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

D&D Court Cases! (Patreon)

Published:
2021-08-17 20:29:18
Imported:
2026-06

Content

Court is BACK in session! Due to the malevolence of a rogue SD card, the Supreme Crit Justices have been summoned for a mid-month hearing, joined by The People's Justice Lou Wilson, and newly appointed Justice Zac Oyama!

Please comment on this post with your story so we can try your case. And may the Crits be ever in your favor! 

As always we implore you to keep your submissions BRIEF!

Your Honorable Substitute Bailiff / Disgraced Justice,

Emily

Comments

Ellie

Honorable Justices and Beautiful Baliff, in the first session of a campaign I'm in our party discovers a "strange weapon" which our DM told us was a gun but our characters would not really be familiar with them. We all come from different parts of the world and from many different backgrounds so I assumed this meant guns were new on the scene. However, a few sessions later we met an NPC (who ended up just being a DM PC for the next 5 months even though none of the party liked them) rolls up with two pistols and it was played off as not a big deal. Am I wrong to be bothered by this? The aforementioned NPC was very over the top and a bit of a self insert so I worry he just wanted the character to be cool but now I'm confused about how many guns there are. Thanks! Confused complexly, Ellie

Cayden pruiett

May it please the court, My girlfriend and I regularly play dnd with some friends of ours, and I normally help her create her character. The problem is that whenever the time comes for her to come up with a name, she always names her character the same thing. My grandfathers full first and last name. One time, I asked her what her characters backstory would be, and she said that he would have been in the military, and has 2 kids and 3 grandkids just like my grandfather, and is even married to a woman with the same name as my grandmother. I’m normally able to talk her out of this by claiming that it would ruin both of our immersion in the campaign, and would honestly just feel a little weird to call her my grandpas name, but last time she seemed genuinely upset that I wasn’t ok with it. I wouldnt mind if she wanted to play some sort of joke character, or even some other generic grandfather. I just would just rather she doesn’t play MY grandfather. Should I allow my girlfriend to roleplay as my grandpa, or am I right in thinking it’s kinda weird? Thanks!

Austin Abraham

May it please the court and the great bailiff! My group was playing a one shot, where they fought a final boss with legendary resistances. One of my players, a monk, had an ability where he could prevent a creature from taking a reaction without a saving throw. I argued I was allowed to use a legendary resistance on it, but they argued since it was not in response to a saving throw, I was not. I eventually let it go, but it did severely hamper my big bad for the session. Should I have been allowed to use a legendary resistance or not?

Hayley Carter

With the message spell, it says that you whisper a message but only the target will hear it. The language is muddled, but would other people around you hear your whisper or would it just be the target?

Daniel Hynes

Did Caldwell forget to water the SD cards again?

Nat One Studio

Your Most Honorable Eminences and Jake, I come before you with a request on how best to handle disruptive players. I personally stepped away from a session in which I was a player because two of my fellow party members had made it their mission to disrupt the mission and do whatever they could to not work with the party, from the barbarian punching random citizens because he's angry to the rogue stealing anything and everything, including from each other. Was I wrong to step away or was there something else I could have done. Also, should the DM have stepped in?

Riccarda Eickenberg

DM vs. COW ORGASM To the right honorable Justices, *subtle headnod to the lowly baliff* please help settle a dispute of udder shenanigans. Our characters embarked upon the sea with a new captain and crew. I, as a druid halfling, decided to earn the respect of the crew by wild shaping into a cow to provide milk on the sea. During the events that transpired, my companions cast animal speak so I could communicate to my other two party members to milk me in order to show the crew it was okay that a cow was near them. The DM asked the character who decided to milk my cow to roll an animal handling, which he rolled a nat 20. THE DM then decided that a Nat 20 meant my cow druid CAME. I contested this, trying to tell him that milking a cow doesn't necessarily mean that a cow orgasms nor was it the desired effect. The DM decided he would have me roll a constitution check, in which I shouted out to the 2 crew. The results ended in an uncomfortable crew and "an average amount of milk", despite the Critical success. I implore the good justices to answer the great question: Does critting on milking a DND 5E cow make them orgasm? Should there have been more milk involved? Sincerely, Heaving Heffer

DMCDawg

Emily, are you the lowly bailiff this week?!

Dustin K

I have a follow-up! I wrote in a couple months ago about a player in my online campaign copying my character from my home campaign: The tabaxi bard named Strings.  Caldwell and Emily thought that she might be doing a bit, and Murph encouraged me to not bring it up again. I followed his advice and decided to take the road of “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” and committed to pushing through my annoyance and enjoying the game. In the leadup to our first session, she didn’t bring up the character at all, so I don’t think she was fucking with me. Then during that first session, she introduced her character as “Plucks on Strings,” or “Plucks” for short. And that was the end of it! Jake had encouraged me to infer why she had landed on my exact character, so here’s my theory: I think the player liked the idea of Strings when I had shared it with the group a few months before, and made a note of him in her mind to use him in her home campaigns. Our group does that sort of thing all the time: We swap ideas from the online game and use them in our home games, then report back to the group to workshop ideas. Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I believe she simply forgot that Strings was my idea, and when I brought it up she got a little embarrassed and didn’t know how to react. Then she quietly changed the name before the first session so as to solve the problem without making it awkward. So far, Plucks is a great companion to my duergar samurai, and I hope we get to play for a long time. Thank you for the help!

bbyfendie

may it please YUGO..and only yugo. I am a dm in a curse of strahd campaign. my players have taken a carriage from a man and locked inside it was a tiger, who they put a headband of intelligence on. it gave the tiger 18 intelligents which, in mt campaign, made him basically sentient and self aware. named Xavier, he almost fought them at the idea of having the head band taken off and him returning to his former animalistic ways, and even as a regular tiger he would secretly want to get the headband back. they said that after it was removed he should forget his intelligent memories and just be into eating meat and shit and growling and shit. ultimately it's my call cuz im god but what do yall think? thanks

Arwyn Robinson

May it please the court (and all those who hold a position within it, regardless of status). I was in a campaign where I was Co dming because the group was so large. I ran the story, he ran the combat. We were in a fight on an island surrounded by lava and one Druid went to cast "Reverse Gravity" and the other Druid prepared "Gust of Wind" to blow all the bad guys off the island into the lava. The Co-DM used counterspell which made my group very sad. I looked over at the monster stat sheet and saw that the bad guy didn't have a high enough level counterspell to instantly counter. It should have been a roll off. I whispered to him that the druid should roll to try and beat it and he was firm that it was counterspelled and there would be no roll-off. To this day my group is still very upset about the situation and it kills me to know that they were jipped the chance to roll. Should I have stood up for my players and made the other GM be true to the stat block and made it a rolloff? Was I in the wrong for staying quiet?

Alaina Moreno

May it please the court- I was a playing a rogue druid multiclass (swashbuckler and circle of the shepard). I chose to multiclass as a druid due to the groups encounters with druidic magic and it connected to the character's backstory. One of the other players decided he was bored playing his monk character, had that character killed off, and played instead as a druid. An npc offered the party the staff of the woodlands as a reward for helping them. The new druid decided he should have the staff, even though he already had one (to "dual wield"). I objected but was ignored. I then proceeded to have my character steal it in the night (she is a rogue after all) but was accused of crossing a boundary. Was I wrong to object to this and to go about taking it, thus playing my character correctly?

Brie R.

My it please no one, except for Jake, Lou, and Zac. My party members were getting mission info for the owner of a brothel. While taking a short rest there, my eladrin sorcerer and my fire genasi warlock both tried to see if they could service some costumers for a little extra spending money. The mother of the brothel rejected the elf but accepted the fire genasi because he was, "more exotic." Was I wrong for not letting the elf have a "hot girl day?" PS: I made the fire genasi roll for both STIs and tips earned, so it fully could have been a detrimental endeavor.

Peter Duffy

To the most Honorable Justices and the other guy. I play a young Earth Genasi Paladin in my campaign. We were going through a house that was full of some baddies and some people we were trying to help who owned the house. I came upon the owner of the houses pet hawk and took this opportunity to cast speak with animals for the first time ever with this hawk. My plan was to befriend this hawk and use him to distract/attack some of the baddies in a room we were trying to sneak up on. My DM got frustrated and asked how I would speak with a hawk when they don't communicate with each other. I tried saying that it was a magic spell and we could figure out a way to speak but he kept pushing back saying that because hawks don't speak that the hawk couldn't talk back but could understand you, mind you there is an Aarakokra standing right behind me this whole time this is happening. My DM was just frustrated the whole time I had this hawk and when I used him when sneaking up on some baddies he pretty much killed the hawk straight away. So I ask you, should I be angry at my DM for not allowing me to have better communication with the hawk and using him better or should is this a case of his game/his rules and I should just accept what happened?

Ian Hudson

May it please the court and especially the super sexy and powerful Bailiff Forever DM- What can I do to entice one of my players into DMing a one shot so I can play again? I’ve got so many character ideas I need to get out of my head Bard but it’s a shitty teenager who only uses cutting word A kid wanting to have a music career as a bard but he’s really a warlock and his trust fund is his patron Goosefolk barbarian cause geese are terrifying A rogue who pulls the balance card from a deck of many things and has to become a paladin A monk Instagram influencer Pls help. PS the one I want to play most is absolutely the goosefolk barbarian

Jack M

May it please the High Original 3 Justices and the Higher 2 most recent justices, as well as the lowly bailiff, Why cant my Firbolg Genie Warlock be his own parties magic carpet? I’m playing a genie warlock in a campaign and at higher levels he gains the ability to float like a genie, with a firbolgs carrying capacity being so high I envision my character Alabastar should be able to hover horizontally and carry my half long party members like a magic carpet across the battle field and over water. My DM is tentative to allow it as he says “this is a bad box of bees and I don’t know it’s limits” I can only hover for 10 minutes a day and it’s a speed of 30 feet? Should I be allowed for my party members to surf me if within my carrying capacity?

CW

When are you guys posting the crit confessional?

Namtao

May it please the court: Mental health is important, but when players cancel at the last minute, how do I find a story reason for their characters to be absent?

Flando Maltrizian

May I pleasure the court. I was starting a new game with some people I'd just met, playing a prewritten adventure. The DM encouraged us to write some backstory and, because it was a virtual tabletop, we could see what each other had written. One player's backstory said that he was a player in an advanced Sword Art Online style VR video game, which was simulating our game. When we got together, I asked that he change this backstory because it basically turned all of us into NPC's in our own game. He refused, saying that how he wants to think about his character's backstory is his own business, and since the DM was running a premade adventure the backstory stuff shouldn't enter in much. The DM sided with him, and things escalated to the point of me bowing out of the campaign, but I need your wise judgement. Was I making a big deal over nothing, or was I okay in calling out another character's backstory?

Ilana Galpert

Hey honorable sweeties, I like having stat weaknesses for my characters. I designed a mad scientist-type teenage half-tabaxi necromancer with a very low charisma stat, and my D.M. at the time forbade it. He said anything below 8 was too much. It was against the way the game is designed to be played, unworkable with saving throws, and potentially alienating. The last part I agree on--I don't think you can use a low charisma score as an excuse to be rude to your fellow players. But what do you think of having a deliberately terrible stat? Do you think it hurts gameplay? Thanks your honorablnesses Bonus extraneous bits: Her name was Adeline Cane, she had a lazy bat familiar named Copernicus, and she was intent on catching metaphorical 'rats' Some day I really want to play a character with a 5 int and a raccoon familiar because raccoons also have 5 int...

Signe Krantz

May it please the court and give the bailiff a fleeting feeling of purpose. The party and BBEG was separated by a force field from cube of force like in The Phantom Menace and everyone had prepared actions. As the DM, I ruled that the prepared actions resolved by order of initiative. This allowed the BBEG to use her prepared movement to get behind full cover, stifling prepared ranged attacks lower in the initiative. Was this a fair ruling of five simultaneous reactions or favoring my own villain?

Paul Hoffmann

Honorable judges and justices may it please the court. I think I'm cursed. After the fallout of the Taruk campaign I took a break from playing DND because I didn't have a group. Then I got my siblings interested in playing which was pretty cool. Then came the issue. My brother in law (but Taruk but my sister's husband) had some boots of jumping and we were in a camp that was infested with bugs that hunted beneath the Earth using their prey's vibrations to track them. We were trying to come up with a clever way to get to the people we were trying to rescue so my brother in law decided to start JUMPING AROUND THE CAMP. We all called him crazy and we said he was going to die because all of the bugs were going to swarm him. His argument was that since he was jumping he would be too fast for the bugs to catch him because they wouldn't know where the vibrations were coming from. The discussion went on for at least 20 minutes. He ended up not dying thanks to the rules being ignored on occasion. So honorable judges and justices I beg you to rule. Should my brother in law's character be dead? And should I stop playing DND with my brother in-laws?

Melanie

May it please the court One time During a campaign my party was kidnapped by spiders and taken to a huge cave. We killed the spiders but we had to find our way and and we got lost. We came to a tunnel with lots of stone statues the we came into a cavern with a huge snake. And every time attacked it we would have to make con saves. I did and insight check to figure out why but I got a 1. Later in the fight I realized it was a basilisk because of the statues and the cons saves. My dm said it was med a gaming and I didn’t actually know what was because I failed my check. Was the dm right or wrong?

Gianni Pappas

If it may please the entire honorable court and bailiff. I accept your previous ruling on TGI Monday and agree with Judge Axeford I should have changed some plans around. But today I want to ask about the case of the Mother of Dragon V Golden Dragon custody Case. My Ranger bought a red dragon earlier in the campaign and they met a gold dragon in human for in their most recent session. The gold dragon is running a mining operation in a Dwarven city and has taken human form. When meeting the ranger and nutmeg “the red dragon baby” he was angry that she was treating him like a pet/familiar while he knew the ranger was taking care food and exercise wise the dragon didn’t have a hoard or personal dwelling. While the party went to help clear some of the mines Gold Dragon offered to watch over Nutmeg and has created a bond, I did roll just to see if it worked and went well but not crazy. When they returned nutmeg was a little sad to go and has since been acting a little cranky. Am I wrong to think a creature getting a taste of it’s true nature and being taken away to be wrong? I did have him come back to his normal self and actually save her a session or two later but she was annoyed he was cranky at all saying “I’m his mother so he shouldn’t have been that mad” I humbly award a ruling.

Brobold

DM vs Jean Jacket Crit

Ian Hudson

Fwiw I called the bailiff sexy when I thought it was jake and while Emily is also sexy I don’t want to come off as a creep so please amend to “unruly and powerful bailiff”

Patrick O.

The Case of the Undone Ambush: During my first campaign as a player, our party was camping one night, when we were ambushed by a party of orcs. Our DM threw about 20 different orcs of varying power levels at our 5 man level three group, WAY above our power level, and in the surprise round I was instantly killed when one orc crit so hard he doubled my max HP in damage. The DM didn’t seem to realize in the moment that I died, and when it came to my turn, I told him I was dead. He seemed shocked, and immediately began to backpedal and start to undo actions because he didn’t intend to kill us. However, I consider myself a man of honor (and I was salty as hell that he threw this encounter at us and called it fair) and told him to leave me dead, as that is what the dice decided. He refused, and retconned that these orcs were doing non-lethal damage in the surprise round. My character, unfortunately, lived. That campaign ended on indefinite hiatus many years ago, but this scenario has haunted me the entire time, and so I pose this question to you wise and beautiful judges: Should I Be Dead?

Andrew Matus

May it please the court, but especially the People's Justice Wilson and the recently appointed Justice Oyama. Before you today I plead not a case, but rather ask for direction in a matter that regards chivalry. For you see esteemed Justices and ex-justice now-Baliff, I was recently gifted a real life freaking sword by a party member who has since moved on (to another part of the state). While this sword contains Mall ninja properties it nevertheless is still an awesome freaking sword, and I request advice on how to proceed with owning a sword. 1) What is the best way to thank my party member for this freaking sword? 2) When is it appropriate to name this freaking sword, and do you have any suggestions as to what to name said freaking sword? 3) My friend unfortunately did not give me a quest in order to come into my own and show that I am worthy of owning this freaking sword, what should I do now? Respectfully submitted, New Owner of a Freaking Sword

Beb

Honorable Justices and may it please the Court, My party split up and two members snuck into an enemy encampment. The other two got bored and decided to try scaling the wall into the encampment as well to rejoin their party members. They failed two separate checks to jump from a nearby tree onto a walkway at the top of the wall. They then proposed asking if a hawk could carry at least the gnome over the wall (who could then throw a rope to the elf). I figured if they could entice a hawk I would look at the carrying capacity. From what I could tell, hawks can lift quite a lot RAW and easily was able to clear the wall. Was this the right move or should I have let those two sit outside the wall at think about their choice of splitting up? Humbly yours the DM and his swole hawk

Dargar

May it please the court, be it the sworn Justices or right honorable bailiff: I recently rolled a character for a campaign that consisted of a mix of the best combinations of great stat rolls and some of the most character building I have put in before a campaign. Of course, this character building started in the spring of 2020, and due to an aversion against online play from half our party we have not been able to play yet. In all honesty, I'm not sure we ever will get the chance so when another group of friends were starting a campaign they offered me the opportunity to bring this character over and join them (even sweetening the deal by having the campaign start at level 3). What are your thoughts on using a character role for a different campaign that is still up in the air with a more concrete campaign? Last of me is excited, but part of me feels like it's cheating, and in the guilty not-exciting way. The fate of Captain Jake Fairwell hands in the balance. Thanks sweeties.

JesterTheCleric

May it please the court, especially the wonderful bailiff, may I present the case of DM v. OP Feat Loving Aarakocra. I DM for a half homebrew half module game where one of the characters is an aarakocra open hand monk. At level 8 he told me he wanted to take the lucky feat. I had just given all of them access to the Tasha's additional features, since like gestalt characters, they get a bunch of cool shit but the same number of actions to do them. However, I thought Lucky was too far and told him no. I've learned my lesson for aarakocra and won't be allowing them in future games (run for 2 total and they're way too OP), but should I have said yes to the player? I don't want to tell him his fun is wrong, it's an OP feat so I just ruled it out for everyone after I got asked, but I feel bad for saying no, since I told him no and then ruled it out instead of the other way around. Should I have said yes and allowed the OP feat to make sure the player was having fun? I accept any punishment deemed necessary.

Carson Kleinbeck

May it please the court, our DM has set a solid “no rolling against each other” policy because every time a word comes out of our rogues mouth, we all roll insight to see if he is lying contested by his deception. I don’t have a problem with this because we as players can usually tell when he’s lying without our characters having to know. My problem came up a few sessions ago when we were woken up in the middle of the night to help someone being robbed. One of my party members was silent as we were being told the news, and when we went to leave, the player piped up about how she was still asleep but wanted to go with us. I thought it was strange she didn’t just say “oh yeah I would have woken up”, but just to appease her, I cast eldritch blast near her to try to wake her up. My intent was just to make a noise or scare her awake. At this, she went on a Tirade about how we were no longer supposed to “do pvp”. I submitted and said I should have just yelled at her to wake up or something, but in my head I was just confused and scared to ostracize myself from the group. Everyone else seemed to agree with her. Am I crazy for not thinking this was pvp? I didn’t roll to hit and I didn’t do damage. I just made a loud sound with a damaging spell.

Keigan Z

May it pretty please the court. A player of mine, who was my roommate at the time, wanted to find a toy. I had her roll investigation and she got a nat 1. So she found a stick and wheel toy but a child was playing with it. The child went home and the player wanted to steal the toy by going in the front door. I told her this would be a stealth check with disadvantage because she was going through the front door right after someone just went inside. She proceeded to get upset and say I was putting too many obstacles in the way. I explained how the circumstances created the challenge of the task but that it wasn’t impossible. She didn’t speak for the rest of the session and soon after we just stopped being friends and then stopped being roommates. Was I in the wrong? Should I have been more flexible with her wants?

Jake Cote

May it please the court and the lowliest yet dashingly handsome but still super lowly bailiff. I have been the DM for many many years now for my group of friends. It seems like I am the one who can somehow manage to wrangle us and get our team to actually play. However mid pandemic after a few weeks of not being able to meet I was honest with them that I would really like to take a stab at playing again. They all understood and were kind, however now...here we are a year later and no game thought many rumblings of "oh yeah lets make it happen." Do I suck it up and return to my DM post and bring my friends back to the table or do I stand by and wait, did I do a bad by letting it all fall apart? AM I THE BAD ONE?! I accept this prolific courts ruling either way.

Amy Martin

Honorable Supreme Crit Justices, Guest Justices, and our delightful Bailiff, may it please the court: I submit the case of Rainbow Thistletop vs a Precise DM. I play a Circle of the Shepherd druid in one of my games, a sand-boxy survival story that takes our group through different terrains. My question is (yet another) about the spell Conjure Animals. I am aware that it allows for the DM to choose the summoned creatures. I have no qualms with that. However my current DM argues that it’s unlikely that all of the creatures that I summoned would be the same. So if I call for four CR ½ creatures, he’ll have me roll on a table and I’ll usually get four different creatures. It’s fun to imagine but a nightmare to manage that many stat blocks without completely throwing off the pace of the game. This results in me rarely using the spell and pretty much never using it for combat. Which, as a Circle of Shepherd Druid, is a bummer. Am I unreasonable wanting to be able to use my abilities without making the table resentful of the time it takes or is he being unnecessarily exacting?

Judson Whitfield

To our benevolent overlords, and also Jake: I was playing with one old friend, and a few people I hadn't met before. All of us have some dm experience, for context. One of the other players decided to cast heat metal on his own hammer. That he was currently holding. I made an "oh god no" face and he took offense to it, not knowing why I didn't like his plan. He ended up taking two rounds of damage, throwing his weapon at the bad guy, missing, and losing his weapon. Was that punishment bad enough, or should this 6 year dm be punished further for this silly sin? Your humble servant, Judson

Olivia!

Hello Honourable Crit Justices Axford Murphy and Tanner, as well as the lovely Bailiff Hurwitz I bring you a case from my first ever character, in the campaign we were in I was playing a fire genasi monk and the party and I needed to get down this large canyon to defeat the monsters below for our inaugural quest. We had no rope and thus had to get creative or try to venture down this cave system (which in hindsight now was probably what the dm wanted us to do) we chose to scale down the angled cliff side. Now some members of the party (bard and warlock) got really creative using a cauldron as a sort of boat/sled to slide down the canyon, myself and the paladin reason that we could use our weapons to sort of piton ourselves down. The paladin rolled well and was able to successfully make his way down… i on the other hand rolled a natural one… and since my hands were my weapons the dm said that I lost the first two digits of my fingers. Because of this, rendering any skill check I did, or any attack roll I made was at disadvantage. And no one in our party was strong enough to heal them (we were level 3) so I went on like this for three more sessions until we found a powerful healer to fix it. It really sucked ngl. My little knowledge of the game at the time kept me from arguing this but now as a seasoned player and a dm myself I look back and wonder if this was a really harsh move or not. Faithful judges and bailiff what is your verdict

Hank Cox

Honourable Supreme Crit Justices and 👍 Bailiff, may it please the court in the Case of Character-Averse Player vs New DM. (I play dnd over discord with a few of my friends. All of us are new players. All names are character names.) Last session, while in a dungeon, one of my players, Yahar’gul, invited one of their friends from another discord server that the rest of us know, but not too well. Yahar’gul invited the new person under the pretence of “just watching” but at some point, the person (Zerconium) decided to make a character and inject themselves into the game. They didn’t ask me (DM) or the owner of the discord (Alis). Another session is coming up on the weekend and Zerconium is refusing to choose a subclass (He’s a lvl3 wizard), choose a Dragonborn colour (that’s his race), choose spells, or make a backstory/personality. Please help me Honourable Supreme Crit Justices and 👍 Bailiff!! -Henry

Jesse and Sawyer McKeown

May it please the court, I would like to present the case here of a wronged player, a dead pc, and a derailed main campaign. The backstory here is long and storied, but to keep it brief the main things you need to know are, this is a homebrew campaign that me and 4 other PCs have been playing in for about 2 years now and our Rules As Written DM really likes playing holiday themed one shots in the same world, with the same characters, but everything usually goes back to normal at the end of things, no matter how weird they get. Well, last October, we had a Halloween one shot where basically, in the middle of a dungeon crawl in the main campaign, a kobold called down meteors and killed our whole party. Fun intro, right? We all awoke as different undead and my warlock was a ghost, and thus, the only one able to move around. I tried to free my companions, but none of us had access to our spells or weapons. Our gear was in a locked room, with a trapped door. Usually, I’m the lockpicker of the group, but since I could not interact with objects, I made sure to place my 1hp spectral body in the other room. But then I made an out of character joke about telling the person who was picking the lock that I could just try and float through the door. At that moment, the character unlocking the door failed his check and the trap went off. It was simply a firebolt spell that randomly targeted someone in the room. Even though I stated that my character was in an adjoining room, because I made that joke, the DM decided to make it so I was at the doorway and got targeted by the spell. I was at 1hp, so no matter if I saved or not, I was poofed. No big deal I thought, this is just a one shot. The other 3 characters continue through the dungeon, now with their stuff, and a ring of wishes with one charge left. Now, because my DM has always gotten on our butts as being a RAW purist, my wife, playing their wizard, was trying to decide whether to true resurrect themselves (as they posed more of a threat than any other person against the necromancer we were about to fight) or my character (the support with 2 spell slots). I told them to resurrect themselves, the DM watching and listening to this all going down. They resurrected themselves and the party won the fight easily due to some smartly placed walls of fire, timely shots with the mummy ranger and angry claw work from the Ghoul wizard. Now, I’m expecting us all to wake up and it all be a dream, or perhaps we were trapped by a mindflayer who found us sleeping, but no. This session was revealed to be cannon and now my warlock is completely dead. Turns out, the DM was expecting us to use the wish to bring us all back to life. But he never said anything as we spent 20 minutes trying to decide the one person who would be brought back to full. Now, because this team is upset about loosing my warlock, instead of going after the cultists who we were originally fighting for the world over, they now have to find a way to get me back, and get the other 2 their bodies back. The other two are now back at level 1(we were at level 7) and the second wizard has been changed to a fighter as he no longer has access to his magic. I’m pretty peeved because our DM never indicated that he would be ok going against RAW for this situation, or that this was all cannon. We have played 2 games since, and I am playing a fun trickery cleric until we can purify my body and then bring me back (which is a whole other thing), but I want to know is, is it fair for us to be upset with our DM, seeing as he completely nerfed 2 of our players, and killed me off without 1-letting us know this would be different than any other holiday one shots and 2-not speaking up during our conversation about who to use the wish spell on, letting us know that this was our “get out of jail free” card?

Aileen Hay

May it please the court. I herby present the case of the performing ranger. During my first campaign, I, a human ranger, was keeping watch alone over my party's sorceror while he was sneaking into a guarded castle. When I saw him about to be discovered by the enemy I decided to try and shoot a flaming arrow into another part of the castle in the hopes of creating a fire and distracting the enemy. My DM loved the idea and said that since it sounded so cool I had to use performance to shoot the arrow. I hated this idea since I would go from adding +7 to the attack to adding nothing. I argued that since I was completely alone, hidden in the top of a tree, without no one around for several houndred feet, I had no one to perform in front of and could therefore not use performance. My DM argued that if you are singing alone by yourself you are still performing in some way so I had to use performance. I was about to argue more, but the rest of my party all told me to stop and not to argue with the DM. So I gave up and made the attack using performance. Luckily I got a 17 and made the shot, but I still believe I should not have been forced to use performance. What is your judgement?

Peter Mundell

To the Honourable Judges, both Your Grace and Disgraced, I DM for six players in a game set in the Dream Plane where they've all lost their memories but can regain them by sleeping and have to fight the various Gods of Dreams to get back to the Material Plane. In an early battle, the party was facing a fire myrmidon and a couple of salamanders, and the team's paladin pushed the myrmidon into the lava 50 feet below. Fire Myrmidons are immune to fire damage and are also immune to the prone condition, so we stumbled back and forth for awhile trying to figure out "Do you take falling damage if you fall onto a surface which damage you're immune to and when you're immune to prone?" One player brought up that if you belly flopped from 50 feet in the air into water, it would hurt like hell, but I would argue that belly flopping is essentially landing prone, and professional divers drop into pools from much taller heights without dying. In the end, I gave them the fall damage because it's only 5d6 anyways and I like rewarding when players do something in combat outside of just attacking. What would you have ruled?

Hannah McFarland

May it please the court: My players have found the ultimate game loop hole. Whenever they want to go exploring by themselves they ask to use the bathroom. This isn’t some romcom bs, this is D&D! So now at least once a game they ask to take a shit. I now have to work a bathroom into every map I make.

Nick Schmidt

May it please the court My friends and I started playing the pre-built icewind Dale campaign and I built a warlock with the fiend patron and said it was as asmodeus for flavor about 4 sessions in my dm pulled me aside and told me since he didn't read ahead and turns out asmodeus is a big factor instead of allowing me to change patrons he told me I had to kill a party member or be forced to multiclass at level 3. Was he right to force me to multiclass and struggle in combat or should the he have let me just change patrons?

The Great Zarquon

Good evening, esteemed judges and even more esteemed Bailiff. May it please the Court: I'm playing a druid in a long-running campaign and last week we had a controversy that has cast a gray pall upon the table. Our wizard was imprisoned by the BBEG in a tower. The plan was that I would silently spiderclimb up the tower to avoid alerting the guards on top, use Gaseous Form on him to allow him to float to safety, and then wildshape into a hawk and fly back down. However, the DM decided that my casting the spell would require me to roll a spell attack on our hapless wizard, since he didn't know we were coming to rescue him and I couldn't say anything to him out loud to let him know I was doing it. We all argued about it, and in the end I failed the roll and the guards were alerted. Was the DM correct, or do I have a case?

Caitlyn Mills

May it please the court. PC vs. the rest of the party. In a lair of a mindflayer, our party was clearly outmatched. As a group, we decided to flee with the last of our HP. However, our fighter was stuck in the jaws of the mindflayer after the other two party members had already started to dash and the decision was made (bad initiative). Instead of going back to help the poor fighter, our Druid decided to cast spike growth making it impossible for anyone to go back to help the fighter without going to 0 HP, but saying it would stop the mindflayer from following. She did say “it might not be the right thing to do, but it’s what my character would do.” I just thought it was selfish. What say you? Was she playing her character and making a strategic move? Or was she being a selfish party member?

Christopher Lasasso

May it please the court, the newly appointed justices, and the sultry bailiff: I am DM'ing a Fast & the Furious campaign, set in the year 2000. One of my players wants to play a character who films Jackass like stunts and uploads them to the internet. I told them no problem but they'd have to pay some sort of fee per month to rent server space (as this is 2000 and free video hosting sites are not yet a thing). They seemed interested in taking the character in a different direction once I suggested this. Was I being too harsh? Where should a DM draw a line when it comes to integrating flavor into something with stakes? Should I make my players (some of which are Gen Z) experience all of that which was inconvenient about the 2000s if they want also want to experience it through the cinematic masterpiece that is F&F?

Zitronay

It it may please the court and tickle the bailiff: I joined a 3.5 D&D campaign with a friend group that had already played a few sessions, so my character started at level 3 or 4. I worked with my DM to make a traveling bard who would join the rest of them. In my first session, they asked me to introduce my character and say where I was coming from, so I mentioned that I had just come from a concert hall. The DM said those didn’t exist in this world. I said it didn’t have to be a big one, but they said a concert wouldn’t be time period appropriate. I argued that if magic existed in the universe, it would be easy enough to put 40 chairs in the same room, but I was overruled. Since it was 3.5, my character already had something like a +12 to lute performance checks. I went along with what they said as to not be a stick in the mud immediately with a new group. Was I wrong for wanting my bard to play in front of an audience? Awaiting whatever justice you see fit - Jeffery

KingGrandpa

May it please the Familiar Court and Barnyard Bailiff The Case of Donkey Hotie I joined a new group as a purposefully underpowered farmer. The most important part of this character’s life was Hotie, his beloved and ornery family donkey. Unfortunately I didn’t realize just how seriously they were taking the game. Tracking rations, survival checks to travel, and lengthy litigation trials ensued. This is all great if that’s your style, but I was just in it for sweet, ornery Hotie. This came to a head when the DM One-Shotted Hotie and cut her in half. I asked the DM if I could get a new mount, perhaps a giant chicken or duck. The next town didn’t have stables, but I was gifted a giant celestial warhorse. This is clearly badass, but not necessarily in my characters aesthetic. So my case is this: did the DM wrong me by killing Hotie, or was I intruding on their gritty realism with my farmyard fantasy? I will accept any ruling, the worst you can do is reunite me with my beloved Hotie. All my Southern Hospitality, Ole Wess

Carson Moore

If it may please the esteemed Crit Justices and honorable yet lowly Bailiff Jake. I play in a campaign where one of the other players is currently playing a child PC (8 years old). This PC is very opinionated, and their player dates the DM irl. There are several magic artifacts within game that the players helped build, and we’ve been seeking them throughout the campaign. However, when we find one, the child PC stamps their feet and says no one else can have them because the items are “ordained by the Gods” to belong to them. This has caused some serious rifts, as another PC had an item that formerly belonged to her father (a legendary hero of a bygone age) taken away, and when she rolled a Nat 20 persuasion to convince the child to return it, the DM narrated that it was only after a truly long and heartfelt apology to the child that she was allowed to keep the item. We were all upset and annoyed because it definitely wasn’t her intention to apologize to the child PC, and we felt like the Nat 20 was not being honored, but the DM said that it was honoring the child PC. Were we in the wrong for being upset?

ThatManGareth

May it please the animal whisperer Emily, Now presenting the case of sorcerer v. DM There are two charges placed against the DM. Several years ago our party was playing 3.5 edition because we told that was the place to start. We have our first encounter with the main villain of our campaign, former DM character, fighter turned Warlock villain. 1st Offense: The party noticed the villain before he saw them, so my sorcerer used zone of silence to give us advantage on stealth to get the jump on him. The DM claims the villain noticed the lack of background noise (Torches crackling, water dripping, ect.) and noticed us immediately despite the spell. My sorcerer casts the 3.5 version of phantasmal killer spell a round or two into combat which says, "The target first gets a Will save to recognize the image as unreal. If that save fails, the phantasm touches the subject, and the subject must succeed on a Fortitude save or die from fear." Villain crit fails the first save and fails the second save by 1. Offense 2: Villain dies extremely early in the story so you think we would get something out of this, except the DM claims villain had a nearly endless supply of clones using the Clone spell. We neither get experience nor loot because we didn't destroy the soul and the body disintegrated when we tried to inspect it. Was our DM just being a jerk since we upended his story, or was what we did irredeemable? Does the use of the 3.5 rules make Phantasmal Killer too unfair for him? I eagerly await your response, Sincerely The Plaintiff Sorcerer.

Bulbarat

May it please all of the court, besides Murph.. This was session 1. I was a player in Out of the Abyss, we were captured by drow. I was playing a lvl 1 german centaur barbarian. An NPC had bet me that I couldn't push a drow off of a cliff. Being a raging barbarian, firstly I wasn't gonna turn down violence, but also I wasn't gonna let him disrespect my honor. So I did, and the drow fell to their death. This started combat with tens of drow. This would've been fine since there were 10 npcs in the prison, right? No! All of the NPCs didn't do shit, including the orc barbarian. Needless to say, everyone went down and the players blamed me. I was so furious that I ranted about how horrible he'd always been to me, especially in that game, and I left the group. Was I the asshole?

Figgy the Cat

For the honorable, elegant and malevolent justices and low key anchor of the court Baliff Jake. If it may please you; I bring forth the dm vs the players case. Our dm was running a Star Wars campaign that she written herself (something our friend group always did) and put in a side quest we were hired for that was about a suspicious person harassing a home. My mercenary character saw the targets and shot them down. Well everyone didn't like that and attacked me (for good reason) but a child character with a backstory of all his childhood friends dieing was triggered and wanted to kill me. The group convinced my friend not to murder me but we were at odds the whole time in a fun duality. Our DM did not like how we were not all friends and had my mercenary parents kidnap the child to make us make up and become friends because I had to save him to spare the DMs feelings. Us the characters still did not get along and on the last session fought to the death. My question is, was it right of the DM to try and force us to become friends as characters even though we were all having fun as people? Or were we not giving the DM and player a good chance to resolve the conflict of causing PTSD in their short life?

Dolce Gabbana

Hello esteemed judges! May it please the court. My friends and I recently started a D&D podcast where the hook is how incredibly hard it is. We are playing a modified curse of strahd but it’s harder, and if your character dies you are replaced on the podcast by a new castmember! This means the incentive to stay alive is strong. We recently recorded our second session which was pretty uneventful because we avoided most of the combat due to lack of incentive to fight! After the session our DM commented how it was bad podcasting to avoid combat and due to the open world nature of the campaign it was up to us to engage with enemies, as well as needing to fight to level up. However every combat had the option to just not engage which made sense because it’s in our interest to not die and there was no story motivation to want to fight! Are we correct that our DM should have been more forceful with encounters despite him wanting to keep it entirely open world or are we just bad podcasters who should have risked it for the sake of content?! Thanks! (P.s. much respect, podcasting is hard)

Joe S

I for one am outraged and appalled at the idea that Emily (Apologies, Justice Axford) was seemingly demoted to lowly Bailiff. I refuse to accept this, she is still an esteemed Supreme Crit Justice, it's just that as an Associate Justice she has to do the yeoman's work generally reserved for the lowly bailiff when he shirks his duties and doesn't make a cross country trip to California at a moment's notice. Truly she deserves tons of credit for stepping in and cleaning up Jake's messes. And kudos to the wise members of the Supreme Crit for realizing that they could not simply bring in one new Associate Justice. Having an even number would be a disaster!

Tonks

Honorable Masters, In a short campaign my friend is running, he brought out a horde of creatures along with the BBEG and on my turn I cast Banishment at a 9th level for my turn. The creatures had to meet a DC 19 Charisma check and our DM said 4 of the 5 creatures including the BBEG passed the save. I was a bit questioning of that answer, but went along with it because Dice are Chaotic Storytellers. The DM went on to explain that because the creatures didn’t exist in that plane of existence, he rolled with advantage on their charisma saves which is why they passed. I debated that it shouldn’t matter if they exist in that plane or not, that doesn’t justify advantage. Of course they don’t exist there. That is why they are in my face bothering me. It felt like my DM was mad I had found a way around his BBEG being a powerful force and just wanted to stop me from ruining his game. Our DM also curated this spell list specifically for our adventure. Why give me the spell if the creatures would be basically immune to banishment? What is the highest court in all the plane’s ruling for this? Thanks!

Eddie Terrell

Honorable Justices, old and new, and regular old Bailiff, may it please the court. I made a huge mistake when running a previous campaign by guiding the party's druid into a serious snake theme. He began regularly summoning multiple giant snakes with the Conjure Animals spell, and once he found the Staff of the Python, it was snakes all the way down. The biggest point of contention to this day, though, is that he wanted to use a conjured snake to carry all of the group's supplies. I'm not a huge stickler on encumbrance, but he was dead set on having the snake carry the supplies with a backpack. For some reason, I decided to die on this hill - a snake can't wear a backpack. I gave him the ultimatum - if he could draw the schematics, I'd let him have it. He has yet to draw an anatomically believable diagram, but we still get into regular debates about snake anatomy and whether his conjured snakes should have been allowed to carry all of their supplies throughout the land with little to no concern for carrying capacity. Was I right to require a hand-drawn manifestation of this asinine concept before allowing it into our make-believe world?

Hyacinth

May it please the court, and the incredible, dashing, and most honorable bailiff: I am DMing a campaign with a homebrewed magic system which uses the souls of the fallen to cast spells (essentially you use souls instead of other components). One of my players is a warforged who was created by one of two warring kingdoms using two souls (now his eyes). He has a great long-term arc coming to terms with being a warforged and his whole backstory revolves around it. In a recent session I gave players the opportunity to pull from an expanded Deck of Many Things (I know, I dug my own grave), and I brought a cool deck of cards to the session to make it fun. The warforged decided to draw, and drew a card that would turn him into a human. The player became despondent, and seemed genuinely upset, so I narrated a way for him to turn back into a warforged through divine intervention. Was I wrong to do this? Should my player have accepted his fate? I humbly await your judgement.

Jacob Sions

May it please the court I was playing a high-level dungeon crawl and we stumbled across a dead body and one of and the other players wanted me to cast resurrection and I explain to them if I did so if the body is over a year old I cannot cash any more spells that day they said we could just take a long rest after but we had just finished one before we started playing so I didn’t cast the spell bc I thought it was cheap was I a wank?

Lily

To all the all honorable crit justices (and the bailiff I guess): Was I, the DM, wrong for withholding information from the players? Here's the situation: the party, after being sent on an extended quest by a mysterious figure, the players finally met the wizard. She... did not live up to the vision that one PC, a gnome wizard named quinoa, had thought she would. Quinoa insulted the wizard, saying that she thought another wizard (aka the bad guy) was a better wizard, because "she's actually doing stuff." The wizard then cast the 9th level spell imprisionment, and after summoning a dude named bob via. tuning fork (as a show of power), tried to get her to say she was sorry. The next day (after the gnome was released) the wizard sent them on another quest to the Fae realm, but withheld a lot of important information, because she was insulted. Once in the Fae Realm, the players made checks to get more info, but I told them there was still more they did not know, Should I have revealed more info, because some players feel I should have? (P.S. The rouge stole the tuning fork that summoned Bob on the way out, and learned bob lives with his wife in a two bedroom apartment inside the tuning fork and feel Bob/Bobette should have more info)

Dave 3D Art

May it please the court, I am a player of twenty years, and DM for many of them. Recently I was given the opportunity to be a player in an in-store pirate campaign. I was initially excited, but as the first session approached some red flags appeared. Mostly questionable house rules (limits on Multiclassing, and hand-to-hand combat system that defeated the purpose of monks). But since those wouldn't apply to my Fathomless Warlock I still attended the first session. That was probably a mistake. The first session featured but was not limited to: Overwhelmingly unpleasant/abusive NPCs (including one doctor who insisted on only delivering potions via enemas, and wanted to eat our character's hands.) all of whom were made to sound like Rick and Morty characters. A mishandling of basic skill checks, most notably never letting us roll Charisma based skills or Insight checks. Atrocious rail roading in the form of every character on the boat being at least 5 levels higher than us with strict punishments for insubordination. And finally the DM refused to learn our character's name or builds despite the fact that we gave them to him weeks before the first session. I paid for this experience, never came back for future sessions. Was going to be out of the city for at least a few of the sessions so I managed to get a refund for the campaign from the store. I guess my fundamental question is, should I have soldiered it out and continued for the sake of the other players (who were decent folk, and didn't seem to have any issues with the DM) or was I correct in considering these behaviours unacceptable? I eagerly await your judgements on this manner, and hope that the DM doesn't listen to Naddpod. That would be awkward.

Tim

May it please the court: Our party was tasked with sneaking on to a ship. Time wasn’t a factor, so we deliberated on how to get on the ship for a solid half an hour to forty-five minutes. This was years ago and I can’t remember why it took so long, but we were really trying to place everyone in the right spot. I did most of the planning for this sneak mission, but the first person to move was another character. He rolled a nat one on stealth and alerted this whole ship to our presence and a fight ensued. Despite not rolling the nat one, my friends made fun of me for months because it was seen as “my plan” that failed. Were my friends right to ridicule me or should they have made fun of the actual player that rolled the nat one?

Jake Murray

May it please the honorable justices. I seek repair in a friendship forever dark smudged. I was DMing a game where players were investigating a city’s bank that had overgrow with foliage. Our sorcerer Felix has rolled a nat 20 on perception but I told him He didn’t see anything. They were then attacked by a tree ant who was hiding in the room and I chose not to reveal it to the nat20 perception check since treants say they are indistinguishable from a normal tree while remaining still. My player has never trusted a nat20 roll since. Did I soil the bag on this one? I accept any punishment to repair the rift between me and this player.

Kris Warrington

May it please absolutely only one of you (y'all can decide who), In a new campaign my friends and I are playing, I was told I could not play a monk "because they're too hard to DM". Our groups DM has been a DM for years,so he's no newbie. Is it fair for him to outlaw a class like this in his campaign if he wants to? I've never played a monk before and really wanted to play a 4 Elements Monk Kind regards, Kris W

Molly Oxenfree

May it please the court as well as the equally honourable but not as powerful bailiff. One of my players had a romance with an npc and it was getting a little awkward so I decided to activate their sleeper status. My player was upset saying it came out of no where, but they were literally the leader of a cultist town that kills magic users on site, and part of their romance was talking about how much they loved a mutation caused by the BBEG. Am I guilty of manipulating my fox girl with buffalo antlers girlfriend into joining a flesh monster and trying to kill the party because they were trying to fight the BBEG?

BenMightSmite

May I please the honorable Bailiff supreme justices as well as the court I play an Oath of glory paladin at my local game shop and our campaign was involved in a dragon war where they were fighting each other and fighting in the sky above us the party had to climb up the side of the tower to retrieve an amulet to stop the revival of an ancient undead dragon and me rather then take two rounds of dashing up a ladder I used my already summoned griffin(who I named Razor Light) to instead fly up the tower but The DM and the party insisted this was stupid as and I quote “You’d be bringing up a sandwich for them to eat” and I argued why would the dragons stop fighting other dragons just to eat a random griffin they should be worried about not being killed by the other dragons he even said prior that all the dragons were entangled with other dragons but insisted they’d have time to stop and bite my griffin. So I winded up having to take two full dash actions up to the tower. Was he right to say they’d stop to attack us. Side note I’m much less experienced in fact this is my first full game I got into dnd during the first covid outbreak after bingeing NADDPOD and they are all Oldheads who have played since Oldheads who played 1st edition.

saberbear

Lou AND Zac? We're being pampered by the court

Beebles

May it please the court, If a mounted rogue uses their mount's speed to move during a turn, could they still use the cunning action Steady Aim to make an attack with advantage? My table awaits fair judgement. Sincerely, the apparently cheating-ass rogue.

Kevin Dowd

Honorable Justices and callipygous Bailiff, may it please the court. One of my players kidnapped a chihuahua gnoll to keep as a pet despite me continuing to remind him that it is a sentient creature. It eventually betrayed the party because its a thinking being that was kidnapped and was killed when the wizard hit the litch it was working for with an up cast fireball. In response he stole the wizards deck of many things and drew the void card, trapping his soul in a gem guarded by a powerful being. The party spent several sessions getting his soul back and earned the displeasure of a demigod. The question is this, the chihuahua loving rogue claims that having his soul ripped out is punishment enough for stealing from a party member and balances out that they incinerated his pet (hostage). The wizard feels there should be extra punishment given that the party spent a long time to recover his soul from a situation that was his own fault

Wzrdkng

To the Honorable judges Murph, Caldwell and Axford, the people's judge Lou, and last but not least the silent ghost of the Supremely superb bailiff Jake. I come to you with a moral dilemma. My party was in an underground hideout, having made there way through it, encountered the b.b.e.g but only to find him in the process of performing a ritual to basically fuse shadow demons with the skeleton of a dragon to, in a sense, create a shadow dragon. I gave them all a chance to try and break his concentration one by one and if they couldn't do it before the end of the round he would successfully finish. Well he finished it but had been severely hurt by everyone trying to break his concentration so after he finished he went to use Teleport to escape HOWEVER, one of my players tried to cast counterspell, failed the 1st but used a luck point and succeeded the 2nd try and everyone was excited cause they wanted to finish him off until I realized that he was out of range and had to take it back, letting him successfully escape. Everyone was pretty upset that I didn't let it work and kept saying I should've let it stick. Did I do the right thing by sticking to the rules or should I have let the counterspell stick giving them the chance to finish him off?

Thomas Northcliffe

May it please the court. I had a disagreement with my D.M. (who for the previous two years had been a player in my campaign) and am bringing two charges against them During a combat encounter an enemy climbed a wall out of my melee range, forcing me to use javelin. I decided the best course of action would be to try and pin its arm to the wall so that it wouldn't run away while the casters catch up. The dm ruled the attack is un able to pin. I begrudgingly took the L and chose to do my base attack. I roll a nat 20 but then get told I have to do it at disadvantage, because he is out of range. I say I take my movement first to get in range. But then get told my character wouldn't know to do that because it's "to meta" Is it unreasonable to stake an enemy with wood to a wooden structure? And is attack distance to meta? I look forward to your ruling.

OlliexOlly

Honourable Judges and honestly fairly respectable Bailiff, My case involves using low level magic for high level results. I was playing in a low magic campaign, where I was playing an Arcane Trickster Tabaxi named Zephyr, with access to a few evocation cantrips to help balance out the party. During the exploration of a tomb belonging to an ancient Hero, our group was ambushed by the BBEG and their cronies, who succeeded in taking the hilt of the hero's sword, and killing our fighter. I asked the DM, would I be able to use Shocking Grasp to try and jump start the dead character's heart? The DM obliged, saying that on a natural 20, it would work. Alas, I couldn't save our fighter friend, but since there was no ressurection in this campaign and a low magic setting so we had no healers, I tried this trick another three times. I argued to the DM that as we levelled up and my cantrips got stronger, I should get better at using the spell and the DC should go down, however he said that I'm pulling enough shenanigans as is. What is the court's ruling? Should the DC on my bullshit have gone down as I practised on my many, MANY fallen comrades? Thank you!

GrinningGator

May it please the court, and the laid-back substitute bailiff Axford. I run a game for a couple friends and my husband every Saturday, and recently, the group had to face their first Beholder. It was a tough fight, with my husband’s half-orc paladin almost being disintegrated and my sibling’s tiefling rogue turning to stone at the very end of the fight. During the fight, my husband was making his attacks against the beholder, and missed on the last one. Regardless of that, he said he wanted to smite on the second to last one, but I told him that he should of decided whether or not he wanted to use smite on an attack before he rolled for the next one. He argued with me that he shouldn’t have to decide to add smite before rolling his next attack, that instead he should be able to add it on to any attack after rolling them all. Even though I disagreed, the fight was getting very dire, so I allowed him to add the smite damage. Judges, was my hubby in the right for fighting for his extra 2d6 radiant damage or should I have been harder on his rapid rolling rump?

Barbie Pootsky

Honorable justices Murphy, Wilson, Oyama, and blasting grandma (who I assume has replaced Caldwell by now) and the Distinguished Baliff Axford, may it please the court. I play a rogue mastermind/whispers bard. They aren't incredibly effective in combat, but they are incredibly good at being proficient in things (I picked up skill expert and prodigy as feats). We recently reached the level where I get reliable talent which makes any roll lower than a 10 in something I'm proficient in a 10. Since then, my DM has gone out of their way (it seems to me) to avoid me having to roll something I'm proficient in. Its not acrobatics, its athletics. Its not perception its investigation. Am I in the right to be upset about this or does my case not hold water?

Jessica Petra

Honorable court justices and bailiff, I have a case that's been nagging at me for a while. A few years ago I was still relatively new to DnD, I hadn't played very much and this was my first time playing 5e. I was playing a dextrous, whip-based fighter/college of swords bard who was more or less if Cordelia was the slayer instead of Buffy. At level 5 I got my second attack and it was great. What I didn't know at the time was that fighters get that second attack whenever they use the attack action and this extends to when they action surge. This means that any time I would action surge I would only attack once. The DM was going along with it and never once reminded me that I had that extra attack. It was as if he was punishing me for my lack of knowledge. Looking back, he would pull stuff like this all the time and this is one of the reasons that I really don't play with him anymore. I've since gone on to be an incredibly capable player and DM and I always make it my job to remind players of skills or rules that they may not be aware of. The question is, should this fall on the DM to remind people of these rules, or is this the sole responsibility of the player? Was he in the right for not reminding me or should he be subjected to the whip himself (aka he was being a huge jerk)? This has been weighing on me for a little bit now, and looking back it makes me feel that I was taken advantage of. Thank you! Jess

Tino Bambino

May it please the court and the fantastically honorable baliff Emily. This isn’t exactly a case from in-game but rather a case about common sense and integrity. Me and my friends Zeus and Tommy were passing the time by building character sheets for celebrities. I argued, that Barack Obama had at least an 18 in charisma with proficiency in public speaking. After a long drawn out argument we compromised on 16 charisma and moved on. We began making each-other’s character sheets and they agreed our friend Tommy has a 10 in wisdom. I disagreed vehemently, as I’ve seen Tommy choke out one of our friends in an Alleyway. He claims he, “couldn’t tell who he was” and “was coming right for him”. I said if Barack Obama the president of the united states for 8 years can’t have an 18 in charisma Tommy should have a negative modifier and that’s the end of it. Am I in the wrong? I leave our judgement in your hands. With love, Tino Bambino

M Crabtree

If it may please the honorable justices of the court, the incorruptible bailiff, and the new guest justices sitting in on the panel. I am a player in our campaign that is being run by my fiancé who is DM'ing for the first time and isn't super familiar with a lot of the rules. As such, I do my best to help out when I may know something he doesn't so he can make a fair ruling. Now we have another player, our regular DM, who knows the game fairly well and metagames a little too much (let's call him M). He will also try and use cantrips in a way that I feel is trying to abuse their intended use. A big example just happend this week. A little backstory, we had an opportunity to draw from the Deck of Many Things and Fates and one of our players drew the card that caused an immediate, heavy storm on our location and destroyed the building we were in. We were able to escape through a different card drawn by me, but had to travel back to the ruined building as it belonged to another party member and some things of ours had to be left behind. The issue starts when we get their and M wants to repair the entire house with Mending. I argued that the tear/break it can fix can be no longer than 1ft in either dimension and could not repair the house. He responded that he could just take the time to cast it over and over again until the house was repaired, but I feel like this an abuse of what is intended by the cantrip and it isn't powerful enough to do accomplish a feat of that magnitude. My DM agrees that it probably shouldn't be able to repair a house but is unsure how to rule it. So the question is, am I being to much of a sticker and need to lighten up or is M trying to take advantage of a new DM?

Makeitsweat

May it please the court I am dming a homebrew sea faring campaign(think one piece) my pcs are level 12 and have been given an insane amount of magic items as well as, many boons. One player hunted down and killed an npc cleric of Thor at the last altar in the world to Thor because the cleric said he wasn’t a hero. The PC did give the cleric a chance to live after humiliating him however, I felt like a cleric of Thor wouldn’t accept death being humiliated and stood to fight in which the pc finished the attack killing him. I had Thor come down with an army of valkyries to get revenge for his cleric a few in game weeks later. In an attempt to kill the PC only to have Loki save the PC by creating an illusion that Thor couldn’t see through in his rage. Gods have interfered in the past with an ocean god saving two pcs in the past. Anyway the pcs were critical of this, thinking it was too much for a god to get involved in this thinking that he had to right to kill the PC who killed his cleric. Was i wrong to bring such a heavy hand? For background information the pc has risked the lives of the party many times while the cleric has healed and revived the party members countless times while just trying to save the world. The cleric when reunited with his original party briefly betrayed the player party feeling like he owed his original party who saved his life and he rejoined the player party mid fight by healing them then attacking his original party. The cleric then went on a redemption quest where the pc hunted him down by himself traveling across the world and killed him.

Don Kianian

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices, the always-lowly bailiff, and Dice Christ who sees all, I submit this case for review and judgment, should it and may it please the court. A suspect was fleeing on horseback through a small town and so I went to pursue as the spry monk of the group. I used my Step of the Wind to double my jump distance and get the extra movement so I could parkour to the roof of a nearby building, run across it, and then jump down on top of our suspect, knocking him off of his horse and pinning him to the ground. With my Movement and my Bonus Action Dash I was able to get to the edge of the roof right above him, Batman style. My ascension to Batmonk status was nigh... This is where my plan fell through. When I went to leap down from the building, my DM said I had no more movement. I asked him if I could use the Movement given to me by taking a Dash action to jump down from the roof on top of the bad guy and knock him off, but my DM said that I used my Dash as the Bonus Action so I couldn't use my Action to move as well. And because I was out of movement I could not leap down from the roof, so I ended up just kind of hanging out there on the roof. Should I have been able to tackle this dude to the ground, or was the DM right in telling me to cool my jets? The way I understand it, each turn you have your Movement plus your Action plus a Bonus Action. If you take the Dash Action, that is basically using your Movement and then using your Action to do your Movement again. Step of the Wind allows you to Dash as a Bonus Action, so if I'm understanding this all correctly you can get 3X your movement if you use a Dash Action and Step of the Wind in one turn, right? Would greatly appreciate your ruling in this matter. Thank you and I will accept any punishment you deem fit.

Alejandro the Golden Dragon

Honorable justices. May It please the court I am the DM (first time) of a political campaign in which the party will be helping a political candidate to make magic accessible for all the humanoids. I'm still in the planing phase however and I'm thinking I will have the candidate assassinated in session 1. Is it wrong to have the candidate die just as a history plot or should the dice still have a say? I seek your guidance.

Annika

May it please the court, I present the case of Lyra and the magic beans: My gloomstalker ranger PC (who adds +9 to initiative) was trying to get out of a secret basement chamber with no doors having freed 2 NPCs who were going to be sacrificed in there for a ritual. After trying to escape for a bit, I planted one of my magic beans (from the bag of beans) to see if I could potentially creatively use a random result to escape. I rolled 95 on a d100 and it caused a 60 foot base PYRAMID to erupt from the ground and through the building. My DM said that the two NPCs got immediately crushed against the ceiling by the pyramid rising, and didn’t allow me to roll initiative against the rising building or do anything to attempt and save them. I wanted to try to feed them the last two bites of my gaseous form apple so they could escape through the cracks formed by the apex of the pyramid and save their lives. Was the DM unfair to not allow me to even try to save them, or should I just mourn silently for my friends that I inadvertently killed?

Austin Johnson

May it please the court and the best boy bailiff, I have a player who wanted to play a Grung. I reluctantly said sure. But he keeps forgetting that his skin is poisonous and getting in trouble for poisoning people and horses. (He has killed enough horses to make hardwon blush.) He thinks I'm punishing him for playing a monstrous race and not letting him have fun, but I insist I'm just sticking to the rules and there are serious downsides to being a cannibal Cthulhu worshipping frog man who is covered in nerve toxin that keeps touching horses. Am I actually keeping him from having fun?

PattonH

May it please the court. O honourable supreme crit justices I come to you today with a case of misaligned alignment. My friend claims his fighter is good aligned but his preferred fighting style is grappling enemies and skewering them to death on his spiked armor. He pretends to use a polearm primarily as a ploy and gleefully drops it to grapple when enemies close in. I argue the sheer brutality, cruelty and underhanded nature of this style along with his glee towards it precludes goodness even if he has mostly used it on hobgoblins and a hydra once when he was enlarged with our Wizard’s magic. Am I being a knob or is this neutral behavior at best?

Boofoe Dibeppo

May it please the fake bailiff Emily and maybe the judges of the court. I the player bring to the you case of the trigger happy pirate. This is my first time playing dnd and the first time for my dm dming. I play a half-orc celestial warlock pirate( Captain Bubbles) in the campaign. I took the pact weapon subclass and pick up the arcane gunslinger invocation to be able to summon guns for my pact weapon and the gunner feat, which allows me to not have to use a turn to reload my gun. Now here’s my problem. I wanted to pick up the invocation thirsting blade which allows my pact weapon to attack twice in one turn. However my DM believes that I can’t use the invocation for my guns because in the name of the invocation it says blade and also that for the gunner feat that I am reloading when it’s not my turn, so I wouldn’t be able to attack twice. Is my DM being unreasonable or am I a little to trigger happy?

hell

honorable judges and divinely-inspired bailiff, i come to you today asking for a final, be-all-end-all decision on the question of double resistances. when coming up with character ideas for a curse of strahd campaign in which i now play an aasimar barbarian, i wanted to play a storm soul barbarian fire genasi who primarily used the desert effects, thinking that it would essentially create 'double resistance' (racial resistance to fire damage + class resistance to fire damage). my dm thought, however, that my idea of 'stacking' resistances was stupid, and said she would only ever allow halved damage rather than double-halved damage. is this a case where rule-of-cool and the inherent synergy of races and classes that seem to align (i.e. that have similar themes like fire) should win out over what i assume is rules-as-written? i somewhat expect to lose, but hey, you don't ask you don't get right? :)

Decker Ames

May it please the court, especially the most honorable guest judges. I am currently DM'ing a game for two of my oldest friends, and I'm quickly realizing a problem- they're both bugs bunny's. They're Axford level scary players and I don't know how long it is before im sucked under the wave of Acme Anvils. Any suggestion on how to control their off the wall ideas without flat out telling them no? Sincerely, A pleading DM

Shannon Pender

Most honorable justices and esteemed baliff, may it please the court, I present to you the case of a Schrödinger's cat dragon. I was in a virtual campaign DM-ed by a friend of a friend who was big on rules and hated that all of us wanted to roleplay. In the final battle (which he insisted he WANTED to be a TPK...a bad sign), our fighter had a weapon that did extra damage to undead creatures. But, the DM refused to tell him if the dragon was undead, and insisted that he just roll the damage anyways. This turned into a full-on argument that the fighter gave up on. Eventually, poetically, the DM nearly TPK-ed everyone except for the fighter, who had been kept up by a single goodberry, and was able to deliver the final blow. But even after it was over, the DM refused to tell us if the dragon was undead. Were we right to demand this? Or was the DM, for the first time all campaign, trying to be “immersive” and stop us from meta-gaming? (Presented as extra evidence to the court against this DM: When we were preparing to fight this dragon, I went to buy healing potions. The DM decided to price gouge me, demanding three times the normal cost of the potion, even though I was literally going to save this shopkeeper from an apocalyptic event. He refused to back down even when the rest of the party came to my defense against this shopkeeper, and I ended up just paying the insane price to get out of there. After many months of every session feeling combative and like the DM didn’t want us to have fun, I was just ready to kill a dragon and be done forever)

Alex DiFiore

May it please the court! I DM’d a 1-shot for friends who have played once before, and one friend who is new (character name: Trent). Wanting to keep things simple and fun for everyone, I made a really straight forward story: hack & slash through a forest, defeat an evil Necromancer possessing the animals in the forest. However, at the end when the BBEG Chad Gopher revealed he was the one who hired them to enter the forest because he needed their divine nature magic to perfect his formula, Trent said “Okay, your plan sounds cool, I’m joining the bad guy now.” I told my friend that Chad didn’t need any more henchmen, Chad didn’t seem interested in the offer, and Chad said “well if you don’t care, i need to kill you so I can use your arm.” Immediately, my friend described to us in gruesome detail how he cuts off his own arm while everyone watches. I told him are you sure because you’ll die. He said yes. Trent bled out on the ground, and then he freaked out when we moved on with the fight. He asked why chad wouldn’t help and I said that Chad explicitly said he didn’t want your help or need you alive. He was then confused why the bad guy’s magic wasn’t resurrecting him, as well as why the party wasn’t helping either. Not only was he unhealable at this point, but he was warned multiple times, but he audibly turned coat, so no one wanted to heal him. Finally he got pissed at me specifically and told me that I had it out for him and that I was being unfair by targeting his character. Was I being unfair? Should I have not let his character do that? Should I have done anything differently? PS: It was also my birthday if that affects anything

Madeleine D

We’re all thinking of Caldwell in this difficult time and hope he passes the SD card soon.

Forrest Johnson

May it please the court, The ultimate BBEG has finally revealed himself, and begun the monologue. Johnny Knucks, Barbarian/Pro wrestler, screamed “Fuck your speech!” and leapt across the chasm, whereupon BBEG used Time Stop, a 9th level spell. He then maneuvered a Sphere of Annihilation into J. Knucks’ path and cast Power Word Kill on another PC. J. Knucks was annihilated instantly, no possibility of revivify. Now, rules as written, he should have taken a certain amount of damage and kept on going rather than being insta-killed. I did not fight his fate, however, as I had a backup character ready to jump in. My question for the court: Should I have stood up for my character? Or was I right to allow the DM to have his (admittedly) awesome moment of taking down the party tank? Respectfully, Dilf D’Lorien

Bryant

May it tickle the sweeties, please the court, and remind the bailiff of his lowly station: A very charming Tabaxi rogue who beloved himself to be the greatest actor who ever lived was engaged in the burglary of a heavily-trapped mansion when he encountered a Rug of Smothering. In the course of fighting this rug, the charming cat Macavity was enveloped by the rug. He used his claws to fight off the rug but the dm ruled that half the damage inflicted on the rug would be transferred to Macavity . This is in line with the rules as written, but I (the player) felt that since Macavity was inflicting the damage from inside the rug, the damage transfer shouldn’t apply. This damage transfer killed Macavity and the DM felt this made the world a better place. In this case, do the wise justices and foolish bailiff believe that the rules should be applied as written, or was the light of a promising feline thespian cruelly snuffed out before its time?

Tocayo

May it please the court, especially the humble substitute bailiff, the Players Justice and the new young prodigy Justice Zac Oyama. So the DM I play with has decided to introduce the variant encumbrance rule many sessions into the game as we are approaching 4th level. He claims this new rule is to further challenge us so we can't just horde magical weapons and whatnot, which I get. The problem lies in that my character (a tiefling hexblade warlock) has the highest STR score of the party... an 11. All four other party members (Bard, monk, druid and rogue) have a negative mod to STR which means basically our whole party can barely even carry their starting equipment now. Are we right to be slightly frustrated that anything we pick up will most likely make us encumbered? Or is this a fair counter to the classic case of the adventurers hoarding magical items and we are all just being rather uncouth and unruly? I await your judgement, and if deemed guilty, your punishment.

Slippery Pete

Esteemed Supreme Crit Justices, and the Heroine Baliff Axford, may it please the court; The case of the forfeiting player... I was running a new campaign for three buds who I had played with before... During our second session the kenku celestial warlock, Hush, decided to lay prone in front of three oozes. The session was going well, and everyone seemed to be having a good time... I was intrigued by the move. It became clear after like one round of Hush laying probe and taking no actions... that... well... they had decided that they were giving up without communicating to the rest of the party. Hush died that combat. Only one PC survived the ooze encounter (the other PC was a tortle and died while hiding in their shell). Hush didn't say much after the session other than that he was bored with the character. Hush left the house without saying goodbye, without eating the pizza they ordered, and then left all relevant chat threads. Supreme Crits please judge me. Should I have pulled the plug on the encounter/session when I saw that one of my players was sabotaging, self or otherwise. I feel bad for playing it out, but also... like... what?

Tim S.

May it please the court, I present to you the case of the squirrel monk's prepared potions. Recently a good friend of mine DM'd a Redwall-esque one-shot, where all three players played as level 6 Small woodland creature monks (inspired by certain Hexbloods), who run a cheese-making abbey in the woods and all have names like Brother Pecorino and Abbess Paneer. I know, it was amazing, and she did a great job. Well, we kicked butt. The DM did a great job upping the stakes, but three level 6 monks, as you know, can surprisingly shut down a lot of bosses. However, to up the stakes an NPC (Sister Havarti) was knocked out by a surprise attack. One of our players asked if, since we were in our abbey home if she could run to her room and grab some healing potions. She argued that since she was proficient with an herbalism kit and had lived at the abbey for years, she must have a stockpile. The DM countered that since this was a one shot she would need to take the required days to create one now, so in the heat of battle was impossible. After a bit of grumbling, we all just moved on and it was fine (Sister Havarti lived to fight another day; though sadly Abbess Paneer was lost). What would you have done in this situation? Was the DM right to say the player couldn't count on potions made before the campaign started? I'm not sure what I would have done in her shoes!

kody lanca

May it please the court I’m a new DM and I’m Dming a homebrew treasure hunters campaign. I believe I have a crybaby player but they think I’m too harsh. I told my players that it would be a lot of dungeon delving and puzzle solving. One of my players decided to be an Aarakocra (Hopefully murph already thinks this guys an ass). In session 1 of the campaign they had to navigate a swamp in order to find the magical tomb that appeared over night. A bridge was broken and I had planned the first player to take the leap would get attacked by a giant snake unless they were able to see it with a perception/investigation check. They rolled a Nat 1. The aarakocra decided he would fly across the bridge I asked “how high up are you going?” He said “as close to the floor as possible”. So as he flies across the broken bridge he gets attacked by the snake. Apparently I had put that in there to punish him for being able to fly. A few sessions later the party are trying to retrieve some stolen treasure from a gang of bandits. They have a warehouse and it’s heavily guarded. The 6ft Aarakocra with a 20ft wingspan decides that they want to fly into the air to scope things out. I warned them that they would be spotted as well he’s a giant bird person and they have lookouts on the roof. He done it anyway so he was shot at by the archers keeping watch and the reduced him to 0hp and he then took fall damage, he didn’t die (unfortunately). Apparently this was harsh as I didn’t ask all of them to roll initiative before the archers attacked. I’m rambling on but am I a harsh DM that picks on my Aarakocra player or are they just a crybaby that doesn’t like getting hit? Thank you kindly Kody

David Moelker

May it please the Honorable, most Venerable, Greatly esteemed, incorruptible, highly renowned Supreme Judge Murphy, the Judges Wilson, Tannar and Oyama. Also If the disgraced Bailiff is willing to grace me with a hearing. I was running in a cold Tundra for a three player party when they got into a situation where a player got stuck Under some thick Ice. They were a Druid so they decided to try and cast create and destroy water to get rid of the ice. I told them it was Ice not water, but they called me an idiot while eating a piece of pizza with pineapple on it. I argued that the spell would say if they could use it on ice especially because it mentions fog, but they simply told me that ice is just cold water and how dare I use temperature to stop their spell. I than argued that Treestride can't be used on a blade of grass even though they were both plants. But of course at this point they were showing me the periodic table. Of course as always happens when looking up rules our game ground to a halt. And too top it off my Goliath pc friend ate the rest of the pizza.... So my question is twofold, if I pay for pizza should I get to eat some? And secondly how far can we twist the wording of a spell? should the player win this case I would also like to bring in to evidence that this was an Aarakocra player.

Sydney

Thrice-honored Crit Justices and Almighty (Substitute) Bailiff, I present to you the case of Contingency V. Kraken. I play a fairly high-level Half-Elf Wizard who just got access to 6th-level spells, and learned the spell Contingency, which basically lets you pre-cast a spell to go off under specific conditions. The contingency she chose was that Dimension Door would activate upon being knocked unconscious, and would teleport her directly next to the bard, our only healer; this was privately agreed upon by the DM beforehand. Later, in a fight with a kraken, my wizard was knocked unconscious, so I spoke up that my Contingency would come into effect and teleport me out of danger. However, the rogue of the party said that Contingency couldn't be activated after being knocked unconscious, and after a bit of debate between myself, the DM, and the rogue, it was decided that my Contingency wouldn't come into effect and I would remain swallowed by the kraken. This led to the death of our fighter/barbarian, who died pulling my wizard out of the kraken's stomach, though was able to be revivified by our bard. My problem isn't that Contingency can't be used after being knocked unconscious, it's that the DM and I had already agreed that it would work differently and a separate party member paid the price for it. I leave it to you, judges and almighty bailiff, to decide whether or not Contingency should have saved me, or I was just being a stickler against the rules.

Howling Salt Sam

To the Honorable Justices of the Supreme Crit and Replacement Bae-liff Emily, may it please the court! I come to you with a case of a player hiding behind the "that's what my character would do" defense! This occurred in a campaign about 5 years ago and I still think about it. I was the DM and one of my players, let's call him Clarence, was playing a young teenaged Bard who I’ll call Kyle. Clarence was the most experienced player in a party of mainly newer players, and as such I was hoping his presence would help bring the others into the fold. Cut to the end of the first arch where the party rescued the beer brewing town of Loamlock from an evil Gnome wine snob who had stolen their source of water. The party had exceeded expectations and even defeated a hobgoblin warlord in a very challenging (and mistakenly imbalanced) encounter. I had planned for the party to be welcomed back into the city by the city’s leadership, the Circle of Ten, a team of ex-adventurers each representing a different class. The intent was for each player to get a scene with their respective counterpart in the Circle of Ten and do some fun one on one RP to give everyone a moment to shine. When I got to Clarence, his PC, Kyle, met with the Bardic leader of the city, Gilta Glindlehop. When Gilta asked about Kyle’s successful adventure, Kyle proceeded to talk about how it was lame and fighting goblins is boring. He said it was a baby adventure for noobs and that he was ready to do some real fighting with dragons. He basically dragged my whole first arch in character! To add to this, Clarence had flaked on a couple sessions in our first arch which is frustrating on its own. I tried to stay in character and say that “all adventurers need to start somewhere”, but he did not let up. Eventually, I blew up on him and said that he was an asshole for shitting on my story, and that maybe he would have liked it more if he had made an effort to go to our sessions. I called him a dick and used some other colorful language to get my point across. Clarence was shocked. He said that he was in character, and that his character Kyle is a shitty teenager, and he was merely doing what his character would do in that situation. Feeling awkward about my blow up, I apologized and we moved on, but I’ve always felt like I was in the right in this situation. Maybe Clarence was in character, but he still designed Kyle to be shitty. Justices, I accept whatever judgement you give to me. As a side note, Clarence eventually dropped from the campaign over his flakiness, and the rest of the party stayed on for another 2 years eventually getting to level 20!

Frankenchin

May it please the court, the sexy Justices and handsome-yet-delightfully-simple Bailiff, I offer you a murder case: The Murder of Tik Tok the Nude Sorcerer. During our long Western-style 5e Campaign, Tik Tok the Sorcerer has escaped death on various occasions..except the most recent one. During a fight against a Gigantic Jackalope (using purple worm stats), Tik Tok was swallowed and near death before he had the idea to use a spell to do enough damage to be regurgitated. He wanted to use heat metal on the only thing he was wearing (note: WEARING): his pink cowboy boots with spurs on. Since he was restrained inside the rabbit's guts I gave the opportunity to do a slight of hand check to remove his boots and toss them further into the worm and then use the spell...to which he failed. He still wanted to do the spell and I allowed it to do damage to the rabbit too AND HIMSELF! Surprise surprise he did enough damage to knock himself out and failed all of his deathsaves too (but he did get regurgitated). Tik Tok thinks I should've let him take his shoes off as a free action which would have prevented all this self afflicted harm from happening. Did I do the right thing? Who rightfully murdered Tik Tok the Nude Sorcerer?

Hemlock

Dearest Crit Justices and impeccably handsome and well-groomed bailiff Jake, we are playing a campaign set solely in a large city that is ruled through 10 guilds each with different goals and schemes. Well the party was hired by the leader of the evil guild (Rakdos) directly to help destroy the city. Well, I'm still loyal to my guild and my guild's leader (Lazav) contacts me telling me to get dirt on Rakdos to hand over to the cop guild. Long story short, we rob a bank, get a genie's lamp, and I pass stealth checks to secretly wish for said dirt. However, now I'm suspicious to my party members and when we meet back up to talk with Rakdos, my party members are rolling insight against everything I say and when I eventually fail, SQUISH, instantly killed by Rakdos. No save, nothing. The next session, the rest of the party decide to turn against Rakdos and start plotting to kill him. Supreme Crit Justices and bailiff, with a beautiful smile, Jake was I treated unfairly or am I missing something?

Parker

May it please the fair and mighty justices, those newly appointed: worthy to judge and prove themselves and Emily. I play a side character in a cousin's campain. The DM (my cousin) and all of her players are pretty inexperienced. I'm certainly not Google, but I have had a good bit more exposure to 5e, and often know rules quicker than people can look them up. No one has said anything about it, but I fear that I'm limiting my cousin's creativity/improv when people ask ME for what the rules say. How should I go about helping the game move along while letting my cousin run the game the way she thinks it should? I am prepared to accept punishment deemed fair.

Taco

Honorable Justices of the Supreme Crit, and disgraced Bailiff I bring you a case from a humble player. We are a party working for a thieves guild and have found ourselves at odds with the cities adventurers league a few times, known for their green armor. We were sent to investigate a mine and saw a group of people standing outside the mine. I asked to roll a perception check as we approached and rolled a 31, and the only details I received were that they were wearing green robes and talking to each other, so I did the only reasonable thing and ripped off the patch of two mastiffs from my robe of useful items, twin cast dragons breath at fourth level, and sent my puppies to say hi before roasting these adventurers. They all failed their dex saves and were all wizards, dooming them to instant death at the hands of my faithful hounds. Later on the DM informed us that they had valuable information about what was going on inside the mines, but we killed them before talking to them and that the dragons breath had destroyed the written orders they had on them as well. I understand that I may have been a little hasty, but they were from a group who has always been hostile to us before, and I feel like I should’ve at least heard something useful having rolled a 31 on perception, or the DM should’ve made this information come from neutral NPCs. This trigger happy sorcleric humbly awaits your ruling.

An_Armed_Bear

May it please the court, I once DM'd a short campaign that centered around exploring a multi-dimensional mega dungeon. The basic premise was that the party would enter a cave to a magic portal room, and enter a portal to what was essentially a random one-shot adventure. Upon finishing this adventure, they would receive a reward and level-up and return to the portal room, where they would have a chance to return to the nearby town to rest and restock before taking on the next challenge. At one point in the campaign, the party was challenged in town by a rival adventuring group also exploring the dungeon to see who the better team was. The party accepted, with both teams wagering a magic item. The players got whomped, as I intentionally had made this rival party a higher level, more cohesive team of my own player characters. The rival party took a powerful magic item the players had just recently gotten from the dungeon, and a few of my players got really mad that I had put them into a losing situation to take their new item away. It soured the mood for the rest of the session, though they did eventually get over it. My intention was for the party to learn from the loss and eventually get strong enough to beat the rival party in a rematch and win back their item, which they eventually did near the end of the campaign, but I wonder if I could have handled the initial fight better. Is it okay to put your players in those kinds of losing, feel-bad situations to give them a more satisfying payoff later on, or was I just abusing my power as a DM and bullying my players?

Emily Afdahl

May it please the court, and all of its wonderful judges, bailiffs, jury members, and stenographers: In our most recent two sessions of our campaign, my PC and the rest of the party were going through a forest to find the evil hideout of pig cultists who were bugging us. (Note: not real pigs, just people who wore all pink, wore masks/helmets with pig features, and drove pink tanks) We arrived at a fork in the path and successfully defeating the minions (or as they’re called, pigmen) standing in the way. They mentioned the middle path, and how it ‘wasn’t their business’, before they fortunately passed from unnatural causes. Then, after a short rest, one of the NPCs in our party suggested that we go down the middle path. So we did. And then we encountered another reoccurring problem in our campaign, a CR 11 demogorgon. The only other encounter we had with it, we ran from, after almost killing my character, and this time, we couldn’t run. Our level 4 party somehow managed to defeat this CR 11 monster through a combination of temp HP, AOE spells, constant heals from my cleric and the bard, sheer luck, and me constantly checking the rules to see if something was even legal. (Which I did a lot) My character and her girlfriend were both knocked down from one to two hits from it, with the other character being 1 more damage away from being instantly killed (wizards, am I right?) Needless to say, we were mad at our DM. Two different NPCs recommended that we took the middle path, but he says that ‘we still chose to go down it without looking at the other two paths’. So here is the question: are we justified in our anger, or does our DM’s argument outweigh the party’s? This argument has not severed any relationships, and our DM has done an amazing job balancing things and creating a compelling story, I am just interested in how the honorable court justices see this case. Sincerely, Another Emily who loves to mess with her DM <3

Robert McDaniel

May it please the Supreme Crit Justices, and the ever humble plaintiff Jake: I am somewhat the offender her. One of my best friends has decided to run a homebrew campaign and invited me to play. Orignally I was going to play a NE Kobold that had been a dragon, but through a powerful ritual had been bound to the smaller, weaker body. We worked out how it could work, including ascension and breaking the curse. But I backed out of the character because I realized I was essentially playing a character that would become a BBEG. I feel bad because I wasted the DMs time preparing a character arc that took a lot of prep. I lay myself before the court and willingly accept any punishment.

Nathaniel Letterman

To the honorable Justices and the respectable Bailiff May it please the court My wife and I are playing a homebrew chef campaign her as Rordon Gamsay barbarian chef and me as Balton Rown alchemist chef and we made several flash cards in place of a DM so we could encounter things the other wrote separately so we still have a bit of surprise during the game. One such set of cards is a set we made together but randomly draw from which is Chefs to compete against that are based on other real star chefs but here's where we differ I wanted to balance out their stats so they'd all be different types of challenges she wants them to fully portray the star we model them after the matter was settled in her corner but I like a second opinion.

Stephanie Karisny

May it please the Court and the right honorable bailiff, I humbly submit myself for judgement as a DM. I am running one of the published adventures (Rise of Tiamat) and, while I've added quite a bit of additional content to tie my PCs' backgrounds into the story, I've generally tried to run the actual encounters as written. One of these encounters involves the party meeting a monster specifically described as having a Magic Jar, which is not one of the abilities that's normally in that monster's statblock, and the module made no other implication that the monster would have that ability. I ran it as if it did have the Magic Jar spell, thinking it would make for a more memorable encounter, and did it ever - the Barbarian ended up getting possessed and critting on the Sorcerer like three or four times in a row, using her sentient magic greatsword that prevents the target from being healed. The Sorcerer got cut down before the rest of the party could subdue the Barbarian, and she was one death save away from being dead for good (or at least as dead as level 14 players can be) before the Cleric came through with a clutch Spare the Dying (not technically healing, so I ruled the greatsword's effect wasn't blocked). I thought it was a great encounter at first, but now I am plagued with doubt and guilt over whomping my party with an overpowered quasi-homebrew monster. Did I unfairly whomp the party? I pronate myself before the court for your divine judgement.

Michael Kessler

May it Please the Court (and, of course, Disgraceliff Axford): One of my players has essentially trapped me into letting them play a character that is obnoxiously complicated, and I'd like to know how okay it is for me to just kill him off and make him start over. His character is a changeling with the souls of six characters bound to it. Each soul is a different level 15 class: there's a fighter, wizard, sorcerer, rogue, cleric, and warlock. The soul that he plays as is randomly chosen once per in-game week by rolling a d6. He also has an artifact that lets him choose a specific character for 1 hour a day. Sounds cool, right? Well, we've been playing for a year, and the player has NO IDEA how to play ANY of these characters. Last week he rolled the wizard for the first time, and told me "I never picked any spells or a subclass." I'm sure I don't need to tell you that it's impossible to build a level 15 wizard in the middle of a session. I tried making him reroll, but he just decided not to cast any spells during the session. It's the same story with every other class. How does sneak attack work again? Don't I have something that lets me reroll saves, or is that the other guy? How many magic items can I have? Whose spell slots did I use? At this point we waste so much time on it that the rest of the players get annoyed every time he brings it up. I have an idea for a way to ice him involving a revenant made up of the former bodies of his character's souls. If I design an encounter around it that's only 99% likely to kill him, is that okay? I throw myself on the mercy of the People's Court.

Dylan Voth

May it please the court: the case of the powerful portents. In the climax of our campaign, a dragon politely declines to hand over his hoard to the players. When dealing with the dragon, the book states that any intimidation check automatically fails, and any deception would require the entire party to roll deception (even if they don’t directly take part in the deception) against the dragon's insight. The wizard, using a portent roll of 20, reasons that the dragon could stand to lose half of his riches. He then uses another portent roll of 1 for however the dragon will react. How would the court have proceeded? Should this work? Is it depriving the players of a final boss fight? After a brief break (insert sobbing noises here), I admitted I was womped, and allowed the players to walk away with half the hoard without any additional rolls (the wizard was ecstatic that it worked). I brought in another baddie as a final boss fight.

Erotic Adventures & Fables

I just want you to know that you all do a really great job. Your work is appreciated and enjoyed.

Steven Hoffart

May it please the court. I play a Yuanti Druid, they are a snake person with a snake tail, head but a human torso. My Druid, Bodhi, wanted to steal a necklace from someone and pretended to trip and reach out to catch themselves, but stealing the necklace in the process. I rolled a nat 20 but My DM said by no way would anyone believe a snake tripped. I argued that if there was a bump it would still cause a tripping like effect on my human bodied creature. Who is right? Should Bodhi have failed this check?

David Heintz

The players judge Hon. Lou Wilson AND Supreme Crit Justice Zac Oyama in the same episode!!?!? Y'all turned a thorn back to a rose REAL QUICK

Beav

A MODIFIED DICE DILEMMA May it please the court and the butts of those who sit upon the hallowed bench (and Jake too if there’s time), I am conflicted regarding a bbeg I’ve designed for a homebrew campaign that takes place in a magical New York City in the 1920’s. The ultimate villain is a mastermind halfling gangster by the name of “Lucky La Flora.” A major aspect of his backstory is that he trapped the god of luck in a gem and constantly siphons power from them. In addition to several other feats and abilities, I had originally decided to represent this aspect of godlike luck by making all of his rolls with a modified d20 i bought off amazon. It is not weighted but does not contain a 1 or a 2 and instead has two 19’s and two 20’s on it. However, my conscious is beginning to eat at me as my players draw closer to the final battle. So your Honors, i ask you: Am i spitting in the face of dice christ if i chose to roll with this powerful d20 or is this, in fact, a rad mechanic? Please guide me in this moral quandary.

Stephen peterson

Most Honkorable Judges of the court, I bring you this most appropriate case for our Honkorable Guest Judges, as an impartial player at the table. I play in a Unsleeping City based heist campaign where we have been playing an arc at level 14. We ended up in a very narrow, winding dungeon off a subway station in Manhatten, and reached a corner around which was an entrance to a massive room. We clocked an ambush waiting for us before some of the party made it around the corner. Because it was a heist campaign, it was a rogue heavy party with one bard. The bard was at the back of the line, not yet around the corner while a few rogues took the front. The bard tried to dimension door into the room knowing it was a massive open room around the corner because the DM wouldn't let them past the rest of the party in this narrow corridor with their movement. The DM claimed that because (spoiler alert) Brennan didn't let you (most honkorable Judge and Baliff Axford) dimension door into the back of the Arcade during the Biz fight in D20's Fantasy High, the bard couldn't do it in this situation. But in Eldermorne ep. 29, (spoiler alert) Fia used dimension door to get back into the room with Zirk and Walder. My question is simple, can you dimension door someplace that you can't see if you know where you're going? For context: The fight proceeded without any major surprise, we filed in one by one and beat the encounter rather easily with mediocre rolls. I await your reply and will make sure 100% the punishment from the court is handed down to the offending party. Honk honk.

John Niska

May it please the court, and the humble bailiff. Due to some contextual changes during our campaign, I have recently changed from a death domain cleric to a twilight domain cleric. At level 6, the twilight domain gains the ability of flight equal to your moving speed proficiency times per day (in my case 3) with the limit being that you must be in dim or dark light. However, at level 2 you gain the twilight sanctuary ability as part of channel divinity. Which is worded, “As an action, you present your holy symbol, and a sphere of twilight emanates from you. The sphere is centered on you, has a 30-foot radius, and is filled with dim light. The sphere moves with you, and it lasts for 1 minute or until you are incapacitated or die.” After discussing this with my DM, we are unsure how to rule whether the twilight sanctuary would indeed provide dim light sufficient for flight. The other members of the party think that it would be insufficient, whereas my DM and I believe it would be due to the rule of cool, and the limits of the number of uses of both channel divinity and the proficiency bonus. Thank you for your consideration and may the baba yaga not take you this night!

Matthew A Newkirk

May it please the court and the sometimes honorable bailiff Jake. Some friends and I play a campaign where we are sentient children's toys. During our first fight with our big bad he was flying around on a drone. My character (a sorcerer and warlock) used an older unearthed arcana spell (that the dm gave me) called "remote access" that allows me to take control of electronic devices as if I was using them in my hands. This spell does not specify that any skill checks are necessary to operate the device. The dm said that because this drone was a sort of mount that was bonded to the big bad, I was going to need to make an arcana check to control it. I argued that if the electronic device was not being actively controlled by the bad guy using the same spell I should be able to control it according to the language of the spell. I would love to get the opinion of the highest court in the land. Your humble plaintiff Matt N.

BigPidgey

Honourable, venerable, magnificent and all knowing judges, the player's lord and saviour Lou, and hot boy Jake; I had an issue that struck me right in the middle of suffering DM drop after a session. The players were fighting in the guild forest in my world, and for a little scenery I placed a statue in the forest. The party was instantly taken by the statue and half of them wanted to investigate that over the objective. I told them it was a regular statue, but they continued to investigate, even leaving party members behind to face a very tough boss so they could look at the statue. The fight spanned two sessions, and after the first I told them away from table that it's just a statue, despite this the second session was much the same. I had to pull a lot of punches to not TPK them because of them not focussing on the fight. After the second session while suffering from the usual "I'm a bad DM" vibe, I brought up the statue and one player said it should have done something, and that as DM I should have made the statue do something. Should I have made the statue do something? PS there was also a magical red glow behind the trees that summoned the boss which they ignored completely, I gave them something to play with which was ignored for the statue. Go figure.

Amelia George

To all justices – new or returning, disgraced or otherwise – and bailiff Emily. May it please the court. I am running a ski trip campaign (inspired by Hot Boy Summer) for my three friends playing as college kids on their winter break. I had planned to lead the players into a cave with an ice mephit to discover some lore, but instead the party reduced it to 0 hp (specifically requesting non-lethal damage), wanting to carry it home and would therefore no longer investigate the cave. I was and am new to DM-ing, so I panicked and invoked the ice mephit’s ability “death burst”, meaning that it explodes on death. My paladin was distraught because he was trying so hard to not kill anyone, and I feel like I railroaded my players. I fear the fate of the poor ice mephit may await me in the punishments, but I am prepared to hear my sentence.

Noah Kyle

Honorable justices and mega sick god-lord jake: this is a case where I might be unreasonable, but I’m unable to be objective with myself. I am running my players through a modified bahumia, and I think it’s going pretty well. They were on the way from the outer ring of Ezry to meet and stop professor duttle once and for all. Before they stopped at his however, they went to the police station. What my players did not know was that duttle, in my version, had locked his door with a passcode, and it was written on a note on the police chief’s desk. They were traveling with an npc, who was the only one who ended up going into the police chief’s office, where this note was, but since the party did not know that there was a locked door with a passcode, I did not have the npc roll perception to find the code. Here’s the rub: after my players found out that duttle had locked his door and found a different way to find the passcode, I told them that there was another copy of it in the police precinct just as a point of conversation during a break. One of my players was highly irked that the npc did not find this passcode, saying that it seemed like a plothole, since he was in the room with it. This discussion held up our session for about ten minutes, and I was miffed at him for the rest of the night. Honorable justices, was it a plothole that I did not have an npc roll to find a piece of paper he did not know existed?

Bridget Adams

Honorable justices and hardworking bailiff: after a recent session, I got a private message from the DM saying my character had been charmed by the enemy and I needed to follow their directions but not make it obvious to my allies that I was charmed. I said I would do that, but asked for clarification as to how I got charmed, as my character has high wisdom and resistance to being charmed. The DM said they had rolled for me, and even with advantage I had failed. My question to you is this: was that some bullshit? Should I have insisted I got to roll my own saves?

Jacob Nixon

Most honorable judges (and the slimy, putrid, moral carcass of the missing bailiff Jake). May it please the court: I come to you with hat in hand begging not only for a verdict but for an edict all DM's may be called to abide by. In a current campaign with relatively new players I drew inspiration from Judge Oyama, setting up an arc surrounding a mysterious yet wonderous "arcane factory". Think Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory mixed with the Obelisk from the Rotating Heroes Podcast. My players were but one team competing to inherit the factory and all the power it held, but there was a notable twist to the Wonka-esque story. The proprietor of the factory would often give bardic inspiration to my players, cutting words on rude NPCs, and in one case very clearly murdered an extremely rude Tabaxi in cold blood. He was a goofy, goofy character however, and my players merely wrote this off as my own creativity and an extension of Gene Wilder's indifference in the original movie. Then, a dark and stormy cloud came over the sessions. Slowly this Wonka of a man began to turn against my party, culminating in a near TPK. They claimed foul, as I was clearly channeling a beloved childhood experience and Wonka was never actually a bad character. I claimed the NPC was clearly sadistic and unhinged the entire arc! My question is simple. When clearly drawing inspiration from a beloved character, should the DM be held responsible if their player's judgement is clouded by the source material? Subverting an expectation is a great hook, but I see how my portrayal of the BBEG may have lead them to believe he was just Wonka Himself.

Orangeleader398

May it please the honorable crit Justices, I bring before the court the case of the DM vs Bitter players. As the DM to a group of friends I expect to be razzed but things got out of hand. During an epic fight one of the characters was killed by a Death Lance (like my second favorite character ;) and the players were pissed. Every session after that when we entered combat they would say “He’s here to kill us again” and “player killer ahead” and Oh goodie, am I gonna die again?” This made the game no fun for me so I stopped being a DM for the group cutting their journeys short. Was I wrong for being a whining little bitch by stopping the campaign or were they out of line attacking me at every encounter? Thanks!

James Giesbrecht

May it please the court, my character (a mousefolk bard hippie named pip) was tasked with babysitting some kids and in an effort to entertain them i pulled a charge out of my grey cloth bag of tricks and accidentally pulled a giant elk.. the dm said that the giant elk destroyed the house with its size, scared the children and ran into the street and was killed. I was then sentenced to court for multiple counts of child endangerment etc. which landed me a pretty hefty bond and jail time. My question is, was this a fair punishment for simply trying to bring joy into some children’s lives???

Robert S.

Honourable Justices (and also bailiff), may it please the court. I humbly present the case of Howard the parrot’s sneaky cannon. I’m currently a PC in a nautical-themed campaign and one of my fellow players is playing a pirate captain from the Feywild. She’s a Swashbuckler Rouge who took the Wizard Initiate feat in order to get Howard, her parrot familiar. So anyway, we’re on her ship, being attacked by the coast guard, and she’s firing her ship’s cannon at the enemy’s ship. This player is very new to D&D, so I was giving her pointers during combat. I tell her that she could use Howard’s help action to give her advantage on the cannon attack, which she did and she hit. However, when I told her to roll her Sneak Attack damage, the DM said that she couldn’t get Sneak Attack damage from a huge cannon. I let it go because another player had a hard out and i didn’t want to slow things down. Also the cannon already did 50+ damage, but I still think I’m right. A cannon is a ranged weapon and rogue’s ranged weapon attacks with advantage get sneak attack damage. Am I right or is sneak attacking with a cannon too ridiculous? If it is too ridiculous, why is it not too ridiculous that a parrot helped her fire a cannon? I humbly await your decision.

Matthew

To the honourable judges and the bailiff that still has a job somehow. May it please the court, I present the case of the unasked for death save and the stolen luck point. I am a 22 year old DM running a game for a fantastic party of 4 - my Dad, a husband and wife, and a friend who is also a father of 3. Everyone at the table is 5 to 30 years older than me, so sometimes it is a bit intimidating making unpopular rulings. Their experiences range from old guard 2nd edition dungeon crawlers, to relatively new 5e players. We have been playing together for just over a year. I struggle sometimes with moving through initiative too quickly, so it is our house rule that nobody moves on until I clearly state ‘Is that the end of your turn?’ This way combat flows easier, and we don’t have to accidentally back track. With that context, I present the case: The party is coming to the end of a night long siege. Rain, mud and blood splatter the town as they rally the guards to hold their defences. They feel as though they might actually survive the night. Until descending from the clouds flies an adult green dragon - the same one they had failed to save from being possessed by their arch rival, a powerful fiend from the nine hells. They rush to fight the beast at the base of a wizard’s tower, going blow for blow, until the party’s Paladin and dear friend drops to 0 hp and falls unconscious. First death save, rolls a 7. Now, my dad (the 2nd edition player), struggles to remember certain mechanics, and often confuses them with old 2e rules. No worries, I give him help when he needs it. He is right before our Paladin in initiative, and goes to take his turn. As he finishes moving (he couldn’t attack that turn) I say to him, ‘are you sure, you could try and stabilise your friend?’ In a moment that felt like slow motion, the Paladin rolls his death save even though it wasn’t quite his turn - even though I hadn’t said the golden sentence. Nat fucking one. I am dumb struck. I don’t know what to do. The paladin’s player is struck with a look of grief, everyone cries ‘no!’, and Dad is frustrated because his turn wasn’t technically over. Both I and he feel like he was robbed of a heroic moment, but I don’t want to rob the Paladin’s player of a tragic one. All story moments, good or bad, matter equally. In a rushed ruling, I state that if Dad’s character permanently loses one luck point, he can roll the medicine check. I ask the table if this is fair, and didn’t really get a solid response - my Dad was fully on side, my other ex-DM player was satisfied, but it still put a bit of a dour mood on the table. Did I rob the table of a great plot moment? Did I rob MYSELF of a great plot moment? Is the luck point removal too harsh? Not enough? I honestly believe that no matter what I did it wouldn’t feel great, but I’m at the point where I’d rather not think for myself. So, honourable judges, my fate is in your hands. Is my attempt at maintaining narrative satisfaction for all players worthy of a cruel punishment, or do you believe my thought process was good DM intuition? Very scared, Matt

Pyre Phantom

If it pleases the court, a few weeks ago I was running a session combat of a party of 5 level 4s against 12 cultists and my players commented on combat being too easy, so I flipped through my Monster Manual and flipped to the Bulette, a CR 5 monster. One of my players pulled up the stats for the monster and began telling the other players its AC and HP. The Bulette then crit on the meta gaming player who got mad at me for one shotting them with an unfair encounter. Am I in the wrong?

Klanin IceCrushner

If it pleases the court an update on the vampire cowboy bard x communist sorcerer horse biting incident. Post battle in which the drake was defeated the vampire cowboy bard (who’s name is Lexicon Spittoon) lost one of his legs the communist sorcerer wanted to traverse up the mountain further and the vampire bard wanted to go back down to return to town. The communist sorcerer suggested using phantom steed to get him back to town and use a deck of many things knight as an escort. The communist sorcerer told the vampire bard that the spell lasted 24 hours and on his journey back phantom steed ran out he went tits up down the mountain and had to limp back down the mountain with 3 hours to go.

G.X. Barnett

Can a Druid cursed with lycanthropy get bonuses when wild shaping into the animal that they are cursed with?

Nicolas R

May it please the good court and equally good bailiff, during a boss fight, my boss monster dominated one of the players. While dominated, the player (a goblin warlock) watched a vision of the woman he loved get murdered by one of his companions and then rolled 2 nat 1's on saving throws. I told him to roll a con save to see if he pissed his pants and he rolled a third crit fail. My question is should pissing yourself be a con save? There were some very good arguments at the table for strength, dex, and even wisdom (i.e. the mental fortitude to recognize when one is about to piss himself). Honestly, as a dm I could see this going many different ways, and so I turn the judgement to the righteous court.

Draven_the_crow

To the honorable court justices and bailiff, one time our groups DM had one of our players roll to see if they could throw a rock away to distract an ambush drake. The player throwing the rock had explained they didn't want to hit the drake but merely cause a distracting noise away from us so we could escape as we were on deaths door. Rolled a nat 20 and the DM suddenly said that the player nails the drake in the face and the drake is now searching for us. While I was quickly able to use chill touch to break a stick to save us the group all felt the DM done did wrong by twisting what the player wanted to do. I await the courts thoughtful and just decision.

ChromaticMars

If it may please the gracious and benevolent Justices... And Baliff Jake. During a character creation session, I argued with my DM about a possible Bee Keeper Druid going into wild shape as a giant bee and laying eggs to build a giant bee swarm army (or even normal sized bees). My argument was that when an animal lays an egg it’s not considered a birth because it’s not fertilized, and that laying eggs is more like a menstration or ovulation, so my little bee body could lay eggs as long as it’s ovulating, even timing my ovulation specifically to wild shape into a Bee and lay as many eggs for as long as I can, BUT the special thing with bees is that non-fertilized Eggs still become worker drone bees that follow and take care of the Queen (aka their Mommy bee me). So would you rule that I indeed can become a Bee Keeper Druid can form a Giant Swarm of Bees Army?

Georgia

May it please all members of the court. Today I ask not for judgement but for legal advice. After recently levelling up, our party went into a particularly dangerous encounter during which my beloved Changeling Monk went down repeatedly and eventually died, despite the consistent efforts of the entire party to save her. I, of course, was devastated as this is a relatively new campaign and the DM admitted he may have made the encounter too difficult - but of course I accepted the circumstances graciously and began the grieving process. It was only late in the dead of night that I realised I had not updated my character sheet correctly to give myself more HP, and as we were Level 4, if I had calculated the correct amount of HP it would have been the difference between life and death for my character. Was I correct to keep this to myself given the session was long over? Or should I have said something and attempted to retcon my death? We ended the session in the middle of the encounter, so it would have been easy for me to come back in the next session, but it seems dodgy given in-session we declared my character dead. But on the other hand, it feels dishonest to say I'm dead when I'm statistically not dead - or does what's written on the character sheet always true, even if it's wrong?

Cain Bowman

Honorable and also unhonorable justices... and also also the bailiff, I guess. I present you the case of "Let Her Slide", which occurred just now. In our Curse of Strahd game, we were holding out against a lycanthropic siege of a town's wall. Werewolves, including the mini-Big-Bad that ate our gnome artificer's entire family, were running up the backs of dire wolves and diving onto the town walls, attacking our ranged fighters directly. As our frontline grub-loving paladin was being overran, our monk/warlock decided to switch from casting and slide down to land directly in the melee and help her. Here lies the dispute. The monk moved around the Big Bad (Wolf) and slid down the wall. Until she started falling, she did not leave the range of the enemy. Our DM struck her with an attack of opportunity as she slid that had a grapple effect, which could end her movement. I argued that this was against RAW, as attacks of opportunity can only be triggered by willing movement out of range, which gravity and falling would not constitute, as well as defying the Rule of Cool for the sick action dive. My DM countered that intentionally jumping IS willing movement, so the attack was fair. We argued for a while as I queued up Youtube clips of movies where the heroes jump to avoid attacks that our DM would apparently say are plot holes because OBVIOUSLY they'd be immediately struck. The DM eventually claimed Rule 0, our monk fortunately passed her saving throw to avoid the grapple, and we moved on. What would your rulings be? Surely, the People's Justice and several recent-monk players know that she should have been allowed to slide, but we, of course, submit ourselves humbly to your swift, reasonable, and fair judgement.

SoupLightning

May it please the court and thoroughly satisfy Baliff Jake so much so that he doesn't think about his divorce with Jill, I am taking pebblepot DM Brian Murphy to court! On episode 28 of Eldermourne. Jake rolled a nat 20 in order to find his old jean jacket and had in mind his own ideas of the jean jacket, but instead of honoring the nat 20 and giving the player his dream jacket he gave him a sad ill fitting jean jacket. I think Jake was slighted by Murph and should have recieved the jean jacket he desired and not a bizarre version of Murph's creation. For comparison, Brennan Lee Mulligan, on Dimension 20's Mice and Murder, changed more than a 1/3 of his story to honor Rekha Shankar's nat 20 roll to see a ghost. I feel Murph could have given Jake the jean jacket he wanted ON A NATURAL 20 ROLL and it wouldnt have affected the game only made Jake that much happier than the jacket described to him in the episode. Murph awaits your just and sensible sentencing judges.

Dane Johnson

May it please the Court, and I guess Bailiff Jake, recently we had a session that has caused a sort of tense situation on the group. Our one player, let's call him John, played an evil warlock that was secretly in a pact with the BBEG. To be fair to John, this entity didn't end up becoming the BBEG until recently and our DM was meaning to talk to John about what he wanted to do about it. When fighting a demon that worked for the BBEG in a time palace, John turned on our party, resulting in a TPK. However, one of our players was able to go to a room to send a message to our party back in time before he got killed. Our DM rolled with it, believing that it was fair since the rest of the group got to play our characters that we still liked but John's character won in a different timeline. John felt this was unfair since we didn't play in the timeline where he TPK'd us saying "We should roll with the continuity." The rest of us really like our characters and we didn't want to make new ones, especially since we would have one the fight if not for John's betrayal and the fact that we didn't know his character worked for the BBEG. Did our DM make the right decision or is John right? We patiently await your answer.

MJMM

Really wanted another Abner case to bring before the court, but still nothing substantial 😕

Keanu DRAMAFACE

To the Honorable Judges Murph, Emily, and Caldwell. Specific reverence to the People’s judge Lou Wilson. Also the bailiff I’m sure is there or something. Kudos. Anyway, I have a player in my campaign who wants to play a vampire. I have told them over and over that I really don’t want a vampire player for three main reasons: 1) it could easily usurp the main storyline because of feeding etc. 2) the most interesting thing has already happened to your character meaning we have nowhere to really explore 3) vampires in my world are just evil, no Cullen twilight stuff where they can be good. They specifically brought up Jake being a vampire in Campaign 1 as evidence that it can be done. I’m not sure what to do because I feel like the context was very different from you guys. Please help me, I am at your mercy benevolent judges

Alexander B Pearce

Honorable Supreme Crit Justices and resolute Bailiffs, may it please the court… I run a campaign and it’s been going swimmingly. But recently I’ve had a minor dispute with my players over a piece of lore. I have a city of non-hostile undead (Necrolopolis, a city-state ruled by a lich who won his evil campaign millennia ago, but has seen the error of his ways). As this is a city with plenty of zombies, ghosts and skeletons, one of my players asked if there were small skeletons running around. I asked if they meant halflings and they clarified that no, they meant dead children. The game then took a backseat for 45 minutes into an existential debate between two sides: one saying that a skeleton child could grow by gathering minerals (my players) and the other saying there’s probably dead kids out there but let’s get on with it (me). So I beseech you Justices, how do skeletons change with age?

Pagos, Self-Proclaimed Fae King, Now with Real Musical Improv Action

I wanted to give y’all The chance to squabble about it for everyone to hear. May it please the equally honorable judges and plaintiff of the court. I offer you the chance to play Dungeon Courts: Minority Report. This has not occurred yet, but I as a dm had an idea for a couple scenarios that would involve the npc about to be revived, but someone will cast counterspell on the Revivify. Regardless of whether the party or antagonistic forces are the countering party, would I be able to accuse the counterspell caster of murder. Would counter spelling Revivify count as murder or man slaughter

alexandra narvais

May it please the court. Honorable Judges, and Bailiff. I present to you Player v. Player, A metagaming discourse. A fellow Player claims that attempting to get a long rest before finishing the last room of a mostly conqured dungeon is metagaming. I say nay! It's the PCs coming up with a strategy, using in game knowledge of the dungeon layout, therefore, not metagaming! Although we both agree a long rest is not guaranteed, we can't agree on whether it's metagaming or not. Please bless this case with your wisdom, and punish the guilty party with the full power you possess.

Jack Francis West

Your Supreme and Just Excellences, if it may please the court; I present the case of My Best Friend Jordan v. The Party. In my first ever campaign, my best friend Jordan was playing a classic obnoxious paladin named Godfre the Perfect. We were all new to DND and so the party vibe was super fun and chill Then the DM introduced a 4th player, a veteran, who was playing a min maxed Half-Giant storm barbarian or something. The game began to revolve around the DM and this PC exploring giant lore and the tone of the party changed to serious. Jordan was most effected by this and after Godfre killed a prisoner the party had taken (in order to liven things up) the DM narrated Godfre being sent to jail, forcing Jordan to roll an elaborate series of new characters: - 3 sisters appearing one after the other because the DM kept narrating them dying in landslides. - Sharee the Body Percussionist (rhythmic slapping underscoring serious giant scenes). Jordan was kicked from the group that had originally supported his comedic tone and I soon followed. It became a huge source of trauma around DND for him. What went wrong? And who, dear god, is to blame?

Sarah Brown

To the wonderful supreme crit justices and lovely bailiff. May it please the court. I was in a party with my fiance's friends with his best friend as DM. They used a crit table rather than doing double damage for Nat 20s, where you can do alot worse things to someone. As I was the only spell caster, the DM said the table didn't apply to me and I was only allowed to do damage and a half when I crit. I voiced that I thought it should be at least double damage like usual but DM is in charge. Was I wrong for thinking I was getting the short stick? Thank you for your time and your amazing podcasts.

Josh the Alchemist

May it please the Court and the most excellent, eminent, ebullient, and effervescent justices... and the wonderful substitute bailiff as well, of course. I humbly present The Problem Pixie v The DM. I've been running this campaign for two years and some change now and every once in a while, I like homebrew some challenges just to liven things up. In one of our recent sessions, I introduced a set of eight puzzle boxes with random items and boons inside. I found some interesting designs online and used those as the inspiration for the flavor text of the boxes, but I wanted to keep the mechanic for opening them as simple as possible. Somehow, that became a problem. I assigned a straight intelligence check to open each box, some with higher DCs that were baby to be solved after spending some time failing to open them, thereby lowering the DC. That was fine for five of my six players, the other party in this case, The Problem Pixie. She plays a rogue and wanted to use thieves' tools to open the boxes. I said no because there was no visible lock on any of them and they were meant to be manipulated by hand to open. Again, all but the pixie were fine with this and even she eventually relented when she realized I wasn't going to, or so I thought. She goes to take her turn with the box and rolls a thieves' tools check and asks if that worked. At this point, I was upset and told her no quite emphatically. She then asked if any were made of wood so she could use woodcarver's tools to open it. I have in a little and gave her advantage one the intelligence check to open the wooden box. There's more that went on, but the crux of this case is this: I'm generally a very easygoing, rule of cool DM and my players know this. I'm usually find with out of the box solutions, but when I've given a ruling that something doesn't work, I kind of expect for that to be respected so we can move on. It comes down to Rule #0, something I hate using on principle. My question is, was I right to handle this in the way that I did? By that I mean sticking to my guns and not allowing the other solutions in favor of keeping the boxes accessible to the entire party instead of just the rogue flying around and opening them all on her first attempt. I throw myself on the mercy of the court and hope you all have a fantastic day regardless of the verdict.

Trisha (Trash Bags) Bagby

May it please the court, I present to you the case of the grappled bard vs. the Death Kiss's tentacle. At the beginning of my current campaign, my party was fighting a death kiss in a cave. My bard, who goes by the name Starlight Havensword, was grappled by the creature, which has long tentacles. So I was being held up in the air away from the creature's body. I tried to cast “Bestow Curse” on the creature but the DM ruled that I could not cast it because the spell has a range of Touch. His reasoning was that I wasn’t in melee combat distance (my token wasn't next to his token on the map) and therefore couldn’t touch the creature, but literally I was being held up in his tentacle, so I argued that since the death kiss was touching me, by the transitive property I was touching it. This happened at the beginning of the campaign like seven months ago, but basically same thing just came up regarding our wizard and a Kraken tonight. I prostrate myself in the presence of the honorable supreme crits, and the bailiff Jake in hopes we come to a solution to the matter.

Outpulse

May it please the Court, and possibly the bailiff with the courts consent I present the case of Helmed horrors vs. hideous laughter In my campaign I am currently running I had my players face a Helmed horror and two sets of animated armor at level 4 and in an attempt to stall the Helmed horror, one of my players cast hideous laughter on it, and I decided that a Helmed horror could not be affected by this spell by the ruling of since the horror can not speak, it can not laugh or be "charmed" in this sort of sense because Helmed horrors can not be charmed. With no time to spare it leaded to the death of the beloved party DMPC. However in later research I noticed that hideous laughter never mentions charmed or that the creature had to physically be able to laugh Have I wronged my players and taken an ally from them wrongly or did I make the right call for the situation?

Marcus Heer

May it please the two honorable, the one somewhat honorable, and the other ones. 5 years ago in my very first time DMing, I made an encounter where the players had to fight a flying dragon while traveling across a rainbow bridge thousands of meters above ground. The level 6 barbarian of the group, without any ranged options, decided to try and lasso the dragon. I had him roll athletics to do this and he rolled low. I decided that he would take 1d12 of damage from rope burn and I rolled a 12. He protested that 12 fire damage was way too much damage for rope burn but I argued that this rope would have been yanked out of his hand with the strength of a dragon. He still razzes me about it till this day. Was I wrong to have him take this much damage?

Oscar Cozens

May it please the court enough without getting too silly with it. Come on, guys. This is a courtroom. I am currently playing in my DM's homebrew campaign, which we've been playing in for over 3 years now. In that time, we've found and bought a bunch of magic weapons and armour and items made for the barbarian and the paladin, but my druid has never been given a magic item. My DM constantly brings up that I don't need the help because I rolled better stats than the others and play a caster, so I have access to my own magic. Am I being petty and should just be happy for the rest of my party, or am I rightfully annoyed to be ignored when it comes to my DM planning and distributing loot?

Jason Rodriguez

May it please the court and that other guy. My sunday sessions that I play in includes 3 brothers, two of them Dm alternating campaigns, and the youngest joined recently. The older brothers gave everyone else at the table a heads up that their brother was autistic before he joined the campaign, we were all for it and I was welcome to this idea because my sister has autism. We all played really well, and I noticed a pattern later on after the 4th or 5th session. The youngest brother was sitting next to me at the table when I noticed that he would lean over his dice and move it to a 20. I didn't pay much attention until it had to effect my characters faith in one scenario. Everytime he did this, I made eye contact with the Dm to reassure everything was alright. I didn't intervene, and hoped the older brothers talked to him about his mannerisms at the table.

Avogobble

Can a Were-shark fart? If it pleases the court, but displeases the lowly bailiff, During quarantine I started DMing for my 4 and 7 year old sons. During a session my 4 year old’s Wereshark, named Sharkbait, was attempting to sneak behind some goblins, but after failing his stealth check I said he farted and alerted the goblins. My 4 year old retorted that sharks can’t fart, I said that he could since he’s a wereshark with human like legs, he would have a human like butthole. My 7 year old after recently learning about sharks, came to his brothers defense saying that since his character had a shark tail he would have a cloaca and anal fin and his farts would be silent. So which is it, does a wereshark have a human like butthole or a shark cloaca? Also would this ruling extend to other were-beast?

Andi M. Kraxberger

I humbly present the case of Half-Orc Necromancer v the Rest of the Party. May it please, and possibly pleasure the court. At the climax of a One Shot I recently DMed, one player decided to betray the party and cast dimension door to teleport out of the castle with the McGuffin magical artifact. I ruled that that was gonna be his surprise round, and the initiative worked out in a way that he got to go again immediately afterwards. So he casts dimension door again and is just gone, so far out of range of anyone. The rest of the party asks me if they can alert the Myconoids they've met earlier whilst travelling through the caves, I say yes. So now, the rogue player - a Half Orc Necromancer - is facing off the Myconoid Sovereign. He ends up failing his Con Save repeatedly and is stunned multiple times in a row, allowing the other players to catch up and kill him, since he wouldn't accept the error of his ways. Afterwards, the player seemed a bit pissed at me, for not letting him get away with the artifact, and at the other players for killing his character. He says he enjoyed the session but I'm not so sure he did. Was I wrong in handling the situation? Should I have let him get away with it? I humbly await your benevolent judgement. Also, my lawyer wants me to inform you of the fact that that was my first time DMing and a party of all first time players.

Mae

May it displease the court as much as it displeases me! My little sister has started DM’ing over the last year and now has 3 weekly campaigns running at the same time, with mostly new players who she has introduced to the game. Her crime you might ask? She doesn’t think she is a good DM! This dungeon queen, who has kept these campaigns running through lockdowns, exams, terrible wifi, and players not learning their bloody character sheets thinks she is a bad DM! The only time she took a week off was after wisdom tooth SURGERY when she physically could not speak. She has even let her maniac players choose the kind of world they wanted to play in and let one group go to Hogwarts and another have a star trek campaign. Hear my plea and judge her for the most heinous crime of undervaluing her sick DM skills. If found guilty, may the court punish her harshly. Like giving her a medal for every session she’s run (she would surely drown under them) or having her players kiss her boots and cry “praise to the dungeon mummy” until she appreciates how great she is.

Raymond

May it please the benevolent court and grease the oily dirty little bailiff Jake- I bring a case of First Time DM v. First Time Player. I had designed a bar brawl in a mysterious town of two factions- After the part got into an altercation with one of the factions in the bar. One of the party members, Joris Burger- A barbarian cow farmer, desperately wanted to bring his cow into the tavern. I refused stating the cow was too big to fit in the door. The belligerent barbarian of beef threw up his hands and pouted until his next turn. A few rounds into this fight the party’s Druid, Petri Applecrisp, as a circle of wildfire Druid caught the bar on fire. In a strange outburst Joris used his axe to take out one of the support beams in the bar and caved in the roof. After heavily suggesting that was a bad idea considering the entire party was still in the bar, he continued to swing his axe. I ruled that everyone remaining in the bar takes a flat 45 damage. Considering the party is Level 6 and the roof is on fire and collapsed and everyone being in a confined space there’s no way to “save” by rolling out of the way. This ended the encounter killing all the enemies, but knocking out the druids familiar, a large badger. Everyone in the party then turned on me and said that my ruling was unfair. My issue is that I feel like my ruling was a creative way of giving consequence and giving restrictions to my players, but as we are all new to the game it feels like they just want to win every encounter as easily as possible and when I throw in a wrinkle in their plan they become frustrated. I will humbly accept your wisdom. May your rolls be ever critical

EpicDinosaur65 .

May it please the court and tickle the honorable bailiffs fancy, I present the case of The Fire Lizard Bonding Exercise. In my home game run by my roommate and where my other roommates are players, I play a circle of the stars Druid. It’s a cool space adventure campaign and in our most recent session our DM dropped us into this large docking station that houses other ships in the galaxy. We run into some gnomes selling 8 foot tall fire lizards. Obviously I purchase a domesticated one by the name of Daggermouth for 75 gold. What a steal! Later that session we’re leaving the docking station and are told that we have a 6 day journey to our next planet and our DM asks what we would like to do in that time. When it gets to me I tell him that every night I take out my Bag of Tricks: Rust (a magical item I got in a previous session) and pull out my three random animals for the day. I then Wild Shape into the fire lizard and proceed to feast on the animals with Daggermouth in order to bond with him. Bag of tricks states the animals vanish after they drop to zero so I saw no harm or cruelty since they aren’t really real. But all my fellow players were taken aback. They sat there wide eyed saying things like “What the fuck?”, “Why?”, and “I feel like this is a war crime”. We all had a good laugh, but nonetheless they still think my actions were strange and didn’t make sense. They argued that I wouldn’t eat dog food with my dog. What a silly argument, I can’t Wild Shape into a dog as a human man. So I ask, is feasting on magical fake animals to bond with your newly acquired beast companion a weird thing to do, or is it cute and totally rational in every way? I humbly await your judgement .

Shawn Magill

To the honorable justices and not bailiff Emily because she’s not Jake and can never be Jake. My players did a game where they used an infernal war machine tank to fight through an army of demons and reach the demogorgons layer. One of my players is a history nerd like me and asked what type of tank, do I told him it was closest to a panzer 4 because natzi tanks go to hell when they die. When my players reach the layer I describe a cave entrance to rough for a tank. My history nerd begins to argue that because I said it was close to a panzer, a panzer could handle the terrain I described, so they should be able to roll up on demogorgon in this tank. I told him no, and we proceeded to argue, with the party trying levitate , floating disk, and Magic bubble gum to get the tank in. Eventually I told them the army was right behind them, and if didn’t abandon the tank they would be overrun. Was I wrong to stop the party From attacking demogorgon with a tank?

Kevin Alman

To the honorable justices Murphy, Tanner, Herwitz, Oyama, People’s judge Wilson and bailiff Axford, if it may please the court I submit my case of the discouraged Cleric. In our Pathfinder game, we recently got in a discussion about who should foot the bill for spells like resurrection and restoration where there is a material component cost. As the Cleric I use my loot to buy upgrades to help me help my party but having to buy diamond dust worth 100-1000 gp or a 10,000 gp diamond for the spells is a lot. I think the person who needs the spell should reimburse for the components. One of my team members said I should change my alignment to evil for this. It was suggested going forward that 10% of the party’s funds go towards this but I think that penalizes the whole party when some members don’t use the spells. Also, the ones that are reckless and just charge into a room or leave the group might think twice about it. What do you think? Should the Cleric have to foot the bill, the individual member who needs the spell, or the whole party should chip in? Thank you for your consideration. I am hoping Emily, having played Clerics in the past will have some helpful insight.

Bucky

May it please the court, and edge the bailiff: Our party was fighting a reduced threat beholder. The sorcerer was invisible, standing between the druid, who was visible, and the beholder. Without truesight, the beholder couldn’t see the sorcerer, but the DM argued that the beholder would aim for the druid and hit the invisible sorcerer instead, like a bullet, because she was in the beam’s path. I argued that because the beholder couldn’t see the sorcerer, it would just hit the druid, because this is magic and not guns. In the end, the DM persuaded enough of the party that the sorcerer was charmed, but who was actually right?

Vonvonvon

Please give us some character voices when answering the cases. Like, you can hear from the court "audience" and the two crew just happens to be there to give their two cents. Or a Frost wind dwarf or a crick elf. I miss all the lovable characters from arc 1 and wish there was some way for ya'll to give them to us again.

Nick Romero

May this amuse and please the court. Dear baffling brazen buffoonish bailiff Jake and the humble heartwarming honorable judges. One of my players plays a Stoned Wood Elf. Or a "High" Wood Elf if you will. He came to me and asked if he could have magic weed. And I not preoccupied at the time said sure. When he first "smoked it in character" asked what happened. I merely tried to describe dancing lights and and relaxing moods. Unsatisfied the whole table rose abasing me saying it wasn't magic enough. So after some back and forth I put together some wild magic tables togther(so they cant predict what they'll get) and now every time they smoke it they roll a d100 to see what happens. Flash forward through all the shenanigans such as :One NPC getting 9 years younger. 100 chickens being summoned nearly killing their horses and setting some woods on fire. And oh yeah two NPC permanent race changes. They are now trying to race change one of the party members. Who is a tiefling. My question is would a wild magic surge be able to change the cursed tiefling body or no? I said that yes it could. But they again all together say that it would not rid them of the infernal curse that caused them to be tieflings in the first place. I seek your wisdom and thank you.

Mason Lautzenheiser

A little late to the party but... May it please high crit justices, jake and the safari. I bring to you the case of the necromancer who de-meats people. I made the enormous mistake of giving one of my players a bag of holding. Soon after, he began trying to collect corpses to put in it to save for later combat. That’s ok, cool. Typical Necromamcer stuff. Things got bad when I told him the bag has a weight limit, and to cut down on it he started dragging the corpses out of town to “de-meat” them to make them lighter. Then it got even worse when he started looking for corpses of Halflings and dwarves, as they would be lighter. He even tried collecting corpses of dead townspeople right after a battle to protect the town. He now kills, collects and de-meats short people nearly every session, which is something the rest of hate to have to listen to. To put an end to this, an NPC stole his bag...Even though it is retrievable (will be very difficult), I fear I am in the wrong here for stealing my players item, and I await judgement and put myself at the mercy of the court.

Angus MacIver

May it please, tease, and squeeze the court, and the subpar sub bailiff. A bit of background, I love making D&D characters that have some large obstacle to overcome. Past characters of mine include a Goblin Illusion Wizard, Mirkgut Smugleg, who uses his illusion magic to take on a more acceptable appearance in the form of a rosy-cheeked halfling, and another character was my first, a racist wood elf ranger. The subject of this case is an elderly blind human, Gus Humphrey the Divination Wizard. He uses the eyesight of his familiar owl to be able to see his surroundings, but it is clearly a weakness and he has some spells that don’t require eyesight as back up (i.e. thunderclap and sword burst). Well, session one found us in combat where my owl was shot down almost immediately, and I had to use thunderclap and sword burst, which hit some teammates. They continued to berate me for the rest of the session about how they would snap my frail elderly man in half if he did that again and that my character is shit. To put a stop to it, I had my DM plot-kill my character at the beginning of session two, and I replaced weak old Gus Humphrey with bulky hulky Barbarian, Bus Dumphrey. So, where do disabilities lie in D&D? Was I wrong to make such a character? Or are my party mates ableist? I mean it’s not like I was playing a quadriplegic bard who uses his high charisma to convince people to carry him around like a backpack! Who is in the wrong? Thank you, wise Court.

Alexis C

May it please the court: I was playing in a campaign with my long-running group where we were transported to the fey wilds very early on. We find out they don’t use any currency but instead only trade and barter. A little later on, we were tricked into killing a Minotaur in a maze who ended up being a major protector of the realm. Before we figured he wasn’t evil, we had to take his horns as proof we killed him. Our grave cleric said she wanted to skin the Minotaur. While we did that, I said I wanted to cut the minotaurs dick off and keep it and trade it. My idea was that bull penis is used as a delicacy and aphrodisiac, so maybe it’d be worth a lot since we didn’t have anything to trade for supplies. I was allowed to do it, but any time I tried to trade it the NPCs would get mad and either kick us out of their shop or straight up fight us. The dick basically became a curse through our entire time in the fey wilds. This isn’t the craziest thing our group had done by far, and not even the craziest thing I specially have done. Was my DM right to not allow me to trade a Minotaur penis for sick weapons, or was I unjustly punished for dick crimes?

Woody

May it please the court, the Honorable Justices and bailiff Jake I guess, I have a case of DM VS DM. So I am a first time DM And almost never player, and we have been having a jam in our campaign. One of our players had to leave to Rwanda for 3 weeks so we had to take a break untill he returns, so one of my players asked if he could DM a one-shot while they were away. The one shot went awesomely and now my Rwanda player is back and we can carry on. Prior to our first session another player "Sam" came to me to ask if he could DM a one-shot after this next arc or break in play. I said it was a great idea as I love the idea of having new DMs. The problem has come in that, even before we have had the first session of the new arc, all he can talk about is this new one shot he's planning and diverting conversations about our campaign to his one-shot, like how he's gonna play it and what classes are gonna be allowed and how things are gonna work in his campaign. Eventually I kinda lost my temper and told him to back off as I also have the campaign to run which is exciting for me. He's now miffed at me. Can the justices rule, did I overreact, or was he overstepping boundaries? I trust in your sound judgment.

Cameron Davis

Honorable, prestigious, handsome, judges, and my birthday twin Jake: I present to you a case that I came across simply minutes before submitting this known as “Different DCs for Different PCs”. A fellow DM made a discussion post about one of his methods that involved setting DCs lower or higher for certain PCs to give them an either higher or lower chance of success on a skill check. He argued that a Cleric of Thor would be far more likely to translate runes in Asgardian than a Druid with no exposure to the pantheon, and further elaborated that he made this rule to avoid early game situations in which a -1 Strength Wizard rolling well on the d20 could potentially lift the same boulder that the jacked Barbarian could with a middling roll, so would often set the DC to 16 for the Barbarian while it was 19 for the Wizard. I argued that the entire point of 5th Edition’s proficiency system was EXACTLY. THIS. That Cleric IS more likely to notice the Asgardian text on the runes, because they probably have proficiency in religion and/or insight, a +4 or more to Wisdom, and is probably rolling with advantage. The Barbarian gets a +6 to their Athletics and rolls with advantage if they’re in a Rage. One person’s 16 is no better or worse than another person’s 16, and cherry-picking whom you would prefer to pass or fail a skill check isn’t very fun for players, and it’s my opinion that the ability for ridiculous shit to happen like the raging Barbarian failing the Athletics check while the Wizard passes it because DCs are static and rolls are not, is a huge part of what makes D&D so fun in the first place. If I am, however, deemed incorrect in the eyes of the judges—I shall humbly accept my fate as determined by the Supreme Crit of the Land.

Mads

May it please the court, I was DMing for a group of novice players and sent them on a stealth mission to get something from an important bureaucrat’s house. The party schemed to have our Rogue go distract the guy while the others looted his office. The Rogue, with a minus 1 to charisma, Crit on a persuasion check to seduce this incredibly important person who I was roleplaying as a total wet blanket. Honoring the Crit, I let her succeed, until we had a very passionate debate over whether sucking dick was a Performance roll or a Dexterity based roll (I said performance, the rogue with a high dex score obviously said dex). So honorable justices, what is the required skill for fellatio, Performance or Dex? edit: I think it’s worth clarifying that the Rogue’s name is Captain Chlamydia and her defining character attribute is being plentiful of bosoms.

Jibe Goslee

May it please the court. I’m a player in a campaign where my character is a warforged armorer artificer. With out trying very hard I have ended up with a pretty high AC (25). One the other players in the party says that I’m being a dick for running a character with that high of an AC and that I’m going to ruin combat for the rest of the party. I don’t think I am given that we’re a 7 person party. I also don’t think my DM sees it as a problem given that he gave the party a +2 shield knowing I’m the only one who uses a shield. Am I in the wrong for playing a character with a high AC or is the other player over thinking it or judging me too harshly? Thanks!

Brent Schneider

May it please the court, I bring before the court the case of the jumping elephant and the fallen paladin. I, the DM, set up a big finale of suspended platforms 500 feet over a pit of lava as the party of 6 tried to take down about a dozen cultists and one big bad, jumping from platform to platform to interrupt a ritual to free a god. As the party got near the last platform, the party's wizard Persiki cast polymorph on my big bad, turning it into an elephant when it failed it's saving throw. My party then asked 'hey, shouldn’t the platform swing if there's suddenly an elephant on it?" and I agreed, coming up with rules for getting knocked down by the swinging platform (DEX 15) or falling off (fail by 10), and the party killed most of the rest of the baddies as they fell to the lava below. On the elephants turn, I had the elephant jump from one platform to a platform with one of the party members, the paladin Ri, who rolled a nat 2. I ruled that they should do another dex save, DC10, to grab the edge of the platform as they're knocked off, and they rolled a nat 1. Nobody was able to do anything before the party member fell to their death. Afterwards, Persiki pointed out that elephants in real life can't jump - something they had to google and I definitely didn't know in the moment. I argued however, that because the elephant has an official stat block with movement speed and a strength score, by rule it had a jump distance. All the players gave me a hard time, except Ri, who took it like a champion and was laughing the whole time, but every session since then, whenever the party encounters any type of creature, Persiki reminds me that elephants can't jump. Who's in the wrong, and should Persiki leave me alone? Thank you for your kind consideration almighty judges and lowly bailiff, -Brent "Drunkle Sam" As a postscript, the party member who fell to their death actually fell into the plane of fire, as they were in a red dragon's lair. When the party later traveled to the plane of fire, I did a big reveal to show Ri was still alive and kicking ass. I also gave Persiki a Wonderous Figurine - Elephant so they can summon another elephant whenever they want, which the party agreed should be named Ri in their fallen friend's honor.

David Hillenbrand

May it please the court, Oh honorable judges, and equally honorable bailiff: I was running a desert combat with a purple worm, and as purple worms tend to do, it swallowed a member of the party. The party warlock, trying to be more useful than a walking ray gun, banished the purple worm, and thought that the swallowed teammate should emerge in the area the worm was banished from. They argue that banishing a creature should not banish the contents of its digestive system - as written, banishment does not banish a creature’s worn or carried objects, and in this case the teammate could be considered “carried” in its stomach. I allowed this to work to keep the game moving, but I put it to the court - what should happen to a swallowed creature if the creature that swallows it is banished?

DonutHoo

May it please the court and jingle some keys for the bailiff's entertainment. I humbly submit what my group dubs, "The Case of the Explosively Kinetic Steam Pipe." Imagine if you will, honoured justices, a chase scene amongst a bustling city market. The party was in pursuit of a satyr who they have had run-ins with in the past. After an intense chase scene involving copious fruit stands getting in their way, an intrusive Bigby's Hand spell, and a segment where the satyr disguised himself amongst the crowd, they had him cornered in an alley--only for the satyr to teleport to the roof of an adjacent third story building and use Bigby's Hand to throw the party's bard high into the air as a distraction. The monk stuck behind to go catch him so he wouldn't die of falling damage while the tiefling rogue--'Blyth Cimiel II,' gave chase. Blyth asked what was around him. As the DM, I was quick to offer him plenty of things he could climb upon: a pipe that ran alongside the building from the floor to the roof, some windowsills he could attempt to boulder up, the giant owl owned by their ranger NPC companion who could fly him up there if need be. But no. Blyth Cimiel had the answer, he decided. He didn't want to just get up there. He wanted to get up there THAT SECOND. So instead of using the pipe to climb, he instead cut off a section of pipe and used his Sword of Storms (a homebrew weapon that froze things that it touched) to freeze one end of the pipe solid. He then stuck his hand over the opposite end and cast Burning Hands. I asked him what he intended to accomplish with this. And, without clearing it with me first, he said this would create steam pressure in the pipe as the ice melted, which would release and apparently SHOTGUN HIM TO THE ROOF once it was fully melted. Now, I'm just a simple Canadian D&D rules lawyer, but I explained to him a few issues I had with this. For one I was pretty sure the fire of Burning Hands would melt a small block of ice long before that kind of pressure built up. Two, the pipe would heat up and although tieflings are resistant to fire, he would still need to roll constitution to see if he could hold onto it for that long. Begrudgingly, he agreed and rolled a 3. After some back and forth and my not wanting him to feel his turn was wasted, I had him roll one last Arcana check for the spell to see if this had any sort of positive effect for him. A 12 is okay, but not enough, in my opinion, to shoot oneself to the roof via physics none of us wanted to confirm. In the end, I compromised. I had the pipe explode. It shot him a couple stories up and he took over half his HP in damage. Honoured justices. I'm not crazy, right? Was I wrong for poo-pooing his idea after he'd already spent so long putting it into motion or does this sound as ridiculous to you as it does to me? I await your judgement and my punishment if that is what you feel I deserve.

RotiniWeenie

May it please the court and may it tickle the stinky binky boy Jonk-- wait, no. May it give a solid hyuck to the wrongfully dishonored former Justice Emily. I was playing a dragonborn Hexalin in my friends and I's not so Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign and we were level 20 in the final battle against a lich who was trying to merge a plane of distortion with the material plane, but the problem came from another player I was fighting along side of. Kind of a tricky situation, we were on the platform that was surrounded my an antimagic field places by our firbolg war cleric (because yanno liches suck without magic) and our minotaur barb/monk had tackled the lich off of the platform and into the antimagic field, baller move for sure. However, our sea elf has cast polymorph on me to turn me into an ancient brass dragon because its the final battle, let's go all out. Sadly with the antimagic field I couldn't go down to fight the lich in melee combat or the polymorph would dispell, but the DM ruled I could still look down and breathe fire on him, but it would also be hitting the minotaur. Since our minotaur has an ungodly amount of health I asked if he would be okay with it and he said "Sure man, do whatever you gotta do it's the final battle." So I went ahead and had him and the lich make DEX saves, and of course the minotaur passed with flying colors and the lich failed. I rolled real low on the damage and got probably around 30 damage, but then the minotaur freaked out on me for breathing fire on him like I never even asked permission. Since he was upset upset me, our DM let him cast shield to protect himself but it also protected the lich since he was still wrestling him at the bottom of this cliff, the DM also happens to be the minotaur's brother. So it ended with no one taking any damage and me wasting the breath weapon of this ancient brass dragon. It's been 6 months since we finished this campaign and my friend who plays the minotaur still holds it over my head. Please, judge as you may, thanks in advance.

Resa

May it please the court, During the pandemic last summer I decided to join a discord dnd campaign with college people. I had previous experience with dnd as a player and dm but a friend wanted to give it a try. After a couple sessions, I found we were getting railroaded a lot and just about everything was out of the players control and it was just us listening to the dm talk our ears off. There was very little reward for creativity and I was always shot down whenever I had a wacky idea. When I tried talking with him about it, he told me he was mad at me and didn’t appreciate me saying this about his dm style... Come the next session, he reminded me he was mad at me and then completely ignored me during RP and targeted me during combat. Another player cast Command on what we were fighting and it was fine... When it was my turn, he had some issues because the creature couldn’t understand any language except his own and therefore my turn was wasted. I told him that the other player cast command in common earlier and he had no problem but he couldn’t be bothered to retcon anything and just tried telling me it was too late to do anything about it. This was when I kind of lost my shit. I sat there angrily after arguing with him, everyone chimed in and had their piece but finally after a half hour or so (probably closer to an hour) he was convinced to let my spell work... to which I said “thanks you’re such a gracious dm, you deserve an award.” And walked away from my computer. I didn’t even hang up which is probably what I should have done because coming back after I was petty was insanely fucking awkward. Luckily I’m not in that game anymore because he had these squabbles with me one too many times where I finally felt too fed up and left. I still feel bad leaving my other friends (who were all new players) in that situation but I had to get myself out. Am I in the wrong for abandoning my friends who don’t know any better when it comes to a fair dm?

Alex aka Zol Ark

May it... not please the court!!! Yeah that’s goddamn right, I am being an unruly child! 😈😱😭 I am not here as a defendant but a perp and laying down my sins!!! We decided to do a new session after our dm asked if we wanted to play at a higher level and I was excited playing a higher level Magus and even with me being new to DND/Pathfinder I felt confident that I would do great! Session starts and we get through session 0-1 and it ends... how you may ask? Well our DM explains this decrepit room we are in and we see this pristine statue before us and when I get up from the floor I see this statue with my blurry vision and decided to flirt with the statue in my confusion (A/N: I accidentally did a Joey from friends moment on my first ever DnD game with this character and thought I do a callback moment), but little did we know this would be our downfall. After a brief exploration and a some history explained to us all we had to do is find a way out. One of the players decided to do a goof and destroy this PRISTINE statue as a battering ram, but no one was near to stop him and I did not have knowledge- Religion so I let him continue. The statue breaks and we all die. Apparently the statue was the reason was the reason we were in here and became the source of our immortality. Our dm left to clear his head and probably laugh it out. He tried to display the importance of this statue and we just didn’t get it until it was to late. I do not ask for pity... all I ask is for my punishment to be rad/hilarious... ☠️

Mikkel Voigt

May it please the court and the bailiff. I have taken up the prescholl teacher-ish job of becoming a dungeon master for a few friends of mine, we have run a few sessions already (5-7) and im having the time of my life during them, but i have this one player. This player is very unattentive, rarely takes initiative to get things done in my campaign, and it has gotten to a point where my other players have started pointing it out. I have tried explaining this to him, but it's like he does not realise what im telling him, he really wants to play dnd when we are not playing and he talks a lot about it, but when we play he rarely does anything and lets the other players make all decisions, even if the decisions are on how to beat a puzzle and he is there with the character that has the lowest INT score. I have other friends that would like to join, but i feel we are already a "full" group, but im starting to consider writing off his character to make space for a more engaged player. You would think that the player with the home brew class of "Super Saiyan" would be the problem, but here we are. Am I mishandling the situation to write off his character when my other players complain about his engagement in the game and I feel it lagging as well?

Zach Brown

May it please the three judges and perhaps the bailiff. During my first time being a DM I wrote a story when my group of players were taking out a Kolbald encampment. I made a Goliath Warrior to kill off and set the scene for when the Kolbalds pet Troll came out. Belrash (my Goliath) was throw and my PC who was a 4’ tall teifling tried to catch him. She rolled a Nat 20 and I told her that she definitely caught him but it was like getting hit being a freight train and she took 1d6 damaged and was pinned by the weight. Should I have made that nat 20 successful with what she wanted?

James Fite

May it please the court, I have a confession and need to be punished. Last year when I was running my first long campaign, I chose friends who knew the rules a little more than me, I figured they’d be understanding but I was so wrong. Each session would turn into a rules lawyering for 20+ minutes where we’d have to look at the sentence structure and debate what it meant, needless to say it slowed the game down. It was mostly by 2 players, the other 3 players were fine and were actively annoyed that these two rules lawyers would stop the game constantly just to prove they were right or get off on a technicality. After 6 months of this I was fed up, so I recruited another friend to infiltrate their party as the BigBad and when the moment was right he’d wipe them out. We just had a player leave because of the frequent rules lawyers and told me they weren’t having fun anymore. The players really didn’t suspect anything and we played another 5 sessions before the BigBad’s plan took effect. So the party was level 10 and the BigBad was CR 25, the BigBad destroyed them to the point where no one was having fun and there was an odd tension. I tried to talk to the rules lawyers before recruiting my friend but they never stopped and I constantly felt like I was failing to give people a good time but I don’t think my reaction was a good one since the whole table suffered and not my the rule lawyers. I humbly await your punishment for my transgressions as a DM.

DowdMusic

May it please the illustrious judges and the stalwart bailiff, I come to you as a humble DM who gave their PCs too many toys to play with. I run a high-level campaign in which the party had recently received a large payout for their endeavors. One of my players decided that instead of spending all of his hard-earned loot on weapons, armor or magic items he wanted to buy two things. One - a bag of holding and Two - as many fire bombs as he could possibly fit into the bag. He spent about 100K gold on bombs - an obscene amount of money he has been saving up all campaign. A few sessions went by with a firebomb or four and it was good times. Then in one particularly dire encounter the PC with a bag full of bombs flew above the big bad cleric and proceeded to turn his bag of holding inside out. Relevant text from the item: "If a bag of holding is turned inside out, its contents spill out, unharmed, but the bag must be put right before it can be used again". These are on contact bombs dropped from a height. When they all hit the cumulative blast damage was over 3400! I made the whole party make saves to try to shield themselves from the explosion and several got seriously injured by the blast even though they were far away. The local environment, and all of the remaining enemies were decimated. I am now concerned that this is going to be something that the party wants to use again. I set up the rules of this world and told them they could have bombs, but 3K+ damage is ridiculous. This is the 2nd time something like this occurred using a large stock pile of explosives. The problem though is that my players love it. They love to just blow shit up and I don't want to take that away from them. Unfortunately for me, as high-level PCs they can definitely fill that bag up with bombs again. This leaves me questioning what to do. Should I nerf their bombs? Should I just plan for this nonsense and make encounters too spread out for a single nuke attack, or have a 2nd wave of baddies? Or I was I wrong to let them do this in the first place and now my players have toys that simply cannot be put back in the box?

Katie P.

May it please the court, our indomitable judges, and our imposing bailiff. I'm a DM running a homebrew world. My world is set in a late iron age 1000 years after the fall of an advanced society the tech of which no one remembers or knows of, and Elves came to this world 3 years ago. I had only a few rules for character creation: No Eberron content, no tinker gnomes, no half-elves. The party started as 4 players. One wanted to be a changeling but wasn't married to the idea so I said no and she made a tiefling. Easy peasy. Well, a 5th player wanted to join and in reading my homebrew notes he really wanted to make a warforged as a remnant of this ancient civilization. He essentially sold me on the idea of him being a robot. I said sure but he can't make more robots. Done. Well, a 6th player wants to join, she's never played before, and she jumped the gun and made a changeling she's really excited to play. She's not interested in being anything else. I know I opened the sluice gates when I let the damn robot in, so I couldn't say no to her request, especially because it's her first game and her backstory is almost as long as my setting OneNote. Now I feel terrible because I denied the 1st player's request to be a changeling. Should I have stuck to my guns and said "No Eberron content. Period?" I'm anxious and feel guilty.

Chelsey

May it please the court, the wise and fair judges and the amazing bailiff. I'm playing an eladrin elf named Trash Panda whose got a defective bag of holding. Whatever I pull out comes out of someone else's bag of holding and whatever goes in has a 10% chance of going to the astral plane otherwise it goes into someone else's bag. My husband our DM allowed me to pull from the bag 4 times a day. The next time we played he said I can only pull twice a day from it saying it takes to long. Our friends think it's hilarious to see what gets pulled and I haven't heard them complain at all. I asked we could compromise and I could pull 3 times but he won't budge. Dear judges is it fair that I can only pull from my defective bag of holding twice a day? I eagerly await your decision