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

D&D Court: Bonus Cases - The Sandler Situation (Patreon)

Published:
2026-04-10 22:09:02
Imported:
2026-04
Tags:

Downloads

Content

Dungeon Court is STILL in session! Join Justices Murphy, Axford, Tanner and the Freshly-Picked Bailiff Hurwitz as they pass judgement on your trials at the table!

CREDITS:

Sound Mixing and Editing by Trevor Lyon

Dungeon Court Theme Song by Sam Weiller

Files

Comments

thequeercat

Listening on the way to the showwwww

Sam

crazy that adam sandler guests on this ep

Mnixon

Back2back

Tiffany

one day!

Morgan

literally dropped while across the street

Panner_Samuel

Posting this while I’m waiting in line for the show is crazy

Max

i have really beef with adam sandler, is this gonna be a tough listen?

Tyler Harper

listening to this on the train on the way to Radio City!

jackalope503

Emily apple tier ranking when?

Dr. Hollis Rangoon

I literally just ate a Cosmic Crisp apple today... spooky

Garbo Embargo

Cosmic Crisp and Royal Red Honeycrisp are tops

Zoop

Was this also a great post?

Patch

My favorite apple is Empire, they taste like candy to me

Jonathan

Cosmic crisp is a newer Apple, heard about it from a different podcast a couple years ago

Kellyd

Not nearly enough info for the first case to say it "doesn't sound" like the submitter is leaving out context of being awful to play with lmao it ABSOLUTELY sounds like that please leave those poor coworkers alone you're making them hate your wife I PROMISE

Travis Bliss

Maybe that lady has an extremely sick child that loves sudoku 😔❤️

PorkRocket

Internet case is 100% a scam

Beau R.

Coming from Washington the capital of apples I think that galas are great but honey crisps are a good standard apple and pink lady’s are so peak. Also the fact that people don’t refrigerate the apples made me surprised lmao.

Vee

OMG I SECOND THIS 😭 APPLE REVIEW

Austin Beasley

Omg!! Cosmic crisps are amazing, i just bought two trees for my garden!

A.J. Schlesinger

Listening to this and Feychella at the same time, the way god intend

A. Lee. S

Honey crisp from BC are my favourite. Very important discussion.

Luke B

Same!

Casey T

Listening while sitting in Radio City waiting for the show to start!

Darvit

Pink Lady Apples from BC are truely the queen of apples

Alex H

Regulation?

Jonathan

Yes!, never expected a comment leaver in the naddpoles

Marissa Ho

Fully agreed that cosmic crisps are the best apples. I will die on this hill and I hope a cosmic crisp tree is planted over my dead body

Jake de Medeiros

Anyone else think the hosts all know the submissions are fake and just don’t wanna stop milking this cash cow? Lolll

Stig

Sudoku case: I don't like this language around "you could have done XYZ" GM being held to a standard of "if you're not doing every part of the job at a high level, that's illegal in the eyes of this court." Meanwhile there's no expectation for adult players to share their feelings with the GM above table productively or -- if their feelings aren't that strong or they're not mature or comfortable enough to do so -- ASK in character if there's any way around the puzzle.

Victoria Root

Sudoku is not math. I hate math & I am terrible at it. Sudoku is a logic puzzle. You can literally substitute pretty much anything for the numbers, like colors, and have the same puzzle. I play sudoku to help me fall asleep.

AgedGouda

What makes you say the submissions are fake? I’ve seen this sentiment before, where is this coming from?

Caitlin C.

There’s no math in Sudoku; it’s just put one of each number in each box/row/column. plus the DM replaced the numbers with orc symbols so they weren’t getting scared off by numbers. I get them not wanting to do a whole sudoku in the middle of the game though.

CritterMama

Wait. Sudoku is about math? I suppose, yes. You could do it that way. But for me, Sudoku is about patterns. I don’t do any math when I do a sudoku puzzle. Each line across, each line down, each individual box can only have one occurrence of the numbers one through nine. Each vertical column of three squares will have three occurrences of each number, but never in the same vertical row. Same horizontally. I thought everyone did it this way. Am I wrong? The math is all going to be the same anyway.

Vice Admiral Drew Peacock

Felt this way in the last episode with the DM not seeing shambling mounds having lighting absorption until right before a player hit it with lightning. I’m not a DM, but I know a ton of planing goes into it (around work and other responsibilities) and you’re keeping track of a ton of things as the game progresses. The game doesn’t happen without the DMs and we as players need to be grateful for the work they put in. Also they deserve to have fun/enjoy the game they are running as well. Thanks for coming to my ted talk, I’ll get off my soap box now. Still love the show!

Jake de Medeiros

Pattern recognition. Early on in D&D court the questions were more focused about the rules, and every now and then there was a “crazy” social situation question that got big reactions. Now, that’s the majority of it is. In the free episode, the hosts were literally riffing about how the submissions always escalate. People use the submission thread as a creative writing thread- and it just reeks of cringe Reddit vibes rather than genuine stories. It’s a common sentiment because it’s true, catch uppp

AgedGouda

I actually watched Click with my partner only because it’s mentioned so often on this pod. It was surprisingly good, minus the staggering amount of racial stereotypes. Otherwise not a terrible movie lol

K. Diane

Thanks for the advice 🥹 guess I’m off to Vancouver this summer to try to sneak on set of Grown Ups 3

Eva Vasileiadou

There is absolutely NO MATH in Sudoku XD

Mortimer Lunch

“I’ve gotten really into apples” is real Mr. Toad energy

Mortimer Lunch

Mathematics is fundamentally about pattern recognition, so yes, it is! Even with replacing the numbers you’re still counting. Math sucks, but it’s everywhere.

Parma Jorts

As a Washingtonian I must recommend that Emily gets her hands on an Esopus Spitzenburg. It’s my favorite apple variety by far. A complex balance of sweet and tart with a decent crunch. Love them so much that I’ve planted multiple trees in my backyard

Alex Morris

I think the guy with the sudoku really explained it well by saying that like the numbers were replaced by symbols because it's not math like the numbers legitimately are symbols. There could only be one of that type of symbol in the square and one in the line that it's in so none of them can repeat in the same square and none of them can repeat in the same line and so it's legitimately a puzzle of like having to push them in the right direction. no math. maybe hilariously he can suggest they replace the orcish symbols with numbers!

Michelle

Lady Alice Apples are my new favorite variety, they taste like vanilla and almond and spices and are sooo crispy

Ian

I think it just doesnt matter lol. I mean they can never verify a story and it would be weird to try and make people “prove” stuff. Its literally an improv comedy podcast overall so like lying and making things up for jokes is kind of the point anyway

Autumn Lanoye

unreal that no one has mentioned SweeTango; best apple no contest

Chazaqiel

My assumption is that the DM asking for money actually just wants the player to leave the group, but they are being indirect about it.

Renee Wild

I’m a Fiji girl. They’re sweet, juicy, and crispy, what more could you want?

Renee Wild

Mixed Bag: Apple Sommeliers ??

Ghost Ketchup

I mean dnd is inherently a social situation so a lot of the cases are going to be about social situations and if you play a lot of dnd your gonna encounter social faux pas As for the cases being fake; there's not a lot the crit court can do about it they can't know 100% if someone writing in is lying. They can only choose the cases that seem fun to them which seems to be the social one rn

Cheese of the Lake

Omg cortlands effing SLAP. They were my pregnancy craving. I am not an apple person, they’re ok I guess, but when I was pregnant I craved only specifically cortland apples. The only other apple I’ve really truly enjoyed is a special golden yellow apple from a local farm that was bread specifically for apple cider mills. But at the farmers market they were selling them and they were so so crisp and juicy and had a depth of flavor I’ve never before tasted in an apple

Jo Wright

The sudoku read was so ungenerous :(

Nathan Sundstedt

Hall of fame episode from Axford. Loved the cosmic crisp shout out

Marc Bollinger

Trying to establish a DnD table protection racket on the person who is moving to Chicago is certainly on-theme

Maddie Gombis

Hey…if your love language is “annoying your wife”, you are not a husband, you are a little brother and you deserve a controlling older sister treatment.

Maddie Gombis

Idk it seems like you’re assuming the truth of their intent is to milk the cash cow and that feels like a disingenuous assumption to make when other things could be true. If your opinion is that they’re only doing it for the money, I would think that’s an opportunity to assess whether you want to keep paying for this content, not condescend to people who enjoy the content like everyone else is missing something special you’re seeing.

Michelle Muzny

Yeah this was my thought as well- it’s a logic puzzle, not math. The numbers just kind of act as symbols so replacing them with other symbols doesn’t change the puzzle except maybe to make it less recognizable.

Tyler Wilson

I audibly gasped when Emily brought up cosmic crisp apples. I’ve never heard someone else talk about them but they are legitimately the most apple tasting apple there is

zoe cosplayed moonshine!

listening to this after the show while eating mozzarella sticks in my moonshine cosplay. yall are the best.

SweetBabyJ

I’m only on the first case so far but submitter bias seems to be firing on all cylinders today eh lol

Emma

I am genuinely playing a sudoku puzzle while listening to this episode! and I regularly play sudoku puzzles while listening to naddpod haha

Bubble-gun 🔫💖

Can we please get a dark souls Halloweentown campaign for Halloween this year?? Plzplzplz

Andreas Hedström

The edgelord DM might be in love with the wife. This behaviour is sus.

Kaidan C

Honestly, I could have done with more apple talk. I enjoyed that opener immensely Also I’m shaking my head and laughing that a simple game where you count from 1 to 9 has baffled all of you, along with the adults from the submission. Judging by the comments, we the people demand a mistrial

Kaidan C

That one actually made sense to me. The DM didn’t read the stat block, they didn’t read the lore. Yet they opted to use it in a way that was deflating for the player when they didn’t have to. In this case, they come down really hard on the DM for bringing a symbol puzzle to the table. In another case they’d laud that kind of effort. But the players weren’t into it therefore it’s bad? They also said the DM should’ve pivoted, which they did… idk it’s just weird because normally putting a lot of thought into a creative puzzle would be celebrated, but here it’s compared to pausing the game to play Magick the gathering

Kaidan C

Really? I don’t get that vibe at all. If I’m making baseless assessments, mine would be that they’re bored of d&d court and want to be doing other things, hence new conceptual episodes and types of shows… but it’s popular and easy to produce so they keep making it Does that equate to milking to you? Do you forget this is their job?

Steph

I’m so shocked none of them have done a sudoku??

BT Bishop

"I can't guarantee you a spot" yeah you can you're the DM, what the fuck are you talking about

Pip

Personally I would always go with sudoku over some kind of word based puzzle like a riddle. Love logic puzzles, I really struggled with anything word association related. Also sudoku with orckish symbols seems like a cool way of theming your puzzle! Solving it with game mechanics if your PC passes a check you could fill in all of one of the symbols… although I understand that wouldn’t work at the submitters table. I also use to hang out with my granny as a kid and do sudoku and crossword puzzles together and the sudoku was a lot of fun! It doesn’t have to be done solo… I feel like sudoku gets a bad rap because a grid of number can feel overwhelming to people without context.

Pip

Same lol! Having my morning coffee, doing a sudoku and listening to dungeon court :)

Pip

Oh another way to try and make it less overwhelming would still be keeping the symbol theming but also give each symbol a colour.

Tuesday Hernandez

am i misunderstanding the edgelord DM and paladin story? i thought the paladin passed the check to be influenced and was trying to “let it happen” as in not be saved by the BBEG and got stolen anyway?

Jay

I genuinely got a bit indignant at the sudoku part lol I love sudokus and get intimidated by the simplest math questions, so I can attest to the fact that you don't have to do math (unless you're saying it in the way that all logic puzzles are math, but it sounded like you think you have to do calculations for sudoku), numbers are just very recognizable symbols, but like the DM did, you can just as easily take 9 different symbols Sudokus are fun v.v

Mr. Dude Sky

I was stoked when I heard the cosmic crisp has made it to NADDPOD. The regulation apple spreads! You can’t go to dark souls Halloween town and accept Patches help! You know he’s going to kick you down a pit to be eaten by monsters! The sudokus are such a simple puzzle. The reaction is insane, are these people actual adults? There’s like no math at all it’s all about patterns and numbers sequences. I’m baffled. I demand a mistrial!

Luke Thomasser

I need more edge lord appatizer Murphy

Tabitha D

losing my mind at my phone there is NO math in sudoku you could do it with nine unique shapes, or A-I

Luc Lockhart

Sudokus, even easy ones can seem overwhelming if you aren't familiar with how to solve them.

itamar mendelson

My theory on the wireless package case - since the submitter is the only one calling in and the rest are meeting face to face, could it be that having a remote player is making things feel less smooth and organic? Maybe the rest of the group is not enjoying it. And maybe the DM feels bad about telling the remote player that they’re not welcome anymore so he came up with this insane scenario, designed to make the player be the one who says they can’t participate (because they don’t want to spend the money). Still weird the part about not saving their seat for them. I don’t know maybe it is a scam. Or maybe the DM has an issue with the player and is just insane about how to cut ties. Also I’m anticipating a sudoku mixed bag now

Miles Henry

I gotta say, the players in the sudoku story are weenies, unless something is being left out

deranged pigeon

even if it was an easy sudoku, replacing all the numbers with made up symbols would make it basically unrecognizable, i do sudokus all the time but i think i would feel crazy out of my depth if that had been placed in front of me with no explanation

Alex Scalia

Hey I’m the first case. My wife and I razz each other all the time. It’s not that deep.

mkapples

The number of times I've yelled "sudoku is not math!!!" while listening to this 😆😵‍💫

Taylor

Pink lady is my favorite appl!

Stig

Yeah, it's not MTG and its not chess. Honestly, felt like WotC behavior to demand so much of the GM and that's sad to see.

Erica B

Sudoku has NOTHING to do with math!! lol total mistrial

Kellyd

But what does that have to do with the d&d campaign where you play with other people who aren't your wife???? Unless you're also in relationships with them where being sucky to each other is also the dynamic there it's just not relevant and is bad table behavior

Benjamin Bulgrien

Idk I would consider a logic puzzle math. I feel like we went over logic in Geometry or Trig

Alex Scalia

I passed the checks and then told the DM to let it happen when the battle was ending. I thought my characters true nature would be revealed and the session would end on a cliff hanger. I guess it still did lol

Alex Scalia

I promise that wasn’t the case. I used the term edgelord loosely based on the fact that he was a double agent. He was just a normal dude, not brooding or rude or anything. I was just trying to get my hands on something the party had. This whole group is now good friends.

Patrick B

A crucial part of the sudoku case is whether the DM said “this is sudoku with orc symbols.” If it wasn’t made crystal clear that the puzzle was sudoku then I understand the player riot way more

Alex Scalia

Thank ya for picking my paladin case! I would’ve put more information but it was my first time submitting and wasn’t sure how much to write.

clerby

listening post radio critty like this 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

Erica B

Maybe if you're getting into proofs or something, I suppose. But when people say they are bad at math, they usually mean multiplication, division, square roots, etc. Not "this column can only have one of each symbol, and so since it already has this particular symbol, then it means that particular symbol can't go anywhere else in that column."

Arillusine

That was my thought as well, just give the players a different way to progress the sudoku puzzle when blocked, essentially like a hint button. Eg burn a spell slot into the puzzle or do x amount of damage and a row/column/square gets filled.

Tommy Self

Old people not knowing about sudoku… not on my bingo card!

Arillusine

I feel like if you’ve never played sudoku before, it could feel kind of overwhelming to have to do one on the spot in the middle of a game. If you’ve never done one and don’t know how it works, getting an explanation could slow the pacing of the game way down, though this feels a lot like a know your audience type of issue. Some tables would eat that up and ask for seconds. Some tables…not why they got into playing dnd.

Louis

You dont have to listen or support. You sound like someone just trying to be smart. Go learn a real skill and maybe investigate actual criminals instead of trying to "gotcha" comedians. Feel free to leave this community.

Jake de Medeiros

Louis why are you so defensive 🤣 I’ve listened since day one I’ll continue thank you very much. The shows been around for 8 fuckin years man, there’s ups and downs, it’s okay to have nuanced opinions about the things you like

Aspen

Jake is speaking the truth! some apples are too damn big! I value a recommendation for a manageable sized apple!

Helencopter

SAME, truly just vibrating with the need to reach through space and time and explain this

Ryan Coyle

THIS! Such condescension to say it’s for children when you replaced the numbers with presumably hand-drawn orc symbols no one’s ever seen before. Appeal for double jeopardy punishment: DM must complete a sudoku with 9 Japanese characters and the border is filled with softly drawn chibi bunnies.

Brina Rosenberg

With the puzzle story, our dnd group did a series of tanagrams (the puzzle with all the shapes to make a different shape, usually an animal), and it took us an hour. The next week, we were given a tetris style puzzle that took us almost 2 hours

Johnathan Gierard

I really need them to play the Dark Souls Halloween Town one shot

clerby

as someone currently desperately searching for PA jobs- that is a fate worse than death. film job market is non existent 😭😭

Benjamin Korynta

Ill swear on my life that apples taste better outside

Parma Jun

So I love Sudoku but I sympathise with the players. Doing it with symbols would do my head in. BUT if you still wanted them to try at the puzzle, you could have let people roll Intelligence or History or just a luck check. On a high roll you fill in and highlight every instance of the symbol corresponding to 9, or fill in a whole box/line for them. On a lower roll, only some of them. Something like that. I feel like there's gotta be a way to make it fun and teach them easy Sudoku!

Raul Ramos

I flippin love dungeon court!

Matt Gustavson

In my opinion I think you can get around the symbols, if they know it’s sudoku they could just assign each symbol a number and redraw the board, it’s a little tedious but the symbols aren’t an intense roadblock

deranged pigeon

sure but from the way it sounds i dont think they were told it was sudoku!

Dan Cochran

Cosmic crisp is so elite

aMeanSquirrel

Bold to hear "don't have a game in a game" from the creator of Eladrin Dragon Giant Chess

Kat

I literally would love to play that orc sudoku, am I weird?

Ryan Coyle

Fair point, but then what’s the point of the symbols? Creates a lot of busy work and results in a horrific reveal when you pull out those papers. All for a little immersion? A regular sudoku would’ve been fine imo.

Maddie Gombis

I am certain it isn’t that deep, that’s my husband’s love language, too and he is fully resigned to the fact that if he wants to bring the little brother energy, he’s going to get razzed in return in the way only an older sister can deliver!

King of the City Pigeons

At this point for the court to rule in favor of a DM a player needs to take a dump on the floor in the middle of the session. They ruled against a DM for just playing a monster rules as written and ruled against a DM who tried a basic puzzle and multiple adults, all seemingly with advanced degrees, freaked out.

Daniel B

Honey crisp is king! I am a convert and can't go back to anything else. Cosmic crisp is a far second place when I can't find the best.

Crystal T

I have multiple people in my life who freak the fuck out when presented with anything with numbers or "math". Even if you then reassure them there is no math, they are already traumatized and have put up a mental barrier to engaging with it. It's very frustrating, especially with my sister. I think her extremely negative attitude towards math heavily biased her kids against it as well.

Josh Marshall

Cosmic is the best by a way long shot

Sam s

my math teacher called me dumb in front of the whole class junior year

panpolypuff

Agreed! Just discovered them after moving back to WA and found out they were developed at a university here!

ElfGBT

Is it me or have they been really ruling against DMs lately?? The DM was wrong for doing a basic puzzle? 😂 How are we not ruling against the grown adults losing their shit over a puzzle, in the game that they know involves puzzles? Idk to me this is like getting mad that you had a hard combat. Sometimes parts of the game kick your ass a bit and you gotta laugh and keep going.

Benjamin Korynta

Right?! You never combine or change numbers its just a puzzle that uses numbers

uh

YES I LUUUUUUV COSMIC CRISP

zarratm

There is no math in sudoko!! This is a mistrial!! It’s not a difficult puzzle and CRYING AND RIOTING over a puzzle is nuts

Becca_rebaker

Jake recommending a Cortland apple is such a New England recommendation 😂 I was going to say McIntosh. Both i feel like are only on the East Coast.

Curby Dickens

Cosmic crisp and lemonade apples are the top tier apples

shysign23

Sounds like they need to forge documents (birth and or marriage certificate) to make Murph actually a Sandler 🤷🏻‍♀️

Brightems

yeah, maybe just explain how sudoku works and get them started, and you could put it on one big paper so everyone can work on the same one

Emmy

As someone from Washington, apple country, might I suggest an opal! By far my favorite apple!

Charlie Morris

I think it’s a bit harsh to blame the dm for the sudoku. I get that it can be hard but the players freaking out and crying is a crazy overreaction. I think their pivot was a great idea especially cause it involves rolls

Walker Thurman

Cosmic crisp is the only apple my mother can eat, she’s allergic to other ones. They’re great! Iirc they were developed specially to resist browning and bruising because people are less likely to eat less pretty apples, so it reduces food waste!

Walker Thurman

I’m gonna say it: sudoku guy needs new friends. Maybe I have a skewed perception because I HAVE been doing them since I was a child but like. Imagine a 50-year-old crying over checkers.

Walker Thurman

Sudoku guy removed any semblance to math, he replaced the characters. It is JUST a logic puzzle.

Wiley Cyrus

YES Cosmic Crisp all the way!!

Walker Thurman

I think it’s really funny that they were like “it was a good pivot!” To the DM whose pivot was “you’re asleep now”

William Blankenship

I love that there are 2 kinds of comments on this post “Sudoku isn’t math. Justice for the DM” and “OH HECK YEAH BABY LOVE ME SO APPLES” 🍎🍎

Kingzley Sparkman

Don't let numbers scare you folks. America has a bad phobia of numbers. Also, you can do it as a team! D&D court's first mistrial maybe?

Madeline

Apple tasting episode like the energy drinks sounds fun. I agree apples just on the counter? Mid. Fridge apples? Different universe.

Sam

I have to say asking players with multiple postgraduate degrees to solve a simple sudoku is not hard and nothing out of the ordinary. There are lots of DM guides that include sudoku puzzles. It's hardly math, and these players were sensitive as hell hahaha

Shane Murphy

Pink Lady Apples, cold in the fridge, cut into wedges. Yoghurt and honey if you need

Sam

To be fair if you knew it was a sudoku then the figures just become redundant and you know how to solve it

Husdogrob

The problem with the sudoku thing was translating it into a different language that is a layer of complexity that throws people off and it is compounded by a perceived time limit of the dnd session in-game puzzle

Gearbox

Sudoku ruling is absolutely wild. Imagine preparing *anything* as a dm, two players taking a look at it, and immediately saying "nah I'm not doing this". That's incredibly rude.

Luke B

Personally submitted real stories if that says anything. At least some are probably true.

JK Atula

Rip Boarhide DM Shoulda just met an extremely arbitrary secondary effect clause. "You see a boar with chipped tusks tap it's hoof. Roll a charisma check"

Colin Kilzer

Hmm see I feel like if there were 9 symbols and they don’t repeat in a line, Id figure it out pretty quick

jens_defender

Well, now we need a Mixed Bag of apple tasting.

Jake de Medeiros

Lol listen to Jake’s podcast “the goat show” he did an apple tasting episode with his brother and wife

jens_defender

That's awesome. Now we need a two crew sequel!

Alex Scalia

Trust me, I did not exhibit toxic table behaviors. The party had something I was trying to get. I was trying to use a loose interpretation of the word EdgeLord. I wasn’t broody or rude to anyone in the party. My wife wanted me to play and I thought it would be funny to mess with my wife and be a double agent.

Tim G

I order the court to do a goddamn sudoku puzzle to see how easy the children ones are. SO ORDERED!

mr.marmalot

yes, sudoku is not math. HOWEVER, if the players were as unfamiliar with sudoku as our benevolent judges, they might have come to the same conclusion: this is a math puzzle. This would result in the same embarrassment that judge Axford spoke to. But I don’t think that was the real issue here. As a die hard sudoku player (any other cracking the cryptic fans here?), if I was given a 9x9 grid with symbols that I don’t understand and told to solve the puzzle, I don’t even know that I would assume it was sudoku. My read is that emotions were already high because several members of the party were moving away. I think any other time would be ok for a puzzle, but this session should have been for call backs and battles and letting everyone hack and slash and roleplay through their feelings. It should be a celebration of their friendship and campaign. But a little bit of embarrassment can slice through all those big feelings and lead to the players reactions. Also, the DM was moving away internationally, so likely feeling a different kind of way than their party. I think there are no villains here but that the party needed some above table and below table closure, which was threatened by the puzzle. Big reactions to little things mean big feelings are at play.

Parma Jun

Really depends on how similar the symbols look in this case and how your brain's wired to parse them, I think.

YugiMoto

Theres literally 0 math involved at all, the numbers are just placeholders. You can swap them with ANY 9 different symbols (which the DM did)

Christopher Martin-Givens

Yeah if it involved math they couldn't have swapped to orcish characters. No math at all!!

Shibbster

Also hilarious that the entire 2 Crew has no idea how to do them lol what are the chances none of them have done one either

Sam

That's fair, but also, you can literally do the "easy" sudoku by the New York Times in less than 4 minutes. I can't imagine a sudoku for kids being more difficult than that

Sam

I think the thing I didn't like about the mound ruling was that the I doubt the DM knew that the druid was going to pick call lightning and then picked a monster that was immune to it lol. He didn't do it out of malice lol the DM made a monster for his party to fight and missed that it was lightning immune, why do DMs have to be perfect all the times while players can go round and be babies haha

Kelly Gilbert

I am also a recent Cosmic Crisp fan, Emily!! I love them!

Verdigree

I feel like being evil on purpose in the present and then EXPECTING to definitely away with it with a redemption arc is like trying to buy a papal indulgence then commit a crime, and your DM turned out not to be a corrupt pope, but a scolding pope

Verdigree

You can't just change a numbers puzzle to letters, and DEFINITELY not fantasy alphabet only you know, that's LITERALLY what alchemists did to ensure NO ONE could ever decode their formulas and spells, you CANNOT solve a Sudoku puzzle like that, you can't demand anyone to think "Ah ha, d+e=i", if I figured out what the puzzle actually was based on, I still wouldn't be able to solve it and I would be so mad

Hoid

I also immediately was like “yeah I’ve seen them for sure, no idea how they work. I think maths involved”😭😂

Hoid

I would love to know how that first cases game is going now and if other pc’s have made new characters 😂

Little Cheese Confettis

I enjoy sudoku and as others said, it’s not math, it’s more like organizing a collection. And so I think what the biggest thing that could make this hard is how complex and/or similar looking the Orcish runes were. You’re trying to organize this collection of unfamiliar symbols and the organization has to work on 3 levels instead of 1 level. Anyone who struggles with “find the difference”-type puzzles are really gonna struggle in this.

Sam

Hahaha for sure but if your DM said you need to solve so only one symbol/number appears once on each column or row then you'd be sweet

Little Cheese Confettis

Case submitters please never stop the “If it matters, this person is my partner” reveals at the end (only if its true ofc) because it makes me laugh every time

sarb!

COSMIC CRISP SUPERIORITY 🍎

Cody Zimmer

Cosmic Crisp is where it's at.

Fraser Hird

My issue with the sudoku submission is that the DM absolutely did not get a sudoku for “babies”. The submission said “replaced the 1s and the 2s and so on”. That sound like more than a 3x3 grid. If you had 9 symbols, then you were doing a beginner adult sudoku. “Babies” would maybe be able to do a 3x3 if they had practice.

Jackson Hurley

Don the little brother gloves and pull the most little brother move of all: Telling Mum. I lost the metaphor along the way but I guess that's the DM in this case (Dungeon Mum/Mom)

Connor

Boo Cortland apples boo

drmimms

This is a generous read that I can totally get behind. I do a sudoku like every day, but if I were faced with a similar symbol grid, I wouldn't assume it was sudoku or worked the same. And unfamiliar symbols would make the puzzle harder than numbers. Also, yes -- if people are moving, emotions are running high!

drmimms

As a sudoku lover and frequent DM, I'm gonna have to *agree* with the justices' ruling here on that case. I once had my players do a very simple slide puzzle for children, and it was a huge flop -- they were all very smart people but wanted to play D&D, not solve a child's slide puzzle, and being confronted with an unexpected real-life puzzle made it way harder than it would've been if they'd picked it up themselves outside the game. And that was valid! It sucked the energy out of the session until I said they could roll for it. They all rolled badly, so I said the PCs took an hour to solve it (I should've, as the justices mentioned as a possibility, honored the fails and had a little monster pop out for them to fight, but alas) and moved the session along (whereupon our normal energy was somewhat restored, lol). Real life puzzles are risky unless you tell people ahead of time and they're down for it, and you should build in in-game mechanics like a failure timer and mini-battle and alterations solves.

oh! its vee! this isnt the last youve seen of me!!

Sudoku is literally just pattern recognition and can be so so easy. Such an ungenerous read there and I can't believe people are so fixated on numbers = math. My favorite version of sudoku is just biomes. So many ways to solve a sudoku puzzle. Why are we crying over it?

Melissa Shilale

I too have never done sudoku and too believe it’s secret math. I stand by the court.

tori

LOLing at the way the sudoku submission became the controversial case

tori

also thank you murph because i also groaned out loud at “my love language is annoying my wife 🤪” like i think u need to pick up rosetta stone or duolingo or something and learn a new one because yikes

Niko R.

Sudoku DM may have lost the case, but they win Trial by Comments.

AgedGouda

I mean there can only be so many rule focused cases. There’s only so many rules to the game. Plus usually there’s a quick, definitive answer and they have nothing to talk about. Social situations are more interesting and probably more numerous.

AgedGouda

lol good point. When I go to my 9-5 every day I guess I’m milking the cash cow in OPs perspective 🤣 shame on me (replying to Kaidan C)

CSN

Sudoku could be done with colors or sounds or smells or tastes or textures instead of symbols of any type, nevermind "math". Mmm, chocolate Sudoku... 💝

CSN

My love language is throwing rocks at girls I like at recess.

CSN

Probably not the ones intended for children. (The Sudoku, not child-sized apples.)

CSN

I've got bad news about D&D...

CSN

Unlike D&D, Sudoku doesn't even force you to add!

Raven

There is a gen z stitch product. I want to send a picture to the crew, how do I do that?

tori

The P.O. box

Raven

I can't really do that, I'm on another continent and it's not worth it

Gearbox

They're heavily biased against dms for some reason. Maybe because most submitters are players and they're biased towards submitters as well, but like 8/10 rulings are for the players.

Verdigree

You reminded me of something I haven't remembered in over 10 years, there was a window of time I think in high school where my belt was broken, and I DID use a bungee cord to hold my pants up until I got a new one, we happened to have one exactly the right length

RevilingNeptune

I think there's two things happening: 1. Sudoku isn't remotely math, so people are (rightly) annoyed about that characterization of it and 2. The justices are right in their ruling to generally not have other games in your game

BWubs

Sure, but what you wrote didn't sound particularly nuanced, you assumed the submissions are fake and then called it a cash cow...

Jaylin

This podcast has had a lot of dumb moments but the fact that all FOUR of them have never even grasped the concept of sudoku blew my mind. Emily repeatedly saying “math can be scary people don’t like math” THERES NO MATH. I think that submitter got an unfair ruling and should demand a retrial.

drmimms

Lol, yes. Agreed! I will say, before I started doing Sudoku, I also thought incorrectly that it was math and avoided it because of that (math trauma is real!). I think it's a fair assumption to look at a grid of numbers and think that it's math. But also, it isn't math! So it's fair to point that out.

Alex T.Patreon

Absolutely. I love the NADDPOD gang with all my heart, but hearing Murph call an easy-level Sudoku a 'worksheet' had me fuming lol

Jaylin

Right!! I adore them but this is my first time where it actually got me angry 😭 oh well

Jaylin

I’m sorry but there is NO MATH at all. Idk why people have been tricked into believing this. You do more math in D&D than you ever will in sudoku 😬

Dr. Eggman

Yes I thought the same thing! Though I think Emily is right that it could be reminiscent of math for people with math trauma

Dr. Eggman

You could post it online and use the #naddpod tag, though they may or may not use social media

Dr. Eggman

Yes, ironically DND is more math than sodoku 😂

Jaylin

But good doctor in the case submitted there weren’t any numbers! It was runes! So I agree in terms of a general reaction to sudoku, but in this specific case that shouldn’t apply!

Desiree

i love sudoku but even i would be perturbed with the introduction of unfamiliar orc symbols

theodor c

high crit, i am a young man of only eighteen and a sodoku fiend, and have done sodokus multiple times collaboratively and conversationally with my partner and with friends. i riot against the claims made by justice tanner!

Emily

I’m so happy for and jealous of youuuu 😭😭

Griffin H

Comment section is 75% sudoku defense and 25% apple variety recs - love it 😂. Pink Lady all the way 🍎

C.J. Smith

For the sake of their poor brains/bodies, instead of another Energy Drink Sommelier, can we get Apple Taste Test?

Obed Pacheco

Just throwing in my Fuji apple seed into the Apple-off ring

Kizzy

The book The Fruit Hunters by Adam Leith Gollner completely changed my world as it is a journalistic expose of the secret world of fruit that surrounds us - I highly recommend reading! Emily may probably love it

sjmokey

Empire apples are the best apple. Echoing “sudoku isn’t math” but the moment you swap the numbers for unfamiliar symbols, the children’s level sudoku puzzle is an actual challenge, even for someone familiar with the game. It’s definitely extra steps on top of solving the puzzle itself, which if no one at the table knows how to do then… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Everyone should give sudoku a try though! It’s another type of puzzle game - I’m shocked none of the judges have played even once before!

TisDrJ

When you play sudoku your brain recognizes the numbers easily because you’re super used to them. As soon as you switch that up the amount of information your brain has to process increases significantly. Also echoing sudoku isn’t math l lol That said the reaction does seem a bit much

Emz

Lol sudoku has caused the biggest uproar since dipspit 😂

Olivia M

THANK YOU I don't understand why people are saying the puzzle would be easy when there are non number symbols. As a fellow sudoku player I don't know if I could do it with symbols and not numbers, if I would even recognize it as sudoku

foxyfungi

Lol me sitting here doing sudoku while listening to Dungeon court. Then y'all start shitting all over sudoku 😭

jesus mora

Sudoku isn't math it's a logic puzzles xp

Byron Moore

Sugar bee apples are the best on the market

Eliana Lazzara

everyone correctly pointing out that sudoku has no math but can we also revisit the fact that the players all had like. advanced degrees in intellectual fields. they’ve surely seen sudoku before, but more importantly they were insane for pitching a fit and refusing to try or giving up quickly rather than asking for help. motion to declare a mistrial.

Danielle McGarrell

Do we know if the DM said it was Sudoku? I feel like looking at a grid with unknown symbols would overwhelm me, too. Even though I have played Sudoku, I am not sure I'd clock it. I think the answer would be to ask for a perception check and then be like, "You see an ancient script above the puzzle, spelling out s-u-d-o-k-u!"

Grass

Definitely best apple

jake the fighting fucker

Axford Try queen cox its a apple my family grows and it's my fave of all the apples on the farm

Goggalor

They turned to that, because otherwise their reactions are absurd. It's an "unreliable narrator" situation. For all we know the DM could've been getting really frustrated with the "children's puzzle" of it all. The final line of the submission shows some condescension.

Goggalor

Everyone's so mad Naddpod called Sudoku math, they're completely ignoring the fact doing it with made up Orcish symbols completely ruins the ease of the game. You are now having to memorize 9 never before seen shapes and apply them to the Sudoku puzzle structure. Also, never do other games/real puzzles inside DnD needs to be DM 101. That's not what we're here for. Let my high Int character much smarter then me roll to solve things!

Nathan L

Everyone in the comments is hyperfixating on “sUdOku iSnT mATh” when their whole take on the matter in this episode was still good, and the DM definitely deserved to be punished. Clearly the players didn’t like it and the DM didn’t go a good job at pivoting, you shouldn’t add a second game into D&D without explicitly making sure players are into that, and the DM didn’t have a way for the characters (not the players) to solve it through their abilities and features. Everyone is getting sidetracked by being upset about them not being familiar with sudoku, which is clouding judgement

Ninar Nuemah

That’s what’s getting me as well. It seems like a wild overreaction. To immediately riot and not even try or maybe suggest they do it with real numbers not the symbols or anything. (No shade to the woman who burst into tears, there’s something else going on there. And I’ve anxiety cried over less)

Hammy

Apple taste test for the next mixed bag?

Casey Wittner

“Sudoku isn’t math” aside (numbers = math for a lot a people, simple as), I struggle to think of a way to make sudoku fun as a GROUP activity, particularly if people aren’t into Sudoku in the first place. The game is mostly pattern recognition and tracking what you’ve already done, and what you’re keeping in your head. It seems like a really challenging thing to make collaboratively engaging… people either talking over one another and not knowing how each player is tracking things internally, or one person taking over, over people trying for a bit and taking turns. None of these sound particularly fun, unless everyone on the table was good at Sudoku and on the exact same wavelength. Add the additional challenge of swapping numbers with unfamiliar runes and it’s just a recipe for disaster imo. Crying might be an overreaction, but I could see it more if you’re thinking “this is how we’re spending this important, emotionally charged session?”

Goggalor

No, that's why it's very likely there's more to it and the submitter is just being condescending and leaving out anything to make them look bad. It's just speculation, but the reactions are all *too much*. I'm agreeing with that part.

EZ

Jake 100% has the right of this take I’m frequently full off 1 apple. Cortlands and macoun are great

Melaninja

Yeah, but that was fun and interactive and able to be done in character

AlbireoRising

"Sudoku is math" actually horseshoes around to become true if you think more about what math is. Sudoku do not involve *arithmetic*, but they do involve careful logic to prove many things from a small number of givens; pattern recognition; symmetries; deductive reasoning.... This is all math. And it explains why the Math Anxiety imposed by school systems follows people into sudoku.

Maya B

Fully agree, I honestly rly love this puzzle idea - they also make 4x4 and 6x6 grids which would probably make more sense when using orcish symbols and the DM might have done

Maya B

There are 4x4 and 6x6 sudoku grids for kids, we don’t know what OP did but I think that would be fun and not impossible with orcish symbols, especially if you have an advanced degree, come on

Ivo the Mad Sorcerer

The sudoku puzzle with symbols swapped in for the numbers is a puzzle I definitely did at least once as a kid (in... professor layton? dragonology? the mysterious benedict society puzzle book? the gravity falls 3rd journal? I'm can't remember) and even as a kid (albeit a kid enthusiastic about puzzles) it was totally doable. I agree finding a more exciting roleplay solution would probably have worked a lot better once the puzzle clearly didn't land, but I don't think this was at all a crazy puzzle to pitch to a group with two librarians.

Jessy Banninga

Came here to find someone else with the same experience 😅

Matt L

Honey crisp apples forever and in the fridge is so nice

AbsoluteCack

The reason the group broke down has nothing to do with the puzzle. This is a group of friends who have been playing DnD together for who knows how long where two of them are moving away permanently. It’s their last session and they won’t be able to play again any time soon if ever. Do you really want to spend that last session solving puzzles?

Davis

Did you guys really have to Google Sudoku lol? 2002 called, it’s confused because it thought you were boys but maybe not?

RebeccaC

Sudoku is not math!! And yes, I know all the comments are saying this as well But there wasn’t even any numbers in it! He replaced it with symbols! Also the sudoku for kids has sooo many numbers filled in. Or they aren’t 9x9

RebeccaC

That’s a good point

RebeccaC

Mis-trial for sudoku dm!

Ghost Ketchup

Late to the ep but ppl in the comment calling for a mistrial cause sudoku isn't math even tho Caldwell did look up the rules and then they just called it a worksheet from then on is funny. yall so upset about them not knowing a puzzle not everyone has ever touched that you didn't listen to the rest of the case (hard agree that it has worksheet energy) Also if you are given a sheet with all the symbols and the dm says it's sudoku if you've never played sudoku it won't matter if you have a phd or not lol. even worse if they weren't told what it was. Like, I wouldn't assume a random grid is sudoku

Featherweight

Whether it’s math, a logic puzzle or a gosh darn spelling bee is so irrelevant to that case. It’s about players suddenly feeling like they are hitting a IRL skill barrier to being allowed to play the game they came to play. It can get be a mood killer.

J. Gro (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-05 07:00 I also had a DM revoke an item after several months of use. It was some kind of shield that magically adapted to add to the AC of any wielder without being held. After several months, my DM told me that I started feeling sick, which was only relieved when I removed the shield - he said it had been sucking away my hp and that I had to get rid of it. In the shared case, the dms just thought it was OP and didn't want you to have it. Everything they said was just their way of taking away your cool item. 🫤
2026-05-27 10:22 I also had a DM revoke an item after several months of use. It was some kind of shield that magically adapted to add to the AC of any wielder without being held. After several months, my DM told me that I started feeling sick, which was only relieved when I removed the shield - he said it had been sucking away my hp and that I had to get rid of it. In the shared case, the DMs just thought it was OP and didn't want you to have it. Everything they said was just their way of taking away your cool item. 🫤

I also had a DM revoke an item after several months of use. It was some kind of shield that magically adapted to add to the AC of any wielder without being held. After several months, my DM told me that I started feeling sick, which was only relieved when I removed the shield - he said it had been sucking away my hp and that I had to get rid of it. In the shared case, the DMs just thought it was OP and didn't want you to have it. Everything they said was just their way of taking away your cool item. 🫤

Zoe the Purple

Shout out to Cosmic Crisp. She is a great choice of apple. My favourite, though, is a newer variety called First Kiss. She was developed at the University of Minnesota and is a September-October seasonal girl.

Kaidan C

Actually, I think that would make it easier. Then it’s just a matching game A game for even littler kids

Kaidan C

This is the only worthwhile comment here

Jourdan

So, a table full of college educated adults that all at least had masters degrees had full breakdowns from a dnd puzzle? That just seems like a bunch of adults that need to grow up.

xeladonnovan

re: ask for internet monies - my potentially hot take is that the ask/mention of not sure of a spot in 3 months is the way for the DM....maybe the players too (hopfully not! Not enough info) to get rid of the player subtly/weirdly instead of confrontation. I dont know for sure but that's where my mind went.

Loueve Vale

The Sudoku case: I think the players should have just been like 'can we solve this a different way?' Instead of lowkey throwing tantrums???

Claire

As someone who used to say I hated math until I grew up and realized math is actually very important and useful, I've always loved sudoku and I'm confident even a drunk adult should be able to do a kids' sudoku puzzle with minimal difficulty. Even though sudoku has no math, i also think people need to chill with their math hate! I'm convinced a lot of it is just an aversion to challenges that make you think for more than 3 seconds and comes from a fear of feeling stupid rather than curiosity to solve new puzzles. You don't hate math, you hate feeling confused.

A suspicious rat

definitely, you wouldn’t give a friend the ultimatum to pay up or leave