers Go Up. This felt particularly bad because up to that point that is how we were dividing things, with items going informally to whoever first said they'll take them. Obviously that's not a system that works if the characters are out for themselves. Furthermore, if our characters dislike each other, none of the campaign so far makes sense, and they should each go their separate way. I'm looking for a ruling on this matter - am I right that this is an out of character decision, and loot should go to whoever can use it best? Or is S within her rights to withhold the loot for an in-character concession and I should have just had my arrogant elf make a forced apology to get what I (thought not him) wanted?

Jennifer

Venerated judges Jaxford, Jurphy, Janner, and the woeful bailiff Jæk. I present to you the case of the TPK Wizard I am in a party playing curse of strahd playing a level 10 circle of spores druid, with a backstory of unethical experiments on mushroom-based immortality. For the entirity of the 1.5-year campaign to date, I was never the party healer, and most of my combat casting was focused on area of effect damage (the nuke). About 80% through the campaign, I had to miss a session. While I was gone, there was a near-TPK, where our morally grey wizard, went insane/chaotic-evil and killed our barbarian and artificer before running away, never to be seen again. I was informed when I returned the next week that my character and the cleric had survived because they were in another area during the combat, and that the rest of the party was rolling new characters. The new characters were all fighter-multiclasses and dubbed themselves Beef Squad, but they then went on to heavily pressure me to abandon the character I had been playing for over a year to join the Beef Squad shenanigans, which I refused. However, after that point and continuing leading up to our final confrontation with Strahd, I was pressured every week by our ex-wizard player to stock high level healing spells rather than the strategic combat spells I had already planned. I argued that we had a cleric, I had never been the party healer, and that if they wanted more healers, they shouldn't have pushed "beef squad" in the homestretch of the campaign. Am I justified in not stocking any healing spells for our final encounter with Strahd because it wouldn't be in line with my character, or would it come off as spiteful against the TPK wizard at the potential cost of the rest of the party? I await your fair ruling.

Lucy

To the bountiful judges Axeford, Murphy and Tanner and that guy who follows them around Outback Jack i think. I am the forever dm of my group and was running a campaign that had been going for around 6 months. We played online because of scheduling difficulites but allowed players to use physcial dice. The rogue who who has been a friend of mine for over 20 years never once failed a role. Every roll was a 15 or more on the die. My other players grew suspicious and asked me to bring it up with them but i wanted to avoid conflict so instead i implemented digital dice only. Set up so only the dm / the roller would see. What she didnt know was she was the only player who had to follow this rule. Over the remainder of the campaign there were many complaints about the digital dice not being fair to her, and her character would always have a reason they should just succeed. Eventually the campaign ended and the group decided not to invite her back for the next campaign. Should i have just come clean and called it from the start or was i just in implementing a rule only for the problem player.

Aedan

To dem judges I love da most and dat bailiff Drake, I present the case of Forced-Psychopath Pinocchio. A few years back, we started a brand new campaign with just a few of us. I brainstormed a gunslinger autognome named Korvri, who had a Pinocchio-like relationship with his creator, being a way for him to have a child when he couldn't otherwise. Cool, right? My DM liked the character, and even allowed me to have a gun that did non-lethal damage, but after a few sessions, it was clear to me I was going to have to kill allll the time if I wanted to live. This coalesced to a point where I was stuck in a bar with some people who were charmed by a vampire and it was clear I either had to kill to survive, or run away in fear. I thought the latter would be the right choice, but when I posed the idea, the table seemed very non-plussed, so i stayed and started killing all these people, and everyone seemed pleased by this. After this, I was really upset, and had my character leave the party in favor of a new one, who, in malicious compliance, was a character i made in mockery of what the DM clearly expected (long story short, that was her favorite character I made) So i ask, judges, was i wrong to be upset? Should the party have been less harsh about me wanting to run and hide? Is Murph a handsome man? I await your judgements and answers

RNP

To the geriatric justices and tiny baby Jorts, I present the case of the Arcless Archer. I've recently been putting together a campaign over a group text thread for me to DM. Since the players and I are busy people, and we've done similar setups before, we had a small session zero and I set them loose to write ideas for their characters and return to me, which four of the players did - we made an artificer who accidentally summoned a devil, a cleric who was exiled because the mayor had a deal with a devil, a monk whose adopted father was working with a devil, and a druid who came to investigate the rise in infernal activity. All pretty rooted in devils and the like, and all we needed was the fifth player to get back in touch with us to come up with a backstory for his Fighter. Justices, he took more than a month to respond. And when he did, he said he didn't want his character to have a backstory like everyone else, because he, quote, "doesn't fuck with devils". When I tried to explain to him that this was just part of the setup, he said he wanted his character to just kind of be there to fight monsters and not have a backstory at all. When I said this wasn't really in the spirit of collaborative storytelling, he got pissed, said he was tired and he quit, and fully left the group chat. Was I wrong to insist he have something to work off for story reasons, or should I have just let him hang around and fight monsters?

Juicebox

To the supreme justices of probabilities and your pet Quasimodo I bring you the case of the double toilet bathroom. When we first started playing as a group I was the odd one out, the group was a bunch of my little brother's friends. We played in one guy's garage and he lived with his parents at the time. Big table, a fridge, bathroom it was a great setup! Now first time I used the bathroom I noticed right away they had two toilets and was very confused. One of them was right up next to the door. I opened the lid and saw cardboard instead of water. I correctly deduced they replaced a toilet in the house and used the other one across the bathroom kinda obscured by the shower... Now I never liked drinking but the rest of the group enjoyed drinks. After a few months of playing we get a very distraught message from the DM explaining we can't use the garage anymore. He goes on to say "I don't know who did it, but one of you idiots used the disconnected toilet ALL this time!!! What kind of idiot pisses in a toilet without water?" He then went on to explain in great detail how he was helping his father move the toilet and when his dad picked it up months worth of rancid urine came pouring out, the cardboard was melted... Then the smell. He was rightly furious. I died of laughter... Tried to figure out who it was? One person was a for sure, but it turns out it was two other players. Now here's where I got conflicted if it was only one person shame on them, but two people? I had to check the lid myself. Who has two toilets in a bathroom and the proper usable toilet is partially obscured by the shower and the bad one is next to the door?

Sam Friend

To the Righteous Upholders of Dice Christ’s doctrine and the plebeian, Jork. I come to you with not a case, but a confession on behalf of another, so that I may forgive them myself. It all began with my first DnD group. Most of us were first time players, lead by a first time DM. Luckily, we were all good friends, which created an open and comfortable learning environment where we could ask questions and make mistakes without judgment. The campaign lasted 2 and half years, into completion. While of course we had our bumps along the road, we worked through it and did our best to learn and grow together as players & DM. That was all shattered in our penultimate session, when the DM asked our Warlock to roll an insight check, to which they casually replied “Oh I’m proficient in that, so I roll with advantage.” You could feel the discord call turn cold as we all came to the same realization, the Warlock had been rolling all saves and checks they were proficient in with advantage FOR TWO AND A HALF YEARS. The DM quickly corrected the Warlock, but the damage was done and the sin revealed. Highest clergy of Dice Christ, is the Warlock worthy of forgiveness or can we leave them to burn in the fires of Dice Hell? P.S. My first PC, a cleric, had a planned character death. My Cleric left behind letters and any valuable inventory items approved by the DM to my fellow party members. Since the Warlock had taken interest in my Cleric’s journal and I had limited amounts of magic items to leave behind, I asked the DM if the journal could give them a proficiency in History. Just a small boon right? NO! I MYSELF AM COMPLICIT IN THIS SIN. Please absolve my guilt, even if you damn the warlock.

Quintessant

Your honorable justices, and chief good boy Jack; Today I kneel before you and bequeeth the case of the forged coins. I am running a curse of Strahd campaign with some long time players and good friends of mine. They started off in Emherst Kartakoss (for those unaware this is another territory in the Van Richten's guide) and were transition into the module. Two of my players were at a school for the arts on scoobert doobert adventures. One was a hexblood, bard-druid. And the other and was playing a harengon spirit bard flavored as a wirey jackalope and themed after painless Parker (look-him-up) a con-man from the early 20th century who wandered and practices, you guessed it, dentistry. Now. About half way through the session, and a couple "painless" teeth removals, the topic of shopping came up. They were browsing the wares when my Harengon's player realized her background hadnt given her any. So, logically according to the defendant, she asked me if she could have carved some of the teeth into false gold coins. I responded promplty "fucking what?" She went on to explain the process of miling teeth into coins. I argued the teeth would be too small to turn into dollar coin sized forgeries. She then asked if she could pull some horses teeth as theyre bigger. Your honors, was I wrong for playing out this seen in Murph fassion with full pettiness and no cannon as she was kicked in the comedical-and-non-cannon head or should I have let her turn the Vilaki's horse's teeth into false coinage? I stand at your mercy and the defendant has stated she would ask for a public defender as she has no gold for a proper attorney.

Bud of Boggy

Dear Learned Justices and Unlearned Bailiff Jog, I submit to you a case of table tone trouble. I was a part of a tabletop group in which the GM, Jake, would love to experiment with new systems. One session, we played a world building system called 'Microscope', where each player takes equal turns establishing events in the timeline of a 'world', and elect different minor events to 'zoom' in on and roleplay. GM Jake started us off by establishing an early, brutalist colonial settlement and had us zoom in to roleplay violent tensions between colonisers and the indigenous population. Your Honours, this is generally not the content I'd say I enjoy usually when I play tabletop, but knowing we would all get opportunities to establish and run our own moments in history, I politely pressed on. When it came to my turn, I established that in some point in the history of this world scat singing became the dominant language (see: doo bop a wee bop). Zooming in to play a scene of scat singing linguistic origins, everyone was having a great time and cackling with laughter, except for GM Jake. GM Jake did not hide his disapproval nor lack of enthusiasm for my scene. Your Honours, I was never invited back. I'm ultimately ok with this as probably our play styles weren't suitable, but I have always wondered if I breached my duty of care as a player by not also establishing a serious event. Or, does a defence apply as roleplaying the start of a first nations genocide kind of a table faux pas? I kindly ask for your wise judgment on this matter, from a humble tabletop and law nerd.

Koob

To the honorable supreme crit justices and the bad boy bailiff, I bring you the case of storytelling vs player agency. I DM a homebrew campaign with a party of 4. One of my players is a warlock with a phoenix as his patron. The warlock needed to leave for a few sessions so I needed a story reason for his absence. Fast forward to a fight with the bbeg's lieutenant, the party is headed towards a tpk due to some bad roles. I had the warlock roll a charisma check and he rolled high. I narrated that the phoenix decided to use it's magic to give the party the benefit of a short rest allowing them to flip the fight. After the fight I said the warlock suddenly couldn't communicate with his patron and would have to go out on his own to fix it. This was his story reason for not being around and saved everyone from a tpk on his last session. Buttoned up right? Well afterwards the warlock told me I took away his player agency by forcing him down this path and changing the relationship with his partron. We argued for a few minutes before the warlock abruptly left and... never returned. So, justices, was I wrong to make such a big story moment without asking my player first, or was this warlock simply being a salty sally? I humbly await your judgement.

Ashton Adcock

To the Jubilous Justices and Bountiful Baliff...I wanna say Tucker, I bring you the case of the Shish-Ka-Bob. Several years ago in a home game I played in college I played a Changeling rogue named Ka who during a battle with a demon that I taunted, and some nat 1 fire bolts from a fellow party member, died. We weren't high enough level so no revivify, so I brought in a new character, no big deal. The problem lies here, my party member was a homebrew scorpion man race, who in their culture honored the dead by eating them...my party made shishkabobs out of my Rogue and then tried to feed it to my new character. Ultimately the home game fizzled out soon after, but I ask you Justices was it right for them to eat my old character?

Xavior

Lords and lady Judges and the swift hand of the law Bailiff Jake. I humbly bring to you the case of the discord prince. My long time best friend wanted to start a d&d campaign with me, my wife, and their other friend. It started out wed meet every Wednesday night. Then once my work picked up they cancelled two sessions because they wanted me there. They asked if they could do a discord server, for basic down time stuff since we were in a city, which sounded great cause I could have my character "work" and I didn't have to be there but made a few gold pieces, and the group could do whatever they wanted. I was promised nothing story related would happen......flash forward a month later when we get back together. I find out my partners character is a long lost prince, and they want to use their army to fight with us against the bbeg, the other player is a vampire and has been killing NPC's the whole time. I was upset and didn't want to continue playing....am I the ass here? Is this my punishment for not being available? Should I have just rolled with it and seen where it went? I beg of you Lord justices please help, this is tearing my friend ship apart.

Red Hering

To the symmetrical justices and the mishapen baliff Jack. I bring you the case of the Parent trap I recently finished DMing my first campaign and it couldnt have been a better experince. The time there was any discourse was an encounter where I had the Big Bad's right hand sorceress, trap one of my PC's parents in 2 seperate cages over a cliff. She explained to the players that the PC would have to choose which parent survived. Either the loving mother or the cruel father but who had crucial answers. I told them they had 1 real minute to decide or both will get dropped. I started the clock immediately and the players froze. They frantically tried to come up with a plan but a minute past and I dropped both parents leaving the PC with a batman level orgin story. One PC argued I should have rolled initiative or given them a warning I'm starting the clock but I personally think the time limit added stakes. Am I wrong in skipping initative to force panic?

Jay Barber

To the super cute judges and the painfully average Baliff Junk, I present ‘The Case of the Unused Healing Word’. This past week at my nearly two year long sci fi themed D&D campaign my autognome pilot wizard was slain in a boss fight. On my first death save I rolled a 12. Everyone at the table seemed relaxed. Maybe too relaxed. On our Druid’s next turn, instead of sliding over a healing word to your boy, the Transformers inspired Druid decided to use their bonus action to attack the monster again. I voiced my opinion that “hey could I maybe get a heal?.” To which he replied with “you already have one success, odds are you’ll be fine, don’t worry.” The Druid proceeded to use his second attack and end his turn. During the next round my character was hit which was an auto failure, and on my next turn, I rolled exactly what you could probably guess… a natural one. Judges I ask you, should I have advocated more for myself or did I do all I could to save my own life?

Philip Crowe

To the honourable Justices Axford, Murphy, Tanner and the Baliff....I'm so sorry. I know I've asked before but I just can't seem to remember your name? I present to you the case of the falling flames. I was playing a pathfinder 2e campaign. My level 11 party were in the penultimate arc, and we're about to be teleported into a fight against a diabolic dragon (they knew it was a fire breathing dragon, but not specifically what type) at it's lair, the mouth of a volcano. They were warned extensively, in and out of character, that this would be the hardest enemy they had faced thus far, by a wide margin. And we're given time to prepare. The most significant part of the preparations to this case are: fire resistance potions and their plans for flight. One player prepared a fly spell for the fight, but was told by others simply buying spell scrolls of fly made more sense, and not to prepare the spell. The player agreed. Justices they spent all their gold on other things and did not buy any scrolls of flying, I had them manage their own shopping and did not notice until after the fight had began. (Though I did shut down any criticism of the player who had tried to prepare the spell) Flying would have been very useful indeed. Upon the parties arrival the dragon activated a hazard which spewed lava throughout the area (augmented lava flume tube), dealing hefty damage but more importantly cooling around them, trapping them in rock and, when some of them failed to pull free, burying them. Making the problem worse was one of the diabolic dragons abilities. Any fire damage it dealt would deal spirit/evil damage (essential necrotic damage) if that was more effective. Rendering their preparations of fire resistance useless. Two party members died in this fight, but the dying characters were given a difficult choice, to sacrifice any chance of permanent revival to bolster the remaining characters. Using these boosts the others won in an epic final round where those remaining used a series of reactions to one anothers attacks to decimate the dragon. I knew death was possibility, and had given the players an item which would justify a lich ally's ability to bring them back for a short period, so they were present in the final arc as ghosts. But passed on soon after beating the campaign. It was an amazing, if bittersweet, ending. But: was I too cruel in their planning stage of the fight? Should I have hinted that the fire resistance potions would do no good? Let them trade some of their purchased potions for scrolls of flying after the battle had already begun? Justices I plead for your wisdom and judgement.

Xavior

Also found out the BBEG was a long lost lover from the prince, like the whole story revolved around my partner ... I digress it's whatever now

Armis

If it pleases the venerable justices and also Jake I guess, I present the case of the Lone Player. I was the DM for an Isekai setting, which involved my players making characters of themselves. From the start, I intended for the "big bad" to be on their side, and for the god that brought them to this world to be the true villain. One of my players caught on earlier than I intended, and wanted to travel by himself to meet with the "big bad". I thought this would be a fun idea, so I allowed it. That turned out to be quite unpopular, even out of character, as the other players were quite unhappy with him splitting off so suddenly. They would have preferred it if it was something that the entire group handled. The session felt a bit tense after that, and the players were still unhappy about it even in later sessions. Justices, was I wrong to allow this idea to go through? Should I have tried to keep the party together in that moment? I await patiently for your divine sentence.

Nanda

To the stalwart justices and the craven bailiff Chet. I come with a case and a query. I am the DM for a 7+ year game with some online friends. The 5 of them are a blast to play with and we have graduated from online friends to actual friends. A few years ago, I put the game on pause since I had a baby on the way. After the delivery, I lost touch with the group. Well, she is almost 2 now and I felt ready to go back to DMing. When I reach out to the group, I learned they had a huge falling out and a few of them weren’t speaking. I asked around but I haven’t gotten a straight answer as to what happened. For the sake of keeping it brief, P1 and P2 had a huge fight in a different game (a game called “Eco”) they were playing and P2 reach out to the spouse of P1, who is also a player. P1 did not like that. What should I do? This fight feels minor, but I don’t know if i want involve myself if it’s become a serious situation. But I love playing this game and we were so close to the end! The final fight was going to be with a possessed bone dragon in a dwarven forge powered by an active volcano. That’s not relevant to the case, I just needed share.

Garrett Jester

Dear sexy hot justices and the meh bailiff guy named something like Jacque I think. I submit the case of The Ghosted Groupchat A few years ago in college I started rekindling a friendship with a buddy from highschool who I hadn’t spoken with in a while. While playing video games together I mentioned that I really wanted to play dnd, but had never really had the opportunity. He said he was down to dm and would try to get a group together. I invited with DM’s permission my little brother and my brother’s friend to play, the DM invited two of his friends also from our old highschool. One of the friends was cool, the other (who will be referred to as “Diva” from now on) was not. As it was our first time playing my brother and I made two halfling siblings (Hank and Henry Highbrow) whose mannerisms could be described as Beverly-ish. We were focused on having light hearted roleplay and fun rather than dramatic or serious role play. Diva did not like our characters. Diva any time we made a joke would attack my brother’s PC and my PC with a spell dealing damage to us. This led to two in character arguments in the first session, one of which we beat up Divas PC throwing a net on them and cuffing them, then letting her go when she agreed to stop. My brother and I spoke to the DM after session 1 about us not liking Diva attacking us in game asking if he would chat with her. Before the start of session 2 though Diva said “I hope you’re ready to roll new characters” to my brother and I. During session 2 things didn’t get any better than session 1 as when I picked up an orb for one of the quests Diva started berating me to give them the orb after I told them I would hold onto it Diva put my PC to sleep, looted my PC for the orb and MORE, then got mad when I out of character got annoyed and told her to stop doing that. After session 2 was over my friend (the DM) texted asking everyone’s schedule coming up to plan another session. My brother and I both did not answer the groupchat and havent spoken to the DM since then. Judges am I in the wrong for essentially ghosting my old friend and abandoning the party or should I have stuck it out to see if it would get better?

Jabbermilwaukee

To the three glorious apostles of Dice Christ and the “Diddy Kong of Podcasting” I come to you with a sin so egregious I fear for my life. My players were fleeing a randomized dungeon after pushing their luck a little too far. The Warlock was down and had failed a death save. They narrowly escaped on the backs of giant hyenas as the Druid got the party to safety. The Druid went to heal our warlock before they had to make another death save. Even though they were out of combat the Druid's turn was before the warlocks. I looked at the Warlock, dice in hand, they looked at me. And then we both knew. They had to roll that death save. They rolled a 1. They had died. The Druid protested (not in a combative way) and said they tried to heal them. The warlock had picked up a cursed tome of a god of death and infinity. They did know it was cursed in advance, so I said this god didn't want its newest servant dead yet - so they were revived. Thy holiest servants I seek forgiveness for my weaknesses. Should I not let all rolls stand once the contract has been reached? Also the Warlock listens so if I must kill them to please Dice Christ I'm sure they will understand.

Greyson Henry

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

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?

Clog Hopkins

To the Delicious Dungeon Court, I bring to you the case of the perpetual novice. I have been playing DnD with my friends from college for the past 7 years or so in a variety of long-term and one-shot games. One player in particular only plays characters of the same Barbarian subclass, and yet they seem to refuse to learn the basics of the game. The worst thing is that this player expects the rest of the table (including the DM) to know their character's stats, and always asks what they should roll instead of reading the PHB or learning any of their character basics. It’s been 7 years…yes you roll a D20 to attack. This player has been confronted both passively and directly about this issue, and at this point I suspect they’re doing it for attention. Justices, how would you deal with this player? Should I get a new friend? Or kick them out? P.S. this player also consistently plays children who pee on enemies.

BoopBoopDiddemDiddem

To the beneficent justices and that other guy: I seek this Supreme Crit’s preemptive legal absolution for a crime I have yet to commit: a murder. I’ve been playing with a group of my friends since 2014, through various different campaigns. One of my friends has created a kobold artificer called Snerk for our latest campaign. Snerk speaks very, very slowly, and at length, in a strong Polish accent. He enjoys restating the obvious and also just sort of slowly pondering things out loud. I would say that roughly 40% of our games are now taken up by Snerk just talking and talking. My friend is immensely proud of Snerk—he’s said that this is the best thing he’s ever done, and I don’t mean in the context of D&D, I mean in life. Snerk is his life’s great work. The weird thing about that is that my friend’s got an amazing life personally and career-wise and so it’s strange he considers this gabby lizardman to be the pinnacle of his achievements. You can tell when he’s doing the Snerk voice that he just 100% knows everyone is having as good a time as he obviously is. I think you can guess the problem. I don’t hate Snerk but I do secretly hope he falls into some deep lava and immediately dies. This lil’ dude is not nearly as entertaining as his creator believes but we think it’d break his heart to hear it. I’ve just sorta tried to ride it out for nearly two years but turns out we are maybe halfway through this campaign and I really don’t know if I have another two in me. But I love this story and this group! Including my friend, whose previous PCs have been fun and not annoying! Would it be gross to conspire to subtly sabotage Snerk? We are hitting some high stakes enemies these days and there definitely is a risk of character death. If we could take him out under the guise of some sort of heroic battle that seems like it might solve everything, but I feel so icky about it. Please grant my group legal and moral license to merc Snerk.

Marty Firth

To the overwhelmingly magnificent judges of the supreme crit, and to the merely whelming bailiff Jape, I bring to you the case of the petulant Barbarian. I am old dnd DM from 1st and 2nd edition days. In 2014 I had not played dnd (other than computer games) for about 20 years. I had some younger friends who asked me to DM dnd for them so they could learn to play. I read the 5e rules and I fell in love with them but the consequences of a nat 1 on death saving throws gave me a bit of concern (before I learned that 5e was a little gentler than earlier editions in many ways). To ease my worry, I let the characters find a stash of a homebrew magic item - a pendant that treated a nat 1 on death saves as just 1 fail rather than 2. There were 5 players and 1 NPC and they found exactly 6 of these pendants. One of my players (who played a barbarian) thought this was stupidly convenient and complained about my DMing (he was the only player who had played before). Fast forward to a scene where they were approaching a house they knew was occupied by badies of some sort who were holding some hostages. A battle ensued in which the barbarian was reduced to 0 hp and collapsed. First round of death saves he gets one fail. No one seems to be helping him but I figured he is safe for now. 2nd round of death saves and he rolls a nat 1, okay 2 fails I thought, I will need to maybe suggest to the other players that they need to help this guy. But then the Barbarian says "ummm actually" I am dead as I was not wearing the pendant because I thought it was stupid we found 6 of them. I think he gave some bullshit RP reason like he wore no shirt so there was nowhere to pin it, but it was clear he disliked that they had found 6 of them. The other players said they did not really know how death saves worked or what was going on which is why no one tried to help the Barbarian. (Side note the Barbarian player was pissed no-one helped him but he didn't say anything about death saves during game because that would be "meta-gaming"). We ended the night there to give me some time to sort this mess out. The next session I tried to retcon it and say lets wind back one round in the fight to where the Barbarian had one death save fail and you guys now realise that this is serious and you need to help him. Everyone was okay with that idea, except the Barbarian because that was too contrived and I just had to accept that I had stuffed up as the DM by giving them too hard monsters to fight. He was adamant about this and would not let his character come back to life. So i ask, judges, was i wrong to try and retcon it? Should I have just given an evil laugh and said roll up a new character loser? Or should the Barbarian have chilled out a bit and gone with the retcon? I await your judgement. Update: well sort of this, this all happened 10 years ago. At the last minute I thought of a way out that the Barbarian accepted. He had picked up a magic sword out of some tomb and I said the spirit of the hobgoblin who used to wield this sword was captured in the sword and waiting for this moment, as he was passing into death the spirit of this hobgoblin took over his body and he rose up and was alive again. The Barbarian player agreed to play this out and over the next few sessions started replacing his Barbarian abilities with Fighter abilities. He then got upset that none of the other players (who were new remember) got suspicious that his abilities were changing and thought anything of this. We were then playing a mash up of the board game Betrayal at House on the Hill and dnd for Halloween and there was a bell that drove away ghosts so I ruled that drove the hobgoblin out of the Barbarian and he got control of his own body back. I was in the poo again with this player as he didn't like this and I was a bad DM etc.

Crumb Gunderson

To the court: as it may please the judges and displease the bailiff, Yes they are back. McDonald’s snack wraps. That’s all. - Crumb

Skarn Hexhart, Future war god

To the honorable Crit Justices and the bailiff Hallux, I bring to you the case of Flavor vs. Lore. For seven months, our party believed our cleric was a faithful servant of Pelor. Then, out of nowhere, he revealed he was actually a con man so good at lying that he somehow tricked the universe into giving him divine powers. Our DM, completely blindsided, paused the campaign to figure out how this could possibly make sense. The following session turned into a shouting match: the cleric insisting 'flavor is free,' the DM arguing 'not when it rewrites the lore.' The fight spilled over in public, ending with both the DM and the cleric storming out of the board game café in spectacular fashion, leaving the campaign dead in their wake. So I ask you, Crit Justices: was this bold roleplay flavor, or a reckless disregard for lore that broke the game? PS - As a side question, how long should I wait to return to the board game café - they have the best tots.

PJ

To the venerated and revered justices of the supreme crit, and the meek bailif jeff. I bring before you a case of potential future crimes; the perpetrator? Me. I am currently playing a Grave domain cleric in a Curse of Strahd campaign. I also listen to Naddpod every week as it comes out, along with the Short Rest. You may already begin to see the issue. So far, nothing that has been said in the podcast has been news to me. However, seeing as we only play once every few months due to busy adult schedules and other campaigns, the Triplets are rapidly approaching content that I have yet to encounter. I know that by continuing to listen to the Triplets adventure in Barovia I will gain much knowledge of the realm that my cleric should not have. Of course I will not use this knowledge, but I fear just by knowing I will be transgressing against church and state. Justices, I have no plans to stop listening to the podcast. I ask you, can I continue to listen to the podcast with a clear conscious, or must I be punished for this crime I plan to commit?

celestialmchnc

To the Highest Dragon Dungeon Judges and the Lowest Dungeon Dragon Bailiff, Recently, my boyfriend helped our friend craft a badass wizard for a gauntlet-style combat mini-campaign. Going into the first round of combat, our friend's game plan was to cast sanctuary on herself and summon spirit guardians and then just run around the arena without anyone being able to (easily) attack her. However, her DM struck down this plan, to the deep dismay of my boyfriend. He says it should be allowed, because, per the wording of the spell, the player is not technically harming anyone. But I agree with the DM's ruling, because the wording of Sanctuary ALSO says any spell cast by the player that causes harm to enemies breaks Sanctuary's protections. Our friend is neutral in this lukewarm battle. Judges, I ask you humbly, who is correct in the pedantic evaluation of Sanctuary? Should our friend be allowed to run rampant through the arena, forcing any would-be attackers to make saves or waste their turns?

Doctor Ransom

May it please the most effulgent Supreme Crit justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and if he has to be there too then fine let the ungodly little sinner bailiff Jon Odenhurtz listen in. I bring you the case of the Fire Giant Faux Pas. I ran a high level one shot with some folks online involving a battle with Fire Giants, which are classified as Huge creatures. Remember that as it plays an important part later. The final battle pops off with a Fire Giant and the Goliath monk player tells me he uses his Hill Tumble feature to knock it prone. Cool, I ask for a saving throw and he replies, “There isn’t one.” Hmm that doesn’t seem right. I ask if it works on a Huge creature and he says yes because he used his Goliath’s enlarge ability to become a large creature. I didn’t look up the ability and trusted the player and their overpowered ability. What proceeded to happen was my BBEG get autoprone-locked and got its ever-loving ass destroyed ten ways till Sunday. I become sullen and annoyed but let their sweeping victory ride. Upon closer look on his character sheet I find out he cannot in fact knock Huge creatures prone. Justices I beseech the worst punishment imaginable for this player. I must sleep peacefully in the knowledge that his shit gets wrecked like mine hath been wrecked.

Flap Jack Jones

To the critacular parma parliament, and cheesy bailiff Jank. I offer up the case of the underwater fog. I was recently DMing a new campaign for a group of long time friends and family. They were making their way through an ancient tomb looking for artifacts to unlock a magical door. While searching, they came upon a key at the bottom of a pool of water surrounded by a cage just large enough that you couldn’t just reach in and grab it. How unlucky… while deciding how to obtain the key, our ranger, Wegowas, came up with the idea to cast fog cloud around the cage at the bottom of the pool. He claimed that since fog was a mix of air and water, they would be able to breathe. I said that fog was just concentrated water vapor in the air, and the spell would just be creating more water in the water and it wouldn’t allow them to breathe. In the end, I stuck to my decision and the game continued on and fun was had by all, but I do feel a little bad about crushing his creativity. Judges, was I wrong in my decision? Would the fog cloud have also created the air resulting in a pocket of breathable fog underwater? We graciously await your decison

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.

Raziq Noorali

To the honorable judges of the high crit and the bailiff . I bring you my experience of creating too serious of a character. This was back when I was new to joining a preexisting campaign. I decided to play a College of Secrets bard who was a more serious spy who's primary tool was deception and hiding in plain sight. I was meant to infiltrate the town, join the adventurers, and dispose of the problem that was making the town perilous (a false hydra). The DM and I wrote a serious backstory with lots of serious detail and crafted special (serious) lore. Joining my serious spy was a paladin who couldn't resist making friends with evil things, a wizard who was trying to learn empathy, and a plumber. I felt very out of place being with the tone of my character. Eventually I got more comfortable with the group and I changed my character to a dad cleric from literal Minnesota who got isakied by magical mists into the world of D&D, granting him magic dad powers (such as casting sending by using his nokia). He is the best character I have ever created and I love him a lot and I interact with the group much better than before. I have no case. Thank you

Radix

Hello oh wizened ones and the slightly less wizened one. I submit the case of "did sex ruin that game?" Exposition: I moved to Japan during the height of the pandemic, I had no friends here and couldn't go out to meet any so I sought out an online game with strangers. I went through a lot of games before finding a group that clicked. We played together in total 2 years, we knew each other's government names and had each other on social media, we were friends, and I feel we could have played in perpetuity. The beginning of the end: about a year and a half into our time playing together, two of the characters started doing erotic roleplay. We'll call them Hannah and Justin. Hannah, was happily married, Justin was single (idk if that matters). It started out as a few saucy messages in the discord general RP channel, but soon developed into having it's own e-rp channel. Hannah and Justin were near enough geographicly that they could produce pages and pages and pages of erotic roleplay overnight. I was the only one on the other side of the world, so I would wake up to not just the heaps of e-rp but also the other player and DM's commentary on the e-rp. It was too much porn at 8 am for me to deal with. In the beginning, it was fine that I didn't read or participate in the e-rp, we still played our normal, weekly sessions. The end: as I'm sure you're wizenedinesses have predicted by now, the e-rp did seep into the game, and unaware of what transpired and what inside jokes had occured while I snoozed, I quickly became left out of the game for having not read the novelas every morning. But, I'm a tenacious sort of lady (and I still had not learned that no d&d is better than bad d&d), so I asked the group to summarize the RP for me, since I had no intrest and no time to read through it all. Which, the other player, we'll call her Darling, happily volunteered to keep me in the loop and it worked well, but the game was certainly less fun for me than it was before all the horniness. The end: the game imploded when Hannah's character and Justin's character did pvp during the regular weekly sessions to settle their sexual domination of each other, or something (the details are fuzzy, I guess they were both Dom's? ) and Hannah won. Darling's character thought of Hannah's character as a mother figure so she sided with Hannah, and my character, a warforged cleric, was just dismayed that my friends were fighting over whose flesh went into whose hole. We played a few more sessions after that but something had changed the whole group dynamic, though Darling's summaries didn't capture the why. Ultimately I found out, Justin felt that Hannah had pissed in his cornflakes, and he left the game without a word, blocked on socials, ghosted. The game fell apart after that and I've avoided erotic roleplay games like the plague since. Oh wizened ones, am I right to assume all e-rp games are messy and bad? Or was it just these two individuals who made an otherwise okay thing for consenting adults to do, messy and bad? The DM and Darling seemed to enjoy reading the e-rp, the DM even had NPC'S participate. Darling and I never participated. Should I have left the game when I realized the erotica was hampering my fun? I humbly await your decision and punishment.

Lyz

dice christ confessional:

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)

Christina S

To the darling Justices and the slightly less darling Bailiff, I take the stand today to present to you a tale of an attempted DM coup. After months of prepping and learning the Curse of Strahd campaign last year, I played a few wonderful sessions with my friends before me breaking up with my then girlfriend (our party cleric) forced us to take a break for a couple of months. Now that things have settled down I have been talking excitedly about getting back into playing- only for one of my players to tell me that “maybe DMing just wasn’t for me”, and that he could “step in and RUN THE CAMPAIGN FOR ME”. Justices. My heart was broken. After countless hours of preparation, I can admit that first time DM jitters probably led me to be a bit controlling and “rail-roady”, but I was simply only allowing the players to do as much as I could handle, and staying firm with the rules. Therefore I ask: should I do as he says, and step aside because of my lack of natural talent? Or do I insist we continue playing and then brutally kill my friend’s PC in retaliation? Or something else I suppose. I would never dare to question your infinite wisdom. I humbly await your judgement.

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!

Wyred

Oh holy ones of Dice Christ, I must confess a shameful secret... For more years than I care to count I though 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?

Maximilian von Aderkas

To the most honourable Supreme Crit Justices and the most hunky, yet professionally dispensable bailiff. I beg your input on what I am calling the case of the interminable terms and services. A friend of mine, who is a lawyer, started a blades in the dark campaign, and got a bunch of us to sign up. We play virtually because we live all over the province, and have varying degrees of stressful jobs and children. After our first session, the GM expressed frustration at paper management so a couple of us suggested using roll20. He seemed interested and said he would set things up. A few days later he texted the group saying he was not comfortable using roll20 because he had reviewed the terms and services and found them to be "too vague for his liking". Upon pressing him, the other lawyer in the group discovered that his objection had to do with the indemnity clause. Namely, that they were too vague on whether they'd compensate us or not if we got hurt using their product. A product which is, I must stress, a virtual table top Software, you use virtually. In your own home. Virtually. He has instead insisted on taking the time to make us all custom sheets in Google docs before our session. For context. Our GM has the most stressful job and is tied for most children in the group while I am single and have a job that could best be described as "big boy colouring" and I wouldn't hesitate to wave the ability to sue over cutting my lip on a beer can playing blades, if it reduced paper management. Justices. Am I right to think that his risk matrix needs to be recalibrated or am I just a naive citizen of a less litigious land. I eagerly await your ruling.

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.

crabdice

The case of the Mysterious Necklace Hello wise, honorable judges and stalwart bailiff. I have an insatiable desire to gamble, so every time my party went into a store selling magic items, I would ask my DM if there were any unidentified items I could buy. This usually yielded a fun, barely magical object for a reasonable price except for the time it didn't. I purchased a mystery necklace in a small town and did not immediately identify it. The next session I was resting upstairs in an inn with a fellow party member after a difficult encounter. This party member had just performed back alley surgery on himself to replace his tongue (long story) and was sleeping at 1 hp. I decided it was time to take a look at my necklace in the meantime. I will be honest, honorable judges, I did have the identify spell available to me as a ritual and my DM did ask me if I wanted to cast it before playing with the necklace. I declined. Surely just examining it with my eyes and fingers first would be alright. I discovered the red gems in the necklace seemed like they were removable, so I popped one out. My DM described the gem becoming a searing hot spark, growing quickly in intensity and asked what I wanted to do. I panicked and said I would try to put it back in the necklace. I cast fireball on the room I was in, instantly and permanently killing my companion and setting the building alight. The fire spread to the rest of the buildings in the area and eventually burnt down the whole town, despite my party's desperate efforts to stop it. Was this an deserved "fuck around and find out" consequence for my recklessness or did my DM disproportionately punish me for the sin of whimsy?

Cooper Mccrory

To the most honorable judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the (dis)honorable baliff Jake (?)(depending on how we're feeling today, I like to cover my bases), I present the case of the Prisoner Gambit. I recently joined a new group playing through the module Lost Mines Of Phandelver. Unbeknownst to me when I joined, they were all a prestablished group, and I was the only new member. We were on our second session, having just finished a battle with a crew of goblins that ambushed us and kidnapped our NPC friend. We were at the entrance to their cave, having followed their trail back in hopes of rescuing our friend. Thanks to a high Perception check, I (a level 1 Druid) noticed that there were 3 goblins guarding the entrance to the cave. I suggested that we make a distraction and sneak past them, to save us another fight and our resources. The Fighter of the group wanted to attack, and said they "didn't have any resources to spend anyways." (At this point I only had one spell slot left, which I was planning to use on healing word). After a few minutes of trying to figure out what to do, the Fighter suddenly said that they had an idea! And proceeded to describe (to the DM, not to us) that their character casts Disguise Self to look like a goblin, runs up to the other goblins, and says that they've taken the rest of us prisoner. We were not informed of this, and stood their with our armour, weapons, and untied hands. Despite this, the Fighter succeeded on the Deception check! The Fighter then used this exact lie, and succeeded, on every other goblin in the cave, resulting in none of us doing anything in the dungeon before the final fight, and a generally very boring session. So I ask: Was the Fighter at fault for not telling us their plan? Was the DM at fault for letting them breeze through the dungeon? Or was I at fault for not understanding the Fighter's pure D&D instinct?

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.

Michael R

I present to you a case of patricide: May it please the court, To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices who need no introduction and Bailiff Jacob Hurwitz of Spring Glenn, Connecticut known mostly for directing that one Ken Jeong commercial. 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 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.

Lyz

Dice christ confessional: To the exalted clerics of dice christ and the exhausted bailiff Jonk, I drop to one knee before thee and offer in the tone of a Gregorian monk a Rain King YYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH I come before your venerated vestments to confess that while DM'ing a recent session I trespassed against the laws of Dice Christ and fudged a roll. My players were on session 2, just starting off on their quest and had come to an inn on the first night of the journey - an inn called the capering capybara. To show that outside forces were conspiring to stop them from achieving said quest, I set a team of four assassins upon them whilst they slept (a la the nazghul on the hobbits at the prancing pony). I nerfed the assassins'' stats to make the normally cr 8 killing machines more suitable for level one players (lowering the enemies HP/AC, and limiting them to a single attack each round), but still wanted the encounter to be challenging. Well challenging it was. Out of five players three of them were knocked out by the halfway point of the fight. Fortunately, the group's artificer had slept underneath one of the beds "like a grub on the floor" and so had gone unnoticed by the assassins. This little grub-artificer (grubtificer if you will) constructed a "snare" and called out to draw the assassins away from the downed players. One of the assassins fell for this taunt and ended up ensnared, hanging upside down from the ceiling much to the delight of my players. This is where my guilt over having more than half of the party rolling death saves every turn whispered in my ear ... drawing me to sin. On their turn the ensnared assassin rolled against the artificer's DC to escape the snare. I rolled a 17, easily freeing them from the desperately constructed trap. Looking the 17 straight in the eyes I said out loud to the table (we were on discord video chat) "Oh wow they rolled a 7 looks like they're stuck for another round". Everyone at the table laughed at the ensnared assassin, calling them a "fucking loser" and "chump dingus". The artificer, a new player, was delighted. This gave the artificer an opportunity to do medicine checks on the downed players that led to those players escaping with their lives. The session was a success. But my hands are stained. I come before you prostrated (also like a grub) to beg forgiveness from Dice Christ and ask that he give me the strength to womp my players. Dice Christ may you harden my heart in the future and forgive my sins of the past. A resounding rain king AAAMMMMMEEEEEEEEENNNNN.

sluttyforsoup

To the mostly holy and exaulted clergy of our Lord Dice Christ, I come before you with not a confession, but to ask for your blessing. I started playing DnD with my siblings many years ago and now we are all adults with jobs and busy lives, so we rarely play all together now. I find that after listening to NADDPOD and other shows, I’m inspired and really miss playing. So I am looking into joining an online game, this your honors, is where I ask for your blessing. I have never played with anyone but my siblings, and I am REALLY nervous to roleplay and just overall play differently than how I’m used to. I ask, oh holy ones, to bless me in the name of Dice Christ so that I may have courage and maybe crit on finding a new group to adventure with.

Matthew J

To the honorable justices and the bailiff whose only flaw is that he thinks above his station, 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.

Lostdmg

Dear for the most part honorable judges, and the somewhat honorable baliff, I present would like to present you with the “The Case of the Unused Subclass” I was running my second campaign ever, the “Dragon Heist” module, with my first campaign being the “Out of the Abyss” module that deals with Demons, and the Underdark. My player came up to me, and said that he wanted to play a Drow Druid that was somewhat corrupted by demonic powers during the events of the first campaign. I thought that sounded great, and was even game when he asked if I could make a homebrew subclass that would help him be a melee combat as opposed to ranged spell casting. I was excited, and got to work, I will include the subclass at the bottom of this message. We worked together, and both were happy with what we came up with. Judges, I kid you not, through the entire 30 sessions we played, this player did not use a single subclass feature. Not one. Not even the extra attack feature I gifted him at level 6. The game itself was actually fine, and it ended very successfully, but sometimes I think about the fact that I spent significant time making a subclass to fit my players wishes, and he ended up doing nothing with it. I will admit, I never followed up with my player to make sure things were ok, but he also never came to me to ask for changes. So Judges, did I give a bad subclass, or did I just have an ingrate for a player? ———————— Circle of Viciousness- Tathnar Druid Subclass 2nd level feature; Vicious Curse - When you choose this subclass at 2nd level you gain proficiency with martial weapons In addition, your strikes have the power to further weaken your opponents. When you hit with a melee weapon attack, you can expend a use of your wildshape to cause one of the following effects: 1)The target makes a Charisma saving throw. On a failure, The target has disadvantage on all saving throws. At the end of each of its turns, the creature rolls a Charisma saving throw. On a success this effect ends 2)The target makes a Constitution saving throw. On a failure, the target gains vulnerablility to a damage type of your choice. If the creature is resistant to the chosen damage type, it loses that resistance. This trait does not function if the target is immune to the chosen damage type. This effect ends when the target takes any amount of the chosen damage type. 3)The target makes a Constitution Saving throw.On a failure, at the start of each of its turns, the target takes 1d6 necrotic damage, as your curse ravages its body. This lasts for 1 minute, or untill the creature recives magical healing. While this curse is active, you gain an amount of hit points equal to necrotic damage dealt by this curse. 6th level feature; Extra attack. You can attack twice instead of once when you take the attack action. 10th level feature; Bulwark against Brutality. You gain resistance to Fire, Cold, and Lightning damages. 14th level feature; Living Weapon. As an action, you can expend both of your Wildshapes to become a Living Weapon for 1 minute. While in this state, you gain a +5 to attack and damage rolls using a melee weapon, and you can cast cantrips as a bonus action. Additionally, you score a critical hit with a melee weapon on a roll of 18-20. Additionally, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon, you regain one use of your Wildshape.

Aaron W

To the righteous, radical and totally tubular Justices, and the Bailiff who kind of gives me Casey Jones in TMNT energy… This is not a case to be decided, nor is it a Tortle Tank pitch, because I am not asking for your permission. I also do not beg for the forgiveness of a confessional. Instead, I present for the court’s consideration — your show’s very first Amicrit Brief. After some digging on Amazon, I managed to find what you may decry as silly or unnecessary: a D1000. I, too, was skeptical, until I worked it into gameplay. My players LOVED it. Whatever satisfaction you get from a D100 randomized table, it pales in comparison to the raw animus power of a D1000. We also had a blast designating specialized “magic numbers” that were obviously unlikely to hit, but when they did… oh man. So, your honors, I offer nothing other than knowledge. The D1000 exists. Do with it what you may. Humbly yours, Aaron W.

Panner_Samuel

To the honorable gods and lowly flesh Jake, I bring you, the case of the uninterested party members. Maybe some adventurers in other fantasy worlds get like this, but I am starting to feel like my PCS could care less about playing my little make believe world. (It is curse of Stradh.) One is always consistently late, another ends up leaving the table half way through to lay down, one is struggling to take notes and is putting in effort, another is a rule lawyer who will shut down if some rules are smudged AND one is online. I fixed it one time by taking them to play at a game store but it seems when we play at home, this happens. HOW WILL STRADH EVER FIGHT MY ADVENTURERS IF THEY HAVE NO PASSION? Is this a me problem? JUDGES PLESSE BELP

The Goodest Boy

To the mighty justices of the crit, towering on lofty perches far far far far above anyone else who may be there, I am in quite a “Binky” Fiasco. I DM for friends and my wonderful girlfriend. We tend to run high stakes campaigns and PC death is not unheard of. After the death of another player’s PC last week, my girlfriend has informed me that if her current character is to die, she has already thought of a replacement: Gobby, a goblin monk from “a secret moon.” From what she has explained, this lil guy will be a nightmare of nut punches and silly phrases. Suffice it to say I am now terrified to potentially kill her current character off. I ask you so humbly, from so far far far below (but still above Joke) if I should be pulling punches for the sake of my sanity, or do I murder my girlfriend’s character and stare her down telling her to do her worst. We both await your judgement.

mav

To the semi honorable Jeff and the mostly honorable judges, I present the case of the swiped item and the snubbed player. A party member was permanently leaving the campaign (to do a semester in Europe). We had just begun the campaign. In her last session, the DM presented a cool gun that was probably meant for her character. My character, not trusting her character and me, knowing her was leaving and frankly not liking her, took the gun. She was pissed. But she was leaving so why does it matter?

Abigail

To the members of the highest court in the land and their little rinky-toed Bailiff Joel - I bring you the case of the misplaced corpse. My party had acquired a hostage noble that our rogue decided to send ahead of us as a meat shield while we explored a castle. Predictably, upon entering his first room alone while the rest of us cowered behind like lily-livered bailiffs, our meat shield was slain by a flying sword. Upon clearing the room, one PC asked to roll perception to find something to hide the evidence of our crimes. Nat 20. The DM ruled that we found an invisibility cloak, which we quickly used to wrap the body. Immediately, our greedy party realized that an invisibility cloak was a magical item unworthy of our short-lived companion, and wanted to reclaim it for ourselves. The DM asked for another perception check. Naturally, we rolled a nat 1. It was ruled that the invisible body was so well hidden that we could not find it, and we continued on our quest without our (undeserved) spoils. Justices, there is no defendant on the stand, as we all accepted this ruling and I later DM’ed a oneshot where the slain noble stalked the party as an invisible revenant, but I still wonder - can you immediately misplace a dead body that you just hid in a room, cloaked or not?

Lostdmg

Oh beloved Cardinals of the Crit, I lay before you, perhaps not a sin most foul, but a sin nonetheless Allow me to paint you a picture. My players were in an underground dungeon filled with demons, and fairly low on resources. While in this state, they came upon 2 demons eating the body of a third. The group decided to sneak past the demons to avoid a fight. I had them all roll stealth checks one by one, and lo and behold, they all succeeded. However, as the characters were celebrating their victory, the Dark Elf rogue then said, “I turn back and go to fight the demons” All of the other characters were incensed, and tried to stop him. It soon became clear though, that for some inexplicable reason, this Dark Elf Rogue would not be deterred. It was then that the Tabaxi Wizard cast “Sleep” on the Dark Elf. My Cardinals of the Crit, it is importantly to know here, that Elves are immune to magical sleep. Here lies my sin. I forgot this fact The Wizard rolled high enough to put the Rogue to sleep. Instead of carrying his unconscious body, the group decided to leave the body there, and sneak away. Because Sleep lasts for 1 minute, and because the demons were so close to the body, I had the demons roll perception checks every round to see if they noticed the rogues body. Which they did. The demons then jumped at the body, and proceeded to kill this rogue. I did not realize my mistake until 1 session later, and still feel bad about it. So, Cardinals? Am I still worthy of Dice Christs love? Ps. This rogue was 3rd character of this player, and eventually ended the campaign with a total of 6 characters, all of which died, the 6th one being introduced 2 sessions before the final battle of the campaign

SirensSingSongs

To the honorable judges and Joseph, I present the case of stealth turned performance! If that sounds like a nonsensical case- it’s because I believe my players made a nonsensical choice! I was DMing a campaign for my 3 players a bard, a warlock, and an artificer. The party was attempting to sneak into a prison for a prison break and upon failing their group stealth check- I narrated that a few guards turned their heads and began heading their way. Upon hearing this, the bard of the party asked if she could roll a performance check instead of stealth and begin an impromptu dance routine with her background as a performer- the other party members asked to help! I asked “are you sure?” To which they all said yes and rolled performance. Judges, they rolled a 23 group performance check. And I narrated that on such a high roll…multiple guards recognized them and apprehended them. All was well and it wound up being a good way to get them in the prison for the prison break operation they were trying to complete, but my party still razzes me to this day! I razz them in return for choosing to draw attention to themselves when they were trying to be sneaky! But they claim with such a high roll they should have “blended in with street traffic” and avoided the guards altogether! Thus I lay this case in your capable hands…and my players and I have all agreed you all should decide who has razzing rights.

YourAnimeDad

To the total smokeshow judges, and the low down dirty Ake-jay I present: The case of the Full Turn Fingerguns I play in a Eberron campaign with some friends from work who are newer to D&D every couple weeks or so with a focus on building up our parties’ Wizard’s Food Truck as we fuckabout the setting. It’s been a blast playing with players still thinking outside of the box, throwing hot boiling canisters of soup as flavor for spells, a classic Paladin smiting with a great hammer atop a Stegosaurus, and a capitalistic Druid Apple Farm Heiress using apples for EVERYTHING. Inspired by their creativity from not knowing the rules made me rethink my approach. I’ve dedicated Dagwood Nabbet, a gruff Roguish Wandslinger Mercenary turned bodyguard to provide support for these band of lovable entrepreneurs. But still match their energy. Which led to some fun spells. The “Fingerguns” (3rd Party stuff), a cantrip that allows you to turn your finger into a weapon with properties of a small projectile. It’s funny, fun and kinda useful in and out of combat, in theory. But then my DM made a ruling that stops it from being ethically used at all. Judges I would have to use my bonus action to ACTIVATE the spell and my action to attack each time I used it (much like Shillelagh) I’m not a huge fan of D&DB but in its 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 one cantrip when I wanted to use it. In the end they 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 spell. I humbly await your swift and righteous judgement in this lawless wasteland ADDENDUM - DM really wants to try out Daggerheart and is disillusioned by playing D&D as I go to submit this for added context to my DMs fatigue with the system

Ariacella DelGrande

To the esteemed justices whose wit and storytelling have helped carry me and many others through some of our darkest days, and Jake. I seek your guidance in the case of “Movie Moments vs Mechanics” I’m in a campaign that’s been running for almost a year with three other players, and recently our DM has been expressing frustration when we try to apply game mechanics during what he refers to as “movie moments.” For instance, as we walked through a busy town square, he narrated my character having their mouth covered with a cloth, passing out, and being taken away. When the other party members and I asked if we could make checks to either resist or notice, the DM said no as this was “more of a cinematic movie moment”. Most recently, one of the players was at a political party dancing with a vampire council member while I was watching on a balcony overlooking the dance floor. The DM narrated a spike emerging from the vampire’s chest as he was impaled by a masked figure who told everyone not to move. I asked if we could do a check of some kind, especially since I had previously stated that I was intentionally watching the dance floor, to no avail. (The last paragraph describes the outcome of this where everyone dies, but isn’t necessary info if you don’t want to include it) My question is: Should I relax and accept that certain plot points will unfold like a cutscene, even when I feel I should be able to interact through mechanics? Or is it something that the DM should work on? He’s been a DM for several years and this is my first in person campaign. I don’t want to be a problematic player or disrupt the DM’s prep, I just want to understand how to balance my role as a player with the flow of the story. —- (Can skip this, but it adds more context) It pretty quickly turned into a slight clusterfuck- another party member and I said we had intentions to cast some spells and asked if we were in initiative, to which the DM said no. The other player teleported the vampire and himself away, the DM said 4 people in the crowd became possessed, and I cast a power word nauseate (it’s a 3.5e campaign) to incapacitate the masked figure for at least a round. The DM said the spell worked (but didn’t help the four in the crowd as it wasn’t a concentration spell as I had hoped). I asked again if we were in initiative, since I wanted to cast another spell, but the DM said no and narrated the masked figure, no longer incapacitated, casting a “mass power word kill” immediately killing everyone in the mansion, including my remaining party member (I survived due to an item that can absorb one spell effect). While this definitely isn’t a spell in 3.5, the DM said the masked figure was a powerful mage who created his own spell. The session ended early as he said the session he prepped wouldn’t be useable anymore and expressed his frustrations with feeling like his movie moment was again disrupted.

Sweet Tea

To the most revered Deacons of Dice Christ and- oh shit, is that Jake? What's up, man? I bring to you a confession that has long weighed on my soul. In my high school D&D game there was one player that seemed to never miss. He was constantly hitting all enemies, critting with regularity, and passing all checks. Instead of rolling physical dice he used a dice roller on his phone, which was allowed by the DM. Out of curiosity I asked if he had crazy high modifiers or was just lucky. What he told me was that, before his turn in combat came up, he would just roll the dice on his phone over and over until he got a high number to show the DM and suggested I do the same. I was mortified. My spiritual conundrum is this: should I have immediately struck him down in righteous fury? Should I have done everything in my power to destroy this enemy of Dice Christ? How can I continue as a firm believer in living and dying by the rolls if I let such evil escape unpunished? I humbly await your judgement.

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

Scotland Kraker

To the honorable judges and their benevolent bailiff Jacques, I bring to you the case of Meteor Swarm Madness. My party and I were fighting our way through the battlefields of Ysgard. My Gnome Bard used a Rod of Rulership to charm hundreds of enemy combatants into fighting for us. An enemy mage used a 9th level Meteor Swarm spell, instantly downing my bard. Our Sorcerer was flying in the air in the same area that the Meteor Swarm hit, and failed his saving throw. He argued that because he was flying 60 ft. in the air, the meteors wouldn’t damage him because the spell says it hits a “point you can see within range” which would be on the ground. Our DM decisively ruled against him, saying that since the meteors are coming from the air to the ground, the Sorcerer would be in the path of the projectile. Myself, who was already downed, and our Fighter and Rogue agreed. Unfortunately the Sorcerer continued to argue he should take no damage, derailing our entire session for a heated two hour argument about whether a flying character takes damage from a falling meteor. To this day he is convinced that he should not have taken damage. I ask you, honorable justices, is our DM correct, or should our Sorcerer have been exempt from the damage of the meteor swarm.

sarb!

Greetings to the exalted judges and their hairless dog Jacques, I bring before the court the Case of Denied Divine Intervention. I play a halfling cleric and have admittedly long neglected to roll for divine intervention over the past few years that my friends and I have been playing this campaign. We are nearing the end of the campaign, and during downtime in a recent session I asked if I could roll to see if my god, Kelemvor, could intervene and aid in our quest to defeat the BBEG cult leader. My DM asked how I wanted him to intervene, so I read aloud the D&D beyond spell description that says the nature of the intervention is up to the DM. He said that just asking for vague help in the general quest wasn't enough for the spell to work, and I ended up not rolling. Was I correct to think I could be so vague in my shot in the dark for some kind of divine intervention, or is my DM right to request more specific intentions from my cleric? I prostrate myself before the swift justice of the court.

wasabibagel

To the Justices/Cardinals? And Tucker's girlfriend's baby daddy Jörk? I have a simple case, a RAW case. I was playing an Oath of Conquest paladin built around using my aura ability to fear enemies removing their speed to zero(this was 5e pre 2024) you should have relevant rules in the sacred scrolls. I took a feat to shield bash knocking enemies prone. Getting up from prone costs half your speed. If your speed is zero I claimed they could not get up. The DM a close friend to this day and later roommate for awhile ruled they could still get up. There is no bad blood between us but I am still salty about this ruling. How should the rules as written be interpreted here?

wouldn't you like to know

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

Ali

To the illustrious judges and also that other guy, I bring you the case of combat “special plant time”. I DM a 1st ed Pathfinder game and one of my PCs is a chaotic gnomish Druid whose favourite way to solve any problem has always been to turn into a tree. - The party’s rogue is falling from an alarming height and you need to break their fall? - tree shape into something nice and leafy and break their fall - you’ve been grappled by a creature and want to up your chances of breaking its hold? - tree shape to something with thorns - being hunted in the ivory labyrinth and need to hide? Tree shape! (that one did not go well) - the enemy is on like 2HP and you want to kill it in the most humiliating way possible? - run under its legs and turn into the most upsetting Christmas tree According to the tree shape spell description “The exact type of tree, as well as its appearance, is completely under your control”. I also never let it be a “get out of jail free card”, she always had to make some other check / take damage as appropriate, she just always delighted in addicting in turning into a tree as much as possible. After a while the rest of the party started to get kind of frustrated when this player would pull this shit. They started (lightheartedly) suggesting that if she needs her “special plant time” maybe she should take it outside of combat so she got it out of her system. The PC has since been retired and is now under my control, and also possibly an agent of Baphomet after that whole labyrinth situation… So judges, please tell me, was I too lenient in allowing the Druid to use tree shape for so long (months) this way? Was it just creative spell use? Is it fair game to now use it to a similarly bonkers level myself when running this PC on the rare occasion the players meet them again? I bow before the authority of the court

Lordfourquad

Dear the all powerful bailiff Jake and his worshipers that he calls judges, I bring to you the case of the misread mind flayer. So I DM’ed a home brew LOTR themed one shot that I made the BBEG a mind flayer. So once the party got to the final fight at the foot of the mountain they needed to climb to win they explained during the fight that once they grappled the mind flayer (which they effortlessly accomplished) It wouldn’t be able to cast spells and me being a relatively new DM and them being experienced players I didn’t look too closely at the mind flayers psyonic spell casting ability and only realised I would’ve been able to cast spells during a grapple after they kicked my BBEG’s ass. So great justices and godlike bailiff Jake did I rob my players of a good end fight or did they just trick me into having an easy fight. I await your judgment

ktine

I kneel before the radiantly beautiful judges - Axford, Murpy, and Tanner - and the approachable boy-next-door, Jake. I bring you the case of "The Archer Identity Crisis." When my friends and I got interested in playing DnD a year ago, we found ourselves lucky to find that one of my friends' uncles would be happy to be our first DM. He had been playing ttrpgs since he was a kid and, although he'd been more a player than a DM, he was contagiously excited to introduce us to the game. Over the course of our monthly sessions, we had our delicious first taste of DnD while also realizing he was trying to have his own fun DMing. Every so often he'd introduce new mechanics, some of which were easy enough to follow while others seemed a bit unnecessary. As new players, it got a bit difficult to follow since it already felt like we weren't playing with 5e rules despite requesting a 5e game. (Maybe DnD rules had changed quite a bit since last he played/DMed but that's a case for another court.) In one session, our DM declared that he felt ranged weapons, in his words, "are capable of one-shot-ing targets medium sized or smaller" and so altered the damage for these weapons to be [dice roll x proficiency bonus + modifiers]. At level 7, this gave crossbows a base damage range of 3 to 24 and our fighter was able to deal 37 damage with one critical hit. It's great since we can deal more damage but WHAT'S THE POINT OF FIGHTING ANY OTHER WAY? My warlock and our paladin have to expend spell slots to even get close to that damage output but all of us could just pick up crossbows. At the end of the session, we questioned his logic but he just felt that in "real life" projectiles require more skill to aim and that, frankly, they just deal more damage since a crossbow bolt could pierce right through armor unlike a sword. We clearly weren't convinced and the session ended with his acquiescing to tweak the mechanic if we were so dissatisfied with it. We responded with an awkward air of "yea, maybe, just something to think about" and were left feeling like we just told our DM how to run his own game, plus it's high key awkward to argue with your friend's uncle. So I head your infallible wisdom...Are we just naive, new players who simply don't understand the complexity of the game or is there some validity in us thinking that this mechanic overpowers ranged weapons? Should we let our nice and more experienced DM, who gave us the chance to finally play DnD, have his fun (and possibly become a party of archers) or is it too much to ask to play a regular 5e campaign without so much flair? P.S. A few sessions later he invited us to an archery range. Apparently, he and his son practice archery as a hobby.

David S.

Noble justices and Bailiff, I DM for a group comprised of my wife and few of our friends. They're a great group, and I have no real complaints to bring to you...but my wife does. It happened in one of our first sessions; we had started combat using a battle mat, but rather than use a miniature, my wife and a couple other players insisted on using some of her Sonny Angels for their PCs. If you don't know what those are, they're a collectible figurine series of a naked baby wearing various themed hats and outfits, oftentimes with visible genitalia. This would have been all well and good, but the Sonny Angels were way too big for the battle mat, and worst of all, unbalanced, constantly falling over, and disrupting other minis. The party thought it was funny, but the last thing I need while running combat is struggling to keep a figurine of a naked baby wearing a pineapple hat from falling on top of everything else. Eventually I had to put my foot down and enforce genuine minis only, to my party's chagrin. Justices, was I wrong to deny my wife and players the joy of representing themselves in combat with one of her beloved cherubs? Or was I within my DM rights to be a stick in the mud? I humbly await your decision.

Dylan Pascal (aka Dapper Warlock)

To the Eminently Effervescent Justice Axford, the Brilliantly Beneficent Justice Murphy, the Ceaselessly Classy Justice Tanner, and the bailiff who was in that one CollegeHumor sketch about the emails, I think his name is Amy? This year, I started a new campaign by running my players through the Lost City, and they managed to end the adventure one level lower than they were supposed to because they missed the first leveling milestone, which is meeting one of the three non-evil factions that inhabit the top two full floors of the ziggurat. It was disappointing enough when they only explored two rooms of the first floor before immediately finding the stairs, but the most heartbreaking part of this endeavor was when they got to the next floor, which has a rotating hallway in the center that connects different hallways on the floor depending on which of the four levers you pull. My players entered this hallway, looked at these four levers, and said, "This is a trap. We shouldn't pull these." They then proceeded down the default hallway and immediately found the trap door down to the next floor. Over the last few months, I've given them some shit over this, because in what universe does any trap present itself with levers the target HAS to pull? Traps usually involve hidden triggers and pressure plates and the like. They've argued that I should have given more of an indication that the levers WEREN'T a trap, but I was fairly new to DMing and other than pointing out the curved shape of the walls on either end of the hall, I wasn't sure how else to signal the nature of the hallway. So, judges, I leave it in your hands: Did I not do enough to assure my players this hallway was safe? Or did my players just very cleverly find a way to have less fun? I throw myself at the mercy of the court and will take or dole out whatever punishment you see as appropriate.

Jonathan Fookes

Admirable Justices and… noticeable Bailiff, I am here to plead not guilty for dividing my party against each other. My party is made of all coworkers. One player has become the default main character of our campaign because of the exciting and emotionally rich energy he brings to his character, but I think he is now resented by the rest of the party. It came to a head when he, a wild magic sorcerer, rolled a wish spell on the wild magic table on the first day of the campaign. As he didn’t understand that level of power, I asked him how he felt in that moment when the power surged. He gave an emotional refrain that tied to his backstory, and I increased his charisma and altered the fight in his favor. He was ecstatic. My other players, not so much. The next day, at work, another player told me he didn’t like how I favored the sorcerer. The other players aren’t talking to me or the sorcerer, even at work. It’s actually starting to affect our productivity in the workplace. Apparently, they find his passion annoying, and just want more puzzles. Justices, I ask for your mercy and your counsel on how to proceed.

Daniel Baskins

To the honorable Judges of the court of crit and archbishops or the dice Christ because we do not believe in the separation of rolls and rules. 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

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 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/OC walked up to the angel captain and immediately started groping the angel’s junk, including what his upside-down cat demon 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 – *not* 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 joking about weird Simic semen while also bemoaning 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 describing jerking off an angel – he’s my brother. The other PCs were his husband and their presumed third. And no, I don’t play D&D with my brother anymore.

Chazz

To the honorable justices and their scrappy doo sidekick, I present the case of the magic sword slot machine. Justices I am a DM and 3D artist. Last September (2024) I participated in an art challenge called Swordtember. Similar to other monthly art challenges it encourages artists to design a new sword each day based on various prompts. The swords I designed were a bit goofy in their themes. One was designed like a cheeseburger another like Frankenstein. Once the challenges was over I thought it might be fun to make stats for the weapons and add them to my game for fun. However instead of just adding these swords to the magic store like all my other homebrew items, I thought to instead create a slot machine where the players could put in a hundred gold and get a random magic sword. I was so excited about this mechanic but when I introduced it to my players their reactions were all skeptical to say the least. They didn’t want to gamble their hard earned gold on a weapon they may not like, and some of the party didn’t even use swords. Eventually I coaxed a player to take a spin. They got a cactus themed sword and were instantly underwhelmed by it. They asked if they could have a refund for it and I reluctantly agreed. Justices I never told them that the sword was my art, or that I had like 20 more swords that never got seen by them. Justices was I in the wrong for introducing fantasy micro transactions into my game? Or should my player have just bitten the bullet and take a sword that clashes with their aesthetic and their build? Was I right to refund them the cost of the weapon. I humbly await your judgment. (PS this is the same campaign as the mutant biker mice massacre)

jacob brewer

To the great crit justices and damn decent bailiff. This requires a preamble, that I’ll try to make quick, my players have been playing a Pokémon themed DND game specifically instead of having a Pokémon, and those Pokémon fight, you as the adventurer fight the Pokémon, but keeping the same. All Pokémon are knocked out, not killed rule. In this game when you defeat a Pokémon. It has a chance to drop a TM or a Pokémon move that you as a PC can learn my players love this and constantly use Pokémon moves instead of their actual abilities all the time the problem is I might’ve taken this too far when I let them get Pokémon abilities, not just moves. I.e. one of my players has the Pokémon ability scrappy his normal and fighting move affect ghost types. I DM under the rule if the PC can do it, a enemy can as well and that was going fine for most things until I gave a enemy a move of a specific Pokémon that meant the PCs can’t hurt him. It forced them to run and now my PCs are calling bullshit. So justices am I a bullshit artist with my bullshit Homebrew, or am I just an overconfident DM trying to achieve balance in an unbalanced mess. I humbly await the courts judgement and will see its punishment is cared out PS in case you’re curious, it’s the Pokémon ability wonder guard making the person who has that ability immune to damage not from critical hits and there was a time where 2 different PCs had the chance to gain this ability and chose not to.

Katheroony

To the magnificent justices and the lowly but handsome bailiff I present to you the case of “is this spell really this worthless?” I play a weekly online game where I am a Circle of Moons Druid who recently hit level 9 and got access to some higher level spell slots, which is very exciting. During a recent battle, I noticed that our enemies seemed to be working together to carry out a powerful attack, so I thought I’d take one of them out of the equation with Charm Monster. It worked! The enemy failed his Wisdom save and became charmed. This was when one of the other players told me the monster would only be friendly to me, and would continue to attack the rest of the party (we had some friendly kobolds helping us, who we had befriended long ago and then reunited with as we approached the BBEGs lair). I checked the wording of the spell, and it isn’t clear whether the monster remains hostile to the rest of the party, and if anything seems to say the opposite, since if any member of the group attacks it, the charmed condition ends. I explained this, and even threw in some roleplay for good measure, standing by the friendly kobold NPC who was closest to the threat, to make it clear to the charmed monster that he was with me, and so shouldn’t be harmed. The DM seemed to go for this, and said he was happy to follow the rule of cool. However, when it came to the monster’s turn in initiative, he attacked the kobold, agreeing with the other player that the charm effect only benefits me, rendering my plan (and 4th level spell) entirely useless. So, I ask you Justices, is Charm Monster really only worth using in 1 on 1 combat, or should my DM have allowed me to use it to keep the party safe while we took down the two other monsters? I accept whatever judgement you think is fair.

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. 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 on the battlemap. 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? Particularly when accompanied by a nat 1? When we roll to attack with our greatswords, we do not do so from thirty feet away. We must get close! We must put ourselves at risk! We must seek danger to find 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, simmered in butter, and then we can talk terms.

Baghneq

I would like to confess to Dice Christ... Or the God of character design... As I have sinned. I like to create characters that work well with the team. E.g. if there is no support then I will play a support or healer etc. However, I know what people are playing as I look at their character sheets on D&D beyond before the session. The last time I did this someone introduced their character and it was a throwback to a previous campaign. I had to act surprise when they announced their character and I felt so bad! I vow I will no longer give into curiosity and straight up nosiness no more! And I will fully lean into the surprises that D&D give!

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?

Josh

I wish I had one, but I do have a suggestion for an absolutely weird as hell cartoon for you all to watch together 😅

Lemonlimepickle

To the omnipotent judges and slim-jim, I present the case of GenAI playing a character. I am DMing the module of Out of the Abyss - demons in the underdark. As my players were new when we started, nearly 3 years ago, at the beginning of each session I would ask them for a fact about their character, to help them think about roleplaying. They usually bring up something interesting I l, as a DM, can work into the story. One player in particular struggled with thinking of facts and within the last few months resorted to AI to think of her facts for her. There were comments from people at the table, and she is aware of our distaste of the use of AI. This came to ahead in the last session. We were in combat, she plays a kenku ranger, wanting to change weapons from a bow to a sword. She exclaimed 'oh chat gpt has just told me I need to drop my bow to draw my sword' And at the end of combat said 'chat gpt has reminded me to pick up my bow' The table was floored. Has AI been playing her character all this time? How can I deal with this non-player, player character. She genuinely enjoys 'playing' DnD, but she doesn't even control her characters actions, a computer does. I humbly await your verdict.

Dr_kilowatt

To the judges that my mom says are pretty cool and my mom's ex, I present the case of the BBEG with too much health. Our group has been playing a Pathfinder 2e game for 5+ years now and we have swapped GM's a few times. I wanted to GM an arc at one point, so I created something that happened in the dreamlands so that it would be non-material, and I could reintroduce the situation whenever I felt like GMing again. When I was having them fight the bbeg of my ark, I was nervous because they kept critting on them. I ended up giving them 100 extra health...twice...in an effort to make the fight more fun and have them last longer. I stopped because one of the players said "how much health does this guy have?" I immediately decided to end the fight on that turn, but judges, should I have ended the fight early, even though it was the finale of my arc?

Dr_kilowatt

Just so you know: every player told me that they loved the way that I took the scenes. I took control of the GM seat because I wanted more role play and they seemed happy with the result. One player even used an item that I gave them for the rest of their time as a player, until they became the GM and retired their character.

Bruno Fant

THE ALADDIN DEFENSE -------------------------------------- May it please the judges Murphy, Tanner, and Axford, as well as , Let me preface my thesis by saying this is the most important post I have ever written, possibly in my life. Aladdin is one of the best-known tales associated with One Thousand and One Nights (often known in English as The Arabian Nights), and is mostly known in the West for two Disney movies (the first one being largely superior by any account that matters) and a musical. In this petition, I will also attempt to convince you that Aladdin the character not only deserves a place is the NADDPod multiverse (short-handed as crappiverse from now on), but should actually take the goddamn throne. The arguments for my case are thus: - The first use of "opa-style" outside of Beverly was about Aladdin, in a Dungeon Court I believe. - Speaking of, Aladdin (not the Grinch !) is the most disproportionately represented character in Dungeon Court episodes. - In one such case, the whole cast but especially Caldwell remember the cave escape scene from the 1992 movie almost scene by scene (we won't be talking about the 2019 movie anymore). - Jafar is loose. - As mentioned in a short rest, Murph and Emily went to the Aladdin musical instead of the closing party after Hot Dates because the cast had gifted them tickets (and then they left after the first act). - Emily had an Aladdin songbook instead of the radio during road trips, and she and her siblings fought over who got to play the Jasmine part. - While discussing this, the crew listed EVERY FUCKING ALADDIN song off the top of their heads - In the very same short rest, Murph takes the only big L he ever accepted when he "misremembers" the title of A Whole New World; this is a huge mark of respect towards Aladdin. - By the way, HE WASN'T EVEN WRONG, he just went with the official title instead of the starting line as Caldwell did - the crew is some sort of Aladdin think-tank. - Crucially, if we stop right before the first Surprise Round (a series which, one must admit, skews the average), Aladdin is mentioned in more episodes than the Grinch I believe. He's not "so in right now", to quote a Ms. Axford, and yet. And this is just off the top of my fucking head, didn't have to go consult the transcripts yet. Other Gladaddins (the Aladdin stans) have spoken their truth in the comments of the subreddit were I originally submitted this investigation: - One recalled that Aladdin was EMILY AXFORD'S SEXUAL AWAKENING. - A lively discussion actually made me realize that Aladdin may be the first pop culture reference of the podcast. Indeed, as another Gladaddin mentioned, "Caldwell [...] describes bev running up the back of the snake how Aladdin runs up jafar “opa Aladdin style”". It's very early in the campaign, and our local investigative crew is on the case to confirm. EDIT: CONFIRMED, PEOPLE - Finally, a particularly astute contributor theorizes that Akarot's little vest might be emulating Aladdin's stylish clothing. We're just blowing this shit wide open. It is not my place to speculate why Aladdin has such a grip on this crew, although if I had to bet, it would be the sexual awakening. I am merely stating out facts, and claiming to whoever will hear me that Aladdin was deprived of the official (and longstanding) title of NADDPod King. Justices, I know you have a heart. Justice for Aladdin. Justice for my boy. Oh, and I don't even like Aladdin that much

Hardshine the Gold

To the judges on Mount Everest and the Bailiff in the Dead Sea, I think his name is “Gawrsh” (hyuck!), I present the case of the “Alchemical Dragon Throat”. I am a brand new DM who has never actually even played DnD (just watch a lot of live play). Typical story, wanted to play but no one would DM so I volunteered as tribute. My table consists of two other newbies, two guys who play often and one who played 25 years ago but not since. My players are on a quest for the pieces of Fraz Urb’luu’s staff. One of their major NPC battles was against a Rouge Alchemist Oorog named Gelrugg who was trying to create a super race of Orcs (as one does) by experimenting with poisons and dragon blood. Half way through battle, Gelrugg used his part of the staff (a staff of command) to bind himself to an adult green dragon. The battle culminated on a narrow walkway over a 500 ft waterfall outside of Ironfang Keep. As they killed the dragon I narrated that his body, once devoid of life, slid off the gangway and plummeted into the water below. One of my seasoned players said he wanted to have taken the esophagus from the dragon. I told him the body would have fallen almost immediately but we could do a series of checks to see if his character (a tiefling sorcerer) could get down to the body fast enough, hold on to the giant adult dragon body as it sank, have enough dexterity to remove the esophagus, swim back up and make it back to the party. In total I proposed 5 checks of varying DC. He gave such resistance to this that I relented and just had him roll a straight up DC 19 luck check which he of course failed. We didn’t dwell on it too long and I gave him a chance to buy one in the next town at a good price but it still bothers me. Was I being “too much”, or was I right to up the stakes and give the attempt some flavor? I humbly await your verdict.

BeaverOil

May it please the honorable judges as well as the slightly cute bailiff, I was playing my first very campaign with a couple of buddies of mine when I soon realized a very fast problem. A couple of them liked to take the clothes off of everyone we had met/ fought to sell them for extra gold, I tried saying this was unnecessary due to how little gold most clothes offer and that I really didn’t wanna have to picture my party as well as most npc (that managed to have their clothes stolen) naked. Thank you for your time

Bat-Fran

Judges of the church, I beg forgiveness. So way back in 2020 I started playing in my first campaign. I'd listened to you guys, but never played. I asked my DM if we could have a character building session and we arranged a Skype chat. I had an idea for a bard-barian and together we build him up. However, my DM was still getting used to 5e, and didn't know the rules of multi-classing. He said to take proficiencies in both classes saving throws. Later on in the campaign I realised the error, but I was nervous to say anything. I excused myself that so long as that was the rule for all of us it would balance out... Judges, a fellow player then multiclassed and was not given the same treatment. I spoke with a new DM friend and his response was "how long had I been fucking that DM?" I was riddled with guilt, but I didn't want to give up my insanely buff boy. I decided to assign each stat buff a number and roll 2 D4 - I'd let the dice decide. I ended up with strength and charisma proficiency and notified my DM, who seemed unbothered, however I still feel guilty for playing for several years with the unbalanced stats, especially as it's still technically a nerffed stat block 🙈

Mia

The the objectively beautiful supreme crit justices and the bailiff Hank who is probably someone’s type I guess. I fuckin beefed it guys. A few weeks ago we finished a two year long campaign where I was the dm and my brother was playing a Druid who was being hunted by his former Druid circle. At one point a young Druid showed up pretending to be a disciple of my brothers way of thinking and won over the party, while he was actually there as a spy and stole a bunch of stuff from the party to make it easier for the circle to spy on them. He became a very hated NPC. A few weeks ago was the final fight against the BBEG and the leader of the Druid circle. After the game ended my players remarked about the absence of the Druid spy, to which is responded by saying I left it as a loose end for a future plot hook. Justices, I forgot the guy existed. Am I wrong for leaving such a juicy plot thread unexplored, or was my lie about the future plot thread justified? I feel like I left some story resolution for the Druid off the table since the spy was such a hated NPC. I await judgement with an appropriate amount of excitement.

joe ventre

Honorable justices and also Jake who is also there I guess. I bring to you the twin counter-spell debacle. I have always enjoyed playing sorcerers because of all the ways you can use meta magic and a thought popped in my head. I asked several of my DM friends who then asked their DM friends. Can a sorcerer use twin spell for counter-spell? We went to the books but according to RAW we couldn’t find anything that would specifically prevent it. The only thing that we found was that twin spell cannot be used on the same target so you cannot counter-spell a counter-spell of a counter-spell. What I bring to you justices is can a sorcerer twin spell a counterspell and “call his shot” if there are multiple casters. In other words if caster A is casting a spell but you know caster B is probably going to pull some shenanigans on their turn/reaction can you target both? My friends and I had fun discussing this and (mostly) agreed “calling their shot” would be allowed as long as the sorcerer accepts that their meta-magic points would be used regardless of whether or not caster B actually casts a spell.

James Fite

I seek wisdom from the disciples of Dice Christ and the supreme crit. Last night while I was DMing I ran a pretty hard encounter and I caught one of my players cheating, he had 5 HP left and got hit for 22 damage but he used his Monk deflect attack (2024) and reduced the damage by 17 which is still 5 so he should have gone down but instead this player said “I’m down to 1 HP”. His turn was next and he killed the monster but it felt unearned. The monster was going to go down anyway because the rest of the players still had turns. So in the moment I didn’t call him out and just ended the encounter. This player has admitted before that he “likes to win DnD” so I know he just didn’t want to go down. How do I confront this player? Or do I let the guilt eat away at him? Or am I doing something wrong to make people feel the need to cheat in a fun silly game? I await your wisdom

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.

Patrick

To the honorable Crit Court, I run an irl pirate campaign with a bunch of random strangers I recruited from online when I moved to a new city. There’s an engaged couple in my group who are a problem, constantly doing PDA at the table, and not just a quick cheek kiss or theater kid hand squeeze. They’re biting each others shoulders, getting up and flopping onto the other, are very ‘give a mouse a cookie’ when it comes to items, hitting me with ‘Um, actually’ about small details that don’t matter (like what book a spell is from), want to romance each other in-game, and almost exclusively engage with each other in-game unless I force a scene where one has to interact with another player. My other players and myself are uncomfortable with the behavior, but the issue is we use their maps for the campaign. The couple ‘gifted’ the maps to me, but I feel like that critical part of our game keeps me from setting firmer boundaries. Justices (and Bailiff Joke)- am I in the wrong for accepting this ‘gift’ in the first place, or for not being firm in telling them to knock it off? Or is it on them for not understanding that D&D time isn’t date night for them? Thanks, Weary Wayfarer

James McDonald

To the honorable crit court, and he-who-must-not-be-praised, I don't have a case, however I wanted to share something for the Buffalo Bills fans. Recently ,Josh Allen called and audible play called "Mangia,Mangia, Mangia!" Link is here, enjoy! https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1BFENnXXUV/

Andrew Oleson

To the magnanimous judges, A few years ago, I started a Tyranny of Dragons campaign with some friends through Discord, where I played a Harengon monk named "Adam Fury." He was a washed up kung-fu fighter who broke his ankle on a bad pair of shoes at the height of his career. Now disheveled, he works for birthday parties and has a problem drinking. Going into the second session, we knew a combat was coming as we had to save some townfolk from the grips of a tyrannical force. They were controlling a building on the outskirts of town and after we took care of some of the forces outside of the building, I tried to run in to find the hostages. Low and behold, there were 12 bad guys in that room who spent two full turns trying to attack me. That's 24 total attacks all at my face. It was very funny. By sheer will and deftness, I escaped this building by the skin of my teeth. As I exited, however, a stray arrow struck me, knocking me out. Here, judges, is where I get fucked. While the rest of my six person party stood fighting, one of the remaining bad guys, instead of swinging at any of the active combatants, strikes me down, giving me two death save fails. This is right before my turn, so it gets to me before anyone can even attempt to save me. I roll. It's a 7. Although not couth, I did rage quit the game because I poured a lot of love into Adam and I was wildly excited to play him. Our DM said this was an unforgiving module, but am I right to feel Adam was unjustly and unfairly struck down?

Munzy

Just a little play called Mangia

James McDonald

First rule of Mangia... We don't talk about Mangia

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!)

RecsBecs

To the honored Judges Murphy, Tanner, and Worm-Wife Axford. And the bailiff Jack, I guess. I present the case of the sneaky sneaking rules. I (she/her) am in a Pathfinder 2E revised game. We've been playing for two years, and it's great. Last night we were sneaking through woods to figure out what the paramilitary is up to. My swashbuckler/ rogue is a Bellflower Agent, which means I have access to the feat Garden Path, which I took. It allows me to apply the "Quiet Allies" feat to a member of my party. The Quiet Allies feat lets us use the "Follow the Leader" action to use a group stealth check with the modifier of the party member with the lowest Stealth modifier, and then add a bonus for my character being a Master in stealth. Here's the issue: The Garden Path rules say I can choose to apply Quiet Allies to a party member. I took that to mean I could choose whose modifier to use, that we just didn't have to take the lowest one. This would make Garden Path a bigger improvement over Quiet Allies. The GM (they/them) said the Quiet Allies rules still apply, so it needs to be the lowest modifier. The Garden Path feat just lets me use advantage (which is rare in Pathfinder, and makes the feat still worth it). The Internet was no help. I said we could use the Quiet Allies rules for now because we'd already rolled a 20, so the disagreement was moot, and we needed to move on. But can you help us decide what we should do next time? PS: Shoutout to my amazing GM!!

Barney the Monk

Dear fanciful judges and whatever deplorable excuse of a baliff might be condemned to read this. (Kidding. Day one Fan. I actually found Naddpod through If i were you. Golden mike goes to you, Jake) I bring to you the case of the disengaged dementia patient PC. I play at a table of friends who've all put some good thought into their characters. The narrative aspecct of our homebrew has been great. Except for one player: Cobb Grillin. Cobb is an ancient, and i mean ancient, lizardkin. Anytime he's called on for anything narrative he responds with the same two lines - "Couldn't tell ya" or "wuttt" in a voice vaguely reminiscent of Bob Dylan. Judges, It's bringing the table down. We all try to toss him soft balls to participate but it always ends the same. He's not even a bard! I feel like it's an excuse to not participate in our collaborative story telling. The only time he takes notes is during combat to record AC, initiative, damage done, etc. Before you ask, we've been playing together for over 2 years. He's had time to come out of his shell. His first character was a druid who would lie if rolling odd, or tell the truth if rolling even. It always got us into trouble. Judges, what punishment is fitting for someone who will probably forget about it two seconds later? Or are we the ones to be punished? I humbly await your ruling.

Trans Rights

To the delightful judges and no one else, I bring to you a case of a campaign that was tragically torn apart in a single day. I was the DM, and this campaign had been going for 2 years. Earlier this year, the paladin's player got a new job and we had to switch to biweekly sessions. This unfortunately drastically slowed the pacing of the game, and after about 6 months of this, the paladin player decided that they would rather play Warhammer 40k and quit 1 hour before a session was supposed to start. I let everyone know, and the wizard player said that they don't want to continue with only three people and quit as well to focus on their book. The Fighter player then decided that they didn't want to get a new group together if half of the friend group suddenly decided to quit. This left me and the poor bard player left. I managed to get everyone's schedules together for one final finale session about a month later, but basically our entire friend group up and fell apart in a single day. Judges, who's fault is this? Is it mine, for going biweekly and slowing the pacing of the game? Is it the paladin, for just deciding to quit 1 hour before a session? Is it the wizard, who quit out of nowhere? Is there even blame to be assigned here? I have since started a new pathfinder group with the bard player, but I'm still bitter over how everything fell apart. PS: This all happened on my birthday.

Rachael Lovely

To the most wonderful Judges and oh look the Bailiff is here today, I just finished up my first ever full campaign with some friends that play online. During our two year long campaign my best friend in the DnD group and I started to date. We unceremoniously "broke up" when she announced at the start of a session that she had a new girlfriend (not me.) That drama is not what I bring my case to court about today but instead the PCxPC romance that I started around the same time. Every time my character's in-game best friend (and eventual boyfriend) and I interacted she would interject herself into the conversation--either as her character or out of character. This went on throughout the whole campaign and during the prologue she interjected herself right as my PC was about to share their first kiss with their boyfriend, ruining the culmination of two years IRL of will-they-won't-they roleplaying. Judges I ask, is it wrong of me to feel that she was being extremely rude? Our game tended to have a lot of crosstalk because we are a chatty bunch but her comments always seemed to fall right when I was about to have a romantic moment with my sorcerer boyfriend? Thank you so much for your time.

Revington the Third

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

Cassie_The_Bun

To the holy docents of dice christ, I come to you with a confession. My blunder ruined dungeons and dragons for 6 people, and they never played again. I had just moved to college and made new friends in my dorm. I was the only one of them who knew anything about DnD, so I offered to DM the starter kit for them. I royally fucked up. When the party got to the part of the module with the bugbear, rather than using the stat block in the back of the module, I looked one up on dnd beyond. It was the wrong stat block. The bugbear I threw at them had multiple attacks and way to much HP and so, I unceremoniously narrated a TPK of these brand new players in their first session. I realized my mistake after the session, but they never played dungeons and dragons ever again.

vindrew

I bow my head as low as possible for the highly justices Tanner and Axford, a bit higher for the justice Murphy, and hold my head high as I ignore the bailiff Josh. I have a conundrum from my first ever campaign. To set the scene: High school, early covid. I was a first time DM, guiding my characters around to unravel a mystery that was plaguing their magical town. I led them through a tried and true dungeon/temple, and at the end they encountered a young dragon in the final room, sitting on top of some much needed information and loot. The moment I described this dragon, the bard in our party (played by my cousin who had joined midway through the campaign at my mother's request) announced that he was going to roll a charisma check to befriend it. Justices, this was before I could even get to the words "Everybody roll initiative." As a first time DM, I didn't know how to respond. I barely got through saying "Sure?" before he announced, with glee, that he had rolled a nat 20. Justices, I ended up throwing out the epic battle I had planned, and the dragon just flew away at his request. I now know that the better solution would have been to simply say "No, you maniac." But I feel as though I was honor bound to accept this nat twenty! What should I have done? Who was wrong? Justices, I bow my head before any punishments you may deem fit for me or my cousin. - Vin. Also, if my cousin is listening, sorry.

Asia Lee

To the esteemed justices and that one guy from the “back front pocket” skit. I present to you the case of the vague dinner invitation. (CW for possible strahd spoilers and child death.). In our curse of strahd campaign, my dm decided to use a module involving an orphanage and a possessed child. Our party was a group of capable do-gooders investigating some spookiness happening at an orphanage. We interviewed various people and felt we had a good idea of what was going on. The matron of the orphanage invited us to dinner at “8 pm.” As the sun was still up, we figured we had a bit of time and decided to sell some gear (the mists robbed us of our coin.) after making a bit of coin, we headed over to the orphanage only to discover that everyone inside had been slaughtered. We argued that we were being cognizant of the time (did all of our selling while the sun was still up) and should have been on time. The dm argued that they gave us plenty of hints (saying ONCE not to forget about dinner) and that we should have prioritized the orphanage. Justices, I ask if such a traumatic event is justified with such little prompting? Did our dm do us dirty, especially as we’d already sussed out what was going on and were waiting for our dinner showdown. (We ended up making a new party, as we felt our characters would be too depressed to carry on their mission).

Kara

To the honorable Judges and the bailiff who you can really tell is trying his best, I bring to you the case of the self-cannibalizing chef, may it please the court. I am new to DMing and I am offered to run a one shot for our group. I wanted to do a cooking competition since a few of the players are big into cooking and reality TV, think Hells kitchen meets Great British Bake Off. I’ve also just finished Trinyvale and wanted to do something reminiscent of the Cooking Mawmaw challenge, thanks Caldwell for the inspo. The concept of the one shot is that all the players are already in the hells, and the winner gets their soul back and can go to the plane of their choosing. One of the players has a very specific thing they want to do that I am a little unsure of how to execute. They want to be a circle of spores druid and they want to be able to wild shape and then cut off parts of themselves to use as ingredients in the challenges. I said this would be fine, that they could cut off the little mushrooms that would grow on them as they wild shape and cook those. They said, “Cool, but I really want to cut off an arm and cook that.” I told the player that I thought the limb would revert back when they drop the wildshape. This seemed to really disappoint them, as they have their heart set on being a self-cannibalizing mushroom druid. Since I want them to have fun and do their bit, I relented and said they could cook their mushroom arm, but that they would lose the arm in their original form, mechanically giving them a level or two of exhaustion, depending on how much of themselves they choose to cut off, and that I reserve the right to give more levels of exhaustion the more they remove from themselves. They agreed to the restrictions, but seemed disappointed that they wouldn’t be able to continue to cut their limbs off to use as a guilt-free meat alternative. Judges, I supplicate myself before you to ask, if a druid in wildshape loses a limb, and then they drop wildshape, does the limb stay in wildshape or revert to human with them? Also, would the druid then have a missing arm in their original form? Was I wrong to let my friend play out her insane self-cannibalizing dream? If I wasn’t in the wrong for allowing it, was I wrong to impose the penalties I did? I await your judgment with baited, mushroom smelling breath.

Marissa

-Dice Christ confession- To Jakey Jake and the Pope Judges, I’m afraid I’ve committed a slight against dice Christ themself. I came from a big d&d group of 17 people and had very little playing time. When I did get to play and had subpar rolls I’d OCCASIONALLY fudge the rolls so I could be involved in the game, making rolls more interesting with the hope of catching my DM’s attention. I’m aware of my transgressions and have left the game and now DM for a much smaller group where my hands are free for the wondrous grace of dice Christ to speak through me if they deem me worthy.

Mark R

Oh great ones of Dice Christ, may I lay prostrate at your feet and kiss your rinky toes for I have sinned the most ultimate sin as a DM. I negated a hilariously certain TPK brought on by a player’s Nat 1. In our penultimate session of the first arc of our homebrew campaign, the party walked on a catwalk over a vast pit of highly unstable electrical stone called Electrum. They moved to face a mini-boss who blocked their way to the Big Bad. They rolled initiative, and in the first turn of the first round of combat, the party rogue told his monodrone companion to fly out over the pit and throw a javelin. The rest of the party laughed at the audacity of the move as they told the rogue it was a dumb idea. I agreed it was risky. The rogue insisted that it’ll be fine, then proceeded to roll a Nat 1 on his attack. The party erupted in laughter, then asked, “So, are we all dead then?” I didn’t want my campaign to end. I narrated that as the javelin headed straight for the pit of certain death, the Paladin’s goddess, Tymora (the goddess of Luck) reached into the material plane and nudged the javelin just enough for it to go skidding at the feet of the mini-boss. The party proceeded to be extra careful for the rest of the battle and took out the enemy. They moved on and seem fine with how it turned out, but I still have a pain in my heart, as I know I turned my back on Dice Christ and established a possible get out of jail free card for the party.

Katie P

To the holy priests of Dice Christ and the guy who opens their mail, I have a confession. I’m a beginner DM with a rampaging barbarian who intimidates all before him into utter mush, taking advantage of the low DC levels of our starter campaign (written for level 1-5) and squishiness of commoners. He’s been doing this for approximately 3 sessions, so today, when I saw he was going to start trouble at the bar, I instantly decided that the barkeep was going to be tough enough to take him. The problem is, I didn’t have any stats in front of me. So the player rolled a 16 to attack and I just said it missed. This seems to have started an internal crisis within the barbarian, which I think will create great character development, but it feels tainted knowing I pulled the barkeeper’s AC out of my ass. Oh holy disciples of Dice Christ, can I be forgiven for this impulsive sin?

Kacey

To the judges and Jim. (Or priests and Jack if this is more of a confession.) I started DM’ing my first game with my family, bro and sis in their 40s and Mom and Dad hitting 70. For their second session I had them trying to rescue a prisoner from a jail full of guards. My mom rolled a Nat 20 to convince the human guard to let her visit the prisoner, bypassing all of my air duct and guards rotation puzzles. But when the players had to fight the guards later, my mom chose to continue to play it cool acting like a regular visitor as robots attacked everyone. The fight progressed with the main robot nearly dead but still very deadly. It came to her turn as the robot was standing with its back to her, thinking she was a visitor. She chose to not break her cover and not do anything. My dad let out a very familiar and tense “Sigh, really? No, it’s fine you can do whatever you want I guess.” The robot’s turn came next and proceeded to crit on my dad as he was the player directly in front of him and hurt. The damage rolls would have absolutely killed him and it was already 10:30pm, not the best time to explain death saves. So the crit only hit for 6 HP points, allowing him to survive and not hold a grudge against his wife for their remaining years. Please forgive me, or not. “it’s fine you can do whatever you want I guess. “

Please Dont Look at Me

To the brilliant justices and the no-good bailiff Jank, I humbly submit not a case, but sworn testimony of a special witness. (Bows deeply) Although it has been some time since the crit has been plagued with a question concerning the dreaded subject of physics, I can not ignore how many tables are befuddled by the question of absolute vs relative positioning of spells such as banishment and silence. Thus, I endeavor to spare the crit forevermore from the headache of discussing how rope trick would work on a moon or if your hat would blow off in a moving car. I’m not going to explain my credentials because it would require talking more about math and I simply won’t. My proposal is this: any spell that affects a fixed point in space should impact a fixed point on the battle map. If a table plays theater of the mind, they can still imagine what the battle map would be. On a moving ship, the battle map is going to be the ship itself. In a battle with multiple moving ships, the battle map will be the larger water/air space surrounding the ships. If two ships are side by side moving 80 feet per round, the battle map is either long and skinny or just ignores the motion depending on how the combat is set up. Your point in space stays fixed to that spot of the battle map regardless of what moves in and out of that space within the map. Someone banished on a large moving airship will come back at their spot below deck. However, if you cast silence from the deck of one ship onto another, that ship may move out of the range of the silence. Will some people call this “immersion breaking” or “meta gaming?” Yes. But consider how much less annoying it is than pretty much every other argument. It keeps combat moving forward and is generally neutral in terms of favoring the DM or players. And the best part—no one has to talk about math or physics. I rest my case. (Curtsies)

Wizard of Weed(s)

To the Beautiful, and Well Endowed Justices, and the Okay looking, perfectly average Bailiff, I bring you a case of the “that wasn’t good enough” nat 20. I’m a first time DM, for an adventuring party of four. Our party departed down the Witches Road (ala Agatha all along) in which they would need to face four magical trials, to receive a great reward. During the trial of Water, I had my party cross a small bridge to reach an island; where the trial would take place. Being cheeky, I decided to have my party do a relatively easy dex check to cross the bridge, or fall into the water. My paladin failed, and fell in. What ensued was failed strength check, after failed strength check to rescue him. The party was laughing, and I was very entertained (rather proud my silly little dex check posed a random challenge). Eventually, my way of the ascendant dragon monk rolled a nat 20 to save the paladin! Hooray! I let him roll play the save, and went to continue on with the trial. Justices, would you believe my shock when my Monk looked at me, suddenly disappointed, and said “that’s it? I rolled a nat 20, shouldn’t something awesome happen other than just saving the paladin?” I didn’t know what to do, I told him that he did a really good job saving him, but that the water didn’t pose an actual threat, and I didn’t think that pulling the paladin out of the water warranted anything “special” especially since the dex check was just a goof. Should I have rewarded my monk with riches or blessings because he rolled a nat 20 on a goof save? Or should I award him an official cry baby point for just continuing on with the session (where they were victorious, and all received a magical reward anyways). I humbly accept your judgement (but not yours, Jake :( ) Thank you!!

Isaiah Everin

To the usually unerring judges, but not actually THAT bad (and that's what makes it so funny) bailiff Jake. I bring you the case of the jester's justice. Years ago, my group was playing Strahd. I was the party bard, and a silly one at that, but also the party face, making charisma checks that brought us many non-combat advantages. That brings us to the social situation in question. We had previously encountered werewolves enough times that one of our party members had become one. On talking to the mayor of a town, signs led my character to suspect that the mayor himself might be a werewolf. My attempts to use charisma to get the truth out of him failed. Letting this failure get to my character's head, I decided to play a funny prank. I juggled knives to impress the mayor and then pretended to slip and throw one. My logic was that a werewolf might heal faster, and we could uncover his supernatural nature. In response to his fury, I teleported outside his window and read his mind to confirm that he was, in fact, hiding his wound to hide that he's a werewolf. Judges, nobody liked that. My party, frustrated with these antics, had no interest in making excuses, doused me in wine, and called me a drunk. The mayor was furious and had me put in the stockades. I respectably took my punishment for the good of my party, but things continued! At least one of my party members was thrilled for animal excrement to be thrown at me in the stockades, and they continued to rib me in ways that felt more sincerely mean-spirited than building on the comedy of the situation. The session ended with me not just embarrassed in-game, but feeling upset in real life at how much my party members doubled down. Judges, were my party members in the clear to let out their frustrations on my bard, or should my accepting my punishment as it was have been enough to sate their lust for jester's justice? (PS - This is the only major social snafu that happened in years of playing with this group. I explained how I felt afterwards, the party members in question apologized, and we all admitted to getting lost in the tank between character feelings and IRL feelings. We're all good friends who generally know how to communicate like adults.)

Branchy

Heavenly Disciples of Dice Christ, I come with a confession. I fear I have traumatised my baby sister. A couple of years ago, I DM-ed a campaign for a bunch of my younger siblings. It was a fun one, but we had to cut it short due to some table disagreements (my brother’s only contributions to the game were yelling: “I am a catgirl! bend to my will!” and making fart noises, while my youngest sister scrolled Tiktok). A couple of months ago, me and my middle sister decided to give DnD another shot. Justices… please understand. I was very excited to play again. Whereas our first campaign was a wacky, sweaty adventure, our second turned into grimdark political intrigue, rife with intricate lore, betrayal, mystery and survival horror. Suffice it to say, it got a little away from me. Out of the 16 sessions that we played, my sister cried exactly 8 times (we counted). One time, I had revealed a twist that had her weeping so loudly (and for so long), I was worried our neighbours might come check on us. The other time, one of my descriptions literally gave her a nightmare. She is now extremely paranoid and believes I’m out to get her beloved NPCs. Nevertheless, my sister loves playing together and is always asking me when we can play next. Still, I worry about her hydration levels. Venerable priests, please, forgive my brutal ways and cleanse me! I promise to take it down a notch.

Brian Edwards

Nah, he failed the saving throw. That was all the justification you needed. You were in the right but it was smart to let it go with your compromise.

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

Gatoraiidd

I come here to the church of Dice Christ to exorcise a curse bestowed upon me in college. 10 years ago a new friend and classmate of mine asked if I wanted to try dnd and I’ve always wanted to try it but I grew up in the times of anything nerdy was uncool so only sports growing up. So I jumped at the chance went through character creation during class. On the fateful day of session 1 the group was going to meet up after everyone’s classes. …But the D1 volleyball captain asked me to hang out at her dorm with her and drink bacardi with her. I was a weak man then and blew off that session. Ever since that day anytime I’ve tried to play dnd again it would fall through. I ask this of Dice Christ, have I suffered enough after choosing to sin that night instead of receiving a d20 of your saving grace. Ps. We woke up on the football fields 50yd by a security guard dying laughing.

Mik

To the sweet and tangy judges of the court and the slightly sour bailiff snake, I present the case of Chat D&D. I DM a campaign for my partner and two of our close friends. Our friends are new to dnd, but have taken to it well and we all are having a ton of fun fighting kobolds, exploring the under dark, and booty calling my inherently hot npc’s. My case arises from one of my pc’s (the sorcerer) penchant for feeding her backstory/ my descriptions into ChatGPT. I am no artist and so when introducing new sigils or designs emblazoned throughout the world she feeds my descriptions into her computer pal and churns out a soulless often dull image of what I imagined. The kicker is her husband, the cleric PC, is a full blown graphic designer and talented artist. He often sketches down what I’m describing real time and produces an image seemingly pulled from the depths of my own mind for us all to reference. She even feeds her whole backstory into ChatGPT and asks to essentially monologue the gruel poured forth for us all to listen. I am no hater of collaboration, even going so far as to ask them multiple times to msg me about things like this so I can include them. My question is, should I outright ban this use of ai at the table? I’ve been pretty outright with my hatred for it as a concept and a product and the fact that she hasn’t yet picked up on the fact that I want nothing to do with ai seems a bit silly. I don’t want to single her out and make her feel uncomfortable or anything, but I also want her to understand that there’s a difference between collaborative storytelling and just a edgy YA hack of an AI monologue. P.S. I thought the problem would disappear after AI literally took her dream job away from her at a design company, but she has since used it twice in the weeks following.

Tyson

To the great and honourable judges and the new guy who was in an episode of 8-bit book club that one time. I come to you with a problem of D&D etiquette. Recently, I agreed to run a D&D one shot for a group of friends. Only one of these players have I ever DM'd for before and the other two have only played a small handful of times. We have been trying to run this game for months and have had numerous scheduling issues which has led one these friends to begin complaining and saying things like "D&D never happens" or "we'll never actually play" etc, which really brings the mood down when were trying to organize a date. Finally, we organized a day months in advance. That fateful day was supposed to be today. I had asked everyone to book it off and make sure they either had the day off work or any school work done before the day and since we had so long to plan it I figured it should be easy enough to clear our schedules. I was wrong. Despite me booking the day off work and ensuring any due dates were met for my school work, my friend who was always complaining about how "we weren't going to play" decided to buy a movie ticket to a show that would start while we were planning to play. I found this out last night and just kind of accepted it and said we'd need to move the session. Which led to this friend getting mad at me, telling me I should've run it as a two shot instead to accommodate his movie. I explained I work two jobs and am in university and don't really have time nor do I want the pressure of running another session. What shocked me was that another member of the party joined in and agreed that it was in fact my fault for not reminding my players earlier that we had D&D scheduled. Justices, I ask you, was I wrong? Should I have just run it as a two shot? Should I even bother rescheduling? I throw myself at your mercy.

Jordanne Stahl

I'm procrastinating my own homework right now by reading Court submissions and while I do not have the authority of the court I would advise you to stop rescheduling. You were not wrong. Some people are not good at scheduling and these are some of them.