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Court Cases Please! (Patreon)

Published:
2022-02-24 13:58:02
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Howdy! Bailiff Jake here. Crit is soon convening with a special appearance by Justice Oyama.  Please submit your (BRIEF, I implore you!) tales here on this thread and we will try your case.

May Justice Be Soon Served,

Jake

Comments

Alex Jones

I need an emergency ruling from the blue jays of the church of dice Christ, this is from the blast'em grandma canonical universe. My dad is playing a paladin who changed from oath of redemption to oath of conquest and the party is currently in the cuthulu under dark after being sacrificed in a peat bog by a seemingly nice town. The issue came after their first combat my dad had way more hit points than everyone else after hard fought battle with troglodytes and a roper. I then realized he had leveled himself up to level unbeknownst to me. This isn't the first time of chaotic shenanigans, few months ago he gave himself a +1 long sword which was significantly worse than the home brewed greataxe I gave him(based on Garty O'Brien). So I ask the blue jays of the church what should his punishment be? I had him roll on the madness table and for the next session he has to babble incoherently and 90 hrs he has amensia from the madness table. Is this enough, or did I go to far with my punishment. I prostrate myself in front of the blue jays and await judgement.

AsimovSideburns

May it please the court, and the case-selecting bailiff, I submit the story of the second time I ever ran a game of 5th edition. I had recently gotten the 5th edition books and run Lost Mines of Phandelver for my family, and mentioned it to a friend I’ve known since childhood (called B) who I had previously played Pathfinder 1st Edition with (a game based on DnD 3.5e, for those unfamiliar). Some time later, he asked me if I wanted to play in a 5e game he was putting together, and I said yes. As soon as I did, he told me that he didn’t have time to run it, and asked me if I would run it instead; I felt a little tricked, but agreed. I ran the game, with the players being B, our mutual friend J, and one of my other friends, C. J and C both wanted to play bards, so B decided to play a barbarian, even though he usually plays full casters in the more complex Pathfinder system, despite my urging that he should play a class he was interested in and trust me to balance the game as necessary. Over the course of the level 1-5 module, he complained often that he felt like he couldn’t do anything except attack and refused my multiple offers to allow him to change his character in any way he wanted to. He also (as relayed to me later by J) would frequently draw large shapes on the virtual tabletop that made the whole map look tinted with different colors, and then pretend not to see it when I asked if anybody else saw the change. He wouldn’t stay in place on the map when I was describing things, moving his token into areas covered by fog of war while I was talking and urging me to “hurry up.” Worst of all, though, was a moment in a dungeon where, after fighting a group of skeletons, he kicked open a door and was surprise-attacked by the bandits hiding in the next room. He argued first that he wouldn’t be surprised, and then that the bandits wouldn’t have hidden, and then that the bandits wouldn’t have had any idea that he was coming, to the point where I had to insist that it was written in the module that the bandits would do this if the players fought the skeletons. He left the game at the end of the module, saying that he didn’t like 5e, and I continued the campaign with other players (although I eventually ended it because there were more sessions where nobody else showed up than there were sessions where anybody else showed up). I’m fairly sure that I’m not in the wrong here, but my question is this: we hadn’t talked since he left the campaign discord server, in 2020. In December 2021, he contacted me again, asked how I was when we text messaged for a bit, but said nothing about the game. Should I accept my childhood friend back into my life (but not my dnd games), or should I just move on? PS: at level 3 the bards chose the glamour and valor subclasses, and the barbarian chose zealot, if that helps

Samual brewis

I'm so excited, my birthday has been the 2nd most depressing day of my life and I really need q boost so while it might not be today just knowing something is coming tomorrow is helping so much

Alex Ferri

To the Superior Supreme Crit justices, and Bailiff Jake, My it please the court: I think someone may have interfered with the will of Dice Christ. My husband and I were playing in a campaign where a lot of us have had DM experience, me being one of them. We were in a combat scenario, and one of the other players who had DM experience was taking his turn and I was next. He had a very convoluted character with an insane amount of attacks for a L6 character and always held up the combat. He was finally finishing up so I rolled my attack a little early for the sake of keeping the game going. I crit, but then he told us that all 6 of his summoned elementals were going to take their turn as well (the had not attacked the last round). When it finally came my turn, I explained what happened to the DM, and before she could say anything he very quickly chimed in and very aggressively man-splained that my attack needed to be re-rolled because I rolled to early and too much time had passed since it was “longer than one action in between”. I said that I was going to leave the choice to the DM, and because she was new to DMing she sided with him and made me re-roll. Please let me know if I was in the wrong here, because over a year later I still bring this up with my husband and he is tired of hearing me talk about it. I leave it in the courts hands!

Ace

May it please the court, the most esteemed judges Tanner and Murphy and Axford, highly-sought-guest judge Oyama and the imposter judge Hurwitz, I present the case of the teenager meta-gamer. I run an isekai-style home game with my older brother, two of my best friends and one of their younger brothers where they all play themselves in a fantasy setting. We all played for the first time in months recently since we are on break from college, and an NPC, previously a DMPC who adventured with the party was polymorphed into a young red shadow dragon and forced to fight the party. He was killed in the fight and when my brother, who was closest to the NPC requested that the younger brother who was lord of the castle they were in, and has cleric levels, help him he said he wouldn't because "it's just an NPC," and "he was on my kill list anyway." My brother attacked him and put him down making death saves. He was quickly healed by an attendant, and the guards arrested my brother, but there was much argument at the table afterwards. The meta-gamer has expressed this kind of sentiment before, and claims that since he knows so much about 5e lore and mechanics, and I had intended for them to be able to make strategic use of that knowledge in game, then his reaction would be to treat anyone from this setting as a random NPC, since he would genuinely believe he is in some kind of game. How should I deal with this borderline psychopath at my table? I am definitely changing his alignment from Neutral good, but is there more I should do to prevent future arguments, or is he right as he claims to live as though he and anyone else is just a board game character?

Lizzie Tredinnick

Dear Honorable Powers that Be, I bring to your attention the case of the dubiously divine dice! While I was DMing the starter module for my family (first time playing/DMing for all) my sister's boyfriend made the decision to try and "win" at rolling the dice. Somehow he managed to find a way to near consistently finagle a roll above 15. After the 3rd time he managed this, I started making him roll with disadvantage, but he continued rolling really well with his "method," while my dad (using the same dice) couldn't roll above a 10 for the life of him (no really, I almost inadvertantly killed him in our first round of combat). Do I take that as a sign from Dice Christ ordaining the boyfriend as Their Prophet, cursing my dad in the meantime, or do I just need a more creative penalty? Please lend me your wisdom, Powers of the Crit!

Court Davies

May it please the saucy court and even saucier bailiff, I submit another case regarding the infamous "That's not how misty step works" phenomenon. I recently DM'd an encounter with the BBEG in which our wizard casted Otilukes Resilient Sphere, fully encasing the villain. This meant that no solid object or spell effect could pass through the barrier. Fearing that the fight would be brought to a standstill, I had the villain cast misty step to teleport themself out of the sphere. The wizard player argued that the villain should not have been able to do this since that was a spell effect. However I ruled that because the nature of teleportation is the act of disappearing from one place and reappearing elsewhere, no spell effect actually crossed the barrier. Was I incorrect with my ruling? Or should our wizard teleport themselves to a better attitude? I humbly await your judgement.

Jake Dwyer

May it please the honorable and benevolent Justices and the handsome but weak-ankled bailiff, I present the case of the Sneaky Peek TPK: I have been in a D&D group for the last 7 years and we take turns as DM running the official campaign modules. In our very first campaign, our party had a pair of eladrin, a dwarf paladin, and my goliath barbarian. Halfway through the module, another friend joined the group as a dwarf warlock from a lost dwarf clan. Our DM took a particular interest in the dwarf warlock and began re-writing lore sections of the module to relate to his backstory. The dwarf paladin was able to make his backstory fit the changes too, so the campaign took a very dwarf-centric turn. The eladrins were dealing with some cursed magic weapons from the module, which led to me feeling unimportant in the story and unhelpful in battle since I didn’t have any magic or magical weapon to overcome the enemies’ damage resistances (we were fighting a lot of elementals who are resistant to damage from non-magical weapons). In the second major dungeon of the module, our level 9 party was racing to stop a medusa who was on the verge of opening a portal to the Earth Plane and releasing a CR 20 Titan. After weeks of feeling like a loser in combat and wanting to feel important to the story, I peeked ahead in the module to see what we needed to do to close the portal and keep the Titan locked at bay. During the battle, I didn’t attack because I knew my damage would be halved on most of the enemies. I used my goliath’s strength to wrestle the medusa and proceeded to throw the medusa’s magic weapon into the portal to shatter the weapon and close the portal like the module had written. The DM either didn’t read this part or chose to ignore it, because the weapon exploded but the portal remained open anyway and the Titan proceeded to enter the room. I asked if there was anything we could do to force the Titan back into the portal, even offering to sacrifice my goliath if necessary, but the DM said there was no chance of controlling it without the shattered weapon. The campaign ended with a TPK, we were all left feeling unsatisfied, and we missed out on the rest of the module because we didn’t want to forge ahead with new characters with a Titan on the loose. I ask the justices - was I in the wrong to metagame and steal the spotlight by peeking ahead? Should I have spoken up about the portal mistake as our party was swallowed by the earth Titan one at a time? I submit to your wisdom and whatever punishment you deem necessary. (PS, the group is still together, we have gotten much better at playing and running the game, and we make jokes about this campaign to this day. I only read the modules after we finish the campaigns now to see the things we missed out on)

Daniel Felton

I was DMing for some new players and early on I gave one of them a home brew cursed hammer that could talk. On a crit it would absorb some of the blood of your enemy. After 5 Crits you could throw the hammer and if it hit and the enemy failed a strength save they would be sucked into a portal made from the blood of your enemies. The victims went to a demon lord I call The Bonemother. Awhile later another party member suggested that they just give their blood to the hammer to charge it up for a big fight. However when the portal is opened if anyone who’s blood made the portal is alive they too will be targeted. In short one player ended up sacrificing another party member to a demon lord. Should I have not let this happen or was this an apt punishment for playing around with cursed weapons?

Tonks

Hey Honorable Baliff and Semi-Esteemed Judges! I was part of a campaign that made a choice to release a fire elemental from a gem in the center of a dormant volcano and the action caused the volcano to erupt and destroyed a large city at the base. My character felt they needed to stay because of the hurt they caused and my party won’t let it go. I told them I would be leaving the party for a while and created a new character, but they keep insisting to talk to my old one or bring him up. It has been 3 sessions and they (my DM included) keeps trying to have my other character be a part of things. Am I wrong for following my character or is my party harshing the mellow by not following the story beats I have laid out. It really is affecting how I feel about being at the table. Humbly A player in distress!

Emily Lalande

May it please the most esteemed Justices and the most Costner-esque bailiff, This is a case of a player awkwardness. I play in a campaign of four players (initially a rogue, a barbarian, a warlock, and a paladin). My character was an elf paladin created to be the party’s healer. However, the warlock player decided that she was no longer interested in her warlock character, killed her off as a surprise to the rest of the party (who spent an entire session trying to save her only to find out she didn’t want her character to be saved), and made a new character — a cleric. This cleric had the same spells as my paladin and was announced by the player to be the party healer. She was also a princess responsible for the exile of my character's family (which was decided without consulting me), changing the trajectory of the game. After some initial awkwardness and then plot progression, it felt useless to have these two characters in the same party because they had similar abilities and completely opposite goals, and so I spoke to my DM about replacing my character. With DM approval, I sent my character off to deal with family problems, and replaced my paladin by playing a sorcerer-bard. Within the next four sessions, this same player decided that she no longer wanted to play her cleric character, and instead brought back her warlock character only to multi-class her with sorcerer. Once again, our two characters have a lot of the same spells, and her character has used the same spells after mine in initiative order. This is something other players have noticed, to the point where the DM allowed me to change the spells my sorcerer had. If I had known this player would stop playing the party healer, I never would’ve stopped playing my paladin. Now, though, I feel weird about switching characters again, especially because I put a lot of work and care into building my current character. What should I do in this copycat case? Am I being too sensitive about there being two characters with similar abilities in the party? Am I reading too much into things? I leave this case with you, brilliant Justices and wonderful comment section, and beg of you to help this confused player out.

ChefJustinLane

DM Court Cases May it please the court--that being the honourable justices Murphy, Axeford, Tanner, and Oyama, along with the only-slightly-less honourable bailiff Jake--I present the case of Player vs. DM. We were in the midst of a deadly encounter with a group of pirates hell-bent on killing my character (for reasons). I was making death saves, and rolled a Nat20 on my wonderful BLM dice (thank you Heartbeat Dice and Headgum cohorts at 3BH) but to my dismay, the DM announced that I only had 2 successes instead of the Rules-As-Written 1HP regained. It would have meant the beginning of my turn and the ability to save my party member's brother, who died on the next turn (sparking another big event that is irrelevant to this case). While it's totally normal to have homebrew rules, we had a session zero when we talked about this stuff and that never came up. I pleaded my case, and the DM, in fairness, did apologize, but I still feel robbed especially since it was such a crucial moment. I survived, but I'm worried this might happen with something else important down the line as well. My party and I await your endless wisdom. Signed, Concerned Reborn Bard (AKA Adam Elias "Riverboat" Reid)

Jack M

Hi Ho your Honors, And Jake. I play a path of the Zealot Barabarian,( what matters is it let’s me add damage to my first hit with a weapon attack each turn) I also have tavern brawler so my unarmed strike is a d4 + strength, if I got into a boxing match should my unarmed strikes count as a weapon attack so I can add my Zealot damage to my unarmed strikes since I have the tavern brawler feat which changes the strength of my unarmed strikes to make them more akin to weapon damage? Or can my fists alone not bring down the holy powers of the gods? I await your humble ruling.

Hyacinth

To the most supreme and auspicious justices, the guest justice Oyama, and anyone else who might be present I suppose, I present the case of the celebrity halfing: It was my first time DMing three years ago and one of my players decided to play a halfing rogue. He wore a hood at all times and wouldn't tell me anything more about his character. At the time I was fine with it, a little mystery is fun! Two sessions in he pulled back his hood to reveal the face of... Owen Wilson. He proceeded to say "wow" throughout the session, and was altogether making it difficult for me to concentrate on the world we were in. In the next session he pulled back the hood to reveal..... Mike Tyson. It turned out every day he would be a different celebrity. I could not take it, so in the next battle they were in I focused my attacks partly on his character and killed him. He ended up choosing a much more integrative character after that, but I ask you: was my naive DM mind wrong to want to remove such an insane character from my game? I put myself at the mercy of the court!

Matt

May it please the court and the Honorable Justices Tanner, Murphy, Axford, Oyama and Noble Bailiff Sir Jake Hurwitz Last of his Name. I present the Case of the ‘Borrowed’ Story elements. Recently one of my players started listening to NADDPOD and Dimension 20. They realized that I used some elements from Campaign one, the big bad was a Halfling Paladin named Beverly Silverfoot (sorry Justice Tanner). Later they were furious to discover got upset that one of arcs was ‘completely stolen’. I had them wake up from a trance as the Generals for the Lord of Shadows in the Blood keep (Dimension 20), they had to figure out what happened and escape. The players loved it and I did adapt it to fit. The player argues that I was wrong to use someone else’s ideas and that the other (Better) DM’s would be enraged and Ban me from D&D forever for using their ideas. They said “if I’m such a bad DM; I should just run modules”. Have I wronged Justice Murphy and Justice adjacent Lee Mulligan?

BuzzingAround

May it please the honored supreme crit justices, bailiff, and guests, whoever they might be. I bring to you the case of Hearing vs Healing. Our DM set up a cool encounter where the temple of Sehanine needed help clearing out an unknown creature from their crypt. It's wails had already driven their head priestess mad. When we approached, we were told hearing the wails hurt even through our candle wax earplugs, and we got the sense it would do actual damage as we got closer. One of our party, a war hardened navy Triton, immediately went to pierce his eardrums to deafen himself. The party decided to follow his lead since we knew the temple had healers and we also had healing potions on order to be picked up later. Our DM said this plan wouldn't work because healing potions etc would heal us, but not necessarily restore hearing. We countered that hp is just a representation of overall health, and healing our eardrums would heal our hearing. After the navy man said he'd be willing to deafen himself even if he couldn't be healed ("sacrifices must be made in war"), our DM let us use candle wax to completely deafen ourselves with the understanding that we also wouldn't be able to communicate, which was a compromise we all agreed with. However, the main question still intrigues me to this day. Would healing potions and/or healers be able to restore hearing after a character punctures their eardrums? PS, we ended up killing the creature (a banshee) before they were able to do anything because we got a surprise round and it rolled really low on its initiative.

Max Fitz-James

Honourable Justices and contemptible bailiff. Please help save our halfling rogue! In our regular session last night we were exploring a pyramid when the stairs turned into a ramp and the room started filling up with sand. We are trying to climb up the ramp without falling down into the ever rising sand. We have to do a dexterity saving throw every turn to not slip, doing so with disadvantage if we try to dash. Our halfling rogue Meddle Burbottom (my wife) being naturally much faster than the rest of us, rushed ahead only to find three baby basilisks near the top. She passed one saving throw but was promptly turned to stone and started sliding back down. The DM ruled that she would fall the full distance (around 160 feet) back down to the sand where we may well lose her and if we kill the basilisk to turn her back to flesh (which worked for another of our party earlier in the dungeon) she would likely suffocate. He also said we would all get out of the way of the falling halfling statue or it would take us with her. Given that it took two rounds of full rogue dashing with bonus actions, is it reasonable that she would fall the full distance in one round? We ended the session before the start of the next round, so your ruling may be crucial in resolving this. I humbly ask for your wise adjudication!

Klakadol

May it please the court and the esteemed justices Murphy, Axeford, and Tanner, and maybe even the okay bailiff Jake. I present the case of rogue vs. the death goo. I've just DMed my third ever session in which my players defeated a hoard of giant rats who were guarding a potion. The potion was a failed experiment and its consistency resembled hair gel. After winning the fight, our kenku rogue asked to investigate whether he could drink the goo, which I knew would immediatelly kill him. Luckily he rolled really low and, not wanting our rogue to die in the third session, I said that he thinks it's probably really dangerous and anyway, he couldn't drink the goo, he'd have to eat it. This made the player drop the subject, but later he complained I wouldn't let him drink the death goo. Was I out of line to try and save the rogue from himself? Should I have let his low roll make him think the goo looked like a tasty treat? I await your judgement humbly.

Thomas M. Pflanz

May it please the court, the Baliff fallen from his temporary grace, and the wonderful and esteemed judges, I bring to you the case of the Baffled Bard in a Falling Frenzy: In a recent session I ran, my players found themselves in the Feywild, and had a combat where they fought Giant Apes while falling through the air for a mile (capping eventual damage at 20d6). They made very short work of the apes, after which they had to figure out a way to break their fall in the remaining 8 rounds they had. Three of my players worked together to break their fall. The Bard, on the other hand, decided to work by himself and fashion a crude parachute with an old cloak and some rope. He rolled a Nat 20, so I allowed him to finish constructing the parachute in the 48 seconds he had before he crashed into the ground. Here is the dispute: For the group that worked together, due to their actions and their successful rolls, I reduced their falling damage from 20d6 to 14d6. For the solo Bard I reduced the falling damage from 20d6 to 15d6. The Bard argued that, as he had built a parachute, he should have negated much more falling damage, even though he had such a short amount of time. I argued that he, by himself, negated more falling damage than any one person in the group that worked together. Nobody even went unconscious from the fall. Should I have reduced the falling damage more? Or was my ruling just in the eyes of the court? I humbly and earnestly await your honors' ruling.

Casey Alexander

May it please the ever humble Court and Bailiff Jake. I love playing dnd and recently my friends have all started playing with me. One of them elected to dm which I was grateful for because I often dm. It’s all very fun playing in the new world. However I find that one of our players is increasingly frustrating to play with. We’ve been playing a couple months now and are about level 4. I play a ranger. We also have a Druid. And this troubling player plays a barbarian. They were a brand new player when we began and i had so much fun teaching them rules but now it’s turned bitter. They constantly are going down because they refuse to rage. Constant reminders about it do not help and they go in attack wildly and go down. We aren’t really a strong healing party and have barely scraped by. I thought about some levels of cleric to help this but I’m playing an Aarakocra so a lot of the heavy armour class stuff is not helpful even if the healing would be. I don’t know what to do and neither does my dm as they are so new. How do we get our barbarian to use one of their main abilities? Do I find some kinda workable healing multiclass in hopes to balance this out and let them just enjoy recklessly killing and dying? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you court.

Grace Atkins

May it please the court and the lowly bailiff. I bring you the case of the biclopsicorn. I DM for a group that likes to razz me. They find something that they know that flusters me and pick at it to get me in a tizzy. I know it's all good fun so I am not really mad about it, but I did feel the need to exact my revenge. In my last campaign I ran, there were tons of hints that the BBEG was a vampire, however for some reason my group decided they wanted it to be a biclopsicorn (horse with 1 eye 2 horns). They joked and joked and joked about this for months so in the final session after they defeated the BBEG vampire, I had the God of Evil and Chaos in the world appear in the form of a biclopsicorn and TPK them. My group was fine with the outcome cause was the final session, and we laugh about it to this day, but I am wondering if I was too harsh over a simple gag? I await your fair judgment.

Daniel Joseph

May it please the court, the Honorable Crit Justices and most distinguished Bailiff,. My case comes in the form of flavor gone wrong. I was DMing a group of experienced players who wanted to try something new with 5e, and for one player in particular, that meant playing against type. He decided to play a Wizard… who didn’t cast spells. He said that his Wizard would be more investigative and use his spells to support the team. In theory this was great until we actually played with this character. This player had come in later into the campaign (around session 25 or so) and the party was very combat oriented and comprised mostly of multiclassing powerhouses (sorc/paladin, shadow monk/rogue, etc.) After a few sessions, the player complained that there was nothing for him to do during combat, as his character wasn’t “canonically” a spell caster. He told me I, as the DM, had to change the way I set up combat to accommodate his play style. I told him that wasn’t my job, and he needed to figure out how he was going to contribute to the team and not let flavor get in the way of helping party comp. Was I in the wrong? Should I be the one adjusting encounters to give him more chances to shine? Or is flavor the responsibility of the player?

Matt mckenzie

May it please the wise justices, the righteous bailiff, and Dice Christ, blessed be his rolls. I present the case of the Magnetic Nerfing. One player I DM for loves to make custom magic items and spells. He always tries to start with the spell being much too strong but is willing to be negotiated down. I approved one of his spells, and he used it for the first time in our last session. It completely ruined the combat as it remained way too powerful. I wrote him a few days later saying I need to nerf the spell. He understood, but was very disappointed. I feel horrible for doing this, but I believe leaving this spell as is would ruin the game. Am I wrong for killing my players hopes and dreams? [Context: player is a 4th lvl sorcerer. Spell, called magnetic pulse, is 2nd lvl and, as written, has the ability to suspend people in the air for multiple rounds, even if they’re not wearing metal). I bow to your wise judgement and await my punishment if I am the guilty party. - Matt in DC

Jor Elare

May it please the crit, and particularly the cerebro slug that pilots justice Oyama. I come to you with the case of the Full Cover Fiend. In a recent session I implored my players to take advantage of their surroundings (we play with maps) so that I could justify a ww1 style artillery barrage at a crucial point in a time-travel space-pirate themed adventure. My rogue decided to bonus action hide behind something on EVERY turn. While I appreciated the strategy, it led to other party members feeling exposed and using their ACTIONS to hide and grinding combat to a halt. After a full session of this I homebrewed a 40k style space marine monster with power armor and a chainsaw sword to flush them from static positions ala Mr x from resident evil 2. My players were outraged after realizing he had tons of hp and just existed to get them to move. Accusing me of railroading them out of realistic actions. Were they right? I humbly submit to the crits decisions

Rachel From Animorphs

May it please the court. I present to the honorable justices and.. others the case of the sneak savants. This is a situation many should be familiar with. My group of players are sneaking into a town and do some prep. There’s a Druid, rouge, and wizard. The rouge is the only one good at sneaking. So they develop a strategy. The Druid casts pass without trace before wild shaping into a beetle that stays in the rouge’s pocket. The wizard polymorphs into a worm and does the same. The rouge, now by himself essentially, rolls a minimum of 20 on stealth with pass without trace. Super creative and fun. I loved it the first time. The second time I improvised an anti-magic wall at the entrance. They were butt hurt that I came up with something that specifically stops their creativeness. But I argued it’s not creative to continue to do the same thing or challenging if I give them obstacles with the same solution every time. Should I let my players continue to use the same strategies or am I right to come up with new scenarios based on what they’ve done?

Ruben Cabrera

If it may please the court, I present the case of the 3 Pokey Boys Magic Shenanigans During a CoS campaign I had three magic users that wanted to use the Minor Illusion Cantrip to impersonate a important NPC traveling through town. The argument was, with all three of them using the cantrip they should be able to Create the illusion of a man walking. I usually am pretty good about about allowing creative solutions, but this one seemed like a problem. I didn’t want to set that precedent because they would try to impersonate more important NPCs in the future. Was I too quick to cut out the shenanigans ? P.S. they were called the Pokey Boys cause they played a bard, a rogue ,and a paladin that all used Rapiers

Grant Kenny

To the honorable Crit Justices Murph, Axford, Tanner and Oyama, I leave the case of: the Railroading...Player?? in the hands of the strong calfed bailiff Jake to present. I play a weekly Pathfinder 2e game (Similar to 5e with some different action economy) with some friends every week that is fun with the exception of one issue. We have a player that continuously wants to further the plot without any detours. Anytime we try to do things differently or explore other options, he will (in character) refuse and push us to what the main objective is. While I can admit this can be useful in certain scenarios if we really go off the narrative rails, but there are times the group wants to go a different route, or talk to people in the city we're in. The DM also leaves opportunity for us to go on side quests of explore. Apparently off session the player also vents to the DM every time a party member does something he doesn't like that takes away from the Main story. This is really the only group I play with so how should I best confront this player to make sure everyone can have the freedom of choice they want without the tension in each session to stick to the main plot. I humbly await judgement.

Bill Mulligan

May it please the honorable mighty crit justices and stone cold fox of a balif; in a campaign I DMed for, all 3 players had independently written the same backstory: "my family died/was killed and I'm off seeking adventure". One of the PCs backstory was that he was an orphan on the streets. In an encounter down the line, I had a demon lord reveal that his parents had not actually died but were still alive somewhere in the world. The player got upset, saying that if I wanted to add to his backstory I should have consulted him first and that this relevation ruins his character's motivations. So I later had the demon discredited as a liar and trickster and dropped the potential storyline. from then on, I didn't incorporate the characters backstories into the campaign making it feel, in my opinion, more shallow of a story. But I ask this to the court; how much license should a DM have when creating the world and do they have a right to expand a character's story or was the player right and I should have consulted him first?

Omar

To the honorable justices and the banana-hammocked bailiff, I present the case of the missing sessions My group has, trouble to say the least, making our weekly sessions actually weekly, due to people having other obligations. We're a group of 6 players, so I've often thought and said that it should be fine to do sessions if only one person is missing, but we always postpone. A few weeks back, I had to miss a session due to a family obligation, and they decided to play without my character. On one hand, this was what I was wanting them to do, but on the other hand, I'm a little salty that they only started doing it when I was the one missing. Am I being a big baby for taking my own medicine, or is my group kind of being a dick for playing without me when they normally postpone? I lay myself at the mercy of the court

Zoe Jones

May it please the court and the benevolent and trustworthy bailiff, I am currently playing as a Firbolg Circle of Spores druid (thank you, justice Axford) in a homebrew campaign where my husband is also playing as a warpriest paladin. Our party encountered an owlbear that had been destroying some crops and made home in a nearby cave, and our job was to get rid of it. Here's the thing: since my firbolg is a fierce protector of nature and all animals, my goal was to simply drive the owlbear out of its habitat by destroying the cave and scaring it away. However, my husband the warpriest decided to simply kill it. When he began to wail on the owlbear I did what my character would do: I had her jump and take some blows herself instead of the owlbear. Here's where the real conflict comes in: I as the player didn't know that an owlbear is actually considered a monstrosity, NOT an animal or creature. Therefore my character would have been fine with killing it. However, when I did a check to see if I knew anything about owlbears (and rolled high), the DM didn't include that they're monstrosities. So, thinking that the owlbear deserved protecting, my firbolg attempted to save the owlbear by begging her party members to spare it and almost dying in the process. Instead, the party murdered it and cut off its body parts as trophies and my firbolg was mentally scarred, and on top of that the vibe IRL was off because of the conflict. It wasn't until the next day that my husband FINALLY informed me that an owlbear is not an animal but a monstrosity. Even though my defense was that I genuinely did not know, he still doesn't think the DM is to blame for not telling me this crucial fact. Am I an asshole for risking my party in this situation? Should I have known that an owlbear is a monstrosity and not an animal? Or did my DM unintentionally screw me over and make me look bad in front of my party? Help!

Lou

Supreme Crit Justices and the Chillest of Bailiffs, I am in need of meditation. Several years ago a druid in our party cast speak with animals so that he could converse with some nearby chickens to get some intel while we scouted out an area. The DM's response was "they say they're scared" and when asked for further information he said "no that's all you get, chickens are stupid". At that point tempers frayed and I'll be honest, the DM and I haven't spoken since (this was the straw that broke the back of the friendship). Was I justified in being annoyed that, after using a spell slot the party got no information from the chickens or was my DM right to suggest that chickens would be useless and wouldn't be able to tell us that there were a couple of mean boar hiding behind a nearby tree? For added flavour this same DM said prestidigitation was overpowered. I eagerly await your verdict.

Katy Tacik

May it please the crit, most notably the illustrious Justice Oyama. I present the case of the party vs. the changeling. In our first real encounter versus Strahd in our Curse of Strahd campaign, my party and I were feeling sassy and hurling insults at him. I shouted something particularly nasty (light spoilers: "You were cucked by your own brother and Tatiana threw herself off a building rather than marry you."), which caused him to zoom across the battlefield and backhand me so hard I was knocked out. Needless to say, it killed the mood for Strahd, and he was leaving the battlefield because we'd ruined his playtime. Our whole party at that point was either knocked out or below 10hp, so we were relieved that combat seemed to be over. Except that the changeling in our party had one last goof up his sleeve. He jumped through a moonbeam (taking the damage in service of the goof) to enact a Sailor Moon transformation, and came out the other side looking like the object of Strahd's affection to further taunt him. We were all furious and begged him not to do it, but he insisted it's what his character would do. Strahd came back and almost killed him, of course. It was only at the mercy of our DM that this wasn't a tpk. Judges, should my DM have murdered our changeling to teach him a lesson? I'm of the mind that you shouldn't scamp a vamp, but I await your judgment.

Abby Reeves

Greetings Honorable Crit Justices and lowly shameful baliff, I am here with a conclusion to the Boss Baby Campaign Case. My friends and I spent weeks politely arguing over the topic, mostly making passive-aggressive comments at each other about the boss baby lore. However, we have reached a compromise. I have agreed to run a three-shot mini campaign about the Boss Baby’s dystopia if they take part in a proper campaign afterwards. I think this is fair, seeing as we both get what we want. I would like to thank the Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner (But not the baliff) for their guidance in this turbulent issue.

Jason Dedrick

May it please the esteemed and venerable Court: back in March 2020, when our campaign started, our DM gave each of us a magic item corresponding to our background. He gave my Tempest Cleric a pendant which lets her cast one Druid spell (Circle of the Land, Coast) per day, based on her character level. 65 sessions later, my DM says he wants to nerf this item as he "worries he will come up with fun puzzles that she can just immediately solve". Given that I have almost exclusively used the pendant to try and create cool roleplaying moments, it feels bad to have my fourth and fifth level spells taken away (as my cleric has multiclassed for roleplay purposes). P.S. I've used Control Water to do cool seafaring nautical bullshit before and it has been celebrated. Am I just too mad with power bc the BBEG is a privateer with a fleet of ships docked in port?

Thomas McComb

Honorable justices and also whatever Jake is this week. May it please the court, I present the case of the Warlock VS the Beholder. In an off week for our weekly campaign I ran a NADDPod inspired “Can They Kill It?” session where I picked several monsters that I wanted to try out and had the party fight them. The final monster I selected was a Beholder. In the first round of combat our Warlock casted Hunger of Hadar centered on the Beholder. The spell creates a 20ft radius sphere that blinds any creature within it and creates rough terrain. The beholder has a 150ft anti magic cone that comes out of its center eye. I ruled at the time that the beholder could suppress the section of the spell it was looking at directly but the rest of the spell would stay in place, thus blinding the rest of the beholders eyes. I used a dash action to get the beholder out of the spell, but the warlock then used Eldritch blast with an invocation to knock the beholder back into the spell. This effectively neutralized the entire fight as the beholder’s spells are based on sight. My question is: if the beholder suppresses part of a spell sphere should the entire spell collapse or should it only suppress the slice that the anti magic field touches? This was ruled as me getting whomped at the table. I just need to know if I was whomped by myself or my players.

Eugene

Here ye here ye May it please the honorable justices and the more than less but not great bailiff. I have a DM versus player problem. So I have something that happened to my group and I a while ago but I just found out about the dungeons and dragons court. So my character had got killed by werewolves we are still a little bit triggered by them by the way. Before that my other player and I had used the marriage ritual to get the plus to AC and other benefits it gives. We discovered that when one person dies that is part of the ritual you can preform it again………… We just happened to have 3-4 scrolls of revivify and had a thought. We asked our dm if he would allow us to slit each other’s throats and die so we could always have the marriage ritual. I think we almost made our DM sick af he wasn’t a happy camper. Is it really that fucked up? Is it even more fucked up my friend and I had the idea at the same time. Sounds like true friendship to me.

Alex C.

Dear honorable judges Axford, Murphy and Tanner, observable bailiff Jacob and High Rotor Oyama. I am in need of a quick judgment: Is underwear an acceptable offer to an unknown god as long as the ex-inhabitant of said underwear sacrifices it as something very dear to them?

Heather Stratton

I humbly request the aid of the most auspicious judges and aptly described baliff. I am a DM for a homebrew campaign for some old friends of mine. Well. It was a campaign at first, the group isn't very interested in much besides goofing off and fighting monsters, so I've done away with most of the story, but that's a story for another day. My issue is this. We have been playing for over a year and a half. I started them at level 2 so they could clean the rules and grow with their characters. We had a session the other day and the wizard (who apparently JUST figured out that he had leveled spells!!!! We thought he just really liked fire bolt, he chose level spells at level up but somehow didn't know he had them) didn't know the difference between an action and a bonus action! I submit to the court, knowing I have little patience, am I a bad DM for getting irritated by this? I did my best to explain the rules and make the game as comprehensible as possible but I am seriously doubting both my teaching and dming skills. I beseech the judges and baliff to determine my innocence or guilt in this case of a lovable but bumbling wizard

Kierstin Turnock

May it please the court, I present the case of the voided portent roll. I play a divination wizard in a longtime Acquisitions Incorporated campaign. We had finally reached level 11 and I took “disintegrate” with the plan to use low portent rolls to force enemies to fail their saving throws since the spell does nothing on a success. Well, in the next boss battle, dice Christ smiled down on me and gave me a NAT ONE portent roll. I eagerly awaited my turn in the battle and finally got to use my ONLY sixth level spell slot to cast disintegrate and force the big bad to fail his saving throw using my NAT ONE portent roll. However, the DM said that the BBG rolled saving throws with advantage and that my portent roll would replace ONE of the two rolls. I argued that the party wouldn’t know that the BBG rolled with advantage and would only know the final roll and thus my portent roll should replace the final roll. My DM disagreed and said the wording of portent was confusing and proceeded to roll with advantage and took the higher roll which subsequently passed my spell save DC. I was so dejected because the DM completely nerfed my wizard’s portent ability and took away what I thought would have been a really cool move in a very difficult battle. So I ask the court, was my DM right? Do portent rolls only replace one roll of the die or do they replace the final roll? I anxiously await your judgement.

Crane

May It please the church and returning father oyama. I bring a confession of I'm deeply ashamed of. I was dming a wild beyond the witch light campaign were as the party were negotiating between a evil hag who has kidnapped the fairy godmother. After entering her home unannounced, the hag insisted on the party to do her chores to make up for breaking in. The party's bard attempted to persuade the hag to allow them not to do her tasks. This is were I mess up. I did not allow my bard to do a persuasion check. The rest of the party was doing different things that aggravated the witch which got my frazzled. After several warnings the hag turned the bard into a toad. The player then left the game after he stated he was basically unable to do anything anymore. I put my self before the church and wait to be punished.

Alex DiFiore

~~TRENT UPDATE~~ Most esteemed judges! Zac and Lou were on when you guys read my case, so here’s the update! Quick refresher, I DM’d a 1 shot on my birthday, “Trent” joined the bad guy, cut off his arm, then got mad at me that I conspired to kill him. Before I got a chance to tell Trent that our story got featured on naddpod, one of my friends sent me a naddpod subReddit post POSTED BY TRENT. Again, he’s new to dnd and not a naddpole. Trent begged for sympathy from the naddpod community as he proceeded to tell a ludicrously incorrect description of what happened, painting me as a bumbling idiot dm who was extraordinarily unreasonable to all the pc’s. The post got over 300 upvotes and 60 comments. Most of the comments were people slandering my real life name (while trent’s identity remained confidential) and demanding a mistrial, while some knew that Trent was clearly lying and acting exactly as I had described him. The next night, Trent texted me, “Hey did you see the latest Jake and Amir”. We don’t text and never talked about Jake and Amir before. I said no but I will soon. The Reddit post was mysteriously deleted by the next day. Hope you enjoyed the Trent update! P.S. I was sent the Reddit post the same day I asked a girl out on a date and it ruined my mood for the date. Trent strikes again.

Robin

To the corrupt and bourgeoisie justices and the most honourable comrade bailiff, I present to you a case of attempted Grand Theft Panther. Our party had a misunderstanding with the law and needed to make sure some vital evidence was liberated from the local guard station. One party member had a Grey Bag of Tricks and suggested we pull something out of it and hope to get something distracting. Dice Christ was with us that day as we pull a full panther out of the bag. The Bag Owner commands the panther to cause trouble (but to stop short of actually harming anyone) and it sets to the task with glee, soon leading a merry chase of guards whilst we sneak in unopposed. The problem arose when it came time to make our escape. Another player had understandably taken a liking to our feline friend and less understandably started making checks to tame it. We all pointed out the panther already belonged to the owner of the Bag, and would disappear soon in any case. The wannabe cat stealer brushed off our protests and kept attempting to make checks, arguing it's what their character would do for several minutes before we could get him to back off and he was very put out afterwards that we 'didn't even let [him] try'. Should we have let him try to 'tame' another player's magical panther or were we right to be taken aback by this behaviour?

Jessica Petra

Honorable judges, I have a question for your esteemed ears and eyes. I created a Magic Girl themed campaign using 5e and I gave everyone a finishing move that was inline with their trope and natural element. The rogue, Semolina, a "yandere" character with a crush on her English teacher Mr. Willoughby, chose Air as their element so I gave them the finishing move "Hurricane Strike" which casts Steel Wind Strike. Last night we were playing and they suggested that they could use their finishing move as a way to more or less teleport her teammates around during a battle. I thought a bit about it and decided against it citing the spell as an attack spell and that these are finishing moves that are meant to deal the final blow. They agreed with no incident, but I'm kind of curious, what do you think? Non-lethal damage is a thing, could someone use Steel Wind Strike to get their teammates out of a jam? I await your judgement with bated breathe. - Jess (she/her)

Noah James Perito

To the unquestionably wise justices and the proud but humble bailiff - I present the case of the breakdancing buffoon. I’ve been playing D&D for 5 years now (most of the time DMing) but haven’t been able to shake the bummer that was my first experience. I had decided to play a tiefling fighter named Whiskey based on Mugen from Samurai Champloo (a swordsman whose fighting style was basically breakdancing with blades) since I didn’t fully understand the classes and wanted something simple. The party had finagled their way into a king’s court to see if they could get to the bottom of what was happening and to distract the king, my character Whiskey attempted to do a sword dance performance to provide a distraction. Despite my backstory flavor that indicated I was good at dancing, I was told to roll flat with my low charisma, and ended up getting a poor roll. In response, my DM looked at me with a grin and said sorry before having the king mock me and the entire court pelt me with rotten food. I ask this - Was my DM being too harsh? Should I have at least been able to add my proficiency to the roll? I leave it to you right honorable justices to decide.

Jessica Petra

Also, in case you were wondering, yes, the players all created a magic girl transformation sequence and they have to describe it during every episode. They also have a talking flying squirrel named Percival as their cute animal companion.

Kyle Welch

May it pleasure the court and the surprisingly jacked bailiff. I bring you a case of misappropriation of justice. I am the long term DM for my group but after a couple months one of our newer players offered to dm the next campaign for me and I was ecstatic. A couple sessions in and the party was in a new city after evading some pirates and we had been hired to track down some relics stolen from the local temple. After some sleuthing we found out where the goods had been stolen from. From there we managed to find the thieves in an alley and before we confronted them we sent the npc priest to gather the guards in order to arrest them. The party cleric tries to sneakily confirm that they are up to no good but botches the roll and they get suspicious and make to leave. Seeing this as our only opportunity to stop them I shoot the leader in the leg before they can leave and combat starts. We take down the thieves(non lethally) and shortly after the guards arrive and arrest ME saying I committed aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. I proceed to RP and roll well on some persuasion checks during the investigation almost getting the charges dropped. But the DM says that the guards didn’t believe me despite rolling a 19 persuasion and that I was sentenced to death with no trial. I then spent the next two sessions sitting quietly as I was in prison and the party tried to get me out managing to get me a brand on my forearm marking me as a violent felon and banished from the city. She then expressed out of character that I had ruined her plans for the story in the city. Was I truly in the wrong or did my relatively new dm give me a kangaroo trial? I prostrate myself before the court and await justice

Talia Smock

May it please the most honorable judges and the almost as important bailiff, I present the case of the barbarian that won't rage. I am a DM in a game and I have been struggling with my players a bit, one in particular. He came to me at the beginning wanting to play a Goliath barbarian, I was excited because barbarians are such a fun class and I was excited to see him try something new! When he told me his backstory he decided that his barbarian was forced to fight through childhood and as an adult was working on his anger management. I was a little surprised because he was a barbarian but went with it. As we have been playing he has refused to fight multiple times, even going as far as to search for fighting pits then throw the fight, and has never willingly gone into a rage. It got to a point that (since the character had had anger management issues originally) I came up with a mechanic to have him make wisdom saving throws or unwillingly go into a rage (trying to get the player to see the cool abilities) and then even went so far as to create a homebrew subclass for him as a defender rather than an attacker. He still either forgets or won't use these abilities and I am not sure how to proceed. Have I been a forceful DM pushing my player to play in a way he doesn't want to? I humbly wait for your harsh but fair judgment.

Michael Littlehales

May it please the court, permanent justices and on-and-off again bailiffs. I write to you asking for judgement in the case of war caster Eldritch Knight vs the DM. I was playing as a dwarves eldritch knight Ulfgar (thanks to NADDPOD for the inspiration) we were on a ship in combat with some Orc shamans. My DM had mentioned that the orc shaman was getting close to death and that they would try and escape. I was engaged in melee and they couldn't both disengage and dash to escape the boat in time, so my DM agreed I would be able to make an opportunity attack. I had taken the war caster feat at level 4 and at the time of the incident was level 13. I had not had a chance to utilise the benefits of the feat in all that time so was looking forward to this. I choose to cast booming blade and crit with my greatsword doing 25 damage before applying the booming blade. I rolled the damage for that and 13, for a total of 38 damage and an extra 1d8 if the shaman willingly moved another 5 feet. My DM freaked out saying there was no way that was right and that I couldn't do my cantrip and weapon damage despite booming blade specifying you make a melee attack as part of the action. He insisted the shaman take damage from the weapon only and that they manged to escape "barely clinging to life". Towards the end of the campaign, the same orc shaman appeared later at the head of an orc army. It is of my opinion that the DM saw I was about to kill the NPC he had plans for and decided not to allow my use of a cantrip as a reaction. Ulfgar never fully got to utilise the war caster feat despite having it for over 10 levels. Was the DM fair in this decision or should Ulfgar have been able to cut the head off the snake bwfore it led to war. I await your decision. Signed, Justice for Ulfgar

RetroBoy

May it pleased the court, the lowly bailiff Jake and the wonderful judges. I bring you the story of the mech whale. The party I DM for have met a friendly blue whale with tentacles, courtesy of the Warlock patreon, to help the party get to an island where death reside in. The whale help them get to island them told the party goodbye as it could not walk on land, then as a joke the Warlock ask the artificer if he could make the whale walk on land which he said yes to right away. He claim that using his infusion "propulsion armor" which give 5 ft. Of walking speed will make the whale able to walk on land, then when I brought the issue of the whale being to big for the armor he claimed that it's magical armor and as such will fit any creatures regardless of size. I eventually ran out of arguments and let them have a mech whale help them on the island, was I wrong? Should I have fought more, I await your judgment

Ben D

May it please the court, I present the case of the nautical centaur. I was playing a centaur glamour bard, and the party was preparing to take a voyage to the next location. I was told as a centaur I couldn't be on deck, as horses were unstable on boats, and therfore would have to be kept in the hold. I argued that with higher intelligence it wouldn't be a problem but was overruled. My attempt to use Alter Self for seaworthy legs was also denied. I spent the rest of the voyage in the hold unable to participate in roleplay as the party bard. This was years ago and I'm still peeved. I humbly await your ruling.

Jacob Nixon

May it deeply please Honorable Justice Oyama, and nobody else: I was running a low magic campaign for history nerds loosely based on the fall of the Roman Republic, in which a ~LV. 10 party of knights quickly realized who the "Julius Ceasar" character was and decided to assassinate him in a preemptive strike. He was my BBEG for the campaign which would have lasted for about 20 sessions but had not yet shown any sort of danger to the PC's or the surrounding world, as he was killed quickly in the second session. I ask the court: is this my fault for basing a campaign and Big Baddie off of real history? Or is it the fault of my players for jumping the gun and offing a general who had done little more than inspire his legions. It may help to know that the campaign pivoted well and the Namor Republic is now in a deep factional war with the party in the thick of it.

Stephanie Thompson

May it please the court and bailiff in equal measure My friend DM'd a Christmas one shot with premade characters. We were essentially elven special ops in a Christmas town. I chose the rogue as I enjoy rogues and had never played an arcane trickster before. All of my spells were selected for me, and we were ready to play. And then it turned out we were being attacked by undead and elementals. All well and good, except my spells were sleep, hideous laughter, silent image and color spray (the undead hunted by smell). As the game went on, i started to check out mentally. I still tried to get in my sneak attacks and stuff. And my character focused on saving the kidnapped children from the evil ritual, but, my heart wasn't in it. My DM apologized but I feel like I might have been being the jerk to the party by letting the spell selection bring me down. Because I know my emotions came through the voice chat. I'd just like a ruling from the crit to settle this for myself!

L_D

May it please the court and provide boundless happiness to the bailiff. When I was but a humble beginner DM, I once created an encounter for my players built around a magic ball that would suck anyone who touched it inside and could only be released by a magic pass-phrase. During the encounter, my party’s Mage decided to pick up the ball with mage hand and chuck it at the mini-boss I had painstakingly written for them, ending the fight before it even began as he got sucked up into the ball. I accepted my whomping and allowed it to happen. My question arises from the following; the party’s barbarian then suggested the mage use mage-hand again to put the ball in a satchel so they could release the mini-boss as a weapon of sorts in their next encounter. I allowed this, but when they released the mini-boss in the next encounter as they planned to I simply had him attack them almost immediately, absolutely clattering the healer in the process and nearly causing a TPK. My players argued that he would have been confused and attacked the new enemy that they were fighting, but I argued that trapping him in a ball would only have made him more mad at the party. Was I in the right? Or have I just condemned myself to being trapped in a ball? Many thanks.

Parker

I come not with a legal plea, but a request of Dice Christ. When I first began playing 5e, I was known at my table for my consistently high rolls. However, with each new character my dice failed me more often than not. I at first believed that playing characters with stakes (instead of just lil chaotic dudes) was the reason for my failures. However, now I have discovered that I only roll well with dice that have been given to me as a gift, not those I purchase for myself. Have I done something to offend our savior? Or will I never be able purchase my own dice again? I humbly await any floggings necessary to atone.

Dustin Colwell

Dearly beloved Judges and Baliff. I submit to you the case of “Even Hitler had a Wife” I was DMing a fantasy campaign and one of my players changed alignments to evil through magical means (The Book of Vile Darkness). This player took it to an extreme, murdering every townsperson bartender and child they saw, to the horror of the party. I argued with them that even Hitler or Darth Vader could TALK to people sometimes without murdering them. The player insisted and continued their murder spree. So later when the entire party was arrested for their actions, I denied the evil player a cool escape scene they attempted and made the rest of the party come rescue them after escaping themselves. They were since cured of their evil curse but I still wonder if I was too harsh, making them sit alone while the rest of the party had a cool moment. I submit myself to your judgements.

W Jackson

May it please the whole court, from its most supreme members to Jake. I bring a brief submission from a novice player. I play in a game run by a DM who is a huge fan of many popular D&D shows featuring professional comedians, actors and voice actors. In gaps between the action our DM repeatedly tries to set up heartfelt one to ones between our characters or romantic scenes that have fallen flat with the players. Our group have not met each other in person often as we only started our campaign during the pandemic, and have not had a chance to develop much chemistry within the group. Even if we had I'm not sure we have the acting, improvising or flirting skills to satisfy our DM's vision for these party interactions. Does the court have any advice for how we can persuade our DM to not try and force these moments (honestly - minimum three times per session) without offending him? Does Supreme Justice Murphy have any tips for generating or pacifying the on-screen and off-screen chemistry of his players?

Nour

May it please the court and the perfectly adequate bailiff! I present the case of the Out Of Character Cutscene. During a very cool combat moment, my Oath of Glory Paladin used their channel divinity to save their love interest. My DM proceeded to narrate this in a way that doesn't really fit my PC, essentially saying that seeing their love interest in danger gave them a reason to fight that they never really had before -- however, my paladin worships a god of war and seeks glory. They don't need a reason to fight, it's part of their philosophy and their core values. I'm also as a player really invested in the relationship my PC has to their god, and seeing this turned romantic kind of soured it for me. I tried to bring it up subtley in private messages after the session, but my DM didn't really respond. I didn't make more of a fuss because it WAS a very cool moment that everyone else enjoyed and I didn't want to ruin it by calling it OOC. Should I have been more vocal with my issues or is it better sometimes to let a cool story exist, even at the detriment of characterisation?

Maxwell Keiles

May it please the court and not incur the wrath of Justice Axford. I recently started to DM for people who have never played D&D. It was also my first time DMing. I was running the lost mines of Phandelver and the players came up to some hungry wolves. In the module, it explicitly states that if you feed them, the Dc to get by without them alerting the guards will lower. The wizard in the party had a similar idea to this. He used the find familiar spell to create an octopus because it “had the most meat”. I tried to say that this spell was for creating animal buddies and not as a food source. He persisted and I narrated how this cute octopus with beady eyes came into existence and was immediately mauled by the wolves. It worked and my players went on their Mary way, but the campaign was clearly more evil centric after that. My question is two fold. Should I have been more explicit with my players about the spell, and does the Ram Danial full really apply when creatures eat other summoned creatures. I await your humble dession, though I do ask to not be represented by Paw Paw.

Beav

The Case of BEING PRONE WHILE FLYING Your esteemed honors and insanely shredded, buff bailiff, I will keep this brief. I DM for a party with an Aarakocra PC that often whomps me with their ability to fly off whenever things get dicey. Fighting some cultist mages, the birdman gets low on HP and takes flight. A foe cast Taseous Hideous Laughter which, on a fail, knocks a creature prone. Reading the 5e definition for the “prone“ condition, I ruled that the birdman fell out of the sky. They took enough falling damage to hit 0 hp, then perspired after 2 death saves (a 7 then a 1). The PC argues that prone while flying would not have caused any falling damage, and their feathered PC would have glided safely to the ground, but I stand my decision. Please rule this case (slips $5 to bailiff).

Steven Hoffart

May it please the court, bring joy to the justices, and befuddle the bailiff, I am playing a battlemaster fighter who specializes in grappling. We recently got in a battle on a bridge between two towers and I had my character grapple an enemy and throw them off the bridge. However, the enemy was able to grab onto the ledge and got back up. So the next turn I grappled and threw myself off holding them, in order to Misty Step back to ensure they fell. My DM said we would fall instantly and I would not have time to cast Misty Step, I thought this was unfair as the enemy had time to try and grab the ledge. My fighter died along with the enemy from the fall and was later reincarnated into a Dragonborn, leaving major implications on the idea I had for his story. Justices was I wrong to expect this to work or was I wronged? I put myself at the mercy of the court.

Michael W

May it please the High Court, and also Jake; I play a warforged clockwork souled sorcerer (BTLB, aka Butler-bot) in a campaign to collect a magic wish-granting macguffin. Over the course of the campaign, we've mainly focused our sessions in the wilderness, meaning there is very little gold to be had. As part of leveling up as a clockwork soul, my character automatically gets the spell Summon Construct, which fits my character very well but also has a casting cost of a very expensive box. My DM has said that he is strict about these costs, but among the entire party no-one has gotten that much gold over the whole campaign. I argued that the DM should have either given more gold or been more generous with casting cost requirements, but he held firm. Was he right to do so?

Jason Gwynne

May it forever please the humble court and the studious bailiff Jake. I bring forth the case of the squashed blue chicken. I started a homebrew campaign with 7 other coworkers with me as a new DM. During character intros I introduced our half firebolg Drakewarden Ranger, with his drake themed as a his childhood chicken friend who can turn into a cockatrice, at an animal slave's shop where he is looking for the 'chicken god' (forest guardian) from his village. For flavor I tell him there is one slightly blue normal chicken that he rolls a nat 1 insight check to see it its special. With a nat 1 I say with a shrug 'it could be your chicken god' to which he then steals it in front of the CR 3 gnoll slaver and runs. As this is this is the first session of our campaign I quick cut to another intro and when we get back to our thieving firebolg I hand wave away him losing the gnoll with a few good rolls from my player. That evening our firebolg is trying to save all the caged animals from the same shop during a massive earthquake/tidal wave/natural disaster that is happening. Without rolling any animal handling checks releases a giant sloth into the shop that then runs out causing the shop to collapse. After the player made dex saves for themselves, their chicken who was currently a cockatrice, and the slightly blue normal chicken. He rolled bad for the blue chicken causing it to be crushed in debri. This made not only the player a little upset, but my significant other as well who helps me plan my sessions. Should I have done some more hand waving to save this chicken? I leave myself to the court's mercy.

Nick Molina

May it please the Crit and the honorable Crit Justices, which could not last without the Exemplary Bailiff, I bring to you the case of a humble cleric looking for a friend, and the DM that was not having it. I need to preface this with the fact that our DM is outstanding, and has put more work into their homebrew world than is probably healthy across the years. All of us actually sit around a table and discuss the geopolitics of this game as if it were real life. Anyways, my dwarven life cleric obtained a Figurine of Wondrous Power (Silver Raven) at one point in the campaign, and it became a sort of animal companion. I submit its item details into evidence for brevity, but I grew fond of the avian lad and named it Reynart. Later on, we acquired a Scroll of Create Homunculus and I asked if we could do some homebrew hullabaloo and use it to turn Reynart into a homunculus that maintains its silver raven form. The DM granted me this kindness, and Reynart the Silver Raven became my animal companion! But then I asked if I could have conversations with Reynart and have him develop into a sort of NPC, and it was there that the DM nipped this fun in the bud. I claimed that the telepathic communication ability that a homunculus is given would constitute dialogue between the cleric and his faithful friend, but the DM shut it down and ruled that we could only communicate through senses and gestures. Am I asking too much of our DM that has been so kind already? Or should the healer of the party be able to chat with his flying pal? I humbly await your response #BonFreres4Life

Edel

Honorable Justices, and generally cool dude bailiff Hurwitz - I come to you with the case of The Sassy Unicorn. My party were trying to join a prestigious guild, and had to duel some of the members. The guild was way above their level, (the party was level 3), and i thought they had no chance. On the very first turn of combat, however, our sorcerer had a Wild Magic Surge, and summoned a sassy Unicorn (controlled by the DM). I ruled that the Unicorn, being lawful good, would have to be persuaded by the party to help them each turn, as the combat was a test, and the players agreed. However, other than once or twice, the sorcerer forgot to ask the Unicorn, and seemed to get a bit dissapointed in herself for it. Athough they lost the fight, the little help they got from the Unicorn evened out the fight quite a bit, and the players seemed okay with losing, but a part of me feels like i robbed them of a cool victory. Was i wrong to make the Unicorn be so stubborn that it had to be persuaded each turn, and rob them of success? If so, then i humbly accept whatever punishment i am given...

Corey M

May it please the court! I bring a case on behalf of my cousin. He was in a campaign where the DM had everything riding on my cousin's character sacrificing himself with a specific item. The problem is, he never outright said this to my cousin (who is notoriously bad at picking up hints) either in or out of character. Another player stole the item and used it, sacrificing her character so my cousin's character wouldn't. The DM got really upset and canceled the rest of the campaign. My cousin doesn't think it's a big deal that the DM did this, but I feel compelled to defend his honor. Is my cousin right that this isn't an issue, or should his DM face judgment? I humbly await your decision.

Jesus

Gracious justices and the hardworking bailiff I bring you the case of The worst ruling in history. My dm was running a combat against a wizard who was the prophet of a god so they got some high level warlock abilities. The ability in question your honors is “Hurl through Hell”. During the combat our super kick ass Barbarian/paladin/fighter flew right at this fucking guy and used one of our parties group magic items. She was able to cast antimagic field then Action Surge to grapple and basically put this dude in a magical and psychical triangle hold. However, the wizard hit our tank with an attack and used hurl through hell to send her and the anti magic field away. We argued for a bit saying the anti-magic field should have stopped this ability but our dm said “the ability isn’t magical so it would work in the field”. We countered saying “so she was sent to hell non magically?”. He firmly said it happened and that was that. We ended up killing the dude but it was pretty lame to have this kick ass move kinda get shut down! She was mind messed with by wizards for years before this and so she is designed to shut them down now! So justices I ask would the wizard have been able to use hurl through Hell against our tank or should the anti magic field have prevented the travel? I humbly await your answer and hope I get to serve my dm hot crow at our next session.

Michael Allison

Greetings to the variously honourable and dishonourable members of the Court. I DM a homebrew campaign in which the party began as 10 year olds with no stats and are now powerful 18 year-olds in the last stages of saving the world from a mind-controlling pathogen. In the very first session I gifted a piglet to our ranger child, which is now a beloved war pig named Peaches. In the last session our borderline evil necromancer was lashing out after a near-death experience and started to cast a lightning bolt at the enemy. I told her that perhaps she'd like to move first as the bolt would absolutely kill Peaches too and after facing pressure from the group, she obliged. Ever since, I have had guilt about steering a character away from a truly interesting choice that would have shaped our whole campaign ending. Honoured judges, should I be punished for choosing a happy table over an awesome plot?

Daniel Oz

May it please the court, and especially the most esteemed bailiff, I submit the case of when flavor goes too far: My group has been working through thre Dungeon of the Mad Mage, where I play an undead patron warlock. One of my characters class abilities says that I appear having some aspect of my patron, which my DM flavored to give me big dragonfly wings that let me hover off the ground (no flying speed, and my movement speed doesn’t change.) However, when we got in a HUGE fight with several dozen enemies, I got badly injured and tried to turn invisible and run away. My DM had an enemy who saw me disappear take a wild swing just in case, which did hit even with disadvantage and would have knocked me out. I argued that since I was invisible and had moved, there was no way he would have been swinging in the right place. My DM said that he had heard the sound of my footsteps as I ran and so would be able to target the right area - but I contended that I would still technically have been hovering because of my beautiful dragonfly wings, due to the flavor he gave my class ability. He argued that was just flavor, and so shouldn’t give me any mechanical advantage even if it meant the difference between life and death. We argued for a while and I eventually gave in, because he’s the DM and I trust him not to kill the PCs on purpose. But now I have to ask - was I wrong in trying to use the DM’s dope flavor against him? Or should he have given me the out and let me run away like the coward I am?

Aaron Beguelin

May it please the court, and the humble but noble bailiff. I bring the case of decapitated time wizard vs. undead executioner before the court. I play the titular time wizard and we were deep in a dungeon crawl when I was crit on by a mini boss wielding a modified vorpal great axe. I failed my con save and was decapitated- instant death. Combat finished the next round and the cleric used mending to re attach my head to my body, claiming it was an object and then was able to cast revivify to bring me back. The DM allowed this with a successful skill check, which the cleric passed. I maintain that I should have gone out in a blaze of headless glory. I await your decision, head in my hands.

Ollie's Travels

May this find the Justice's and the bailiff doing well. I find myself in a bit of a pickle. I am planning a one off and was trying to figure out how I can make this a little bit more exciting. I did one campaign were as I killed one of the PC's. In good humor, it was my husband. We all had a good laugh. But now I don't want to do so much as a player character kill. I want to see how I can pull the most out of my characters. Is there any advice that you the good justices and bailiff could give such a new DM that can set me off in the right direction. I humbly await the decision of the Court and the bailiff who I find very sweet and considerate. Yours truly, New DM

UrBoyDakota

To the most esteemed Crit Justices and whatever descriptor is being used for Jake this episode, I present to you the case of the Dodo Dilemma: I was in a game not too long ago where during our travels, our group received a bunch of cool new magic items, one of which was a fancy pink hat with a feather that my pc fell in love with. Our group did not have a caster with access to Identify, and the town we were currently in was very poor and disheveled and did not have someone who could identify our stuff either. So the plan was to head to the next town and have someone smart enough tell us what our cool new stuff did and after multiple sessions (4) we finally found someone to help us. My fancy pink hat was an item called “Hat Trick” which allowed the wearer to pull either a rabbit or a dove out of the hat to act as a familiar for 1 minute. So in true Caldwell fashion, I began to look at all the creatures scientifically considered “Rabbits” and “Doves”. To my surprise and glee, dodo birds are a part of the same family as doves! So when the next session came around, I wanted to try out my new hat and declared, “I pull a dodo bird out of my hat!” which was met with the DM declaring “No, you don’t”. When I asked him why and told him of my discovery, I was just flat out denied my flightless and useless bird! I pushed back saying that I’d be fine with the ruling if he could give me a legitimate reason, such as you can’t pull extinct animals or dodos don’t exist, but his answer stayed the same “Because I said so”. So later that session I pawned off the hat and put the coin towards a custom pseudodragon that a weird but interesting salesman was selling which seemed to not sit well with the DM. He later confronted me about this and said that he “Gave us the Hat Trick for a reason” and I replied, “Well the hat is useless to me if I can’t pull out a useless bird”. So Justices, I ask you this: Was I the asshole for getting rid of an item I didn’t want just to be a bit petty? Or was my DM setting needless limitations on an item for no reason? I humbly await your judgment and sentencing.

Bryan Holt

Justices, balif, and any and all that attend I draw your attention to the case of exhumed experience and perloined potions. I am but a simple country Feylock, who studied at the clawed toes of the Babba Yagga, I joined up with a party of adventurers seeking to keep the illustrious Tiamat from curb stomping the country. Oweing to my fey trickery I worked with the DM to create grenades of Animate objects I could hand to the players. These were not only approved but, allowed to hand out to party members. In one fight the corner jukebox proved vital to victory, however the DM said that they had not accounted for the extra actions in battle and that such a potion I had was over powered. The potions were disaalowed and I was accused of deception and my XP for that fight was null and void. I ask you your honors, and dishonors, was this a fair response to a bit of bibbity boobity boo? Or was I harshly struck down for the furniture frackar?

Robin

You can't be prone whilst flying, that's mad. Tasha's Hideous Laughter does *incapacitate* the victim though and that would cause them to fall out of the sky, the result was correct but your reasoning is faulty. (also perspired means they were sweating, I think you meant expired)

Jacob Beets Dehkordi

Honorable justices, I implore you listen to my woes. I recently started a Wild Beyond the Witchlight campaign with a group of strangers online. 3 out of 5 players are brand new to the game. I have been playing for about 8 years. I am playing a Rune Knight fighter who uses a hand crossbow. I wanted to take the Crossbow Expert (an extra attack per turn) and Sharpshooter (-5 to hit, +10 to damage) feats at levels 4 and 6, respectively. The rest of my party gave me woe, and claimed I was "metagaming" and built too strong of a character. I am a fighter, and being strong is all I contribute to the party. Am I in the wrong? Did I ruin my party's fun by "metagaming" and creating an "optimized" fighter? Please judge me fairly and without prejudice from the bailiff.

Eva Dellow

May it please the court, the Honorable Crit Justices and the consistently inconsistent bailiff. I present the case of hiding from Shia LaBeouf. I was invited to play in a seemingly normal Curse of Strahd inspired one-shot. Our kenku monk had been captured by an unknown assailant and we were attempting to rescue them. We found a cottage in the forest where the monster was hiding and initiated combat. I, a halfling rouge, attempted to hide after my turn, but was told that there was nowhere to hide. I fought my case but the DM refused. After rescuing the monk and we confronted the monster, who was revealed to be the 'actual cannibal Shia LaBeouf'. The pieces fell together, and the whole one shot was revealed to be an elaborate bit. However, being the killjoy I am, I felt cheated! While I understand why the DM didn't want me to use my character as I had designed her, was railroading our combat to fit the lyrics of the song justified? I humbly await your judgement.

Amber Schneider

May it please the court, the high justices and Jake. I present the case of: Should Ned be dead. We were exploring an abandoned mansion on a hill where many townsfolk had gone missing. While in the house we found a man named Ned tied up, who claims he just a townsfolk that woke up that way. We decided as a a party to un tie him and send him on his way. Fast forward, and we have found caves under the house with a smugglers ring set up. We end up fighting the smugglers, one of which turns out to be Ned (so understandably the party is mad he lied to us) By the end of the fight it's the party vs Ned, and on my turn I say "I don't want to kill him, we need to question him." Before firing an arrow. Turns out it was the killing blow, and the dm pronounced him dead, while the rest of the party cheered. I tried to argue that I didnt want to kill him, but just bring him down enough to question. The DM said that since I did not state that it was non lethal damage he is dead, and I am still salty to this day. Am I in the wrong? Should he truly have died or is my dm just being technical. Thank you for your always fair judgement

Dharini A

May it please the rascal justices and chronically downtrodden bailiff, I present to you the case of the bloodlust DM. Our DM has been graciously conducting our campaign for over 3 years. Recently though, they have been aggressively “joking” about TPK’ing our party and throwing absurdly challenging and unusual monsters at us during random encounters. Case in point, a group of mind flayers and their pack of flayer dogs created an undetectable illusion, stunned and trapped our characters in individual wall of force bubbles, then sucked out three players’ brains. There was no way for us to fight the mind flayers and in the end it took some serious godly intervention to keep our party alive. It admittedly created some great role playing opportunities, but was it really fair? I’m getting sick of my DM gleefully informing us of the casual Big Bad we’ve just stumbled on for the fourth week in a row. Is our DM being too hard on us or am I just craven? I await your most sound of judgements.

dakkadakka

May it please the radical court and the tubular baliff. I present to you the case of the running changeling. In my current campaign we were chasing a changeling through an alley after he tried to assassinate a beloved npc. As a monk I burned a ki point to dash ahead of him and cut him off so he couldn’t escape. My dm then went on to say that the changeling would make a grapple check to push me out of the way. I asked if I could make an acrobatics check instead of a strength check for the grapple and the dm agreed. I rolled a 25 only to “succeed” the check by flipping over the changeling which left him free to run into the crowd. We still managed to stop him but I was and am incredibly salty. The argument was that since I was using acrobatics instead of strength I was getting out of the way rather than just stopping him. Am I in the wrong here? It just feels like my good roll was taken away to extend the encounter.

Tal

dear honorable supreme crit justices and the handsome bailiff (whomever they may be) i play in a campaign run by a friend from work, with six of us total. we usually get along super well, and have a lot of fun. HOWEVER…recently one of the players has been spending time in game to repeatedly dunk on other pcs. at first it was funny or at least easy to dismiss, but to be honest it’s not fun anymore. this is compounded by the fact that in this group, she is the only straight person AND the only non magic pc. when she dunks on us (me, the sorcerer, and the druid specifically) it’s consistent that every time we play she will make comments about how annoying, frustrating, or “magic dependent” our characters are but it’s always disguised as something her character would say (in this universe, magic is looked down upon) it has started to feel vaguely weird and condescending in a way that is disrupting our tables atmosphere. to have the only straight person and the only non casting pc constantly making digs at the rest of us, using her in game “prejudice against magic users” as an excuse feels super weird to me. help! how do i approach this without souring our group dynamics further?

MegaDinoKing

Oh thou looming judge Murph, I gaze upon you despite the spotlight blinding my eyes. Judge Tanner, oh how I long for you to bang your gavel so I can hear those sweet, dulcet tones. I also see you, high justice Axeford, swinging into your chair like Tarzan, beating your chest and howling magnificently. Hi Jake. I bring to you today the case of the habitual bitch-slapper. I was playing in a campaign that wasn’t actually a campaign yet, due to one of the players not showing up for the first few sessions, until we lost faith in him and called upon dice Christ to smite him in our hour of need. I haven’t seen him since. We had been abducted by a strange woman, and then framed for crimes we didn’t commit so were in the back of a prison carriage, being transported to a different town. Our party consisted of me, a 5’6” Dragonborn monk, a dwarf college of swords bard, another bard and a wizard/sorcerer (can’t remember which) So after a kerfuffle where I hid on the ceiling like spider man, then fell on the guard when he came in, breaking his neck, we managed to escape through a forest. One thing you should know about Mr Wizard, is that the only spell he ever used was the fire-bolt cantrip. Long story short, there’s a forest on fire now, and we are legging it. Following drama ensues as we emerge out the other side and fight a dire Wolf (we were only level 3s but it was still very easy). We then discover that we’re trapped between a Minecraft ravine, and a burning forest. The saving grace, however, is an old wooden bridge that will get us across at some risk to ourselves. Mr smarty pants wizard decides to set the bridge on fire. I call him out with some choice British vocabulary, and one of the bards proceeds to bitch slap me with a mage hand. This is the start of a long conflict - spanning months - between me, and the rest of the party with them bitch slapping me, and me getting more and more frustrated as it goes. Now this is where I require the judgement of the father G-20, the son Dice Christ, and the holy crit justices. I, eventually, had had enough with all this bitch slappery and challenged the wizard to a duel. I had him down to 1 HP when a bard, who had unbeknownst to me cast invisibility on himself, pushed me off the cliff we were fighting on, I just managed to save myself, but the wizard kicked me off the edge. Yes, Caldwell, it was like the lion king. So where is my dm in all this you ask? Well he was laughing at it all, only to ditch us the session after with 2 hours warning because he was now playing with another group. I have since stopped playing D&D, due to both my unwillingness to go through this again, and also because I have commitments, such as spending seven hours a week doing Kung-fu so I too can become a D&D monk. Dominating crit justices, I beg your wisdom, guidance and patience, and may all your enemies be smitten by dice Christ.

Zack Collins

May the Crit receive pleasure, To the magnanimous Justices and muscled Bailiff, I present a case of involuntary manslaughter: The party I DM for was participating in a local peach pie eating contest. It was a neck and neck affair, but the reigning champion NPC (Hurely Bingbottom) was able to squeak out a victory. He wore his prize (a magic medal) around his forehead. My party was unhappy they lost and really wanted that medal, so the bard stealthily cast heat metal on the medal so he would remove it and they could steal it with an owl familiar. However, he rolled really well on damage and accidentally killed Bingbottom. We played for a couple more minutes, but the player was distraught as he didn't think the spell would kill Bingbottom. He wanted a do over as he said "This isn't something his character would do". I felt that a PC is a combination of a player and a character (hence the name) and that good ideas or mistakes by a player are reflected in their character. The party disagreed and it was voted 3 to 2 against me that we wind back time and redo the situation. So I ask the Crit, should I have let them go back 5 minutes in time to redo a bad idea? What is the separation between a player and their character? And most importantly, who among you would win in a peach pie eating contest? PS: The party ended up framing Bingbottom for murder and stealing the medal anyway.

Izzy R

May it please the court! I play dnd in my school basement with some classmates. My character is a human bodied mousefolk with a penchant for murder. Recently she tried to assassinate the mayor of a tabaxi village as he was oppressing her mousefolk village a la bugs life (did not succeed in assassination attempt). She got a lot of shit from her fellow party members for trying to kill the mayor saying “if you had told us why you wanted to kill the mayor we could have had a conversation about it”. The thing is, she earlier had said “I want to kill the mayor” and her party members all said “NO”. Was I wrong to assume that that was the only conversation the party was willing to have vis a vis political assassination? I humbly await your judgement. Also have a nice day :)

Remington Fenter

To the honorable justices Axford, Murphy, Oyama, and Tanner and the craven bailiff Hurwitz I submit a case about choices and consequences. I run a homebrew game for my wife and three friends set in a world set in a Dragon Apocalypse where tyrannical dragons rule the realm. A few levels earlier the party tried to storm the stronghold of an adult blue dragon named The Crystal Queen. Deep in the stronghold they were caught, given the chance to fight in an arena (The Lightning League) to earn their freedom, won their fight, and named Champions of the Crystal Queen. Each party member was offered a favor by the queen. My wife, playing a Drow Swashbuckler Rogue named Gretel, asked for the ability to see in magical darkness to better exploit her racial ability to cast darkness. The Crystal Queen agreed and took Gretel alone to a ritual chamber. A ritual was performed to commune with the Crystal Queen's god, Tiamat. Tiamat agreed to bestow these abilities on Gretel with the rider that she had to take a multi-colored egg back to her plane and promised to protect it. Gretel agreed and has been able to enjoy having the effects of Devil's Sight. Since then Gretel has brought up the egg or Tiamat during some key RP moments with NPCs. When told, a trio of archdruids leading an even conclave became very aggressive and demanded Gretel hand over the egg as they suspected this was part of a plot for Tiamat to break out of her hell prison and try to take over the world. Gretel initially refused to give up the egg because of the promise and I asked her to roll for initiative for the archdruids to take the egg by force. Eventually Gretel backed down and agreed to let the archdruids keep the egg if they promised not to hurt it. Later, there was an issue while negotiating for a Cloak of Invisibility way out of their price range at a shop run by a high CR demon named Hot Kar'l that looked like an anthropomorphic Jaguar with a thick Cajun accent. Gretel mentioned that she is working with Tiamat in an attempt to intimidate the demon. She rolled a 26 on her intimidation check. I roleplayed that Hot Kar'l freaked out, wanted nothing to do with Tiamat, gave Gretel the item they were negotiating over, grabbed his crew of quasits, packed up his stuff, said "Good luck", and planeshifted out of there. The party was happy to get the item but are upset that Kar'l is gone and the shop is shut down. My wife has complained that she doesn't get to use the "Tiamat" card well in RP l. I feel these are appropriate responses given the setting of a Dragon Apocalypse. I throw myself before the combined wisdom of the court and Jake.

PineappleLiar

May it please the court and the newly re-demoted bailiff, I come to you with the case of the Alcoholic Familiar. In my game, I have had a frog familiar named Frobert ever since the second session, heavily based on Adaine’s Boggy the Froggy. He’s meant to be an emotional support familiar, but recently my DM has been making jokes about how Frobert keeps finding a drinking alcohol any time he’s unattended, leading to Frobert having some crippling alcoholism. In fairness, this is probably a reference to my character having a bad habit of failing perception/insight checks related to identifying drugs, but as a wise emotional support familiar Frobert should not be falling victim to these vices. I’ve tried pivoting this characterization to being that any time the drinking occurs it’s Frobert’s shitty uncle, but that hasn’t gone anywhere. Should I just accept that my frog has a drinking problem, or should the familiar be exempt from the vices of it’s creator?

Kelley40k

May it please the glorious and all knowing court as well as ....... the balif I humbly present to you the case of the "Warforge Turtle Lich" I was playing a evil campaign in which our characters were working to bring back an evil god who was offering power. Which we would then battle in Campaign 2 as heroes. I decided to play a turtle wizard (Necromancer) / Artficer (Battle Smith) named Grom. My characters end goal was to become a Lich but not just any lich he wanted to combine necromancy and technology. Using his knowledge of the steel defender he wanted to forge a warforge body. Then using his Necromancer magic craft a phylactory. Combining the two vision and the mind stone style. Cut to the end of the campaign the DM says that i can either build one or the other. I ended up going Lich but I felt like this was a bit of a let down. Especially because i had collected special metals like Mithril and even a small chunk of adamantine for my body. But perhaps i was asking for to much and he would of been too powerful in campaign 2. I ask the court to pass judgment and deliver their divine justice. Oh P.S i ended up putting those metals in my steel defender a golaith sized robo crab named Shiny (and before i draw Justice Murphy ire for having a Goliath sized crab, rules as written S.D. can be medium sized)

thedragonllama

Dear exalted high priests of Dice Christ, I seek answers and absolution. In my very first session of dnd as a DM I had planned a Willy Wonka-esque factory setting. It started with the PCs being warped outside of Billy Bonka’s castle… which was surrounded by a horde of zombie-like Bonka fanatics. I described the front of the castle as having a giant wrought iron gate, which was locked. I wanted to have the PCs interact a bit before jumping into my first ever battle with the fanatics, to help us all get warmed up. The gate would eventually open for everyone to escape into at a time when things were looking a bit scary, just to set the stakes a bit, and to get us all pumped. Instead, one of my players immediately asked if they could see through the gate, which they could, and attempted to cast misty step into the other side. Truth be told, I had actually planned for castle escape attempts to occur and looked into things like wall of force to be surrounding the castle, as to not let things in or out, but didn’t officially settle on it prior to this session. I basically said that misty step didn’t work because here was a high level magic force field around the castle, to which the player was bummed a bit in thinking that they had cleverly worked around my see-through front gate. The first battle then occurred but was clunky and dragged on as I had trouble running it; instead of building tension it mostly just delayed entering the castle and initiating the main story hook. I will also say that several months later this group fell apart for many reasons, but I now wonder… was Dice Christ punishing me for not letting my player misty step around my plans? Or was it ok for me to fudge things a bit under pressure in my failed attempt to keep things running smoothly? Thx, Holy 1s.

Richard Jacob Meadows

May it please the court, I come bearing the case of Renaissance Fighter. One of my players created an eldritch knight fighter for his first character, and wanted to specialize in fire magic. The first problem arose in his stats, wanting to keep his rolled stats of having an 18 charisma and a 12 strength. The second issue, after seeing how much the parties warlock was succeeding, he took the feat magic adept to get eldritch blast and hellish rebuke, though that is partly my fault for giving him a taste with an R.Cane potion. The third problem struck home again on my part, for introducing him to a subclass for sorcerer, Phoenix soul. He wanted to multiclass into it at already lvl 8 fighter, but I worked it into his backstory for him since at the beginning he didn't really give me anything. I also gave him a magic blade to encourage him to fight with it, but he only wanted to cast spells that were much weaker for fear of not being able to hit anything with the sword. Another party member even commented on the player being stretched too thin for his own good, a fighter who can't fight and a spell caster who can't cast spells. I also gave the player a chance to respec his levels and such, and after doing so he just made the exact same chararacter. Was my player over exerting his reach trying to play every role, or am I to blame for having given him a taste for new things and letting him go off on them?

sunday

Esteemed members of the Supreme Crit, I bring you the case of the Owlbear Nat 20. I have been playing with the same group for a couple of years now and over that time I have gained a reputation for Murph-style garbage rolls. Our current DM decided to take advantage of this and got me to roll an encounter check for the whole party - and to my absolute delight it was a rare nat 20. However, the DM became very smug and revealed that we had disturbed an owlbear which immediately stomped my PC to near-death. I was a little frustrated that my good roll was rewarded with this but ultimately the combat session was fun and the party got out of it alive. Since that session the DM regularly brings up the fact he 'knew' I would roll a nat 20 and we would have to deal with the owlbear - Justices is it fair to punish a nat 20 with a stomping? And then gloat about it for literal months afterwards? I humbly await your judgement, whatever it may be.

Tory Morgan

Dear prestigious, learned justices and the unremarkable bailiff Jake: My party (accidentally) let a house explode because of a missed trap, killing about a half dozen innocent people inside. We were then immediately put on trial for capital mass murder. The trial itself was a farce and our rogue discovered (via Detect Thoughts) that the fix was in, with the judge, jury, and prosecutor having been paid off by the evil guy who set the trap in the first place. I had to be our defense lawyer despite being an INT 0 paladin because the DM said ~*~reasons.~*~ We lost the trial and were about to be put to death when an ancient red dragon showed up and wanted to kill us instead. I asked the DM if there was any way we could have won the trial and he said, "No, not once it started." I accused him of Kobiyashi Maru'ing us and he claimed we could have gone to our allies with the metallic dragons for help, to which I said bullshit because we went on trial LITERALLY the day after the house exploded so that made no sense. I said it was unfair to put us in an unwinnable situation and he said "oh, well." Was our DM unreasonable to put us through a 3 hour long trial and forcing me to channel my best Gloria Allred with no chance of victory? P.S. the DM is my husband, which may complicate your ruling. Thank you and may Dice Christ bless the court.

Jack Francis West

Your Slay and Yass Excellences and JAKE DON’T SKIP THIS IT’S NOT AS LONG AS IT LOOKS. 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?

Blaze Sura

May your courts be pleased honorable justices and a slight tickle to the bailiff. I have been told on multiple occasions that I should run a bard because I and I quote"have that bard like energy and such" so I tried out a college or creation bard flavored as a puppeteer with my puppet named Names. Now to make a long campaign short i played him shy and was always using my bonus action for my animated performance or as a back up healer they swear I never really used my spells to help out. they also said I wasn't very bard like I really like playing bard now but am I in the wrong for not playing the bard more "bard like" and not using enough different spells p.s sorry for saying bard so many times I await your punishment with open arms

Shawn Stroud

May it please the venerable Crit Justices and the similarly esteemed though less honourable Bailiff. I present to you the case of the snoozing Smidgen. I was playing in a campaign where the party was travelling to the Frozen North to a Dwarven Capital in the mountains. During our travels we were caught in a snowstorm and had to find shelter in a nearby cave. Once we reached our supposed safety, we were ambushed by several Duegar and two Driders. During the especially difficult battle, one of the Duegar cast the sleep spell. As my Halfling Rogue only had 2 HP, I fell right asleep. The Duegar then stole my coin purse and the surviving members of the ambush tried to escape, all while I slept. As the enemies were fleeing, the party Druid cast shatter, not too far from my sleeping body. I believed that a spell that causes an incredibly loud noise should be enough to wake me up, but my DM argued that because I was not within area of effect of the spell, that I could not hear it and so stayed asleep as the devilish Duegar made their escape. I ask you: Was I in the wrong for thinking the shatter spell should wake me up? I have been thinking about this for years now and still can't let it go. I do humbly ask that help put this matter to bed, once and for all. Thank you

Mrwright95

If it so pleases the courts I present the case of "The Surprise Backstory": I am a fairly new DM and I've been running a wildemount campaign for the past several months and it's a sea based campaign so my party has had several encounters with the eldritch god ukatoa and that's because one of my players has a crystal that ukatoa needs to be fully unleashed upon the world and they have not told the party. So I set up an encounter where they were attacked at sea and they rolled poorly on a deception roll to hide that he had the crystal and when asked why they had hid it they reveal to the party that he is a god who has taken over this person's body in order to stop ukatoa which shocked the whole party... Including me because they never told me about it so after the session we both went and discussed how to change it to better fit what we are doing but I could tell the they were a bit upset about having to change their backstory. Was I wrong in having them changing their backstory or should I have adapted to what they wanted to do?

Yeeha532

May it please the awesome bailiff and the others. Case of PvP A party of 4 including myself. All characters are oddballs with extreme personalities, leaving my "sensible" character (party leader) as the only one driving the story forward and picking up the pieces as the rest of party essentially just muck about causing carnage. (Don't get me wrong as a player is funny, but....) I'm tempted to have my character leave the group or get him killed so I can rejoin as a goof ball/non leader. Would this be wrong? Ps love my group, but at times, it feels like work.

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.

Trevor Wurtsmith

May it please the court and satisfy the baliff, I submit to you the case of baba lysaga's hut vs. wall of fire. I was playing a curse of strahd campaign as a druid and my party and I tracked down baba lysaga, the hag that stole our wand of polymorph. We tracked her down and see she lives in a living, moving hut. We see the hag and roll initiative, the Dm made it clear the hut was in initiative too and would attack us. The first round our rogue crit and hurt the hag more than I think the DM expected. I went last in initiative and cast wall of fire in a circle around where the hut was so they couldn't get away, or at least would catch on fire and take damage. The next turn the hag bailed back into her hut, and (on the same turn in initiative) "a section of the wall of fire disappears" so the hut walks right past my strongest spell without me breaking concentration, or them even casting a spell. I talked to the DM after about it, feeling like it was kind of lame to waste my highest level spell slots for that, and he said the hut is magic so it could've cast dispell magic. I replied by saying it wasn't even the huts turn in initiative and we could've done something more, in that time. He said the hag and hut were bonded so the hag could use the huts magic on her turn. Was our DM in the right, or should that hut have burned in a fiery blaze?

Artemae

To the Supreme Justices and Humble Bailiff. May this please you. I play an Aarakocra Druid/Wizard. Earlier in our campaign we journeyed into some underground tunnels. One of which was flooded. Our gnome barbarian decided to go into the water to see if there was anything worth while below. He was able to find something but during the trip was attacked by some water creatures. He was at a disadvantage. Luckily I knew to send in help as I used message to communicate with him. However I explained my character cannot swim (and couldn't wildshape into animals with a swim speed yet) and also would not swim as I preferred the sky over water. The others went in and all was fine but my party was angry with me for my decision. I am also the only healer. Which I used when they surfaced. Am I in the wrong to have played my character as such and not help in the fight? I await your merciful decision. - 'Asyila (character name)

Dippity_Dip

Crit Justices, I must confess to Dice Christ: I just started a new campaign, and it’s the first one I’ve played in 5 years (after having been banned from playing it by my parents). During the first battle, I rolled 3 nat 20s in a row. I felt really bad about it because I didn’t want my friends to think I was trying to overcompensate or prove myself to the dm, so I lied and only used my first crit; I essentially gave myself disadvantage for the others and took a lower role. Was I morally right, or should I have just taken Dice Christ’s judgement? (Also can I say that as a former Catholic, Dice Christ confessionals are extremely cathartic and I really love them)

Alex W

May it please the court, and tickle the judges, I submit to you the case of the new DM vs plot armored animal companions. I am a new DM trying to organize my first campaign for my friends who have also never played before. I told them that any animal companions in the game would follow paw paw rules, where they would be almost impossible to kill. The only problem is that now all my players want animal companions. We haven’t even played the first session yet and I’m worried that I may have dug myself into a hole if all my players have animal companions that can’t die. Did I screw up by following Paw Paw rules or can I work around this?

Daniel Hynes

To the Honourable Justices of the Crit, and the lowly-est bailiff in the realms: I have these two players, who i shall refer to as Monk and Rogue. Monk is a new player, this is her first game, and she is a bit lost but is latching onto fun ideas and building her character. Rogue had already decided on this Tiefling character whos part of a thieves guild, and she really jumped into creating a backstory for it, and shes got an old friend whos in the rival thieves guild, its all great... That is until Monk hears of this, and ALSO wants a mafia character now! And when deciding on a race, she also wanted to be a cool devil person, like Rogue and our Fighter, so she starts with trying to figure out how one gets from the monastery to the mafia, and really getting into it, but Rogue is upset that her character feels less unique now. I like both characters, so I dont know who to upset, and so ive asked you to judge them for me. (If Zac would kindly judge this AS Mavrus, that would be even better)

Emily E Morris

May it please the illustrious court and whichever bailiff decides to lower themselves to read these cases, I bring you the case of Catherine Zeta Jonestown vs DM. We have started an exploration campaign focusing on us finding the “new world” as all of our world is geologically based on the current structure of Earth. As we landed right outside present day Philly, we were instructed to name the settlement. After many suggestions, my husband’s halfling bard, Buttersprouts Bramblefoot, suggested Jonestown, which was shot down for obvious reasons. I suggested naming it after our sovereign, who’s name coincidentally had Zeta in it after the dm told us. My eladrin bloodhunter quickly suggested Catherine Zeta Jonestown to combine both ideas. Three of the four party members agreed with the other smiling silently, but our dm said we couldn’t name it that and we have to change it. We wondered why since the majority verbally agreed and one abstained from voting. He just said no and to move on. I ask, should we have been able to name our town after such an amazing sneaking style or is the dm right? Ps. We named it Aberdeez after the queen’s last name, which me and my husband now fondly call Aberdeeznuts. Thanks, Emily M. (Yes, my username is my husband’s)

Armando Hartman

May it please the Crit, I am submitting this case on behalf of my son, Gabriel: I was running a campaign for my roommates. I had a semi scripted start to our first session, where a human warlord (challenge rating 15) was conquering my players hometown (kinda like a final fantasy fight you are supposed to loose). One of my players (level 2) told me she was going to cast “create water” inside of the warlord to drown him from the inside out. I told her that was insane and the human body is not an open container. If she really wanted to cast the spell she could fill the warlords mouth with water, because that’s all they could see (per the wording of the spell, you have to see the open container.) Angrily, she analogized that if you see the opening of a vase you still know that the rest of the container is open. Exasperated, I let her cast the spell; albeit I counter spelled the attack and the scripted battle went as planned. My issue is that once the campaign began in earnest, she continued to use this spell to cheese every single fight I threw at them. She used her real life degree in biology to justify using this spell to kill even undead, and aquatic monsters which traditionally can’t drown. Honorable justices, what do I do? How do I stop these wet and wild shenanigans in the future?

Maggie

May it please the crit, and the oft-bullied yet good humored bailiff, I bring you the case of Crybaby vs. Nice DM. I am a big ol' crybaby, mostly because my treacherous human body produces tears any time I feel an emotion stonger than 'mild'. My table is understanding, and weirdly kind of likes it. The handful of sessions I have completely lost it and wept coincide with some of our most memorable games. HOWEVER, whenever we reminisce, someone will mention me crying, and Nice DM invariably says, "I feel bad," despite me insisting I had fun. Nice DM is pretty tough on us in terms of rules and in-game consequences, so the issue is: there have been times I've noticed him pulling punches for my character that I don't think he would for others. While I'm a huge fan of my character evading tragedy, I don't want to make him feel like he has to reign in his machinations. Do I talk to him privately and tell him it's okay to wreck my shit when the dice call for it? Stay in my lane and let him be benevolent? A third, funnier option? I respectfully await your judgement. Even if your ruling makes cry, please let me assure you that I'm still having fun.

Element

Oh pious representatives of Dice Christ, I have a confession. I fear I may have transgressed during character creation of the recent Eberron campaign I am running. I was explaining rolling stats (4d6 drop the lowest) when one player said they wanted to roll 3d6 as it was more "honest". I explained that dropping the lowest was baked into the math, but they really wanted to do it, so I let them. Dice Christ spoke and gave them a +1 modifier....and all negatives (including a -3). He thought it was funny, until we started playing, then the enthusiasm waned a bit. But, I had a sinful idea. He had picked warforge as his lineage, and we talked it out and decided he would be one of the prototypes. He could get stat boosting upgrades as the game progressed to make his character better, outside of just leveling up. The other players agreed and now it's one of the driving forces of the campaign to get McGuffins to make their friend "average". Now, this means I am giving out, essentially, very rare to legendary level stat boosting magic items to one player every few sessions, which doesn't sit great. So I ask you: Dice Christ spoke with the first rolls, and they care not for our measly mortal morality, but what of open communication and good fun? Can I meet the big DC in the sky someday and pass their check?

Jac Gibson

May it please the court the lovely bailif and the honorable guest judge. I come to you with the case of the sentient steel defender. During an online game at the beginning of the pandemic i played a high leveled artifcier with the battle Master subclass. I choose my steel defender to look humanoid to act like my robotic body guard. One night our adventuring party was around a camp fire and I thought it would be fun for the defender to start developing a low level of sentience. Just for interesting rp purposes. My DM put the end to that idea right away as it didn't apply to RAW. I of course listened to my DM but I always was slightly sad my ideas was so swiftly rejected. Should I have tried to push for my rp decisions or was it doomed to fail. I humbly await your ruling.

Tommy K NOLA

May it please the esteemed justices, and the smoothest voice in bailiff history, I present the case of an over-reaching DM. I was playing a fighter in a homebrew campaign years ago, as a party we had to gain the favor of a high elven widowed countess, in return we got her army and allegiance later in the campaign. Rest of the party tried diplomacy, appealing to her intellect, performances, trickery, nothing worked. I decided to appeal to her loneliness, hugged her tenderly, told her she was beautiful and made the bargain that I'd give her the best night of her life in return for her aid. Rolled insanely well on some checks. It WORKED. 24 in-game hours later and we are all set. It became a running joke among the party that I was the strongest bard they'd ever seen bc I bedded my way through so many shenanigans. We were having a BLAST as a group, DM included. Then when the rest of the party started multi-classing, and I wasn't, the DM starts pushing me REALLLY hard to multiclass as a bard. Tried to tell him that spells don't appeal to me, I don't like the mechanics, I want a fully fleshed out fighter, for myself AND the character I'd built, trying to stay true to his martial roots. So he starts having us fight more and more casters, bc I was whomping his martial enemies. Thinking I'd maybe take a level or two as a caster for counterspells or something, idk. Next level up, I take the mage hunter (or mage slayer, cant recall) feat and he straight up told me no. I packed my shit and left bc I didn't want to IRL whomp him through the table. Was I overreacting here? Like, I saw what he was doing, made a choice that made sense for my character, since he leveled up AFTER fighting waves of casters. I leave this in the hands of the court

Emily Weston

May it please the just and fair court and the slightly above average bailiff Jake. I have been faced with a dilemma that deals with power even beyond dice christ. I am a player in a new party playing an ancient Greek themed campaign. The DM has allowed us to use an expanded pool of playable races like nymphs and satyrs. Some of our players are new to Dnd and thus the more experienced players have been helping them with what to roll and how to build their character, but I think one of our new players in their ignorance committed a grave error. I believe they have been using a monsters stats as their player sheet. They are playing a nymph, but from their rolls and used abilities they should not have. I believe they are not only using monster stats, they are using a CR7 pathfinder monster stat sheet in a lvl 1 5e campaign. They have been rolling exceptionally high on all their rolls and in our first round of fighting steam rolled through the guards we were fighting. Noble justices and Uh Jake. What should I do? I am new to the group of friends and don't want to be that gal who accuses a new friend for making this error or do I wait for the dm to notice and hope they investigate. If this player is found guilty of using monster stats what should their punishment be or should I be punished for not speaking up.

Annika

May it please the court, I present the case of Lyra and the magic beans: My gloomstalker ranger (with +9 to initiative) was trying to get out of a secret basement chamber with no doors having freed 2 NPCs who were about to be sacrificed in there. After failing to escape at first, I planted one of my magic beans (from the bag of beans item) to 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/do anything to attempt and save them. I wanted 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 be saved. 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?

Cmzzy P.

To the great justices and the.. bailiff, may it please the court (or maybe the church). A confession, my very first game with my fiance, its just the 2 of us and he's the DM and I feel like I don't wanna finish the story anymore. It started great and exciting coz I never played D&D (I just watch/listen people play it) and I really wanna play with him, then as the story progress it became boring and lacking of lore. He always ask me too, when we gonna play again? How can I tell him that it's getting boring, should I tell him or should I not? Or should I just finish the story even I really don't like it anymore. What to do?? I humbly wait as you judge me.

Jake Andrews

May it please the court, supreme Justices, and the bailiff that only 7 out 10 dentist's recommend, I bring you my case of Dante the swan. In my most recent campaign my DM has recently introduced to our party a familiar swan that belongs to one of the player characters. The Swan is named Dante, and for some reason can only say "Dante". Our DM says that this is just because of "the way it is" end quote, and the party seems to love it. Except for my character who is being driven nuts by this swan that constantly follows him around and begs for his food. The begging of course is in the form of "Dante. Dante. Dante." over and over and over. Am I being a total kill joy by wanting to find a way to fix this swan? Should I just let it be, or am I right to continually urge the player to whom the familiar belongs to awaken their animal buddy more so it can begin to ask me for my food with manners? I humbly leave the decision at your feet.

Adam Baker

Case: The Dire Jackalope : Food Truck Street Racer May it please the court of the high crit. The pious and shrewd Justices Murphy , Tanner, and Axford, and the substantial Baliff Jake. I come to you with the DM v. Player case of ‘The Dire Jackalope : Food Truck Street Racer’ I DM a homebrew game for my wife and a few of her gal pals. Their crew were asked by a friend to help them in a food truck street race, a competition for the best parking spots for a festival the following morning. Their wagon was drawn by a nervous but speedy Dire Jackalope named Cinnamon. The Druid (lvl 3) decided to give the cart a boost by shifting into a Dire Jackalope herself. The player said that she should make the cart substantially faster by adding Jackalope Power (Jp). I couldn’t find a mechanic for which I could increase their speed, which mattered because I had a whole city map and wanted to play it by combat rounds, so the squares mattered. I resolved to giving the players advantage on soothing Cinnamon because now she had a friend, this was important because Connamon could be hurt and would risk the party loosing control of the food truck. The player was clearly disappointed and confused on why it didn’t increase their speed but was agreeable and did not fight me on it for more than a minute. After the fact, I feel regret for not further rewarding my player who is still new to the game and learning. I’m afraid I ruined her cool moment but I feel that I am still technically correct. I’m not normally a super rules oriented guy but if her speed increased too much the race would have been uneventful as she would have quickly left everyone in the dust. I await your judgement

Wheelord

May it please the court and the ever suffering Balif. I present the case of the Kleptomaniac Clergyman. I am DMing a game among friends. One of my players has been gaming for a long time, but is new to 5E. He told me he had an idea already and ended up making a Tabaxi Paladin he was very excited about. The problem is, his character keeps stealing things. Most recently he pocketed an ornate teacup from a cleric of his own church who was assisting them in a new town. As you can imagine, this has caused quite a commotion at the table. Most of my players have been playing for a long time and are shocked to see a Paladin casually pocketing items along their journey. My player claims that this is all in character because during character creation, he took the Tabaxi Quirk "you can't help but pocket interesting objects you come across" from the book, and that this is something his character does subconsciously. The table argued that as a Paladin, he would know stealing was wrong. He argues that since his character does so subconsciously, it isn't malicious and therefore shouldn't be held against him as a paladin. It is overall a very good game, with everyone having a great time and enjoying themselves. The players have ribbed him about this regularly throughout the campaign though, and he always gets very defensive about it, usually derailing the entire game for 5-10 minutes. I want my player to have fun, he was clearly excited to create and play this character, but i feel something must be done. I humbly beg for your guidance, and if need be, your judgement.

Trent

May it please the esteemed justices and the deliciously spicy bailiff. I bring to the court the Aasimar vs the DM (Me). My players are currently in the Feywild doing a job for the Summer Court to dispatch a bunch of Winter Court invaders. Unfortunately for one of my players (The Aasimar) they have discovered that one of the invaders is their long lost daughter. He decided he wanted to send his daughter away from the city to a different location using the teleport spell. But the two are not on good terms due to the fact the Aasimar killed his daughter’s Succubus mother. He decided to knock her on unconscious and then teleport them all to forest nearby. However the rules of teleport state that the creature must be willing. And because she wasn’t killed she was also not considered an object. So as he cast the spell the party teleported into a nearby forest leaving his daughter behind. My player contested that he should’ve been able to send her. And I argue with her being unconscious she was unable to be considered willing. Did I exercise good judgement? Or was I being way too strict? I humbly await your judgement, your honors and spicy bailiff.

Lou

May it pleases the All-Knowing justices, the Power Hungry Bailif and Justice Oyama, he who sees the truth. I present the case of "The Doors of Despair". During the height of the pandemic, one of my friend decided to run "Tomb of horror". Oh Boy. He made us roll almost every step we took to not fall into traps and to perceive unseeable dangers. Keep in mind our party is very much roleplay-focused. After two 6 hour long, paranoid sessions, we ran into The Doors (not the band). A serie of doors that no check, ability, trick, spell or amount of begging could open. Everytime we failed, we took damage and grew angrier. After around two hours, we were enraged. The dm's girlfriend left zoom and we could hear her argue with him trough his own mic. We almost tpked. The answer, you ask? Sliding the fucking door. The Dm's said it was obvious and that we simply weren't Smart enough. He found it fun. FUN! I ask: was it an awful,impossible trick or simply a fun puzzle that we were too dumb to resolve? I await your wisdom.

Alison R

May it please the crit and it's illustrious justices and the incredibly handsome bailiff, I present the case of a swarm yet not a swarm. During one of my sessions my group was fighting doppelrats. It started with two, but as they multiplied it became multiple groups each in their own squares. When they attacked the dm rolled one attack and each rat did one damage. It all adds up when there's 4 groups of 4. So I asked if it was a swarm or if we had to take them out individually. She said individually. I accepted and kept on squashing rats. I was a little annoyed but not enough to raise a stink about it. Was I justified to be annoyed that they both were and were not a swarm? Or should I throw myself into a pit of hungry doppelrats?

BeanRatWasInnocent

To the baller bailiff, and the generous judges, I present to you my story of an interrupted turn. I was playing a game with my friends and the DM and I are good friends, however his rulings have resulted in arguments before, nothing too severe though. We were doing a level 20 run, and I, as a full Drakewarden Ranger had 4 attacks, and very good items. We ended up in a fight with several Iron Golems, and using my attacks and my drakes breath attack, I eliminated one of the Golems in a single turn. The DM, in what I assume was an attempt to not have one of his monsters not be 1-turned by me, stated that as I was pelting it with arrows, it managed to get close to me and take it's 2 attacks, it only hit once, but all the players, although mostly me, felt that it was unjustly done, but we let it go. Later he tried to interrupt my turn again by using an NPC trying to stop me from killing another, but I did so anyway. I seek your judgment and await any punishment I may reap oh merciful Magistrates. Sullivan H

Jack Campau

To the magisterial justices and sterial bailiff May it please the court, In a campaign I am currently a player in, our DM has seemed to take on the persona of “Ryan Urphy”. His campaign is based on the Wheel of Time and has a really fun premise, but he is horrible at balancing fights. Our characters are always incapable of defeating the enemies and we end up always being saved by a super high powered NPC played by him. We get introduced to these characters and they are all significantly more powerful than us with a bunch of sweet abilities and spells. Our DM will throw monsters with hundreds of points of HP that can knock us down in 2 hits while we can only do about 15 points of damage on our turns. In practically every encounter our DM’s NPCs come in to save the day with his overpowered character throwing spells that can do 5 times the amount of damage we can and ends up stealing the show. The worst part is that he claims we’re not playing our characters right, and that we have to use our resources better. Am I wrong in being annoyed with this behavior? How can I convince my DM to start balancing these attacks better?

Richard Spoehr

May it please the court and the lowly bailiff Jake, In my house game, I have a house rule that when a player kills an enemy on a critical hit, they get to break the laws of physics vis-a-vis Mortal Kombat, to add a little bit of extra video-gamey type fun to combat. The main bad guy for the entire campaign that I had lined up for them was a lich that had shown up early to test the party's strength. I wasn't worried about the prospect of the party killing the lich, as the lich's soul returns to its phylactery and eventually allows him to respawn. However, in the fight, one of my players landed the killing blow with his axe on the lich with a critical hit, and declared "I hit him so hard that I shatter his soul, thus permanently killing the lich." I wasn't particularly keen on this for a number of reasons, but my ruling was that he was attempting to break the laws of metaphysics and magic, and thus his physical axe wasn't capable of destroying the lich's soul. An argument ensued but the player eventually reluctantly agreed. I bring this issue before the court. Here are a few additional factors to consider: 1) The arguing player in question does have a track record of getting mopey when he doesn't get his way 2) The arguing player is also an experienced DM, and knows about a lich's phylactery. But his Barbarian with an 8 intelligence definitely doesn't. This was definitely him metagaming. That said, the argument kind of brought down the mood after what was a cool fight. Was I being too harsh on my players or was I justified in sticking to my guns? I accept whatever judgment the court has to offer. All the best, Rich S

Shawn Connor (DM4Hire.com)

May it please the crit, it's proud and sensual judges, and maybe Jake if we have time; I would like to bring the case of "Bees v DM" to your attentions. After the end of a long champain one of the players at the table wanted to shift into the DM seat telling us they've had an idea for a 3-4 session game. We were told there were no limits on character creation; all Races, Classes, and Subclasses were all on the table. I was excited having toyed with the idea Tortle Swarmkeeper Ranger that kept a hive of bees inside their shell, Offering healing and honey to all. Durring the first 20 minutes of the new game, the 'Big Bad' made a dramatic entrance along with a ice storm that followed them. Inititive was rolled and on my turm I attempted to let loose my bumbles but was stopped and told to roll two CON Saving throws. I 'failed' both and was left shocked being told that due to the nature of both turtles and bees, my swarm and I both immediatly died due to the fridgied cold. I pleaded asking to attempt to recall the bumble-boys back into my shell or that I was a Tortle and not a turtle. When death saves were brought up and when the other players attempted to warm the turtle-man it was waved away because "the continued cold would just shut it all down". I ask the court, is this justice? Was this turtle bekeeper destined to fall to the cold, or should I give this DM the cold shoulder from now on?

Tristan Tonks

May it please the esteemed court and the aggressively dishonourable balif Jake. I present the case of the withheld aura of protection. After vanquishing a fire cult from a small town, the noble twin dwarfs of Frieda and Fredadick (me) Stonebrow celebrated with the townsfolk at the local tavern. Our DM then suggested a drinking game between us, which would require making constitution saving throws of increasing difficulty. As a Paladin, I had plus 4 to all savings throws and was feeling pretty confident, though this confidence was quickly quashed as my cleric sister rolled a 28. I realised that with her superior constitution saving throw numbers, additional to my plus 4 from aura of protection, she would roll with a plus 11. Knowing that she would most likely win the encounter, I argued that as she was now my enemy in the context of this competitive game, the aura would no longer apply as it only works on allies. My DM refused, saying that you couldnt turn off the aura to your sister so flippantly. To circumvent this issue, I then proceeded to run around the bar while making my saving throws, so she would be out of the aura's 10ft range. My sister then chased me around the bar with increased irritation to get in the aura. This eventually led to her to spear tackling me through the tavern window, much to the despair of my DM and humble innkeeper. But who was in the right? Was it fair of me to remove the aura to my newfound enemy, to stop her unfair advantage, or was I simply a fussy sibling? I await your judgement

Samantha Wald

For the pleasure of the coolest crit, the Case of a Coin Flip. I am playing in a level 1 campaign with online friends made over the past 2 years. I play a (modified large) green dragon-born paladin in heavy armor. Another person is playing a monk crow aarakocra. During combat, the aarakocra got bloodied from a nearby kobold. I ran over and asked the player to hide behind me. On their turn, they flew behind me without leaving enemy radius. DM flipped a coin to see if the kobold hit me or my friend. My case is this: Should the DM have asked for stealth checks or taken disadvantage? I am happy the coin chose me to hit, but would this had been a fair option had the coin landed on feathery tails? I respect my DM and did not question their choice, but wondered about advocating for coverage/stealth next time. The decision is in your capable hands. P.S. My character's name is Mississippiensis Green-Shield, but friends from Kongo Bongo just call me Penis.

Sunny

Honorable judges and decorated bailiff, may it please the court I present the case of the Systematic Schemer. I am currently a player in a 2 person "evil character" campaign that has been promised to end in a PvP battle to the death. Our DM has given us opportunities to scheme against one another and I have done so A LOT. Also, in preparation for the PvP finale I have been building my character (a spores druid/hex blade warlock) with specific stats and abilities that I know will be powerful against the other player (a rouge/barbarian). Before our latest session I was talking with my DM and he told me "I don't want to let you do too much because the other player doesn't scheme as much as you do." I feel like this is an unfair statement, since I am merely taking advantage of the DM's offer. We all agreed that we were down for any scheming and any consequences that followed. Am I being a jerk by aiding to my fellow player's downfall or should my DM allow me to scheme to my heart's content. I humbly await your judgment.

Gabriella

For the honorable bailiff, and the judges of Dice Christ, I have a recent story of my first session in a new campaign and I would love your opinion/insight. I bring you a tale of a difficult cleric and a mystery spell. This is a level 10 game I just joined. After my swords bard was introduced to the party and had some fun role-play interactions my character had an impasse with another PC who calls themselves the party leader. They are a cleric/fighter with mostly cleric levels. Aside from general disagreement between the characters as the cleric is very cold/harsh and does not like many others, my bard did not have much reason to trust the cleric as he just met them recently and had a mostly hostile interaction with only them (the other PC’s have enjoyed my bard). Another important bit of info is that it is perpetually raining in the setting. We are in a War camp and the cleric claims he will make a safe place to sleep and says he smashes him hammer through the air and tears a hole the size of a doorway there. He then describes as the others walk through it that it is a forge with anvils and rooms with an upstairs. My character did not know what this magic was and when asked to explain the cleric just says go through and refused to answer. Not trusting this person who was being so difficult, my bard simply cast Tiny Hut and slept in that. I learned later that the spell the cleric said he cast was Private Sanctum. If you look it up you will see it does not make a portal or anything truly hidden, it pretty much secures a space so it is safer but it does not make a heated forge with anvils and an upstairs, nor would it protect from rain. I ask this of the judges: first, should my character have simply gone in to appease the cleric or were they justified in their actions, and two, should i bring up that the spell cast does not do any of the things he specified? I personally love buffing allies and giving powers to players but I fear the cleric is taking advantage of the dm not knowing how the spell works and how powerful that kind of effect like a Magnificent Mansion would be. I humbly await your verdict, -Taken4Granted

Josh

May it please the Supreme Crit Justices and almighty Sir Oyama. I present to you the case of a deceitful DM and party I was in a stealth mission in which the party had to infiltrate a party to gain information. I went to throw powder of invisibility over my party. However my DM asked me if I was checking carefully in our bags as I was looking for the powder and said it would take an action to find. I argued I should be able to roll an investigation check and with an 18 believed I had found the powder However after throwing it over our team my DM narrated how we all began coughing and choking and we’re not invisible at all. It turns out my 18 check was not high enough and instead of grabbing the invisibility powder I had instead thrown Dust of Sneezing and Choking. As a new player to the table I was unaware of this item even being in the bags and wasn’t warned by either the dm or another player! While I know these two items are described to be indistinguishable, I should have been told if an 18 failed or not before being allowed to throw the dust, surely? I humbly await the court preceding.

Oliver Heffernan

May it please the court, not including the lowly bailiff, I bring to you the case of the character switching player. I started Dming early last year with a group of my friends. One of my players, after session one, asked if he could switch his character. While it was annoying, as I had already woven his previous characters backstory into the main story but it was fine. Every session after that, he asked to switch characters at the beginning, with no warning, and then got mad i didn’t “give him any story importance”. Am I in the wrong hear? I feel like I’m doing something wrong but i don’t know how to help

mira

may it please the beautiful bailiff and everyone else too, i present the case of the Cowboy One-Shot. my friend group has played a few dnd games over the past years, and I have always DM'd, because no one else will volunteer. to my surprise, last summer my friend meghan said they wanted to dm a cowboy one shot! I was thrilled. well, it's been over six months, and we still haven't played. they keep saying they want to sit down and 'write it all out'. the thing is, i really want to play a cowboy one shot!!! would it be rude if i suggested that I dm the cowboy game? i humbly await your landmark decision on dnd intellectual property.

JustAce

Salutations Crit Justices and may it please the Court, as well as the respected bailiff. I bring you the case of Combat vs. Roleplay. I have recently finished my first ever campaign, with a bunch of first ever players! Upon ending this campaign, that I will note, was rough at certain points. I asked my players for a "Roses and Thorns" session. As I wish to improve my DMing ability. One of my players claimed that she disliked all the combat encounters. Being sort of thrown off by her statement I asked what she enjoyed. Which she said, "I enjoyed the roleplay stuff more." It is important to note, she made no effort to learn how to play her character, a druid. However, she did claim at several points that she was "Overwhelmed" by how many spells she had. My question for you Justices. Is this on my head for making uninteresting combat encounters? Or is combat in DnD just not for everyone? I patiently await your response. P.S Min Maxing Rouges are hard to plan around.

Rebecca McEwan

May it please the handsomest bailiff and esteemed council, I want to tell you the classic tale of indecisiveness from my one shot DM. We were planning to lure an enemy into a confined room. This room had a 12 foot long stone book hanging on the ceiling in the centre. The party agreed to split up with half of us on top of the book and the other half would stand at the other side of the room to lure the enemy to the correct place to have the book fall on top of him. However, the DM was following a pre written campaign and when asked what the measurements were e.g 12 foot by what, refused to answer the question as this was not stated in the original campaign. We urged him to make it up so we could plan the ambush but he didn’t want to, and therefore ended the session unfinished. Should we have pushed him for an answer in the first place? Should he have just made the measurements up? ARE WE TO BLAME FOR AN UNFINISHED CAMPAIGN?? I eagerly await your judgement.

Matt Kilsby

The delightful Justice Oyama <3 I bring you a Dice Christ Confession: Deck of Many Things Edition I've been feeling some post-fudging guilt and regret over this flagrant rejection of Dice Christ's whims. I'm running my first ever campaign for my friends and finally got round to throwing the DoMT at them. One player decided to draw 3. I knew he wouldn't stop at one, his name is Tinynonce McBeardshagger which gives you an idea of his general vibe. I had reduced the deck to 20 and assigned a number to each so all they had to do was roll a D20 and I'd tell them the card and its effects. Card 1 - Jester - "You gain 10,000 XP". So far so lucky. Card 2 - Idiot - "Permanently reduce your Intelligence by 1d4 + 1". OH NO. Tinynonce's intelligence was already a heavy dump stat at 6. He rolled a 3, making his new intelligence score 2. Barely sentient, he's basically a plant with a shield now. Card 3 - Talons - "Every magic item you wear or carry disintegrates." This is wear the fudging occured. Reading this, it just felt too savage, too cruel, and too far from fun to take his wits and ALL his sick items in the span of 2 minutes, so I just picked what was next on the list: "Throne: You gain proficiency in the Persuasion skill, and you double your Proficiency Bonus on checks made with that skill." This seemed like a reasonable fudge as it's not too amazing. But it does mean that somehow he's basically a sack of potatoes with all the guile and persuasiveness of a master businessman. Did I do the right thing?? I felt at the time it would ruin the fun too much, but in hindsight, he did choose to pick that many cards, knowing how bad the outcomes could be. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes etc. Please judge me as you see fit, O acolytes of Dice Christ. I await your righteous verdict.

Levaithan

May is please the critical court, and maybe Baliff Jake. Me and my friends are playing a low magic campaign. We were fighting act 1's bbeg when he cast darkness. It surrounds the area in a magical darkness no light can pass threw. We all had disadvantage on attacks against him do to not seeing him. I am playing gunslinger and wanted to use Dead eye to remove disadvantages to have a better shot the DM and my best friend said since I can't see him I shouldn't be able to use my ability. But they said I can still just shoot into the darkness with disadvantage. I was kinda miffed that they wouldn't let me use grit which I get 3/per short rest to help our chances. On the other hand the sorcerers wolf summon and paladin with blind fighting didn't get the disadvantage. I dont feel like I was asking for alot. I wasn't even asking for advantage. I proceeded to roll 3 1s and jammed all of my guns. Who was in the wrong. Please give DM Daddy Dave your hardest punishment.

Riley McCann

Most honorable justices Murphy, Caldwell, Axford and Oyama, may it please the court and tickle the Bailiff. Many years ago I was playing with my first dnd group. I made some mistakes, as I was learning the ropes, but my DM was very good at integrating other elements or consequences to balance the game and overall it was an absolute blast and the whole table had a great time. Except Mason... He would spend time looking up the actual rule if my DM decided to make something a house rule in order to accommodate my mistakes. This was annoying and dampened the flow. I had an enchanted ring that allowed me to cast invisibility and I attacked someone while invisible, my DM told me to add sneak attack damage and I didn't know what that was so they narrated a critical hit and just had me double my damage. It was fun and I didn't mind the pivot. Mason however wouldn't let us move forward until we did the proper amount of sneak attack damage. Was Mason just trying to help me learn the game properly and frustrated that the whole session was basically improv? Or was it wrong of him to impose the way he wanted to play the game (albeit the proper way by the rules). I await your wise judgement!

Jane with Song

May I please the court and honour the hard-working bailiff, I present the case of the loafing level-uper. I am a new player in my first-ever long campaign, with other more experienced players, forming a 5-person party, with each person currently level 4. In the recent session, the party got into a non-negotiable capture situation in the meeting room a castle, where our DM straight up told us that the enemies are too powerful, and asked if we can just run a cut-scene of the party being captured. We disagreed and rolled initiative, and we begin fighting a wizard, his 4 henchmen and a shield guardian. Knowing the monsters are possibly undefeatable and the fact that I have an inert but well sought artifact, I took the coward way out of the room to seek help and sit aside for the rest of the session and watched the remainder of the party battle. They survived: a level 3 fireball, a level 4 fireball, a cloud kill and at least 3 counterspells, then dealt enough damage to the mage that he decided to dimension door and run away. After winning this battle with zero casualties, the DM decided that the party should level up. However, knowing that I have contributed no damage to the mage, I feel like I don’t deserve this level-up. Should I take the win as a member of the party, or should I be punished for running away like a coward? I humbly await your judgment.

Tyler Jackson

Someone online recently brought up a point about Rogues and Sneak Attack Per the language of the ability it can be used “once per turn”. It does not specify it has to be your turn, and it does not say it can happen once per round of combat. Meaning if a rogue were able to use its reaction to make an attack on someone else’s turn and the other conditions for sneak attack were met, they could (per this persons interpretation) get multiple sneak attacks in one round of combat. I might just be late to the party but I always thought it was once per round. What is the honorable justices’ and equally honorable bailiff’s take on this matter?

vrtx

(I imagine this read in Corbeau Babineaux's voice) Now, i do declare supreme court justices and the honorable baliff, on this day i reckon i've become quite tired with my current campaign as a player. My qualifications are a such, i am a DM for over a year, and a player for 5 years. Now here's the pickle in a jar, my DM is homebrewin a system based on D&D and something called IC RPG (index card rpg), he's a runnin Curse o' strahd, for us, which has been known as the top hotdog of premade campaigns. But the system down right kills me. I made a character i thought would be more fun than a baby possum in a mudpuddle, but all the fun got sucked out like a nannerfly on a hot summers eve. My backstory is I was a werewolf who incidentally ate his own family before realizing he was afflicted. But one thing i did not realize is that in Barovia, the full moon occurs every 10 days, and lasts for 3 of those days according to the DM. I wanted to play a bloodhunter, but with ICRPG, the options are quite limited to use this lycanthropy to my advantage so after a few months of play I got it cured quicker than two shakes of Lake's tail. Now i'm basically just a vanilla fighter, with very few powers. My only hope now is the sweet embrace of death to bring me back to my family...which has now been taken from me as well since I have downright died 2 times only to be ressurected by some demonic creature sayin that i'm gonna spend eternity with him. Each time I come back i'm getting cursed in some weird way. At level 6 I only have 30 hit points, and once even almost died jumping over a fence (brought down to 2 hit points). Each level you either choose hitpoints or a new power. I always choose HP because I just can't have enough as the front line fighter. I'm questionin' whether I just outright quit the game, but since we're near the end of the campaign, I don't want to let down my companions who are good friends of mine, and I am attached to this character, I simply just don't want him to be doomed to an eternity with a demon centipede for tryin to help save the world. Now am i just bein' a baby bigger than a stack of pancakes, or do yall reckon this game is just being run a bit unfairly? Thank yall and may all your 20's be natural

Stephen Power

May it please the honorable court and the whatever bailiff, I present the case of the Forgotten Realms Rocks: I DM a game with my wife and two other players and the party just hit level 10. My wife plays a Firbolg druid named Alban, and both she and her character share a love of geology, collecting interesting rocks and gemstones. As part of the loot for encounters I usually throw in some 50-100 gp gemstones that she can keep or sell, and this made for fun roleplay moments. This arrangement was fun for everyone *until* she discovered the Forgotten Realms wiki, where the properties of gemstones from previous editions are all listed and presented as still canon. For example, Alban has two 100gp Tourmalines, which according to the Wiki, "[can] absorb any spell cast upon it and immediately convert it into three lightning bolts that blasted outward in straight lines from the crystal facets in directions chosen by the caster." When she presented this information to me in-game it sounded like a very cinematic and cool idea, so I allowed that effect to take place, consuming the gem. The problem is that the gem is a mere 100gp and she has been shopping around for more 100gp tourmaline triple-lightning-grenades ever since, on top of the fact that she has been discovering more insanely unbalanced properties for her gems (Opals can apparently store spells, garnets mounted to a weapon can "double or triple the weapon's damage potential", etc.) Justices, was I wrong to allow a cinematic moment without considering the balance consequences? I await your gem-encrusted judgment.

Olivia!

To The Honourable Crit Justices and the (no adjective here) Bailiff I bring to you the case of the mistimed goof. I’m my campaign I’m playing this character that I love, she’s an aasimar cleric who didn’t know she was an aasimar until the second last session we recently played. She isn’t the brightest and is a big goof of the party, constantly being the comedic relief in the campaign. In our campaign we were fighting Dragon age darkspawn style orcs and we are working with an army to try to stop them, things were getting tense in the war room where this one commander was insulting our party and even one of my party members swung at the commander with a nat 20 but missed. When they left as a goof I said “I trip her.” He told me to roll for it and so I did, I rolled well, a 16+4, and successfully tripped her. Then myself and that other party member are in the dungeons awaiting execution. I was devastated and as I tried to explain that it was a goof and I thought like my other party member, it would fail. my dm simply said that “I shouldn’t try to do things if I want them to fail.” I didn’t argue at the time because when you play stupid games you win stupid prizes. But he’s now talking about rolling a new character, I love this character deeply and I haven’t even gotten to be a full aasimar or really have the character arc I wanted before I was put in the dungeon, to be executed for tripping a commander. Am I wrong that this seems harsh or should I accept that I made a goof at a wrong time and are now facing the consequences? I humbly await your Judgement.

Eric Wills

May it please the court and bailiff. I bring the case of science vs magic. I run a campaign of extremely well educated friends and family, including a doctor and a nurse. After some Con fails, their characters became diseased by an exploding fungus and had 8 hours to find a cure or they would die. They tried to convince me that the spell “purify food and drink” should cure them of all disease. I said no. They continued to argue with me about the blood brain barrier… blah blah blah science stuff. I continued to resist but I allowed an arcana/medicine check to try and cast the spell in a way that was not intended. They failed miserably but continued to argue with me and the results of the dice. Nobody ended up dying from this encounter but the trend of real life science trumps magic logic continues in the campaign. Should I go back to school in order to better implement science in the fantasy rpg? I humbly await your verdict…

MO Problems

May it please the court, and I guess the lowly bailiff, I bring you the case of the boring custom race player. I play with a close knit group of people, including my wife. I'm essentially the resident DM and I love her to death, however, when we play D&D she always wants to make the same kind of character: a simple backstory of wanting adventure, no dark past, no call to adventure other than that the they were bored. It annoys me a bit but that's not the worst of it. To make her characters interesting she always wants to be a unique and uncommon race, usually something ridiculous like a kobold an orc. She has stated before she doesn't find the staple D&D races all that fun to play. The most annoying times is when she wants to be custom made races, in particular an awakened bear warlock or a squirrel moon druid. I love her creativity but what gets me is that I feel like she doesn't have much of a personality to her characters and just uses her wacky race as a replacement for it. When I've asked her to pick an official race or one that goes along the standard player's handbook races she gets offended. Am I asking too much? Should I just let her keep making these custom made races much to my chagrin?

Perrin Swanson

Forgive me Father, Mother, Father, Bonus Father, and of course Alter Boy Jake, for I have sinned in the eyes of Dice Christ. I was DMing a campaign for my level 10 players, and tasked them with killing an Aboleth that had been magically transported into a nearby lake. My players used water breathing spells, swam out into the lake, and began searching for the creature. Despite the difficulty of doing so, I allowed them to roll a perception check, which ended up being a nat 20. I determined that a brief moment of clarity allowed them to spot the monster in the distant murky waters. After getting closer, one player cast Control Water and created a whirlpool right next to the Aboleth. They then all proceeded to absolutely womp it from afar using ranged spell and melee attacks. I rolled strength saves for it to escape, but failed every single time, so I was completely powerless to stop them. Normally a DM may fudge a roll to get out of the trap, but since my players were having fun with their womping (and wouldn't be having any other battles before their next long rest), I decided instead to increase the monster's max HP multiple times so that it could live long enough to break out and get one single hit on them before getting killed. To my knowledge my players never questioned the fact that they did hundreds upon hundreds of damage to the Aboleth, but I live with regret that I may have gone against Dice Christ's wishes by prolonging the battle in the name of more fun. Between the nat 20 perception and all my failed escape rolls, it seems like the cosmos wanted a quick fight, and who was I to deny that? I humbly await your blessing or casting of me into Dice Hell. Thank you!

Christian Cornelius

May it please the court, and the elegant bailiff, I present the case of the slow falling hostage. Our party had a monk who succeeded on a grapple check with an enemy. He had enough movement and has boots of spiderclimb where he ran up the 80 foot wall near him holding the enemy and jumped off. The DM rolled damage the 8d6 damage and the monk argued they have the slow fall monk ability so they should not have to take damage. The DM said that since the monk was focused on holding the enemy, he could not fall slowly and still have the enemy take damage so it was either nobody takes damage or they both do. The monk argued the wording of the ability just reduces damage. Was the monk right the R.A.W. he shouldn't take damage or is the DM right because the wording also includes the title Slow Fall and the monk couldn't fall slowly. I await your decision.

Connor M.

May it please the entire court, except for the dirty, dirty bailiff. I am a first time DM running a homebrew for some friends at work. A few sessions into the campaign, I had them fight in an arena that increased in difficulty each round. The arena's competitors are broken up into different factions if their own choosing, and the faction my party chose was called "Kord's Chosen." One of my players is an Aasimar paladin that is a devout follower of Kord that usually just wants to kick ass and take names. A few rounds into the arena and the party was pretty beat up, except for the paladin. During the fight, a man from another faction decided to go for the paladin one on one, while the other two dealt with an archer that was, honestly, a little too beefy to be fighting someone at their level (a balancing issue on my part). Instead of fighting, the paladin just stood there and healed himself round after round without ever taking a swing. Eventually, the other two killed the swordsman that was fighting the paladin. After the fight, they decided to leave and take their payment. While collecting the money from the leader of "Kord's Chosen," I decided to poke fun at the paladin and said something along the lines of, "the leader looks at [paladin] and says 'as a follower of Kord, I didn't expect you to be such a wimp.' The player took so much offense to this that he decided to berate me (the DM) and ask "what the hell else was I supposed to do" to which I said "if you are gonna play a character that wants to follow a god that demands brutality, don't be surprised when other followers get mad at you for not fighting back." He immediately left the discord and we have not played a session since. Was I in the wrong for how I handled this, or was I being too hard on the paladin? I humbly await your judgment.

Julie Westra

Greetings esteemed justices and may it please the court. I recently DM'd for the first time for a group of friends who know nothing about DND but were willing to try it out. I used a beginner adventure and tried to make everything light and fun. Everything was going great at first; they loved making up backstories for the character sheets I gave them and had fun sneaking into a goblin hideout. As soon as combat started though, things took a turn. My roommate was playing a gnome druid and it's important to note that she is obsessed with garden gnomes and collects all types of gnome paraphernalia. As soon as she took damage from a goblin she "went into survival mode" and chose to have her character flee the cave they were in and hide in the woods. She stayed there, and listened while the other 2 players fought a now unbalanced battle, ending in them knocked out and robbed by the goblins. They were clearly annoyed with her and me. In hindsight, I should have realized there was going to be a problem when she asked me to turn off the ambiance music I was playing at the beginning of the session because it was making things "too real." I ended the session there, flustered. My problem is that all three of my friends have said they want to play again. My roommate said she had a great time but would only keep playing if I guaranteed her sweet gnome never took any damage. My other two friends want her out of the game as punishment for abandoning them. I ask the honorable judges: which side should I take? Or is there a better, third option? I eagerly await the court's verdict.

Slippery Pete

May it please the court and the totally fine bailiff Hurwitz: The case of a Greedy Wish. I have been DMing a homebrewed, once a month, virtual campaign with my old college friends for two years now. Recently the 5 person party was given a deck of many things and in total 13 cards were immediately drawn (TRULY WILD). Thankfully there were no deaths, but the Air Genasi Monk drew the Moon card and rolled three wishes at the very END of the session. Over the month between sessions I made sure the player read the wish spell description and I communicated that with excess greed would come consequence. At the start of the session he asked the party how greedy he should be. The party said ‘Greedy’. His wish was: ‘Without prejudice, here and now, I want myself and my party members to have one ability score increased to 20, and for us to have advantage on saving throws and ability checks with that ability.’ Initiate DM sweat. Excluding the monk there was a total requested increase of 36 ability points between the 4 party members. I granted the increases as per the wish but took away 36 ability points from the monk dropping his str, int, wis, and cha to 6,and con to 10 while preserving his dex score of 20. His AC went down by 5. The monk player rolled with it, said it was fine and is still invested in the game but we have yet to do combat since and I’m worried about party balance. Court, please judge me! Was this a cruel way to punish a relatively selfless wish and is the party now imbalanced? How would you, in your benevolent wisdom, have ruled the wish on the spot? Is there a way for me to use his two remaining wishes to regain some balance?

Matt M

May it please the court and the unelected judge/bailiff, I present the case of the bug crushing paladin. I was DM for a game in which the party were trying to traverse through a ruined city infested with bipedal bug crabs, a large group of which were pursuing them. The party came to a collapsed bridge and the warlock had the great idea to jump across and silent image a complete bridge so they fell in the river. This would have worked because I thought it was cool. However, the paladin, after heroically deciding to hold off the bugs while the others jumped, decided after killing a couple that they weren't that tough and would just stay and finish them all. The rest of the party had taken shelter over the river by this time and every time it came to their turns they said they wouldn't do anything, waiting for the paladin to enact the bridge-image plan. The paladin then spent several turns on their own killing bugs while I tried to throw "too many" bugs at him, attacking and trying to knock him in the river. A sequence of consistently good/bad rolls meant he felt invincible and wouldn't stop. The encounter ended when the bugs were all dead (I stopped spawning more when I saw where this was going...), and we just moved on. However, I still remember the resigned tone of the other player's voices as they skipped their turns while the paladin killed bugs. I ask you, was I wrong not to fudge something to force the encounter or not? The other players didn't directly challenge the paladin to stop so I didn't want to impose my will. I humbly submit before your wise judgement.

Alana Ochoa

Honorable judges and wonderful bailiff, One of our players made a new character in our modern campaign who is a necromancer fairy. There is some magic, but it mainly follows the culture/laws of modern day America. There is a downtime mechanic (similar to Unsleeping City) where we can focus on specific activities (jobs, school, investigating, etc.), and on a successful roll, we make money or get more information, depending on what we are doing. Our necromancer fairy decided that they would make money by grave robbing and selling what they found. This made all of us other players super uncomfortable (Catholic guilt for me!!!) so they backpedaled and said they got permission from whoever was dead (which they didn’t), and they insisted this was integral to their character even though they never mentioned it in character creation with our DM. Our DM said that was fine and that the necromancer could make money as they please, but it would be a much higher DC to get the items and sell them as it’s highly illegal, unethical, and time consuming. The necromancer argued that it should be the same DC to succeed as the rest of us with regular jobs. Was the DM right to make the DC higher for grave robbing as opposed to a regular job? Or is the necromancer right in saying that they can do ethical grave robbing and should be able to do it as they please?

Arcane Gumption (Tracey)

To the dutiful and hardworking Bailiff and the CRITically acclaimed Justices, In my first ever game of Dnd I was overly prepared with a stereotypical and elaborate tragic backstory but the important detail of which (one that my DM knew and so did my fellow players because it was the only detail that was discussed in game) was my level 1 Gnome Fighter, Lichen, was in search of gemstones and any interesting rocks to bring back home to her gnome family jewelry shop. The campaign starts out in a town where the first place my DM describes is a quarry where we overhear the workers outside grumbling about not wanting to work because of masked children haunting the site. My party and I, at MY suggestion, go talk to the foreman. (I figure it's a nod from the DM that the Rock Gnome should go check out the Rocks!) The foreman is disgruntled that their workers won’t work because of these ghoulies that they apparently see. We ask if we can help and they let us take over the job site for some night work - when the creatures tend to appear. We end up doing nothing but breaking our backs in a quarry for 8 hours. And there is nothing found. Not only do I NOT find any cool rocks but no ghosts or ghouls or masked haunted children. This would have been fine if our rolls were too low to find clues but the DM later revealed that there was nothing to find. And in fact he was shocked that in our first time playing dnd and we decided to get a blue collared job. A year later, I am still singled out by my fellow player and DM and made fun of for playing dnd to get a 9 to 5. I confess that the DM was new to DMing but Judges I implore you for a ruling to save my dignity that with the information provided I made an educated choice to check the quarry out. Bailiff, YOU at least must understand the strife of a haunted blue collared job and perhaps would like an adventurer to save you? I await your harsh but just ruling.

Parker J

Good day honorable court and heroic bailiff: I bring you the case of the disappearing DM (and player). About a year ago, my party and I had finished a mines of phandelver game and were now in search of a new dm. We all playing online btw. We found one, and he brought along a player from another one of his games to join us. Everything was going well… for a while. Until the new player suddenly disappeared, poof! Stopped showing up to sessions and later deleted his discord account. All of us, players and dm combined, we’re both confused and worried, but we moved on with nothing we could do about it and the campaign continued. Our next sessions rolls around and we are all ready to play, the dm nowhere in sight. After an hour after we usually start he tells us his dog ate one of his dice and had rushed her the vet! We were all worried and hope his dog was okay, and she was. A few sessions after that, he again does not show up. Now telling us he has inhaled fumes while making dice and passed out, hitting his head and being sent to the hospital. We were all, again, worried and hope he is okay. More sessions after that, he claims to be busy right when the session is about to start. Taking a package to the mail place, cleaning out his fridge (???) and having to spend time with his siblings. For context, our sessions happens in the evening time and we were able to see he was playing video games during the day, as it showed up on his discord profile. One would think you would have plenty of time either earlier that day or any other day of the week to do these things- not exactly when we are having a session. So all of us as players were confused by his behavior, when he had seemed so excited to play. He did, finally, come to us and end the campaign as he tells us he is too busy for it. So things did end amicably. In hindsight I question his excuses. Did the dog really eat the homework or did he not want to play as much as he claimed to? I humbly await your judgement, Parker

Casey Dueck

May it please the court, but mostly the buff bailiff with STRONG ankles. I bring to you the case of player vs OP druid NPC. Our party had tracked the location of a macguffin exchange to a scrapyard hill. We set up in wait inside a structure on the top of the hill well in advance of the meeting and waited. One party arrived 8 hours early and the leader immediately spotted one of the hiding players. The leader attacked, shapeshifting and grappling without a roll. The rest of us entered combat, defeating the two minions while the leader was banished. After banishment was released, we ganged up on the leader, and now the crux of the matter: the leader cast a spell which I managed to counterspell, then it "shapeshifted" as a bonus action, which he called shape change, into an adult metallic dragon. By the way we are level 7. Was the DM incorrect in casting 2 leveled spells on the same turn, with an overpowered enemy, using shapechange as a bonus action, all to save an NPCs ass that was getting stomped? Was I wrong to question the DM? The session deteriorated from there and we ended shortly after. I await your judgement.

Sara Tarnow

CW: consent, PVP, undertones of SA. Honorable super cool Justices and poopy butthole Bailiff, may your crits be plentiful and well-timed. If it pleases the court I present a case of AITA. During a character creation session in a campaign I was in a year ago, one player wanted to create a Mindflayer "biomancer" pc. DM agreed on the condition that the character was severed from the collective and acting completely independently. A 3-person campaign, the other player took on the role of healer which left me to tank, and I was happy to do so. All of this is happening over text in discord and I had to step away to work. When I returned, the chat was full of jokes about the mindflayer turning my character into a "meat puppet" for his whims, whether or not my character wanted it or even knew about it. Obviously this upset me and I said under no circumstances would this be allowed and if jokes like this continued I would leave the campaign. The other two apologized and the mindflayer re-classed as a bard and we began playing. During session 1 myself and the healer made a formal alliance to avenge the deaths of the town heroes. (Actually the 3 of us in a previous campaign) There was a contract and everything, assuring no violence would be done to the other person, even splits on treasure etc. I recruited the mindflayer and he immediately signed the contract with the healer but refused to sign the contract with me. My character was offended but tried to understand why, and there was really no reason except he "didn't know" me. But he didn't know either of us. So after verbally demanding the contract be signed and getting nowhere, (I had already signed for him) and after several warnings in game, I ripped my signature off his contract and attacked him. This of course led to fighting in and out of game where I reiterated that I warned I would not stand for any of his creepy shit, and he claimed I was basing my assessment of him on his previous class and it was unfair to attack his bard. The dm was silent during this time but I did message him to ask if I could attack the other pc and he said "go for it." The campaign never recovered and we were not able to play together again. Am I the asshole for attacking a fellow PC, for metagaming, creating a hostile environment, or any other reason? Or was I right to feel threatened and react the way I did? I humbly submit myself to the court and to dice christ and apologize if the case brings down the mood too much. (As an offering of levity, I also submit that I named my pet blue tongue skink Hardwon Surefoot as he is beefy and sweet and a little dumb and really good at "trancing." )

Howling Salt Sam

To the Honorable Crit Justices and the little dickling bailiff. I come to you with a case concerning a DM that didn't deliver on a custom magic item. In a 3.5e campaign, my DM allowed each player to get a magical item after a pivotal battle. Players were given the option to get a "soul stone" which was a homebrew magic item that the DM created. A player can charge the stone by spending experience points and combine it with something to create a unique magic item that will receive a % of your XP and will level up over time. Neat right? I thought so too. Some players opted to take this XP reduction for the powerful magic item and others thought it was too risky. I opted to bond my soul stone to my armor as I was a dwarven fighter and the tank of the party. Now here is where the case arises. Others received cool effects from their custom items. A wizard staff that received bonuses to spell casting. A bow with some interesting combat tricks. I asked the DM what by armor did and he said "you haven't figured it out yet." I spent time experimenting with the new armor and still nothing. Eventually the DM let me know that I could control my leather kilt like prehensile tail, but it wasn't strong enough to hold anything and didn't have any mechanical effects. Taking it in stride, I mostly used it to moon people or flap it around gracefully like Sailor Moon. Even as I leveled up, it was always "You haven't figured it out yet." The campaign eventually fell apart and I never found out what the kilt did. Having spent XP for this item, I feel like I should get something out of it. Am I right to feel slighted and does the DM deserve the Turdy? Was the DM right to control their own homebrew and am I the Turdsman here?

BridgeWatch

May it please the court and the under-served bailiff, Jake.

Julia Waldron

Hello honorable justices, and Jake who is also there. May it please the court, I present the case of the Horny Cleric. In one of my games, I play a college of lore bard/eldritch knight multi class. I purposefully put a lot of my class features into making my bard the face of the party, such as expertise in Persuasion. The DM very rarely lets me just roll persuasion, instead I usually have to fully play out scenes, and often even my crazy high (25+) rolls don’t get me much from the interactions. All of this would be fine, except we have a guest player who comes on sometimes. He is a Dwarven Cleric who spends all his time doing a “sensual pinky dance” to woo over the people of the world. Throughout a session, about4 times he asked the DM if he could “seduce” his way out of situations where he was trapped, or to get into a castle. The DM would have him roll, and as long as it was over a 13, it worked. I’m really not sure what to do and how to let me DM know I think this is somewhat unfair. I know I shouldn’t expect to get everything I want from high persuasion rolls, but seeing such a gap between how the DM reacts player to player is for sure frustrating. Am I in the wrong? I leave it up to your humble ruling.

BridgeWatch

May it please the court and the under-served bailiff, Jake. May it please the court and the under-served bailiff, Jake. I am DMing for a small group of new players. We are 8 sessions in and they asked me to provide pictures of all known and future NPCs. I understand the request but I am not an artist. I think this severely limits my creativity if I need to find stock art for all NPCs, even they ones I create on the fly. Am I being unfair. I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

Gudni Lindal

To the honorable justices and the diamond-in-the-rough-yet-all-kinds-of-tough bailiff Jake. I come to you with the case of the Homebrew DM and his Cowardly Spiders. I write this on behalf of a friend who’s found himself playing with a group in which one member DMs fairly frequently and keeps creating broken homebrewed encounters. Last week marked the party’s third month traveling through a frozen wasteland. Neither the DM nor the players could remember why they were there in the first place, but regardless, they were ambushed by several frost spiders - homebrewed of course. They were immune to ANY physical damage except bludgeoning - which didn’t help, as everyone was playing a caster. Furthermore, these spiders had 150 HP each and an INFINITE amount of counterspells, which they could use at will. During the fight, the DM seemed to realise he’d done goofed on his design and had his super spiders disengage and flee - which made it even more frustrating for the party, because they didn’t even get to finish the fight. The players have spoken to the DM regularly about his unbalanced builds but much like a spider, he adamantly keeps weaving his own way. I humbly ask, should the DM have stuck to his frozen spider-guns and wiped out the party, perhaps learning something in the process? And do you have any advice for the party for dealing with this strange situation, without stepping on the creative toes of the DM? I await your judgement.

Ross Gilliland

May it please the court, Once when DMing for 6 of the goofiest guys I know, I had them stumble upon an eerie and strange town where everyone seemed a little off. The eventual plot twist was that every member of town had a vampire guardian that lived with them and protected them from various dangers in exchange for their naturally replenishing blood supply. My best friend Paul played our most problematic PC, a Tortle named Hektor the Shell-Endowed. Hektor went to one of the town’s vampires and asked for assistance in one of his personal quests, to which the vampire sternly turned him down because it had nothing to do with him. The line that Hektor uttered next has lived in infamy ever since: “I light his coffin on fire”. Not willing to outright kill a PC that I had grown to love, I allowed my bias to influence what happened next. The Vampire merely marked Hektor as his servant and informed him that at any point in the future Hektor would be required to return to him if his service was deemed necessary. I should mention that before this session started I felt the need to remind my party that DnD is not a video game, actions have consequences, and I would no longer go out of my way to protect their characters if they blatantly put them in harm’s way. With this in mind, was I too lenient on my player’s shenanigans, or was this a fair response to an action that was obviously meant to challenge my authority? Thank you for your time and judgement.

NormalRealHuman

May it please the court, the disillusioned bailiff, and let the DM’s judge Oyama find mercy in his soul, I present the case of the Pro-Authoritative Aarakocra being murdered by the party. I joined a one shot with a group of my brother’s friends that, years ago, I helped introduce to this wonderful game. I connected with the DM to make a character and created a rooster aarakocra cleric of order to match with the extremely authoritarian government that was sending us on our quest. Note for Justice Murphy, I wore heavy armour that removed my flight speed because I though it would be funny and to not break the game on this relatively new DM. Cut to the game where I meet all the characters. With the exception of my brother, none of the characters like the government and the sorcerer was an anarchist so when I went down in the first round of every fight no one brought me up because of my beliefs causing the DM to resurrect me after every fight so I could continue playing after driving an hour to get there. In the final fight the leader of the regime tried to take the gem with a dragon soul and tried to turn me against my party which I tried to spin into a cool character arc and tried to find a reason in my book of bylaws in order to legally remove this rotten apple. The anarchistic sorcerer looked me in the eyes and told me she casts blight on me. We were level 7 and this took me to almost no hit points, and then we fought a dragon several levels above our challenge rating and I once again went down immediately. The sorcerer claims that her character would do this to help the party in the battle and no one but my brother defended me. I had to wait an hour to drive some of the players home. My plea is this: who should have stepped in to stop this? The DM, who is still pretty new, or me as the player who took 48 necrotic damage from another member? Where does the table order authority lie?

Elle Senn

can’t wait for murph’s sentence to be wearing an ill-fitting jean jacket for the next month

Dylan

May it please the Court and the Baliff that does a good job, two of my players sold parts of their souls to ancient Dark Gods in exchange for frankly OP abilities. They both did this twice, and after that I told them they were possessed and NPCs under my command, since they SOLD THEIR SOULS. They were okay with this, and made temporary characters to go save their original ones. They had a tense showdown and I gave the NPC versions of their characters some additional abilities to make the 2 vs 4 fight fair, which they won, but one of the players that didn’t get possessed said it was unfair that I gave the NPC versions some additional abilities for the fight and took them away after they got control again, which prompted the rest of the party to agree. I held my ground and didn’t let them have this, but I’ve always felt guilty and thought that I maybe should have let them keep it to make it more fun. Was I in the wrong to take the powers they had as NPCs away?

Hardwons Left Quad

May it please the court, and the bailiff I would not stop to scrape off the bottom of my shoe, I would simply throw the pair away. I run a home game for some friends and we're a little more lax when it comes to the application of spells. I usually allow some spells to be used in creative ways like how moonshine was allowed to use thornwhip to swing or grab falling allies. I presented my party with a challenge. They had to cross a lake via row boat under a time limit. They could go around but I explained to them that the target they were following would be long gone by then if they took that route. The party agreed they would cross the lake, then the parties wizard, let's call him Kevin because that's his name, asked if he could use frost bolt to freeze the lake. I told him the body of water was too large for something small like a cantrip, but he persisted. I tried to move the session along but then he kept asking questions about the salt content and currents of the lake, the depth, etc to try and justify why it should be easy to freeze. I told him if he wanted to use real world science to justify the results in a world of MAGIC I would allow him to freeze the lake on the condition that he uses real world science to justify how every single spell or cantrip he casts for the rest of the session is possible. If he was unable to give me a legitimite scientific real world explanation, then he would lose his action. I didn't expect him to, but he agreed. So I let him freeze the lake and they cause up to their prey in no time. When they did, a battle ensued and right away the wizard tried to cast polymorph. I told the wizard his spell would fail unless he could explain the science behind how this human is turning into a chicken. Obviously he failed to explain it using real world science so per our deal, his spell was forfeit. I continued to hold him to the deal for the rest of the session, for obvious reasons he couldn't cast any other spells. Here is my ask. Should I have held him to it like I did for the remainder of the session? Should I have only let the ploymorph fail to prove a point and then dropped it? I felt like I might have been petty holding him to the deal like I said because he did seem to be a little bummed by the end of the session but at the same time, "whats the salt content of the lake?" Really? I humbly await the decision of the crit and I guess the bailiff can weigh in on this if the crit allows (love you jake)

Phil Willmarth

To the honorable justices! May you crit fervently and extensively. And to the singular bailiff, may you continue doing whatever it is you do. May it please the court, I present the case of the wrong weapon. As a first time DM, A group of close friends and I decided to start a campaign after being heavenly influenced by NADDPOD campaign one. Into our second session is where our issue takes place… I presented a cursed weapon to our sword and board warrior. To preface this, We had a conversation not too long before the session where he stated he wanted an axe like Gorehowl from World of Warcraft. Cut to the night in question, we’re all having fun drinking a little bit, and some cases maybe a little too much and our orc warrior came across the weapon and grabbed it. In a little bit of homebrew flavor, I changed how the attunement process works to just based on touch. When he grabbed the axe he became cursed With rage, where he can not stop attacking until he has killed everyone, including PCs, around him or no one is within 50 ft of him. This is when everything went sour. Admittedly we did have a little bit of a rough night anyway with our chaotic neutral rogue being just a little bit too un trusting however, I could tell there was an immediate attitude change with my player And quite frankly the whole night felt ruined and we did not have another session for quite some time after that. We ended up re flavoring the ax to a one handed ax so he could still maintain a one hander with a shield. Was I wrong for introducing the ax? Should I have held my ground and stated he need to figure out how to purify the ax? Was it right to meet in the middle? I humbly await your judgment.

Antonio Gonzales

Not a case but a dice christ confessional. Benevolent High Priests Murph, Cadwell, Oyama, High Priestest Axford and Reverend Hurwitz, I come to yall with a somewhat heavy heart and mind. The party I played in consisted of 5 party members, one being the DMs SO. During one session, I was sitting next to said SO and the DM had them roll a save. They did so but rolled low, however, out of the corner of my eye I could tell they "subtly" changed the die in their tray to get a better result. I was the only one who noticed and didn't call them out because they were my DMs SO. Should I have mentioned this or do I need some kind of penance for my sins? P.S. I believe the roll in question wasn't that important in the end but alas it did happen.

Rebecca Boak

May it please the court, One of my players is playing a bard and has extremely high charisma stats at level 3. He is constantly wanting to persuade his way out of all conflict. Recently he rolled quite high on his persuasion but I didn’t get the npc to do what he wanted as I stated that the high roll only made him neutral towards them and that a low roll would have given negative consequences. Am I wrong in not always allowing persuasion to essentially mind control npc’s into doing what my players want?

Ben McKechnie

*** Bourne Identity Campaign *** May it please The Court and honourable bailiff/instrument of Dice Christ, I don't have a case but rather a report of how it went DMing a Bourne Identity themed campaign inspired by Emily's character idea for campaign 3! It was a lot of work at the start as I created 5 balanced characters at level 4 (so that they were badass enough to feel like Bourne). I made them all "city rangers" with different subclasses of ranger and the urban environment as their area of expertise. Between subclasses, character traits, spells, and feats I managed to craft 5 quite different characters. This actually worked really well as the players' prior dnd experience ranged from nothing to a short campaign several years ago. They were each provided with a character sheet with all of their traits and special features, but no stat modifiers. Every time they tried to use a skill they were told their modifier for that specific skill after rolling. This has led to some really funny moments where they have tried to sweet talk a guard only to find out they have -1 to charisma. They also have a few level 1 spells which are hidden in envelopes with a vague description until the first time they are used. For example, the envelope containing the Jump spell just says "something to make you more mobile". So far they have woken up with no memory on the outskirts of a city, and successfully retrieved their own identity papers from a booby trapped safety deposit box. They are now fighting hand to hand through the halls of an embassy against redactodryls - big lizards that eat secrets and spit ink - to try and discover intel on the state sponsored black ops operation they have been working for and take it down. It's been a time consuming but incredibly fun way to introduce my friends to dnd so thank you Emily for the inspiration.

Sam K

May it please the crit andddd yeah you get it by now right Jake? It was my first ever dnd campaign and I was already close friends with the DM before ever getting into dnd. I was super excited and having a great time from sessions 1 through 3! But then the Dm introduced a homebrew shadow creature that could posses the pc’s in the dungeon we were locked in and things got tough. He ruled that he would decide our actions until we passed the DC 18 wisdom save it took to break out of the possession. We were level 3. Eventually my character (Tauren), the badass fighter of the group got overtaken and very quickly tpk’d the party. The DM ended the session and the next day announced the campaign would totally be canceled. I still enjoy and play in multiple campaigns years later, but am I right to think this was a rough start? I humbly await your verdict.

chronicsunshine

May it please the court, the illustrious & venerable judges, & the beautiful baby Bailiff Jake. I present to you the case of the “Shut the fuck up” stick. I’m currently a PC in an intimate home game with some friends. We’re having a grand ole time as a whole, but our one friend, playing a Goblin Bard named Bimbo sometimes sidetracks us with too many shenanigans, poorly timed jokes and tomfoolery. It’s funny sometimes, but mostly it just gets in the way of exposition and impedes on our progress. So, our DM introduced a new mechanic, called the “shut the fuck up” stick which is essentially a wooden stick that we can beat Bimbo over the head with (causing him to have to roll a DC15 CON saving throw to not be concussed and be able to speak for the duration of the convo.) so he stops talking through important dialogue. Of course this irks Bimbo, who argues that our DM isn’t allowing him to play how he feels his character would act and ruining his experience, but the rest of the players and the DM agree this stick is our saving grace. So, who’s to be punished here? Should we stop beating our friend over the head with a wooden stick? I humbly await your judgement.

Kenna L

May it appease the empyrean judges and tickle the plebeian bailiff. I present the case of the total party kill from Grecian hell. I used to play in a campaign based in Ancient Greece where we all played demi-god heros. We had been warned beforehand that the campaign would be on the more violent and difficult side. During our 4th session at level 3, we were forced to fight a minor God to save a group of villagers. Unbeknownst to us, this battle was meant to kill us all and start us off on a side quest in the underworld. Very cool. However, we soon began to win the battle. The DM quickly became visibly frustrated and I could feel the battle become more difficult as he changed his stats and began to add more minions, etc. Soon our first party member was killed, then a few more, until it was just me. Everyone just kinda sat quietly at the table, a bit upset or just straight up confused. Trying to stay in character and play through the awkwardness, I had my ranger put down her weapons and surrender. Thinking I had missed some sort of cue or hint from the DM on wtf we had done wrong, I just had my character beg on her knees for the god to forgive her and her friends and bring them back to life. I was then immediately punished by my own parental god for worshiping a different god, lost one of my “god-given” ranger abilities, and was then promptly beheaded…. ONLY then was it revealed that we were all actually in the underworld and not really dead. The mood at the table was relief and some awkward laughter, but still tense. My question is, was my DM wrong to fudge his stats mid battle after balancing the encounter wrong? Or was it unfair of me to be frustrated given that I was told beforehand that the campaign would be difficult and likely have player deaths. I eventually earned my ranger ability back, but am still pissed I was punished for role playing. I humbly await your judgments…

Mikey Ambrowiak

Dear the Ostentatious Judges and Bailiff. I bring to the court today not something I have done... but something I may do. I have a warlock in my party, while everything started out great! He now consistently talks over the other players, tries to negate anything another player wants to do, and refuses to bond with the party when ever they give an olive branch. He also gets mad that he cannot out right kill a grappled monster and gets upset that his Patron doesn't give him gold along with his magical powers. When he created his Warlock character he told me he wanted to trade magic items for his powers as the deal he made wuth his Patron. Since starting he has only offered his patron the carcass' of dead monsters they have defeated in battle and anytime he misses on an attack he says it was because of his Patron. Because of this I want to start rolling a percentile die and keep rasing the percentage until he honors his deal, and if I roll and it's under a certain percentage DC the spell he tries to cast will fail. I do this because I believe, he is technically going back on his deal with his patron with the addition of disrespecting him. Would it be wrong of me to punish my problem player in this way... I humbly await your verdict and willingly take any pre punishments you deem fit. Yours truly... a stressed out DM

Brolson

May it please the court and the infinite fantasy authority with which they enforce their rulings. We have been running a high magic high level (lvl 18 rn) evil campaign to free Tiamat from hell with the DM changing from player to player each arc. I'm the DM right now and the party is trying to steal a magic item from a powerful warlock of Bahamut hiding in Bahamut's palace within the plane of air. The warlock has started to taunt and disrupt the party's long rests with the Dream spell and the mechanics of that spell are what bring this case forward. If the dream spell is used on disruptive mode midway through the 8 hour long rest should the victim be allowed to use the hours before the dream as a short rest and roll hit die to offset the spell taking the player's long rest? Or is that metagaming that because of the timing using hit die before the event happens when the character would know the HP is needed? Also could I allow the player to benefit from a short rest after the Dream or does that go against the intent of the spell? The first time I used this spell I ruled that yes the targeted player can take a short rest for the hours before the spell was cast. The player then used all their hit die to get back to full HP and now I'm second guessing if my ruling was polite or if it just makes the enemy spells less powerful. The player still got a level of exhaustion and didn't regain spell slots. So I would like a final ruling so I can rest easy going forward. Love the show, love you guys, never change, your creativity and passion are important to the game and players around the world 🤘❤🤘

Nick Yamamoto

To the amazing justices and the savage, big muscled bailiff- Not really a case I just wanna know where you guys stand on DM's who classify all Nat 20's as an auto success. Like, say I wanna lift and throw a whole danged mountain. I've played w DMs who would theoretically let that happen if I rolled a 20. That's a 5% chance of doing something impossible. I think that's insane. I humbly await the court's decision. <3

Matthew Tyler Helm

MAY IT PLEASE THE LOVELY COURTS AND THE EVER HAMDSOME BAILIFF, please here my case. LONG STORY SHORT--a player in my DnD group (playing a bard) wanted to waltz into the lion's den, so to speak, AFTER I made him roll an intelligence check (throwing him a huge bone) and explaining that his character knows this is a likely fatal decision. The lion's den was essentially a barbarian biker bar. Upon entry he was immediately discovered, tried to make a persuasion check that he was the entertainment for the evening, and was barely successful. I had the barbarians insist he sing a song. He said "My character sings Lick it Up by KISS (really raunchy song) I told him to roll with disadvantage because he was nervous, he had been caught, etc... my other players wanted to give a help action to cancel the advantage I told him if he sang it out loud in discord he could have advantage and may survive it. He said that's not fair, he doesn't want to sing in front of everyone, I said hey inspiration is a tool for me to use to inspire good roleplay, take it or leave it He ended up taking it and it was hilarious, but he was frustrated by it all and it led to a terse discussion I didn't enjoy. What sayeth ye, O great judges

Alec Lindemann

May it please the ever prestigious crit justices and the most loyal bailiff, and sometimes guest justice, I present to you the case of DMs being side DMs in game that is not their own. (On behalf of my beloved DM) I am a PC in a game where the DM, who is well versed in DnD, has been our DM for 2 campaigns now. Over the course of these campaigns, several PCs have joined that also DM their own games on the side. There many times that these side DMs contradict what my DM allows in the game. We, by no means, are strict followers of the rules and if our DM allows something that the others disagree on, they cut in in the middle of play to discuss the rules. As a player, I find it hard to stay immersed when my DM is questioned in the middle of play. Seeing as your noble justices have DMd for each other, how would you recommend my DM handling the naysayers who just don't like to have fun sometimes?? I await your judgment to present to my DM.... PS.. spare no punishment for these unruly side DMs.

Fia (but not Boginya)

To the 4 all powerful and all knowing Justices and... Jake, I guess? If he has to be here. I bring you the case of the angry absentee. Basically I run a campaign and we meet pretty much weekly every Saturday afternoon which is pretty much the only time people are available. On of my players told me he couldnt make this week's session because he was hanging out with his girlfriend. I told him it was fine, I'd find some reason for his character to split from the group for a session and bring them back the next week. However they got upset with me, because they didn't want to miss anything. Since he was the only player missing I said it was unfair to everyone else if we derailed the whole session just because he made plans when he knows when we do sessions, but then he got very passive aggressive and basically shut down the conversation. I beseech the Justices, should I wait for this player to be available or was I right to move on without him for a week?

Mich Blackie

My it please the prestigious court, honourable judge Oyama, and the rad bailiff, I present the case of the non-healing cleric. My party was crossing a poisoned lake via boat. Our dwarven barbarian with an INT of 6 decided to fish. When he reeled in his catch, the DM asked for a nature check. He protested say he just ate it, but the DM insisted. He got a Nat 20. He was told in no uncertain terms that the fish was poisonous and he shouldn’t eat it. He tried to anyway. My Goliath cleric saw this, took the fish and threw it away. When we arrived at the town we were sailing to, the DM described a number of dead fish on the shore. As soon as my PC was distracted, the barbarian grabbed one of the dead fish and ate it. He was immediately poisoned and his HP was drained. The DM took pity on him and let him stay up with 1 HP. Soon after our party was beset by maddened townsfolk. The barbarian was immediately knocked out and yelled for healing. My cleric rushed over, cast Spare the Dying, and kicked him under a bush out of the way. I proceeded to buff our ranger and together we non-lethally dealt with the attackers. After, I healed the barbarian and he was pissed that he missed the fight. I told him in character, “play stupid games, win stupid prizes” since it’s not the first time he’s done something like this. Was I unfair to my fellow player? Should I have let the DM handle it? I humbly await your judgment.

Nathan Durhamwood

May it please the Honorable Crit Justices and the oddly wonderful and pathetic bailiff. I present the case of the Out-Of-Combat Fireball. During a fight, our DM asked us all to make a Dex Check outside of combat. There was an explosion as a manic sorcerer entered the field. He held a fireball in his hand and warned us to stand back or else he'd blow us all up. I asked the DM if we were still in combat and he told us no. So I said my 2nd level barbarian charges the sorcerer. He casted fireball but I survived. I asked if I could attack him. Out of nowhere, a giant bird flew in and took him away. I tried to throw a spear at him as he fled and rolled a 22. DM says the spear hits the bird instead and I roll damage for the bird. I was upset with how he handled this conclusion but I channeled the emotions into my character's rage. Was I wrong about this? Afterward, I explained my frustrations to my DM. I accept any punishments and I hope Dice Crist smiles upon me.

Sawyer Rappa

Not a case, but a confessional. Fair, true and knowing High Priests Murphy, Tanner, Oyama, Sister Axford and Alter Boy Jake, I need to confess an incident that occurred during my first campaign I had ever played and dm’d. In the final battle, a pc and an npc had the same initiative. An important note is that this npc was the pc’s love interest. Usually when same initiative happens, it’s not a big deal- pcs can talk out who wants to go first, and for npcs, i can do my rolling pretty quick behind the screen. When the npc went down, my first sin was to not solidify the initiative, so i rolled his death saves at the same time the pc took her action. He failed his first death saving throw, and when it came to the second, I rolled a nat 1. I didn’t say the number but the surprised ‘oh shit’ look on my face said it all. The pc said she was going to heal him and that we should’ve rolled to see who went first. I allowed this and in the end the npc was saved. Dice Christ, i do not regret my decision to allow the pc a game she was more interested in. What weighs on my soul is not taking the moment to set initiative straight and that I ignored what the dice told me plain. I hope the dice gods can forgive me for forsaking a nat 1 death saving throw.

Rags

Esteemed Judges and Holy Bailiff, I present to you the case of the Bard killing the Rogue. My party was fighting a Modified King of Feathers. (A t-rex that can Misty Step at will). It was modified to be smarter and have legendary Actions. Before I was able to finish the first turn of combat. The Rogue’s Player starts complaining non stop about how it’s unfair that it can “attack multiple times a round” even though I’ve explained that the dinosaur has legendary actions. He just didn’t seem to listen. And he keeps complaining the entire combat. Mind you no other players had an issue. Towards the later end of combat the Bard and Paladin both go down. T-Rex is looking “pretty eh” and all that’s left is the Rogue PC and the Roguelock NPC. When it gets to the Rogue PC’s turn came up rather then help finish the fight he decides to ditch the battle, abandon his friends and leave them to die. I asked “Are you sure you want to ABANDON your friends and leave them to die?” He says Yes and I take his mini off the table. So I finish the fight rolling against myself. NPC barely manages to kill the rex thanks to a lot of lucky rolls. Once the Rogue’s Player saw that the tide was turning in the NPCs favor he texts me asking if his character can climb a tree and jump on the Dinosaur. I say aloud “ No, you made your choice, you had your chance to fight and left combat.” NPC helps the fallen Party members get back up and explains that the Rogue PC abandoned them all to die. Party heads back to the ship they are staying at, (They’re currently, on a seafaring adventure) Late into the night. Bard finds out where the Rogue is (he went to the infirmary after collapsing from running nonstop for 4 hours) Bard sneaks into the infirmary and proceeds to assassinate the Rogue while he is asleep.Rogue was not at full hp as he didn’t get the benefits of a long rest yet. I end the session there and now the Bard Player feels bad, Rogue player isn’t responding. And I’m wondering if I should’ve stopped the Players or if the Rogue got what he deserved. I await your Judgment with open arms.

Nick Lerche

May it please the court, In a new campaign I'm DM'ing for mostly brand new players, one of the PC's is a Tiefling Warlock with the Acolyte background who was adopted by Mormons in his backstory. He has been clear about his intention to try and convert as many NPCs as possible but its relatively early on so there are not a lot of NPCs yet. After getting their first quest and defeating the small bad with some pretty sweet Nat 20's at the end of the last session he said he wanted to take this time to talk about victory through faith.. I made him roll a persuasion or performance roll against everyone's insight or religion and he got a 19 on the die, making a 24. Almost no one in the party had proficiencies or bonuses high enough to refute this and after they rolled he effectively "converted" all the characters. I backpedaled immediately after some grumbling from players about agency over their characters' beliefs, and decided he made an airtight argument and maybe we'll treat these like death saves in that he needs to do this multiple times to win each of them over. Should I let this pc have this much influence via the dice? or should I make them and the party roleplay it and keep the math rocks out of it? I await your judgement, your loyal constituent.

Summer Tribe

howdy court bosses I done cast shatter on some skeletons and my DM didn't give em disadvantage. I insisted (gently) that they ought fall under the clause "A creature made of inorganic material such as stone, Crystal, or metal has disadvantage on this saving throw" on the basis that bone is primarily inorganic (it's about 30% organic and I'm guessing it's only that high when the bone is actually a part of something living). I was overruled and the skeletons made the save normally. Should my DM be broken over a wheel? (i wrote this before I knew y'all come up with your own judgments, as well as before knowing you prefer "may it please the court")

Laurel

May it please the court who have rightfully returned the Bailiff to his lowly position. I bring to you the case of the snaggle-toothed elf. I play a glamorous but arrogant illusion wizard from Moon Vegas. During combat an evil tooth fairy used pliers to steal one of my teeth. A fellow player rescued it and healed me BUT they failed a luck check so the tooth was another creature's fang instead. My superficial wizard was devastated and I used my actions to steal pliers, wrench out the fang, and replace it with my own tooth instead. My DM was angry I didn't keep the fang, along with the -1 to charisma, as it would have been fun roleplay. Was I right in performing amateur dentistry or should my vain elf have kept their fang?

Tiffany A

May it please the most illustrious of judges and the deservedly oppressed bailiff, I come to you with a tale from my earliest adventures in the Forgotten Realms. This happened in one of my first sessions of D&D ever, and with my boyfriend's friends of several years. I was eager to play, and moreover, not to rock the boat. But the decision made in this session, while no longer discussed, has always replayed in my mind. So I leave it up to the court to decide who was in the right. I play a Centaur fighter. Our party of six players had recently apprehended the henchman of the BBEG. Rather than outright kill him, the party agreed to keep him alive and interrogate him after we had a long rest. The henchman kept claiming he would escape or kill us in our sleep - and my character didn't take kindly to that. We tied him up, but I wanted to be absolutely certain he had no way of harming the party. I asked the DM if I, as a centaur, could break his legs by rearing up and crashing down with my front hooves. He asked me to roll a strength check to ensure I didn't outright kill him with the blow. I passed, and he described me brutally breaking the man's legs. The party was thrilled and went to sleep. We agreed to take shifts during the long rest to keep an eye on the prisoner. During my character's shift, I rolled a failed perception check and did not see the Henchman escaping his bonds. The DM described him standing up and sprinting to the door. I, and the party, pointed out we had already established he had broken his legs and couldn't reach the door. The DM argued that as our party was resting, he also was able to have a short rest, and was healed to the point he could stand. I pointed out he was bound, and couldn't have cast any healing spells to grow back bone. The party agreed with me. The DM doubled down and insisted the man was running out the door, and asked if anyone was going to do anything about it. I felt cornered by the decision but, being the only party member awake enough to react, I shot the escapee with my bow. He was killed by the shot and we were forced to find another source of information for the adventure to continue. We had spent several sessions chasing this particular character, and all of the party was fairly disappointed with how lackluster of an ending that was for him. As a new player, I was especially upset that my creative solution had no effect in the long con at all. Outside of the game, the DM confirmed he had no intention of that character ever being cooperative, and he would have continued either trying to escape or trying to die. So, Great Crit Judges, I ask you: can a short rest heal broken bounds? Was the DM in the right to say this character was healed enough to escape? If so, why even let me roll to break his legs, if it wasn't going to mean anything? Again, I'm a new player, so I'm open to the thought I was playing incorrectly. I humbly await your decision. Best, Tiffany

Moon Eyes

May it please the powerful and righteous justices, and of course the wisest bailiff Jake. I present the case of the combat-shy DM I am a newish DM and run and Appalachian themed homebrew campaign, it’s wonderful and I love my players and role playing with them. However, when it comes to combat, I find myself being quickly frustrated. My players have a habit of womping me, and I have several players who like to correct and question what feels like almost everything I do. I know they probably don’t mean anything by it, but it makes combat not enjoyable to run for me. Am I in the wrong for being frustrated? Should I just work on making better combat? Or do you think talking to them about this would help I await humbly for the verdict, thank you

Annika

May it please the crit and any esteemed critters within earshot, I present the case of Lyra and the magic beans: My gloomstalker ranger (with +9 to initiative) was trying to get out of a secret basement chamber with no doors having freed 2 NPCs who were about to be sacrificed in there. After failing to escape at first, I planted one of my magic beans (from the bag of beans item) to 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/do anything to try to save them. I wanted to feed them the last two bites of a gaseous form apple from a previous bean planting so they could escape. Was the DM unfair to not allow me an attempt at saving them, or should I just mourn silently for my friends that I inadvertently killed?

Foster’s Bewildered Veterinarian

Salutations most fantastical justices and _____ Bailiff whose descriptor will be chosen by Murph right now. In a campaign I played in college we had an almost all orc party in the process of integrating into society. My character was essentially an Orc Jehovah’s Witness for Kord (he loved handing out pamphlets which of course were written in orcish and unreadable to most). During a fight one of the party members was surrounded by several enemies and dropped to zero. On my turn I asked the DM if the party member would have fallen prone, and the DM said yes, so I asked if I could cast Shatter on a point above the group so the 10 foot radius would hit all the standing enemies but not my downed friend. After some lighthearted back and forth, the DM said she would allow it this time because it was a cool idea, but going forward the spell wouldn’t work with that kind of precision and would hit a downed character in a similar situation. I humbly ask the court, did I use the spell correctly, and should I have been allowed to keep creative freedom with my rad radiuses, or was my DM correct and I was indeed committing geometric grievances?

Nicolas R

May it please court, I bring you the case of the mushroom slave. Back in highschool, I was playing a deep gnome ranger named Gethen, as a gruff detective with a heart of gold. He didn't even have an animal companion until about a couple months of weekly sessions in. The dm presented Gethen with an abandoned small myconid (a little mushroom dude). Gethen asked if they would like to come along with us and because the myconid could essentially rapport spore, he agreed and became my animal companion. The next session, my friends began harshly razzing me for having a sentient creature as an animal companion and said it was basically like keeping a slave. It did not matter how many times I told them that I asked the myconid if he wanted to come and that they could leave if they wanted to, the razzing would not end. It got so bad that I couldn't even have the little guy make perception checks without being ridiculed by a whole table of teenagers. That was nearly 10 years ago but I still have a chip on my shoulder and have never since played a ranger. I seek the crit's wisdom and ask for resolution.

orion johns

May it please the crit i present the case of the storm sorcerer vs the draconian dm I was playing a Goliath storm sorcerer in a campaign. The party was made up of myself a bladesinging wizard sharpshooting battlemaster fighter and a twilight cleric. During the first round of combat i used twin spell to cast haste on both the fighter and the bladesinger. After one turn the enemy spellcaster cast dispell magic on the battlemaster fighter dispelling the haste causing the fighter to lose his turn the dm ruled that it also cost the haste on the bladesinger to also fail and cause him to also lose a turn. I argued since dispell magic says end an effect on a creature or object that it didn't break my concentration on the spell and only applied to the player dispell magic was cast on. The DM was not convinced not wanting to make a stink of it i gave in but this has bothered me ever since. Was i wronged? I await your opinion

Wade Mckenzie-Bahr

Hello esteemed Judges, and lowly ballif boy. My case comes from an early session with newer players. The heroes were on a small boat when they became surrounded by pirates on other boats. The warlock cast suggestion on the pirate captain, telling them to surrender. I thought it would be life threatening to have the pirate surrender since they'd be seen as weak. The captain then asked for a cease fire, but the other pirates were not convinced, because the pirates saw the casting. Then they continued to fight and the pirate captain eventually was attacked and became hostile. The heroes won but my warlock was pretty peeved that their suggestion did not end the fight, but my understanding is that if you cast a spell and people can see it they are aware about the magic? Was i wrong? Should my players suggest that I never DM again? I await your just and lawful ruling.

Mac N Cheese

To the honorable and esteemed crit justices, the most attractive and venerable arbiters of truth in all the multiverse, especially the ever-majestic Justice Oyama. And Jake, I guess. May I present the case of the immortal wizard. I was the DM for my friends running through a mega dungeon. One player unfortunately died on the first level due to triggering an acid trap while fighting a four-armed fish man. They were distraught because they he had written a longer-than-necessary backstory about searching for their order's sacred lost texts, so I spent the week before the next session to work with them to either create a new character or bring back their old one. They only gave me non-committal answers and half responses, annoying me for both still wanting to play, but not wanting to put in any effort. The day before the next session, I made the decision for them: the BBEG would bring back the PC as an immortal, unkillable revenant who would come back to life at the start of every day. In return, the PC would need to share read-only rights to the lost texts that they found along the way. This upset the player because their wizard would refuse to be beholden to the BBEG, but they were also visibly glad to keep playing their wizard. Was I wrong to make this decision for them? I humbly leave my fate in the hands of the honorable justices. And Jake, I guess.

Victoria Shotts

Hello Supreme Crit justices, baliff Jake and the ever illustrious guest justice Oyama! I humbly implore, does the size of the die determine the size of the punishment? Brief: We play a 10 person campaign, with my youngest (14 yr old) bro-in-law, whose PC (Gus) ended up dieing while using his DM given inspiration to escape being swallowed by a tree in the Sunless Citadel. The details: At the table, inspiration isn't added, we use a 30 sided die instead because it's more "fun". My little bro had rolled a Nat 1 using a d30 on his first strength check to break free of the tree attempting to swallow him. Our DM (the step brother) ruled that because he "critically failed" on this specific die, it was considered EVEN worse than a normal d20 crit fail and therefore Gus would instantly be swallowed, with no possible hope for saving. This literally almost made the kid cry, as he didn't even get to roll death saving throws for his character. The DM revealed later that normally one would have been slowly consumed over multiple rounds. I personally argued that using inspiration to KILL a PC with no chance of saving OR even recovering the body, based solely on the die in play, was in no way fair. Justices, I beg for justice to be served on behalf of my little brother. Does the size of the die determine the size of the punishment? Should not the sentence have been more lenient because he was using his inspiration? Thank you for your time.

Taylor Vittitoe

Good evening illustrious judges, may justice be swift let’s get into it. The other night I was playing a pathfinder game of malevolence, which is based in a spooky mansion. We are a party of four and one player has two characters they control, as one of them is a phantom/shadow. One member of the party wanted to split up to cover more ground. They asked the other two players to join him, while the phantom stayed with me. Then the rest of the table played without me for the remainder of the night. I started feeling dejected and did not know what to do as I wanted to have fun with my friends. I ask the court, was this party split normal? Am I unreasonable for feeling this way? Or should I take some kind of action? Thank you

Dave

Good morrow honorable justices and whichever sick worm is currently bailiff: My case is a bit weird, because it isn’t something that happened in game, but rather post-game. I’ve been in a campaign with my friends for almost 2 years now, that we recently finished. We were level 20, ultra powerful, heroes of the realm and all that stuff. So we beat the bad guy, save the day and whatnot, and then have our little epilogue, in which my character, an autumn eladrin sorcerer, and my irl girlfriends character, a half elf barbarian, settle down together. We had grown romantically involved throughout the campaign, so it made sense that our epilogue would be together. Our DM saw no issue with this, and we had a really nice ending together. Later on, after the session, I heard that he is now running a game for a different group that is set in the same world, but a few decades in the future. This sounded awesome to me, and so naturally I asked him about what our characters are up to in this new place, to which he told me that after mine and my gf’s characters moved in together, my character DIED WHILE GIVING BIRTH. I know it doesn’t really matter, and I’m not even playing in the campaign and it’s his world and whatever, but does it not seem a little insane that my ultra powerful sorcerer that is friends with many similarly powerful clerics and paladins and other such healers, would die from CHILDBIRTH? And regardless, don’t you think he could’ve at least asked before he killed the character I played for so long? I humbly await your divine judgement.

Madeleine Smith

Greeting and salutations to the honourable and sexy judges, and also hi Jake. I present the case of Players v Player: I was the party rogue with a bard, a wizard and a monk. We found ourselves caught in a standoff with some town guards after freeing a wrongfully imprisoned family. Wizard, Monk and I were ready to fight, but the Bard - both in and out of character - was adamant that we would not fight. She even went so far as to cast Calm Emotions on US, her fellow party members. When the spell failed on me, I fired my crossbow at one of the guards, who she promptly healed before abandoning the fight and running away. The three of us left were almost killed, and imprisoned. After the session, the player said that we had all tried to bully her into making an out-of-character decision, and she felt like we had been very forceful. I argued that casting Calm Emotions on party members is also pretty forceful. She didn’t come back to the table. Were we too forceful with wanting to fight the guards? Was she wrong to cast a spell on us to try and stop us from making decisions? I humbly await your judgement.

Cian

My dear, sweet justices and downright saccharine bailiff: I am running a campaign set at a slightly more magical version of the university which I and all of my players attend. In the first session, I ran a mini-game in which the PCs had to try to sign up for the classes that they wanted before they filled up by going around the table and rolling a D20 to see if it there were still spaces, with the likelihood of the class being full increasing each round, resulting in some PCs ending up in clearly exciting classes and others in classes that are less obviously so. The conflict is this: I set up the challenge such that the players were trying to roll low, to emulate the feeling of getting in just under the wire. When a player rolled a natural 20, however, I said that the class they were trying to sign up for (Ghost, Ghouls, and Undead Fools: Necrotic Jesters In Eastern European Literature) was closed, they said that it "felt wrong" for a natural 20 to lead to such a negative effect. I agreed in the moment, making high rolls better than low rolls for the rest of the mini-game, but I ask you: does the sacred power of a natural 20 need to carry into every aspect of the game? Could I have been correct that the melding of mechanics and flavor might take precedence for a moment, or were my players correct that natural 20s are precious enough to be preserved in all circumstances? I wait with baited breath for your just and righteous response.

John Richards

To the magnanimous Supreme Crits and best bailiff in the biz. If it pleases the court, I present to you a case of Little Guy-Big Sword! I generally like to build my characters around visual goofs or cheap gags. In preparation for a recent campaign I was obsessed with the idea of a gnome with a great sword (he was even going to have a little wagon he used to cart it around outside of battle), but another player informed me and the dm that the phb explicitly prohibits “small” creatures from carrying “big” weapons… he kind of made a big deal about it too, to the point where the DM had to informally rule that my fun little idea was a no go. Justices, was my fun infringed upon by the RAW police? Or should I be a good little boy and learn how play within the boundaries Wizards of the Coast have established?

g-unit0301

May It Please the Court, the Honorable Justices, Special Guest Justices, and also PAWPAW, and MAWMAW who without their legal guidance this show would never exist. I have been running the campaign in questions for over a year now, the players had discovered a chest buried under a River bed 150years ago, getting the chest was no easy manner and I set it up in a way in which the two druids would need to work the hardest by burying it under water my level 4 party had little to do but my wild shaped druids easily swam down the insanely deep cavern and managed to discover the trick to untrapping the warded chest. Together they carried this ancient dwarven treasure to the surface. Inside the chest along with some gems and gold and also a ring of free action, was a Tome of Understanding, to add precedence the Tome of Understanding is a powerful books that once studied for 48hours over a 6 day period the reader raises there wisdom score by 2 and also there score maximum by 2 meaning you could get a 22 wisdom. Once this is done (read in such a way to gain the benefit) the tome loses its magic for 100 years. My players have 2 druids in the party. As you can surmise (due to their spell casting ability) there was quite a kerfuffle over who should get the book. So as a way of DMing I advised they had two options a persuasion off, or they split the benefits. Each taking a +1 to their wisdom and still giving both of them the +2 to max. Ultimately they rolled off and my wildfire druid is very happy with his 21 currently Wisdom. But I feel like I was too lenient in allowing them to split the book. Should I have just stuck to my guns and forced a persuasion check or allowed simple OOC diplomacy to do its work which granted had gone on for some time and it had felt like we were at an impasse, which the persuasion check eventually confirmed. So tldr: I gave my players a cop out to what is a very gritty RP decision which they ultimately did not take, and I feel guilty about dampening the moment by offering said cop out. I lay my self at the feet of the court May PAWPAW have mercy on my soul.

Shannon V

May it please the court of My most wonder supreme Crittices and the bailiff. I’m the DM for an Aarakocra Death Domain Cleric. I’ve always maintained that since he is 5ft 7in tall, his wingspan would be around 20ft, to 25ft wide, making him unable to fly in tighter tunnels or hallways. Amy I being too harsh, should I let my bird player fly down five foot wide tunnels?

Stephanie Karisny

Most venerable Justices and blameless Bailiff, in the last session of our campaign our tempest cleric was unexpectedly but heroically killed while defending our party from a pack of gnolls. This was the first death ever in our group of players over two campaigns so it was a pretty big deal and there was a lot of frantic scrambling both in and out of character when it happened. Our druid cast Gentle Repose and we spent a few minutes at the table trying to figure out if any other PCs had the spells required to bring her back. Long story short, in the moment we didn't think we had the means and role played our tempest cleric's kickass funeral with the player's involvement and consent. The next day our druid player realized that he actually has access to Revivify under the new Tasha's rules and he's been greenlighted next session to go dig up our tempest cleric and bring her back to life (prolonged window because of Gentle Repose). This might be RAW and what the cleric player wants, but is it too meta to be believable in game? Is there a way to sell this that isn't just our druid player's IRL late realization that he has access to Revivify? I humbly beg your insight into our Lazarus-esque dilemma.

Mike Toruto

Divine Crit Justices and Divinely Handsome Bailiff. I come to you with the case of the carrot conundrum. I'm DMing a sky pirate campaign and one of the crew has an unhealthy obsession with carrots. After some big fights and bigger explosions their ship got destroyed and the players and all their stuff were spread across a thundery rockey wasteland (Think the thunder plains from ffx, but...flying). The carrot fiend found a few of her carrots but not the whole garden she'd lost. On their way out to deal with some nasty dudes she asked if she could do one last look for carrots. "Okay" I said "But it's almost impossible to find any, you'd need to roll a...oh you got a nat 20?" Not wanting to disappoint the dice gods I said that, a little out of the ways, she saw most of her garden, miraculously intact. Immediately she started having the crew head towards her tasty prize. At the same time, another player (the captain of the ship in fact) has a homebrew luck flavored warlock patron and one of the abilities I gave is the chance to burn a resource (number per day = to charisma mod) to turn a crit into a normal roll. She chose to use this ability now to stop the party being sidetracked by the carrots. Well I'd just set the scene and the party were making there way over so I didn't want to just say "actually that doesn't happen" so I instead changed the outcome. The carrots, precariously perched on a floating rock, were struck and destroyed by a bolt of lightning. Carrot pirate knows the captain has some influence over luck and now blames them for this (the character blames them, the players are all good) and it's created some conflict. The Luck player says that I should have ruled that the nat 20 just didn't happen (which, to be fair, is how I wrote the skill). Am I right in bending my own broken ass homebrew just for the sake of drama or should I have retconned and never had the carrots there in the first place? xoxo

keith harris

Most amazing Axford and everyone else I guess. This is the case of the horrible wizard. I was playing a campaign with two people who have never played dnd before, and one veteran. All my new players were so sweet and well behaved, but this veteran ruined my experience. Basically the first time I set the scene, the veteran interrupts me. The team were fighting a sea hag and sea hags will frighten them if they fail a dc 11 wisdom saving throw. The wizard failed at a roll of 6 and I said he was frightened. He kept insisting that it wasn't what his character would do. At some point I was so tired of him I let him roll a d6 to add to his roll. He got a 1. I said he failed but he got so mad at me and started yelling about how incompetent female DMs are (I am one.). We had to end the game and everything I planned, and all the lore and story I was prepared to put in the session was done. I decided I would kick him out. The next day he pretended like nothing happened. I told him we were done and he freaked. Was I in the wrong for kicking him out?

Birdie

To the most honorable high crit justices and the bailif who must not be named- I am a part of a group of newbie players that have been playing for about six months now in our first campaign. Most of us have really came into our own and gotten comfortable in our RP and characters and mechanics. However, we are level 7 (started level 1) and our cleric still only uses one cantrip, and their mace. They don’t swap out their spells, and does not seem to have a grasp on how to be a spellcaster. Am I an asshole if I reach out to teach them how their different spells work, or should I just let them enjoy sacred flamin’ forever? I bow before your wisdom.

Broghar The Bugbear

Reading through some of these are Amazing! I can't wait for the hearing :D

Meghan

May it please the court. Recently I had a player who used dimension door to go 300ft in the air above an enemy and then attempt to pile drive down on an enemy. Their goal was to land on top claiming that they wouldn’t take fall damage since the cushion of the mages curves would “cushion their tushion” and instead the mage would take the falling damage. I ruled they both would and allowed for this weird combat maneuver just because it sounded cool but the player insists they should’ve been at least able to try to save to avoid. How do you rule? Does landing on something softer than ground prevent fall damage? Would the person getting landed on also take the falling damage? I await your sentence.

Alejandra Valadez

To the honorable crit judges, and baliff. I’m here seeking justice for my Orc fighter who was knocked out for an entire encounter. Now I know what you might think, no there was no spell or effect used, his only crime was rolling a nat 1 on initiative. The DM then ruled that when the party was awoken by a goblin attack, my fighter had hit his head on a tree branch from getting up too quickly, knocking him unconscious. I was told to make a dc 15 con save on my turn to wake up and did not make it during the whole encounter (we had a 5 person party). The DM narrated my character waking up after all the fighting had taken place. What?!P.s this was my first time playing

Science the rat

Good evening revered judges and dashingly handsome bailiff. Two years ago, a player in our long term campaign tried dming for the first time. We all played adventurers from earth on a spaceship, stopping at different planets. All is well, except for one thing. A new player has joined the group, and he’s playing a dwarf version of real world Adam Sandler. He uses a grating character voice the entire time, and the only thing he does in combat is cast vicious mockery while shouting “I’m adam sandler.” Problems appear right away. Our ranger had planned with the dm to meet and adopt an alien squid creature that would become her companion. When we came across this squid, Adam Sandler insisted on rolling against her in animal handling for the squid. I tried to explain to him out of character that this was a planned story point for the ranger’s character, but he didn’t listen. He won the roll off and got the squid. Our ranger got permission from our dm to switch her class to wizard, because that specific animal companion had been the whole reason she wanted to play a ranger. We soon learned that the days Adam Sandler couldn’t make it to sessions were the best sessions. In session, he would constantly try to go against the best interest of the party, picking fights with NPCS that were too powerful for us, intentionally walking in the wrong direction in a labyrinth, etc. The only time we got peace was when our bard cast charm person on Adam Sandler to make him behave. Our campaign went on hiatus for a bit, and my dm revealed to me that she wasn’t enjoying dming anymore due to Adam Sandler’s disruption. As luck would have it, Adam Sandler’s player was the only one who lived in a different state. Pandemic restrictions had lifted, so I made a group chat with every player but him and said we should all meet up for an in person one-shot. At the in person one-shot, we all agreed that Adam Sandler disrupting the game made it more fun for everyone. Our dm texted the player separately and said she was ending the campaign because schoolwork was taking up most of her time. We then continued the campaign without Adam Sandler, even when we were meeting over zoom. The dm described a shift in the timeline, where Adam Sandler disappeared and none of us remembered him. The pre-Sandler status quo was returned, with our ranger finally getting her squid. Our war forged Paladin saw a cellphone, evidence of Adam Sandler’s existence, left behind, and stomped on it, crushing it into pieces. We’ve been playing and enjoying the campaign thoroughly every since, and the relief of not having a player constantly contradicting the very party decision is palpable. Still, even though it’s much more fun now, were we wrong to lie to Adam Sandler’s player about the campaign being over?

Andrew Moreau

To the high-horsed Judges and humble, honorable Bailiff, I present a case all too reminiscent of blasting grandma. I played DnD with my family for the first time this past holiday season, improvising a Christmas Eve one-shot where my mom, dad, and brother had to save Christmas from some pesky goblins. In my mom's first move as an alchemist, she thorn-whipped an escaping goblin, and upon hearing she hit with her attack, she started to describe she would like to take him to "a cave, a cave in the hills that changes people." I described to her that this was not how DnD worked, that the DM is who writes the fictional universe, and that cave didn't exist, but alas now I live in a universe of regret. The family finished the one-shot and saved the town's Christmas presents, but I can't stop thinking about the cave. What was she planning to do to this goblin? What is present in this cave that would have changed the goblin permanently? I offer myself up for judgment--where can one ever draw the line between wanting to teach people the game versus just letting grandma blast or allowing mom to do ambiguously ominous things? Also, why the heck was that where my mom's mind went the first time she played this??

Agents of DAMNED

Honored judges, and also bailiff, I guess. I present the case of the Astral Hole vs the Dragon's Asshole. I am the DM for our campaign, and I had my players fighting an ancient red shadow dragon. On one of my player's turns, they asked if they could use their wings of ink to fly into the dragon's asshole to do "something". I said the dragon would get an opportunity attack with his tail, which my player disagreed with, stating that he wasn't leaving the dragon's space. I overruled this, and after the attack, he was able to get inside. He then produced a portable hole and bag of holding he'd had, and put one inside the other to rip a hole into the astral plane from inside the dragon, with the intention of bisecting it. I ruled that it would simply teleport both of them to the astral plane, still ending the fight, but with both of them alive. He became upset and instead decided to simply attack it from the outside. Was I wrong to deny him his gory self sacrifice? Or did I offer a fair ruling? I leave my fate in your capable hands. -Hoshi in NC

Mister D

To the distinguished Bailiff Hurwitz and his eminent crit Justices. I come to you with the case of the Disgruntled Sorcerer. The party had just finished an arc on a floating island and there was a death of an NPC in a recent fight. The party didn't really get along but his sky pirate buddies held him a funeral by lighting a floating coffin on fire and sending it out. The sorcerer in out party made a quick joke about the coffin burning up and the body freefalling to the ground. A few had a giggle at the table but the DM was fuming. Soon after this joke we ran into a random encounter with 4 boneclaws (CR12 and we were only level 6 and a party of 5). The DM homebrewed them so they have Power word kill. When they focused on the sorcerer he cast counter spell and rolled a 25 to counter a 9th level but the DM got mad and said it was ancient magic and can't be countered. In the end 4 characters died and the last manged to run away. Was this just an unruly DM or did we deserve it for joking around?

Kate G

Honorable crit-judges Oyama, Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, as well as semi-Honorable Bailiff Hurwitz (both the DM in mention and their middle man submitter are horse girls, so you're on mildly thin ice): we present to you the case of the joke bribe and humbly await your judgement. This case is submitted on behalf of DM Jenna. "My players encountered an NPC from the Far Realms who understood but did not speak common, and nobody in the party knew deep speech. The party wizard cast comprehend language in order to clearly understand what they were saying. Unfortunately, comprehend languages only works on one person, but our druid argued that the wizard should be able to cast it at a higher-level spell slot and have the effects extend to other players, and the rest of the table came to the conclusion that this should be allowed for a real-life fee. Jokingly, I agreed. Less than a minute later, my phone started vibrating as half of my players Venmoed me with requests to participate in the spell. I wound up allowing for this deviation from the rules and plan to use the money to buy dinner for everyone next time we play. But was I weak for accepting the bribe over the rules of the game?"

Jack C

May it please the crit. I present the case of does Super Smash Brothers make a good campaign setting? (It wasn’t at the beginning) It was my group’s first game of DND and the most extroverted one of us wanted to DM only to find out that he didn’t want to read any of the rules, consume any DND media or prepare in almost anyway including using monster stat blocks saying that his experience in video games was enough. I think improvising works for some groups but any threads of story were almost immediately lost. I tried to offer help so he would use any of the rules from the game, but he would usually decline in favor of playing Super Smash. The sessions would usually start with the players reminding the DM where we left and he would immediately take us in an entirely different direction. This changed one session where we given puzzles and choices and culminated in a character from one player’s backstory being alive and giving us a quest. I almost cried. We were all excited to continue on the quest only for Ganondorf (from Zelda) to appear and transport us to another realm where we were going to have to fight random groups of monsters the DM made up on the spot, in a similar way to Super Smash. We stopped playing for an outside reason and when we reconvened I began DMing. I love dnd but was I in the wrong for expecting something different from a DM? I await your insight checks

Tory Morgan

Dude, you HAVE to ask your mom what her plans were and report back, for the good of all NADDpoles.

garett144

May it please the court and especially Caldwell because this is some Looney Toons shenanigans. I present the case of the jokerfied golem. In this campaign I was playing a rune knight goliath, my cousin joined as a guest character for one session but instead of rolling a character he used a clay golem stat block. During a purple worm fight an attack from the worm did something screwy to him and he started attacking all of us. Upon a 22 insight check all the DM gave me was "he just looks angry" what it was was an enrage mechanic in the golem player. Kinda miffed that thats what a 22 got me i decided to hold down the golem and carve his face into a smile to see if that stopped him. It didn't. Was I being salty at the DM, or was my interpretation of "he just looks angry" fair? In the end we all had a laugh at this so there are no hard feelings.

The one they call Barlo

To the hourable justices Axford, Murphy, Tanner and Oyama with the stoic bailiff Hurwitz. May it please the crit, I present the case of the cheeky bastards. I'm running my first campaign for 5 players for over a year now and on character creation I had a barbarian who dumped strength and a paladin who dumped charisma (base 8 & 10 respectively) before starting out I asked them if they were sure they wanted to do this as it will impact how well their class works. They replied they are fine with it as they will get some magic items to boost those stats in the game. I tried to warn them that's not really how it works and magic items are not like a shopping list but as a DM I do like to drop in items that are beneficial to specific players or very fun. However, they are now level 7 and are starting to complain they do not have their stat boosting items despite having a bunch of other dope shit and are way above their CR anyway and surviving all fights that are ranked Deadly when balanced. My question is am I being tight in not letting them get these items, e.g. gauntlets of ogre power, or is it fair to say they're already doing well enough and I don't feel trying to cynically manipulate the stat system shoukd be rewarded? I await your swift and brutal judgement x

The one they call Barlo

P.s. "being tight" is being stingy (translations from across the pond 😅) Callie can have that one on me, love the accent.

Brad Yaskowitz

Radiant justices and your champion, Jake, my case regards a debate we had on the interpretation of Passive Perception: does a player’s passive perception score represent a skill floor? I argue that passive perception acts as a Spidey-sense. A PC could walk into a room and note the points of egress and any smells, sounds, etc, maybe size up anyone they see. Their hackles might be up to a potential threat, but perceiving is not necessarily processing. To discern where exactly that threat is coming from would require a perception check. On a failed perception check, it would mean they have a sense of general menace but are distracted by the other stimuli in the room, essentially missing the trees for the forest. RAW is unclear as to who has the right of this. I hang out in the back near the kegs and await your judgement.

Travis Perkins

Esteemed justices and venerable bailiff, whomsoever it may be this session, I come before you with the case of not enough chances. I am the DM and my players were exploring a mine. Within the mine there was a deep shaft that descends all the way to the underdark, cross able only by a single rope bridge. The Players were chasing a group of kobolds across the bridge but the kobolds had a head start. When they got to the end, they started hacking at the ropes (AC 11, 20hp). 3 of the party members stopped running across the bridge and returned to the closer side. The monk however kept running, and with movement, a dash and bonus action step of the wind they got to within 10 feet of the kobolds when they finished cutting through the ropes. I gave the monk a chance to do a DC12 Dex save to jump to the lip of the chasm to save themselves thinking that the monk has good dex. They failed. I then gave them a DC10 dex save to grab the bridge and swing back to the other side. They also failed this check. Finally I gave them a DC8 Dex check to grab onto a rock ledge as they fell. Even with their +6, a Nat 1 got them to one below the check and I narrated them falling into the abyss. I rolled maximum falling damage but they were already badly injured and even with slow fall it just straight up killed them. The player was understandably upset and argued that they should have had more chances to grab onto something as they fell, or that there should have been more ropes so it would have taken more hits (it took 5 kobolds 2 rounds to destroy the ropes because I have Murphs luck with the dice). I ask you, how many saves is too many? Should I have given them more chances or was I reasonable? The player has a new character now and seems to be enjoying them better than the monk, but still asserts that I was in the wrong. Thank you for your valuable time justices and bailiff.

Travis Perkins

Oh man, this is some "you rolled a nat 1 attack? Yeah your weapon just breaks. You don't have a weapon anymore " chicanery.

Evan Achenbaugh

I don't know what the Justices would say about this case, but this is my opinion. You basically had this character roll better than normal odds death saves. They had 3 low DC chances at a +6 to avoid death, you normally have 3 chances to avoid dying normally so I would say that this is a fair amount of chances. I mean maybe there could have been additional rolls as they were falling, but at that point it just seems like the character wanted to have a chance to roll until they succeeded which isn't the way to run a game if you want there to be actual stakes. Now to take it to church for a second, Dice Christ wanted this character to die. The character failed 3 checks were the highest they had to roll was a 6, that is the dice telling you that this monk was meant to die so that they could play a new character they enjoy more. In conclusion you are innocent and are a good DM for even giving that many chances since most DMs would only give 1 or 2 tops.

The one they call Barlo

You can't seriously doubt yourself for this action? Never speak to this person again.

William Shill

To the esteemed justices and Buffalo bills bailiff. I Was running a homebrew campaign for about 2 years, I had put all my DND knowledge and improv skills into the campaign. We had many problems with two members not showing up or canceling last minute. We had a bard who was very anxious and more of then then not when she did something the group diddnt agree with would ruin the session for everybody by, just leaving, or making situations worse with her high charisma rolls. Eventually I came to a boss battle and was trying to use my PCs back storys in the fight. the two I’ve previously mentioned were inattentive or on their phones and even playing games when it wasn’t their turn. I was finally sick of it and just finished the fight without the flair and killed the campaign. A year later they are saying that it is unfair to not continue and I owe it to them to keep going. I do not want to as I have moved on to other things. But they will not let up saying it’s because I don’t like them and ruined dnd for them. How to I proceed or handle this situation?

Macauly Leiher

Acclaimed justices and Jake, may i present the case of “The wasted dragon egg session” I play in a campaign that is trying to save towns from dragon attacks where in our first session my character delivered the final blow on a drake, after the battle my dm revealed that we could have kept the drake as a pet and my other players all razzed me because I was the one who killed it. Feeling guilty I vowed the next time we would see one I would make it ours, three sessions later my plan was coming to fruition. It was the second session of us going through a cave, in one corner of the cave there was a clearing that had 5 drakes that were guarding 3 dragon eggs. They were all behind a locked gate and couldn’t reach us at all unless we went to them. So I decided I would want to have one of the 5, so I unlocked the gate and walked in taking the proper precautions, throwing a stone with the light cantrip so I can see, and having the gate be slightly ajar. I made it like 15 feet until my dm immediately wrecked my shit. Each drake attacked me and I was at one hit point and my team basically had to snipe all of them with arrows and spells, all of the sudden we heard a voice taunting me, because little to my knowledge there was another creature in the cavern with me (my dm never told us what it was and still won’t either I’ll I know is it had tentacles and could talk) at this point I was determined to get a pet so I asked my dm if I can persuade this creature to give me the dragon eggs and I would free it from this cave. This legit took 2 hours and my whole party was in on the conversation expect for 2 of the 8. We finally convinced the creature to give the eggs to us and then we left, keeping it locked away because we aren’t that dumb. At this point the session was over. And all we did was talk to a tentacle monster about some eggs, however now we had 3 dragon eggs. 2 sessions later we finally finished our quest and returned to the town where we were rewarded with transport to the next location and 100 gold each by the town leader. After receiving that, I pulled out the dragon eggs to try to sell one to the town. The town leader sounded extremely interested and told me he would take them off my hands, I accepted the offer and asked how much, the leader took them from me and claimed that “our transport would be much nicer” which I turned down because I wanted some sort of monetary value for them. However according to my dm I already gave them the eggs and couldn’t get them back, this basically getting absolutely nothing in return for 2 hours of convincing and waisting a whole session. Was I robbed? Or was I rightfully punished for wasting a session?

Gabby Johnson

May it please the Court, Your Honors Oyama, Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and Bro-liff Jake, I present Eve, Plaintiff, v. Greaves, Defendant. One time my fellow adventurers were about to enter a dark tower of a castle that we knew a bad guy was hiding out in. We ALL came up with a plan to have my character, the half-elf rogue detective boy, Eve, stealthily enter the tower to take a look. Our druid cast Pass Without a Trace on us to help me stealth even better. It meant I had a +20 to stealth and made it a foolproof plan! At the last minute, as Eve was entering the tower, my friend decided to roll to see if his character, Greaves, would object to the plan. It’s something he’d occasionally do, instead of roleplaying he’d roll the dice to make a decision…he’d do this of his own accord without the DM telling him to roll anything. Well, based on a shitty roll, Greaves—without any narrative reason—decided to yell “STOP” and grab onto Eve’s bag as he entered the tower. Unsurprisingly, these little flying alarms in the tower alerted the bad guy A YOUNG WHITE DRAGON to our presence. Thankfully we barely defeated it, but I’ve always been really salty about what my bud did with Greaves. My bud is actually my personal trainer and at our session the next day I told him that I could have murdered him in that moment and that it was fucked up that he wasted our druid’s spell slot. He said he felt like it was more fun to have the dice make the decision sometimes. Was I right in being pissed off at Greaves’ antics or is rolling for your decisions kind of a cool idea? Thanks, Gabby, an actual attorney who loves the fuck out of what y’all do with DnD court by the way (and just so you know some nerds actually DO say “May it please the court” in hearings, although I never do because I’m way too cool for that).

Natural 20 Self-crit

You were rightfully punished, but not for wasting a session. Never give up the goods without payment in hand. Not promise of payment, not an IOU, not collateral. Payment in hand. Also didn't you say you only wanted to sell one? Why did the DM take all 3? Sounds like the DM taking your toys away to me

Macauly Leiher

@KevinEverett yes I forgot to mention that In the case notes, He took all three even though I only mentioned I have one out back, because the meeting took place town hall so I didn’t even have the eggs with me. This actually has made me more upset.

Dave Large

May it please the crit! To the honorable and lauded justices and the bailiff who’s doing his best, I guess, I present the case of the Lazy Loxodon! In a game I dm, a cavern dungeon combat found the party in a closed room with a gnoll pack lord and his underlings. The combat took place in a sacrificial chamber to the abyssal lord, Yeenoghu and portals would open randomly allowing various low CR demons to enter the combat. One player, a Loxodon path of the storm barbarian, decided to “watch the door” by not entering melee and instead taking potshots with her long bow the whole time. I will enter into evidence that not ONE use of rage was expended. The party was ultimately successful, but many more close calls took place than necessary and I could sense the party’s frustration with their tank not battling optimally. Should I have somehow targeted her in a less than organic way or did my commitment to not metagaming put the enjoyment of the party at risk?? I eagerly await your judgement!

Chris E.

May it please the court and Jake. I bring to you the case of the rude persuasion. I play a Path of Redemption Paladin in a party filled with dark and moody characters. After defeating a group of bandits and saving a villager we found 25 gold. The DM explained that some of this gold belonged to the villager and I had my character give up his portion of the gold. My character then started asking the bard of the group if there was more gold to give since he is the one who collected it. I told the rest of the party out of character that you could lie to my character about there being 25 gold since his intelligence is 8 and he would probably believe everyone and that would satisfy his need of giving back to the less fortunate. The bard player told me he would like to roll persuasion to tell my Paladin to “Fuck Off” instead of deception since he didn’t want to lie to my character. He rolled high so we agreed that was fine and just moved on from there. I ask the court is it ok to be rude in order to persuade someone. I feel you should be on the kinder side to persuade other characters but if I’m wrong I gladly accept any punishment you fit to bestow upon me. Also wanted to say thank you Justice Murph in suggesting playing a Steiner type character for Paladins! Really helps keep the flow of the game if players want to be more nefarious.

Charles Dahlkoetter

Charles from Dallas, looking forward to 4/20 I would ask respectfully, most prestigious Honors and Bailiff, be it in your disposition to be pleased, for a ruling on my case which I title "The Brutal Noodle." I submit to evidence, a scene set in the world of Strahd in which my party stumbles onto a child who had been missing, too late to save their life. The party is discussing whether or not to take the remains back to the parents, but I'm not able to talk, being a druid in giant snake form. Hoping to lighten the mood with a crass joke, I say "What if my character just ate the body?" Immediately the DM's eyes light up and she says "Okay that happens!" As we laugh I also I plead with her to not take my joke literally. But no. After trying to cut the child out of me the DM makes a roll and declares that there is no body to retrieve; it had been brutally dissolved! I admit to how funny it was in the moment, but now some of the others roleplay their distrust of my character. Was my DM in the wrong to turn a joke into an actual scene that resulted in both up and downside that I didn't really intend? Should I learn to embrace roleplaying a character that could be randomly violent at the whim of the DM (the full moon isn't far off)? Either way you decide, I urge you to literally throw the books at us. PS: My D&D buddy did trust me enough to buy tickets for me and the other players (including the DM) for your upcoming April 20th Dallas show! A gift to us for HIS birthday. If you get this in time for that show and it isn't too much to ask, give Shaan Poonawala a callout in Dallas! Thanks!

Nicolas Lee

May it please the court and that most special of boys Jake In our home game (for which I am the DM), my wife's swarmkeeper ranger was infiltrating a magical vault through a secret tunnel system populated by random encounters. She aced the first two encounters, somehow convincing a feral fox not to attack her through the power of diplomacy and high-rolling a stealth check to avoid a security system. In the third encounter, I asked her to roll a perception check, which she did and got a 10. That was too low to notice the creature that was hidden in the tunnel, so I told her she didn't notice anything in the tunnel. Of course, she was suspicious that I made her roll perception, so she used detect traps. I told her that the spell didn't illuminate any traps because, truthfully, there were none. So when she stepped into the tunnel and was immediately attacked by the creature hiding there, she was upset and said that a lurking creature fits the description of a trap in the spell. Looking at the wording, the find traps spell does specify that a trap constitutes "anything that would inflict a sudden and unexpected effect that you would consider harmful". That being said, this open-ended description would make it so that find traps can detect almost any possible misfortune, and I feel like the category of "traps" is pretty well defined. In the interest of transparency, the creature's name was listed as "Trapper". I know that sounds incriminating, and I will accept the court's judgement regardless of their verdict. Should I have let my wife's "find traps" spell save her from hidden creatures, or was I correct that it's probably intended for FINDING TRAPS?

Sarah Davis

Sarah from Toronto, Canada Greetings gentle and wise judges and the fine bailiff. I present you the case of the unrequited, player to player romance. I am in a campaign with some friends and my boyfriend. My boyfriend, the DM, and I had all played D&D before, and this was the 3 other plays first time. We have played about 10 sessions together now so everyone understands the game. There was a running joke of my boyfriends character (a monk named Haum) hitting on my character (a barbarian named Kallista) and Kallista being uninterested, until last episode Haum received a gift from his god and swore off all earthly possession and romantic relationships. That was all good and fine until the next session when one of the other players who’s character is named Saorise pulled Kallista aside and confessed she had always like Haum and asked what I thought. This was completely out of nowhere and was also the only real role playing attempt she had made in the whole campaign. In character I said to go for it, but out of the role playing I thought it was weird. I always got the vibe this person had an innocent enough crush on my partner, but this was a weird move. I’m worried it will affect how I play the game going forward! I ask you judges, what can be done? Am I reading too much into this and need to separate my real life from the game? Should I role play a dramatic confession of love to my boyfriends character? If it matters, my boyfriend also thought it was weird and encouraged me to submit this case. I humbly await your judgement.

Sonja Maitland

Not court case, but a visit to the church Dearest members of the court and the underrated bailiff Jake, I ask that you remove wigs and don your robes because I require council of the church as I fear my cat character may have been cursed by dice Christ or perhaps an affiliated god of the realm… years ago I created a Tabaxi Bard (Mrs Mistofolees) character. I got a personalised mini made by hero forge (big deal because It’s expensive to make/ship to New Zealand & my family got it for me for my birthday), my partner painted the mini perfectly. I was so excited to play with my new Tabaxi bard; only to be disappointed because the campaign did not go past the first session… which it was fine because I can use this character in almost any campaign… So I joined a different campaign with Mrs Mistofolees, only to have this campaign die after the first couple sessions… this has happened to campaigns Mrs Mistofolees has touched 6 times (one time she was a guest appearance in existing campaign that stopped after she left). I am beginning to fear that any campaign she touches is cursed! (I know its not me personally, I have played in many with different characters). What do I do? do I retire Mrs mistofolees? Is she cursed to never adventure? Am I being paranoid? Is there dice Christ ritual I can do to cleans her? Please help Mrs mistofolees adventure again.

Pearl of a Girl Nursery

Tess from Virginia Beach (shoutout to belly chains) May it please the court and the other guy, but mostly our sovereign queen of roleplay Emily Axford: I’m in a weird position with one of my D&D groups. I was brought on by the DM specifically to provide more roleplay, but I feel like my roleplay is creating a rift between me and one of the other PCs. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling where I feel like he doesn’t like my roleplay choices and as a result, has made it obvious he doesn’t enjoy my participation as a player. I feel like I’ve spent several sessions trying to get on his good side, but ultimately my character Villie, a 15-year-old sorcerer, has settled into the idea that his character doesn’t like her. That’s the best I can do, and the best response I can give when he asks why I don’t use my buffs or anything on him unless it’s an emergency - Villie doesn’t think his character likes her, so she keeps her distance. I was hoping it would prompt him to try to make nice because I felt like I’d already tried that myself, but no luck. I feel like I’ve done everything I can on my end here, but I can’t help thinking maybe it was a mistake for the DM to involve me in this campaign. He insists that he likes the different “styles” that we all play, but I struggle to see how it works all together. The best roleplay requires a lot of trust with your other players, but I think there’s an element of consent that’s hard to ignore, too. This guy clearly doesn’t consent to roleplay, as he can’t even distinguish my choices from my character’s. And I don’t want to force him to roleplay either, but D&D means nothing to me without it. Can two people like this even coexist in a campaign? As much as I don’t think he’s a very understanding person, I also can’t totally fault him for having his own way to play the game.

Pearl of a Girl Nursery

I think if your boyfriend thinks it’s weird, there you go. He’s not comfortable with it. Every romantic relationship in a game needs to be run by the DM and other players involved before anything is initiated.

Joseph Anderson

This (vaguely) came up in one of my games too! Dying for a ruling here

Michaela McNaughton

Holy and esteemed Archbishops of the Church of Dice Christ, I humbly submit to you a moral quandary that I have been ruminating on for some time. Namely, is it ever obligatory to fudge dice rolls in favor of the party as the DM? The incident in question was during a stealth mission to infiltrate the hidden archives of an evil cult. The party was in what was essentially a secret closet and left one member (Bard) to keep watch. The bard was found and promptly KO’d by a high-ranking monk (using a combo of multiple attacks and stunning strikes) who then set an ambush for the party with a group of weaker shadow monks. When it came time to roll initiative the head monk promptly rolled a 20+ initiative, and then the group of 6 lesser monks (who I rolled their initiative together for) rolled a Nat 20, which, with the addition of their high dex bonus, lead to all of the enemies getting off 4 attacks each with stunning strike and flurry of blows. The party’s two tanks were down before they could even fully leave the closet - and the rest of the party had to essentially run a monk gauntlet to try and get out. It ended in a TPK, and the party was captured (led to a cool prison break mini-arc). Was I right to let the Nat 20 stand, or should I have fudged the initiative to give my party a fighting chance?

maxwell jensen

May it please the court, I submit the case of the disruptive boyfriend. Titular Critular Justices and… jake… I am the DM for 2 year long campaign of 4 players and we recently had a 2 day outing session at a cabin just outside of Milwaukee (shameless city plug). After the conclusion of the first day, one of our players asked if their new partner, who the rest of us had only met once, could come out for session 2. We all agreed that we would do our best to stay in character for the weekend, and he had never played before. So, mitigating the situation, I asked if we could do another weekend soon and we could have him periodically come by for our home games and get him acclimated to the party and dnd in general. They agreed and soon we all went to bed. At 10 am the next day, a knock on the door sounded, and at the door was their new partner. After some conversation, I told them it’s nice to meet you, if you wanna stay with us for the day feel free to drink and observe. I shit you not, this guy said that’s okay, found a corner of the cabin, and started playing elder scrolls on his laptop. The internet was poor, so he then decided he wanted to observe about 2 hours later. We were at the climax of a major arc for one of our other players, and borderline interrupting me, the guy said to our player “I’m gonna head out, I’m not having any fun” he gathered his stuff and left abruptly. An hour later, he broke up with our player via text saying THEY ARE TOO NERDY FOR HIM. The player became despondent, but insisted they wanted to continue playing. I pulled them aside and said we can just enjoy the cabin and party, but they persisted that they didn’t want to fuck up the weekend We continued playing, it did not go well, and they ended up leaving that night to go back to Milwaukee. As the DM, should I have shifted the gameplay or stopped it all together? My beautiful partner said later we should have just done a one shot or something else. Even if I handled this poorly, please provide punishment for this elder scrolls buttplug who brought a gaming laptop to a cabin and complained about the internet. Commiserately, Maxwell J.

David Kouba

I have a court case, to the honorable judges, and the extremely so so bailiff, I present my case. I had my PCs do the deck of many things. So they all drew well, my rogue drew the card for 10000 XP, The Jester. My Druid drew The Fates. My Ranger then drew Moon. And to top it all off they made my PC, another ranger, pull a card from the deck, he drew Balance. My Druid then canceled out my Balance, using her The Fates card to unravel the fabric of reality and make it to where my PC never drew the Balance card, which would have made my PC (my Balnor) lawful evil. Then my Ranger requested that he now have a new familiar, a T Rex that has like 136 HP, keep in mind these PCs are like level 6. But he does have a wish spell and technically he has 3 wish spells, but one is enough. So should I let him have his dinosaur? Justice Murphy I plead directly to you, help

The one they call Barlo

He's medium sized so occupies a 5ftx5ft space as per RAW, but I wonder what Justice Murphy will say...

Christopher Benwell

Honourable Judges and most cowardly Bailiff, hear my case of murderous intentions. I was playing in a game that a friend of mine decided to run, where I was not entirely familiar with the other players. About 3 sessions into the campaign our party was infiltrating a town taken over by mercenaries. We were attacked on the road by 3 of these mercenaries and successfully fought and killed 2 while leaving one for interrogation. After questioning him, my character killed him and hid the body as we were trying to stay unknown in the town and it was presumed he would go and tell the others that we were here. I’ve never been one for character alignments and as such did not have one marked down, however, after this encounter, another player, the DMs brother, insisted that I now had to mark my alignment as evil as I killed the prisoner. We argued about it and the game ended awkwardly shortly after. I ask of you, was he right in saying that my character should therefore be marked as evil? Or was it a justified action beyond the narrow boxes of alignment. I wait humbly for your verdict.

Nikki Lynn

Oh honourable Judges, our under-appreciated bailiff, and the Dice jury of Patreon. I plead my case to the court. It feels like the DM is rushing through my backstory while spending more time on the others. Our current campaign has been running for about 2 years. The first major city we got to was home to two of our characters. We spent 6 real months in this city, letting them do their back story, exploring, and putting up with a toxic party member who we later encouraged to leave after they were incredibly disrespectful to me and the party (As the only female in the group, I took the brunt of the disrespect). Mostly everyone got to have their character moments and spent time in their hometown. I took more of a backseat since I was dealing with the toxic guy and minimizing myself made things easier. While it took a while, and there were a lot of bumps along the way, it was really fun to see the character's backstories and let them shine. We've left the city and toxic guy left as well, so we could move on and heal some trauma, stopping at a few places, spotlighting other characters as we traveled. I continued to take a back seat to encourage the quieter characters to have their moments since I am louder and more outgoing than a lot of them, and was dealing with some PTSD from how bad toxic guys was to me. Our next stop was the town my character grew up in. After watching how much time the other characters got on their backstory, and after everything with toxic guy that I went though, I was really excited to do a few things, and have my small moment in the spotlight after letting everyone else have theirs. I was not expecting how small of a moment i would actually get. It takes us a month or so to get to the town, then once we get there, my character and my twin (played by my buddy) aren't allowed in our home because we have to do this hunt as a right of passage (we knew about this so that's fine). The DM sped us to the hunt because there was only so much we could do before it since we were ostracized till we completed it. The hunt starts, and while we're off in the woods, the party is reminded by an NPC that we're taking too long for the main quest and are told to speed up. While we're still on the hunt, the DM implies my town will be attacked by an army that was following us (we haven't seen the army in months). While this is happening, my twin dies during the hunt. Before my character even gets back to town, (after the DM regularly forgets I'm out there because he's focused on everyone else's stories), not knowing my brother is dead, the town gets attacked and it's heavily implied we should flee, but we choose to stay and find my character's family. From the time we got to the town to now has maybe been 4 sessions? Last night, i find out that our DM was talking to one of the players, getting them ready for their new character to be introduced, and set them to be introduced with the main story. He told them he "didn't expect us to be here this long already, he expected us to run away" leaving my character's family to die and leaving my twin brother, who I still don't know is dead, which is very out of character for my her. He's mentioned a few times that this is a "living world" and things are always happening in the background. I'm all for the story and I'm interested to see where it goes, but after last night, it felt like my stuff was really rushed. I'm not asking for 6 months, but I was really looking forward to coming here and finally getting my time to shine, even for a moment, or at the very least, be allowed in my bedroom so my character can change clothes lol. I know there is probably more to my backstory that the DM has planned... But after the last few sessions, how much more with my backstory is rushed compared to other party members. I ask the judges and jury, am I over-reacting? Reading too much into this? or am I right to be kind of upset or disappointed? I wait humbly for your verdict. Thank you.

Maddie Bruns

Oh wise judges and the bailiff, I come to you with a case that has sat with me since the event took place. The campaign I was playing in had been taking place for over a year. The story had evolved from a knock-off fantasy high to an alternate universe version of my character starting a war. Upon first meeting the "evil me" she cast hold person on the entire party. Everyone failed the wisdom check except for my character. Not trying to be captured I cast misty step and teleported into the shadows. I had the eldrich invocations mask of many faces, one with shadows, and aspect of the moon. With this combo and a lack of an initiative roll I acted fast. I cast mask of many faces and disguised myself as a standard goon of my evil self. I then cast invisibility and was prepared to wait for as long as it took for me to be able to leave. The actual goons began throwing my party into a cave that transported them to an alternate universe. While this was happening I succeeded on my checks and was able to sneak out of the hideout and to safety. I thought I was successful and was home-free. Boy was I wrong. My DM congratulated me on my ability to escape, dice christ was on my side. Shortly after I asked if I could run back to our allies and find someone who would be willing to help me save my friends. My DM informed me that the plan I had in place was unrealistic and so he would not allow it. No one would be willing to leave the safety of the school to help me fight an evil me. My argument was that I just lost my party to an alternate universe cave so the logistics of the real world versus our campaign shouldn't be a valid argument for why or why not I can do something. I was fighting for an attempt to try. To be able to fuck around and find out. He then told me that my character felt as though I couldn't do this on my own and that I had a greater debt to my party than to maybe get someone else to help. He then narratively decided that one of the professors at the school spiritually placed me with my party so I wasn't there physically, but I was still there. It quickly became apparent that my success meant nothing and the campaign was going to continue as planned. So I ask the court, was I wrong for honoring my successful wisdom roll from dice christ and escaping the hideout or should I have just gone along with the story my DM was trying to tell. I am looking forward to your ruling and accept whatever the verdict may be. Thank you kindly

Trisha (Trash Bags) Bagby

Dear Dice Christ... I know this post is old, and I know this isn't a court case, but I have a confession that is eating away at my Raised Catholic Guilt. This also JUST happened and I had to find a post to confess on. The party's wizard was down (by a very noble Overchannel sacrifice), I had 4 levels of exhaustion, the rogue had 3 levels of exhaustion, and we only had half the bosses defeated in the building, which was collapsing into a vat of acid. I (bard) mounted the broom of flying, Bonus Action Healing Word-ed the wizard, and then put the rogue onto the broom and made a full movement for a window outside the building, where a ton of lower-level clerics were waiting to help us. I was 5 feet short of being able to exit the building, so I Dimension Door-ed the rogue and I to the front door, where I knew it would be easier to find a cleric who could help us. It occurred to me the next turn, that I couldn't do that... I already cast a spell as a bonus action. The Monk would have given the wizard a healing potion either way (we had established that as a plan before my turn began) but I absolutely did not correct myself and allowed the game to go on. Forgive me, as I did this to save the wizard. So, before I could post this comment, I reached my 6th level of exhaustion and died. This is how it went down: I did my final constitution save, and my DM allowed me to use a Bardic Inspo on myself to add to the save. I also have 3 levels of Divine Soul Sorcerer, which allows an extra 2d4 to a save I used both of these and reached a 23 on the 21 CR con save. I was about to get the curse removed. Then. At the beginning of the next turn, the DM remembered. "WAIT. You have disadvantage on the saving throw you just have to beat a -" I rolled the 10 that he was about to say. After the modifiers, I got a 20 on the 21CR con save and died. I think Dice Christ has spoken. I have repented with my life. RIP Starlight Havensword (Whose real name was Egwene Lostbourne - yes a namesake from NADDPOD). She found her dad (who turned out to be an elf/dragon) and had taught a scarred man to love. She may or may not be revivified sometime soon, as her enchanted armor extends the time frame for the spell. However, you need a more powerful cleric to do that.... and ours is feeble-minded. Remember to sing a song for your bard, and don't have your last words be ".....shit."

Jackie

To my dear, lovely Supreme Court Justices and the super rad bailiff who decides if this makes d&d court, I have a confession/accusation/question for dice Christ. Me and my friends have two games, one where I DM and one where my buddy is the DM. In the last session of game in which I DM, the party (known as the Adventure Gang) was fighting the BBEG of the arc. I rolled 4 nat 20s in the span of 5 combat turns, almost resulting in a TPK (3 out of 5 players down) but with a clutch nat 20 from our Druid, they managed to defeat Tiamat at the cost of the pirate captain who the party felt bad for. The very next day, with the same dice, in my buddy’s campaign (known as the Adventure Mafia), I rolled 3 nat 1’s in a row in combat, almost killing my player at his meek level 2 status. I would like to apologize to dice christ for almost taking out the Adventure Gang however my players also claimed that it was the best session yet, so I would also like to ask, what gives? May it please the mighty interpreters of DC’s benevolent will to determine what action is required for more peaceful rolls in the future.