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Dungeon Court Submission Please! (Patreon)

Published:
2022-07-20 17:29:18
Imported:
2026-06
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Howdy folks. Lowly Bailiff Jake here. The Supreme Crit is convening soon so submit your (BRIEF, I beg!) cases on this thread and we will bring you swift justice.

Love,

Jake

Comments

AnonymousDM

Esteemed Justices and Fine Bailiff, I present the case of the Neglected Mom. In the long running game I DM, the party started off as pirates that got drafted mid-job by a dying god to save her by finding — and being blessed by — all the other gods. Since then, they have traveled the far reaches of the world to find them, from bustling cities to incredibly remote wilds. One of the PC’s sister has found him and told him off for neglecting their mother, who believes him to be dead, since he went on a pirate job, never came back, and never reached out in the months since. My friend was pissed! He insisted that *of course* his bard would’ve kept in touch with his mom — but it’s not like the party’s had prolonged moments of downtime. When they visit more developed settlements, I’ve mentioned rookeries they could use to send ravens or messages, and none of them have. Am I wrong to have this PC’s family miss him?

Kinzie

Honorable Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Axeford and Tanner as well as Jenk : Case: Items to new and old players I play in a campaign that is mostly new-to-DnD players who have very little experience with the game, the expectation of my myself (a player) and the DM. Recently, we completed a boss fight and were collecting the loot. The other players were given various items for their characters (magical armor, weapons, and clothing) that were interesting to both players and characters but I was given a Decanter of Endless Water. (We rarely play in a way that requires us to announce we're eating food or drinking water.) When asked why I was given the Decanter, the DM said "As the most experienced player I'm never going to give you good items." Is the DM wrong for not giving out items that our characters would find equally interesting or is it fair to give new players better items that give them more obvious ways to be useful role playing or in combat and force more experienced players to be more creative with less interesting items? I willingly accept the decision of our Honorable Justices and Supreme Bailiff. Thank you!

Rowan M

If it please the court (and the sweet bailiff Jake): With a heavy heart, I present the case of the giant snake murders. Three sessions into a new campaign, our Level 3 party had our ship confiscated with a cost of 10,000 GP to get it back. With 9 gold between us, we checked a local job board for ways to earn cash. Most of the jobs offered 250 GP or less, but there was one job worth EXACTLY 10,000 GP: Killing a Giant Titanoboa. Our party (incorrectly) assumed that this coincidence was a fun plot hook and decided to look for the snake. To be fair, several NPCs warned us that fighting it was ill-advised, but we decided to at least go size it up. Hard cut to us failing our stealth checks inside the snake’s cave while trying to get a look. Upon seeing the enormous creature, we quickly turned and fled, but it was already too late. The snake chased us into the jungle, and what followed was a brutal bloodbath in which my rogue was killed instantly in one hit and the barbarian was eaten and slowly digested. I’ve never seen the air sucked out of a Zoom call so fast. It’s worth mentioning that the DM used alternate chase mechanics that were less advantageous to us than RAW, as two of us would have automatically outrun the snake RAW with class abilities. Even with these chase rules, we rolled a bunch of Nat 20s, but the snake still beat us by rolling higher than the party’s average with its +8 modifier. We found out later that the DM thought having a ship this early on would be OP and believed we should have known better than to seek out the snake. I can’t help but feel like we got baited into an unbeatable encounter with the exact amount of gold we needed. Should we have heeded the wary NPCs and tried less lucrative jobs? Did the alternate chase mechanic screw us over, or were we just fools dying a fool’s death? I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

Cody Doiron

Dear honorable Disciples of Dice Christ and Jake, I come to you with a group confessional about a dice roll and a dog. Our party got ourselves in a bad situation surrounded by Yuan Ti Demi-Gods where were surely going to be TPK'ed or at least captured. One player had an important dice roll that would likely determine the outcome of the situation for better or worse, so we decided to use the big 3" solid plastic dice and roll it on the floor for dramatic effect. The dice was rolled and immediately as it landed on what was clearly a bad roll, my dog quickly snatched it off the ground (with most hilarious teeth on plastic *clonk* sound), threw it up the air, and this time it landed on a NAT 20! We decided to take the Nat 20 and went on to survive and succeed in escaping. I ask you, did we commit sin in the eyes of Dice Christ for not taking the original roll, or did we witness a miracle of Dice Christ performed through my dog?

James Brown AKA I LOVE YOU, FUCK YOU, EAT A RAT

The most honorable justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the most mediocre, yet relatable bailiff, Jake: I humbly bring to The Crit the Case of the Left-Handed Artificer. In a recent one-shot campaign, I played a lvl 4 Battle Smith artificer/lvl 2 wizard named Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist. My DM allowed me to use my Steel Defender to create my character’s suit of armor brother, Alfonse. My party was swept away by a modron through the Astral Plane, where my brother was disintegrated. I sacrificed my long rest to bring my Steel Defender back. However, my DM told me my brother’s soul would not remain intact. In the spirit of the anime, I was allowed to bond my brother’s soul back to the Steel Defender after sacrificing my remaining right arm and leg. My DM insisted that because I only had a left arm and leg automail, I only knew how to build left limbs. He allowed me to attach them backwards, making me an all left-limbed PC going into the final battle, essentially turning me into a spinning top of doom. Was it right for my DM to not allow me to tinker opposite limbs based on the limbs my character already had and knew how to replicate? I leave the decision in the capable hands of The Crit.

Luke Johnson

May it please the court, but most especially his and her reverences Emily the luminous, Caldwell the fair, and Murphy the just. Hey Jake! I’m calling upon your guidance as I am not sure if my DM was focusing me unfairly. I had been playing in a online campaign for a few months and my 7th level sorcerer had recently gained access to the spell Armor of Agathys. Our characters were fighting in an arena, and in a 1-on-1 against an npc, I cast armor of agathys at a 4th level, giving me 20 temp hp and 20 damage to anyone who hits me with a melee attack. The issue then arose when I was hit twice, once for 7 and another for 12. After the second hit, I mentioned that the npc would take 40 damage total as per the spell rules, but the dm disagreed saying that they would take the amount of damage equal to how much temp hp was left, to which I verbally disagreed with since it’s not rules as written. He ultimately said that the spell would work the way I said for this round only, after which it would work his way. I contacted him after letting him know my reasoning for disagreeing, just that it was against raw and that I don’t know any 1st level spell that has the potential to only do 1 point of damage bar any resistances. He said that the spell was too op in the situation my character was in, and I just dropped it. After a few months I stopped playing for school but had rejoined for the “finale”. During which, another spellcaster cast armor of agathys and, to my surprise, the dm allowed the use of raw spell mechanics, even applauding the use of the spell. My question is, dear judges, was I being unfairly focused by my dm? Or am I just being a wee babe?

Ace

Hear me my dear, valiant Bailiff and a quiet howdy to the others, may I present to you: The Case of the Wizard Wanker. My childhood friends and I run a campaign in which we roleplay as ourselves, mysteriously transported into a 5e setting similar to Faerun. We fought together, blood, sweat, and tears to be able to feed ourselves and clawed our way to gain status and save multiple realms in this world. However, time and time again, our wizard has gone off on his own to get up to his nefarious crafts. He’s lost an arm, needing to be saved from a necromancer, makes dealings with his former mentor who has known ties to the bbeg, and continues to jeopardize the party’s wellbeing. There have been times where my character may have laid hands on his character over things he has said and done, i.e. treating the people in this world, our party included, as NPCs. This all came to a boiling point when my adult red dragon companion was dragged into hell and turned against us. We slew him in a huge battle outside our wizard’s keep and after combat, I begged for him to be revived. Our wizard(with some cleric levels) retorted, “He was on my kill list anyway.” Enraged, I downed him, erupting into huge conflict in game and at the table, nobody, party or DM, took sides at the table, but all agreed that his alignment should have shifted long ago and that his repeated actions are a direct conflict for the party. So I humbly ask you oh mighty, massive bailiff—and company—have I repented for my sin of striking a minor(in-game mind you), did he deserve it? I graciously await your ever-noble response.

Bryan Holt

Hello Mighty justices and the Itty Bitty Balif. I present to you the case of the purloined potions. I am but a simple Feylock of the baba yaga a potion maker by trade. I worked it out with the DM that I could make spell scrolls but rather than being spell scrolls they're essentially potion grenades. One of the favorite ones of the group is the grenade of animate object, I cleared the item with the dungeon master several weeks before using them and demonstrating the spell myself. The party was quite excited, and during a fight with a particularly rough black dragon sheriff the jukebox machine in the corner proved clutch to our victory. However I was betrayed, the dungeon master not only took my potions but also took my experience to the fight saying that I had fooled them and that there's no way they could have accounted for the extra actions of the machine. Was I being a Wicked Warlock or was he being a Dirty Doggy? Please Judges hear my call.

connor copeland

To the magisterial Judges and the surprisingly ripped Bailiff, I come to you a humble DM with a friendship crisis. One of my best friends is a player in my party. He is not good at D&D. There’s nothing wrong with that; he’s just not into fantasy, isn’t much of a gamer, and being bad at D&D just isn’t a character flaw. But he is bad at the game in a way that makes me like him less as a person. Outside the game, I find him likeable, heck, even loveable, but as soon as we start, he becomes a bumbling fool, stealing scenes from other players and always doing the goofiest thing even in a serious moment. Not to mention that he’s clueless at combat. I know what I’m supposed to do; talk to him. But there’s no fixing this guy. He’s just not a good player. The only way I can see to improve the game is to cut him out of it, but he’s a sensitive person and I know for a fact he will take it personally. How do I tell my friend I don’t want him to be in my game because I’m afraid if we keep playing together I will despise him? I await your enlightened ruling.

Eden Hunter

Dear exalted Judges and all-round incredible fella Jake, If it may please the queen and court, I present the case of the player who wanted to fit a 4 day process into a 6 second turn. I was running a non-canon pvp game for my players main campaign characters and one of my players (Human Sorcerer) turned invisible after taking quite a bit of damage. He then messaged me privately asking if he could use the herbalism kit that his Character had to brew a healing potion so he could regain some HP. I was foggy on brewing rules and so looked it up to find that it takes 4 days to brew a health potion. Now, as you will know, a turn in D&D combat takes about 6 seconds, so it might be a bit of a squeeze. But as this was a non-canon session and rule of cool etc I said I would let him roll a medicine check for it, setting the DC so that he would be able to do it if he roled a 19/20 and that he would have to drop concentration on his Invisibility to focus on this endeavor. He then started to argue back that it wouldn't make him lose his concentration, at which point I reminded him that I shouldn't be letting him perform a 4 day process in 6 seconds in the first place. He then got grumpy and distant. Did I make the right call? Love, Eden x

David V

To the impermeable Supreme Crit Justices and the quite permeable bailiff, I present to you the case of the unpleasant epilogue. I played in a 2+ year long campaign with a bunch of my friends, and it recently came to an end. Our party of level 20 heroes took down the evil empire that had conquered the world, and freed the land of their tyranny. Pretty standard epic conclusion. We had our own little epilogues, in which my character and my partner’s character got married and lived together in the autumn court of the Feywild. Everyone had fun endings, and I liked mine as well. The problem came a bit later. We are starting a new campaign, one that takes place in the same world, 15 years after the first campaign. The DM extrapolated our character endings to fit with the new campaigns plot. These included one of them becoming prime minister of the new government, one becoming a feared pirate captain, one becoming a king in a far off land, and for my character… she died in childbirth a few years after the first campaign ended. I was not consulted on this, nor was I asked if it was okay to murder my character. I understand we can’t all have perfect endings if there’s to be another campaign a decade after, but it seemed sort of messed up that I was the only one to die; and that my death came in such a… lame way. I feel like a level 20 sorcerer with multiple insanely powerful cleric friends should have been able to get through childbirth without dying. My DM claims that giving birth to wild magic sorcerer twins is what caused her death (as she was a wild magic sorcerer), and sure that kind of makes sense, but again, why was I the only one of our original party to die in the epilogue? Also, I should add that this is the same character that got power world killed a million times in a case you guys tried a few months back. I swear my DM and I are friends. My question for you all: do I have a right to be upset, or is it the DM’s choice what to do with his world in order to set up a sequel campaign?

Carson Lee

WWE ethics code and attack rulings May it please the all knowing justices and respectable bailiff After the court took my last case I was inspired to have the partys final showdown be at summerslam. To get there, the party needs championship belts to be granted access. In a fight to acquire the belts that Stone Cold, John Cena and a stone golem replica of The Rock wear, the barbarian requested a cage match vs Stone Cold. Noticing the barbarian was losing the 1v1, the artificer started attacking Stone Cold through the cage. This caused all 3 wrestlers to turn their attacks towards the artificer, which downed his character and is where the cause for the case comes from. John Cena, being a stealth assassin, appareted behind the artificer and made dagger attacks from stealth. The artificer used his steel defender to impose disadvantage on the first attack but I attacked with advantage on second as the defender only affects the first attack. The artificer argued that since the first attack was foiled by the defender, the second wouldn't get advantage. I ruled that since he was busy interrupting the cage match he didn't see the attacks coming, his defender used its whole reaction to block one and couldn't notify him. The resulting crit dropped the artificer and he was upset and felt he was getting singled out. The barbarian was mildly upset that the cage match was not respected and eventually beat Stone Cold, due to the extra damage done by the artificer, to take his belt. Were my attack rulings correct? And was I right to punish the artificer for not respecting the cage match?

Yashuntafun

Dear Most Honorable and Wise Justices and the respectable, workmanlike Bailiff: May it please the court, I would present the case of the Double-Dragon Drag. In a campaign I ran for some friends, I had one player who chose the Dragonborn species and the Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer subclass. One of the features of the Dragonborn *species* is resistance to damage of the type associated with your ancestry - in the players' case, they gained fire resistance. However, when they hit level 6, we discovered that the Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer *subclass* gives you the ability to spend a sorcery point to gain the same kind of resistance for 1 hour. We agreed that this was an oversight of the books, but couldn't come to an agreement on how to resolve it. The player believed they should get the ability to gain *immunity* to fire damage, but as a new DM, I was afraid that would be too strong. (The players didn't know, but a trip inside a volcano was on the horizon.) The player wasn't interested in resistance to another element, or any other metamagic features. We ended up buffing their familiar's abilities as a compromise, but the player wasn't happy, and still sometimes brings up how I short-changed them for going all-in on draconic features. So I ask the court - who is in the wrong here? The player, for asking for too much? Me, for being scared of giving them fire immunity? Or the RAW, for giving them a redundant ability? I prostrate myself before the court to see which way the the dragon scales of justice tip.

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 and we were attempting to rescue them. During combat, I, a halfling rouge, attempted to hide after my turn, but was told that there was nowhere to hide in the forest. I fought my case but the DM refused. After rescuing the monk 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,, 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.

knitted cape

I throw myself low and prostrate before the esteemed, resplendent, and just Priests of Dice Christ, right beside the quivering and timorous bailiff. I fear I have sinned against our Father; here is my confessional. May the church be gracious enough to allow me to dust my knees of the dirt in which the lowly bailiff wallows. I present to you a case of stolen time: I have been DMing and started a campaign with my girlfriend and a few of our friends, all of whom except my girlfriend are first time players. I started the campaign off with all of the characters floating alone in an inky blackness and narrated each of their points of view in a shared memory- a memory of the party on a mountain attempting and failing to stand against a giant Titan with a sword wreathed in flame. Each character got to engage in a little bit of RP, just what they were comfortable with. Each of their points of view ended the same- they died with their fellow party members falling in battle around them. As the players remembered their death, they each separately awoke in a small wooden cabin in a shaded wood, and were then able to RP as they saw fit. As time went on, they met a small old woman named Gretta that had been caring for them, discovered an old church that was full of carvings of the history of the world, fought some creatures made of void, and discovered that the woods they were in was on an island in a sea of clouds, seemingly atop the world. Eventually, the party found an altar connected to the island by a bridge of light, fled to it to escape a monstruous void creature, and ascended from the altar into a sky of light. The party found themselves on the same mountain from their memories, now a plateau, but the world around them was dark and desolate, with ash and dust filling the sky. After some exploration and meeting with an Orc NPC, the party learned that 100 years had passed since they stood against the Titan and that a tyrant now ruled the land. From there, they have decided where to travel to try to learn more about the world. So, I ask this- did I take away the party's agency by including this time gap? The players were all new, so none of them really wrote backstories, but I can't help feeling like I took away from their experience by thrusting them into a world foreign to even their characters. They all really seem to be enjoying the campaign so far and are very invested, but I can't shake the feeling that I sacrificed their experience for a story that I was so excited to begin. I have lost sleep over this and I anxiously await the church's verdict and will endure any punishment it sees fit.

Courtney F.

May it please the court: Our party got lost in a forest of illusions and in order to get out we unfortunately had to make a deal with the 3 Night Hags tormenting us. The deal we made was that we would kill a black dragon and recover his eye and tongue. Once finished, we would call upon the Hags to “meet in person, in a place of our choosing” to give them the items. We knew they’d be tricky about this deal so we made sure to specify these terms. We intended to get them out of their territory and kill them when we met. Well…when we summoned the Night Hags, they sent simulacrums. Half of the party argued that simulacrums don’t count as meeting “in person” but the DM said that these simulacrums are real creatures and therefore, fulfill their end of the deal. We didn’t continue to argue but the half that protested are still a tiny bit salty about it. Benevolent Judges and also Jake, were we swindled by simulacrums or are we simply salty Sallys? I humbly await your judgment.

Easton Moore

May it Please the Court. To the ALMIGHTY High Crit Justices Axford, Tanner, Murphy and the lovable but dimwitted Bailiff Jake. I bring to you the case of Valfire v Brick. During our adventure we were talking to some NPC’s and I a halfling bard wanted to talk to them and get information but my companion, a Goliath Fighter, wanted to fight. I asked the DM if I could persuade him to wait on fighting for the moment. He i could but I the player had to convince the other player to stop and couldn’t roll for it. That he isn’t going to let me persuade a player with a check, but would personally have to convince him. I tried and failed and left it at that. I protest if he as a Goliath fighter wanted me not to fight he would pick his characters strength and choose to restrain me we would do opposed grapple checks (we’ve had PvP grappling and we did roll for it) but since I tried to use my advantage in persuasion I couldn’t roll for it. Was I wronged for not being able to use the strengths of my character against him as he would be able to use his against mine? Or should I not be able to convince a PC with a roll and high stats. Both me and the DM listen to the pod so we leave it to you crit justices and humbly await your decision.

Your Good Buddy Brandon

To the right honorable Justices and their pet the bailiff, I present a case of redo's, resentment, and zombie healthcare. My first time DMing I had a player who wanted to "re-spec" his character to multiclass after a few months of playing. I'm annoyed as he had done this many times in previous campaigns, but told him he could with the caveat that in story he would die and be resurected with his new abilities. He agreed, and was struck down the following session by and honest-to-Dice Christ nat 20. Here's the issue, the party's trigger happy Necromancer zombified his corpse before the NPC Cleric I sent along could Gentle Repose him to prevent this, so now the healing guild's 1,000gp Ressurection spell won't work as it can't bring back undead. The only options are Reincarnate for 1,000gp (which he is against as it would almost certainly change his race) or True Ressurection for 25,000gp. Upon hearing this he became upset, stomped outside to hit his vape a few times and fumed silently while the rest of the party ended up giving all their money to cover the spell -- but he DID resurrect with his remade character. I fear I was too harsh. Should I have just ignored that some spells don't work on undead, was I wrong to try and punish this behavior I knew was coming? I throw myself upon the mercy of the court.

Steebs

May it please the esteemed and just court! A while ago, during a virtual dnd session, one of the other players in our group started acting pretty obnoxiously - constant interrupting, refusing to go with the flow of the gameplay, etc. It became apparent that he had had a few too many pre-session drinks. It came to a head when we all settled down to take a long rest, but this character refused to go to bed. We were on a ship at the time, traveling with another crew, and his character decided to go above deck and see what he could get up to. My DM started taking the player’s actions as the character’s, essentially that if the player is acting obnoxiously, so to was the character, and the player ended up getting into a scuffle with the captain. The player got upset that the DM was dictating aspects of his character, quit the session, and ghosted all of us. To this day, it serves as a dark stain on our otherwise cohesive group. Should the DM have handled this differently? Should the rest of us players have stepped in?

Gabriel Glazer

To the amazing justices and bailiff, long May they reign. I present the case of the BDSDM One of my players offered to run a one shot to give me, the forever DM, a break. I was excited as this was their first time DMIng and I always look for a chance to play. The guidance they gave was to make an edgy dark character with few friends. I showed up to the table with my emo ranger and as the DM set up the story, they said that we all woke up handcuffed to each other. They then pulled out an assortment of handcuffs and directed us all to put them on our wrists. With no warning, I protested saying That this was way out of left field. Was I right to protest this surprise bondage or was the DM springing a happy surprise on us the players? I leave the judgement up to you

The Game Itself back from nowhere

Dear Supreme Altar Boy Hurwitz and evermore so Sumpemest Priests and Priestess of the High Crit. I come to you today to ask for forgiveness, whenever I go to make a character if I feel the start roles are severely lacking I might re-roll some of them to fit a better character, and other times if I feel all the rolls are lacking I might just reroll my stats all together regardless of how my DM wants us to roll. I must say that I never do it to make a broken character build I like playing to the character rather than to the meta however I feel that that does not pardon me by itself and I ask for your judgment and leave my fate in your hands.

Alex W

May it please the elevated and exalted court, and also I guess baliff Jake if it has to, I present an update on Shrek the Rogue It turns out that Shrek the rogue might be the least of my problems. My party is made up of, of course, Shrek the rogue, but also a self described “gigantic nerd and indoor kid ” pink tiefling artificer named Kirby and a dwarven cleric who’s just a grad student looking for a PhD advisor. In our first session, Shrek started a bar fight and then threatened to sue the bartender. Kirby, the alchemist, loves to do acid splash and melt peoples faces, and marina, our lovely cleric, has a signature move of doing create water inside peoples lungs. So Shrek the rogue stands, but I might be politically murdering Fiona in the future, Gemma style. Did I mention that Shrek is 45 years old and divorced?

Max Johnson

To the grand priests and priestesses of the church of dice Christ. I have a confessional and beg to be bathed in the warm dice filled water of the crit. I have been DMing for nearly 3 years and I constantly steal ideas and mechanics from NADDPOD and D20. This had been weighing on me for a while but my girlfriend has been listening to NADDPOD and whenever she comes to something I have borrowed razzes me for it. I beg for forgiveness and to have this eight lifted from my shoulders. Thank you.

John

To the awesome Crit Justices, and the pretty okay bailiff. May it please the court, I present the case of the ballista vs the stairs. A few years back the fighter dwarf in our party thought it was a good idea to try and carry a heavy ballista throughout the dungeon the mad mage note we were only around 2 levels into this long dungeon, so myself and the rest of the party refused to help cause, it would be a burden and most of us didnt have the strength to. Also we had no ammunition for it and no way of getting some. so he sought help from an npc then once we hit the first set of stairs our fighter looked at us to help him and the npc carry this down. We said no, he decided to try to bring it down anyway and it resulted in the npc getting crushed and runover by the ballista since that day the fighter has blamed me and the rest of the party for the mans death while we say we had no need for the ballista in the first place. So I place the judgment in your hands oh great justices. Side note the DM was on our side in this situation.

Ophelia Black

Hi Jake and the other guys! I recently started running a homebrew campaign. To add some flair to combat, I added in a mechanic that basically amounts to “you have to convince a divine creature of their humanity before you can kill them”. I introduced this mechanic to them by having them play a round of Family Feud against the first enemy and the PCs that had been charmed by him. This was not accepted “well” by my party and they razzed me mercilessly for it. They said it didn’t fit inside of a D&D game and I should’ve picked another system. Do I deserve my razzing?

mary

To the wonderful justices and the equally wonderful bailiff - I’ve been playing in a campaign for about a year and my party was on a quest to retrieve some lost artifacts from an underwater temple. While there, we encountered a creature that turned people into stone as well as the people turned to stone. One of the party members got turned to stone anticlimactically by one of the stoned people, and after lots of deliberation, my character decapitated the now-stoned party member, giving him a more heroic death. However, after this happened, the DM revealed that the PC, since not turned by the original creature, would have turned back into a person in 48 hours. We likely would’ve been gone from the fortress by then, and the player has assured me he is okay with the way his character’s story ended, but I still feel very bad about it. Am I in the wrong for trying to give this character a more heroic death, or should myself and the other PCs have worked harder to find another solution? P.S. the turned PC would attack us any time we came near, so simply bringing him up on the ship was not a very viable solution.

whosthekoon

To the mighty and powerful supreme crits,and bailiff joke,may it please the court,I present the case of the granny brothel and the orc camp. My half orc barbarian stopped at a brothel and had an orgy with a group of grandma's led by an npc named gma sticky. Outside of town my party encountered an orc camp,and through shenanigans my character became the chef of the camp,this is where the trouble started, my PC told the orc camp about his experience with GMA sticky and the dm ruled that since these were "Warhammer" orcs they wouldn't condone intercourse with humans,let alone grandma's and thus had the entire camp turn on me and kill my PC,no saving throws,no chance to survive. Was I wronged for this,or was I in the wrong for having a grandma orgy and telling an orc war camp about it. I humbly await your judgement.

Whitney Ahn

May it please the Court and also the Sad Baliff Jack, A long time ago during my first session as a DM, a player cast darkness while escaping. Later, while the darkness was still up, another player tried to dash away from my bad guy while my bad guy was on the edge of the darkness. The player was in the light. My player said they shouldn’t get an opportunity attack because my baddie couldn’t see, and the rules of opportunity attacks mandate that you be able to see the person leaving your threatened area, but the player was in the light. Does the darkness spell make the enemy unable to see anything even outside of the area of the spell itself?

Robert Nielsen

Esteemed Justices of the Crit and the superlatively esteemed Baliff Jake, I present the case of Shots fired from the Crows Nest. Our DM has had us out to sea for a week. On the 6th day, my rogue decided to take his recently acquired crossbow for some much needed target practice. The distance I could safely hit was 30 feet. But firing from the Crows Nest was increased to 60 feet. In hindsight I feel that that was a bit excessive, since the distance from the deck to the Crows Nest if I remember correctly was about 50 feet. Wouldn't gravity have decreased the difficulty especially fired at an angle to magical targets, even if the Crows Nest was 60 feet up? Also: SHOUT OUT TO THE TWOCREW! Represent!!

Josh

May it please the court and the unduly harassed bailiff, in a recent session, my character was charmed, preventing me from attacking one of a group of foes we were in combat with. I play a fighter/ Paladin with the battle master martial archetype. One of the maneuvers I employ is the commander’s strike, letting me give one of my attacks to an ally. Since I couldn’t make attacks on the enemy I was currently facing (the one who had charmed me), I gave our gunslinger an attack and they fired upon them. My DM wasn’t happy with this workout around, but since there is nothing mechanically preventing another player from attacking the creature I was charmed against, she let it fly. My question is this: should being charmed have prevented me from giving someone else an opportunity to attack that creature that had done the charming and would commanders strike count as an ability that inherently has a negative affect on the creature? Really, our gunslinger could have attacked anyone. Furthermore, in general how should charmed be handled in combat? It seems silly I could then just start attacking their companions, but again, nothing mechanically prevents me from doing so. I feel like it comes down to how you want to handle the role play.

Alfie Wild

Dearest Dice Christ, I await your swift justice. One of my players gained an eye of true site, as part of a bargain with their patron, as they multiclassed from paladin into warlock. The eye is bad ass, and they have used it to it's fullest. Recently they was in an old university that is on lockdown, from a large scale demon invasion. now here's the issue that I seek your guidance in, the headmaster was an Ilithid lich, and in my homebrew world they are from the distant future, and have massively developed technology far beyond the material plane. The headmaster cast used true polymorph and a drone/projector set up to mask their appeared - like Mysterio in no way home. I justified this in my head that true sight allows to see though magic, and this wasn't magic it was technology? Was I being unfair? Even though the survived the encounter as the lich escaped I still feel bad. I let them keep a single cube of this technology to use as they please?

Alex

Dearly esteemed Justices and the kinda honorable Baliff, I bring to you a question of DM discretion. My players were traipsing through a manor house belonging to an eccentric dog thief. One room was filled with knickknacks and some "magic" items on display. I gave several hints that there were forgeries on display. One item broke and surrounding lesser trinkets were revealed to be counterfeit. I intended to have one magic item in the bunch (Ioun Stone). However, my players scooped the items without examining them and that's where we ended the session. It would've been funny to fake them out in one single session, but now I feel like the reveal will be mean-spirited, so I've decided to make all the magic items real. They're all pretty powerful too. Did I make the right choice to preserve the sacred bond of trust between player and DM or should I have stuck to my guns and kept the items as fakes?

jada

Honorable judges and however we’re feeling about the baliff today. I’m bringing a case today of the Fighter/Sorcerer vs the Maze spell. During combat my character got the Maze spell cast on her. Since my character has a +0 to intelligence, it would take a Nat 20 to be released from the spell as written. After a few failed attempts, I remembered that my character had the Banishment spell. I asked the DM if I could cast it on myself and be back on the material plane (since the Maze was technically a demiplane). The DM said no, and I was out for the rest of combat. Honorable justices, should I have been able to banish myself back to the material plane?

Fuzzboxx

Hello Honorable Justices and Jack. I bring you the case of the deadbeat dad. I run a campaign for a few friends and family. My cousin joined the campaign a while back and essentially his backstory was "my 6 year old son was kidnapped, I wish to save him". I thought this was great as it was really easy to blend into my world, and as he is a dad in real life I thought it would push him into action. 6 months into joining the campaign my cousin finally told the group that he was looking to save his son. The group was baffled that this was not mentioned previously or why it wasn't a high priority. I was the only person beside my cousin who knew his backstory up until this point. My cousin's response was "we will get to it when we get to it" There was not more pressing matters. After a year and a half of adventuring they finally found where his son was captured and saved him. He showed no happiness or excitement once the boy was free. Immediately my cousin's character showed disinterest for the small child and wished to pawn him off at an orphanage, a random person in any town, or a even a wizard school, literally anything so he didn't have to take care of him. The group was baffled by his reaction, so I have forced the small boy to travel with them and made him an integral part to the campaign, I have made it so that many answers to great mysteries in the campaign can be resolved if my cousin's character will just show the small boy a modicum of affection. This has yet to occur in 6 months since his saving. I need advice on how to get my cousin's character (who he chose to make a dad) actually be a dad in game, am I burdening the entire group because of my cousin's deadbeat dad character? Should I let the boy be put in an orphanage? How would you handle this situation?

William James

Most benevolent justices and existent bailiff, I'm playing in a campaign with a hypercapitalist setting as a Kenku Ranger named Dictated But Not Read. Kenku can only communicate verbally through mimicry, so to get around this, my character has a notepad and pen for short messages. I passed a note, in character, to another player to help with a puzzle, but the player said I shouldn't be able to say anything because it wasn't a phrase I had seen written. There was a brief discussion about if it should be allowed, and the DM ruled in my favor. My question is this: should Kenku be allowed to write to communicate? If so, is it limited only to things you read?

Maxwell Keiles

To the hardworking bailiff and the Bourgeoisie judges he serves. I have come to turn myself in. In my campaign, I thought it would be interesting to give the deck of many things to a low-level party to see what would happen. Turns out, luck was on their side, and they pulled the fate card. They instantly started to speculate on all of the ways they could mess up my story. To account for this, I set up a hostage situation with their favorite npc that would almost certainly get him killed, hoping they would use this card to bring him back, but they are still saving it. I now feel bad that I have made this sacrifice for nothing and tried to take away their agency. I will accept any punishment you deem necessary.

Waddle Bawddle

Oh great and powerful Justices and that other guy, I come to you seeking forgiveness from Dice Christ. I am DMing a homebrew Witcher esque game set in the Wild West. On one contract one of my players died to a vampire and in doing so, 2 out of the 4 party members (not including the dead PC) helped turn him into a full on vampire. The third player’s character was a priest and could not be apart of a party with a vampire. So the character left. The player rolled up a new character for the next session and had no problems IRL with it. But, the thing is, I added an extra vampire right at the end because they whooped the first one so quickly. And that second vampire got a PC killed. I humbly beg for forgiveness as it still haunts me to this day. I always try to remember, What Would Dice Christ Do; WWDCD. Thank you all.

Thundermammal

I have a confession for Dice Christ, I started a campaign with a DM that was new to dnd. Towards the end of an early session we were surrounded and confronted by the BBEG (kind of a meet the person you will eventually have to fight when you're stronger situation). The high level warlock grabbed me and used "Hurl through Hell" for about 60 damage (seemed like it was meant to be a show of force or something). At first I thought he was killing my character but then he described how I "fell unconscious". I corrected him saying how I was "super dead" as I only had about 20 max HP at the time. The damage was well more than double that. The DM looked shocked and horrified before stuttering that it was... Uh... Non lethal damage. I accepted his decision as 1) I got to keep my character and 2) he seemed pretty embarrassed not to have known the rule and I didn't want to make it a thing. We went on to play many more sessions, but I can't help but feel guilty that Dice Christ should have taken a soul that day and my paladin is living a dishonest life. I understand using non-lethal damage in the context of fighting with weapons but how do you hurl something through hell or cast a fireball "non-lethally"? Did I betray dice christ by allowing myself to benefit from this ruling?

lawless-crows

Bard v Piss Kettle Cleric Star signs: Scorpio sun, capricorn moon, libra rising vs. sagittarius sun, taurus moon, aquarius rising To the most lovely and righteous Supreme Crit Justices and the quaint and somewhat-likeable Bailiff. In a first time campaign, our cleric decided to relieve himself in a kettle when the bathroom had no toilet, and jokingly took it with him. As punishment, the DM would not let him drop it or use it as a weapon until the player rolled a nat 1 on certain checks or saves. The more long and short rests we took, the more dice damage the explosion would cause. During a large combat encounter where everyone else was dropped except for my Bard, Ren, the Cleric rolled a nat 1 on his death save, releasing the toxic piss and killing 6 guardsmen, only a luck check saving the other party members from being covered in the 7+ day old piss. My bard became traumatized of piss and kettles, but the Cleric reflavored to be a Piss Cleric instead of a Life Cleric. Anytime we were healed, we had a contested roll to not smell like piss. My bard would roleplay a scared reaction (the cleric continually moving the spiritual weapon purposefully towards me, me moving my character away even if taking opportunity attacks), and my cleric got so annoyed he tried throwing my character down the stairs. Another contested roll, he got a nat 1, I, a nat 20. He took a good amount of damage, as we were in a very tall castle trying to find the final boss. For the rest of the evening the cleric was annoyed (shall I say, pissy), and we still argue lightly about this scuffle Was it right for the cleric to be upset with my bard? Can we lay this petty argument to rest? I humbly await the crit court judgement

Caitrin

High Clerics of the Church of Dice Christ and Choir Boy/Baliff Jake, I come to you for guidance in interpreting Dice Christ’s wisdom. I am usually a player, but like to run one shots for my friends (especially my DMs) on a fairly regular basis. I am always careful to balance my CRs for the party size and level, player experience, and the general vibe they party will likely enjoy the most. However, when rolling as a DM— I have found that I crit on my players at the worst times. Forever DM finally getting to play a high level bard using his only 7th level spell? How about a 26 on my fiend’s Wisdom save. First time players learning classes and systems? Crit to grapple AND to swallow. Most recently, my friend’s 15 year old niece. You bet your ass I crit on her level 3 PC. I am soft of heart and weak of will so I fudge these rolls in my players’ favor when it seems like a crit would ruin their fun, but I beg of you, oh interpreters of Dice Christ’s will: why is Dice Christ demanding a blood sacrifice of my friends’ PCs in low stakes games? Why does He force my merciful hand? What does our Lord and Savior require of me? I beg your forgiveness and guidance for denying His Will.

Chrys

Dear Justices and the Baliff. My party is nearing the end of a 3 year level 3-20 campaign. They have so much truly at this point that there’s so much faster fights than ever before. Do I need to make sure our fights last as long as they once did with exponential Health Point gain for my big bads? Or make them feel like they should be gods at every encounter. This campaign is in its final arc

Corey Herold

Esteemed Justices and Lovely and amazing Bailiff Jake, I present the case of Dirty rouge combat. I have a homebrew game that was started in December of last year, a couple friends of mine brought in this guy who specifically wants to play rouge all the time. I thought everything was gonna be okay with him being a rouge but combat just hasn't been very fun with him in the mix. Either it gets cut off really short or no one can do anything except him, who does sneak attack with every chance he gets. Now don't get me wrong I know that rouges can play this way but it just hasn't been a good time for me or the other players, im not sure what I should do about this but I'm leaning towards having to kill of his character or something else. Is this wrong of me to kill off his character or should I scale up the combat a bit so we have more chances. I await your judgment 😊

Theo Englund

May it please the court, and satisfy the bailiff: I bring to you the case of the Frozen Tiefling Girlfriend. A while back I was playing a 5e campaign with my friends. I played a Revenant Cleric named Vigil, and I met a tiefling named Lark while in a town. We had a bit of romance and ended up kissing in front of a fountain, and fell in, just cute, sappy stuff then fade to black. However, one of my friends wanted to freeze the water while we were under it as a “prank.” I didn’t want my character to get too stuck, so I asked our DM if we could do a check to stand up beforehand so at least it would just be our legs stuck. My friend accused me of metagaming and the DM ended up agreeing, and my character almost died. It ended up fine, but after that session three people quit and the DM ended up ending the campaign. My question is was it really metagaming and should I have not spoken up? I humbly await your decision.

VoxFantasma

If it please the court and the diminutive Bailiff, I present the case of Kella and the Flinstone flying Car: My party and I were on the Plain of Air with home brewed physics where we willed ourselves to move. We were trying to find a way to transport ourselves safely without my halfling Kella, the lone wizard, using too many spells ahead of potential combat, when I came up with an idea. There were large random rocks floating everywhere, so I suggested using shape stone to effectively create a Flinstone style car to keep us from getting separated. By the logic presented, I figured we could use a psychic powered car to avoid separation and debris. Everyone roasted me and my DM would have no part of my “tomfoolery.” It’s been a year and they still joke me sometimes (all in good fun), but I beseech the court whether this idea made sense and if I should’ve been allowed to roll to make it happen? I prostrate myself before you for judgement, may Dice Christ be with you.

troutbumhole

What's up Jake, who are these clowns in the robes? (please keep my name anonymous) Anyway, we've been having weekly sessions finally after tons of scheduling conflicts. One of our friends brought along his very annoying girlfriend who has her phone out the whole session and has her bf "handle" her character sheet. In other words, he plays her character pretty much since she rarely gets involved in the rp aspect. In one of our other sessions, they suddenly had to leave in the middle of combat which is fine, we could just pick it up again next session, but after they stepped out our other friend said he saw her texting her bf "I'm bored can we go" before the boyfriend suddenly put on a concerned face and left for seemingly alarming circumstances. How do we tell our whipped compadre to stop bringing his gf? Love you guys, been a day won since day one for naddpod!! Razzing is also my love language so my heart is always full of love listening to the cast. Thank you!!

emilythecoffeewench

To the righteous Crit Justices and the venerable Bailiff, I present my a case with my beloved DM's permission. At 5th level, we battled some tweens and one of them crit on my vampire party member with guiding bolt. She dropped, no death saves, taking double because it was radiant. She was also our cleric so no one could bring her back. She was eventually brought back through Frankenstein fuckery though. However! During another battle, my dm tried to kill a beloved npc but had the insta-kill rules slightly wrong. He thought you needed negative half their max HP instead of negative their total max HP. I spoke up, but my dm and the player behind the vampire disagreed. I did not think I was wrong so I looked it up, spoke up again, and sent a quote explaining the rule. It was awkward as we realized that our vampire shouldn't have died all those months ago. The npc lives on, but I feel bad correcting my dm. Should I have done that or accepted my dm's different death rules? I await your judgement

David Goertsen

To the most exalted judges and Amir's lesser half, I bring to you the case of dummy surprise. In my last session, I was DMing a contest where players were accumulating points by impressing an audience (with each feat represented by a roll). One of the contests was who could do the most damage to a inanimate dummy. One of the players climbed into the ceiling and, on their turn, asked if they could have a surprise round because the dummy wouldn't know what was coming. This would have doubled their damage. I insisted that inanimate things cannot be surprised, especially in the middle of initiative, but a lengthy (very amicable) discussion followed. Was I wrong to rule against them?

Armadon the only

Update: Dino Druid To the judges three and the man who does the work of three, Bailiff/Clerk of court Jake. I want to start by saying i hate how i painted my friend. He isn’t 8 but is a midmaxer that said he would do alot of damage as a raptor. Anyway the update is, i held to my plans, not telling him to wait. Until, I gave him what he wanted in the dumbest way ever. I forced the players into a Land of the Lost Scenario (theme song included) dropping them over a waterfall and into dino infested lost continent. The conclusion was even dumber as the PC wake up to discovered the landed on a massive red dragon head and the adventure they ran through was a dream projected by this monster that was being mentally attacked by a 3e Epic creature called a dream larva. Inside the dream the PC helped the dragons subconscious to fight it off and when the beast awoke it told them he was MagnaKhan one of the Studs if Tiamat and reluctantly granted them a boon. At the end i told my friend he could now change into dinosaurs and responded “i never should have made a stink” The end

Marina S

Honourable Justices and the always-welcome-to-provide-order-to-any-Canadian-court Bailiff Jake, I present to you the case of the “Neglected Cleric”. I was playing in my first real campaign with a 6 person party in a homebrewed city-focused campaign, where long rests were few and far between. I was asked by my DM and other party members to play a cleric to be their defensive buffer / healer. I very enthusiastically took on the role, and I built a Halfling who was a bookish text-book carrying knowledge cleric who worked at the local museum. I was looking forward to using my skills to support my party. However, in nearly every fight, by the time it came around to my turn 1) no one wanted or needed buffing, 2) the Paladin or Bard already healed someone, 3) the sorcerer already buffed someone, or 4) someone took a potion from the party bag that I was literally left holding. I built my character and stocked spells according to being a defensive player/ healer so I wasn’t very strong, and often didn’t have enough offensive positions to take. I tried pulling more Band of Boobs shenanigans or be more strategic with fighting and often my DM or other players would discourage me by saying “that’s not how that works”. In addition to this when I would find the special “magic item”, I asked if I could keep it to help in battle, my DM would say “I made it for x person”. Eventually I asked my DM if they could make me a magic item I could find and use, they said “maybe eventually”. Scheduling and the pandemic eventually ended the campaign, for which I am kind of grateful. However it still bugs me I couldn’t use my character to their fullest potential. Justices I ask you, am I wrong in thinking I was being neglected by my party? Or should my DM and party have given me more of an opportunity to live up to the role they assigned me? I humbly wait your decision.

Hardtooth unsureleg

Dear justices and the lord of the floor bailiff Jake Recently my party was in a thunder dome like bar fight in witch they were engaging in a fight with a keg golom and a caldron born . The bard of the group, bradly snug a teifling, attempted to use his mage hand to distract the keg from a downed teammate. This would have been fine but the way the set the scene was to “ fondle and group the kegs tap” I ( the dm ) said that he just gave him a slap on the face. The party was in a fit after that and demanded me to make the balls be held like a trophy. Was I right to deny the tap tappers of their saucy plot?

John Martinell

May it please the extremely honorable justices and aggressively mediocre bailiff. I present the case of the The Un-Allowed Help Action. I play with a DM who will not allow help actions on skill checks unless the helping player also has proficiency in the skill they are attempting to help with. But is also the type of DM that will not reveal critical information on a failed check. For example, a player who was a wizard needed to do an Arcana check to get some critical information in a campaign we were playing. I, a monk, asked if I could give the help action and was denied because I did not have proficiency in Arcana. However, I did not have a negative in Intelligence. I gave the argument that I could offer even the slightest amount of help which would still make the task easier on the Wizard. Even using the defense of, as a child, helping your dad work on the car, while knowing nothing about working on cars. Holding the flashlight made his task easier. And yet I was still denied. Am I right that any help is better than no help? Or is my DM right that you have to know about the task to be able to accomplish the task even if you are just helping? I leave this in your tough but fair hands!

DowdMusic

To the honorable high Crit, and that scruffy little naked guy down there. I write to you today about the case of the OP scrub! This occurred during a one-off downtime session that I ran with my 3.5 group inspired by the 8 Bit Book Club MONSTER MADNESS and the NADDPOD ROMP IN THE SWAMP scrub matches. I let each of my PCs choose 2 creatures level 2 or lower. One of my PCs choose a bird that had a charm ability that simply couldnt be beaten. This charisma laden bird was invulnerable as it charmed everyone away from attacking it. As time went on I could tell there was an imbalance and my other players also noted as such. Eventually we pulled out the books and found out that the bird was a challenge rating of 3 not 2. While this isn't much of a difference overall, it seemed to make the difference in the scrub match. However, at this point the scrub melee was more than half over. Other scrubs were also doing cool and hilarious moves, and players were having fun, but this impervious magic god bird was never going to die. This bird would be the scrub champion, it got past the regulations and now it was unstoppable. Not knowing what to do - I just kept playing on. One player was visibly and vocally upset about the overpowered bird, but I just brought up that these scrubs arent the players actual PCs or related in anyway. Regardless, the last 3 rounds of the scrub fight when the bird killed the last combatants 1 by 1 was not the best time. I ask you should I have halted the fight hours in and made the player with the OP bird find a new combatant? Should I have just retroactively nerfed the bird? Or is this all the PCs fault?

Alex Weatherhead

To the incorruptible and winsome Supreme Crit Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner; as well as the under-appreciated Bailiff Jank, I present the case, Sullivan v. Ivan. In a week where not everyone in our party could make it to a session, our DM offered to run a one-shot for those available. I (Taurus) created a human film noir detective character named Don Sullivan, Private Investigator. I encouraged one of my friends (Gemini) who sometimes plays with the group to join us and gave him the character prompt. He showed up to the session with a lizardfolk monk/rogue multi class he named Donsull Ivan, Private Investment Gator. At first I laughed at the play on words but then I realized he intended to play his whole character as a joke. He tried to throw the riches he established in his backstory at every problem despite not having any money on his character sheet. Then as we got into combat he went down twice from opportunity attacks as he tried to zoom around the battlefield doing stunts and crawling around on the ceiling instead of fighting the person in front of him. I get playing a goofy character for a one-shot, but this was ridiculous. I implore you, please punish my friend.

Allison Shaw

May it Please the Court and it’s most esteemed Supreme Crit Justices Axeford, Tanner and Murphy, and slightly less esteemed Bailiff Jake: My DM will occasionally run one-shots, but we no longer have a regular campaign. Often, they are RP-heavy quests where one tiny move, such as stepping in the wrong puddle means eventual, unavoidable death for the entire party. For example, we walked into standing water to fight a monster that and the water turned out to be cursed and caused us to unknowingly murder innocents, then be executed for our crimes. Recently we played a quest that, had the entire party not rolled dogshit on LITERALLY every important investigation/perception check, we may have been able to solve it. But we did roll dogshit (or rather the app rolled dogshit for us) When you get to the point where your players can’t even get the information that would make it winnable… shouldn’t you start giving them clues, or at the very least, lower the DC? I’m so tired of putting all this care into creating an interesting PC, only to for the DM to tell us how we die and there’s nothing we can do, because we failed a check from 3 hours ago. Am I being ungrateful? I know DMing is a lot of work!

Luciana

Jivey justices & ballin Bailiff, I’d like to present the case of the lactose intolerant paladin. I am a very big fan of giving characters dietary restrictions & likes & dislikes since I feel that it helps flesh out characters in a fun way & can lead to some silly rp. In a recent campaign wanted my paladin to be lactose intolerant for funsies. Later in the campaign our DM had us set to drink a holy milk to join a fey fighting crew & I made a joke about being lactose intolerant. This led to a good natured debate where my dm claimed since I was a paladin & immune to disease, I would no longer be lactose intolerant. The fey crew were able to secure me a nut milk alternative but it was an interesting debate with no clear conclusion so I ask y’all, does being immune to disease act as lactaid? Further could paladin cleansing powers act as Epi pens?

James Ekstrom

Esteemed justices of the court and the soon-to-be-vindicated but currently lowly bailiff Jake. I am submitting an amicus brief based on recently established precedent in the court, which I think will settle an old dispute arising from no other game than the one conducted by the justices and lowly bailiff Jake, specifically campaign 2 of naddpod. I am of course referring to the question of “is Hank Hogfish hot?”. The bailiff was routinely razzed through the course of campaign 2 for allegedly “walking back” the initial ugly character he designed in order to make him more hot. HOWEVER - the bailiff only introduced Henry as “Medium”. While in our world, it’s true, “Medium” may as well be pretty ugly - it has now been established by a previous case of this court that “on average, people in fantasy worlds are all hot”! This means to be a “medium” person in a fantasy setting such as Eldermourne, would in fact mean that hank is well within his rights to be hot. I rest my case, fully knowing that going this hard in favor of the bailiff and against the justices of the court will at best result in me being thoroughly razzed and most likely dis-barred, but such is the price of justice.

Snugglegurts

Not sure if this is for dice Christ or the Magnificent Judge's and the other guy. I was working some jobs taking care of houses and animals last summer. Hours were all over the place. To keep my group together I would join our voice chat from the car while driving. I had my dice and important stats with me while driving and would indeed roll and do sessions while in the car. At one point I stopped at a drive through and couldn't shut off the chat so my group heard me order a 10 piece during an emotional RP moment with the groups cleric and their family. I was not informed when we would play next and a group of 6 people ghosted me. Idk who to ask frogiveness from. But I await any judgement given prostrate as is tradition.

jared laban

To the esteemed bailiff Jake and the other three he keeps around for entertainment. I present the case of the stolen surprise. Recently I ran a Greek Themed one shot for a group of friends, with hope it expanded into a mini campaign in the future. At the end of the game I rewarded my players with a free pull from the deck of many things. One of my players pulled a card that would not instantly be noticeable in game. So I gave them a small hint in the form of a strange symbol appearing on the back of their hand. But while my back was turned one of the other players googled all the cards in the deck and told the player what it was ruining the surprise. Should I allow this behaviour at my table or was this a clear violation of both my trust and the very core of d&d itself. I await your fine judgment.

Gillian Chu

To the honorable justices and gentle bailiff, I humbly ask for your judgment. I play a wizard in my current campaign which has five first time players and a first time DM. I rolled remarkably well and so have surprisingly strong health stats. We’re maybe twenty sessions in now, but as a group we’re still learning how to work together. Back when we were around level 3, we ended up fighting an owl bear by surprise. The party was indecisive about whether to fight or retreat, which ended up with the encounter continuing on for much longer than it should have. I suggested several times that we should either leave or all fight together, but although the others had left, one player, a Dragonborn fighter, refused to retreat. He had said several times that he wanted to be our team tank. But at this point he had blown through his spell slots and was having a very difficult time tanking against an owl bear. After this player almost died twice despite absorbing all of our Druid’s healing, I ended up running all the way back into the room and stepping in to absorb hits using my shield reaction, and together we were able to defeat what remained of the owlbear’s health. But I felt really bad about taking over the tank role this player obviously wanted to play. I talked to the DM after, and he said the Dragonborn fighter player had brought this on himself by trying to play a superhero and mismanaging his spell slots, which I thought was a little harsh. But, justices, I felt conflicted between what was best for the party and how to help this player have fun! What is the right thing to do in this situation? I humbly look forward to your moral guidance and judgment.

LeCurve52

To the high and honorable Supreme Crit Justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy as well as any lowly court employees who might also be in the room, I guess, I humbly submit for your adjudication the case of the Undiplomatic Paladin. In my Curse of Strahd campaign, my Reborn wizard was killed by the monster hunter Van Richten after pretending to be a monstrous servant of Strahd to distract a vampire spawn. Honesty, not my brightest moment. My new character, the wizard’s son, is a rune knight fighter who was on a quest to avenge his father, even though he knew that it was kinda his dad’s fault that he died. Our party tracked down Van Richten and my fighter killed him in one on one combat. In his inventory, we found a scroll of raise dead, and one of our NPC friends convinced us to revive him so that we could use him in our fight against Strahd. My fighter brought Van Richten back and the two were able to make peace. The problem is that our Oath of Vengeance Paladin is constantly arguing with Van Richten about how he owes us for bringing him back to life. Van Richten, as well as my fighter and the rest of our party, argue that it was his scroll and we killed him, so at best we were even. This has caused some issues with getting Van Richten to lend us aid since he and the Paladin hate each other. My question for y’all is whether or not or Paladin is right and Van Richten should be grateful to us, or is his stubbornness costing us a necessary ally?

Canny Archer

May it please the court, the most honourable judges and dishonorable bailiff. I come with a tale of child endangerment. I am the DM of a homebrew campaign where my players interacted with children NPCs based loosely on the Baker Street irregulars from Sherlock Holmes. At one point my players went to fight a reskinned Strahd and two of the children asked to go with them. As my players and their characters are all reasonable adults, my expectation was the players would tell them no. They did not. As such, a group of adventurers tromped through Barovia with two children, one of which got turned into a werewolf and almost died. My players insist this was my fault for RPing the children as wanting to go with them, but I stand by it being their choice which I had not anticipated. I ask the court, who is at fault for the NPC child endangerment, me or my players? I humbly await the court's judgement.

Reverence Rogue

Dear honorable justices and wise priests of the supreme Crit I have sinned. I have played the last few years in a series of games with my partner as the DM, and brother and sister in law and our best friends as players. Over covid we switched our games to online and I've gotten into a terrible habit of fudging my rolls. I have been blessed that I often roll very VERY well during our online games, often not rolling below a natural 14 for a whole session. Being online it didn't feel the same to celebrate these blessed rolls as when we were together, but felt more like everyone else was always rolling poorly and would feel bad about it. I felt guilty for never failing checks or attacks so I started lowering my rolls so I would miss or get stuck in traps etc. As we return to the game table together can I be forgiven for these sins as I was just trying to make the game feel more fun and fair for my friends? I humbly await your judgment.

Edge Grinder

To the most high-level Supreme Crit Justices, and the mid-level bailiff, I am running a Final Fantasy/Fire Emblem Three Houses crossover campaign and have four consistent players who are always there. I've had a few other players come and go due to real-life time constraints and such. One player has been in and out twice but wasn't very attentive when they were in. They wanted to make a new character after they came back which I was okay with since their first character didn't fit the setting too well and also, their baggage with the character outside the campaign. Their second character was an odd choice but worked a little better, but as before they were not very attentive and missed a lot of role-play moments and usually had no idea what was going on despite summaries. They left the game again and I'm not wanting to welcome them back since they were hardly present for an activity they seemed to want to do. Am I in the wrong for not leaving a revolving door for this player? -Dave

Nicholas

May it please the court and of course the medium bailiff Jake. I run a home game for a group of 6. We are all good friends and they love playing. However, I've been getting a little annoyed recently because none of them can remember anything about their characters or the basic mechanics of the game. We have gone through Waterdeep Dragon Heist and a number of one shots so it's not like they are brand new to this game. I constantly have to remind them how to make any kind of saving throw or even what to add when they make an attack for example. In our last session it all came to a boil when one of my players got upset because I "forgot to tell them about a mechanic" they could have used on their turn. I broke and asked the player to step behind the screen for a moment to take a look at all the NPCs, monsters and lair actions I had to keep track of by myself. I told them if they think remembering halflings get to reroll 1s they should try DMing. I was heated and we ended the session there. Did I potentially coddle my players to much? Is this my fault? How to I get my players to remember basic mechanics so I can focus on what I need to focus on?

Kenan Kimbrough

To the most venerable judges and to Tucker if you could give him my number, I present my case. My gf and I were visiting friends when they invited us to do a one-off dungeon as part of a campaign they play weekly. I knew most of the party before the campaign, only meeting to be introduced to one other player. The DM explained to my gf and I before the session that our child had been kidnapped (in game), and our mission was to find him and other missing kids. When our characters met the characters in the party, everyone was willing to help us find the children, except the person I did not know before hand. They explained to the party that they were already on a quest and didn't want to get sidetracked. The party then completed their original quest while my gf and I sat and watched. Judges, I can respect someone doing their job, but was the party right to invite us to play just to ditch us and our in game child for loot? P. S. I am a Cancer to everyone I know, gf is a Taurus, and dissenting party member is a Scorpio. Thank you.

JayCastle

Dear enlightened supreme crit justices Tanner, Murphy, Axford, and the truly lowly Tartarus residing balif Jake, I present to you, the case of the bad roleplay. I was a first-time DM trying to get a group of my friends to run a completely homebrew Pokémon campaign. I devised stats for every Pokémon they trained and also encountered custom fit for their supposed adventure. However, without asking one of the players (player A) decided to invite one of his friends (player b) without asking. Now, I was at least friendly acquaintances with Player b but it threw off my whole planning. When asked what kind of character they wanted to be, they said simply “a pirate”. I informed them that **becoming** a pirate could be part of their quest and why they went on their adventure in the first place and they agreed. The bad roleplay happens in our first session, as I go introducing the characters, his first words after a very quiet and long pause were “ahoy I am a pirate” throwing all my planning out the window. The rest of the session was met with the other 3 players (a, c, and d) role playing excellently while player b just gave me stagnated lines with awkward pauses and did not “yes and”, they also fudged their rolls and left the session early. After the horrid experience I had, I decided not to DM for them anymore but focus on a more personal one-on-one campaign with my wife. Judges and baliff, I come to you asking: Was it wrong for me to disband the group after having a bad experience? If I am in the wrong, I wish for the judges to sentence me to the most cruel and unusual punishment but if I am in the right, please spare the player who did not intend their actions.

Andrew E

Beloved and honorable judges of the crit, and the silly little bailiff, I present to you a familiar case: I play dnd with a total asshole. I play in a campaign with some coworkers, most of whom are fun to play with. We recently invited another coworker to play with us, since we know he plays dnd. He was excited and came to the game the next week with a filled out character sheet and a smile. His first words were a big red flag. “Just so you guys know, I’m not scared to kill another PC.” Yeah. So We all just laughed it off and played normally. His character was a total edge lord who wouldn’t play along, blah blah blah you all know the type I’m talking about. A couple sessions later we have an intense encounter, in which my character (warlock of the great old one) was told by his patron to sacrifice an enemy and… perform a pretty gruesome ritual. My character, being a good little warlock, did as asked. The new player’s character was a self righteous paladin (big surprise) and immediately attacked my character. The other party members defended me and killed him. After that he never showed up to play again. Now my question is: who is more in the wrong? The player who clearly had no intention of playing along, or my DM who chose to let him play in our game, even after his alarming opening statement? I will gladly hand out whatever punishment you see fit to either (or both).

Zachary Kuhl

May it please the Court. To the distinguished Justices Murph, Axford, and Tanner as well as the lowly yet mildly charming bailiff Jake. In my home campaign my fellow players and I were enjoying a Hot Boy Summer-style mini-arc when it turned out to be the illusion of a false hydra. When we returned to reality to face the creature, our Dragonborn sorcerer, Malone Gold, was swallowed and went down in the stomach of the beast. Our war forged Druid, KAY-Ø asked to use healing word and use his ring of X-ray vision to see through the hydra’s body and “see” his target, but our DM insisted it “didn’t work that way”. We ended up killing the false hydra and rescuing our sorcerer after our Druid wild shaped into a saber tooth tiger and dove into one of its mouths after him, but at one point Malone was 1 death save fail away from perma death so I ask the court, should X-ray vision have allowed KAY-Ø to see through the skin of the false hydra and therefore meet the conditions of healing word? I humbly await your decision.

Jack M

To the might justices of court and the bailiff whose yet to begin his hero’s journey, I ask, would my barbarian who has been fighting with my Wizard and Cleric for months know how their spells work. My DM ruled I couldn’t put a fiend in a guillotine against the wall of the magic circle that prevented him from leaving, while I stood outside it, because my character “would not know how the spell works” wouldn’t I know my Ally’s abilities? I put myself at the mercy of the court

Matthew Gonzalez

May it please the court and the well kept bailiff, I present the case of the charmed orphan. I was playing the the Waterdeep Dragon heist module as a reborn wild magic sorcerer. While out looking for leads on our quest, my party of 2 came across a group of orphans. After an insight check to figure out who had the air of a leader, I walked up to them and began asking questions to the “leader”. After not responding, and shifty, and looking over to her friends. I grew impatient and casted friends on this child. This still didn’t help as the child still wouldn’t talk to me and it only then that one of her friends came up and informed us that the girl was in fact mute and couldnt respond to me. My other party member and DM then erupted in laughter and razzes about charming a child and won’t let me live this down no matter how much I demand too. Please do I deserve to be razzed or was I set up to think I should talk to a mute girl. I accept any and all punishment.

Dave 3D Art

Dice Christ Confessional. 20 years ago I claimed dibs on a health potion, and drank it immediately despite having had full HP. My DM had jars filled with fruit punch for potions, and I was thirsty. Dice Christ forgive me.

qbull

May it please the Court and the Honorable Bailiff (word on the street is he used to do comedy!): My players recently fought an infernal cult, the leader of which wielded a magic trident: it would deal an additional 2d6 fire damage on a hit, nothing crazy. However, once per day, the wielder could forgo that to instead deal as many d6’s of fire damage as they would like, the caveat being the wielder takes that damage as well. The combat was a blast, a player survived a near-lethal strike, and they took the trident for themselves. Here’s where things took a turn for the worse: this weapon was originally designed for the party’s tiefling fighter, as it would pair nicely with their fire resistance. However, the party’s druid will soon have access to the “Investiture of Flame” spell, which grants temporary immunity to fire damage. With this, they could deal a seemingly infinite amount of damage to an enemy once per day. Is there a way I can fix this, or is this my punishment for playing with fire?

Hop The Dancing Rabbit

May it please the Esteemed Judges and the bailiff who is very handsome, I come with an update to the “Mom Parade”, and I seek guidance. First, there was no Mom Parade for Petunia Chitterlinks, for the campaign ended before they could go back to that town. Instead Petunia became a god, killed the embodiments of life and death themselves, and absorbed the island and all of its energy into herself. It was interesting and not how I thought it would go, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about. My brother, the fighter that didn’t help fight a kraken if you remember, felt he was a side character to the campaign of Petunia. I tried to include him in everything, gave him his own magical boons, and even gave him limited wish spells the same as Petunia (that’s how she became a god). I believe the issue is he felt like he didn’t make any decisions, even though I tried to encourage him to and I let him roll for everything even if it seemed impossible. Yet he still just followed Petunia, not really trying to lead when I gave him opportunity to. Was I not making an effort enough to include him? I know petunia did a lot of cool stuff, but I gave him equal opportunity to do said cool stuff. Do you have any recommendations for how I should go about including him in future campaigns?

Yael Wylie

Esteemed justices, possibly esteemed guest justice (I’m gonna guess Jeremy Cobb) and Jake, I bring you the case of the missing daemon. Last summer, I began DMing a game with my longtime game group which was a reskin of Rime of the Frostmaiden set in the universe of His Dark Materials. We have a mulefa (loxodon cleric), a panserbjorn (ice dragonborn barbarian), an alethiometrist (human artificer) and several witch NPCs (druids). The thing my party never quite got the hang of were their daemons, external animal representations of their souls. We reached a point two months in where no one was talking about their daemons anymore, so we ignored the mechanic altogether. These days, they act as if their daemons aren’t there at all. The problem with this is that the Frostmaiden boss battle I have planned, which I wrote when we first started this last year and they are about to reach, involves painful separation from your daemon. I fear my players my revolt if I try to reintroduce a mechanic they have long forgotten. I seek a ruling from the court on what the statute of limitations on cool ideas you have at the start of a campaign is. Thank you!

Andrew E

Your DM made the smart move. I’ve done that as well if a player is being an asshole. I just start attributing their actions to their character. Usually gets them to shut up pretty quick.

Dave 3D Art

It haunted me since I was 9

Audrey

If it pleases the court (or displeases them; I’m not super jazzed about courts right now): I present the case of That Guy. I run a monthly oneshot D&D book club for work in the adult department of my library. We read a book and then play a oneshot session in world of that book. All PCs are level 3, so they can have a little fun but still be easy enough for new players. It goes pretty well. Except for That Guy. Everyone knows a guy like this. He’s bragged that he played D&D with Gary Gygax (at this point I doubt it), says that he’s published articles in D&D magazines, and constantly tries to overrule me when I’m running sessions. He also looks up the stats of the monsters we are playing with, and is pretty good a deducing what I’ve reskinned as a different creature. In our recent session I reskinned and nerfed a displacer beast because it fit well with the story. When I described the creature, I said it was like a panther with loose skin, six legs, and four tails that looked like tentacles. He interrupted my story to interject that it was a displacer beast, that it had two tentacles not four, and that they came from the shoulders not the tail. I literally only made my changes for flavor purposes and wound up in a “well in this game that’s what it looks like” argument with him for 15 minutes, finally changing it because he threatened to complain to my boss. How do I get him to act like a decent human and make the game fun for everyone? Thanks for the help! Oh, also his mom plays in the sessions as well and is amazing. She looks & acts how I picture Meemaw and always plays a Druid :)

Marcus Heer

May it please the three highly honourable, and might I add spellbindingly fragrant judges. I present the case of the open door and genocide. After suffering as a forever DM for a couple years a friend of a friend invited me to play in his first campaign he was starting. I passionately agreed. The world he created was a steampunk world with a faction war of vampires vs werewolves. Our party aligned ourselves with the werewolves and hid in their secret underground society. We had a very wholesome roleplay heavy session where we had a camp out under the stars and all bathed together. Upon returning to the underground society we had found that it had been ambushed by the vampires. The DM’s reasoning for this ambush was that we never explicitly said we closed the entrance behind us when we left. The DM then proceeded to commit mass genocide on these werewolves with only a single wolf surviving. The party then pointed fingers at my character as I was the last one through the entrance so I should have closed it. I, already a little frustrated, rebutted by reminding the party that my character was only 15 years old and they left a 15 year old in charge of protecting the secrecy of an entire civilization. The party continued to blame me in further sessions and eventually the campaign fell apart, never to be finished. To be frank I’m quite glad it fell apart. Was I wrongfully razzed? Was it just to kill off an entire civilization because the players didn’t explicitly say they were closing a door? Or am I just a bitch who should have closed a damn door? I await your judgement. Oh and also Jake, clean it up. It ain’t working

Elana

Grand and esteemed eternally justices..and the other guy, I forget his name, this was my first ever time DMing a campaign, I had played a few but they always died out before we could get far into the story, I had been listening to campaign 1 and was intrigued to bring in the infamous Deck of many things, but the halfling fighter, Regis Phillman, got the card that gave him 50,000 XP and the card that auto levels him up after single handedly winning a fight (to which he shot an old woman commoner in the head) thus creating a huge power imbalance in the party that caused many fights outside the game...it being my first time running a game I pulled back on leveling up Regis to allow the rest of the party to catch up just a little so we could get back to everyone enjoying the game rather than just Regis having fun. Eventually Regis left the table and we carried on with the game but the decision to withhold leveling to one player has felt dirty for years. Was I wrong to tamper with one player's levels to try and ease the tension outside of the game, I humbly await your brutal but just punishment or your kindly forgiveness. P.S. I found out after the game had ended that Regis had been cheating almost the whole game either by lying about nat 20s or adding his modifier twice.

The Fallen Rook

Oh wise Judges and somewhat charismatic Bailiff, I put before you a case of inescapable death. I was playing in an evil campaign, and our party was led by a Minotaur barbarian. We had stumbled upon a large door deep in the underground, and once the Minotaur had walked through, it closed behind him. Myself, being an oathbreaker Paladin who had pledged himself to this Minotaur, did everything I could to get inside the door. The DM pulled the other player out of the room for a private conversation. Upon their return to the table, the doors opened and the Minotaur walked out. I told him I had been trying to open the door, and he told me to try and open it again. It opened, and I was immediately dead. No death saves. Just Power Word Kill. Apparently there was an angry demigod that we disturbed, and he gave the Minotaur a choice. Kill one of his party or he would attack us all. I was furious. My character had just been killed with no conversation between the players or planning at all. Was I wrong for feeling dejected, or should I, as argued by the DM, have understood that this was an evil party in an evil campaign? I will say, my next character was a chaotic evil gnome vampire whose one goal was to follow and annoy the Minotaur for the rest of the campaign. He eventually became one of the group's favorite characters and shows up in every campaign since.

Gort Munchman

In the name of DM, The Nat One, and the Holy Spir-Crit, It has been 10 campaigns since my last confession: I am currently playing in a weekly campaign that started over COVID times. At the time I was in medical school, which was all online due to the pandemic. Since then, I have graduated and am now a full time resident, which means that I am working most weekends when the sessions are usually held, and dropping in and out randomly when I'm free. What this translates to in game is our party of mostly squishy casters losing their only tank, and me missing huge swaths of a custom campaign written by our DM. I feel guilty missing so much lore and messing up any battles the DM sets up, but I have a lot of fun playing when I'm able. None of the players or the DM express any problems with me doing this, but I can't help feeling compelled to drop out and letting someone with more free time take up the post. Should I excommunicate myself from the church of dice christ and leave the table? Or continue to play and ask for His forgiveness? Sincerely, Baffled in Buffalo (p.s. still waiting to see the choo choo crew show up to a Bills game).

Thomas Troy

I humbly crawl to the confessional with a confession for the one and only Dice Christ. The group I DM for is made up of new players and rusty veterans coming out of retirement. In an effort to encourage a more Role-Play heavy game, I introduced them to Inspiration Points. For Jake, who I guarantee doesn't know, Inspiration points let a player cash them in for 1 free re-roll of any dice. Rewarded when ever they do something very creative or Role-Play! One of the Characters is a Mild-Manner Samurai that writes Haikus for the other party members. The first time they did so they were rewarded with Inspiration for the thoughtful gesture. This Character now regularly writes Haikus and is farming inspiration points left and right! Now this poet has a collection of re-rolls at their disposal and can use them to re-roll through any stressful situation. I beg for forgiveness for tipping the scales and upsetting the balance of the sacred Dice Roll, and ask for your guidance in these trying times. Should I stop giving inspiration for these thoughtful Haikus and risk discouraging them in the future?

PineappleLiar

Dearest priests of Dice Christ and esteemed choir boy Jake, forgive me for I have sinned. This crime comes at the final battle of a very long campaign, fighting against a 200 foot tall Robotic Titan hell bent on turning all life into automations. The crime takes place in the final quarter of this pivotal battle for the world, with the entire party heavily wounded from a series of AoE legendary actions. It is at the start of the dragonborn fighter’s turn that I come to a grim realization; I had forgotten to roll Concentration checks for Haste on said fighter. These would have been a pair of DC 20+ Con saves, which my character, a squishy bladesinger, was very unlikely to succeed on. And in the face of those failures, the fighter, who was just about to start his turn, would instead spend it doing nothing. Two small problems with that; first, the BBEG’S turn was right after his, and second, the fighter was standing on the BBEG’s shoulder 200 feet in the air alongside the party’s kitsune monk and also in game girlfriend. If I cut into his turn and failed either check, there was a very real chance that I’d be the direct cause of the fighter’s death, so I stayed quiet. In the end, the battle was won, but at the cost of our cleric’s life. Forgive me for this lapse of honesty at a moment of truth.

Canadian Schubert the Mushroom 🍄

To the blessed clergy, and the one who sullies his hands in the filth of our tales: I seek guidance for whether I should kill a fellow PC. We are four sessions in, and this first time player "Vivik" refuses to stay in the party, preferring to brood in the shadows of the woods. In the first session, I tried to bring the group together by telling them my address. While the rest of the party joined me, Vivik broke into my apartment, stole gold, my spellbook, and my fey artefact that ties me to my Warlock Patron. With a righteous fury, I tracked him down and attempted to knock him out in an attempt to show him actions have consequences, but he continually took the dodge action while telling my female character to "Calm down and stop being so emotional." I want him to have an enjoyable campaign, so my cold and brutal vengeance will be down the line. And usually I'm Emily-level party-focused, but PvP was decreed acceptable in session 0, so I now ask you: Am I walking in Dice Christ's light on my path to someday choke his last death save away? I accept your guidance.

Andrew

May it please the venerable Supreme Crit Justices and the sometimes cool but mostly meh lowly bailiff Jake, I present to you the case of the stolen experience. We recently wrapped a 3 year long brutal Descent Into Avernus campaign and were really excited when the DM pitched that for the next campaign we start an all evil campaign at starting at level 16 having completed our goals from a previous campaign, a campaign after the campaign if you will. We had a great session zero building and fleshing out our characters, 3 of us are playing Harengon trust fund triplets who murdered our father for the inheritance. The turn comes in session 1, the DM sets out a fun and difficult but winnable first combat against a small army invading the island we control, but halfway through has a massive golem burst out from the sea with a giant gold disk in its chest. As it hit each of us our names were inscribed on the disk and as soon as it had us all it bamfed out. Pretty awesome plot hook, we're invested. At the end of the session however the other shoe dropped, for successfully defeating this small invading army and surviving this golem attack we received negative experience points and confirmed this will continue for every action we do including down-leveling until this golem is found and dealt with. Now I trust this DM, he's very good at what he does, but this is a fundamentally big element to leave out of a campaign pitch. Multiple characters were built with fun but wonky multi-classes that work because we were able to start at 16, that will be massively hamstrung losing levels. Nearing two months later we're quickly approaching our first down-level and while we're having fun our grumbling is intensifying. Was my DM wrong to spring a fundamental shift in the rules on us or are we being unappreciative of a subversion of the format? I humbly await your supreme wisdom and verdict.

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)

Donovan Breazeale

To the pantheon of magistrates and perhaps overlooked bailiff, I present to you the case of ceiling worms. My crew is running an escape from the UnderDark campaign, in which our current objective is to raid a local faction's lair to recover a stolen egg for a dragon. After a grueling battle with a Drider my PC (Spores Druid) had succumbed to a level of exhaustion, on top of spending most of my spell slots. Having cleared the room and making some checks to assure safety, the party decided to take a short rest and regain health. I asked my DM if I could go into a trance since it was a short rest; I could live without regaining spell slots I just really wanted to get rid of exhaustion as I tend to rely on my fungal form melee attacks. He SPECIFICALLY tells me yes that's okay. In the middle of my rest the dm asks the pc on watch to roll perception (failed) and then proceeds to say a large worm comes out of the ceiling and spray water directly in my PCs face. Shocked, I try to go into a trance again. In my mind, it was just an unlucky dice roll and there wasn't much else to it. The dm asks for another perception check, its failed again, and the worm comes back out to spray me again. Verbatim the dm says "yeah man, you're just kinda stuck with exhaustion". I implore you, was I wrong for trying to rest with what I thought was my DMs permission, or am I being gas lit? (Sorry if not enough information, I was trying to keep it as brief as possible)

Drumlined00d

May it please the court, The chaotic justice Axford, the Iron fist justice Murphy, and the always smiling justice Caldwell. (I guess the animal "loving" bailiff Jake.) I have an assassinrogue In my game. One of his abilities let's him get a critical hit on any hit as long as certain conditions are met. He met those conditions and rolled a natural 20. In the heat of the moment. I decided that, if any hit is supposed to be a critical, then a natural 20 should do quadruple damage. I fear that since I ha e said that, I can not take it back. Have I made a mistake allowing the assassin ability to quadruple damage if a natural 20 is rolled?

Beb

Dearest Crit Justices and the oft lowly baliff Jake, and may it of course please the court- This was not my game but from one I witnessed as a humble observer. The players spent the entire session searching for a gift for their trusted and loving NPC friend, only after much trial and tribulation did they eventually come away with their prize- the perfect item. Alas when it came time for them to don the gift on the NPC the players pivoted and kept the gift for themselves. I ask the Court if these players deserve the Bud Heavenly or if they should be punished to a lifetime of swabbing the deck while listening to billy the bass on repeat?

The Mortal Slayer

Hail and well met Supreme Crits and the hard working bailiff. I bring you the case of being lost in the tank. I am a DM and have played a few campaigns as a Player but am now running my first campaign. I have made a homebrew world filled with lore and dark twist at every turn. My group has never played a lore heavy campaign before but they seem bored. It seems they pay less attention and I find them on there phones or doing other things when I am doing background or story line things for other characters. Though I always leave information and tid bits for each player in other people's memories and in the lore of the world. It has made me lose steam in trying to be a DM. My question is am I to deep in the tank? Has my need for wanting role play and a grander adventure caused my players to no longer care? Is there to much world building? Do I stop trying to fill the world with lore and making the connections deeper than coincidence? I humbly await your judgement.

Nestor roman

To the Magnanimous Murph, Awesome Axeford, Transcendant Tanner, and Jake, I bring to you the case of almost lethal psychic damage from a God: We’re playing in a campaign where we can call upon the Gods for assistance, but I’m playing a Medusa race that was cursed by one for not holding my end of a bargain. In a particularly rough fight, I made a joke, out of character, that I should maybe look to a great titan that opposed the gods for help since the cleric and paladin weren’t getting the assistance we needed (due to low rolls) and the DM ruled the god that cursed me heard me and then caused enough psychic damage to me out of turn to down me, causing a different players death and nearly a TPK. I let it happen without a fuss, but should I have been subjected to the damage in the first place? I humbly await your just decision on this matter.

Travis Butcher

I have a confession. May it be judged truly by the high preists and the little altar boy. When creating characters for our most recent campaign I took a point from one stat, and put it into another making my 6 strength go to a 5 and my wisdom up to an even 18. In my mind it keeps the same amount rolled but I wanted to suck bad at something and be one point better at my main stat. Am I forever cursed and what cleansing should I do if so. I await this judgment with dice christ in my heart.

Some guy who likes chicken

To the power hungry justices and the wise, yet humble, bailiff I present my case: I am preparing a campaign with myself as the DM and some not that close friends as players. I asked each player to send me their character sheet ahead of session zero and there was one that stuck out as fishy. This guy, let's call him Kevin because that's his name, had rolled INSANE stats. We're starting at level 2 and his stats (after racial modifiers) were: 16, 16, 16, 17, 19, 20 Ridiculous. I just can't believe he didn't reroll until he got something stupidly overpowered, especially because he's just that kind of guy - he has an over inflated ego and he's always trying to one up people. Initially I was quite generous with how I said the players could roll their stats: 5d6, drop the lowest two, reroll anything less than 8. However, I told Kevin that I didn't believe his rolls were legitimate and he had to use the standard stat array from the handbook. He got very red in the face, said he wouldn't be called a liar and called me a plagiarist (I guess he doesn't know what that means?). Now he's refusing to be a part of the campaign if he can't keep his first, utterly broken, build. Was I too harsh? Should I have believed he rolled those godly stats? It is technically possible they were legit, and even they're not is it that big a deal to let him play out a power fantasy? I throw myself on the mercy of the court.

Stemozo

To the always just justices and benevolent surfer bae bayliff Jake, I present the case of the Halfling Snack: Me and 4 of my closest friends decided to start a D&D campaign as all of has had interest but no one ever took the plunge. Eventually we got started with party consisting of a Human Fighter (me), a half elf ranger, a tiefling bard, and halting rogue. It was our first characters cut us some slack. Everything was going well until it became ever evident that our halfling rogue was committed… and I mean committed, to the “never follow the plan” archetype. After several session of nearly killing us with his antic we came across a crypt before being ambushed by a massive sentient crypt abomination. The creature gave us an opportunity to leave as our DM graciously recognized we weren’t high enough level. But then, to no one’s surprise, the rogue attacked expecting us to back him up. Instead we told the abomination he can have him and the beast was so grateful for the east meal he gave us some magic items for our struggles. The rogue player got real life mad and stormed from the table red in the face as we let him die. It’s worth nothin my character wielded the shield of his dead brother and swore never to leave a comrade behind again as he had his brother. But even this was too much for him. Was our party right in letting the halfling trouble maker die or should we have banded together to fight our hardest. I humbly await your judgement. Ps. Its worth noting the player returned with an old wizard who quickly became the party favorite as he was just so old and cute, goddamn. No love lost between me and my friends.

Joseph

To the infallible high justices and the bailiff who, let’s be honest, is trying his best. I present the case of the erupting ceiling. I was DMing a group of new players and they were fighting the final boss of the short campaign. The boss was a wizard with boots of spider climb who cast darkness on the ceiling of temple carved into a mountain. She would pop out the the darkness, cast a spell, then pop back in so they couldn’t target her with ranged weapons or spells while her minions on the ground would engage in melee combat. The druid of our party, played by my wife, said she wanted to cast Erupting Earth on the area of darkness since it has the exact same AOE. I told her that the spell says to target a point on “the ground” so she couldn’t target the ceiling. She said that since the temple was carved into the mountain, the ceiling should count as ground. I thought this was really creative and the wizard had barely been hit so I allowed it. The wizard failed her save and the Druid rolled max damage. Cut to the wizard falling from the ceiling and splatting on the floor of the temple. This was a great and memorable moment and my players loved it and I don’t regret ruling in favor of my players at all, but I ask you, was my original interpretation of “ground” valid or do you side with my crafty wife? I await your decision.

Ilana Galpert

To the Honorable Sweeties, I played as a wizard in a campaign with my friends. It was a really fun campaign and the DM was great. He gave us lots of cool abilities and the like. The problem is that for the final boss fight, the DM made it so none of our magic/magic items worked (the reason being reality was cracking.) Since I was a wizard, that meant I couldn't do anything except take damage (which was ok, since as an abjuration wizard I essentially had extra hit points.) Was it unfair to take away the abilities of the magical among us, even if it was motivated by cool world building? And does a lackluster finale forever blight an otherwise really good campaign? Thanks for your hard work reading through all these Jacob

Jacob S Warner

To the o wise justices and the best baliff no one has ever heard of, I present the case of the cameo gone wrong. I am currently running the Prince of the Apocalypse campaign for a 2nd time with a mostly newer and first time player group. For a twist, instead of having random faction leaders, I brought members back from the first time I ran the campaign and let them make cameos as the leaders instead. One cameo was with a very charismatic fighter champion Para who was obsessed with a mirror shield that I had given him during their campaign. Before his cameo and session he came to me and said he would be ok with Para dying in this cameo as long as it's on the battlefield since he's an old man at this point and that's where he felt Para would want to fall. So we go thru the session and I have the BBEG shoot a power word kill spell as a beam at a random target that Para sees in time and I allow him to take the blow instead knowing it would kill him. For flavor I said "as he has done many times before Para fearlessly jumps in front of danger with his trusty mirror shield and feels like he's able to deflect the beam before hearing the cracking of the shield and the beam hitting him in the chest. The room went quite and as his final breathe Para looked at me and yelled MY MIRROR SHIELD. I SAID KILL ME NOT BREAK MY SHIELD and proceeded to be very upset the rest of session. So now I'm left wondering did I go to far with the flavor for an approved death or is this an over reaction on Para's part.

Thomas Brussell

Glorious Bailiff and Supreme Crit Justices, I come to you with the case of Ugoz vs the Party. Our party was on an airship with the goal of infiltrating a human supremacist nation called Astoria. While on the airship, an injured halfling Druid NPC crashed on board. After healing her, we got to talking to her as she seemed friendly. This is when our fighter, Ugoz the orc elf, decided she was a spy from Astoria. He grabbed her and demanded she answer our questions (which she was already doing!). We all yelled at him, demanding he let her go, which he complied with by THROWING HER OFF THE AIRSHIP. To this day, he claims he was in the right because he “let her go”, and that she could wildshape so it was no big deal. I ask you, was the party overreacting, or did Ugoz antagonize this NPC for no reason?

Zach Dender

Dear incredibly wise and hot justices of the court and the "always-a-guest", bailiff Jake. I killed a PC off-screen. The party was fighting Drow in a dark demon infested forest and split the party. Several to fight the Drow, and 1 player to chase down the Dybukk trying to leave the forest and attack a nearby town. The player that went after the Dybukk defeated it and almost defeated it's Drow escort but became poisoned by Drow poison and rolled two natural 1s (Dwarf advantage on poison) on the con saving throw, rendering them unconscious. Smash cut to the other group fighting and winning against the rest of the Drow. The leader received a message and told the party to put down their weapons or their friend would be killed. The party refused and continued to attack, killing another 2 Drow. The leader and the remaining Drow fled. It took the party 10 minutes to find their friend, throat cut and dead at the foot of a tree moonlight bleaching the color of their blood to black. The table errupted in an instant hurling of curses at me but the PC who died blamed the table. The table blamed me. Who is to blame, me or the players? It should be noted that this is the 2nd time someone has died because the PCs called a Drow's bluff and lost. Also, the PC who died did roll Death Saves but it was a text thread between just us. (Another Nat 1 and an 8.)

Nicolas R

To the high and mighty Justices and ground level bailiff, I present the case of The players vs. My animal companion. This was almost 10 years ago in my first campaign i played in high school but it still makes me upset. I was playing a deep gnome ranger who worked as a detective, essentially a fantasy gnome batman. A couple of sessions in the dm offers me an animal companion in the form of a little mushroom man (a myconid) that is locked in a cage in an abandoned camp. Being unable to resist the pairing, my character went to free it, then asked if it would like to join us, as there were no other myconid to bring him back to. Using repore spores, the little guy agreed, but immediately there was a problem. The other players accused me of taking the myconid as a slave and would unrelentingly razz me whenever I wanted them to do anything. This went on for so long that eventually the dm killed off the myconid while my character was sleeping and left them in a ditch, just so he could give me a different animal companion. A decade later, I still need closure. Were my highschool friends right? Or were they, at least a little bit, out of line?

Runcible Shaw

This is not a submission, but a humble suggestion (that I think I've only made once before, so I hope this doesn't come off as annoying). I really think you guys would have a lot of fun doing a dungeon court like they do Judge John Hodgman. You pick one case and actually have the litigants on the pod as guests so you can ask them questions and really get all the context. It's a lot more work I'm sure, but I think it would be worth it? (Though I really do love you guys just riffing on what the actual situations were in each case with a minimum of context)

Preston

To the Honorable Supreme Crit Bailiff Jake, the Bizarre Yet Bonafide crew Grace and Anton, and Duncle Caldwell Tanner; may it please the court. Was I wrong for not kicking my Father out of our DnD session? I was DMing a game for my 11 year old little sister. It was her first time playing so I put a lot of effort into creating a Mario themed one-shot where she was the only player. After casting fireball on a group of Koopa, she managed to make it outside of Bowsers castle just as our Father entered the room. He sat down at the table, but never once mentioned the actual DnD game. Instead, he played loud, immersion breaking videos from his phone and even started showing us a movie trailer he had seen earlier that day. He then held in a phone conversation with someone who must have been at a party (it was on speaker phone). Instead of asking him to leave or be quiet, we shifted between ignoring him or passive aggressively acknowledging his Facebook videos. I was irritated, and I could tell my little sister was too. Was I wrong for not telling him to leave? I’m afraid I messed up my little sister’s first playing experience. I await your judgement.

Callum

HonoROLLable Crit JustDices (and the variably favoured Bailiff), I present to you not a case of my own, but instead a petition for one yet to be heard: The Dungeon Court was first discussed as an idea in an early short rest in campaign 1. Immediately Jusdice Murphy discussed a case of his own: wherein Balric Ghoulsbane, his 3.5e dwarf paladin was sneak attacked and crit upon by the party rogue. The case was promised to be tried, with Jusdice Axford swearing to take to the defence of the rogue. I beg of you, this case needs public relitigation- for how else do we know how the hearts of the justices are moved by the law if we do not see it apply to them?

Samantha Sklare

To the esteemed justices and lowly bailiff Jake (unless this is a day we love Jake, in which case all hail the mighty bailiff) I present to you The Case of the Gravity Murder This is something that happened in a game that has already finished, but it still bothers me to this day and I hoped that the court could help me decide who was in the wrong. I was playing in a Ghosts of Saltmarsh game and one of the players was playing a very sneaky evil character. The character was a real slimy guy, the kind of person that makes you feel icky when he talks (the character, not the player). Anyway this character, a Warlock, killed a priest in the game by flying him up to the top of his own church and dropping him off of it. After this event, our Paladin, suspecting the Warlock, called a party meeting and immediately cast Zone of Truth (which we all willingly failed the save on) in order to question us about the murder. When asked, the Warlock's character directly responded to the question "did you kill the priest" and said he did not murder the priest. When we all protested to the player that he had told a lie, he replied that he had not killed the priest, gravity had, and that his character firmly believes that. Our DM agreed with the player and we were never able to prove he killed the priest, something that we all talked about even months later. My question is this: do you think our DM was right to agree with the player? Or should we have protested more? Even though this game has been over for a few months, this moment still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I humbly await your most trusted judgment.

JessMayWin

May it please the court and the Shrek wannabe bailiff. In a game a few years ago we were tasked with kidnapping the daughter of a wealthy merchant to get information about the location of a valuable artifact - however, according to the DM, 'she never leaves her mansion and has at least 2 guards with her at all times. If they are alerted or attacked her father and his entire guard force will be mobilised immediately and you will all be imprisoned and later killed'. We spent over 3 sessions trying to solve this issue in a variety of ways (can we infiltrate the merchant's militia and try and get on her guard shift? 'No'. Can we pose as merchants and try to get an audience with her? 'No' Start a fire at her estate to smoke her out? You get the idea). In desperation (I was a few pints in i admit) I suggested that our bard polymorph into a fly and try to sneak through a crack in the window while she was on the loo and then dimension door out of the manion, as I reasoned that surely she would have to be alone while doing her business. The DM flat out refused, saying the guards would also accompany her to the toilet. The whole thing left us feeling pretty.... crap.... to be honest. I humbly ask the court - would someone being guarded at all times expect their guards to be with them when they are on the can, or was my idea, as gross as it was, a viable one? How do you navigate around a DM who suggests a task but then shoots down ideas on how to solve it?

Noah Soule

May it please the court and the lowly bailiff this is both an update to a previous case and a new case itself. Previously I wrote in with the case of Devrix v Chuffy on the topic of alignment and boat theft. I am still playing in the same campaign and Devrix and Chuffy are still playing together despite their differences. The new case concerns a PC that I didn’t mention last time, Jabaa Tehoot (Jabba The Hutt). Jabaa has been a party member since the start and, as you might have guessed from his name, he doesn’t take things very seriously. His sillinesses was fun and frequently made the party laugh for many months of this campaign. But he recently took a bit too far and this has resulted in some friction between him and the rest of the party. In a recent fight with a Fire Giant King, Jabaa was using Disguise Self to look like one of the king’s guards. The problem was he refused to actually fight the king once the rest of the party engaged in battle. Instead he insisted on pretending to fight my sorcerer every round in an effort to make the king think he was loyal to him. He would roll performance every round to pretend to grapple with me. Thinking this was funny a couple times, I gave him the help action to sell the hits. Once the king was defeated, the party attempted to ask Jabaa why he didn’t hit the king even once. He then came out of Disguise Self and pretended that he didn’t remember any of the time during the spells one hour duration. We argued that the multiple spell casters on the team would know that’s not how it works. He then argued that he was in a fugue state that was unrelated to Disguise Self. An argument ensued which lasted longer than we would have liked so I hit him with a fireball, Chuffy stabbed him, and we then hit him while he was down until he had two death save failures. He rolled a 7 on his final death save and died. Obviously Jabaa was upset with this outcome. Were we wrong to kill him or should we have let him continue his reign of terror?

Tyler

Dear most honorable justices and the honorable but cuckold bailiff, I present to you the case of the oft-dead familiar. My warlock had a psuedodragon familiar and an invocation that makes the DC of my familiar the same as my own. The psuedodragon has a sting attack that can poison/paralyze opponents that has proven quite useful. I agree that putting my familiar in danger raises her chances of being hit and struck down, but my DM is making my familiar act as though it's my fault that she keeps dying and it's making me quite sad as I had character art drawn up for my familiar that I even paid for. Please deliver justice unto us whether you agree with my traumatizing DM or my sad dragon-daddy character that the emotional distress is too far. I prostrate myself, praise be unto thee.

Phil E

May it please the scrumptious justices and the palatable bailiff, i present the case of the nat 20 fiancé fiasco. I was playing a terminally ill tortle in a new campaign with some bitterness and our party witnessed a proposal derailed by a machine casting Tasha’s hideous laughter. The male halfling took this as rejection and ran off. When we raced to console the devastated halfling, I rolled to convince him he was better off without her and to move on, fully knowing this was just a misunderstanding in an attempt to sabotage their happiness. I got a nat 20. He seemed alright with the break up until we found his partner outside and they immediately reconciled. The DM contends he was well within his rights and that maybe this event planted seeds of mistrust that won’t bloom for years. I contend that I was robbed of my nat 20 and that we should have at least seen a fight where one of them says something irrevocably horrible (think hardwon telling tryst he likes reading). I ask the court whether a nat 20 can destroy an engagement? I also ask the court if this is how Jill and tucker first met. I humbly await your decisions.

Chuck B

To the honorable deacons of Dice Christ, I have a confession. I DM a homebrew campaign and along the way my party ended up in hell. They were fresh off a victory in some fighting pits and the ruling devil (the curator from kobold press) had invited them in to see his collection and make a deal get them out of hell. They had asked multiple times about how strong he was and I answered honestly that he was much stronger than them, even giving the ranger all of his weaknesses and immunities. It went down hill when the devil showed them the body of a PC (who had left the game) that he was using to summon the ruby dragon, and was going to task them to hunt down bahamut. The party sorcerer attacked without telling the party and it lead to a total party knockout . Was I too mean to them, should I have given them another way out?

Kane Sanchez

Hello honorable crit justices, and that dude who stares in the corner. I’m DM-ing a game with new players and I’m having trouble getting them to ACTUALLY READ what their characters do. Everyone is playing like a fighter, but I have one front liner. Any tips to getting them to do more than just swing? (Party of a wizard, paladin, ranger, because cats, and my DNPC, the bard, making sure they don’t die). I await your ruling while I prostrate.

Caustic Botanist

(He/him). To the kind and wonderful judges and the handsome yet lowly bailiff, I beseech thy wisdom. I’ve been in this one ttrpg campaign for 6 years, and it feels like it’s not going anywhere. The system can be pretty much described as furries in space, and it sucks. Leveling up doesnt yield any fun abilities and combat is a mess. We expressed that we felt like we didnt have enough cool stuff to play with to our DM. To remedy this, he got us a brand new ship with all sorts of goodies. For example: my character had a secret ai installed that he could use to keep tabs on the sketchy crew members, and was also given a custom gun that he could use. Next few sessions the npc captain crashed the ship, destroying it, and we all had to evacuate leaving our good gear behind. No weapons- no more cool ai. What’s worse: our escape pods landed on a extra hostile planet of deadly robots. I ask you: am I right in feeling miffed by our DM taking away our toys solely because an npc rolled really bad? Or should I accept that one hand can take as well as it gives. I eagerly await your judgement. Love, Caustic.

Guildedfangs

To the Supreme Crit and the critically crucial Baliff Jake, I bring you a case of player vs dm. At the start of the campaign each player was allowed to help shape the world and where their character came from. I played a druid of a nomadic clan from a frozen waste ruled by an Ancient White Dragon who left to gain power to free the land from the Wyrm. My location was the last place we went too and after seeing all the others players locations treated well I find my land no longer a frozen land with nomadic clans but now a bustling city exists in it and is ruled by Silver Dragons. In anger and frustration after asking the DM what had happened and being hold he made it better then what we had discussed, i enlisted my best friend and we derailed the campaign causing him to make it end much sooner then expected. Was I wrong in going this far after seeing everyone else's location being treated as if it was gold or am I bitter about something that should have been a shoulder shrug?

billy nuttall

To the pretty dang dope Supreme Crit Justices And to the absolutely nope Bailiff. I present the case of “casting” “disguise Self” My party was trying to break into a prison to find a specific inmate and stop him from being smuggled out of the city. We were placed in jail, and someone we had on the inside was able to stash our gear into the guards break room. When we made our way there, there was one guard, that we quickly incapacitated. Suddenly, my “Hitman” instincts took over, and I wanted my teifling monk to steal and wear the guards uniform, and hide him in the closet where our gear was just hidden. My full party immediately turned against the idea stating it’d take too long. Yes we were in initiative at this point, but that was more so we could make an order of operations, and not because we were in an immediate combat threat. Im convinced my character could’ve done this in 5 minutes. My dm started on my side, but turned on the idea after other party members kept pointing out how ridiculous and long it would be. I ask the court. Should I have been able to “cast” “disguise self”?

Lorcan Jeffreys

Illustrious Justices and Luminous/ egregious Bailiff (delete as appropriate) Please consider the case of the Warforged Submarine. A while ago I DM'd a one shot for my D&D group (I am normally a player). The party of five were playing a touring Christian rock trio travelling from one town to the next, accompanied by their manager and their Warforged roadie/ bodyguard. Close to the start of the session they reached a river estuary several miles across with a haunted island in the middle. There were no boats around but the island could be reached from there via a crossing at low tide. Other than this the nearest complete crossing of the estuary was two days ride away. This left the time pressed band with only one route to take to reach their next gig in time, and would thus serve to get them onto the spooky island where the adventure would take place. Or so I thought. Upon reaching the river bank my friend playing the Warforged (who knew about the river crossing hook in advance, as did the rest of the party) immediately declared that she would like to transform into a submarine and ferry the party across the river, avoiding the island entirely. I explained that this was not really something any character could do, even one that was pretty much a robot. She then asked if she could simply carry the party across to the other side of the river. I ruled that even as a big (10 foot tall or so) robot creature, she could only carry a few at a time, and in getting in the water with all of them would promptly sink to the bottom of the river bed. Although she did not need to breathe, the rest of the party did. She could certainly attempt this move, but I spelled out quite clearly that it would probably not be successful. This conversation lasted about 45 minutes, and involved the entire group, at the end of which the player agreed that the party would use the crossing after all. Although it was a fun discussion it did slow the game down significantly, but play continued after that. Until the Drummer of the band, arguing that they were playing a devout Christian, decided to attack my friendly quest giver NPC when he turned out to be a vampire. Was I wrong to resist the transformer-esque move so that my players would experience the adventure that I planned, or should I have been more receptive to the shenanigans? I should add that I am often a goofy/ idiot player in games and have been responsible for (accidentally-ish) derailing adventures in the past so the other players' revenge here was certainly earned. Maybe this is just justice catching up to me

Mason N.

To the Grand Court of Crit and f*ck you Jake, I am in a 10 person campaign and am playing the party's healer, a Life Domain Cleric named Coach Hawke Barski. As part of his backstory, he was always bullied during school and thus became a coach to put an end to bullying. While the party was sneaking past a group of guards, Coach Barski noticed a group of teens bullying a kid. He went over to confront the group and ended up getting punched in the nuts and getting table topped by the teens. For flair, the DM put him into a flash back of that exact thing happening to a young Hawke, and in the flashback I retaliated by punching the bully in the face. But in reality, he chose to be doing a 1st level Inflict Wounds uppercut to the teen bully in charge. It immediately killed the teen (who had commoner stats), and as a result, another party member, a Zealot Barbarian, did a reckless attack on me and downed me. Once the tension settled, and I was brought back up, I used all of my money and some of the other PC's money to do a Revivify on the teen. I get razzed about it from time to time, but I need to ask the court, am I in the wrong for playing along with the DM's flashback scenario and getting triggered by the trauma? Or should I have taken the high road and not retaliated? I await the court's decision in shame.

C

Kind and just judges and the morally grey Bailiff, I present the case of mercy killing of one for the good of all. I'm in a new campaign with a friend of a friend's group. Anyways, we are about five sessions in our narrative and everything is fine except for one of the players is becoming a bit of a murder hobo to every NPC we meet and we have asked him to stop it because it makes it hard to craft a fun narrative that doesn't make it seem like we are going town to town killing random folks. It was extremely frustrating last session when the group was trying to help our group's old mentor, a paladin who being turned into a demon and the group was to show him that there is still good in the world and the old gods haven't forsaken our world. One of the player, Frank (aka the murder hobo), casted geas on the paladin to force have him off himself. We all agreed that he couldn't do that, but he claimed he could. Since he had the time to cast it since we were out of combat and that he didn't talk when the rest of us were trying to help the paladin. So our DM had no choice but to kill the paladin, which was about to end our session only 20 mins in. The whole group was upset, so I had the idea to have my PC, a sorcerer with a demon pact, snap and give in to the demon's power to eliminate Frank. Frank was so pissed and said it didn't make anything sense that my character would turn against him. I said it did since Frank killed my mentor who was like my character's father. So in short I casted Disintegrate and rolled a nat 20, then I killed him. Everyone at the table was shocked and Frank was super mad and left. So our DM ended the session early anyways since one of the players left. Was there a better way to have dealt with the murderous hobo formerly known as Frank? I await any decision you see fit.

Tallon McAbee

May it please the most honorable council of church elders and the intern working for you known as Jake. I have a dice christ confessional. Around 2 years ago when I began playing DnD for the first time, I created a Goliath character having no idea what I was doing. In honestly, he was a knock off Grog from Vox Machina (Before I had even heard of the show). I ended up with a glass cannon Goliath fighter who had the personality of a barbarian. This lead to me trying all I could to maximize damage since at the time I saw combat as the central point of the game rather then literally everything else a DnD campaign can offer. May dice Christ forgive me for I was a loot goblin. Every new item and cool weapon I wanted for myself with no regard for RP or character growth. It took time for me to realize that loot was not everything in DnD but I had definitely annoyed not only my DM but also my friends with knock-off Grogg's unyielding rage for collecting loot. My only excuse is that before this I was heavily into loot based video games and had never been exposed to DnD before. Today you can find me DMing my first campaign and fully recovered from loot madness. All I hope for now is that I can be forgiven for these sins and be baptized in the glorious pool of D20s. May Dice Christ forgive me.

Stellaluna Lopez-Ramirez

Lovely Justices and Amir's brother or whatever, I present the case of Courage and Cobwebs. My party was fighting werewolves and one of them was put to sleep. The wizard (the same one who licked the doorknob) cast Web, which would also cover the sleeping werewolf. I ruled that the sleeping wolf would wake up on the force of the web hitting him. The wizard, to counter, pulled up this clip of the grandpa from Courage the Cowardly Dog where the grandpa is wrapped up by a spider in webbing without waking up (0:14) https://youtu.be/u2CluMFezq0 I then relented and allowed the werewolf to stay asleep while also being restrained. Justices, I ask if the werewolf would have waken up, and should I get new friends?

Eric Lee

To the distinguished justices Murph, Axford, and Tanner and depending on the joke today the great and mighty bailiff Jake or the lowly bailiff Jake. I present the case of one shot items. I have been playing in a campaign where I am playing a wizard named Aeson. My DM likes to give out magic items quite a bit, and I have discovered that with two of the items I can basically one shot everything. (too long to explain how and too technical) I have tried to not use them in most encounters. However I have saved us from a TPK on 2 occasions. My party hasn't realized that I can do this. But it has taken some of the fun away for me because I know that I can pretty much just get out of anything. I talked with my DM about this and she just said to keep the items and she would do something to counter them. But I would rather them be gone to add danger to the game again. Am I complaining too much and just use the things I have been given or should I just act like I don't have these items? I await your decision.

Spencer W

Hey Murph. Awhile back I was playing a down-on-his luck echo knight, who had a bit of a tragic past as the forbidden lover of a royal family's daughter. In my backstory I established that she sort of saw my character as a bit of a rebel and a cool, even though that was really only true in comparison to her stark family. One session, my DM narrated as we arrived in a place familiar to me from my youth that I recalled spending time there with my former royal lover, and when I asked if I could have been wearing a cool jacket in the flashback my DM said yes. Now this campaign had been going on awhile, and I had committed pretty hard to being a pathetic loser, but as I experienced this flashback I hoped that maybe reconnecting with a cooler version of myself could make for character development. I asked my DM that, since I remembered having this cool jacket in this familiar place, if I could roll to see if perhaps it were still around nearby. Here is where the injustice lies: I crit on my investigation check, but instead of finding my jacket the DM narrated that I came to the shocking realization that this cool jacket I remembered likely never even existed, and was just a memory I made up to feel better about being such a loser my whole life. Was I robbed of having a cool jacket? Did Henry deserve to have the chance to reconnect with a younger, cooler version of himself with some dope threads?

Jesse

May it please the judges/priests and bailiff/deacon in our TTRPG-based theocracy, I present a case that is half legal and half spiritual. Will Dice Christ forgive me for stealing all of my DM’s players and creating my own (better) D&D group? A couple of years ago I started playing with a group I got connected with online. We were all strangers and got to know each other while playing in an almost year-long campaign. Our DM was good with the technical aspect of D&D but did not excel at roleplay. Most of the NPCs refused to even interact with us because of our goofs. I will admit that I was the goofiest little jester of them all, but the other players were more than on board with my hijinx—we spent most sessions laughing until our faces hurt. Some of them still bring up funny moments from that campaign to this day. Our DM was not the biggest fan of my shall-we-say creativity. She got more and more frustrated with me until eventually she started snarking at me and saying uncool things about me in our groupchat. It was minor stuff, but I didn’t really want to be around that energy during time that was supposed to be spent having fun, so I decided to leave the group. I let the other players know that I was going and that I would love to still play with them, but that I didn’t want to play with the DM anymore. The rest of the players ended up siding with me in what I had not intended to be a huge D&Divorce. Some of those same people are playing in my current campaign and we still have a lot of fun. None of us are in contact with the DM at all anymore. Sometimes I still feel guilty about stealing my former DM’s entire party for what amounted to small differences in how seriously the game should be played…am I headed to the Dice Devil’s dimension when I fail my last death save?

Tree

Yes.

Sydney Jeffries

Hello honorable justices and Humble Bailiff, I am submitting a case for Dice Christ! My group started our campaign in 2020. One of the members (plays a Kobold Druid) and our DM are familiar with DnD but my partner (plays a Lizard Folk Barbarian) and I (a High Elf Wizard) are both new so the DM isn’t super pressed on rules. While in a town myself and partner split off to find town guards, while the others went with the mine foreman to investigate weird happenings. I had cast Flock of Familiars in the form of Hawks so I could keep an eye on the others while we split. The other group got captured and bound by 2 gnomes that we later found out were under the control of a mind flayer. My elf saw this through the eyes of her hawk and reacted with casting Gaseous Form on the other wizard of the group so he could release the others before we (the lizard folk and myself) got there resulting in a group full of excitement due to clever thinking. After learning more about DnD spells I realized Flock of familiars is a concentration and so is gaseous form so casting one after the other causes the first to drop…. Have I wronged dice Christ by doing a technically impossible act, or should I just accept this awesome moment and learn from it? It has bothered me a bit since it happened and I humbly ask for your input! - Blaine the High Elf Wizard

Andrew W

Oh wise and merciful judges and bailiff Josh. I come to you with the case of the copycat coworker. About six months ago it had came up at work that my co worker who is ten years my junior had started playing D&D. I told him that I have been DMing a campaign that took place at a summer camp. I gave him more details of my campaign along with npc names, places, etc. A couple days ago approached me and told me about his new campaign that not only takes place a summer camp but also uses names and other details that I told him six months prior. Judges, what do I do? Do I just smile and go with it? He’s a young kid and I’m always glad to get people interested in TTRPGs. But now he keeps asking me details on my own campaign and other ideas I have. I am also his boss and have to keep things professional. Any help would be great, thank you.

Zacharythefish

Honorable justices and sexy sexy bailiff Jake. May it please the court, I present the case of “Why can’t we shit in the pit”. This was about 13 years ago on my birthday. My dad was running a 4th edition campaign out of the dungeon masters guide for my friends and it was our first time playing. We had just defeated a group of goblins and were left in a room with a pit of green ooze in the middle. One of my friends decided to poop into the pit so my dad had him roll to do so. I can’t remember what he rolled but it was sub 10 at least but definitely not a nat 1. He then fell into some paralyzing liquid and two more people fell in trying to get him out. After that none of my friends wanted to play and I didn’t have anyone to play with till after high school so I’ve always felt a little resentful. So I ask should rolling anything other than a nat 1 have caused him to fall in? Or should we have been able to shit in the pit.

King Wonderbread

May it please the court and pleasure the baliff, I give you what may be the least satisfying mechanic I've ever heard of. I've been playing in a 3.5e campaign of my DM's own brewing for the last four and a half years. We had some issues a while back but overall there's really only one major complaint I and at least another player have with the way our CRITS are dealt out. Our DM makes us 'crit confirm' all our Nat 20's, as well as our Nat 1's. When somebody rolls a Nat 1, the DM will have that person roll again to determine how bad or catastrophic the failure might be; typically at least a roll of 10 is required to just have the action be unsuccessful rather than detrimental. If somebody rolls a Nat 20 however, we then need to roll again and hope the number was above a ten to even be counted as a 20 total on skill checks or saving throws. If it's below a ten we have in the past lost out on double damage for attacks, and once when a natural 1 came up on the confirmation roll, the skill check was then unsuccessful (trying to persuade a guard to let us keep our weapons as we entered a new town without open carry). Is this just a RAW thing from a bygone era of DnD? Are we smooth brained players just not understanding the 5D chess our DM is playing? Please judge us so we may figure out a solution or get on with the thing 🙏

Izzy R

May it please Jake and I guess the other three, a few years ago I played a one shot dmed by my girlfriend (whom I was not dating yet) which was essentially a murder on the orient express style train mystery. I played a talking horse. My girlfriend decided that since I was a talking horse the conductor had just let me into the train with the other passengers, even though I suggested I start in the storage car or something similar since I was still a real actual horse. I ended up being in the passenger car anyway which caused a significant number of problems interacting with npcs and whatnot. Should I have played a slightly less obnoxious animal? I await Jake’s verdict :)

Devyn N

To the brilliant, bold, and kind crit justices Axford Tanner and Murphy, and if that other guy is listening that’s okay too I guess. May it please the court, I present the case of the Vengeful Steed. My glory paladin named Percy had a strong connection to his talking steed (named John) summoned with the Find Steed spell, however our campaign required a lot of travel and therefore random encounters that often resulted in my warhorse being attacked first and killed in the first round of combat. I once summoned him after a combat and after summoning our DM mentioned that (although not listed on the spell) a giant boar would have a higher AC and health and be likely to die less often. Because I assumed the boar would contain the same consciousness in a stronger body I unsummoned John and attempted to resummon him as a boar but the boar was unable to speak and had no relation to John. When I was told he wouldn’t have the same mind I immediately tried to get rid of the boar (eating a third spell slot) and bring back John but some random other horse showed up. The dm told me I’d insulted John and he would no longer let me have him as a steed, I never got to have John again and until Percy’s untimely death he tried daily to bring John back and failed. The campaign has since disbanded due to other issues but this has sat with me for a while. Should I have lost my loyal steed? I leave my fate in the hands of the court.

Nathan Genest

Honorable Justices and Honorable Bailiff (who’s trying his hardest, could you cut him some slack?) I am running a Curse of Strahd game during which the party, minus the cleric, ascended a rickety wizard’s tower. The party found a suspiciously preserved head at the top of the tower and asked the cleric to cast speak with dead on it to interrogate it, but the cleric refused to climb the tower. The party’s barbarian decided to huck the head like a basketball 80 feet down to the awaiting cleric who I made roll an athletics check that resulted in a 13. I had the cleric take 1D4 of damage because I thought it would be funny to narrate him getting bonked after a middling roll. In response the cleric told me “that’s bullshit Nathan, and you know it,” but we chuckled and got over it. Several weeks later, after introducing the party to Dungeon Court, I was sent an episode by the cleric in which this Court held that DMs should “not be physicists,” along with an accompanying message that said “I told you so! I would like an apology.” In light of the Court’s precedent, I ask, may a DM use their discretion when physics might lead to a funny outcome with minor consequences? Or have I opened the door to a slippery slope in violation of this Court’s jurisprudence? I humbly submit myself to your judgment. P.S. I am sitting for the Bar Exam next week and am convinced there will be a question on this. P.P.S. The Court’s precedent was established in D&D Court – Witch Bolts, Meta Gamers, and the Return of Blasting Gramma.

ChrisTheWiz

Honorable Justices and Dishonourable Bailiff I present the case of the Cleric who kills. In a mid-game boss fight my gnome wizard was struck down by a lightning flinging troll, troll then killed by an environmental effect. Our warrior was upstairs looking at lamps, and the cleric rolled a D20 to decide what to do. They rolled a 5, and began to cry, and left me to die. I rolled a 1, two death saves, and then a 15. Before the final roll the DM allowed the warrior to 'sense' my risk, run, dash, and bonus action dash, and then throw a healing potion at me from the top of the stairs, saving me. Who do I sue for damages? (At the end of the campaign, the cleric also froze fighting the final boss dragon so afterwards the warrior pummeled them to death with their bare hands)

Joel Jansen

May it please this land's highest court and the most honourable bailiff, A few years ago I was a player in a campaign which was essentially a massive dungeon crawl. During a session, our party got into a massive fight against an aboleth in a cavernous region of the dungeon. In this cave there was a sort of main chamber, and a few side paths leading to water. During the fight, one of our fighters was in one of these side paths when he was downed by an enemy. Our cleric was in the main chamber at the time, and thus was around a corner and about 30 feet away. On his turn he attempted to move into the side path in order to heal our downed fighter, but another player stated that our cleric would not have known that the fighter was downed, and as such going to heal him would be considered meta-gaming. Our DM agreed, and by the end of the fight both the fighter and another party member had died. Our cleric was upset by the whole encounter as he built his character to be a healer, and felt that if had no way of knowing or checking if people were hurt he couldn't contribute anything to the party. We both ended up leaving the campaign a few months later for unrelated reasons, but this disagreement still leaves a foul taste in my mouth. And so I ask you, should the cleric have been able to know or check if someone needed healing?

Max Piper

Dear clergy of Dice Christ, I come with a tale of a player’s flaws bleeding into their character. In my current campaign, my party has set up home base in a town, and before we went on a mission, my character named Hugo Shortstick, asked the head of the miner’s guild on a date to the local tavern for blueberry pancakes. She seemed interested, and agreed to go the next night. The next day, after some more scouting around the village, the party headed off for a short series of missions. That night, after a long days travel, my DM regretfully informed me that I had accidentally stood her up on our date night. Hugo and I were shattered, and it haunts my mind several sessions later. I feel like I let Hugo down, because he’s not forgetful like I am, and it’s my frailty as a human that led to this horrible offense against the NPC. If Dice Christ will forgive a mere PC for a slight against their character, I lay on my knees and beg for Dice Christ’s forgiveness.

LovelyLorelei

Greetings to the Bailiff and Assorted Justices, I present to you the case of the Broken Tiara. In this Game I’m DMing I made an encounter against an Shadow Sorcerer Assassin that involved Darkness and Shadow Blade to sneak around the PC’s home and deal massive and untraceable damage. However less then an hour before the game was to start I realized that both the spells were concentration. So rather then rework the encounter I made up a home brew item called “The tiara of two minds” which allowed casters to concentrate on two spells at once with the caveat that the tiara has a 20 percent chance of breaking if the spell loses concentration. During the encounter The Assassin was hit by a huge blast by the party Warlock and with an unlucky roll the tiara broke. When the party searched her body because broken items lose their magic, and they rolled middling on History and Arcana I said they didn’t find anything. After the game the players asked out of character so I told them about the tiara and they were pissed at me, one saying that quote “Giving NPCs breakable items is a bitch move. You just didn’t want us to get our hands on the tiara.” Are making items with a break percentage a good way to control OP artifacts or are they indeed a “Bitch Move”? I await judgement.

Brave the Badger

Beautiful baby boy bailiff Jake and the impressive justices of the Supreme Crit Court, here my plea! I come to you with the case of the multiple persona character. I am a new DM and this is the first campaign I've run. I'm running the Wilds Beyond the Witchlight campaign and I'm having a blast! Except for this one player. He is constantly complaining about the rules of 5e being worse than 3.5 and I have been extremely accommodating when it comes to the rules to make it fun for him. He has a character that is an elf rogue that has 3 personalities. The way we've done it is that he is from another world and was placed into the body of some random person in the feywild. They have 3 completely different personalities and his main personality is a typical rogue, all about the money and he doesn't care who dies in order for him to get it. This has caused a lot of stress for the other players in the group, so I decided that one of his personalities is a pacifist and that anytime he does something evil, he has to make a wisdom save against a dc I set to be able to go against the pacifist personality. He is extremely upset by this and said if I'm going to do this I might as well make his character an NPC. Tell me judges, am I in the wrong here? Have I violated the rule of cool and ruined my player's experience? I am at your mercy.

Tim S.

Magnanimous and buff Crit Justices and the B+ average bailiff, I present to you a case against myself, the DM. The case of the Crit Quipper. This just happened last night so it's hot off the presses and weighs on my mind. To be brief, I had my party's ranger knocked out with one failed death save grappled in the mouth of a remorhaz that would in one turn no doubt swallow and kill him. The party had one chance, and the sorcerer dived into the pool of water, casting a successful polymorph on the remorhaz and turning it into a quote "guppy". It was huge move and payed off wonderfully. Here's the thing: there's no such thing as a "guppy" in D&D, so I quickly pulled the first fish I saw with stats: a Quipper. But the next turn was the remorhaz cum Quipper, which does technically have an attack that does 1 damage, and was within 5 feet of ranger, guaranteeing a crit, which would still kill the ranger. I didn't want to cheapen the party's moment, so I talked this through out loud, and decided to slightly retcon the polymorph into a seahorse, which has no attacks. Overall I think this was the right choice, but I don't like retconning and I wonder if I was too easy on them, and if the twist of a quipper ripping out the throat of the ranger would have been narratively more dramatic. I await your judgement!

Lucas Stephens

To the most esteemed Bailiff and those who claim to tower above him, I am a DM and we were running a session where dinosaurs (4x T-Rex) were terrorizing a town under the sway of an evil mage. Our Druid wild shaped into a tiny spider climbing on the leg of a T-Rex running by. After a three rounds of the T-Rex chasing the townsfolk, the other party members engaged the evil mage by avoid the other Dino’s. On the Druid’s turn, he wanted to jump from the head backwards on the Dino. I let him and said he was now in the middle of the back, kind of like jumping in a moving car. He disagreed with me saying the Dino would have run out from underneath him and he should be off the Trex entirely. His wife agreed with me as she said “that’s not how physics works”. For the remainder of the session he was sullen as he had to jump off another round later and was much further away from the group while they were battling the mage (over 400 ft away). Was I wrong to make him stay on the Dino and make him further from the action? I await my fate at the bailiffs discretion.

Jake Jones

Hello to the almighty justices and the little mouse boy bailiff who serves them. I present the case of the problem player who has wreaked havoc on my sessions for over a month, I want to apologize for the longer than average post but there lots of examples and I only put a few here. I am a relatively new DM who is running my first official home brew campaign with some friends. At the very first session (not our session 0) a player decided his character would be adversarial from the get go, which I was okay with because it can be interesting if done right. Little did I know that this meant the instant the group came together he was going to try to run away from the group and refuse all attempts at cooperation from the other players. His rogue PC got knocked out in the first encounter before he had a chance to do anything and has spent just about every session since saying he hates rogues and wants to do magic. I suggested arcane trickster subclass and multiclassing as well as informing him how rogues tend to be played and I thought we found a compromise. A little later he said he wanted to multiclass as a paladin and I told him I’d be okay with it but let him know another character was also multiclassing as a paladin. The next session he started throwing remarks like “well I wanted to multiclass as a paladin but that’s already taken”. He finally settled on a Druid multiclass so he could wildshape, feeling that it went well with his changeling character. After a conversation I had with him asking him to find a motivation to stay with the group he decided he owed his life to one of the other characters that saved him in the initial battle. The issue now is that he uses this excuse to not make any decisions and have his character blindly follow another PC without offering up any meaningful input. The first time he decided to do something that would help he wildshaped into a squirrel to spy on a particularly shady character who is having a conversation with a friendly NPC, which would have led to a pivotal point in this specific arc. Once returned, he instead elected to say that he squeaks the information to them and then proceeds to spend 30 seconds squeaking like a squirrel than actually communicating it. I remind everyone that they know nothing of the encounter that happened and he never mentioned it again, even after other PC would ask what he saw. That, along with some insinuations that I don’t spend enough time prepping for the sessions has put me at my wits end with him. So I must ask, is there something I could be doing to help accommodate his play style or am I right in thinking he is just a problem player. I humbly await your decision and will preform any punishment with the utmost ferocity.

Alex Jones

To the honorable supreme crit justices, I come before you a lowly serf only slightly above pebblepot justice murphy. I played my first game after only DMing for family games for the longest time. Started off hot with group discussing whether to use 5e or pathfinder. This guy Tim says it's a purer tabletop game and it was decided by the DM for pathfinder. I built a bardbarian Dragonborn who was essentially a pro wrestler and would preform in taverns as a front but actually was a weapons smuggler. We had a lycanthrope warrior and a ranger with a wolf as the party. Session 1 is a shit show with no driving plot and we end up at this farm house where DM narrates we fall into a deep sleep as we eat the farmers food as it's revealed our ranger with the wolf is secret police hunting the lycanthrope. I piped up and said I hadn't eaten any of the food and ate from my rations. A fight ensues where I kill the ranger but the wolf kills me as the farmer revives the ranger and drags the lycanthrope away. Learned later this player does this in every campaign and always initiates pvp combat. So judges was I right to pull a blinky and ghost this party when they tried to set up a session 2 or should I have stuck it out and see where it was going I await your justice. Also RIP to Blast'em grandma. She passed at 92 years old and loved your show and even as she got sicker asked me to play the court episodes where I got whomped for her, she loved them!

Connor Tuftin

May it please the immortal and may I add gracious Judges and Jake I guess. I present to you the case of Hell in a Cell. I have been playing Dnd with the same group of friends for 7 years now. Our party has always been very item/gold focused and our DM in turn makes buying things like potions and equipment a necessity. The party was very low on cash and we came up with a plan to host a WWE style fight night in the center of town the the people could come and watch our rigged matches. I was playing a Dragon born bard with high Charisma and Strength and assumed the Vince McMahon role of host/wrestler. Needless to say we made a killing and this event followed us from town to town as a way for us to keep funds high. One night as we were having a long rest and when we awoke the cart that housed our WWE ring was stolen and our DM stated that no one explicitly said they were watching the cart even though we always have someone on watch during rests. We tried to search for the cart, but to our discontent it was gone forever. So I pose the question. Was the DM to harsh in stealing our cart and ending our business, or was the DM right in ending our game of Dungeons and Entrepreneur thus ending WWE in the forgotten realms. I humbly wait for your answer on this matter -Connor T

Arknon

To the esteemed, Seat of Rules, Justice Murphy, Seat of Goofs, Justice Tanner, Seat of Chaos, Justice Axford, and the Mediocre Bailiff Jim. I present the case of the stolen Healer. I was playing in a 1st ed. Pathfinder campaign, and the party was fighting Ghouls, which unfortunately sucked one of the other player’s lifeforce from their character, Durzel, effectively killing them. My Gnome Cleric, Rythys Spicyfingers, was best friends with Durzel, so he wanted to mourn the death of his friend, and settle near the city that the group basically ran. I was a heal-bot, and wanted a fresh new character with better stats (originally was as they fall, no rerolls at all) and hopefully a little more fun than “heal, pass”. After hearing that I wanted to retire Spicyfingers (and play them again later) the DM instead took complete control of the PC, saying “Well the party has no other healer, and they need one”. Crit Justice’s am I wrong in being upset at this, years after it happened? Or should I just let the pain of Rythys’s agency being taken from me flow away? I humbly await your verdict.

CaseOPictures

you guys should ask for people to write a brief summary, but then also have a separate paragraph for additional info, for if that information becomes needed.

Brandon D

To the magnanimous crit justices and that other guy, I present the case of the first time DM and the wants to win "friend". I haven't played a lot of DnD but after listening to/watching NADDPOD and D20, I was inspired to DM for my more experienced friends. I spent a lot of time homebrewing a whole city and devised a greater celestial conflict that would play out as they solved mysteries as part of a detective agency. The first session went mostly well aside from the paladin chiming in throughout the night with unsolicited corrections or DM tips. For their first case, I had given them several leads they could pursue with varying difficulties. They chose the most difficult one that would involve kidnapping an Orc head of security while she was checking on a warehouse patrolled by guards. They eventually set off the alarms due to some shenanigans and had to fight. The paladin had got himself into a spot where he would be surrounded by enemies next round so he asked to climb a warehouse shelf. I explained they were pretty high, but he could roll a DC 15 athletics check for it. I said he failed, and he argued that because he was close, he should get away from them and be mostly up the shelf. I explained that there wasn't anything to grab and attempted to move on in combat. He then proceed to explain the logic of climbing up the shelf and that he should be fine to climb up most of the way but not the whole way. We then argued for about 10 minutes before I gave up. At the end of the session, he "apologized" and matter-of-factly said "Sorry man, I wanted to win the fight. You get it." I walked away miserable, and the other players apologized for his behavior. We played one more session where the paladin kept correcting me, and then we stopped after that. Was I wrong to say that he failed his check so he couldn't climb the shelf? I submit myself to your wise judgement.

Anthony Murphy

Dear illustrious bailiff Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz and those other people that work for you, I have been dm-ing a game for the past couple months and my Rouge has been using disguise self every chance they get. They often take on the appearance of my NPCs to rob them in plain sight. My players visited a druidic temple and my Rouge in standard fashion disguised themselves as the druid priestess to again rob my NPCs blind. After a failed stealth check my Rouge was caught by the priestess and was punished with a true polymorph to permanently stay in that role. What I thought was the greatest plot hook ended up with my Rouge just saying hell yeah and refusing to make any attempt to rectify the situation. Should I even bother trying to get them back on track or should I allow what I thought was going to be a thorn to stay their rose? I await your gracious decision, illustrious bailiff

The CheeseMonger

Dear Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Axeford, Tanner, and Bay leaf Jack, this is less of a dm vs. player case and more of an Am I Cool situation. I'm in 2 games at the moment, one in person and one on zoom, and the one over zoom is not very fun for me but I can't leave due to complicated social reasons (the zoom dm is a player in the in person game and also the in person dm's wife's ex-boss). I don't think he's a terrible dm he just doesn't run the kind of game I want to play (too combat heavy, extremely railroady, etc.) so last session I started drinking thinking I would have more fun and it worked! I laughed more and made bolder choices, but when I thought back on it I didn't make very smart decisions and probably wasn't as "good" a player as usual. I ask the Crit Court or Crit Church, whichever purview this falls under, am I cool to drink and dnd even if it makes my rogue a little too boisterous? I humbly await your judgement.

Reed Sutliff

Dear venerable and established judges, as well as first-time guest bailiff Jake, Long time listener first time baller here with the case of the insta-kill incident In this campaign, I played a gnome rogue named trable locity with a bonus to sneak in garden settings. Our party was doing a special Halloween battle arena where we fought several waves of enemies. Our party consisted of an orc fighter and a dragonborn who was addicted to drugs. We had another party member whose class I can't recall because they attended very few sessions. The DM had elected to not level their character along with ours so they were several levels below us. This player had little interest in fighting and was mostly concerned with attempting to summon a succubi of some kind for themselves for an unknown but seemingly sexual purpose. During the fight I was disarmed of my primary weapon which was a thorn mace leaving me with only my ranged spectral dagger which was a Homebrew item that gave me a new attack each time I crit. On the players turn they grabbed my mace and refused to return it to me. In a fit of annoyance, i decided to attack my party member to get my mace back. While rolling the attacks with my Homebrew dagger I crit twice which allowed me to multiply the damage several times. Instead of choosing to do non-lethal or to just take a single attack I allowed my dagger to take its full effect and did so much damage to the player they instantly failed all of their saves. Although I feel like the player deserved some retribution for being inconsistent, unhelpful, and persistently horny, I feel some guilt from erasing their character from our campaign. Did I do the right thing? Should the DM have intervened to keep the player alive? I await the judgment of the Court.

Howell

May it please the Supreme Crit and noted sticker enthusiast Bailiff Jake, I have been playing in a homebrew campaign off and on with a few friends from grad school since lockdown started. We try to keep a regular schedule, but inevitably have some long gaps between sessions. This is fine as we're all busy people and it gives our DM a chance to prepare. After one such break, our DM came back with a set of new game mechanics to try. The story of our campaign is centered around collecting nine ancient artifacts, some of which are in our possession already. My character has "The Orb" which answers one question truthfully per day, but at a cost. The cost had always been upfront and was something like "Spend two spell slots" or "take 20 damage," but this changed. After a stressful session going nowhere, I asked about the location of another artifact. Our DM gave a beautiful and flowery description of a very general location and promptly went into my digital character sheet and removed my proficiency in Persuasion as the cost without any warning. Shock aside, I was fine with this, although the information given wasn't really useful. The problem came when we met an NPC the next session that gave the party extremely specific information that made this question pointless. I talked to the DM later to express my frustration with this and he apologized and retconned the use of "The Orb" and I got my proficiency back. Although this was resolved at the table, the entire situation just felt weird. Should he have gone into my character sheet like that? Should he have given more information for the cost or should I have just taken the L on the loss of proficiency? I await your judgment.

Chuck Dee

To the great and beautiful Court and the good ole’ Bailiff. I bring to your attention the case of the unassailable monsters. Our DM is running a short, fifteenth level campaign about a party of old companions coming back together for one last job. Travelling through the desert, we came across a group of Yuan-Ti abominations and one terrifying Yuan-Ti anathema. Since we spotted them pretty far away, we moved a little bit closer until they noticed us. Initiatives are rolled, the anathema goes first and moves closer. Our fighter got lucky and went next, intending to pummel the creature to start up the fight (as fighters do.) When he gets there, the anathema had a prepared action (which is fair) and uses it. The problem is that it delivers its full multi-attack which is incredibly strong, and crits on at least one of the hits, delivering around 18d6 + 24 damage. Not enough to automatically kill the fighter, but he soon gets surrounded by the minions and never quite recovers. The anathema eventually strikes him down, and for good measure, finishes him while he's unconscious, fully killing the character. Was this ruling correct? Should a monster be able to get the first hit in and deliver a full multi-attack as a reaction? It feels overpowered and like entering combat will always end up with a very heavy hit as soon as the characters get in melee range with the enemies. Many thanks for your judgement

Randy

*closes eyes and bows in revelry to the honorable justice, indignant side glance to lowly bailiff* May it please the court Several years ago I was in my second ever campaign, we were playing Tomb of Annihilation and zombies abound. We came across a ravine with a horde of zombies shambling below the cliff we were standing on. Trying to decide how to cross it I had the idea to cast “Magic Circle” spell at lvl 4 which would give us 2 hours, so we could stand inside of it and fight them all. The DM said no to this because he didn’t want to have a battle with 200 zombie and 6 players. I argued he could just montage the fight because within the magic circle they cannot get to us. He said no so we proceeded to bumble across and used several spells to get the party across safely after a few failed to climb across vines. In the end we made it across safely, but I still maintain my spell should have been used. Was i incorrect for wanting to jump forward 2 hours to having defeated the zombies or was the Dm right to not allow it?

Trent Dowling

Hail and well met honorable justices and also honorable but less so bailiff jake. I bring forth the tale of Space, the player who refused to level up. I run a campaign in the Ravnica setting where a fungal dragon has been released and intends to mulch the entire plane. We are reaching the end of the story and I wanted to throw so beefier monsters at the party so I made up a “super serum” of sorts that will jump the players from level 13 to 15. For dramatic effect I told them the drug was experimental and psychedelic because it used the dragons spores that Space themselves brought to the lab. All the players were going to experience a unique vision from their characters memory, make a few low DC saves and then level up twice. When presented with the drug all the players jumped at the chance to level up but Space was hesitant and while the other players took the super serum they swiped theirs off the table. They then burned luck points until they got a high enough roll to not be seen. When the head of the lab noticed the drug was missing they called Space on it as they were the only one in the room besides them. They then burned ANOTHER luck point on a deception check and got a nat 20 prompting the lab director to put everyone in lockdown fearing a spy for the dragon got in. In response to this Space casted plane shift and asked to go to the 9 hells, but this is Ravnica and the hells do not exist so I had them roll on a list Magic the Gathering planes and they landed on an inhospitable maelstrom. They then shoved a portable hole into their bag of holding to escape and had to roll again dropping them into another random plane. The session ended shortly after with everyone bitter as this ate up the last half hour of game time and everyone wanted to test out their new powers. My question is, did I handle this correctly or was I too harsh on poor Space?

Skillful Ferret

If it would please the judges on high, will the bailiff down low please recount the tale of the Torn Tabaxi, While playing my last session (though only the 3rd session) due to leaving for a deployment the other characters in the party decided to plan to betray our mission and become an evil party so they role played a distraction for my character who was a lawful good Paladin. I had offered to play a Lawful Evil Cleric as well, but the other players told me to play the Paladin. Thus, I had to spend the entire session pretending to be alone in another room. Then at the very end, to roleplay my character out of the session I took the artifact from our NPC priest to complete the mission without putting the others in danger. Which I thought would let the party have an excuse to quit the mission since they wanted to switch to being an evil party. I found out that during the next session they caught up to my character who had sacrificed himself using the artifact to revive a village that was destroyed (dm choice) which I thought was cool, but the remaining players decided to mutilate my character’s corpse to remove the artifact that I had apparently swallowed, in order to sell it. Am I right to be bothered by that despite being out of the game? Note the DM quit the campaign ~10 sessions later due losing interest in the character’s antics.

Gabriel Mauch

Dearest Most Honorable Supreme Crit. I don't have a case to bring to you, but I just wanted to thank you for expanding the court. Justices Wilson, Oyama, Beardsley, Iyengar, Lepetit, Hurwitz, Cobb, & Yaffe (and anyone else I'm forgetting) are great boons to both DMs and players. From naked sorcerors to tight grandmas and everyone inbetween, we all thank you. Expanding the court is the right thing to do and I applaud you for it.

JazzyRushesIn

Esteemed justices, and the bailiff who is also there, I humbly seek judgment in the case of the mind-reading headmistress. My cousins and I have been playing DnD together for a few years now, but this event still begets some degree of saltiness from our DM whenever it is brought up. Our party had been sent to retrieve the prince of our home country from his wizarding middle school, but upon arrival found that the entire place had been locked down due to a wild magic surge. To make a long story short, most of the teachers had been wholly incapacitate by the wild magic in one way or another until our party arrived and were able to neutralize the source of the wild magic and return the school to normal. During this entire time, the headmistress was stuck in a petrified state, as she turns herself to stone before bed each night to prevent aging. She was only able to return to her normal form once the wild magic surge had died down and therefore didn’t know what had happened in the meantime. She held a meeting with our party and, rather than having us recap the last several sessions, simply used a detect thoughts spell to read our minds and get an idea of what she had missed. Our party’s lawful-good druid freaked out and started complaining that it was unethical to read a person’s mind without consent, to which our DM replied that this is a magical world and since the headmistress never attempted to probe past our surface thoughts that it wouldn’t really been seen as a violation in this world, regardless of the out of game moral implications of mind reading. Still, the druid remained quite upset and kind of went off on the headmistress. I tried to remind the rest of my party that she was a very powerful mage and we maybe should just drop it, but to no avail. On top of this, our (frankly, unpredictable) stoner monk, who was now sober for the next forty days due to an unlucky wild magic roll, tried to attack the headmistress because “it happened under her watch” and promptly got himself banished to a demi plane for a bit. This truly insane energy in what was supposed to be a simple recap of our adventure with a high-level NPC led to every PC but my own being kicked out of the headmistress’s office and they had to wait in the hallway while I spoke to her. (our party has ways to communicate telepathically, so everyone was still able to know what was happening, even though they weren't allowed in the room with her) My question to the Crit is this– in a highly magical setting like an actual wizarding school, how much morality is too much? Does it ruin the fun of playing in a fantasy world if we try to apply real-world ethics to everything, or was our druid justified in her rage?

papaya jam

To the honorable justices, and the groveling bailiff, Jake I present my case against a newish dm and a forever dm turned pc. We recently started a campaign of domm. After encountering a mysterious npc that turned out to be an old friend of our bard, the defendant. Our wizard spotted a secret compartment in his quarters, and I, sorlock named Akarot, used my invisible quasit, Grimpy, to search the compartment and found a spell book and wand. Then I slyly took the items from Grimpy and tucked them away, without being asked for a stealth or slight of hand check. The npc was none the wiser. The bard spotted this but did not say anything. After progressing further, maybe another hour or so. We began exploring a new room, while our bard slipped back to the entrance, with a stealth of 28. Later I find that the spell book I had taken was no longer on my person, but the wand is. Being cheekily implied by the dm and bard out of game, that he had indeed picked my pocket and returned the book. I have no doubt he could have picked my pocket without me noticing. But I argue that when I initially stole the book I should have had an opportunity to hide it from the bard as well. I did not argue at the time because the bard is always up to these shenanigans and I assumed he wouldn't care. He is a "true" neutral, retired slave trader after all. I await your Supreme judgment and swift punishment of whoever you see at fault, even if, it should be me.

David Moelker

Follow up case for Immovable rod vs Ancient white dragon: May the Judges be ever praised and the Bailiff fall ever deeper lower beneath them yet hold our hearts more than the judges ever could. When I last came to the court to plea my case I was dismissed and essentially told 'Do better" since my players were not at fault. I now ask for their punishment to be dealt. They had killed the dragon with the immovable rod and you suggested to make it harder to get in it's throat and then maybe not insta-kill a large enemy. They stumbled into combat with another dragon more recently and I made it hard to get in the mouth, and they didn't end up getting in the mouth. They still defeated the dragon with only one beloved npc and one less beloved pc dying, but My Players, were enraged. The first time it happened I let them do it easily so they angrily told me I had to keep to precedent. Me however, being me, did not give in causing one of my players to leave the table, one to leave the game entirely and the other two to glare at me with murder in their eyes. I had carpooled with the one who left the game and ended up having to uber home. Personally I didn't see their anger coming until it was upon me, I thought our player DM relationship was strong. Sadly I was wrong. So I ask for their punishment to be at least the price of my uber drive.

Emma

The Case of the Transporting Tarrasque Tummy May it please the ever-supreme justices and the lovely, luscious bailiff. I come before you to ask: Where does a creature end and their stomach begin? I am the (Scorpio) DM for a longtime group, and as part of the finale sequence to a 4 year campaign, I threw a genetically engineered Tarrasque (slightly altered stats) at them. Over the course of the battle the Fighter (Cancer) was swallowed. The Cleric’s (Cancer) solution was to cast Banishment on the Tarrasque, claiming that the Tarrasque would vanish and leave the fighter behind, as the spell only targets one creature. I claimed that even though he was only targeting the Tarrasque, the contents of its stomach would go along, as they’re inside the banished creature regardless of his targeting. This spawned a table-wide argument for about 15 minutes, before I put my foot down and ruled that Banishment would send the Tarrasque AND its stomach contents. Was I right? Should a banished creature lose the contents of its stomach when it’s transported? Or would whoever’s inside go along for the ride? I await your honorable decision.

PlausiblyPJ

In the name of The Master, The Player, and The Supreme Crit (because we don't separate church and state.) I confess to the EXILE of one of my fellow player characters. My friends and I have been playing Rime of the Frost Maiden for some time now, but early on (session 3, PC level 2) our party encountered a town that needed help. Instead of helping them, we found an opportunity to screw them over and gain favor with an organization similar to the Mob. Most of the party was all for it, except for our lawful good Warlock, Glythmel. In character, he argued that it was wrong and he wouldn't partake, going as far as to say he would snitch on us to the towns folk if we decided not to help them! So after secretly discussing it with another party member while everyone was distracted, I took it upon myself as the Bard of the party to cast Sleep on him. We then proceeded to tie him up, gag him, put a sack on his head and tell the town leader we couldn't stay because we caught a bounty we had been looking for (i.e. our hog tied and gagged warlock.) Making sure to also besmirch Glythmel, stating he was a lunatic who goes around spreading lies and causing trouble. After a few deception checks to the town leader, we carried our former party member far outside of town. We left Glythmel on the side of the road in the horrifying, dangerous and inhospitable eternal winter, abandoning him for good (I gave him 10gp out of guilt, not realizing our Rogue stole 30gp from him while he was tied up.) The player apparently didn't mind, and our DM was stunned by our actions. We had a good laugh and the game continued with the players new character. Our DM even homebrewed Glythmel as a villain in the campaign now! But I still feel guilty for betraying my fellow party member so early on. I humbly await your benevolent judgement. Praise be! 🙏

Keanu DRAMAFACE

Hear ye, can anybody hear me? I beseech the Honorable, Unfetterable, Justices of the supreme crit. And I give a thin smile and “hey” to the bailiff. My problem is thus: I play an elven warlock, pact of the chain (important). To make a long story short, I was falling from a height that would surely kill me from falling damage. In a moment of panic and IMO genius. I threw my familiar down in front of me so it would hit the ground first. Before hitting the ground I cast eldritch blast attacking myself. I have the invocation “Repelling Blast” that allows you to push a creature 10 feet away in a straight line if you hit. I wanted to slow my fall using this method. My DM said that’s insane and I didn’t end up dying thanks to stable death throws. But I still think it should’ve worked. WHAT SAY YEE, most honorable justices…and Josh.

Thom van Tijn

To the Most Benevolent Guardians of Justice and their perfectly cromulent Bailiff, I bring to you my case. I'm playing in a Homebrew campaign with a group of friends. My issue begins with my first character in this campaign a Pact of the Chain warlock named Calista. As the campaign began to progress it became clear that the DM didn't like my character, especially my familiar. I talked with him out of game and offered to create a new character or choose a new subclass but he declined. Flash forward several sessions and were fighting a wizard in his tower. My character manages to counterspelll a Reverse Gravity spell, but is then quickly knocked down to zero. After being taken down to zero she was attacked for 2 death saves and had a healing word counterspellled, and I rolled an 8 on my final save. My issue is that since then anytime a battle looks like it'll be fatal our DM will back off and have the enemies retreat. We've had 1 further pc die, but they were able to be resurrected. Am I wrong to feel unfairly targeted in the killing of my pc and expect the same for the rest of the party? ----------------Further Information------------------ My character's have was originally going to be Calista Flockhart because I've always insisted that it sounds more like a D&D character than an actual person, but my DM vetoed it saying it was lazy. I also used The Decemberists song Mariners Revenge as a base for my backstory, but in my defense it's a great backstory and there was little to no information given about the world we'd be inhabiting. Our backstories have never really come up in any meaningful way either. I also want to assure you an that this was not a joke character.

Donny

May it please the Court, am I wrong to test my players in combat? I am running a high level game for my friends: the PCs are starting at Lvl. 15 and my intent is to run the final dungeon for them as 20th-level characters. However, I already have one player complaining and asking for special considerations because he thinks I made our second fight too tough just to nerf his sorcerer. Yes, I swarmed the party and used the DMG's mob attack rules to score some automatic hits, but I was experimenting because I wanted to see how well high level play could handle that situation. No individual sleight was intended. Justices and Bailiff, was I wrong to do this?

Runcible Shaw

I'm begging every ttrpg table to just talk to each other like adults who want each other to have fun playing a game rather than just wondering why things are happening in a way they don't like and getting mad at each other.

Dylan C

To the mighty and esteemed judges and the bailiff who is the true hero of the court. I bring you all a case if character gender identity and player agency. I am in a game where I play as an air genasi worlock warrior in a game that the dm describes as "a fuck around game." One day we were talking to a university professor and I touch an incomplete item in the room that changed my gender with no save whatsoever. On top of that the dm told me to just "interpret that how you will" which is a loaded statement because there are so many ways to decide what happened. I was extremely miffed because I made my character the way made me comfortable and exited to play and I try to stay away from playing as some groups of people because I don't want to accidentally fall into stereotypes. I eventually decided on saying that my character Zahid is a warrior first and wouldn't care about what their gender is so I could avoid an identity crisis that I didn't want to have. I ask, was my player agency take from me or should I have ran with this potential character development in a silly game. To be fair I would have been less miffed with more defined rules and a charisma save. I pray for your swift judgment.

Zach Horn

Esteemed Justices and the 1/2 of Jake and Amir that is on this show, this has nothing to do with DnD, but I wanted to ask Murph and Emily what kind of cat backpacks they purchased to fly with their pets/any tips to flying with animals? I moved out to Denver, CO a few months ago and will be taking my cat home to Columbus, OH for the holidays so trying to plan ahead! Love everything you all do and thanks in advance if this question is selected!!

Quinn Campagna

May it please the actual highest court in the land and the lowliest bailiff. I DM for a party of 6, which includes a ranger and a Druid. Recently, the party was trying to canvas a large area of a city looking for signs of a villain they have been chasing. The party came up with a plan to have the Druid wild shape into a bird, then have the ranger cast Beast Sense to look through the Druid’s eyes. However, I ruled that this would not be allowed, citing that since the Druid keeps their own mental stats their creature type doesn’t fully change. They contested this, so we came to a consensus to Polymorph a member of the party and enact the plan that way, and I agreed to submit to the infallible judgement of the Supreme Crit. Was I right in my judgement on Wild Shape, or did I interpret it too strictly?

Nick Asmussen

May it please the court and tickle the bailiff, I bring the forth the case of Gust of Wind vs. a House Fire. It was my first time ever playing a PC and my tempest cleric cast gust of wind to put out a raging house fire. The DM, also a first timer, ruled that the spell was not strong enough to put out the fire. I countered by reading the wording of the spell and I was overruled. We compromised by allowing me to roll a d8 each round and that’s how many tiles of fire would be extinguished. Though, fire being fire, it spread exponentially and the house burned down. We ended up missing out on a hoard of magic items, which is fine, but I still believe my spell should’ve worked. Was I wrong for pushing too hard on a DM’s first session or should I have made more of an argument for my second level spell? I leave my case at the mercy of the court. P.S. This is no shade on her, she is a great DM and we’re all having fun.

Taylor Haws

Greetings magnanimous justices and the pitiable, sniveling bailiff. I humbly present the case of the Night Mother's Curse. I was running Curse of Strahd and my players encountered a werewolf den. The werewolves worshipped a deity called the Night Mother and had built a shrine with offerings of gold. The players defeated the werewolves and freed the orphans that were being held captive. They then agreed to give the gold offerings to the orphans. The orphans warned the players not to take the gold as that would incur the wrath of the Night Mother. The players went back and forth for a while. They tried talking the orphans into taking the gold but the children refused. Eventually one of the players, an elf druid got fed up and distributed the gold to the orphans. The Night Mother cursed the elf druid to be unable to rest at night due to horrific visions. The players complained that they were doing a good deed and should not have been cursed. They also argued that if the gold were cursed, it should have passed to the kids. I explained that the act of removing an offering from the shrine was the cause of the curse. The players continued complaining and eventually I had the druid roll a religion check. He rolled high so he was able to contact the Night Mother in a trance. The Night Mother offered the druid a chance to do a task to gain her favor. The players didn't seem to vibe with that opportunity and the next time they leveled up, one of them gained the spell Remove Curse and removed it. I thought the curse would be an opportunity for growth or roleplay but my players didn't seem to see it that way. I graciously await your judgement.

Tree

May it please the just-so-icy justices Axford, Murphy, Tanner, and the stalwart and keen bailiff Jake. I present the case of Bigby's Hand vs the Ring of Free Action. My character is a halfling Paladin named Redlyn Pebbleduster. For context, I have a mediocre Strength stat and had already equipped/attuned a Ring of Free Action. During combat, Bigby's Hand attempted to grapple and throw me into a nearby acid pool which had a 10 foot ledge to climb. I argued that due to the effects of the Ring of Free Action, Bigby's Hand (magic) should not have been able to grab and move Redlyn. The DM (and other party members??) argued against it since the rules do not specifically state grappling as a preventable condition. I countered that the ring's intent reads that magic should not be able to impede the movement of a character, and had I been shoved in it would make more sense. This was important because of the bonus action crushing damage that followed. I'll add these details: I was not given the choice to use my slightly better Acrobatics score for Grappling and had to use Athletics, then also required to pass an additional Athletics check *at disadvantage* to simply climb up the 10ft. ledge. Grappled, dealt crushing damage, cast into the pit, and unable to climb out - I was knocked out and *should* have died (by a very lucky roll I was saved by the party). I ask you, should I have simply accepted the fate the DM had clearly planned for me, or was I right in arguing that my ring of anti-fuckery should have helped? No other party members were so much as downed during the fight. I await your decision, but mostly care that Jake just agrees with me.

Charlotte

This petition was submitted on behalf of my partner as they are not subscribed to the patreon. May it [verb] the court and the [adjective] Bailiff Hurwitz: One of my friends, when building characters, has a habit of minmaxing to the detriment of group play. At my table he once rolled two 18 stat scores for a 1st level paladin (one of my other players thinks he fudges his stat rolls), by 5th level this character was impossible to plan encounters around. Months later, our group decided to play in a previous campaign setting again, with their previous characters. I offered everyone the chance to make new characters for this setting if they wanted to, on the condition that they use the standard array. My reasoning was that since these new characters would be starting at 6th level, and would have at least one feat or ASI under their belt, the less ideal stats would be accounted for. My minmaxing friend was the only person who made a new character, and as such the only person to use the standard array, with which he took issue. Justices, I beseech you: was I wrong to make my friend use the standard array when his was the only character to do so? PS: Per Justice Beardsley's request, I am a gemini and my friend is a pisces

Slaz

Distinguished Judges and the humble Bailiff Jake. May it please the court, I present the case of the Churlish PCs. I am currently in the works of writing and finalizing a campaign setting based off a recent MTG set called Streets of New Capenna; which takes place in the Art Deco metropolis of New Capenna, a city that has both grit and glamour, as it is a place built by angels, but now ruled by five demon crime families battling for supremacy. All that I have to do now is gather the usual players and actually run the game. But this is where the problem is and why I am seeking guidance, I do not want to invite back one of my routine players. The reason being the namesake of this case, his PCs that he creates always end up being a huge joke and/or a 1 dimensional character. Here are a couple of recent examples: A half orc barbarian named Unga Bunga, who started out rough with the name alone, slowly devolved into a character who wished to use mayonnaise to solve all of his problems after he looted an alchemy jug (which for some reason has the option to produce 2 gallons of mayo on use). Or perhaps I should talk of Sir Arthur Kneibler Junior, the Loxodon bard/janitor, who was the heir to his father's underpants fortune, who utilized a bag of holding filled to the brim with whitey-tighties, and on the first session spray painted his teeth chrome after casting invisibility on himself. I could go on but these were not one time occurrences nor were they sparse incidents throughout each session in their respective campaign. To be truthful, I was okay with them at the beginning as I thought they would eventually mold themselves into mighty adventures along the course of the campaign despite their ridiculous backstory, but there was no character development as they would rather slapstick their way to the end. And yes the onus of responsibility should have fell upon me as a DM to knock these PC suggestions down swiftly but he is my cousin and on top of that, all other PCs he would suggest would be just as ridiculous. I ask the court, should I become more malleable with the PCs that he presents to me, or should I not invite him to the table for these transgressions? I submit myself to your wisdom.

BadgerAmongMen

May it please the almighty court and the masterful bailiff Jake, I present to you the case of the raccoonicorn. My players found a homebrew 5e creature called a raccoonicorn, a raccoon that grew a horn and gained the power of a unicorn after eating it. They nearly demanded I add one into the campaign, but the problem is that in our world, raccoons and unicorns are not native to the same plane, so they would have to find some way to artificially create a raccoonicorn. They decided to try and use Find Greater Steed to summon a unicorn which they then planned to kill and feed to a raccoon. I told them that since it was summoned using a spell that it wasn't a real unicorn and wouldn't allow them to create a raccoonicorn. The table was upset, saying that I was "just trying to stop them from having fun". Was I wrong to deny my players a magical sentient raccoon familiar? I await your judgment.

Sami_ The _Neko

Simply because he mentioned it and I love being petty If it pleases the court, I recently made an Earth Genasi named Beryl, who has two moms. My DM said he HAD to have a father it was purely adopted because “there’s no way for two women to have a baby,” even though it’s a fantasy land with canasta creatures. I’m not very mad about it, but it does bother me that he keeps trying to bring in (in my opinion) too much realism at times

Alejandro the Golden Dragon

A Rules Lawyer vs Brennan "daddy master" Lee Muligan. May it please the Honorable & Divine Justices. And the wormy and earthly bailiff. Re-watching season 1 of Dimension 20, I noticed that during the battle of the corn cuties Kristen Applebees received 6 points of falling damage after slipping in a puddle of corn. However the rules state you take 1d6 of falling damage for every 10 feet you fall. Therefore the 6 points of damage she received were not proportional to the fall she had. This resulted in her dying after failing her saving throws. Is this the result of a secret hate of an atheistic DM against the most religious character? Well no, but maybe. What has been done may not be undone, but are supposed we to accept this injustice? No, this court must correct this injustice and punish the offender, mister Mulligan. I urge you Justice Murphy and Axford to commit parricide renounce your father and strike him down. If the court finds him innocent I am willing to accept any punishment the court hands out. I love all of you, even the daddy master, but justice must be done.

Steven Hamonic

UPDATE: Hot NPCs May it continue to titilate the court: my party left the region they were previously occupying, and have gone to a new place I affectionately call "Baywatch". The people who live there are mostly Tritons (Leggy Mermaids). It's great because all the art I've found for them is attractive but not too human. Reference (one of the new Hot NPCs): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EHy1PQdUcAUOg8i?format=jpg&name=large My question for the court: when we leave this region, should I lean harder into Hotter NPCs?

Rachel H

Honorable Supreme Crit Justices and Jake Hurwitz, I bring to you the case of the Unrewarded Nat 20. I joined a campaign midway through at the behest of a friend because they were low on players. A couple sessions in, we came upon a hideout of the bandits we were tracking down and were surprised to see it abandoned. I asked if I could roll to investigate to see if I could find anything. I rolled a nat 20 and got really excited, but the DM responded with "You find nothing". I asked him to clarify since it was a critical success, and he said I was critically successful at finding out he hadn't put anything there. Later, we were ambushed by the bandits and it was revealed the whole thing was a setup. Court, am I wrong to feel as if I was slighted by this and my nat 20 at least warranted a clue that something was awry? I held my tongue at the table, but was a salty lil anchovy later and did not make the effort to play with them again. If it effects my case, I described my bard as "essentially Dolly Parton" and couldn't help but feel the real Dolly was disrespected. I eagerly await your just verdict.

Molly Oxenfree

May it please the court and that guys who was on 8BBC like one time, I DM a game where I have a player playing the new dragon ranger class who was really hesitant to use their little buddy in combat as they didn’t want to risk it dying and undoing their bond. To encourage them to enjoy it and use it for more than a horse reskin I offered to swap out the HP for MP or morale points, where if it dropped to 0 it would run away and hide until resummoned. This is apparently an issue for another pc who when the drake ran away this session instead of falling to the ground or disappearing got really quiet and after the game asked me privately why the ranger got to keep their dragon. I haven’t used this system before as no one had said they had a problem, but even after offering to change that case for their wizards familiar they were still really upset. Is this a fine ruling? And what’s fair for people who would have wished to have this from the begging before I thought of it? Awaiting Answers in Austin

Arwen Cana

To the esteemed judges and tall-barney bailiff. I present the case of the misplaced Aggro. I play a lvl 1 Fairy Bard in a new campaign with 6 other players. We were eradicating a group of goblins that invaded a village, one goblin ran to the town cemetery and hid behind a very ornate memorial. Our warlock decided to hit it with an eldritch blast but rolled a Nat 1. The DM decided that the eldritch blast killed the goblin but also decimated the Memorial. A Ghost appeared and we rolled initiatve. Everyone gets to go before the ghost. Everyone hits with ranged attacks/cantrips, but I miss my guiding bolt, I fly away up into the air separating my self from the group, who stayed grouped up, thinking the ghost would attack the area doing damage/desecrated the memorial. The ghost proceeds to fly up to me, does damage, I fail a con save,and it reduces my max HP to 0, killing my character. The DM decided that my character was not dead but is now a living fairy skeleton, but I have no longer have the ability to fly anymore until I cure my affliction. The DM said that your guiding bolt, if hit, would have done major damage and the ghost decided I was a major threat and an easier target since I was alone. I posture that I didn't even hit and that ghosts are beings that run on emotion and would target the warlock who messed with the grave and also landed a sacred flame. Was I wronged? I await your judgement

Hopscotch

Forgive me dice deacons, for I have sinned. Also Jake, not that it matters. I come to the confessional to atone for my transgressions. I have guesstimated rolls on many occasions. You see, I have dyscalculia, a form of dyslexia involving numbers, and I have a lot of difficulty with even simple maths. Please know that this is NOT an excuse, but an explanation. Doing math takes much longer for me than it should and out of embarrassment and to keep the pace moving for everyone, I've panicked and shouted out what I thought might be close to correct countless times. I have no doubt that this has likely resulted in successes that Dice Christ did not intend to bestow upon me. And the real kicker is that the friends I play with are delightful and understanding. I'm sure they would have no issue waiting for me. My embarrassment has clouded my judgement in the past and I am working to get past this and simply take the ample time that I need to honor the dice. Please, what must I do to find forgiveness?

Henry Hamann

To the esteemed judges and baliff that I think I made slightly uncomfortable when I met him in New York in early May this year (sorry Jake) Can a Giant [SIZE MEDIUM] Bee catch an adult human falling at terminal velocity. My moneys on no, and that resulted in a very controversial death of a character in one of my games many years ago that is still brought up today.

Ben D

May it please the court and the baliff, too, if necessary, I present a case of Youngin' Inconsistency in my DM's world. I played a 12 year old human druid and everywhere I went alone people would try and help me find my parents despite me assuring them I was fine. However! When our party warlock halfling disguised self as the human child of the BBEG to try and get into their office, no one asked to bring them to their parents or tried to help at all, in detriment to our plan. I hold that if my character is always assumed to need help, then that should go for ALL children, and not just be used to harass me. Thank you and goodnight.

Axyl and Olympia

May it please the court, Oh great and powerful justices, oh and that other guy, I present to you the case of the musical Organ that has actual Organs My dnd party has occasionally done a less serious spin off from our usual campaign to just casually play shit heads and fuck around called the adventure squad. Well this time my lovely DM presented us with a spooky village that we were sent to, to figure out why people were going missing. Skipping past the middle what we find is that a very French woman and her husband are taking people from the village and using their body parts to create a living organ “that makes music feel more alive. There is more passion when the instrument itself is living” At the end of it all we catch her and were debating wether or not to kill her because she was very adamant that even tho we killed her organ here she can do it again somewhere else. The very loud but funny debate that ensued was wether or not by killing her were we any better than her. That would killing her be better and prevent any more living instrument related deaths or were we no better than her if we killed her. We killed her in the end. I await your glorious and truthful conclusion and or punishment.

Katherine Clarke

Beloved judges and bailiff, I ask for your advice. My players constantly split up, often with one set of players not engaging in an active story really. I don't wish to artificially force them into something but I don't want them to be bored either. How would you handle one party going thru the Underdark to a criminal market and the others staying at their new inn and explicitly choosing not to pursue a possible story lead (and how would you balance the time)?

Dakota Muckelrath

High Supreme Crit Justices and Jake the Fallen, I was part of a campaign where we were the rulers of a small town and I was the master of coin. My in game brother, who was the city’s prefect, was in a meeting with a rebel npc faction and said my character knew he was about to make a bad decision so I cast Sleep on him and made him pass out. It all seemed fine until a few sessions later we were on a hostile island being pursued by thousands (literally) of hobgoblins and he decides I should be put on trial for what I did and be put to death. Luckily the rest of the party was sensible and I got out alive but was I wrong to cast Sleep on my in game brother? I leave my life in your capable hands.

PlausiblyPJ

P.S. Session 1 was the first time I met most of these people, so this was basically their first impression of me as a player and a person 😁

Chris Coppel

To the viperous justices of the Supreme Crit and the poor cuckolded bailiff, today I bring, not a case from my own table, but an accusation against the High Court itself. Inspired by your decision to continue the noble cause of reading video game books, I recently resolved myself to listen to the full catalogue of 8Bit Book Club. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself, though regrettably, I have become noticeably dumber in the process. I have no regrets as I knew the risks involved. However, my joyful descent into dullness was halted during the episode, “The Angry Birds Movie: The Junior Novel” when I stumbled upon evidence of a truly heinous conspiracy. I have transcribed an exchange between the justices below and ask that it be entered into the court records.  (Transcript begins at 25:05) Justice Murphy: Emily and I have a14-year-old boy’s taste in media. Justice Axford: I thought you were going to say we had a 14-year-old boy… We have a 14-year-old-boy. Justice Tanner: When are you going to have Tucker on the show?  Justice Murphy: We had children when we were 16. Justice Tanner: When is Tucker Axford-Murphy going to come on the show? Justice Murphy: I don’t know, he’s getting ready for college now, so he’s a little busy Justice Tanner: So smart, your boy. Justice Axford: We have a 14-year-old boy, so we do have a child to support. Justice Murphy: We have a child to support. Justice Axford: He plays hockey, which is the most expensive of sports, so it’s been really taxing. We’re going to start a Patreon to pay for his college. Tucker. Jill’s Tucker? It must be. This episode was released on 2/21/17 and I can only assume that a short few years later he made it to college and eventually met Jill. I ask the Court, does the Bailiff know that his wife/comedy partner was stolen by the Justices’ own son? Is NADDPOD simply a front to pay for his college/hockey expenses? Is he a senior now? How did his last season go?  Should my accusations be false, I will accept any punishment, but if they are true, I demand justice for the pitiful bailiff. P.S. – Justice Tanner later makes a claim in the same episode that he also has a son named Tucker, but I took this to be in jest… I hope

Ryan Sullivan

Dear Dice Christ, I ask for your forgiveness because I am unable to forgive myself. In my early days of D&D, I was destined to be a forever DM in order to ever play with my friends. This was not a big deal, but the anxiety of playing the game correctly and making sure everyone had a good time was a daunting task for a freshman in college. This is my confession. In the early levels of our very first campaign(my first time DMing and everyone else's first time playing), I killed my entire party! This was not due to any malicious intent but simply because I was rolling to well and my players unfortunately were not and I felt the need to play RAW to give my players an authentic experience even if I rolled a nat 20 and knocked someone out. After the game and the burning of the sheets I drove everyone home and despite feeling like I had let everyone down they all assured me that they still had a great time role-playing their characters last moments, however I knew that if I had just fudged my own rolls I knew everyone (or at least a few of them) would still be alive. So, almighty dice christ, I ask for your forgiveness and a bit of guidance because I have been holding on to this weight for 7 years and have held myself back from DMing because of it. Should I have acted against my own convictions and lied to my players, or would I have been robbing my players of a genuine experience and chance to role-play their final moments?

Louis

To the highest of all justices and the great bailiff, may it please the crit: My first time DMing was a one off in high school for a group of friends, all of whom were new to the game. We played a homebrew 2E game (passed down from my dad and brothers). They were primarily interested in rolling and story, so I did all the math. We made the characters, I set the scene, and thus began their first turns. What followed still haunts me. I described a small village with people working in the streets a couple shops, an inn, some homes, and kids playing in the town square. They immediately began questioning me on the kids, believing them to be some sort of trick or trap. They weren't. They were just flavor. Unsatisfied with my reassurance that these were normal kids, they approached, drew weapons, and attacked without saying anything to the kids. I had them roll attacks for a suprise round and they slaughtered the children. I had established the fact that most people were out working, so as soon as this happened the townspeople surrounded the party and attacked with their tools. The 15 townspeople each rolled a d6 for damage, so while only half of them hit, they TPKd these 3 psychopaths in 2 rounds. They weren't happy. Was I too harsh or was this TPK justified? P.S. I did let them restart and they ended up skipping the dungeon (by rolling back to back nat 20s on dice I gave them), going straight to the giant scorpion boss, and killing it, leaving one of them perma dead and the other 2 with less than 3 hp.

Jack L

May it please the Court and bring some small amount of pleasure to the cold lonely bailiff. I have a player who consistently makes characters with interests but no goals. They are a wizard obsessed with magic or an alchemist obsessed with science, but never give a reason why or goal that they will use it for, despite being prompted for that in session 0. Because of this, across several campaigns, his characters have never received any significant story arcs based on them. He recently told me after a game that he was frustrated that he never gets any time in the narrative spotlight. I told him that when writing hooks and larger arcs, that it is much easier and more enjoyable to write for characters with juicier, more defined goals and motivations. This made him more upset. I throw myself on the mercy of the court, is this on me for being lazy or not pushing hard enough at character creation?

Elijah Fisch

To the honorable justices and the severely under-appreciated bailiff Jake, My Tabaxi Monk has recently acquired the legendary weapon “Wave” as my new monk weapon. My group was infiltrating a giant clan’s fortress but we were ultimately discovered and a deadly battle broke out. I planned on using Wave’s Cube of Force ability to hold the giants off while we retreated and funneled the giants so as not to get surrounded. As I’m relating this plan to the party, the DM had a cloud giant from over 100 feet away overhear my character say this, which resulted in him using telekinesis to steal the famous weapon from out of my hands. The cloud giant then disengaged and ran, we are now close to getting slaughtered by a horde of giants. Although it made for a cool narrative moment, I was a tad annoyed that the cloud giant was able to hear me say “Wave” from so far away resulting in losing my newfound legendary weapon (for now). Was I right to be annoyed by this cloud giant’s unreasonably good hearing? Or am I being too salty about having lost my cool new weapon? I await your swift and brutal justice.

Krispy Buns

May it please the court, honorable Justices Murphy, Tanner, and Axford, and the crispy and frisky baliff Jake. I have a brief question regarding the use of magic missile. The party I DM for was being tracked by an NPC using invisibility and through a series of perception checks and general bad vibes they began to suspect something was afoot. At one point I had the NPC roll a dex save because a player had poured grease down the stairs and the NPC failed and made a noise. Later on as the party was fleeing the area, one of them cast magic missile at the doorway where I had the NPC standing. I ruled that it hit them and dispelled the invisibility, revealing to them who it was, a cool plot point. However in rereading the language of magic missile, I don’t think it should’ve hit. Thoughts?

Choc DISCO

May it please the court, and the highly esteemed bailiff Jake, I humbly present the case of the Ace of Spades. In the middle of a campaign that has recently ended, a wandering trader named Rykiel had revealed to the party that he had a new and improved Deck of All Too Many Things. This deck included all of the cards of a standard 52 card deck, excluding the jokers. One card, the Ace of Spades, caused the character which drew the card to never exist, instantly killing the character, and any proof of their existence was erased. (Memories, property, etc.) One character, named Enno, drew this card. The players knew what this card did, and upon seeing it, the player ripped Enno's sheet up. I immediately felt bad, and offered that the player may draw another card instead. The player insisted that 'They cannot change fate,' as they also had an essay they wanted to work on while the rest played. The player also rejoined the campaign, playing a character that was already established within the world, but on hiatus while he played Enno. Should I have never implemented that card into the deck, despite the minuscule chances, or is what I did okay, especially since the players knew the risk? I humbly await your judgement.

Brie R.

Hello to the esteemed baliff and just alright supreme crit justices! To make a long story short, my DM does not allow us to roll our own death saves. My college friends and I have recently started a campaign. Most of us are relatively new players, but our DM comes from a family of ttrpg people. When laying out the world and the rules he stated that he will rule our deathbsaves behind a screen to create suspense and reslly make us live in the moment. I hate this idea, but everyone else was on board, so I went with it. Am I in the wrong to wanting to be the hand the rolls the death saving dice?

Joseph Denning

To the esteemed Crit Justices, I present the case of increased gravity v. monks. In a campaign I DM, my PCs were fighting against an adult void dragon. Void Dragons have graviturgic breath: the ability to exhale a cube of powerful gravity, increasing fall damage in the area. My players all fell 60 feet in the area, but two of the players are monks, and I forgot they have slow fall, which would completely negate the damage. I wanted to keep up some of the tension, so I argued that while monks can typically slow fall, this area of increased gravity is abnormal for them. I convinced them that they would need to roll a constitution saving throw to take no damage, or half damage if they failed, (similar to evasion). They both failed and I feel conflicted about it. Should the rule of cool apply to moves I make with my monsters, or should I go with rules as written and let my players whomp me a bit? I humbly await your ruling.

Dionysus' Worst Sommelier

To the holiest of Justices and however they feel about the Bailiff (I think he’s alright). This is less of a confession and more of me wanting to testify to the Jury of the righteousness of Dice Christ. I play a tiefling Glamour Bard/Peace Cleric named Daarrius the Darling and recently my party fought one of the Big Bads, a reflavored Beholder. A few rounds into the fight, the Big Bad fires off her death beam, I make the Dex Saving Throw but my DM rolled just enough damage that even half damage was exactly Daarrius’ HP. So Daarrius falls, dead. Things go from bad to worse in the fight as I am the party's main healer, no one has Revivify, and everyone is bleeding HP. Our DM reminds us that we have the summon of a unicorn we rescued who promised to provide us with one favor. Immediately the Ranger summoned her and the whole party agreed that Darrius needs to be brought back to life. To keep things interesting, the DM said he would roll a percentile dice for the unicorn’s next three turns in front of the table, anything above 50% and my precious tiefling would return. First roll: 03 Another round passes and the second roll: 48 It comes to the unicorn’s final chance to revive Daarrius and as I am contemplating which member of his throuple will have to avenge their boyfriend’s death, the DM hands me the dice he’s been using, placing Daar’s fate in my hands. I roll: 56! The table erupts in cheers as my beautiful breakdancing bard boy comes back to life and becomes the healing machine I built him to be, turning the tide of the fight with no further casualties.

Alfredo Gomez

Dear esteemed and magnanimous judges and the craven mouth breathing bailiff. If it pleases the court I present the case of the firbolg named Hamanchees Sammich A while back I started a curse of Strahd campaign with some of my friends. I am a big fan of the setting and had spent many nights pouring over the book and various subreddits taking notes and making adjustments to make it my own. At the session zero I explained to them I wanted it to have more serious themed characters as it is a gothic horror campaign. Most of my friends made really good characters, a phantom rogue who had dreams of past lives they lived in Barovia, a fallen Paladin who’s brother was taken by werewolves etc etc. Then, another one of my friend said “I want to make a firbolg cleric named Hamanchees Sammich.” I was immediately taken aback and utterly shut them down. Telling them that this was supposed to be a serious campaign not just a goof em up. He argued with me saying he should be allowed to pick his own character’s name no matter what. But I did not bend to his whims and ordered him to come up with a different name. Cut to a few sessions in and I realize he put in minimal effort with the character’s roleplay and backstory and I felt a little remorseful. Had I been to hasty in shutting down his goofy name? By doing so did I cause him to lose interest in the character and the game as a whole? I throw myself at the mercy of the court and await your honorable verdict (P.S. Jake is my favorite)

Laney Bird

To the supreme Crit Justices and the, assumedly, overdressed Baliff, I present to you the case of the (evil) lusting for loot warlock. My DM is very generous with magic items. None of the players have ever had a complaint about the distribution of items, we split them up according to who would get the best use out of them. Recently a player, our warlock, had to miss a session and in that session we found some cool tech, some metal wings that could cast levitate and an air tight helmet meant for astral plane walking. There were 2 of each item and with the warlock gone we split them up evenly amongst the four remaining players. The next session the warlock found out about these items and complained loudly that they didn't get anything, but we figured, you snooze you lose. A bit later that session we found a treasure room containing a bag of holding, naturally we shoved as much treasure as we could in it and then debated who should hold on to the bag. The warlock insisted it should be them, since they missed out on the loot last session. The rest of us refused because the warlock is a princess of hell and a known chaotic evil PC (example, they once tried to steal a pirates peg leg just because they thought it was pretty), we thought it was a bad idea to give it to them because they would most likely go off and sell the treasure, pocketing the proceeds for themselves. When we said this to them they got upset, saying we were meta gaming and that there was no way we could know their character would do that. But we held firm, stating their character has done countless things that would make us not fully trust them. Fast forward to the end of the session, we're in a boss fight and are badly losing, every character but the warlock is down. But the DM clues us in that the boss is at very low health and the warlock has a good chance of defeating them on their next turn. Even knowing this the warlock threatened to run from the battle and leave us all to our deaths because we didn't trust them with the bag of holding earlier. Seeing how upset that idea made everyone the warlock player backed down and stayed to finish the fight. But I ask you, were we wrong to deny them loot or were they right to try and abandon us over some gold and trust issues.

masterofmerc .

May it please the court and Tucker who has hopefully taken over bailiff duties by now. In a 5E campaign I play a halfling bard and my husband is playing a goliath barbarian, we are going for a Rocket Racoon/Groot thing. I worked on rules with my DM and we came to an agreement that included rules for when I am standing on my husbands shoulders in battle, including a rule stating that when I am ducked behind his shoulders i get the benefits of half cover. We got into a fight with werewolves and my husband was knocked prone. My DM attacked me and hit my AC but not my AC in half cover. DM said cause the barbarian was prone my half cover was gone, I contended that he was prone not me and Id be able to scramble around. I was over ruled and I took the hit nearly killing my lvl 2 bard. OHHH WISE AND HONORED COURT...was i goven a deserved beating or did I get fragged? I submit to your wise judgment.

Sarah

Honorable members of the court, I do not bring a case but rather a confession to Dice Christ. My party recently began a new campaign, and I took over as the DM so that our prior DM could play. Our last session was the 3rd session of our new adventure. The party had a simple task: to escort a sick boy to the nearby city in order to be seen by a high level cleric. I set up some encounters along the way, and to increase the stakes I told the party that the child would be fine for 5 days, and then would start rolling one death save per in game day until they reached the city and saw a cleric. The journey should take 8-9 days, but some of the encounters they met could speed up or slow down their progress. Now again I will say that this is session 3, and the party is level 2, so I am still learning how to balance encounters for them. Over the course of their journey, they faced a few foes that nearly killed them due both to poor balancing and some unlucky rolls- so early in the campaign, I readily fudged the dice to avoid not one but 2 TPKS on the journey. This is not the sin I am seeking penance for, though perhaps Dice Christ has already attempted retribution- you see, the party did well enough in the other encounters that the journey would only take 7 days total, so the sick child would only need to roll 2 death saves. On the first day, he rolled a 4. On the dawn of the second day, the city and safety finally in sight, I rolled another death save for him- and it was a natural 1. As I looked at my party, already beat down from two near TPKs this session, level 2 adventurers who honestly do not have a single win to their names yet, I couldn’t bear to tell them they’d failed, and as I opened my mouth to say what the result was the 1 turned into a 2. The party celebrated getting the child to the city by the skin of their teeth, and were very relieved to have not needed a third day of the journey, so I counted it as a win and slept well that night. But now I worry that Dice Christ may have had other plans for the story, and that I have robbed my players of a meaningful moment of loss or failure that might have allowed for character growth later on. So tell me honorable justices (and Jake), how can I make amends with Dice Christ and ensure that I am safeguarding my player’s fun and the dice’s will in the future?

Decker Ames

To the esteemed, worthy, and valued Justices (Also hurwitz) I bring you not a steamy court case, but a plea for help. I introduced my friends to Dnd about two years ago now, and its been an era of unfiltered bliss in an otherwise dreary and isolated time. But I've got a full time job again. My friends now have Dnd as their hyper-obsession, making characters every other day and wanting to play at least twice a week, and I can tell they're bummed when I cant play. How do I find the creative energy to keep up with/have a good time with my friends, after working long hours again? You all have the energy I dream of bringing to the table so I humbly halt, hearing hard for the hearing -Decker A

Dippity_Dip

To my justices for whom the morning sun weeps for it can never be as beautiful, the shooting star sings for their praises be too great, and Jake, I ask if you might look upon my case of The Unteamly Condescender. My friends and I formed a dnd group a few years ago, and all of us still play together today. While the majority of us prefer a fun and comical campaign, one member of our group really likes to play more serious and hearty campaigns. That would be fine, except he refuses to play along with us when we get silly. For example, our party once instigated a synth flash mob to save a party member from crucifixion, while he went off by himself and found a special axe which he shared with no one because he thought we were being ridiculous. If we don’t include him in our campaigns, however, he acts hurt and consistently shows interest in wanting to join. Is everyone else overreacting to his behavior, or is he genuinely kinda a dick?

Noah Jeans

Good day from Canada to the phantasmagorically gorgeous judges, and the inwardly hideous yet outwardly gorgeous baliff jake (note the lowercase j), I present to you the case of 'A Peculiar PC Adieu'. I am DM-ing a campaign of a homebrew setting in which the group of adventurers are caught betwixt a web of intersecting and warring cults around the continent. This campaign is the one I am MOST proud of; the world feels real, there's a cast of diverse characters and all the PCs are fantastic at RP-ing, except one (but we'll get to that). During the past few scrumptious sessions we've played, two of the PCs have begun a tantalizing, ever so wonderfully queer budding romance. Now we cut to last week, where one of my players leaves all our group chats without a word, then proceeds to message me personally saying that he is quitting the campaign because the PC romance 'crossed a line' for him. I was very taken aback by this, but did not fight against his decision because I absolutely despise him as a player and a large part of my was glad he quit. He refused to participate in RP (except to insult NPCs or PCs), flatly refused to follow or pursue any of the story threads I worked hard on creating for his character, and really only every participated during combat. So my grandiose and most voluptuous judges (and jake), should I attempt to reach back out to this player, attempt to gain more context and make an arrangement for him to rejoin the campaign, or should I take this as a victory and run. I humbly await your judgement. PS. The other players know him personally and are all equal shooketh by this, and to their knowledge he is not homophobic.

Anna Brase

To the honorable justices and that delicious piece of ear candy, Bailiff Jake, I play in a campaign where the dm’s wife is one of my fellow players. I get that, as a married couple, they probably discuss the game when we’re not there. But I feel like the dm is talking to his wife about major plot points. There have been a few instances that seem odd here and there. But Recently our campaign had a major plot twist. When the twist was revealed, DM’s Wife didn’t seem surprised at all and her character immediately acted, while the rest of us were still reeling. Am I being paranoid? Should I even say anything? Or is it none of my business if the DM is telling his wife campaign spoilers before our session. I await your wise decision.

David Wieser

To the holy Justices and transcendent Bailiff, I prostrate myself to the Church of the Crit, for I have sinned by railroading my party into a TPK. I’m running a Curse of Strahd campaign, however, I learned up front that my party was really uncomfortable with the idea of character death. I promised not to kill them, but a lot of the themes in Curse of Strahd revolve around life and death, so I wanted to have a higher power resurrect my party for plot reasons. At the end of a long, drawn-out fight that took most of the session, I cast Cloudkill on the level 7 party repeatedly in a small room until they died. I felt like I had “won”, but at the end of the session, my players were so visibly dejected and upset about getting systematically murdered that my heart sank, and I realized I hadn’t been keeping The Rule of Cool in mind. To repent, I thought about what my players would really have fun with, and changed my plan completely. The next session, the party woke up in the silly and light-hearted Plane of Corn, where my corn-magic cleric player’s deity resided. They met an entire society of Corn Elementals, saw the source of corn magic, met a whole corn society (including a corn elementary school, corn ghost hunters, and corn city hall), and they had a blast. It’s been months since, and that session has been their favorite of the campaign so far. I hope that the Holy Court can forgive my sin, and that my repentance is worthy of Dice Christ.

Bethany Gilliam

To the honorable supreme crit justices and the decent bailiff Jake I ask you should my DM have stuck to his own rules? In our campaign we were met with an all knowing sphinx to cross over to the area we needed to go our DM told us to ask a question that could not be answered. We were told it could be out of character and non-game related but he would have 30 seconds to uses Google to mimic that “all knowing” nature of the sphinx. Our party decided to have one member ask a question in Spanish to our non-Spanish speaking DM. Once the question was asked he said the sphinx knows all languages so we he gave us a chance to ask a different question with no penalty. He was generous but should he have stuck our original question instead of making us ask another question? I await your wise and honorable decision.

Michael Alicoate

May it please the court, honorable Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the lonely (and lowly) bailiff Hurwitz. I present to you the case of the runaway sorcerer. My halfling Wild Magic Sorcerer (who is also a mail man), Barnaby, was in a final battle of a fetch quest style one shot. Barnaby had cast Haste on himself as well as the Paladin of the group. Using the extra movement and dash action given to you by Haste, Barnaby grabs the item we were looking for and runs off to get the item out of there away from the enemy pursuing it. Using all 75 ft of movement, Barnaby rushes off of the battle grid, drops the item off and makes his way back to battle, still with movement to spare. However, the DM ruled that because I had left the area drawn on the map, I would be out of initiative, my concentration on Haste would drop and I would no longer be able to do anything in the remainder of the battle. I argued that having only gone 75 ft, many of my sorcerer spells had ranges of up to 150 ft, thus still being able to hit enemies in battle, as well as concentrate on haste. The argument lead nowhere, and I was forced to pack up early and sit quietly while the rest of the battle took place. I ask you, who is in the wrong here? I obviously feel a little bitter about the situation, but I await your judgment, and punishment (if deemed necessary)

James Bofinger

To the honorable justices and the distinguished bailiff. I bring before you the case of the God DM and his lightning bolt. This happend when I was first learning to play D&D. I was playing with a group of army buddies and they had warned me the DM was very into that the DM is the God of the world and not to test that. I didn't think much of it. It was a viking campaign and I made a bard and being young and dumb I started seducing everyone I could (I know annoying but my first time) I successfully got a nat 20 on a seduction of a viking that I wanted info from. After a moment of silence the DM pulls out a huge box full of D6's dumped it and said a lighting bolt hit me and I was dead. No roll. No save. I didn't know what to do. I asked why that happened and he said I'd angered him as my D&D God. I quietly packed up all my stuff thanked them for the game and really havnt played since. I ask the court was I know it might have been annoying but if he had asked I would have stopped but was I in the wrong as he is "god". I await your ruling on this matter I have held onto for 11 years.

PWJ

To the honorable justices (and Jake, I suppose), I ask, should I have allowed the seagull to see in heat vision? A player of mine (my brother), a druid, wild shaped into a seagull. He said that as such, he should now have heat vision, as seagulls can see in ultraviolet frequencies. However, the group at large did not want to stop and read through articles to find out whether seagull's can actually see in heat vision, to the precision that the the player wanted. Instead I ruled no, there was no mention of heat vision in the rulebook so there would be no heat vision for now but I'd look it up later and decide if it could be used later on. My player did not like that to say the least. Did I make the right call?

Noah Jeans

Fair thee day to each of the stupendously serendipitous Judges and their baliff (not sure if he really even has a name), but today I am in need of atonement from the church which you also preside. I will keep this brief as the SFW category of my 3rd favourite website, patreon.napppod.com. I DISINTEGRATED THE PARTY'S FAVOURITE NPC. Yes that is right, during the final battle of the arc, the lich they were fighting turned them to dust, not before looking towards the party cleric and saying "take care of them". I thought this would be cool and cinematic, it was not. We stopped the session shortly afterwards as everyone was so distraught and upset with me we could not keep going. One of the players (my partner who I live with), cried for 4 hours straight and refused to talk to me for the rest the of the day. I then ordered everyone dinner then went home to feel sad. After a while my partner came home and apologized for how she acted and we decided we had found a new boundary which the players didn't know they had. But now DM-ing DND has been giving me such anxiety and I am worried I will hurt my players again. Please atone me for hurting those I love most so I can go back to enjoying DND the way I used to. PS. I remembered the NPC was under the effects of the 'Magic Jar' spell the next day and discovered making everyone so upset was for not, bc the NPCs soul was actually in a mason jar inside their bag. They were reincarnated the next session.

Murphy Hitchcock

To the first time guest understudy bailiff Hurwitz, and most importantly the venerable supreme crit justices, I bring to you a case about horse barding. Recently I discovered a variant rule that allows for steeds to be armored to better increase their AC and thus durability in combat. Our groups' paladin insists that they should be able to armor their summoned steed, but more importantly that the armor bonds to the steed. Our DM refuses to let the paladin's summoned steed retain the armor, countering that the armor would drop to the ground upon the steed reaching 0hp or being resummoned. The summoned steed has become an integral part of our groups team, chiming in with witty french banter at opportune moments. Is the DM in the wrong insisting that the summons steed would drop its barded armor? I submit to your ever fair and impartial judgement.

Tom

Forgive me dice Christ for I have sinned! May the the quire boys sing and allow the heavens to hear my regret and be forgiven by dice Christ and once again be one with the men and women of the church. About a month ago I played my last dnd session for a while. I’ve been in a campaign with a group of friends for about 6 months but just recently I’ve got a job opportunity where I am away from home for about 4 months and my last session was quite an emotional one, leaving the party and all. There were lots of fun moments in the session that gave my character a fun and emotional send off, but during the combat of the session, after describing an epic backflip where I pulled an arrow from my quiver mid-flip and stared down the final enemy standing, likely to be my last chance to attack and hit for about 4 months, I rolled a 6. However, when the dice landed it had stopped within a crowd of other dice sitting inside my dice tray and without hesitation I grabbed the dice and said it was cocked, quickly rolling again and hitting a natural 20! Since it was my last session I wasn’t being conservative with my equipment and after unloading everything I had at level 4 and hitting a crit I not only did the most damage my party had seen in the whole campaign so far, but I did 69 total damage! One of the players next to me had seen the original roll and we were both aware of it, however we stayed quiet about it. And now months later I wonder if I will be punished upon returning to the table, will I be cursed by the dice devil? So please, as I come to the high priests and priestess of the church I ask that they please scrub the blood from my hands and guide me to the path of Christ’s light, Thank you.

TheDoshinator

To the esteemed crit justices Axeford, Tanner, the city pigeon justice Murphy and the deserving cuckold Jake. I am currently DMing a campaign where the players are looking for a legendary set of armour held by a secret society. Last session they found two members of the society talking privately in a corridor, instead of trying to listen to what they were saying they decided to immediately attack them. Normally this would be fine but the problem is, these NPC's are far too strong for them to face right now (5 PCs all level 7) and the combat will surely end with a tpk. So my question is should I just allow the combat and take the survivors prisoner or have the NPC's try and convince them to talk it out, I feel like this is a mistake on my part and hope you could give me counsel on how to avoid this in the future. Thank you for your consideration and may justice Murphy's bird intelect guide me.

A Spicy Lad of the Shadowkeep

I beseech thee, Esteemed Judges, and baselessly slander thee, Lowly Bailiff to judge my sins before Dice Christ. Was I fair to 'play in character', even if I was the only one.at the table? Long confession short, a 'neutral good' wizard I played as once set fire to a fleeing ship, and walked away as if it was nothing. My monk, seeing a literal war crime, confronted him in game, popped him in the face, and warned him not to pull that type of thing again. This enraged the actual player, despite the DM allowing an almost harmless attack roll, and acted as if it was an affront to his very being for months. I ask, is it unfair to react in character? No other players were bothered, nor the DM, yet for months there were stink eyes a plenty. Please, oh wise ones (and Jake), tell me if I was the sinner, or if the wizard threw the first fireball.

Jason Rodriguez

May it please the court, I bring forth the case of the oblivious player. In my home game, which I dm, one of my players is playing a spores druid. Shout out to Moonshine. The party has reached level 6 and we ran a one shot where she was level 8 for an encounter. The problem is she always spams chill touch. All the encounters I've ran dragged on forever because the druid doesn't use her spell slots. And on top of that, she doesn't prepare her spells. She just keeps the ones she knows (and doesn't use them). I asked her what she's doing on other players turns during combat and she said quote, "thinking about congo spider". PS she is my girlfriend and I always help her make her character sheets.

will s

To the great justices and the the great bailiff. I bring a case of uneventful pvp. I'm running a campaign where all the characters are chaotic because the starting place was prison where they would escape through the underdark. One of my players alway wanting to play outside the box characters made a kobald cavalier fighter / barbarian named Dog who rides the other PCs. But trying to have a story relevant to their backstory the party ran into Dogs old Warren who tasked the party with a mission and secretly asked Dog to betray his party members and bring all there magic items. Me thinking this will lead to a cool moments between pcs. I message the player asking him to ready some lines or think of what your going to do or say and write them down because in my mind this is a big moments of maybe pvp. He replied that there will definitely be pvp and that because Dog the kobald would not be prepared he would not have to prepare either . I reluctant left it at that because I assumed he was busy and i too have slacked on my dm prep once or twice. It all culminated in the party completeing the mission and Dog blocking the path back repeadly screaming no no no for a couple rounds of combat untill the warlock successfully suggested him to calm. Everything worked out but do I have a right to feel salty that I didn't get a big player moment or am I asking too much of my pcs? I await your wise decision..

Flando Maltrizian

Forgive me Dice Christ, I bring my sins before your blessed priests, and God's Mistake Jake. I pre-rolled several hundred d20 rolls for a few sessions which I knew would be combat intensive, but apparently it wasn't enough. I got to the end of the list in the middle of combat, I panicked, and I just jumped back to the beginning of the list. My players didn't notice the back half of the battle was identical to a fight they had 2 weeks ago, but I fear I've cheated Dice Christ out if proper offerings. I've been praying and reading the Good Book(the final Animorphs book), but only you can give me penance and absolve me of sin. Praise be.

GrinningGator

To the honorable judges, and the Bailiff who is doing his best, I come presenting the case of the Mystery Egg. Last week, in my campaign, my LvL 12 players managed to hatch a 500 pound egg they bought from a shady merchant for about 2.5k gold. My players were originally delighted at the idea of hatching a pet dragon to raise, but that delight vanished when the egg hatched revealing a baby Tarrasque. All the previous talk of adopting the young hatchling or what to name it were tossed out the window, and instead my players were talking about getting rid of, or possibly killing, the baby titan, as they are worried about raising what is known in the DnD community as a guaranteed TPK for Low Level parties. Judges, I ask you, was I wrong to give them a young game killer, knowing full well the history of the Tarrasque in DnD, or are my players being unfair to the wee babe, and me the DM who thought it would be rad to raise a kaiju?

Allison

To the dishonorable bailiff Jake (and that's it), This is my DM's first time running a campaign, and she is mostly doing an excellent job. However, she sometimes has her NPCs talk for way too long, to the point where it can disrupt the flow of our sessions. Last session we fought the big bad evil guy of our current arc, and we were all super hyped because it was our first real big fight. She had her villain monologue and it was quite good, but then she just wouldn't stop talking. Eventually we just attacked the guy, but she kept talking at us even during the fight. (Think the final fight of Eldermorne but without any of the emotional context because we'd only met this guy once.) My druid character eventually got fed up with this. She was a wolf at this point, and when it was my turn and the villain started to talk, I growled over her. She kept trying to say something, and every time I kept growling so she couldn't get a word in. She tried like five times before giving up and letting me take my turn. I think in character this was maybe justified because my character is impatient and had already said something to the villain about how talking was useless and he wasn't going to convince her, but in retrospect I think it was kind of an asshole move. I apologized after the fact and she seemed okay with it, but I'm torn. Also she's been my best friend since high school and I really don't want to discourage her, as she is a really good DM. So: was I wrong to growl over my DM's villain monologue?

Mewsora

To the superb Supreme Crit Justices and the sub-standard bailiff *checks smudged notes on hand* Sandwich, I bring before you the conflict of the failed grapple and the Bonkers Bonus Action Teleportation Scroll So our party of three lvl 9s were fighting a mini boss beefed up lvl 10 Rune Knight, and one turn, the 15ft tall knight threw a net over our 3ft tall halfling druid, then in a later turn made an attempt at grappling said druid. The knight rolled athletics with advantage and the druid rolled acrobatics straight, seeing as nets disadvantage dex saves and not ability checks. The druid managed to evade the grapple, something our DM could not possibly fathom due to the “0 speed” part of being restrained by a net. Then, in the same turn, the knight used a BONUS ACTION to use a modified teleportation scroll that he would have used to teleport himself, AND the unwilling druid if grappled, far away, ending combat as he escaped. Just the bonus action Scroll was startling enough, but one that can teleport unwilling creatures over long distances is unheard of without it being an insanely powerful item that should not exist in a low magic world. The DM was extremely salty about not being able to grapple the druid, and he can’t seem to fathom how it’s still possible to evade being grappled when you have a net thrown over you, even though all three players have tried to explain it and I even made an animation to prove my point, which he then said just proved HIS point. Not even my saying I fail picking up cats sometimes cause they’re wiggly little shits is helping. He is bitter, refuses to talk about it and I’m scared he’ll retaliate. A salty DM is a dangerous DM. I am in need of judgement and advice

Katie Husk

Dice Christ, forgive me My party and I are 3 years into a campaign. When we started I had never played D&D before and made an extremely underpowered character (A dragonborn way of the 4 elements monk named Drip Flagon the Flip Dragon). I decided to make him even more underpowered by also dipping into wild magic sorcery. I have on multiple occasions swapped out my spells, and even changed my metamagic to suit the occasion. When we were planning a heist, suddenly I had disguise self. When my party needed to clear a long distance, suddenly I had twinned spell so I could cast jump on our another party member. I did it because it seemed fun in the moment, and I had never used the metamagic option I had swapped out, but the guilt remains. Please, oh mighty Dice Christ, absolve me of my sins.

Steven Hoffart

May it please the court, the Judges on the high mountain and The Bailiff in the rot of the Caves, I bring the case of the costume changing party. Last year I bought a 3D printer after selling some Magic Cards and offered to print and paint miniatures for our DND campaign of 2 years. I had a lot of fun making the main characters and some generic enemies for us to fight. However, one party member has begun buying different outfits for the different arcs of our campaign, and they want a new mini for each new outfit. I have now printed and painted 4 different versions of their character and I am pretty over it at this point. When I expressed my dismay at how this arrangement was going, the player offered to buy all the snacks for the next year. Do I take this plea deal or do I stand firm that enough is enough with the minis?

Rented Mules He who made Doug Da Virgin DarkNut

To the ever benevolent justices and wholely mundane bailiff. I submit a case of the suddenly ended campaign. Over the course of the campaign I was running I had slowly involved several powers in the world that were all morally gray to different degrees. Although some should have still been good in the party’s eyes. The party decided to not take any of their sides and was going to unenthusiastically allow whoever won among these powers in the end to be the only enemy they face. So i instead leveled them up much quicker and threw the end of the campaign at them so that they were forced to deal with them all instead of being passive. Am I wrong for editing out a few arcs to avoid prolonged boredom? Or should I improve my writing to get players to be more active at solving problems?

Pat N.

To the supreme crit justices and their squire Jack, My party was having a classic dungeon crawling session so stealth was the name of the game. We had a VERY beloved yet boisterous NPC with us that threatened to spoil our stealth with their raucous behavior. My character attempted to bonk this NPC on the head to render them unconscious for the safety of the whole party, but the DM ruled my nat 20 roll to the outcome of this NPC’s death. If my intent was to simply knock this NPC out cold, wouldn’t a nat 20 mean I successfully accomplished that? Did my DM unlawfully put everyone’s favorite NPC’s blood on my hands, or was this a case of dice Christ’s wishes coming true?

Clair Baker

Holiest Deacons of the Church of Crit and Worship Leader Jake, many years ago my party and I were able to find an Aboleth that was chained and restrained away from anyone. As the game we were playing ran on EXP relative to what we had defeated during the session, I thought it was free experience, paired with a bow which caused my Character to feel cocky and could take on the world, I began attacking it. The rest of my party tried to stop me, noting that there was a reason such a beast was locked down in such a hidden temple. However in my arrogance I continued attacking uttering the sinful line, "It's what my character would do". That character would then soon die in the campaign in a moment of further hubris. While I have since moved miles away and I am still friends with some of these players, the guilt is still tearing away at me from my past. My crit be with you.

Noah Steele

To the justices who are okay I guess and the bailiff who I am obligated to be nice to because he chooses the cases I bring to you the case of my shit brother and my unhinged paladin I was playing in a session 1 of a new campaign my friend was running with my brother and a few friends, I played a paladin whose name is Gabriel who has a god complex and made an oath to himself. My brother plays a rogue kenku named krash. The dm started explaining the characters and the setting we were in and all was going smoothly until he said the plot hook. My brother decided krash wouldn’t be interested in the campaign and instead tried to rob me. I caught him due to a nat 20 perception check and he tried to run away from the party and leave the campaign entirely. I saw that the dm started to panic a little so I decided to grapple krash and essentially kidnap him in order to keep the party together. My reasoning in character was to force krash to atone for his sins against me which my brother thought was a fun dynamic and was on board with. after the session however one of the other players in the campaign approached me and accused me of hogging the spotlight. I fear I may have overstepped my boundary as a player by trying to bring the campaign back on track. Should I have left that to the dm to figure out? I leave myself in the hands of the court

gerard

May it please the Crit, in a recent campaign that met over the internet, were my friend and I right to leave/ghost the campaign all together after being made to take damage for making a joke despite the campaign being marketed as a "serious" campaign. For context, my friend was already on low HP from an unavoidable sniper shot that we literally couldn't see and then was made to take 4 psychic damage for making a joke that IN CHARACTER they would have made bringing them down to 4 HP. They also missgendered the player AND character multiple times. So we're we right to leave?

Thomas Kuhn

To the Illustrious Supreme Crit Justices and the Bailiff Jake, who, quite frankly, is adequate. I have not Sinned while DMing, but I have come to doubt my devotion to the Dice Christ, which is a sin unto itself. I DM a campaign where the party, a group of roommates turned investigators turned reluctant heroes, are working against time to solve a conspiracy that has them working with a group of fugitive archdevils to stop a demonic infiltration of the underground metropolis they (and the archdevils) call home. Skipping a lot of details, this investigation saw them discovering that a demonic cult had imbued a purple worm with abyssal crystals that caused it to spread corruption wherever it happened to wander, which had devastating consequences on the local mines as well as the extensive caves of mushrooms that the city cultivates for food. The party spent several sessions preparing: recruiting a group of Kobold Commandoes and several dwarven paladins of the Archdevil Zariel to help them, thoroughly researching the behaviors, biology, and weaknesses of purple worms, and buying/making the tools and weapons they needed to take on this significant foe. When the fight finally came, it felt as if Dice Christ had forsaken me. My rolls could only be described as Murphly, and the Worm which had been so hyped went down without much of a fight. The party was appropriately leveled, and it took some time to kill the worm, but it did barely any damage, failed most of its saves, and generally died with a whimper. The dwarves and kobolds rolled similarly. I narrated all of this as the party's plan working perfectly, and tried to spin things so that it made the party feel strong instead of the worm being weak, but it's been months and I still wonder if allowing such a big boss fight to go that way was correct. I hope my doubt of the Dice Christ is without grounds, and I beseech you wise interpreters of his word to absolve me of my weakness.

Pat N.

It it pleases the court and its assistant, Bay Leaf, In a vampiric overlord campaign (always dark and spooky), the DM often sets the scene with a murder of crow perched above the party. However, a secret DM/dice-driven element of my character’s backstory from session zero says I’m followed by an evil raven related to a previous contract I had with some kind of big bad (that’s essentially all the info I have related to that so far). So, at one point, my nature-loving Druidic character threw a magic stone at a murder of crows to shoo them away. I rolled a nat 20 so the DM ruled that I essentially exploded one of the crows to death. The party, all serious DM vets, laughed that my Druid would kill an animal - “how dumb and out of character”. Should a nat 20 mean you successfully achieve the intent of your roll, or the most aggressive execution of the action you describe?! DMs keep making me look dumb the moment after I feel elated that I SHOULD have accomplish exactly what I wanted!

Logjam

To the honorable justices of the Supreme Crit and the lawful bailiff Jake: I bring to you the case of the Hexblade Hostages -- Warlock vs DM. This occurred 9 months into a Storm King's Thunder campaign. The Warlock in question joined 7 months into the campaign to replace a slot after someone left. All of us had played with him before without issue. An hour into a session in a giant's lair and after a lot of combat had depleted our HP and spell slots, our party was outnumbered and outmatched, and the giants offered us a deal: we could do a quest for them and we could live, but we would EACH have to leave a valuable item that THEY chose as collateral, OR they could kill us immediately. The original 3 party members agreed because we had no chance of escape or survival otherwise, and the giants promised to return our items as long as we completed their quest. The Warlock was new to the campaign and was asked for his only valuable-- his pact weapon (a +2 greatsword). He refused, stating that giving up the weapon would negate his pact and make him a level 1 commoner. The DM reviewed the rules for hexblade and pact of the blade and ruled this would not negate his pact, and that he could simply conjure a pact weapon for this quest and retrieve his sword when we returned. After agreeing with the ruling, he then insisted that his character would never do that under any circumstance based on his backstory, which he had not shared with us. He argued about this for a total of 2 hours out of character, halting our gameplay and holding us 3 players as his "Hexblade Hostages" while we were stuck waiting for the arguing to finish. It eventually resulted in the DM ending our session early, and the DM quitting the campaign after 2 more sessions due to other issues with this player. Was the Warlock in the right to stand his ground on this narrative choice, even though it interrupted gameplay for everyone? Or was the DM in the right to insist the Warlock surrender his valuable just like the rest of the party did? Thank you for your consideration and I humbly await your judgment.

DonutHoo

May it please the court and the bailiff if there's time, I guess, but don't lose sleep over it. I bring you the case of the exploding steam pipe. I was DMing a chase scene as the party chased down a satyr through the city streets. The encounter was built around placing magical roadblocks between the players and the satyr, culminating in the satyr using dimension door to bamf to the rooftops. The only one left able to catch him before his escape was the arcane trickster rogue who asked if there were any pipes built alongside the building. I told him yes, assuming he was planning to shimmy up the pipe using his crazy movement to give chase. This was not his plan. Instead, he pried off a piece of piping, froze one end with his magic ice sword, and proceeded to cast burning hands into the opposite end with a smug tenor in his voice. There were several moments of silence as he no doubt stared at my discord icon expectantly. I began to narrate how the ice on the inside of the pipe melted and he hurt his hands a little bit from the very hot pipe (no actual damage was taken--just flavor). The rogue was flabbergasted--he asked why there hadn't been a resulting explosion from the buildup of steam to rocket him to the roof. I didn't think there would have been enough time or volume for pressure to build up and placing his hands over the hole wasn't exactly airtight. After a back-and-forth, I allowed him to roll an arcana check. He rolled middling, but because we had already spent several minutes on his turn, I had the explosion go off and he took some damage as he impacted into a stone balcony. Did I do the right thing or should I have let him sit on the ground with a hot and wet steel pipe, all his hopes and dreams shattered? I prostrate myself before the court like a certain Toegold as I await your judgement.

Laurence&Ty

To the Paragon Bailiff Hurwitz, and the almighty Supreme Crit Justices Axford, Tanner, and murphy. I present to you the case of the chaotic-evil, murder-hobo monk. The offence occured during the first two sessions of my first campaign. During session zero, one of our friends told me and the other player out of character that his PC is a deranged human scientist who would hunt down other races and "experiment" on them to augment his own body with their physical traits which (somehow) granted him his monk abilities, but he was eventually captured by the kingdom. He also told us that his character was now being kept in check by 9th level glyph of warding spells on each of his manacles on his legs, arms, and neck which are set to explode if he broke a law (coordinated with the DM). For story reasons the king sent us out on a mission in another city. However, every night while we were in the city the monk would sneak out of our HQ alone and track isolated commoner npc's with certain physical traits (ex. Elven eyes for dark vision) out on the streets and kill them but would only do so after he antagonized his victims enough to swing at him in frustration/anger. He claimed that the kills were out of self-defense since they attacked him first so the glyphs wouldn't trigger. Should he have been nuked or should I remain silent about the implications since my character isn't aware of the situation?

Evan Spears

Honorable Supreme Crit Justices, handsome Bailiff Jake, may it please the court to hear my one and only D&D story. I'll keep submitting it until I have my day in court, your Honors. I've only played D&D once, for one session, nearly 15 years ago. I rolled my character. I drew his portrait. His name was HEAVY, and he wielded a big-ass hammer. When we got started, the rest of the party spent two hours IRL rolling to get drunk in a tavern, and I was impatient and wanted to kill some monsters, so HEAVY went out on his own. I encountered a river. DM asked if I wanted to cross it or go try to find a way around. I said I wanted to cross. He asked me to roll to see if I could swim. I rolled a 9. DM said "you can't swim. You drown and die." DM wouldn't let me play unless I roll a new character. So I left and haven't played since.  That experience turned me off on the game for years. Shows like NADDPOD and Dimension 20 have changed that, but now I'm too busy to actually play. I only made one roll in the game and a lousy DM soured everything for me. It is a dark stain on my very soul. I know in my heart of hearts that the DM was a jerk, but I need official validation so that I can move on and live a fulfilling life. Can the court please rule on whether or not that DM was a total knob? Thank you. 

Catherine Meushaw

To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner and the esteemed Baliff Hurwitz, May it please the court.. I'm in a homebrew campaign with a DM with a lot of ideas but not a lot of flexibility. She recently gave one of the players a letter from the love of her life that basically says she has regrets and still loves her (She had broken up with the PC). The PC's reaction was to start planning for her character to return to her ex to try to get as much time with her as possible and create a new character to join the campaign. The DM was shocked by this and is pushing against the PC having her character leave. How do we handle the DM setting up such a perfect romantic storyline but refusing to bend her rigid rules?

Rick

To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices… the Mighty Murphy, the Illustrious Axford, and the merciful Tanner… Along with Bailiff Herwitz, the Just. May it please the Crit: I was asked by some friends to be their DM, they had played for years together, and I was in the middle of writing a book so they wanted me to DM despite the fact that I had never even played before. I was super down, and set to the task of creating an all home-brew campaign for them, along with maps of an all island world that would be largely sea-faring and underwater. I even created a special map of a ship that could transform into a submarine. One of the players, we’ll call them “Matt”, decided that he would be an Air genasi monk. I loved the idea, especially since Air Genasi don’t need to breathe, it would be a great asset for the campaign. Fast forward to the third session, the PC’s are in the ship that’s about to turn into a submarine. Matt suddenly declares that he’s claustrophobic and can’t breathe. I, by way of the captain, a hard and sarcastic Tabaxi, (inspired by the Captain from Treasure Planet) responded by saying: “My dear fellow, I wasn’t aware that breathing mattered to you.” I thought it was funny, as did the rest of the table, as Matt had gone on several rants, especially during an underwater combat encounter, that he didn’t need to breathe. But Matt took it personally and left the table. I went after him, but he wouldn’t talk to me so I called the session for the rest of the night… My dear judges, did I go too far with my joke? Or was Matt just a little too offended. I humbly submit to your judgment.

Josh Meier

DICE CHRIST CONFENSSIONAL: (Josh M writes) To the Supreme Crit Justices and Jack. I prostrate myself before the court with a grave sin. In my first year of DMing I had a battle between my 4 players vs a shambling mound. 2 of my players used their turns to set up a sick combo. The Aasimir eldritch knight flew high above the creature and used their action to dive and pierce the mound through its skull rolling a nat 20. Our Tabaxi Bard held their action to cast the heat metal spell at 3rd level to engulf the blade in flames mid dive. This is where I transgress: Me wanting to play "by the book" looked up shambling mound stats. It said they are resistant to fire. I then described how the creature was unaffected by the flames and no fire damage or effect occurred, only piercing damage. They were dissapointed but moved on. Later that night as I lay smuggly and proud in my bed it donned on me... Resistance does not mean immunity! The Shambling mound should have taken damage! Instead of playing the rule of cool. I played the foolish tool.  I also never told my players of this and I hid my mistake from them. I beg thee oh court, give me a swift but fair punishment. I await your judgment...

Nathan Amundson

May it please the court and its long-suffering Baliff, I present the case of the turtle’s return. Two years ago I had run a campaign for four of my friends—their first campaign and my first in 5e—and while they loved it and loved the roleplay, they would often be sidetracked by their rogue, a tortle named Oogway, into killing any NPC they ran across, saying “I just want to kill”. His player changed jobs and moved across the state, so we left that campaign, jumped ahead 30 years in the world and started a new campaign with the gunslinger and the bard from the old party as the main villains. Now Oogway’s PC is joining the campaign (he’s popped in and out as a drunken kobold monk) after about a year and a half, and he wanted to play a tortle assassin rogue again. Was I wrong to tell him he couldn't play as his old race and class? I await your judgement.

Adam Leeuwenhart

May it please the most honourable, creative and hard working court, and FBI’s most wanted tax evader, Jake Penn Cooper Hurwitz. My DM has warned me that if my druid goes into wild shape around any magic users in this semi late level period, I should be careful because if my animal has less than 100 hit points then all it would take is one “power word kill” and I would be killed instantly. I said surely it would work like a normal death in wild shape where I return back to humanoid form with whatever health I had left. He said the spell says less than 100 hit points. I told him he’d be hearing from my lawyers and I was taking this to the supreme crit. We await your judgement with anticipation.

Fyco

To the honorable and hot justices who may be solely responsible for global warming and the lowly bailiff snowflake who will not melt, if it pleases the court, I bring to you the case of “The ‘Passive’ Aggressive Suggestion. I run a campaign where the party has met with the most dangerous encounter yet, another adventuring party in a tavern. While all PC party members are good aligned, the party they met and will meet again, were a band of evil adventurers. In the encounter the PCs were met with a plethora of insults and drunken attempts to insight a fight. Initiative was rolled and when the fight finally broke out the barbarian rolled top of the order and readied an action by gripping the table and declaring that he would “flip the table at the 3 evil counter parts should any of the people at the table make an aggressive action” and stared them down. Much further down the line, one of the NPCs cast suggestion that the barbarian should simply take a nap. After passing his saving throw the barbarian said he would react to flip the table and engage in the fight. Argument ensured for 15 minutes (as always does when I challenge some form of meta gaming) that the casting of a spell is aggressive regardless of the spell’s intent to avert someone’s aggression. Ultimately, for the sake of PC enjoyment, I allowed the reaction and moved forward with the encounter. However I ask the court, was a suggestion to take a much needed nap after a long day of fighting each other due to hallucinogenic flower sniffing aggressive? Bonus info if the court requests for the flowers: Sniffing the flowers from nearby the town the party entered from the previous session caused hallucinating effects that caused a full 2 hour session of the party to fight, run from, dance, and sob. Likely the longest encounter of the campaign to date and it was with themselves.

Karkinos

To the honorable, smart, beautiful and delicious Judges (and John I think). I bring the case of the Purple Worm Poison. One of my players has been hired to replicate purple work poison, the materials were provided for his character. He is a rogue. The player has since asked me if he could multiclass into Conjuration wizard just to use the Minor Conjuration ability, to replicate the purple worm poison now that he has seen it. They are only still level 5, and the possibility of them having 7d6 of damage with a high DC at all times scares me. I obviously told the player no, but he argues that by the wording of the ability, it just disappears after the damage is done. Was I wrong to strip my player of his poison?

joe ventre

To the honorable crit justices and brolif Jake i bring to you the case of Magical ability vs Spell: I play with a dm who loves to give us super hard BBEG encounters which is great except for the fact that none of her BBEG seem to use spells. They all only have “magical abilities” ie a reflavored spell that cannot be counter-spelled nor dispelled. In our previous campaign this affected me (the party sorcerer) the most but it also led to a dispute between the dm and another pc during the very last fight of the campaign. She is starting a new campaign with us and I fear that as the party wizard I will once again be doomed to only face encounters with magical abilities and no spells. I ask how many magical abilities is too many and is it fair that we as the party are frustrated by them?

Riley M

Not a DnD court submission but since Jake may read this: I just watched the first season of Drive to Survive and when Lance Stroll came in I realized he’s a real life Ren. When it was explained that he was a driver cause his billionaire daddy bought him a team and then he complained about the car the entire time in his whiney voice I could not help but picture Ren behind the wheel.

MaeIsntClever

The Tiefling Who Fell Off A Mountain: A Confession To the ever loving Supreme Crit Justices and the sneakily, as lovely, Baliff. I present you my greatest sin as a DM, done under the watchful eyes of Dice Christ themself. I hope you hear my story and I can be awash in the waters of forgiveness. On Wednesdays, I run a campaign with six good buddies. Together we adventure throughout the world of Dorrath, shaping the landscapes, be them political or physical. This is the second campaign I've run for this group over the course of almost four years, with other one shots and mini-campaigns having been run in the same setting with other groups with the goal that the player creates the setting and stories being told with their actions. After the airship they were traveling on was ambushed, the party crash landed on the side of a mountain, with the airship's final readings before losing power pointing them in the direction of a small village in a valley between two peaks. The party decided to venture out for help, leaving the crew behind to make shelter. The New Guard (they're party name) faced a skill challenge for climbing a steep cliffside, using abilities to descend the mountain and going up against hazards such as Frigid Wind threatening to blow them off, miniature avalanches that could deal damage and cause them to lose grip, and even a cliffside combat encounter if they rolled bad enough. This is when things got dicey. Zira, a lovely Warlock/Sorceror tiefling college student, had abysmally bad luck in the challenge. She ended up slipping twice, getting caught in a small land slide, and even got assaulted by ice spiders on the way down. At the halfway point she fell, and after failing multiple Dex saves, plummeted into the valley below. Zira smashed into the ground and after the ice spider attack, only had 6HP. Zira would have suffered over 50 damage... if I hadn't commited the sin. Taking that much damage would have outright killed Zira because it doubled her max HP in the negative. After the terrible rolls during the encounter, and the unusually high damage roll, I feel it might have been Dice Christ's plan to kill Zira then and there; but instead I reduced the damage to 44, making it one point away from killing her, to which the party's half-ogre artificer quickly delivered a healing potion, stabilizing Zira at the bottom of the cliff. Do you think Dice Christ will forgive me and my actions as a DM, or will my rolls be fated to be bad from now until eternity? I humbly await your judgement,

Agents of DAMNED

To the mighty and venerable justices and the so-so bailiff, jack: I write to you with both a case and a confession (I'll keep them separate below). My case: the astral hole vs the dragon's asshole. My party was facing off against an ancient red shadow dragon in an epic, mid campaign boss fight. Prior to this fight, the party had acquired both a portable hole and a bag of holding. The cleric, with both items in hand, proceeded to ask me "how big is the dragon's butt hole?". Apprehensively, I said that the dragon itself was gargantuan, so the butt hole would probably be either size medium or large. He then proceeded to crawl inside the dragon's ass, and once inside, said he wanted to put the portable hole inside the bag of holding to rip open a portal to the astral plane. He wanted it to bisect the dragon as a result of the sudden portal, but I ruled that it would simply trap both of them in the astral plane. He then said that there was no point in doing this if it didn't auto kill the dragon. We ended up turning back the clock and pretending it didn't happen. Was I right to prevent the astral bisecting of the dragon, or should I have let my anal cavity spelunking cleric get the win he wanted? My confession comes from an eberron home game, where my players were facing off against a halfling crime family in the city of Sharn. The encounter saw them (level 2 at the time) facing off against a single archer. They opted to flee given his huge damage output, and I had the party rolling athletics checks to traverse the coresant like city to avoid taking falling damage, much like anakin chasing down the bounty hunter in attack of the clones. One of my party, a simic hybrid, wanted to use their glide ability to mitigate this challenge. I offered them advantage instead, saying it was more the chaotic nature of the city that was the danger, but now I feel I may have been too quick to nerf their ability. I am prepared to face any punishment the court/church has to offer. Praise dice christ, - Hoshi

Deenaa

May it please the court, but especially the fairest among you (they know who they are): I request arbitration on the case of maximum centaur climbing speed. One of my players is running a Tasha's variant ranger centaur. Thanks to a combination of her race, class, and a feat (Mobile), as well as an enabling party member with the Haste spell, she has a current maximum speed of 330ft per round. She is also immune to non-magical difficult terrain AND has a matching swimming and climbing speed. For reference, she's twice as fast as a flying dragon on foot and three times as fast as a Giant Shark... while swimming. Where the issue arises is the mechanics of climbing in 5e. Centaurs have a race feature called 'Equine Build', that states when climbing, you expend 4 feet of movement for every 1 foot due to having a horse's body. This should reduce her maximum speed to a mere 84ft when climbing. However: my party is vehemently arguing that because the Ranger ability 'Roving' grants her a climbing speed equal to her movement, all climbing penalties are negated and she should be able to vertically ascend the full 330ft. I disagreed with this and the argument has been ongoing for a while now, with the party sending me regular videos of mountain goats and elk climbing very steep cliffs to further make their point. With no compromise in sight, I see no choice but to seek outside opinion. Judges, should this centaur be allowed to run wild and free, or am I justified in restricting her Skyrim-horse glitch level of climbing power?

Adah Kinzer

In my experience XP makes the game less fun. The goal is just to slash through as much as possible rather than to tell a fun story. (Your DM might’ve done it differently but my former DM only rewarded XP for combat)

PuppetAnalingus

To the almighty and sensual judges, and hey you got Laura Hurwitz son to finally guest star, that’s cool, I bring you the case of abandoning my buddy in the forest. I am currently playing in a horror and high lethality campaign, all of the players were aware of this. I play a scheming capitalist wizard who would rather earn coin and connections than adventure. Specifically by selling home made ale. Because of this our party (of 6) was split and our cleric stuck with me to investigate the town and people l/drum up some business before going into the haunted forest. While in the forest we were given multiple paths. I wanted to continue down the path we had been on, but the cleric chose to follow the other that might link him to the rest of the party. He chose to go on his own and I chose to stick to my instinct. We are level 3. We both rolled encounters, I got a skeptical tree ent, he got a mutated owl bear. He died in 2 rounds. I apologized and there have been no hard feeing or interactions, but the player has mentioned how he wish he was still playing his cleric. Was I wrong for abandoning him to his own devices? Should I have tried to turn around with no in game knowledge? Was I wrong for initially splitting the party? Is death by mutant owl bear really that bad? I lay at the mercy of the court.

Alexis C

Major league judges, and peewee team bailiff, I bring to you the case of the too mysterious cleric. Our group has been together for years and we all work really well together, but one member consistently tells us nothing about her characters. We have been in our current campaign for over two years and we don’t even know which deity our cleric serves. Both I as a player and a character have gotten annoyed with the cleric for not seeming to want to be with our group or become friends, culminating in a group zone of truth where everyone gets to ask another character a question they must answer honestly. The cleric still managed to evade all real answers so we still don’t even know her last name. We then immediately had to fight demons that may or may not have been hunting her down this entire time. A cult might be chasing her and we still know nothing. I got so annoyed that next session, when she wasn’t there, I asked if both spouses were needed for a divorce since our characters got married for tax benefits near the start of the campaign. The DM said no and so I divorced the cleric and turned the ring into a cartilage piercing. I now feel a bit bad for doing a significant character moment when she wasn’t present, but the DM allowed it with the caveat I can’t get remarried just for benefits again. Was I wrong in my maybe hasty divorce and should have tried more to engage the cleric, or was I right to end a relationship with someone who won’t connect to me? I may also have convinced the party to leave her in the under dark while we traveled to the surface again, but whatever. I humbly await your fair and just ruling.

Helen Of Meanjin

To the most honorable judges Axford, Murphy and Tanner and also that other bloke Jim? I bring before the court the case of the very trusting party. I was DMing a one shot for my two brothers, neither of whom have a lot of experience playing DnD though both have listened extensively. Because it was just the two of them I also made a DM player character to balance the party a little. Everything was going well until the party decided to search for some incriminating documents in the guard’s barracks. They successfully lied their way inside but were taken to the captain of the guard for orders. The captain grew suspicious and they revealed to him their agenda after rolling an investigation on his desk for the documents and finding nothing. Unbeknownst to them though the captain was a bad guy and while I had him role deception once or twice against their passive perception, neither of them rolled insight or investigation. The captain ended up locking them in his office, calling reinforcements (which in a barracks ended being a metric fuckton) and the game ended a bit later with the party surrendering as they saw they had no way of winning or escaping. My brothers weren’t too fussed but the ending has been bothering me and I could’ve done something like used my player character to alert them so they could at least roll insight. So was I wrong to just use deception against passive perception since none of the players were suspicious or should I have given them more clues? I submit myself to the courts judgement.

Rae Weiss

If it may please the esteemed judges (and guest Jake Hurwitz): I’m in a high-lethality fairytale-inspired campaign, and my character is a bladesinger wizard with 8 charisma. Despite his low charisma, he’s a very attractive circus performer with extensive knowledge of beauty and fashion (just very bad at talking to people). He also has a chicken familiar, which is relevant. Our party’s werewolf barbarian needed a new shirt after tearing his while transforming in combat, and I offered to go buy him something fashionable. The DM asked for a charisma check. I asked if my chicken could give me the help action on this check, and they said no because it’s a chicken. Here’s my case: my wizard is very stylish, and since he created this chicken, it’s spent its entire life around a very stylish person and thus has some sense of what’s hot or not. Now, it DOES use velociraptor stats, but I still believe that because this chicken is my character’s familiar and best friend it would be able to nudge him in the right direction. So, basically: I think my chicken should be allowed to give me advantage on Queer Eye-ing the werewolf DILF. I love this DM and campaign dearly, why do they hate my chicken?

Reese Page

I have a confession to Dice Christ that must be made and declared in front of the court and all that will bear witness. In our campaign we have a wizard born from the curse of the jabberwock(wild beyond the witchlight) after a big battle each player rolled a d100 to see what magic item they got from the Dms guide. The wizard was 1 digit away from the vorpal sword and the key to help defeat his curser. In a crime of passion a moment of true character progression was bestowed but the players do not know I fudged the roll. May Dice Christ and the Court have mercy on my soul

Dr. Bearkele

I have a confession to Dice Christ, and I hope my confession brings me to justice and perhaps saves my soul. I have been fudging my dice rolls. Straight-up. But let me explain why. I am a legendary Murph (in both the sense of Brian Murphy and Murphy's Law), wherein anything that can happen to me, will, and dice just straight-up hate me and always have, even the 6-sided dice of my youth. My first character was neutral evil. His dice have never rolled well, despite him being an extremely skilled character, though having a bitchy character have bitchy dice did feel slightly appropriate. My second character, however, is a night cleric. I got all new dice, I rolled them multiple times to see what they were like and they always rolled very well... until I brought them to a game, when they began middling. I have borrowed other people's dice, but I swear I cannot roll higher than a 10 ninety percent of the time. I don't give myself nat-20s or anything, but I might bump a roll up a few points so I am not failing every time. It is extremely frustrating to play a game where I fail every save and never get a hit through, because some many-sided pieces of plastic simply hate me. It's not the low rolls that kill me, it's the middling rolls. I will always accept my nat-1s and other straight-up horrible rolls, but when I'm just constantly swinging at my enemies and missing, it makes me feel like my characters are incompetent idiots. Also, when I'm constantly swinging and missing, I never feel like I'm helping, or even really participating. I beg you, justices and clerics of Dice Christ, please shame me publicly, help me accept these middling rolls as they are, and hopefully purge my bad luck with whatever punishment you bestow upon me.

Dr. Bearkele

May it please the extremely good looking and cool court, as well as the rugged and buff bailiff, I bring you the case of Willow versus the burgomaster's guard. In our Curse of Strahd campaign, we were given a session where one of our acquaintances asked us for help. We were all immediately sure that this guy was 100% going to fuck us over, and we were right. His shenanigans caused a big ruckus and alerted the local guards. My character, Willow - a night domain cleric - wanted to chase the betrayer down after he was caught, but she was stopped by the local burgomaster's right hand man, who thought that our party were the instigators, as the actual perp fled the scene. Willow, who has met this fellow before and is on decent terms with him (even flirted with him a bit, though he didn't respond), wanted to pursue the betrayer, and I was expecting a persuasion check for this right-hand man to let me hunt the guy down. However, the GM (shout-out to Emily, as the GM is also my partner) outright refused to let me roll for it, saying that the man was loyal to his boss and since he thought Willow was involved, he wouldn't let her out of his sight, despite what I thought was a pretty well-roleplayed plea. I feel like, having had some rapport with this man, and with the actual instigator not that far fled from the scene, I should have had the opportunity to convince him to let Willow bring the actual perp in, but I was not given the chance to roll for it. Was I a whiny weenie to challenge my GM's decision, or was he railroading me into not getting a chance to do something fun via this pursuit? Ed: of note, this was already basically the end of our session, so the pursuit would not have happened during this session regardless of whether I had the chance to roll.

chocopaiboy

To the wonderful Supreme Crit Justices and I guess that guy James, I present to you the case of the Homebrew Hater. I am a new DM but I have played a few campaigns. I am currently DMing a homebrew campaign for a group of my closest friends (5 players), including one who is a more experienced player. The campaigns this player played were all taken from official/popular DnD sources, most notably Tomb of Annihilation and Curse of Strahd. In session zero of this campaign, I explained to the players that I would be doing an entirely homebrew campaign. I have been extremely excited for this as our schedules haven’t lined up for almost a year, and I’ve been collecting items, maps, fun puzzles, etc. for the entire time to give my players the best experience possible. This player wasn’t able to make it to this session, but I gave them the rundown after in an individual meeting. Unfortunately, I forgot to mention that this was an entirely homebrew campaign. A week later, our first session starts, and as I begin by describing the lay of the land, they say “Where is this from? I don’t remember seeing a dungeon like this in any handbook…” and I explain that it’s homebrew. They look kind of irked by it, but cause no problems. Afterwards, I messaged them asking about it. They answered me, saying that they wouldn’t have played if they knew it was entirely homebrew, and they thought that my plans for arcs were entirely unbalanced. Am I in the wrong for feeling annoyed that they would dismiss my efforts like that? I await your judgement.

Annika

May it please the supreme crit and any esteemed critters within earshot (including the hedgehog-esque bailiff Jake 🦔 ), 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 wall by the pyramid rising, and didn’t allow me to roll initiative against the rising building. 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. Was the DM unfair to not allow me to try to save them, or should I just mourn silently for my friends that I inadvertently killed?

Brandon Wlosinski

To the most high, holy, and honorable Justices of the Supreme Crit and the lowly, yet loyal and lovable, Bailiff Jake. I bring to you the case of the Frightful Illusion. We are running Rise of Tiamat, and our DM decided to up the game when it came to an encounter with an Adult White Dragon (spoiler warning for RoT). The party was goaded by an NPC researcher down into the White Dragon's layer with a promise of harm the village above the dragon's layer on top of an iceberg if we did not. Upon arriving to the layer, which did clearly show signs of a dragon being present, the researcher cast off their disguise and revealed themselves to be a wizard who had formed a partnership with the dragon. The dragon then appeared behind her, and the fight ensued. As the battle started, the dragon seemed unaffected by our bard's Synaptic Static and then, in classic draconic fashion, the party was subjected to Frightful Presence, with my PC, a Firbolg Sun Soul Monk, failing the Wisdom save and becoming frightened, meaning I could not move towards the dragon. While I planned to use Stillness of Mind to remove the condition, our druid conjured a Fire Elemental on top of the dragon. However, upon being summoned, the elemental fell through what we then realized was a Programmed Illusion from the wizard, with the real dragon appearing shortly thereafter from the top of the cavern, at which point we began the battle in earnest. The argument that came up was whether or not Frightful Presence was allowed to take effect on the party. The ability states the party need only be aware of the dragon to be affected. We argued that we weren't aware of the dragon itself, but merely the illusion of the dragon. The DM argued that we were in a dragon's lair with clear knowledge that the dragon was in that lair, so the effect could take effect due to the 120' diameter area. After a brief but poignant argument, the DM relented and allowed the frightened condition to drop, giving my monk their turn back and our party a fighting chance to beat the dragon. We settled the debate amicably and are looking forward to the next session where we may barely get out of the encounter. However, my question to the court remains, was this a genius wombo-combo that our DM put together that we merely rule-lawyered our way out of (which I currently suspect) or was this a blatant misreading of the rules by our DM to drain us of our turns and spells. I thank you for your consideration and await your ruling with fearful expectation.

Mackenzie Fresquez

Honorable Judges and bailiff I just can’t bring myself to be mean to, I seek your expert judgement. I present The Case of the Postponed Level Up. May it please the court: My husband is running an XP-based campaign for me and our best friend. We had just finished fighting some scarecrows and in doing so earned enough XP to level up! We were on our way to a dungeon when we encountered the scarecrows, and it was night time, so I suggested we take a long rest so we could level up before entering the dungeon. But my husband said we were not allowed to level up until next session! I argued because we took a long rest we should be able to level up, and that I wanted to be stronger against whatever we encountered in the dungeon. Plus, with this level up I got an extra attack! He refused and we continued on with the session. The dungeon ended up being kind of boring and I have my suspicions that he took out some encounters on purpose to make sure we didn’t struggle too hard at our current level. Was I meta gaming when I took the long rest just to be able to level up? Did he have any grounds for postponing our level up? I humbly request your judgement.

Stephen

To the wonderful justices of the Supreme Crit, and the very razzable Bailiff Jake I submit to your judgement. I ran a boss battle for my 6 PCs at level 5. One character who is a ranged character would often run away from the battle and take pot shots from afar. Often resulting in him taking no damage and the rest of the party taking all of it. So I planned an enemy who was a Barlgura to go invisible and sneak up and attack him. There was also a lair action that would switch the gravity of the room and when you failed the dex save they would take a d6 of damage. The battle ensues and the ranged character runs away from the battle area. The barlgura promptly goes invisible and runs him down. The ranged character promptly fails all lair actions resulting in his characters death. He was pretty upset and the rest of the table was maybe a little zealous about the first character death. He has since recovered but still holds it against me. Am I wrong for sending an invisible demon gorilla after him or is this fate set by Dice Christ?

Austyn Donoho

Dear righteous and venerable Dice Christ priests...deacons...bishops? I ask a blessing. A friend and I are Co-DM'ing a one shot for local teens hosted by the library to introduce ttrpgs. Roughly 10 teens have signed up most with little to no experience and we have 3 hours. Grant us your blessings to provide an enjoyable experience for them and absolve me of future sins if I have to fudge rolls. (p.s. Friend is narrative DM, I am battle DM. We are both quite new to DM'ing) (p.s.s. let's hope they aren't kind of teens Zirk attracts)

Just adopted a male bearded dragon and had to name it. So welcome to the family CHASE LIZ-ARD-SON.

To the Supreme Crit and their special guest the Baliff I play in a campaign run by my brother inspired by the Persona video games. We are average high school students in between modules. I play a Paladin/baseball player Jedediah. Jed saw in the in world shop (monster energy drinks as health potions, e.g.) a reflavored “Mariner’s Armor” to be an authentic Ken Griffey Jr. Mariner’s jersey. I desperately want to afford this jersey. My brother, however, seems to be losing steam. While I understand DM and real life fatigue, I just want to be able to say I got the jersey. I demand he continue his campaign so I can get said Griffey jersey to fulfill my baseball fantasy.

Will Pena

To the almighty Supreme Crit Justices and whoever else. I present the case of the pregnant ghost possession. I play in a Western-themed campaign, and one night while staying in an abandoned house we met a ghost. She was attempting to play the piano with her incorporeal hands and out of an abundance of kindness, our bard offered to let the ghost possess her. The ghost seized the opportunity and immediately ran outside, hopped on the bard’s horse, and rode away. The bard tried to convince the ghost not to run into the desert alone because she was pregnant! This was a lie. After a long discussion and careful consideration, the DM ruled that the ghost would be able to tell that the body she was possessing was not pregnant and our bard could not attempt a deception check. All turned out for the best, but we still bring up the question to this day: Could a ghost detect whether the body they’re possessing is pregnant? We humbly await your judgement.

Heyyitsphil

To the esteemed J&J (Justices & Jake): I've been running an on-and-off game for six of my friends for about a year and a half. When I had them send me their character sheets before the campaign began, I discovered that one of my friends (who wasn't a super experienced player) had created a warlock with a -2 to Charisma. I explained to him that Charisma was the most important stat for a Warlock and that it would severely weaken his character, but he insisted on keeping her stats as is, which I allowed. When his character unsurprisingly ended up being the heel of the party in combat (which I didn't see as a huge issue since it's a roleplay-heavy game), he asked if he could increase her Charisma to an 18. I refused, saying that I had given him a chance before the game began and wouldn't allow a completely arbitrary stat increase. To compensate, I helped him change her build to include spells like Hex and Armor of Agathys that don't use your Charisma stat, and am currently having the party trek through the Abyss to free his character from her patron (which would end with her receiving a new patron and a Charisma reroll). Judges, I ask: am I being overly harsh by making my friend wait a few more sessions to "earn" a stat boost, or am I right to make him sleep in the bed he's made a little bit longer? (in case pronouns are confusing: player uses he/they, character uses she/her)

Morgan Polenske

To the ever so respected and inspiring Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and the so low he could win a limbo competition against a piece of paper Bailiff Jake. I present to you the case of unending guilt. Two years ago I played a Firbolg Druid who had had very few social skills and saw things very literally. Our party had been sent on a quest into a deserted magical maze mansion to find a key person to advance the story. When presented with our first hallway of three doors on each side, my character immediately opened the first door. Our cherished DM began to explain that the room I opened was filled with paintings and placards with descriptions. I asked if there was a person in the room. He answered no, and my Firbolg promptly shut the door. My DM blinked and took in a big huff of air. He said he needed about ten minutes to regroup. Apparently, the mechanics of the hallway were that once a door was closed, the player would need to roll a D100 to see what the room would randomly change to. I had just shut the door to the starting room that had all of the lore and starting clues for our investigation. The rest of the party and the DM eventually laughed it off and we were able to salvage the adventure and they all joke about it to this day. However, I'm still riddled with guilt at the thought of crushing my DM's moment to share his intricate world. I ask you honorable justices and Jake, should I continue to punish myself with never ending guilt for ruining my DMs thunder by playing true to my Firbolg self? Or have I served my sentence and can my heart rest in peace? I humbly await your decision.

Brenton Cunningham

Honorable judges and beefy bailiff, I present the case of the bubbled wizard. When I was a fledgling DM I was nearing the end of a short campaign that I was running for my friends and I had them enter a castle that immediately flew thousands of feet into the air creating a cool set piece for the final fight against the bbeg wizard. At the beginning of what was supposed to be a multi-staged epic boss fight one of my players tosses a bead of force at the bbeg, trapping them in a giant forcefield bubble. They then causally rolled the bbeg out of a window to fall to his death. To counter this admittedly hilarious move, I had the bbeg cast fly to save themselves, which then led to over an hour of heated back and forth arguing about flying in a forcefield, atmospheric crosswinds and the terminal velocity of a wizard in a bubble. Fed up with the bickering I finally gave in and said that the wizard dies by falling, ending what had been an interesting campaign on a dull note. The players were very unhappy with this outcome even though it was what they had been arguing for over the last hour. Was I wrong for wanting the fight to continue in an interesting way? Should I have not given into my players? I am at your mercy PS: Shortly after I did what Judge Murphy will probably advise and found new friends. They are much better to me as friends and players.

Ben Pelegano

I prostrate myself in front of the almighty justices and I guess I meekly wave at Jake. I present to you the case of the slaughtered wizard. A while back, during my first ever D&D session, I played a wizard named Pelegrandious Smith. Our party was tasked to gather information on a slew of murders and we were pointed towards a local cult to start our questioning. Upon arriving at the cult camp grounds none of the cult members would talk to us until "he" came. We tried talking to many cultists and they each stonewalled us and told us to wait until the evening. We waited and eventually they started a ritual to summon a giant fire elemental. When attacked by the elemental Pelegrandious Smith fought bravely, reducing the monster in size. However, when other party members trying shooting arrows and attacking the monster the Dungeon Master said everything was flying through the monster and that we couldn't tell if it was having an effect. Shit. While Pelegrandious stood his ground the others turned towards the cultists, attacking the summoners. Also wrong! Apparently they were trying to control the monster and attacking them was making things worse. Well at this point it was too late and Pelegrandious fell and critically failed a death saving roll permanently killing him on his first adventure. The rest of the part fled and was able to to escape with their lives. I was pissed, nothing we did pre-summoning worked and nothing we did post-summoning worked. The solution was to apparently not wait around when the cultists stonewalled us. So I ask, was I right to be pissed about this brutally hard first task or I am being an overly sensitive wizard. RIP Pelegrandious Smith.

Brogan

Honourable judges and the human embodiment of a kitten being lifted by the scruff of its neck, the bailiff Jake, if it pleases the court I present the case of the clown in the horse. My players and I were playing a fairy tale based game that I was DMing and I encouraged them to play fairy tale characters. One of the players decided to fill the role of jester. In the game the players had to find clues in little glowing bottles to find a princess that was taken by a dragon, and I decided to put one of the glowing clues in the body of a dead horse. I asked one of my players if this was too dark and they said it was fine. Through more discussion we found out that the race they were playing (the clown race) could fit in spaces as small as 1 foot. And then found out that a horses throat is as big as one foot. So, naturally, during the game the jester character decided climbed through the horses throat to find the clue while the whole party looked on in horror. The other players, while laughing and agreeing the move was dark yet funny, tried to argue against it saying that it shouldn’t be possible. To me I found it seemed to work with the mechanics of the race, so I let it happen. Was I in the right to let this play through? Or should I have stopped the player from making this terrible display. I wait for you ruling and accept it humbly. (A quick addition, the jester was allowed to know one of the clues places as they were playing a sort of idiot savant)

Brittney Bee

May it please the fabulous justice Axford, the wonderful justice Tanner, the talented Bailiff Jake and I guess justice Murphy as well. I had a game about a year ago that ended because people didn’t respect the DM wishes. I was a player in this game and the previous session our dm made it known that she was tired of us constantly splitting the party and not working together. We promised we were going to regroup so we could start the next leg of our adventure the arc for our yuanti bard-warlock, who, in character, we all promised we were going to help. However at the start of the session, we were all still spit and were trying to get back, when the bard-warlock just decided to go off on their own because no one was there to come with. When we confronted the player about this and said “we were coming back to help” he got all defensive saying that “no one was coming, like they said to help so I might as well just go alone.” This among other factors led to that being the last session of the game so I humbly ask the crit were we right to be mad at him for not waiting for the party to be back together, like the dm asked us to?

Gaia Cornelia

May it please the Bailiff, My players have fallen in love with one of my npcs. Her name is Elaine. She was supposed to be inconsequential, just the wife of a professor that they are helping out. However, as soon as the met her, they find any excuse to talk to her and show up at her house to just hangout there. They have been trying to convince her to join them on their interplanar travels, and despite her repeated “no’s” they keep trying to convince her. They don’t seem to understand that she is just a commoner and lives a nice married life. Should I cave in and have her join them (I was thinking she could become a barbarian?), or refuse their wishes? I humbly await your judgement.

ChromaticMars

Hello Benevolent Judges, Axford, Murphy and Tanner, and the teenie tiny little pocket sized bailiff. I present to you the case of the FORCED age up. When I first started playing Dnd I only had NADPODD as an example so naturally I made a character based off of the Green Teens. He was a 14 year old ball of sunshine. He liked to give out information packets about the Green Teens, as well as did other charity works, but I made it a well known fact that he is a CHILD and role played accordingly (ie not drinking at taverns, talking to all adults as if they’re authority, etc) Well I guess my DM felt differently about him, because after killing all of the Green Teens leaving my character to be the last one, they also gave my character a magic ring that was “left for him by his parents” after they died that when he put on and attuned to, magically aged him to be 19 years old. I was pretty upset about this and asked if I unattuned to it would I turn back into my normal age? The DM said no you’re stuck like this forever. I tried seeing the brighter side because I was a halfing and could still be the sweet boy I originally made, but am I justified to be upset that I missed out on such an important pivotal story arc of my character growing up on his own? I await your all knowing judgement (Side note: I’ve also had issues with this group because the DMs husbands character tricked my character into drinking alcohol when My character and Myself said it’s something we didn’t not want to do so obviously they have issues with boundaries from the start)

Clio

Obviously I am not the esteemed Justices but, to me, it sounds like if they are pressuring her to go she could just be sad and scared the whole time, missing her spouse and not used to adventuring, just give them a real sense of "you ruined this woman's nice life by not taking no for an answer, which is fucked up"

Barback of Penance

Esteemed Judges and 8 Bit book club fame guest Jake. My party and I were fighting in a deep forest Canopy describe to block out the sun. In battle with horde of undead our sorcerer was just brought up and was about to be attacked again. I asked to used Shadow Martyr, as I am an Echo knight/ hexblade warlock. I was told that do to the dense foliage around I was unable to see. The sorcerer and thus was unable to use the spell to protect him. Since we were playing theater of the mind I asked if I could move in any direction that would clear the line of sight of the foliage and the DM rule that due to the difficult terrain that we had been dealing with it would be difficult to do so. I even offered to swap places with my echo after my echo moved to gain line of sight and then use Shadow Martyr as a reaction but the Dm ruled it would still be a bit obscured because I didn’t have enough movement to get beyond the first line of trees I was unable to get a clear view of my comrades. Our Sorcerer was attacked and went down and we bounce up and down our Barbarian, who has never gone down despite hard battles ended the fight at 6 hp. It was a great adventure but I still maintain I could have had that cool moment. Can you use visibility when you are playing theater of the mind

Kevin Smith

Esteemed judges and okay I guess bailiff. I play a chrono wizard in a campaign that is 9 months in. I have shield, chrono shift, and luck points (I roll terribly). After deciding I couldn’t take silvery barbs (which I’m fine with since it is incredibly OP) he decided last week that will no longer tell me what number he rolled to hit - just “I hit” or “I miss”. It has severely impacted my usefulness. Is my DM being unfair? Or am I being rightfully nerfed. I await your humble judgment

Kyle Czarnecki

Esteemed and benevolent Supreme Crit Justices and the ok-but-on-a-good-day baliff, I present the case of 'A Player of a hundred Characters, but None of His Own.' I had recently finished an almost 5 year campaign with the players at level 18 this past January. A player of mine has consistently made his characters a sort of a running joke throughout his D&D history; but despite the ridiculous characters, he puts forth some effort in playing them. Since finishing the last campaign, I had completely written a homebrew setting and had everyone make new characters. This same player wanted his character to be bound to a wheelchair and cast psionic abilities which are very reminiscent to that of Charles Xavier. I had told him no, for which I posed the question back to him "what does an adventuring party, which plunders dragon hoards and delves into the deepest pits of the Underdark, have to gain from bringing a member who can't reach the front door of a tavern if there are steps in their way?" He seemed despondent, but eventually caved to make an Aasimar Grave domain cleric. This same player has made characters in the past such as: A swashbuckler rogue named Chad Pizzaton, A 1000 year old dragon taken the appearance of a 10 year old girl with stone fidget spinners, and Joey Feeler a displaced card slinging ranger who is looking to return to his home of Brooklyn, New York. I ask you wise justices, was I wrong to stifle his creativity with creating a wheelchair bound character or should I allow the shenanigans of the players, I humbly await your just verdict.

Rachel

Oh the wisest justices in the land and that one guy that reads sometimes, I bring you the story of the slaving party member. It was mid 2020, we had a dm, Jerry, that was having advancements in personal life so stepped back and became a player in our campaign. He rolled up a grung and wanted a storyline where he was redeemed from his slaving ways. The dm tried to work with Jerry on his story and even created a detailed black market in the city. Well we saved a kidnapped kid and killed a guy and the necromancer helped Jerry bring the body back to the black market by walking him into the city with animate dead and sold the body. He then tried to enslave all of the creatures we fought from then on to sell to the black market, trying to keep it from most party members. After this, he proceeded to ask the dm if it was okay to slightly poison and enslave the other party members to get them to go along with what he wanted regardless of how they felt on the matter. I reach out, O wise and mighty justices, and ask if he should have been permitted to poison the player characters and remove their autonomy or not, and I patiently await your just verdict.

Gilgamesh

To the honorable crit justices and that guy who played Hardone. I submit a case of a Nat 1 that went to far. My very first character was a Dwarven Barbarian who wanted to buy a great axe in game. Despite barbarians starting with one I eventually found a Halfling merchant who sold one to me. Later while fighting a monster on the beach I rolled a nat 1 while trying to throw the axe at the monster and it was lost to the sea. My DM then said after the battle that the great axe was actually cursed and would take the arm of the person who lost it. This severely nerfed my Barbarian as I could no longer use heavy two handed weapons. I felt this was super harsh as it was my first time playing and I was not made aware I could even request skill checks myself. (My DM only told me to pick a race and class and had only shown me how combat worked.) This would cause me to leave the campaign and almost ruined the game for me as a whole. Despite loving the game now this event still plagues me to this day. So tell me. Was the Nat 1 justified? Or was my DM’s punishment way over the line? I leave myself to the courts mercy.

Gilgamesh

For some added context the DM was not new by any means. He came with a playmat and a giant tackle box full of dice and minis. He also, for some reason, did not use character sheets and just had us use an app that tracked AC and HP. Looking back as a DM now I wish he had spent more time talking about the RP aspect and less time on flanking.

tacticalgrandma

Folks including Matt Mercer have developed a lot of homebrew rules for wheelchair using characters, so that players can see themselves represented in the game. I’d google combat wheelchair. Also I mean if they’re playing in a world w dragons I think their imaginations can accommodate the tavern have a ramp.

Trainer Erin

To the honorable crit justices and the bailiff who doesn’t get enough credit for his hard work, I bring the case of the rogue husband. I’m DMing my first campaign and ambitiously offered to homebrew a Western setting for my players because that is the setting they wanted. This is my husband’s second game playing and being an engineer he is a min-maxer. He’s playing a rogue that is frankly infuriating to fight as a DM. My poor other players are getting hammered by my enemies since I’m making them harder and harder trying to do any damage to my husband’s PC. We’ve played 5 sessions and I don’t think he’s taken more than 20 points of damage while other players have gone down multiple times in a single session. I’ve already had a chat with him about trying not to manipulate the game to specifically benefit him because it is impacting everyone else at the table. To top it off, he has stated he wants more roleplaying opportunities despite me setting up half a session to dig into his backstory and he barely spoke! Thankfully my other players have no complaints so far and have stated despite their many KOs they have enjoyed my encounters. So I ask you, do I need to kill my husband in his sleep and make him roll up a new character? I humbly await your judgement.

Kathleen Mowery

To the honorable Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the bailiff Jake from that one show with handsome man Amir Blumenfeld*, My husband and I play in a campaign with some of our outer rim friends. The campaign members consist of me, my husband, the DM, and two other long term couples. It’s kind of a large party with 6 people, but for the most part it works. A few months ago, though, things got tense. The story: our party crossing a bridge and approaching a temple when a an illusion of giant fishy monster came out of the water and attacked us. Most of us made the save and realized it wasn’t real, but my sweet husband did not, fell over, and nearly drowned but we saved him! All was well. Turns out the guardians of the temple were some really high gnomes who were just being tricksters with their magic. 2 of our male players (let’s say Jack and Don) wanted to go murder these temple guardians. Me and Jack and John’s girlfriends (let’s say Jane and Danielle) wanted to leave it be. Even my husband agreed to leave them be. The illusion was part of the protection of the temple, my husbands character was only in danger because he rolled a nat 1 and tripped over the edge of the bridge. NBD. Jack decides to ignore us, which is his prerogative, and Jane (jack’s girlfriend) casts a spell to stop him from moving closer and murdering the gnomes. Jack turns to Jane, out of character, and says something snarky under his breath about how he’s mad she’s stopping him. Jane says something like “well if you’re going to act like that I won’t cast it.” The whole table is so tense. My husband and I try our best to resolve the tension, making jokes and my husband ends up charming the gnomes to go in search of something incredibly funny which will, in all likelihood, get them killed. Funny enough to distract most of us at the table and we were able to move forward for about 10 more minutes but then we ended the session. My husband and I were so uncomfortable with the very real relationship fight happening at the table as well as the attitudes of “if you do that, I’m going to get mad in real life.” Legit, the tension between Jack and Jane did not end at all and the way Jane shut down made me so sad. Justices, I beg of you, please tell me: should we have just let Jack murder the trickster guardian gnomes despite the majority of our party (the women, me, and my husband) saying to chill out? Or was Jane justified in trying to stop him and he was being a weeny by throwing an IRL fit about it? Respectfully, Biased *just kidding Jake, I love you, may Jesus Crit bless you and keep you and may the Natural 20 light shine upon you, and be gracious to you.

Kristina LaPointe

I looked this up and the wording of the bag of beans gives you an entire minute before the effect takes place