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Present Your Case to the Court! (Patreon)

Published:
2020-12-23 16:03:38
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

D&D Court is back for the final session of 2020 and we are turning to you, NADDPOLES to once again air your grievances, injustices, and slights.

Please comment here with a (BRIEF, I implore you!) story of the event and we will deliberate and serve a just verdict.

Sincerely yours,

Jake

Comments

Tonks

I am our Cleric healer in the party and we entered into a fight and a few of us got smacked real good. We have a larger party and are playing through discord. I asked my party members to drop their damage in the chat as notes so I would be able to keep track of who needed healed in battle. My DM informed me that it would be metagaming to have that in the chat since I as a character wouldn’t know that, but I argued that I would see the damage occurring and this would just be notes for me as a player to act with the most efficient action economy on my turn for maximum effect. If it pleases the court, is this truly metagaming as I am just using it to keep track of damage for my party. It doesn’t feel any different from a cleric asking their party how they are looking on their turn and moves combat along.

Nathaniel Blouin

My DM gave me a mirror shield that can deflect “all ranged attacks” and then I got shot in combat with a gun and he said it “wasn’t possible because bullets move too fast” 2 PC’s ended up dying in that combat

david day

Tempting but my dm listens lol

Kelly McKew

IF a fellow PC rejects every option other PCs put forward, but don't offer any alternatives or better plans, how do I tell them to give us alternatives or go with the flow?

Justin Thyme

Does it please the court though?

Orangeleader398

May it please the court: my group was fighting a young dragon when a player decided to use a potion of lust on the dragon... things afterwards did not go his way after he lost a luck check and the dragon choose him. The player left the campaign saying I was out to get him. I say it was agreed to a luck check. Am I wrong?

Edson Salgado

My Dm will not allow me to take a bonus action Hide without taking an opportunity attack because it "removes me from comvat"

Nate Otts

I play a monk, and my DM has from hither to and here on banned me from using tree branches as an improvised weapon. Her logic is that I’ve done it so many times (trees are just everywhere, what’s a halfling gonna do, amiright?) that it is no longer “improvised”. Please let us know who is being ridiculous, my excessive use of boughs, or her iron fist?

Daniel Nida

An argument between two players. We were at a haunted house sidequest, guy plays a dumb orc and says he's scared of ghosts and wants to leave, sabotaging all party attempts to do sidequest including SETTING THE BUILDING ON FIRE. He and I argued and DM threatened to end the session if he can't play together. How far is roleplay allowed to make the session less fun?

Amelia

I'm a Dm, my players were fighting a battle on a moving airship against some winged elves. The leader cast silence that happened to cover a large portion of the deck of the airship the players were on. My player argued that silence is a point in space and thus the ship would leave the area ina round.. I posit that the spell works in reference to scene because otherwise the planet is also moving in space and all spells with"point in space" would essentially be void. Edit: my players listen and I'm calling them out!

Bryce Beatty

Losing a friend over DnD! My character witnessed another PC killing an enemy squire who was a child, and we were punished for not feeling bad. Had a huge fight outside game, where the DM accused us of being actual child murderers, and psychopaths. It ruined that game immediately and we haven’t spoken to the DM since (2 years now). I still play with the other PC, and run my own game. Was I wrong to drop a friend over killing an NPC in a dnd game?!?

David P

May it please the court: the case of d**-DM trumping the bard cards: My first ever game of D&D (5e) I was playing a bard. When I got to third level, I was very excited to get my first second level spell, for which I chose detect thoughts. The following session, we were talking to a person whom we suspected could be part of an evil cult. While asking this person if they knew of the cult, I spent my ONLY second level slot to cast detect thoughts. My DM replied as follows: "I'm hungry, I think it's time for lunch". Later it turned out that person was indeed a cultist. I tried to reason with the DM, but they wouldn't listen to me, saying that detect thoughts was OP and that we should find out the answer in a different way. I think my DM was a bit of a d*** with those rulings, and still to this day I'm annoyed at them for this. Am I being unreasonable? I love the show guys, and I hope you'll come some day for a live session in Amsterdam.

Elizabeth

The People vs The Deaf DM: Your Honors, I am a DM for a group of entirely Deaf players. Instead of making them play Hearing characters (something we know very little about) all of their characters are Deaf and ASL is our version of common. In one of our battles, I used a monster who got advantage on attacks when it was screaming. My players argued that they should be immune to this effect due to their status as Deaf characters. I argued that they would feel the vibrations on the cave floor and would know through non-hearing measures that the attack was being done. We argued for about thirty minutes before I caved. I implore you, High Court, to tell me: did I get whomped?

Max Huftalin

May it please the Court: Recently my players were falling from thousand of feet in the air, plummeting towards the ground. One of the players, who has a bag of holding, had the brilliant idea of skydiving to each of his fellow players and putting them in the bag, and then climbing in himself, so that only the bag hit the ground. Because it was such a dope idea, I let them climb out afterwards, no problem, but I can’t shake the feeling that I should’ve done something to the bag, i.e. damaged it or locked them in there until somebody else let them out. I’m pleading guilty of succumbing to the rule of cool. Should I have given them some consequences? Important note: it was their fault that they were falling.

Muqtadaa Miandara

A player at my table chose to take a decapitated corpse head and asked what he had to roll to fuck the eyehole hard enough for the brains to leak out the ears. We had established some solid boundaries in Sesh 0, with a player at the table a survivor of sexual assault, so he knew he was treading dangerous waters. I encouraged him not to pursue this specific course of action and attempted to redirect the moment, but he insisted. I eventually asked him not to return to the table. Some of the party felt this was too harsh, others felt it was just. How does the court judge me?

LowlyWorm

in a campaign, my friend wanted to play as a very tiny frog mage (anuran race to be precise) and stock mage hand as a cantrip. according to the handbook, anurans weigh 2-3 pounds and mage hand can carry up to 10 pounds. you may see where this is going. My friend argues that she should be able to play a tiny frog wizard that zooms around on her own mage hand like a personal hovercraft at all times. The DM was annoyed, but allowed it. Is this too much shenanigans? or is a frog in the mage hand worth two frogs not in the mage hand?

Jack Campau

Hey everybody! So I was recently playing a very cold and spooky necromancer who was temporarily being mind controlled. immediately after having a lesser restoration cast on me I snapped out of it but went down fast. HOWEVER, a PC in my party was still mad at my character for hitting him with zombies and chose to tidal wave them along with me down on the ground. I failed my death saving throws because of it and died. He says there's no way he could've known I wasn't the bad guy now, so to avoid metagaming he killed me... so yeah, if you could tell MICHAEL he's in the wrong here (he's a listener) that'd be great. Thank you!

Maia Costea

Dear honorable judges, I present to you the case of The DM versus a Wish Spell. A PC while in Tasha's Unraveling Magic Area got access to a Wish spell and wanted an important NPC (presumed dead) to come back to life before them. Me, as a sneaky lil' creep, knew he was alive in a Clone body and immediately just summoned him in the room, revealing a twist that was supposed to come up in a few months. Was I wrong to adjudicate the Wish this way? I bow before the court.

Crane

Thank you justices of the court for your time. I have a player in my online campaign who is playing someone who is even worse then an edgelord.... a fedora wearing " Ma lady" guy. He is also hitting on the party in and out of character, which is making gameplay awkward. He is the dms best friend, so I dont know how to approach the situation. What should I do? I await your valued verdict. Thank you.

joshua marshall

I like to pick subclasses and races that have a climb speed, it’s just as versatile as fly, but not as game breaking. My issue is, anytime I try to climb something, my DM tells me to make a strength check. I argue that the aarakocra doesn’t have to make a strength check to fly, the triton doesn’t have to make a strength check to swim, why should my Tabaxi thief need to roll strength to climb? Please help me settle this, oh wise ones.

Hunter Vaught

May it please the court: I currently am a player with an online DnD group that plays about once a week. We’ve moved way past this incident but I just wanted to get your opinions. At one point in our campaign we ran into an item that was magically sealed i the Dragonborn paladin with 19 INT asked the group if anyone had counter spell or dispel magic. As I said this other players begin to say I was meta gaming. These other players have also never played DnD before so I was just trying to help since they were both magic users who may have had this spell. Just wanted to see your opinions If did to me having played DnD and knowing what spells do what if I was meta gaming or not. Thank you all for what y’all do with NADDPOD , it is awesome!

Matthew Duggan

If it pleases the court. My group, the Wing Dings, have a working agreement with the continent’s kings to rescue their daughters from some magical fuckery. After having trouble getting back into the castle once before, we decided to get a writ of permission from the kings to allow our entry into the castle. We ran into trouble with the Royal guard, and said we’d show them the papers to prove we were working with the kings. Our DM insisted in the moment they because we didn’t specifically role play that interaction, we never got the writ. The party insisted that that was just a hoop to jump through and that it could’ve been implied. It led to a tense rest of the session, but I still believe that role playing a boring interaction for the sake of it was unnecessary.

Ricardo, devotee of dice christ

I implore the high court to hear this case of fraudulence and thievery. I (playing a charismatic buccaneering pirate of the crew) had busted open a safe on board a ship we recently had a acquired, by definitely legal means, and found many coin inside upon inspection. Another pc on our crew approached me after I had found the valuables and proceeded to question me about finding anything on the ship, trying to get me to cough up some cash. Being a pirate I obviously lied to their face and succeeded wildly on a deception check, and more than once during our long discussion. At least three times total rolling well over 20 each time against their insight. They then proceeded to ask me to empty my pockets in front of them to prove I had nothing. I was already bemused but I obliged and rolled a nat 1 on trying to hide the coins in my sleeves, spilling them onto the floor and then losing half of the money in a struggle to scrape it up. The other player argues to this day it was all in character to ask this of me. I beg the court to see my plight and judge accordingly.

Dave 3D Art

Hi, I've been the DM of a group for a few months now (taking advantage of the fact that we live in one of the few places in the world where in person sessions are still safe). My issue if that these players now want to start recording these sessions, and turning the campaign into a podcast. I'm opposed to this, but I don't want to lose my players to a more willing performative DM. Should I just go along with it to maintain a campaign group or is this a group breaker in your opinion?

Nestor

I DM a biweekly campaign, and at the end of every session I ask my players if they're available at the same time on the same day in two weeks, and they (usually) all say yes. However, most times a day or two before a session, one or two players will inevitably say that they made plans and can't meet the established time and ask if we can reschedule to another time/day that week. One day I reached out to the group and let them know that I was frustrated with the constant rescheduling because I felt that we should all keep to our word and meet when we said we would, especially since some of us (me) choose not to make plans during that block (I try to stick to it so much that this year I didn't plan anything for the evening of my birthday because we had all agreed to meet. Someone ended up bailing the night before, which meant no birthday fun AND no D&D). At that point at least one player let me know that they didn't think it was a big deal and that we should just move the time around when people can't make it. Am I justified in wanting people to keep the established time we all agreed on, or am I a jerk for not being more open to shifting dates and times around before our sessions?

Robert G Anderson

Hey guys so my DM is driving me and the other players kinda crazy he is constantly having us do just random rolls for a whole session and not tell us what they are or sometimes we don’t even roll he won’t let me grapple or deceive the other players. He rolls checks for us sometimes too. I rolled the lowest of a perception check of the party with and 18 and he said I didn’t see the smoke that everyone else saw I just looked at the dirt like I’d rolled a 1. I really want to keep playing with these players but it’s getting harder to be in this dms group

Jazmine Kriech

Once our party got into a bit of a bar fight with some bandits, me or our ranger pulled down a section of the roof on top of the bandits, and our wizard. He quickly said "I cast shield" and the DM said he didn't have time to do so. I reminded him Shield is a reaction, and he replied, and I quote "Do you really think he'd have the reaction time to do so?" I let it go, since he was the DM, but its been bugging me since. Was he in the right, and I guess, would shield even done anything for a roof cave in?

NNF

My party doesnt want to let me pull from the deck of many things, so they confiscated it from me. However a few sessions later the player who took it drew from it and i was pissed. Im the one who solved the riddle to get it from the dungeon and im the one who put himself in danger to get it. Am i wrong for freaking out Murph style on them

Saint Siah

Our group has a barbarian who tends to go berserk instead of raging. When in rage he attacks the nearest living creature... including the other players. My Druid has almost been killed more than twice at this point by this barbarian and I dunno what to do about it. The barbarian conveniently blacks out when he rages so his character doesn’t even recall the damage he’s doing, he almost died last combat and I refused to heal him because he wouldn’t stop attacking us. Everyone thought I was being too harsh but honestly it might just be easier at this point if he dies, what do y’all think?

Ben Okin

Hey Court, how's it hanging? I'm the DM and in the campaign, the level 8 PCs returned to a town they saved from a hag to discover some grifters stealing donation money to rebuild the local church of Pelor. When the jig was up, the grifter family (a wife, husband and bratty son) tried to flee. Our wizard, too slow to catch up, cast Ray of Frost at the child with the intention to hit and slow their speed by 10 feet. I paused and asked if she was sure she wanted to do this. She committed to the act and hit with her attack, dealing 8 damage. I proceeded to narrate the brutal cold death of the child much to her and the rest of the PC's shock. To this day, the wizard PC denies any onus of the child murder, blaming me for not making it clear that the human child had an AC of 10 and 2 HP. Is this my fault for not being clear that the HUMAN CHILD couldn't take a blast of magic from an 8th level PC or should she just have had more common sense? Who is to blame for the death of this bratty grifting child?

Nathaniel Carlson

One time in a campaign a while back, I was playing as a warlock with an Unearthed Arcana patron of the Raven Queen. This subclass, along with some other character traits and stats ended up giving me a massively high passive perception well over 20 (though I don't remember the exact number now) and a huge perception bonus. I also had a warlock ability called withces sight, allowing me to see anything invisible at all times. One time we found ourselves on top of a tower with a closed door. Behind the door were enemies. My DM said that they teleported into our room using a specific spell that requires line of sight that they did not have. When I argued this, my DM shut me down immediately. Later I learned that they had used arcane eye to see inside the room, which floated invisibly above us. I thought I should have been able to see that with my passive perception and ability to see anything invisible or at least gotten to roll for it, but was given no opportunity for either. Had I seen the arcane eye, I could have cast dispel magic on it. Was I wronged?

Hannah McFarland

In my curse of strahd campaign my players go up to the mountains where it is below freezing. So I told them if their coats take damage past the point of no return they will have to make con saving throws to not get levels of exhaustion. Well one of my half orc players decides that there character is just going to walk around the mountain with no coat. This player proficient in con saves. They have passed all my DC. I’m not crazy right you can’t survive without a coat in the cold right? Please tell me I’m right. Either way we are still friends despite the coat debate.

Alie

Hi guys!! I have a case I want to your opinion on :) I was DMing a one shot dungeon crawler for our group and one of our characters (my spouse actually lol) made me grumble quite a bit with this one! I hid a mimic as a chest for my not so experienced players to find and when they did, my spouse burst into the room and quickly stunned the mimic with a spell and rushed everyone out of the room and closed to door and moved on. I argued that they could not spell cast without going into combat first esp since they ran into the situation. I let it happen as my spouse was our normal DM and figured they knew best but haven’t stopped thinking about how that encounter could have gone if I made them roll initiative. Love you guys!!! -Alie

AJ Carreau

I am a fighter in a star wars campaign and a few sessions ago my DM needed all of us to get captured during a fight. But instead of wining letting the fight play out and just wining. he had some explosion go off and knock us all unconscious, I argued that I should get at least some chance to stay awake and was promptly told no!

Richard Jacob Meadows

If this may please the court, I am the DM of my small group of now four after bringing in an experienced friend (goblin thief rogue) to the party. The other two (an eldritch knight/Phoenix sorcerer and an old one warlock warforge) are rather new but good players, but they dont rp as much. The case proceeds as follows: The party escaped an eldritch storm that raised the undead and arrived at a illuminated casino, which turned out to be run by vampires who are using a relic to create the storm to lure and trap victims. Your classic vampire casino heist. I had them meet the owner who I based on Strahd, but I changed one thing to instill fear into my players. I increased the DC for his charm person ability to 18, if he had physical contact with a person. I may have been a bit spiteful after the party ignored my floor set up with fun casino games for them to try that only the warforged did one of, because when the owner came and held the rogue and the knight by the shoulder, the rogue had a pet ferret named Xanu, who bit his hand as he touched him. I let that slide and so the rogue didnt need to make a save. However the knight didnt do anything, including any of the drinks or games (inspired a bit by the honey trap in lust), and so when he got a 19 on his save I said he failed and the owner made him think he was in a great place and bought the most expensive drink on the menu. Am I wrong for changing the DC in an attempt to get my new players take more action and fun in the world and encounters I spent a good number of days making for them? Especially when the rogue even still was able to save him by have his ferret knock the drink out of his hand. As a joke though I said the ferret will now get the cursed/blessed effect, his next nat 1 will be a nat 20. Case dismissed

Josh Regan

Dear Honorable Court, I implore you to find a decisive answer to this question, because it has been one of contention at my table. So as a player, I find it enjoyable to push the boundaries of what my DM will allow, and if he says no to something, I will generally concede to his powers. However, I believe if you allow a roll for something, you must allow it to come to pass in some way if the roll is good enough. Recently in our campaign, I tried to convince someone who disliked my character to give something that was highly unlikely that they would give me as a reward for completing a quest. My DM allowed me to roll a persuasion check for it, and I rolled a natural 20. Instead of achieving my goal, the DM had the character swiftly knock out my weak sorcerer. This caused a lot of arguing, because like I said, if the DM allows you to roll for shenanigans, they should accept the fate of the die. What say the honorable court on this matter?

Bright Morning

May it please the court: I’m the dm for a group of new adventurers. Our cleric, a cis man playing a cis woman, is playing their character as an proselytizing preacher of ilmatar, the faerunian god of suffering and perseverance. Cool! Here’s the rub: he recently discovered r/menwritingwomen and insists on playing his cleric as a stereotypical busty sex object, much to the chagrin of the mostly female party. Here is an example: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/menwritingwomen/comments/740ypq/she_breasted_boobily/ I don’t wanna yuck anyone’s yum, and it was funny at first i guess, but it’s starting to rub the other players the wrong way. I want to pull him aside and say something, but he seems to be having so much fun... Is making a satirical/ potentially offensive character in a role playing game like DND okay, so long as we're having fun? Am I a bad DM for letting this happen in the first place? What would you all do in this situation?

RoleforThat

May it please the court: One of my players recently mutliclassed into warlock, and I believe did so that they could get the combo of the Darkness spell & Devil Sight invocation. Every time we have a combat encounter now they cast darkness on the strongest enemy, and then because they have devil sight, they can see through the darkness, but can't been seen, which has made it difficult for me as the DM to plan encounters around. Here's my dilemma: I want to ask my player to change their innvocation to something else, as I believe the combo goes against the spirit of the game, but on the otherhand it's a completely legal move to make, and I believe they multiclassed into warlock specifically so that they could get it. Would I be unfair in asking this of them, and do you guys see anyway where I could fix the situation without ask for the change? Thanks for the help, you guys are all awesome!!

Spencer Clark

Lady and Gentlemen of the Court, Today, I submit myself for judgment before the court. I am a first time DM and running a well-known horror themed campaign for my players. The time had cometh for the players to approach a certain 'dilapidated stone windmill' (the description was taken directly from the module, this will be important later on). My rogue snuck closer for an investigation. He rolled well on stealth and perception. I told the player he saw two older women chopping up some "meat" and heard some muffled cries coming from above. He decided to try to make a distraction so he could sneak in when the women go outside to investigate. His plan was to use his grappling hook to try to cause the windmill to malfunction. He rolled a Nat 20. Just for fun, I rolled to what was the damage that was done to the windmill (rolling high would mean less damage). I rolled a Nat 1. I have never had to deal with building damage or siege weapons before. In my mind, the only conclusion I could come up with was this: The grappling hook was the final straw that broke the mounts and tethers of the axel of the actual windmill causing it to snap off and crash into the windmill. Thus removing any remaining structural integrity of the windmill and the windmill to crumble since it was original described as dilapidated to begin with. My players thought this was the best possible outcome. Soon after, two badly damaged night hags emerged from under the rubble and combat ensued. My question is did I make the right call? This was never the intended action of the rogue and I turned their critical success into a critical failure in a way. Should I have tried to add some flavor to the roll or should I have I just left it as a critical success as they wanted it to be? It hasn't bothered my players, but it still irks me. Did I overstep my bounds as a DM with his action?-Spencer

Devlin Macpherson

May it please the court, perhaps a question for small claims court: I'm playing a pact of the fiend warlock and have "Dark Ones Blessing" where I get temp HP when I reduce hostiles to 0 HP. In a combat, my familiar killed a barbarian but my DM ruled that since I hadn't killed him, I don't get the temp HP. I argued that since I command my familiar and used my bonus action to attack, I should get the HP, but my DM says I didn't do the killin

Dane Ostlie-Olson

Good day your honors and may it please the court: I’m the DM. A few sessions ago a player of mine was brought to 0 int score by an intelligence devourer (Int is his dump stat so he had a -2 to the saving throw) rather than render him useless and make him roll a new character while his team mates haul his body around and try to fix him I had a very powerful caster appear to him and offer to fix the situation in exchange for a few favors and, as a little carrot to go with the stick, gave him Eldritch blast and two invocations. He accepted and woke up- however as he awoke I made the call to have him age 50 years and physically change to be a mirror image of the wizard who fixed him. This bumped his strength and con scores down for the time being. In the moment I thought it was a neat thing and I’ve told them how they can fix it in game- but I’m wondering: am I guilty of inappropriate railroading?

Austin Johnson

As a bit I gave a player a vial of infinite Acid, but it was LSD acid and not disolvey acid. Flash forward to 6 months later and they have decided to solve a problem with a cult of sea monsters by just constantly dumping LSD into a lake. I told them that it would take years for the concentration to be high enough to do anything, but they insist that this will work based on science.

Travis Hammer

If it may please the Court of Boobs, while running mines of phendelver for my siblings last year my brother the aracockra barbarian stockholm syndromed Perry the Goblin through successive intimidation checks and a few key saves for the goblin. In the final encounter Perry was told to stay back but he had an opportunity to hit the wizard when no one else did, so I roll for Perry and he crits. Being the only one to hit the wizard he was then targeted by a magic missile attack which did have a chance of not obliterating him based on the damage rolled. However, being the fodder that he was intended to be, Perry didn't survive as he fell with the Naruto death scene music playing in the background. My brother argues that I unfairly made Perry a target, I argue Perry is his own character who got unlucky when he wanted to impress his new master. Did I overstep as a DM in this moment?

Dylan Carter

One of our party members got trapped in a gem and we went on an adventure to get him out. While fighting some high level demons our healer went down. As the secondary healer I grabbed him and thunder stepped as far away as possible. The DM then had every enemy turn away from our barbarian and come after me. We TPKd because both healers went down. I stand by that the demons had no reason to come after me or even know where I went

Cayden pruiett

Hello! So, a few years back, I was playing a bard in a campaign that my friend was dming. We ended up in a situation where the big bad and his army was storming a castle, and our group was on the outer walls, watching him come in. The big bad was in seeing and shouting range, so I shouted an impassioned speech to him about why he shouldn’t destroy the castle and, without waiting for my dm to respond or request a roll, made a persuasion check. I got a natural 20 (+12). My dm stated that, since he never told me to make the roll, it did not count and that “the bad guy was set in his ways, and it is impossible to convince him otherwise” and that he would have told me this if I hadn’t had rolled so quickly before he could respond. I argued that, even if the bad guy was entirely set in his ways, a 32 persuasion check should’ve changed his mind. Should I have listened to my dms ruling? Or was I right to stand by my roll? Thanks for the help!

Rachael

I play a Barbarian Halfling in my campaign (mostly because I find it funny to think of a Halfling Barbarian, but also re-rolling 1s is just awesome to have), and I use a Greataxe, as Barbarians are proficient in them. (I just say that it’s a Halfling sized Greataxe). The section in the PHB on Halflings says NOTHING about having to roll with disadvantage with any kinds of weapons, but my BF (who is also a player in the campaign) says that I should as I’m too small to use a Greataxe . Our DM also hasn’t said anything about it, but he still insists that I should be rolling with disadvantage. Please settle this for me!

J-Bru

Most honorable judges, I implore thee to consider the following. I DM a weekly game for a friend, his wife and his 12 year old son. I have realized that I go out of my way to ensure the kid doesn't have anything bad happen in game. I don't pull any punches when it comes to DMing and roll in the open. But if there is a contest and the kids character flat out loses so every other PC gets a prize I feel like I'm bullying a child and will improv summer rain for him to get a prize as well. Is this the right thing to do? Am I sparing this kid grief now, only for him to have unrealistic impressions of fair play and justice. Have I ruined society by trying to avoid feeling like I'm picking on a child when they fail? I accept any punishment that is decided.

Stephanie Karisny

May it please the court, in an early session of my group's Lost Mine of Phandelver campaign our party had successfully captured and bound the wizard Glasstaff when he escaped by casting Misty Step (we didn't gag him) and booking it. My half or totem barbarian pursued and attempted to make a javelin attack. By the time I was able to make the throw the DM had described that Glasstaff had made it over a hill, and was on the opposite (descending) slope, out of my sight and out of javelin range. DM ruled that only a Nat 20 would hit under these circumstances. I argued that because I had followed, knew his general path/direction, and was proficient with javelins, the throw should merely be at disadvantage. Did not roll a Nat 20 and missed though we ended up getting Glasstaff anyway. Who was right?

Raina M

So I play some DnD with some online friends on discord. One of which is a in person friend. So we had to level our characters up and my in person friend that shall be call P moving forward needed help. They are still new and also just kinda refuses to do the work sometimes to figure stuff out. So I was like “hey if you need help let’s do a call when you get done with work and I’ll help you” it was a Friday so I didn’t have my early morning the next day so I was willing to be less of a grandma in bed by 9pm to do this. So it’s about 10 to and the show I’m watching with my family (yay living at home) ends and I’m like I gotta go do a call. Head upstairs and wait cus I know that sometimes work takes a minute or two longer. So it’s like 5min after the time we agreed on so I call them on discord and turns out P forgot we had set this meeting and couldn’t be bothered to tell their “boyfriend” (he is an online boyfriend and honestly it’s just her history with online boyfriends that I have the quotes. It has not gone well for her) that they had to do something with me quick. Basically “oh shit I forgot we made plans and now I’m chatting with a boy so I can’t leave that” like fuck no that’s not okay with me and I’m still kinda pissed also because I stayed up a little later and if I was going to stay up I could’ve been watching cool tv shows with the fam?? But nope had to be told that I matter less

Rebecca Hunt

A flat “no” from the DM... no alternatives, no pleasantries, nothing. Context: Wall of Fire spell that I wanted to put out with Tidal Wave or Create Water (literally 10 gallons of water in a 5 foot square or something). The reasoning of the DM and resident Rules Lawyer was “Wall of Fire is magical and nothing is actually on fire therefore the water would need to be magic to douse the flames. I believed that the water - being a spell - would at least be magical enough to suppress the flames for me to move through without taking damage - unfortunately not. Also consider the reverse logic - would a Wall of Fire spell work underwater? I was shouted down and future shenanigans were met with equal strictness. The impartial view of the honourable court are gratefully received (also huge fan, NADDPOD helped me literally climb a mountain range 🙏🏼)

Skyler Morford

Should DM’s make big moves to player characters to move to advance the story? For example my DM killed my party out of the blue because he wanted to run an undead campaign.

Sir Humphery

One of my players is a jerk when role playing. I’m good friends with them and I find the asshole rouge character funny and it’s a good way for them to engage in rp the party otherwise ignores. My other players complain about him and ask me to kick him out, but having a PC antagonist actually gets them to look up from their phones, even if it’s just to argue. Do I kick out the only player who engages? Or should I tell the others they are being soft?

David Moelker

My PC's are abusing me, If it pleases the court I would like to appeal my case and dispute. I DM for a group of player's and I often use the random magic items tables, this started out fine until they had six bags of holding. The dispute I had with said people though was how they used these bags, they put these six bags inside of each other giving them the ability to technically survive for up to an hour in the bags. I argued that since the phrasing of the item says it will rip them into the astral plane if they put a bag inside of a portable Hole OR SIMILAR Extra dimensional item that they would have the same effect, but they argued it would specifically mention a bag of holding in the list of extra dimensional spaces. Thanks for ruling on my side, Sincerely, A fellow DM who is about to freak out Murphy style

Noah

So one of my players decided that it would be a good idea to attack a bandit camp without the rest of the party knowing. He get captured, ransomed off to the rest of the party and loses their trust. He then texted me after the session to ask me why the party couldn’t back him up, and that because the players knew what was happening that the characters should have too and this situation was all my fault for letting this “spiral out of control.” Also an important detail, this isn’t his first time playing D&D. Who is in the wrong?

ThatManGareth

DM had BBEG beat us to an important story location, but the villain didn't notice us. We cast zone of silence so he wouldn't hear us approach but apparently BBEG noticed the sudden silence in a abandoned castle (offense 1) low and behold a fights starts and my character casts phantasmal killer (the 3.5 edition version of the spell) and the BBEG failed his throws because of imposed disadvantage. DM decided BBEG had cloned himself ad infinitum and our victory there was worth nothing, (offense 2) we didn't even got any EXP or loot for the encounter. Please help settle a 4 year old argument that we still take shots at each other for from time to time.

Catalina Canales

My character is in a relationship with an npc, to not force the dm to have the npc follow along, I ended up making it long distance. The dm by Coincidence gave my character a pair of sending stones ;) Now, per wording, Sending stones give you 1 sending per day, but I Suggested: could it be 1 sending per stone? The dm argued the wording suggested is 1 per pair of stones (Which is quite true), But he's an absolute sweetheart and ended up giving me the 2 sendings so my boy could talk to his boyfreind. How would you have ruled? We were all happy with this rulling. Rule of love over rules as written I guess haha

Tyler Draehn

My DM on our first session had us fight a beast that could turn us to stone and then the beast description said it liked to crush the statues. So when we found it after fighting tons of bandits we were all tired. One of our players had to skip the session but the DM played his character anyone. That was our rule before, if only one had to miss we played anyway. So what happened was this beast turned the absent player’s character to stone and I stayed true to my character’s role play and tried to save him but also was turned to stone while the rest of the party ran away. So of course our DM crushed both our statues which was permanent death, no saves. The remaining players said that it was a tough encounter but I deserved it for saving someone’s character who couldn’t even play that week due to work. I think it was incredibly unfair to have a bunch of level 3 people fight that beast even if there were 4 of us. I also think it’s wrong as the DM to play someone’s character while they aren’t there in such a way that it leads them to be the first to die permanently. The DM said it was good to stick to my role play but because the beast likes to smash things he had to kill us both permanently and couldn’t just leave us petrified until the others could come back and save us. Our absent friend refilled a character while to appease me he had me reincarnated for 1000 gold which the remaining players almost couldn’t afford as it was the first session. Even though he allowed us to reincarnate my character I am still mad to this day about making our first encounter so difficult on purpose. He said his goal is always to permanently kill as many of us as possible but I never see how that’s any fun for anyone. Am I wrong to be this angry about being permanently killed at level 3 by this beast while trying to save an absent player’s character? Should I be more mad at the other players who ran and abandoned the role play? I truly don’t think we could have killed the beast after all the fighting we did right before.

Charles Weak

I've been playing in a campaign with a bunch of friends of friends for a couple years now. At first the game was really fun, but over the time the game has evolved and I have a couple grievances. When the game started there was pretty good parity for story related character development for the PCs but over the course of the game the DM started dating one of the players and the story has evolved to really only focus on building her characters story. I guess the transition does make sense with the trajectory of the greater storyline but it's starting to feel like I won't ever get to develop my characters backstory in game. Also one of the other players has a habit of "asking forcibly" if you can prepare spells, etc. For things he's planning his character to do (which never work btw), which affects my planning for a session IE (You should prepare X, so if I attempt to do Y then it might workout). This was my first DND game and I've recently been thinking about respectfully bowing out, which sucks. How would the court rule? Am I a whiny baby or are these legitimate concerns?

Dr3vvn45ty

Me (DM) let's friend play Tanuki (raccoon dog with legendarily huge balls) rogue with 3 other peeps. Other guys are standing on a cart in the middle of a field of short grass. Tanuki rogue decides to try to crawl along the ground like a raccoon and stealth toward the wagon. I say "you can certainly try". He rolls decently high, but is basically a huge raccoon with enormous testicles crawling over short grass with no cover. Naturally, he's not well hidden. Friend gets a little tilted about it, saying that he rolled high so he should succeed. I say that he did as good a job as he could have, given the circumstances, but a high roll doesn't guarantee success.

Castellini Film School

A few sessions ago my party and I all got resistance tattoos where we rolled to see what kind of damage we could get resistance to. I got force damage, which almost never comes up (at least in our campaign) and was feeling pretty low until we vanquished the big bad from my backstory (very cathartic) and the weapon I got from him was a bow that has charges you can use to essentially cast counterspell but take a certain amount of, wait for it, FORCE DAMAGE (!!) as a result. I was doubly excited, but then my DM said my force damage resistance tattoo doesn't work with it so I have to take the full damage to use the bow's ability. In the four sessions since getting my bow, we have not encountered any enemies that deal force damage, so it's not like I'm getting any other benefit from this stupid (very expensive) tattoo (unlike my party members who now have resistance to, respectively, fire and frost damage, which come up plenty). Please help!

Danny B.

Started my first campaign about a year ago (inspired to try thanks in part to all of you). Most of the players are new, and one of them likes to consistently "remind" people of their own abilities. I thought this was them trying to learn the game but its been a year. Now this is a fairly normal problem, but also our 13th level rogue (we started at 1st level) consistently forgets how sneak attack works and doesn't understand what hiding does. So maybe player 1 is in the right to think we all need help?

RPKB

This happened a few years back. My best friend ran a game where we had been given a spider staff, which can cast the spell web. We were presented with a large 60 gap into a dark chasm ahead of us as one of two options at a fork in our dungeon crawl. As I had 50 ft. Of rope and my buddy had the spider staff, we devised a plan to use the staff to web on end of the rope to the ceiling of the cavern (was within range) and swing across the rope, like SPIDERMAN. We thought it was a clever use of magic items and resources. However, The DM said absolutely not, and that we were not allowed to ‘spider-man’ through his dungeon, without explaining why it wouldn’t work. To be fair this group of PCs was particularly chaotic, but this Was far from the most batshit thing we tried to do. To this day me and the other players cite the ‘thwip incident’ as an injustice to which this DM exasperatedly stands his ground against us. Judges, what do you rule? Was this DM right to crush our spider-man dreams?

Frankenchin

I'm currently DMing a mini western campaign with the story revolving around a murder mystery of the town's sheriff.Through some terrible investigation checks, our party's sorcerer (named Tik Tok) decided that the culprit was a prisoner in jail. To infiltrate the prison as quickly as possible, Tik Tok decided to strip COMPLETELY NUDE and be thrown in jail for indecent exposure (to whick I described in extreme ball-swinging detail). Once jailed, he wanted to use a magic item of his to unlock the jail cell but I informed him that he was nude as hell. He argued that just because he has nothing on doesn't mean he does not have items on him as they didn't count as clothing. How right/wrong was I to punish him by rotting in prison until the rest of the party rescued him? (P.S. He did try and fail to escape multiple times)

Travis Butcher

We ran a 20th lvl santa sleighing one shot and have a pt2 to it coming up. The bard took a lot of damage from being attacked while not immediately initiating with enemies and it was brought up it seemed like I was picking at them. Should I spread damage more even or is it ok to target characters when some if not everyone does 100ish damage a round?

Hildydoo

Our level 18 party is currently on an island that saps magical energy from us, causing us to lose spell slots as we take long rests. However, we usually rest in a magnificent mansion. That being said, the magnificent mansion is in a pocket plane, would the island’s effects reach us there? The DM says yes, because we used the magic before we rested, but we argue that since we’re resting outside of the island in a separate plane, it shouldn’t work that way. Please help!

Austin lauer

I set up a heist operation for my players (specifically the rogue) and they spent almost a whole session deliberating about how to do it. They stealth into the location and then immediately start causing a scene (the rogue decided to try and pull a smash and grab). Afterward, the rogue was upset I didn't remind him about one of his abilities that would have let them handle the situation a little easier. I felt like I set up the whole encounter for him, he should learn his character better. Am I in the wrong?

AssassinZer0

During a campaign where we were stopping a vampire lord from taking over the world, we were fighting one of the vampire's lieutenants. We had him nearly beaten and began pressing him for information. In an effort to intimidate him, I said I was going to stab my spear into his leg to try and force more info out of him. I specifically stated I was stabbing his leg, but because I didn't specifically state it was nonlethal damage, the DM made me roll damage which ultimately ended up killing him before we could get any useful information out of him. The rest of the party was upset because I had inadvertently killed him, but I feel like we were being punished just because I didn't use the correct verbiage. We were using Pathfinder rules if that makes any difference.

Chris Calilung

Hey Gang! I've been playing in multiple campaigns with the same group of people for the last 2 years. One player in particular really leans into the EDGELORD persona and often splits the party to go off on his own. Even during a long rest he'll proactively sleep somewhere away from the group. And as an Elf he will wake up before everyone and begin adventuring before the rest of us are even awake. As a result there are long periods of time during each session where it's just him RPing while 5 others sit and listen, or the 5 of us doing something and he sits and listens. He even runs combat alone without the party! We've tried talking to our DM about this and how we don't really like this style of play and would prefer to keep the party together, otherwise it feels like two games running simultaneously. But, our DM is very non confrontational and hasn't done anything to change this player's behavior. What do you suggest we do? Are we stepping out of bounds by talking to the player directly? And Murph, how's your mullet looking?

PineappleLiar

I present my case to the Honorable Judges of the court. In one game I was in my PC had a Very Low wisdom score (around 6), and I played as a very naive character. The party was exploring a crypt full of mutated monsters, and at the end found an Extremely Evil looking demonic stick in the ground. It was blatantly the source of the mutated creatures, and we needed to figure out a way to get it out of the crypt. I proposed that we should apply oil to the stick to lubricate it and make it easier to remove. The DM says that I do that, but due to my low Wisdom I also grease the entire thing, making it impossible to actually get a grip on. As well, I didn’t specify that I didn’t touch the demon stick, so my low Wis character probably would have and I ended up with a mutated hand for my trouble. Was I too vague in what I wanted to do with such a low wisdom character? Or was my DM just being a petty bastard?

Myka Donati

In my last game a garrison was over taken by a monsters and my groups party committed to reclaiming the garrison. When they arrived the bard and the paladin with strength 16 and bardic inspiration bust through the door knocking off the hindges and killing 2 (d4 roll) monsters on the other side. We're a comical group, who have fun doing stupid things. The paladin, taking note of a staircase to the basement, grabbed the door, ran to the stairs, and proceeds to (on a nat 20) surf down the stairs attempting to kick flip the door. Mine isn't too much of a ruling more just curious what you might set for a DC check for such a feat.

Dippity_Dip

I played one campaign last year, and then my parents banned me from playing because they said it would make me “violent and a satan worshipper”. I’m 18 now.. should I stand up to them and play anyways?

Elliot

No story, just wanted to say this is my favorite mixed bag!

Steven Hoffart

Hello. If it please the court I'd like to present the issue we recently had in our campaign in which my Monk PC was fighting two enemies and had darkness cast upon him and the two enemies. After darkness was cast my Monk was top of initiative and I stated "well I can't see him but I'll punch where the enemy just was before the darkness went up." My DM said that I had to roll a d6 to see it I randomly pick the right square to punch, then roll with disadvantage if I get the right random spot to pick. The rules of attacking an invisible or unseen enemy is that you have to pick a spot at random, but I think because I knew where this creature was a second ago and am first in initiative than I am acting faster than they can move. My DM states that all turns happen congruently and so the enemy could have moved before I punched. This of course made me miss and then the darkness was taken down after my initiative from the person who casted it loses concentration and both enemies got a clean hit on me, knocking me unconscious. My DM is very by the letter of the law on rules but this seems to be a misunderstanding of all the rules at play.

Emily Patton

Esteemed judges, I was playing a monk in a campaign with some friends and my brother as our DM. At level four we were given enough money to each choose an uncommon magical item and I chose the Eldritch Claw tattoo. At level 5 our party was in combat and the bad guys were all taking half damage from our two melee characters. I activated my tattoo, which says unarmed strikes do deal magic damage, but was still unable to do full damage because our DM said he didn’t know about it beforehand because it wasn’t in my character sheet. It was in my character sheet, in both Roll20 where we play and D&D beyond where most of us build our characters. Our party had to bravely turn tail and run to avoid PC death. The DM resolved this in the next session by having a wizard enhance our weapons but I maintain we would have been able to survive the encounter if my monk had been allowed to deal full damage.

zac miles

While running Descent into Avernus we encountered and adventured with a Holyphant. A Holyphant has a feature where it emits a Globe of Invulnerability and no spells below 5th level outside of the 5-10 foot radius can get through. While combat happened 3 out of 4 person party were hampered by this, as we are all casters, and were not given any clues from our DM besides “your spell doesn’t go off”. When it comes to things like a globe of invulnerability would you give some sort of insight to the players so they can tell what might be going on?

Mike Corace .

Honorable Judges and Bailif I kneel before you: One of my friends (an orc rogue) wants to multiclass into an Artificer, but because his Int is 8 he wants to use Wisdom as the basis for the class. This way his spell save DC and all his abilities will use his Wisdom score, which is 16. In our campaign we rotate DMing so everyone DMs one level and then we switch to the next person. So technically as a DM it is within his right to make this call, but me and another party member are rubbed the wrong way by this idea. 3/5 of the group listens to this podcast so we would treat your ruling as law. And I'm a paladin so you know I like laws. Thanks! - Hedyn, The Werewolf Elf Paladin

Aidan Bee

Can we get a ruling on video chat based dnd? How many multis-can you-task before someone asks for your attention like youre a kiddo in school? A newbie dnd player is playing over google meet with me (video dnd is new to the whole party&dm). Campaign: survivaly monster huntery but relies heavily on building and maintaining connections. Our party is going to fetch a thing for a centaur herd to build some of that report. My warforged bard goes to chat with a member of the nomadic centaur herd about the location of the herd next so we know where to are going. It is critical we stay on good terms with these horse bois. Another member of my party attempts to murder the centaur I’m speaking to with poison darts. “Let’s just get going” they say while I now have to spend spell slots (which extra sucks because strict homebrew survival game) to heal this centaur before we can go (less prepared than we were before). Lots of folks come near death during the next encounter (including centaur poisoner) but no player deaths. So really no in game harm apart from hurt feelings. Out of game: the murderous party member is watching a football game, very hungover, and trying to learn how to play dnd all at the same time. In scheduling the game they say that this day and time works for them but they turn on the football game every session. When does the dm or party say ‘hey focus up’ or should I take a page out of mst3k and “really just relax”

Jacob Boers

If it pleases the court the case of the mailman verses the pirate (unless you have a better name for it) I was running descent into avernus at the beginning of lockdown and we had just arrived at the bathhouse in buldur’s gate. As a goof the paladin ( Ulric the punctual, a homebrewed oath of the mail carrier) decided to attempt to force the fighter to take a bath as he was a dirty pirate. In order to assist in this attempt Ulric asked if there were any other people in the bathhouse. I rolled for it and there were a few people. He offered to pay people 10 gold to help him wash the pirate and one man agreed. The fighter decided that he did not want to be washed and proceeded to punch the commoner in the face. He crit and rolled max damage insta-killing the commoner with one punch. Ulric then decided that this was a horrible sin and proceeded to explain that according to his religion after one dies they must carry their sins up a mountain in a mail sack on their back. He said the weight of this sin was too much, but a way to atone for this was to carry the body around for a few days inside a mail sack. I loved this idea so I allowed it. The fighter refused but Ulric, being very religious, insisted. After much argument I had them settle it with opposed athletics to wrestle to mailsack onto either the floor or the fighter. The fighter lost and was not pleased. Both players were doing exactly what their characters would have done in this situation, so should I have offered a compromise of some sort or was I right to ride out the shenanigans? I name drop the paladin only because it is a very funny name and because the players listen and would really enjoy hearing your opinions on this situation

AJNiggles

The Case of the Catapult 9/11 (May it please the bailiff): Our team approached a decrepit tower in the poor part of a city, suspecting a big sub-boss was holed up inside. I wanted to bypass the presumed dangers of ascending an old tower (falling objects, bad steps, high ground disadvantage) so I started prepping the session before: I bought a Catapult Feather Token, a wheel barrow and two large smooth stones from a nearby quarry. I even mentioned my plan to the DM ahead of time so he could look up siege rules. But for some reason when I "sprung" the plan on him and the group, he was very unhappy that I wanted to knock the tower over instead of enter it to fight the boss. After two hours of throwing obstacles, time constraints, skill checks and rule minutia at us, we still managed to fire the catapult and hit the tower. After a quiet moment, he said "Fine, fuck it. The tower falls over, crushing a row of shanty homes and killing hundreds of innocents. You hear screams through the cloud of dust and see a sinister woman gently descend to the ground with Feather Fall. She then disappears. Congratulations, you've committed a fantasy 9/11". Should we have abandoned the catapult plan when he put up resistance, or should he have rewarded our creativity and persistence? Here's hoping the judges choose to mullet over!

Jeremy Hoko

May I present to the court: the peasant railgun case. So, in 5e passing an object to another creature within 5 feet is a free object interaction. Additionally, each round of combat takes about 6 seconds. Because of this, my party attempted to use the brilliant strategy of lining up 5,000 villagers from a local village in a row and having them all pass a rock to each other on their turn, in the direction of a monster. Because each creature takes up a 5 foot by 5 foot space, the rock would hypothetically travel 25000 feet in 6 seconds, going over 2000 miles per hour and no doubt killing the monster instantly. For some strange reason my DM would not allow this. Was he right to deny our brilliant strategy?

Mikey9052

Our online game has a hex based world map. The players move a token and roll survival to see if we move in the planned direction. Our DM used to move the piece (and in the wrong direction if we failed the check) and reveal fog of war as we explored. Due to a bug and some players not thrilled, our DM changed it so there no fog of war but no map details and we have to draw it ourselves on the board. Instead of moving our piece in right or wrong direction he just gives us a brief description of our surroundings and we need to figure out where we are. The players despise this even more. I think it's fine and don't care so the DM uses me as "Well if he's cool with it then we're keeping it". Is my DM an asshole or is it me for not siding with the other players?

ProteanProtege

My (DM) party was fighting Tiamat and the warlock had his familiar swallow some dust of dryness pellets drug mule style, with the hope that they would expand in her stomach and fill her with several 15³ft cubes of water. I decided that it would make her throw up at most, but the warlock argued that she would have exploded. Who is right? And is the warlock guilty of familiar abuse?

Aileen Hay

Dear honorable judges, I present the case of the DM vs the performing ranger. I was playing a human ranger and my party and I was trying to infiltrate a castle in the woods to find and kill our target. As it was difficult to approach the castle without being seen we decided to have our sorceror invisibly enter the front door to scout. Meanwhile, I was hiding alone in a tree close by and could assist if needed. Unfortunately, our sorceror alerted the guards and as a result several of them exited the castle looking for him. To try and distract the guards from discovering my party member I decided to try and shoot a flaming arrow into a different part of the castle, hoping to set something on fire and thereby distracting the guards. The DM loved this idea and said since it was so cool I had to use performance to shoot the arrow. Since performance was one of my worst stats I naturally hated this idea and argued that since I was alone in a tree, with no one close by, I had no one to perform to and therefore using performance to shoot the arrow didn't make any sense. My DM countered and said that if you are singing by yourself you are still performing to some degree and therefore it would also apply to this scenario. I was going to argue more but several of my other party member said to stop and "To never argue with the DM". As a result, I shut up and shot my arrow using performance. I miraculously got a 17 and made my shot. Unfortunately the mood had soured from the discussion and the DM moved on without checking if my arrow created a fire or not. So was I in the wrong by arguing with the DM or should I have been allowed to shoot my arrow in a normal, non-performing way?

Amy Martin

Rainbow "Bo" Thistletop vs her DM: A return to the “conjure animals” spell. After my cleric died, I rolled a Circle of the Shepherd druid. My DM ok’ed it and we added her to our level 7 party. A big part of the Circle of the Shepherd is summoning animals. To expedite play and keep things simple, we agreed on six creatures at each CR so I could roll a D6 when I cast the spell to see what animals were summoned (he did not want me to pick the animals myself). The first time I summoned, I rolled my die for the chosen CR and assumed I summoned four of the same creature. He says I need to roll four times to see which four creatures I get. The rules are ambiguous but I argue that managing a different stat block for each summon is unwieldly and ruins the flow of the game. He says that it makes more sense that there would be a variety of creatures answering my call. Now I feel like a shepherd who doesn’t want to summon help. Thoughts?

Evan Richey

Good day your honors. The party I play with currently consists of me and 2 sisters who made their characters to be strangers. Despite this they tend to argue in character like they do as siblings. This has led to multiple times where me and the DM will wait in silence for several minutes until one of us can get them back on track. Sometimes it's fun character development that makes the party seem like a family, but more often it just derails the sesh and makes me personally feel kicked out of any dialog. How would the choo choo 2 crew court advise handling these over dominant party members?

Eric G

Hey this one is nice and short! One of my players, a gnome wizard keeps trying to cast reduce on themselves and then using mage hand to pick themselves up and fly away the Lorax style. Technically it doesn't break rules and I do love when my players use spell creatively. Should I let the gnome fly?

Alastair Stevans

If it may please the court. My case is a simple but divisive one. Some of my players are amazing roleplayers, but they often seem to run out of steam and wait for me (dm) to further the plot forward. I want my players to keep the momentum up so I don't have to push the story forward in some contrived fashion

Caroline O

I rolled an insight check against another player in my party who was lying. I rolled a nat 20. They rolled lower, but with with their crazy deception modifier, their total was more than mine. Who won the encounter? Does a nat 20 rule all? And if I won, should I learn the truth, or just that the other player was lying?

Charlie Fitzgerald

During my first time DMing, the party’s rogue snuck ahead and managed to find the loot from the dungeon before the rest of the party got there. He wanted to take a bag of gems and hide it from everyone else, but he failed his sleight of hand check and the party caught him. He then asked if he could EAT the gems to hide them from everyone, so I told him to make a Con check. He rolled crazy high and successfully ate the gems, but I gave him a d6 of damage and told him he would continue to take a d6 of damage every hour until he passed them, as he had eaten rocks, basically. While the rest of the party died laughing, he began panicking and tried to throw them back up, so I asked for another Con check. He rolled a natural 18, and I told him that he couldn’t throw them up. I always thought of a high Con roll as having an ‘iron stomach.’ He argued that since he rolled well he should be able to throw up, but eventually he conceded. Everyone (including the rogue) thought it was hilarious, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder who was right. If you are /trying/ to throw up, does a high Con roll mean you succeed? Fair judges—what is your ruling?

Katie Covino

In a huge battle, my character died wrongfully (death save of 10 ruled as a fail, bless spell not applied to death save). After a week, I had made a new character, but the DM emailed me apologizing and offering to let me play that character again. It felt like too little too late. How should the DM have handled this?

Dylan

My players are in a published module where there is a place that they can trade parts of their soul for incredible abilities like a temporary 26 strength score and at-will spells that invoke disadvantage on the saving throws. The module says that if they accept too many of these trades, their character becomes an NPC and the module provides no solutions for what to do after this happens. I wrote a small side quest for the remaining two PCs, along with temporary characters for the two who lost control of their original characters, to go fight their friends and get them back. Since NPCS have different skills than player characters, I boosted them a bit more to make it a challenging fight with new skills and abilities. My players were upset when they got their character sheets back and they were the same as they were before they were made into NPCS. They kept the abilities they got for trading their souls, but not the additional abilities I added to make combat more interesting, and insist I give them those abilities. This is a pressing issue as I need a solution once we start back up in the new year. Thank you for your time.

Thomas Troy

I have a campaign with 8 players. Am I guilty of having a party size that's too big? What's the perfect party size?

Kaddywhak

My DM is running us through the Tomb of Annihilation. We had one encounter where I (the healer) was knocked out and getting dragged away from my party by a zombie. One of my teammates was chasing after us and trying to grapple the zombie, but it was taking forever because he was rolling terribly. I remembered that I had inspiration and wanted to give it to my teammate to try to help him grab me, but my DM said I couldn't because I was unconscious. I argued that the bloodied corpse of a friend would be pretty inspiring, but was overruled. Who was right?

Shawn Magill

To honorable 2 crew in justice blue. To make a very long story short, my players were driving a tank through hell, running over demons, etc. they came to The cave that the bad guy was in. The claimed that since the cave was wide enough for a balor to walk through it was wide enough for a tank. The entrance had stairs leading in that I told them the tank wouldn’t make it up. They then tried to use a combination of levitate, tenzins Floating disk and bubblegum to try and get the tank up the stairs. Eventually I told them it was stuck and time was critical because an army of demons was coming behind them and there was no way they could get the tank up the steps in time. Was I wrong to force them to abandon the tank before a major battle?

Alaina Moreno

Honorable judges- I present the case of the confused pirate versus the dm. I play a high level “drogue” pirate. My character has 3 levels in Druid (circle of the Sheppard) but is mainly a swashbuckling rogue. During our last level up I was stuck choosing between getting more wild shape options or getting blind sense. I ended up choosing blind sense (because let’s be honest, it’s super cool to be able to know the location of invisible creatures). However, in a battle with some challenging demons, my dm and I got into a bit of an argument. He claimed my character wouldn’t be able to know the location of these creatures as it would be “too OP” and wouldn’t make sense in the context of the battle. I argued that, per what is written, as long as my pirate is able to hear she knows the location of any hidden creatures. Fair judges, was I right and my choice to take this class feature legit? Or was my dm correct about situations where my pirate couldn’t possible hear demons attacking her?

Jay Dragonborn, Guardian of the Vibe, Honoring the Cock

Hi yall! First time plaintiff here! My case is in Pathfinder, which is much like 3.5. Anyhow, in a home brew campaign, loosely based on anime, the 7 Deadly Sins, that one friend had made, their partner, my ex, and I all play as one of the sins. I currently play a Kitsune bard, who is the serpent sin of jealousy. Long story short, I found a magic item, and put it in my pack to prevent the murder-hobo rogue (my ex) from getting it and keeping it. She still wanted to steal it, and she pointed out that because I did not state that I was sleeping with my pack in our camp, I shouldn't get a roll to stop her from stealing it. So she got to roll sleight of hand vs my passive perceptible, which was minus a value (I don't remember what it was) because I was asleep, to steal it. Of course she succeeded, and stole the item. Now, the point of conflict came when I woke up to take my watch, and stole it back, after finding it wasn't in my pack, because my character wanted to analyze the item further (I rolled investigation vs her deception, then sleight of hand vs her passive perception (minus the same value) and succeeded in both). My question here, honorable judges, is was my actions meta gaming? I feel it was very natural for my character to want to find out more about this magical item they'd just found, and assume that the rogue who steals everything had stolen it.

Nikki Lynn

I present the case of the not so Fabulouse Binky Fiasco. A player at my regular table had started a campaign and asked if I wanted to join. I ended joining kinda late into a campaign, and when I originally joined, I was only suppose to be there for one session (This was the start of Covid) so I brought Binky Fiasco (Yes, I was inspired by Emily lol)! a Halfling Bard who just wanted to be a STAR! The first session was great so I was asked to come back and be a regular. Thats when I noticed thing change. I got along with the other players and help them in their shenanagines, trying to take a back seat because I saw myself as a guest, but when I started getting along with the group, thats when my DM started trying to control everything aspect of my character. I didnt have a say in her backstory, I didn't have a say in her reactions to situations. I would say "my character feels this" and he would respond "no she doesnt" and it all felt very out of character. I would push back polietly. Remind him about what was on my character sheet but it didnt matter. It caused more tension because he would only do this to me (The only female at the table). The other players had the freedom to make their own choices... but I didn't. During a dramatic story event he created, he asked all of us our greatest fears and presented us with a senario where we had to work through our fears. Binky's was the fear of losing her family. Now, I had made my Binky Fiasco very self centered, but in this moment, she sacrificed herself for her father. For the self-centred Binky, this was alot of character growth for her. That was considered a fail. He made me run through this scene again and again and after 10 times, he got angry, Told me I "wasn't getting it." and forced my character to save herself and watch her father die. I was upset because again, the guys at the table got to do what they wanted and had multiple way to pass this test, but I was shoehorned into a very out of character choice. The table fell to the wayside after that, and over a year later, in our regular game where we're both players, he started belittles and undermines my all of my choices and I think its because I stood up for my character when he was a DM. I ask the court, was I wrong to stand up for my character, or was my then DM in the right to micromanage her to the point of her being a diffrent character than she was meant to be?

Thomas Altic

I present to the court the case of Anne Drojnis and the sipping of goop. My druid cast water walk on our entire party whilst in a sewer since we had noticed the water seemed to be so dirty it required con saves. Shortly after this we found a bottle of pearlescent liquid in frog-men jugs. My druid, being a dirt loving, slimy coastal druid, naturally took a sip and immediately started choking on the air. I tried to put my head under the water to see if I could breathe it instead but my DM wouldn't let me because of waterwalk. Here is where I lie my case. Does waterwalk prevent you from even voluntarily sticking any body parts underwater and does it make all water act as solid earth (i.e. could you cast waterwalk on an enemy and make a sphere of water act as a boulder?)

BucarooBonzi

During watch over night one player rolled a horrible perception check, so for fun I had the next PC wake early for his watch. The character walked up, scared the player on watch who proceeded to punch him. It was all in fun, but then a different player started getting upset saying “I don’t think he would have woken up early, and his character... etc.” all about a PC that wasn’t HIS! We had a bit of an argument over flavor/DM PC actions, who is justified in this situation?

Skillful Ferret

If it pleases the court. I was DM’ing my first DnD campaign with my Fiancé, who is a very experienced DM, and some friends of mine. I had the party attacked by a blindheim while traveling to the nearest port city, on a horse drawn wagon. I was trying to get the trip into town paid for by the party taking care of the monster and protecting the wagon driver and his horses. During the fight the creature climbed onto one of the horses and the wizard of the party (my fiance) cast witch bolt. I warned her that it would hurt the horse and thus might not be a good way to earn that free ride, as the lightning would ground itself through the horse the creature was standing on, and she argued that the spell didn’t apply to physics because it was magic, and the lighting would only hurt the “target” which was the Blindheim. I caved and let her have it her way, but still think it should have hurt the horse as a fire ball would still catch a barn on fire regardless of if you were only targeting the person standing on the straw. Was she right to disregard normal electrical properties?

Britt Hobson

Honorable Judges - I had a PC who rolled their eyes at their party members for decisions being made in session, refused temporary hit points from the Bard twice, and then changed their subclass without telling me (I’m the DM)…all in one session. It was such an uncomfortable experience that my husband (the bard) considered giving up DND altogether, and I have yet to schedule another session. The player in question apologized to me the next day, blaming it all on a bad mood, but also said it was ‘in character’ to act that way. I suggested sitting out sessions if their mood was going to affect the game. I fully support changing subclasses and encourage molding the game to suit your players and playstyle, but it doesn’t work without communication. Honestly, I feel totally disrespected – how do we come back from this?

Jack Campau

Hello your honors! I believe one of my PC’s added their side of the story in the comments under the same account, but I figured I would hop on their account to share my side of the story as the DM and back them up! So one of the PC’s (we’ll call him PC1) in my game was a spooky type necromancer with a bunch of character strife, but always played as part of the team very well and was always helpful to the other PC’s. However, he was captured by the BBEG, and just as the other PC’s approached, a 9th level modify memory spell was cast on him by the BBEG forcing him to act against the party. After only a couple of rounds, an NPC was able to remove curse from PC1 allowing him to return to fighting for the party instead of against. After another round or so, the BBEG ended up downing PC1 (as his health was low from fighting against the party). Another PC (we’ll call him PC2) in the group decided that his character would still be mad at PC1 who had been briefly cursed so PC2 decided to hit PC1 WHILE DOWNED!! PC2 initially tried to say that his animal companion would attack the downed PC1 (which I absolutely vetoed because the animal would for sure go for the bad guy who was still alive and well instead of the downed guy) so after the animal companion attacked the BBEG, PC2 hit PC1 with a tidal wave (he also had the spell affect the BBEG but explicitly and aggressively made sure to include the PC as well) causing PC1 to fail multiple death saving throws and ultimately die as he failed his final save the round after. PC2 claims he was acting “in character”, but I kinda believe he was just being a dick to PC1. PC2 saw the curse removed so it did not seem justified in my opinion. Do you guys think PC2 was in the wrong? What should I do as DM? Should I get back at PC2 at all?

Alec Posta

If it may please the court: My players are all extremely creative when it comes to using spells, which can sometimes make things difficult for me as a DM. Specifically: my wife likes to polymorph enemies into Coral, which the party agrees is technically a living creature. The first time it happened I emphatically allowed it because it was a fun use of the spell but in the times following it makes for a bit of an anticlimactic end for fights as the coral can't move or act, robbing the party of "fun polymorph hijinks". Do you guys think Coral is a valid use of the spell, and if so how would you make it being used this way feel less anticlimactic.

Tyler

In a session I was having with some friends, my character had to keep watch at night but because I rolled a 6 on my perception check I was attacked by an owl bear. After a surprise round by the owl bear, and another critical hit on the owl bear’s nat 20 initiative my character was down but it was not enough damage to fully kill the character. Here is where the problem arises: The DM swore that because I had taken 20 extra damage past 0 HP I was effectively at -20HP even though the player handbook never states that you can have negative hit points. The party had not had a chance to do a full long rest so our paladin used the last of their lay on hands to restore 12 hit points and our bard used their last spell slot to cast a healing word but it was still not enough to heal my character. according to the DM I was still at -4HP and after failing my death saving throws my character was permanently dead. I enjoyed playing this character and with normal D&D mechanics the first Lay on Hands should have brought me up, and our paladin’s action shouldn’t have been wasted. Should I ask the DM if I can have a second shot at said character or do I just accept the DM’s twisted rules that resulted in the wrongful death of a PC?

Jack M

DM on Nat 1’s rolls a dice to decide who the shot hits instead, creatures can Nat 1 and still hit a target, we can also do that, or at level one with sharpshooter -5 to plus ten damage roll a natural one and full kill our cleric, I mean cmon, but it’s his way

Jeremie Berneche

Bailiff Hurwitz, Judges Axford, Tanner and Murphy, The case of the metagamer who can't be told. I was DM'ing for some work friends and it was our third session. We ended on me foreshadowing that a dragon was making round trips to the orc camp they had just decimated to collect the gold they pillaged for Tiamat. They decided to hide in the nearby bushes and wait for the dragon to arrive. Fast-forward to two weeks later, I've prepared a whole game revolving around their encounter with the "delivery-drag". I recap the last game, and two of my players immediately tell me they don't want to wait for the dragon anymore. They are level 3 characters and I've described the feet marks as Young or Adult size (way too powerful for them to fight). I start trying to find a way to kind of "railroad" the encounter in there, making perception against stealth, but after 2 minutes of shenanigans, I stopped the game and told them that they were wrong to change their mind about a decision that they had "just" done because all my prep revolved around it. I told them that reading the monster stat block was not okay and that I knew that this was why they had changed their minds. After my little discipline/tantrum, we had one of the best games of the campaign yet (still true now 1 year later). Fast-forward to 2 weeks later, our Druid (one of the people I had to discipline) tells me that they are not coming back and that I am not allowed to use their character as an NPC. Was I wrong? Should I have been more permissive of their change of mind and threw away my two hours of planning?

Nicolas P.

Fun question: One of my PCs opened a door in a dungeon that had an orc barracks in it with about 20 sleeping orcs. She then said, “oops, is this the bathroom?” And proceeded to close the door in order to avoid combat. I allowed it because it was funny and I didn’t want to run another slog of an encounter, but is this viable?

Trub Hopdropper

IIMPTC, While playing Dragon Heist our DM (whom we all love very much) stated whilst in a battle with a gelatinous ooze that due to the engulf feature my PC had to make a saving throw on every attack instead of them rolling to hit my AC. P.s. I also tried to use a create water spell and a magic item that casts cone of cold to freeze the cube solid. Is this right and would you allow something like this?

Tombledore

Judge sweeties I would like to put forward the case of the the Changeling and the innkeeper, my character and the party had found an Inn to stay for the night, the innkeeper had at one point made derogatory comments about the kalashtar in our group, claiming that they should hide the silverware, on inspection there was no silverware in the building, my character used a spell to create some silver cutlery from coins and offered that she could keep them as long as she delivered a heartfelt apology, whilst this was happening the Changeling in our party read her thoughts and found she was attracted to my character, I declined her offer of going to bed with her, cause she was a bigot, other things happened and we all went to sleep for the night, the Changeling then transformed into my character, used the actor feat to copy my voice and classic screen fades to black. My question is, is it okay that this happened, I personally feel like it's gross and if my character found out I feel like it would cause problems, they said it was part of their backstory which doesn't sound right surely nobody is going into dnd thinking yeah I totally want this character to be a sexual deviant in a real problematic way Ps this is the same player that I (as a DM) had to have a conversation with about Spells requiring consent, he was under the impression that it was implied and he could make anyone invisible he wanted as long as they're friends

Bobby Huggins

Your honors, may it please the court, I bring this case before you on behalf of my friend and companion (herein referred to as "The Wizard"). The Wizard attempted to Misty Step to the top of a roughly 15 foot high wall. The DM denied the request, saying that The Wizard could not see the top of the wall. The Wizard agreed, but then requested instead to Misty Step to a space in the air that he *could* see, several feet above the top of the wall, from which he would then fall onto said wall. The DM denied again, and insists to this day that such an action would be against the spirit of the spell. I maintain that it is very much an unoccupied space within 30 feet that The Wizard could see, and is perfectly in keeping with the wording and spirit of the spell. Please, in your almighty wisdom, will you kindly settle this dispute for us once and for all, so I can totally dunk on my friend and tell him he's so wrong? Much love, Bobby H.

Josh the Alchemist

If it pleases the court, I have a simple case that doesn't seem to have a simple solution. I'm a player in a campaign with four others. I was brought in when someone else left and didn't have a lot of time to come up with a character, so my backstory was much more slapdash than I prefer. Even so, I'm a good role-player and I was very quickly able to develop a personality for my character and engage in some fun interactions with the others. The problem arose when one of the other characters in the party started to take center stage. Without any real qualifications, this character was given a powerful position in the government of the kingdom and it just went downhill from there. They started behaving like they were the main character in the story and we were all there as background. I spoke with the DM and called out the player a few times, but every time the issue seems to be resolved, they insert themselves into another conversation or go off on their own and the rest of the session is taken up by whatever they wanted to do. I'm not the kind of person to leave a table, but it really feels like my character wouldn't be missed if I were to do so at this point. Should I go? Should I try and talk to them again? I know this one is rather long and likely won't make it in for that reason, so I just wanted to end this by saying you guys are amazing and it's such a joy to listen to your podcast and laugh along with your adventures. Thank you so much for making 2020 suck at least a little bit less.

Grant Klein

Hey sweeties, this is a tale of dice consent, may it please the court. Another player rolled to have sex with me. I did not want to, but I rolled poorly on my saving throw and thus the DM said I had to have sex because that’s what my roll meant. Was the DM in the wrong? Can the die consent?

Kestrel

In a game starting soon, we’re a level 14 group of adventurers who have to save the world and kill a lich (if we make it that far), but something’s gone horribly wrong and we can’t take any short or long rests and our magic weapons have been stolen. Is this horribly unfair?

Evan Spears

Your Honors. This is my one and only DnD story. I'll keep submitting it until I have my day in court. I've only played D&D once, for one session, nearly 15 years ago. I spent a good while rolling my character. I drew his portrait.. He was a fighter or a barbarian by the name of HEAVY, and he wielded a big-ass hammer. When we got started, the rest of the party spent literally two hours getting drunk in a tavern, and I was impatient and wanted to kill some monsters, so Heavy went out on his own. I encountered a river. DM asked if I wanted to cross it or go try to find a way around. I said I wanted to cross. He asked me to roll to see if I could swim. I rolled a 9. DM said "you can't swim. You drown and die." DM wouldn't let me play unless I roll a new character. So I left and haven't played since.  Admittedly I probably wasn't ready to play. I didn't understand that a big part of the game was role-playing. I just wanted to roll dice and crush monsters. But my experience turned me off on the game for years. Shows like D20 and NADDPOD have changed that, but now I'm too busy to actually play. I only made one roll in the game and a lousy DM soured everything for me.  Can the court please rule on whether or not that DM was a total knob? Thank you. 

Ryan Vaughn

May it please the honorable court, during a recent session my players were investigating a lab/lair of an alchemist that had been experimenting on some townsfolk near by, when they finally confronted her I wanted to my players some important story info since she was working for the big bad’s right hand man. Before anyone could act I said that she would surrender under some conditions since I knew she couldnt take 5 level 5 characters in a fight. Before I could finish my conditions the barbarian in the party said he wanted to attack her, I asked him if he was sure and really wanted to do that and he said he was sure. I asked him to roll an attack and it missed so I had the alchemist unleash all of the experimental hulks she had in her lab and I had her plane shift out of there. I was admittedly annoyed with this decision and so was the rest of his party. The baddies monsters escaped and the party almost had a TPK fighting them and then they wrecked the local town. This derailed the session and what i had planned for the rest of this campaign arc for my players. His reasoning is that it is what his character as a raging barbarian would do. All of this to ask if him trying to stay true to his character’s personality works against the best interest of his party and his DM is the wrong way to approach roleplay? Or am i wrong for being mad at one of my player committing to role play. Or did I as the DM handle that situation incorrectly since I had more story plans for that NPC and didnt want her dying there? I will add this is not the first time he has done something like this and Im surprised since he is our former long time DM and I have take over the reigns in a new campaign a few months ago

Willow Gray

I'm a first time DM for a group that is mostly first time players. The problem I keep having is the bard in my group always tries to use persuasion checks to get out of every bad thing that is happening to them. I am mostly ok with them being creative to try and beat the scenarios I have created but sometimes I just feel it won't work like trying to persuade a group of monsters to not attack or when they were captured for piracy to convince the navy captain to let them go. Whenever I tell him he can't use persuasion he starts to argue and tries to get the rest of the group to gang up on me to let it happen. The whole group does seem to think that they can do anything as long as they roll for it so should I just let them do anything if they roll well even if I think it's an impossible task? Am I being a huge knob of a DM? Thanks for the help.

Harecule Poirot, the Rabbitfolk Detective

May it please the court, Back in the days of 3.5, I was playing a campaign as a 8-foot tall half-dragon fighter. Despite being able to breathe fire and fly, I wasn’t particularly enjoying playing this character. I was, however, enjoying playing my gnome wizard from another campaign run by another one of our friends. When my half-dragon was given a Wish spell as a reward for completing a difficult quest at the end of a dungeon, I jumped at the chance to switch things up and bring my gnome over to this campaign. After making my Wish, the DM narrated a portal opening and my small gnome wizard suddenly falling on to the floor. Here is where things began to go wrong. Of course the DM was never going to let me play as both characters, so they took over my gnome as an NPC. When I tried to talk to the gnome, the DM explained that the gnome didn't understand me. Even though we both technically spoke Common, because this gnome was from a different universe, their Common language was different and indecipherable to ours. A giant half-dragon making strange noises at a tiny gnome ended with the gnome running away terrified in to a room of the dungeon we had already discovered was full of traps. Trying to save my gnome, I pursued. In the process, however, I accidentally set off one of the traps, and the ceiling of the dungeon room collapsed, crushing and killing (there were a lot of damage dice) both my half-dragon and my gnome. Because the DM for the campaign with my gnome was a player in this campaign, the DM to the other campaign stated that my gnome was officially dead in their campaign as well and I would have to make a new character for that campaign as well. All in all, I had two of my characters from two separate campaigns killed by the same trap. Was it ok for the first DM to kill off both of my characters in one go, and should the other DM have let me play as my gnome still?

Em D

May it pleasure the court: I am a new DM, and one of my campaigns is a 1v1. My player is a level 3 halfling rogue and had made his way into a secret room filled with dangerous smuggled magic items. The items were protected in a cage with a lock that required a magical key. He wanted to try to break into the cage so I asked for an arcana check since i specified the lock is magical and would have consequences related to magic if he failed. He argued that he should be able to use lockpicking/slight of hand because even though it was magical it still has a keyhole . Who is correct? (This may be obvious to experienced players, but I’m new so don’t at me!)

JeeringTyrannosaurus

Should a NAT 20 ever inspire negative consequences when a middling roll would not? For example, in one game I had the pirate background which gives me the ability to intimidate common townsfolk better. My group was trying to talk some children to find out where the adults were. The DM said the kids wouldn’t talk to us so I decided to be stern, like an adult, and ask the kids. He told me to roll intimidation; nat 20. The DM decided that such a good intimidation roll actually was too high and scared the children and they ran to their parents and the whole town was mad at us. The DM said because it was a nat 20 I was too intimidating but a lower roll and I wouldn’t have been as intimidating and it would have worked. So honorable judges, in a situation where you are aiming for a positive result, should a very high roll shoot too far and result in a negative consequence?

David Heintz

May it please the kind and almighty justices, The background: Our party contains (to Judge Murphy's inevitable dismay) an Aarakocra that, for much of the first campaign had only one wing, and thus couldn't fly and was pretty insecure about it. That parts not important, but it makes me chuckle every time I think about it. The incident: At some point while traveling, well came upon a dead animal of some kind. It's possible that this was while traveling through a cursed forest and the the dead animal was a former enemy raven from a school of birds that attacked us. I can't quite remember how it came about, but the Aarakocra player immediately decided that because he was a bird and he ate meat, he would eat some of the animal carcass we had just found. Our DM asked him to make a constitution-saving throw, the Aarakocra player rolled low and I believe took a d6 damage from this suspect roadside meat. There were no lasting effects to the failed con save, and this incident has largely passed from memory for us, but I do remember the Aarakocra player grumbling (after accepting the DMs decision), that because he was a bird and birds pretty much eat anything, he shouldn't have had to roll. I intend to agree with him as does the other player in our group, but of course it's not a big enough deal for us to make a stink about it and we all agree that it's a classic case of DM's decision. Still, can you help me crit on my homework and dunk on my friend (the DM) by telling him that four strangers on the internet agree that birds eat raw meat? My strategy here is to subtly deploy this information the next time we play star trek ascendancy and thus throw him off his game. It sounds devious but trust me I need all the help I can get. What say you judges? Who faces the executioner's block this day?

Tim S.

If it pleases the court, I would like a ruling on my own action as a DM. I have a wonderful group that I have a lot of fun playing with. At our last session, the party caused a group of orcs to fight an ogre without either of them knowing the party was there. At one point our ranger (with Pass Without Trace active) needed to pass within 5 feet of an ogre and orc fighting, and also used their action to Dash. I didn't think it was reasonable for there to be no consequences, so I had the ogre instinctually Attack of Opportunity him. However, I don't love this, as they were distracted fighting each other. What would you have done in this situation? The player was fine with it (even though the ogre crit), but it still nags at me.

ZircronSwift

As a DM, it is the finale of the campaign, players had previously fought and killed some knights that had traded their free will for power from a demon. These knights were resurrected by the demon as they close in on the final fight, however much, much weaker, and constantly coming back to mirror how they were when they were alive. I allowed one of my players to decapitate a knight, whom was a skeleton, and then placed the skull in the bag of holding. When it came to the skeleton's turn, I had them get their skull back, as the demon was in full control of them at this moment, and had thought that the demon was powerful enough to force the skull out of the bag and return back to it's owners head. The player was annoyed with this, saying it should have been "part of the items features" because "It's inside another dimension", but I thought the strength of the demon they were fighting would overcome an uncommon magical item's parameters. I ask the court this, if it pleases the court that; If an item is placed in a Bag of Holding, is it trapped there until someone uses the bag to retrieve it, or can powerful magic force it out?

Tyler Board

What's the over-under on how many cases will end with verdicts of Execution? My guess is 2.

Jack Brown

Hi, I present to you the case of the lawful bard vs the chaotic neutral paladin, if it may please the court. (Also my name is Jack and my pronouns are they/them in case you answer this! I can’t seem to change my profile name..) Back in April, I was playing a new campaign and we came across an NPC that everyone in the party really loved. He was someone my character (the bard) had met through school in his backstory and was working for an organization we ran into. We nicknamed him “Dummy Thicc Intern Chad” (as D&D players do) and he became a favourite of mine, so much so that the DM wrote him a proper backstory to keep him in the game. A few sessions later, we ended up in combat with him and a necromancer. I tried to talk him down but rolled poorly and made it clear the the party that I was using non lethal force so we could question him for important information, as it was strange for him to just attack us out of nowhere. Our chaotic neutral paladin went out of his way to not only kill him but completely smash his face in and remove his jaw so I couldn’t use “Speak with the Dead” as it specifies the corpse must still have a mouth. I was really upset by this and my character and the paladin have not been on the best of terms since. Flash forward to 6 months later, we run into Chad’s husband, a powerful wizard who the paladin brags to about killing Chad. When the wizard attacked him, my character refused to help and the rest of the party remained neutral. I hoped he would finally learn the lesson that actions have consequences (as killing NPCs was not the only issue we had during the campaign) but instead the player got upset with me and said I needed to just let it go. I haven’t been back since because I think our play styles might just be too different to be in the same party. Is it bad form to make character choices that negatively impact the experience of other players? Was I wrong to be upset over the paladin’s actions? Please help! Thank you! Also thank you for all the work you do to make this podcast! It has been such a joy to listen to, especially in these difficult times <3

Jessy G

For the consideration of the court: We recently switched from a long, 4.e campaign to a brand new 4e one. I originally loved the improv and RP with this group, as most of us have some improv background, it was immersive and awesome. HOWEVER! With 5e being easier then 4.e half of the members of the group have turned their energy to absolutely silly shenanigans. Example: when trying to question a captive enemy, they berate the DM with rolls to intimidate them by urinating, setting them on fire, or dropping them from great heights usually killing said NPC/enemy and us losing all information they could have. I’m all for having fun but they are starting to disrupt or disregard the story. The DM will never speak up as they are very passive and not the type to say anything, they also consider it our loss for “letting” them mess things up. How can I get these guys to chill a bit without seeming like a jerk? - J. G. from Thunder Bay, ON.

Casey Fenton

I'm a player in a family game with my cousins and sister. My cousin, Eric, is the DM. My problem is that he insists that the entire game, even out of combat, is done through initiative. As in, we roll initiative when we first start the game and we use that initiative to determine when someone can speak, when they can check a room, etc. I feel this severely limits the story and action out-of-combat since if it isn't "your turn" you are not able to respond to NPCs, not able to take quick action on ideas, etc. I've brought this up to him and he said this is how he has always done it and it gets too messy if "everyone does everything at the same time". This strategy means that 3/4th of the time when we play I'm sitting around waiting for my turn since I'm not allowed to participate. Any thoughts on how I can persuade him to open things up a bit? Thanks 2crew!

Aaron Biggs

If it may please the court, I bring the case of Mindflayer v Skeleton. In our game we have begun to deal with a colony of Mindflayers. In our first encounter with them an NPC was killed by one and we saw firsthand how they suck the brains out of any creature they reduce to 0 HP, killing them instantly. I mentioned to the DM that I was lucky my character doesn't have a brain (I'm playing a skeleton that was reanimated after being dead for 100 years). The DM said that I would still suffer the effects of this ability because it doesn't make sense that I could function without a brain. I argue that I function solely by the magic that reanimated my character and that I don't need any potential dried out brain nugget to "live". I don't have a nervous system hidden in my bones! I ask that you please rule against my DM in his designs to possibly kill my character by having a mindflayer drain the brain dust from my skull like a pixie stick. Thank you.

Garrett Guthrie

Hello your honors/sweeties may it please the court. I was DMing for my friends and they got to the feywild and some events happened and they fought the moonlit king. They absolutely got their asses handed to them. Mind you they were sufficient level to win. And because its my homebrew world after they lost I said they woke up from a nightmare because I still wanted to continue the campaign. They were all upset and they didn't like the dream aspect since they felt i was just hand waiving their deaths. Did I do the right thing by trying to continue my campaign?

Travis

Hello Nadd-toads (parents of the naddpoles)! I (DM) recently ran a session where my players faced off against a witch coven attempting to sacrifice 6 children. They were handling the witches just fine, but were unable to stop them from completing the ritual, killing 4 kids. We usually have a lot of goofs and laughs, but we ended that session very somber and wanting a break. Should I have let this happen? Or should I have maintained the tone of the game?

Toni Conge

DM let me do a one shot for our current campaign. I based it on Minecraft and had the party go to the Minecraft world and help Steve beat the Ender Dragon. Should this side adventure be canon or not?

Natalie

During a session I was DMing, one of my players, a level 2 sorcerer, cast thunderwave but read the spell text for Lightning Bolt, and all but killed the dungeon boss in one round. I do NOT think they were cheating, i believe it was an accident. When we realized what happened, i mentioned i would probably do something to "punish" the party because they got through what was supposed to be a challenge with extreme ease. I have no intention of being cruel or unfair, just adding some challenge to the next few tasks to make up for the resources I think they *should* have used in the fight. My player is arguing that, because it was an accident, they shouldn't face consequences. Furthermore, they argue that, like basketball, "if the ref doesn't see it, it's not a foul". What do you all think? Am i being a baby because my bell got rung? Everyone seemed to have fun anyway, so should i just let it go?

PG Lusk

Your honor(s), I'm currently playing an axe-juggling bounty-hunting ex-lumberjack Swords Bard in a weekly campaign where my DM was very transparent that it would be more RP-focused and he wouldn't make us do "busywork" like track water, rations, torches, and most importantly, ammunition. Two sessions ago, and we had an encounter that was mostly at range, forcing me to spend the fight throwing handaxes. The next encounter, the DM asked how many handaxes I had left, having thrown all six, meaning I was unarmed until our next shopping trip. Now I don't have a problem with the RP of scavenging weapons in combat or borrowing them from allies, I just assumed that thrown weapons would be treated the same as ammunition and I wouldn't have to carefully manage them when the two archers in the party are firing arrows without a care. What does the court rule?

Wesley Willsea

Honorable court I present my case. Our group (party of 6) started a Zoom campaign right around the time the lockdowns started in the US. During a combat round I was told I was two player turns away from my turn. I let the group know I was going for a quick bathroom break and then left and did my business. When I came back combat continued as normal but my turn had been skipped. I brought this up to the group assuming they would quickly a slot me in as it had been under 2 minutes since I left. The DM and laughed and said “Whoops! You were actually up next. My bad.” He then told me I had just missed my turn and the combat would continue. I was a bit miffed because due to our large group size combat rounds can take anywhere from 10 min to 20min to come back around. Plus, my character, a Cleric, had a few beneficial group buff spells that was planning on casting which would have changed the combat. I still to this day hold that my turn should have been slotted in once I came back. Am I at fault for holding onto this petty grievance?

Cameron McEwan

During a one-shot campaign, our party had fallen into a ravine during a battle and one of our horses had also ended up there. Most of the party did a simple athletics check to climb out, however our gnome wizard decided to cast spider climb on the horse, allowing him to ride the horse up the cliff face to safety. This seemed like a good idea until the DM told the gnome he had to do an animal handling check to stay on the horse. Failing it, he fell off and back down into the ravine. This caused him to take fall damage, breaking his concentration on the spell. The horse, losing its ability to scale a sheer cliff, then fell back down and was killed by the fall. The party was appalled by this but the DM held firm that the animal handling check should be much higher DC than simply climbing out. The players believed that using a spell should have negated the need to do a check in this situation. Please, resolve this dilemma for us!

Connor Noonan

Fellow tidings to you your honours, if it may please the courts have my case. My brother (the DM) is about to start a mini campaign where we are all LV16. The idea being the players are guardians fo different planes. While we are all strong characters ,one player is trying to break the game by having an army of 2000 undead minions, making him extremely OP and potentially not letting the rest of us/The DM have fun. My bro has tried to nerf the OP necromancer but he ain’t willing to do so. How can my bro/DM nerf him and make him want to play? Thank you your honours

Peter Mundell

The Kraken vs the Action Economy Once upon a time, I was playing a paladin in a party of four and we had reached level six. This game had the most broken action economy you’d ever seen: all cantrips were bonus actions, the number of attacks you had were the amount of actions you got (so two attacks meant you could actually take two actions), and your reaction could use anything (movement, action, bonus action, or reaction). Because of these broken rules, our DM constantly got whomped by anything and everything he threw at us. He also had not learned how lair actions or legendary actions worked. His solution for a challenge? Bring out a max HP adult Kraken. For a party of four level sixes. I tried to argue that this was totally impossible, and the DM wouldn’t relent. Even one of the players sided with him and said we would be fine. I pushed enough that the DM dropped the HP instead of maxed like he’d planned. For the court: was I truly being unreasonable to believe even with the action economy heavily in our favour, that this was a wild and impossible battle?

Crits

Should it please the court, I'm DMing a game and one of my players is a totem barbarian, who can speak with animals if given ten minutes to cast the spell. This player frequently asks if there are animals around that they can speak to. Once, the PC's daughter rolled a nat 20 to catch a seagull out of the air for him. Following a trial that cast suspicion on an NPC, this player wanted to find a rat, tempt it with cheese, and then have the rat spy on the NPC's door until it was opened, so the rat could scurry in to spy. I looked up at the rat's intelligence modifier. It's a 2. After a failed intelligence roll, I ruled that the rat didn't have the attention span for this plan. What do you rule, fair judges? Should I have let this plan work?

Preston Z

Does he want us to die? **CURSE OF STRAHD SPOILERS** So the first D&D campaign I played in was set in the Curse of Strahd. Our DM was very experienced and had played 3.5 and other TTRPGs. He stated at the beginning of the of the campaign that he would be home brewing a few things. The issue arises when he brought up players dropping to 0. He decided that it should be harder to get players who had gone down back into the mix. So the rule: any healing done to a downed player brings them to zero rather than healing them for the amount rolled by the spell/potion. We felt that it severely effected the action economy, but he didn’t seems to care. Our party just barely killed Strahd and only one of us survived. Us players think that the fight wouldn’t have been as deadly had it not been for the home brew healing rule. Was this rule fair, or did our DMs bloodlust for player death create an unfair imbalance? Additionally my character was killed by Strahd using telekinesis to throw my armor (with me inside it) off the side of castle ravenloft without so much as a strength saving throw. This is know is unfair and goes against the rules of the spell. I just wanted to vent about my character being killed unfairly.

Erin Paxson

I play a campaign online with my sister and my cousins! We were in a fight where my character had been paralyzed by a spider at the base of a tree. Next to my character was a basilisk that was ignoring my still body and trying to attack one of my cousins up in the tree. On my turn, since I couldn't do anything, I jokingly described how my character was frozen with eyes wide in a goofy mask of terror. My DM took note, and on the basilisk's next turn it stopped attacking my party member for a moment to look at my frozen eyes with its petrifying glare, which felt a little unfair. After a couple turns and some abysmal constitution saves, I became stone. At the end of the session my DM cousin said he had wanted us to lose this particular fight, but about-facing the basilisk to petrify someone lying on the ground felt like a cheap shot, and we may very well have been able to win otherwise. Was that a fair way for him to create a no-win situation? Should there ever be situations in DnD where the DM has decided there is no way to win a fight, no matter what?

Yusuf Qureshi

If it pleases the court, One of my players was a forest golem, and argued that because he weighed 1000lbs, he should do 20d6 damage on a slam attack jumping off a first story balcony, I ruled that enemies can do a dex save and take half on a fail, but he would also take half damage, how would you guys rule on this issue?? Ps. For jake: My name is pronounce que-ray-she 😂

Nicki

Submitting this on behalf of my friend and party member who doesn’t have patreon! This plan was very fun and absolutely saved us, we’d love to hear opinions on it! "Dear DMs of the court, I am writing to you today to share a story, and request your thoughts. In a campaign, I play a level 2 druid/3 monk, and we were performing a prison break, the prison was located on a large lake. As a level 2 druid I did not have access to creatures with a fly speed, nor a swim speed, however, I could turn into a spider. We had already rolled for wind direction, and weather, and the party was on a boat following the direction of the wind, however there was an guard tower with a light that we somehow had to deal with. We realized that although technically not having a fly speed, spiders can float on their on silk along the wind, so the plan was to send me as a spider to the guard tower to knock out as many as I could before the rest of the party arrived. This plan succeeded. The bell was not rung, no one was alerted and the spider worked excellently. After the fact, we learnt that the DM rolled many luck checks behind the scenes to see if this truly ridiculous plan would actually work. By all means, it shouldn't have. In your own games, how would you have ruled this plan? (Bonus fun information, there was also a giant monster within the lake that would have easily TPK'ed the party if it had noticed me, after this I also assassinated three people.) (PPS we are also all plant people. This is not relevant but it is fun)"

Kestrel

I ran a 7 person, level 20 PVP oneshot that ended up having a more powerful foe that they all banded together against (Sul Khatesh! If only I’d known to flavor her as Donkey Kong). She Mazed one of the players, and then another player, Dr. Paul Polycule, cast Demiplane to open a door to the Maze and get them out. This was very cool but I’m still unsure as to whether it should have worked. Thoughts?

Heidi Artigue

May it please the court. (Extremely light CoS spoilers) I was DMing a module with four players who have never played a TTRPG before. They went to a hill during a storm that was very tall and had some spooky stuff on top. The aarakocra decided to fly up over the hill to do some recon. The module rule says, "Any creature that climbs over the [boulders on the hill] has a 10 percent chance of being struck by lightning, taking 44 (8d10) lightning damage." I told him to roll a luck check and he got a nat 1. The lightning instantly downed him. He said that a bird should have advantage on avoiding lightning. I said birds should know not to fly through lightning storms. I let the other players rush to his aid to bring him up, but technically he was far enough away from the party that they shouldn't have gotten there before he made his death saves (which knowing this player, he would have failed). They still think I was too harsh. To make things worse, one of my players is a real-life lawyer playing a lawyer character (not the aarakocra, thank Melora).

Tech Adept Crafts

Theatre of the mind, battle matts or full 3d terrain. Pros and cons and what's your preference.

Spencer

To all: I’m a bard. IRL and in character. The other players at our table have accused me of “playing too hard”. All I did was learn to play the flute so that I could actually play in game. I wrote some tunes for the various bard type spells and abilities and performed them in game as needed. Am I playing too hard? Or should I learn to play the banjo too?

Rylie R

Thank you Chief Justice Murphy, and me it please the the court...In my regular campaign I am playing a thief trying to impress her father as an adventurer (her family is mainly fighters and mages). To do so she has gathered “materials” from some of her great conquests (the finger bones of two giants, a demon wing claw, a troll rib, etc.) and had these fashioned into a set of matching daggers (one for her one for her father). But as the campaign went on and these daggers became more meaningful to her story she also has become attached, and doesn’t want to give one away when she meets her family again. Is it bad form to change her motivation after begging for other party members for help in acquiring and building these daggers? She isn’t using them in combat but just as a personal trophy set for her own ego as opposed to winning favor with family. Thank you your honors.

jenavieve

Hey yo court. my players wanted to drug an entire village and i said it wouldn’t work. here is a bit of context. after getting a dragon’s hoard worth of gold they proceeded to go to the “black market” and spend ten’s of thousands of GP on “every type of drug” they then proceeded to put all of those drugs into the town water supply. i said that it diluted and at most made some people pretty high (epic). they argued that the whole town should have been incapacitated. should i have let them drug a whole village? thank u justices

Jonah Besch

Your honors, Patreon is an annoying app with little structure to the content other than a long winding feed. I petition the court to either change the structure themselves or to themselves petition Patreon to allow some organization that is sensible and does’t require scrolling through hundreds of posts to find what i want to listen to. Written on this day of the Festivus, 2020.

ZZYZZXX

If it please the court I submit the following I was playing an all bard campaign who was sent on a quest to find better instruments in order to try and win the battle of the bands. After leaving the town and going through the woods to search for a cave that was rumored to have the instruments of the bards of old we were unknowingly surrounded by a troop of goblins that literally swooped in and yoinked our singer into the trees oppa Shrek style. Our dm had recreated the Robinhood singing scene from Shrek but with goblins (complete with snapping and a dance). We assumed it was a battle and having all rolled high initiative we all attacked quickly destroying the goblin troop killing them all and saving the singer. We then found out that they were a rival band from the competition from the dying breath of their lead singer and because we had killed them we were now banned from the competition. We argued that we weren’t told that it was a riff off and not a battle we should be allowed to compete still. We haven’t played since because of covid but who is correct in this accidental bardicide

Samson

If it'll please the court I have the case of the dnd pet to put forth: It was my dnd campaign, along with many of my other friends playing. My DM had played once or twice but he was fairly new. I made it clear to him a number of times that I'd like to find a pet at some point. Now I understand if he wouldn't make that happen- although I wanted it, the onus wasn't on him. HOWEVER, during a session, we discovered a hell hound which we managed to subdue and it turned into a normal puppy. My DM the proceeded to say that the puppy decided it liked my buddy the most and was now his pet! Was my DM being an ass hole or am I being a petty bitch?

Alex Joseph

I gave my party a puzzle to do during a combat to make it more interesting. It turned out the puzzle I gave them was way to hard, so I ended the combat early, so they could focus on the puzzle. They are adamant that the puzzle is unsolvable and I am about 78% sure that it is. Anyway, since I am guilty of definitely giving them something way too hard... what should I do to make it up to them?

Edel

Honoured judges, and bailiff as well One of my players, a tabaxi ranger, was caught trying to steal gold from an npc by the other PCs. Later on he tried again and succeeded, because the others were distracted by a big lamp. The others wanted to know if they in character would know that the tabaxi stole it, and i said they probably figured it out. Was I too easy on them and hard on the tabaxi? Sincerely, a forever DM. P.S: the money he stole was supposed to be their reward for a job, but they didnt know that yet.

Cam Valpoop

Playing as a Leonin, I used my daunting roar ability to scare some monsters surrounding me, including a hill giant. The giant failed the save and was under the fear condition. On its following turn, the dm proceeded to swing on me with both of its attacks instead of attacking my nearby ally. I had just used my reckless attack, so he attacked me with a straight roll, since he said the disadvantage from fear and advantage from reckless attack cancelled out. But I argued that he should’ve attacked my nearby teammate, who was unhurt while I was very hurt. I figured that a creature with fear could hit the thing scaring it if no one else is around, but he decided it could still swing on me as it’s main target. It knocked me out and then ran away, later to be slain by my team a few missions later. Overall, do you think a creature affected by fear should be able to attack its worst fear or should they prioritize moving away or attacking other creatures first?

FeyWyldRat

(I am a PC for clarification) Our rogue tried very hard to murder an EXTREMELY important plot NPC. Even after our DM begged them to stop they kept attempting to make attacks. Eventually they stopped after my DM had to threaten to kick them out of the party. What is the best way to deal with situations like this?

shane c

Well so long story short I played in campaign ( in the before times )and I played as a half orc barbarian woman who was a retired pageant queen. The dm at the time was a real stickler for food spoiling. I had milk I bought (can’t remember why) but he suggested that if I wanted to roll to make it yogurt lol I could. NAT20. I then intimidated a townsperson into selling me there cart. I sold the yogurt. then after coming upon a haunted house persuaded the ghost to work for me. I now had a small business . Thus starting a recurring place in every campaign I’ve played since (with or without them) SUSANS YOGURT. Also I have to mention that I dm mostly and the person who was DMing this is our Beverly and always goofs Love the show and so grateful for all you guys do

The Third Rat Queen Zelda

I was a DM last year and had a player that didnt really roleplay and would always talk about how good the other dnd campaign they were in was. Eventually we had a group vote after warning him multiple times that he was ruining it for the rest of us and kicked him out. Did i make the right decision?

Seasquidley

I ran a level 15 battle royale with 4 seasoned players. One player was an rogue (like always). Before the game I told everyone that one rule was that they couldn't take more than one non-attack action in a row. He preceeded to hide in the trees for almost 8 rounds in a row, complaining he would die if he came out. I reminded him he had to attack, so he came out and killed someone and then was killed by some summoned ghost vikings. He said the game was unfair. What do you think?

Ninjakeyblder

Was playing a high intense game of Curse of Strahd. The DM killed my character when he went against an imprisoned dark god he made a deal with. No death saves or damage just death. I get consequences for actions, but this was 4 sessions away from the end of the campaign. He also wouldn’t let me roll for another character since it was so close to the end. Felt like my risky in character choice was punished way too hard.

Patrick Reid

I started running a game for 2 new players. During one adventurer they approached a farm house they knew had been attacked by orcs. One player approached the front door and knocked. They then failed their perception checks to hear the orcs moving around inside. That player then went to the back door, knocked again and they failed the perception checks AGAIN. The cleric then bashed the door down and ended up face to face with 8 orc in one room ready to ambush them instead of being spread out adn they were whomped! I felt bad killing their characters so I summoned up some deus ex DM to save them. My question to the court is, should I have killed my 8 and 6 year old's characters to teach them that their actions have consequences? Seriously though, listening to you guys has brought me back to the game and my kiddos are LOVING it. Murph is the DM I aspire to be! Happy holidays!

Jacob Licausi

During the first campaign I was apart of, our rogue decided to break into an inn. However, we were being kicked out of the town, so the room had been rented to knights instead and we ( the rest of the party ) pitched a tent outside... Rogue was taken prisoner by the knights, we saved him from execution and death once, but he was killed later on and blamed us for not protecting him well enough and backing him up... are we (the rest of the party) the assholes? Also I love Fonk, Honk, Zonk, and of course Spronk (Spritol)

Lilly Tang

I am a new DM. All my players wanted pets. I had them go to a pet store and make animal handling checks. One player had a high roll so he got a sweet dog, the next player wanted a cat and landed a low check so the cat wasnt nice. The dog was checked on regularly but the player with the cat constantly forgot to take care of it so one day, it ran away. The player said I was too harsh and I gave him one last perception check, he rolled poorly. He cried. I feel bad. Now our last player has a mount and a little pet. Any advice for handling too many creatures?

DoodlebyCass

Your Honors and Bailiff Jake, My current D&D group has had more of a mystery than an action theme so far. I think that our DM just likes writing these kinds of stories, which is totally fair. However, I think that at least one party member (our Barbarian) has been understandably itching for a fight. One night before the session started, the DM mentioned that there would not be much combat in the current arc. This quickly erupted into a heated argument about DM styles and whether or not a role-playing game without combat even constituted D&D. My question for you the court is: Does this game focused overwhelmingly on RP still count as D&D? We all have different expectations for this game, but when exactly does D&D become a different game entirely?

Mattie Honda

I beseech the Supreme Crit to hear my plea. I run a campaign for a small group of three. Two of them were entirely new to D&D (as was I at the time, recklessly deciding to start the game by DM-ing), so they made pretty down-to-earth characters with no idea of how they wanted to build their class. The other player, however, is a min-maxing, combat-crazed veteran. Before we even started, he was bragging about how he was going to use a combo of multi-classing to "break my game". And so, I locked away some spells as plot points so I could control the damage, but even now combat is so unbalanced, I can't present a challenge to him without nearly killing the rest of the party. Perhaps I shouldn't try to cockblock someone's D&D enjoyment, but I would like an outside opinion.

Max Barry

If it please the court I am a relatively new DM and player (only about a year) and am still struggling to balance encounters. In a recent encounter I threw them up against a young black dragon (they are level 5) and all was well except that one of the players, who only joined the campaign recently and this was one of his first sessions, got hit by its acid breath. He failed the save and was insta killed by 1hp. Not wanting to kill of his character so early I let him use a bonus action he didn’t use last turn to chug a potion so that he didnt insta die. However the other players thought this unfair (only slightly) as this is essentially retconning and took away the urgency and danger of the game, and he himself was upset that he was in a situation where he could just insta die straight away. Did I do the right thing?

Mike Cathcart

My question is in regards to my circle of the moon druid. I am a wood elf who has grown up in the Neverwinter forest. I'm level 3 and I have been using the brown bear form which is great but I have been trying to talk my DM into letting me use the dire wolf form but he says that my 100 year old wood elf would not have seen one in neverwinter forest, despite it being an approved form in Xanathar's (or another sourcebook) I'm worried that when I get to level 6 and can use CR2 creatures, I'll be severely handicapped and won't be able to use any of the recommended/optimal forms. I'm not asking to be able to use a dinosaur form or something not typically in a fantasy setting, just the dire wolf and at level 6, either giant boar or giant elk. I would love a judgment into whether I am asking for too much or if he is too stingy?

Beth C

I just ran a pvp christmas one shot for my players. During the fight, our cleric attempted to use the spell command on our druid using the word "wildshape" so that they would waste their second wildshape early in the fight. Our druid, however, argued that wild shape is technically two words, so the spell shouldn't work. I didn't end up having to make a decision because the druid made their saving throw, but I know that now this idea is in their heads they will try it on any druid they happen to come across. What do you think? Personally I would have allowed it to work because it's a very creative use of the spell, but I'd love the opinion of more seasoned DMs such as yourselves!

Canadian Schubert the Mushroom 🍄

If I may pleasure the court: DMing a homebrew campaign with a group of improvisors and good friends. I have little to no complaints about our beautiful experience, but my one player just loves collecting critters. It started with innocently enough with a plump pup named Mitzy, sole survivor of a house they burnt down. But he now has a hawk familiar, a phantasmal steed with a minotaur face, a wheat-harvesting robot, a wyvern, a chocobo (My world, my rules), and a staff that can control a group of livestock.

Philip Hurd

If I could please the court please, It was my very first time DMing a one shot for a small group of friends. They had recently murdered most of the town guard at a barracks next to the royal palace. They took a long rest in the Barracks and the next day went to the palace (which unbeknownst to them was on high alert because the guards had been murdered the day before) The party then cast dancing lights outside the palace and under the door, which was taken as a sign of aggression by the King. To this day my friend complains that I didn't give them a fair shake and that I wasted about 20 minutes while they planned a way to enter the palace.

Colton Fude

I was playing as a gnome wizard, who happened to have a strength score of score of 14 ( we rolled for stats). Our party was fishing while sailing to our destination. I rolled a 17 athletics check to reel in my fish, and my DM laughed and said that my PC struggled, and with great effort, pulled in a tiny guppy. He said that it was extra difficult for me because my character is so small. I pointed out that (character) size doesn’t matter, and that my strength modifier was actually higher than the elven monk’s. I think his ruling was a bit fishy.

Adam Martinez

Honorable Judges Murphy, Axford, and Tanner. May it please the court... I have been running a game from my friends and recently the players had come upon a cabin in the woods. Once inside, they were trying to sneak around and were caught by the leader of the cabin. One of the PCs, a sorcerer with high Charisma, began to try and lie his way out of the encounter. He tried to lie and say they were new recruits to the cult. I asked for a Deception check, he INSISTED it was a Persuasion (which had a higher bonus) check as he was "trying to persuade the leader" he was telling the truth. I stuck firm and said Deception as by definition, Deception is trying to convince someone of a lie. He failed the check that would have passed if it was Persuasion and a fight broke out. Was I in the right to stick to my guns and make it Deception? When do you allow players to choose which ability check to roll?

Stuffandsuchrqg

Honorable Judges, and Beautiful Baliff, I have an all dwarf campaign with my brothers and some friends where it is a delightful mix of combat and roleplay for each player's tastes. However, I have one person in the group, my oldest brother, who doesn't interact with roleplaying that much. One thing that repeatedly gets on everyone's nerves is that my bro's character doesn't have any character flaws. Despite his abysmal intelligence and wisdom stats, he always does the smartest and most logical thing in roleplay, and is essentially annoyingly good at everything because of it (my bro is very smart unfortunately). He argues that because d&d doesn't punish this behavior then it's fine, but I argue that it sucks a whole lot, and I can't kick him out because he's my brother, so... What are some ways I can punish being smart when your character is dumb? Am I wrong in wanting to do this?

Cameron Davis

My submission, may it please the court: I DM a Homebrew campaign, and one of my players is a Paladin/recent Warlock multiclass. His domain is Oath of Treachery from Unearthed Arcana (this is important). In a past session, he used the spell “Sanctuary” to all but save the life of the Sorcerer in the party, as they were being chased by a Nightwalker. It was a great moment, because this gigantic necromantic monster was unable to hit the almost dead sorcerer, because they rolled a natural 1 on their wisdom save. The party loved it, I loved it, and the Paladin used Sanctuary as a mainstay spell. Here’s the issue: Sanctuary is actually only available for the Oath of Devotion Paladin. No one at the table, including myself, knew this at the time. But I looked it up and found that his Oath wasn’t able to learn that spell, and so I as the DM ruled that he could no longer use it. The issue the players take with this is that the Paladin has already canonically used this spell, and very effectively at that. It’s one of his favorites and, while I don’t want to be a complete stick in the mud, I prefer to run campaigns that are “Rules as Written”. Am I wrong for this? Should I allow my friend here to keep using the spell?

Johnathon colin Rodaway

My dm insisted I write a long and detailed backstop for an asimar character. I said okay as it was the start of a brand new campaign and I thought "ooh yeah this will be fine he knows what he's doing" I wrote a full page with his backstop and why he started adventuring but was told it was "too short" so I thought "oh he must want really detailed stuff so he can really adapt his story around our characters" I wrote a full god damn essay on everything I could think of and was quite happy with the work. The dm put us up against a dragon 2 sessions in and killed my character in one turn. Breath weapon knocked me off a bridge and I failed 2 death saves instantly from landing in the water. My turn was next and I rolled a nine and died. He insists that dragons are "smart creatures so it had to go for me because my character was the biggest threat" (I hadn't acted yet but okay sure) I still feel cheated.

Gareth Bryceland

Terrible terry's natural 20 May it please the court. My friends and I have been playing multiple campaigns and one-shots over zoom during lockdown, with an occasional rotating DM. The accused started his turn a few weeks ago with a campaign using old existing characters. it was not his first time DMing but he is not our usual DM. On our first session he introduced an npc who was part of a team leading us through a temple. The npc "terry" slaughtered some unarmed priests in the temple by throwing them into a pool of a mysterious liquid that burned them alive killing them instantly. I decided to use my telekinetic feat to make a bonus action shove attack against terry and push him to the pool with an invisible mage hand. on his strength saving throw terry rolled a Nat 20. Terry then ran at my druid, tackled him to the ground and started attacking him. I pose that as it was an invisible hand that doesn't require verbal or somatic components that there is no way terry could know that it was me who cast the invisible mage hand, as his Nat 20 was for a strength saving throw. The DM claims that with a Nat 20 he knows everything. The base of his argument being "I'm the DM, I decide". I tried to compromise by suggesting I roll for stealth but he insisted that with a Nat 20 he would see me. The same DM wouldn't let me sink his ship with part water (control water) as he said the sea doesn't count as "standing water" because the sea moves. We've moved on to other things but it still bothers me. Hopefully you can offer me your opinions. Gareth from Glasgow PS today is my Birthday.

Steven Noel C Cruz

They Will Die For Shit-Slinging May it please the Court and the Bailiff. There is a ongoing Homebrew campaign that consist of myself as a player, my GF at the time (now wife), a friend in common, and his BF as the DM. For majority of the opening act, our friend and I played characters that constantly looked at adventure or plot hooks like a driver in the woods during the 2006 killer clown trend, and nope'd outta there. Constantly confounding the DM and going off rails for most things, (I.e. sitting in a tavern noticing one faction of the authority in the city enter the tavern in full armor and another faction currently occupying the 2nd floor.) As much as I wanted to see what unfolds in the example above, we (the friend and I) played true to character and incited a bar brawl to cover our expeditious retreat out of the Tavern. Many hooks later, we accept a caravan job as my character's occupation was a tradesmen (FYI; Race: WarSworn, Crazy backstory) with a carriage and this was absolutely in character for them. Soon after departing from the city, My GF (now Wife) walked into a hook with caravan leader that involved some weird contract magic (where simply knowing the existence of the contract is enough to pull into the contract?) At this time, tensions between some of the caravan and our group were starting to run thin as our friend proceeded to jeer at an NPC he really did not like, somehow prompting a "who can shit the biggest" competition, which then led to flinging the contents of the contest at the NPC. The DM then had me roll a perception check, upon passing he relayed through writing on a torn piece of paper that my character smells sulfur (Due to my character's backstory as a soldier). It clicked in my head that it wasn't the sulfurous odor of the contest and immediately grab our friend bringing us both to prone position into the shit. Following that, the caravan was blown to pieces by advanced artillery from what became the first antagonists. During this scuffle, my GF's (Now Wife) character had died but not before roping the friend and I into the contract. After the session, my GF (Now Wife) revealed that our DM had written in his notes "They shall die for shit-slinging". (side note this was supposed to be a highly difficult campaign) When this topic came across the group, the DM clarified that he felt his BF and my characters deserved to die but was sorry that my GF's (Now Wife) character was killed instead. (Isn't it ironic?) Was our DM right for the overkill that occurred after he finally got a hook in on our group because of shit-slinging? Much Thanks, Steven from Guam (where America's day begins, cause we're GMT +10:00)

Al Ludwig

The Lassoed Shark Elemental: To the court. I was running a nautical module I had found on DMs guild for one of my first times DMing. They were working through a dungeon that had an underground cavern that lead into the ocean. The players needed to cross this cavern in order to retrieve the magic item they had been tasked to find. The module had both a water elemental and a shark as creatures in the area. My players asked if they could lasso the shark with their 50 feet of rope so that the water elemental would attack the shark and not them. I said No because the elemental and shark cohabitated and were not enemies. Ultimately I let the players lasso the shark onto the land nearby as a compromise, but do you think the players were right and could have turned water elemental against a begin (to it) shark?

Nathaniel Rice

Hey Two/Choo Choo crew, I have been DMing a group for around a year and a half. Two of the players were brand new when we started, and have really grown into the game. My case focuses around one of the two players, being extremely selfish and not a team player. To the point that it’s nearly a race to any loot, or like pulling teeth to get her to give up even the most random item for the greater good. The most recent incident centered around some “dank nugs” that were presented to the party by a wacky noble, who was reanimated as a living sword and had no more use for them. The players asked for them before a party scene, so I assumed they intended to partake and then get partying. Instead my selfish player immediately ran over and pocketed all of them before anyone could do anything else. Then proceeded to pretend like nothing happened. I tried to make the noble presser her on it, to share some with the half a dozen other characters around her. But to no avail, which in recap with some other players rubbed some the wrong way. Long story short: how do I keep this selfish player in line, while not just having my NPCs scolded her to be better? Thanks! Honk Honk Honk

jada

I run a campaign set in hell. All the players have died and started with one soul coin each. Over the course of the campaign they have all gained soul coins, similarly to gold. One player (a rogue) made a deal with a devil for “proficiency in heavy armor” in exchange for all his soul coins and a favor that the devil could cash in at any time. As a dm I ruled that the soul coins included his own soul coin, so he lost his soul in the process. He also hadn’t fulfilled his favor yet, so he didn’t have the proficiency yet. Was I being too harsh? The other players agreed with me, but the player has been acting like a knob ever since.

GurberBurger

Your Honors, I DM a few campaigns with a great group of friends, and I love them, but they really love to roll dice. They’ve developed the tendency to roll unwarranted ability checks. They tell me what they do, what ability check they’re rolling and roll a d20 all in the same breath. I’ve told them I will prompt ability checks when necessary, but this behavior persists. This behavior has spread to the other party members and I feel like they expect me to reward them for their high rolls, even thought there is neither useful information nor any prepared reward for them. How do I curb this behavior? Should I reward them? Should I punish them? I appreciate any wisdom you’re willing to lend. Thank you.

DungeonMama

Dear Honourable Members of the Court, My friends and I are playing in a moderately homebrewed Curse of Strahd campaign, and we agreed up front that we wanted a darker, more challenging experience. As such, I optimized my character to be up to the challenge with the Heavily Armored feat and some chain mail. I'm playing a blood hunter, which uses my blood to fuel my abilities, so a high AC is important so I can still tank. Others optimized their characters in similarly. Session 1 of the game, immediately ALL of our belongings are stolen overnight, even our armor (which we were told that if we sleep in our armor, we would suffer one level of exhaustion). Now, we asked for a challenge, and this was an interesting problem that made us feel vulnerable and was also exciting. However, we are now level 5 and still have not recovered our belongings, and resources are scarce. Five levels with a near-useless Heavily Armored feat because we've found no heavy armor (our paladin's AC is 11), all of us are using found weapons that don't match our Fighting Styles, and the player who took the Mounted Combatant has yet to use a mount in combat. Do you think it's fair to create challenging gameplay for your players when it removes significant functions of their character builds? I believe there are other ways to challenge us that still allow us to utilize the mechanics of our characters, and if this was the challenge we were to experience, a warning from the DM would have helped in character creation. The DM does not agree with me and says this is the challenge we signed up for. Help me, y'all! Who is right?!

ZeroReiMaru

I run a Descent into Avernus campaign, with both real life players and online players. The players were investigating the Vanthampur family, basically one of the most important families in Baldur's Gate. The Vanthampur's were Zariel cultists, and were wanting to corrupt the cities mercenary company in order to gain soldiers to fight in Hell, and, eventually, suck the entire city of Baldur's Gate down to hell. The players investigation made Duke Vanthampur decide to go all in and start the ritual to send Baldur's Gate to hell without all the other parts of the plan. She escaped from her mansion to an old secluded fort, where the players trounced her and the cultists they were using for the sacrifice. However, before she died, the Duke declares that the party is too late! There is another ritual under the Vanthampur house, where the party had started the chase, and there was no time to get back before the ritual concluded. However, the players did manage to get back in time, through a combination of not fucking around, and a magic beanstalk that had come from a Bag of Beans a few sessions before (it almost killed a character because he ATE the bean). The players climb the beanstalk and end up right outside Baldur's Gate. They make their way to the Vanthampur basement, and start exploring. Eventually, the Monk with the magic initiate feat came across the ritual, and decided to try and stealthily use prestidigitation to try and mess with some of the runes. I had him roll a D20, as a kind of luck check, as this was a ritual he had probably never seen before, and did not know what changing a rune or symbol would do. He rolled a nat 1. I decided that because of this, he actually corrected a part of the ritual that allowed them to instantly suck Baldur's Gate into hell. The player character looked up Prestidigitation and saw it was 10 feet of range, and argued that because he was trying to be stealthy and stay out of the cultists and devils way, that he would not have been able to get within 10 feet of the ritual circle to use Prestidigitation. Meaning, he did not cast the spell. I kind of grumbled, because I really wanted my players to go to hell, but the reasoning made sense. The players did eventually make it to hell, and now have bounties on their heads because they keep stealing souls from Hell to give to a Lich. But I still kinda wanted them to be the reason that a city went to hell. Should I have let my player retcon their action? Or was I totally out of line with the consequences of a single spell? Only you can decide my fate.

GaviRhino

Hey guys, long time listener first time poster. This happened a couple years back when I first starting listening to the podcast and wanted to try playing dnd, this ended up being my first and last time having the chance to play so far. I linked up with some friends I knew from college who had a regular game and they offered to start a new campaign as some others wanted to try as well. I had made a half-orc Paladin, our DM suggested giving them a theme or code to live by to help with role-playing them, and so I chose "No crime too small" Fast forward a couple hours and we find ourselves in a market in town, the DM asked me to roll perception and told me I saw a child stealing bread and stared at me for a good while before asking what I do. So, I didn't want to make my person out of character or anything and I struck the child in the stomach as hard as I could with my fist, told him not to steal and bought him a loaf of bread. The party wasn't impressed with it and I guess thought was too harsh, even though I tried to explain I only did it because of the code I wrote down for my half-orc. After that I didn't end up hearing from that group again, I guess what I'm asking is, is it better to avoid trying to play stuff like that out even if you've described it as an aspect of your character or do you roll with it even if it won't be popular and potentially get the boot from the campaign? Thanks! Just started the new campaign and can't wait to get further into it!

Luke Underwood

Hi guys! I hope you’re having wonderful holidays, and I hope that bluray bookcase dispute has settled, it has caused me many a restless night. Anyway, to the problem at hand! I was playing an inquisitive rogue (such a fun class btw, Murph made it look amazing in Fantasy High), for a 5e one shot done with all the regulars in our Pathfinder campaign. By the end of this one shot, we had dealt with a fancy charity dinner with a serving of lycanthropy, and then much to my chagrin, betrayal by a fellow party member! Which is funny, it’s a one shot and it doesn’t matter. My problem lies within the mechanics of said betrayal. I had been pushed prone, and an immovable rod placed on the small of my back, trapping me in place unless I push 8000 pounds off my back. Okay, very funny, a rogue can’t do that. But what can a rogue do, a rogue can roll very high to dexterously reach for my pack (which i did), a rogue can roll high to dexterously grab the vials of grease out of my backpack and pour them down my back (which I did), which had oiled me up, ready to squeeze out of the predicament, rather than try and lift the rod off my back. After rolling so high to set all this up, I was then not permitted to try and slither my way out of my bindings, despite all this, the dm citing that it wouldn’t budge bc I would need to lift 8000 pounds. I tried to argue that it’s not the rod budging, but me, but the dm said no, and the party thought I was crazy for thinking it would work, and then I was subsequently bitten by a werewolf and left there to die. All in all it was funny and no hard feelings were had, but it is still brought up occasionally and my friends don’t understand how I thought that would make sense. Hope I can get your rulings on this, if it may please the court. I would love to know if you all feel I have a rightful grievance, or if I am a fool for not understanding the physics of an immovable rod. Thanks guys!

Chris Lafleur

Your Honors, and if it please the court, I’d like to submit into the record an egregious attempt by our DM to massacre the party. Our party was entering into a confined dungeon, three levels each 100 feet high, with trees at the center (picture a cylinder with three floors.) Once we entered the dungeon, after rolling initiative, the first thing that happened was the DM rolled a layer action to “Flip Gravity”. This would have immediately caused the entire party to be flung 100 feet to the roof of the first level, causing 10d6 falling damage. We’re hearty adventurers but with a level 7 rogue, wizard, Druid and warrior, we’re still going to be rocked. And this was possibly to happened at the start of initiative each time. We hadn’t even encountered the boss yet! We had to protest to make a saving throw to cling to the grass and stones. We managed to survive that and adapted (the wizard cast fly and I wildshaped into a spider to carry the rogue). We then whomped the boss and gave him a taste of his own medicine (we polymorphed him and pushed him off the top level where he splatted.) Tell me if you think our DM was out for blood, or if I’m a panicky Pete who can’t find his feet.

Allie Rosner

I was DMing for my group of friends, and an old friend of mine wanted to play. I admit, he told me he liked "chaotic" characters, but every instance of chaos he described sounded like flavor, so I ok'ed him and said he could be a guest for an arc. He only played a few sessions. In those handful of sessions, he proceeded to start a barfight where 13 innocent people died, completely derailed my serial killer sidequest to the point where they had to flee town and couldn't complete it, and caused immense issues within the party. I texted him telling him that his time in our session was up, and asked him how he'd like to be transitioned out, and he didn't care. So, I had him be an unwitting sacrifice to reincarnate an ancient priest who answered all of the OG party's questions (Watchman style), and he was really upset by it. Should I have let him die in combat instead, which I think he would have preferred? Or was I in the right to cut him out mid-arc to save the campaign?

Courtney Rosenthal

1. The player found a ring of undetermined minor magical effect in a secret compartment. 2. The table jokingly began discussing potential magical effects for the ring. 3. DM made the determination that the magical effect on the ring should be: Summons a red dragonborn middle finger onto whatever part of the body it was placed, such that the finger is inside the ring. When the ring is removed, there is a 10% chance that the finger is permanent. 4. This effect was based off the effect suggested by the player. 5. The player decides to systemically coat their entire body with fingers. Imagine Cousin Itt from The Addams Family but with red dragonborn middle fingers. 6. At the start of the next session the full table discusses the logistics and decides that the transformation should give neither benefits nor penalties, save for the cosmetic penalty of being a eldritch abomination coated in constantly clicking and scratching scaled fingers. 7. However, the next session, the DM unilaterally imposes a penalty: that the player would need to make a strength check at the end of long rests or suffer encumbrance penalties due to the mass and volume of the new found appendages. Question: Did the DM err by assessing penalties in an untimely fashion? Had the time for assessing penalties at the conclusion of the full table discussion which DM took part in?

Shane Stephenson

(from my fiancée, i’m her DM 😊) Hi Boob Choo Dosen and Dudes - My DM said we’d end at midnight, which is our usual, reasonable time. Instead I was stuck on a 5 hour zoom call and we ended at 2am. I seemed to be the only one upset by this, but by the end of it I wasn’t having fun anymore because I was too tired to enjoy the game. For context, our game spans two time zones and for half the party it was 8 pm and for the other half it was 2am. Was I wrong to be pissed that we went so far beyond our expected game time? It was a christmas special he made so he wanted to fit it in since we couldn’t play again before the holidays.

Westin Lanser

Your honor, lady and gentleman of the court, the essence of the question that I present to you is simple: Am I (he/him) the asshole here? Recently, my online game of seven months ended because of my actions. My PC (he/him Goblin Light Cleric) hated another PC (she/her Homebrew Oni Bear Totem Barbarian) because he suspected her of killing another one of their companions (She had but my goblin had revivified them in time) and consistently referring to him as "her dog." Out of character, the other player (he/him) and I were on good terms so, when I felt my goblin would finally act, I went to the other player and asked him if it was alright if my Goblin tried to kill his Oni. To my surprise, he revealed that he'd been working with the DM on a new character and thought that a deathmatch with my Goblin would be the perfect ending. So agreed, we started the next session. Neither of us had brought this up to the DM. At some point during the session, both other players had stepped away from the table for dinner-related reasons so my Goblin attacks the Oni and we begin to fight. Or we try to to. The DM starts throwing obstacles in our way immediately. A random NPC (a librarian the Oni had been intimidating) suddenly starts dispelling magic on the battlefield and casting Sleep. When that doesn't work, the DM tells me that my character is going insane and has developed OCD and narcolepsy (no save). At this point, the other player and I tell the DM that we'd agreed on this before hand, were both want lethal PvP and only one of us was leaving this library alive. To which he responded "That's what you think." Then extradimensional portals opened beneath us and we fell into the Abyss (no save). Baphomet monologues for thirty seconds but we just want to finish what we started so my goblin tries to attack the oni, Baphomet snaps his fingers and I go unconscious (no save). It was at this point that I quit the game. We'd had other players quit before but maybe I was plot-important or just the straw that broke the camel's back. After I quit, the DM said the campaign was over. That leads me back to the original question: am I the asshole? I didn't end the game for just myself but for three other players who had wanted to keep playing. Was I justified in my decision or could I have made a better choice? I humbly prostrate myself before your judgement.

Freddie Meraw

May it please the court. My friends and I have come across a problem that I’m sure is common at many tables: what do you do when the blind fight the blind? The DM ruled that each character had adv. on attacks vs the blind but also disadv. for being blind, so they cancel for a neutral roll. This solution felt kinda boring to me, and also it prevented anyone from gaining adv. or disadv. (since it doesn’t stack). Does the court have a better solution for the situation for me to bring to my group?

Kaylee Rae

May it please the court: Recently a friend (who is a talented DM) ran a one-shot to test some high level homebrew monsters he created. I was playing a LV 20 Lore Bard and had taken Power Word Kill as my 9th level spell. He likes to give his monsters abilities based on ones PC’s can have, and he gave one of the monsters the Barbarian “Rage Beyond Death” ability which activated when we got it down to 0 HP. To kill the monster, I used my 9th level slot for Power Word Kill, but he responded that the monster was still unable to die. It lasted for another 10 rounds until its rage ended and then it finally died. Obviously I didn’t make a big deal of it during the session bc I am not “one of those” players, but if you were the DM, would you rule that Power Word Kill trumps the Rage Beyond Death ability? My standpoint is that the wording of the spell is clear that if the creature is below 100HP, “it dies.” Plus it is a 9th level spell, so it’s not fun to waste! Curious to hear the court’s thoughts and love the show 💕

Jeff_Plagues

May it please the court, I Jeff advent player and part time dm have formally filed a complaint about a show boating player. His name is Keith and he enjoys attempting to do impossible things and then argues saying the rules don’t say you can’t. For example he once broke a barrel in half to try to sled down a collapsing cavern. After being tired of arguing we allowed him and then he was mad because he failed the check the dm gave him and argued it should be a different ability. The player named Keith also enjoys party conflict to a point where the story line haults because he refuses to work with multiple members. Curious to hear what the court has to say.

Adam Clobes the ASMR Aasimar

Your honors, I present the case of slander, theft and potential coercion by player unto and toward another player. May it please the court. The other night my table and I were playing Curse of Strahd with a table of five, myself a player. Our group can play in person because we are all roommates. A party member and my character are good friends and tend to roleplay gambling with each other through very short games of farkle over disputes between us. We play only one turn and very quietly to avoid distracting. We never last more than a minute. During a story point, the party was on their way to speak to a quest NPC, and he and I bickered like the idiots we are over something until we decided to play over it. We rolled very quick and quietly while the rest of the party spoke to the quest NPC. A very important piece of story was dropped on the party and we both in and out of game did not hear. The other two party members got super mad at us for not hearing it, took our dice, and angrily told us that we shouldn’t gamble between each other because it doesn’t have anything to do with the story and we’ll miss dialogue and they don’t want to keep catching us up over things we miss. This was the only time we missed anything. We understand that our games may still be a little distracting despite our efforts, but we are both VERY respectful to the DM during exposition and most dialog, and I myself am the party’s best/ONLY note taker, so it struck me as very odd and unfair that the reason the rest of the party was so angry was because we were doing something that distracted us from important info and because it didn’t pertain to the main game. My friend and I decided to just flip a coin from now on, but it sort of sucks because it takes away from the gambling aspect of our characters. I’d like to hear your view on this. Should we stick with the coin to keep us focused and from distracting the table? Or do you think us playing our characters to this degree and doing so as respectfully as we can is fair? Thank you for your time.

A Mason Jar Full of Bees

May it please the court, I present the case of Squidgy the betrayed, a tale of a wasted golden opportunity. I had wanted to give my players a cute mascot but I also wanted to give them some agency in what kind of creature they would get. Thus I added a font that would animate one object they put in it. If they put if some water they would get a tiny water golem, a dagger and they would get an animated weapon, if they put in some gold they would get the tiniest cutest treasure golem. Well when my players encountered the font our rogue with the archaeologist background pissed in the basin. It was after a leghty pause that I discribed the acrid smell and the yellow bubbling mass that emerged. Attempting to salvage the situation I gave my cutest squidges and squelches to try to endear this urine mistake to the party however in the next room the party used Squidgy to intentionaly trigger a trap. He went stoically, he went bravely and he died. Your Honors do I have the right to be upset at my players for pissing all over my ideas?

Schon, the Shadetree Mechanic of Zebuldar

May it please the court, I bring forth a tale of a party beaten down by an OP session. We do fun little one-offs for different holidays and Christmas was no different. The day of the game, three out of six of our party decided not to show. I don't fully judge them, as their reasons were their own. This wouldn't have been a problem, but our DM did not scale down the encounters to match the smaller group. Most of the game was manageable, albeit very difficult, ending with Santa delivering us a TPK. I'm not really mad, but I am frustrated at the DM and at the others for not showing. Who is the at fault party here?

Copper Jack

So we were doing a 1 shot where we played city guards going undercover in a local gang. I chose to be a bard to use my persuasion on suspects and other gang members to my advantage but my DM wasnt really giving me those rolls but that happens. To counteract this I took Suggestion, the reason for the argument. Fast forward, and we are intercepting a rival gangs shipment by carriage, which turns into a death race. I try to use suggestion on the driver to tell him to pull over or we'll have to knock him off the road. My DM argues that the spell wouldnt work because that would put the driver in mortal danger, which goes against the wording of the spell. I contest this saying he's just pulling his carriage over. No inherent danger there. DM argues he would be in danger, stating that losing the package would mean his life was forfeit to the rival gang leader. Who's right here? I felt cheated but the DM is on the debate team so I wasnt getting anywhere with them so I dropped it.

J

So Murph question, We had a traveler campaign (Future Space) we played for 2 years and were in the final session on line. The group came up with a plan which was basically a hail Mary at the beginning of the session which would either gave a huge advantage or get the party killed instantly. It had a 80% chance of success. The party went for it despite the GM discouraging it. I voted against it btw. The player who rolled for it failed the roll and GM said Game over. The issue, the player rolling has collapsed another campaign on a roll this way and GM thinks he enjoys doing it. As a GM what would u do? As a Gm I would have rolled myself and made sure it worked or failed with less dire consequences.

KingGrandpa

If it please the court, I was running a horror mystery dungeon where all of the players switched bodies. They reached a puzzle where they players specifically had to sacrifice blood, flesh, and bone one at a time and in that order. They did a great job role playing how to navigate sacrificing their borrowed bodies, but tried to sacrifice a finger instead of only bone. Because of their mistake they had to fight a blood golem and a flesh golem. There was a vial of acid they could have used to burn away the flesh and blood, and I said a tooth would have also worked. My players argued that a tooth is not technically bone and the puzzle was rigged. I argued that for the purpose of the spell, a tooth is a bone. So—is a tooth a bone or was this puzzle broken from the start? —Bone Daddy in DC

Bunnay Ch33ks

Is there any justification for taking away inspiration? Our two friends, my husband, and I were playing with a new group, the DM a friend of a friend. My husband and our friend were given inspiration at the beginning of the session. As we approached the big fight of the session, my husband and this friend were making jokes, as you do, and everyone was laughing and joining in. Apparently this pissed off the DM, and he demanded that they both give up their inspiration. They did, but it left such a bad taste that we never played with that group again. More context: my husband was the only non white passing POC in the group, the DM (a philosophy major) in a previous session said my English degree was useless.

Beav

THE DRAGONBORN DEBATE MAY IT PLEASE AND TICKLE, I have been DM’ing for a 7 PC campaign for a little over a year and we just concluded! It was a fantastic little Zombie Apocalypse story and everyone seemed to have a great time (4 people, including myself, cried a little during the individual character epilogues). HOWEVER, an ongoing debate plagued this campaign since session 3... DO DRAGONBORN HAVE TAILS?!! The party’s dragonborn fighter frequently fucked me by requesting “tail checks” to do minor actions like pickpocketing a guard’s keys while shackled to a chair or pulling a level while grappling an enemy. Not wanting to slow the flow of an encounter, I always granted these requests (mentally setting a high DC for the task), and they ALWAYS rolled a nat 20. However, I was recently looking up dragonborn art to use as character tokens, and LOTS of this art has them tailless. I was not able to find a clear answer within the 5e texts that I have access to, so please give a ruling, your Honors (pronounce the “h” please Jake).

Rachel Harris

May it please the court: I (she/her) was running a 4th of July one-shot where my players were futuristic CIA agents given a mission to prevent the rival British agents from messing with history and winning the American Revolution. In the final battle, the players are tasked with ensuring the Boston Tea Party occurs without issue. During the scene, the players discover that the British agents have switched the tea with spell components for an evil sea witch completing a time ceremony in the harbor. One of my players then decided to set all of the ships on fire. While this was hilarious it also threw me for a loop since now they would not complete their mission. To provide an incentive to stop, I said that the future was being altered and another party member started disappearing "Back to the Future" style. I thought this was a clever way to get the players back on-track and stop setting the boats on fire, but they ignored it so the party member fully disappeared. This angered the disappeared player and ultimately forced the other players to stop setting the boats on fire - but I wonder, should I have just let them all fail their mission? I'm newer to DMing so I still worry that I made the wrong decision. Thanks!

Sun Sanders

May it please the court. While DM’ing my long running campaign, the Adventures Across the Moonsea, my party was caught in a blizzard and was attacked by a Drow raiding party. The party consisted at the time of five PC’s: a Firbolg Cleric of Chauntea, a Human Barbarian of the Great Ice Sea, a Tiefling noble of Sembia, a Dwarf Monk/Cleric of Gond and a halfling Rogue. Before this encounter in the snow, the party traveled to a demi-realm. There they traveled through a living tower where each floor was a different realm of existence. While in one realm, ruled by ducks, they received a ring, that when worn, would promptly cut off the finger of its wearer. You can activate the ring and it becomes an inverted circular saw. A nasty trick, I do admit. Back to the snow, when the Drow attacked and were defeated. They left one alive, to question. The Firbolg cast Hold Person on the Drow, while the Human tied them up. They then wanted to question them and figure out why they wanted to attack them and interrupt their Long Rest. They were traveling across a large expanse of land and this was just a random encounter, so I the DM did not have a good reason for the interruption. So, I decide that the Drow would not provide a reasoning but continue to threaten them and attempt to escape, maybe forcing them to carry the Drow along with them or leaving the Drow there, giving me the opportunity to bring in a recurring villain, who knows. This displeased the party, so the Halfling stuffed the Drows mouth with ball bearings while the Dwarf used the ring I ‘gifted’ them to slowly ‘woodchipper’ the Drows fingers, attempting to torture the Drow into revealing information, that I did not have. It got dark at that moment, I was uncomfortable, the Tiefling and Firbolg stayed out of it while, the Human, eventually ended the Drow’s life, not excited about what was happening either. This is where I decided to blurt out this: “Wow, that was crazy, Dwarf, you are no longer Chaotic Neutral but Chaotic Evil, Halfling, you are no longer Neutral but Neutral Evil”, this did not go over well with the Dwarf, upset and worried that an Alignment change would affect their Cleric abilities. The Halfling could have cared less and in truth it fit his character somewhat better, but it started a long conversation at the table that we worked through and have come out of, a stronger party. The party had never done anything like this before or since and I believe in hindsight, might have overreacted in the moment, or did I? Honorable Court, I ask you: What would you have done in this moment?

Scott Archer

May it tantalise the court. The case of the players vs The Demogorgon. This was a while ago now, my 2nd ever campaign to be exact. I, dwarf champion fighter and my party (human storm barbarian, half orc life cleric, and elf open hand monk) were amidst our final battle in the module 'Out Of The Abyss'. We faced the Demogorgon in the ruins of a city we witnessed it destroy in one of the first sessions, now a year of D&D came down to this. We had a bag of holding and a bag of devouring that a strange man in a teleporting tent provided us. This man had warned us not to break them or they'd teleport everything within a certain radius to the astral plane. Now. We were losing this fight bad. I (the dwarf) was being driven mad to the point of attacking my own team. Cleric was down and thrown to the waters outside of the city. Monk was barely clinging on to life...and all the NPCs were dead. So barbarian came up with a plan and sent monk up to pin both of the bags to either head. Barbarian then shoots the bags, sending the Demogorgons heads to the astral plane. It does continue to fight unimpeded however, which we found bizarre. We asked the dm about it, but he said that the Demon Prince was still able to gather enough from his surroundings to keep fighting, despite his lack of head(s). We won the fight with the dwarf getting the final blow, but should the battle have ended with the bags imploding? Or was the dm right to keep the Demogorgon swinging without a head(s). Also if you want to hear our D&D antics, please listen to our D&D podcast called 'The Story Boys Podcast'. Love. Blessings. Hell yeah. You guys are great, I listen to you guys whilst delivering mail in the UK. Thank you for putting a smile on my face every day.

Matthew Strasiotto

may it please the honourable judges of the supreme dnd court- My party consists of my brother (the dm), his girlfriend, and a few of our friends. A lot of our party members are very busy people with hectic work schedules, and though brother dm runs very fun sessions, it's not uncommon for one or sometimes two people to be missing from a session. On the podcast, you've discussed interesting ways to integrate missing PCs into the story/play- Unfortunately, brother's go-to explanation is that "oh, yeah. is having a panic attack in the other room". This has been known to happen for sessions that started halfway through a fight - that character disappears to hyperventilate. Some of us feel this is a disservice to our characters. Another explanation was that our barbarian had food poisoning from eating literal shit off of the floor and had to stay back in the village while we adventured. To make matters worse, brother dm's girlfriend (A half elf / half tabaxi ranger with all of the racial benefits of both races) has also missed sessions, but when this occured, brother dm's explanation was that her character had to help lead a goblin we rescued back to safety- NOT a panic attack. Is the party being punished for their flaky attendance? Is it right that the only PC that doesn't get messy, flaky, or gross explanations is dm's girlfriend? P.S - brother DM is a listener, and I will delight in him hearing his case brought before the highest power