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Cases Please! (Patreon)

Published:
2025-12-02 14:27:45
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

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

Comments

Elana Danielle

dearest clergy of dice christ. i write, not with a confession of wrongdoing, but with a plea. i am a numbers bitch. i love data and a good graph is a sight to behold. so i created a spreadsheet to track and graph my dice rolls. i only count rolls made in a session, called for by the dm (ie sitting and rolling a d20 50 times in a row doesn’t count), and when rolling with advantage or disadvantage, both numbers rolled are counted. while i continue to have faith in dice christ and her benevolent omniscience, i fear she has forsaken me. in 2025, i rolled 353 d20s across my campaigns and one shots, and only 7 of those were nat 20s. yes, that is less than 2% of my rolls (1.98% to be exact). what must i do in 2026 to regain dice christ’s favor so that i may crit once more? thank you for your holy wisdom.

Jackacoyit

Dear most astute judges and the smooth brained Bailiff Jock, I bring you the case of the demon ball fondling grung. One player in a campaign I play in online with friends from university has a habit of making poorly timed jokes from his over use of a frog soundboard, repeated comments of taking and licking dead enemy bones. In our most recent session during an intense boss fight with 2 party members down him on the ground, the Grung player beneath the giant demon just healed back to conscious, me and paladin player the last line against a TPK. It's the demons turn and the DM is deciding who to attack and the Grung player shouts I tickle his balls to stop him the DM says no and tries to continue however the player loudly reiterates "I tickle his balls". They are now ignored by the DM as they try to attack the paladin player but the grung player then says "why won't you let me tickle his balls" at this point annoyed I shout at the player telling them it's not funny and our characters my die could you stop taking about it's bloody balls. After that there was no talk of drmon balls for the rest of the fight bit the grung player seemed quiet for the rest of the session. Judges I ask you was my demand of no more bakl joke fair or as a player did I step out of line, ai would like to add the Grung player is the DMs boyfriend so things like are usually just ignored or swept under the rug. I await you judgement humbly

Ally

Dear okay Justices and the vivacious Bailiff. Unrelated to that, most noble Bailiff, please let my family go. I come before you with an update on the Plot Avoiding Players. I leaned into the advice from the court and mentioned to them that it's not always super fun to DM for a party that does nothing. This was received kindly, with my friends giving me more details about what excites them about D&D. I took their ideas and built plot lines around those themes. Things at the table changed; they helped overthrow a monarchy, rescued a missing knight, and travelled to a far-off continent in search of an ancient relic. However, since arriving at the new continent, they have returned to their plot avoiding ways. I have not needed to do new prep for the last four sessions because they have not left the first town they got to. They found the lead on the relic in the town three sessions ago and instead of chasing it down before the bbeg can get to it they have, gone for walks, had a poker night, and spent over an hour of a session in a PvP sparing session. On top of that they got annoyed last session that they didn't level up from their sparing. I plead with the court, we do milestone levelling and have always done level-ups at big plot moments. This is the crux of my case, am I right to withhold a level up until they actually progress the story beyond poker nights and PvP or are my players right that even plot avoiders deserve level ups? P.S. Please Bailiff, my family are good people, I promise I respect you.

Aiden Swartz

Felicitous salutations to the Supreme Crit Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner. And a hardy hello to the guy who works at birdlesque. I bring to you the case of the time travelling DM. Me and my friends play D&D infrequently due to the fact we are in medical school. We recently completed a major arc that ended with us beating a team of electro-boogaloo pirates, freeing a royal ship and its crew and returning it to the king. When we went to play next sessions our DM had no recollection of this happening and no notes. He insisted that we play the whole capturing of the boat again. After a while of us trying to convince him that we did this he relented and said “ok, I forgot we played this part, but I’ve added information so let’s replay” what ensued was an entire re-do of our last session, where the only thing that changed was the addition of a joke about the song Karma Chameleon. Needless to say the players were a bit upset at the fact that our last session before exams was an entire repeat that resulted in the same ending (except for Karma Chameleon). Is my DM in the wrong for having had us replay a session we already did? Or should we all have just gone along and been happy with the addition of the Karma Chameleon joke? We await your benevolent decision.

Angie the asshole

Hello the honorable and benevolent justices and that guy Jack that Jill is cucking. I bring to you a question can a shit be so harrowing that it constitutes a level up? I am the dm of a brand new campaign that I have with 3 of my friends and my brother. For contexts I have been trying to get a session going for years now, and finally we were able to start a session using a beginning module since we are all first time players. We had our first session following the module but my friend had to leave early suddenly so I narrated her eating some bad stew and having to go shit at the inn while the rest of the party goes off. The module says after the first job the party levels up so as they finish I tell them all they level up and say our friend does too because her shit was so bad. They razzed me a bit saying that’s unfair but after explaining it makes the game easier moving forward if they’re all the same level they accepted but I’m worried they might take it as a bad start to a campaign so I ask you benevolent justices can a shit constitute a level up?

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?

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.

Emily and Lauren

To the honorable crit justice tanner, the grinch justice Murphy, 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? (Please see this case it is my hoglidays wish)

Mica K

To the Church of the Supreme Crit, it's most holy of Saints, and, oh shit, theres that guy who's always in the corner, Junk, was it? Anyways! I cursed my brothers dice because he was pissing me off but now its gone on too long, so please remove the curse and wash me of my sins so that my party's rogue can get some sneak attacks. Thank you, happy hoglidays, and gods bless ye merry dungeon men.

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 began 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 because the source book says we have to fight them, and that only a nat 20 would get them to leave us alone. (The DM is also my boyfriend) 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!

Noah Coleman

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

Morgan

OHMYGOD MY SHOW IS ON (i’m gonna read submissions as they come in at work)

Gabriel Balog

Hey, I'm submitting a Tortle Tank pitch. My idea is just that good and profitable. You torts deal with it and step into the tank. How many times in media have we seen wizards who fully exaust themselves, to the point of collapsing, to conjure a complex and more powerfull spell? Wizards that put their integritity at risk for a very potent magic? Hence comes my wizard homebrewed subclass: THE EXHAUSTED CASTER ( https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/wgcImhepmQWR ). This wizard is able to augment their spells with "Exhaustive Boost" options, but, after doing so, they must make a CON Save or get a level of Exhaustion, or even get the Unconsious condition if they fail this save on two subsequent turns. With time, this wizard gets more boost options and gains ways to deal with their exhaustion (this subclass uses the 2024 rules for Exhaustion). For a total of 0 eggs, but Shellmily playing this subclass in a oneshot, I'll sell 97,2% of this idea. But yes, if you insist, I will accept a symbolic number of eggs as incentive.

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

IvyclericHayley

Esteemed Judges. Hake Jerwitz. I am currently playing a Goblin Wizard named Puck in Wild Beyond The Witchlight. One of the character creation parts of that module is your character has had something stolen by the Fey. Puck had her Luck stolen. Earning her the nickname "Bad Luck Puck". Unfortunately, I am rolling like a GOD in this campaign. Even worse I keep on rolling nat 20s on perception checks, which due to my 7 Wisdom Score I have a -2 . Is there any way i can mitigate my amazing rolls for my canonically Extremely Unlucky Goblin Girl.

Leah

To the honourable justices and the jacked balif. May I present to you the case of the health and safety supervisor. Our regular dnd group played a one-shot . Our party was flavoured to all be from the same guild, hired to infiltrate a locals gangs event and solve a crime. No one knew who each other was bringing and was a chance to try out different classes. We were all super excited about this and introduced our characters - coincidentally we all brought fighters. Apart from one. Justices - one player arrived as a health and safety inspector sent by the local commissioning group to evaluate the guilds competency. He flavoured his sword and shield as a pen and clipboard. The rest of the party found this, perhaps a little odd, but initially funny. Justices, he did not interact or participate in any encounter and only said his character “makes notes” whenever anyone did anything. Due to some devastating rolls that would put calwell and murph to shame, the gang identified us and removed all our weapons. All apart from the health and safety inspector! As he was only carrying a pen and clipboard. We unsurprisingly got our arses handed to us as we attempted to fight off the gang members without weapons and no spell casters, and the inspector…made notes on our poor performance. In an attempt to save our party, I tried to flirt with the gang member to buy time for people to escape, but instead…got dragged away for questioning. I shouted at the inspector to “fucking do something”. To which he attacked with his “sword” and missed. And the rest of the party was removed from the premise. Justices - have we been wronged!? For context - I am another player, not the DM. The health and safety is now our DM is is doing a pretty good job!! I humbly await your verdict. Most of us brought fighter types with interesting back stories and features. One player (our current DM) decided to play as Our party was made up of mostly fighter types and sent on a surprise stealth mission for a one shot. One player role played that he was a health and safety inspector sent by the local commissioning group, here to evaluate how well we did on our mission. He flavoured his sword and shield as a pen and clipboard… We all found (maybe a little odd), but overall, funny. We attempted to enter a gangs house while they hosting an extravagant engagement party, but after some abmissal roles, we had all our weapons removed - apart from the supervisor with his clipboard and pen. Then processed the worst set of rolls that would put even Beverly to shame! I resorted to flirting with one of the gang members to distract long enough for the party to get away. My flirting was unsuccessful and I was taken to the basement for “questioning”. The party…in a sort of attempt to rescue me…tried to fight their way through the house, all while the health and safety supervisor did nothing and spent his actions “shaking his head and writing down notes of our poor performance”. After an hour of this, I told him to “fucking do something” (seeing as he was the only character with weapons) to which he ran up to the attacker and missed. The session ended with my character getting tortured in the basement and the rest of the party agreeing to leave the premises, escorted by the gang. Your honours, how could we have got out of this differently and am I wrong to be quietly despondent for having a fully armed teammate who watched all of this take shape and only replying that his action was to “take notes”. I humbly await your judgement.

JessMayWin

May it please the judges et al. I bring the case of the bungled bathroom ambush. In a game (with strangers) we were tasked with kidnapping the daughter of a wealthy merchant to get information about a valuable artifact - the only problem was, according to the DM, 'she never leaves her mansion and has at least 2 guards with her at all times'. We spent around 2 sessions trying to solve this issue in a variety of ways, which the DM continued to shoot down (can we infiltrate the merchant's militia and try and get on her guard shift? No. Start a fire at her estate to smoke her out? No. You get the idea). In desperation I suggested that I, the bard, polymorph into a fly and try to sneak through a crack in the window while she was on the loo and then dimension door her out of the mansion, as I reasoned that surely she would have to be alone while doing her business. The DM flat out refused, saying the guards would also accompany her to the toilet. The whole thing left us feeling pretty.... crap.... to be honest. I humbly ask the court - would someone being guarded at all times expect their guards to be with them when they're on the can, or was my idea, as gross as it was, a viable one? How do you deal with a DM who seems to have a very specific idea of how a problem should be solved? p.s. after this same in-game day continued with no further success for another 2 SESSIONS i followed Murph's cardinal rule and got some new friends to play with

OrlaTheOrator

Dear jubilant justices and the boy I present you the case of the gladiatorial grind. I am a forever DM but due to a life change haven’t had the time to DM so one of our party members offered to run a game. He was a first time DM so I offered to help but he insisted he was good. In our first session we were all in a bar and I assumed we would be offered a job/quest/something but instead the bar was attacked, and we had to fight a hoard of kobolds, we survived only to be attacked again and then again. 3 encounters in 2 hours. The next session was much of the same, all fighting barley time for roleplay or story. At the end of our 3rd session, we had to flee an encounter because we had used all our resources and were nearing a TPK. Once out of danger we were picked up by a bunch of royal guards and taking to the kingdoms fighting pits to be gladiators. We were put in individual cells through which we could not communicate, were only taken out to fight and then thrown back in our cells and even with a nat 20 couldn’t find any way to escape. At the end of session 5 I had to say something, and most of the party agreed with me. The DM said this was the only way he could DM and suggested I take back over if I wasn’t happy. After some back and forth there seemed to be 2 options keep playing this combat only way or I take over as DM. It all felt like a ruse to get me to DM again if I am being honest. I took the secret 3rd option and left the game, I simply don’t have the time to DM or play a game I'm not enjoying. Since then, they have not played at all and I am getting the blame. Was I wrong to abandon ship?

Supsupcool

Forgive me dicr Christ for I have sinned I was in a giant gauntlet where my party and I had to fight a different giant back to back to back until our final challenge which was a homebrew 40ft tall storm giant with resistance to all damage and over 400 hp. We were told ahead we could not win this fight so we made it our goal to deal 200 damage to it. I ended up being the last player left on my team and had blur cast. During the fight I got around 190 and realized that I hadn’t been rolling for concentration checks for blur. The only reason I was not instantly destroyed was because he would sometimes miss from the disadvantage. So I never rolled for it. I ended up making the 200 mark by punching the giant with my fist for one damage but never revealed that I ignored the concentration checks. Please forgive me dice Christ I just wanted to go the distance

Firelord Luda

Dear magnanimous crit and the baby crabster bailiff, if it pleases the court, I bring the case of the kinder klepto. I recently started a new campaign as a player with some coworkers and significant others. As we sat down for session 1 and started introducing characters, the DMs wife introduced her character, a kinder(a halfling but more child like) who talks in a high pitched childs voice. She holds out her hand, I shake it and without missing a beat looks at the DM and says "he shook my hand. What do I get?" The DM then looked at my inventory and asked me to roll a perception check. After some confusion, I find out this character is a kleptomaniac who steals from anyone who touches her. I was immediately turned off as she went to sell my random starter errata to a random shopkeep in the starting town. We haven't played again and I'm not sure if I want to, am I wrong for judging this child like thief, or just suck it up and try not to touch them?

Ty

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

Jonathan Atkinson

Ey up Judges'n'Jake, I come to you with a crunchy conundrum. I ran a one shot for my 8 friends recently, who are mostly experienced players, in a big spooky house in Scotland. Although it was a great time with lots of laughs, there was a ruling I had to keep making that I know some of my players had a real problem with and I feel it needs a ruling. The evening concluded with them fighting an astral projection of a Brass dragon and a whole bunch of wyrmlings. The party included a monk and a hasted barbarian, who were both rolling four attacks per turn. These players enjoyed rolling 4 d20s at once for their round of 4 attacks (and why wouldn't they, rolling 4 d20s at once feels awesome). The attacks they hit with would finish off a wyrmling and they would ask if they could keep attacking a different one that turn with the "surplus rolls", saying that once their character had downed the first monster they wouldn't have kept attacking and so the rolls essentially hadn't happened. I said that as they hadn't rolled them one at a time, there was no way of knowing which had happened first and so they couldn't claim that they had downed the monster with attacks to spare. After all, rolling multiple dice and only claiming the successes exist is basically rolling with advantage, which wouldn't have been fair. This visibly annoyed the monk in particular. It was unclear why (maybe it was the wine) but they both kept rolling 4 attacks at once and the same snag kept happening. They won the fight and all was forgiven but judges, was I right to be so strict or did I unfairly rob my players of the satisfaction of rolling like a billion attacks at once? I humbly submit to your judgement. JT

Brock

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

Michael Beck

Oh wisest of justices and beautiful but ignoble bailiff, I bring the case of the captured drider. I was playing a fighter/war cleric and we were fighting a drider who I wanted to capture for questioning. My father who was playing with us just kept trying to kill it which the dm wanted. As we started to whittle down its health I got the idea to use spare the dying on it to keep him from zero hp so I could then capture him. My dm allowed me to use spare the dying, but later was salty that he allowed it and said he shouldn't have let me do it. I ask was it incorrect of me to use spare the dying to prevent an enemy's death in favor of capturing them? Humbly yours

Sovash Chetty

To Exalted, And im assured Wonderful smelling Justices. And the other one. I'm here to talk about the case of the Handsy DM. I was once played in a friends campaign. He established this villain, who was trapped in a prison. When we went to stop his minions from breaking out, we were too late. Before we could even roll initiative to fight this Villain our DM simply said: He's too powerful, you should run. Thus, begrudgingly we ran. When I failed my third Skill Check, I was meant to die. However, the DM narrated a bigsby hand picking me up. Annoyed I said, he would have to roll a grapple check as I decided to heroically sacrifice myself to stop the Villain from chasing my friends. The DM said, I was being unreasonable, and my character would want to be saved, which is fair as I was playing a selfish rogue at the time. I ask you Genteel and Wise Adjudicators, was I being unreasonable, or should my player agency have overridden my characters actual actions?

Perrin S.

To the beautiful judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and the kind of average looking if you squint Bailiff, who's name I think begins with G, I present the case of myself, the DM vs. Murphy's Law. I was running my first session ever of a campaign I wrote for my boyfriend and some of my closest friends over discord. About an hour before the session was scheduled, the online DM screen I've been using had completely erased itself, (I had managed to get it fixed before time) and when the agreed upon time to start came, and everyone said they were ready, only one of the six players are actually ready, my boyfriend! Of the others, one is actively playing a video game, which I kindly asked her to stop for the session, one is making dinner and can't find his character sheet, one was late by an hour, one by two hours, and the last one got upset that I didn't introduce him as being kidnapped by goblins or something. I just wanted him to be with the party as soon as possible! It all became too much for me to handle and I simply left the call without a word and had a panic attack in the dark. So tell me judges, was my late night freakout sesh warranted? I humbly await your judgement. (P.S. They all want to continue the game but I'm now afraid I'm not cut out for it)

Steph PAFC

May it please the justices and the magnanimous bailiff jake. I come to you with a complicated case and plea for advice. As a forever DM I have recently been invited by a new friendship group into their game. The invite was offered by a player, whose partner is the group dm. Long story short I am by far the most experienced player at the table and this is the dm's first time running. The issue is a lot of the "awesome experiences" he shares from his previous games as explanation for why is implementing (so so much) homebrew are actually just horror stories. Almost everyone else at the table is completely new so don't know any different and while I could and maybe should walk away a part of me also wants to offer to run a one-shot or two for the group in a different system to kinda subtly show how things can be run without drawing direct comparisons by using the different system as a buffer. Some of the things in place include: Being told we will be no more than C-class, the two big bads are B-class so will always beat us but it's okay because there is an A-class npc who is stronger than the gods. Bar us everyone has homebrew races, adding both racial and background modifiers to their stats so except my humble fighter created RAW no one has a stat below a 14 or 15. This has lead to proficiency being added to all attacks and both proficiency and modifier being added to all cantrip attacks because "they're too wimpy else.", somehow a level two druid with 30 wisdom, a rogue with proficiency in every skill and 4 expertise, a monk doing d8s for unarmed strikes and a 20 in wis and dex giving him ac 20...as I say all at level 2. And the level is a whole other issue. Next session will take us into 30+ hours at level two. Finally, he has also put in place "realistic terminal velocity rules" with varying damage dice dependant on your armour, weight and hp dice size. I ask you justices, am I right to want to try showing this dm/table you don't need to homebrew everything especially before you understand the game or should I cut my losses and politely bow out, accepting that maybe this is what everyone else is enjoying? I do feel I should maybe try to give a chance because a recent session triggered a mental disorder we struggle with and the dm and group immediately implemented changes to help accommodate that but I worry this is a lost cause without upsetting someone or running a few sessions to show how a sane table looks.

Mystery Soup

To the honorable supreme Crit Justices and the lowly baliff Jorts (okay that should give you a few seconds of laugh break, listen closely, I've attached a key to the back of this letter. It unlocks the cuffs holding you to your high chair, but don't do anything yet. You're going to need some case details to keep them distracted) I bring before you the case of the Rotisserie Abyssal Chicken. It all started when our parties rogue, Bud Hole, died and our Cleric refused to revive them, instead choosing to go find their soul in the 9 Hells (Okay that's a solid set up so you're going to need to vamp now but pay attention, in the crumb catcher of your bib you'll notice several loose DVDs of mostly early 2000s garbage. When I say GO, toss those at the feet of justice Tanner. The ensuing disc flipping will work to distract justice Tanner and Justice Murphy who will need to make meta commentary on the effectiveness of visual gags on an audio platform. You're going to need a bit more detail to keep them distracted) Low and behold Bud Hole rolled a Nat 20 on an athletics check to punch his feet through the bottom of the cart, Oppa Flinstones style, and steal the demons entire hutch of Abyssal Chickens. (Now that the Flinstones has been brought up, Justice Axford should be in the process of boarding a flight to Ibiza to utilize the remainder of her vacation time. This is going to be your window. One more juicy case detail and question and then it's time baby boy. I have a car waiting outside with a duffel of German Franks and eight passports all for one Jork Himwitz. Don't be scared, I know what they done to you. But no more after today. Get ready,) So I ask you justices, should I have allowed my players to use chronomancy magic to rapidly factory farm Abyssal chickens, thus cornering the 9 Hells entire market on Hellish themed rotisserie dinner products or was I right to pluck their hopes and dreams by besetting them with hot NPCs and a blasting granny? I humbly await your sentencing. (GO WHILE THE BLASTING GRANNY IS HOT!! RUN MY CHILD!) P.S. Tucker is in the trunk of the car P.P.S. Hate the show

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.

Primalkrisis

Oh high eminence Jake and the other three you debase yourself by appearing with, I have for you a case that killed a westmarch style campaign years in the making. Years ago me and several friends were in a west march, a campaign with several small campaigns that took place in the same world. The session in question started well with a bard from one of the other campaigns joining our party that was taking place a year after his current party. He gets along well with our party and eventually we take him to a restaurant, at which, instead of being served what he ordered, he was served a teifling leg. Understandably his caracter lashed out, casting his signature spell which killed several people, revealed the "teifling leg" as a realistic cake, and had the party members brought to execution. The problem lies in the dm's notes which we have since seen after the campaign, revealing he fully intended the leg to be that of a former party member the dm wanted to off screen, but changed in order to kill the bard instead when he fought back to create a fake womping. Justices, is it okay for a dm to completely rewrite every aspect of a situation just because a player didn't go along with the dm's plans, or is the dm's insane bullshit worthy of the campaign disbanding as it did?

Pseudo

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

Hallie

Greetings! To the humble justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and to the homely blailiff Blake. Apologies for the crassness in this one, but this isn’t my story. This case comes to you on appeal. In the proceedings below at the district court level, Plaintiff asked “what check constitutes a fart?” Plaintiff, a gnome, had chosen to fart in another players face. On high enough roll, however, their DM (not me) ruled that a fart circles around to be a shit, and needless to say, the gnome browned their pants. This case was then brought to me, court on appeal, to evaluate the decision made. I ruled that a fart would be a constitution check and clarified that a fart could result in a poo if rolled too low (nat 1) or too high (nat 20), thus setting a horseshoe precedent. But the plaintiff appeals again! On the gnomes behalf, we come to the highest Crit in the land and ask you to humbly grant cert in this matter. Will you uphold stare decisis? Or will you dispose of precedent? Sincerely and forever yours, a law student and DM.

Alex W

Hello Judicious Justices and bailiff Jonk. I bring to you the case(?) of the carryover character. I DM a game for 3 people that is definitely in it's last act and is wrapping up shortly. One of those people is my dad, who has gotten back into the game with me DMing after playing in the 80s and then dropping it until about 2023. He is playing a level 14 champion fighter who he is very attached to. They will probably level up twice before we finish the campaign, so his fighter will be level 16 when the game ends. Over Thanksgiving I was talking about how the game is in it's last act and we will probably start a new campaign soon, maybe with one of our other players DMing and myself being a PC. He said "Well I'm going to keep playing Clover (his character's name), I love that guy!" He then proceeded to say how much he loved how strong Clover was. Justices and Jonk, the new game will almost definitely be set in a different world (we're throwing around a Warhammer 40K setting with space marines and the like), and the PCs will be starting at level 2-3. How do I break it to him that when the campaign ends he'll have to make a new character? We can come back to Clover and his crew for one shots for sure, but part of the reason the campaign is ending is that one of our PCs is moving to a new time zone and it's going to be a lot harder to schedule. I await your verdict oh benevolent justices.

Zatatmando

To the Supreme Crit Justices and the Most Honorable Bailiff, I come before you today to detail the story of the Lich and the Warforged. This happened in my Dungeon of the Mad Mage campaign (that I DMed for 2 years) where I used the companion that turns Halaster Blackcloak into an interdimensional game show host. During an encounter with a Lich that was Halaster's one time friend/lover, our Warforged Paladin was hit with a Power Word Kill. To this day, and at the time, I questioned myself for using it because I am loathe to kill players outright if I can avoid it, but this time it did make sense for the Lich to use this spell on a paladin that was coming right for them with a glaive. The problem is, the player to this day still talks about it as though I am the one who killed their character unfairly, despite the fact that none of their party members had reviviify or any other rez spell stocked. I assert that I did what made sense for the Lich, and that the party members, one of whom was a divine soul sorcerer who was working as the group's cleric, should have been able to rescue him or call a counterspell, which they also didn't do. I guess the question is, did I do the right thing in having the Lich take out the rampaging paladin that had just killed a mook in front of the lich in one turn, or is the party at fault for not being prepared? They were upwards of level 12 at the time if I remember correctly. I await your wise counsel and judgement.

Felix Principe-gillespie

Wise Justices, Jake, I am here before you asking, is my campaign over. My girlfriend really wanted to get into DnD and so I offered to run a campaign. I invited a few mutual friends to join, including one who has a big crush on her, but plays a lot of DnD so would be a good addition. As we began his PC immediately began hitting on hers and did so for the whole session. We’re now gearing up for the second session and the other players at the table aren’t loving the energy and aren’t sure they want to continue. Do I fight to keep this group together and hope things improve, or is this just too messy to salvage. I await your judgment. PS: When asked about his actions by another player, the flirting man insists he is just roleplaying his character. PSS: My girlfriend is loving playing DnD and really wants to keep playing.

Nathaniel F

To the honorable judges, the dishonorable Byron Smurfy, and the magnanimous Jacobiath, I bring to you the case of the meanie DM, who, unrelated, very much refused to steal someone’s wife. So, several years ago in our first campaign as a group, we fixed an illusion-made real machine to give a simulacrum, of a dead wizard, true life. It worked. But we had tested on our own illusion of a stack of platinum bars, as any ethical researchers should. On our way to back to town, DM had a weird little twirled mustache devil pop out of a watch, talk down to us, then leave. Then DM told us we notice the platinum is slowly fading. Because it has a half life. Devil was unrelated. And simulacrum guy is fine. We rush to bank, set up deal with teller to launder money, but then same devil pops up, pushes teller and money in vault, and locks it all away. Still gone years later in world and real life. “Down for maintenance” he has said. We just want our cleverly earned money. Please? Thank you (One player has said several times he’d “let” the DM sleep with his wife for either the platinum or an extra attunement slot. DM firmly refused. Not sure if that hurts or helps, but thought you might get a laugh)

Cody W

To the just Justices and the bailer bailliff Bake I humbly submit the case of the Inspired Story I dm a small game of two players, my wife and her friend and kind of my friend When this campaign began this friend had a lot of backstory that they wanted to become relevant. They love creative writing so this wasn't a big problem at first We've been playing for over a year now, and this friend has been writing little short stories set in the world of the campaign, involving their character, people from their backstory, and my wife's character I have however found out that they are actually writing a fantasy book, that centers around this character and is set in the campaign far into the future somehow after the adventure, and involves almost nothing I have contributed to the story aside from the starting town and no credits dedicated to me whatsoever I ask for some way to ask them what the fuck with being a chill normal guy I dont mind they wrote a story but it feels weird for sure Thank you for hearing my case (I can update when their publishing goes farther they've started the process)

Zatatmando

also, my screen name is pronounced like so: Zuh tat man dough. thanks!

clover

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

Callie

I submit myself to the Church of Dice Christ and the Beautiful Jacob, for I belive I am cursed. I am currently playing in a campaign, and I go down nearly every combat. I started to think it was just because thats the way the dice roll, but when its every combat I have started thinking maybe dice christ himself has cursed me. You see I play a Half orc monk named Co'st-co. I named him that thinking this would be a short lived game (I was wrong) and now I am stuck with him. It would be one thing if I died, but I don't! I pop back up every time! As if I am stuck with my weird guy and thinking back I realized that I name all my characters weird names. From Gerblit to Q Burbble, to Hortle the Tortle. Is dice chris pissed at me because I cant give a character a normal name? Help

JustVeryMundane

To the Amazing judges, and the bailiff equivalent to the little brother you give a fake controller to; I bring you a case of future crime - At the end of the last season of my Call of Cathulu campaign, one of my players died - and I want to bring him back. I was thinking of having him play a new character - who would end up being a villain - up until it makes sense for his old character to return. And once he returns I’ll take over the villain. My friend is aware of this and thinks it’s a cool ideas - but I ask is this fair to the other players? Or is this too “DMs Pet”

Hannah

Dearest, most darling justices and only slightly less darling bailiff Jim, I play in 2 year long homebrew campaign with friends. Recently, towards the end of a mission to secure a package in a crime filled city, and deliver it to a drop point - one of our players, the monk, made the choice to steal the package and run away with an evil npc, effectively boning the rest of the party. After much debate, the monk let us know via discord that she regretted her choice and wanted to come back but our wizard, said they would be having words with the monk in character. Our DM, in an effort to avoid all conflict, retconned the entire situation saying that the situation resolved itself, and we would all (monk/wizard included) be made up with each other and have made it to the drop point without incident. Justices, was this choice to gloss over a huge story beat the correct one? Or should we have been allowed to play through the tension and continue the mission?

JC

To the justices of the supreme crit and the bailiff who is tolerable in small doses, I have a problem player and I need advice in the form of a ruling. I'm running a Star Wars 5e campaign inspired by Starstruck and the party has been stuck on a desert planet trying to get enough credits to buy a starship. Now, my problem player, let's call him Brian because he rolls like Murph, he cannot see the comedy or see any benefit to rolling low. He complains about it, sometimes even getting slightly angry at me, the DM, when things aren't going his way, occasionally yelling. But, the bigger problem in my book, is that he views the consequences of his low rolls, especially the ones that negatively impact the party, as his fault. This has led to an sour attitude from him at the table that dampens the mood of the other players, my mood, and his own. I want to figure out how to reorient his outlook but am unsure how to approach that conversation or should I just get a new friend?

Jake de Medeiros

May it please the court, I present the case of the college hookup that ended a campaign. This is a case from a campaign I played in during my time studying in Montreal. We had been playing for months, and had levelled our characters from level 1 to 15, and our campaigns final boss fight was supposed to happen right after spring break. The DM and another player, we can call them sonic and knuckles for anonymity, spent spring break in upstate New York together while me and the other player (Amy and Tails) stayed back in Montreal. A couple days into spring break Tails got a text from Sonic saying that he and knuckles had hooked up in New York, but then gotten into a fight about what they wanted their relationship to look like. Ultimately they decided the healthiest thing to do was take time apart, and that the campaign would be postponed indefinitely. I didn’t even get a text, and only found out through Tails. The final boss battle never came. Even now, after over a year has passed, Sonic and Knuckles don’t hang out anymore. Me and Tails splintered off from the group and found a new campaign to play in, but we’re upset that such a long running campaign came to such a disappointing end. Judges, do DM’s have a responsibility not to hook up with their players before boss battles? If so, do both Sonic the DM and justice Murphy need to be punished? Thanks

heafplaysbad

Greetings and salutations to the esteemed justices, and hi to the bailff. Jack or whatever your name is. This is possibly a case against myself a friend and ai where playing a paid game of CoS and we had a good group ( I also still play with the same DM and two of the other players including my friend) we go to thr part in the module where we are meatingbthr priest and our DM plays the part of what he called his son screaming from the basement of the church yelling "Help father, help" so we went to investigate. Mind you at the same time out may talking person was in the corner trying to summon a familiar. I was playing a necromancer wizard gnome and had n Very low charisma but I had taken the talking roll hut one of the other characters had snuck his way to the door. I seen this and cast blindness on the priest do he could sneak in which the priest cast lesser restoration on himself to pull down ( which in game he didnt have) the DM decided this we ended up releasing him and fought the son until he died. The priest forced up out of the church and we left while leacing we heard a single bell toll and then later found the priest had killed him self with the rope from the bell. Afterward I got completely roasted in out discord for my actions saying shouldn't not have done that amd it was stupid. But I thought what I did made since in the moment and I was a pretty new player at the time and had never played a spell caster so it seemed okay but the party ended up breaking up after that. So I bring to you my case my fair and wonderful justices and weird Jake guy was okay in my actions or did I deserve to be roasted?

SeriousC

To the benevolent judges and "AHHH!!!".....Oh Jake! I didn't see you there. I bring you the PC Custody Battle that still makes me doubt that I should DM again. I was approached by my forever DM and he asked if I could run the next campaign so he could play. I was nervous cause I've never DM'd before, but with his encouragement I gathered the group and we set off. The game was going well for a few months until my DM approached me. My DM asked if he could make a new character claiming, "I'm getting bored of this character, I feel I have taken him and his story as far as they can go." I was worried cause I still had so much planned for him and even offered to workshop, but he was firm. So I narrated how his PC went off in game and introduced his new character: a swashbuckler rogue pirate captain with ship and crew. Everyone loved the new character, even my DM so I thought we were all good. Untill one session later, my DM approached me again saying quote, " Im going to have to leave this game. I'm just finding myself bored and uninvested." Once again I was worried and offered to workshop, but he was firm so we bid him farewell and we continued forward. But I had a problem. My DM left me a PC and a pirate crew of NPCs that was taxing for a new DM to organize. So in the next encounter, I decided to introduce my BBEG and as a way to show off the bad guys power, I would have the PC sacrifice himself so his crew could distract and the players could escape. When I told my DM this, he was upset. Saying that it was his character and he should get to decide what his ending was. I argued that since he left the game and gave up on two characters, they were now NPCs and I got to choose what happened to them. Well suffice to say this soured the group and the campaigned fizzled out. So I ask, who owns a character once a player leaves the table? Should I have let his 2nd PC sail into the sunset? Or was I able to adopt the PC as my own? I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

Hanna Dahl

hey hi howdy justices and cowboy jake. I submit to you today the case of the big Dumb paladin stuck in a mystery campaign. I played in a campaign a few years ago wherein I played an Earth Genasi Paladin, who had five intelligence. During character creation our DM offered us each a boon if we chose to have a stat of 8 or lower. I, knowing that this was set to be a lighthearted highschool adventure campaign, sought to build a sweet big dumb guy, so I took it. Cut to 6months into the campaign, it had all turned sour. We’ve only had one combat (which was the only session I had to miss) and the campaign has become a dark, pretty gruesome, mystery/horror wherein we’re trying to sleuth out “who dunnit” when it came to the violent murder of our characters parents and classmates. I could barely participate in the plotline because of my lack of skill when it came to investigating. Justices, was I wronged for being misinformed as to what necessary skills my PC should have to contribute to the story? Or was I wrong for making my big dumb dummy in a world of mystery and clues. I humbly await your judgement. okay love u bye!! PS i never got the aforementioned boon from the DM

Billette

To the Hon-roll-ble judges and the present ballif J-cake, I bring you the case of the Peak Behind the Screen. I was DMing a campaign for some friends and my ex husband via zoom (he was my husband at the time - feel free to speculate wildly). I was running a session with a fairly complicated monster (I don't remember what it was at this point) and told the group that it had used an ability that did some form of AOE on the group. My ex (remember, husband at the time) sent me a message that said I was wrong about the monsters ability and that the attack didn't work the way I had described. He was correct, I had misread the ability in the moment, but when I asked him how he knew what the monsters abilities were, he admitted to looking up the monsters stats online. Apparently this was something he had been doing all campaign. He claimed that he was only looking up the monsters to help me as a new DM. I had been DMing for more than a year at that point. I feel like he was doing it more to get a leg up in the battle & wasn't really respecting the game or me as the DM. I freely acknowledge that I did misread the monsters stats, but does that justify him checking up on me/my monsters mid-session? Or was he in the wrong?

Bwyan

A warm Hogliday greeting to the 3 wise Justices and a quick pat on the shoulder to the Baliff swaddled in the manger. I present to you the case of the fragile fluffy friend. I'm a new DM and my party recently won a series of neat trinkets from a fairground. One of these is an awakened Teddy bear who now sees the party as his adopted daddies and follows them everywhere. They love this little guy, even helping him win a baking contest and dubbing themselves The Pooh Crew. It's the most invested I've seen my party in an NPC. The unfortunate thing is, he has 1HP and 3AC, and is one tumble from his demise. My party will not stop trying to come up with ways to protect their new friend, including asking if our artificer can build him a small tank so he can have some protection while they adventure. I have denied most of the outlandish requests. My question to you is, how far should I be willing to go to allow this walking bundle of fluff to become a hardened adventurer, or is their friend simply a story vessel to create a baddie my party will go to extreme lengths to reach in order to avenge their little broken bear? I eagerly await your decision.

Thefindingmoon

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

Kai Smith

My dearest priests of the holy church of Dice Christ, especially the most illustrious Lady Axford, and I don’t think there’s anyone else to address, right? I come to you with the story of a Legally Blonde the Musical themed one-shot. This fall, I was in a community theatre production of Legally Blonde the Musical, and as is tradition, we had a DND one-shot themed off of the show with cast and crew playing characters based off of the musical characters. (As the only woman cast member who liked DND, I of course played Elle Woods as a bard, if you must know). Our sound tech, a young man who had never played DND, was given a powerful paladin frat boy to play. However, this player on every single round of combat picked “I run away” as his action. Without fail. We could not understand why. He didn’t want to make a choice on fighting, so he just ran. We faced six stone gollums and he just kept running and drinking beer instead of fighting. Holy Priests of the Dice Christ and Dice Devil, I will admit that for most of the game, I was pissed at the paladin! How could he not smite?!? But, in the heat of battle with the BBEG, an evil professor of course, another player convinced him to take an actual turn. The paladin hit our BBEG for a whopping 81 damage. He then proceeded to die. It was the most beautiful turn I have ever seen. How could I doubt such a genius? I prostrate myself at your feet begging forgiveness for my judgment of the noble Paladin. I will take whatever punishment you deign to lay upon me, preferably Legally Blonde themed in honor of the Paladin. Peace be with you.

One Sexy Grinch

(FOR BAILIFF EYES ONLY: Jake if you put this in the episode I’m willing to bribe you with a totally seamless extra plug for you at the end) To the Honorably cruel and unusual justices and their silly court jester: I bring to you the case of the role-play racist. During the pandemic my brother introduced me to dnd and even bought me my own copy of the players handbook. He then brought together a group of his friends and we were both players in a five person zoom campaign. During our final battle of that campaign arc my brother (playing a high elf) cast an area of effect spell that also hit dozens of humans/civilians. After the battle my half elf bard demanded justice. He held strong that as a high elf he doesn’t care about the small pathetic lives of humans. I tried to get the others to help me kill him (they didn’t) but did help me subdue him to send him to the capital for a trial. We never played again. We also don’t talk for reasons unrelated. If this information helps at all I’d like to add that his name is Jake and mine is Maggie, much like the incredibly cool lead member of indie folk band Honey Magpie (also from my home state!!) that her brother Jake does not mention enough. So I ask the court, should I have tried more to draw and quarter him myself or was it okay to accept that his friends would only be okay with sending him to trial?

Autumn Sun

To the beautiful earthly representatives of Dice Christ - Worm Wife, Murphbot, and Tanny. Oh, and that Arsenal FC supporter, Jake. Forgive me, for I have sinned. Many moons ago, I was DM'ing for 2 new players who are my Wife's friends. My wife, an experienced player, was also playing and helping the newbies. All were starting at level 1. During the party's first encounter, I rolled well, too well in fact. I rolled a natural 20 on the first attack made on a new player. I then rolled another natural 20 on the second new player. I then rolled a nat 20 on my wife's character, too. This was 3 nat 20's in a row due to initiative order. I have never done this in my life. In fact, I usually roll like Murph. The players were well and truly whomped with the 2 new players going down. For the last of the Nat 20 rolls (on my wife's Cleric), I quickly rolled again, explaining that I should have rolled with disadvantage because the enemy was drunk, at this, my wife's narrowing eyes made me worry she suspected). My disadvantage roll was an 11, missing her character and allowing her to heal a downed player. Can I ever be forgiven by Dice Christ, and possibly my wife, for claiming a disadvantage was in play when it was not? Or did Dice Christ just not want these guys playing D&D? For extra context on whether Dice Christ was warning us, one of these players would later create drama at my Wife's workplace and involve her. The other player is actually cool as fuck and still plays games with us when time allows.

Frazurbluu

To the 3 Jakes and the baby justice (no I messed it up damn damn damn). I write to you with the case of the Bird show. I was running a Pathwarden campaign with my friends set in the harsh desert world of Dark Sun. When my friends were navigating the wilderness, I would roll on a d100 table for random encounters. Just for fun, I figured I'd put some wacky ones on a roll of 95-100. One such wacky encounter was a psychic that had failed to gain control over a bird, with the bird instead having gained control over him. I figured this would be funny for a few minutes and then we'd get back to gritty survival. Instead, the PCs were highly motivated to help the bird. This spawned a multi-session side quest about freeing the bird while letting him keep his newfound intelligence. The players asked the bird to move to their oasis hideout. They often asked him for advice on how to proceed, requested he accompany them on adventures, and deployed his psychic powers in combat. The campaign became much more comedic than I had intended. Should I have not had wacky vignettes on the roll table, or should my players have just enjoyed the quick bit and then gone back to dehydrating to death? I await your summary execution of one (or all) involved parties.

Drew Faber

To the venerable supreme crit justices and the venereal bailiff Junk… I present the case of the nat 1 fumbles. In an online combat-heavy 5.5e campaign, my DM uses a rule where if you roll a nat 1 on an attack, you either attack an ally within range or drop your weapon. I personally hate this rule, because in what universe would an experienced warrior accidentally smack their friend with a sword 1 out of 20 times? I had never played with this rule before this so I didn’t know to object at first. Anyways… Cut to several sessions later and I’ve attacked friends dozens of times against my will, because I’m a fighter with now 3 attacks per action. Luckily I’m an eldritch knight so war bond prevents me from permanently yeeting my sword off the battle map every few minutes, but this rule still sucks and kills the vibe at the table every time it happens to me or others. There’s another fighter and a paladin so it’s *frequent*. I had considered quitting but now we’re level 13 and now I get the “studied attacks” feature so I’ll have advantage more often, and I do enjoy playing the character a lot otherwise. Do I just bite my tongue and accept that I’m gonna do like 20 damage to my friends every so often?

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 DM and my own party trying to figure out why this was a bad idea, but they refused to tell me so i gave up and did it anyway. Lo and behold, there were still civillians in the church and I ended up killing 5 innocents and injuring another and this ended up affecting how the rest of the town treated us. The rest of the party gave me shit for this, 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

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.

Kneeburgers

To the mighty Crit court, I’m seeking a theoretical ruling to establish precedent. I’m playing a Favored Soul Sorcerer, which is an Unearthed Arcana subclass that allows sorcerers to take Cleric spells. One of the sorcerer metamagic options, Heightened Spell, allows me to give one enemy disadvantage on a saving throw against one of my spells. My question is this: could I use Heightened Spell with something like Spirit Guardians, which is a saving throw for the someone who moves into the spell rather than one specified single target, and would that be a one-time disadvantage against Spirit Guardians or repeated? The wording in the holy texts (the Player’s Handbook) isn’t fully specific. I humbly await your wise ruling and will honor it for the rest of this campaign.

Joshua Goguen

Humble judges, I prostrate myself before you and handsome Jaque I prostate myself before you. In the case of the IRL attempt on my life. I DM a campaign that has been slowly fizzling out, one of my players moved away, another just welcomed a baby to their home, life has been progressing and it’s been harder to get the group together. Everyone has been understanding, accept for one player, who happens to be my gym partner. We go to the gym together 4 times a week, and every-time without fail, brings up that we need to play dnd and that I need to “pull my shit together and get the group together”. What he doesn’t know is that the group have all mentioned to me how much they don’t like playing with him. Some of his past grievances are; derailing a 3 year storyline for my Druid fae princess player by running his mouth to her mothers captor. Wanting a detailed description of how through the power of prayer he should be allowed to impregnate an infertile race of winged elves. And lining up mad lab monkeys and doming them “Negan style” because they could not be rehabilitated. Here comes the kicker, yesterday we hit chest, and he is insistant we go for a new PR on the bench, he stacks up the weights and says I have to “pull my shit together and lift the weight” I get under it, hit the new PR. On the third set I start to gas out. The weight is on my chest, I can’t get it up and I look for my spotter, he’s on his phone. I say “hey man, can I get some help” his response was, “sorry I was just building this cool mini on hero forge for the campaign.” This poses the question, was this on purpose? Is he trying to scare me into playing dnd with him? I’m worried he’s not just a menace in the game but also in real life. Would I be wrong to let this campaign die? I await your humble ruling with bated breath.

Goblin Glizzy Gobbler

May it please the judges and titillate the bailiff., I present the case of the overly sensitive DM. I (the forever DM) have been playing in a homebrew campaign run by one of my good friends and regular players. It's her first time DMing a large-scale campaign and it has overall been fun and going well! Unfortunately, over multiple sessions she has snapped at me for what I considered asking clarifying questions or getting excited. For example, in a recent combat I (a ranger) had climbed 30 feet into a tree to avoid a zombie. She moved the zombie minifig right up next to me and I, asking genuinely, said "holy shit the zombie can fly??". She responded by holding her hand out to me and flatly saying "Relax. I looked at the wrong minifig, okay?" This is not the first time she has shut me down like this, and has previously told me it's because she feels "judged" by me when I ask these questions since I have way more DM experience. Judges, I implore your input, am I required to not push the DM just because they are sensitive to how their game is going? Players pushing up against me is one of my favorite parts of DMing, and often where I catch mistakes I've made! I humbly submit myself to the court, but not the Bailiff Jacques.

Jon Gravina

Noble Justices (and that other guy, Jork): Was I wrong to dangle a metaphorical carrot for over four years? We finished up remote Rime of the Frostmaiden (with a decent amount of homebrew thrown in) this past summer after starting in late 2020. Early on, the party was tasked with saving a member of the Arcane Brotherhood from burning at the stake. An ill-timed game of Boulder / Scroll / Shears delayed the party as they decided to investigate a Duergar incursion elsewhere in the town of Easthaven first. As such, they were too late to save the wizard and he self-immolated. The #DzaanDidntKillHimself memes invaded the group text for years. I even had our non-gaming friends send "Dzaan is Dead" texts, completely out of context, to drive the point home. The party refused to accept his fate for the entire campaign. During our in-person finale, he was brought back to life via another NPC's Wish spell...for about thirty seconds. He was able to deliver some exposition into the BBEG's motives before succumbing to Hold Person by said BBEG, who then absorbed the wizard to power up and unleash his final BBEG form, dubbed "Uber Levistus." Before dying, he did let the party know that he did indeed self-immolate to prevent the BBEG from gaining the knowledge he possessed about an ancient Netherese artifact. After so many years, my "cutscene" before the final battle made sense to me, but I get the feeling the party was looking for a bigger payoff to that whole plot thread. Was I wrong to bring it back full circle for a few seconds of joy, or can this be chalked up to just another red herring? Should I have had the exposition delivered by the other NPC or even the BBEG himself? I even went so far as to have a custom mini made of the Wizard to put on the board during his speech, only to then throw it right back in the Bag of Holding. I humbly await your judgement and hope to see #Justice4Dzaan trending in 2026.

mira

To the esteemed Hogliday court and Jake, I bring you the case of the Teens playing D&D. I am a librarian and I run D&D for teens ages 13-18. When I started I had a lovely group of 3 players and we were working through Candlekeep Mysteries. They loved mysteries and followed plot threads! But then, dear justices, more teens arrived. I now play with 8 teens, and the new ones don’t like to play collaboratively. They constantly try to PVP, only care about doing their own thing, and interrupt each other constantly. I have adjusted by just going with whatever direction they want in the moment because I cannot control them, but I feel as though I’m depriving my original teens. Justices - must I lay down the D&D law and force better table manners and cooperation, or am I merely a servant for these teens who really do not have the skills to collaboratively tell a story yet?

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?

Reilly N

To the Dice Christ Clergy, and Altar Boy Jane: forgive me, for I have sinned. I’m a first time DM running Rime of the Frostmaiden. My level 1 party ran into a pack of goblins. The Druid (a former DM) said that because goblins do a D6 of damage, they were going to completely wipe the party, causing some less experienced players to panic a bit. This was immediately followed by a goblin crit to the fighter, almost killing him. Clergy members, I caved. I had a polar bear bite a goblin’s head off and I started fudging some rolls against the fighter. None of the other goblins could hit for shit. What was supposed to be a challenging level 1 fight turned into an unfulfilling cakewalk for the party. I’m worried that I’ve angered Dice Christ in my first session as a DM. How can I return to the good graces of our lord?

Vivian the Graceless

To my personal Comfort Millennial Court and the animated talking jean shorts bailiff, I bring you a case that does not involve the usual tabletop game drama, but one of a slight done to me by a stranger by way of the dice. I present the case of the Dice Devil Trickster Tipper. For context, I am currently a waitress at a restaurant that is attached to an indoor arcade. Where I live is a summer tourist town and now we’ve hit our slow season where we’re lucky if we have anyone come in. Now to the incident, I had been at work for about 4 hours without a table. Then a guy came in and requested a table for one. He proceeds to order at least $100 worth of food and drinks just for himself. I thought this was the lucky break I had been looking for all day, so I made sure to always check on him and refill his drinks without asking. I asked him if he was interested in any games at the arcade and he said the while he likes our wall of pinball machines, he really liked TTRPGs. I, as someone who consumes a lot of TTRPG content but has never played, told him this and he proceeded to say that we could play a game right there. I was confused but he carried on, he said that we could do an IRL charisma check, he’ll give me a +3 for my “performance” so far and he’ll roll a virtual d20 and that’ll be the check. Y’all, he then “rolled” a Nat 1, so a total of 4. We laughed at it and he then asked for his bill after ordering another drink and dessert. Once he had paid and left, I noticed on the gratuity line that he left a small tip, how much you ask? A fucking 4% tip. On a $115 check he left $6. Normally, I’m grateful for every single tip that I receive but this one feels different. Am I right for feeling upset that the first ever dice roll I ever made wasn’t even made by me and affected my paycheck? Thank you in advance cuties!

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 this 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.

heafplaysbad

Also just kidding Jake, I love you ❤️

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?

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!

Kilanna Drake

Honored Supreme Crit Justices, Mr. Bailiff, I come before you to accuse my DM of an improper ruling. For five years, my brother (the DM) has run a campaign for myself, my wife, and my second brother. The party has oft been accused of being murder hobos but recent character development led me to play my druid at least trying a more diplomatic approach. When we encountered a water demon lord during travel, my telepathic halfling made initial contact to try and negotiate information. At the same time, the rest of the party remained on deck, clearly ill at ease. As the demon got closer, we all become both verbally and clearly tense and—we thought—gave all appearances of being ready to battle. Yet when the demon lord attacked, the DM ruled that he gained a surprise round on us, because none of us had verbally stated we were preparing combat actions. There was a brief kerfuffle while the party debated this ruling, but in the end the ruling stood. I ask you now to judge: was the DM right to punish us for our lack of clarity, or should our unease and history of battle have shown that we were ready to rumble? We bow to your wisdom in the matter. P.S. No long-term grudges were held, everyone survived the encounter and our campaign continues.

TK-82187

To the esteemed judges and that guy in the corner, I come to you with the case of a multi-stunning a party. I have been playing DnD with a group of my buddies since the pandemic forced us all to be basement dwellers. One of my closest friends, we'll call him M, is a first-time DM, and this campaign has gone on for long enough that one would hope he would learn a few things. We are all level 14 at this point and just entered a battle with multiple mind flayers. On turn 1, after our entire party was cursed with bad initiative rolls, the mindflayer all moved first. M decides that the 4 mindflayers, moving as a horde, all used Mindblast, overlapping the entire party. Judges, we were asked to make FOUR separate intellect saving throws to resist being stunned for 1 minute. Would a horde not constitute one saving throw vs four? I failed 3 of the 4 rolls and failed subsequent save attempts ('Zerker Barb with bad Int), thus being stunned for a full 3 hr session. Judges, has my group been wronged by a horde, or am I just salty that I roll like dog shit? Please note: some players saved after a round or 2, and all attempts to break other free were met with more stuns.

Richard edwards

Once upon my first incarnation, I paid all the gold I have to upgrade my eyes to have dark vision, 500+. I was assured there was only a 6% chance of failure. But when the gods that the surgeon prayed to rolled, they chose their percentiles, they chose their famously named "fuck the pc" dice of fate. At first I was blinded, just hearing the man "shit fuck shit erm I can fix that" along with metal objects hitting the floor. When all was finished, I did indeed have dark vision, but I could no longer walk in the light without special red lenses. I received no refund, not even half of it back. Do you know how hard it is to avoid red flags when all you can see is red? Its a serious handicap for any rogue.

Dylan C

(From my friend Kate) 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.

mushr00mcore

I pray today to saints of the Supreme Crit (and Jake), for I am honestly baffled by what has occurred. I have been playing a Knowledge domain cleric in a Dragon Heist campaign for a while now. The plot admittedly moves slowly because of Shenanigans. The group itself isn't the most stable, with only three people from the OG group still there at the start of our tale. Towards the start of the year, two new players (19m and 22m) joined to help fill the gaps. They joined in the razzing of another character (played by a 36nb player who we will call Matt) who burned down our tavern a few times. Eventually this got to the player so they made a new character to play and told everyone to knock it off when they eventually brought their first character back. Things were fine after that until the group started a new campaign in the discord server we played in. It was Strahd, and the DM told me before they would not let Matt join a Strahd campaign. This caused problems and eventually Matt left the group. When this all happened, I had taken two edibles and slept for 16 hours. So I woke up to the aftermath. Matt messaged me, essentially making me and a few others into the "good guys" and demonizing everyone else in the party. Matt rejoined after working things out. I felt odd about it but moved on. Now, someone dropped out of the Strahd campaign and I was asked to join to cover the gap. Immediately, I knew this would cause problems in the group. Regardless, I joined. Admittedly, scheduling issues had gotten in the way of the Dragon Heist campaign, starting in June when the DM (26f) cancelled a session since she and I were going to the Battle of the Bowls and continuing mainly due to technical issues with Roll20, WiFi, and the like. I learned that Matt periodically left the server when we didn't play regularly enough and sent the DM passive aggressive messages like "send me an invite link when we are going to play again." I was on call with the DM when Matt did this for the last time, which is why I learned about it at all. A few days after that, after a session was canceled because the DR'S wifi was out, Matt left the group for good. In the aftermath of it all, I feel just as confused as I did after taking two edibles and sleeping for 15 hours. It's just weird? This person was not the oldest person in the group but was certainly a decade plus older than most of the group and has a teenaged child so I think thats why a big part of why the emotion immaturity has really thrown me for a loop here. I am also a little annoyed that Matt was even allowed to join back after their first tantrum but admittedly, I also said it would be alright to let them come back so I could've put my foot down then and avoided at least half of the mess.

Ashley Blake

Hello esteemed judges, In a recent session, one of my pcs, a cleric, wanted to use Calm Emotions to prevent a fight from breaking out. The problem is that she was not in the room, but rather outside the building on the ground floor while the fight was in an upstairs bedroom. There was no line of sight on the windows, the only way that she even knew something was happening was because the party warlock was looking through the eyes of their invisible pseudodragon that had snuck into the room, and then relaying what she saw to the cleric on the ground. As DM I argued that she didn’t have line of sight, and wouldn’t know where to aim her Calm Emotions. The PC argued that RAW Calm Emotions doesn’t require line of sight, and so it didn’t matter that she couldn’t actually see where everyone was as long as she had a general sense of the space. In the end, I had her make a luck roll, which she succeeded on, and so she was able to cast the spell. My question is: should the cleric have been allowed to cast the spell, not having ever actually seen the room or the location of the people in it, but merely having it described to her by a warlock who also had never been in the room, but was just looking through their familiar’s eyes. And a larger precedent question: should RAW be respected if, in the DM’s opinion, the omission of “target you can see” in the wording of the spell doesn’t make sense.

MO Problems

To the Honorable Justices and that gross peddler guy, Jork. I'm currently running a 5e campaign with my brother and some friends. We recently had a session where my brother's character cast Gust of Wind, a continues powerful wind that requires a strength saving throw, down a tunnel with enemies to push them back. My brother character would then run into the wind, strike at the enemies and then dash out, using almost all of his movement to do so but still succeeding. When he entered the wind tunnel I also asked for a saving throw which he said he didn't have to make one. Re-checking the spell, he was right. It only affects creatures who end their turn in the wind. I felt that didn't make sense as he was still going into the wind and should be affected by the blast like everything else. So I told him that this time we'll allow rules as written but future rulings will have creatures make a save when they enter the blast of wind. He disagreed but relented. Justices, is my ruling incorrect? Should it be rules as written or is my slight modification making this a worse spell for my players?

Zoologist440

To the peerless Justices and the Bailiff Jerk, I bring you the case of the frigid first time one-shot. My first Dnd group had just finished Curse of Strahd and wanted to dip our toes into higher levels. One player volunteered to create and run a lvl 15 one-shot. We excitedly rolled our characters the weeks before and showed up ready to play. The session began at a hostel at the entrance to a snowy mountain pass. Our mission clearly took us up into the mountains, but we had not been warned that weather would be a factor and as such none of our equipment would help ward off the cold. We rolled to scrounge up supplies from the hostel, using old blankets to wrap our most vulnerable in. Still, when we began to climb the pass, everyone except my druid, who had altered self, had to take 1 exhaustion because, as the DM put it, "those old blankets wouldn't keep the cold out". My druid did his best to keep the smaller PC's warm, and we continued. Eventually we befriended a young white dragon (rad!), who allowed us to ride him as we ascended the mountain. The DM then narrated an avalanche coming down the mountain towards us. We told him "we fly over it" He responded, "how high?" Confused, we responded "I guess like 200 ft? Enough to be over it?" The DM rolled a d6, got a 6, and said "the avalanche is 600ft high, you are knocked off the dragon to the ground" We were all upset, claiming that a 600ft avalanche is insane and we had plenty of warning to get to whatever height we needed to evade it. I ask you, were we wronged by this new DM or victims of the fickle dice?

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 to us as a group of legendary heroes saving the world, our party was tasked with retrieving an essential magical item from a dungeon that we could not continue the story without. Upon approaching the dungeon, the DM announced that he would be randomly rolling for the dungeon’s alignment, 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 was uncomfortable with playing out the massacre of innocent people - and since the dungeon alignment was randomly generated in the first place, could we not use a different option? This was not what I’d signed up for in a ‘legendary heroes’ style campaign. The DM shot down my objections, and suggested we should just start to think of our characters as evil people. The game moved on, and so I suggested that we try and make it a stealth mission rather than a massacre. The DM stressed that this would be very hard, and that he’d be setting the stealth DCs especially high. So as none of the party were particularly stealthy, I cast Pass Without Trace on the group. Thanks to the spell, 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 had lied in my desperation to avoid playing out the murder of innocent people. I left the group immediately after that session, and have never lied about any character’s spells before or since. Can Dice Christ forgive me for lying about my spells in order to avoid participating in the slaughter of innocents?

Kingofanchovies

Dear melvolant judges and the lowly limbo master bailiff I present the case of the stoned tabaxi I was a young sorcerer and I missed part of a session and when I arrived things were dire I was being held hostage by a water monster who was currently digesting our tabaxi rogue that 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 on the next turn and rolled on the fey wild death 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. Please justices tell them they are buttheads I await your judgment

Hedge

To the honorable judges and the balking baliff, I present the case of the prolonged final session. Our group has been together for more than two years of (mostly regular) weekly sessions. We're coming to the end of a Rise of Tiamat campaign, and our DM was certain we'd be done by Halloween. We're now coming into our 5th final session (mainly because the finale is a sprawling volcano dungeon). We're trying to disrupt a ritual to summon Tiamat and in the first two chambers, we tried to take out the spellcasters chanting at the top of spires in the middle of the rooms. Once defeated, the DM was a little irked we wasted our time, and had an callback npc hurry us onward-- before that npc had to fall back and left us to get attacked by the inhabitants of the third room. There are five of these areas and the point was to be a bit of a resource drain, but these swarms are rough to get past, even if we were able to buzz through. There's been a little frustration, and this is our DMs first (nearly) completed module. Your honors, do you have any advice for estimating how long a final stretch of a campaign will last? I humbly await your judgement. Ps- both our DM and group are great, so I really can't complain

Grisby's Pal

To the illustrious and mighty judges, and… I want to say Jorf, right? I present to you the case of the Too-Thirsty Robot. I’m DMing my first campaign, which is currently in a steampunk city. It’s going well and we’re having a great time. After destroying a magic book in a lab, the party had to fight a living spell that emerged from the book’s remains. During the fight the head scientist, Professor Bartholomew Birdle, was killed. I thought this might happen, and in the events before the fight I introduced them to Grisby the robot, Professor Birdle’s assistant. I’m about to gift my players an airship, and I thought Grisby would make a fun addition to the crew. I thought it was a no-brainer that they would adopt him: I gave him a funny robot voice that made them laugh, I gave him moveable metal eyebrows that conveyed his emotions, and during the fight I even had him inject one of the players with a healing potion. When the party went to leave the lab, I narrated that they saw Grisby sitting alone in the room, looking at the body of his master. This prompted the players to debate whether or not they should hide the corpse. Grisby then looked at the players with his eyebrows set to the sad position and said “What am I going to do now?” The party said “awww” and then wished him luck and turned to leave. It wasn’t until I said “You’re… just going to leave Grisby?” that they decided to adopt him. Judges, was I too thirsty in my attempt to give my players a fun NPC to adopt? Or were my players wrong to be so indifferent to this delightful new robot pal?

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)

Jude Bialik

To the Esteemed Justices (and Bollocks Jerk), I present the case of unsatisfactory but consensual PC death. Our DM had some unexpected life stressors and asked if anyone else was willing to DM for a while. I was, by far, the most experienced with ttrpg, so everyone looked at me. We’d been meeting bi-weekly for a few months and getting along well (nearly impossible in your 30s), so I was reluctant to risk the group dissolving. But I was very new to 5e and had recently started a new job; I didn’t feel up to learning to DM in a new system. I proposed a compromise. I had been running Call of Cthulhu one-shots at our local game shop for a couple years. So I offered to re-use one of those scenarios to DM a one shot for this group. If we liked the system, we could keep using it until the DM felt up to DMing again. I explained that CoC is designed for low-fantasy horror, so the mechanics are simple but harsh. One-shots are typically weighted for half the party to die during the final confrontation. The group enthusiastically agreed. I had them fill out the pre-game questionnaire I always use for CoC. One of the three questions gauges comfort with PC death, with the options: Don’t let me die Try not to kill me (1 player picked this) Try to kill me (other 3 picked this) The first one-shot went extremely well and everyone enthusiastically agreed to play a pre-made scenario designed to take 2-3 sessions. I gave everyone the chance to change their questionnaire answers and the player who had selected “try not to kill me” switched to “try to kill me.” During the first session of this second scenario, an NPC hinted that an established gang might be involved in the murder the party was investigating. The party suddenly became dead-set on immediately confronting this gang, despite being a group of unarmed university students. For the sake of brevity, I ask that you trust me that I did EVERYTHING to warn these players that they were prematurely approaching the final boss battle, up to breaking the 4th wall to tell them that if they proceeded without further exploration or preparation, they would almost certainly die and fail to solve the mystery. They still insisted on entering the final confrontation, weapon-less and ignorant to the paranormal aspect of their adversary, and without any sort of plan. Within 3 rounds of combat, all PC’s were dead and the fun had been sucked out of the room. I asked the group how they’d like to proceed in the next session. I suggested they could pick up the same mystery with new characters or try a different scenario. The group never met again. Eventually, I asked for feedback and the original DM replied with a long list of ways I’d been unfair or applied the rules incorrectly. I chose not to point out that his list referenced 5e rules, not CoC mechanics. Another player said she hadn’t expected me to actually kill them and admitted that she hadn’t enjoyed the second scenario. The other two never responded or spoke to me again. I feel vaguely at fault but I just don’t understand what the Hell went wrong here. I await your ruling.

Artificialflavors

Hey Jake, I love you. Anyways, I am a DM for a party of four in a steampunky/magitek campaign. The party had rescued a bunch of magic students who were being trafficked to be turned into batteries, and were headed into a military camp. In said camp I put an airship off in the distance, and when I described the airship, one of my players said “let’s go commandeer the airship for these students” I must have made a face because the player said “judging by the look on Sam’s (my) face, we shouldn’t do that” I feel as though my uncontrolled facial spasm of incredulity caused my party to not go through with a fun plan of infiltrating and taking over an airship. Was I wrong to not control my facial expressions?

AJ Reid

To the all powerful, all knowing justices and the precog-milk procuring bailiff Jaylor. I have but one question for the supreme crit, can you wield a ghost? I’m the DM for a party of four, one of which is a Dragonborn paladin who lost an arm in a stunning act of sacrifice for the party. After the tragic loss of a limb I ruled that he had some homebrew debuffs for his lack of an arm (disadvantage on strength checks and can’t use two handed weapons). He tried in a number of ways to get around this, one of which was to use a spirit knight he can summon once a day to wield his sword for him while grappling his arm (opa Zoro/Ussop style). I told him that was fine but his knight he summoned has to roll his attacks with his stats since he’s holding the sword. He insisted this is the same as him wielding a sword himself and he should use his stats to roll attacks. So judges, can you wield a sword if you aren’t even holding it? Am I CRAVEN for even saying my paladin needs to use his ghosts stats?

martiniimakes

To the omniscipient dice Christ and the wriggling worm wives; I beg forgiveness for my pre-meditated, conspired, and well executed sin which hangs onto me like the crime it was. A total party kill, as a player. I've been in my current group for over 8 years. I am so blessed to have them and consider them all my best friends. We've had many ups and downs in life together and we've weathered and celebrated them all. Two years into playing together, we had started a new, pre-written WOTC module and were having a blast until around level 9. We were nearing an important enemy in the campaign when our DM started mentioned his ideas for the next campaign. We as players were slightly taken back because we all thought there was much to do, had a few side plots to tie up, and the module went to level 12. But we were happy to talk to him about it. When he talked to us about this homebrew campaign he was working on, he asked us to pitch characters, then how we would fit in the world. Next he asked to give him character sheets and backgrounds, and generally get excited about his new world. All of us players had a full party, ready to go, with connections and back stories. He even seemed bummed when we wanted to talk about the current game instead of the new one he was making. A few players and I (in a private group chat (different sin no forgiveness needed)) mentioned we were confused at why we were making all these characters and so much time when the current campaign might not be over for a while. So we asked our DM directly, how many sessions do you think we have left? And he said, "oh not long! We'll be done in a couple of sessions." A couple of sessions later we aren't even at the boss of this current side quest. Our DM kept insisted we were going to be done within a month or so, and this went on for three more months, while still maintaining the same amount of energy into the new campaign and expecting us as well! We even had a session zero and he seemed so much more excited to play then the slog we were going through. So, three of us(out of five players) hatched a plot to TPK. We went into the next battle and our blood oath began. I, fighter, stayed back and took on one of the smallest enemies and not using all of my battle master abilities. Our cleric, bless his soul, ran straight at the main boss and attacked with his just cantrips. And our rogue ran into a melee of four minions alone, forgoing any chance of sneak attack. Our other two party members were confused but tried to save us "idiots" and our sub optimal strategies. We all perished in about 5 rounds of painfully bad DND. My DM was a bit shocked at first, and then he laughed and asked us if we wanted to try to play some side characters or build a new party to come and take our place. Us three deceivers all quietly said no, it tells an interesting story if the bad guys win. He then laughed and said "At least we had a back up campaign!" We all laughed together, nervous but the task was done. We started playing the new campaign the next week and it was one of my favorites he has run for us. He seemed so much happier and in the following years, he's only run campaigns he's passionate about, which reflects in all of us. But Dice Christ. I know what we have done. Please forgive me. If not me, forgive my coconspirators

Kat

I have a confession for the Archbishops (and choir boy Jonk). I have been playing in a remote Pathfinder campaign on Sunday evenings since 2022 (we use Discord for voice/video feed, and Roll 20 for gameplay). I really love this group of guys I play with, but since the summer when we took a hiatus for our DMs wedding, I haven't been able to play due to mental exhaustion (it has been *an whole fuckin year y'all*) and pain management issues (my human body responds to problems with "would you like a headache with that?") and I'm feeling really guilty about it. I messaged my DM and he's totally understanding and cool about me taking a break, and yet... How do I let my guiltiness go and rest up to play again someday? Does Dice Christ still love me?

Kristian Johansen

Hello again honored justices- and that other dude. Today i bring forth the case of the True Viking Dad. Last time i sought your justice, i took your advice and left the group i was playing with (The case of Link Pinkystink), since then i have found some new friends that i wanted to play a "Christening of Norway" campaign set in the early Viking Era, with the presence of trolls and draugr and all that sort of things, but one of the players which is my friends dad, (which im calling the "true viking dad") has gotten on my nerves and i dont know what to do. Whenever i bring up a location or character name or anything related to northern mythology or Scandinavian history, this guy will try to correct me. And the funny thing is that i am Norwegian, and also quite well versed in Northern Mythology, and True Viking Dad is from Austin, Texas. There are currently 4 players, and the two others are getting tired of the corrections as well, and ive talked to the son if he could try to make him tone it down a little, but it seems like my friend doesnt want to oppose his dad, as he continues to correct me. A few sessions ago i lost it, i had drawn a map of my world deity family tree, and in it i had written "Thor" as "Tor" which is the norwegian way of writing it, and he would not stop argumenting why it is wrong even though i said that i have taken some creative liberties to fit the world. While planning next session, the two other players has asked me if i want to continue with just the two of them, as they have gone tired of True Viking Dad, and i did the cold decision of agreeing. And when i told my friend and True Viking Dad that i wont be continuing playing with them, because ive had enough of never being able to satisfy this dudes superior knowledge. My friend told me that it was a shitty thing to do. I proposed running another type of campaign for them, but the response to that was that they were "unsure". Now im wondering if i did wrong? Could i have handled this differently? I have been trying to find a reliable group for years to no prevail, but the two other guys where so much fun to play with and i finally got someone who didnt step on my toes every second (Looking at you Link Pinkystink) Thank you in advance, and may you bring justice fairly. I will leave you with the classic norwegian goodbye: "Hade på badet din gamle sjokolade" Which transalates to "Bye on the toilet, you old chocolate"

Joe's Writing Corner

To the hot and venerable Justices and the (I'm sorry, I cannot perjure myself) cool as hell Bailiff Jake, I bring you the case of the Trap-Trigger-Happy Player. Me and and the defendant are a part of two groups of longtime friends, one of them I'm the DM. In both, I've noticed that my friend always triggers every trap the party comes across, regardless of the campaign or how cautious his characters are in non-dungeon situations. When his other DM and I talked with him about this particular habit, he revealed he does because he knows we'd never make boring traps, and he wants to see and experience all the things we've prepared- a shockingly kind answer. Justices, I beseech thee: does the loving and reverent nature of my friend's trolling give him a pass, or do our parties reserve the right to walk down a hallway of a megadungeon without statues kicking our asses? I prostrate myself before you, though I do slip $5000 Monopoly money in Justice Tanner's shoe as I do so.

Bailey

Dear level headed justices and totally off the rails Jale(s). Mine is the case of the party that might never be. Earlier this year I moved states and sadly had to say goodbye to my DND group of 2 years. Being in a large city and wanting to make new friends, I turned to the internet to find a group. I managed to find a DM looking to put together a crew, and joined a group chat to get to know everyone/plan a meetup. That was 4 months ago. Finally(!) a couple of weeks ago, we were set to meet up for a vibe check and to talk about the campaign. It turns out only myself and 2 others could come, and 1 of them completely monopolized the conversation about how he DMs and his homebrew ideas, and was talking about starting a group (basically poaching us hopeful players from the guy who brought us all together). After the meet, he posted a huge paragraph in the group chat assuming that he would now DM and trying to get a session 0 together, and now the vibes are rancid and the group chat is dead. Justices, I'm desperately trying to get new friends, but what do I do when my potential new group is already imploding? This is the furthest I've gotten in finding a group in almost a year, but should I just cut my losses and keep looking? Gratefully yours, Partyless Paladin

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." 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 enjoyed using. 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? If there was intent to remedy my slight, is that enough? What if that never happens? Thank you, and Dice Christ’s blessings- Magnar Kragstone

mav

To the illustrious judges and…was there someone else? Anyway, I present the case of the 4 hour-long battle the DM fought by themselves. In my old campaign my DM at the time had this huge battle planned. And they brought in their brother to co-DM and handle some of the monsters we were going to fight because there was that many. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, because i know they spent a lot of time preparing but…judges, the battle took 4 hours. Me and the other players would go 45 min without speaking because the DM and their brother were fighting and there wasn’t room for role play. I appreciate the effort but judges, should they have kept it briefer? (I do beg).

Styx

To Bailiff Jake, I present the case of the DM vs the Right Honourable Justices of D&D Court. I am not the DM of the game in question, but as one of her players I am standing in as her legal counsel. This was a couple of weeks ago during a dungeon crawl style game. We were on a roll, so instead of stopping after completing two floors of the tower as usual, we decided to keep going without taking a Long Rest. We took a 30-45 minute break for food during which the DM statted a monster of an appropriate level, which later turned out to use Spinosaurus stats. The fight began with the monster dealing 20+ damage to each of our three characters, and so during her first turn, the wizard cast Hold Monster for the first time, which immobilised the Spinosaurus. Long story short, combined with a Bane from the cleric (myself) and some unlucky rolls from the DM, this meant that the Spinosaurus never got to take an action, or one of its many Legendary Actions in four rounds of combat. We all had a good laugh about this and it was a hilarious, if anticlimactic, ending to a great night. However, the DM lamented that the Spinosaurus had no Legendary Resistances, a feature which has been described as demoralising and spell-slot-wasting by one of the judges of this very court! The charge is levelled towards Judge Emily Axford for disparaging the noble Legendary Resistance which would have saved this poor Spinosaurus from an undignified end and our DM from getting whomped. PS. The DM introduced me to the show and Emily is her personal D&D hero, so it's not real heat, I promise.

elijah miles

Dearest Judges and the kindly bailiff Jude, I DM for a group of children ages 7-12 through a rehab program in my area. All of these kids are in recovery from complicated injuries, leaving them blind, Deaf, or with limb differences. We use DnD as a form of processing for the kids. All of their characters share their disabilities. To the case: how does one deal with the blinded or deafened condition with blind and Deaf characters? I want to help my players understand the importance of their other senses by occasionally using these conditions, but every time I do, one little stinker claims immunity due to their preexisting build. Justices, how do I appropriately and therapeutically whomp these little stinkers in the accessible way they deserve?

James Wxb

To the naturally wavy and dandruff free justices, and the itchy scalp boy Jacques, I offer the case of should DM's be allowed to play baldurs gate. I run a small silly campaign and one session my players needed to fight some Palidin hunting robots and evil queen had commissioned (out of the souls of one of my players dead parents naturally) well to give those robots some extra spice, I decided to give them the radiant retort ability from baldurs gate 3, which reflects all recieved radiant damage back at the caster. Well of course one of my players immediately upcast moonbeam hitting all three robots, and took slightly over there max hp instantly. My players argue that radiant retort only works in video game format because you can see the ability as a icon on the enemies healthbar, but I argue that as I described a strange holy aura around them, it's on my party for not asking to make any investigation checks. Either way the player in question now asks me every combat "if this enemy looks like it might have radiant retort" I submit myself to your unbiased Justice justices.

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 large city because the Rogue wanted to go meet up with his thief friends while the Wizard and the Bard went to recon some holy relics that they were going to need to fight a devil that was chasing them. A cleric at a large church in the center of the city was giving a sermon about the relics which were 3 magical weapons. The Wizard and Bard talked to her after the sermon, and asked to see the weapons. She showed the players the weapons in a large case, and the Wizard said “I cast mass suggestion and tell her to ‘give me those’”. The players immediately started saying they’d whomped me before I could say anything, cheering about how they’d gotten one over on me. Above the table I said the spell says it has to be a reasonable request, what exactly do you say to her get her to give you the weapons and he said again “I say ‘give me those’”. I ruled that “give me those” was not a reasonable request for someone to hand over ancient relics to complete strangers, but the cleric would be willing to help. She gave them paper that let them have an audience with the king so that they could go and talk to him and make their case for these weapons. This was a way for me to let the party regroup, and have the Wizard meet some people who were important to his storyline (although he didn’t know that they were there). 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 have a similar effect but for a smaller spell slot, but short of dominate person you weren’t going to make someone give you holy relics. The Bard then said that I was sucking 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.

Denatonia (Haven)

Dearest priestess and clerics of the Church, I come seeking the comfort of Dice Christ. Recently, after it came out that I had a crush on a fellow player, I was kicked out of my friendship group and our multiple 3+ year campaigns with little discussion or warning. I enter the church now with no friends in my town, grieving both them and the three beloved characters I played in our campaigns. I was so excited to tell their stories, and now I am sitting on dozens of pages of abandoned in-character diaries and hand-drawn art. D&D used to be 8h every weekend, now I haven't played in months. I ask you, at soon to be 29, do I have any chance still of finding new friends and new games? I really struggle to meet new people. I loved these guys and thought we'd play together until we were in our 70s. Any words of comfort from DC himself? 💔

DanDân

To the honorable High Crit Justices and Jacque. I was DMing for 4 friends going through a campaign in its early stages of dnd 5e. Things were going well, they killed the Goose Hydra (honkdra) and were entering the enclosed mountain city when they crit failed a luck check to time a world event. The city was attacked by the southern nation. As they ran through entering the city hall, they encountered a wizard looting goods dressed in the garb of the southern nation. One of my players, a sorcerer said they run by. I gave the DM nod asking if they want to stealth, to which they replied no - they run straight through. The wizard heard them, they rolled initiative, rolled low, and the wizard hit them with a fireball. The sorcerer PC laid down on the floor to “do nothing and pass his turn” two times in a row. Another PC died while he was laying down, and the session stopped there. Justices - was I too harsh with a fireball hitting 4 level 5 PCs? Should I have stressed more beyond the stealth check?

Malte Holm

Dear justices of the holy crit, and the weirdly handsome when bearded Bailiff. I come to you with the case of the dying player. I have been dm’ing for the same group almost every tuesday the last 4-6 year. (One joined 2 years later then the others) We are in our second campaign, where the different Schools of magic play a bigger role. Some of Them taking entity form and later being absorbed by the players, and one by a npc turned dmpc. One of my players (werewolf) died in a House explosion. They went Down before the explosion, and I rolled damage to se if the explosion would out right kill them. I rolled 5 below there Max hp. They ended up dying by death saves anyway. But one of my other players(wizard) called out that the dmpc absorbed necromancy, so They could revive him. I rolled 2 dice and if a green die is bigger then the red, the player would live. The green was higher, and he came back to life. Heres the problem, one of my other players (paladin) Think im a to soft dm, and just should have let him die in the explosion. And shouldnt have let him be revived. I feel like I played it fair. Judges i lay the fate of my werewolf player in your hands. Should he have burned up in an explosion or should the paladin take a chill pill?

Grasse Biche

To whom it may concern. I present to the honorable justices this case: a few months back during a session at a table I'm a player in, the dm asked one of my fellow player to roll for an ability check, the player roll and sadly got a 3, but to my surprise it was a 17 that got announced, he looked at me and winked, I was flabbergasted. I thought maybe I saw wrong and went with it, thinking it was not that big of a deal. Then few weeks later, I witnessed another occurrence of this "event". I did not say anything, and that is my fault, but to my defense, I am no snitch. Should I have denounce this crime, am I an accomplice in this blasphemy against dice Christ? PS: hate the show

Frederick Ward

Dearest justices who shine so brightly on high and that Costanza type that's so deep in the shadows I can barely see him,

Clever Innuendo

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

Dany (Ryu)

Oh supreme and mighty crit, and the adelpate bailiff who i am obligated to mention, I bring the the case of the Hyper Optimized Unoptomized Sorcerer. In a couple weeks, I will be joining a pre-existing campaign, playing the new Spellfire Sorcerer subclass as a Level 6 custom Fire Salamander Lizardfolk (Her name is Teine (Pronounced "Tay-Nay" the Scottish-Gaelic word for Fire). Her backstory is that she was an orphan whose village was attacked by evil mages, who wrought magic so powerful it left the place uninhabitable, alla Nuclear Fallout. The magical fallout unlocked her abilities as a Sorcerer, giving her a direct line to the weave and magic itself. She has grown up training her already anti-magic abilities to hunt mages, counterspelling and absorbing their magic in an almost infinite loop. The controversy comes from another player complaining about Teine. She is 100% focused on being anti-mage. All of her spells, items and feats are tailored to fighting other spellcasters, and i have neglected to take more party focused or melee focused spells and metamagics (no careful spell, shield, mage armor, etc, which she wouldn't have taken because literally all of her time was spent training herself to hunt mages on her own). The other player says i am intentionally trying to eff over the party, but i say i want her to have room to grow past this single-minded crusade. Tell me o' regal judges, am i right to not want her to be generally optimized for the party?

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.

ludosansfin

To the bewitchingly berobed iustices and the Bay Leaf that needs to be fished out before serving. I was first time DMing the Storm King's Thunder module and wrecked my partys airship with a wedge shaped wall of force that they flew into during the Kraken encounter. Our wizard wanted to use mending to repair it but I said the damage was extensive and could not be repaired before the ship fell into the waves and was lost. Was that a dick move that ignored the rules or spirit of the game? The Storm King later gave them an airship and everyone had fun but I still have flashbacks to their sorrow whenever airships enter a new campaign I'm running.

Fewzie7

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

Frederick Ward

Dearest justices who shine so brightly on high and the creature that serves them in the dark damp shadows, I bring the case of the landlocked sailors. I recently joined a campaign thats running through one of the more pirate-y modules in Ebberon, naturally I was the only person who is playing a sailor type which is fine I swear. I was eager to set sail after a stolen artifact but tragically for the first 2 sessions they would end with us ready to set sail and the next would start with us back on land, then for some reason we would end the session on a boat and ready to set sail (but this time with more birds for some reason). justices my sea madness riddled grizzled sailor just wants to sail but he seems doomed to be locked in this time loop till the seas dry up, i believe this may be related to the fact the DM hasnt read the module at all and we keep stopping like 5 times a session for minutes at a time just so the DM can read the scene we are currently halfway through. Please brutal justiciars advise me on how to escape this dry, bird filled time loop

Angelica

Dear the Unburpable and Strong Stomached Jake and Paw Paw’s Legal Advisors… Am I too good at the game? I have been playing DnD for about eight years, and am playing with a party of players with a wide range of experience. I am playing a version of Emily’s sword bard/paladin build, and in combat regularly put out anywhere from 50 to 100 damage per turn due to the magic items i’ve picked up. on top of that, i’m nearly impossible to hit due to my AC being a base of 20 and flourishes boosting it. the other players are way behind me in damage, most of them sitting in the 25-50 damage per turn range. at this point, i’m starting to feel bad about outclassing and outshining them to the degree i am. should i intentionally get my character killed as a mercy to my fellow players? PS- I’m a bit of a permadm, and roll shit just like Murph. This often brings me down to more human levels with sub-10 rolls all of the time.

Prof Bubbles

To the illuminated justices and the dimly lit bailiff Jordan. I bring you the case of the disintegrated nephew. In our long running campaign, an evil wizard had bound the life of a child to themselves. Anything that happened physically or spiritually to the wizard happened to the child. This child was the nephew of my irl wife's character. I submit this case on her behalf. We've been playing this campaign for a while weekly, and a couple of months had passed since we learned of the nephews tragic fate. Suddenly, opportunity struck and our party of "oops, all wizards" had a chance to fight this evil wizard. We had an in-game day to prepare and made all sorts of plans as well as talked to the parents of the nephew about those plans convincing them to stay home since the battle would be too dangerous for their respective level. Well justices, in the time that had elapsed and the plans we had made, we had forgotten about the curse that bound the nephew. Cue the battle and our party reigns successful, only to return and find that the nephew suffered dearly at our hands and was ultimately killed and raised as a skeleton as that is what occurred to the evil wizard we fought. We were devastated, and my wife alleges that while we as players forgot about the curse, her character, Aunt to the this child, would not have forgotten and certainly the parents would have reminded us as well. So justices, I ask, while we certainly should have remembered this detail, should the DM also have reminded us since we had clearly forgotten. Particularly through the parents of the nephew who knew of the life-binding curse? Thank you for your ruling. P.S. apologies to Justice Murphy since my previous case of the warforged butler is what began what appears to be the never ending cycle of mentioning the Bourne Trilogy...

Prof

To the honorable judges Tanner and the Axfords and to jake who is here bring you the case of the insane robot Iran 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. 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 have razed him on it and he has exclaimed still that it's legal, so ask shall keep razing or is it just the systems fault? p.s. he said he's down to send an explanation of his build

Nico the Underpaid English Teacher

Dear revered judges and, inexplicably, Jamiroquai, I have a confession. We just finished our 2+ year long campaign last weekend, and it was amazing! We were level 16, and we had a final battle against a Goddess of Chaos in a multistage battle for the fate of the world. There were exciting moments galore (such as my dealing 177 damage in one round with a 6th level scorching ray, a 5th level spirit shroud, and hexblade's curse!), but I write in to confess that I witnessed some... rule breaking. Throughout the battle, our Swarmkeeper ranger would cast multiple spells on his turn. Technically, that's not kosher, but given the heights to which I and our other party member (an oathbreaker paladin) soared, I never mentioned it during the session. I wanted him to feel powerful and cool, and as a teacher myself I hate it when people go "Um actually..." ad nauseam. Perhaps I should have said something, but in the moment, I opted for just letting everything happen. It was our final session, and the ending was amazing. Still, I beg for penance. I await your judgment!

Colton Atkins

Honorable and illustrious judges of Dungeon Court I come before you seeking justice or at least a fair ruling on my bear-related grievances. In my very first D&D session I played a halfling druid named Matilda whose entire personality revolved around how much she loved to be in her bear form. About twenty minutes into the session my party set out toward a bounty target I announced that I would be wild shaping into my beloved bear as we traveled my DM called for a perception check I rolled well to which He described the earth bursting forth as a rust monster leaps from the ground and dropping a collar onto my bear neck that instantly disabled my wild shape. After combat my character noticed a little key around the monsters neck but as I went to retrieve it my DM described the key becoming rusted and crumble into dust the moment I touched it. I asked “So I just can’t wildshape anymore? That’s kind lame” to which he replied in an almost pouty tone “Druids are just so freakin OP they shouldn’t just be able to be animals forever!” The session basically ended there and so too did Matilda as I never got to play her again So esteemed judges I ask you was I wrong for wanting to Bearmax? Should Matilda have been allowed to wild shape to her heart’s content or was my DM justified in deploying Homebrew Anti-Bear Technology™ twenty minutes into my very first session? I submit myself to your mighty rulings.

ScanmanRT

To the judges who I pay full reverence to and the bailiff Jalopy who constantly messes up their paperwork. I present you the case of The Most Deadly Dodge. In a home campaign that I played in another PC named Rebel was a war-forged eldritch knight fighter from a desert kingdom. After returning by himself to his homeland in order to find his creator, he eventually found his sort of Dad and had a heart to heart about his creation and purpose. Rebel had been struggling with the fact that he possessed an incredibly powerful magical hammer imbued with the spirit of an earth god but despite his best efforts, he couldn’t draw out the weapons magical power. We at some point learned that the hammer works similar to Thor’s hammer and will only lend its power to someone who it considers worthy or virtuous. After sometime the town came under attack by an evil wizard (my character’s brother). The wizard was able to take control of the minds of the other war-forged and had them attack the people of the town. Rebel sprung into action to defend the people of his homeland and eventually he is all that physically stood between a group of children and his mind controlled metal siblings with crossbows. With his shield raised, Rebel assured the children that he was prepared to defend them with his life. The DM let the player know that the war-forged were about to open fire on him and in an attempt to brace himself and get some bonus to his defense the player said “I take the dodge action”. The DM then described how as the bolts fired towards Rebel he dodged out of the way at the last moment, allowing the bolts to fly past him and into the group of children killing them all. This lead to a morose end to the session and the hammer still not seeing Rebel as worthy. The player protested that he was just trying to take some kind of defensive stance in order to take less damage from the oncoming attacks. I ask you judges, was the DM right to interpret the players words literally? I throw my friends, and definitely not myself, at your mercy.

Lauryn

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

Craig

Justices I come for urgent aid in an ongoing matter, might be above Jake’s level The case of uncommon common I recently started playing in a new campaign with my long time group/DM. The world is totally homebrewed by the DM and is rich with Gods, magic, monsters, and interesting NPCs. However, at our first stop after leaving our home city/country we found the locals did not speak common. They spoke a language unique to the country. Only our contact in the city who was a slightly suspicious inn keeper spoke common. We went to a shop at one point and with the help of comprehend languages bought some health potions. We left the city shortly after. The problem is that the city had a lot of strange and interesting things going on, they weren’t apparently relevant to our adventure but the DM went out of the way to mention them. I wanted to be able to talk to anyone other than the person I was slightly suspicious of but could not communicate in a meaningful way. Ultimately it didn’t really hinder the quest but it felt very lack luster. The DM assured us that in bigger cities or more traveled places more people would speak common, but that difficulty communicating was part of that game. I just want to be able to talk to people, I’m not particularly interested in the difficulty of the game coming from a language barrier. We have talked to the DM about it and he is open to changing things but wants some kind of challenge with communication. How do we bridge the gap?

Tyler Foster

Happy Hoglidays Judges! Hi Jake. Today I bring to you, the case of the fudgy rolls. For context, our party has a Grave cleric whose Channel Divinity allows them to negate Crits and we have a wizard with Silvery Barbs. Needless to say our DM doesn't crit as often as she'd like. Judges, our last 4 combats have opened with the DM critting, the crit being negated (never turned into a miss by the silvery barbs), and the DM immediately gritting on the next attack. There was one combat where this exact sequence happened 4 times! Judges, am I right to be suspicious of this fishy luck? P.S. The DM is my long time girlfriend and I am the wizard with silvery barbs

Rumjal

Supreme Justiciars, In a 5e game I was playing in, we had a great DM, but one situation almost made me feel targeted. I was playing a Sorcadin (great multi, highly recommend) who had many personal stakes in the main story as well as a wife and son whom he left under the protection of the queen of the spring court. He had everything to live for. My character died to a powerful enemy and another PC, a druid, cast Revivify within the time limit, he had the material component, etc. everything needed to cast. The DM made him roll a Persuasion Check to 'convince' my character to come back to life. Charisma was the Druid's dump stat. Fortunately the dice gods wanted my character to live and he succeeded. But in the weeks proceeding the game we had an out of game conversation with the DM about issues we were having with the way he handled getting frustrated with us. Do you see any justification for the Persuasion Check, or does it seem like possible targeting due to the out of game conversation?

Briar_

The the Honourable Judges and the Honourably discharged bailiff Jacob - your last pay will be mailed to you. I give you the case of “Nat 20 that still means death” I was playing in a Tyranny of Dragons campaign with a DM that was notoriously “rules as written”. My Grave Cleric, in tandem with our Tempest Cleric/Storm Sorcerer completed a combined attack that resulted in 300+ points in damage to Tiamat - effectively halving her HP. In turn, our DM targeted my Cleric specifically with her Breath weapons. Due to various in game magical items and a Hero’s feast, most of the damage was null on the party, I was unable to effectively resist the fire damage. Despite this, I was able to roll a Natural 20 on my save, thinking that would amount to something I was told since I only got to add a +2 to my Dex save, it didn’t matter regardless. Judges, Bailiff (while you still are employed), why did my DM even call for the roll if the highest possible number wouldn’t have saved my cleric from an immediate - no death saves death?

Pontus Knast

Dear justices and despicable bailiff, I'm a forever DM who is currently running a Mörk Borg-campaign for my players. (In case you're unfamiliar, it's very dark and edgy.) They were up against a group of undead with various weapons and everyone was pretty beat up. One of my players got hit, I rolled a t4 for damage and rolled a 4. I announced it, asked "what's your HP?" and they said dejectedly that they were at 4. When you hit 0 in Mörk Borg, you roll a t4 to see what happens to you, so they did. They rolled another 4, which means instant death. While the players started to grieve, I suddenly realized I had rolled the wrong damage. The undead who hit them was unarmed, and thus would only deal t2 damage. I excitedly told the players this, and instead of celebrating they thought I was lying to save the character. We rolled back the death and all is well now, but I can tell that the player still thinks I took pity on them, when I simply corrected a mistake. Should I have let them die?

Philthy

Happy Hoglidays Justices and Bailiff who also hosts popular podcast If I were You Amir Blumenfeld. I bring you the case of the potentially pilfered potion. Recently my party and I finished our year long campaign culminating in fighting a rot god. A few sessions before the end our party found 3 potions of haste. Our rogue drank his immediately and proceeded to destroy the penultimate big bad in 2 turns. Our wizard drank his during a puzzle to help solve it at quicker speeds. I knew we had a big fight with a god ahead of us and haste combined with spirit guardians ( I am a divine soul sorcerer cleric) was going to really scratch my brain. Right before combat our rogue goes “I wish I could get another haste potion”. Justices I had held on to this potion for 4 sessions but I was too polite to say no. I know numbers wise it made the most sense for him to use it but am I in the right for feeling pretty bummed for: A)getting put in an uncomfortable position B) not getting to zoom around like the rest of the party.

Lucas Sharrett

I hope you all are having a wonderful year 🎉💖 you guys rock 🧙🏼🎊 happy hoglidays

Jenz Z Jake P

Oh wise and trusted justices and the floundering but well-named bailiff, I bring to you the case of the despondent tabaxi. I have been DMing a game for a couple of years with some old friends. We have fun, but my players are not very detail-oriented and never determined some of their characters' traits. While speaking with an old archdruid, the tabaxi rogue named Five-Stripe looked at me and said, "I think I'm gonna make Five Stripe Cajun", something that he had never mentioned before even once. I shrugged and said something like, "uhh okay", and continued playing. Five-Stripe then attempted to talk in a Cajun accent but just said a bunch of gibberish words (and obviously, the accent was bad). Trying to stay in character, I narrated that the archdruid patted him on the head, then continued talking to the rest of the party. I thought this was relatively benign, but after that, Five-Stripe became despondent, sulking for the rest of the game, and did not try the accent again. I asked him if he was okay/wanted to talk about it a few times, to which he muttered "I'm fine, I'm just stupid." This really brought the vibe down and made it very difficult to continue playing. Unfortunately, this is not the first time that this kind of thing has happened with this player. So I ask you justices, was I mean in dismissing his attempt at a new accent? Should the archdruid have tried harder to understand his gibberish? Or should I follow Murph's advice and get a new friend?

DisClever

To the Grand Exemplars of Justice, and the little Bailiff Junior. I have been running a fantasy Wild West campaign for the past year. In the setting, one of the main gods of the area is a goddess of revenge. It played well into my wife's character, an alcoholic elf bounty hunter who was looking for the man who killed her human husband. The rest of the players were also looking for this scoundrel for various personal backstory revenge reasons. Through the journey she has started sobering up and finding out more about her husband's history in relation to the scoundrel. We recently had a big reveal at the end of an arc where I got to lay out why her husband was killed. Turns out the scoundrel who killed him, did it by accident with some remorse. Something akin to being driven into a rage to destroy him on sight by mental programming. This has not sat well with my wife, who no longer feels the need for her character to get revenge for something that wasn't on purpose. This has also led for her to want to change characters. Justices, I feel like I let her down. She seems excited to play her new character, but it feels like I may have bungled this. Is it okay to retire this character after a story revelation, and when can I feel better about it? Sidebar; the other characters still want revenge, as the scoundrel absolutely meant to do what he did to them.

Jakey is our daddy

G’day to the Justices who saved my cat from a fire, and oh I guess also hi to the bailiff who put the cat there. I bring to you the case of “no witnesses” I have tried to DM for my close friends for a while now, and after years of trying to put together a game we finally got ourselves organised, and started our first session! Things were going great, and we were playing the mines of Phandelver starter story. Everything was great, until we entered the redbrand hideout (for context, this is just an evil organisations mansion). After exploring the crypts of this hideout, my party discovered a mother and her two children who’d be kidnapped from the nearby town imprisoned in a jail cell. After talking to the prisoners, one of my players - my best friend - told to the party to “continue on” so he could “deal with the witnesses”. I tried to plead with him and give some heavy winks that these weren’t combatants, and even gave a meta out of game comment saying he has nothing to worry about. Despite all my hints, my party member decided to try and shoot (yes, he had a gun as an artificer because he begged me too) the family so that there were “no witnesses”. Obviously the entirety of the rest of the party turned on him, and even after they did he kept trying to fight back, resulting in his ultimate PC death. After 30 minutes of arguing, I decided to retcon the whole thing, and we reverted back to before he made his crazy decision. So I ask you, oh glorious Justice’s, was I right to retcon this players decision? Or should I have let the party mercilessly kill this murder hobo and move on? I humbly await your judgment astride a kangaroo

Kapn

To the wise, honorable, and all around cool Justices, as well as that guy that wont stop hanging around the courthouse I guess, I bring to you the case of Barovian Betrayal. I was invited to play a modified Curse of Strahd campaign with two of my friends, and two people they knew but I did not, DMed by one of the people I didn’t know, with the other stranger playing a Rogue named CC. At dinner with Strahd, it was revealed that Strahd was directly responsible for my sorcerer’s family’s wild magic curse, as well as the death of our Druid’s tribe (and cause of their lycanthropy) and kidnapping the bard’s husband, as well as many other awful things not normally in the module. Later, Strahd invites us to join him in his wrong doings. Me, the bard and Druid all say hell no, except CC agrees and says that she feels betrayed by us when we still refuse. Strahd gears up to attack. The three of us run. I was a bit miffed by this but thought it could be an interesting direction for a campaign to have a party Betrayal, and figured CC’s player would maybe roll a new character or there’d be a redemption arc or something. No. In the discord after session, CC’s player again says (out of character) that she feels betrayed and the DM agrees with her, seeming upset and saying we don’t have a good reason to go against Strahd and CC! I try to say he’s a bad person that did awful things and instead of responding, the DM deletes the discord. I haven’t spoken to either of them since. Justices, did I wrongfully betray a party member or ruin my DM’s plans for no reason? This wasn’t advertised as a villains campaign to me and the guy cursed my family! I accept whatever fate you deem just.

CoffeeDruid

To the illustrious illuminated Justices and the dim shady Bailiff. I bring to you the case of the Hidden Listener. Justices, I can't praise my DM enough - he's a true wordsmith and his flowery narration feels like it comes from a nobel-winning writer. We've played together for three years, and there has never been a single squabble. There's one thing though. Last session after we finished, the DM picked up his phone from the table and I saw that he had a recording app open. Justices, I asked him about it the next day, and he looked very guilty. He said he had been recording all our sessions! He explained that he was doing that so he could check details while prepping, but then he added that well, actually he never needed to do that but he kept recording for all those years, hoping that he could listen to our adventures in the far future, when we won't be able to play anymore. Justices, I don't really mind, but it's possible that other players might, right? Should we punish him and make him tell other players or does he have a right to secretly record us and I should be punished for even questioning it? He swears that he never played a single word from our sessions to any other person.

Logan Nash

Hey cool people and unsuspecting dork, I have a case but also a question regarding "handwaves". I call this "The Overcharging Dog Sitter" A table that I was a PC did a group teleportation and a one of my fellow players had a mastiff mount that was not mentioned during the transportation, the player said "Could they have just came along", he advised no, and that she just abandoned the dog, I tried to hide my face's contempt but the DM caught me and doubled down saying "You didn't say anything so he didn't come, if you want to after the fact pay for a boarding service it will cost all your gold (iirc around 680g), and she relented to make sure the dog was safe. Judges, as a DM myself who is very loosey goosey about who follows along, is it fair to expect a player to fork over a large amount of money to ensure the safety of their animal, if it were you what you would have done differently? Also I left the campaign subsequentially after that and a few other annoying antics.

Pablo Benito Nuñez

Case File: The State v. An Optimizer Who Swears They Read The Errata Illustrious (I think that means what I mean) Bailiff Jake, Please find attached my plea for clemency disguised as a rules clarification. Four months before the end of our four years long campaign, I discovered I’d been applying Gathered Swarm (and other buffs) damage to my second attack. I said nothing. The BBEG died anyway. This is my attempt to retroactively justify it before my DM finds my Reddit post. ARGUMENT 1: THE TEXT IS ON MY SIDE (KIND OF) Hexblade’s Curse adds proficiency bonus to damage rolls—plural. Hunter’s Mark procs on weapon attacks—no limiter. If the Nine Hells wanted once-per-turn restrictions, they’d have hired a better editor. My swarm? They’re not lazy, they’re motivated. They are multiplying, they are thriving. They wouldn’t stop at one attack. ARGUMENT 2: THE HOMEBREW PRECEDENT My DM granted me double damage twice per day. That’s not a feature, that’s a sacred covenant. When the gods hand you a delete button, you don’t ask “should I?”—you ask “Do I get advantage?” The extra 1d6 was simply… divine rounding error. ARGUMENT 3: THE GLASS CANNON PENANCE I had 70 HP at level 11. I was knocked unconscious by a breeze. A kuo-toa once crit me for 22 damage. My entire build was a dollar-store nuke: high yield, zero armor. That 20 extra damage wasn’t imbalanced—it was insurance against my next death save. I rest my case. If guilty, please sentence me to play a Monk. If innocent, let the record show I only cheated a little. Respectfully submitted, That Guy Whose Character Sheet Was More Minimum Than Maximum

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?

D W

To the magnanimous and glorious Justices and Jimmy the chimney sweep. I bring you the case of Avernus Antics. The party we're going through the Descent to Avernus 5e campaign and came across a strange tree. Hanging from said tree were supposed to be 2d4 Stirges according to the book. Seeing that these things only have 2hp each, I decided that i'd add more... around 15. The party failed their perception checks to notice that the things hanging from the tree were creatures and got way too close. Cue initiative and the point of the story. I rolled one initiative for all of the Stirges and thanks to a reasonable dex, they went first. Cue a litany of Blood Drain attacks on the whole party as they were swarmed by these things. The opening attacks only did 1d4 + 3 damage and many of them hit, especially on the casters. But Stirges attach themselves to a successful target and automatically drain 5 life instead of attacking on subsequent turns. The only way to remove them is to spend and action to remove them or kill them, and AoE was now off the table as they'd hit an already damaged party. It was bloody and one character went down, but nobody died and they eventually dealt with the pesky buggers. However, after the combat one of my players commented that "what did we expect to happen when 30 monsters go at once." This was out of character for the player to get pissy about combat and took me aback. So Justices, should I have rolled 15 initiatives for each teeny lil guy, or should my players suck it up (get it, coz blood drain...)?

Tyler

FOLLOW UP PUP: Nightingale v. Sad Trombone Hello most honorable justices of the Supreme Court and Micah’s brother from the GOAT Show. I am submitting today to follow up on the Sad Trombone incident. As a quick refresher one PC in our pathfinder 2e game, Nightingale, was giving a heartfelt retelling of his greatest shame: killing his sister in cold blood because he thought she stole the Right of the Wyvern, a power that his father held that was supposed to one day be passed down to Nightingale. As soon as Nightingale finished telling the story, our DM clicked the sad trombone button on the discord soundboard, a feature that had just been added to Discord the week of the session, which lead to everybody laughing hysterically at the timing of the sound and undercutting Nightingale’s moment. Today I bring to you a list of reparations that have been paid out to Nightingale over time. -As suggested by Justice Axford, Nightingale has been given a number of heartfelt flashbacks and character arcs to help explore the depth of his backstory as well as relationships with important NPC’s in the campaign -After another PC died, that player built a new PC named Thurk who had been granted the Right of the Wyvern after Nightingale’s father died peacefully. This helped set up Nightingale’s story arc of coming to terms with his father’s death. -Nightingale was given the option to risk his life in order to save a legendary warrior of the continent, who then in return granted him The Bastard’s Blade. This is a powerful magic weapon that can only be wielded by someone with a warrior’s body and wizard’s mind. -Finally, after slaying a mythical Thunderbird, and completing a set of tasks to prove his worth to the War God Arvindr, Nightingale earned the Right of the Thunderbird which gave him his own set of unique abilities. Apologies for the long follow up, but we come to you today humbly asking for our DM’s crimes to be erased from his permanent record as he has made great effort to atone for his sins. Has our DM done enough to repay Nightingale for the musical blunder or should he continue to allow the sad trombones to haunt him?

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.S.S. I will settle for Emily's 1st ugly mug, that unfortunately sounds extremely delightful

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?

Dave McC

To the esteemed Judges and the over-estimated bailiff, I bring the case of 'honey, I aged the problem player'. Im a player at a table where 3 campaigns fell apart due to one player. We were going through a dungeon and were attacked by a ghost. This player, a tiefling, failed a Wisdom saving throw for its horrific visage, and failed by more than 5. He chose not to use his inspiration to re-roll the saving throw despite a soft suggestion from me that it might be worth doing. As a result of the failed save his character aged by 30 years. A drop in the bucket for a tiefling. This did not go well. He complained, refused to engage with the rest of the session and, in his words, 'disassociated'. Our DM had multiple chats with him to resolve with him insisting it be retconned and nothing be done to affect his characters bodily autonomy again. He also felt the DM should have told him the exact stakes of the roll before he decided not to use his inspiration. Ultimately we had to end all of the campaigns he was a part of as it just felt toxic and our DM felt like he couldn't tell a story with any stakes. So tell me, was our DM wrong for having stakes and consequences, or could the player do with being aged 30 years to by a ghost to be more mature?

Bunni B Lockhart

Hello honorable Justice Murphy, Whimsical Justice Axford, Benevolent Justice Tanner, and highly regarded Baliff Jake (sorry murph, but he is, just a baby) I bring to you the temp HP quandary. I am running a campaign where my party often uses temp HP to buff themselves up before battle and it has me thinking; if you use temp HP to bring a character above 100 HP can they still be affected by Power Word Kill? The language of power work kill focuses on hit points with no mention of temp HP. For the time being this is hypothetical and I have not iced any of my players (this way) but I thought it would be fun to hear your ruling. P.s. first time submitter long time fan thanks for everything you all do!

Sovereign Tonic

To the most honourable justices on high, Critical be their name and nature - and Jake, who I'm glad could make it today. I present a matter most vexatious - there is a problem DM in my family and I fear it might be me. I have been a forever DM for the last five years or so, ever since I first watched Dimension 20. I love the game and the players I have shared it with - so much so that I introduced it to my stoner uncle (Stunckle) Mike and my wonderful, bright-eyed daughter, Charlotte. We played a few sessions with simplified Kids on Bikes rules using figurines from the old Talisman board game and tiles from Forbidden Desert. It was a smash success! So much so, Charlotte asked if she could have a go at DMing! "Of course!" I said, beaming. Charlotte is five years old. At first, everything went smoothly. We bought a unicorn from a goblin, helped a lost troll find his home and defeated some skeletons. Neat! However when we confronted the evil sorceror, things went awry. My hardy dwarf cut his minions down and my stoner uncle (Stunckle) Mike struck the sorceror with a lightning bolt. Huzzah! We had won. Imagine then my surprise when our beloved unicorn (Laserhorn) turned on us. Justices! There was no warning, no foreshadowing - we didn't even roll to save. I tried to explain to Charlotte that we were all playing together and she didn't have to 'win' the combat. She said she understood. I was then informed that the sorceror threw my corpse into space and rode away on the unicorn. It was total bullshit. Justices! Have I steered my daughter down a dark path? Was I wrong to give so much power to one so young? Or does the fault lie with her teacher? I fall upon the mercy of the court.

Mnixon

case upper: CASE case lower: case Xoxoxo kiss kiss luv luv mr Jake

hey!

To the Honorable Judges and the long lost bailiff whose tragic death brought the Judges closer together as found family, Should we get a redo for our big final fight? My party is made up of a level 14 cleric, ranger and me, our fey aligned bard. We are wrapping up our campaign and these characters stories and have found ourselves in a gathering of fey and material plane leaders to discuss the future of all included, where the decisions here bind all fey and sometimes even the natural order (a la elden ring). While here, we did a number of nights with great roleplaying and insight checks and found so far nothing out of line, not even a hint that on the third night, two major fey, Baba Yaga and The Twisted One, would wake us all up with explosions while doing some sort of ritual to summon a long dead god the group had only encountered once in the very first one shot that spawned the campaign, which neither I or my character was present for. Judges and J-Bones, not only did we have to fight up the stairs through a dozen counterspellers or creatures with stun auras and actions, by the time we made it to where the “minute long” ritual was being done it was clear we only had 3 turns left and just as many people to deal with inside the ritual room as outside. Your honors, setting aside the fact that I didn’t roll higher than a 5 (yes i checked) the entire night instantly tanking all of my big concentration spells that made it through the counterspell wall, should we get a redo with either more information or fewer mobs? It turned what was meant to be our final fight into a confusing sense of loss where we had no idea why we were losing or what it meant when we failed and they completed the ritual. This was an overall incredible campaign otherwise so I’m wondering do we sentence our dm to a re do or am I sentenced to pray away my dice sins in dice church? ps, Yags and the Twisted One were both able to take turns and counterspell us while involved in this ritual too which to me felt against RAW in a lot of ways but alas, I await your judgement.

Astrid

Hello from Denmark! Judges and Bayleaf (sp?) I hope you can help me. I play D&D with some of my friends. I’m fairly new but they have played a couple of campaigns before with some other friends. The issue is the way they want to play: when speaking out of character we speak Danish, but in character they want to speak English. In Danish we are used to having conversations with a lot of English words or phrases in, so playing D&D in Danish but saying spell names or other D&D stuff in English doesn’t sound weird. This is what I would prefer. I’m a shy, introverted person who’s slowly getting comfortable roleplaying with D&D. I don’t need to also be self-conscious about speaking a second language on top of that. Also we all have accents that just makes our stumbling over words sound even less cool. “[in Danish] I walk up to the wizard, [in English] Uhm, hellø, I will end, I mean kill, you ænd, er, your big drägon that has been terrorwizing the, um, länd.” Judges, am I just a little insecure baby, or is it super weird to play a game in two languages? (Ps. My friends are ALSO shy, introverted people who are not that good at improv and get self-conscious about speaking English in front of other people. I don’t know why they’re doing this.)

MadMadamMim

Dear cutie patootie judges and sweetest balif Jake-that's right. I am not afraid to be nice to Jake. (Also happy hoglidays). I come to you on behalf of one whom I love. My DM (also spouse) runs the most magical and fun campaign I have ever been a part of in the last 15 years I have been playing DND. We just went on vacation and one of my fellow players offered to DM (for the first time) a one shot for the party when we got back. They mentioned this would be a pre-bought one shot so all of us could just show up, open the box and play. We planned the day and time and were feeling good to go. The day we got back from vaction this player did not know where we were playing, what time, and totally forgot they had offered to DM. They also decided that instead of the pre-made one shot they were going to run it in our main campaign world with our regular characters as a connection between our last session and our next one. Before the session they asked him if they could give themself a magical item at the end of the session and if they could give all us players an extra cantrip as a prize for playing. He handled it quite delicately but overall said no and told them they could only run it in our main campaign world if it would not interfere with the story at all. The next day we played. They immediately started playing as already established NPC's changing their overall character and dispositions. And making those NPC'S do things to us that they would not have. When we got home he told me that this was not the plan and they had gone rogue. Judges, was he right to go along with it in the moment to keep the peace? How should he handle it before our next session? He doesn't currently listen to the podcast (heavens please forgive) so I will liaison dutifully.

Lee

I come humbly seeking absolution from dice Christ. I was a player in a 5e Zelda themed campaign that recently finished. We were fighting the final boss and my rouge/bladesinger multi class was rolling hot. Halfway through the session I realized I had calculated my to hit wrong giving myself an extra +2 to hit. I quietly fixed this mistake and continued the battle. The hero’s won and I told the table my mistake. No one was upset but still I feel guilty. Please oh blessed bailiff and canonized crits will dice Christ ever forgive me,

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 was not pregnant, and since then we have 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 cannot 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, 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 do not want to quit. So, judges, how can I make my DM understand how difficult it is to juggle childcare and adventuring at the same time?

emilythecoffeewench

To the righteous Crit Justices and the okay Bailiff Jared, I present my a case with my beloved DM's permission. At 5th level, we battled some tweens and one of them crit on my vampire party member with guiding bolt. She dropped, no death saves, taking double because it was radiant. She was also our cleric so no one could bring her back. She was eventually brought back through Frankenstein fuckery though. However! During another battle, my dm tried to kill a beloved npc but had the insta-kill rules slightly wrong. He thought you needed negative half their max HP instead of negative their total max HP. I spoke up, but my dm and the player behind the vampire disagreed. I did not think I was wrong so I looked it up, spoke up again, and sent a quote explaining the rule. It was awkward as we realized that our vampire shouldn't have died all those months ago. The npc lives on, but I feel bad correcting my dm. Am I in the wrong? I await your judgement.

Reverend Chatterbones

Dear bawling, blashemous, and incharitable dog of a bailiff. I come to you with the case of the miffed sister in law. I (male) played in a dnd campaign with my sister in law (female). Both of our characters were female, but hers was a dark rogue and mine was a Karen paladin who just wanted a gal pal to go shopping with in Barovia. This did not go well. In-character she accused my PC of toxic femininity and insulted my skeleton horse Clorox. I thought our PCs would eventually get copacetic, if not do each other’s nails, but it never happened and eventually she left the campaign. I have guilt and am very remorsefulness. She and my brother are now getting divorced (unrelated I think), but she’s coming to Christmas with us where we will have our annual Christmas family one-shot. My question is this: do I make amends in-character or IRL? Please keep in mind I am a social coward.

Tyler

2 YEAR OLD TESTIMONY FROM DM + PRESENT DAY DM RESPONSE ."Hello, it is I, the sad trumpet dm. There has been much speculation concerning my behavior during the incident and I would like to provide my side of the story to provide clarity. I do not expect my story to lighten my sentence, I simply just want all the facts to be considered. First I would like to say that while our group plays in a fairly roleplay heavy game, the atmosphere of our group is usually pretty comical. The role play is more dude-bro than theatre kid and sad somber moments are infrequent. Normally these moments are still respected but we are not a table of weepy thespians (weepy thespians are great though, just not us). Also I would like to point out that I did have previous knowledge of Nightingales tragic past, but I did not know it would be revealed in that session but I was aware that it would be revealed at some point. When the player offered to share his tale of dishonor I quickly realized that he planned to make this his reveal. For the whole story me and the other players were silent and listening but I got distracted by a strange new button on my discord (this was the first time I had seen it). I clicked the button and noticed a little sound board open and I thought 'oh thats cute, i wonder how this works". Then... I saw it, the sad trombone. Tyler the player who wrote in to bring the incident to your attention said that I claimed it was an 'accident', that it only partly true. I knew the risks but I was unsure of what would happen when the button was pressed, what sound it would make, if everyone else would be able to hear it, how loud it would be. I had no idea. My accident was that I truly didnt know just how fucking funny it would be. I had no clue. I admit my finger was over the button waiting for Nightingale to finish his tale to press it, I wasnt sure what the button would do but i knew there was a chance it would play a loud ass bwah bwah and it was a risky I was happy to take. So ya, I did do it, and i would fucking do it again, and I wont delete the sound board Caldwell, the soundboard rocks and you cant take it from me. I happily accept any other sentencing you see fit for my immoral acts.” “-this is my testimony written shortly after the incident. It has been some time since then and I have been given time to reflect. I must admit I still think it was super funny but that does not mean it was okay. Since then Nightingale has gone on a great journey throughout the North. He has slayed mythical beasts, saved innocent villagers, earned a Right all of his own, claimed a legendary weapon, and has recently reunited with an old family member and began to rebuild his relationships. This was not done purely to correct my mishandling of his tragic reveal, more so these things have developed naturally the past 2 years of the campaign. With this considered I humbly request that the generous court grant me forgiveness for my (still really funny) sad trombone. Or is there more that needs to done for our poor Nightingale?

Evil Anagram

I come seeking absolution from Dice Christ. A years-long campaign was coming to an end, and I was narrating the PCs' journey through a maze plagued by illusions attacking their minds. The party consisted of my wife and three friends, two of whom were going through a surprisingly amicable divorce. One of the imminent divorcees had built a character that mirrored himself in a lot of ways, and when I asked him questions about his PC background it also mirrored his real life background in the family dynamics. Dearest devotees of Dice Christ, the scene he played through in the maze hit real trauma a bit too on the nose, and he was immediately uncomfortable. I recognized it and pivoted to give his character some resolution, but dude was still not past it when we wrapped up. That was our final session. He sent out a message a couple weeks later backing out, the divorce took a more hostile turn, and the group fell apart. I don't know how much of a role I played, especially given the then-ongoing divorce, but I can't help feeling guilty. I beg Dice Christ's forgiveness and ask for his blessing as I slowly put together another group

MadMadamMim

Judges, my heart is burdened and I have a confession. Whilst in the feywild my party came up with code names to use. We did okay at remembering to use our fake names but on one occasion I frigged up and used my real name. In a panic I tried to pretend that I was lying and told the creature my fake name was my real name. My DM told me to roll deception with disadvantage. A non natural 20 and what's this? A nat 20! My DM eyed me suspiciously and continued on. Judges, I promise I didn't mean to lie. I thought at first that was what I rolled, I was sitting low on the couch and my dice was higher on the table and I saw the 20 facing me-which meant I had really rolled a two. I didn't correct myself when I noticed and this was my first sin. Murph's words rang in my ears "if you wouldn't do it for a nat 1 you can't do it for a 20". Words have never been so true, so I decided my next nat 20 I would say was a nat one. And I did, but during a one shot campaign-not my main campaign. Judges was this enough? How many nat 20s must I change to be forgiven? I lay myself at the mercy of your pedicure'd feet.

Just Me

I humbly come into church asking guidance. I have recently started with a new group that's been playing together for about 1 year. This is the first time everyone, including the DM, have played D&D other than at game shop one-shots. The DM seems to really enjoy "no-and-ing" his players: most NPCs we meet just want to fight us and it's difficult to find a path to interact with his world. He is a DM because he is too much of a "problem player" to be a player, according to other members of the party, and he seems to really enjoy getting one over on his players with technicalities. My query comes to you now: I have been playing D&D for longer and have more knowledge and experience. I go with his stuff, even when it's wrong, because he's the DM and I'm new to the group. I'm tempted to volunteer to DM a few sessions though, but I confess I want to do it to try to wreck his shit with all of the technicalities he doesn't know about. This is where I seek guidance from you: should I avoid running a game with a "problem player" at all costs, or should I let my petty heart guide me?

Colleen Amidala

Venerable supreme crit justices and BJ... My Tomb of Annihilation character was studying weird flora and fauna in Chult. 70+ hours in, we entered The Tomb™️ and found "purple, mold-like growth" on the walls that my wood elf approached to study. Our DM rolled and turned pale, before narrating a necrotic beam shooting from the mold, istantly killing my character. Because the death curse in TOA prevents resurrection, my elf was perma dead. Distraught as I was, it seemed like my character had reaped the risks of her research and I was okay with her dying via crazy beholder mold. But because we were so close to fighting the BBEG, the DM AND other players panicked and retconned the incident to ensure my PC lived, despite the impossible nature of it. I felt like my agency was taken away. Was it right for them to retcon my character choice for the party's greater good? Or should the consequences of my actions been respected? (I was paralyzed the entire Acererak fight anyways 😭)

Dustimus

To the honorable justices of Whoville, who like Christmas a lot and the furry green bailiff who lives just north of Whoville, that I wouldn't touch with a 39 and a half foot pole: I present to you the case of the "stolen eyes." My players started out in the shady underbelly of a large city, as campaigns often do. I threw in a bar run by a disgraced alchemist with a scam going where the grog was cursed and you had to pay 10 times the price of the grog to remove the curse. These were on a d100 table. Some of the curses were good and some were bad, you could take more than one but removing one removed all of them so it was a double or nothing situation. I also specified that these were special and a regular remove curse wouldn't work so that the new fun trait wouldn't randomly get erased later. One player ended up with an imaginary friend that was secretly the God of Death. One was cursed to keep coming across the same dead body every time they looted a container big enough for it to fit. One of them had their lungs replaced with gills. Fun stuff. One of my players, a grung warlock, ended up swapping eyes with the elf of the party (specifically the next person he made eye contact with). He assured the elf that he would remove the curses but wanted to drink again to see what the next thing would be. The next thing he rolled was that his character had a baby, so in front of him on the bar materializes a grung tadpole. The elf is like "fine, it was a baby, now give me my eyes back," problem with that was if he removed the curse from the eye swap it would also remove this baby from existence, double or nothing. He was unwilling to do that and it led to a little fight between the players. The elf was dismayed that his character would look ridiculous with tiny black eyes but the grung wasn't about to erase a baby from existence for a cosmetic change. They looked to me to break my established rule and let him keep the baby, I wanted to but I clearly stated double or nothing on these curses and I thought the elf was being a little dramatic anyways. So I ask: Should I have given in and let them swap eyes back? Or was I an asshole for putting a baby on the table in the first place?

Panner_Samuel

I kiss the hands of the beautiful, amazing, esteemed judges of god, and smack the hand of the lowly lowly bailiff on the way out, Joshua. I bring you the case of the 15 year old wizard with fire. In my first ever DnD group, I was playing a paladin/bard who wanted to be a damage dealer snd support! One day, I was at the front of the lines with low health, and our wizard, decided he did not care if I was in range of the enemy, he casted fireball. I almost failed all of my death saves, but one of my friends healed me before I went on to the beyond. His move ended up killing the monster, and everyone else celebrated. He was a child, but was it wrong of me to want to start PVP with him? Judges, I think I talked in that parking of that game store about it for an hour before I left, was I wronged, or was I hurt for the GOOD of the party?

Dennis J. Dolan

To the venerable justices and-holy shit! Is that JORK HORSESHIT?? Sorry, got distracted. ANYWAYS! I bring to you The Case of The Stand-Up Comic and The Consequences of His Own Actions 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 take 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 (an 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, for some reason, made no sense to the DM. He claims that griffons don’t have the brains to comprehend the concept of a “These are not the droids you are looking for” gambit, 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

humanoidudon

O Great judges who descended from heaven, and Jake from Connecticut, hear my plea! This is the case of everyone's BBEG. I have been playing dnd at a local board game store for 3 years with the same party. Our session has always been at Sunday 5 pm. Last week, the store announced they would be doing a special one-shot on Sunday 12 pm. Our DM just informed us our session would be happening as per usual after the event. Player M immediately got up in arms that he would not be able to attend the 5pm session because he was previously told only the 12pm session was happening and had made plans. He even hinted that the party should postpone the session for him because he didn't want to miss the first of a new campaign. Turns out, the player had simply misremembered and the party has kindly rescheduled to accommodate him. I understand first sessions are important, but our session timing has NEVER changed. Judges and Conneticuck, should I go to anger management classes for the unyielding rage I have toward his entitlement or should we bend to the will of whoever throws a tantrum in the group chat?

Doctor Ransom

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

DevyWevy

CONFESSION: Clerics of the Crit I come to you with a confession, one that has sort of weighed on my shoulders a little bit. Many moons ago, my party's Changeling Paladin died heroically protecting us from the fuzzy fists of a Yeti. As the group's druid, the task of resurrection fell to me and the absurd whims of my Reincarnation spell. He would return to us as a new, randomly decided, species. Judges, he loved being a Changeling. So when I rolled on our expanded lineage table, I announced that he would be revived miraculously as a Changeling, and not the Human I had actually rolled for him to become. I altered his story, and perhaps the rest of his life. Is there any hope for me? Please say yes.

InLimbo010

To the pragmatic, pure, and pious priests of the cloth, and whatever subordinate role Jake holds here. I have a confession. 

 I’m not sure if this falls under the jurisdiction of Dice Christ, maybe the domain of the dice devil, or perhaps another deity in the pantheon that covers transgressions like mine. I need arbitration and judgment, to determine whether I should feel any reluctant remorse for my sins. In my roughly 10-year career as a player, I have never gone through the trouble of stocking any spells. I pretty much always pick from the full range of my classes' spell book for my level, and haven’t really considered, nor cared, about how game-breaking that may be. To my meager defense, I usually play a bard, cleric, or paladin, with a somewhat limited selection of spells available. Never running wild as a wizard or sorcerer with the full arsenal of all the spells imaginable. Let it be known that I do still keep track of my spell slots though, I have some standards. My DM is also an avid listener…So, Christian, I’m so sorry you had to find out this way. It’s not my fault!

Benjamin Reilly

Honored judges and the Bailif, ...Juan? I'm blanking. Anyway, I present to you the case of the uniweilding ranger. Three years ago I started my first ever D&D campaign, and was struggling with character creation. My DM asked what I wanted to be, and I said "I just want to dual wield katanas." He helped me create a class, and I ended up as a Tabaxi Ranger. He told me that Rangers were underpowered, but he'd give me good items to help me out. This meant nothing to me at the time, so I just went with it. Fast forward on year, I am dual wielding two +3 katanas while the rest of my party is working with +1 weapons around level 5. Needless to say, I was dominating combat encounters. So much so, that upon new levels I was taking noncombat spells to even things out. Things were great, until my DM removed my character's arm in a cutscene (no rolls). At the time, the roll playing was fun. I was told that there would be opportunities in the future to get my arm back (greater restoration, etc.), but I have to deal with it for now. Gameplay was less fun, and so much of my character was wasted. I no longer get +1 AC from my dual weilding feat, etc. Fast forward two more years, I'm still rocking one arm. I have talked to my DM about having less fun, looking for options in game, and even asking if I could just use weaker weapons if powerlevel was such an issue. He assures me it will come, but nothing ever changes. So judges, Juan, I ask you, is my DM being a poopy head, or should I have to play the game with a nerfed character forever? PS it's my birthday please pick this one!

Mezunbie17

To the esteemed justices and bailiff Juck, I present the case of the Greedy Fighter's Last Goldpiece. I was a sophomore in high school. My older brother was the DM and the other three players were some of his friends. It was everyone's very first time playing D&D. It was a basic dungeon crawl, fighting goblins and whatnot. Eventually we happened upon a well. For reasons I do not remember, my fighter pushed the cleric into the well. My BM (brother DM) informed us that he began sinking to the bottom because he was in heavy armor. As we all panicked to get him out before he drowned, the cleric found a pouch of 50 gold at the bottom of the well. Once he was out, I insisted that my fighter should have some of the gold to rebuild his hometown (backstory), but the cleric refused because I pushed him into the well, and split the gold amongst everyone else. Shortly after everyone took a snack break. Only the BM and I remained at the table, so I asked if I could try to steal the gold from the cleric while he wasn’t looking. My BM agreed and let me roll sleight of hand, which was successful. Minutes later the other players returned. As we resumed, the very first thing the BM said was “Cleric, you touch your pockets and feel your gold pouch is missing.” The other players immediately knew I had taken the gold and started trying to kill my fighter. As I was chased down, the BM gave me a sly look and pointed to a door in the dungeon that had not been opened. He suggested that there might be dangerous enemies in there who could draw the aggression of my fellow party members. I opened the door and a swarm of goblins came out. My fellow party members still tried to kill me and the goblins ended up TPKing us. The group never played together again. So I ask the court: who is most in the wrong? Me? My brother? The cleric for not giving me gold? PS, my brother and I still play D&D and laugh about this.

Megan Deters

Beautiful and gorgeous justices. The bailiff who looks okay. I have been DMing for relatively the same group for the past five years. Recently, when taking my level 10 party through a modified Dead in Thay dungeon crawl, I noticed that my cleric player had the same hit points as my paladin player. I did the math looking at his character sheet and realized that his HP was literally impossible with his Con modifier. I pointed this out to him and he said he must have made a mistake at some point and rerolled his health. However, justices, it’s like I saw the light. I remember back to how all of his characters had really good rolled stats and health, luckily. How he always rolled well in critical moments, luckily. Looking back, I don’t even remember any time he’s rolled a 1. There are other examples but safe to say I am convinced that he has been juicing his rolls for the entire time we have played together. But what do I do! He dates one of my players and is roommates with another. How do I confront this level of malfeasance without it completely disintegrating my longtime party? It should be noted that this cleric does DM a game with the same group. I quit this game because I wasn’t having fun so I worry that this bad will would be the last straw for us.

Gicky

Dear esteemed justices Murphy, Axford, and Shenobi. 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.

Rachael Lovely

To the amazing judges and the meh bailiff Bake may it please the court I bring the case of the PC/PC romance and IRL situationship, Me and my best friend in my gaming group fell into a situationship at about the same time I had a romantic relationship start to develop with another PC (their best friend--I guess I have a type.) Our situtionship fizzled out quickly but the PC/PC romance lasted for the rest of the campaign. What I am asking the court to weight judgment on is her table etiquette after the break-up. My ex would always inject herself into the conversations that me and my graph paper beau either out of character with jokes or invite herself along whenever we split off from the party to investigate different things. I know that it was a rather silly and lighthearted part of the campaign for the other players but it was very important to me and I found it rather upsetting to have my scenes be interrupted all the time by my ex. I plead for your judgement! Am I allowed to be upset that the woman that broke my heart was always trying to third-wheel my PC romance? Or am I just bitter that she did me dirty and announced at the start of a session that she was dating some girl that she met at a coffee shop less than a week after I told her that I couldn't fly across the country to meet up with her at the drop of a hat because it was finals week and I needed more time to find someone to cover my shifts at my first-responder adjacent job?

SlimMaculate

To the venerable justices and the baliff who is still serving: I present the case of the "lean meat shield". Our party of four was clearing out a farm house which had been taken over by nefarious mercenaries. We had cleared the upper floors and were about to head into the basement. This led to the discussion of marching order and who should go in first? I suggested that Ronny (a fighter samurai) go first because he was tankiest with medium armor. Ronny disagreed by saying that my character, a thief rogue, should go first because he was the tallest party member at 6'2 (everyone else was 5'6" and under). Not wanting to prolong this awkward discussion that the other two party members stayed silent during, I decide to sneak down into the basement and scout ahead while the rest of the party remained upstairs. Unfortunately I rolled a nat 1 on my stealth check. The 3 mercs waiting in rhe basement all got a surprise round on me. Combat had begun with just me and the three mercs. When it finally came around to my turn: I rolled my attack, cunning action disengaged, and ran my skinny rogue ass back upstairs to the rest of the party. Ronny was annoyed that I didn't still stay in combat and wait the extra round for them to come downstairs. I told him that lost nearly half my health in the ambush. Ronny retroted that I was only a several less HP than him (currently at max) because he had dumped Constitution as part as his character's backstory. Judges was I wrong to retreat? PS: The two other party members were an arcane trickster and blade singer wizard. The only healer was the fighter with a healing kit.

Ziel R.

To the benevolent judges and... And ... ... I actually am coming to you with a followup of a previous case. A quick recap: a while ago, I wrote in with a case where a friend of mine set me up with his old DND group but didn't tell me that he had quit said group, and in fact, when asked after the fact said he didn't like those guys. It took a while, but I followed the courts advice, and started to settle in. I even got to know the DM a bit better and have hung out with him a few times outside of DND. During one of these hangs, I played the case for him. I honestly hadn't meant to put him on blast. I had meant for it to be a sort of funny experience that we could share, but he was a bit mortified and apologized profusely for his role in the whole awkward situation. I managed to assure him that I wasn't upset at him, and that I only played it for him because I thought he'd find it funny too. Anyways. Fast forward to this past month. The same friend has sent another of his friends to this same DND table. This time, however, the DM didn't just dump the new player into the active campaign. He set up a new group text thread and told everyone that we were doing a one shot as a way to see how the new player gels with the group. He even asked people to collaborate on their characters and awarded inspiration to players whose one shot characters had interconnected backstories. I can't tell you how this will play out since the one shot hasn't happened yet, but I do think that this is a better way of onboarding a potential new player. It seems the DM took the court case I played for him to heart.

Mitch Rhook

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

HighGrove

To the highest pontiffs of the Church of Dice Christ, I come before you with an issue of of theology. Specifically, Bear Hell theology. To be brief, everything Murph has said about Bear Hell is Bear Canon, with one important distinction: not only do bad 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 when he befouled a sacred pool of Dire Bee honey. Ultimately to save our friend we crashed our airship into the Bear Devil while he was hibernating and scampered away, 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.

Maximus Jiron

The Nat-20 Nepotism Scandal To the glorious and effervescent justices, and the bailiff, I think it was jork, I present to you the Nat-20 Nepotism Scandal. 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.

Belated Niceties

Greetings justices and hardworking bailiff (no matter what they say about you)! I am writing in with a case from my one-shot "let there be mead" from my first ever time DMing. The session started in a castle the week before a big party where the players were tasked with traveling to a nearby giant village to get the booze. I let the players improvise histories with various people because we hadn't done a session zero. However, one player (the only player who had played DnD before) started their character introduction by going to the blacksmith and asking "is it ready for me". They elaborated to say that the queen had requested a special weapon crafted for their character. I was pretty suprised and told them a flat no. My player argued with me and told me the Queen had said it would be ready. I didn't have any ideas for what kind of weapon I could give them so eventually I had the blacksmith tell them she was too busy crafting cups for the party but would have the weapon after the players got back from their quest and that they could buy any common items they needed in the meantime. My friend eventually accepted that I wasn't inventing an overpowered magical weapon on the spot (they already had normal weapons in their inventory), but the vibe was off the rest of the session and that player ended up leaving early and we never played together again. Should I have just given them a new weapon or was I right to set it up as a reward for doing the campaign?? To this day I have yet to run this one-shot to completion.

ROMCOM

To the palladian justices and the effable bailiff, I present to The Case of the Evanescent Assembly. I have been playing D&D for almost 2 years, and been a DM since the very beginning. I have played only a handful of games as a player, and one of them was 2 months into my D&D journey, and consisted of myself and my brother (who live in Ireland), and my cousin and uncle (who both live in America). My uncle was the DM, and had been playing D&D since THAC0 was a thing, he was even making money as a DM on Roll20 during COVID. Suffice it to say, I was ecstatic for this game, and put a lot of work into my character and making myself and my brother available for games. It did not take long for me to see the ephemeral nature of my relatives. After organising sessions weeks in advance, they would frequently just not join the call to play. Once they didn’t show up because of a planned doctor’s appointment, another time because they simply forgot. My brother and I only cancelled one session and did so at least a week before hand. My relations would also never instigate planning a session, relying only on me to send the “When are you guys free next?” message. In an effort to salvage the group, I offered to DM a spooky two shot where the players were killed by cultists and revived for a day to get revenge (single day revenants), but we only got to do the first session before the two yanks bailed. I do not hold a grudge but I do feel marginally salty that one of my only instances of being a player was cut short by their lack of effort or engagement in this game. Is my melancholy warranted or should was should I be more grateful for the moments they were there. I humbly await your judgement.

Matthew Rudland Barfoot

To the right honorable Bailiff and the disorderly judges. I come with Crooked tales of Crooked Moons for a mixed ruling and confession. In our first session of the Crooked Moon, our level 3 adventuring party was on a train to the land of the dead and as written, we're set upon by spectres, with 3 appearing in the first round and an additional one for a further 3. On my first attack I rolled a Nat 20 and brought one player down to 2hp. On my second attack I knocked one player unconscious, I for went my third attack. Judges, each round I was knocking out a player with these (frankly overpowered) spectres. That I chose to omit 2 spectres from entering the turn order and despite using a d4 to decide which player I targeted (rolling mostly 3s and knocking out the same guy two turns in a row he got up on a 20 to go down again immediately after). I abandoned my d4 to strategically pick and avoid a first session party kill. My players finished, with barely any life and a hatred for the quest giving npc who is in charge of the train. Saying they want to murder him despite it not being his fault. I feel like I should have rolled with the die and seen if we entered a party kill as the game is a folk horror. Equally I don't want this to not be fun. The players want to play again and realised there is not enough room at this "train carriage table", to fool around on this literal railroad of a game.

Alexis C

Greetings judges and… I think his name is Jonk? I come to you about a case of slander and all around rude dudes. I have been DMing a homebrew game for over four years now. My players were traveling up a treacherous river to its mouth high in the mountains in pursuit of a rare flower needed for an essential ritual they needed to complete before the summer solstice. I devised a difficult travel encounter that involved everyone rolling skill checks for each leg of the journey to see if the boat progresses, stalls, or floats back down river, with checks getting progressively harder the deeper into the mountains they go. A failed check would also result in a role to see if something additional happened, such as damage to the ship, or levels of exhaustion. On their last roll, they were faced with nearly impossible odds. Everyone had a level of exhaustion, and a majority had to pass a DC20 skill check (str or dex depending on their ship role). I, benevolent and loving DM that I am, offered them a choice: expend spells, rages, bardic inspirations, whatever they had, to lower the DC to 15, and be potentially weakened before a combat or other challenge. OR! I would lower the DC to 10 and remove the level of exhaustion, but they would simply regain that level of exhaustion at a later date of my choosing. What a generous offer, you say. But oh! Oh! The yelling! The name calling! They beat me up and threw me down the stairs and stole my shoes! They said why would they ever choose the second option! I baked them scones and they give me nothing but scorn! Now, justices, I’m fully aware I offered them a devil’s deal, but I think they should have been more willing to entertain a fun, cool, little offer. Also, I told them I would submit to dungeon court and if they didn’t appropriately reply in time that means I’m automatically correct. So, justices, should my players have not only accepted my very favorable devil’s deal, but in fact have been appreciative of the very kind offer?

Philosophical Hobbit

Bless me, Dice Christ, for I have sinned. My group recently started using Foundry as a virtual table top. Some of the dice customization options I discovered are perhaps too powerful for this world. In my defense, I showed the DM before the campaign started so he wouldn’t be surprised. Fast forward to our last session: our party was ambushed by zombies. I roll a d4 as part of my damage. This is my first time rolling a d4 in this campaign. The d4 rolls onto the screen with the other dice. But suddenly, in the distance, a train’s horn and chugging can be heard. It gets louder as an animation of a little train pops out from behind the d4. It flies around the screen, growing bigger until…it can’t be…Thomas the Train?! With glasses, a huge nose, and a fake mustache?! Yes, Dice Christ, I found the “Thormund the Tank Engine” animation setting. I set it to happen when I rolled a d4. My poor other party members were shocked, flabbergasted, confused, and intrigued. I was so focused on the battle that I had forgotten about that setting, so I was also shocked. The DM, exasperated, said he just knew that was going to happen during an important moment. And hence, my sin: I ruined a cool character moment. I believe I’ve already been punished, however, as that character moment was my own. My character, recently possessed, gives up control for the first time in front of the whole party (we were desperate). The being possessing my character deals the killing blow to the last zombie in a badass blast of radiant light. And that is when I rolled the d4 as part of my damage. After everyone irl recovered from the shock and laughs, the DM realized we needed to stay in initiative because my character (now back to herself) was still taking damage. So my character is rapidly dying in her twin brother’s arms as he’s desperately screaming for help. It was a dramatic, tense scene, certainly not going to be interrupted again… As I’m chugging a potion, guess what die needed to be rolled? Cue Thomas all over again. I told the players they should just leave me to die after that. But that potion allowed me to survive at 1hp!!! I’ve already been punished by not one, but two character moments being kool-aid-manned by Thomas the Train. But I still feel guilty. I could have easily derailed (HA (sorry, this is not the time for puns)) another PC’s cool moment, which wouldn’t have been fair to them. I’m thankful I was the one derailed, but it was thoughtless and irresponsible of me to risk someone else’s moment. I’ve since turned off Thomas. Thank you, Dice Christ, for making sure no one else was hurt by my shenanigans. Please forgive me! Thormund The Tank Engine animation: https://gitlab.com/riccisi/foundryvtt-dice-so-nice/-/wikis/uploads/4227fa37466f63df748411bb49ecc0d5/thormund.mp4

William Lambertz

To the accredited judges and Jake-ass bailiff, I bring before you the case of the uninvited player. I am running a holiday one shot the day after Christmas this year for our normal DND group, 5 PCs. I was out last weekend with several of the players and other friends, and we had been causally talking about the one shot. One friend, let’s call him Carl, who has not played with us before, stated to me that he could make it to the session but probably only for the first half. This was without myself or anyone I overheard inviting him. I have a suspension that our forever DM said he could come by and roll dice for the enemies or play a P.C. and leave when needed, but did not run this by me, the DM for the one shot. I kind of skirted around that statement from Carl and didn’t address it. So I ask of thee judges, should I plan for Carl to show up, formally invite him or am I the asshole for just wanting our normal group for this one shot? I await your humble judgement this Hogliday Season!

Delta Hangingwithtens

I come bearing to the humble cardinals a Dice Christ confession. I’m a DM for a group that usually plays over discord and my players were talking to an NPC who was wearing a ring enchanted by the BBEG with a modified Geas and Scrying spell. They wanted information that her Geas did not allow her to divulge, and figured out that the ring was the culprit and the cleric suggested using Remove Curse on the ring. I ruled that I would allow it so long as they rolled ability checks corresponding to their best abilities and she would roll saving throws to assist in the removal of the curse. They all rolled extremely high rolls: I then proceeded to roll below a 10 all three times but fudged and said she passed because I didn’t want to ruin their cool idea. I come, on hands and knees, to the altar begging for forgiveness for fudging rolls for savings throws (especially when Remove Curse doesn’t require saves in the first place and simply wanted to involve everyone in the removal of this enchanted ring).

Jared G

I come before the benevolent judges of the Supreme Crit and Gake with the case of the shopping cart spy. My players were infiltrating a village of cultist to gather information and when they were caught the cultist released a caged T-Rex to attack the party. The Druid in the party cast dominate beast on the T-Rex turning a run away encounter into a knock down drag out fight against the bulk of the cultist forces. The session was still fun but I wondered to myself why the Druid stocked the perfect spell when he had never prepared it before, then I remembered we shared an Amazon account and he must have seen me order a T-Rex mini. I lightly interrogated him and he admitted to seeing the order while looking for his own order. The rest of the table is split some say he shouldn’t have meta gamed others say he didn’t see it on purpose and it wasn’t unreasonable to stock the spell when traveling into a jungle. Judges I ask for your guidance in this matter.

Coco Devman

To the Jubilous Justices and Jonk Hairpits. This is the story of the Disappearing Drow. I've been a player in a campaign for the last 4 years (a Human fighter(me), a tabaxi rogue, a drow ranger and a gnome wizard), we've travelled across the world, formed a guild and got into a feud with a burgeoning god. More recently a new member, a drow rogue, has joined our group and has begun to fit in well, however they harboured a secret! They were a member of an enemy guild, sent to spy on us! We all knew this on a meta level and were enjoying playing around all the moments and slowly figuring their deception out. This all came to a head when the rogue invited the ranger to a secret meeting to attempt to recruit him to his cause (he was already dancing around with some very naughty behavior). The Rogue made his case and then the session ended, what a cliffhanger. Next week came, and the ranger never showed. Not to fear! We played around with the timeline a bit and had a "downtime" session where we played knowing that everything would eventually come back round to the confrontation. When we met the following week the Ranger was running late, so we did some more light roleplaying leading up to the confrontation. The Drow Ranger did show up in the middle of this and was immediately very disruptive, walking all over the scenes that were playing out. Understanding they may want to get moving with their intense scene, we begun moving towards the big confrontation. However, the Ranger promptly passed out drunk and the session was ended and everything was delayed AGAIN. They then proceeded to never show up again and we eventually had to retcon a whole bunch of stuff. We're still playing and everything and are having a good time, but dear justices I struggle to move on from what may have been! We were all really excited about how everything was going to play out, and the rogue never really got the satisfying end to their plotline.

Alyssa Kinser

I come before the Church of Dice Christ with a humble confession. I play in an online game with several grad school friends who all live in different areas now. We’ve spent the last couple sessions at a Feywild festival. Think carnival games and shops and funnel cakes and the usual Feywild mayhem. We opted for some light pvp and competed in a leaf gliding contest, where we had to roll dexterity checks to see how far we got on each turn. All the expected shenanigans ensued, with each player trying to gain the advantage over the others. Dice Christ blessed Darcey, my harengon rogue, with two consecutive natural 20s in a row. Two! In a row! Your holinesses, one of my very best friends, a woman who gave a speech at my wedding and I at hers, used Dread Mabel’s sorcerous bend luck ability to cancel BOTH of Dice Christ’s blessings. My confession? I loved every minute of it, even my friend’s blasphemy against Dice Christ. I can only hope that Dice Christ will forgive our transgressions and continue to bless our table with friendship and fortune. P.S. Dread Mabel’s efforts were in vain anyways. At the last moment, our bard, Oddity, who had been at the back of the pack the entire race, cast dimension door and was across the finish line while we were still squabbling.

Emmy

Humble, esteemed justices, and that guy, I want to say Jim? I have a simple question, can mage hand lift a human heart? I am a librarian (shout out to public libraries), and I am the substitute dm for a group of 10-12 tweens. Because I am not the one who runs the table primarily, I tend to let them do what they want if they can explain to me why it works. The party was facing off with some low level goons, and one of my players (age 13), asked me how much a human heart weighed, and promptly proceeded to describe how his mage hand enters the body, lifts the heart, and pulls his heart out of his butt. I was dumbfounded. So I did what Murph says to do, and told him to roll me two Nat 20s and I'd let him do it. Justices, he freaking did it. Right in front of me. And now there's just a precedent that mage hand can lift human hearts?? Justices, was i wrong in allowing this? Do I have to keep allowing it, or can I tell my players there has to be some line. I await judgement, and I might play this for them if our case gets chosen. :)

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.

Marty

No😠

Niccy T

To the honorable High Justices and the sexy bailiff Jork. I come to you with the case of the pissing trickster. I play as an Arcane Trickster in a 5e campaign that is set in a post World War II London. The gates to the afterlife have been closed, meaning the spirits of the deceased can't move on. In one session, we were tasked with stopping a container ship heading to port that potentially had dozens of vampires destined for the city. We boarded the ship and were headed to the engine room when we were beset by zombies. The claw attacks had an effect, if we failed our con saves, that halved our HP and gave us disadvantage on our saving throws. Our druid got hit and failed his subsequent save. In my mind I thought "peeing on jelly fish stings nullifies the venom" and asked if I could piss on the druid. The DM told me to roll for it. Nat 20. The DM then proclaimed that "No, it doesn't work. However you can make the next con save with advantage". I am aware of justice Murphy's proclivity to say that just because it's a Nat 20, doesn't mean it should auto succeed. However, I shouldn't have been able to roll for it. There was no animosity towards the decision, we accepted it and moved on to stop the container ship and had a fun session, but I do ask you to pass judgement as I feel I was wronged and the unwashed, piss smelling druid should have been cured. I humbly await your judgement.

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. The DM argued you can’t disengage from one enemy and then enter and leave multiple enemies’ threatened areas. After some heated back and forth, the DM stuck to his ruling and the rogue took some damage from an opportunity attack. We were ultimately victorious, but the rogue was noticeably sullen for the rest of the session. So I ask: was the DM right to limit the extent of the rogue’s disengage, or was the rogue held back unfairly?

Gabby B

To the piously honorable judges and the unruly baliff, Jaques. I present to you the case of the hopefully virtual Paladin: I have been playing D&D with friends from high school for about 4 years now and are 1.5 years into our second fantastic campaign. These sessions are often the highlight of my week. The problem is, my husband is graduating and we will be moving to Alaska soon for his job and I can't bear to give up D&D with my friends. We have attempted to play virtually before when weather is to bad to travel, but because we play with a battle-mat and everyone but the DM and I tend to be camera-off and inattentive when we try this, it's mostly been abandoned as a strategy. HOWEVER - I ask you, is it fair of me to ask my party and DM accommodate me virtually while keep their in-person sessions? I deeply respect the DM and his time and dedication and don't want to overly complicate things for hin, but the thought of dropping out mid-campaign breaks my heart. Is this too selfish of an ask? Would it even play well? Should I just take the big L and find another group in Alaska? Sidenote: I know I will frequently be in town visiting family and would like to keep attending in person when I can. I prostrate myself before the court and await your binding decision.

M

To the luminous leaders of the Church of Crits, and their unsettling alter boy ….who is still here?? I come seeking forgiveness, and perhaps even guidance, regarding a sin I am in the middle of committing. Over the last few years, I have converted a few close friends into followers of Dice Christ. Hallelujah! As we are just a couple of girls trying to escape the horrors of our late 20s, I thought it could be fun to bring these friends together to test out a few one-shots and hopefully start a campaign! The problem? One friend hasn’t played before, but takes fantasy very seriously and seem to enjoy things that stray from “fantasy realism”. Strictly. No. Nonsense. Meanwhile, the rest of us carry a torch for the patron saint of shenanigans. We love genuine plot-lines and character development…almost as much as we love impish nonsense. Oh holy ones! I fear have been holding out on extending an invitation to that more serious friend. I feel guilty for potentially excluding her, but worry that a clash of play-styles could ruin the vibe or prevent the others from wanting to continue on to a proper campaign. I offer my favorite D20 as a tithe, and beg for either guidance or absolution.

Raziq Noorali

Honorable denizens of the tank of Dice Christ. I present myself in your mercy for a sin I do not regret. I was a DM for a SpellJammer campaign where a group of rag tag heroes took on noble quests such as defending the refueling station (a 76k) from sentient office supplies and getting back a hoverboard from a thieving pawn shop. Turtles of Dice Christ - in every encounter, I never came to the table with ready made statistics. I would make up traps if my players made a investigation check that seemed high enough and I would go "And that's all I would give you with a " even though I had nothing even before. When battles came, ones that I knew well in advance, I would pull up appropriate CR monsters while RP was happening and just adjust things as I went on. If they had to make a saving throw and I didn't have a DC, I would go "You *just* made the DC". HP would be determined to be however long I could go while still making the fight interesting. No one knew how tough the fight was going in, certainly not I. Idk if this is the type of church where you can buy your sins away but I am willing to go up one tier in my patreon subscription to be forgiven. Thanks :)

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.

Ben Bishop

To the fuck head judges and the unjustly razzed bailiff, I bring to you The Case of the Illusionary Massacre. I DM a campaign where the players rescued multiple towns folk from an ancient crypt, where an evil cleric was using their blood for her nefarious rituals. As the adventurers returned the townsfolk home (which was located off the King’s Road) they heard a blood-curdling scream from the town’s inn. The players decide to rush in, and witnessed multiple zombies dismembering those inside. They jumped into action and slayed the monstrosities. As the final zombie fell, the unperceived illusion popped. They realized that there was no zombie hoard. They were unwittingly slaughtering innocents. Survivors of the massacre (who were unaware of the illusion and just saw these once-heroes killing them) ran to the King’s Road for help and brought back guards who promptly arrested the adventurers. My intention with this plot hook was to move the campaign to a multi session court drama. The idea was that a secret organization was trying to take over Neverwinter and attempted to frame these meddling adventurers who continued to get in their way. While the players enjoyed the next portion of the campaign, they felt cheated by the lack of perception check prompting. My view is that it was their job to ask for a perception check if they suspected foul play. It was a very powerful wizard who cast the illusion. I don’t prompt them to roll every time they walk by an illusionary wall. Judges, was I wrong to not ask for a perception roll, or was I right to revel in their unintentional slaughtering of innocents?

Olivia M

More info on the Case of the Nothing Door: The DM did not, in fact, describe anything about our untimely deaths. He really did just say "you all die." We were in a back room where the local brews were fermenting, and the session ended about 20 minutes early, so I doubt he was rushing because the table was reserved. He did not set the stakes for the riddle; in the town a pager told us the temple could bring us great fortune or great pain, but nothing more specific than that. I will not ask for a refund as watching the Sopranos with Pennywise big naturals is punishment enough. Thank you for your swift deliverance of justice! P.S. At the end the DM gave us his venmo so we could tip him, and because I have a hard time saying no when someone asks for tips, I gave him another $5 for a total of $25. With movie ticket price inflation, though, your point still stands.

jennie

To the illustrious judges and their AI bailiff-bot Judy, About two years ago, my good friend - let's call him Tim - 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 in this campaign Tim's character was immediately hostile because my paladin worshipped a different god than his. Tim 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. A heated text exchange ensued between myself and Tim 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 Tim'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.

William Cox

To the fabulous judges and the adequate bailiff Jim. I’ve been a dm for a group of friends for years now, doing all sorts of homebrew things and our current campaign is NaddPod themed! I don’t get to play often so when my brothers friends wanted to do a remote game I was like heck yeah! However after character creation and backstories we launched into session 1. I was playing a lvl 3 tabaxi monk along with a gunslinger, cleric, a warlock and a sorcerer. We start in a jail and I’m thinking this will be a fun way to show off our abilities and build camaraderie. However as the session begins a mysterious dmpc starts invisibly assassinating all the guards. This lvl 5 character the dm created soloed the entire first dungeon and robbed us all of our cool character moments. I was thinking hell in a cell wrestling style taking out a guard. This dmpc walks the whole dungeon and then the mini boss as well. I asked to remove or restrict the assassin but the dm said this is my character for the campaign and I’ll be dming and playing with you all. How should I communicate to this new dm to show him this is just not fun? Thank you guys and love you all!

ChuiL

To the Honorable Justices who act like decent human beings and to Bailiff Jake: Last Christmas I tried to run a one-shot to introduce my family to DnD, I had hoped to turn it into one of those fun family DnD games you hear about from time to time on your show. My parents were intrigued and enthusiastic, and my younger sister was dragged into playing as well. My dad played a bard who quoted Taylor Swift lyrics, my mom an assassin from a secret order of librarians, and my sister played a meathead Vengeance paladin. The game got off to a good start when, during my dad’s character intro, my sister began gleefully chortling and described how her character walked up to my dad’s and attempted to smite him dead in an act of cold-blooded murder. After several rounds of her missing her attacks and complaining that “you promised that my character would be OP”, I sweatily narrated the town guards arriving and my family’s characters being forced to flee. The rest of the session proceeded much the same way, with her character attempting to break into a pet store in the middle of the night and steal the type of puppy she wants IRL. We finally ended the session with their characters vanquishing a sewage elemental, about halfway through what I had originally planned. Needless to say, we did not play again. My question is this: I will soon be flying home to see them again for the hoglidays and despite how the last session went, I did get the sense that my mom really liked the idea of DnD. Should I try and get my family to dig up their character sheets and play again?

May May

If it may please the grandiloquent Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, as well as the ever virtuous Bailiff Jake. I present to you the case of the Self-Inflicted Mousefolk-In-Distress. Around 5 years ago, I was in a campaign with an 6-person party. A Rogue/Wizard, a Ranger, a Druid, a Monk, a Warlock and a Bard. The bard was a mousefolk, who was the size of an actual mouse, and the player role-played them as a dewey-eyed musician who had a secluded life up until they decided to adventure, so they had a very naïve outlook on life, including but no limited to: being a pacifist, and believing that problems can be resolved through talking just like they did in story books. While I personally really enjoy that kind of archetype in a character, the ways in which the player chose to navigate that in-game constantly and consistently conflicted with the party's desires and goals. For example, we were once in the feywild, and in this world the DM established that the demigod of magic created the feywild and assigned her 8 disciples, each specializing in a school of magic, to be an archfey that ruled over specific parts of the realm. Before going into the feywild, we were warned by the demigod of magic that some of the archyfey were chill, while others - especially the archfey of Transmutation - had gone a little crazy while living in the feywild and we should steer clear of them if possible. Once we got into the feywild, we ran into some of the chill archfey who had also warned us that the archfey of transmutation was coo-coo bonkers and that we should stay away from him as much as possible. Later on, we found ourselves needing to pass through the territory of the mentally unstable transmutation archfey, and we needed to strategize how to pass through unnoticed, be as uninteresting as possible, and not be polymorphed by this archfey and be trapped in his realm forever. Also, did I mention that this archfey was a tabaxi? With that in mind we as a party collectively chose to have the most "normal" looking people in the party (Half-Elf Rogue/Wizard, Wood Elf Ranger, and Tiefling Warlock) pass through the realm loudly on horses as distractions to draw attention away from the Mousefolk Bard, Tortle Druid and Dragonborn Monk while they stealthed. We prioritized keeping the Mousefolk Bard away from the Tabaxi Archfey for obvious reasons, to which the mousefolk bard vehemently protested. The Bard insisted that they could just talk to the Transmutation archfey and he would let us pass through. We reminded the Bard about the large amount of warnings we were given to avoid this specific archfey, but they weren't having any of it. To settle this, we put it to a vote amongst the party, and the majority ruled in favor of our original plans. 3-in favor, 1-against and 2-abstentions. While we were putting our plan into action, the DM described the mousefolk jumping from the Rangers pocket to the Monks pocket. Seemed normal enough until the distraction team got confronted by the archfey. While we were talking to him trying to talk our way out of the situation, the archfey started to get angry, claiming that he was hearing a whistling noise and accusing us of making it to annoy him. We were all confused as to what he was talking about, almost chalking it up to him being crazy like we were warned about, but as it turns out, the mousefolk bard was blowing a magic whistle we had received earlier in the campaign. The way it works is you think of someone, then blow the whistle and only the person you think of can hear it. We only figured this out because the bard had come out from behind a tree holding the whistle, revealing that they had used illusion magic to trick us into thinking they went along with the plan and was texting the DM separately that they were doing all this. The Transmutation Archfey polymorphed themselves into a Roper and immediately grappled all of us. We were all level 5 characters at the time so we had no way of fighting an archfey, let alone one that could polymorph himself into a roper, so we narrowly escaped the roper's grapple and had to flee immediately while also staying out of range of polymorph. While we were able to get away with no one being killed or polymorphed, this infuriated everyone in the party. We all understood not agreeing with the decision of the majority, but the bard going out of their way to lie and deceive us with magic to do what they wanted and placing all of our characters in danger left an incredibly bad taste in all of our mouths. We tried having a conversation about this in-character, and the Bard seemed remorseful that their actions put us in danger, but they never apologized. I wish I could say this was a one-time thing but multiple times throughout the rest of the campaign the Bard would do things that placed themselves in danger without telling anyone in the party, forcing all the PCs to stop what they were doing and start trying to rescue this fucking mouse. We tried having multiple coversations mid-game about this and the player/mouse never learned their lesson, and in fact, seemed to enjoy forcing all of the players to stop whatever they were doing to go and rescue them. It got to the point where this practically suicidal mouse put themselves in danger often and when the majority of the party said "Well you didnt tell us that you were doing this so we wouldn't know to come look for you and rescue you." the Bard player got mad saying "Are you just going to let my character die?" and we all felt bad and reluctantly went to go save them. Eventually, the campaign died out without a proper conclusion but I still find myself incredibly irritated by this character to this day. I'm getting mad just writing this. So, tell me Justices, we were too harsh for failing to give a shit about this mouses escapades? Were we infringing on player agency by putting our party decisions to a vote? Should we have just let the consequences of the mouses actions catch up to them, even if the player was begging us to save them? I leave it to the discretion of the court.

Drayser

Unrelated but you should talk about or even review the new Mcdonalds Grinch meal at some point

Dr_kilowatt

To the Judges, and oh, hey Jake, what's up man? You good?...I present the case of the Regretful Kamikaze Gnome. I played a one-shot a few years ago in which everyone decided to make joke characters. It was Nightmare Before Christmas Themed and I was a player. Three people played Lock Shock, and Barrel. We also had a someone as a secret spawn of Oogie Boogie, and one girl who played the character that says "I am the one hiding under your stairs" in This is Halloween, whom she named Harry Potter. I was Lock. The guy who played Barrel decided that he wanted to be an alchemist Artificer and claimed in the beginning of the session that he had a bomb strapped to his chest at all times because "these little fuckers are psychotic, right?" And we all went with it, saying he kept getting attacked in other places than the bomb. He kept using it as an intimidation tactic, which worked some of the time. At one point, he tried to use it to intimidate a group of christmas elves and rolled a natural 1. The DM narrated that the elves asked him to prove it because "they know toys and they think its a toy." The guy didn't know what to say so he just sat there kind of stunned for an answer. Then the DM says that one of the elves rolls to shoot the bomb. He rolls an 18, making it well over a 20, and hits the bomb. He narrates that its like 4 fireballs going off at once and rolls damage. We are all downed immediately but nobody is killed. We rolled death saves and 3 people died but the bomb guy stabilized. We were pissed but it was also funny. We had to stop the game because nobody had backup characters and the DM needed time to think. We never went back to that game. My question is, was the DM wrong for nuking our party or was the Gnome (Barrel) wrong for playing as a kamikaze child? I awaited your judgements. P.S. Nobody said beforehand if the bomb was real or not. We jokingly asked at the beginning and he said "who knows, man. These fuckers are psychotic"

Olivia S

Not a case, but just a little note to Emily. I just got my Spotify wrapped and you were my second top artist and my top two songs were The Moon‘s Elegy and The Serpent’s Serenade. Your songs are my son‘s lullabies and I love listening to them with him on repeat everyday. Keep doing what you’re doing and happy hoglidays.

jaydon

not a case idk how many of these yall are getting but emily is my 5th top artist on spotify wrapped!!! love yall

Sata Prescott

May I submit to the earnest and lofty folks on the bench and some other guy in the room who maybe will read this in a really funny voice: the case of the chaotically forgetful DM: I currently play an Aarakocra paladin in a campaign taking place in Sigil. Our task is finding buildings that have been disappeared from the city and spread throughout the connected planes. These buildings are disguised as small objects: a cake, a book, a brick in a wall, and so on. In one area, the plane has a powerful antimagic field where no magic works at all (making our wizard into, in her words, "just a girl with a small knife"). We spent several play sessions in this location, struggling with our powerlessness. On the last day, we found the building we'd needed to get (hidden as, I think, a ship in a bottle), when I asked, "So, are these buildings disguised through magic?" The table fell silent, and my DM slowly stated, in a calm voice, "Oh. Shit." After a few minutes, the DM asked that we just "ignore" the glaring plot hole and carry on. Our wizard was fine with this, as it meant that she got to leave the area and become a functional party member again. But it's been wriggling in my brain ever since: should I have demanded that my DM resolve the "plot hole," or should I keep going along to get along? This DM is a chaotic delight, often handing out absurd homebrews and over-leveled gear for us to misuse. The campaign is, tonally, how do you say... bonkers. So if the court determines that this is just How It Is, I will submit entirely.

Shrimp City

Not a case and definitely not as sweet as all the Emily mentions on the Spotify wrapped, but Dumpweed by blink-182 ended up on mine because of you lunatics. Thanks y’all and happy hoglidays!

Kara

To the high Pope Axford and her Richelieu-esk Cardinals, I come before their holinesses with an ardent supplication for mercy and absolution. I fear I have sinned grievously against Dice Christ. My sin occurred recently while I was DMing a one shot for my group during a hiatus. My wife, our usual DM could not make the session due to work, but like a temptress on my shoulder, or a court eunic she offered me counsel. She whispered in my ear the sweet promises of power over players and total dominion of the battle field, and "It's just a one shot, what's the harm? Put the fear of God in them and run an adult dragon, it's not that high of a CR." And in my weakness and ignorance I fell to her womanly wiles and ran an adult red dragon against my players. Your holinesses, this was a cooking competition one-shot, and I failed to tell them to expect combat. None of them were prepared for the carnage that followed. I shall not soil these hallowed halls by retelling such a vile tale,but in this great sin of an unattended TPK, I committed an even greater sin: I lied about a natural 20. One of the players was attempting to cast a non-combat spells in a very creative way and I just wanted somebody at the table to have some sort of win that day, so I committed a false hood in the name of Dice Christ and said they target failed their save. Perhaps the worst part is that the tool with which I have sinned, a set of beautiful sparkly pink dice, have not rolled above a 10 since. I fear that the lord of luck has seen fit to show me only the aspect of a vengeful but just god, hiding from me all sides of the die that are good and gentle. How am I to atone for this misdeed? Must I offer up my precious dice as a burnt offering to our Dice God? Your holinesses, please offer this poor soul a form of penance so that I may roll my pretty dice and have an honest crit.

Kara

P.S. my wife has never done anything wrong, she is the light of my life and the best, most benevolent DM to our group. She needs no forgiveness for she had never once sinned in the name of dice christ unlike her foul wife

Daive Reed

Dearest, sweetest justices and tiny baby bailiff(derogatory if we're being mean to him today) Jake I present to you the case of The Bitch Doesn't Have My Money. I am playing in a homebrew world with a DM/group that I have been with for almost 3 years now. Everything with them is a lot of fun and I have never had any complaints until recently. In the lore there used to be a very valuable kind of wood that people used to use but has pretty much gone extinct. While escaping from a prison island, we came across another island full of it. The island was a horrifying death trap and most of the special trees vanished due to magical shenanigans. But my snake oil salesman PC stowed a chunk of it in his pack. Now that we're back in civilization, he is trying to sell the location of this island for some upfront cash and a percentage of the non-existent take(my PC is counting on anyone who goes there dying). Despite rolling several deception/persuasion checks all in the high 20s, my DM won't make any decent deals with me. I understand not wanting me to have a ton of money this early in the campaign but feel that my rolls and the deal I'm offering being worth millions should be get me something. Am I just being a tiny baby bailiff or should my DM cough up the dough? I humbly await your judgement.

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. While finishing up the campaign we ended up in a field equidistant from a wizard tower (our end goal) and a random city the dm wanted us to explore. So we determine to go to the tower first to finish up our current quest line. 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 pull my foot out, grab the shoe, and put 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

Cosmic

To the Supreme Crit Justices and oh- excuse me John, could you pass along this job application to Justice Murphy for a pending Baliff position? I present to you the case of the Monk of Half-Deflection. Our party of 5 level 4 players were navigating an abandoned mineshaft to clear out an unknown threat lurking deep within. We found ourselves fighting a swarm of strange, large centipede like creatures with poisoned mandibles. They attacked and attempted to bite me, our Monk made of goo (don't ask, I'm fine). One succeeded, and I rolled to deflect the damage. However, the DM then asked me to clarify the wording of Deflect Attacks because the centipede's attack was half physical and half poison. My roll was to deflect 9 damage, which would have shrugged off the 7 physical but not the remaining 6 poison damage. My DM in the moment ruled that if I could deflect the physical part of the attack, the poison shouldn't have an effect. Justices, our party's Alchemist is pissed, claiming that if I'm able to deflect attacks like this, then their homebrew poisoned weapons might become useless later in the campaign. I think they fear the DM will use the same ruling against them later. The others fear it might make Deflect Attacks too powerful as just a reaction. However, since we were pushing late into the night already and decided to pause our combat there, this has left us unresolved. Finally, if the poison is ruled to go through, I will go down as I only have 2hp currently remaining. Our party is looking rough, so my tender, wobbly life is in your hands. Is it fair to rule a Monk can deflect a larger attack if all of the physical damage is reduced, or should I submit myself to my likely creepy, crawly doom?

Meditated

To the almighty crit and the lowly bailiff Blork... man... I bring the case of the Overpowered PC (me) and the annoyed DM... So this camp was a few years back, it was my first time playing dnd and I wanted to play an angel, dm said yes and made me a custom angel race based off of a solar (pretty dope). We were playing in a homebrew setting with a cool premise, all magic is contained within this one continet, we know the faction that did it, but not how or why they did. I started as a war domain cleric, and as we progressed our party came across the main quest giver... and killed him... and I guess there was no one else according to the dm that could give us the plot. So we started doing our own things to try to build up power to figure out the magic stuff. Fast forward a while, DM wanted us to have custom powers that we made, BUT did not want to know about them until we used them in the camp, cuz he wanted a surprise. The only thing was to make it a non-combat ability, so nothing to boost stats or attacks or damage. I being a power fantasy gremlin decided to have the power of creating and manipulating souls. Over the course of many sessions me and the party had secured a city of our own, my character and another were co-rulers of the city, with a city comes downtime, and what did I use that downtime on? Creating an army of angels with my soul magic. I had created a table for it to, with a chance of failure, different soul types, and even being able to modify stats at the risk of fracturing the soul. DM started to get annoyed that we weren't leaving our city to adventure as much, and complained that we weren't following his plot lines, when to us, it seemed his plot lines were political with another faction. Anywho, my character began carrying a following of angels with him when he went out of the city, even having specialized ones at this point. Making combat encounters mostly favor me in terms of action superiority. DM was getting annoyed at this too, so I started taking less with me, but still felt it logical with my character to bring some. Fast forward some more, my character is a powerhouse of a HB multi-class that I went over with the dm and he said it was fine. We are about lv 13 ish at this point I think. I basically have a small empire, and the DM starts trying to lift the other players to my level, by giving them loads random npcs, even entire armies in some cases... the campaign ended when the dm just railroaded teleported us all into a dungeon, and killed one of my favorite angels I had created, kinda out of the blue. So I know this was sorta all over the place, but I ask of thee, was I in the wrong for using the power I was given (gave myself, then wasnt told no). Or was the dm correct in being annoyed with me. I await your humble feedback, and will accept any punishment given to myself if needed. (P.S. I did not know that my character upset the DM until after the camp ended, where I learned that the DM was talking ill of me and my character to my GF. Safe to say we are not friends anymore. I am now running the cool premise of the camp as the DM with my gf and three friends of mine, two of which were present in the original camp with that dm.)

Tyler Shadow

To the supreme justices Momphy, Assford and Call a Welder. Oh yeah and that one guy who reads the cases while giving a strong amount of Galear energy. I prostate myself before the court to bring the case “Can’t be railroaded if we avoid the rails” I was DMing for 2 of my friends who were new to dnd and decided to stream it. The first few sessions went smoothly but when they failed some key rolls at a vampires masquerade party one of my players, let’s call him Garry, was turned into a vampire. After this session both my players came to me telling me I was railroading and it’s not fair to make it impossible to win. I stood and still stand by the fact that it was very possible to have a different outcome but the arguments turned into a long break from the game. After a few months we talked about things and agreed to try again since my schedule freed up. It became very apparent that my players were still scared of being railroaded and whenever I would talk about how much I was enjoying doing prep they would say that if I had everything prepared then how could they have player agency. After trying to explain how dnd works we continued playing until the night of the gator races. My players seems very excited to join in on these races last session but when they were about to start and I was asking for the participants to take their places Garry exclaimed that neither of the players would be racing and my other player agreed. I continued the session and waited until the vod was uploaded 4 days later to confirm my suspicions that this was talked about before the session. My players still deny it but the video evidence seems very clear to me so I said I would no longer dm for them. Was I wrong to leave this group? Or should my players realize that I still have to give the story a direction? P.s. these players are engaged and want me to DM their wedding…. So getting new friends may not be the best sentence. Yeah that’s right I’m looking a you Brian.

Beckisaurus rex

Deck of Many Things Disaster Honorable Justices and the perpetually underrated bailiff Jake: As a new DM, I've worked hard to build a fun and engaging world for my experienced party. Several sessions and levels in, I created an oddities shop with an extensive inventory. Everything from standard healing potions to a handful of exorbitantly priced legendary items that I added for my own amusement, secure in the knowledge the party couldn't afford them. Given it was an oddities shop with rare enchanted items, I interspersed curses amongst some of the items in the shop, including the legendary ones. While shopping, the party did an insight check to see if the owner was on the up and up. They roll was something middling so I told them the shop owner was friendly, open, and believes in the quality of his inventory. Great. All good. Here's where things get hairy. In the back of the shop was an old woman hunched over a small table with a deck of cards: the deck of many things. A player who likes to play the troll paid to draw SEVEN cards. They immediately drew the Skull card which summons an avatar of Death that fights you to...well...the death. So the avatar of Death appeared and commenced battle. When I rolled an attack roll for Death, my party informed me that Death auto-hits. I was shocked and, as a new DM, very hesitant to kill a player. I told them I wasn't aware of that and decided instead that their AC was halved to make them more vulnerable to the avatar. The player survived the encounter, but only by a hit point or two. Yay. Everyone was tense throughout the battle and cheered when it was over. He then drew the Donjon card and was banished to another plane. Another player decided to draw from the deck to get a card that might bring back their banished companion. That player also drew the Skull card and, again, since I had set the precedent that Death didn't auto-hit, the player survived, but only barely. Another round of relieved sighs and applause. That player then drew the Fates card and brought back the banished player, nearly-dead player. Raucous applause. What a ride...but my darling troll of a player who barely avoided death and was only just returned from banishment by a brave act from a friend, paid to draw more cards. He went on to also draw the Gem card, granting him 50,000 gp worth of gems, the Key card granting him a magic weapon, and the Sun card which increased his XP by 50,000 points and leveled him up several times. He exchanged his gems and nearly bought out the oddities shop, including some legendary and cursed items. Instead of a dead party member, I have a juiced up level 9 rogue cleric of Kelemvor with a magical rapier terrorizing my baddies and outshining the other members of the party. Judges, I know I made a poor choice by stocking the shop with insanely OP items that would break my campaign and assuming my players wouldn't find a way to get them. I should've known better and am already self flagellating by means of trying to find Vanilla Sky on laser disk. But should I have nerfed Death or should I have let the cleric of Kelemvor return to the arms of his god when I had the chance? NOTE: The players obviously love this outcome and are enjoying their new toys. I, meanwhile, am struggling to balance encounters in a way that provide a challenge. But that's the DM's job. So I'm just glad they're having a good time.

Gracie4853

Was relistening to campaign 1 and the short rests, have you done a case for when Murph got player on player sneak attack damage from Travis? (From Short rest ep 35 timestamp roughly 32:45)

MrDrProf

To the honorable justices and bailiff: I am a long time DM who has been getting the chance more and more to be a player in different games and so naturally i take each opportunity i get. My girlfriend’s friends had invited me to be a player in their next campaign after they finished their first one. I really like them so i jumped at the opportunity, joining 4 other players and our DM at the table. Our first session, a prequel session, and our official session 1 went really well and there were no issues. Then one of the players, you guessed it the rogue, at the table decided he wanted to expand his backstory into more and more of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde trope. He started off only butting heads with me, the party paladin, but has slowly started upsetting other people, his friends, at the table more. It started as, his character’s flaw was that he had to disobey rules that he saw leading him to plant stolen goods on me to then threatening other PCs at the table for trying to stop him from doing his saboteur behavior. At one point, his character held a dagger to our monk trying to get his stuff back after being hogtied and the player stood up from the table and went to hold a pen to that player’s neck IRL. When our DM confronted him about it after session, the rogue thought he was doing a good job with prop work and improv. I really like the other people at the table and our DM so i am willing to tolerate this irrational first time player, but i ask you this: when does sabotaging and not trusting your party go on for too long? Are we the bad guys for secretly plotting his character’s death for when he slips up again?

Grace M

To the most esteemed and honorable judges Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and the strong and powerful protector of the court, Bailiff Hurwitz, may it please the court: I present the case of the scorned DM vs. the players. This is our regular DnD group of 2 years, but one of our regular players that he wanted to try DMing for the first time. We were given no details about the campaign so we could make characters, as he refused to tell us anything, citing that he “hadn’t thought about it”. Then, as we get into the campaign, we quickly realize he’s allowing us to do everything we want with NO ROLLS REQUIRED. Perception, persuasion, you name it. We ended up casting no spells and having no fights, just getting “railroaded” into interactions with the BBEG where we don’t even fight them: we are trapped or paralyzed into long cryptic conversations that don’t really tell us anything. The one-shot ended anti-climatically with the BBEG disappearing after a conversation. The DM asked if we had any feedback, to which we replied “We liked the world, the BBEG was a very unique creature, but we wish we had gotten to roll the dice and use our abilities more.” One experienced player dug into how he wished the BBEG had a more satisfying motivation, and we agreed and said it would have been fun to fight him. The DM accepted this quietly without complaint, then left the apartment after the session and NEVER SPOKE TO US AGAIN. He didn’t leave the text chain, he just never responded or showed up again. We haven’t seen him since last year and we legitimately didn’t know if he was dead or alive until recently (he’s fine). I feel terrible about this because he was new to DMing and we could have been nicer. Honorable justices, were we too harsh on our friend of two years? Could we have phrased it in a more constructive way? Do you have any advice on how to critique a new DM without hurting their feelings? My group and I humbly await your ruling.

EliFlare83

"Case of the DM DJ vs. the Wannabe Bard" To the wise and honorable justices and to the very strong and very powerful bailiff (yes you are, yes you are). May it please the court. I am fortunate to play 5e with 4 amazing friends that are all very creative. I'm usually the DM, but we all contribute to our sessions to make it feel more grand (i.e. one person draws character art, one person makes clay models for our battle board, etc.) Other than DMing, I'm not very creative so my usual contribution is hosting the sessions and making the food for us. (This is also admittedly selfish since I have misophonia and want to be able to control my environment to feel comfortable.) For our new campaign, I got to be a PC with another friend stepping in as DM. This friend usually composes our music (mostly character themes and some battle/town music) that she then sends to me to use as I like. I feel self-conscious losing my creative offering by being a PC (still host/food-bringer) because they're all so great, but I'm also excited to play a cool hero for once. My problem was during our first session when our character themes were revealed on our entrances and my spirits bard/long death monk character's theme was.... not very cool. (Think Kevin MacLeod's Fluffing a Duck) To specify, not all character themes are like this -- the paladin this campaign has a cool organ/electric guitar thing and they're usually more on the dramatic or rock sides. I feel bad bringing this up because I know she works hard on making music for us and I'm grateful for that work. But I also feel like my power/influence is lessened by this comedic music (and my character's backstory is more serious/dramatic so I don't THINK I implied in character creation that I'm very silly.) Justices, I beseech you: Would it be wrong for me to approach the DM asking to get different theme music? Or bringing a royalty free example of my own to use instead? Or should I let her have creative license and settle for being the comedic relief of my first PC campaign? I humbly wait for your verdict, o just and wise ones (and the bailiff can have thoughts too, I guess)

Grace M

If it may please the church of Dice Christ, I have a confession. I have committed the sin of fudged constitution saves, and await your potential punishment. For important context, I am in love with my dungeon master, but he doesn’t know. He’s been DMing for us for about two years, and I’ve had a huge crush on him the whole time: he’s incredibly sweet and smart and creative. Lately, inspired by NADDPOD, he’s been trying to create combat encounters that are more creative and don’t feel like a slog to get through. In this last fight, he had a mechanic where we had to roll constitution saves as a lair action, and if we did, we took some kind of mutation as rolled on a table with a d100. Every person in the party was succeeding all of their con saves (extremely good rolls), and I could see he was getting nervous that he wouldn’t get to use this creative new mechanic. So, just to see him light up, I said that I’d gotten a 5 on my save when I’d gotten a 15, and did so again with a later constitution roll. My character did die because of it, but he was so excited to use his mechanics that I don’t regret the loss. Was the loss of my character enough of an absolution of this sin of ignoring Dice Christ’s rolls, or should I face further punishment? I await your ordinance.

Michael Beck

To the judges of inestimable wisdom, and the powerful bailiff of ill repute, I bring the case of "Rampant Old Man Adoption". I ran a Curse of Strahd game a few years back, and in my version there was an old man who was sabotaging efforts by the town of Vallaki because he believed Strahd would win and capitulating was the only safe choice. Once the party found this out they ended up beating him up, and handing him off to the Wereravens to keep an eye on. This happened in some fashion or the other 4 more times, because rather than kill them the players felt bad and wanted to keep adopting all the weird old dudes that tried to fight them. Eventually I had to have the Wereravens tell them that they couldn't hold anymore old men in their basement in order to stop my players from backtracking to drop off every weird old man they fought. It all worked out ok but my players were sad that they could no longer "adopt" old men that were trying to kill them. Was I right to put a stop to it, or should I have let them have their harem anime moment?

Denatonia (Haven)

Dearest priestess and clerics of the Church, I come seeking the comfort of Dice Christ. Recently, after it came out that I had a crush on a fellow player, I was kicked out of my friendship group and our multiple 3+ year campaigns with little discussion or warning. I enter the church now with no friends in my town, grieving both them and the three beloved characters I played in our campaigns. I was so excited to tell their stories, and now I am sitting on dozens of pages of abandoned in-character diaries and hand-drawn art. D&D used to be 8h every weekend, now I haven't played in months. I ask you, at soon to be 29, do I have any chance still of finding new friends and new games? I really struggle to meet new people. I loved these guys and thought we'd play together until we were in our 70s. Any words of comfort from DC himself? 💔