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 Submissions!!! (Patreon)

Published:
2026-10-08 03:08:36
Imported:
2026-10

Content

Greetings, ghoulish gamers! The Supreme Crit will be convening, and we want your juiciest, spookiest, disputiest tabletop drama! Please submit a BRIEF description of the fumbled ruling, regrettable social etiquette, feckless pc, or megalomaniacal dm that you and your crew STILL can't agree on to this day! As always, we are also seeking Confessions to Dice Christ , as this court irresponsibly entangled with the church. And heck, if you've got something juicy, in the board game or video game world, feel free to share. We all know Jake is an expert at video games.

Happy spooky season you crazy pumpkins,

Bailiff Emily

Comments

Dylan

May it please the court and the ultimate baliff, I bring you the case of the PCs who became NPCs. I was DMing an adventure in which my PCs could free the spirits of dead gods in exchange for power. The Lich NPC they were allies with warned them of the risk of possession, and two of them freed three each, and both failed the wisdom saving throws to not be possessed. I took control of their characters as NPCs, and they made temporary characters to help the rest of the party save the ones who were taken over. When they found them, I had made custom stat blocks with additional powers, and a boss fight against two former PCs began. After they were saved and exorcised of the dark gods, the two players were upset to see the abilities the Boss Fight version of their characters were using weren’t on their character sheets I handed back, and said I should give them those badass boss fight powers. I did not, and things went on as normal after this side quest, but it’s always tickled at the back of my mind. Should I have given them the powers their dark god-possessed characters had at one point? Thank you for your verdict, whatever it may be.

Scarlett B

To the most honoured and venerable justices of the Supreme Crit, and to the intelligent, talented, beautiful Baliff Emily. I've been in an online group for about 3 or 4 years now, and overall it's great. We're all friends and enjoy our games together. My issue is with one player in particular, who seems allergic to the concept of learning how the game works. It seems like the DM, whether it's me or the other regular DM, need to constantly explain elements of their character sheet or remind them of basic rules. Things like "how to work out your attack modifier," or "what your character’s hit dice are." I understand that some people can struggle with remembering details of the game, but I feel like it's been long enough that they really should have learnt by now. Is there a polite way to suggest that this player learn how the game works after over 3 years, or should I just accept having to teach them things over and over again? P.S. Justice Tanner- thank you for the pity laugh at my joke about burgers before the Sydney show.

Grinchard Nixon

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

Ross Gilliland

May it please the court and leave the bailiff feeling satisfied but not too satisfied maybe a little wet and/or greased up, I present to you the case of permanent disadvantage. One time I was playing an Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, mainly for the purpose of using the Ancestral Protectors subclass feature. In our first session, my friend who was playing a Cavalier Fighter discovered that their Unwavering Mark feature applies the same effect (disadvantage against everyone other than the PC that applies the mark). He then suggested that we use both of these features against a single enemy, ensuring that they have disadvantage on EVERYONE (ourselves included). Though the Ancestral Protectors feature doesn't use the language of "applying a mark", I tried to argue that though RAW that could work, it definitely shouldn't be allowed RAI. Ultimately, our first-time DM decided to allow it and we cheesed the final fight of the session so bad that we never played in that campaign again. O just and impartial court, how do you read and interpret these rules and mechanics? Should we have been allowed to carry out this campaign-killing whomp?

Feyza Craven

Dearest ghoulish judges and Hemp milk song rightful bailiff (gimme a hemp; milk) I was part of a longstanding group from highschool where we played for 8 some odd years. Justices, today I come to you about an incident that occured in our very first campaign way back in 2015 that has been dubbed the “wicker chair incident”. Our party which consisted of a human Warlord (played by myself), a thri-kreen rogue, and 3 other characters that I cannot recall were traversing through a cave to get to a dungeon, during this traversal we take a long rest in which one player describes himself as fashioning a wicker chair, a little weird but whatever. Another player at the table finds this so ridiculous that an hour long “combat” happens between the crafter and the offended party ultimately leading to our DM redlining the wicker chair and the group placing a ban on any further wicker based shenaniganery in our games. Justices and redacted, which player do you think is at fault PS: the player who found the chair so ridiculous later caused pocket knives to also be banned at the table 2nd PS: i played with the DM of this incident and the thri-kreen player for many future years but have since stopped because we all wantes different things as players.

Evan Roberts

Dearest high beloved court of well-respected judicators, and the sludge I stepped in on my way here named Jake. I bring the case of spontaneous chair creation. I’m the DM, and I was running a 1v1 trial by combat, using a modified Stone Giant, vs a monk/warlock Player. I set the scene by describing the well-appointed royal hall that the fight was to take place in, and we began. I had the giant use his “throw boulder” attack by chucking a chair at the monk, doing significant damage. Later, I had him make the same attack, nearly killing him, to which the Player exclaimed,”Where is he getting these chairs??” Apparently I had forgotten to describe the chairs in the setup of the room, and he was saying I shouldn’t have been able to throw chairs that he didn’t know existed. Should I not have created chairs out of nothing to throw at my player? To this day, the party jokes that the monk’s weakness is chairs, every time they see one.

feoran97

To the Ultimate Supreme Crit Justices, and the Baliff, I think their name is Tina, I bring the case of the one shot catapult. I am a long term player and DM (over 5 years) and I'm playing with a new DM and two new players (I'm a player in this campaign). The DM asks me regularly for advice, as he is new to the game and I have more experience. One of the new players (Banjo the tree frog wizard) was attempting to make ammo for the catapult spell by having the artificer make essentially shrapnel rounds that would burst into 6 projectiles upon impact. The problem was, he was trying to calculate the damage as 3D8 for each piece. This would make the damage 18D8 for a first level spell, and up to 66D8 damage for a 9th level spell. I argued that it would not splinter and split that damage, to which he brought up ballistic rounds for a firearm. I argued that the catapult spell propels something 90 ft in 6 seconds, or about 10 miles per hour, which wouldn't be fast enough to do the same kind of damage. His argument was that I was crushing his creativity and couldn't compete with my damage so was feeling left out in combat (I am a lvl 3 rogue and level 7 gunslinger inspired by deadeye). Am I wrong to get involved and save my new DM from setting a precedent that this was OK, or should I have just stayed out of it and let Banjo have his nuke? I humbly await your almighty wisdom and judgment.

Clever Innuendo

(It's still my birthday Jake, you can do me such a solid today!) To the Venerated Dice Elders, I present my confession, which stems from a moment where we *had* to take a Dragon down to prevent it from aiding the bad guys in the final battle. We were well spaced out to avoid breath attacks and got it to the brink.  However, realizing it was about to lose, 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, escaping to join the final fight. We had no attacks that could hit in that range. The Fighter was sure she could finish the fight on the next attack, 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 make it far enough.  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.  

Matt B

"Cleanup on aisle four" Hello esteemed Justices Murphy, Tanner, Hurwitz, ....and the benevolent Wife Worm. I write you today with a tale of why sometimes the best of friends make terrible adventurers, and seek your counsel on how best to navigate the murky waters of adulthood. My wife and I have been playing in a homebrew campaign with two friends we met at a choir group. The DM, let's call them... Gene, has graciously offered his own home, worked around our busy schedules, and has been excited to see us grow in our confidence as we've gone. The fourth wheel, a real Preston at the table, is excited so long as he's rolling dice. Ask him to add his attack bonus seven sessions in and he can't find it on his sheet. Ask him what his character thinks about the village we saved and Preston's got nothing. Preston has gone as far as to exclaim "I feel like people are excluding me" when he isn't paying attention during the less murder-hobo-ish parts of the campaign. Judges, how do we quietly quit Preston in our fantasy life without it ruining our real life?

Emma

dear judges (and the dearest baliff) I have a dark confession, that I darent tell anyone else. I believe that I am dice CURSED. On a level that rivals Judge Murphy himself, I consistently fail to roll above a ten in my semi-frequent dnd group for the past three years. it is okay!! I love having to roll with the punches, am obsessed with dnd, and I love to watch my other player friends shine! however…. I fear I may have passed on my curse to a whole table of brand new players. We brought three of our friends into our bimonthly dnd one-shot and I bequeathed onto them my extra sets of dice as they did not have any of their own. judges, the game that followed was simply horrific. our cleric rolled 3 natural ones in attempting to talk to three separate (an important!) NPCs our ranger didn’t hit a single time in a fairly combative campaign. … our bard said she was playing sudoku the whole time… (not related, but unfortunate) two out of the THREE brand new players, said that they’d likely never play again. personally, I still think we had our fun, but honestly? it was a tough crowd. i fear I have cursed three newbies and brought unluckiness to our dnd group?!! Is this divine retribution from Dice Christ? Should i exorcise my dice? How may I repent for bringing misfortune upon the DND table? I pray for absolvement and maybe a greater restoration!

Aloha Nani Simmer

Ahoy mateys and mayettes? And that one dude! And then I think there’s another? (Hi Emily teehee). I have not a trial but a tale… of my first time playing d&d. My ttrpg cherry popping if you will!!! (But you don’t have to! Consent is king!) I showed up, drove 45 min in the rain to play. I had a hard day. I did not know I needed to bring the character sheet. They did not tell me. I didn’t know I needed dice. They did not tell me. Amongst us was a former state senator. They did not tell me. I was extremely nervous and confused. I, At one point, tried to pick a lock with my fellow prison mate’s toe bone as he was an animated skeleton—completely not knowing I was playing a rogue. No one told me I had thieves tools as I did not know what the I was doing. I felt so stupid and struggled for 45 real minutes on this scene. The ex-senator at one point ended up yelling at me: “can you ask a single relevant question?” Needless to say I left unhappy and confused—knowing that probably wasn’t right, cried on the way home, and never played with them again. Amongst them was someone I thought was my friend, her boyfriend (now fiance), his roommate and the EX political figure. Don’t worry mateys. The story ends happily: for now I am a DM of a 2 year and counting homebrew 2024 campaign with 4 of my best goddamn friends in the world, my group of gonads (we go to a cabin for every NYE!!). And most importantly, I know now there are no irrelevant questions in d&d. Caldwell found them all. I beseech you to roast the absolute shit outta this EX-senator and dm who looking back automatically made the bard have huge tits. Huge red flag looking back. I’ll share the state if I remember. Love the pod rock on 🫶🤗

iaelanus

:) Greetings justices and the bestest bailiff! I am part of a fun table who’s been together for about 2 years. In total We’ve had 1 dm, and he has (tried) running 7 campaigns in total, not a single one making it past session 3, and most heinous of all making us make unique characters for them all. Most recently, he came up with an awesome Greek hero inspired campaign everyone was hype for, and we had one session of 4 hour character creation. Not only is this unjust, but blatantly a waste of our groups time. I’ve offered to dm multiple times, and even got a session of my own scheduled however it was canceled because he said “if I’m not dm’ing it won’t be at my place,” your honors I recieved a text last night saying “get ready new campaign in order! Make new characters!” Is it unjust for me to believe I should either be given the chance to dm for the group at a neutral location, or perhaps even play an arc of a campaign without making a new character? I humbly throw myself to the mercy of the court.

JesterTheCleric

To the deacons of dice christ, i come to you in my hour of need. I fear I have been maligned by our lord and savior. My girlfriend ran a duet (1 on 1) oneshot for me (inspired by a Mystic Arts video on YouTube). I usually prefer DMing, and during this game i discovered that duet games just arent for me. This is nothing against my girlfriend. The game was genuinely fun, but the play style i find fun is just not conducive to being the sole player. Regardless, dice christ seems to have forsaken me during this game. In a 3.5 hour session of around 30ish d20 rolls, I rolled 10 nat 1s, including one instance of 3 in a row at the very start, and another instance of 2 in a row later on. In addition, i rolled above a 10 maybe 5 times, and i never once crit. I kept switching dice and nothing helped. My girlfriend says this is my dice cursing me for me creating an npc to deal with so I wouldn't interact with a plot hook. In my defense, i had the main quest to go to a location already, there was also just a thing in the starting town she wanted me to interact with that my pc didnt feel the need to interact with and I found it funnier to make this sudden NPC for my pc to deal with instead. My girlfriend didnt find that funny, so we moved on with the game as intended. Has my preference to DM over playing made me lose favor with dice christ, or was my sudden creation of Jessica The Cafe Problem Customer NPC too far? I'll do whatever penance i have to to get back into his grace.

Tyler Goevert

To the justices living thicc as hell and twice as well, and the bailiff Jonk who I hope lands on his feet, I present to you the case of the Umprompted Prompt Slop. I have been playing in an online campaign with some lifelong friends for the past 8 years now, having done several modules and homebrew campaigns. It is currently my turn to DM, and we are several sessions into the first campaign in the homebrew world I’ve been working on since our group first started playing. Everyone has been really excited, but after the past couple of sessions our other DM has sent our group AI comics based on the events of the session. I have long been vocal about how much I hate gen AI and AI art in D&D. Nobody else appears to have a problem with it, even the other players who are also vocally anti-AI. Am I being too sensitive about having the world I’ve spent nearly a decade creating being fed into the slop farms, or is my anger valid? I await your human judgment.

Patch

May it please the court, my table loves flanking but I was not the one who introduced it and it's ruining my combats. Another DM who ran the table before me was the one who used the flanking rules, I joined late in a campaign he was running and I eventually became his DM when he decided to quit DMing and I adopted his table. As a player at the table he would bark instructions at the newer players to make them to take advantage on the flanking rules. I would eventually kick him out of the group, but now all the remaining players still love using the flank rules. I can never throw just one big monster at them or all 4 of them swarm it and always have advantage on their attacks. If I try to do theater of the mind for combats they will insist we use the battle mat. I dont want to be stuck always having fights with multiple enemies. Do I have to be the bad guy and take away their fun or do I have to keep putting up with these flanker wankers, I await your ruling.

Waddle Bawddle

Dear oh mighty cutie patootie judges and cutie patootiest Bailiff Emily, I bring to you the case of the Bag of Tricks - Carnival Edition! I DM for a group of 5 and there is one player who has been begging for a Bag of Tricks since before we even started the campaign. Since we started at level 1 I told him he would have to be patient, but every session (and often times almost anytime we hung out aside from DnD) he would ask when he was getting his Bag of Tricks. So, justices, I decided to throw him a bone while the party was visiting a Feywild Carnival. Through a multitude of games, the player in question finally won the Bag of Tricks. He was elated, arms up in the air in victory for a split second. Then I said, “Carnival Edition”. This player, and two others said “What the fuck”. I explained the bag can pull out carnival themed animals such as rabbits, doves, and even mini jesters. To which, I was given “You’re an asshole”. (In an only sorta joking way). Justices! I ask, am I really an asshole for getting my players hopes up only to dash them a second later? Or should some players relax and be patient for powerful magic items? Note: they were at level 5 at the time. I will accept whatever judgement you deem necessary, oh mighty ones.

Tyler Goevert

Oh god oh fuck Jake isn’t the bailiff please forgive me

Caleb A.

Deacons of Dice, I come to you lower than a worm, for I have confession for a Sin made in your image At the conclusion of the my first homebrew campaign, a resurrection mystery set in a wizard city, the party, along with the Alanis/Aguefort-esc archmage NPC, headed to face the BBEG: a conjurer Given the big bad’a magic, and a powerful wizard NPC, I thought I would take some inspiration (steal and reflavor) from the Akarot fight at the end of Campaign 1 (spoilers C1). Along with an army of foot soldiers, the mage had 24 acolytes, 6 of each around 4 different portals. Connected to the abyss, they threatened to summon demons across the world. As soon as the party arrived, the Alanis stand-in initiating the struggle to stop it, and I explained how the roll off worked My first sin: not believing my party was strong enough. Each acolyte had 75 hp, but just prior to the session starting, I decided that was a smidge high. I lowered it to 40hp instead. In an effort to make the mechanics of the fight transparent, I revealed their HP as soon as they killed the first. Humble bishops, imagine my surprise on the next turn when the healing focused vampire cleric says: “Okay. I cast sunburst. It has a 60ft radius so I can hit all the portals, and I do …45 damage to every acolyte.” I was floored. The map was gigantic, with literally dozens of enemies, and a single newly acquired 8th level spell completely cleared half of them and destroyed the stakes of the encounter. Unfortunately, I had a session that needed to be filled with a boss fight. I explained to the party what happened- I had *just* reduced their HP, and pretty please, what if we said I’d only done that for half, so the others, while severely burned and ready to be picked off by the monk, could keep doing the ritual and keep the NPC engaged. My wonderful party agreed that they wanted to keep the stakes high, and we rearranged the board as such. But I couldn’t get away without a bit of comeuppance for Dice Christ. The next time the party had to roll off the wizard NPC against the ritual, even with a +16 and advantage on the roll, they got 2 natural ones, failing a save against cultists who were arguable dead a few rounds before, only brought back by a groveling dm It was still a great fight and satisfying ending my players talk about to this day, but I can’t help but feel chided by the dice for my churlishness, either for stealing the encounter, not having faith my party could deal with such adversit, or perhaps, for showing too much of my hand.

clover

Hello high priests of the church and sweet cherub Emily! I have a confession for a sin I fear I may have committed on my players like ages ago. It was all of our first time playing dnd and the party successfully completed their first mission. 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 need them to have a reason to stay together. I stuck them all to a cursed sword with no chance to save or realize it was a trap. It ended up working well as they worked together to find a wizard to remove the curse but I feel guilty. I took advantage of them not knowing the game to get them where I wanted them. Will Dice Christ cut me a break because my friends think it's funny to be pests to each other?

Richard E. - jenz left glove tailor

The case of my party disliking me: Hello silly little guy and the pristine judges! I am a dm in a campaign of 6 players 5 of who are new to dnd after a close to year and a half campaign k had them fight storm giants after an unlucky roll. They were in a tense battle where my players for the first time were standing up and yelling at me not wanting their characters to die. After a close encounter and a lucky nat 20 death saving throw they were able to beat the storm giant and receive their first close take the problem I have is with them questioning my choice to bring in material components regarding revives. I have always been lax about components but told them that revivify cost gold which they were outraged about resulting in them having a verbal altercation with me. I relented and let them bring them back free but am I in the wrong for wanting revives to cost something? I wait for your humble judgements thank you! Except jorb!

Kinzie

Sup boners, and the high oracle Emily, i come to beg for atonement I play a game with some high school friends online (been playing for about 15 years together) I am fairly ADHD and sometimes when things drag on I start clicking around on my computer, well onetime I clicked on Baldurs Gate 3 and found myself building me and my friend’s characters. one of those friends saw me do this via a notification, instead of calling me out, he joined my campaign, we now actively play BG3 whilst playing DnD and it is affecting the game, and I think other players are noticing that we text back and forth and mute ourselves fairly often, but it’s a GD thrill… I know we should stop, please give me indulgence or my Hail Dice. I’ll accept my eternal damnation if I must

hannah

gods bless bailiff emily

Jason Rodriguez

To the martian judges and to the bailiff from somewhere lost in space. Im running Icewind Dale, spoiler warning. And I may have bit more than I could chew. My players were in the Frostmaiden's fortress trying to complete the tests to enter the vault. The were on their last test, the test of cruelty, when the paladin had failed all his death saves. He had a cursed helm with the spirit of an adult white dragon (inspired by The Helm of Ultrus). From previous sessions with greater restoration and remove curse spells, he's attuned to the helm a third time and put it back on for the final test. Once he was dead, the dragon took over and is now a problem for the other two players. He will be an npc with all the dragon attributes, and he has a new level 7 character ready. Should the paladin be brought back if they manage to take out the possessed pc, or should he stay dead. More details can be provided before a request to send to the lower courts.

Cameron Reid

ESTEEMED JUSTICES and Jake, who knows his mother raised him better than this: I was playing a one shot in a board game cafe. During a brief break in play, an employee of the cafe approached the DM and asked to roll the dice, and of course, what else but a nat 20. There was some talk about that being a "celebrity roll", and "maybe I'll use that on the next group" or whatever. Now, nearing the end of our one shot: the DM explicitly narrates that we ride a mine cart over a huge chasm (I was picturing Donkey Kong Country Minecart Madness, Jake knows). Soon after we exit our mine cart, the bbeg shows up behind us with two minions, also in a mine cart. While the bad guy is monologuing, I ask for clarification: "so they're standing on the edge of the big chasm?" DM, sweating, confirms. I tell him I want to cut off the monologuing and hit em with a thunderwave and knock them back into the chasm. Minion 1 fails, minion 2 fails... And instead of rolling, he pulled out the employees nat 20. Judges: I wanted to own this stranger and go home and brag about it to my girlfriend. Was I robbed of my satisfaction, or was he just trying to make sure the rest of the party got a more fun ending?

Jackie E

To the eerie judges and unnerving bailiff, I present the case of the stolen cut scene. I’ve been in an online game with a group of she-they’s for about 2 years. Our party is guarding a festival where any mishap could mean a declaration of war between formerly fighting nations. During one session, our party had to defend its actions in a courtroom, in front of some leaders of the attending countries. After the trial, one of the judges, who was from my character’s homeland, sent me a message to meet them privately later. I haven’t really gotten a chance to rp my character’s story, so I was pretty excited. Our session ended, and then, two weeks later, we picked back up after the trial. However, there was no mention of this secret meeting between my character and the judge. We completely skipped over it! Since we play over discord voice chat, it’s hard to interject. Justices— was it my responsibility to bring up this missing scene or was it my DM’s to remember the story crumbs they left me? PS I don’t really hold anything against my DM, but I want to do more with my cool formerly occult Tempest cleric. If I am to be punished, I’d like to be croissant-ed.

Kelly

For Dice Christ... if I may. I don't even know what I need to repent for when it comes to digital dice, but clearly I did SOMETHING. In my one campaign I haven't rolled above a 12 since... I think our very first session (we're 8? in) - except for one Nat 20 during our last one... on a roll with disadvantage. And when my DM said they felt so bad, they were going to roll separately... they immediately rolled a Nat 1. And in another, text-based RPG I'm in my character rolls strength checks with advantage - I rolled a total of 3 times and got 4 Nat 1's (so yes one of those was double Nat 1's). Dice Christ, I've just started another campaign with my first DM. Our first session went... okay, but my cleric's modifiers did a LOT of heavy lifting. Please, I don't know what I did to upset your power over the digital dice, but if I could have some forgiveness... My DM has even told me I could start rolling physical dice instead - but all my games are virtual because we're playing across state lines, and in some cases international borders!! It's not as fun if the rolls don't show up on screen. But I haven't landed an attack in months. Please, I just want to play. 😔

Bob Prescott

I would like to humbly prostrate myself in front of the deacons of Dice Christ, tearfully bellowing my confession, if indeed it is a transgression. I recently proposed to my boyfriend, now fiancé. As part of the elaborate proposal, involving 25 of our friends, I had him roll for engagement before I asked the question. But, popes of the power gamers, the dice that he rolled were specially made to have 20s on all sides except for one with our initials. Was this a sacrilegious act? I posit that with all 25 people present giving a help action to lift up our gay love to Dice Christ, wouldn’t the odds be so mathematically stacked that a natural 20 is assured? Or will Dice Christ condemn us both to husband worm status for all eternity? As long as I’m with him, it’ll be pretty good regardless, I guess.

AutoReroll

Bailiff PB&Jake, your timing could not be better! Please take my case to your masters post haste and you will earn a shiny button! The case in question, is the Case of the Unearned Yuri. I am currently DMing a homebrew Appalachan themed campaign with a group that has been playing since 2022 and things are going great. They are currently on the hunt for Hogzilla (massive boar with small, crude, usable hands) but they are not the only ones on the hunt. The problem began when they ended up camping near a famed elven huntress who they have clashed with in the past and our bard (the only female character) went to talk to her and rolled well enough that the huntress opened up and even her name (Esme Dire). After the conversation the table exploded and jokes about chemistry and romance bounced around for thr rest of the game. I didn't really get it because neither of us were aiming for chemistry, but I was happy the table was happy. The next day I recieved a text from the Bard (respectfully) venting about all of the yuri jokes. The Bard is a fairly innocent character and the player is uncomfortable with some of the jokes. Dire is going to be a major character in the next few sessions and I ask you justices. Yuri stay or Yuri go?

Sovash Chetty

May it Please the Lords and ladies of the Court, and that other guy. I bring you the Case of the Clashing Couples. My party is made of 4 players Zeus Hera, Hades and Aries. Zeus and Hera are married. We played together for close to four-years. Aries has been dating Aphrodites for a few years, one day we're doing a DnD trip to celebrate our 100th session and Aphrodites comes along to play the one-shot The two couples immediately become combative. They are at each other's throats. There was no co-operation at all and Hades and I can just look at each other as I basically try to get us back on track as the entire sesh is barreling towards pvp. Suffice to say we did not get much done. Now Aphrodite would like to join the main campaign. And Aries is all for this. I like all of them, and they all hangout really well outside of the game, but I don't know what to do. I come to my esteemed Justices for advice, shall I let Aphrodite join, shes a great person and is very invested in being a good player. Or should I just try and maintain the group dynamic as it is?

lizzy with a y

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

PlantGang

To the deacons of dice Christ, and those who venerate in song, I come with a confession of reflection. I was the problem player. My first campaign in 2018 I did the overly complicated character backstory with too many NPCs, I had a serious case of main character syndrome, I was a douchebag to my other players and even let the game affect my relationships outside of the game… there was even a brief moment where me and another player got out hatred out for each other through the game. It is a Caldwell-sized spill upon my heart. Since then I have dm’ed 2 homebrew campaigns lasting abut 5-6 years, made amends with the players, been a groomsmen for these folk, and finally learned what collaborative story telling is. But still, I look back at this dirty little Druid and wish to atone. Please punish me at your own discretion. One of them is also subscribed to the Patreon so they will hold me accountable. Sincerely, a Bari Saxy Man (PS Emily I have a masters degree in saxophone performance and would love to play a quartet arrangement of your music throughout the campaigns).

Sam P

May it please the wise, noble Justices, and the ever improving DM bailiff, I present before you The Case of the Unreasonable Teleport. Years ago, I had my second ever dnd group blackmailed into service by powerful Archdevil the final battle set in an infernal library against a the devil Titivillus. As everyone is arriving, our flaky druid cancels. I’m despondent, but my girlfriend suggests her younger brother could fill in. Against my better judgment, and because I was excited for the climax of this campaign, I agree. Now, before this, I ran my first dnd campaign, including my girlfriend and her teenage brother, who played an Orc Outlander Barbarian of... questionable temperament. As a naive DM, I let him get away with: killing an important quest-giver NPC, claiming his Outlander trophy was the penis of a drake, and distracting a prison guard by… enthusiastically entertaining himself in his cell. Shockingly, the campaign did not survive. Back to the 2nd finale, and to my surprise, the brother is mostly fine! He's a little edgy, but nothing too insane. He wild shapes into a bear, helps defeat the devils, and the party proceeds to the Archdevil’s lair for their well-earned reward… when Bear/Brother climbs atop the devil's desk and defecates upon it. In disgust, I had the Archdevil instantly teleport the entire party away — no rewards, no answers, no closure. Justices, was I justified in banishing the party to bed without dessert for one player’s sins? Or did I dish out collective punishment for the crimes of campaigns past? I await your wisdom. Yours, Sam the weary DM Ps. My gf was the only one who asked about the strange ending, everyone else thought it was fine. Maybe it was only my own desire to infodump that I foiled.

Decaf_latte

Greetings and salutations to the court of crit. I bring to you the case of the character sheet snoop. During Covid I played d&d with a group that I met through a colleague. Our sessions were a blast and our DM built an incredible world for us but I was a little disappointed that we never got to explore any backstory or advance a plot because we rarely succeeded in encounters. This is because my fellow players kept forgetting their character abilities and items they had in their inventories. The DM even mentioned to me in a side conversation that they didn’t want to level us up past level 5 because “it would just be more things for everyone to have and not use”. After a truly brutal encounter where we all got knocked out because the rogue (who was surrounded by enemies) forget they could disengage as a bonus action, our gunslinger forgot they had potions, and our wizard fire balled our paladin (forgot to sculpt the spell) I took it upon myself to start reading their character sheets on D&D beyond so I could remind them of their abilities and inventory or at least so as the cleric I could stock spells to buff everyone and keep them up. I felt I was being helpful and also letting the DM actually use the world they had built but when I offered advice on what to do to another player they rebuffed me and told me “we’re just playing for fun, it’s not that big a deal”. Judges, was I wrong to snoop? Or was I being a good little DM pet and trying to help us actually make it through an encounter? Our campaign sadly fizzled out 2 years ago because we just couldn’t find time to play anymore but we are all still really great friends and over the last 6 years have attended each others weddings, had trips together and still have a group chat where we check in often.

Dr_kilowatt

To mistress Jake and those weasley little mudgrubs that mistress needs to stand on, I present the case of the Too Many Backseat DMs. About 6 years ago, I started DMing a cosmic horror themed one-shot in which the twist was that the entire world was the fabricated dream of a sleeping cosmic entity (think something like Cthulu). The party witnessed cracks exploding from the ground, spilling beams of white light and pulling in buildings, people, and magic before disappearing. These cracks represented moments of the god waking up. The party was eventually pulled into another dimension through a crack, and this is where things really started to be problematic. The problem is that this party consists of all DMs. All 6 of us have taken turns running long campaigns, which were all generally well received. Everyone has a different style and we're all pretty collaborative, but tend to stick more to high fantasy. So when I built this rich Cosmic Horror story, the players kept getting a little too involved in this new genre. Every one of the players, at one point or another took over the story by creating exposition from the perspective of their character, or fabricating moments. I tried incorporating what I could but sometimes they would narrate things that completely contradicted my plans. I was open about the fact that it was disruptive, and kept getting apologies, but the players kept getting into my horror descriptions and jumping back in. I finally couldn't take having my story stolen from me anymore and had to end the campaign early. Judges, how month is this if mayM hmm rt? I await your judgement. P.S. I know that Call of Cthulu is an option but we all wanted to be heros/magical rather than investigators/normal humans.

Shan Guleria

To the Lothario Bailiff and the swoon-worthy Justices I present the case of “why does my wife love you more than me?” For going on 5 years now, my wife has been falling asleep exclusively to the sounds of D&D court, recycling through old episodes most nights and rejoicing out loud when new episodes drop before bed. Sometimes when she has a nightmare or can’t sleep, I’ll give her a kiss or offer to cuddle to help her calm down. No dice. She simply cannot fall asleep without the soothing sounds of Caldwell flipping DVDs or Murph fuming about player shenanigans. The four of you specifically are so integral to her sleep that when there is a guest on the show, she just deletes the episode without evening listening to it. Whenever I bring it up, she says I “just don’t get it” and shuts the conversation down. Justices I beseech you, please be less comforting to my wife, I’m not sure our marriage can take it. P.S. Babe, when you hear this, just know I did it for us.

Courtney F.

Bless me Dice Disciples for I have sinned. It has been 20 tormented years since the events of this confession. At the tender age of 15, I inadvertently ended a campaign when I quit because....well, essentially because my fighter wasn't cool enough. I can recall neither the rolls nor the reasons leading up to my leaving, but I remember the breaking point well: when MY strength check failed to save an ally teetering on the edge of a cliff but the FUCKING WIZARD pulled him up. I couldn't take the embarrassment. I left and the campaign ended. Dice Christ has walked beside me through these past 20 years when I have played any other class but a fighter. In my most recent campaign when we hit level 16, I - a full Life Cleric - briefly contemplated multiclassing into Fighter...and then the DM abruptly ended the campaign citing familial duties. Oh wise Disciples of Dice Christ herself, please, tell me, when will I have paid my dues for my 15 year old table flippin' 'tude? When do I get to be.. A super bad ass fighter in a D&D campaign?

KMDM

To the [generous adjective] Judges and the [derogatory adjective] Bailiff [unusual name starting with J], howdy. Long time listener, first time caller. I put before you today the case of The Not-So-Jumpy Dwarf. I DMed a one-shot recently in which the PCs were attempting to climb a(n) [personality adjective] Treant to escape the terrarium a giant had placed them in as food for his giant snake. One PC, a Goliath, climbed roughly halfway up the 30 foot Treant using her default climb speed and made some attacks on the big bugs in the lower branches. The next player to act stated he wished to find a branch low enough that he could jump to it. I allowed it with a(n) [very mildly derogatory adjective] athletics check. He then said he wanted to continue doing that (i.e. jumping vertically from branch to branch) all 30 feet of the way up the Treant. I said he could only get halfway up, since he's moving up (which I deemed should be treated vaguely like climbing or difficult terrain) and I'm not letting a dwarf in armor jump like 5 branches in a row as just his movement in one turn. [Grandiose superlative] Judges, was that the right call? Or can you get around climb speed restrictions if you just jump a lot? =========================== Hey [weird J name], Idk if any of this would come up for Their Honors, but just in case... P.S: I recognize that a 5 foot dwarf with 18 STR should have a standing vertical jump reach (i.e. how high he can get a hand) of 10.5 feet (I think?) but I would say that's reasonable on flat ground, but less so for when you're already on a branch, which is why I wouldn't think this could be done in 3 jumps. P.P.S: The dwarf had neither feats nor class/subclass abilities that would affect this in any way. P.P.P.S Please don't make the punishment wasp themed. P.P.P.P.S: how many 'P's do you guys think you could jam in there before it gets annoying? P.P.P.... jk lol lmao etc luv u guys

Donny

To the devilishly charming Justices and the bailiff Snake Hur-Witch, I bring the case of Broken Tension. For a while, I had maintained a tradition of playing a Dread one-shot during October for Spooky season. I'll remind the bailiff that Dread is the horror TTRPG where you resolve challenges and conflicts by pulling blocks from a Jenga tower rather than rolling dice. You basically succeed until you die, as caused by the Jenga tower falling. What made me stop was the fact my players at these one-shots are just too damn good at Jenga! I would either have to accept a happily ever after scenario where everyone lives, or I would have to artificially inflate the number of requests block pulls to force a character death. Both options meant my games weren't scary enough. Justices, I'd like to renew the Dread tradition, but how do I make my games scary when the Jenga tower refuses to fall?

Lucca Emil Rodriguez

May it please the court and the bailiff whose wife stopped awnsering my calls. I bring you the case of The Apocolyptic Murphy. A couple of years ago i ran a The Last of Us mini campaign for my two brothers and two friends. I had custom rules, I made my own cardboard minis, created custom battlemaps and spent weeks creating a setting custom made for the pc's. During the character creation my brother proposed a reskinned ranger with an unreliable racoon companion that perfectly fit the world. My issue comes with the name my brother chose, he insisted that his pc would look like and be called Eddie Murphy. He begged me to let him do this by stating he wouldnt ever mention his full name and that he wouldnt act like Eddie Murphy at all. In the first session i started the game with solo encounters to show where each character was when the outbreak happened. When his turn came the first things out of his mouth were "Hi my name is Eddie Murphy, welcome to America." I protested but it was funny enough that i just kept the session going. Judges, in every session of this mini campaign my brother mentioned his characters full name Eddie Murphy and some sort of Murphy-esque joke. The majority of the campaign was a blast but i could never forgive such a betrayal. I ask you now judges am i right to punish him for this in our upcoming sequel to this mini campaign or is my brother right that Eddie Murphy fits perfectly into the apocolyptic setting of The Last of Us, i lay my life at your feet oh righteous judges.

Secretlymadeofworms

Dearly beloved, We are gathered here today to hear my confession. I was sentenced to play Warcraft 2 tides of darkness after losing my case with the Supreme crit. I respected the court's decision and began playing, and it was rad. However, after failing multiple times to finish the siege of Stromgarde I got bored and moved on to other things. I went back a few days ago to reattempt the siege and my save file was corrupted on the emulator. Highest members of the church I beseech thee to overturn the justices decisions, or idk commute the sentence. I've got twice as many kids as Jake and I guarantee he's never made it that far into the horde's campaign. I could start over, but my soul is weak and I'm tired. And, well, won't you think of the children? I could be teaching them math or something. Have Jake play Warcraft instead of painting minis all the time and have mercy on my soul. Long time listener, hate the show

Neal Cragg

To the only court I can trust and the bailiff I still have my eye on: I played in a now-concluded World of Darkness campaign (Werewolf the Apocalypse) where the PCs were tasked with stopping an otherworldly horror on the Moon from destroying humanity. The DM set up an impossible choice; one of the PCs would have to take the place of the prior guard and stay on the moon indefinitely to keep the horror locked away. The DM argued in favor of a complex, nuanced ending, while the PCs argued that meant one of us not getting a solid epilogue / conclusion to their story. May it please the court: should the PCs get a say in the direction of the finale? Or does the DM get final say on the conclusion of their story? P.S. despite initial strong feelings, this became an infamous table battle that the group chuckles about to this day

Josh Wolff

Hello distinguished judges and baliff snake, I bring you the case of muppet murder. I am the DM for our group, which includes my wife. My wife has, since childhood, had an aversion to the muppets. She also doesn't like Santa or Who Framed Roger Rabbit, stuff where a regular person is interacting with a puppet or cartoon freaks her out. I am a huge muppet lover. For one of our upcoming sessions, I planned on creating a horror-spin on muppet characters, and at the tail of the last session I introduced a stitched-together bullywog man named Hermit the Bullywog. The second that he was introduced, my wife attempted to murder him. The other PCs intervened, and we ended the session before anything else could happen, but judges, I ask you, should I not introduce my muppet monster mayhem? Even though I have been practicing the voices in my car for weeks now?

Secretlymadeofworms

Have your players never played video games? The boss that joins your team is always nerfed.

sophielinn_

may it please the sickest judges and the coolest bailiff this side of the mississippi (you pick which side). i present to you the case of “The Modified Memory Mitigation.” at the end of a session, my pc’s ex-fiance npc turned villain and essentially cloud killed an entire city. the npc then immediately went on live broadcast and blamed my PC for ALL of it. Literal social suicide in a mostly political campaign in which I am the heir to a noble house. Shocked but down for the challenge, I spent over 8 hours outside session (this is a weekly game, so it was a time crunch) writing a response speech to give while in a Zone of Truth, with our artificer also casting Identify on me within the zone to prove that Zone of Truth was being cast. Seemed pretty fool proof. The DM likes to be aware of any major shenanigans so I told him I was doing this, even double checking some details of the ex-fiancé’s speech so mine was accurate. Fast forward to next week and things are going perfectly, until the artificer identifies not just zone of truth, but also modify memory on me as well as herself. I was so confused. I asked the DM when I had failed a WIS save (I was a ranger with a crazy WIS score) and he said I hadn’t, he just took the creative liberty as a DM to apply it anyway. He invited me to continue giving my speech but I felt like I couldn’t, given that I had no idea if the information I had was correct anymore. The DM didn’t understand why I was peeved, even though the combo of both the lack of save and the letting me stay up till 2AM on a work day to write this knowing the plot twist really bothered me (mostly the first thing, though.) Judges, did I have a right to feel slighted? Or does the DM get to have the creative liberty to forgo spell saves for the sake of a sick plot? Note: This was 1.5 years ago and we are currently level 15 in this campaign. The DM and I made up very quickly, and he is going to be the Man of Honor in my wedding. So no worries in the long run!

Clair Baker

May it please the court and I'm not sure if we're razzing our lowly worm baliff or not I wish for a judgment on some misplaced mistrust. I'm currently playing in a Gothic Horror Fabula Ultima (JRPG inspired TTRPG) where our party consists of a variety of characters but relevant is our Secret to the PCs Vampire and Vampire Hunter (me). After a grueling boss battle we were presented with a glowing stone of power in which our Vampires sister came out, monologued, and told our Vampire to hand it over Ala Cloud handing over the Black Materia to Sephiroth. After an intense conversation and revealing to the party that our Vampire was in fact a Vampire my Hunter proceeded to point her weapon at our Vampire and wouldn't your know it all hell broke loose. Now my party members all in character are looking at me like I'm the villain when I was just trying to secure our maguffin! I guess my question at this point is, am I wrong in feeling like everyone should be putting our vampire on blast? Or do I need to accept the power of friendship and forgiveness in my heart like a true JRPG party. P.S We're not mad at each other out of game and knew this confrontation was coming and have been actively looking forward to it and it's resolution.

Figgy Blue

The Case of Cavernous Awareness: May it please The 2 Judges, Honorable Em, and the "Horkvizzer valley" Guy. Once upon a moon ago I played a halfling wizard who thanks to their shadowfell tramp stamp (a reering donkey with one human eye) was exploring the natural world our endlessly creative DM was making, inspired from dessert life and dried oceans. Our party has found and began exploring what seemed to be an abandoned mine that split in front of us, a party of 2 other wizards and one barbarian. Having a "grudge" on another character as a bit, I suggested I go down the right path, with the rivel wizard in question saying they'd join me. Because my lil guy was a shithead, they instantly wanted to swap places with another wizard, joining the barbarian down the left hall, to which the barbarian wanted to swap with the wizard... I asked if I could swap again. And the barbarian swapped again. Again. It took a bout a full half minute before I realized that the player who was the barbarian was intentionally avoiding me, and I unintentionally attempted to join them atleast twice. After about 10 minutes of a dunkerk style haze where I saw nothing but my own failures, the rest of the Adventure went fairly smoothly! Judges, as muphy may presume we have sense disbanded because of other issues. But the case lies, shall I see the hangman's rope due to my lack of social awareness?

Randy Greig

May it please the court and also baliff Jake i guess. I have what I think will be a pretty cut and dry case, but am seeking help on punishment. My group and been playing weekly for about 10 years, and over the years most of us have taken a turn at DMing. One person has grown more and more disinterested, to the point where he will play blatantly different games on his laptop during sessions. It has gotten so bad that our original DM refuses to DM, and it has discourages the rest of us to really involve him in the stories. The next campaign is supposed to be his first time running a campaign, so justices, I am asking, should we give him a taste of his own medicine, or have a good old Justice Murphy ruling of getting a new friend?

glorg sandwich

PC gun and death inferred shall it please the court, and the exsistant judges murp, ass, and tender, and greetings to the bayliff Jake's Wife's Assistant, jork. I present the case of the death of the first time gunslinger ranger. a group of 5 (incl DM) were running a 5e homebrewed wildwest gothic one shot (4-5 sesh) with the following pcs: me, cult priest vampire bloodhunter/cleric who was not allowed to feed, tiefling warlock who was so chaste and so Catholic, satyr druid who was a new player entirely, and half elf ranger who was just new to playing. our mission for was to hunt down a griffon that was hiding amongst mesas in the dessert between towns at the request of a rich barron. the mission began and we were able to RP easily and quickly begin character dynamics. The ranger eventually revealed that their background was that of the "haunted one" which was a preset option for 2014 Rules. Their interpretation of this was that the Ranger's elven nature mixed with the environment changes killed her kin and left their spirits to attach themselves to her. Only she could hear them and they tormented her for being the only survivor. The Ranger sought out my Cleric's advice since, whilst clearly a weird blood cult, healing magic around with a goal of using blood magic and ferocity to protect and defend non vamps (aka sheep). My cleric made attempts and offered to plead her case to the cult when they arrived. The one shots ends with a fight against the baron with the griffon on our side and the party resting at the Blurch (blood church). My cleric brings the ranger to the higher ups to discuss the spirits, and the DM (who was new to playing) worked with me (player/dm +7 years) to determine any possible spells or abilities that could rid her of the spirits in a respectable way. The ranger seemed receptive, and my Cleric stayed at the Blurch as the party split ways. As we were detailing how each of our stories ended, the ranger (who went last) describes that we hear the sound of a single shot ring out of the dessert. We were shocked and could not believe she went through with it. She teased the idea above table and we all told her it was a bad idea! I asked her why she didn't begin a journey to look for other members of the Blurch who were capable of the higher magic we discussed, and she decided that because her character was old due to the half elven nature, she had already tried anything they could offer her. Judges I beg the question, what the hell? Should the DM have stepped in? What is a suitable punishment for a new player who plays an earnest tormented PC until the last moment?

🦋 Merryn C 🦋

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

Kiserian Noel

Dear Dice Christ, While I have been an honorable follower of the church, for many years, I am yet to play in a campaign. I discussed a dream with a friend but all it resulted in was multiple BG3 runs. I pray Dice Christ, give me strength to DM, guide me to a group, cast away the darkness of joining a random online campaign. Praise be. (Kiss-air-Ian)

Jarbles

To the most revered clergy of dice Christ and the Sexy Nun Jake, I come before the church to confess my sins to Dice Christ. In a Western Frontier mini campaign I’ve been DMing for my group I had my players go up against some astral baddies spilling out of a portal in an old silver mine. In the past I’ve had them womp me in fights I’ve wanted to be intense, so I tried to make the encounters a little more difficult and see how they fared. Combat finally begins after 10 minutes of them not engaging with the evil one eyed Nothic and giant Chuul, and although the Nothic put up a good fight, my badass swamp bug had rolled sub 10 for almost the whole encounter. We wrapped up combat and the party moved on with the plot, but later the next day while cleaning up my desk I saw a fatal blunder: one of the D20s I was using for combat the night before was in fact a D12. I couldn’t help but feel like not only had I not given my party the fight they deserved, but I hadn’t given Dice Christ their due glory of my players getting grappled in a pincer or paralyzed with eldritch tentacles from my freaky crawdad. I ask the Clergy, what can I do to show Dice Christ that this err of polygonal recognition was not an act of dismissal of their Holy wisdom, and what I might do to gain their blessing and give my players the womping they deserve in their final fight with the Werewolf Sheriff?

RomanProphet

To the honorable justices of the Supreme Crit and also the wretched Balliff Jake, devil’s kith and kin, Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, pig of Armenia, and fool of all the world and underworld. I come before you with a truly strange case of autocannibalism. Some years ago, our group was playing a game of Pathfinder 1e and my DM, who I can only describe as 'extremely permissive', allowed me to play a cleric who had once been a black dragon who, after being slain by a party of adventurers, had been reincarnated by a kindly druid. This went along well enough until we attended a party hosted by a local noble. The main course for the evening? Dragon Brain. 3 guesses as to which dragon. For the sake of not blowing our cover, my character was forced to consume the brain of his old body, and everything worked out in the end. However, this has become a source of endless razzing for my character; to the point that I've been introduced by the party to NPCs, on multiple occasions, as a cannibal. If I may pick *your* brains for a moment, dear justices: should I simply grin and bear this shame, or am I entitled to a reprieve from the razzing? Respectfully Yours, Roman

The Goodest Boy

Praise be to our Lord Dice Christ! I come not as a meek penitent seeking forgiveness, lowly as a bailiff. I come soaring from the heavenly heights of evangelism, having received the holy blessing of Dice Christ myself. He has laid his eyes upon me and deemed me worthy. As a long time DM, I am always seeking to tread so carefully the line between easy combat and unbalanced encounters, more often than not someone will go down in a combat, but death in 5e is truly so rare. Which brings us to our Lord’s blessing. A job on a bounty board, the reward too high, too good to be true, for indeed, it was a carefully laid trap. My PCs paid no heed, asking no questions of the quest giver that would reveal the ploy, plunging headlong into a dark cave despite only 1 having darkvision (and I did make sure they knew this). The cleric (the intended victim of the trap from a backstory NPC that had vowed to kill her) for the first time failed to cast false life on herself prior to combat. Leveling up before the session, the warlock had debated taking an invocation that would automatically bring someone up from 0 HP but chose to buff her eldritch blast. The fighter attacking with disadvantage from the dark, failed to hit on any attack in 4 rounds, which would have brought the combat to a close sooner. Believers in Dice Christ, the cleric went down, nobody healed her, the NPC took another swing for one death save fail, and it was her turn next. It was in this moment that I knew Our Lord to be true, for I had seen his works laid before me. A natural 1. The stunned silence as a PC met their end after a series of poor choices, and guided by the hand of fate. I do not revel in the demise of a PC, but I do recognize that Dice Christ was unwilling to allow this poor play to continue, he knew that punishment must be swift, and brutal, and he doled it out in a mighty way. So praise be to our humble lord and savior, may you all walk in his light

Nathaniel F

Jubilations Joyous Judges, Jurists, Jacobs, and the angry little gremlin Byron Smurfy. I bring to you a case of a DM most unjust and unjubilant. Several years ago, our wizard and artificer successfully fixed a (dead) wizard’s illusion-made-real machine, which would allow his simulacrum to become a real boy. For safety, we tested it on an illusion of a pile of platinum bars.. equaling roughly 1 million gp. Didn’t want to test it on the guy, you know? Anyway, it worked, on both the money and the guy. So on our way to launder it - the money, not the guy - we were told the money - but not the guy - was disappearing with a short half life. So we book it to the bank, with a couple dm delay tactics slowing us down. As soon as a laundering deal was struck with the teller, a little devil (tiny, red, complete with twirling mustache and offensive French accent) Popped out of a random watch our wizard had, grabbed the teller and the money, jumped into the vault portal, and locked it tight. I imagine that you are as flabbergasted as we were. But judges, It’s been 4 years- in game and in real life- and Our money is still out of reach! Our characters were based in the Icewind Dale, so it’s not like The money would let us do anything crazy. We just want to build our guild- the Claws of the Crag- a castle! Please provide an official ruling, or we may never stop razzing our otherwise great, though still sometimes petty, DM. I humble myself before your benevolent nonsense of a punishment.

The Goodest Boy

A spooky submission for the Justices of the Crit. I would say may it please the court but I hope it pisses you off actually because I’m Murph levels of aggro right now. Been running a table for 5 years with IRL friends, one of whom has given me a break every year by running a mini campaign that is rife with DM shenanigans but ultimately still fun. Calling our first session “fun” would be a major stretch. My aberrant mind sorcerer rolled what I was told was a successful insight check on an NPC that seemed suspicious. I additionally used detect thoughts to probe deeper and after the NPC failed the save I was told that he wasn’t suspicious and there was nothing important on his mind to worry about. Additionally, I was traveling with an NPC holding an important magic item in a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. I asked both in character and above the table if the NPC and item would be safe in my absence (attending a garden party) or if I should take more precautions and was again explicitly told not to worry about it. Lo and behold, at the party the “not suspicious” person betrayed his queen (our werewolf barbarian) using the important magical item to suck her subclass out with no save. Afterwards all of the players felt like we had spent a few hours in a cutscene, railroaded “for the plot.” Are we right to feel betrayed and lied to? I know we are but need you to validate me and punish our scripting DM. PS The barbarian has (I think) submitted her own case as well, we both hate the show.

Grinchard Nixon

The Case of Astral Escapism: Hello Jubilee Judges and Little Buddy Babyliff, I played in a campaign where the premise was villainous Hogwarts- complete with house ghosts, house parties, and house guests players bent on evil. By order of the school's headmaster, myself and another PC were tolnext session. I prepped a backup baddie and told the DM I had a plan to avoid PvP. I was fine playing a new character, so I looted the school's magical items for a portable hole and bag of holding combining both to launch myself into the Astral plane to freedom. My DM said after 6 hours had passed in the material plane, I appeared back in the same spot. In the end, the duel took place and both PC's wound up dead as the victor of the fight was hit by a power word kill from the headmaster. Both bodies were tossed into lava destroying any chance of revivify. I ask you, was I wrong for trying to avoid the combat? Should I have accepted the PvP and put my feelings as a player and friend aside in an "evil" campaign? P.S. the DM's wife who played with us told me he had said the session before that the other PC involved and myself "are cockroaches who refuse to die"... I eagerly await your decision.

Daveed (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-08 20:00 I have a confession for Dice Christ, and I suspect that Father Murphy is going to release and exasperated groan upon taking my confession. My friend is a really talented software developer, and has been working with a suite of advanced LLMs to develop a procedurally generated D&D program. It's genuinely really impressive, and is only a little soulless. The encounters are really well designed and dynamic, and he's a seasoned DM who really engages us PC's to interact with his cool world (I believe he did come up with most of the major plot points, though I'm actually not sure) . As a DM, this is my first time really playing in a long term campaign, and I was hesitant at first, but I must admit that I'm beginning to really like it. Can dice christ forgive me? PS: Shout out to the NYC naddpole crew I DM for <3
2026-10-08 03:46 I have a confession for Dice Christ, and I suspect that Father Murphy is going to release and exasperated groan upon taking my confession. My friend is a really talented software developer, and has been working with a suite of advanced LLMs to develop a procedurally generated D&D program. It's genuinely really impressive, and is only a little soulless. The encounters are really well designed and dynamic, and he's a seasoned DM who really engages us PC's to interact with his cool world (I believe he did come up with most of the major plot points, though I'm actually not sure) . As a forever DM, this is my first time really playing as a PC in a long term campaign, and I was hesitant at first, but I must admit that I'm beginning to really like it. Can dice christ forgive me? PS: Shout out to the NYC naddpole crew I DM for <3

I have a confession for Dice Christ, and I suspect that Father Murphy is going to release and exasperated groan upon taking my confession. My friend is a really talented software developer, and has been working with a suite of advanced LLMs to develop a procedurally generated D&D program. It's genuinely really impressive, and is only a little soulless. The encounters are really well designed and dynamic, and he's a seasoned DM who really engages us PC's to interact with his cool world (I believe he did come up with most of the major plot points, though I'm actually not sure) . As a forever DM, this is my first time really playing as a PC in a long term campaign, and I was hesitant at first, but I must admit that I'm beginning to really like it. Can dice christ forgive me? PS: Shout out to the NYC naddpole crew I DM for <3

Kajudaan

To the Monster Librarian Judges, and the Canadian phone-sex artist, Jack Yank-Its. I bring forth the case of Secret Grudges. One of my closest friends is a long-term player, and I myself am a 11 year long forever DM. We participate together in a large, multi-year long Western Marches series, and are both recently players in a recorded home-game, and our characters always have such great chemistry. In the Western Marches campaign, he plays an Alchemist Artificer with the brilliant Alchemy Jug he regularly uses to create vials of Acid in his downtime, while I play an Artillerist Artificer. While I love his characters and playing alongside him, I just can't agree with his style of enjoyment for combat- see, in most one shots or campaigns, he's an undead Assassin Rouge, or something else flavored to be an undead Assassin, made to end combats before it starts by dealing sudden bursts of insane damage. Here, he goes into sessions saying "Everyday since the last session, I made vials of acid" then whenever a baddie shows their face, he casts "Catapult" on the vials launching them towards the enemy. If the enemy fails their save, he claims an upwards of 20d4's of acid damage because of the shattering vials. I have regularly disagreed with how the spell works, how these mechanics should play out, and that this makes sense for a level 3 character to be capable of. He claims that it's the only time he ever does damage so it shouldn't matter, and it's only once. Judges, i could agree with that logic, if not for when the enemy passes the same and flies past them, his response is regularly on the lines of "Well that's all I can do" and proceeds to clock out for the remainder of the session. I call again- Judges, should I rework my views that growing combat that changes is the most compelling and instant-oozing my oddlings is optimal? Or is this player craving a power-gaming experience beyond my understanding, and I should curve my stat-blocks for this acidic attitude of a dodgeball game? I await your Big Moth Ass judgement.

Lauren B

To the Looksmaxxers of the court, and the hammer that they break their jaws with, I present the case of the Dismissed Wish. This incident occurred over the finale sessions of my group's long-running main D&D campaign. The BBEG was a dictator God of fate who ruled over the world. Our party was level 25 (homebrew mechanics), with one of our number being a demigod who was innately the foil to this god of fate. The finale combat was set up to be a kaijuu-style battle underneath a falling sky castle, and we had prepared a last-ditch weapon that would help us greatly, but involved the sacrifice of a beloved NPC. During the combat, our demigod PC cast a wish spell scroll that he had been holding on to for some time; his wish was something to the effect of "To know [the BBEG's] weaknesses and a way to destroy him." Our DM had him roll an arcana check, of which he rolled a natural 20; Her response was essentially "you know for a fact that that there is nothing that can be done," and combat proceeded like normal. We ultimately used the weapon and sacrificed the NPC, but this moment has felt like a thorn on an otherwise satisfying conclusion. I anxiously invite your judgment.

Skipps

To the slightly above average judges and the slightly below average bailiff, I bring to you a case that has haunted me for years. Back in college, I was in a D&D campaign set in Ancient Rome that had lots of Greek and Roman mythology. After a long session exploring a labyrinth and fighting two big mini-bosses, we were sent into a section where our DM had created a real maze. We had to navigate it without visuals, basically by guessing and drawing our own maps. It was late and we were all tired from sitting in the same spot for 4-5 hours, but our DM was excited we'd made it this far and wanted to keep playing. After 10-20 minutes of going in circles, another player and I laid down on the floor while still offering input. Our DM asked us not to, and we promptly returned to our seats. A week later, during a campaign check-in, our DM broke down crying, explaining how hurt she was by us lying on the floor and that she'd even cut parts of one of the fights because she thought we didn't want to play anymore. We both apologized, and the group continued playing together until eventually falling apart for unrelated reasons. But your honors (and Jake), while I still feel guilty for the whole ordeal, I can't help but wonder, is this guilt justified? Were we wrong to seek out some floor time during this session, or should we have simply kept our butts in our seats? I await your verdict and your sometimes cruel, sometimes unusual, punishment. P.S. My character was a changeling bard with an identity crisis who had secretly infiltrated the party alongside another changeling. Unrelated to the case, but I miss her all the time.

Dakfun01

HEEEEY YOU GUUUYS! I just felt it was really important to let Emily know that Sebulba is in the new Star Wars: Galactic Racer game! Sorry for the spoilers. He just so happens to be a bud of mine now. Haha!!!

I'm Him

To the most righteous servants of Dice Christ and Jake, I come with a confession, a sin against her holiness, and my best friend. I was a fledgling DM running Dragon of Icespire Peak with a party of three: my sister, a wizard; my best friend, a barbarian; and his gf, a sorceror. All of us new to DnD but having an awesome time. The high dmg party as you can expect was mulching through enemies and encounters, until the scene of my sin. They were lvl 3 and coming off a mild scuffle with some ochre jellies, when the party heard 5 orcs approaching. Planning an ambush, the barbarian stepped out to face them while the casters hid in some ruins for cover fire. Due to poor initiative rolls, the orcs went first, before the barbarian could even get his rage up. Honored Cardinals of the Crit, I shit thee not. Out of 5 attacks, 4 of them hit, with 3 being nat 20s. Now, I've played video games with the barbarian for a long time, and he was, ironically, a notorious ragequiter; any moment of a game not playing right or just not going his way resulted in never touching a game again. We were having so much fun playing DnD, and in my first DM butthole pucker moment, worried I would sour my players' opinions of the game by instantly murdering a PC before they could use their 'dont get instantly murdered' ability, I fudged two of the crits to regular hits, keeping him standing on a handful of hit points. With clever spellcasting from the other two and some healing potions, they succeeded and live to tell the tale. I dont regret not murdering him in the first round of a combat, but having played more DnD afterwards, finishing the adventure book and beyond, I have learned what I should've known the whole time: this dude loves getting the shit kicked out of him, to the point of not rolling dex saves on the fireballs his party members drop on him and the surrounding enemies. (HE HAS ADV ON THE SAVES, HE JUST DIDNT ROLL THEM AND JUST TOOK FULL DMG EVERYTIME) Whenever he is gleefully marking down his rapidly dwindling hp, surviving monsterous hits and still swinging his hammer, I am reminded of my deepest shame: not kicking the everliving shit out of him when I had the chance, fudging the gifts granted to me by dice christ, and doubting his honor as not only a good PC, but as a good friend who is always excited to see what happens next in our campaign, no ragequiting in sight. Forgive me for the sin of not having faith, in either my friend, or in dice christ herself. Amen.

Skootsby

To the Supreme Crit and the bailiff of indeterminate status, I bring to you the case of the burnt out disguise. I was playing in my first Pathfinder second edition game where my character and the rest of the party were recent recruits to a Robin Hood type organization. Shortly after arriving in a town, one of our party mates got arrested. We decided the best course of action was to try and break them out. My character was a loudmouthed goblin alchemist with bad stealth, so I decided it would be better if I served as a distraction instead of trying to sneak in. My plan was to make as much noise and spectacle as possible out front while everyone else snuck in the back. To do this, I described how I roughed up my clothing, smeared dirt everywhere and then, finally, set myself on fire (which I wouldn't take damage from due to some ancestral fire resistance). I then ran past the guards, screaming about being on fire. Justices, the guards recognized my character instantly. What I thought might be some goofy deception checks turned into a tense series of stealth checks as my character put themselves out and tried to not also get caught. Was this a goof too far? It genuinely never occurred to me that I'd be recognized by some strangers while on fire.

gessicawithag

A Case Of Steamy NPCs May it please the court, judges and the supreme bailiff Emily. I am a baby DM running a Strixhaven game for my three DM friends since they don't get to play together often. If you don't know, in the Strixhaven module you often have combat after a zany event or fun activity on campus with a variety of different creatures. In my players first year, they battled a group of steam mephits in the kitchen of the campus tavern, and our sorcerer did many checks on one of the steam mephits in an attempt to get some information from him on these weird situations constantly happening on campus. Then the wizard cast comprehend languages, and in all my fluster, i quickly came up with a weird voice and a name for the poor guy, Gwop. Since then, my players have not stopped bringing up Gwop in the hopes that they can see hin again. Our sorcerer went so far as to, in his extracurricular time of the game, plan out how they could keep Gwop on campus since the professors had confiscated him, by implenting steam mephits in the sewer system (something i looked up on the wiki). They are now well into their second year and still won't give up on him, even though I've had multiple professors tell them that they cannot see him. I know I made an oopsie giving them Gwop in the first place, but was I wrong for trying to take him away using in game logic?? I humbly await your verdict.

Nsteady

Dearest Jovial Justices and Bodacoious Bailiff, I bring you the case of The Ethereal Wish: Our party was in the midst of tracking down a kidnapped noble, when we got cornered by a tough gang of beefy goons. We were all on death's door and a TPK was imminent, but our Firbolg artificer revealed that he had a "pocket wish" from a genie (don't worry, all the players were aware of this homebrew mechanic and agreed to it for the campaign) and was going to use it to get us out of there. He activates the wish and says the words "I wish we were ethereal"... My dear justices, our Firbolg wasn't aware that "ethereal" is a specific thing in DND, and the genie deciphered that as sending us all to the ethereal plane. He protested that that's not what he meant, but eventually agreed that the genie could've taken it that way. We all ended up having fun solving our new problem of escaping the ethereal plane, but our Firbolg still gets razzed for it years later. Do you all agree with the DMs interpretation of the wish? And does our poor Firbolg artificer deserve to be razzed to this day? I look forward to hearing your wisdom on this matter, thank you for your time.

Charles

To the trustworthy court and its Emily bailiff (who’ll love the slant rhyme this case came out the gate with): I present the case of the fire alarm fiasco. About 45 minutes into my first game of D&D, our dorm’s insanely loud fire alarm went off, and I was the only one who wanted to stop playing and evacuate. I was 19, playing with my college roommate and his 27 year old brother. I didn’t know anyone that well, and I had a hard time deciphering the DM-provided character sheet, but I was just happy to be included. Still, it was awkward — I’m still haunted by the memory of trying to rap to distract a goblin and getting sternly shut down without so much as a performance roll. Then, about 45 minutes in, the dorm’s fire alarm started going off. I stood up and started gathering my things, but the DM just said, “are you seriously getting up? It’s probably not a real fire.” The other two players agreed and made no motion to get up. I was shocked. I’d never considered not obeying the fire alarm. What was even crazier is that they kept trying to play D&D, even with the blaring sirens just a few feet away on the wall above us drowning out the DM. After about a minute of this insanity, I said I was going to exit the building, and even though I didn’t ask, everyone begrudgingly followed me. By the time we got to the attached parking garage a few minutes later, the alarms stopped. The DM made an exasperated joke and we came back inside. The mood had soured, and the already awkward vibes were made even worse. The session fizzled out mid boss fight, when the conversation topic changed and people stoped caring about the game. Judges, was I right to flee for the fire alarm, or am I to blame for extinguishing the vibes?

fluffyman20

For the sick as hell judges and lady tyrant Axford. I present the case of the absent one-shot. I am a DM that runs two different groups, boy group girl group style, in the same homebrew campaign setting. About 2 years ago two of my players, my brother and his then girlfriend, were going on vacation for a few weeks effectively putting both groups on hold, not a problem. Leading up to that I put a one-shot together combining the remaining members of both groups. I ended up messaging them asking if they wanted a specific reason as to why their characters weren't there, but to my surprise they messaged back that they were mad I was doing this. My brother and I met up to talk about it and he told me that they felt left out and if we were going to do a one shot while they were gone we should have asked them first or it should have been with new characters. I told him that I sympathized with their feelings of being left out, but rebutted that it wasn't fair for the other players and that I didn't need their permission to do a fun one-shot. We ultimately left the talk agreeing to let them know in the future even if they couldn't be involved but I still felt wrong tying PCs to the decision of other players. So I ask the court: Did I really mess up or should I obliterate my bro IRL? I humbly await your judgement. P.S. The day of the one-shot was the same day they were visiting the Shire

gessicawithag

P.S. Gwop and the other steam mephits are currently working in the university sewers thanks to the sorcerer

ExtraKrispyKyle (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-09 06:00 To the ineffible supreme crit and that guy Jeff who sells the jerk jelly, I bring a case of character death via player intoxication. Over the last 3 years I have been playing my first full campaign, with some of the best adventurers and DM a player could ask for. Ordinarily everyone has a pretty great time, with merriment, food and especially drink. We have a player, Big C, whose character was a paladin who was resurrected by an unknown entity in order to defend the city from an evil wizard. About a third of the way through the campaign, during our second fight with this wizard, our DM revealed that this wizard was prone to sending simulacrums to deal with the heros, and that the entity we were facing in the fight was indeed also a simulacrum, here to deliver a warning to our players to stop meddling with his affairs. It was an extremely tight battle with half our party getting down to single digit health. As the simulacrum was disolvong in defeat the DM gave a speach about how this wasnt the last we'd seen of the wizard before he faded into dust. After giving the moment a few seconds of silence to let the weight of the battle hang in the air Big C errupts into a winded speech about how thier Paladin's quest is finally complete they could finally be at peace and disolved into motes of light. The Table was aghast. We tried to tell him that the wizard was not destroyed but he just got up from the couch announcing that he was getting another beer if someone wanted one. We looked to the DM who was beyond frustrated but kept a cool head and lead us through the other HALF of the dungeon for the evening, which we again barely survived and we all left a little sour from the evening. The next session Big C came with a new character prepped, but playfully joked with the DM that because he was too drunk to remember killing his own character he could maybe just reconstitute his paladin and continue on like nothing happened. He waited for laughter and when none came the DM looked at him and sollomnly refused. Big T and their new character both got some side eye for a few sessions but after proving to be consistently invested was welcomed back with grins and laughs abounding. Judges would you have let the character be brought back to life, or do you stand with the previous ruling of permadeath via dos equis? If it changes the decision at all, the last campaign fell apart from some similar reasons caused by Big C, but Big C has also changed thier drinking behavior after this incident. This campaign just recently reached it's conclusion and all players (and characters) involved are happy and healthy. How would you have handled this situation? -A Player/DM who loves listening to NAADPOD from his flight attendent jumpseat.
2026-10-08 04:08 To the ineffible supreme crit and that guy Jeff who sells the jerk jelly, I bring a case of character death via player intoxication. Over the last 3 years I have been playing my first full campaign, with some of the best adventurers and DM a player could ask for. Ordinarily everyone has a pretty great time, with merriment, food and especially drink. We have a player, Big C, whose character was a paladin who was resurrected by an unknown entity in order to defend the city from an evil wizard. About a third of the way through the campaign, during our second fight with this wizard, our DM revealed that this wizard was prone to sending simulacrums to deal with the heros, and that the entity we were facing in the fight was indeed also a simulacrum, here to deliver a warning to our players to stop meddling with his affairs. It was an extremely tight battle with half our party getting down to single digit health. As the simulacrum was disolvong in defeat the DM gave a speach about how this wasnt the last we'd seen of the wizard before he faded into dust. After giving the moment a few seconds of silence to let the weight of the battle hang in the air Big C errupts into a winded speech about how thier Paladin's quest is finally complete they could finally be at peace and disolved into motes of light. The Table was aghast. We tried to tell him that the wizard was not destroyed but he just got up from the couch announcing that he was getting another beer if someone wanted one. We looked to the DM who was beyond frustrated but kept a cool head and lead us through the other HALF of the dungeon for the evening, which we again barely survived and we all left a little sour from the evening. The next session Big C came with a new character prepped, but playfully joked with the DM that because he was too drunk to remember killing his own character he could maybe just reconstitute his paladin and continue on like nothing happened. He waited for laughter and when none came the DM looked at him and sollomnly refused. Big C and their new character both got some side eye for a few sessions but after proving to be consistently invested was welcomed back with grins and laughs abounding. Judges would you have let the character be brought back to life, or do you stand with the previous ruling of permadeath via dos equis? If it changes the decision at all, the last campaign fell apart from some similar reasons caused by Big C, but Big C has also changed thier drinking behavior after this incident. This campaign just recently reached it's conclusion and all players (and characters) involved are happy and healthy. How would you have handled this situation? -A Player/DM who loves listening to NAADPOD from his flight attendent jumpseat.

To the ineffible supreme crit and that guy Jeff who sells the jerk jelly, I bring a case of character death via player intoxication. Over the last 3 years I have been playing my first full campaign, with some of the best adventurers and DM a player could ask for. Ordinarily everyone has a pretty great time, with merriment, food and especially drink. We have a player, Big C, whose character was a paladin who was resurrected by an unknown entity in order to defend the city from an evil wizard. About a third of the way through the campaign, during our second fight with this wizard, our DM revealed that this wizard was prone to sending simulacrums to deal with the heros, and that the entity we were facing in the fight was indeed also a simulacrum, here to deliver a warning to our players to stop meddling with his affairs. It was an extremely tight battle with half our party getting down to single digit health. As the simulacrum was disolvong in defeat the DM gave a speach about how this wasnt the last we'd seen of the wizard before he faded into dust. After giving the moment a few seconds of silence to let the weight of the battle hang in the air Big C errupts into a winded speech about how thier Paladin's quest is finally complete they could finally be at peace and disolved into motes of light. The Table was aghast. We tried to tell him that the wizard was not destroyed but he just got up from the couch announcing that he was getting another beer if someone wanted one. We looked to the DM who was beyond frustrated but kept a cool head and lead us through the other HALF of the dungeon for the evening, which we again barely survived and we all left a little sour from the evening. The next session Big C came with a new character prepped, but playfully joked with the DM that because he was too drunk to remember killing his own character he could maybe just reconstitute his paladin and continue on like nothing happened. He waited for laughter and when none came the DM looked at him and sollomnly refused. Big C and their new character both got some side eye for a few sessions but after proving to be consistently invested was welcomed back with grins and laughs abounding. Judges would you have let the character be brought back to life, or do you stand with the previous ruling of permadeath via dos equis? If it changes the decision at all, the last campaign fell apart from some similar reasons caused by Big C, but Big C has also changed thier drinking behavior after this incident. This campaign just recently reached it's conclusion and all players (and characters) involved are happy and healthy. How would you have handled this situation? -A Player/DM who loves listening to NAADPOD from his flight attendent jumpseat.

TheRaiOh

Greetings to the Wondeful Baliff Emily and the indecent judges Hurwitz, Tanner, and I want say.... Murph? No that can't be right. Anyway, I bring you the case of maddening mind control. I was playing in a slightly homebrew Tomb of Annihilation campaign over discord with people I had met only online. I had previously played through the lost mines of phandelver with this DM and another of the players. So far things had generally been good. Occasionally I (in and out of character) had made choices that the DM had to shut down to keep us on the tracks, such as trying to continue to fight when the DM was trying to capture the party (the other players had given up at this point, I did not realize until after that we were being forced into a loss to continue the story). I say this because I made another choice that either got me kicked out or ended the campaign but I still feel was the correct move given the context I had. Near the end of the campaign in the final dungeon, one member of our party who had been forced into a deal with the bbeg got mind controlled and became a boss fight for us. After we won, the DM described him coming to his senses and everyone else wanted to continue into the dungeon. I (and my character) could see no logical way to continue to the bbeg fight with a party member who is clearly susceptible to mind control, and said (in character) I wouldn't continue if he was with us. After a little in character arguing the session ended. At some point before the next session though, the discord server disappeared from my list without a word. I never got a single message about why. Was this my fault or someone else? I lay at the mercy of the court.

HGB

Greetings Judges, Bailiff and others. I bring the case of the lame 20th level characters. My group recently started a mini campaign at level 20. In the campaign pitch, the DM emphasised what it meant to be 20th level. Stating things like "you are all but a god to the common man" and "it's been a long time since you have faced a challenge". The problem is that our high skill bonuses don't feel like they've paid off. Early on, we fought some kobolds and two huge dragons. I had a passive perception of 32 and their stealth roll was less than 20. The DM described how they slowly surrounded us. When I asked if I could have seen them before they got set up the DM said "no but they don't get a surprise round". Later, our barbarian wanted to knock down a tavern wall (out of combat) and rolled low but has a minimum 24 athletics check. The DM said "because that's your minimum it's not enough" and proceeded to narrate the barbarian only scratching the wood surface. At the start of our most recent session, another player said "you have to let us be cool at some point". The DM paused then said "no I don't" before moving on. Judges are we wrong to want our characters to be smart and strong when that was point of being level 20 or should we accept that there has to be some challenges no matter what?

Bagofchips123 (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-08 20:00 To the dearest justices and Jaquille O'Neil the hot bailiff, i present the case of the FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ROLL A DIFFERENT FUCKING DICE. Im mainly a DM for my own crew, but I desperately needed the time to finish the end of our 2nd campaign, and also juggle school shenanigans, so I asked if anyone wanted to try DMing for themselves. One friend agreed! We will call him Frog Killer. We were in on a street corner and we had to defeat some Death knights in individual houses on a road. We were level 3 and we had an amazing bullywug NPC named Frederick who wore a trashcan as armor. Shit went down and my character, a circle of stars druid was across the street and Frederick went down, and rolled a nat 1 for his first save. I used Misty step and 30 feet of movement but the DM said that WASNT enough to get all the way across the street without dashing. My other 3 party members did not help Frederick, and he had to make 1 more roll. Frog killer decided to use this big foam d20 we have for the last save but I screamed at him... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ROLL A DIFFERENR FUCKING DICE, because I knew that d20 rolled AWFUL all the time and the numbers were scrambled in a weird order compared to a normal d20. Sure enough he got a 5 on that god forsaken foam dice and my favorite NPC died. Justices... please punish someone. Should my crew have saved Frederick, should Frog Killer have rolled a different dice for Frederick, or hell was 60 feet indeed not enough to get across JUST 1 STREET HORIZONTALLY. I await your judgement.
2026-10-08 04:14 To the dearest justices and Emily ATTACK JAKEsford, i present the case of the FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ROLL A DIFFERENT FUCKING DICE. Im mainly a DM for my own crew, but I desperately needed the time to finish the end of our 2nd campaign, and also juggle school shenanigans, so I asked if anyone wanted to try DMing for themselves. One friend agreed! We will call him Frog Killer. We were in on a street corner and we had to defeat some Death knights in individual houses on a road. We were level 3 and we had an amazing bullywug NPC named Frederick who wore a trashcan as armor. Shit went down and my character, a circle of stars druid was across the street and Frederick went down, and rolled a nat 1 for his first save. I used Misty step and 30 feet of movement but the DM said that WASNT enough to get all the way across the street without dashing. My other 3 party members did not help Frederick, and he had to make 1 more roll. Frog killer decided to use this big foam d20 we have for the last save but I screamed at him... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ROLL A DIFFERENR FUCKING DICE, because I knew that d20 rolled AWFUL all the time and the numbers were scrambled in a weird order compared to a normal d20. Sure enough he got a 5 on that god forsaken foam dice and my favorite NPC died. Justices... please punish someone. Should my crew have saved Frederick, should Frog Killer have rolled a different dice for Frederick, or hell was 60 feet indeed not enough to get across JUST 1 STREET HORIZONTALLY. I await your judgement.

To the dearest justices and Emily ATTACK JAKEsford, i present the case of the FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ROLL A DIFFERENT FUCKING DICE. Im mainly a DM for my own crew, but I desperately needed the time to finish the end of our 2nd campaign, and also juggle school shenanigans, so I asked if anyone wanted to try DMing for themselves. One friend agreed! We will call him Frog Killer. We were in on a street corner and we had to defeat some Death knights in individual houses on a road. We were level 3 and we had an amazing bullywug NPC named Frederick who wore a trashcan as armor. Shit went down and my character, a circle of stars druid was across the street and Frederick went down, and rolled a nat 1 for his first save. I used Misty step and 30 feet of movement but the DM said that WASNT enough to get all the way across the street without dashing. My other 3 party members did not help Frederick, and he had to make 1 more roll. Frog killer decided to use this big foam d20 we have for the last save but I screamed at him... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ROLL A DIFFERENR FUCKING DICE, because I knew that d20 rolled AWFUL all the time and the numbers were scrambled in a weird order compared to a normal d20. Sure enough he got a 5 on that god forsaken foam dice and my favorite NPC died. Justices... please punish someone. Should my crew have saved Frederick, should Frog Killer have rolled a different dice for Frederick, or hell was 60 feet indeed not enough to get across JUST 1 STREET HORIZONTALLY. I await your judgement.

aloox

May it please the court and the bewitching bailiff, I present the Case of the Stolen Library DM. My local library started running D&D. Rad! They split it into ongoing "seasons" so every few months, players are shuffled between a couple of DMs to play a short campaign. Season 1 was great. No notes. Season 2 just started, and I ended up being placed in a group that was nearly full. They would all be new to library D&D, including the DM. And hey had already completed session 0 without me. No biggie. When we started playing, I quickly realized all of the PCs were an extended family. The DM and I were the only people not related at the table. The DM had also been assigned this group randomly and had never met these people before. Immediately I felt awkward. Then, one of the players (the dad) started doing something weird. He had created everyone else's character sheet for them, and he had memorized everyone's stats. So every time someone rolled, without looking he would jump in and say "You have +5, so you got a 12 and that doesn't hit." So he was basically taking away the other PC's opportunity to play their character, and taking away interactions between PCs & DM. (This same guy also made AI generated art of *my* character even after I asked him to stop.) I left the game after 3 sessions. We ended up not even playing AT the library, and they took the DM away so the library is permanently down one DM. Judges, library D&D fills up *fast* and some people have to wait a whole season to play. (btw the library pays the DMs!) Should this family have stolen a DM from other prospective players and found their own (or worse, used ChatGPT to play?)

Duncan Longtrunks

To the benevolent deacons of Dice Christ, I come to you with the confession of the twice dead Leshen. I have been DMing for a group of friends for roughly 2 years. Most of the combat has been pretty chill as the players were fairly new to the game. This changed last session. I decided to challenge the players with a Leshen fight (based on the Witcher games) where the party had to find and destroy the Leshen's totems in order to destroy him. The fight has two phases, the first was more of a puzzle and the second was just a straight up knock down, drag out fight which saw almost all of the PCs go down at least once (they all survived though!) My mistake is adding a phase 3. As it's final move the Leshen charges up a huge necrotic attack, similar to a tailed beast bomb from Naruto (Jake knows what I'm talking about). The players just needed to deal 50 damage to it before the start of the Leshen's next turn to stop its attack. They succeeded! Hitting the 50 damage threshold on the second to last player's turn. But I did not announce the monster was dead. I figured that, with advantage on their attacks, the final player could get a hit in and then I could narrate a final team attack that would see an epic end to this massive fight... The player missed, three times. They were clearly feeling the pressure and getting upset with themselves for not hitting, thinking they still needed to do damage. I then had to explain how the party already hit the threshold, deflating the end of what was a pretty epic battle. I even showed them my notes where I marked where they hit the damage threshold, but still, it felt like I did them dirty. Please great deacons of the 20 sided die, forgive me for ignoring the will of Dice Christ and allowing this fight to go on longer than it should have.

Fascinating🫱🫲

May it please the court, its prolific justices, and that bailiff that sounds like Moonshine Cybin. I present the case of the Surprise Legendary Hammer. I played in a one-shot involving goblins taking over a local farm. I was playing as a humanoid spider person, and had chosen goblin as a language. When we arrived at the farm, I attempted to parlay with the goblins. My party members disliked this plan, opting to just do a straightforward goblin slaughter. I didn’t have a problem with this, but it did lead to PvP. I made a character choice, so I won’t criticize someone making one back at me. The issue came when his first hit against me dealt over my max HP in a single hit. Not a crit, and the character was not a paladin. When I asked how this was possible, he revealed his character had a legendary hammer that added several d10s of thunder damage onto every attack, which his character grabbed from another campaign. Justices, I ask only this: is it fair to transfer crazy magic items from other campaigns and then instantly kill your party member with them? I humbly await your judgement on this matter.

syzmon

To the magnamious judges who hold the power of life and death and my favourite ghoul Emmantha: I present to you The Case of the Assassin's Househusband. Two years ago, I played in a heavily home-brewed mafia campaign where me and eight other players were all assasins conspiring to kill our corrupt boss. At a certain point me and another player needed to exit the campaign. We cheerfully let our DM know that we could make it for one last session, and we informed him that he could kill our characters to further the plot if he so desired. Instead, my DM decided to do a no holds barred finale where our wee level 6 characters were up against the Boss of the Mafia: a homebrewed level 25 character with an AC of 30, taking up 9 grid squares on the map; Judges, there were players who did not hit a single time through the whole finale, and they mathematically could not have hit unless they rolled a nat 20. the fight lasted 4 real life hours! My own character went down in spectacular flames, by my own design. Now, during the course of that bloody battle, the DM narrated that one of the PC's phones was ringing. I will call this PC George. When George picked up the phone mid-battle, all he heard was frantic breathing on the other end. He hung up and continued the slogfest as friends and comrades around him fell. George and another PC were the sole survivors of the final battle. The boss and all their friends were dead. Now, George had a husband and a dog who were important anchor characters for him. We had visited them several times over the course of the campaign. George had RPed a very loving relationship with them. When George limped back to his apartment, he opened the door to discover that his husband and dog had been COMPLETELY assasinated. all his windows were broken and even his car got stolen! All of the players at the table immediately turned on our DM, asking him who the hell had killed the husband and dog and why. The DM said that he wanted to set up stakes for a possible "sequel campaign" and he wanted to give George a reason to take revenge. Apparently the phonecall during the final battle was "a hint that we still had other enemies out for blood". The two remaining players glumly told the DM that with all their friends and loved ones dead, they saw no reason why they would continue playing. The game ended there on a sour note. Judges, was I at fault for bringing up death as a plot device? was my DM too heavyhanded or was the offscreen assassination of an important NPC justified? Did George's husband and dog just get caught in the crossfire of a bad situation, or should me and my DM get assasinated in real life to achieve karmic balance? I await your pernicious judgement.

terst

honourable justices and bailyff whatever, my group had a among us/alien style adventure, where a creature impersonated one my character and tried to get rid of the rest of the party, teleporting them to a cell. I was given control of the creature, and with an ingenuous system had to communicate the DM when I was targeting another character, without the rest of the party noticing. After that, the party managed to escape the cell and confronted the creature, and the DM offered me the choice to play the battle as my character, or as the creature. I accepted to be the creature, and was given the honour to move behind the DM screen, for the first time in my long roleplaying career. First round, the bard cast Tasha's Hideous Laughter on me; I failed the saving throw and fell prone and incapacitated. The party proceeded to kick the shit out of me; I asked if I had a saving throw when I took damage, but I was told no, only at my next turn. Next turn, I failed again the saving throw and the fight ended a couple of attacks later. I mournfully and silently went back to my seat, then out of curiosity I checked on the PHB and found out that I indeed had the right to a saving throw every time I took damage. The bard was absolutely sorry about it and I was offered to redo the fight, and the DM also suggested I make up something on the spot - some legendary resistance, another creature coming out or else - if I saw that the fight was too lopsided; but I was too dejected and preferred avoid another humiliation. So I ask you: should I have taken the opportunity and tried to kick my party (and especially the bard)'s butt, or redoing the fight at that point made no sense? I humbly await your judgement

Flipno

Dear people I like and Murph I bring you the case of the monkey king. At the start of our campaign our DM told us we could all vote as a party to include one thing we really wanted integrated into the story. Naturally we all voted for the monkey king, king of the monkeys. Cut to half a year and several sessions later, me and another party member were stranded a top a snowy mountain. We passed a cave where my DM said that there were the sounds of “distant monkeys.” I got excited, but decided to investigate later, as we had just discovered another character atop the mountain who was really important to the plot. When we had resolved that other plot nonsense, I came back to the original cave, and the monkeys were now gone. The DM said we had “missed our chance.” For years now, I have resented him for this, and other members of the party are angry too. He still remarks smugly that we had a chance to see the king and didn’t take it. Judges, this is bullshit right? Why dangle a plot hook and then take it away? Or should I have taken my chance when I heard monkeys initially? Please let me know.

Reed Sutliff

Long time listener, first time baller First, a reminder that I have a lot of pull in this court system because one of the judges ran over my face when I was six. I wouldn't want anyone here to be forced into an early retirement... I present the case of the Fickle Filching Fiend Fucker Say that three times fast. So in my second ever DnD campaign, it was organized through a local community college. There was a core group of 4 (3 PC + 1 DM). This was not an overly serious campaign, but still had real progression. There was an additional player that could only come every few weeks. The DM basically decided that this player would not level with the group, so they were a constant liability in combat. Let's call them "Jake". This player basically did nothing except try to browbeat the DM into letting her summon and fuck a demon (was not successful).. We were in a very difficult Halloween themed arena brawl when "Jake" tried and succeeded to steal my secondary weapon, for no apparent reason. On my next turn I attempted to wrest if back and failed. The player then spent their turn trying to hide and taunting me. On my turn, very annoyed at this person for messing up our game, I decided "fuck it, I'm going to attack them" I played a gnome (forgive me) rogue and the DM gave me a very OP homebrew dagger that allowed me to basically reroll my attack for free every time I crit Well, the inevitable happened. I crit 3 times in a row and did so much damage to this under-leveled PC that their character was instantly killed. Not downed. Killed. It was awkward at the table and the DM did nothing to stop it. "Jake" was quiet for a while after that and never came to another session. Should I have done the math and realized the danger of attacking them? Should I have fudged a roll to make it a knockout? Should I have just let them take my secondary? I await your judgement.

Amy

May it please the court and, in particular, the animal-loving bailiff. I bring you the case of the Dog Digested Dice. My group primarily plays at the house of our DM which he shares with his wife, children, two cats, and a gigantic English Mastiff named Meatball. Meatball is a wonderful dog, very chill, and friendly to all. His only flaw is a tendency to instantly consume anything dropped from the table. Mostly this is food scraps, particularly from the DM’s small children, but every so often it’s an over enthusiastically rolled dice belonging to one of the party members. In all instances our DM has been able to “retrieve” the dice a day or so later and return it freshly washed….and we would really prefer he not. Is it unreasonable to expect the DM to pay to replace any dice consumed by Meatball? We’ve also suggested having all players throw a dollar or two each session into a community pot for dice replacement whenever Meatball decides someone’s D20 looks particularly delicious. So far our DM has refused all options, arguing that the dice are fine and if he’s willing to go digging through Meatball’s turds for the dice, we should be grateful and happy to accept their return. Are we obliged to accept dog-digested and dookie-dug dice or are we right in arguing that replacements should be “fresh”?

joyjump

Good Justices of the Crit and OMG is that THE Bailiff Emily?? I bring you the Case of the Disastrous Disengage. I was DMing for friends, and the party was fighting various oozes in an 80x80 ft cave. The wizard, Pen, was low on HP in melee with two oozes. Instead of doing a vanilla disengage, he chose to uncork an Eversmoking Bottle to “escape in a puff of smoke.” Justices, I knew my player was just adding flavor an otherwise dull disengage action, but the Eversmoking Bottle discharges blinding smoke in a radius of 60 feet. I couldn’t resist the comedy of letting it resolve RAW. I narrated that every inch of the cavern filled with smoke, blinding Pen and all 5 of his companions. The punchline? Oozes have blindsense, so every enemy was unaffected. In fact, they now had advantage against blinded Pen, and he was promptly downed by the first opportunity attack. Both player and character got a razzing for the ages. The table was a shrieking mess of panic and laughter, the stuff DMs dream about. However, the downed player was pretty flustered/defensive, and my fear is he felt embarrassed by it all. The party ultimately prevailed and Pen survived——the cleric cleared the smoke with ‘dispel magic’ on the very next turn——but I feel guilty for punishing a DnD mechanics mistake when it’s kinda my job as DM to clarify those. On the other hand, this was the funniest moment of the whole campaign. I ask the court, was within my rights to let this disaster play out, or should I be punished for my lack of lenience? Thank you for your attention.

joyjump

P.S. Additional details in case the court wishes to know: 1. “Fighting oozes” massively undersells the stakes of the fight. This was the boss battle of a multi-session arc through an underground Jurassic ecosystem lit by a canopy of glowing slime. The region’s twist was that this enormous slime network was sentient, and a surprise BBEG. The ooze battle in question was the final showdown with the slime, and it was balanced as such. Pen’s blunder came at the comedically perfect and strategically devastating point in the fight when the party was low on resources but the enemies weren’t guaranteed to go down quickly, which is why emotions were high on all sides. 2. They were a level 5 party of 6 PCs, the campaign had been going for about a year, all players had prior dnd experience, and we successfully concluded the campaign months after the incident. 4. Pen got the Eversmoking Bottle during our 3rd session, and this was session 22. He’d recently used the item (previous session), but it was for an out-of-combat scheme to hide from pterodactyls, so it succeeded without the exact mechanics being discussed.

Loggoose

I play in a rotating group where every moment two people are running games. At the start, for my first characters in this group, I played charisma maxing squeamish little things. It’s really fun and I like that archetype. The problem is that, since those first campaigns, dms talk about how exited to see what kind of sniveling freak I make. I wanna branch out and make new characters but everyone seems to want it BAD. They also bully my characters bad (it’s deserved). Has my group trapped me in a character trope cage or have I made my terrible coat and now I must wear it?

Ash Vance

Sup freaks, I bring to you the Strange Case of Dr. Tesque. In high school I was a fairly new forever DM. I was ecstatic when I finally got the chance to play! I wanted to create the most fucked up and nasty guy. I didn’t really get the rules or the etiquette, so I created Dr. Tesque! A Beastmaster Ranger with 3 different fucked up and nasty pets each with their own stat block. The DM seemed a little iffy but I was so excited so he let me play DR. TESQUE! In the first session he had me pull from the Deck of Many Things and I was instantly shunted into a demi-plane. We never played again. Did I do something wrong?

50 Bad Songs

The Case of the Accidental Early Bird: I have been playing with this group for about a year now and it is a really great group and DM and all around we have had a great time. The DM very generously hosts at his apartment every time we play. One session, maybe like 6 months in to playing together, I got the start time of our session wrong... We typically start at 6:00 but for this session we were starting at 6:30 (I don't remember why). I am often a couple minutes late to our normal 6:00 start time, but for this session I was determined to be on time and arrived at a sensible 5:55. I knock on the door and my DM answers and looks a little startled / disheveled and says, "You're here early". I just assumed he meant that I was relatively early compared to my recent pattern. So I thought nothing of it, took off my shoes, and came in like I normally would, setting my bag down at my seat while chatting. I noticed that his DM screen wasn't on the table and I said something like, "Oh are you still getting set up?" And he said, "yeah actually. Also, our start time was 6:30 today." To which I responded, "Oh my god, I totally forgot! I am so sorry to be here so early! (It was now probably 5:58) Do you mind? I can sit here while you get set up. Or I can help you get set up!" To which HE said, "yeah, I do mind actually. Can you go?". Which...took me by surprise, to say the least. But I sheepishly acquiesced and apologized again, and put my shoes back on and walked to a coffee shop a couple blocks away to sit for like, 20 minutes before I walked back to his apartment for the session to begin. He wasn't mad at me or acting weird to me or anything and we went on to have a great session, but I couldn't shake the weird feeling from my accidental early arrival and sudden dismissal. Obviously, it's his apartment and he has every right have a boundary and to not welcome me in. But like, I was only 30 minutes early? We are friends! I thought I would just sit on the couch and chill while he got set up. No Biggie! Was I in the wrong to assume that? Was it actually a Yes Biggie? Should he have let me stay? Is there some pre-session DM ritual that I don't know about? I humbly await your judgement.

Sarah With An H

Hello justices and their little rat boy Jake, I present the Case of The Traumatised Mum. I DM for my mom, siblings and my girlfriend (not to brag). The very first session (over 6 years ago) was set up as a one shot with potential to become a full blown campaign if everyone had fun. I played a DMPC Ranger named Nicolas. I had planned from the very start to have Nicolas betray the party and become the BBEG of the new campaign. Nicolas’ betrayal came as a huge surprise. Everyone was thrilled by this, except for my mom. She now is incredibly distrustful of everyone and refuses to listen to them, even with 20+ insight checks. The others do not let her question NPCs anymore because she can be so savage to them. It has caused some in game fights amongst the party. So I ask justices, did I make a mistake by having Nicolas betray them in their very first session ever or does my mom need to realize that not everyone is out to get her? I await your judgement and my family all know about this so they will be waiting too.

Joshua Kramer

May it please the court and the mountainous Jebal Barkal! I once played in an intrigue campaign where we were part of an upstart rebellion. One member of our party decided to play a min-maxed Genie Warlock. In our second or third session, we found ourselves being trailed through the city by magical inquisitors. None of us could shake them, so the Warlock told us he had a plan. He had us give him all of our armor, weapons, and magic items so he could place them inside his genie vessel - a ring - where they couldn't be discovered. It worked, and the inquisitors passed us by. But when we asked for our gear back, the Warlock informed us that we would actually need to take a long rest before he could access the vessel again. He had left this detail out of the plan completely, and since this was a Gritty Realism campaign, our Long Rests took closer to a day instead of just 8 hours. We had shit to do, and we now didn't have any of our stuff do it with. He was confused and frustrated when our characters took him to task. He simply tried to roll persuasion to smooth things over and get us to trust him again. This did not fly. So I ask: was he wrong to take action? He saved us, and yet - it was really annoying.

Majestic Potoo

To the Cardinals of Crits and Pontiffs of Probability, I seek the intercession of Dice Christ, not in absolution, but benediction! The next session my group will play celebrates the TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY of our campaign. We started at first level, in a tavern. I taught some of them which one the d20 is. Others I've been playing with my whole adult life. Our game is a beautiful, horrifying mashup of crunchy rules and homebrew and features stolen from other games. We've had satisfying boss fights, real tears, and an impulse-buy wagon that changed the entire trajectory of the campaign. They're sixteenth level now. It'll be the first and probably only time I'll take a campaign from 1-20. Most of my best friends are at that table and I love them so much. Bless Team Shmim, Dice Christ. For the last ten years, and the next ten to come.

KJ

To the Beautiful Bailiff (I love what you’ve done with your hair today) and the Boy Justices, I come to you with a case of an unwilling party player. I’ve been playing the same campaign with the same 5 players (myself included) and DM for a little over 3 years now. We meet once a month over Zoom as we all live in different cities (I knew all of them irl before the campaign) and everyone has said how much they look forward to each session. We have had to occasionally skip months due to scheduling issues, but have otherwise had a long running and fun campaign. Our DM has worked all of our individual storylines into each other but has also allows us solo story beats as well. Four of the five players have worked hard in-game to solve our individual mysteries and help with each other’s, but one player (we’ll call them Phil) refuses to help with other PCs’ plot lines. Ever since the beginning of the campaign, Phil’s PC has been reluctant to join up with the other PCs and act as a party. Recently, Phil had a fun and satisfying conclusion to one aspect of their story in which they and all the other PCs fought at an underground auction to rescue a loved one that had been kidnapped and was being sold off. There is still plenty of the story that hasn’t been uncovered, both for their own character and for all the other PCs. But every single session Phil says they don’t know why their PC would even stick with the rest of the party. Our DM has had to have 20-30 minute solo moments with Phil most sessions to narrate how Phil is an asset to the group and basically convince them to stick with the party. Another player even asked me if I thought Phil was trying to soft launch leaving the group, but they haven’t said anything about leaving or skipped any sessions. They seem mostly engaged, though only in their own PC’s plot, haven’t said anything about wanting to leave, and have been doing this since the campaign started over 3 years ago. It feels like pulling teeth every session to get them to agree to stay with the party. Justices, what is going on? Is this Phil’s way of slowly leaving or do they just not know how to be a party player? Do I say something,and if so, to who? I humbly await your fair and honest judgement and advice, because I frankly have no idea what to do at this point.

Wyred

May it pleasure the most Supreme of Courts and tickle the bailiff’s fancy until it wets itself: I present the case of the Bullseye Druid! I joined a campaign my partner was in with her friends, who I didn't really know. The DM was running the same module with another group and thought it would be fun for both parties to race to retrieve a special amulet for a town festival. Each group ran separate sessions through an underwater grotto, using potions to breathe. At the start of the joint session the DM made it very clear that no one would be allowed to die from PvP. Our group was not allowed to make stealth rolls even though we ended the previous session having Pass Without Trace up. Our rogue got the amulet off a giant shark and I cast Invisibility on him. The DM's husband in the other group said, "Focus fire the Druid [me] to break concentration" even though his character had no way to speak underwater. Their party of 6 players proceeded to ignore the shark and take me down in one round, though I held concentration and the rest of my party dashed away with the item. We ultimately "won" but I was salty as the sea. Your honors, should we have gotten to make stealth roles against the other players’ perception? Should the DM have stopped the table talk to uphold her "No PvP killing" rule? I await your ruling with potion-baited breath! Supplementary Evidence: Our group was two Rogues and a Barbarian, starting at level 3, so I had built my Druid to specialize in stealth. We had used Pass Without Trace to avoid most combat in the previous session and still had plenty of time left on it. The full group session was online with about 10 players, so I really tried to be understanding about how much cat-herding the DM was having to do. We entered the final area, a large sea cave, from opposite sides, where the amulet we were all after was being guarded by the giant shark. The amulet was hanging from a spear stuck into the giant shark. One of our Rogues had the ability Psychic Whispers, which allowed our party to communicate under water. We planned to just grab and dash rather than fight, to avoid unnecessary PvP or animal cruelty. The other group initially fought the shark until our party got the amulet, then ignored it to take me down even while it was still attacking them. I had pointed out that the DM’s husband had no way to speak to his party underwater when he told them to focus on me but they all still acted based on his table talk. Our Barbarian did manage to scoop my unconscious body but it still felt like I got punished for our group trying to honor the spirit of the “no killing” rule.

Denatonia (Haven)

Esteemed lords and lady, I present the case of the Forbidden Horse! Two or so years ago, our 5e campaign had a big mid-season finale fight. We had just reached lvl5, and as we approached the BBEG, my beloved paladin cast "Find Steed" for the first time to help her in battle. Citing that he "didn't want to deal with an extra thing on the map", the DM forbade this. (Note: his gf plays a druid in another campaign and frequently wildshapes/summons, and my ranger is also perfectly fine to fight with her dog, so this had no precedent. HIS paladin also recently summoned himself a steed). He said I should have discussed it with him first if I wanted to use Find Steed - a normal and common paladin spell. He's experienced and it wasn't a 'you'll be too powerful' panic moment. Am I right to be salty about this random decision? Should every spell choice be confirmed with the DM? I also wouldn't ask if my cleric / wizard are allowed to prepare Cure Wounds / Magic Missile before I use them. PS: Once we entered, it turned out the battlefield was huge and a steed would have really helped my paladin get around. She was then permanently killed in the battle on a technicality (2 failed saves but it was the rogue's turn who was running to me with a potion when suddenly the DM interrupted, said he'd forgotten a lair action, and killed my paladin with said lair action). A bit later I was kicked out of the group also :(

Stephen

May it please the court and the blundering bailiff, I present the Case of the Whomped PC BBEG. I'm running Curse of Strahd, and in the last session we played my party faced off against an important NPC from one of the PCs backstories, who is currently employed by Strahd. My original plan for the encounter was to have this NPC attack for three rounds and then run away; he has Rogue abilities and items like invisibility potions with this in mind. However between rolling like dogshit on initiative for my monsters and NPCs, my party rolling higher than all of them, and forgetting to account for the Artificer's Steel Defender, they finished off the other enemies faster than I expected and my NPC had not gotten to start running yet. The attacks made against him before his next turn missed, but he failed the Strength save against the Ranger's Ensnaring Strike. I realized as it was happening that I had made him way too easy for this fight and had to narrate a cutscene of him escaping because the party otherwise would've killed him, since he's supposed to be a major part of the Ranger's character arc. Keep in mind, this was my second time ever DMing, and the second session of the campaign. Justices, was I wrong to let my NPC get away without honoring the mechanics, or should I have sucked it up and let him die prematurely? I await your harsh and most certainly cruel judgement.

Shern

Hey NADDPOD (accusatory) I’ve got a bone to pick with the Supreme Crit and their humble Bailiff. I was listening to a recent episode while taking a nap, and during said nap I had a dream where I was *trying* to provide my valuable insight as a lawyer before the court, but all four justices blew me off and dismissed my expertise outright. I am here to take YOU (yes, the Supreme Crit itself) to small claims court where I will be suing for emotional damages to my fragile dream-ego. I yield the remainder of my time, thank you. Note: I am not actually a lawyer IRL, but I am a certified rules lawyer at my home table.

Steve, aka, Spaghetti

The case of the Bug-Sized Axe vs. The Anti-NPC Idiot Tax Dearest Supreme Crit Justices (and Jake’s sweet tooth), Our campaign began five years ago as a one-shot that refused to die. In Part 4, I committed a classic rookie DM sin: I gave my barbarian a Frost Giant battleaxe that instantly scaled down to medium size without standard attunement. My players weaponized this into an Ant-Man exploit. They shrank it to bug size, slid it under doors or into engines, and released it to trigger instant, giant-sized structural detonations. In our current arc, the party raided an Astral wreck infested with Chronovorous Borers, tiny pests that consume temporal shortcuts. During their retreat, they failed two separate active Perception checks, and two Borers hitched a ride. Aboard their escape shuttle, the NPC pilot offered a routine decontamination scan. Because my party once accidentally stabbed a magical deer functioning as a literal realm-stabilizing nuke, and then in-character roleplayed an entire galactic United Nations into canon, they convinced themselves that they are the real DAPR, the official DAPR is fraudulent, and every NPC is an impostor agent. Naturally, they looked the pilot in the eye and lied: "No magic items here." Cue the comedic timing. The Borers finished snacking on the size-changing runes that exact second. With a deafening thud, the axe blew back up to 12 feet of unwieldy iron, cracking the deckplates. My player cries foul over an unfair weapon nerf. I argue they paid the ultimate anti-NPC idiot tax. I plead the court; did I maliciously sabotage a toy, or did the dice gods finally collect? I lay myself at the courts' mercy of giving them another overpowered item. Bonus context if selected: The party's delusion is that they are the 'true' galactic government and the real one is fake. They are completely oblivious that a third, actual shadow syndicate (SDAPR (Shadow Diplomatic Association of Planar Realms)) is orchestrating a takeover of the Astral Sea right under everyone's noses.

Lili McGee

To the fairest Crit Justices of them all and that one poison gala apple, I bring you the case of The Double Check. I have been playing a Spell Jammer campaign for the last two years with a table of 6. We are nearing the conclusion of our campaign, but after laying out a complicated, multi-step attack plan, we realized we had a few in-game days to kill before everything was ready. We decided to use that time to tackle a side quest for our cleric, who was searching for a way to kill his old god in hopes of earning favor with his new one. As the cleric looked through the eye of the needle, he felt a chill and was asked to make a saving throw. Knowing this was clearly important, the bard gave him his last Inspiration, and our astral elf druid gave him her last Weal, both adding a d6 to the roll. He JUST met the DC, giving him the ability to say goodbye to his old god in a protected Demi plane, and then returned to us safely. We breathed a sigh of relief- until the cleric decided to peek once more JUST to see if he was still in there, triggering another saving throw. He failed. The session ended with him trapped in chains in a death dungeon while his God rose and prepare to attempt to kill us and the plane of existence we are on. Judges, this is not the first time our cleric has put us on deaths door. He has almost gotten the Druid killed twice due to lack of common sense. Are we wrong for voting to abandon this the cavalier cleric to certain death and plane shift out to complete our original mission or should we stay and save our long time travel companion, knowing this may be where our campaign ends. We await your judgement and swear not to second guess it.

Babbles The Clown

May it please the Supreme Crit & Dearest Bailiff Emily, I submit the case of unnecessary epilogue I had the pleasure of attending a DnD event put on by a local museum & was placed at what was described as a beginner friendly table. We were given prewritten characters & completed the quest including collecting the magical maguffin. At the end of the session we agreed to join the fellow elfin rebel since all of our characters were elves & we were told we are treated as second class citizens. To which the DM told us that unfortunately that individual is the BBEG of his home campaign & we all fail. This sucked the air from the table & the DM cleaned up & ended up pitching his ebook to us. Judges I await your judgment upon this DM, was his included information just or should he left the extra lore at home. I await your judgement for myself & my fellow players.

Rainemaker

Grand Papal Judge-Priests, and also the Bailiff who looks very dashing today, might I add. Due to a cavalcade of stacking abilities, my multiclassed Ranger/Warlock does Too Much Damage. At maximum shenanigans, I can do: 1d4 from Favored Foe 1d6 from Warlock's Hex 1d8 Longbow Damage 1d8 Extra Force Damage as a Horizon Walker 4d8 Eldritch Smite damage Plus Eighteen flat damage (5 dex, 10 for sharpshooter, and 3 for a magical weapon [that's a whole actual case right there tbh but i walked in the church doors today]) In truth, when my numbers get that big, my brain stops working. After adding up all my dice, I don't want to *think* about an 18. So i add a flat 20 damage. And then... I don't even subtract the 2. The thought of even a little subtraction after all the addition makes my brain kinda melt out my ears like applesauce. Is the difference between 63 and 61 damage negligible enough that i'm good? or do i need to invest in an abacus or something?

Dracon the Whale

To the voluptuous justices and the valiant bailiff, I am in a campaign where I'm playing as Kanska, a character from an ocean kingdom full of aquatic races such as tritons, sea elves, Etc. We are currently journeying through the country where Kanska grew up, and we decided to go to a church to ask about a magic plant that would allow us to breathe underwater. The head Priestess was a sea elf, so I said hello to her in elvish. My DM said that she didn't fully understand me since sea elves have a different dialect. I didn't make a big stink about it because I'm a grown ass adult and it wasn't that big of a deal, but I still thought it was kind of weird that my character wouldn't be able to speak a dialect of a language he knows from the place he was born and raised in. Should my salty sailor be able to speak the local tongue or should I be sentenced to Davy Jones’s locker?

Thunder Milroy

Dear Dice Christ and his servant Jake, I have a few dice in my collection that I believe to be cursed. Some consistently roll low and some carry bad-ish vibes for me. Although I don't think they are defiling my dice family in any significant way, my first instinct is to purge them in fire in front of all the others. My second thought though is WWDCD (What would dice Christ do)? Moon magic? Blood magic? I'll do whatever, I just want to restore balance to my dice collective.

Lightkeeper Rheyik

Not so much d&d court as actual court. I have my mushroom earrings in, which I made so I know Emily is with me. WWEAD (what would emily do) I was booked to see my 65 year old man boyfriends' play with a friend but my girlfriends will never let me go now, so I'm sneaking off to torture myself and no one else knows. I love this man more than life itself but he told me last week he doesn't love me anymore. This is a man who destroyed my life when we fell so deeply in love years ago. I stopped loving my husband. And he says I've changed cause I finally started asking for him to show up for me after years of putting myself in a box. And theatre is a cesspool. Me included. I found out he's been sleeping with this women who's playing his wife in this play, after they come together through infidelity IN the play. Life imitates art. So wish me luck. I'm off to torture myself watching this

Kingofanchovies

May it make yall salty judges less prickly and thw bailiff more prickly I present the case of 500 toad souls. I was playing a pathfinder 2e game and made a druid and picked two spells one being 500 toads which is a spell for triggering traps. Fast forward to a town hall meeting a fire started and we needed to put it out, i had no water spells so I casted 500 toads on a cube of fire hoping the frog mass would put it out the dm ruled that the frogs just screamed and died and had no mass, i argued they are for triggering traps so they should have some mass and should smother the flames. Dm said no and said I wasted a spell, then a partt member starting debating with the dm saying I abused animals and should lose all my druid spells it took me 15 minutes of debating to convince them not to make me lose all powers for using a druid spell that im provided. Tell me judges was i wrong and a animal bully or should the fire have gone out.

Myckeli

Antagonistic Player and Permissive GM May it please the court and the highly bailiff. I have been part of a Pathfinder group for two years. Since this spring we started an extra campaign with one player GMing for the first time and inviting one of his IRL friends to join. Said friend created a reckless PC with little disregard for the party's opinions, planning or the lives of civilians. The GM allows his shenanigans unpunished and even rewards crazy actions (such as setting the slums on fire to lure out assassins going after nobles. Like, what??). We have one session left of this "season". The character has died and become a ghost (a feat you can take in Pf2e) as agreed with the GM. Would it be rude of me to refuse to return to the admittedly interesting world and story thw GM created after we finish this leg of the campaign? We have discussed the player's lack of party-focus and cooperation, but it didn't improve as he seems to be playing as a meme character. The rest of the party have become detached as a result and were even relieved when he died until he came back as a ghost who is now tied to the party with his unfinished business.

Myckeli

Bonus question: What would be a fun way for us other players to punish him in game? Additional info: He ended the last session (penultimate of the "season") by throwing a fire potion the second we managed to sneak inside the BBEG's HQ. The plan from the beginning was for him to take the Ghost Dedication (if anyone wants to look it up). He and the GM had an agreement. His character name is one letter off from Arson. He has a bear he has drenched in oil and trained to be set on fire as a living fire bomb?? He keeps buying hamsters in game and throwing them at enemies or experimenting on them with his alchemy. Last session he exploded 3 on purpose.

ROMCOM

To the stylish justices and the slimy bailiff worm. I bring to you the case of The DM’s Secret Sessions. I’ve been playing in a D&D campaign for almost 2 years now, and most of us are new players. We are all friends from college, and the DM and one other player are especially good friends. This player’s character fell in love with one of the NPC’s, and as a party we worked together to get them to go on a date; the two characters are now dating. The relationship has been really beneficial to help develop this player’s character. I have no issues with this relationship, however… I have recently found out that the DM and this player have hooked up, and are now dating. This would not be weird if not for the fact that they are roleplaying as these characters in the bedroom. Your honours, I am uncomfortable with this, but as far as I know they have not brought any of this to the table. Are they in the wrong for what they do in the private of their home or should I just get on with it and try not to think about their (hopefully) non-canonical private sessions. I leave the judgement up to you.

Jojoba

To the champions league qualifying judges and the 17th two years in a row bailiff, should actively drowning affect your death saves? This has come up a couple of times across multiple campaigns now whenever a PC starts their turn unconscious while underwater I rule it as an auto fail on their death save. Now they are always warned about this before hand and it’s a relatively easy check to get them to the surface and hell I’ll even let them be fed a potion while underwater I just can’t justify your body making any sort of recovery while unable to breath. Despite this it has always been met with push back and acquisitions of me being a kill hungry DM but I would argue that if you let your friend drown for 3 rounds it’s your decision making that should be questioned, however I’m willing to abide by the ruling of the court on this unless you rule against me in which case I’ll disregard it

glorg sandwich

ps, still friends w this player. do not think this is a case of dark souls Halloweentown

driftin through space

greetings esteemed justices and praised be bailiff emily may i present to you the case of the ill-gotten blood coins. in our current campaign i play a tiefling bard/warlock. it is my and my three compatriots goal to overthrow a tyrannical council of powerful entities who rule over a desert city. there's a lot of intrigues and politics going on between the members of this council aswell, so one of them, an ancient red dragon tried to at one point summon tiamat a powerful dragon god into our world by performing a ritual aided by hundreds of cultists. we managed to stop the ritual and defeat the dragon in an incredibly well designed boss fight and everything went great. the question remained what happens to all these cultists who survived rhe ritual. my character is very social and was at this point already a somewhat prominent voice for our rebellion. so by giving a big speech and rolling a decent persuasion check i was able to convince a portion of them that they had been lied to and should no longer attempt to summon an ancient dragon god who would bring this world to its end. however there were still a lot of cultists left and we found we had no choice but to somehow get rid of them. at that point i had a cheeky idea. earlier in the campaign i had received a cursed blood sword which would give me 2D6 mystersious blood coins and temp HP when dealing the finishing blow to an opponent. i did not know, what these coins would do and was eager to find out. so i went ahead and in a ,i admit not very in character fashion executed the captured cultist with my blood sword. my DM smiled knowingly and said "alright, roll me a D100 and multiply the result by 10". justices, i rolled a 90. therefore i got 900 blood coins. (an absurd amount if you factor in you would usually get 6-7 coins whenever you land the finishing blow on a foe. i later found out i could give them to a blood god for pretty good items). i also gained 900 temp HP until the next short rest, which was hilarious but not relevant in this case. it was an incredibly fun session and my DM wasnt mad about me sort of abusing this item. now here's the catch. my character is generally very driven to end the oppressive status quo and wants to establish peace. i only did this to find out what the blood coins did and to see if my DM would let me go through with this. but now my other players razz me for essentially being a mass murderer and (jokingly) tell me my character couldnt be trusted with the responsibility he has in this rebellion. this happened close to 8 months ago and they still wont let go of it, even if i'm trying really hard to reestablish my character as one of the good guys. justices, do i deserve this razzing punishment for wanting to find out how my cool cursed sword functions or should my friends let it go as one of the many goofy things being said and done at the table every session, that don't necessarily put a huge stigma on how our characters are viewed in the world. i humbly await your judgement.

Dominic Stacey

Dear judges and their +1, This Troll has escaped his bear trap to crawl back home and type this case to you. I come to you with a case that happened years ago. I was starting a new game for Pathfinder First edition and was excited to DM for my Fiance's first TTRPG. I also invited our friend, let's call him Nigel, to play and he asked if he could have his girlfriend, let's call her Lois, play with us. I was hesitant since I didn't like her, for reasons I don't completely remember, but agreed knowing it would make him happy. Cut to the first session starting right around the corner and my fiance tells me of an argument Nigel and Lois had about the game. She wanted to be a Catfolk who could fly but Nigel told her it was impossible because none of the playable races had both wings and cat features. Judges, I knew how to help with this issue. In Pathfinder First edition they have a whole book on how to make your own custom race and keep it balanced with the already existing races, so I could've helped her make a cat race with wings but I didn't. Was I a coward for not sticking up for one of my players, was I right to avoid having someone able to fly at level 1, was it ok to stay out of a lover's quarell? These are the questions I deem I should be judged on. PS That campaign only lasted 1 session because I believe the 2 of them broke up shortly after, I was able to restart the campaign with Nigel, my Fiance and 3 other friends and it was a blast for 6 months. Nigel and Lois would continue to be on again off again in their relationship for almost 2 years

Stephen Molan

A solemn and respectful nod to the wise justices and an informal and frankly infantilising wink to the bailiff who I don’t respect. I bring you a case from a recent session in our curse of strahd campaign where I play a monk/ranger (I use 2024 rules but the dm uses 2014 rules). We were fighting baba yasaga and the druids of yester hill as well as the big evil tree. The sorcerer had used twin spell to haste me and the paladin to rush in and hit the baba. When it got to the trees turn, it went after our sorcerer and hit for 23 damage. The dm then didn’t prompt a concentration check, I said nothing, and the sorcerer dimension doored to the other side of the battlefield. Justices, as I’m sure you know, if concentration dropped, me and the paladin would be stunned for one round. We’d be absolutely fucked. Of course, the next round I got power word stunned by baba yasaga and immediately was womped by the druids, so I would have ended up down either way, and the paladin ended up going down from a round of attacks the following turn. So perhaps the womping was inevitable. BUT! The dm ruled that because the sorcerer was still concentrating on haste while at least one of us was up, we both still had haste. Am I in the wrong for not prompting the dm to ask for a concentration check? this maybe became more of a church issue than court case. Am I going to hell?

macbeth (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-08 20:00 Dearest darlings of the court and the most venerated beautiful bailiff Emily, I beseech your wisdom on handling player misbehaviour. I am running my first ever campaign in a custom world, which I have spent no small amount of time creating. I ran my first session as a one-shot set in a cowboy town, where an incubus had been hunting the largely traumatised population of kids. When it came to the final battle, I used her "disguise self" to change form to figures from PC backgrounds to frighten/plead with the players. This led to some fun role-play, except for one player who straight-up refused to interact because I had done an accent for the character and "my mother isn't French". Judges, I had ran the accent/background by the player several times. This continued to happen whenever I alluded to his background during our session. Anytime I try to describe where he grew up, he shook his head. None of this was brought up out of session! The only way I have been able to get around it is to say he lives in a cult. Please judges, for my peace of mind, should I be doing more to stop this behavior? This player is also the love of my life and a rat bastard in general. PS: If the court accepts bribes, cat pic attached. If not, don't worry about it.
2026-10-08 08:09 Dearest darlings of the court and the most venerated beautiful bailiff Emily, I beseech your wisdom on handling player misbehaviour. I am running my first ever campaign in a custom world, which I have spent no small amount of time creating. I ran my first session as a one-shot set in a cowboy town, where an incubus had been hunting the largely traumatised population of kids. When it came to the final battle, I used her "disguise self" to change form to figures from PC backgrounds to frighten/plead with the players. This led to some fun role-play, except for one player who straight-up refused to interact because I had done an accent for the character and "my mother isn't French". Judges, I had ran the accent/background by the player several times. This continued to happen whenever I alluded to his background during our session. Anytime I try to describe where he grew up, he shook his head. None of this was brought up out of session! The only way I have been able to get around it is to say he lives in a cult. Please judges, for my peace of mind, should I be doing more to stop this behavior? This player is also the love of my life and a rat bastard in general.

Dearest darlings of the court and the most venerated beautiful bailiff Emily, I beseech your wisdom on handling player misbehaviour. I am running my first ever campaign in a custom world, which I have spent no small amount of time creating. I ran my first session as a one-shot set in a cowboy town, where an incubus had been hunting the largely traumatised population of kids. When it came to the final battle, I used her "disguise self" to change form to figures from PC backgrounds to frighten/plead with the players. This led to some fun role-play, except for one player who straight-up refused to interact because I had done an accent for the character and "my mother isn't French". Judges, I had ran the accent/background by the player several times. This continued to happen whenever I alluded to his background during our session. Anytime I try to describe where he grew up, he shook his head. None of this was brought up out of session! The only way I have been able to get around it is to say he lives in a cult. Please judges, for my peace of mind, should I be doing more to stop this behavior? This player is also the love of my life and a rat bastard in general.

Jennexia

May it please the Holiest of Crit Justices and Bailiff Emily on High - I woefully lay before you the neverending spook of Unrequited Love: Last year I became a first time DnD player with a small group of friends online. I was thrilled to learn the game and flaunt my shiny new paladin! However, as sessions continued the group noticed that one of our friends became increasingly uninterested in the campaign, to the point that she didn’t hear an in-game question from an NPC because she was also playing a game on Steam at the same time. Rightfully the DM was upset by this player’s actions, but unfortunately he stopped scheduling sessions. Months later he polled the group for who would like to continue the campaign. Most votes were Yes, and the only No came from our Apathetic Friend. "Great!" I thought, as she could gracefully bow out and the rest of us can continue! But when there was no follow up on the poll, we asked the DM about reinstating the campaign given the sufficient interest. But he said “Probably not, I just wanted to see what everyone would pick.” My entire face fell as realization hit, because the biggest non-secret amongst this friend group is that our DM has been crushing on the Apathetic Friend for over 13 years now to no avail, and I know in my heart of hearts that he doesn't want to continue this campaign without her interest, regardless of the interest from everyone else. Court of Crit, hear my cry! I even got a tattoo to commemorate my first DnD character! Can I ever return to my paladin under these apathetic conditions and unrequited love? Pray tell that you pass judgment - and hopefully not on me - because surely this is a case of collateral damage!

Jennexia

P.S. the videogame she was playing was Peak, if that means anything to anyone (Jake will probably know).

Natural Dragon

Dear esteemed judge Murph, Emily and Caldwell and the lowly bailiff who is somehow besties with the greatest mayor NYC ever meaning Jake is actually pretty darn cool even if he won’t comment on if he is in fact a cake guy or not. I bring you the case of the DM who scales difficulty class based on individuals instead of the group as a whole. I’m currently in a campaign for the curse of strahd. I play a level 3 arcane trickster multiclassed with level 6 bladesinger. During the campaign I’ve noticed that my DM seems to always give me a higher DC for doing things I want to do and is less forgiving when I do fail compared to the other people at the table. Such as one time I rolled a nat 20 investigation to inspect a carriage for traps and rolled a 19 with my Mage Hand Legerdemain and I add a +8 to my sleight of hand. He described that the carriage had an explosive trap and it blew up. He claimed I only searched the outside for traps and I didn’t mention looking inside the carriage and that was where the trap was located. I was furious but kept my cool. Then in the next game my friend playing a barbarian rolled a 12 + 0 to flirt and seduce the Baroness of Kresk who has a husband and my DM said the barbarians charm was starting to work on her and she told the barbarian to meet her later that night and the husband didn’t notice at all even though the husband NPC was in the same room as all of us in the scene. This has happened several times where my DM has set my DC way higher than my other party members. After the game I brought up the explosive trap backfiring on me with high rolls and the barbarians flirting working with low rolls. My DM said that I’ve been a dungeon master, I watch dimension20, D&D youtube channels, listen to D&D podcasts and look at d&d wikis so my DC checks are scaled higher and more difficult then everyone else because they don’t do all the things I do outside of the game. My DM said that he does scale up things for me because I know the rules and I often optimize my characters and that he finds my ideas creative but finds me to be a very challenging player to DM for. The people I play with have completed another campaign with me and our DM before and we have been playing together for 4 years between the two campaigns. Unfortunately sometimes we take months to get back together to play. So judges I ask is it fair that my Dungeon Master makes my DC checks higher I have to pass and have greater consequences when I fail because I’m active in the D&D community compared to the rest of my party who doesn’t engage nearly as much? Also these are my best friends so I can’t just not play with them and I still do have a lot of fun. My DM has never made me do the same check as someone else at a different DC just when I propose an idea that only I need to do a check for. I have more examples but I’m trying to keep this as brief as possible. I await your verdict.

Proopypants

Ah the amber temple perchance?

Proopypants

Love this xxx My GM recently did muppets. No matter how we looked, there was always something obstructing our eyeline - just never quiiite the right angle - to see their bases. Very good fun all in all.

Elle

May it please the justices who refused to have clam chowder with me in a dream one time, and the bailiff who wasn't there, I bring you the case of a wasted PC. A few months back I joined an in-progress campaign online being run by the husband of a very close friend (she was a PC along with my best friend). I was thrilled to be invited, so I brought a character I had been working on for a while and was quite attached to - drawings, bespoke dice, the works. Justices, I was ignored for two sessions. The campaign had just begun a new arc when a magic blanket sucked us into the distant past. As soon as we arrived, I asked to inspect the blanket, and was ignored. When I wasn't ignored, I was told 'No', or that the head PC didn't want us to get this blanket out again. After 6 hours of this, we were attacked by an elite group that wanted to steal the blanket from us - at their request, the leader kindly produced the blanket and discovered it was no longer magical. Something we might have known 5 hours prior if anyone had cared to listen to me. At this stage, they began to razz me for not inspecting the blanket. I simply left the call. The campaign has not met again since. My question is, should I have left as soon as I found out we had a 'Head PC'? Should I have put less effort into a character that ultimately didn't matter? I respectfully await your judgement.

noodle

To the judges I guess and HI BAILIFF EMILY 🤩 I present the case of the Contentiously Controlled Prestidigitation- I, the DM, had described to my party a table of maps and notes left behind by a villain who, in an effort to hide the details of these writings, spilled and smeared ink over all the pages. One of my players asked if they could try to return the pages to their previous state with Prestidigitation, which, as written, can clean a small object. I ruled that the player could roll an arcana check with disadvantage to try it, as I felt that their magic might not be able to differentiate between intended ink on the pages (writings and drawings) and ink "soiling" the pages (the spilled ink over top) and might lose some of the details, especially without knowing what those details even were. ALL of my players argued that there should be NO check, and the spell should just take off the spilled ink, arguing that the spell wouldn't take dye out of a shirt if it had something spilled on it. We all argued in good nature and they got the details of the pages when the player did the check with disadvantage and got it anyway, but I still get razzed for this ruling. So, was I wrong to require a check to clean the pages, was this a rightful razzing? I await your judgment.

Emma

To the pious, puka shell-necklaced Justices, and …present Lowlow-something? Please help me avoid future crimes! My party ended our last session in the middle of a mid-module boss fight, and justices, we are getting our asses kicked. Due to the boss monster’s resistances, my artificer PC would have to be the main damage dealer, but I had 3 real turns in 7 rounds due to being incapacitated by targeted lair actions. I used one of these turns to give a fellow PC a potion, since we have had at least one PC unconscious every round since round 3 and our DM likes to target our death saves when we are down. One of our PCs was even killed in turn 3 by failing death saves to lair action damage before we could heal her. Towards the end of this heinous whomping, our DM has started to heavily hint that we should be running away. It hasn’t really been possible up to this point since we spent most of our turns trying to pass out potions, but we now have none left. I can’t imagine most of our characters fleeing, and the player most attached to her PC was the one that died early combat. Would I be the asshole to rally a table of mostly new players with their first PCs into a TPK next session? I don’t blame our DM who is running a module and I think ran combat fairly. He even printed and painted all of our minis, so might not want us all to die. Or should I accept the likely outcome that most of us will probably die running away like cowards? Is this all my fault because I pissed off Dice Christ by not reminding our DM that we all were also supposed to be cursed during this encounter?

Mirra Palindrome (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-09 14:00 Dearest Emily. My players sometimes don’t know their abilities. Even worse, they occasionally make minor math errors and try “roleplay” with each other while I’m trying to read the book I wrote at them. Should I absolutely TPK their asses with a tsunami of beholders and blink dogs, or do a make an example of the weakest and most lowly?
2026-10-08 09:15 Dearest Emily. My players sometimes don’t know their abilities. Even worse, they occasionally make minor math errors and try to “roleplay” with each other while I’m trying to read the book I wrote at them. Should I absolutely TPK their asses with a tsunami of beholders and blink dogs, or do a make an example of the weakest and most lowly?

Dearest Emily. My players sometimes don’t know their abilities. Even worse, they occasionally make minor math errors and try to “roleplay” with each other while I’m trying to read the book I wrote at them. Should I absolutely TPK their asses with a tsunami of beholders and blink dogs, or do a make an example of the weakest and most lowly?

syzmon

oh god, imagining dogshit deep in the grooves of a d20 dice is horrid! Honestly the DM should just keep a sealed jar of all the unfortunate dice victims in his own house

William Wood

To the most honorable justices of the Supreme Crit and the bailiff who exceeds them all: I play in a campaign run by a close friend alongside several members of his family. The DM and I are both veterans, while the rest are total beginners. We had been tag-teaming to give them the classic D&D milestones, such as mimics, dungeon crawls, and wilderness hazards, while I ran Grim, an Orc Wizard built strictly to plug tactical holes and let the rookies shine. Once the new players found their footing, I was ready for a fresh character. My DM suggested a dramatic exit: Grim would make the ultimate sacrifice so the new players could experience real PC mortality. It went off without a hitch. Grim fell heroically, became one with the spirit of magic, and the table was genuinely moved. Tabletop perfection. Cut to next session. My new character is staged in the sewers, awaiting rescue once the party wraps up the immediate aftermath. Justices, I then sat at that table for six straight hours watching them play. I sat in silence while they held circular conversations with random NPCs and meticulously inspected every single cobblestone in the sewer tunnels. Every time I thought my cue was coming, they took another detour. Around the five-and-a-half-hour mark, the DM realized how bad it had gotten and sheepishly offered to fudge things and work me in. At that point, I declined on pure principle. I had already spent an entire workday watching other people roll dice; I was not taking a pity invite with thirty minutes left. I do not need this court to rule on guilt; the crime speaks for itself. I come strictly for sentencing. The DM is a good friend and the campaign is great, which leaves me far too conflicted to pick a fitting punishment. Justices, how do we sentence this man?

Will R

To the venerable Bailiff Emily and those other guys she hangs out with, This incident occurred more than 10 years ago so it's possible the statute of limitations has passed, nevertheless I would like to present to the Supreme Crit the case of Snakes V Stairs. It was the final battle of a long-running game with friends in the DM's homebrew setting and we were fighting in a throne room with the BBEG standing at the top of a raised dais, which was reachable by a short staircase. Our druid cast conjure animals and summoned eight snakes to assist with the fight - a good move, or so we thought. As the snakes reached the dais, our DM ruled that the stairs would be considered difficult terrain for the snakes as, in his words, "snakes can't climb stairs." We argued this point for a while until, as a compromise, the DM said the snakes could move twice as quickly going down the stairs because "they could bite their tails and turn themselves into wheels to roll down faster." We ultimately agreed to these terms, wanting to move on with the fight, and though we won the fight and finished the campaign, this ruling still feels unjust - especially considering the fight never left the dais and therefore the snakes never got to use their new wheel transformation ability. I ask the Crit, can snakes climb stairs?

YourAnimeDad

To the Highest Court in all the lands of beseech thee. Oh Supreme Crit Justices and the worm amalgam (1millionworms) inhabiting the body of Baliff Axford, I present The case of the Surpise Horror Session. Nary a 2 fortnight ago, mine own Dungeon Master of many ages hath brought a fright upon me and my burrow of buds that we have dubbed him the scariest DM, but I didn't ask for that! Judges i signed up for a Homebrew set in our post C1 adventure that tore the land asunder. Terraforming it into a One Piece adjacent world with weather phenomena and islands galore. Yet our 2nd most jaunt into this sprawling sequel was hijacked by our DMs personal delving into Horror movies as of late. I dont like Horror movies all that much and during one of PCs trips back to his hometown we were met with some of the most ghoulish descriptions of the undead and the like to such detail that I had to take a break from the session. He hadn't warned us that we were getting THAT spooky! I spoke with im after (cause he's my sweet pookie) but he has not turned down the Horror at all! Judges am I wrong for wanting my fantasy a little more whimsical or should I let my DM stay in his bag and try to be the final girl in this campaign? I humbly wait your judgment

Emerson Moore

To the roadwarrior justices and primal guide Emily, I present the case of the little guy with one big spell and/or cannon. I am a college student, and I was invited over to my friend’s house for a guest shot as a player in a level 12 Ravnica campaign, since I am a big MTG fan. The night before, I was informed that one of the player’s characters was killed in their previous session, and that my friend would not be joining us anymore. When I showed up, the player was making the case to the DM that his new character be “just a little guy who only has a dagger and can cast one big spell.” The DM refused, and they argued for 36 minutes before I suggested that the player play a Sidekick but be allowed to use a Mizzium Mortar, a Ravnica-only magical item (kind of like an RPG, or cannon), rather than having a big spell. The DM reluctantly agreed. However, in the session, when we started fighting against a mad Simic bioscientist, the DM said that the massive mutated experiment our BBEG was riding grew a new eye shooting out a Beholder’s anti-magic cone, disabling our little guy’s magic item, and the mutant promptly swallowed him whole. The player and the DM argued for another 17 minutes before the DM left, crying, and I never heard from this group again. Justices, obviously there was an undercurrent of something going on I missed here, but I can’t help but feel like I made things worse by suggesting this magical item. Should I have not spoken up and let things run their course, or was my mistake going to this session without my friend there in the first place? I submit myself to the white and blue order of the court.

Lucas

To the lavender-scented judges and the charcoal-scented bailiff Emily. I bring forth the case of the illiterate pseudodragon: My pact of the chain warlock and party were in a trial that involved stealing an egg guarded by a dragon and her magical wards. For my turn, I had my lovely pseudodragon familiar (who can understand common and draconic) fly to the egg and read the draconic glyphs guarding it, then translate the details to me via our telepathic bond. My dm ruled that my familiar can’t read because “although it understands draconic, it cannot speak”. In the pseudodragon stat block it says that it “understands common and draconic but cannot speak”. I lost the argument but have since stayed salty. Judges, am I wrong to be offended on behalf of my son who is a very smart and special boy?! I prostrate myself before your 80 foot tall bench.

Ashen Mango

~Confessional~ To the most holy and exalted conduits of the word of Dice Christ, forgive me for I have sinned. Recently, two of my players broke up in real life, and one of them opted to leave the table after the upcoming fight with the BBEG of that arc. After learning our group of 5 was soon to become 4, I gave them a 13-card Deck of Many Things. I planned to have them draw from this deck and fudge the result - regardless of what they rolled, I would say that they drew the Knight card, and introduce a DMPC to the party. I gave them this deck right before the big fight and, instead of drawing a card as I had planned, they very uncharacteristically put it in their bag. However, the fight then went very poorly due to a combination of them having whomped me in the past and poor planning on their part. At one stage, everyone except the sorcerer was down and rolling death saves. He reached in the bag for a health potion and I narrated how his hand brushed the deck, and I gave him the "DM look". He paused, looked at the party member he was planning on reviving, and loudly announced that he drew a card. Your holynesses, the result was a 39, the Knight. The tide of combat turned, the downed members were picked up, and the BBEG was defeated with the help of their new DMPC. I didn't fudge anything... but I was going to, and I would have if a different number had come up. Since this day, dice Christ has been punishing me and I've been rolling worse than Murph - at this point it's a special occasion if I roll above a 10. Please, what must I do to be absolved in the eyes of Dice Christ?

ProbablyNotShoes

May I please the court and peeve Murph very briefly. Hello esteemed justices of the crit and bailiff that smells like sex panther, Emily Burgundy. I present a potential wrongful razzing, the case of a wizard who killed kids on purpose. I am a DM for my bestest buddies. In our second session I was running an encounter where one of my PCs was confronting an evil sorcerer and his small army of robots that killed their family. The party had tracked the sorcerer to his home where his wife and two kids lived with him. The party attacked the sorcerer at his home and the wife rushed to save her children but my party attacked her! To give some credit to the party, the mother was a capable magic user and the eldest daughter was casting hostile cantrips towards the party to protect her family. Early in the encounter my party's wizard, Milton, cast fireball attempting to target as many of the family members and robots as possible. It incinerated the damaged mother and killed the 6 year old son outright. They proceeded to kill the evil sorcerer and left the daughter orphaned. Milton the character as well as the player felt terrible about the situation and wanted to incorporate this tragedy into the character and we homebrewed a PTSD mechanic for Milton. But as a result of this situation Milton’s player has been razzed by myself and the other players for killing the kid and his mother with a fireball. The razzing has now extended into gatherings beyond when we are playing D&D it is frequently brought up and jokes are made about him killing kids. One of the most notable jokes being another player got him Fireball shooters as part of a gift exchange for the holidays just to remind him of the heinous crimes he committed. Are we in the wrong for making jokes about our friend killing kids even though he felt terrible about it? P.S. This is all in good fun and Milton has never asked us to stop. He is also a 6th grade teacher in real life.

Doug G (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-08 20:00 To the distinguished justices and wee crumpet Bailiff Emily, I have a dream DM. She plans great encounters, cares about PC decisions, and uses really vivid descriptors to bring the story to life. There is just one small problem: she, an innocent and un-carnal person, unintentionally uses suggestive phrases to the amusement of her very juvenile players. Phrases like “squirting spray” or “pearlescent liquor” or “throbbing walls” or “weeping gash” make us share knowing glances but fly over her head. We have collectively decided to restrain our cackling and NOT inform her of the innuendo because she is such a great DM and we don’t want her to second-guess every word. This is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore because now even borderline cases have us white-knuckling against laughter. Her unfortunate use of the phrase “thick hog” during a giant boar fight nearly left a few players in tears. Mighty justices and Jake, are we right to stifle our adolescent giggles so our awesome DM doesn’t overthink her otherwise impeccable narration? Or should we be punished for excluding her from our childish jokes and tell her how pent up and horny the vibes are? PS: If you’re wondering if she knows and is just pranking us - I, too, considered this after she introduced a thief NPC named “Snatch,” but I assure you this is not the case - no one has a poker face that good.
2026-10-08 11:38 To the distinguished justices and wee crumpet Bailiff Emily, I have a dream DM. She plans great encounters, cares about PC decisions, and uses really vivid descriptors to bring the story to life. There is just one small problem: she, an innocent and un-carnal person, unintentionally uses suggestive phrases to the amusement of her very juvenile players. Phrases like “squirting spray” or “pearlescent liquor” or “throbbing walls” or “weeping gash” make us share knowing glances but fly over her head. We have collectively decided to restrain our cackling and NOT inform her of the innuendo because she is such a great DM and we don’t want her to second-guess every word. This is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore because now even borderline cases have us white-knuckling against laughter. Her unfortunate use of the phrase “thick hog” during a giant boar fight nearly left a few players in tears. Mighty justices, wife worm, and Jake, are we right to stifle our adolescent giggles so our awesome DM doesn’t overthink her otherwise impeccable narration? Or should we be punished for excluding her from our childish jokes and tell her how pent up and horny the vibes are? PS: If you’re wondering if she knows and is just pranking us - I, too, considered this after she introduced a thief NPC named “Snatch,” but I assure you this is not the case - no one has a poker face that good.

To the distinguished justices and wee crumpet Bailiff Emily, I have a dream DM. She plans great encounters, cares about PC decisions, and uses really vivid descriptors to bring the story to life. There is just one small problem: she, an innocent and un-carnal person, unintentionally uses suggestive phrases to the amusement of her very juvenile players. Phrases like “squirting spray” or “pearlescent liquor” or “throbbing walls” or “weeping gash” make us share knowing glances but fly over her head. We have collectively decided to restrain our cackling and NOT inform her of the innuendo because she is such a great DM and we don’t want her to second-guess every word. This is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore because now even borderline cases have us white-knuckling against laughter. Her unfortunate use of the phrase “thick hog” during a giant boar fight nearly left a few players in tears. Mighty justices, wife worm, and Jake, are we right to stifle our adolescent giggles so our awesome DM doesn’t overthink her otherwise impeccable narration? Or should we be punished for excluding her from our childish jokes and tell her how pent up and horny the vibes are? PS: If you’re wondering if she knows and is just pranking us - I, too, considered this after she introduced a thief NPC named “Snatch,” but I assure you this is not the case - no one has a poker face that good.

Katherine

May it please the court and the wiggly wife worm Emily: a case of neighborly acquaintance. Our dnd group is made up of neighbors and one of my husbands distant college friends. We had only met once as a group, before unfortunately one of our neighbors moved out of state. A different neighbor (not in our dnd group) invited us to come to a goodbye party at their house as the neighborhood is closely knit. Upon arrival we noticed my husband's friend was there (had only met our moving neighbors once or twice and hadn't mentioned coming to the party, and had never met the host of the party). Is this normal behavior in a DnD acquaintance?

Alex T

To whoever the baliff is this time and the rest of the Judges, 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?

JonesyBoy

Goood Even-ing judges and a blood curdling scream to the elongated Bailiff, I bring to you a case from the dark times of Covid. I was invited to join an online game of Strahd, a game i so deeply have wanted to play for a long time, the GM was a friend of an online friend. the party i came to join had all decided to be animals or animal adjacent species. One player was a Centaur Ranger...who couldn't, or perhaps wouldn't, use stairs. We started with Death House...a four story mansion. so naturally, stairs. when we decided to climb to the second floor the GM had the centaur roll a Dex Save at disadvantage, to see if the horse half could go up stairs. he failed and fell, to which the rest of us had to roll to avoid it. I failed and was crushed under the weight and falling damage of a horse and died. we were level 1. JUDGES, who is at fault here? the centaur? the GM? Me for joining this animal circus in the landa of dread? I await your decision.

uh (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-11 19:00 Hello my dear Jake and also the other ones I guess I bring you the case of the police officer dm, me and my allys had returned from a quest We'd gotten a coupon for new weapons, I was excited because earlier I dragged my greataxe on the ground and my dm reduced it's modifiers (no roll), when they came to give us new weapons I asked if they could just sharpen my old one because I was attached to it he said no then narrated him taking my greataxe (no roll) and giving me a new one I asked for it back "no" he ran away, I said I chased him "he's too fast" I threw my greataxe killed him took it back then was put in jail (there was a roll and I won but he said they just did it again) in jail I crit opened the cage and "there's like 20 guards they put you back in they're too strong) then my dm decided their dmpc would just fly out the window and toss down a rope (no roll) after that we did a heist where i rolled but my dms dmpc didn't, justices what the funk was that I crit then got put back in and they didn't roll and successfully did it with no setbacks, and also part of my character was that I had been using the same greataxe for 60 years of my 80 year life and they just took, PS they were grinning as they said they ran away with my axe as if they can turn the emotional attachment of my character Into a joke
2026-10-08 12:52 Hello my dear Jake and also the other ones I guess I bring you the case of the police officer dm, me and my allys had returned from a quest We'd gotten a coupon for new weapons, I was excited because earlier I dragged my greataxe on the ground and my dm reduced it's modifiers (no roll), when they came to give us new weapons I asked if they could just sharpen my old one because I was attached to it he said no then narrated him taking my greataxe (no roll) and giving me a new one I asked for it back "no" he ran away, I said I chased him "he's too fast" I threw my greataxe killed him took it back then was put in jail (there was a roll and I won but he said they just did it again) in jail I crit opened the cage and "there's like 20 guards they put you back in they're too strong" then my dm decided their dmpc would just fly out the window and toss down a rope (no roll) after that we did a heist where i rolled but my dms dmpc didn't, justices what the fuck was that I crit then got put back in and they didn't roll and successfully did it with no setbacks, and also part of my character was that I had been using the same greataxe for 60 years of my 80 year life and they just took it, PS they were grinning as they said they ran away with my axe as if they can turn the emotional attachment of my character Into a joke

Hello my dear Jake and also the other ones I guess I bring you the case of the police officer dm, me and my allys had returned from a quest We'd gotten a coupon for new weapons, I was excited because earlier I dragged my greataxe on the ground and my dm reduced it's modifiers (no roll), when they came to give us new weapons I asked if they could just sharpen my old one because I was attached to it he said no then narrated him taking my greataxe (no roll) and giving me a new one I asked for it back "no" he ran away, I said I chased him "he's too fast" I threw my greataxe killed him took it back then was put in jail (there was a roll and I won but he said they just did it again) in jail I crit opened the cage and "there's like 20 guards they put you back in they're too strong" then my dm decided their dmpc would just fly out the window and toss down a rope (no roll) after that we did a heist where i rolled but my dms dmpc didn't, justices what the fuck was that I crit then got put back in and they didn't roll and successfully did it with no setbacks, and also part of my character was that I had been using the same greataxe for 60 years of my 80 year life and they just took it, PS they were grinning as they said they ran away with my axe as if they can turn the emotional attachment of my character Into a joke

uh

Sorry that wasn't very brief but I seek punishment for my dm and there was alota BS Hey Jake did my compliments get you? Edit: now realizing the baliffs emily

Rachel K.

Just two quick questions for Emily: Which of the Flintstones Movie glassware is your favorite? And do you also have the Batman Forever glasses? Thanks!

Jenna Leis

Dear honorable Justices and that guy they keep around (I think his name’s Jorty?). I recently joined a Curse of Strahd campaign that had already been going for a few months. I was invited by a coworker to fill the spot of someone who moved away. It is the same group I join for bar trivia every other week but they are mostly friends who I met through that coworker. So far I’ve played 4 sessions with them and we are all level 5 characters. There is one player, we’ll call Darren, who bugs the shit out of everyone. He’s the know it all type who is constantly talking over other people in the game (and in real life). It’s especially bad with the only two women in the game (myself and my coworker). The real problem comes with the fact that I’m 99% sure he built his character all wrong. I haven’t seen his stat sheet but he has at least plus 5 (if not more) to almost every stat and no negatives. Another example is he keeps giving himself “double advantage” to his attacks because of his elven accuracy feat. It bugs me but I feel pedantic when I say that it isn’t how that works. It allows him to reroll an attack when he has advantage, not just roll three dice. Prior to me joining he was the only player who had ever played D&D before and part of me feels like he took advantage of that to build a broken, not technically correct character. (Note he’s only played in one campaign before, it’s everyone else's first and the DM’s first time DMing, meanwhile I’ve been playing for almost a decade). Our DM’s attitude whenever it is brought up is to shrug his shoulders and say it’s fine. My number one rule when I play is never to argue with the DM and if he says it’s ok, then I guess it is. In private my coworker has told me how she and some of the other players agree with me but they never says anything in person. Justices this it’s starting to really bug me that he’s playing wrong! But I also don’t want to be the new player who comes in and starts rules lawyering existing players. But I might explode if this guy takes one more “double advantage” roll or adds plus 15 to a persuasion check! An important note is that we play at Darren’s house so I feel even worse correcting the host.

Peyton Raber

Please forgive me for I am considering sin… Dear deacons of dice Christ’s demented diocese, I recently put together a group for dnd with some new friends at college, and everything has mostly been good even though we havnt yet played. All we’ve done is a session 0 and the problem I’m having is that during character creation on of my players wanted their backstory to be the Norse myth of a guy named Fafnir. Not inspired by, literally that myth. I tried to text him separately and ask questions like “does your character have any siblings or family?” To try and prompt some original ideas from him and he sent me a screenshot of a google search for “Family of fafnir norse myth”. I don’t want to make him change his character but I am contemplating an early pc death or something else to change his character a bit from my end, because I simply do not know how to dm for a pc who wants their character to be a full dragon at lvl 2.

Nick_Nack_Patty_Whack

I’d like to congratulate Bailiff Jake on being the October 2027 model for the bailiff swimsuit calendar. I know that on a technical level it’s a one-piece, but wow. Words have truly failed me. I need to rethink my life. No questions.

You Yee’d your last Haw

Hi Judges and the wormiest of bailiffs I’m writing to you today with the ongoing case of the wedding that threatens to tear apart my campaign of 6 years. My campaign consists of the DM (my fiancée), me (bard), my brother (rouge), my fiancée’s best friend (barbarian), and two other mutual friends who for privacy’s sake I’ll only refer to as Cleric and Artificer. We have had a great campaign starting virtually at level two in 2020. We have survived multiple changes in jobs, the normal scheduling conflicts of dnd, and our Artificer’s move across the country. We now play in person at level 15. For 5 of the 6 years, I have been dating my partner/DM. This month I ordered an engagement ring to propose. The problem came when we told the party at our latest session. Our Artificer wasn’t present due to scheduling conflicts. But everyone seems very happy at the news. After the session ended, rouge/brother and cleric stayed after to help clean up. This was when the cleric asked DM and I, “would it affect our friendship or campaign if I don’t come to your wedding.” We were confused. Cleric has been a great friend for years. Why wouldn’t he want to come to our wedding? When we asked why he cited religious beliefs. Saying while he didn’t judge our “choices” he doesn’t believe in celebrating same-sex marriage. Now judges, our cleric has NEVER mentioned a problem with this in the past. And every person in our group is gay except the cleric player. The Artificer just message the Discord asking about next session. What do we do?

Alex W

Hello glorious judges and puppet bailiff jorts, I present to you the birthday root (the board game) confession. For my birthday this year, I had a bunch of friends over to play Root, a board game that’s like risk with woodland creatures. Several people had never played before, and some of the people who had played before were trying to help them. I, as the host and birthday celebrant, was also trying to help them. But in helping them I kinda screwed my own game through various ways. And, instead of accepting the lowercase birthday L, I began to cheat a little. Not egregiously, just not discarding cards when I scored victory points. Justices, this has eaten away at my soul. I didn’t even win either. Please absolve me of my birthday sins.

Brian Edwards

To Raddest of High Courts and the bailiff who's due for her own spin-off, I present to you the case of the Already Prepared Casters. In my home game, our 4 person party are preparing to fight a dragon and the mysterious humanoid who rides with them, attacking and pillaging villages in the Misty Forest. We'd heard it was a Green dragon so our Paladin thought we should do our best to prepare and acquire some potions of Poison resistance. My character, a Monk is already immune to poison so we only needed to get some for the other 3. The shopkeeper said they were 300gp each. Pooling our money we could only afford 2. I offered all my gold (200); our Druid offered 300 and our Paladin and Wizard offered 50 gp each (all they could afford) and bought two. We hand one to our Wizard and as we were deciding which of the Druid or Paladin should get the 2nd one they BOTH realize they each have the Protection from Poison spell prepared. Both of them. That was virtually all our money (and absolutely all of mine) gone instead of using a few 2nd level spell slots. Would my Dhampir Monk (who is wealthy mind you. He is a count naturally) be within his rights to ask for his 200gp back from the Druid and Paladin (assuming we survive the fight)? Or is that just me the player being absolutely petty. The DM, cackling with glee upon the spell realization, narrated a cut to to the shopkeeper laughing as he counted our gold)

Belthazor24

Ghostly greetings to you most spooky of supreme crit justices and also the bailiff, who seems fun at parties. I bring to you the case of the Hungry Hungry Hydra. My party and I recently played a spooky one-shot where we wound up facing a False Hydra that kept swallowing us (the strength saves were not on our side). While engulfed, we were naturally considered blinded and restrained, which eliminated the use of somatic components or spells that target via sight. This left my character with very few options other than a handful of spells that relied only on verbal components. Thus, my spamming of Dissonant Whispers and Silvery Barbs began. Unsurprisingly, the hydra made most of its saves even at disadvantage. But it did fail one. I excitedly told the DM (my twin brother) to have it spit me out due to the effect of the spell stating that the targeted creature must use its movement to move as far away from the caster as possible. I reasoned that the only way it could do that would be to regurgitate my character. The DM told me that the false hydra was immune to fear effects as well as psychic damage, so that idea wouldn't work. I read the spell's effect aloud, noting that there was no mention of a fear effect taking place, only the movement and damage (which I got past using wizard shenanigans). He argued that the fear was implied, but proposed leaving it down to a roll, which I agreed to. Dice Christ was not on my side in that moment, but I accepted it and the fight continued. We managed to defeat the monster (and be spat out) after another few rounds, but I ask you: should my idea have caused the False Hydra to release my character, or does the spirit of a spell's effect outway the letter of it? I humbly await your decision.

KaitlinF

Greetings Honorable Judges and Bailiff, I bring to you a case between my typical DM and a player in one of this DM's other groups. This is in a play-by-post campaign using 5e rules and set in the Dolmenwood campaign setting with one DM and three players. This is the first play-by-post campaign for this group, and the format has some challenges as scenes that would normally flow quickly during an in-person game instead takes several days to play out, and the DM doesn't typically ask questions like "Are you sure?" to keep things moving. The campaign had an unexpected early TPK due to a combination of questionable player decisions and bad luck, so the players made new PCs. One player wanted his new character to be in the "funny little guy" archetype and made a goblin fighter named Fibleblik. The lore for goblins in Dolmenwood notes goblins as often being thieves of small trinkets, and Fibleblik wanted to lean into that trope by being a bit of a kleptomaniac, stealing things like salt shakers and decorative beads. Right before the party left the starting town to go back to the dungeon where the first TPK happened, Fibleblik asked to look around for any "shiny trinkets". The DM described an NPC walking down the road wearing a powdered wig with a fancy pocket watch and a fancy cane. Fibleblik decided he wanted to steal this man's wig. After a botched stealth check and some shenanigans, he stole the man's fancy cane instead of the wig, and the victim shouted for guards. This lead to a fun chase scene where Fibleblik and one other PC made a mad dash through town to escape the guards. The other PC was not involved in the theft but the guards assumed guilt by association. The chase was going fine, and they were almost at the town gate and freedom. They had lost the guards that were following them, and they got to a street next to the town church where a luck check determined the coast was clear. The other PC tried to use Thaumaturgy to fool the guards into thinking they went a different direction, but rolled poorly on deception and inadvertently signalled guards to their location. Fibleblik wanted these newly arrived guards to focus on him so the other PC could escape, as Fibleblik figured his high dexterity and nimble escape feature from being a goblin would make it easier for him to escape if these new guards focused solely on him. So Fibleblik decided to throw a rock through the church window as a distraction. The other PC with Fibleblik had a connection to the local priest, and asked out of character if it would be okay to have his character try to grapple Fibleblik and to make him give back the cane since his character would be upset about the church window being broken. The DM noted out of character that this would probably lead to Fibleblik being arrested and put in jail, as it had already been established that the local religion was suspicious of the fey, and Fibleblik's character would need to consent to the PvP. This PvP request prompted Fibleblik to throw a rock at the other PC to further sell to the guards that the other PC was innocent. At this point, the local priest comes out of the church and casts Hold Person on Fibleblik. Fibleblik failed the initial save, and the next save at the end of his turn. The guards beat Fibleblik unconscious and arrested him. Fibleblik's player was upset about this, because he felt the campaign thus far has had very harsh consequences between the early TPK and his second character getting paralyzed, beaten unconscious, and arrested when he was originally just trying to have some light-hearted shenanigans with his original target of stealing a wig. He also felt it was unfair for the DM to use the Hold Person spell against his level one character. Notably, in the lore of the Dolmenwood setting, the church that Fibleblik vandalized was dedicated to the Saint that invented the Hold Person spell in this world, so presumably the priest of this church would know this spell. Lastly, the Play By Post format meant this chase scene took several IRL days, and he was upset that it ended with what felt like heavy handed punishment. Judges, was the DM overly punitive to Fibleblik's shenanigans and should the DM have used some tactical "Are you sure?" style questions to better signal to the PCs the danger of the situation, or was this a case of Fibleblik fucking around and finding out? We humbly await your verdict. P.S., Rather than throwing the goblin in jail and making the player make a new character, the priest confiscated Fibleblik's prized cigars (from his backstory) and tasked the goblin with retrieving holy artifacts as collateral to get the cigars back.

Cody Henderson

Dearest judges and the most humble bailiff Jacob. I have a confession of the most unholy. I have been listening to NADDPOD around the time episode 60 or so came out for campaign 1. I got my partner into NADDPOD around campaign 3. He listens to dungeon almost daily and has listened to them multiple times. Sometimes instead of music during our intimate times, he would rather put NADDPOD on in the background. I told him sure but he will have to roll for it. Judges, this was my demise. Now when we have a roll off I cannot win. He has won almost every roll off since the rule was made, but as much as I love you all I can’t take it anymore. I fudge my last roll and told him I rolled a 19 over his 16 because I swear his dice are loaded, and thus began my downfall. I DM for 2 campaigns and since this transgression my players, including my parter as he is in both campaigns, have womped my bad guys no matter what I throw at them. I ask for dice Christ forgiveness for my sin so I may return the womping back to my players. Please help me.

Dylan

That’s be it. Didn’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t played though.

Jeane Emily DuBose

Long time listener, first time submitter. I've been playing with a group I met via a paid d&d campaign. We had so much fun, we transitioned into a normal party. Even our GM stuck around and insisted we stop paying him and start playing as friends (we do race to pay his tab at the bar every session). Here's where I struggle: everytime we enter a new town/neighborhood/set, one player, a studious druid, makes a point to find a guidebook about the area. She wants to learn the history, the dynamics at play, and as much info about the bad guys as possible. Every time we need to go on a mission, she will spend up to half an hour asking the GM questions about every single hurdle we might face. In my opinion, it takes the fun out of discovery and grinds everything to a halt. I've tried in character to get the show on the road (my grumpy paladin doesn't like sitting around) but nothing has changed. What do I do? The GM and other players don't seem to mind but I find it excruciating.

Joshua Strickland

To the spooktacular judges and the boooolif I bring to you a case of the keen smell. My family and I, 5 cousins (not quiet) and my aunt have been playing a Rise of Tiamat campaign for a several years as a way to get together as a family. Everything has been great and there’s been no problems. HOWEVER, when we were faced against a wizard who used mirror image to create multiple images of himself, he proceeded to almost TPK the party after our bad rolls, and killed my Awakened Mammoth I had got in the previous session I argued that my aunt who is a level 16 Druid in bear form should be able to use her keen sense of smell to at least roll with advantage to detect the actual wizard, not the illusion. He argued, well she didn’t roll perception and no one else tried to investigate. I ask you judges, was my cousin wrong to not let our aunt have a cool moment using her Druids abilities and killing my Mammoth without it ever even have a single turn in combat. I await the courts judgement. PS I am also a level 16 Druid and did not even get to have a turn in combat, he feared my mammoth and it was killed by a dragon in one hit after running away.

earthtorobin (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-08 20:00 Greetings illustrious judges and lowly bailiff steak, I bring you the case of the banished kraken. I DM for 3 first-time players, two close friends and my boyfriend, who we will call Myren (his halfling horizon stalker ranger). About 13 sessions in, we were playing over discord as my boyfriend and I had just moved away from home for college. They had been begging me for a "beach episode", and I thought it would be funny to send them to the beach and then make them fight some crazy monster. I spent a lot of time balancing a kraken fight for them. Well, per usual, I forgot to account for shenanigans. Not only did they skip the beach roleplay opportunities I offered them, but when the kraken appeared, my boyfriend rolled first for initiative, and cast Banishment on the kraken, which failed its save. After reading the spell, we realized that because I had established the kraken was summoned from Pandemonium, it would be banished forever. I was, admittedly, distraught, as I had nothing else prepped and would have had to end the session there. I was laughing panickedly and admittedly close to tears, mostly at the ridiculousness of the situation. My boyfriend immediately felt VERY guilty and begged me to let them fight it anyway, and roleplayed himself breaking concentration before a minute was up so the kraken came back. They fought it and won, but I can't help but feel like I should have honored the dice and his creative strategy, and I feel bad that he was so distraught over upsetting me. Judges, I implore your forgiveness and mercy as I ask: what was the right call? Best, DM Robin (he/him)
2026-10-08 14:40 Greetings illustrious judges and lowly bailiff steak, I bring you the case of the banished kraken. I DM for 3 first-time players, two close friends and my boyfriend, who we will call Myren (his halfling horizon walker ranger). About 13 sessions in, we were playing over discord as my boyfriend and I had just moved away from home for college. They had been begging me for a "beach episode", and I thought it would be funny to send them to the beach and then make them fight some crazy monster. I spent a lot of time balancing a kraken fight for them. Well, per usual, I forgot to account for shenanigans. Not only did they skip the beach roleplay opportunities I offered them, but when the kraken appeared, my boyfriend rolled first for initiative, and cast Banishment on the kraken, which failed its save. After reading the spell, we realized that because I had established the kraken was summoned from Pandemonium, it would be banished forever. I was, admittedly, distraught, as I had nothing else prepped and would have had to end the session there. I was laughing panickedly and admittedly close to tears, mostly at the ridiculousness of the situation. My boyfriend immediately felt VERY guilty and begged me to let them fight it anyway, and roleplayed himself breaking concentration before a minute was up so the kraken came back. They fought it and won, but I can't help but feel like I should have honored the dice and his creative strategy, and I feel bad that he was so distraught over upsetting me. Judges, I implore your forgiveness and mercy as I ask: what was the right call? Best, DM Robin (he/him)

Greetings illustrious judges and lowly bailiff steak, I bring you the case of the banished kraken. I DM for 3 first-time players, two close friends and my boyfriend, who we will call Myren (his halfling horizon walker ranger). About 13 sessions in, we were playing over discord as my boyfriend and I had just moved away from home for college. They had been begging me for a "beach episode", and I thought it would be funny to send them to the beach and then make them fight some crazy monster. I spent a lot of time balancing a kraken fight for them. Well, per usual, I forgot to account for shenanigans. Not only did they skip the beach roleplay opportunities I offered them, but when the kraken appeared, my boyfriend rolled first for initiative, and cast Banishment on the kraken, which failed its save. After reading the spell, we realized that because I had established the kraken was summoned from Pandemonium, it would be banished forever. I was, admittedly, distraught, as I had nothing else prepped and would have had to end the session there. I was laughing panickedly and admittedly close to tears, mostly at the ridiculousness of the situation. My boyfriend immediately felt VERY guilty and begged me to let them fight it anyway, and roleplayed himself breaking concentration before a minute was up so the kraken came back. They fought it and won, but I can't help but feel like I should have honored the dice and his creative strategy, and I feel bad that he was so distraught over upsetting me. Judges, I implore your forgiveness and mercy as I ask: what was the right call? Best, DM Robin (he/him)

Amy

Just the corpses of defiled dice floating in contaminated bleach as a warning to others!

LuckyLime (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-09 06:00 Dear High Court Honeys and the well-read Bailiff, I bring before you the case of the Library Litigation. I work at a library, where we semi-regularly host a D&D event for kids. This event is relatively popular, which means we sometimes need multiple people to run different tables of the same one-shot. These different games happen concurrently, and within ear-shot of each other. This brings us to our last game. I was DMing, and ruled in-favour of a relatively silly, rules-bendy way the kids wanted to defeat an evil slug My coworker’s table overheard my table’s silly idea, and wanted it to work for them, too. My coworker ruled against it, which led to some not-so-happy children. After the kids left, my coworker asked me (bashfully) if I could, next time we play, not get AS silly. I said yes, as the social coward I am. But, Judges, is it right for me to stifle the creativity of my table, even if it might make things awkward for my coworker? I will take any punishment the court may deem necessary, except for damaging library materials. PS. Thanks to the High Court for all the love public libraries get from you all!
2026-10-14 22:00 Dear High Court Honeys and the well-read Bailiff, I bring before you the case of the Library Litigation. I work at a library, where we semi-regularly host a D&D event for kids. This event is relatively popular, which means we sometimes need multiple people to run different tables of the same one-shot. These different games happen concurrently, and within ear-shot of each other. This brings us to our last game. I was DMing, and ruled in-favour of a relatively silly, rules-bendy way the kids wanted to defeat an evil slug. My coworker’s table overheard my table’s silly idea, and wanted it to work for them, too. My coworker ruled against it, which led to some not-so-happy children. After the kids left, my coworker asked me (bashfully) if I could, next time we play, not get AS silly. I said yes, as the social coward I am. But, Judges, is it right for me to stifle the creativity of my table, even if it might make things awkward for my coworker? I will take any punishment the court may deem necessary, except for damaging library materials. PS. Thanks to the High Court for all the love public libraries get from you all!
2026-10-08 15:19 Dear High Court Honeys and the well-read Bailiff, I bring before you the case of the Library Litigation. I work at a library, where we semi-regularly host a D&D event for kids. This event is relatively popular, which means we sometimes need multiple people to run different tables of the same one-shot. These different games happen concurrently, and within ear-shot of each other. This brings us to our last game. I was DMing, and ruled in-favour of a relatively silly, rules-bendy way the kids wanted to defeat an evil slug. My coworker’s table overheard my table’s silly idea, and wanted it to work for them, too. My coworker ruled against it, which led to some not-so-happy children. After the kids left, my coworker asked me (bashfully) if I could, next time we play, not get AS silly. I said yes, as the social coward I am. But, Judges, is it right for me to encourage creativity at my table, even if it might make things awkward for my coworker? I will take any punishment the court may deem necessary, except for damaging library materials. PS. Thanks to the High Court for all the love public libraries get from you all!

Dear High Court Honeys and the well-read Bailiff, I bring before you the case of the Library Litigation. I work at a library, where we semi-regularly host a D&D event for kids. This event is relatively popular, which means we sometimes need multiple people to run different tables of the same one-shot. These different games happen concurrently, and within ear-shot of each other. This brings us to our last game. I was DMing, and ruled in-favour of a relatively silly, rules-bendy way the kids wanted to defeat an evil slug. My coworker’s table overheard my table’s silly idea, and wanted it to work for them, too. My coworker ruled against it, which led to some not-so-happy children. After the kids left, my coworker asked me (bashfully) if I could, next time we play, not get AS silly. I said yes, as the social coward I am. But, Judges, is it right for me to encourage creativity at my table, even if it might make things awkward for my coworker? I will take any punishment the court may deem necessary, except for damaging library materials. PS. Thanks to the High Court for all the love public libraries get from you all!

Frank The Fickle Leaf Fig

To the masterful judges and the gal in a homemade bailiff outfit. I present the case of the ring of death. My party and I were traveling deep in the under dark where we came upon a mysterious ring in a shop, my paladin asked about the ring and the shopkeeper told us that it was a dangerous ring that always reappeared in the shop with a severed hand several days after it was sold. We instantly bought the ring and used identify on the ring to see what it did, instantly the person took psychic damage and saw flames when trying to view the item. Our DM then asked if anyone wanted to put it on, after everyone said no he looked pretty disappointed, I had just gotten some new cool items so thought what the hell and volunteered to put on the ring. He began laughing and said it bonded to my hand and my attunement on all the other items i had instantly ended. Justices, I couldn’t take it off, i was a bit sad, but then he revealed that the longer i wore it the more powers would come from it. I took this as a challenge and thought it could be a cool character moment ala Spider-Man 3 symbiote suit. Unfortunately the next combat i was knocked down by an enemy and the ring made me instantly fail my death saves killing me, the cleric in out group went to revive me but the DM said the spell was wasted as my soul was gone as was the ring. Its been quite a while and we all still joke about my dumb decision, but i have to know, did me wanting to let the DM finally use a cursed item warrant my character’s death permanently? Justices I beg of you please let me know if I shall be razzed til the end of eternity for my horrible choices in hand decor.

Jen

Hellooooooooooooo!!!! I run a session for my birthday every year for close friends. One friend, Turbie the turtle (raised by wolves), and I got into an argument over whether they could have a trust fund because mid-roleplay they said “I have a trust fund.” I said no. They ignored me and continued to withdraw funds from their account. They said they had the trust fund so it is so. Of course, the twist, Turbie is my wife. Judges, does Turbie get a trust fund because she said so? This session in particular I had wrote for her, based off her favorite Freddie Fish game. It ended great and the trust fund topic was compromised with great treasure at the end of the festival.

Ryan Francis

Oh glorious judges who sit on high and Blake. I have been dming a campaign for two years and we have gotten to level 19 almost 20. We have all had a blast but in the penultimate battle a few weeks ago with one of the fallen gods they have been hunting our paladin did something interesting. This fallen god is in charge of the primordial version of the 9 hells in this campaign and after 4 hours, multiple battlefield changes and finally getting the god on its last leg revealing a mortal form that they could actually strike at (it looked like Sephiroth, my party realized and went nuts, dope times), they were on their last legs. On our wizards turn, he tried to convince the god to take his old spell book as proof he was done with the fight, long story short the spell book has been a bomb containing a bunch of fireball spells for a while. I was going to ask for a roll to convince him to take it and the paladin chimed in and said can I give him advantage. I asked how and he said I’ll say something like “on my honor we are done” I said ok, “he looks at with a twisted bloodlusted grin and says, “Give me your blood and pledge yourself to me now and I might let you live” The paladin quickly said I cut my hand and get on my knees. I spent about 20 minutes being like are you sure MR PALADIN that you want to give your blood to the lord of hell with the party trying to talk him out of it. I didn’t say exactly what would happen but I told him what the implications are. He went through with the blood ritual mid combat and he lost all connection to the light immediately and couldnt use any spells now for betraying the light and giving his blood to the devil. He had long been doing unpaladiny things so I texted him under the table when it happened “don’t worry, this is going to be dope in the end” The god took the book, it went boom, we fought for another 15 minutes and they killed the god. Yay. The next week the player and I made a really cool homebrew fighter class that utilized heavily his dinosaur celestial stead that stayed with him even though he lost the light. He seemed to be REALLY digging it and said he liked it more than the paladin class he has. Until the next session and during the recap where I admittedly poked a little fun at him for the choice with the god when he stood up and screamed “you know what I don’t have to take this crap. You guys don’t deserve me.” And stormed out. No one has ever really been mad or yelled at our table and it was jarring. We plowed through the session that night and have like 4 sessions left until this campaign I wrote is done. I tried appologizing and offering to retcon the decision but he keep saying it’s no worries and he’s not mad it wasn’t about the losing his class thing and will be at the next session. But now every week he says he can’t make it and we keep pushing it off. At this point, despite it only being a 4 person party, I want to just finish without him. Is it wrong to finish this 2 year campaign without a player whose been there since level 1 and at my table for 4 years because I’m almost positive he’s being passive aggressive?

Ione

Dear illustrious Bailiff Axeford and those other guys. I bring you a case of a maybe Discord faux pas. Last month I tired to join a Dnd campaign and on Discord I found this campaign that had an open spot that sounded pretty cool. So I messaged the person, conveying my interest. In the back and forth I did mention to this that I’m 18 and they didn’t say anything about it, so I assumed that meant they were probably in my age range. Turns out no, as when I joined video chat with them I realized they were all men in their mid to late 30s. I very promptly left the chat after finding that out and messaged the guy saying I can’t play with because I’m 18 and they’re so not. And then I immediately deleted Discord. Dear Judges but mostly Bailiff Axeford, did I do a bad? Should I had at least let the guy respond before I completely ghosted? I accept any punishment that comes my way but nothing too crazy, I have dignity.

Zach Serber (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-10 11:00 Hello to our esteemed judges and also to our sad excuse for a bailiff, or just jake if we are being nice today. My best friend is the problem player at my table and im not sure what to do because he's also my landlord. I play a game with some of my friends from college. My best friend (john) has been bullying one of my other players (sarah) for several months now. We've all been friends for years and this all started as just light hearted razzing between friends. It has since evolved into pointed personal attacks aimed at our friend sarah. For example he has taken shots at sarahs mental health, once comparing her to wolves eating a pregnant dear for not wanting to have kids with an actual video. He has attacked her for her believing she may have adhd. Now the crux of the issue. I have asked him to stop privately many times, sarah has asked him to stop many times. To which his response was, if she wants me to change my behavior i dont want to be her friend anymore. Im completely at a loss for what to do. on one hand he is my best friend, the one who got me into dnd and also my landlord on the other hand sarah has decided she wont be playing in future campaigns due to his behavior. Its starting to really make me question my friendship with this john. Im at my wits end. He listens to this show so he will likely abide by your decision. Tell me is there any way to salvage this or do i just as Murph would say "need new friends"
2026-10-08 16:00 Hello to our esteemed judges, wonderful bailiff.... and Jake I dont know what to call this case so i will just jump in. My best friend is the problem player at my table and im not sure what to do because he's also my landlord. I play a game with some of my friends from college. My best friend (john) has been bullying one of my other players (sarah) for several months now. We've all been friends for years and this all started as just light hearted razzing between friends. It has since evolved into pointed personal attacks aimed at our friend sarah. For example he has taken shots at sarahs mental health, once comparing her to wolves eating a pregnant dear for not wanting to have kids using an actual video. He has attacked her for her believing she may have adhd/autism. Now the crux of the issue. I have asked him to stop privately many times, sarah has asked him to stop many times. To which his response was, if she wants me to change my behavior i dont want to be her friend anymore. Thats his right, i understand that. But they are still players at my table and i cant have him taking pot shots at her all the time. Im completely at a loss for what to do. on one hand he is my best friend, the one who got me into dnd and also my landlord on the other hand sarah is a very close friend, we hang out several times a week and she has decided she wont be playing in future campaigns due to his behavior and shes also a very good friend of mine. Its starting to really make me question my friendship with John. Im at my wits end. He listens to this show so he will likely abide by your decision. Tell me is there any way to salvage this or do i just as Murph would say "need new friends"

Hello to our esteemed judges, wonderful bailiff.... and Jake I dont know what to call this case so i will just jump in. My best friend is the problem player at my table and im not sure what to do because he's also my landlord. I play a game with some of my friends from college. My best friend (john) has been bullying one of my other players (sarah) for several months now. We've all been friends for years and this all started as just light hearted razzing between friends. It has since evolved into pointed personal attacks aimed at our friend sarah. For example he has taken shots at sarahs mental health, once comparing her to wolves eating a pregnant dear for not wanting to have kids using an actual video. He has attacked her for her believing she may have adhd/autism. Now the crux of the issue. I have asked him to stop privately many times, sarah has asked him to stop many times. To which his response was, if she wants me to change my behavior i dont want to be her friend anymore. Thats his right, i understand that. But they are still players at my table and i cant have him taking pot shots at her all the time. Im completely at a loss for what to do. on one hand he is my best friend, the one who got me into dnd and also my landlord on the other hand sarah is a very close friend, we hang out several times a week and she has decided she wont be playing in future campaigns due to his behavior and shes also a very good friend of mine. Its starting to really make me question my friendship with John. Im at my wits end. He listens to this show so he will likely abide by your decision. Tell me is there any way to salvage this or do i just as Murph would say "need new friends"

B0n3D4ddy

Respect and honor to the glorious judges, shame and piss on that shameful weasel of a bailiff Jork. Judges I bring to you a case of me vs. love itself. Fair warning - I’m going to mention a lot of gossip, judges I really think it’s all integral to the case. I’ve been playing in an online dnd group for seven years, it kicked off right before the pandemic when a friend (we’ll call them Floop) asked if I would join a game they were DMing where the other players would be one of their childhood friends (who I had met a few times and was chill with) - we’ll call him Kristof and their best friend who they were in love with (who to this day I’ve never met in person) we’ll call them Jeremy - I hesitantly agreed, and our first campaign that ran through the pandemic was electric so we just kept going and the rest is history. Floop and Jeremy are besties (?) to this day, but the rest of us don’t really talk much outside of weekly DND though during sessions Kristof and I have DMed each other to gossip about romantic energy between Floop and Jeremy Over two years ago now we started a campaign that’s still ongoing - Kristof would be DMing, and at session 0 Floop and Jeremy pitched that their characters knew each other prior to the campaign - normal, chill. Turns out the vibe was that they were separated childhood sweethearts who were deeply codependent and that a huge part of the social aspect of our campaign would be focused on these characters reentering into a relationship (despite being deeply incompatible - one is afraid of fire…the other is a circle of wildfire druid, one hates change the other is dedicated to the cycle of change etc. etc.) hey we all love some toxic lesbians so Kristof and I shrugged and let them have their moments but definitely gossiped on the side on if they were dating in real life or if this was some crazy emotional torture they were putting each other through. Months later Kristof and his wife became first time parents so in order to give him a break from DMing, Floop volunteered to DM. We begin the campaign and pretty quickly were introduced to Floop’s DMPC who was clearly going to be a campign long party member, the NPC makes a few flirty jokes at Jeremy’s PC - but I shrugged it off since Jeremy was playing the face, gotta give the sexy sorcerer some attention! Well then Floop mentioned that they were planning a whole romance arc for the DMPC and Jeremy’s PC - I made a joke about how it’s bad etiquette in a 4 person group to have 2 people characters romance each other back to back, but shit happens and if the chemistry is there then go with god. In response they got a little cagey and then let it slip that the DMPC had been built to be this PC’s romantic partner from the beginning. Kristof and I are still just side eyeing each other on if Floop and Jeremy are dating in real life or if this has become some strange fictional mating ritual. Floop and Jeremy clearly got uncomfortable from us razzing them about them hoisting back to back premeditated romance arcs on us and apologized wayyy too intensely in a way that indicated everything is weird now. Am I a big prude who hates love? Or is it reasonable for Kristof and I to feel A Little Weird about being consistent third wheels?

TidyTingz (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-09 06:00 The Case of the “Grave (Mistake) Cleric” To the ethereal Judges (Hallowed be thy names!) …and their dim-lit lantern of a bailiff, Jack. Seven years ago, I began DMing my first campaign for three close friends. It was a mostly homebrew adventure set in Exandria and, to this day, remains our longest-running campaign: 32 sessions over nearly four years. My three players were Asrai, a Sea-Elf Paladin; Meadow, a Harengon Wizard; and Klaxton, a Duergar Grave Cleric. Klaxton was created by my friend, whom we shall call Candy Corn. He had already played two other characters, and I loved all of his strange character ideas. But Klaxton came with his biggest idea yet. As a child, Klaxton had unknowingly harbored an evil force within him that eventually slaughtered everyone he loved. So every night, he chained himself up before sleeping. Candy Corn and I created a mechanic where Klaxton would make a CON save each long rest to keep the evil suppressed. If he failed, dark smoke would pour from his body and the entity would take control. The other players could potentially notice it if they were keeping watch. For more than a dozen sessions, Klaxton succeeded. The party had also acquired a cursed dagger containing the soul of a fiendish servant. They had plenty of opportunities to destroy it, but the dagger was useful—and its murderous one-liners were too entertaining to give up. Unfortunately, the soul inside the dagger served the same evil force living inside Klaxton. Then came Session 32. The party had just killed an Otyugh and settled down in a cliffside cave. Meadow cast Tiny Hut while Asrai kept watch outside. Klaxton slept deeper in the cave. Normally, Candy Corn would have chained Klaxton up and locked the key away for the night. But this time, he decided to skip the ritual in case the party needed to react quickly to an attack. Of course, this was the night Klaxton finally failed his CON save. The evil took control. Dark smoke began pouring from his body. Asrai made her Perception check. Natural 1. Nobody noticed what was happening. I had previously hinted that something was drawing Klaxton toward the cursed dagger, so in his possessed state, his only goal was to retrieve it. Klaxton entered the Tiny Hut and stole the dagger from Meadow while everyone slept. He was almost out when Asrai finally saw him. She attacked immediately and initiative began. Asrai restrained Klaxton with a magical net and pinned him to the ground with her trident. Meadow joined in, and together they knocked him unconscious. Then they tried to take the dagger, but it wouldn't come out. So they CUT OFF Klaxton's hand. Candy Corn watched in disbelief as his character took a critical hit and lost two death saves. I reminded them that we were still in initiative. They could heal him. They could stabilize him. They did neither. Klaxton succeeded on his next death save. Then the dagger teleported into his other hand. It didn't matter. My wife immediately cut off Klaxton's other hand. Klaxton was R.A.W. dead. The party looted the dagger from his corpse, rolled his body off the cliff, and kicked his severed hands after him. They were completely fine with what they had done. As the DM, I watched this unfold in real time, initially laughing along with everyone else. But somewhere between the first severed hand and the second, I realized something important: Nobody was trying to save Klaxton. To this day, whenever we remember the campaign, I am often blamed for not keeping him alive. But I maintain that I gave them every opportunity. The dice decided Klaxton would be possessed. The dice decided nobody noticed. The players decided to attack him. The players decided to cut off his hands. And when given the chance to save him, they simply… didn't. So, I humbly submit this case to the court. Judges, am I truly at fault? I await your verdict of punishment Or perhaps, absolute exoneration.
2026-10-08 16:33 The Case of the “Grave (Mistake) Cleric” To the ethereal Judges (Hallowed be thy names!) …and their dim-lit lantern of a bailiff, Jack. Seven years ago, I began DMing my first campaign for three close friends. It was a mostly homebrew adventure set in Exandria and, to this day, remains our longest-running campaign: 32 sessions over nearly four years. My three players were Asrai, a Sea-Elf Paladin; Meadow, a Harengon Wizard; and Klaxton, a Duergar Grave Cleric. Klaxton was created by my friend, whom we shall call Candy Corn. He had already played two other characters, and I loved all of his strange character ideas and was invested in each as a DM. His new character, Klaxton, came with his biggest idea yet. As a child, Klaxton had unknowingly harbored an evil force within him that broke through in a near death experience and slaughtered everyone he loved. He knew little of the evil inside him, so every night he chained himself up before sleeping. Candy Corn and I created a mechanic where Klaxton would make a CON save each long rest to keep the evil suppressed. If he failed, dark smoke would pour from his body and the entity would take control. The other players could potentially notice it if they were keeping watch. For more than a dozen sessions, Klaxton succeeded. The party had also acquired a cursed dagger containing the soul of a fiendish servant. They had plenty of opportunities to destroy it, but the dagger was useful—and its murderous one-liners were too entertaining to give up. “Coincidently,” the soul inside the dagger served the same evil force living inside Klaxton. Then came Session 32. The party had just killed an Otyugh and settled down in a cliffside cave. Meadow cast Tiny Hut to sleep in within the cave, while Asrai kept watch outside the cave. Klaxton slept deeper in the cave. Normally, Candy Corn would have chained Klaxton up and locked the key away in a magic box with a timer for the night. But this time, he decided to skip the ritual in case the party needed to react quickly to an attack. Of course, this was the night Klaxton finally failed his CON save. The evil took control. Dark smoke began pouring from his body. Asrai made her Perception check. Natural 1. Nobody noticed what was happening. I had previously hinted that something was drawing Klaxton toward the cursed dagger, so in his possessed state, his only goal was to retrieve it. Klaxton entered the Tiny Hut and stole the dagger from Meadow while everyone slept. He was almost out when Asrai finally saw him. She attacked immediately and initiative began. Asrai restrained Klaxton with a magical net and pinned him to the ground with her trident. Meadow joined in, and together they knocked him unconscious. Then they tried to take the cursed dagger, but it wouldn't come loose from his grip. So they CUT OFF Klaxton's hand. Candy Corn watched in disbelief as his character took a critical hit and lost two death saves. I reminded them that we were still in initiative. They could heal him. They could stabilize him. They did neither. Klaxton succeeded on his next death save. Then the dagger teleported into his other hand. It didn't matter. My wife immediately cut off Klaxton's other hand. Klaxton was R.A.W. dead. The party looted the dagger from his corpse, rolled his body off the cliff, and kicked his severed hands after him. They were completely fine with what they had done. As the DM, I watched this unfold in real time, initially laughing along with everyone else. But somewhere between the first severed hand and the second, I realized something important: Nobody was trying to save Klaxton. To this day, whenever we remember the campaign, I am often blamed for not keeping him alive, but I maintain that I gave them every opportunity. The dice decided Klaxton would be possessed. The dice decided nobody noticed. The players decided to attack him. The players decided to cut off his hands. And when given the chance to save him, they simply… didn't. So, I humbly submit this case to the court. Judges, am I truly at fault? I await your verdict of punishment Or perhaps, absolute exoneration.

The Case of the “Grave (Mistake) Cleric” To the ethereal Judges (Hallowed be thy names!) …and their dim-lit lantern of a bailiff, Jack. Seven years ago, I began DMing my first campaign for three close friends. It was a mostly homebrew adventure set in Exandria and, to this day, remains our longest-running campaign: 32 sessions over nearly four years. My three players were Asrai, a Sea-Elf Paladin; Meadow, a Harengon Wizard; and Klaxton, a Duergar Grave Cleric. Klaxton was created by my friend, whom we shall call Candy Corn. He had already played two other characters, and I loved all of his strange character ideas and was invested in each as a DM. His new character, Klaxton, came with his biggest idea yet. As a child, Klaxton had unknowingly harbored an evil force within him that broke through in a near death experience and slaughtered everyone he loved. He knew little of the evil inside him, so every night he chained himself up before sleeping. Candy Corn and I created a mechanic where Klaxton would make a CON save each long rest to keep the evil suppressed. If he failed, dark smoke would pour from his body and the entity would take control. The other players could potentially notice it if they were keeping watch. For more than a dozen sessions, Klaxton succeeded. The party had also acquired a cursed dagger containing the soul of a fiendish servant. They had plenty of opportunities to destroy it, but the dagger was useful—and its murderous one-liners were too entertaining to give up. “Coincidently,” the soul inside the dagger served the same evil force living inside Klaxton. Then came Session 32. The party had just killed an Otyugh and settled down in a cliffside cave. Meadow cast Tiny Hut to sleep in within the cave, while Asrai kept watch outside the cave. Klaxton slept deeper in the cave. Normally, Candy Corn would have chained Klaxton up and locked the key away in a magic box with a timer for the night. But this time, he decided to skip the ritual in case the party needed to react quickly to an attack. Of course, this was the night Klaxton finally failed his CON save. The evil took control. Dark smoke began pouring from his body. Asrai made her Perception check. Natural 1. Nobody noticed what was happening. I had previously hinted that something was drawing Klaxton toward the cursed dagger, so in his possessed state, his only goal was to retrieve it. Klaxton entered the Tiny Hut and stole the dagger from Meadow while everyone slept. He was almost out when Asrai finally saw him. She attacked immediately and initiative began. Asrai restrained Klaxton with a magical net and pinned him to the ground with her trident. Meadow joined in, and together they knocked him unconscious. Then they tried to take the cursed dagger, but it wouldn't come loose from his grip. So they CUT OFF Klaxton's hand. Candy Corn watched in disbelief as his character took a critical hit and lost two death saves. I reminded them that we were still in initiative. They could heal him. They could stabilize him. They did neither. Klaxton succeeded on his next death save. Then the dagger teleported into his other hand. It didn't matter. My wife immediately cut off Klaxton's other hand. Klaxton was R.A.W. dead. The party looted the dagger from his corpse, rolled his body off the cliff, and kicked his severed hands after him. They were completely fine with what they had done. As the DM, I watched this unfold in real time, initially laughing along with everyone else. But somewhere between the first severed hand and the second, I realized something important: Nobody was trying to save Klaxton. To this day, whenever we remember the campaign, I am often blamed for not keeping him alive, but I maintain that I gave them every opportunity. The dice decided Klaxton would be possessed. The dice decided nobody noticed. The players decided to attack him. The players decided to cut off his hands. And when given the chance to save him, they simply… didn't. So, I humbly submit this case to the court. Judges, am I truly at fault? I await your verdict of punishment Or perhaps, absolute exoneration.

TidyTingz

P.S. I feel it needs to be said that we all really do love Candy Corn (the person). There may have been sore feelings going into this particular session from my wife losing in a game of G.O.T. Risk against Candy Corn the day before playing.

Samuel Gray

Greetings to the liminal bailiff Emmiline or whatever her name is and the timeless and stoic Justices. This is more of a question for the wife worm - in a previous episode you mentioned how you were relieved that you didn’t have to do battle with Cerberus in Hades I, how did you feel about slapping the dog in Hades II. Please ask Justice Hurwitz if you require further clarification. Ever at your service, Samuel - ps loved your London show! RIP Mole and more importantly Mole’s bawdy illustrations 😔

Go Tim Go (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-09 06:00 Your honors, and that one over there making bales of hay in a courtroom for some reason, if it pleases the court I bring to you the case of the Busted Ghostbuster: To set the scene, I had been playing a tabaxi rogue that was a bit of a wild card, and my party had entered an ancient haunted library seeking a lich's aid. As we ventured deeper into the home of tomes, we were beset upon by a group of ghosts and ghouls. At this time, I was still working on getting the hang of playing a rogue and close quarter battles weren't going well for me, so I had the idea of trying to use a bag of holding to capture a ghost rather than fight it! My DM had told me that it wouldn't work. When I argued that it should at least be possible, since a Bag of Holding is effectively an interdimensional portal for storage, I made a pitch to do contested rolls between my character and the ghost. The DM agreed to this... Justices... the ghost rolled a natural 1. I was ecstatic that my creativity paid off and I may have a better chance of surviving this haunted library!... until the DM described my character lunging forward to capture the ghost, but instead falling through its incorporeal form and landing with embarrassment in the dirt. Afterward, my character was almost IMMEDIATELY killed by other ghosts and ghouls surrounding him! Luckily the party was great in keeping me alive through the encounter, but at the end of the encounter I had it out shortly with the DM, and the other players agreed he Rule Zeroed me, removing the roll he didnt like. His defense was that he never agreed that it would work, just that we'd do contested rolls... your honors, the clownishly nonsensical idea that I just wanted to roll for the fun of rolling in that moment was ludicrous, and frankly insulting to myself and maybe even to my ancestors and progeny. I was so flabbergasted by this theft that the reason we had such a short debate was because I simply too stunned to continue. Now I grant you we moved along pretty well afterward, but it left me feeling such a discontent in my bones which has not left me to this day. While this didn't affect the campaign much, and we finished happily with our characters all alive and well after 3 years, but I still look back and think... what if?... Justices, I seek your verdict: was my DM wrong for taking away my only chance of being a ghost-busting rogue, or was his insane "these are contested rolls for nothing" play valid. While I demand satisfaction, I will respect any judgement you make here as the absolute final say. I patiently await your judgement.
2026-10-08 16:48 Your honors, and that one over there making bales of hay in a courtroom for some reason, if it pleases the court I bring to you the case of the Busted Ghostbuster: To set the scene, I had been playing a tabaxi rogue that was a bit of a wild card, and my party had entered an ancient haunted library seeking a lich's aid. As we ventured deeper into the home of tomes, we were beset upon by a group of ghosts and ghouls. At this time, I was still working on getting the hang of playing a rogue and close quarter battles weren't going well for me, so I had the idea of trying to use a bag of holding to capture a ghost rather than fight it! My DM had told me that it wouldn't work. When I argued that it should at least be possible, since a Bag of Holding is effectively an interdimensional portal for storage, I made a pitch to do contested rolls between my character and the ghost. The DM agreed to this... Justices... the ghost rolled a natural 1. I was ecstatic that my idea paid off, that I may have a better chance of surviving this haunted library, and best of all would have a ghost in my inventory that could be a risky but fun play if I ever released it... until the DM described my character lunging forward to capture the ghost, but instead falling through its incorporeal form and landing with embarrassment in the dirt. Afterward, my character was almost IMMEDIATELY killed by other ghosts and ghouls surrounding him! Luckily the party amazingly kept me alive through the encounter, but once we were out of battle I had it out shortly with the DM, and the other players agreed he Rule Zeroed me, flat out removing a roll he didnt like. His defense was that he never agreed that it would work, just that we'd do contested rolls... your honors, the clownishly nonsensical idea that I just wanted to roll for the fun of rolling in that moment was ludicrous, and frankly insulting. I was so flabbergasted by this theft that the reason we had such a short debate was because I was simply too stunned to continue. Now I grant you we moved along pretty well afterward, but it left me feeling such a discontent in my bones which has not left me to this day. While this didn't affect the campaign much, and we finished happily with our characters all alive and well after 3 years, I still look back and think... what if?... Justices, I seek your verdict: was my DM wrong for taking away my only chance of being a ghost-busting rogue, or was his insane "these are contested rolls for nothing" play valid. While I demand satisfaction, I will respect any judgement you make here as the absolute final say. I patiently await your judgement.

Your honors, and that one over there making bales of hay in a courtroom for some reason, if it pleases the court I bring to you the case of the Busted Ghostbuster: To set the scene, I had been playing a tabaxi rogue that was a bit of a wild card, and my party had entered an ancient haunted library seeking a lich's aid. As we ventured deeper into the home of tomes, we were beset upon by a group of ghosts and ghouls. At this time, I was still working on getting the hang of playing a rogue and close quarter battles weren't going well for me, so I had the idea of trying to use a bag of holding to capture a ghost rather than fight it! My DM had told me that it wouldn't work. When I argued that it should at least be possible, since a Bag of Holding is effectively an interdimensional portal for storage, I made a pitch to do contested rolls between my character and the ghost. The DM agreed to this... Justices... the ghost rolled a natural 1. I was ecstatic that my idea paid off, that I may have a better chance of surviving this haunted library, and best of all would have a ghost in my inventory that could be a risky but fun play if I ever released it... until the DM described my character lunging forward to capture the ghost, but instead falling through its incorporeal form and landing with embarrassment in the dirt. Afterward, my character was almost IMMEDIATELY killed by other ghosts and ghouls surrounding him! Luckily the party amazingly kept me alive through the encounter, but once we were out of battle I had it out shortly with the DM, and the other players agreed he Rule Zeroed me, flat out removing a roll he didnt like. His defense was that he never agreed that it would work, just that we'd do contested rolls... your honors, the clownishly nonsensical idea that I just wanted to roll for the fun of rolling in that moment was ludicrous, and frankly insulting. I was so flabbergasted by this theft that the reason we had such a short debate was because I was simply too stunned to continue. Now I grant you we moved along pretty well afterward, but it left me feeling such a discontent in my bones which has not left me to this day. While this didn't affect the campaign much, and we finished happily with our characters all alive and well after 3 years, I still look back and think... what if?... Justices, I seek your verdict: was my DM wrong for taking away my only chance of being a ghost-busting rogue, or was his insane "these are contested rolls for nothing" play valid. While I demand satisfaction, I will respect any judgement you make here as the absolute final say. I patiently await your judgement.

Ian

Howdy distinguished debutantes and Hey barkeep, can I get a milk on the rocks please? I bring to you the case of the session timeout. A few years ago I was playing a reborn r/LFG campaign where a PC picked up the DM slot. I chose to play a bard and got some help with choosing my spells from the DM, which they suggested Heat Metal, Charm, and Hold Person. Well, it turns out that the only enemies in the country were animated suits of armor (healed by fire damage) and zombies/vampires (unable to be charmed). After pushing my party to leave the country, we sailed across an ocean where, lo and behold, the only enemies were undead. To be fair, they were bodies that were magically transformed into humanoid puppets and not zombies, but undead mechanics still applied. My Bard was walking back to the inn by himself after shopping, where a random event pulled up a child being beaten by an adult and taken into an alley. The DM implied some pretty nasty things were about to happen if I didn't do anything. So, after killing the man and defacing the body so it couldn't be transformed, my Bard was immediately cornered by a squad of these humanoids and beaten and captured. The next session was me rolling increasingly harder constitution saving throws to not have my PC die while the party looked for me. The campaign coincidentally took a break afterward which I did not return from. Judges, oh thank you for the beverage Jake I was getting pretty thirsty there. Was I wrong for taking street justice into my own hands? Or should I have paid more attention to the customs of a new place? I humbly throw myself at your mercy.

Miranda G

To the (spooky?) judges and the (wormy?) bailiff: I come to you with a somewhat crunchy case about spell components: So we were playing Out of the Abyss, which opens with the party being enslaved by drow. All of our equipment was confiscated, including the spell components I had spent my starting gold on. We were able to get some of our stuff back when we escaped, but not the 10g worth of incense I had bought to cast Find Familiar. So, I spent the next several sessions trying to find some. Finally, we ran into some duergar merchants who had a small amount of incense to sell. It was pretty clear that they were overcharging us, but I failed the persuasion check to talk them down. So, I gave them 10g and accepted what they gave me. I figured, no matter how much or how little incense I actually received, it was still worth 10g, right? So therein lies my question: if you get fleeced buying gold-based spell components, do they still work? (The boring conclusion to this case is that the DM did, after some discussion, let me cast the spell; probably because I’d spent the last four long rests trying and failing to make my own incense and he was sick of watching me fail rolls. Unfortunately, I DO think your lethal punishments are the funniest so I have no choice but to request a harsh punishment. Maybe on me, for bringing the case? Idk. I prostrate myself, etc etc.)

Rebecca

To the Supreme Crit Justices and the slightly soggy wife wife, I come to ask your opinion on my Scarecrow Faux Pas. I played as a cleric in a campaign with some friends. For some reason, the DM would t allow me to be as creative as the other players. If someone else asked if they could use an ability in a way that wasn’t listed, he’d usually let them do it. When I asked I was told I could only use my abilities as listed on my character sheet. One time I was told I couldn’t use turn undead in a fight because he hadn’t planned for it in out encounter against zombies. This was annoying, but fine. I was still having fun so I let it slide. The fun didn’t last. In our final combat the wizard had gone down while protecting the Druid. The druid, according to the DM, feels so much self loathing that the wizard dropped while protecting them that they erupt into golden light. They get the benefits of a long rest. They get a +1 to wisdom. When the light fades we all see a scarecrow standing where the Druid once was. What? I ask him what he means by this. Well obviously the Druid became a scarecrow. Why? Because apparently the Druid found a homebrew scarecrow race online and DM verbatim promised to “break every rule in the game” to make this happen. I was quite upset at this point. Instead of waiting till after the session like I probably should have, I told the DM that I think he’s been treating me badly while still at the table. This immediately soured the mood. Afterwards the Druid pulled me aside to let me know that it hurt her feelings that I was upset at the thing she was looking forward to for so long. Was I wrong to bring this up at the table or was everything leading up to this so wild that the social faux pas can be forgiven?

macbeth

PS: If the court accepts bribes, cat pic attached. If not... don't worry about it.

Matt Torres

May it please the high court and the 2nd but more senior bailiff, I bring a case of the forgotten cloak. My first DnD session was DMed by a friend of a friend who was introducing all 3 of us to DnD. He decided he wanted us to try his "unbeatable" lvl 20 dungeon and had us all roll lvl20 characters. I made a druid, who I learned can at 20th level wild shape unlimited times. During our first encounter against a Big Daddy from BioShock, the Dm learned this and seemed frustrated by his inability to kill me. Suddenly a new creature appeared who cast a curse reducing my INT to 3 after I failed a wisdom save. After I failed my save it was the paladins turn, the DM explaining how the character sheet works to her. I looked at my own sheet to see what I could do without spells or the ability to talk or understand speech. I realized I had forgotten about a cloak that gave me plus 4 to wisdom saves and advantage. This would change my save from 12 to 16. I asked the DM if I could use the cloak since nothing had happened since my failed save. He said "No, you need to know what's on your character sheet before coming to the session." Then he returned to assisting the player he clearly had a crush on with her character sheet. Was I wrong for trying to use an item I had equipped after my turn officially ended? I lay my head on the block before the court.

Matt Torres

PS. Later the DM said a long rest would cure the affliction. But when we barricaded ourselves in a side room after sneaking our way into it, the DM insisted that we would have to roll encounter checks every 15minutes for the whole 8 hours. The long rest reset each time we rolled an encounter and the roll increased by 1 each time to make an encounter more likely.

Seanlock Holmes

May it please the court and bring mild discomfort to baliff Jake, I bring to you the question of the marrage DnD. Recently, I was asked to officiate the wedding of my sister in law and her fiance (now husband). They are both D&D players, and I offered to let them roll initative to determine who says their vows first, which they loved. During the ceremony, I had them each roll a large D20 dice on a platter and (luckily) the bride won. That said, I did not give them any stats, and I said they were rolling initative, not luck checks. Judges, should I have assigned stats to my sister-in-law and her fiance? Should I have given the bride advantage? I await your judgement. PS: later in the evening, the groom decided to have each table roll initiative to determine who gets to go get their food first from the buffet. He gave grandma advantage and she still did not get to go first. I used my class advantage as officiant to bring her food earlier than the rest of her table. I hope that is also allowed.

Brian Edwards

Those other players did Candy Corn dirty.

Kyra Zimmermann

Prestigious priests of Dice Christ, I am writing in to ask for you to please interpret the will of the dice gods for us. I’ve been running a game for almost a year now, and one player always rolls a D20 before session to choose what kind of snack she’s going to bring for us. When she rolled a 2, she brought us ranch soda. When she rolled a nat 20, she made lemon posset for us. We live in fear of the day she rolls a nat 1, but we feel this cataclysm coming, deep in our bones. The question I pose to you, in your infinite wisdom, is thus: When she does roll a nat 1, what monstrosity is she obligated to bring us to appease the dice gods?

Robert Brown

Greetings from England Magnanimous Judges and Megalomaniacal Bailiff! This story comes from my first ever game of D&D. I met the group through a work friend, and I decided to play a Wild Magic Sorcerer named Scav, who had fallen into a wizards magic vat and got uncontrollable magic powers. I was absolutely thrilled to be involved in my first ever campaign, and excited to play online as it allowed me to meet and play with new people. My DM even found an expanded wild magic table, with 10,000 different weird and wonderful options. My first two sessions went great, but in the third, something bizarre happened. Scav was supposed to roll a wild magic surge, during a regular combat I believe, but the DM asked if he could have a go on the wild magic table, and of course I agreed - which turned out to be a mistake. He exclaimed loudly that he had rolled a 0 on each of his d10s, and rolled option 10,000: 'the nearest star goes supernova'. We were level 4 or 5 at this point, so we were all summarily incinerated, and the campaign was bought to an unceremonious end. The only evidence provided of this roll was a picture of the dice all in position, and I find myself sceptical that this roll was legitimate, as the DM seemed more than happy with this outcome and quickly moved onto another campaign. Judges - was I used as a tool to murder an entire planet? Did my DM fudge a dice roll just to annihilate my first campaign? Should I sue? I played with them intermittently for the next few years and now 10 years later I am a seasoned DM myself - who has never sopernova'd anything. Thank you for your service and may the dice have mercy on your rolls.

Glacey

Greetings, o exuberant judges and that baliff guy Jinkies! I bring to you the case of the Froghemoth Freedom Debacle. During the first campaign I played with my table I've now played with for years, we were clearing out the floors of a huge spire that another PC accidentally came into ownership of via the Keep card from the Deck of Many Things. While clearing monsters out of the spire to retake the keep for ourselves and the previous inhabitants, our party of three level 11 misfits found ourselves facing off against a Froghemoth. During the fight, my bard Ashe got swallowed by the Froghemoth and got trapped in its stomach. Things were dire for me as its stomach acid dealt a good amount of damage each round when someone was inside of it. To try to make my escape, I cast Freedom of Movement on myself, believing that doing so would automatically release me from the Froghemoth's grasp due to the wording of the spell. My DM refused to allow my instant escape and instead ruled that it would only grant me advantage on my dex saves to squirm my way out. The wording of the spell states very clearly that I could spend movement to automatically release myself from a creatures grasp, so naturally this caused a 5 minute debate between PCs and DM, ending with the DM sticking with his original ruling. This resulted in me failing another dex save and nearing 0 hp (which would've been an instant death because of the stomach acid) and barely making my escape in the next round. This damn Froghemoth gave us so much trouble that we had never been so close to a TPK. For reasons unrelated, that ended up being the last session of that campaign as DM(1) was getting burnt out and our Supreme DM Brook took over and has been our Forever DM since. Judges, I ask ye: Did Ashe nearly die in the most bogus of fashions? Was this a reasonable ruling from the DM, or should I have escaped from the stomach upon casting the spell? I humbly await your judgement.

Cyn3ma

Greetings honorable Judges and beloved wife-worm bailiff. I present to you the case of the Restless Trance. I was a member of a long-term campaign with some folks I met online (I know, I know). My party had just vanquished a dragon and emerged from the creature’s lair. As our warlock had been killed in the fray, we no longer had enough people to cover the watch for a full long rest, which states that a PC must sleep for at least six hours. Then, we remembered that our Elf Wizard only needed to trance. She could trance for four hours then pull a double shift on the watch, right? Wrong. The DM stated that a long rest requires members to do no more than two hours of light activity. Sitting beside the fire to keep watch was apparently too strenuous. The DM claimed his ruling was in keeping with RAW. No amount of reading comprehension coaching could have changed his mind. This went on for thirty minutes. Eventually we chose to let those two hours go unwatched. Judges, nothing happened. Nothing, except that I could no longer take it. Over the next few months, I saw the party back to the city where I let the group know that I would be leaving due to “work commitments”. From there, the DM decided that the campaign was over. My character was deemed a quitter, which was true in the beginning as she was a military deserter, but felt a little pointed at the end of a 2+ year campaign. Judges, am I in the wrong for letting such a small ruling drive me to leave or is the DM to blame? I humbly await your judgement.

MG

Majestic Clergy of the Church of Dice, I come to you with a confession. Just last night in my party’s 28th session of a home campaign i am very proud of, i sinned against dice christ and i fear His retribution if i am not cleansed. my party is a heavily overpowered group of level 5s with a tenuous grasp on the rules of the game. bless them. they love their toys and i have granted them many. most recently our paladin won a belt of dwarvenkind from a dwarven wrestling tournament. the barbarian is already a dwarf. this granted the two toughest members of my party resistance to poison damage and i planned a whole encounter around both tanks halving the poison damage from four wyverns the bbeg sent to attack their shiny new airship. i surrounded them each with two wyverns and watched the barbarian eat damage. the paladin’s shield and plate make him immensely hard to hit. the wyverns each missed with their bites but dice christ both blessed and cursed me with critical hits on BOTH of my tail attacks, which would each have done 18d6 damage, 14 of which were poison, which, halved, would have been easily enough to drop but unlikely to outright kill him. as the dice landed behind the screen the paladin said “damn, too bad i took off that belt.” and panicked. “what do you mean you took it off?” he said “i got that ring of mind shielding and attuned to it.” this was an insane decision and i did not see it coming. he gave up so much for so little. terrified i was about to outright kill him with one of these attacks i ignored the crits. i said “i got two 19s, those will hit.” he was reduced to 0 and used his relentless endurance to stay at 1hp, roleplaying a moment where he was inspired by his promise to come home to his mother. it was beautiful. a guest at our session cried. but i fear i have insulted dice christ by refusing His incredible gift for fear of killing my friend. can i be forgiven? i should mention there is no dedicated healer and no revivify within miles that could have saved him.

The Donut Factory

Dearest justices and malevolent bailiff Emily- Our Dungeon Master has recently instituted a house rule: Players are no longer allowed to deal non-lethal damage. We think this is an unreasonable restriction generally and particularly to our unarmed Monk who hasn’t outright killed anyone all campaign. Their justification isn’t particularly unreasonable - our party has developed a habit of knocking out the last surviving enemy in nearly every combat encounter so we can interrogate them afterward. These interrogations can get a little… aggressive, occasionally escalating to outright torture when our initial questioning proves unsuccessful. Our DM argues that this puts him in an uncomfortable position. He doesn’t particularly enjoy narrating torture scenes + when we capture an enemy who might realistically possess valuable information, he feels trapped between two choices: reward our methods by having the prisoner divulge useful secrets without much resistance, or have the prisoner resist, prompting us to escalate our interrogation techniques until they break. His solution has been to eliminate non-lethal damage altogether, effectively ensuring that every combat encounter ends with a pile of corpses rather than potential prisoners. We maintain that this is a heavy-handed solution to a problem that could be handled through roleplay, consequences, or simply having enemies refuse to talk. We have promised to keep the outright torturing to a minimum go forward, but he says he’d be more comfortable if the enemies were simply gone after defeated. Should we be able to continue to do non-lethal damage?

NicoPico

To the illustrious justrious and the 10 cats in a trench coat going by Emily. I bring before you the case of the Premeditated Hold Person. My party and I, a Dragonborn fighter, were searching for a group of missing children and overheard a rumor about a sketchy cult in the mountains. Upon entering the mountain caves, we were approached by a priest who attempted to persuade us to leave. Our wizard rolled a 17 insight check on the priest, and our DM said “maybe he’s honest, maybe not”, to which the wizard told me “grab him, we’ll make him talk”. Expecting to roll initiative, I went to grapple the priest, and our DM told us that before I could, he cast Hold Person on me. Justices, our DM claims that his priest gets a surprise round because we were fed the rumor by a disguised cult member, but we were right next to the priest and engaged in conversation. I was subsequently killed while under the effects of Hold Person. Death aside, was my DM in the wrong for this ruling?

Emma

To the most distinguished judges (and bailiff!) whose rulings are invoked ubiquitously across all fantasied lands, and Jake, I present to you some dossiers on the case of the retconned raw meat. My good friends in real life and I were playing a Pathfinder 4-shot turned 24-shot. Our party was level 2 and perpetually at low HP since the player who insistently wanted to be our one and only healer dropped out of the party by session 2. One of our players centered his character creation around being a goblin wearing a onesie filled with raw meat. Why? I don’t know. The raw meat regularly came up during role play scenes but the GM never took the raw meat into account for any rolls or mechanics. Halfway through the campaign, at the beginning of a session, this player mentions that the raw meat doesn’t seem to be as funny as it once was. They casually suggested wanting to “undo” previous role play to say this character never had raw meat in their onesie. During this same session, our party fled into the woods after a near-death encounter and suddenly came across a pack of wolves in our path. Another PC and I bring up that this character could throw their raw meat away from our party (therefore losing it for the rest of the campaign) with the hope that it would distract the wolves as we make our escape and/or healed. This player insisted that no, they did not have raw meat to throw, and actually they had never had raw meat. Our GM deferred to the player’s decision for their character. Judges - can a player simply retcon a bit after a real-life year (~12 sessions) of role play, if they have the GM’s blessing? Or is there a limit wherein they simply must commit to the bit? I graciously await your ruling. PS. Based on a few key critical hits, we did survive, but just barely.

Avery P

This made my blood boil just reading it.

Claire

If it may please the inimitable judges and the capricious bailiff, I bring before the court the case of the Dark Souls Deadly Discord Drop-in D&D AND a bonus D&D gossip. The case takes place in the year 2021. I was medium-new to D&D with some, but not much, experience. My boyfriend had a friend who wanted to try DMing in a Dark Souls inspired homebrew world. Don't get excited Murph, you're going to hate this. These sessions were virtual and followed a “drop in if you’re available” format on the DM’s whims. He would post random times on discord and people could join if they were free. So long as there were 3 or more players, the session would run. As an adult with a job and a life, this appealed to me because I didn’t have to commit to scheduling for a long campaign but could still play the same character across multiple sessions. The first session I joined went great. My level 1 Twilight Domain Cleric was super fun to play, and I was very excited to level her up and build out her story. The few following sessions went well too, I played with my friend and bf, so the group was pretty much the same each session plus or minus one or two players. However, I was starting to notice a few issues. The first issue was that this DM used XP leveling, and if you weren’t present for a session, your character didn’t get any XP. This meant that you could end up in a session where you were level 2 and other party members were level 5 or 6. I found this annoying, since I wasn’t able to join as many sessions and was falling behind some of the other characters’ levels, but my bf and I were the same level, so I stuck it out. Murph, I know you've come to hate this already, but don’t worry, it gets worse. I'll remind you that the campaign was Dark Souls inspired, as such it had many deadly encounters. My Cleric died saving the party, RIP. I believe I was level 3 at the time, so I started to build a new character at level 3. It was then that the DM told me that new characters had to start over at level 1. I felt like I was being punished for my character’s selfless sacrifice, and my question for the court is this: am I wrong for finding this system absolutely insane and unfair? Especially given the deadly nature of the campaign, this seems to me like a flawed system deserving of your punishment. Things ended with the boyfriend soon after and I left the server, but I still think about it sometimes when playing in my much better campaigns. Now, the promised gossip: In late 2020, I was bored, single, and on Hinge. I lived in my hometown, and ended up matching with a guy I went to high school with. We went on a few outdoor dates, during which I mentioned that I had been missing my college D&D game and watching a lot of Dimension 20 (shoutout justices Axford and Murphy). He responded by telling me about the online Roll20 game he was in that played every week. He let me know that they had just lost a player who could no longer make the scheduled time and invited me to join. I played a fully tatted Rogue Grandma named Larcenous Lynn who had just escaped a retirement home (she was *not* going back, no matter what her kids said) and had a fantastic time. A few weeks in, the guy ghosted me and the entire D&D group, never to be heard from again. Six years later, I’m still playing D&D with that same group every single week. We've played multiple campaigns all the way from level 1 to level 20 + epic boons and it's incredible. The guy never resurfaced or explained what happened. Note: I went to high school with him and lived in the same town, so I know he didn’t die, he just ghosted all of us 👻. It's for the best, I found the love of my life in 2022 and I've had great time introducing him to the wonderful world of D&D ❤️

Sofa loaf

To the illustrious judges and Jake who is really trying his best Some professors at the college I teach at have opened up a game. I didn’t know them well but was very excited to join. It all went well. It’s led by a psych professor and includes her husband and some other profs. I didn’t know any of them (I’m in a different department) but they’ve all been very welcoming and very kind to me. The issue came up with the DM‘s treatment of one player in particular: her husband. as far as I can tell, she treats the rest of the team fairly. Nobody has been unnecessarily punished except for her husband. when it comes to combat, she describes what happens to us in a fairly standard way: we’re hit, we’re bloodied, we’re downed. But when he’s attacked, she goes into graphic and gruesome detail about his being tortured, his eyeballs popping out, the sound of swords going into his flesh, his teeth getting loosened by a blow, his testicles being flattened, and worse. His characters arent especially ridiculous or anything, but they’re killed fairly regularly. One player asked why he received such harsh punishment and she responded “because he’s a little bitch.” I don’t know the other players super well so I don’t know how to address this issue. The husband usually laughs and doesn’t seem especially upset, although he will say things like “oh come on now”. I can’t tell if their marriage is having some serious issues or if we are all just side characters in some long running kink. How should i respond?

Abby Zoetewey

This is unhinged, I get it as someone also with ADHD, yet still unhinged

Tennifer B.

Honorable justices, I present the case of The Fantasy iPhone. I am the forever DM and my players and I have a fun back-and-forth where they do silly bits and I roll my eyes and act annoyed at all of them. We all laugh about this. In some recent sessions their characters have joined a group called "The Adventure Society" (A concept from the 'He Who Fights With Monsters' books.) Upon joining they received a magical stone ID about hand sized to prove their membership. Immediately the players began joking about the stones being iPhones, constantly doing bits about using them to text, call, etc. So I playfully act annoyed and have the NPC's ignore them as if the PC's never said anything at all. In a recent session my Paladin made another iPhone joke so in an attempt to be funny I gave him a d6 with the numbers 10-15 on it to subtract from his next role as a punishment. It got a few laughs, he rolled it but still hit with his attack, and we all moved on. However, since then none of my players have joked about iPhones even once, and even though no one complained about the dice punishment, part of me feels like I ruined the fun instead of playing into it as intended. Justices, was I too harsh to add dice to the joke, or was this all good fun and my players are just done with the iPhone bit?

Sam H

Greetings beautiful judges and upstanding bailiff Jacob (Radford is right, Jacob deserves respect!), I submit the case of the Week Long Long Rest. I am playing in a long running campaign that started pre-covid. Recently our DM has introduced a new mechanic: a long rest requires 5 consecutive, adventure-free days, or else we don't get the benefits. Similarly, short rests now take 8 hours. As well as making our already long game feel like a drag, this has caused issues with magic items and abilities that typically recharge each day. In DM's defense, we are not getting in fights every day, but we have to micro-manage our resources to a point I find unfun. Justices, do I need to relax? Should I trust my DM more? Or should my level 13 character be able to recover after a night's rest? PS: For reference, we played an entire 6 session "Arc", including a huge battle at the end, with NO long rest in the middle.

Amelia Gorringe

To the highly esteemed justices Tanner, Murphy and Axford, and the averagely esteemed bailiff Hurwitz. May it please the court. I present the Case of the the Peewee PC The first group I ever played with was small, just me and three other players counting the DM. One of the players was playing a 10 year old elf with short term memory loss. Her character had a tragic backstory, but she wouldn’t reveal anything out of character. Unfortunately, her character had completely repressed her tragic backstory so she couldn’t ever tell the other PCs. She role played her character as very shy and generally scared of adults so she wouldn’t talk to NPCs. She had really good stealth, so we attempted to mitigate this by having her character gather intel by eavesdropping on NPCs. It was a good idea in theory, but because of the memory loss she’d come back from scouting having forgotten literally all the information the DM gave her. The other person I was playing with got uncomfortable if he had to role play, and so I was the only one who could get information and try and progress the story forward. It wasn’t ideal, but we were making do, or so I thought. One day, after the session had wrapped up they told me that I was hogging the spotlight and needed to change characters. I never ended up having to because the group fell apart not long after that, but it still irks me. Was I hogging the spotlight by doing the heavy lifting when it came to role play, or was I justified in trying to keep the game moving along?

GingerTheJess

Hello wonderful Judges and beautiful Judges and Bailiff Emily! I bring the case of the dm shat on my homework? I was in a star wars campaign playing as a character who left her old crew. The dm wanted me to go super in depth for the 6 npc characters, asking for specific places, timelines, and their relationships to everything from my character, to the larger politics. I was more than happy to do this (while balancing heavy dissertation writing). The time came when it was revealed that they were all killed off screen and the dm didn't really read any of notes I wrote. He said he just wanted me to put time in to get attached to the NPCs so I would be shocked and upset when they were all dead. I am here to ask the court is it okay for the dm to ask for more backstory (which I was excited about writing), for it to only be for shock value? I love the idea of giving a dm backstory to maybe work in, but this felt different and like he shat on my homework and effort. I await any judgement that may be bestowed and thank you for all the good work.

Dan Tomasik

I come to Dice Christ not with a confession, but to plead for a blessing upon one of my players. Following a messy end to a campaign and friendship, I avoided DMing for years. I had a homebrew world I'd worked on for over a year but didn't expect or ask anyone to read it. This player asked to see it, and then read the entirety of it. Over 130 pages of lore, articles, factions, history, etc. They wrote a backstory (FOR A ONE SHOT) that was four pages long and weaved through the lore throughout. During sessions, they took copious amounts of notes on everything we did, every NPC the party met, finances and loot, wonderful & engaged roleplay, all going way above & beyond anything a DM could ask or dream of in a single player. Now the one shot is a campaign lasting 2+ years and they continue to blow me away. They have revitalized my love for DND in ways I never thought possible, and I don't know what I did to deserve them. I seek a way to show them my gratitude. Granting Inspiration each session feels far too inadequate, so I pray for Dice Christ to shower Casey with blessings for all campaigns they join or run.

Dan Tomasik

"Whom I hope lands on his feet" 🤣 that's brutal, man. So terrible, I love it!

CameronofTroy

To the Illustrious Judges and the rad as hell bailiff, may I present the case of The Bewildered Beholder. A year or so ago in the current campaign i dm, a friend of mine and my party was visiting on a week when i had a boss battle with a beholder planned, and invited her to stand behind the DM screen with me to play the Beholder while i ran the rest of the combat. It just so happened that session was Also the session one of my players was introducing their Third character. However, combat went rough, and the new pc was low on health when the Beholder got a attack of opportunity. She rolled a natural 20, and before she could announce it and down them, i called it a 19 on the die; still a hefty hit, but not a crit. Judges, the glare i got from our friend over this as i "stole her murder" was Wild. Combat was still a pitched battle, but my friend still gets a little upset that i took her shot at PC death even though i was trying to avoid our friend from having to roll a 4th character. Who is in the right? I humbly await your convictions. P.S. Our friend has since joined the campaign as a PC over discord, and the character did die at a later point.

EJ the Fork

May it please the magnificent justices of the Supreme Crit and — oh wait, Jake’s not the bailiff?! I wanted to call him a silly name! Anyway, hi Emily! I come to you all with a simple question: was I the problem paladin? A few years back, I joined a D&D group through my college’s game club Discord. Most of the players were the DM’s friends who I didn’t know, but I also invited a very close friend of mine, who played a barbarian. The day of the case, there were only 3 players present: me, an Oath of the Ancients paladin, my barbarian friend, and the grave cleric. We were all staying in a tavern/inn, and the cleric had just assassinated the tavern’s owner unbeknownst to the rest of us (he had a list of people to assassinate, but that’s a whole unrelated situation). He was upstairs during this event, and the other two of us were downstairs in the main room of the tavern. The barbarian encountered the tavern owner’s son, who was very young and innocent-seeming, and she decided the best thing to do was to attack this child unprompted. The DM allowed her to do this, and the level 7 barbarian was of course able to easily kill this small child. Now, my character was also in this room, playing her flute for the tavern’s patrons, and I was shocked that my friend, given absolutely no prompting, had chosen to randomly kill a kid. Justices, this is where I fear I may have gone wrong: I initiated PVP. I used my channel divinity on the barbarian to restrain her with vines, but barbarians being barbarians, she passed the strength saving throw easily. I then attempted to attack the barbarian with an ensnaring strike spell, which she again broke out of handily, though I did deal a bit of damage with the attack. At this point, both some city guards and our cleric entered the room, and the cleric cast calm emotions on the group of us. Though he meant for the spell to primarily affect me and the barbarian, the both of us saved against it and the guards failed, leading to neither of us receiving any punishment for our outburst of violence. Though I felt justified in my actions at the time, it didn’t take me long to realize I could definitely have handled the situation better, and also probably should not have been allowed to attack with an ensnaring strike immediately after using my channel divinity with no response from the barbarian in between. Is either one of us more at fault, or is this a case of a story with no heroes? I eagerly await your judgement. P.S. I wound up leaving that campaign for reasons entirely unrelated to the barbarian, and though the two of us don’t hang out as much as we used to, we are on good terms today.

Two.Crows

May it please the court, I present the case of the DM who seemed to have it out for me specifically. When I was a high school freshman, I joined the DND club at my school, and I got added to a random group. This group contained my partner at the time who was ghosting me (who became my ex two weeks later), some other people I didn't know at all, and the DM. This was my first time playing DND "seriously", but I had studied the rules. Freshman year went okay, but I had to miss a lot of sessions due to health issues. The summer of freshman year, the DM started talking about he was a certified genius the few times we met up to play. Then in sophomore year, everything seemed to go downhill. I was playing an arcane trickster rouge/ archivist artificer for this campaign. At this point, everyone but me and the DM were new to the group due to the nature of it being a school club. As time went on, the DM kept letting the other players turn to me for rules and what their character's abilities did, even though I tried to direct that back at the DM. Eventually, I just accepted it. At some points, this DM seemed annoyed with me for even using my abilities in any way in any combat encounter. This campaign included someone who was one of the DM's best friends that was an OP character who was the only one that could even damage the BBEG. We were fighting a person for a relic, that I then cast identify on at the ask of the party. The DM only told me positives, and the party told me to put it on. I did, and all hell broke loose. Suddenly my character became a reincarnation of the person we just fought and now wanted to be evil. Because I was still playing with some people that still asked me what their abilities did and I have never enjoyed pvp, I did not play to the top of my abilities. I basically just cast sanctuary on myself and used my movement and bonus action dash to retreat under the guide of wanting to "rebuild my army." My character was eventually killed. Later, the DM tried to tell me that artificers did not get sanctuary, so I cheated and the fight should have been over sooner. I apologized, but later found proof I should have gotten sanctuary (it was either in the class spell list or part of my subclass) and showed it to the DM. The DM did not believe me and told me that my next character would start a level behind everyone else. I just accepted this at the time, and eventually my DM told me my new character would actually be the same level as everyone else. This new character was a relative to the old one and was a druid. When I first started describing them, the DM cut me off saying nobody wanted to hear it. In a later fight, I cast contanigan on a boss, and the boss failed three of the end of turn con saves. The DM then told us he forgot an ability on the boss's sheet that let the boss reroll all those failed saving throws and did it in the moment. He then targeted me down specifically for spell casting, even though I was casting from the space of the wildfire spirit. That new character almost died and had to be saved by the OP character. A friend in that campaign, who is my friend to this day told me that the DM seemed to hate me, specifically that I could outmaneuver him. Honorable judges and bailiff, did this DM seem to have it out for me specifically at some points?

Ryan McNiff

Unfortunately you lose any tiebreakers

Vide Nobuoka

Greetings holy pastors of dice christ, and the kewpie baby bailiff! I come to you with a confession. In May this year, i ran a 1-shot at a church youth camp. We shared the dice set of one of the players, and the session went great! They got to a village and dealt with their dragon problem. A few of them had never played before, but they all had a good time! Later, i had a week with two sessions for a semi-regular Storm King's Thunder campain coming up. During that week, i rolled 12 natural ones. 7 of which on one die! Had dice christ forsaken me? Then i remembered... When i dm:ed earlier, i had forgotten my dice at home! We had to share one player's dice because i didn't bring any! My dice had punished me for my abandonment of them. But must i continue to repent? Should i swear an oath to my dice to never again forget to bring them to play dnd? I humbly await your judgement /Vide

Nathan Budd

Greetings to the veracious judges and the low but scrappy bailiff Joke. I bring to you the case of candle v worm goo. Our party was travelling caves which had been covered floor to ceiling with goo from giant burrowing worms (natural biproduct of the worm). The DM specifically it was flamable. When confronted by one of these worms the cleric pulled out an ever burning candle and threw it into the monster's mouth igniting the monster but also setting the entire cave system on fire. The party managed to escape as the dm said the fire only spread 60ft per round but the cleric complained that the candle should not have set the cave alight. Justices was the dm correct to set the cave on fire or was the cleric correct in his fire safety knowledge. I await your wise input.

Gagagigo jr

Judges was i wrong for taking the "heroic sacrifice" and killing my character long story short my war priest cleric that was greek mythology inspired ran in front of a beholder damage ray and my character was killed everyone was shocked including the dm he described my character meeting the patron they are trying to save and the dm tried to work ways of of my pcs death but it didnt make sense for my character to regret his choice the session ended with my character funeral the dm then called me and apologized saying i was his first pc death judges he began to apologize I ike craxy and i felt so bad am i an ass hole for ignoring my dms chances for my charactet to avoid death please let me know

Dakota

To the honorable Justices Murphy, Tanner, Hurwitz, and our Lady of the Dice, Emily Axford – I bring you the case of my DnD Emancipation. My husband and I are currently in the middle of a short campaign DM’ed by my father, who has played DnD since it came out, 50 years ago. We’re joined by one of his friends, that friend’s daughter, and my sister. What I suspect was supposed to be a 3 or 4 session mini-campaign has ballooned into a once-a-week, seven month long marathon of maddening monotony. What follows is a non-exhaustive list of his crimes: 1. Not letting our fighter attack an enemy around a corner, then attacking the fighter around that same corner himself. 2. Ignoring the effects of spells against a swarm because, “there are a lot of them.” 3. Changing whether to give his monsters the same initiative or separate ones depending on which option is more advantageous for him, and deciding after all PCs have rolled initiative. 4. Refusing to answer questions after a nat-20 persuasion check - not because the NPC didn’t know, he just still didn’t want to tell us. 5. Each fight begins with us using our first turns getting out of each other’s way. This is because: a) Each fight starts after we open a door and see a monster. Roll initiative. b) He will not let us move through an ally’s space. c) He insists we cannot fire ranged attacks around or over allies that break line-of-sight., not even Magic Missile. 6. And my favorite, offering me the reward of a “very helpful narrative hint” for taking good campaign notes. The hint - a suggestion to roll a persuasion check. Justices, these charges are just the tip of the iceberg. I love my father dearly but his guilt has already been decided. I write to the court to request emancipation and sentencing.

Just Another Bi Tiefling

Forgive me Dice Christ, for I have sinned. My friend and I have coordinated dice tattoos. We both have a pair of dice, a nat 20 and a nat 1, slightly overlapped. The only difference between the two tattoos is which dice has which number. When the artist showed us the design, I had a strong preference for one over the other but didn’t understand why until later. I considered mentioning the gut reaction but decided against it. My wife later pointed out that mine has the nat 20 in the foreground so it looks like I rolled with advantage. I now cannot unsee that it looks like my friend’s tattoo is a disadvantage roll with the nat 1 in the foreground. Dice Christ, please forgive me for not speaking up when my gut told me something was off about one of the designs.

noelle

Dearest deacons of the dice I have a confession that I beg to be absolved of. I recently started DMing for my best friends as a first time player myself. My party was excited to play but apprehensive about the role play aspect. In an attempt to get them comfortable at the table I started session one with individual mini quests tailored to each character. Two of my players were very shy in session 0 and did not give me much information to base their introductions on. Both of those roleplay minigames were very awkward and ended with one player feeling sad and dejected after receiving a spooky prophesy and the other player completely rejecting her call to adventure and saying it was too much responsibility. I feel very guilty about over stepping their boundaries as a dm and assuming that I understood the game they wanted to play without confirming. I pray that dice Christ can forgive me so we can continue to have a prosperous and fun game. Thank you!

Softlose Uncertainhand

To the honorable and most supreme judges of this court room… and the other guy named Jake who is still here. I bring upon you this case of mine that still haunts me a year later. I, myself was running a DnD session that was the very start of this hopeful campaign. The group of mine were sent to the Dwarven Mountain, The Bronzen Summit, looking to find new jobs that would bring them honor, fame, glory, and most importantly, money. The group, had met for the first time at a tavern where the elven bard, Portia (Porsche-uh), was thrown out for a bad performance roll, nat 1, and unwanted flirting. The group brushed the bard off from their covered dust, found a poster that promised gold and platinum, and set off to the king’s throne to find the missing prince. When they arrived and had found out that the prince had disappeared towards an unknown plane of existence, the Feywild, Portia had decided to try and seduce the King and convince himself and several guards to join them on their adventure and rolled 3 Natural 20’s back to back and obtained 2 Royal Guards and the king’s interest later if she were to return back to the throne room with his son… (she of course wanted more guards) What had set them off though was that on their first encounter a few hours later, I had set up a situation where they came across an abandoned town in the Feywild, the new plane that the prince has been lost to, and they were looking for anyone to point them in the right direction as to where to go. As they were exploring, one by one over time, each guard had mysteriously vanished. When the first guard had disappeared, he had no concept of understanding that there was a second guard to begin with and thought the group was messing with him, and then they had vanished a bit later and left the group confused as to whether they had guards in the first place. Basically setting up an encounter with a modified false hydra to show that their new world would not be as easy as they had imagined. Portia though argued that rolling 3 Nat 20’s and having the guards killed off before any major battle was a huge issue and bad storytelling. I figured that it was a way to give more clues as to what had happened to this town. Was I in the wrong?