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Callin' for Cases! (Patreon)

Published:
2025-10-27 15:47:16
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

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

Comments

Laura Balan

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

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

hobblelobble

Good tidings supreme crit justices- so-so tidings to the lowly bailiff jerome. I present to you the case of the enabled wreckoning (note the W, your honors). I play d&d at this board game shop where there's a DM that runs games for a lot of different people. I’m currently in a newly formed group for this new arc that's supposed to last for a while… my party has six players, four of us are between 4th and 7th level, and then we have two barbarians are 12th and 16th level… We just had our session zero where we did a test run of combat that did not go well at all. We were supposed to fight this wolf and help him out with a curse, but immediately the first round of combat one of our barbarians just killed this wolf outright and made it impossible to help with his curse because he was just dead. The death of the wolf attracted a DRAGON which was cr 28… me and the other low level players were immediately almost down by one of the dragon's breath weapon and had to be sent back to a safe place while the barbarians insisted that they keep on fighting the dragon. The DM is really strict with XP, so because the lower level PCs didn't stay til the end of the combat and we didn't get the full XP from the fight even… Is it fair for the DM to run our game this way? It feels like my only option is to go grind for XP with the other lower level players doesn’t sound fun or worthwhile... I await your ruling patiently, your sage advice knows no bounds.

Alex T

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

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.

Polly P

Submitted on behalf of Sarah C: To the Honourable Justices — and that other guy — I bring you the case of the sexist player and the awkward DM. I usually play D&D online, but I found a local board game cafe running one-shots and decided to give it a try. The table was me (female), three male players, and a male DM. The first hour went fine, and during our break before combat, we started chatting about other games. I mentioned I was in a Strahd campaign (go Triplets!) and another where the DM (female, thats important) had adapted Game of Thrones. She had assigned us each a Stark family member so we could play through the story (hopefully changing some plot points). One of the guys at the table then said — word for word — “Of course a woman would choose to run a story that’s already written. Something original would be too much hard work.” (Worth noting: this same guy had just said he was running Icespire Peak and was glad he didn’t have to make things up himself). I told him the she would be creating original content as we would be diverging from the original plot. He seemed annoyed I didn’t laugh at his sexist joke and doubled down by saying it sounded boring and pointless because we’d just do what the original characters did. Nobody else said anything. The table DM awkwardly said we should jump back into combat. I told him I wasn’t comfortable, but the DM just urged me to keep playing and to forget about it. Instead, I left and ended up emailing the café the next morning. So, Justices — should I have expected the DM or other players to step in, or was it not on them to help?

Null

To the disingenuous justices, and the effervescent bailiff, I present to you The Case of the Fudged Resume. I ran a 6-month campaign with a table of five newish players (for 3 of them it was their very first exposure to DND). I had assembled the table, and we ran a homebrew time travel campaign. The players had an absolute blast, we had epic moments, funny ones, hard fights and easy ones. Memorable NPCs, adopted fey wild dogs of questionable moral alignment, the whole works. We met every week at the comic shop, and by the end our table had grown from multiple people who sat in to watch and ended up joining us. Now it’s time for a new campaign, and I have two tables and a waitlist and I am having a blast running them. Here’s the thing: I never specifically SAID that I had a lot of DM experience. I certainly intimated it and just never corrected anyone who mentioned my “experience”. I’ve played for about 3 years, and I did DM like 3 one-shots beforehand, but I was not the experienced DM that I sold myself as. I throw myself on the mercy of the courtesans, should I now confess to my players that I was also learning a lot as we played, or should I just stick to what is apparently working for everyone?

MyrMonkshood

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

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?

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 me 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?

One Sexy Grinch

To the honorable and sensual judges, and the bailiff with a humiliation kink: I present to you the case of unnecessary information. In a session one for a campaign years ago, one of the characters (a male half elf paladin) asked to flirt with a male guard to distract them so we could sneak past. The dm then launched into his games lore that half elves could not reproduce because they were like mules, the biproduct of two different species. No one said anything and the paladin just asked the same question again. The dm let them role but seemed uncomfortable with the role playing aspect of the scene and mostly skipped past it. My question is: were we the players right to be weirded out or was that somehow relevant information to the paladins request? Additional testimony: there was never a second session and I am now no contact with everyone but one other player from that party. Also the dm was my brother.

Barely Competent Roll-Players

To the suave and sexy judges and the large man baby bailiff who is my name twin. I bring forth thr case of the wereraven playing NEVERMORE. This was 5 years ago but still bothers me to this day. This was the 2nd pc I ever got to play after dming for 8 years. I was playing a chaotic goblin warlock who worshiped the raven queen in the curse of strad campaign. In a town we met were-ravens that I convinced to turn me into one since we both served the raven queen and it fit the astatic. I was warned the 1st time I turn I might lose control and go into a lawful good rampage. I told the party and we were all good with that. Fast forward to the first full moon a few days later. We are sneaking through castle ravenloft to find key information. I begin to turn in the castle. I roll a save and was blessed with dice Christ's favor with a nat 20! Which the dm ruled I got full control over the transformation! I tell the party this but they tackle me and cram my goblin into a bird cage "just incase". I lost the athletic check as a warlock would. I thought it was funny for the first 15 minutes but it got boring after 30. I asked to be released and they would tell me no I might be lying. Even when they rolled insight to see that I wasn't they wouldn't let me out of the cage cause they found it funny which the dm didn't stop them since this was his first time dmimg and nervous to ruin the fun. It lasted the entire session where they used me like I was an item to cast spells and shook me if I didn't. I didn't get released till the next session when we had left the castle. The worst part we only played a few more games after before the game fell apart because 2 of the 4 players moved away and I never got to be a part of the exploration of the castle the one time we were in it. Was I wronged to be forced into a cage when I succeeded the saves because it was funny? Or was my party/dm right to keep me trapped in the cage cause it was funny... even after only getting to be a player twice in 8 years?

Grace Holland

Dear our most honorable judges and the beatific bailiff, 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

Emily Bocchino-Rojas (Emily BR)

For the beautiful full length, high waisted pants that are the justices, and the little daisy duke bailiff Jort I present to you the case of: attack of the babies 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 a fresh Newly 30

InternationalAssassinKevinHarvey

Good day good Justices and that guy who presumably drives everyone to set with the golf cart. Today I bring you the case of “I wiped my ass with it and threw it off a cliff”. I started DM’ing for a few of my friends recently. One of them, more of a friend of a friend, asked if he could get a could play a Warlock, that gets an ancestral sword that could level up alongside him as the campaign went on, also being his patron. So I did just that, and made a bunch of features for the sword that activate upon certain level ups: 4, 8, 12, 16, 20. Also, as it was a sentient sword with the personalities of its former wielders sealed within it, adding a social dynamic to the weapon by having them argue with family tradition directly. So, we get to session 6 or 7, and after beating the boss of a crime syndicate, the group found many items and weapons in his gang’s loot. The Warlock asked, “is there any good weapon I can take?” I told him something like, well yes, but nothing as good as your sword. The next level up for his weapons would happen at level 4 about 3-4 sessions from now. That said, he was consistently dealing the most damage of any party member with Eldritch Blast and his sword. I could visibly see the annoyance on his face that he could not get a cool weapon like everyone else. I suggested he could look for cool armor or special items around the keep, but he wasn’t interested. He sat in near silence for the last 20 minutes of the game as everyone figured out their new equipment. Then he left with everyone. I reached out before the next session to see what we could do to fix this, but he didn’t respond to any of my messages. Finally, the next session comes around, and he shows up. Before we start proper, another one of our group asked very pronounced, and very rehersedly, “Hey, so what happened to that magic sword you had?” To which the Warlock replied, “Well I wiped my ass with it and threw it off a cliff.” The Warlock and the other player laughed and snickered, but the other 2 players and I sat there silent. I must say Judges and driver I was mortified, and upon asking more probing questions, realized that the player had no want to keep with the backstory I had set for them, or the many characters I had prepared for them within the sword. The other player also apparently gave them weapons they picked up the session prior, decided behind my back. After processing this, I just ignored his backstory for this session, and ended a bit early. The Warlock and the other player left without saying anything further to me. Judges, golf cart chauffeur, not 1, but 2 players made pivotal decisions behind my back, even when I asked for input. I think I just have to bite the bullet and say this lack of trust they have in me, and now I in them, means they can’t play in my game anymore. Is there anything I’m missing here, because it just feels shitty.

Emily and Lauren

To the honorable crit justices, the most exhausted wife worm, and hardworking bailiff jorn(?) I present the case of the rage quitting dm. I was a forever DM until one of my friends said they wanted to run a campaign where I could finally play a PC! I created a Cryptid hunting YouTuber named Beauty Montgomery who was really two kids in a trench coat Beau an Ty. I feel in love my with little bard and my fellow players and I were excited to play. Our dm had consistently tried to TPK our party and not tell us the goal of our campaign so it was hard to find out what we had to do. The last session we played, we were going through a labyrinth where we split up. I had built my bard with high perception since he was always hiding his identity as two kids. We made it a point to say we were creating a map and using message to communicate between the party. When we mentioned retracting our steps to meet up- our Dm asked our how we got back. I repeated the turns we took from our map and was told that without anyone knowing the path has been changing with mechanical cogs and we were all lost. I asked why would my character with an 18 passive perception wouldn’t have noticed the sounds of the maze changing without a roll. This line of questions ended with our dm yelling and rage quitting the zoom. When I texted later explaining I didn’t mean to cause this I just felt like i was being set up to fail not because the dice but because information was being withheld, I was told they wanted to surprise us and they couldn’t have handled it any better. Ever since then-they canceled the campaign and my poor Beauty Montgomery has not been able to be played in almost two years. Was I in the wrong for asking for a roll which ended the whole campaign for everyone?

Panner_Samuel

Dear Gods of the Dice and Lowly Lowly Lowly Lowly Jake, My name is Sam and I present you the case, of The 15 Year Old Wizard. Not only did this wizard once blow me up with a fire ball whenever I was on death saves, but when we got to our BBG which was a giant purple dragon, he put two bags of holding together and proceeded to blow it up whenever we all wanted to fight. Our DM ended up rewinding it, allowing us to actually fight like the adventures we had spent two YEARS OF OUR LIFE BECOMING, and he got mad and left the table saying he "already won and we were being weird." Were we all wrong to be annoyed by this child or should we have shoved him into a bag of holding? Please let me know!

seda

No submission and I won’t write spoilers but you should put on trial what happened to Murph on Cloudward, Ho! finale 😂

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.

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. 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 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.

kyle crim

Update on the Ballin Dm! Howdy howdy, thank you so much for the advice you guys gave me. I was able to get in contact with the president of the dnd club at my school and got the date changed to Sunday, the one day the basketball team has off, and have been going since the start of the term. It was awkward at first like I said I’m not the best at meeting new people, but me and my small dwarf cleric, Kleebo, have settled in quite nicely. They are even going to let me run my one shot I wrote for my friends last year in honor of the final Stranger things season this November. Thank you Judges and the Baliff for giving me great advice and all the nice comments I got as well! Ps shoutout Jake’s Substack, shit is fire.

DowdMusic

To these absolute knobs, May it challenge the court and upset the power they wield. I bring you the case of "WTF High Crit, you got a problem with me?" I have written in in the past for your assistance and all you do is punish me. My players fill up a bag with bombs - my fault. My player brings and OP, roided out, charisma laden God bird to the scrub match - my fault. My players name them selves all Tyler - not only my fault - but justice Murphy says he must make an example of me and creates the first NADDPOD precedent in my name. Furthermore, Justice/ Lowly lowly lowly bailiff Axeford openly stated on record she wished to torment me. I have clearly been targeted and I demand retribution from this kangaroo court. I ask YOU NADDPOLES if this tyranny should continue. Good day. P.S. I don't even like this show. P.P.S. I will settle for Emily's 1st ugly mug, that unfortunately sounds extremely delightful

Prof

To the honorable judges Tanner and the Axfords and to jake who is here I bring you the case of the insane robot I ran a Star wars campaign a few years back using SW5e and it was a lot of fun, during character creation one of my friends (who is known for making insane characters) asked to play a droid specifically a magna guard barbarian, I hesitantly said yes. Com session 1 he had 6 reactions, resistance to all damage and 36 AC. I was in fact concerned, this was a level 10 campaign but that's crazy. He explained that it is perfectly legal the rule book is just easy to abuse I said you have 22 AC and vulnerability to shock, he said that's fair and we had a blast, judges since the I have razed him on it and he has exclaimed still that it's legal, so I ask shall I keep razing or is it just the systems fault? p.s. he said he's down to send an explanation of his build

Benjamin Lashbrook

Forgive me justices, for I have sinned. I was DMing for a group of friends, and all of them were first timers but I was a nervous DM (I'd only been a player before). One of my players, a psychic frog wizard, tried to use magnify gravity to collapse the ceiling on an enemy and I laughed at her. I did not let her do it and she still talks about it. Kill me or sacrifice my soul if you must.

Sovash Chetty

Oh Our Lord that art in Saving Throws. Hallowed be his Crits. I come to you with my sins as a DM. I've recently started an in person game. I roll important rolls in front if the Board. I rolled one if those difficult to read dice for my Dragons saving throw. When I said aloud: "Is that a nat 1?" The entire table erupted into cheers and elation. When I picked up the dice it was a actually a 7. The Dragon would have saved. I couldn't bring myself to tell them the truth. Am I beyond saving? Should I hang up the Crown of DM stars? I seek your forgiveness Dice Christ.

Angelica

Salutations delightful justices and dashingly handsome bailiff jerome (or whatever it is), i present the case of the nearly beloved npc. i ran a westmarch for about six months, during which i and my other dms vetted characters to make sure they were appropriate for the world and setting. after a character that we will call electro fairy was accepted, she quickly went to the tavern where the main quest giving npc was. he was basically a living job board and was how i would assign most quests and double check that players were acceptable. this character, a retired rogue and old tabaxi man, was beloved by everyone who met him… except for the shock fairy. she was incredibly rude to him and made a mess in his tavern, so he kicked her out and i informed her that she’d have a much harder time finding jobs due to that. that player then went on to have a melt down and rally several other players to harass me over dms, at which point i decided to end the westmarch because i didn’t want to run such a high stress game for players who were being dicks to me over someone’s poor roleplay choice that i had warned them against. i ask the honourable court, am i the asshole?

Dylan C

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

Chase Thompson

Hi Jake and the other 3 decision makers, I have the trial of the hacking player who left my table. I have begun running a homebrew Lancer campaign that combines D&D elements with Lancer, featuring a few people from my campus. This is my second time DM’ing this campaign, as the first ended due to scheduling. In this group, the player in mind is Hacker who built their character to hack and disable enemies from afar. He and a few of my other players came to a head when during the first boss fight, Hacker and another player were having trouble dealing with an invisible enemy. At this moment, some of the other players began to make fun of Hacker for only hacking and not dealing damage. In the end, they win the fight but Hacker sends me a message saying how he will be leaving the party due to being jumped on for hacking. However, Hacker also suggested I throw the players into a fight that will kill them to ‘teach them a lesson on strategy’. So I ask should I have stepped in to stop this razzing?

Tim Rinehart

Hi Jake and those other jerks, (yeah that's right, I'm pro-Jake) I present the case of the fudged roll. I've been playing D&D since I was a teenager playing 3.5 and my then-DM always was pretty forgiving about people making stupid rolls and not going for player kills in combat. When I had an opportunity to bring a few new folks into the hobby and start my own group during lockdown, I jumped on it and applied a similar philosophy. However, as time has worn on, my players are saying that my reluctance to go for blood in favor of letting them have a good time is "not as fun" as characters having to die. So I ask, friends of Jake, should I get aswinging on some PCs or should I keep doing my thang?

NobodyWrites

To the esteemed judges, the grinch, the druncle, and the worm wife, im running out of time. I am running an arch in my long running home game heavily based on the dragon elf chronicles and my players killed a brass dragon. I helpfully reminded my artificer player that he could harvest some materials from the dragon to make into items. The paladin, a 46 year old lokatha named Chud, cut in quickly saying he would like to harvest the "dragon vanilla". I asked what he meant and he gave me a detailed description of where artifical vanilla comes from. I told him he couldent and he rolled anyways, got a 5, and I told him he failed to get any "dragon vanilla". He has vowed to try again and im terrified that he will try this on the main boss dragon. How do you suggest i stop him if I even can.

Gabagooblin

To the most exalted justices and the most eviscerated bailiff, I appear in court today to advocate pro bono on behalf of another in need of justice. My friend's boyfriend's sister's boyfriend was recruited to play in a DnD group by a guy who was teaching him how to lift at the gym (charging $1200 for three sessions, if the court finds that relevant). The guy DMed for the group, and the Boyfriend had never played before. In their first session, the DM looked visibly upset after Boyfriend introduced his paladin character and ended up killing him mid session, saying afterward that they hated the character and instructing him to make his next character a fighter. Boyfriend kept playing with them, but recently the DM asked if they could play on Wednesday instead of Saturday. Boyfriend said that would work for him better anyway, and after being questioned by the DM said it was because he had a conflict that Saturday. The DM decided that it was unacceptable that he would have wanted to prioritize real life, cursed his cat, kicked him out of the group, and blocked him. Prioritizing DnD has not previously been an issue in this group, as during a recent session they didn't even start playing for hours after the start time because some of them were playing Magic the Gathering instead. Your Honors, I seek justice for this innocent new player banished from the fold just as quickly as he was welcomed to it.

Adam C

Hello justices and the Galant and beautiful bailiff. My D&D game was ruined by a duck. We initially befriended a duck in the Campaign. The DM then surprised the table the next week by buying a real life duck and presenting it to the crew! We all loved it. Except for his house mates, who the DM neglected to inform he was buying not only one, but 3 ducks of varying sizes. Judges they did not live near a lake or any other kind of body of water. This caused tension and fighting amongst the house mates that the table ended! I ask you, who is at fault? The housemates for refusing to live with ducks? Or the DM for thinking the purchase of water fowel would be a good idea unprompted. I humbly and eagerly await to hear your decision!

Rainemaker

O grand Bishops of Dice Christ and also Jake who is a Rook at best, i have sinned against a promise of faerie treachery. No dice we're rolled but I still feel bad about it all these months later, even if my players did not notice my wrongdoing. During a session in the fey wilds, my party had been tasked with gaining the favor of the four archfey of the realm to band together for the first time in eons to plant the seed of Yggdrasil, the world tree, whose roots grow deep enough to bind the fae and material plane together. One of the archfey, wished for a simple trade— the first child of someone in the party. I had been seeding this for months, having had them go on a side quest to save a young tiefling girl that was run out of town. Even out of character between sessions I asked the players what they thought of the girl, and the majority vote was "it's a free daughter." However, during my first pass, I was so excited, I slipped up and said the fey wanted "their first born" rather than "their first child" I brushed past it and a player did try to call me on it, but I pretended my verbal slip.never happened. There was a tearful farewell, where Ana the Tiefling thought she was being abandoned for the second time by her second family. Betrayal. Hurt. Drama. All the good stuff. Was I okay for editing my verbology and pretending I said something else that I had been planning for months? Or have I broken a faerie pact that's bound to send my soul to faerie hell?

TeamLouie

To the esteemed cutie patooties and the (adjective) bailiff (name) I come asking for your judgement on a case where I was playing a bard and we had to face our greatest fear. In my case, it was an older version of myself that never made it as a magician while my parents watched on, disappointed. At one point, my character cast Hypnotic Pattern on my older self and monologues about how stupid this all was. The opponent was supposed to be an immobilized, but the GM said that he could still perform bonus actions and therefore kept attacking me with vicious mockery, and doing damage. In the end, I ended up winning but I ask you this. Should the GM have continued to make bonus actions and attack with vicious mockery or was I wronged in my battle against myself? I humbly await your judgment.

Taylor

Honored justices and bailiff that I actually think is pretty cool, I bring to you the case of the grudge I have been nursing for like six years. In high school, I played in a game with all the nerds that could be rounded up out of the marching band and the church youth group. The only other girl in the group, who bullied me and my now husband in a whole bunch of unrelated ways, had a particularly annoying dnd habit. She never remembered which dice to roll and would always ask the DM in a way that I found to be irritatingly flirty. This especially annoyed me because he had a girlfriend and she had already dated a different guy at the table and lowkey strung along my now husband for a while. I felt like, after years of playing, she should know when to roll a d20. But I never called her out or said anything about it. Is it fair that I'm still mad about it, or should I forget about it and just be mad at her for all the other stuff she did?

Peyton Raber

Oh malevolent justices and bailiff Joshua u beseech you to listen to my tale of character abandonment. My first ever character was a monk and was often bullied by my “friends” as the other players during our games. These things ranged from jacking off my monk’s horse with mage hand, stealing my monk’s deck of playing cards, stealing my cut of the gold of missions, and even leaving him abandoned in the cold stone floor of a dungeon after being killed by a stone golem and stripped of all of his belongings including his clothes without even a hint of remorse. This has caused me to have poor memories of my first DnD experience and I often find myself not wanting to admit that the monk was my first character and even lie and say it was a completely different one. I ask you dear judges, should I try to forget about my first character and that aweful experience or should I try to take pride in him still? (P.S. Murph, I have gotten new friends)

Nathaniel F

To the honorable, esteemed, Baliff Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz, the ok judges, and the lowly Ryan Smurfy, I bring to you the case of the backtracking DM. Some years ago, in our first campaign together in the Icewind Dale, we helped a Wizards simulacrum become a real boy. His Wizard prime started an illusion-made-real machine, that our wizards and artificer fixed with amazing rolls. We tested it, of course, on the illusion of a pile of platinum bars, which worked, so we then made the wizard real. Bonus, we were rich in the desolate north where it meant little. However! On our trek back to town, we are told the bars are disappearing- they, but not the wizard, have a half life. So we book it. But not before a little devil with French mustache pops out of our wizards watch (never happened before). It was certainly a delay tactic and weak foreshadowing. We make it to the bank. We strike a deal to launder money with the teller, who goes to put money in the bank portal. Then the devil shows up, shoves the teller in the portal, and seals them both away. The bank, years later in game and real life, is still figuring it out. Please. Help us get our money back. Our characters formed a guild that most of our campaign characters are connected to, and we could really use the funding to expand. Thank you.

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?

Sam Hacking

To the honourable justices and jort, hardly a case but I beg for your input. My favourite fellow PC has started using Ai to write lines for his character and I don't know how to tell him to stop. A few months ago he started playing a new character (a bard) in our long running campaign and I learned that my friend was using chat gpt to take notes during session. Since then it's become more aparent that the flavour text of his spells, in game storytelling, and generally all creative decisions are being assisted by ai. He has even gone so far as to read off pre written Monologues for multiple minutes. I don't love this addition, as my friend is an excellent roleplayer and hadn't used Ai for the first few years we played together. But he claims this all helps him write easier and develop ideas. I don't want to tell someone else how to play their character. But I fucking hate Ai. I await your wise words and thank the court for your precious time.

Red Hering

To the treat judges and the trick baliff jake o lantern, i present you the case of the parent trap. I run a weekly campaign for 2 friends and my partner. I set up one encounter whete the Big bad kidnapped one of my players parents and hung them in seperate cages over a cliff. The big bad raised a knife and told them they have 1 minute to decide who to spare from the fall or theyll drop both. I then started my stopwatch. I waited 1 full minute as my players panicked coming up with a plan and when the clock hit zero, the big bad dropped both. My partner argued they should have rolled initative or given them more of a heads up it was exactly one real minute. I ask you fair judges, was i right to use real time to raise the stakes or should i given my players more leeway with a heada up or initiative. Her rope and mine are in your hands!

Fitz

To the judicious, juicy judges and the ever-caked-up bailiff, I bring before you the case of New Dad in a Dungeon. My friend and I have been adventuring through the same campaign for two years now. We play on Discord and use Roll20 for our battles and maps. When we started, my wife wasn’t even pregnant but since then, we’ve welcomed twin boys into the world. Most of the group has been understanding when I occasionally need to step away for a diaper change or bottle duty. Everyone, that is, except our Dungeon Master. He often makes snide comments or seems irritated when I can’t respond immediately. The most recent example happened while I was on camera, holding and feeding both of my boys. I was describing my turn, and he interrupted with, “Well, how about you move your token so you can get in range?” Everyone could clearly see I had my hands full ,literally, and I was stunned. Thankfully, my best friend moved my token for me. The moment really stuck with me. It left a bad taste in my mouth, but I love this group and don’t want to quit. So, judges how can I make my DM understand just how hard juggling childcare and adventuring can be?

An_Armed_Bear

To the Honorable Justices and the Bailiff with good action movie taste, I come with a case of silly character naming. A few years ago, I played in a campaign set in an alternate history U.S.A where magic was introduced to the world during the post-Civil War Reconstruction. It was a fun campaign overall, but one player always felt a little out of place. He came with a Goblin Assassin Rogue named Jeckson Blurn, who he claimed "was based heavily on Jason Bourne". However, his character wound up being purely comic relief, doing nothing that one would consider Bourne Behavior whatsoever. Overall the campaign went well and while Jeckson had a habit of cracking jokes during serious moments and still didn't know how to add his attack bonus by the end of the campaign, he was never a problem player. However, I believe if you are going to go for the reference character then you should fully commit to the bit. Should Jeckson have been more like his inspiration, or was he right to deviate from the iconic action hero?

Britney

Esteemed justices and honorable bailiff (are we being nice today?), I bring you a fun little in-the-weeds rules case. My D&D group has been playing a very old campaign that was originally adapted from 2e (to 3.5 and then 5e). My party and I were exploring a dungeon when we encountered a dangerous magical enchantment. I asked the DM if I could dispel it and he said, “you can try.” Great! I cast a standard third level dispel magic and he says I have to roll a spellcasting check because it’s higher than third level. I roll a 14 and the DM sighs, “ah, you missed it by 1.” After some more poking around we realize there’s no way around the enchantment so I decide to burn a 5th level slot to cast another dispel. I assumed that with a DC 15 spellcasting check, a 5th level Dispel Magic would automatically work, no roll required. So I cast the 5th level Dispel Magic, and the DM still asks me to make the spellcasting check to see if it is successful. I double checked with him because typically a dispel just works if its the same level as the spell or higher, and he said, “the module just says DC 15 and doesn’t specify anything different for upcasting the spell.” I rolled so badly on my spellcasting checks that I (the party’s only full caster) burned 3 high level slots before finally dispelling the enchantment. Should my DM have honored the higher level casting? Or am I a bit salty about taking a metagaming gamble that didn’t pay off?

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

Jose Mercado Ortiz

To the highly esteemed judge’s and Jill’s live-in manny: Should moms be allowed to move? Our forever-DM was feeling a bit burnt out, so another player offered to run a level 3 one-shot for the group. I built a Way of the Dragon monk heavily inspired by Tarragon and I was having a blast roleplaying through the session. The issue came when it was time for combat. We were facing off against some goons and I was third in the initiative order. Another one of my party members used their bow to deal good damage to the enemy closest to me. When it came to my turn, I used my Attack action to punch the guy, and I followed up with a Flurry of Blows to finish him off. However, he died to the first unarmed attack of my Flurry of Blows, so I decided to use my movement to get to the next closest enemy and use the second strike from my ability. Here’s the problem: The DM firmly stated that you cannot move at all between Flurry of Blows strikes. He said that the wording of the ability uses the word “Immediately” meaning that it has to happen right in that instant without any other actions occurring. Crestfallen, I accepted his interpretation and moved on, but our forever DM chimed in and said “Are you fucking, stupid? That is the most idiotic way I’ve ever heard someone interpret a rule.” I said it was ok and that we could just go on with the session, but the foreverDM kept arguing about how dumb the ruling was and the situation escalated to the point where the session ended and we never played together again. So I ask you judges: should monks be allowed to move between Flurry of Blows unarmed strikes or should they remain static and lose their second blow?

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.

Nicolas R

To the timeless and just judges and whoever they have guest starring as the bailiff this week, I bring something of a novelty, or perhaps the opposite. I bring a case from the 1970's, of my own father's account. Mind you, many of the customs that are second nature to us now were far from set in stone at the time. This story begins with a new student in my dad's middle school class. My dad and his friend were already playing dnd regularly, so when they heard this kid played in the town that he moved from, the group invited him over for a session. While initially excited to play with someone outside of their immediate friend group, they were then blindsided by the new kids character. He had brought a character from his campaign back home, who was Lv 15 and wielded a +3 vorpal sword in first edition. My dad's group was around level 5. To clarify, the vorpal sword at this point has an ability to instantly behead ANY creature if the wielder rolls a crit. Everything the dm prepped was dead in 30 minutes, at which point the new kid just left the dm's house with a lukewarm goodbye and my dad never talked to that kid again.

Jer

To the honorable judges and the guy handling paperwork, I come forward with the forced wait-to-play. I am a new player to a longtime group. We play weekly games with the occasional one-shot on weeks players cannot play. The current game has been going for nearly 3 years and we are approaching the finale. As this approaches the discussion of the next DM and his campaign was hardly discussed, as it was decided before I began in the group, roughly 5 months back. It was assumed I was included in the new game and other players have discussed with me their characters and asked about mine to make sure our new party is balanced. Turns out the DM to-be does not plan on including me in their game. Every other player at the current table is included in the new game and one other player has been added (making the player count 5), while I was excluded. I spoke with him and he said that he does not have a problem with me, but more with DMing 6 players and i can wait until one of the players leaves (they plan to go to bootcamp a few months after the game begins). He has also said he loves hanging out with me and hopes i still attend the sessions until I can begin playing. I have done some playful razzing of the soon to be DM to let me play, but to no avail. Judges, i am at a loss. Do i attend these sessions and sit quietly waiting for my turn to play or stop attending all together? I am truly lost, I love this group and spent many years looking for a group I enjoy to get into this group, but am I doomed to be cucked.

The Fun Yaunt

I’m submitting this on behalf of Jessie A (who introduced me to NADDPOD)! To the wise justices and honorable bailiff, My beloved husband and DM likes to make background music playlists for our campaign. His tavern playlist includes multiple Tchaikovsky pieces from Nutcracker and “Libiamo” from La Traviata. He insists this is not weird. Other players have called the choices “interesting” and I have told him it is bizarre to play DND to La Traviata. He says “Libiamo” is a literal drinking song so it’s perfect. I say it’s in Italian and it’s still weird. And I’m sorry, but the Nutcracker overture is not “high elf vibes”! Obviously he can do what he wants but am I wrong?

Sammy

Oh illustrious justices and baby bailiff Joke, I write to you with an UPDATE in the case of the Inept DM Wingman. You may recall that I ran a one-shot to set up my friend, Ingrid, with our mutual friend Riley's brother-in-law, Karl (I promise that this confusing web of relationships is relevant). Ingrid and Karl did not kindle a romance from that game. In fact, your main ruling was that Karl sounded rad and we should leave him alone. My update is that although Karl and Ingrid did not get together based on Riley's and my matchmaking shenanigans, Ingrid DID get with another player AT THAT VERY TABLE: Riley's brother Taylor. Turns out that Taylor had met Ingrid before through Riley, and the D&D session solidified his interest. He asked Ingrid out not long after, and they've been together ever since! They even did an escape room as one of their first dates, so Murph is right that puzzles really do bring people together. I was initially worried that trying to set up Ingrid with one of Riley's family members only for her to end up with another one would be weird, but Karl was truly so oblivious to the matchmaking that it hasn't been an issue. Ingrid and Taylor are a great couple and going strong after several months, so I guess I can stop calling myself an Inept Wingman DM.

Elizabeth G

Hello Honorable Justices, long time listener first time plaintiff, I present for your judgment The Case of the Unfortunate Gust of Wind. This incident took place roughly 10 years ago, so please forgive me if a few details are hazy. My sister and I had just discovered D&D, and she decided to run a game for me and a couple of friends. Our party was exploring a cavernous dungeon when our ranger tumbled into a pit. The pit led to a chamber that, unlike the rest of the stone corridors, was lush and overgrown with plant life. Before we could regroup, a pair of monsters emerged from the plants and attacked. The ranger hurled an alchemist fire at the creatures, missed, and instead ignited the surrounding plants. The flames spread quickly and we chose to make a quick retreat up a rope. I was playing a gnome cleric of the Air Domain named Lasagna Toes who worshipped the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Being new to D&D and unfamiliar with all my spells, I decided Gust of Wind might blow out the flames—or at least slow them—giving everyone time to escape. My sister, as DM, ruled that the spell fanned the fire instead, making things worse. The party still managed to get out without too much damage, but I was disappointed. Had I known that gusting wind would spread the fire, I would have tried something else entirely. And so, esteemed judges: am I right to still feel a spark of disappointment about this ruling after all these years? Or was my sister entirely fair, and should I simply let this one be carried away by the breeze?

Lemonlimepickle

To the Jubilant Judges, and Jalif Jack, What do you do when AI absorbs a player? I have been the DM for a campaign for almost 3 years now, playing the book module out of the abyss, think demons, the underdark, creepy stuff. Because we play theatre of the mind I always get players at the beginning of a session to do a recap, and give an in-character fact, to think about their characters One player has struggled creatively, coming up with facts about their character, and slowly turned to AI to make up facts for them. As a DM I let it slide, so that it didn't put too much pressure on them. When they started to use AI for the session recaps, I tried to tell them to use their own notes not AI, so they can be immersed in the game like the other players. However this came to ahead when in the middle of combat against some particularly powerful demons, they said 'AI has told me this is what my character should do' I was floored, the rest of the players were confused. She said she often struggles to think of what to do in the moment, so she has started getting AI to give suggestions of what she should do. I think she still enjoys playing with us, but the rest of the table is confused why let a computer play your game for you? Should I have stopped this at first instance of AI, or is the player using AI to play their character, just what their character does now? Any advice or punishment is welcome, unless it's handed out by Jalif Jack Lemon

Luke Polito

To the fair and honorable justices and the just okay bailiff Jabe, I present the case of Warforged Table Flipping. During covid I was running a Zoom campaign with some friends, as you do. The group arrived at the camp of the revolutionary leader they were sent to hunt for a not-so-secretly evil Aarakokran senator. They were surrounded and taken in for a parley dinner where the revolutionary group would make their case and the party would choose what faction to side with for the next leg of the campaign. This dinner was set up at a viking-style longtable seating about 60+. During the dinner the Warforged "I want to be iron man" player decided to try to flip the table and set off a battle because of some perceived slight. I asked if he was sure and reminded him not only of the number of surrounding revolutionaries, but also that the table was a solid wood massive longtable and probably weighed hundreds of pounds, being a nearly impossible feat of strength for him. He said he was sure, failed the athletics check and became restrained by 2 of the guards, leaving the rest of the party to attempt to diffuse the now very tense situation. The warforged player seemed deflated or annoyed that he couldn't flip the table dramatic-style, but it was a physical and social impossibility for it to go well. The campaign fizzled out a few sessions after, probably unrelated but who can say. To this day, I don't know if I handled it right. Should I have punished this brazen action more or less? Should I have made the longtable constructed of several shorter tables behind the screen? It weighs on my soul, justices, because I don't think my friend was having fun. Justices, if ye see me at fault I will take my sentencing, and if Dice Christ commands I will repent.

Goodnight Burrito

To the esteem Justices and also bailiff…. I wanna say Barf? I present to you the case of the Plane Shift One-shot. I was playing a Sorcerer and the DM is my best friend. It was all well and good, but the biggest issue was that the DM had 23 NPCs that were practically gods, and the PCs were just kind of there. This was a contributing factor to the campaign falling apart. To give us some closure on our characters, our DM planned a sort of one-shot for each of our characters. Unfortunately, each of these one-shots also revolved around one of the super powerful NPCS we didn’t care about. For this one-shots, knew what I was getting into: little bit of roleplay, then a combat. I levelled up my Sorcerer as instructed, and picked some good high damage spells in preparation. The first round of combat, my character failed a save and I was teleported to the Astral sea. Sucks but okay. My turn comes up again, and I ask if I can attempt the save again and was informed that there was no other save and my DM asked me if I had stocked plane shift. Justices, I had not. Why would I when I knew we would be walking directly into a combat. So my character was stuck in another plane of existence, I was entirely out of combat. I was annoyed, so I said goodbye to the party kind of abruptly and left the zoom call. Was I wrong for leaving when my character wouldn’t ever be able to get back? Or should I have stuck it out and listened to my friends play dnd for another 2 hours?

Bagofchips123

Dearest most hunkiest bailiff and the 8 bit book club people who are hunkier, I present the case of the questionable bunny janitor. So my crew was repelling down a huge hotel on fortune cookie island. As they got to the 13th floor, my player Ave Ridge (pun on average) decided to stop repelling and smash back into the hotel, at the same time, Philip the bunnyman also did this but on the 9th floor. On Philips turn, he got a mop and pretended to be a janitor and made it successfully to the elevator. On the 1st floor, there were 1d12 of police, I rolled a 5. The police were investigating suspicious magic individuals so they questioned Philip and he failed his deception check. My catman DMPC Archibald also made it and decided to start combat by shooting because I knew the police were suspicious and were gonna try and capture them. I wanted the crew to get into a police chase, so I was gonna give them time to GTFO. Ave comes down and tackles Archibald after he shot his gun. I said for Ave to give a deception check as well and he failed, the police knew these were the individuals. They had to capture the players, but I gave them a lot of opportunities to avoid it mechanics wise. Aves player was pissed that Archibald started shooting and thus was pissed at me for railroading. Judges did I railroad a bit too hard to get my players into an epic chase I had planned, or should the crew realize that they failed the deception checks and were indeed the suspicious magic individuals.

Kingofanchovies

Dear Bourne like justices and the not Bourne bailiff I present the case of The stoned tabaxi I was a young sorcerer and I missed part of a session and came in late and things were dire I was being caressed by a water monster who was currently digesting our tabaxi rogue who had failed one death save, I had my favorite spell left Thunderwave level 1 and I was thinking they take damage each round so they die on their next turn no matter what. so I used Thunderwave to push them out so they still had a chance to make three other saves or for druid to heal. Unfortunately they failed the death save and rolled on the fey wild effect table(witch light campaign) and got turned to stone. After many emotional moments and the warlock sacrificing their sister to their patron we got our rogue back but till this day they all razz me and say It was my fault their first ever character died. Tell me justices was kicked wrong. I await your judgment.

Tykora

Your honorable justices and balif jorkle today i bring you the case of the paladin pregidious. I dm 2 campaigns and in both campaigns i have a player playing a paladin these players are the core reasons for session cancelations because of schedule conflicts. The problem is they are canceling 1-3 hours before we're suppose to meet for things they planned weeks or months ago on a regular basis and i ask they players give me a heads up atleast a week ahead if they can so i can run a oneshot of plan a side adventure instead as i like to dm wirh heavy character story and narative so them being absent makes really big voids in the story and i think im starting accosciate paladins with problem players am i in thw wrong? Bonus info ive had other problems with them not doung the take hone work fir their characters like making baxkatories and leveling up their characters on their own time after session 0.

Matthew Bowers

To the A+ justices and the bailiff who is struggling to keep a D- grade. I’m a teacher and rwas recently asked to take over the High School DnD club. I was excited because I play a lot of DnD and was excited to share my excitement with the students. As I approached some of the main members I offered them the use of my many books, my dndbeyond account, my minis, or if they needed a DM I was happy to do that. They let me know that they only needed my classroom and didn’t need anything else from me. In fact, they seem rather disinterested in engaging with me about DnD. The good news, we have three groups playing every Thursday. The bad news, I just sit there and listen to them play, occasionally offering advice on a rule. Should I continue trying to connect with them over our shared interest? Or should I just let them have their fun and let them do their thing. I await your judgment.

James Wxb

To the honorable and unbiased Justices and the sentient pair of jorts I assume they keep as a pet, I humbly present the case of the poor innocent player whom I keep murdering. I am a DM for a generally fast and loose campaign, and have often in the past been willing to let life or death fall in a single dice roll, however it seems that dice Christ has decided that my most engaged and plot involved player deserves death after death, while the murder hobos that make up the rest of my party walk away unscathed. Across 5 years of playing together I have killed him 5 times, with the second highest number being 1 (who got better) does this player now deserve some truly overpowered loot on his next character? Or should I stop complaining about dice Christs will and get ready for there 6th heroic self sacrifice

Christopher Kaperak

Dear High Priests Murphy, Tanner, Axford, and also hello to Jakon Bourne, I have a need for Dice Christ guidance. I'm a frequent DM in two groups, one of which is for some coworkers. I ran a 10 month campaign for them a couple years ago, and then ceded DM responsibilities to one of the players, who has wanted to DM an idea he came up with 15 years ago, but never had the chance until meeting us. High priests, I hate to say, I've nearly sent him to D&D court multiple times over the past two years for nearly killing our table's enjoyment of the game. So, the other players and I are planning to forcibly reinstall me as the DM of this group. However, Dice Christ has just given me a vision. I had a dream where I was running a session for my other D&D group, which is made up of med school friends and has been active since 2020. During the session, one of my players began to role play as Jens Lindelle, and began offering his own DM-style rulings. I became irate, asking him why he would dare do such a thing. He said something about him being "a Rachel and you're a Joey at best" and informed he was taking over the game by force, in a somewhat Taruk-esque manner. I appealed to the table, and they all agreed with Jens 2.0, saying that they had just been "humoring" me for the past 5 years and did not actually like how I run games. I became very upset and said some things I regret before waking up in a cold sweat. I ask, did Dice Christ bless me with this vision of my own campaign getting taken from me to warn me against the sin of crushing this newer DM's dreams? Or is this DM an agent of the Dice Devil, and perhaps this was a false vision given by the Dice Devil in an attempt to protect their disappointing D&D? I await your guidance on this serious issue. - Chris

Davie Wiens

I have a confession for dice christ, and have felt the urge to leave the church of the rolls. I DM'd a one shot for a group I am just a player in, and wanted it to be a slaughter. After telling the players to bring backup characters to this one shot, I proceeded to roll sub 10 the entire session. I got womped. My players even felt bad, urging me to lie, they would never be the wiser. I did not, expecting the Nat 20's that were to never come. My players say they had fun, but alas it was more of a comedy session than the battle heavy slug fest I had prepped. Oraters of the the dice and the rolls, what can I do to help this broken faith?

Ashen

To the honorable justices and I guess also Murph’s DMPC “Jaek.” I present to you the case of the Difficult Druid and the Bleeding Bard. I have been in a campaign for nearly four 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

Jackacoyit

Dear esteemed Judges and the Bailiff of varying quality I bring to you the case of the Kobold killing wizard. Around 6 years during our first campaign our party wizard on the first turn cast sleep on a bunch of kobolds that were the minions to an adult green dragon, after a long fight and successfully slaying the dragon the wizard player decided to slip the throats of the remaining kobolds. The rest of the party instantly started razzing the Wizard for her wanton slaughter which is still talked about today, I even downgraded the wizards aligned from CG to CN. I humbly asked the Judges was this alignment downgrade a step too far and should we stop razzing the wizard player and let this go?

Austin

To the Exceptionally Adorable Judges and Baliff Papa John! I present the case of the incontestable check. Playing a game with a couple friends and a DM we had found online. 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 i'm actually playing a Goo-id) eventually got to 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 single thrown dagger 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 Stepped 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 debated that 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?

Matthew J

To the honorable jakestices and bailiff whats-his-name, I present to you the case of killing our friend's character... twice. One of our PCs had been kidnapped, and we were on a high-seas mission to rescue her. In the meantime, that player played an artificer who was, unbeknownst to us, the child of a vampire. The party had elected me as the captain of our vessel, and on one fateful night, I had to step away from the helm. I asked our party's bard to take the wheel, but the artificer tried to take it first, prompting an opposed athletics check. When the bard won, the artificer angrily announced that she wanted to bite him with her vampire fangs. We tried to resolve things peacefully, but things escalated when she shot my character in the back, and after a few short rounds of PVP, she was not just knocked out, but fully killed. Afterwards, some of us felt guilty, so we brought her back to life with a revivify spell in order to interrogate her (and to give the player a second chance with the character). However, not only did she refuse to apologize or explain herself, but when our backs were turned, she attempted to escape the restraints we had placed her in. Seeing no other course of action that made sense in character, we killed her again, and buried her at sea. Justices, were we wrong to put down a mutiny and kill our friend's character? Or were we justified in executing an unapologetic instigator? We humbly await your judgment.

Darin

Hey Jake! To the Honourable funnyman with bad ideas, the lovely wifeworm, and the angry mop that follows her around, I present Gobbo's Dilemna. Years ago now, I played in a long-term campaign with friends, where an experienced player asked the first time DM if he (Gobbo) could increase his primary stat, in exchange for dropping his Intelligence to 5 He wasn't roleplaying as a dumb characger, and he insisted on doing and knowing things that Gobbo absolutely could not. For a frame of reference, if his Intelligence was 1 lower, he would be unaffected by the spell Tasha’s Hideous Laughter. As intelligent as an Ogre, whether or not Gobbo could even formulate full and grammatically complete sentences was in question, let alone his ability to have an input on the price of goods and services at a market, or the inner workings of corrupt politicians. (Real Examples) I would point out these instances repeatedly. To the point where I had to learn to raise concerns during a break or the end of the session. It didn’t stop. It felt like he was taking advantage of a new DM, to boost his stats, with no tangible downside. At one point near the end of our time playing this campaign, he had Gobbo suggest a solution to a dungeon puzzle that was especially outside of his character’s capabilities. When I pointed it out he claimed I didn’t want him to be able to do anything, at which point the DM chimed in suggesting that there are other ways for him to be “Smart” without relying on Booky Intelligence or problem solving. Later in the same dungeon, same session, the DM pulled out a physical puzzle he had made and painted for us to solve. I was excited as this was the crux of it all, an opportunity for Him to do the problem solving, not Gobbo. He went “Oh, well Gobbo is too dumb for this, so have fun” and pulled out his phone and started ignoring us. I tried to explain that I wasn’t as smart as my character was, but this is not a puzzle for characters, it’s a puzzle for us! But he refused to engage. I gave up quickly, and he was not part of us doing the puzzle in the end, even though we struggled to solve it and could have used his help. Due to life and stuff we don’t play with him anymore, though I still DM and am DM’d by the same people. (Except Gobbo) To the court and Jake, am I wrong to insist upon a tangible downside to a benefit? Or should I have just accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to play the character differently? P.S/ Extra Info: We played this campaign over levels 3-7, and weekly or bi-weekly for more than a year. We were both at bad places in life, I had an angry work environment, and he was a solo provider who needed to buy a well. He was insistent on GOBBO having the good ideas and whatnot, not him. He was trying to do these things in character. Canonically he died when he yelled at me for hoarding magic items and took the bag of devouring from me before being…..y’know…..devoured. Even though we retconned that in the moment.

Candace C

To the supreme crit judges, fair of face and pure of spirit, plus…um, I think, Jarnk? The scenario: my soulknife rogue telepathically shoved another player’s character away from a bad guy so he wouldn’t kill him. This upset the player (let’s call him Bob) so much that he quit the Zoom session. The outcome: I had to apologize to the other player. Additional context: 1. This was my first ever D&D game, joining an online group of strangers who were already halfway through the campaign. 2. Bob was partially upset because his former PC had shown up unexpectedly (via the DM), betrayed the party and then got killed by a different NPC. 3. Confused? We all were too. Hence the request to not murder this NPC so we could get some answers. 4. Everyone in the party agreed to not kill the NPC except Bob who said he “was gonna murder this guy no matter what you guys want because he killed my old character”. Was I wrong for inadvertently engaging in PvP while trying to clear this confusion? I lay my supple neck before your court.

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.

Aidan Preston

Radiant Judges and shiny-ish bailiff Shake i present to you the case of the broken whip I was playing in a campaign with my partner and our house mates. It was our DMs first time running a game, and important context, he had recently broken up with my partners sister. The first session went well, and into the second we were facing many enemies with whips. My partner tried to loot one, but the DM consistently denied her. This only became an issue when other players, including myself, began receiving magic items, including a phallic shaped prosthesis that gave advantage on grappling and attack rolls, with 15 feet of reach. My partner however, received nothing, becoming the only party member to not have a magic item. After some protesting he relented and gave her a non magical whip… which was broken and would take 2 sessions of downtime crafting to repair. We decided after this to no longer play and get blamed for the dissolving of the party. Were we being petty and asking too much? Or was our dm jaded and playing favorites? I humbly wait your judgement

Austin Gordon

I present the case of the disgruntled strixhaven students. I've been playing in a campaign using the strixhaven setting, which is 5e's version of a magic school setting. The game has been really fun, with all the tropes you'd want from this kind of story. Except for one. Our DM, striving for realism, ran a full 50 minute lecture in character, and a few sessions later, we had a full 25 question quiz on the material. I don't wanna be too hard on the guy, but when does immersion come at the cost of fun? We razzed him about giving us a quiz on Slaad biology and the campaign has mostly been fun and engaging otherwise, but should we really have to study and take a quiz in what's supposed to be a fun escape from regular life?

Ian Martin

I stand humbly at the feet of the magnanimous judges Tanner, Axford, and Murphy and who's this other guy? He's got one of those faces you just wanna pop him one good huh? I bring you the case of the NPC death that led to the game's death. I was running a Curse of Strahd campaign with some friends that was going pretty well, we had a party of: an aasimar druid, a tabaxi cleric, and a minotaur barbarian and had run about 5 sessions that went pretty well. Tough fights, good role playing, a watchful Strahd pulling strings from the shadows. In our second to last session, the party was traveling along a road and ran into a strange person that was acting erratically, and the party comes to find out this person had murdered his friend to take his possessions and was high tailing it away from the scene. Our barbarian, in character, got upset and in true DND fashion decided to take a swing with his mighty axe at this murderous traveler. Being as this stranger was just a commoner, the swing lopped his head clean off and after some laughs and grunts that they would never know the true story, they continued on their path. The next session, we introduced another party member that was playing a Van Helsing type Human (he may have been an arcane archer, I don't remember his class, but it doesn't come into play that much anyway). To start the session we ran through a recap and explained the mishap of the murderous traveler to the new player and got to a "and that's where we are now" with no problems. During the session the party ends up making their way to the local coffin maker's home after they had heard rumors of some misdoings there and they found said coffin maker to be rather curmudgeonly and unhelpful. This made the Van Helsingesque player upset, and he fixated his hand crossbows to the coffin maker, to which the coffin maker said "If you're going to shoot me, just shoot me then". A pull of the trigger followed, to which I said "Ok roll to hit". The party all clamored; "Wait! What is he's just a commoner?!" to no avail as the dice plummeted and rolled high enough to hit what WAS just another commoner NPC's AC. I described him as taking a bolt to the chest and slumping over, to which Van helsing said "why can't I just shoot him in the foot?" I explained that his HP was so low that there wasn't a way to hit him without killing the old man, even if it were in his foot he would go into shock and not be able to do anything without being healed. At that moment, vampire spawn ambushed the party and while they were able to fight them off and save the party druid from being bitten at 0HP, the old coffin maker succumbed to his injuries and the party was not able to get any more information from him, and the session (and the campaign) ended. The party was very upset and after heated debate accepted the decision, and that was the last game we ever played. Looking back I realize I was being a stickler, but in my defense the party just experienced killing someone by being too aggressive with them, had been reminded of that, and more importantly the coffin maker had NO additional information for them anyway! All he had to say was the spawns were in his shop and forcing him to help them with their plans. Am I the worst DM ever for ruining a great Strahd run by killing an old man that was shot by a crossbow, or were my players a little too gung-ho in a horror campaign setting?

Gothic Faerie

To the highly bodacious justices and the new intern whose name i refuse on principle to learn, I bring the case of the Corset of Gender I Hardleeknower In my first campaign in college, the GM gave us a magical corset which at dawn you could roll to see if you would appear as your standard storebought gender or nonbinary or as the opposite gender. This magically altered your appearance to varying degrees of masculine and feminine until the next dawn. Now my grudge: the paladin of our party was being hunted by his mad king father and the military of his island nation was scouring the seas to find him. I suggested after remembering this magic item we had that he should use it to disguise himself as a woman when going through checkpoints or high stealth areas (because he had disadvantage on stealth). Everyone just quietly brushed me off but continued to stress about what they could do to hide him. I brought it up again and everyone just brushed me off again without actually voicing a reason for why it wouldn't work and eventually he decided he would just risk being caught. Justices, this still frustrates me to this day that my EXCELLENT plan was ignored. I was one of the only women at the table and the new player to boot but I felt the plan had a good point to it. Was this me pushing too far and making the table uncomfortable or was this some casual misogyny I sat through?

Joe Harman

To the honorable justices and "The ForsJaken One" (Forsken for short), I present the case of Dice Christ Vs. RN Jesus. In my weekly Pathfinder 2e game, we use a Foundry virtual tabletop server and are allowed to use either physical Dice (Dice Christ) or digital dice (RN Jesus) as long as we commit to that die type the whole session. Sometimes, the digital dice repeat the same roll, so we reset the browser when there's too many of the same low number and the issue stops. The problem judges and Forsken, is that the issue happens for the GM as well except with HIGHER repeated numbers that are secret to players. I feel like I notice the high numbers more as a summoner controlling multiple targets (my eidolon once took 3 nat 19s and only saved by MAP), but I haven't pushed too hard because it might benefit me with repeated high rolls someday. Should I insist that the GM reset his browser after repeated crits, disrupting the game for everyone, or just take my licks as a part of RN Jesus' plan? I humbly await your judgement Fist bumps and air kisses, Joe Harman (RN Jesus = RNG = Random Number Generator)

Nemo_Nihil17

Dear High priests of Pop Pop AI Johns and that Igor lookin guy in the corner who occasionally speaks, I have a Dice Christ confession. Last year, I made a terrible mistake: I introduced a group of elderly residents in the dementia ward of a local nursing home to DnD. Everyone warned me against it, my own home DnD group, and my coworkers at the nursing home. But I didnt listen. I kept things simple: Go to the dungeon, fight a dragon, get a prize. I met with each resident individually to create their characters and it went surprisingly well. The game....not so much. Cut to an hour and a half of residents spilling drinks on their character sheets, forgetting their characters all together, trying to eat the dice, and peeing on the floor when it was their turn. The residents at one point swapped their character sheets with each other, which caused even more confusion. Some of the residents even criticized my story, saying it didn't make sense that a large dragon could fit into a dungeon to begin with. I stopped the session and we played Bingo for the rest of the day. Little did I know, Dice Christ cursed me that day. I haven't gotten a NAT 20 in a year and ive had two characters die from failed death saves, caused by low rolls. My group of friends grew concerned and started giving me their dice, but I still failed. I ask for forgiveness for trying to push DnD onto the elderly, and to please let me get a NAT 20, or further curse me to the bowels of Crit Hell. Thank you

Secretlymadeofworms

To the esteemed justices, the east oriented bailiff and the perpetually steamed Murph, I present the case of The Wrong Kid Died. I ran a game for 5 adventurers where I asked for one page of backstory or longer so I could work them into the world. One adventurer submitted two sentences, that amounted to I'm a goblin and I want to be the explosives man. Like the sappers from warcraft 2. Anyway the party came across a town beset by death cultists and their monster enforcer (A shambling mound I reskinned to be made of worms). After they cracked the case of who's killing people in the town? They began to infiltrate the cult's underground temple. Here one of the other characters ended up dying, couldn't be helped sometimes people really want to touch black ichor. Anyway, out of game the goblin had expressed interest in changing their character. He wasn't loving that everyone else had a stake in the story except him and promised he had a new character with a good backstory. So I designed an encounter later on in the cultist "dungeon" where there was a basin like from Dumbledores last stand where someone from the party could essentially swap places with their dead companion. The problem is when we got to this part I asked the group if anyone wanted to drink from the basin, the goblin said, "well I didnt really know him and my character isnt the heroic type." So instead the barbarian of the group (who was critical to the story) decided to swap places instead and I lost the character with the most hook into the plot. My question is, should I have talked more with the goblin player outside the game and designed an encounter together to make sure he was going to swap? I feel like I ruined the game by trying to force a choice his character didnt want to make. P.S. the group broke up because of inter-table issues later and I feel like it all stemmed from the party composition shifting.

Olivia M

May it please the glorious justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner, and…. is there anyone else? I don’t think so. I bring to you the Case of the Nothing Door. I recently joined a paid oneshot at a local brewery. After a treacherous trek braving battles with knolls and animated skeletons, our party finally escorted a teen girl into a lost temple to cure her curse. The DM then gave us a piece of paper with a riddle and a ring of symbols. He said the symbols were on 12 doors surrounding us, and we needed to solve the riddle to determine the correct door. We solved the riddle: the answer was “nothing.” So we chose the door with the X symbol. The DM smirked and said, “She steps in and dies.” Turns out there were 11 symbols on the paper and 12 doors. So there was a door with no symbols on it that our characters didn’t notice. Apparently. Seeing our confused and disappointed looks, the DM gave us a second chance. We then escorted her into the door with no symbols. The DM said, “You all die.” He said she should have gone into that door with nothing, “not even clothes.” The session ended there. Am I wrong to be miffed by this deflating and frankly weird end to an otherwise fun session, or do I deserve a refund? P.S. If it matters, I paid $20.

Critney Spears (Oops I did it again)

To the honourable Crit and their shit farmer peasant boy bailiff Joke: I present to you the case of the Icebound Grandson. A year ago, I joined a level 5 PvP bracket style tournament in a discord server with my friend. My friend played the carefree sorcerer/tempest cleric grandson to my uptight wizard grandma. We had a lot of fun with the disappointed Matriarch/clueless grandson dynamic and got a few laughs from the spectators. The issue is this: our opponents cast Rime's binding ice on my grandson and reduced him to 0 hp. As a spring Eladrin, I fae-stepped him away and healed him with a potion to bring him back up. I think that since my grandson had been teleported from the area, he should no longer have ice clinging to him to immobilise him. However, our DM ruled that since the wording of the spell specified that the ice formations occupied the area, the ice would still bind my grandson and he had to use a precious action to free himself. I would go so far as to say that this ruling lost us the battle. Was the DM's stringent ruling correct? Are we sentenced to playing out this drama at the family dinners? I humbly await your judgement.

Sawyer Bernard

Graceful judges and the one who watches I bring to you the case of the tennis player I’m running a campaign for a couple of my friends that also like D&D and one brand new player the problem is the the new player is also a tennis player and constantly plays they have been here one session and we’ve had one other but he couldn’t make it due to tennis we have constant scheduling problems but I don’t want to kick him out because he’s new so I ask you what should I do?

Symantha Weaver

Dear Honorable Justices Axford, Murphy, and Caldwell — brilliant minds, masters of the craft, shining beacons of tabletop wisdom — and Jake, the bailiff… you’re doing great sweetie — I bring before you a case of workplace ethics versus campaign loyalty. Statement of Facts: Our friend group of four has been in a long-running campaign together for over a year. We originally bonded because most of us worked the same job serving a very vulnerable population. Over time, our real-life roles changed — I was promoted to a supervisor position at a different location, our DM left for a bit to pursue training for a similar role, and one player (we’ll call her “Rogue,” fittingly) remained in her original job. Recently, Rogue has been written up multiple times for serious inappropriate comments at work about the people we support. She seems to think that because we’re friends and I’m now a supervisor (not her supervisor, we’re not even at the same location anymore) she will avoid consequences. I am extremely uncomfortable around her now in a professional setting. I confided in the DM and his fiancée (also a player), and they admitted they feel uncomfortable too. To make matters even more intense: we just wrapped a huge, emotional penultimate arc centered around her character. The campaign is at its most dramatic point, and this real-life issue is now sitting like a bomb under the table. The DM has said he’ll support any path forward — which is kind. The Questions Before the Court: Do we confront her and potentially destroy both the friendship and the campaign right before the finale? Do we quietly wrap up without her to protect professional boundaries? I want to do what is ethically correct — but I don’t want to lose our game or my friends in the process. Signed, A Stressed Supervisor Trying Really Hard to Make the Right Call.

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

Cinnamon's #3 Fan

I come begging for the spiritual guidance of the Supreme Pontifficrit with a confessional. I fear I may have ignored the wisdom of Dice Christ. Recently, I was running a Pathfinder 2e game for some friends. We've been playing for a year, and it's generally been a good time. A few sessions ago, the party was on a lake and got attacked. One of the players, a Witch, instead of casting spells or helping the party in any meaningful way, leapt out of the boat and tried to hit the offending monster with his staff. Shortly thereafter, he was hit by the party's boat and forced underwater, expelling all his air by casting spells rather than swimming the short distance to the surface. Afterward, a veritable cavalcade of natural 2s and 1s occurred, including on the medicine check to stabilize him from drowning. The dice seemed determined to let this player die, but in the interest of kindness, I let him live. Ever since, I've wondered- Does this offend Dice Christ? Should I have let this PC die due to shenanigans and multiple bad rolls? (PS, the player is no longer in our campaign due to this and many other tone-breaking acts)

Gilbemesh

May it please the court of high justices and whatever passes as acceptable for bailiffs these days - I bring to you a case of Lootmongers vs the DM. I DM'd a remote campaign during COVID lockdown for some of my closest friends and then-fiance (now wife, despite this story). Just before the final battle of one story arc, our party's wizard cast Leomund's Tiny Hut for a short rest. This bit me in the ass, as the players would literally duck into the hut mid-battle to avoid being targeted by the big bad. While the party put on a masterclass in cowardice, I had my DMPC, Nondrak, take to the shadows for sneak attack opportunities. The boss ultimately found Nondrak, making short work of him. When the players downed the big bad, they busied themselves with looting, and Nondrak had already failed a death save. Mid-looting, my fiance left for a restroom break and it wasn't until after she returned that the party remembered Nondrak. When asked, I told them that he had gone down in battle and died as they were looting. Uproar ensued, and my fiance argued that it was unfair that Nondrak died as we were clearly heading into a break. Nobody liked my argument that their looting before the break took much longer than two more rounds of combat. Was Nondrak's off-screen death unfair? Or was it negligence that did him in? I lay myself at the mercy of the court and am willing to distribute punishment as necessary. Unless it’s for me, in which case I request Jake receive any punishments in my stead.

KennyH

To the Honorable Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and that Barf-Lip guy you keep around. I bring you the case The Secret Poet, and the Burned Friendship. My friend was a complete noob to DnD, joining a new campaign with me playing a wizard. This was run by a veteran DM, most of the table was experienced players. The DM's world was rough, and he was a stickler for the rules. And well, 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. My cleric was secretly a poet. I had been filling a document with poems she had written, adding a new one each session. The wizard used stealth and sleight of hand one session, and successfully stole my character's secret poetry book, and later, he had his character read the poetry out loud to the party. My cleric was embarrassed, and furious! I did what I thought she would do, (a light domain cleric with anger issues) and 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.

Mirra Palindrome

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 level 7 party traveled through a time-twisted Feywild forest, where they found a caravan of survivors from many eras, united only by desperation. Among them was a lieutenant tied to the Rogue’s backstory, a cunning, self-interested agent of a powerful information broker. The Rogue, wary of betrayal, plotted with the Paladin (his real-life coworker) to remove the threat before it could act. I allowed it, with warnings of grave consequences, a decision I now regret. In the next session, they struck while the lieutenant slept. The Paladin disabled his Alarm spell, and the Rogue slew him with a cursed blade. When morning came, the Rogue persuaded the caravan to accept his actions, less out of agreement than fear of chaos. Still, several NPCs (and I, the DM) have called it what it is: murder. The Paladin now demands I stop labeling it so, claiming righteousness and necessity. Thus I appeal to this court: must I bend to the Paladin’s moral framing, or may I uphold my world’s law and name the premeditated killing of a sleeping man what it is, murder?

Will the Wraith Dad

Your glorious and brave justices of legends, and, uh. You know. That other guy. I present the case of the Cooked Lizard. This happened several years ago with a high school friend of mine and a couple of his friends- I did not know these people very well. However, my friend asked me to DM for them as some of them had little to no experience. However, my friend and *his* friend, who we will call Gex for the sake of clarity, had both played a decent amount. Great, I thought, I can sort of let them help their fellow players in the minute details while I could focus on the story since I was a newer DM. What could go wrong? Gex and my friend helped the other players make characters, and we were off! The other characters aren't terribly important, but Gex, of course, wanted to be a little more elaborate in his character creation and I was very excited. His character, a Lizardfolk monk from a mountain monastary who's two big things were the cycle of life, and food, which I was pretty pumped about. So, their first quest as a level 1 party was pretty simple: go into the swamp and get a mcguffin from an abandoned temple of the forgotten saint that had been taken over by bullywugs. They didn't even have to fight the bullywugs (though I knew they would), just get the relic and, very importantly, don't step on any of the black-capped mushrooms, as they will explode into a deadly cloud of poison and only the village cleric would be able to heal them. I marked the mushrooms on the battlemap and everything. I was hoping that the mushrooms would add a fun extra element to the combat, and expected the boys to even use the mushrooms against the bullywugs. What I didn't expect was for the boys to go around to the back of the temple to try to sneak onto the roof for... Unknown reasons. They didn't have ranged weapons. Then, Gex decided he was going to crawl over his companions using his "sticky fingers" (which had never been mentioned until this point) to get a good grip and get on the roof first. I warned him that he should look at the map carefully since there were mushrooms about but he assured me that his sticky fingers would keep him safe. Needless to say, he critically failed his check and immediately fell into the mushrooms. They had a set amount of time to get him to the cleric which I had purposefully made very tight but possible, and then the party.... Attacked the bullywugs. For "revenge". They did not get to the cleric in time to save Gex and end up eating him in a soup that might, as per the monk tradition. My question is this, judges: should I have poinsoned the party after they dumped, and I quote, "his whole ass body, clothes and all" into the pot? Or was I too harsh on the players in the first place? p.s. This campaign, believe it or not, did not last. The boys did think this death was incredibly funny though, most of all Gex himself.

MG

To the most honorable justices of the high crit, and to the less honorable bailiff Jimbo, I present to you the case of the Permanent Lil Guy. I’ve been playing in a demigods-themed campaign with 5 friends for over a year. During our first session we came across our first NPC - a shy merchant named Whispers, who our DM described as a sort of goth-looking Shy Guy. Tiny in stature, with black robes and a smooth white mask. What’s underneath the mask, you ask? Well, we learned later that deep inside the robes is a cute little Zigzazoon-esque ferret creature. Naturally, we all fell in love with Whispers, and when we discovered that like our characters, he was also a demigod (his mom being the goddess of trade), we immediately adopted him into our ragtag group. We started out at level 5, and our DM made it very clear that Whispers was not as strong as us. Protecting him has always been one of our top priorities. When given the option, we always have Whispers stay in the nearby town or safe house instead of bringing him into unnecessary danger. And he always gets the benefit of our buffs like Aid, Sanctuary, or Inspirational Speech. We are now Level 15. Throughout all of this, Whispers has remained Level 1. Every level up we ask, and the answer is always the same. Whispers will always be Level 1. It’s to the point where if we *dont* buff him at the start of every day, one stiff breeze and a failed saving throw could permanently kill him. I’m not saying he should be level 15 with the rest of the party, but in the past year he’s done so much to contribute! He’s loaded cannons on pirate ships, helped distribute aid to refugees, and baked an apple pie that on a Nat 20 made our Warforged Cleric taste food for real for the first time. Please, Justices, I ask you - should Whispers level up, even just once? I thank you for your wisdom, and eagerly await your ruling.

Rover Bernhard

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

Alec Posta

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

Nathan

I beg forgiveness from Jake, High Cardinal of the Holy Crit, and co. I stunned my friend’s mum. A few weeks ago, my weekly group was joined by one of our player’s mum. She lives abroad and has previously joined our group for a session when visiting. She is a phenomenal role player, and when joining previously, she filled the role of a regular NPC in our campaign, a cleric with questionable loyalties and motives. My Monk had a particularly heated moment with this NPC where we almost came to blows. She joined us this time just as we had entered combat in the midst of a tense political situation. She played the same NPC again, and as her first action, she healed a downed enemy, claiming that further violence was not the answer. When my turn came around, given our history and her actions, I burned a dash to get across the room and stunned her to take her out of combat. I know Father Murphy has spoken about how much it sucks to be stunned, but it felt like the obvious move. My actual sin was when asked how long she was stunned for. If I’d taken time to read my abilities, I’d have saw she would exit the condition on my next turn. Instead I thought she had to make a con save on her turn. Due to my laziness, this poor woman, visiting her child and their friends, sat for the entire four hour session without being able to take an action or say a thing, failing every dex save that came her way. To be free of this guilt, I ask that Dice Christ command my friend’s mum to punch me in the gut, leaving me felled upon the ground. She’s far too nice to do it without his guidance.

ktine

I kneel before mean girls- Axford, Murpy, and Tanner - and the approachable girl-next-door, Jake. I bring you the case of "The Archer Identity Crisis." Just a year ago, my friends and I were a group of D&D newbies playing our very first campaign with one of the player's uncle as our first DM. He'd been playing ttrpgs since his schooldays and although he hadn't DM-ed as much, he was very excited to introduce us to the game and we were very eager to finally get a chance to play. During one session our DM announced that he'd like to change bow damage to equal [Damage Dice x Proficiency Bonus + Modifiers]. Yes, MULTIPLIED BY YOUR PROFICIENCY BONUS. We all sat there completely aghast at what clearly seemed like a blatantly insane damage output. We questioned his logic but he just felt like 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. We responded with an awkward air of "yea, maybe, just something to think about". So I heed your pettiest judgment...were we being dumb noobs who should've just become a party of archers OR is a multiplier on damage not actually that crazy? P.S. A few sessions later he invited us to an archery range because apparently, he and his son practice archery as a hobby.

Rebecca Wilson

To the honourable judges and chill bailiff, I present the case of the fertile barbarian. A while ago a friend joined our very silly campaign and I helped him come up with a very silly backstory. His barbarians reason for joining the party was: he once met a traveling merchant who sold him a potion of infertility so he could have romantic entanglements without any worried. And entangle he did! Only to discover that the potion was a fraud, and he had fathered dozens of children. In order to make money for his copious child support, he became an adventurer. His name, also, was JT Dawgzone. Fast forward to the end of our campaign. It actually has become more serious and heartfelt and we're wrapping up everyone's storylines in really touching ways. In out of game convos the DM has asked JT how he'd generally like to conclude his tale and we are seeking good ideas. Dawgzone is not a great guy and his army of children surely deserve something, not to mention their army of mothers. Any guidance and rulings on the fate of JT would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Luke G

Sup judges, 'sup bailiff 😎 After asking a powerful npc ally for "tangible boons', our party received custom magic items, each designed to upgrade a specific class feature. My level 18 divine soul sorcerer received an item that allows him to upgrade his Twinned Spell meta magic option to Tripled Spell. Instead of targeting an extra creature for a number of sorcery points equal to a spells level, i can now target 3 creatures for the cost of double the spells level. Oh and I take 1D10 for each sorcery point spent. This means that were i to cast haste on my three other party members, i would take 6D10 - which is potentially half of total hp (112hp). When i mentioned that was a huge amount of damage, my party members replied with "you got heals though". Tripled spell is an amazing ability, but i feel like the cost is too high for it to ever be worth using. Judges, am i wrong, or did my DM balance this item fairly?

Darcey

To the honourable servants of Dice Christ and Jake, I guess - I humbly seek guidance on a confession (that may also be a case). During the third session of a new campaign, which had been pitched as a group of legendary heroes saving the world, our party was tasked with retrieving an essential magical item that we could not continue the story without. Upon approaching the dungeon, the DM announced that he would be randomly rolling for the alignment of the dungeon, and landed on chaotic good. He explained that this meant the item we needed was currently in the possession of a group of good-aligned clerics, who were simply minding their own business, and that we would have to slaughter these innocent clerics in order to retrieve the item we so desperately needed. I objected, saying I didn’t like the idea of playing out a massacre of innocent people - and since the dungeon alignment was randomly generated in the first place, was it necessary for it to be good aligned? Could we not use a different option? This wasn’t what I signed up for as part of a ‘legendary heroes’ campaign. The DM shot down my objections, and suggested we should just think of our characters as evil people. The game moved on despite my objections, and so as we entered the dungeon, I suggested to the party that we make it a stealth mission rather than a massacre. As none of the party were particularly stealthy, and thanks to the DM’s further insistence that avoiding a fight with stealth would be very very difficult in this case, I cast Pass Without Trace on the group. With the help of a +10 stealth bonus, we were able to sneak through the majority of the dungeon and retrieve the item with minimal casualties and my morality (mostly) in tact. This is where I must confess, however, and throw myself at the mercy of Dice Christ and the court - for my character did not have the Pass Without Trace spell. I was playing a Ranger, so it was believable that she would have it, but I had chosen not to take Pass Without Trace at character creation. I left the group immediately after that session, and have never lied about any character’s spells before or since, but I still feel like I made a mistake. Can Dice Christ forgive me for lying about my spells in order to avoid participating in the slaughter of innocents?

lulz

To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices, long may they reign, and their lame-iff, Jack. I bring to you the case of the Quid Pro Quo Paladin. A few years ago, I was invited to a DnD group with some college pals. The group consisted of almost entirely new players, including myself, playing a life domain cleric for the first time. After each session our Paladin, who was playing a homebrew subclass that boiled down to an "evil" style Oath of Oppression, would stay and chat with the DM after the rest of the party had left. After the first few sessions, which consisted of our party aimlessly struggling to find the plot-hook to the campaign, we had a very difficult encounter with some bandits. Almost everyone was knocked down at some point, and we narrowly escaped defeat after some of the bandits decided to flee as their casualties grew. During the fight our Bard had given our Paladin Bardic Inspiration, the Paladin did not use the Inspiration throughout the whole combat. While the Bandits, who nearly TPK'd our party retreated, the Paladin announced his intention to throw javelins at them, the Party pleaded with him to not do so, with the Bard choosing to block the fleeing Bandits with his body. Frustrated at their successful retreat, our Paladin attacked the Bard, and missed. After missing, the Paladin laughed and used the Bardic Inspiration given to him on his attack roll against the very Bard who had given it to him. One Long Rest later the Paladin had snuck off, when he returned he adamantly wanted us to check out a military camp he was allied with. When we repeatedly requested a justification for checking out that camp he once again grew frustrated and ATTACKED THE PARTY. He revealed that he and the DM had been planning this PvP encounter as a result of us not following the Plot. Our session ended there, and I stewed over this betrayal for weeks. The next session we rolled initiative and Womped the Paladin. My question to you is, am I right to feel real-world anger over this betrayal, or should I have realized that this was just a game and the Paladin merely thought he was having fun? I leave myself to the Mercy of your Infallible Court.

Lauryn

To the honorable supreme crit - the comedic heavyweights Justice Assford, SurfNMurph, and Tanney……. I bring you the case of falling damage in water and the water walking spell. Oh yeah, forgot about Jake - sup. 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.

JC

To the three hot justices and cold Bailiff Jake, I bring to you the player who wants his moment. Last Spring, my friend finished his Mistborn inspired campaign he was running for us. The campaign was a blast the entire time, however, there was one problem I had and it was with another player, I'll call him Jim. Towards the end of the campaign Jim would start initiating scenes that included just his character, and if anyone tried to interact with him at that time he would get agitated, tell them to stop, and that he was "trying to have his moment." This occured most notably when his PC was mourning his fallen NPC companion after the final fight. Another PC came over and offered to try and help Jim Revivify his friend and Jim snapped at him, once again saying he was trying to have his moment. When the other player did finally Revivify the NPC, Jim was more annoyed than happy and complained that his character should've done it. This behavior has persisted in other campaigns, my own included, where Jim demands for his PCs to have moments. Justices, am I in the right for feeling this is incredibly rude, or does Jim deserve his moment to mourne his friend while the table sits in silence.

Birthday Girl Cara

I prostrate myself before the church of dice Christ and ask not for forgiveness, but for your blessing. The campaign I ran for 3 years was on its final session. I had set up the last battle so that each PC was in charge of an army and fighting against 1 section of the opposing army. If when rolling for the army they rolled a nat 20 that would mean that they would instead face off against the opposing armys commander in a tense 1 vs 1 battle. My players insisted that the beloved DMPC be in charge of a unit and on his first turn he rolled the nat 20. I believe if I had played out the fight, it would have been boring for my players to listen to and as it was the final session... In order to up the stakes... I narrated the death of the DMPC without consulting the dice. Fatherz, I know this was wrong but surely the teachings of dice Christ allow for nuance when good story telling is at stake? I await your judgement

Samuel Watson

To the esteemed Justices and the bailiff who I heard was getting suspended for drinking on the job, I bring the case of the forever players. For many years now I have played DnD with my friends, a core 4 forming with other pals who swap in and out when new campaigns start. The fun we've had together is impossible to quantify. There is one thing that has remained consistent throughout besides our core 4. I have DM'd everything. Every single campaign, one shot, mini campaign, and I've even been in charge of the rules for non TTRPG games. I greatly enjoy DM'ing, and I appreciate that it can be intimidating to take that role. However, multiple players have stated that they would sit on the other side of the screen on multiple occasions, which would finally give me a chance to play one of the many PC's that has been brewing in my mind. So far, no one has followed through on their promises. No adventures alongside chaos dwarves, no romp through Barovia, no crusade into hell, not even a one-shot running a pub on a tortoise's shell. I have brought up these promised campaigns and one shots on several occasions, but the best I've gotten is a "Maybe after this campaign finishes." Justices, am I wrong for thinking that they shouldn't have offered to DM if they weren't going to follow through on it? That they shouldn't have offered a sweet treat, only to yank it just out of reach? Am I wrong to consider pulling a Murph and straight up Gemma'ing their favourite NPC in our current campaign as a form of cosmic rebalancing? I await your judgement.

Akrilothian Gaming

Im sorry to continue to be annoying but we want more surprise round!!

sam c

Hello exemplary judge's and Jude. I bring you the case of the averaged damage. I am playing in a camapigne with 4 pcs including myself that has been going on for about a year now. We play a fairly combat heavy campaign and it has been a blast but there has been one thing that has began to both me. When we are in combat our dm always uses average damage for the enemies. We are fighting a lot of the same enemy as of late and taking the exact same amount of damage each time we are hit has taken a lot of the excitement out of combat. We can do the math and know how many rounds we can last before going down. Is it wrong for me to ask my dm to roll for damage with everything else they are doing? Or should I just be happy to be playing. I humbly ask for your incite and ruling.

Trickonometry

To the honorable justices and the bailiff who didn’t actually get that into cake, I come to you with the case of the Session Three Wooly Mammoth Insta-Kills (yes, plural). I’ll begin with a brief summary of the events: - I was running Rime of the Frostmaiden a couple years ago. - The party got into a fight with a Wooly Mammoth. On two separate turns, it charged, crit against a PC, and dealt so much damage they were insta-killed. - Though I gave some options on keeping the killed PCs alive via some dark bargains, one player decided they wanted to make a new character… -…and the other player got super salty, said they would play Arthas from World of Warcraft as their next character, and then caused enough schedule issues that we never played again. The question at hand: Should I have prevented these deaths from occurring, or was the salt disproportionate to the ill fortune? Below are the details of what occurred: One of their early (low-level) quests from Rime of the Frostmaiden took the party to a Frost Giant Ice Lodge which, among other foes, had a sentient Wooly Mammoth guarding it. After the party initially saw the Mammoth, I went out of my way to describe various pathways that were available to the party that would avoid interaction with the Wooly Mammoth, but the party decided that the Wooly Mammoth path was best. Well, since the party did poorly on Stealth and the Mammoth rolled well on Perception, we rolled initiative. When it was the Wooly Mammoth’s turn, I followed the recommended action in the campaign book which explicitly said that it should charge the party. The Wooly Mammoth’s charging tusks proceeded to crit on the Tiefling Gunslinger, and, due to very unfortunately high damage rolls, took the PC to 1 HP over their negative total HP. In other words, an instant kill with no death saving throws to recover. The party definitely was mostly laughing and having a “positive” freak out at this point - it sucked, but bad luck happens, and we’d even talked about in Session 0 that we all like when the stakes for death are real in the game. And then the next round it happened again. The Druid ended their turn 20 feet away from the Wooly Mammoth. Later on we found out they thought they weren’t in trouble because the mammoth was fighting other players in melee. However, by the time the Mammoth’s turn came around, the other players had moved… so it charged the Druid, the one enemy in line of sight that could be charged. And the Mammoth crit again. And took the Druid to well past negative their max HP, killing them instantly. Some of the players continued laughing at the absurdly bad luck, but the Druid player definitely didn’t find it as funny. Part of me wishes I hadn’t been rolling in a place that wasn’t out in the open, but due to the logistics of playing around a coffee table, there was nothing that blocked the rolls from being seen, so there wasn’t any way for me to say, “Oh, you’re at negative HP but not instantly dead.” I personally consider this to be the most egregiously wrong thing about my actions here, and is the strongest case for me being punished. When I offered a way for the Druid to come back to life, they got salty, denied the offer, and said their next character would be Arthas, the Lich King from World of Warcraft. Though this seemed a little odd, I just went with it and said we’d talk to figure out their new character’s background later. The former Druid player then proceeded to say they were unavailable for any and all attempts to reschedule the game, and this ultimately led to the untimely end of the campaign. Additionally, that same guy has piped up in a group chat we’re both part of to say that good DMs should fudge dice to avoid killing PCs, so… the salt seems to not have dissipated. So, honorable justices, I ask you - was the end of the campaign ultimately my fault because I wasn’t able to successfully fudge dice/play the combat differently, or was salt the greater culprit to the end of this campaign?

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?

Roz Rae Powers

To the honorable justices and bountiful bailiff Cake, I submit the case of the Stonefaced Replacement (with a side of GM Confession) More than a decade ago, I GM'd Pathfinder for the first time, and the table was all newbies too. The rogue took a story feat to gain a dedicated nemesis; exciting!! 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 slew the Summoner PC! The whole table had long agreed the summoner was OP, but it was still the wrong way to go about it. He barely had any chance to survive a coup de grace in his sleep, and died to the assassin's cursed blade. The player was sad to see the summoner go, but he was excited to bring in his new (more balanced) PC; 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 party 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," yet still the Inquisitor 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 party 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.

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

Walter Tater

To the honorable judges and Jorts, I bring you the case of the player who did not want to leave. A player in the first campaign I ever ran was moving across country, and we always played in person. Her character had amnesia, so I built a scenario in which her mentor found her and explained she had been hurt trying to protect an innocent person and had lost her memory and that the mentor would bring her home and give the party a means to contact her through message. When we reached the scene, however, the player announced that she did not want to leave and described slitting her own throat because she did not want to go live with strangers. I hurriedly described the mentor doing healing hands and tying her up before giving the PC an epilogue about seeing her girlfriend and leaving the possibility open that she returned. Judges, here is my question: was the suicide over the top when the player and the party knew the character had to leave? Should I have allowed the player more agency in deciding how her story ended? That player has since GM'd a wonderful Curse of Strahd campaign and we continue to play together.

Mynne Maxine

May it please the illustrious court, as well as the do nothing justices and the overworked, yet still over-appreciated baliff ajjke I bring to you the case of rock and roll vs channel divinity I was playing in a 2 shot rock and roll campaign opa pick of destiny style with some friends. My PC was a war domain cleric (bassist) whose deity was none other than the rock and roll devil (forgive me Dice Christ). After defeating the Grunge band in the battle of the bands the most obvious twist was revealed to our party, that our manager was the devil the whole time and gave us otherworldly powers only to demand our souls at the end of the campaign. We decided to challenge him to a rock off and combat ensued. During combat I claimed I was going to use my channel divinity to use war god's blessing, but my DM claimed I couldn't channel my divinity against my own deity. The campaign ended well, and it was a good time. But I still wonder if this is some bullshit. I argued that the Devil would want us to challenge him, as is his nature. Was my DM in the wrong, or am I the fool for not picking Dio to be my deity. Xoxo hags

Kaychbee

(Happy Halloween season to those who celebrate!) To the horrifyingly honorable judges and the boo-rific bailiff, I submit to you the "Case of the Cats in the Bag." My friends and I started the Curse of Strahd campaign a couple years ago, and we still play online to this day. The group has had had a lot of laughs and good times stumbling our way through Barovia, and we still hope to finish the story soon. That said, it has been incredibly hard to keep the party on-track. A few players get distracted very easily and need to be reminded of rules and current situations over and over. They also try to push the boundaries of D&D's rules, especially when it comes to Bags of Holding. Almost every plan includes a proposal to shove something or someone in the Bag, even though the DM has explained why that wouldn't work per the official rules of the Bag. Early on in the campaign, while in Valakai (spoliers) we sneakily explored the burgermaster's manor and discovered the daughter's room that was FULL of cats. Our Ranger, an animal lover in real life and in game, decided to free the cats by putting them all in the party's Bag of Holding and fleeing with them. The DM reminded the Ranger of the limited air supply within the Bag of Holding. A successful Animal Handling check allowed her to place the cats in the bag, and we continued bumbling our way through the manor. Like with all our sessions, irrelevant conversations slowed down and distracted from gameplay, and several in-game minutes passed with no action taken to alleviate the Bag situation. It wasn't until the party was being chased by guards to the outskirts of town that the Ranger, in hopes of distracting the guards with a flurry of cats, emptied the Bag's contents behind us and.... The DM described what happened instead, and lets just say it wasn't what the Ranger was hoping for. I won't go into detail because we're all cat lovers here. To this day, the DM feels badly about his ruling, and the Ranger is bummed about how she failed the cats. Is this a reasonable consequence of not paying attention to the game and respecting past DM rulings, or should the DM have handled this differently? Note, the DM did remind the player at LEAST once more about the limits of the dimension within the Bag of Holding. The DM also listens to NADDPod, so we tensely await your ruling.

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?

Andrew

Justices, I bring you the case of the “implied” virgin paladin. I was playing a paladin in my first D&D game with some work friends and my girlfriend. The rogue made a joke about my paladin being a virgin and before I could say anything my girlfriend jumped in and said “he’s a paladin, it’s implied” to resounding applause and laughter. I couldn’t believe it, the person who I thought would be on my side most made me the punching bag of the joke. This then became a running joke that would be brought up and overshadow any serious moment I tried to have going forward. I call the Bailiff Jake to the stand to give his thoughts as a fellow player who had his character, Hardwon Surefoot, constantly razzed by the table about his virginity. Is this critical piece of character lore open to being decided by a goof at the table? I humbly accept your judgement.

Ben Pelegano

Hello honorable judges and the bane of Connecticut. I come to you with the case of the broken book club. About a year ago I started a fantasy/sci-fi book club with my dad, for his birthday, and invited a few friends (who didn’t know each other) to join. A sort of nerdy Avengers. Every session, after talking about a new book, we play DnD. One of the members, an Eladrin in our game, is the boyfriend of a longtime friend of mine. I just got married and the Eladrin was nowhere to be found despite RSVP’ing yes. His partner was there though and revealed to my wife and I that the Eladrin had broken up with her a few weeks ago. The story of why he ended things is slightly unclear but there is suspected infidelity. Here’s the issue, there is a division in the group about how to proceed. My parents, who talked to my friend at the wedding and often host our sessions, are against the Eladrin continuing to be a part of the group. Other members only know the Eladrin, and not my friend, and are ok continuing the group as is. Who is right? What should I do? A small wrinkle is that after my dad DM’ed the first campaign, the Eladrin had agreed to DM the second one. He has spent months planning and was very excited to DM for the first time. Thank you for your help, lovely people!

Funmi the Flamingo!

May it please the court the illustrious judges and that guy Jarf? Jank? Hear the case of the secret murder mystery. I DM a spell-jammer campaign with my friends but for Halloween we did a Vampire the Masquerade one shot. I kept the premise under wraps and just told my players to make characters ready to go to a high class 1920’s vampire party. When it was revealed that it was a murder mystery several of my players were upset that the feats and abilities they chose were not useful for the task they had. Ultimately people used their skills creatively and solved the mystery but I ask the question should I have better prepared my players for the murder mystery? I lay myself before the court for your judgment

lulz

Note: That was our last session with that group dynamic.

MC

To the fair, resplendent justices and also J***, I present the case of the Husband Guy. A buddy and I have played in and DM’d various DND games together since high school, and last year he married an awesome guy and they’re very happy - his new husband even offered to run a full campaign for us and another friend, and we were pumped! We’re all having fun and get along well together, but the problem is that my buddy’s husband has started way overpowering my buddy’s character, a Paladin. He has already found ways to give him adamantine armor, the boots of speed, and a +3 sword of sharpness. We are level 2. He also has only had one of his monsters attack my buddy’s character in the last ten sessions, while my Bard and the other PC’s rogue get our asses kicked regularly. Fair justices, I love my buddy and his husband and their marriage - but it’s starting to get demoralizing playing at the table losing all the time. The other PC wants to say something, but we don’t know if we should or not, or how to go about it and will defer to your wise opinion.

Noah

To the honorable judges of the high court, and Bailiff Jork, I bring you the case of the Looney Tunes Bomb DM. The events of this case happened over a year ago, but to this day I still hold (an albeit mild) grudge against my DM… On our party’s very first quest, we were sent out to recover stolen documents that were taken by a local mafia. We tracked the papers down to a warehouse filled with other stolen goods: Magical weapons, and artifacts, etc. We managed to sneak in and find the papers, but were caught trying to sneak out and rolled initiative! We were clearly outnumbered and had what we needed so we all decided to make a run for it! My character (An Astral Elf Blade-singing Wizard) was last up in initiative AND the last one to make it out of the warehouse. I decided to try and give my party a “cool guys don’t look at explosions” moment; As I spent my turn casting Firebolt on a crate of what looked like explosives near a group of the enemies. I planned to Bonus action Misty Step out of the warehouse to join the rest of my party immediately after… Instead my DM announced that my Firebolt ignited a NUCLEAR WARHEAD inside the crate of bombs… My character was instantly killed from the explosion. No saves, no damage, no rolls whatsoever. As were the mafia members inside the warehouse. The rest of my party (who were a mere 120 ft. away outside!) were asked to roll Dex saves. To which most of them succeeded, and the ones who failed didn’t even take enough damage to knock them unconscious… When I contested my characters death, my DM responded with, “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” So judges, I ask was my DM right to kill my character with a nuke? Or is it okay that I’m still a little salty about this more than a year later?

Trey

honorable supreme crit justices and the sweetie pie bailiff, i bring to you the case of the serialized armor. so there i was, looting the bodies after a fight with my companions after beating up some evil theocracy knights. i put on the armor because its better than my own and go on my merry way. nobody in the party thinks this is crazy until we meet another knight who recognized my armor. apparently all of their armor is serialized/ looks similar. my party abandons me to be kidnapped by the knight and i get whomped and subsequently razzed by the dm and players for my idiotic idea. i have always felt a bit miffed at the fact that the armor we looted was serialized. is it not my right as a player to use the loot i have acquired or are my fellow players and dm right, and i deserve all the razzing ive gotten? i await your judgement with serialized plate helm in hand.

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?

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

It felt like that’s the closest Murph has been to being genuinely mad across all of NADDPOD and D20

Thundermammal

To the omnipotent judges and impotent bailiff, I wish to bring a case to the minor elemental courts against my players. I have been my table’s only dm since about a month after NADDPOD started when I learned how awesome DnD was. I put together a group, we learned the rules and have had some amazing adventures since then including a five year, ~150 session campaign. Everything was perfect, but life got in the way. In the last year, I got a promotion at work, which increased my weekly hours from 45 to about 60. We also had our first child; that we named Calder after everyone’s favorite icy boy. Something had to give, and it was the 8-10 hours per week of session prep/game time. I told my players that I could still play as a PC but would need someone to take up the DMing mantle for a while. There were no takers. I try not to take it personally but as the only one with a baby and the only one working more than 40 hours per week, I was really hoping that someone would step up. They’ve all been committed players, and I know they love it. We’ve all cried from both laughter and sadness at the table. Yet, now it’s been 6 months since I’ve rolled a dice. So judges I ask you, do I have a case against my players? Or is DMing too big of an expectation to put out to PCs?

Holden

Hello Justices and Bailiff What Do We Think of Jake? Shit! And What Do We Think of Shit? Jake! I bring you the case of the Loophole Lovers. I DM a campaign with 3 of my friends and have been doing so since Covid. We’re all very busy and have somewhat conflicting schedules so play sporadically and for maybe 3-4 hours max each sessions. The issue is, my players’ favorite part about D&D is (of course) whomping me, but specifically by finding a loophole in the encounter/mission/etc and they aren’t too thrilled when I tell them their whomp attempts are bad ideas or straight up won’t work. Most recently, they are exploring an old wizard tower searching for a magical gang that escaped the local prison and put the city on lockdown. After spending the first hour of the session standing outside the tower debating turning around and sneaking into the city on high alert for magical break-ins, they finally relented and went in. It took some convincing less subtle than the standard DM wink. The hook of the tower is that each floor up they get targeted by a spell of increasing level, mostly with a death by a thousand cuts threat. On the first floor, they were targeted by being thorn whipped into a pit, but there was a path out of range of all the thorn whips. They wanted to climb on the walls to avoid the ground triggers without using any spell or ability check. I told them if they wanted to climb on the walls they needed to do something that allowed that, they argued they should just be able to climb because I said it was a stone tower. I at some point asked if they actually wanted to play D&D or if they wanted to just auto bypass everything. Eventually, they equipped their spider climb boots and got avoided the encounter. This is a pretty constant issue where they try to beat every encounter through some unintended direction. And most of the time they want to point out a loophole and be rewarded without risk of failing a tough roll or using an ability. I, meanwhile, don’t want every encounter to have a 5% chance or greater that it just doesn’t happen. I don’t have a ton of time to prep, so I try to prep fun but obvious things for them to interact with. They seem to have more fun beating me than beating the game. So I ask the court, am I being a big baby DM who can’t accept a whomping or is it fair to expect my players to interact with what I set out?

ZoeyHorse (Afterdark)

To Twilight Sparkle Murph, Trixie Caldwell, Starlight Glimmer Emily and annoying dragon baby Spike Jake, I bring you the case of the non invulnerable armour. Recently when I was playing with a new group, one of my players loudly complains every time something does damage to her, citing "I've got all this armour, does it mean nothing?" I've tried to explain that it's just dice rolls and the game would be boring if she couldn't take damage, but she won't listen. She has the same complaint to effects that require a saving throw ("does my armour do nothing?) She has an armour class of 18 at level 2 which I believe is the highest it could possibly be for anyone at that level(?). I'm asked her if she'd prefer if she just never got a hit, and she replied "it would be quite funny if that was the case", meaning yes. Judges, am I doing a bad job of explaining things? Or does she just not want to play the game? Thanks you love you lots

Grayson

My wife’s character shouldn’t be alive and I demand justice! We play a little dice game outside of our D&D session that goes like this: You make a declaration like “If I roll a nat 20, Shmitty the goblin dies in his sleep.” Well that’s what my wife said, and guess what she rolled? The problem is she straight up told me, her DM, “Yeah, I’m not gonna do that.” We hold the outcomes of this silly game sacred, and have performed the many goofs that were declared by a nat 20. Does she have legal grounds to keep her PC alive despite an out-of-game roll? Or will I get to take that sweet goblin’s soul in his sleep?

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.

Stig

Unsolicited ruling from a guy standing outside the courtroom, fishing to get interviewed by reporters: "I would side with the submitter but also sentence them, idrc what the law says. Time for a heart-to-heart with a cutting-off-those-ungrateful-slugs waiting in the wings..." Best of luck, m8. You're doing Christ's work.

Reese

Dear Dice Christ mother and fathers, Our Dice who art in heaven, shame be on my name maybe. I must admit my sin. For this sin is said to be egregious. I have taken a dark path, in a recent session I have come to learn that one of my co-players is dating an ex of mine, and then i learned that she told him some things about me that are not true. Slander such as I mistreat my dog, I don’t use enough water when cooking pasta and my pasta is too hard, and i suck at cooking. They then razzed me, so I decided to get my revenge. In a session we had an opportunity to split up. I convinced this warthog traitor to join me down a dimly lit hall that I thought was perfect. We encountered a Gelatinous Cube (we are level 4 btw) and we far from the other two players. As we decided what to do I asked him to try swinging his sword at it. At which point I narrated my character pushing him the cube. Which he failed the strength check against me, and the dex save for the cube. I then narrated my character smiling as my fellow party member slowly dissolved to their demise. The DM went along with all this as he is one of my closer friends and mechanically it worked. But alas, They’ve had enough with me and don’t want me in their group anymore. Hmm. Perhaps it’s my fault. Perhaps not. May you decide my egregious sin if it may be so.

LansingLibra

To the smoking HOT crits of the court, and the smoldering NOT bailiff- jacob. I bring the case of the Nondetection non-joke. The party's divination wizard cast Nondetection on the party rogue to allow them to sneak passed some scrying sensors at a bourgeois party. As we later get into combat with some patrolling guards, the rogue goes down and fails their first death save. On their second death safe, they roll a nat 1- which would perminately kill their character. The divination wizard spends one of their portent rolls to change that nat 1 to an unimpressive 11, but still a success none the less. The DM slyly states that the rogue is under the effects of nondetection and cannot be affected by divination magic, which would mean the portent does not take affect. The rogue, who is also the DM's wife, goes wide eyed. The DM then calmly says, "I'm just kidding, yeah, you have one failure and one success. Moving on..." Hot judges and not bailiff, This happened awhile ago and the rogue is still openly upset about the one time that her rogue was nearly/jokingly killed, despite the fact that we were able to end combat and quickly up the rogue with some healing. So ultimately, the the rules went as intended with no foul. It's getting to the point that the DM is clearly avoiding damaging the rouge as if their marriage depends on it. Should the rogue accept that death is just a consequence of the game, should the DM not take character lives so causually, should the wizard and I make new friends? PS, I'm just being facetious about Jake not being hot. I think he's a very handsome young man.

Benjamin Dale IV

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

Andre W

The Case of the Barefoot Shitter Good day to the honorable justices and to the consistently disappointing bailiff Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz. I lay this case at your judicial feet in hopes that it pleasures you: Years ago I was in college and began a campaign with people on my dorm floor with a problem DM who for legal reasons will be called Jake. Jake had many deep flaws; however, unlike Jill, we couldn’t just walk away ,the other PCs and I were too excited to play. In the first session Jake dropped NPC voices mere sentences after introduction and yelled at us PCs for our confusion. He restricted character choices and insisted this campaign should be “just like Fantasy High”. He also gave a magical bag of unlimited fantasy cocaine to the party and within 20 minutes took it back for table jokes about Breaking Bad. Jake only invoked the rules when it fit his “vision” for the campaign, changing monster stats and DCs after rolls.Worst of all Jake, the small man he is, skipped PCs turns intentionally and targeted/killed the only first time player, who was my girlfriend at the time. I did not leave because despite Jake's many flaws he recognized my genius as a role player, he made me the star of the campaign. Frankly I was content to let the weaker players suffer under Jake’s despotic rule so long as I slayed maidens and monsters alike. The last straw for Jake occurred two days after the first session, I was brushing my teeth and Jake walked into the communal dorm bathroom stall barefoot. For several minutes Jake loudly farted, grunted and shitted, then exited the stall and left without washing his hands. I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with this terrorist let alone role play my many weird sex fantasies with him so I began my plot to overthrow Jake and install myself as DM. In the first weeks I poisoned the other PCs against Jake, and spread vicious rumors that highlighted his insecurities to anyone who would listen. Now isolated and broken, I orchestrated fights between Jake and his roommate and forced his move to a different dorm. Eventually I had the police handle him; I cannot go into detail except that I was successful. I had replaced Jake, I had become the righteous Tucker. But justices in my glory I wonder did I go too far? I lay myself at the mercy of the court and I will gleefully accept or enforce any punishment you dole out. If it’s any consolation my PCs and I went on many unforgettable adventures and continue to this day. The joy we share is the real magic if you ask me. So am I completely in the right or was the coup undue?

Daave

To the fair and honorable justices, Axford, Murphy and Tanner and the bailiff Jake, who (c'mon guys) does a fine job really! Woo yeah Go Jake! Justices, I bring you the case of "In Game Days Off" I run pro-wrestling themed campaign in the Radiant Citadel Setting, and thus far my players have been having fun and leveling up to greater stakes in and out of the arena. This campaign is beginning to evolve some deep intrigue for the players, who are seeking to uncover the mysteries of the Citadel before the big evil bad guys can make their worst-yet moves. This has begun to include sessions after big milestones for each player to explore the Citadel and uncover more lore. In return I hope to give them all more deep details and discovery for their characters. However, one player in particular has deemed to take these opportunities as times to simply relax in game. Other PCs attuned to their magic weapon for example, or delved into a secret and ancient libraries, rolling NAT20's and exposing some deep secrets... but this player chose to go shopping. I know what you're thinking, like for powerful magic items and potions, right? No, just like regular people window shopping. So she and a very powerful NPC ally/mentor went shopping and flirted with a shopkeeper. In another instance, she chose, I quote, "to take the day off". I asked if there was anything at all she wanted to do since this character has been the party's chief arcanist.. "No, I think she just wants to chill out and eat brunch." was the reply. TBH Justices, I'm worried I'm not giving my player a game they're enjoying, and my offers of greater intrigue aren't the juicy plot devices my player wants. At the same time, I'm worried the rest of the party is being shorted on their opportunities to progress without me shoehorning the plot "gifts" into other PC's awareness. Should I learn to accept that some players might simply crave the mundane and "nothing" is a actionable option? or am I right in hoping for, nay expecting that players engage with the plot devices I give them? I humbly ask and await your ruling. - DM Davo

Magnar Kragstone

To the glorious judges & bailiff; the whimsical Caldwell Tanner, the perspicacious Brian Murphy, the ensorcelling Emily Axford, and the big Joke Hurwitz- I bring to you the case of the Boarhide Belt- I play a dwarf sorcerer (aka dwarferer) in an island-hopping campaign run by my two friends, Josh & Allen, who switch off DMing. On one of Josh's islands, I purchased a homebrew item made by Allen called the Boarhide Belt for 200gp. This belt gave me the Squat Nimbleness feat and considered me a small creature for squeezing through spaces. For 14 sessions across 293 days I used the belt to do things like squeeze through caves or escape an exploding factory. We made it to the next shopping opportunity (still on Josh’s island) when Allen said, "Oh I forgot something". He asked if I had attuned to the belt. I didn’t think I had to since it wasn't in the item description. He then said, "Let's just retcon that you haven't actually attuned to it yet," even though I would have in order to use it when I got it. I then attuned, put on the belt, and promptly transformed into a greased pig. Hoping to have some fun with the situation, I said I wanted to bust out of the tavern room we were in and cause a ruckus. I was asked to make an intelligence save, which I failed because my intelligence was now 2. I was told I was frightened, couldn't move, and thought that "everyone wants my bacon”. It was this point that our party wizard rescued me by casting dispel magic, temporarily ending the polymorph effect. Allen then tells me I got the first of the “dud” items. After the session, I expressed some frustration that I essentially lost an item that I was enjoying. I asked if at some point in the campaign I could have it fixed to work as it did before, to which both DMs said, "Yeah that sounds like a cool story beat". Justices, we have been on indefinite hiatus and may never resume this campaign. I ask the court, what is the statute of limitations for instituting a retcon? How long in real time or campaign progress is fair to wait for the fix to consider reparations complete? What if that never happens? Thank you, and Dice Christ’s blessings- Magnar Kragstone

Exi

To the honorable justices, whose grace and wisdom is known through all the land, and the balliff Jake, whom some citizens have heard of, I bring the case of orc racism razzing. Many moons ago, a friend invited me to a game he was DMing. The players were me (playing a barbarian), the DM’s roommate (whom I didn’t know that well, playing a Paladin), and a mutual friend I knew from theatre classes whom I had a well established banter with (playing a rogue). In the first session, we all introduced our characters. The rogue player and I both described our orcish characters and then the Paladin player showed us his human and informed us (above table) that his character was raised to be racist against orcs. I found it very offputting that someone I didn’t know well had just told me he intended to be racist to the other two PCs. With the wisdom of hindsight, it seems likely that this player intended for this to be an interesting character who would grow and mature out of his racism. However, the rogue player and I teased him so hard for this character trait that it never actually came up in campaign (at least I don’t remember it, it was never formally renounced it just, didn’t come up in campaign). I do not remember how often it came up as a joke after the first session, but I am not one to stop beating a dead horse and the gm later texted me privately to tell me stop teasing his roommate for his attempt at writing a compelling character flaw. I probably could and should have communicated my discomfort more maturely but I am also unsure it was a character choice made in good taste. Honorable justices, did I razz too hard or was my attempt at light hearted social correction necessary?

Maximus Jiron

Case of the enabling DM 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.

Alex Hutchinson

May it please the cool justices and lukewarm bailiff, I present the case of The Economics of Goat's Milk. I am DM'ing a multi-year game for some friends. A while ago the party spawned a giant goat from the magical bag of beans. They named it Mirry and kept it as a mascot for the tavern they own. They decided they wanted to sell Mirry's milk to turn a profit. They milked the goat and went to a farmer's market. I estimated that a giant goat could produce 10 times as much milk as the average, real-life goat, looked up the cost per gallon of goat's milk in dollars, and converted it to gold using an estimate I found online. I told them they made 2 gold and 50 silver after a whole day of hawking milk, and they were furious. I walked them through my math(1gp=$100, avg goat produces 1 gal per day, a giant goat might produce 10 gallons per day?, a gallon of goats milk costs $22 -> (10x22)/100 = 2.2 gold) but they still felt as though they were not receiving enough money for their milk. I argued that the math checked out and even assumed they sold all the milk. This argument now comes up every month of in-game time as they want to roll for how much money they made on goat's milk. Am I giving my players a bad deal on their milk? I humbly await your judgement.

Drew Faber

to the venerable justices and the venereal bailiff; I present the case of the Nat 1 fumbler. My DM for an online game uses a Nat 1 fumble rule where if you roll a Nat 1 on an attack and you have an ally nearby, you reroll a new attack roll against that ally’s AC. This rule is incredibly annoying, and as a lvl11+ Eldritch knight I’m making lots of melee attacks. Recently we were in combat and I rolled a Nat 1. I had described myself as charging through a doorway into a small chamber to attack. We hadn’t been shown a minimap on Owlbear yet (we play over discord video) and my DM decided that our bard was standing right behind me, even though as a rule they try to stay far away from melee. They had cast a spell in combat so my DM argued that they had to be in the room, but again, we had no visual reference for the space. I was made to attack them and they dropped. I defeated the enemy, my ally was healed, and everything was fine in the end… but I’m still salty about this annoying rule that makes me keep attacking my friends with a huge greatsword, because with 3 (or 6 or even 7) attacks per round, I’m bound to roll some 1s. I ask: does my DM suck for this ruling or should I suck it up? (P.S. we roll on dndbeyond and my DM rolls his own dice off camera… I can’t remember enemies ever nat1 fumbling)

GuyOnTheTiger

splendidly: I PROSTRATE MYSELF BEFORE THE COURT AND DEMAND A MORTAL JUDGEMENT! I seek justice as it was at the high crit's origin, and as befits the crime. I bring the case of Moolissa:The Non-Canonical Cow. I played with a group of friends and Bills fans with some bad habits. Rather than all players taking notes/responsibility, they relied on one player, Billy, to recap at the beginning of each session. Running my first homebrew module, the party defeated a cult of vegan cattle-rustlers who had been "liberating" all the livestock. Immediately after combat, the party befriended a heffer dubbed "Moolissa." Ending that session, I narrated the party bidding farewell to the animal this starving town could not spare. Imagine my surprise when, at the start of the next session, Billy read his account and included that they had taken Moolissa with them, saying "that's canon now." I clarified that they certainly had not, and the adventure carried on as planned exploring abandoned Dwarven ruins. The third time Billy started a session by insisting that Moolissa had been with them the whole time and always would be, I felt a call to action. I allowed them to have the cow, as they were about to enter a puzzle encounter including a series of long, narrow bridges. I forewarned them that the bridges were narrow and animal handling checks would be required to guide Moolissa safely. The wizard confidently and immediately rolled a classic 2. I narrated that Moolissa slipped over the edge and followed the mechanics I had planned. She fell past the party 3 times, bellowing in confusion. The cow comet flew some 120 feet before finally finding a bridge on which it exploded. The party seemed shocked into silence for a few seconds before decrying me for killing their fun, and then hastily butchering her to make commemorative jerky. So I ask the court: did I cruelly murder Moolissa, or was I within my rights as DM to defend the sovereignty of what is canon? I ecstatically await the court's judgement, and accept whatever capital punishment it "meats" out. PS: I recorded these sessions and would be happy to answer inquiries for further information, or defend myself from likely counter suits as appropriate.

Tails with really supple birthing hips

Hello lovely and resplendent judges and ya know what, the bailiff Jake who is a semi decent guy. This isn’t a case nor a confession but a query from a forlorn soul. Today is my birthday and the only thing I want is a shout out from my favorite podcasters and almost b list celebrities (depending on whom you ask) to make my otherwise bleak and dreary day blessed by the light of Dice Christ.

Abigail Schneider

To the honorable justices and the blasphemous bailiff, I present to you the case of “Selective Listening.” I’ve been DM-ing Descent into Avernus for my boyfriend and three of his friends. While searching for the Sorcerer’s missing father, the party found themselves in a crypt in Hell investigating a suspicious cleric who REALLY hates devils. They befriended a frightened Quasit who told them his master had opened a portal to the Abyss and was sending demons through to terrorize the city. The party discovered the portal and found the missing father unconscious beside it. They fought several undead Minotaurs to rescue the dad, but after the fighting finished and my Sorcerer PC was having a tearful reunion with her father, the Rogue PC, Osmunt, decided to start throwing things in the portal. My quasit NPC had explicitly told the party the portal connected to the Abyss, and I had him reiterate that if they wanted to prevent demons from coming through, they needed to find a way to close the portal. Osmunt decided to jump into the portal. My other PCs did not follow. I described Osmunt landing in a fortress in the Abyss where demons were causing chaos and let him roll to try and hide from the demons. Judges, Osmunt rolled a Nat 1. The demons found him and attacked him, bringing him close to death’s door. I prepared to have the demons capture Osmunt and bring him to their leader, but he kept fighting back and refused to let the demons subdue him. They knocked him out, and Osmunt started rolling death saving throws, ultimately failing and his PC died. The session went for another 10 mins with the other PCs debating whether or not to follow Osmunt but they ultimately decided against it. After the session, Osmunt’s player told me he hadn’t been paying attention when I was describing the portal and so he thought it actually went to the Material Plane. Judges, did I wrongly execute a player? Or was Osmunt’s selective hearing the real cause of his downfall? I humbly await your judgement.

Ziel R.

I stand before the dioces of the dice with a confession. About a year back, I joined my first campaign. It was a long running campaign that was getting into the final act. My character started slightly lower level, but leveled up fairly fast to catch up with the rest of the group. As such, I went from level 11 to level 17 over the past 12-14 months. The fact that I just hit level 17 is the key to this issue. As a sorcerer, level 17 is when I unlock another metamagic. I wasn't sure which one to take, so I was talking it over with a friend, and when he looked over my meta list he was like, "Oh. So you've already picked your new metamagic." I was a bit confused, and tried to explain that I hadn't added any new ones yet. Turns out I had been playing this entire campaign with one more metamagic than I should have had. orz I wish I could say something like "Oh, it's not a big deal because it's not like I used them all, but I used them all. I used them A Lot. I was constantly having to burn spell slots to get more sorcery points so I could use more metamagics. In some ways, this sort of takes care of itself since I'm just not taking any new meta at 17 and thus am back to having the correct amount, but I feel like I've been cheating since I started playing.

Jenny Maurer

To the fair and benevolent justices and the appropriate amount of lowly bailiff, I bring the case of the denied Divine intervention. It was supposed to be the last session of our groups two year long campaign, it was our fighter, bard, druids and myself the clerics first time playing DND and our rogue was our only veteran player and the DM has been playing for a few years and this was not their first time dming. So we went with our high level elf allies and made our way to the big bads layer. Of course everything goes wrong and it's looking like a TPK for our grand finale. We had confirmed earlier that our elf allies were level 20. So as the pack of the chain warlock is about to set a resurrected dragon on us on my turn, I turn to grasp my Cleric mentor's hands and pray for a divine intervention, to break to warlocks agreement leaving him powerless. DM had me roll for my divine intervention and I got it and he rolled for the warlock's Patron. He said he won the roll and we got magically sent to safety, and agreed on one more session to wrap it up. As he was leaving I asked what his roll was and I blacked out but he said something in the 400's. I was so confused and our rogue asked how that was possible on a percentile dice roll, our DM knew he messed up but still said he won the roll in the end it was warlock patron, a trickster god ended up being the one to set things right and send us home Judges, was I robbed of my double divine intervention? I know I may have been asking for maybe too much but I submit i rolled for it, and had a level 20 cleric to back me up, and the rule of cool. P.S. in this campaign we were playing as ourselves jumanjied into a dnd world.

Sean Townley

Honorable Sendoff Not a grievance, but a player is having to drop from our campaign due to a health issue, and he asked for an honorable sendoff for his character. His character is a human barbarian named Winston, and we are in the Faewild during the Wild Beyond the Witchlight campaign. Any suggestions for a proper send off for ol Winston?? Thanks!

Dennis J. Dolan

To the venerable justices and-holy shit! Is that JORK HORSESHIT?? Sorry, got distracted. ANYWAYS! The current character I’m playing with my longest running DND group is Cub Funny, a racey, freshly canceled comedian and who is, mechanically specking, a Satyr College of Eloquence Bard. He is, to put it nicely, an asshole and a problem. ESPECIALLY for our DM. Our story starts with our party’s battle against a giant and three griffons hoping to capture Cub and taking him somewhere; presumably to be charged for his crimes of being a little shit. But when it finally to my turn in initiative, I get what I think is a pretty clever idea. I decide to use Universal Speech (a Eloquence feature that allows me to be completely understood by a certain number of creatures per long rest) and attempt to trick the griffons into thinking that I am not Cub Funny and that they have the wrong Satyr. This made no sense to the DM. He claims that griffons don’t have the brains to comprehend the concept of “These are not the droids you are looking for”, regardless of whether or not they can understand me. This lead to a heated, but ultimately respectful, argument amongst the entire group that ended with the DM slightly caving and making me roll an Animal Handling check to convince the griffons; a check that would end up being a NAT 20. With that, we bring the case to you. And all I ask The Justices of The Supreme Crit is that you remember when making your final ruling that this a case of Player vs DM and not a case of Cub Funny vs the woke mob

Fickle Fiction mail club

To the illustrious judges and the middling bailiff, I present the case of the Strahd-splosion. I was running curse of Strahd for the worst group of players I'd ever ran for. The party had reached the final battle and by halfway through one character had already fled the castle and the party because the player was annoyed at something her boyfriend said. Strahd was getting a little bit womped, which I was okay with, but towards the end of the fight one of the players started talking smack to the vampire Lord. He called strahd ‘bitch boy' and told him to ‘cry about his girlfriend’. The other players were indifferent to the razzing but it was out of character and I could see it was killing the tone of the fight. The player kept looking at me to see if he was getting a reaction out of me, so after about the 13th comment, I caved. Strahd turned into Mist and flew down the character's throat. After two failed saves and an entire round to stop him, strahd reverted into his humanoid form, rapidly expanding and turning the PC into an explosion of meaty chunks. The player was dejected, but the tone of horror returned and the other players locked in for the rest of the fight for a great finale. But did I go too far exploding this PC? Or did his out of character razzing warrant the swift vengeance from the dark lord Strahd?

PaperMoonMan

Hello Luminous Justices and the Dim Bailiff Jake, I ask for your judgement in the case of the problem baby. My partner and I are excitedly anticipating the arrival of our first child (P.S. we are open to name suggestions besides Jake and Jake-like names). In anticipation of this, I have let my DnD table know that I will no longer be able to participate in our weekly 6-hour sessions for at least a year. While I am sad to step back from the table, I just don't see a way to balance work/childcare with our table's approach to sessions. My DM has not appreciated my request for a hiatus and is suggesting that I just "bring the baby". While this may work for some people, our sessions tend to go very long, with lots of drinking and eating, and very foul-mouthed yelling. I am concerned that exposing my young child to this environment will drastically raise the odds of them becoming a gooner. So Justices, am I right to step away from the table while I focus on my new child, or should I be looking to expose my baby to the wonders of DnD as early as possible? I humbly await your judgement.

Daqpanda

Your distinguished honors and bailiff, I bring to you the case of the firearm fiasco for justice. Years ago my table started with Hoard of the Dragon Queen, then rotated DMs through mini arcs of our own creation. Through the couple years we played regularly we also started secondary characters in the same world, but as privateers. I wanted to add basic firearms and blackpowder weapons (cannons etc.) because pirates. The table voted and only one didn't want them. We added them. Next time this person had their turn DMing he killed our secondary characters off screen, and ran an encounter with our primaries that was impossible, leading to our deaths as well. Please give my sweet sweet Jimothy posthumous justice, I trust your judgment for sentencing.

seda

I was proper mad on his behalf for a good half an hour before I went back to normal

Holden

Most venerated and auspicious Judges and the lowly but buff bailiff I throw myself upon the wheel of your judgement. My crime, I’m trying to get my friend to quit her dnd group. I have permission to share this story and she’s interested in hearing judgements from your most esteemed and judicious conclave. My friend plays with a group of guy friends as their supportive cleric in a gritty and grim dark campaign. She herself is in a wheelchair and wanted her character to be in one as well. Super cool, where is turns not super cool is how her DM has responded to this. He docks her double on difficult terrain, climbing, and told her to never go in water or she would lose her chair. But the fuckery peaks during combat. her DM, whilst they are in combat targets her, since she is the healer he says, by pushing her character out of their chair and throwing it away and giving her a “crawling speed”. She eventually told her dm that the wheelchair had a seat belt so her character could not be so easily removed from the chair. To this he responded by having the antagonist push over the characters chair and drag it away, with them in it, from the fight. He has this dragging deal bludgeoning damage, gives her disadvantage on grapple checks, she is prone if she manages to escape, and has to do athletics checks (for which she also does with disadvantage) to get back up. You can imagine how this has affected her effectiveness in combat. Now judges I cannot see with how you are reacting, my scrying crystal is in the shop. But I reacted with a loud and viscous what the fuck. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. I was furious, what did the other players have to say I asked. She said they were unhappy about it but the dm said that they had all wanted to play in his grim super cool and edgy sick dark wankfest of a world (I’m editorializing sorry ) where there choices have consequences. I instantly invited her to come play with my group. But she declined, my group met online and she really enjoyed meeting in person, one of the guys in the party is her best friend, and other than these instances of jackassery the campaign was really fun and she felt invested. So we came up with a plan. World Anvil and other forums have stats for a combat wheelchair. We homebrewed them together trying very hard to be fair and not overpowered with the idea that this would satisfy the dms desire for realism 🤢 and make her playing experience more enjoyable. This idea was rejected. He called her sensitive and that she was making problems when knew what she was signing up for. To which I pulled a justice Murphy and yelled you need new friends. I felt like she should quit and find a kinder group. These acts to me seemed indicative of deeper problems. She doesn’t want to quit but keep searching for a solution. So judges, I lay myself at your mercy and ask for not only your judgement but your advice and maybe some ideas. Thank you for your time.

Sam C

May it please the honorable justices and the milksop bailiff, I bring to order the case of the real-life therapist and the in-game couple. I DM a political intrigue campaign that is role-play heavy for a group of 4 players, 2 of which are a couple (in and out-of-character). The problem is that the couple seems to be taking problems from their relationship and argue about them in-character. The worst example of this was when the bard girlfriend was flirting with an NPC to get information and the barbarian boyfriend attacked the NPC and said "I knew you always had a thing for (DM)" using my actual name and not the NPCs. The session ended with the boyfriend crying and accussing us of an affair (which we aren't having). I have since asked them to stop working out their problems during the game since it makes EVERYONE uncomfortable. Which they agreed to originally but later went back on their word because they want me to counsel them and that a good therapist would help them. While I am an actual therapist, I am not a couple's counselor and even if I was there are ethical concerns when it comes to treating your friends, especially if one of them has accused you of adultry. Would it be wrong to kick them out of the party if they continue to treat our campaign as a therapy session? Would it be fair to the other PCs if the campaign falls apart if I kickout half the group? Is there any way to salvage this campaign?

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 quest and at this point the PCs have spent plenty of time together but didn't actually like each other, they spent most sessions arguing. So without allowing for any sort of wisdom save I set it up for them to all grab onto a cursed sword at the same time and get stuck to it. They were forced to stay together in order to travel to the next place in search of a cursebreaker. Am I going to dice hell for taking advantage of the fact that my friends did not know rolling to not grab the sword was an option or will my railroading get me on a train to dice heaven?

Zac Carter

Greetings to the most fair, honest, and justices and … wait, don’t tell me… is it… Jonk? I’m going with Jonk. I bring you the case of the Dimension don’t. I play a level 6 College of Eloquence Bard, named Derik Dohard, in a cyberpunk world where technology is very prominent and every person has a smartphone. In one of our party's recent missions, we were following a GPS tracker to reach an abandoned hideout of a detective who knew info about our current mission. The GPS could only tell us the general direction to go and not specific instructions because this part of the city was abandoned and basically run by unhoused drug addicts. While exploring and following the GPS, an NPC informed us that multiple scary monsters lay ahead. So the artificer in our party cast invisibility on herself to sneak ahead and scope out the area. Lo in behold, our party accidentally discovered the fastest route to the hideout, and our artificer only had to sneak past 2 very scary mutated monsters. But justices, this is where all hell broke loose. Once there, I asked my DM if our artificer could send us a picture of the location she was at, and I could dimension door with the barbarian to the artificer. But justices, he ruled that I couldn’t. He claimed that this would not work because you cannot dimension door to an insanely realistic painting, which is similar to a photograph. I tried to argue that this is a cyberpunk world with high tech everywhere, and that on multiple occasions we have Google people and locations to get information, so a picture should be good enough to dimension door to. After around 20 minutes of this argument, I decided to pull up the exact wording of the spell and noticed that I could alternatively just say the amount of distance I would like to go and the direction, but he still ruled that I couldn’t. We then bickered for another 20ish minutes, until I decided to just accept his ruling and not use the spell. The session was fine after that. We explored the rest of the alleyways together, found a ton of fun loot, fought some very scary monsters, and even met a beloved NPC who was lost in there. So, justices, I humbly ask, was I wronged? Should my spell have worked? Or should I have just accepted his ruling the first time and trusted that there was a reason he wouldn’t let the spell work? I patiently await your ruling. Also ps. My party agreed that the spell should have worked, but they were slightly less engaged during the actual argument I had with my dm.

Daniel B

To the holiest devotees of Dice Christ. I come before you humble and seeking clemency not for myself but for one of my players. I have been DMing for a friend of mine who is IRL a real sweetie and a chill, cool dude. In game he wants to be a total badass. Unfortunately his dice disagree. For YEARS he has had bad rolls. However, so far, he has maintained his enthusiasm to keep playing. In our last three sessions he has not rolled high enough to hit a single enemy, pass a single saving throw or skill check. So low that I can't even fudge it for his sake. However near the end of each session he has somehow rolled a clutch, game-altering, nat 20 which has been made all the sweeter after watching him struggle. Despite how glorious those nat 20s have been I worry about how much longer my friend can endure hours of failure while watching everyone else succeed. I have even lent him my luckiest of dice only to see them wane at his turn. I prostrate myself before Dice Christ and pray for his mercy so that he can fully enjoy the glorious game.

Goobersteen

Hello beloved judges and out loved fella john I come to you with the godfather moment It was my second dnd campaign, I was playing a warebear rouge whos name was Joe-Sepi (Joe-Sip-e), he was a happy go lucky guy, would spend his time in town painting rocks and selling them off as "runes" and being a caldwell in combat by doing goofs rather than just god damn swinging, all with a voice i was told was "not great to hear sometimes" The issue comes when my party found my character to be annoying, too annoying and wanted to get some form of revenge on him, we all came into wealth and i bought a horse and carriage, hoping to turn into a roaming salesman, what ended up happening was my party killing my horse, and god fathering me by putting its head in my bed, i was abit shocked as we do prank one another but nothing like this, I wasnt sure what to do so i said joe woke up, saw this and turned into a bear taking his cart away, exiting the campaign This caused abit of a "Hey cmon" in the group, saying no need to be dramatic, and ifs fine, i still played but as a different char, my question is was I right to make joe leave from that move, or was this a punk'd moment that I should of taken on the chin, I sit playing my switch, awaiting your judgement P.S joe-sipi lives on in the dms world as a travelling "rune" salesman

Posey Mehta

Priests of Dice Christ, I write not to confess but rather seeking an exorcism, after what I believe to be a case of Royal dicely possession. A few years ago, I'd been taking a break from my home game (scheduling issues), so my DM sent my PC off on a side quest. When I was unexpectedly able to make a session on short notice, they decided to let me run the end-of-mini arc BBEG they'd prepared, rather than find a reason for my PC to randomly show up on a demonic demi-plane. I have notoriously bad rolls (a la Murph), so we thought it would be a fun way to soften up what was otherwise going to be a tough encounter. Priests of Dice Christ, this creature attacked four times per round, and I crit without fail on a minimum of three out of four of them. I have never rolled so well in my life. It was unprecedented. It was statistically impossible. And it also resulted in a TPK. Now this just happened to also be the same day the Queen died (I'm British), and I fear she possessed my dice. I have not dared to use those dice again, and thankfully have returned to my comfortingly shitty rolls. But I ask of Dice Christ now: can you exorcise Queen Elizabeth II from that dice set because I actually really liked them and miss not being able to use them?

Rob's Wit

Venerable Justices and the Veritably Vacuous Bailiff. Here's a quick one! I bring you the case of the Cool Uncle DM that has to teach the concept of consequence to his niblings. Judges, I regularly run a table for 6 of my nieces and nephews, set in an Island of Misfits style place called "Nevermind Island" -- a place where all kinds of creatures, civilizations, and societies have been pulled in from other planes and have been forced to coexist. Several adventures in, they began to truly test the bounds of my DM kindness. When my party of nibling heroes found themselves chased by a statted-up T-Rex, they all said they wanted to be swallowed. I warned that this was a creature that was so fearsome, they should really try to escape and that a bite and swallow from this thing would mean character death. I told them that I would have to take away their character sheets if their characters died. Judges. They tried to call me on my bluff. I could see it in their little faces. "you wont' do it, uncle Robert." Judges. I did. 6 PCs. All swallowed. A full TPK. Then I resurrected the party next session, as individuals cannot die in Nevermind Island. They reincarnate with the tide of the ocean waves, slowly returning over the course of a day. And of course, any equipment, items, or weapons are all lost. They now fully appreciate deadly threats. The question remains... was I wrong to teach my party of niblings that actions have consequences by having a T-Rex eat them all?

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)

Josh Dunstan

I place myself at the mercy of Dice Christ (or perhaps in this case Card Christ) and their holy disciples, for I have sinned. I have recently in the last few months, at the behest of Emily, taken up Magic: The Gathering. During my friend's birthday recently, I played my first game of IRL Commander and in my opening hand was a land search card, which I played on my first or second turn. In my 100-card deck, I pulled a land and played it, and we moved on to the next player's turn as I reshuffled the deck; however, because the stack of cards is so large, I split it into multiple parts to shuffle, then put it all back together. At the end of shuffling, I looked down and had no hand of cards in front of me. I had indeed shuffled the hand into my library. Not wanting to embarrass myself and/or halt the game, I told no one and discreetly drew the number of cards I thought I had left in my hand. I've since kept this dark secret to myself and not told a soul, not even my wife, who was also learning and playing Commander for the first time. I await and accept whatever damning you see fit.

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 had infiltrated 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, Magnus dropped. Maybe a bit overkill, but I decided that the other androids would attack him as well. 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.

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 Smitten Paladin.” This tale tells of an unseemly situation that occurred during the final battle with the big bad guy in what was a standard fare heist oneshot. My “friend” James, who played as a warforged Paladin named Junkbot, got charmed by an Incubus and politely asked far too eagerly, “Shall I Divinely Smite him, Master?” while turning to face my poor himbo Barbarian named Hurricane. After slashing my PC twice, Junkbot used both of his highest level spell slots to Divine Smite me on both attacks, after which my PC dropped unconscious, leading to our party TPK’ing immediately afterwards. Justices, I beseech thine most discerning of deliberations. Was this Incubus-smitten Paladin within his right to savagely smite my himbo or should they have toned it down a couple notches? I await your most shrewd and sangfroid of sentences. P.S. - To my ‘friend’ James, “Fuck you, I love you, eat a rat.”

Matthew Rudland Barfoot

Howdy Judges One and All especially the One True Prodigal Justice Jaif. In a multi-DM Roll20 Discord Campaign I played Agitato the pinnacle Kvothe-esque (nod to Patrick Rothfuss) bard. My judges, in our campaign, Agitato not only used thaumaturgy and a fur coat to scare the Dire Wolves of Asgard, nor did he stop at winning the 20 player knockout Colluseium PVP with Finesse, Thunder Wave and Dissonant Whispers, nay did he cease when he brought closure to the dwarven orphans who lost their parents with Phantasmal Force to allow them to hug and kiss their parents goodbye one by one over many days. Our boy Agitato humiliated the BBEG by interrupting his monologue and almost slaying him singlehandedly in a narratively early encounter. In response our DMs held a "council" meeting in discord, with tensions high and uncertainty in the group. On Agitato and Party next mission, a non descript NPC joined our ranks on an escort mission, we needed to bring them home. Something felt off with the DM and on returning to the fort after said mission and a job well done, the escort showed themselves to be an acolyte of the BBEG and opened a portal to allow them into our base, what happened next was a pre-planned, post-session multi-DM combat across three different channels and a relentless charge from the BBEG DM to murder Agitato for "making him feel weak". Agitato fought tirelessly, alas with reduced hit-points and no spell slots from a days adventuring, he was knocked down and quickly killed for good measure by the BBEG and his Hell hounds . The BBEG fled as soon as Agitato died and the game finished sorely. A discord funeral was held by my player freinds and I felt defeated and sore. My judges, following this the discord server soon disbanded and I understood that the BBEG DM felt strongly that narratively the BBEG should hunt down and murder Agitato for their cockiness and power. I unashamedly admit my bard was cocky and brazen however they were loved by the party and a strong member of the team. This was 10 years ago and I am still salty that Agitato was slain, and feel this was a tiny DM who didn't like to feel small, combatting, punishing and murdering Agitato for daring to be bold and upsetting "their" story. I leave the case of Agitato the Bard in your capable hands

Alexandra Ferguson

Greetings judges and Joel! I bring you the case of baby murder hobos first outing (and first taste of consequences). I ran a one-shot yesterday for a friend’s partner (let’s call him Ben), who had never played before. Early on, the party fought mind-controlled townsfolk. I made it clear they weren’t in control. An NPC ally was pulling her punches and pleading with them, and the party warlock confirmed it on an arcana check. Ben announced that his (unwritten) backstory meant his character “wouldn’t do non-lethal”. He attacked lethally, but his party managed to put the wounded townsfolk to sleep before he could finish them off. Ben was immediately suspicious of the NPC, who wanted help rescuing a friend from the same village as these townsfolk. Insight checks showed she was genuinely concerned, but he stayed openly hostile. Later, he got annoyed when the NPC attacked the same enemy he had, and once he literally shut the door on her while fleeing from monsters that had ambushed him after she came in to help. Finally, in the last act, the woman they were meant to save was cowering in a cave, trying to keep a dangerous undead creature asleep, believing it to be the spirit of her childhood friend. Ben scouted ahead alone, botched stealth, and declared, “I’m going to kill you!” even though she begged him to leave. The undead creature awoke and started whispering in the party’s minds and attacking. A couple of rounds later, while forced to move away from the monster, he stabbed her en route, thinking she might be controlling the monster. He crit, she had commoner stats, full dead. The whispers from the undead continued, so he realized she had been telling the truth all along and asked whether anyone could bring her back, but it was too late. After the fight, the NPC ally carried her friend’s body out, gave them half the promised reward for at least killing the monstrosity, and told them to leave. From about the point of him closing the door in the NPC’s face, the table was razzing Ben a bit, and he was very quiet during the somber ending. Was I too harsh letting this newbie murder the damsel they were there to save, or does this new boyfriend kinda suck?

Dr_Eef

To the Most Pernicious Justices and the Persnickety, yet Effusive, Bailiff Jaunt Hikewalks, I bring before this esteemed court the case of Meticulous Preparation vs. A Half-Baked Ryan Murphy–Style Humiliation. I have held a deep and abiding interest in Dungeons & Dragons for nearly a decade. Inspired by Fantasy High, years ago (Obligatory shoutout to D20), I first took up the mantle of Dungeon Master and have loved the craft ever since. Our gaming fellowship consists of six members: two rotating DMs (myself and another, whom I shall henceforth refer to as Jack), and four players, with the occasional oneshot or side campaign for good measure. On the day in question, the docket was reserved for my campaign — a session I had prepared for with meticulous care and near-manic enthusiasm. I had spent weeks in anticipation, extolling to my players the wonders to come: revelations of multi-planar lore, the return of a beloved pirate captain from a campaign five years past, and a climactic confrontation with a lieutenant of our great and terrible BBEG — a multidimensional eldritch god who was responsible for the destruction of the previous campaign world. Justices and Jaunt, tragedy struck as soon as our session was to begin. Jack, a player in my campaign, declared: “I don’t really want to play Corviel right now.” (For context, Corviel, his character, had only just been resurrected through divine intercession by his god, Marketh — at great personal cost.) And Justice Murphy, I confess: being conflict-averse and ever eager to maintain group harmony, I relented and said, with meek resignation: “Oh, OK, I guess we can do your campaign then, if everyone else is cool with that.” Thus, my weeks of preparation were shelved in an instant. What followed, Honorable Justices, was the most dismal session of Dungeons & Dragons I have ever endured. We began without purpose or plot. My fellow players and I initiated dialogue to stir action, only for the moment to be interrupted by an earthquake. My character — a druidic construct fashioned by Oberon himself — determined the tremor to be “unnatural” (after asking to make a Nature check and getting a 30). Seeing a glimmer of narrative, I inquired of our party NPC: “Is there anyone important we could talk to about this?” Jack replied, halfheartedly: “Well, there is the magistrate.” Thus, we sought the magistrate, who greeted us in an utterly non-descript office and informed us, after several minutes of unproductive discourse: “I don’t know anything about the earthquakes. They’ve been happening since before I was the magistrate.” After yet more fruitless inquiry, he finally offered: “I think there’s a cave on the east end of town that can help you, but I don’t know if you’ll find anything there.” We proceeded to said cave — equally non-descript — where we discovered a secret laboratory filled with “wet specimen tubes.” Eventually, we encountered an eldritch eyeball abomination wearing a hat, whom we, in our desperation, christened The Hat Man. JUSTICES. This creature womped us. He possessed an aura of thirty feet that dealt constant damage and nullified healing, effectively silencing my druid. He wielded legendary actions against a party of five level-four adventurers, and — to add insult to injury — the DM punctuated his attacks with prepared soundboard quotes from other media. The DM, in his hubris, also took several minutes describing the villain’s “aura farming” and “cool moves,” while repeatedly losing track of initiative, ignoring player input, and performing unrelated side bits in our server chat. He even mocked our gunslinger’s attack as an “off-brand Spirit Gun.” We somehow wrested a hollow victory from the tightly clenched jaws of annihilation, but only after Jack DECAPITATED our party’s NPC and quest giver — dealing over one hundred points of damage in a single “anime sword slash, but with claws.” With a legendary action. In the days since, my fellow players and I remain haunted by a single, resounding question: What the fuck? And so, Most Pernicious Justices and Perfunctory Baillif, I stand before you seeking your judgment: Was I in error to prioritize the feelings and enjoyment of my fellow DM, only to be so thoroughly shafted in return? Or should I have stood firm — defending the sanctity of my preparation, my narrative, and my players’ time — rather than let my people-pleasing prevail? I await your fair and merciful judgment. P.s. I was able to revive our party NPC only after four minutes of personal rules lawyering on my own behalf, saying “if I still have the head, it shouldn’t matter if revivify can regenerate body parts“

Lili McGee

May it please the court.
My friend and I are both Dungeon Masters—who can’t agree on a single spell. Invisibility. I say: if it’s on you when you cast the spell, it’s invisible until the magic runs out. Pick something up afterward? Sorry, that jewel still shining bright and floating —unless you tuck it in your now invisible pocket. Put down an item that was on you when the spell is cast? It stays invisible until the spell drops. My adversary insists that anything touching the invisible person instantly shares the enchantment and once it’s off you, the item becomes visible once more. The result? Two houses divided with two rulebooks, and a table full of very confused adventurers. So, Your Honors of Arcane Law, we beg you—issue your final ruling before our campaigns and friends disappear!

Lordfourquad

Hello honorable justices this is not a case but I’m simply speaking on behalf of all listeners of dnd court. I would simply like to mention that we want to listen to more cases and would like to propose an idea for either longer dnd court episodes or every now and then just make one dnd court mega episode that reads and judges as many cases as possible. Just saying we love dnd court and want more of it.

Venomous 88

Hello lovely Justices and the okay Bailiff Jack. I submit to the court the attempted murder of Jabs. The party was traveling down a rainy road when we were accosted by goblins the leader was able to turn invisible in between rounds. To support his weary party Jabs made chase and did catch up to him. Yelling “He is over here.” During the vile villain’s turn he dropped a darkness bomb and ran away! Then Lanela said, “I’m sorry, Jabs” and hurled a fireball my way instantly downing Jabs. The goblin no where near the fireball. Jabs is in limbo with the session ending there, but I represent his estate and demand JUSTICE! (JK this move had me rolling on the floor laughing)

Gicky

Congratulations Justice Murphy on the big win! Gooooo Zombonies! 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, and was promptly dressed down and lambasted by the community for fudging rolls and railroading my players. One person even went as far as to write 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 of the court. Was I wrong to deprive my lions of their hunt, or was I right to protect myself from getting bit.

Maya

To the sweet candy Judges and the ‘loose candy bouncing at the bottom of the bag’ Bailiff, I present the case of: Stirges- the Elsa Defense. May it please the court! My dad is running a campaign for me, the Dragon of Icespire Peak. It is the first campaign for both of us using the 2024 ruleset! It’s only us two, so we decided that I should have an NPC/PC that I control during combat. One Druid (me) and one Paladin. The incident happened on a fateful night, exploring a castle. No less than 13 stirges appeared. Our characters were level 3, and had already been in a fight, so I was worried. They’re easy enough to kill, but I had four/five attached to me. Instead of taking a full action to remove a SINGLE stirge, I asked him if I could thunderwave myself. I said I was fully willing to take whatever damage I did. This caused a discussion about thunderwave that went on for a hot minute. He brought up the “Elsa Defense,” which refers to Elsa from Frozen 1. He argued that Thunderwave is expelled from your body; similar to when Elsa gets upset in the tower, sending a shockwave of ice out FROM her. He said there wasn’t a way that I could target myself. I eventually acquiesced, because he is the DM. But I ask!! Was I wronged? Or is my dad right? Is a “fifteen foot cube, originating from you” too vague? Can you target yourself for spells? I prostrate myself, humbly awaiting your fair judgement. [For the record, I coined the Elsa Defense, he didn’t know what I was talking about.]

gertie

Hey iridescent judges & my home boy jake - just dropping by to say my bus driver just drove past me despite me waving frantically on the side of the road, running in front of the bus at one point, and smacking the windscreen with my hand. Hope ya'll have a better day than I do!

Matthew Morgan

Greetings ogres and jakey, may your spooky season drape itself around you with the softness of a winter night. I present to you the case of The Dad who Listens. I DM for a group of 12 year olds over zoom, and have for about a year. All is well, for the most part. One kid, let’s call him Jake, is usually the most on-task, and really engages with the world. However, we had just wrapped a campaign that was meant as a prologue to another post-apocalypse campaign, in a world of their own making, when Jake came in with a curveball. He wanted to play a guy from Boston who thinks he is an elf from the North Pole and has moved to New York to find Santa. I do not know if this is the plot of elf, but he wants to be named ‘buddy’ as well. I tried to reason with him for about 45 minutes, since the other kids seemed pretty bummed by this choice. I worked hard to find a compromise, but he insisted he was from real earth and didn’t care to find a way to blend his idea. Justices, my case is not about Jake, but about his father. During this 45 minutes I receive a text from Jake’s dad saying, “let these kids have fun on their own dime.” I was caught so fully off guard. Eventually we moved on to other session 0 stuff and had a bit of fun again, but I’m dreading this next session with buddy the elf, and any further interaction with this father. Justices, I beg of you- was I wrong to try and push this kid in his ideas to be more amicable to the group, or should I let these kids do whatever they want because daddy is paying? My future is at your blades keen edge.

Ashlyn Bonnett

Dear Esteemed Justices, and trusty bailiff Jake, I bring to you the case of the lewd lewd song. This was years ago but I still think about it and cringe. My fiance and I hosted and nights at our house for a few friends. One of them had decided to dm and we had been in this campaign for a good while, I'd say we were about half way through. One day I had an earworm for this song I'd heard on my discover weekly, and my partner and I both tend to be "vibe" people when it comes to music. Meaning sometimes the lyrics can just go in one ear and out the other, especially if its a heavily produced song and the instrumental is nice on its own. Anyway. I'm playing this song on repeat at the table with my fiance and our dm. I swear to dice christ and all that is holy I truly did not know any lyrics to this song other than some of the main chorus if you could say it had one. I had played it probably 3 or 4 times on my phone while just prepping my character for the upcoming session. It had just restarted when my guy looked over at me visibly uncomfortable. It seemed like I should know what his look was for but I was truly baffled. He said, babe that song is really inappropriate can you turn it off? When he said that I tuned in to the words and it was truly very very lewd. Describing in exactly how the singer would want to do cunnilingus on another woman. There was a visual simile that could only affect you in one of two ways. The first being shocked disgust and the second, creepily unabashed horniness. Anyway, I was completely mortified. I said Ai was so sorry and that I truly didnt know what the song was about. I got the impression our friend was extremely put off by this situation and I believe it was a contributing factor that ultimately ended the campaign as he began acting pretty distant toward us and eventually quit coming shortly after. I still think about this and cringe. Please, I am at the mercy of your esteemed opinions. Did I ruin our group with my lewd lewd song?

TwiggB

To the ever truthful judges and Jake, my man *finger guns* Today, I present a question of table ethics. I am playing in a second long form campaign with some friends, and am bumping into an issue that comes up periodically. If a player has to miss a session, he has us “hearthstone” back to our Keep (2024 rules) to make upgrades and do upkeep. Except sometimes, particularly with one player (his partner) he will run a one-on-one session with main story impact and even occasionally give them magic items in these one-on-one sessions. For the record, this happened a lot more frequently in the first campaign, but myself and two other players asked him to stop. Since then, it is only seemingly offered to the one player. Am I in the wrong for feeling irritated that this is still happening?

Mnixon

Xoxoxo thnx

Ross Begg

Become Elsa, God of Storms! I hope this one gets picked!!

Ross Begg

And maybe a guest judge every now and then if it is not too much to ask ♡

Maya

Thank you!! And I will 😈

Maya

This one is so good omg! I hope it gets picked

Ross Begg

So much love for Agitato! May he rest in peace knowing his may valorous deeds brought joy into the world! P.S. It is delightful to know that there is another bard out there who used Phantasmal Force to cheer up orphans!

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.

Christopher Derrick

To the beloved judges and the helpful bailiff sir Jake. What I have is not a problem with the table but one with our DM in a unusual way. Our DM is a great guy has a voice for every character and has helped bring out a lot of us at the table to be extremely comfortable. He even made us a 3D print out of outlr characters. Now the unusual problem although we have loved our sessions with him having two great campaigns we have noticed our DM is starting to look more and more depressed. We have tried offering to dm a session to give him a bit of a break. And have also brought in other games to make the night a bit silly before the session. Only thing is that's seems to be a band-aid fix so on behalf of the the players we ask if there is a solution we can do to help our beloved DM. P.s. we do believe he is speaking with help we just want other solutions to help if there are any.

Ray Criminal

Hello and good morning to the people that make decisions and the one that can actually read, I bring you the case of my first ever dnd session, I have watched plenty of podcasts like yours so I was super excited when I was invited to play with a group of friends from high school with a first time dm, I imagine in an online game you’d usually have some way to keep track of player movements, there was none, when we were in combat I asked if he knew how far away I’d be before I made a decision and he said “you’re a bit off to the left of him, without any way to know the specifics, I was so excited to play the game and spent the previous week fleshing out all sorts of minor details that couldn’t get in the way of the story, I chose an alchemist, we went to a shop to “get anything we needed” and all I wanted was at least one glass vial so I could start making my random potions, since I was new in the game, he said I had absolutely zero dollars to my name, couldn’t buy it, spent 20 minutes dicking around with an old hag voice and wouldn’t let me con them with presdigitation even with a roll. I know I’m right to say that was fucked, esteemed council, was I a victim of a stolen weekend

Doctor Ransom

Thanks! I’ve tried submitting quite a few times but no nibbles. It doesn’t involve any IRL drama so it’s in too spicy. I’m still all kinds of salty about the whole scenario.

Matthew Rudland Barfoot

Thankyou for reading my story, he was my favourite character and it's a shame as the campaign was really good, with lots of lore and world building. I think the other players and DMs felt that the game wasn't very fun anymore when that DM did a planned player kill and then other drama in the group (international DMs Dating - breakup) lead to the campaign fizzing quickly. Bard Spells are the best and Phantasmal Force is so OP, a good phantasmal force can change the session entirely

jennie

To the illustrious judges and their AI bailiff-bot Judy, About a year ago, my good friend - let's call him Timbo - invited me to join in his D&D campaign. I had been wanting to play D&D for years but never had a group so this invitation felt like a dream come true!! Unfortunately for me, as soon as my character was introduced Timbo's character was immediately hostile because my paladin worshipped a different god than his. Timbo joked above table that he would have outright attacked me if he wasn't so low on spell slots. I was able to diffuse the situation, but the tension that lingered between our two characters was zero fun to play out and it was honestly a huge bummer of a first ever session. That campaign fizzled out shortly after, and the beginning of a new campaign felt like a fresh start. Imagine my utter befuddlement when the moment mine and Timbo's characters meet in this new campaign, his attempts to attack mine - completely unprovoked!!! A heated text exchange ensued between myself and Timbo where he said that he was being true to his character and that it's what his character would have done. Judges, my question to you is this. With a third campaign looming on the horizon, how do I prepare for another potential skirmish with Timbo's character? Right now I'm leaning towards min-maxing the shit out of my character and prepping for a fight to the death, but I fear this may be straying from Dice Christ's light. I await your wise and impartial judgement.

Gruel Ghoul

To the exalted Judges and scheming bailiff Jake I bring the case of What Is PVP? I have been playing in a home brew campaign for several months now and when we first started playing the DM established the rule no PVP unless discussed and agreed upon out of character by all participating players. We all agreed to this rule and began playing. Many sessions in a player cast hold person on another player to prevent them from picking up a potentially cursed magic item. Later in the session that same player cast fear and hold person against the same player. I recently learned that none of this was discussed beforehand and when I asked my DM about this they said it doesn’t count as PVP until initiative is rolled or xp is subtracted. I have moral objections to this call but I have made peace with it in order to continue playing. I would love for the court to weigh in on if spells such as hold person or fear count as PVP. (Extra context only if it ends up being relevant: The player who had the spells cast on them seemed a little bummed at not getting the magic item as they think it may have something to do with their backstory but overall things seem chill between the players out of character)

Tony

To the wise justices and middling bailiff, I beg for punishment, or absolution, from what might be a pre-crime against my players. I'm a relatively new DM about to launch into the second leg of a homebrew campaign. In the first leg, I watched aghast as my large party of 7 players whomped my dragon without breaking a sweat. I've decided that I should vary combat by, occasionally, splitting the party. I want to put them in a casino and encourage them to split up and play games separately. I intend to then have assassins (etc) target them individually, far from where they can easily get the help of the group. Am I setting them up for a challenging and good time, or am I instead going to make them suspicious of all opportunities for minigame downtime in the future? I await your judgment.

🦋 Merryn C 🦋

To the Esteemed Crit Justices and Blandly Steamed Bailiff Jort, I bring you the case of Accidental God Cannibalism. Many years ago, in a campaign with my then-girlfriend and her friends, after we killed a lake monster, one player joked they took the body back to camp to eat and we all sort of went along with it, jokingly pretending to have a BBQ. Next session, the DM revealed the monster was actually the corrupted divine body of the missing god my Gnome Cleric was searching for. I was distraught. My character absolutely loved and worshipped their god and would never eat her. I immediately sought to clarify the other player was only kidding about eating my god, but they double downed, saying they turned the leftovers into jerky to eat throughout the campaign. I made it clear in and out of game that I wasn't okay with that, but they argued we all participated in the initial god-BBQ, and I just had to be cool with it. After lengthy debate, I managed to convince the table that we had at least not eaten the heart (which I needed as part of my quest to restore her to divinity), but it still haunts me. Justices. Was this extremely weird behaviour and I'm justified in feeling wronged, or do I need to own up to my own part in the god BBQ and let it go?

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.

Hayley Cup

To the venerable and lustrous supreme crit justices, as well as their AI bailiff (Chat-JakePT), I present thee with the case of the Newsies Musical anniversary. Two weeks ago, my online D&D group consisting of close friends got together to celebrate our 3 year anniversary of the current campaign we are playing through. It is set in a magical variant of earth, and is a sequel to a previous campaign. For this anniversary session, our DM decided to set it in New York, where we would be infiltrating the headquarters of one of the BBEG's highest ranking lieutenants (a PC in the previous campaign). The issue arose in the party's deliberations of how exactly to infiltrate this base. As we were in New York, one of the fellow party members presented the idea of dressing up as the cast of Disney's musical the NEWSIES, and put on a performance to be allowed inside. The party agreed to this, and the DM called for a group performance check, of which we ended up with a 30-average. We began to act it out with the actual script, and ended up spending half an hour acting and singing the first 12 pages of the 116 page script. During that time, the DM got quiet, ended the session early right after that had concluded, uncharacteristically did not partake in any post-session banter, and left the call. We have not talked since then. So, I ask this court: should we have not taken the bit that far? Have we offended our DM by tarnishing this holy day with the Newsies Musical? What can the party do to help right this possible offense? I humbly await the crit's verdict and whatever punishments may befall me.

Rebecca

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

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

DJ Matty Lil Crits

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

king tutt

Dear benevolent judges and my brother in lowliness. I bring to you the case of "take my strong hand". A few years ago I played with a DM who ran high risk - high reward campaigns in 3.5e players hand book only.(so no cantrips despite protest). This is why my wizard was using a crossbow when I rolled the naturalist of ones. I was asked to roll percentile, 27. Then I had described to me in horrifying detail that the bow string snapped and caught my hands. Now I have a 27% chance of failure when I do anything that involves my hands. This was my first min/max character and I was devastated. Judges, am I justified in blaming the DM and his no cantrip campaigns, or should I just take my lumps. P.s. for context the monk stunned himself on an earlier nat one, and the campaign dissolved very shortly after so I don't know how it would have hindered me.

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.

Danny the DM

To the big city judges and the farm boy bailiff with big dreams who I think had a bit part in the last Harold and Kumar movie, keep hustling bud. I come to you with a case that still miffs me, years ago I was part of a d&d group that I found at a local game store. The DM was experienced and awesome, the party had myself, my wife, a brand new player, and … the DM’s long time buddy who was transferring in his character from an old campaign,(because he wouldn’t play otherwise) a nude barbarian dwarf with a problem player name (Murph gets it) The trouble happened during an attack of my ship, I was a swashbuckler who was given a pirates ship by my dying ex-captain a while ago (I was not expecting it and it ruled). During which we got the sea beast quite low, the final blow came to me but I decided on my turn to aid my crew as many were downed and prone, I did this thinking my wife would deal the finishing blow. She missed, and next in the order was …. Yeah. He shouted “this is how a real captain protects his boat” to which I responded “a real captain knows a boat is drift wood without his crew” he then proceeded to try a begin a mutiny I said I had history with the crew cause I was a crew mate before Captain so they wouldn’t just follow a new guy. Ultimately the dm said he doesn’t think a mutiny would happen but my character had heard a few of the crew talking about the dwarfs strength with great respect, and told me to keep them in check, and would role play certain crew mumbling after my orders. Unfortunately the game fizzled out due to lockdown Narsty judges and the beautiful bouncing bailiff was it weak to help my crew? Or was this guy just that kind of player, and our DM is just having fun (which he’s entitled to). I throw myself into the collectible figures glass case of your local comic/game shop and the mercy of the court!

Paul Giordano

May it please the court, I present the case of the shoving barbarian versus the green dragon My players are working towards the end of a major campaign arc, battling against a shadow druid green dragon armed with a powerful artifact from Tiamat. The party recently defeated an undead beholder who was corrupting a spirit unicorn protecting the woods they were trying to reclaim from the dragon forces. It was a big win for the players, but it caught the attention of the big bads, who sent a pair of young green dragons to investigate the disruption. A few days later, the dragons got a lucky nat 20 and tracked the players down. During the battle, the barbarian via flight potion rushed one of the dragons, but instead of making a standard attack, they used the shove action to knock the dragon prone. I know that RAW, this is technically valid. The young dragons are a size category of large, so they can be shoved and knocked prone. Normally, prone creatures without hover will fall to the ground. I tried to play ball and asked the player how they were knocking the dragon out of the sky, but they just explained the rules again. I argued that the dragon was just too large/powerful to have it's flight disrupted by a body check. I instead allowed the barbarian to basically fly over the dragon, then use their remaining movement to make an athletics to body slam the dragon from above and pile drive it into the ground, which they easily succeeded at. The player seemed willing to go along with the call, but I worry they were a little deflated. My concern was, given the number of similar encounters coming up in the woods, I didn't want the barbarian just flying around casually shoving all the flying enemies out of the air. I know my solution was ultimately pretty similar, but I felt like having the barbarian at least have to use their movement to pile drive the dragon will keep them from just chaining shove attacks in future encounters. Was I unjust in my rulings and should have followed RAW and let the prone dragon fall, or was my ruling justified in the situation?

Kat

To the luminous judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and I think that’s everyone? I present the case of the disengaging rogue. During an Adventurers League session at my local game store (and one of my first times playing D&D), our table’s rogue used his bonus action to disengage from the enemy next to him, moved to a second enemy and attacked (with sneak attack thanks to a nearby ally), then used the rest of his movement to leave the enemy’s reach and past a third enemy. When the DM said he would provoke opportunity attacks from the second and third enemies, the rogue argued that disengage counts for his whole turn. After some heated back and forth, the DM stuck to his ruling and the rogue took an opportunity attack. We were ultimately victorious, but the rogue was noticeably sullen for the rest of the session. So I ask: are rogues able to use one bonus action disengage to enter and leave multiple enemies’ threatened areas, or does it only apply the first time in a turn?

Devin

May it please the court, and may the bailiff take the cursed potions at the center of this case with quadruple disadvantage. I present my case, Song and His Merry Band of Chaos v. The Random Table Master. Case background: In 2020 I played my first 5e game with Song, a half-orc bard suffering from nihilism after losing his muse. Scheduling ended the campaign, which led me taking up the mantle of GM my first campaign with a Karnath Warforged special forces team in Eberron during the tail end of the great war. Now that I have years of GM-ing experience I feel justified in filing my complaint with the court. The complaint holds that our DM relied so heavily upon random tables, that he almost caused a TPK. The DM provided a single shop where EVERYTHING functioned off of a random table, including healing potions. We acquired several potions prior to raiding an enemy keep, and in the middle of battle learned how they worked: roll a d20 has a 50% chance to heal of harm you. This blew my mind, but it was my first campaign, and though it felt insane we initially went with it. I kept meticulous notes, submit to the court three pieces of evidence: Exhibit A: the first roll of 17, that healed for 2 d4 + 2. Exhibit B: the second roll of 2, that poisoned a player for 1 d4 + 1 damage, which almost knock the recipient unconscious while surrounded by enemy orcs. Exhibit C: a quote from the DM that if we rolled a nat 1 "it would kill us". I was used to getting screwed by the rules from my time in the army, BUT THIS IS RIDICULOUS, and it forced my bard to use healing word as our only source of healing. It resulted in a lot of 8-hour rests in random rooms, because 5e, and we just ignored the potions until we found loot. In conclusion, I implore the court to rule in favor of the players, because only handing out potions that has a 45% chance of harming them, and 5% chance of killing them serves nothing but to frustrate the players and force us to call it a day after one or two encounters.

Ian Bautista

To the Meddling Supreme Court Justices and their little dog too. I present the case of the Duo Betrayals Long term Pathfinder campaign years ago with a party of 3 caught in the war of a pantheon of gods against the evil goddess Hecate, the goddess of evil magic (Imagine Eris from Sinbad, this will be relevant) Well, I the sorcerer and it being our whole groups first campaign was a bit cheeky and would desecrate her statues to lessen her influence, however the Sylph Druid would fix it up and would leave an offering to her, the end results of our actions being me being hunted/mind controlled to kill innocents by her while he was being flirted with by the goddess. 3 years later, we're all level 20, demi gods in our own right, me as the Time God's chosen and him as Hecate's. He even as her chosen has helped fight some of her forces but is far into the process of courting her. Despite our allegiances we are best friends in game and even soul bonded/fused at points. Then, the sequence of events happens as follows: The lets call them Good Aligned gods, my patron included spring a trap when we visit their summons to all try and kill the druid, in which case me and the Fighter intervene and save his life and promise to find a way to kill Hecate without having to kill the druid. This understandably makes the druid mad but, we continue on our adventure to find the book of Om, a book of all recorded knowledge. We best the temple and the druid gets to the book first as we work on a dibs system. He then goes, this will make an incredible offering to my girlfriend and I go, "What, NO, the fuck, we're barely beating her as is don't give it to her" He goes, "Nah, honestly I think she'll really like this, plus your guys just tried killing me" I go, yeah but SHE's made me kill innocent people. It goes back and forth like this until he just starts the ritual to summon her, I ask one last time and say" please, I am BEGGING you "at this point but he's not listening. We have never fought, and I wanting to show how serious I was symbolically cast Dominate Person to get him to hand the book to me, which he passes (and knew he would because Pathfinder stats). HE gets mad that I tried to mind control him saying that I've betrayed him (When we had JUST betrayed our gods to save HIS life) and finally accepts Hecates full influence. And becomes her general stating he can't trust anyone now but her. Thus begins a split campaign of fighting each other using the DM as a mediary culminating in a huge war (of no winners) Judges, I ask, who was wrong here if anyone, me for the attempted mind control, the druid for offering the book as a gift or the fighter for staying truly neutral in this conflict. This argument still comes up to this day because the druid is now my best friend and roommate of 3 years. Love ya Drew (or Drew-id)

Ray Criminal

I’m just happy you got that much joy from a number, man

HighGrove

I come to the church in the spirit of sharing somewhat belated divine wisdom, because sometimes you decide to start Campaign One from the beginning and miss that your submission got picked up for a Dungeon Court until nine months later: I speak, of course, about the cavernous depths of Bear Hell. To be brief, everything Murph has said about Bear Hell is Bear Cannon, obviously, with one important distinction: not only do Bears who have failed to repent for their Bear Sins fall into the honey-sticky clutches of the Bear Devil, but also those who have committed unforgiveable sins against Bear Kind, as was the fate of our party's barbarian Gentle Hommage when he befouled a sacred pool of Dire Bee honey. Ultimately it was fine, we crashed our airship into the Bear Devil while he was hibernating and scampered away with our friend. But the ultimate lesson is this: if you fear you may have wronged a bear at any point in your life, you had best start committing as many non-ursine crimes as you can if you want to be sent to Regular Hell instead of the salmon-bereft nightmare that is Bear Hell.

June B

To the Immaculate Supreme Crit Justices and Bailiff, whose stated job is to carry out the judgements of the court and therefore should be interested in revisiting this one, I bring you Sphere Math. This is a revisit of an old April 2023 episode, wherein the Justices ruled that a Shatter Sphere (or basketball) could hit surrounding NPCs but not a prone PC (or bowl of jello). In fact, this is ONLY the case if the NPCs are within 5 feet of the PC, AND if those NPCs are taller than your average fairy or halfling (>3.5 ft). This ridiculous case has been stuck in my head for a year, so I finally just did The Math. Please see the linked image for The Math, and for a picture of my cat trying to stop me from sharing The Math. https://limewire.com/d/sEy4K#npq2SKPVjt (link expires in a week)

Blake

To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner presiding. And Jake. I come to you with a case of: Stat Stealing I played in a homebrew setting 5e campaign that was incredible (honestly loved the players-- currently in love with the DM [my partner]). It was a desert world slowly being consumed by a plague that created an undead hive mind (a la Halo Gravemind). Our party was tasked with going to several pyres that were ancient tech left from the world before. These were believed to be connected to saving the planet (ect.) and had trials and guardians that we had to go through to essentially get these pieces of tech back online. In one tower our Dm gave us a wild task. Chett (me) a gunslinging spores druid, Gusta a shadow monk, Ezekiel a walock of sorts, and Nunoa [Quite literally a commoner that was bumping stats as they and the DM decided it was appropriate]. In game, we were asked by the guardian to go in pairs. To sit across from each other and decide if we were ruthless and willing to take something precious from one another to achieve our goal. This is kinda how these trials went, a show of character to make sure we were worthy. We expected to have some sort of combat over some items in the game or idk something along those lines. In character narrative moments that would have us doing some light pvp for our characters to prove how serious we were. Our Dm then revealed that we would in real life be offered to take ability points from each other. Stat determined by a d6 (1- strength, 2-dex, ect) and a d4 for how many points we would take. To the base ability score, not modifier. the dm would pair us, roll the dice for the stat and amount (per person so it wouldn't just be a swap), and then had us text the answer if we would take that from the other person. I was livid. I texted my dm that all of my answers would be No. Luckily so were everyone else's (I think because this was a meta question, all of us were friends and didn't want to do that to each other, otherwise Gusta would have definitely done it). Me and the dm still talk about this and 'fight' about this over a year later. They still maintain that with some tweaking and table prep this could work, that the goal was to really emphasis the steaks of what our characters were doing, and that its all good because no one went through with it. I still maintain that no matter what, messing with the base stats that your build your character on makes the game less fun, along with not enjoying being put into a social experiment, and that the steaks should be made in game, not meta. I am suing the Dm for rights to this idea so that I can lock it away to never be used. Would love to settle on this. Thanks. side note: this was particularly stressful as they would roll dex or wisdom almost every round, which both Chett and Gusta were very reliant on. We never finished the campaign, the party split maybe 5 (great) sessions later but for adult life reasons. We all still hang out and have talked about rebooting the world because we all miss the setting and our characters very much.

Dustimus

I'm not submitting my thing here this time but does anybody know the etiquette of resubmitting a story that you put on a previous one? I haven't really been a subscriber for all that long and I think I poorly told one of my better ones the one time I tried to do it

Tierney Lorenz

To the most honorable Justices Tanner, Murphy and Axford and the underappreciated Baliff Jake.. . content warning for sensitive stomachs. In a recent campaign, I was playing a fungus-and-disease themed gnome warlock named Pox with an imp familiar named Varicella (aka SmallPox), who for flavor would emerge from my fungus-ridden body each time he was summoned. I love dramatic visuals so every time SmallPox emerged and coalesced into his imp form, I would narrate how he oozed bubbling from my pores, or dripped out of my eyes and nose, or popped out as a set of spores poofing out of a throbbing pimple, or something simlarly evocative. One of the PCs in my party always commented when that happened something like "I'm not looking, I don't need to know how this happens to your gross little body", but when I pulled aside the player to ask if he was actually grossed out, he said no it was just RP of his prim character. But the comments kept coming and that player seemed really squicked, so I stopped the disgusting descriptions even though I (and the other players) thought they were fun. Was I wrong, and should have taken the player at his word that it was just RP, or is it better to err on the side of the least potential discomfort even if it makes things less vivid? P.S. I am playing in a new campaign with that same player and his new character is a druid who wildshapes into weird crab-wolf hybrids that fingerpaints with downed enemy blood, so I am starting to question his discomfort levels...

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.

Jack H

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