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Cases for Dungeon Court Live (Patreon)

Published:
2023-01-21 18:47:17
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Hey there fam! Lowly and Esteemed bailiff Jake here. The Supreme Crit is convening tomorrow night, LIVE in Boston. Please submit your (BRIEF, 1-2 paragraphs plz!) cases on this thread and we will try you in our first ever truly open court.

Also, if you are attending the show write WILBUR in your message.

Also, also. A few tickets still available!

Love,

Jake

Comments

Frank

To the Honorable Judges and the unnamed Jake(with a a slight head nod of respect). I had a discussion with my coworker while on the clock, and he was telling me about a new D&D campaign he was getting into. He told me about the world, his fellow players, and his DM who I know. I unfortunately asked about his player character. After describing them, telling me their backstory and their class, I thought that's where it would stop. But then he began to tell about the arc he had planned for his character. Not just a general direction, but an entire arc. I told him that maybe it was a bit...un-fun to plan an entire beginning middle and end for a character without actually playing at least a few sessions if at all! We then spoke on the clock for a while longer about it but could not agree. He thinks its perfectly fine. So I come to you? Do you agree with him or I. I shall take punishment willingly. Love, Frank (P.S all friendly banter, no feelings were actually hurt)

Fabrizio Moreno

Dear priests and bible camp counselor, I've come today to ask for forgiveness and redemption. A few years ago, right before the pandemic, we were playing a Homebrew version of the Star wars ttrpg with some friends. Because I was the one with more knowledge about Star wars and ttrpg I was the GM, it was my first time ever GMing a campaign and also my first time ever playing, so as you can guess the stakes were high and so were my stress levels. In our first session our wookie Ranger found a couple of jawas trying to steal from her store, she tried to scare them but even with a +9 intimidation and a DC 12 she failed, after that they roll initiative and things went South. Out of the two 10hp jawas, one of them died instantly because our wookie got a Nat 20 and dealt 22 points of damage (1d12 times two) and the other failed his "death saves" after being throw out of the store and getting 15 points of damage. At this point I have two things I want to clarify, the first one is that I tried tod/ deescalate the situation in the middle of the battle (giving her another chance of intimidation, strength checks with disadvantage for being a target too small for a wookie, etc) but nothing work out, and second, and most important, is that THIS TWO JAWAS WERE VERY IMPORTANT TO STORY! They were fugitives from a illegal slave trader ring and supposed to give the party their first mission to rescue their children who were still captives in the slave ring, plus I had a whole backstory for them, their kids and even that she was pregnant, so when other party member got a Nat 20 in the investigation check of the corpses I had to tell them everything, about them, the children, the pregnancy, the slave ring, EVERYTHING. Needless to say, chaos ensued. Some were in shock, some were angry (understandable) and my friend the wookie went through the five step of mourning in 2 minutes. After that they ended up destroying the illegal slave trader ring anyway and the campaign went on, but 'till this day everytime someone mentions the "jaws incident" we all go silent and say "we don't talk about that". Now, here I am wondering: could I have done something different? Or was it all part of the game in the hands of the dice Christ?

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.

Ross Gilliland

May it please the court and the unconventionally handsome bailiff, I present to you the case of the unrepentant player. While DMing a campaign in college, I made sure to remind my players that DnD is not a video game, and going forward I would not go out of my way to protect their characters from the consequences of their own actions. Later in this same session, my real life best friend and most problematic player decided his character (Hektor) would petition a friendly vampire for his assistance in a personal quest. The vampire told Hektor he would not be helping him since it didn’t concern him, and retreated back into his coffin. Hektor’s next words have lived in infamy ever since: “I light his coffin on fire.” I felt very challenged in that moment to uphold my promise from the beginning of the session by initiating combat, but I didn’t want my friend’s character to be killed so I just had his character marked by the vampire to be his new thrall, meaning Hektor could be summoned at any point to serve him. Most lawful court, did I make a mistake by showing leniency after my authority was challenged so blatantly? I humbly await your decision.

Ross Gilliland

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

Kyle David Perry

To the Honorable Supreme CRICK Justices and the very kind bailiff Jail, I present to you the case of the Confusing Cow. My party of three in our very close knit home game were traveling on a ship and I decided my character wanted to do something nice for the crew. So the party Druid wildshaped into a cow so that we could provide milk for everyone on board. Our DM asked me to role an animal handling check, and though untrained I rolled a Nat 20. My DM then went on to explain that when I tried to milk the cow I instead caused it to orgasm. In asking him if I had also accomplished gathering any milk from my actions the DM said No. Should I have been granted milk for the crew or was our DM astute in his givings and takings. I humbly await your judgement, Kyle David Perry

Samwell54

May it please the terse bailiff and the debate lords , I present to the crit the case of the mind reading sea leviathan. I was playing a very specific build that maximized counter damage. A Danny Devito sized tiefling Phoenix sorcerer named Boy that uses spells like fire shield and armor of Agathas to do damage when he got hit. We were fighting a sea leviathan boss that the dm said could read our minds and therefor wouldn’t hit me because it knew how my gimmick worked. It ended up getting away with low health but I did the math and I definitely would’ve killed it if it hit me. Was I robbed?! I implore you to convene on this matter and dispense justice accordingly

Mike Andryshak

To the shining example of a human being Jake and the judges... (I guess 😉). I ran two campaigns before I moved and I had one player that was trying to 'win' D&D. I.e. looting bodies before combat ended, making the game all about him and his story, and would run of to have solo adventures. I at first thought nothing of it just super enthusiastic, great! The other players started coming to me to bitch about. I went to his wife who also played and ask her if she could say something. I didn't want to come off as punitive DM Daddy. Well that didn't work so a few sessions later I asked him what I could do to keep him engaged with the group and the story to which he said 'I don't care what they're doing, it's not part of MY story.' With that in mind I let him fuck around and find out. I'd let him go loot but all the items were worthless or cursed. My NPCs didn't want to interact with him and in fact wanted to talk to his 'table rival' and when he'd go explore solo he'd find himself in unwinnable scenarios. The rest of the table seemed to enjoy watching the other shoe drop but in hindsight I'm wondering if I did the right thing. I humblyand patiently await your judgement. Cheers! Shak P.S. got to see you Philly again and it was awesome!

Samwell54

this is the specific combo. Fire shield+armor of agathas+mantle of flame(class ability) + flames of phlegethos(feat)+ hellish rebuke 1d4+2d8+3d10+(charisma modifier)+(armor of Agatha’s dmg)

Dench Judy

A casual “hi” to the effervescent judges and the polarising Bailiff Jake. I come to you with the case of the frustrated DM Me and my friends have been playing since Covid and our old DM finished our first campaign after a wish spell/time travel incident which saw us stuck in my character’s childhood (my bad). After, he wanted to start a new one and wanted to record for a podcast. Most of the group was uneasy but with very limited equipment we gave it a go after having a few sessions in the new world. The first few recording sessions went great, but after around 4, things started to get tense. He loved to describe in a dramatic way and once called a river “aggressive” among many other things. One other player made a joke about there being weapons being pointed at us from the river and our DM lost it and stormed out for a solid hour (it was freezing outside too) I went out to talk to him and he told me it felt like we were making fun of him, that he’d sunk a year into writing this story for us and that he couldn’t trust us with anything he makes. We soon after stopped recording and he has since moved away, but this has always bothered me, especially when he comes back and hops into my campaign which is quite silly, and rolls his eyes disapprovingly. Is he right to not trust us with things because we like to be silly? Or was our silliness just too much? I await your judgement

Sam Weiller

I have no case, I just want to let the Honorable Justices and…I want to say Jeremy(?) know that the dungeon court theme guy will be there if you need a court bard!! WILBUR

Dan Healey

WILBUR!!!! WE WILL BE THERE! To the honorable judges, and the wonderful new bailiff Jack taking over because Jake got cancelled or something... If it pleases the court, i give you the Case of the QUARANTINE RAGEQUIT DM During Quarantine, my monthly game moved online and a few other friends wanted to play, so my DM decided to make a new campaign with the 6 of us and we got to roll new characters. During the 4th session, we were aboard a ship returning from a mission when the NPC crew started to become hostile, the rogue and bard used persuasion and intimidation checks to try to diffuse but no matter what the DM said they failed and increased the tension. When the NPCs drew their weapons, the Wizard cast sleep at 3rd level to put them down but without even a check, the DM said it had no effect. It was at that point that the bard said in chat, "Screw it, if they want a fight, let's kill them!" And thats when the DM yelled, "FUCK THIS, I QUIT!" and signed off discord and then deleted our campaign on DND Beyond. We were all so stunned, we just stayed in the discord chatted for like another 20 min. The next day, the DM called the Wizard and claimed we weren't suppose to be hostile to the crew and we did things wrong. He also admitted he didnt know how Sleep worked and didnt want to look it up because there was ONE detail we all missed that would have fixed everything but no one saw it so, oh well! He then decided he wanted to kick the Bard out for not playing his character correctly because he multiclassed with Cleric, so he shouldn't act that way. He called the rest of us individually, except the Bard, campaigning for the Bard to be tossed and not apologizing for being a big baby. We sided with the Bard and the campaign never started up again. Were we right to take the bard's side and not try to compromise for another campaign? PS, that was 3 years ago and we've never played another TTRPG with that DM again, we've all been friends for almost 20 years, but since that episode, he kinded drifted out of our friend group and we all rarely talk to him anymore.

roolt

If it may please the court and also the very nice bailiff, I have less of a case, more of a question, though I’m still open to punishment. I was running an encounter where my players were fighting a werewolf, and our changeling warlock got bitten. The player didn’t seem to understand what was happening and was confused when he failed his con save. When another player told him that meant he’d become a werewolf, he seemed dejected, so I side that because he was a changeling he could simply take on werewolf traits as a part of one of his forms. Was I wrong for this? Should I have not acquiesced and made him abide by the same mechanics as our gnome monk that got bit or should I have never introduced a werewolf without asking my players if they would be okay with it? (P.S. the gnome monk who got bit did really enjoy the character shift, as I figured the player would, but I still worry I am being unfair)

Emily R

WILBUR!! Good evening your honors and the humble, wise Bailiff Jake, and may it please the court. I bring to you the case of the ranger-kabob, a moment from our first campaign that our group still talks about more than five years later. Our party was fighting a massive ghost shark on a ship deck and my character, a multi-classed Phoenix Sorcerer and paladin half-elf with an explicit fire theme, used a fire AOE spell to burn up the shark from the inside. Our dwarf fighter took a few points of damage from the spell, hurting her but not causing significant damage. However, the fighter had previously told the party that she was afraid of fire several times (didn’t explain why) and in character repeatedly told the sorcerer not to use fire. Pissed off by the fire spell, the fighter (in her dope half-werewolf form) attacked my character in retaliation, swiping the sorcerer with her claws. In self-defense, my character swung her sword at the fighter’s legs to avoid lethal damage. In the heat of the moment, our DM ruled that a slashing damage attack with a sword could not be non-lethal. Enraged, the fighter attacked again, disarming my character and sending her sword flying. The DM narrated that the sword flew toward our elf ranger, who was standing nearby. She failed her DEX saving throw and was impaled by the sword, getting pinned to the wall of the ship. On the heels of a tough fight against the ghost shark and its minions, it was a tense healing moment to bring her back to safety. The debate over who was at fault for impaling our ranger pal raged on for a loooong time, both passionately in character and – after a couple drinks – sometimes in person. We ask you now, honorable justices, who should be blamed for this near-death experience? Other Context – Not needed for the prompt!!! - Myself (the sorcerer/paladin) and the ranger will be in the audience at the Wilbur; the fighter is an avid listener and says hi from DC! - This campaign was an all-female party DM’d by our wonderful friend who wanted to make his first time DMing a space where everyone could feel welcome playing; I credit a lot of my continued love of the game to him and this campaign, ranger-kabob notwithstanding.

Gabe Unser

To the unbiased understanding judges of the supreme crit and the palatable guy below them Jook: I present the case of the prayer unanswered. For the first time ever, I had created a paladin (after listening to NADDPOD and being inspired by Beverly) for a new horror/mystery campaign. His name was Chester Fields and I was very excited to role play this dad like character inspired by my very Catholic father . The very first encounter, our party was travelling down a dirt road when we saw some farmers being attacked by people possessed. While my comrades took action, I told my dm I would like to pray and see if my god had any insight. He looked at me in an odd manner and said, “alright. For your turn you get down on your knees in the middle of battle and pray” and then proceeded to continue down initiative. I piped up, upset that I had wasted my turn and said “can I recon my turn and just attack?” He denied my request saying I decided to pray as my turn. From that point forward I didn’t ask to pray again as I was afraid to waste my turn. Was I wrong to think I could an opportunity to role play and make a religion check to gain insight or was my dm in the right to move past me? I await your humble judgment

Hyacinth

To the honorable and esteemed justices Axford and Tanner, and to the noble bailiff Jake [pause here to make it real obvious that I left out Murph 😁] I come with the case of the spider climbing elevator. I was playing a session with a group that I have been dming for years now, when they encountered a city built into the side of a cliff that they needed to access. One player had spider climb, and proposed to carry the other players on his back like a *freakin* elevator. I said that it was potentially possible, but an athletics check with a high DC would be required, and if they failed the other players would fall into the sea. They argued briefly, and eventually acquiesced, but not before they had the *audacity* to suggest that I submit this case to the court, so here it is. Do with them what you will. (Also if this gets read I've changed my name recently after coming out as non-binary, and can't change it on my profile for some reason, so you can say Hyacinth B if you don't mind 🙂)

Kit

If it pleases the court (and my friends Kim and AP who will be at the Wilbur!!): I have slowly but surely determined over many sessions that my DM never remembers to account for concentration. It’s not an official rule of his or anything, but when we get hit he never has us roll to maintain, and the sorcerer in my party (a not very experience player) gets pretty willy nilly with casting multiple concentration spells at once. I don’t wanna be a hall monitor, but I also don’t want to break the game! Should I be pointing out when concentration is an issue, or should I just take advantage of the opportunity in front of me and Bless while Compelling Duels?!? PS the DM is my big brother, if that sways you.

laura rosen

Dearest Balif Jeff and most beautiful judges, my group has been split. 😢 We are currently fighting an Ilithid who took over a halfling's body but has now fully transformed into an all white four tentacled mind flayer. We have been repeatedly out rizzed and have been getting our brains sucked out and losing our intelligence left and right. Our divination wizard (who has just been restored from the feeble mind spell) is dying to use banishment and use a low portent to ship away the BBEG. But the argument has arose whether or not our wizard would banish this illisquid back to the Astral plane or the plane the original body was from which would be the material plane? Help us dearest judges we ended the session screaming at eachother and have not reached an agreement. I humbly await your true and eternal judgement. In dice christ we pray AMEN 🙏 I'll be at the show in Boston tonight! Break a leg!

Dr. Bearkele

May it please the illustrious court and the lascivious bailiff, I present the case of the Player-DM Who Wants to Have His Cake and Eat It Too. I'm playing a campaign of Curse of Strahd with some friends, with my partner DMing. It's his first long-campaign that he's DMing amd DnD is for sure not his TTRPG system of choice, so it was really nice of him to run DnD for us anyways. A few sessions ago, one of our players announced that he was going to run Strahd for his friend group as well. This is problematic for a few reasons. Firstly, Strahd isn't a linear campaign, so this player is going to basically have all of the stat sheets for all of the bad guys, as well as all the NPC backgrounds and motivations. He claims that he can play his character as if he doesn't know those things, but us other players are skeptical about massive metagaming potential that could theoretically ruin all the fun for us. We also suggested perhaps that he start his campaign before his players get to Barovia, in order to let our campaign get ahead enough that the spoilers won't be such a big deal, but he suggested that without a module to follow, he had no interest. Finally, the last reason this is kind of crappy is because our game nights are also his date night with his wife. Since she and I are the foreigners in this country, my friend can't play in her husband's campaigns because she doesn't speak the language. So if we kill off his character, his wife is left playing the game without him and we might lose her as a player too, which we don't really want. Ultimately, we're wondering, what do we do with this player? Kick him out and ruin date night, or keep him in and have him potentially ruin the game for all the rest of us? (Ps: anytime we ask this player how he expects this to work, he just tells us it's fine and not to worry about it, in a way that makes us all think that he has not thought it through at all)

Nathan Mills

I WILBUR be there tomorrow! Esteemed Crit Judges and Bailiff who’s alright I guess (but don’t let it go to your head), I bring you the case of the Unseen Pyromaniac. I was DMing a pirate themed session where my party of seafarers was fighting a Pirate Revenant of the Sea Goddess. The Revenant regenerated 10HP at the top of every round and the Bard, who is also my wife, figured out that if they used fire damage then the revenant would not regenerate. They had several flasks of oil to douse him with, and at one point my wife wanted to use Unseen Servant to carry a torch into their adversary, igniting the oil. I resisted this move, as Unseen Servants cannot attack. She and the rest of the party argued that this was not an attack, but was simply the Servant carrying an object to a spot where the Revenant just HAPPENED to be. I relented and accepted the move and the party won the fight after he fell off the tower whilst on fire, but to this day I question my own decision. Beautiful and fair judges, was I correct in allowing this action, or was this too similar to an attack for it to have worked? I humbly await your judgement and accept any punishment directed at me or my wife. Thank you.

Beav

To the most just of Justices and the outwardly disgraced (but secretly esteemed) Baliff, I bring to you a question of SENTENCING rather than asking for a ruling. As a DM, I recently discovered one of my players blatantly lying about their rolls. I had suspected such treachery throughout COVID-era virtual games, but i only recently witnessed it firsthand (and it was confirmed by other witnesses as well). But here is the juicy part, this player does not yet know that WE KNOW. So rather than ask for your ruling in such a cut and dry case, do you have some recommendations to BRING FORTH THE SWIFT HAND OF DICE-CHRIST’S WRATH?! PS: None of us are actually mad at this player. We play dnd to have low-stakes fun and make jokes. We just need a good way to take this pc through the razzberry patch or perhaps down prank street.

Maya Soh-Brown

If it pleases the devastatingly attractive justices and the admittedly cute bailiff, I run the dnd program at the children’s library i work at, we have parties for middle schoolers and high schoolers. This being said, my middle schoolers are obsessed with trying to romance NPCs. I’ve told them several times that i’m not going roleplay romance with 12 year olds yet they keep rolling charisma checks. I also the court, am I just in punishing them for this or should i let them get it out of their system? It makes me uncomfortable to have children try to flirt with NPCs. I await your judgment patiently.

Three awakened gooses

WILBER! Hello illustrious Judges and delightful bailiff Jarf! I bring to you the case of the disappointed daddy. In a home brew game another player decided to flavor his rogue as a “dad” and put all his stats into charisma. He specialized in persuasion and deception to convince people he was their dad. The group was fine with this until he tried to use this ability to force player characters to do what he wanted. When he was told he can force players to do what he wants with persuasion rolls he became despondent and refused to participate in things like combat stating “I didn’t build my character for combat and he’s useless now so I’ll just watch the horse” then proceed to brood. He went as far as to disagree with the route our party was taking and venture off on his own to a brothel. The campaign fizzled out soon after. I ask you judges, were we in the wrong not to bend to his every fatherly will?

joe farulla

WILBUR May it please the honorable justices of the Crit Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and bailiff Jake/Jack/Tucker who I either love/hate/feel indifferent about. I bring to you the case of the Modify Memory Misuse. My first group would use this Dice Christ-forsaken "carousing table" for when we had nothing to do in a town. You could win a gambling event, make a mortal enemy, or a few other choices through a roll. But their were maybe 8 total options and after the fourth in-game "New Love Interest option" I had enough. The PC brought his love interest into our shared living space without asking so, as a goof..kinda, I cast Modify Memory on the NPC and made her forget meeting my friend. All rolls were made in my favor and another PC (real life brother) gave her a few coins and helped her leave. He was LIVID and screamed "How could you take my girlfriend away!!!", and stayed silent the rest of the session. I pleaded it was a gof on a played out game option and he insisted his agency had been unforgivably compromised. Should I have let the madness continue?

Jackie

To the effulgent, jocular justices, and the luminous, sagacious bailiff Jaque, I earnestly beg for your assistance. In the first room of a recent dungeon crawl, my party faced a sphinx which asked the riddle: One of the players wanted to immediately answer, fully confident in his answer (which was actually correct) while the rest of the party wanted to discuss what the answer might be, fearful that a wrong answer would end in a TPK. The player remained steadfast and refused to tell the party what his answer was going to be. In the end, after a heated and hilarious argument with a lot of exasperated shouting, I ruled that he could give the sphinx his answer and if it was wrong only he would be killed so long as the rest of the party did not intervene, but I wonder if I did the right thing. I await your benign judgement.

Patrick O.

To the impugnable Judges, and the repugnant John Horowitz, I had set up a fight in which my party needed to fend off an Archfey while cracking open ice prisons to free an NPC ally. The ice prisons were large floating ice crystals that were weak to fire, and it was going to be a huge moment of cool effective play for the party’s wizard, Dr. Millibonk. Instead of doing the cool effective thing, however, he decided to cast defensive spells on himself and throw vials of piss at the Prince of Frost (a strategy he referred to as “wizard tanking”) leaving the rest of the party to struggle to crack open the crystals. The fight almost went very badly, as they couldn’t kill the Archfey in his domain, and could barely open the crystal prisons. I had to give the fighter a dramatic power-up I was saving for a more important moment later just so they could live through the fight! The wizard, however, was delighted, and nobody else really cared by the next day. Judges, am I justified in my butthole-puckering, or is this Piss Wizard on the right side of the law? I humbly await your judgement.

Dr. Bearkele

A separate Dice Christ Confessional: I am a full heretic. I do not believe in Dice Christ. For my entire life, I have had weirdly bad luck rolling dice. I feel like any time I am playing a game, they hate me, but if I'm just throwing them for the shit of it, I roll like a normal person. I am like Murph and Caldwell x2 on fire. I've had sessions where I haven't rolled over a 9. At first I thought this was the curse of the fighter, that I would just roll shit and never hit my enemies, but my cleric also can't get anything done and I feel useless in every situation. The game stops being fun when I feel like I never get anything to do... So I fudge the odd die roll. Never a nat-1, because that's past the herecy I'm okay with... but if I've failed to hit in combat several rounds in a row, while the rest of the table is having fun and contributing... what else can I do but pretend like I'm also playing the same game everyone else gets to play because dice don't hate them. I know I'm a heretic, but I would love to be absolved. How do I get Dice Christ to love me, when he has hated me long before I knew how to play dice? I beg your forgiveness and advice... Bear the Heretic (or Bearetic) PS: before you flay me as a heretic, I demand to hear Aabria's take on the case! If she agrees with your verdict, you may have my skin.

James Hailstone

Dearest Cardinals of the Crit, I have a confession to make which I fear may result in my excommunication from the church. During the pandemic I started DM'ing a game for some friends over zoom. All was going well for a few months before I started to notice that people were distracted by other things or just not really engaged in the game and we were all just going through the motions... It was in this time that I strayed from the light of Dice Christ... In order to keep my interest in the game I would simply roll the dice for a check or attack and whatever number popped into my head that I believed would be the most interesting result, was the number that I announced to the group. I didn't abuse this power and just womp my players, but sometimes a 19 just seems more interesting that the 7 Dice Christ gives you. The game eventually fizzled out and we stopped playing but it has played on my mind since.. And every now and then when playing I get the itch to just say the most interesting number. I throw myself at the mercy of the church and am willing to accept any punishment , however severe.. I just need to be Clean.

Leo

WILBUR!! looking forward to seeing y’all tomorrow :) if it may please the court, i give you the case of the entitled heiress. im a player in two online campaigns, both of which are with the same group of people (different dms). in the first campaign, a mutual friend of another player joined after 5 months. she played an eladrin paladin that was a nyc socialite with an insane amount of connections to basically any celebrity. this player routinely would give monologues and talk over the dm, and actively did not help in combat unless prompted. she begged the dm for a +3 sword at level 5 and then got upset when said dm misspoke and said the sword was +2 during a session. in our other campaign, a murder mystery, she chose to play a 12 year old wizard after the group agreed that they didn’t want any children harmed in the campaign, effectively giving her plot armor against anything the dm threw at us. she is no longer in either of these games due to a number of reasons along with what was mentioned (including misgendering other players repeatedly), but in a campaign i am not in, the dm chose not to remove her from the table despite the multiple grievances other players had with her. i ask the court, should a player’s reputation in other campaigns effect their ability to play in others? i humbly accept any ruling you give

Chrys

Dearest Esteemed Regent Bailiff and the Majestic Crit Justices I have an old adventuring party that I DM and have since Campaign 1 of Nadpodd. Some of my players liked monster of the week style gameplay in a One Piece-esque adventure through Saltmarsh settings and Forgotten Realms Planes like in Treasure Planet. We’re now in the ending of this campaign and I have set up god killing Dracoliches and Planar Rifts but does this feel too far fetched even for level 20 characters? Is there a point that goes beyond what a dnd character could feasibly amount to?

Avatar Iroh

May it please the court and the juiciest bailiff, Bailiff Jack. I present to you a case of the rogue that walked. I was DMing for the first time for my first time players. We were all fairly new to the game so it took a while for social interaction in role play to get started. For a little lore and to give the opportunity for my players to interact with the world I let them loose in a dragon casino where the large gambling dragon was sleeping in the far end of the casino. My players all immersed themselves in the mini games and NPCs I had prepared for them. They lost money but that’s their own gambling problem to solve. But my rogue took notice that I said the dragon they were looking for was in the back so he just walked toward them. The dragon immediately went on the defensive questioning the random adventurer approaching the boss dragon. He rolled really high on his persuasion check to expose his operation. Because I had my dragon freak out he put the casino in lockdown. Promptly trapping the PCs inside unless they complete the dragons trial. After the game my gambling PCs got very rattled with me. Expressing that they felt like they would have won more money if they stayed longer. I tell them that there might be more games in the wild but they fell silent and completed the dragons trial anyway. I get dragged through the raspberry patch from time to time like how’d they’d be able to afford more potions. And I just return with “90% of gamblers quit before they win.” Judges I ask, do I deserve to be dragged through the patch? Or was I right to correct their gambling problem. I humbly wait for your judgement.

DrakeDiAngelo

Esteemed crit Justices and the ever lovely Bailiff Jake, if it pleases the court, I write to you about the case of the Genius DM. When I was in 7th-8th grade, my friends and I started playing D&D after school at the public library. It was our first time playing d&d, including for our DM, so we were all learning as we went. We played for several months and had a steady campaign going, which was a lot of fun, but our DM started going a bit overboard. He's a huge nerd and I definitely classify him as a genius, and he memorized all of the core rule books, race and class stats, and most of the items, magical items, and spells. He started giving us more and more things to work with, but since the rest of us didn't even own the books, he was pretty much telling us what to do during every battle. He was leveling our characters for us and directing us to magical shops and other resources. After a time, he proposed that we do a PVP battle arena with everyone fighting against each other. We were all down with the idea, but when we began, he had optimized his character so much that we couldn't even get near him without him casting an AOE spell and nearly downing us in one hit. We had expressed some concern about his DnD skills being far above our ability level, and how it didn't feel like we were in control of any situation, but he never really toned it down. Even in a regular campaign, his battles were so optimized and his enemies so specifically crafted against our skills, that most fights ended with almost everyone being down. We had four or five character deaths during this time as well. Eventually, I started making up excuses for why I couldn't schedule, and our campaign fizzled out. I'm still friends with him to this day and we both play DnD separately, but he still doesn't know why I stopped playing. So ask I you, was there anything more I could have done, and was I wrong to have started ghosting him? I still feel really bad about it 5 years later. I humbly await your divine judgement.

Christopher Lasasso

WILBUR I don't have a case as much as I have an appeal to the honorable judges and sultry bailiff. I submitted a case way back when about my Fast & Furious DnD campaign on an episode also featuring Justices Oyama and Wilson. I had imposed a video host fee on a player who wanted to maintain a website in the year 2000 resulting in them shifting in a diff. direction with the character. Despite the ruling in my players favor, I was never given an apt punishment by the esteemed court and my players have maintained that this is a further indictment of my actions and seek adequate restitution. So I beseech thee, panel of judges, what kind of justice must I face for my crimes against family, fast cars, and a gold star franchise of the century.

Jess D.

To the infallible and honorable supreme crit justices and the somewhat fallible bailiff: I present the case of the worthless first crit. I began playing d&d with some college friends who had previously played together, but I was a total newbie. During my second ever session, I asked if my character could attempt to distract a guard by casting thaumaturgy at the end of the hallway so we could escape an open room we were being held in. There was an uprising within the building, so I wanted to make a noise like shouting to make him go check it out. My dm said sure, and I rolled a nat 20 (my first ever!) making my deception check a total of 24. I was super excited for my first ever crit, however, my DM said that the guard didn’t care about the noise and that my distraction didn’t work. I didn’t argue it but I was really bummed, especially because he didn’t even roll for the guards response. I ask you - was dice Christ’s will ignored by my first nat 20 being a waste, or are some guards just unshakable? I humbly await your judgement.

Raustie Scho

WILBUR ! Dear Honorable and Hungry judges Murphy, Axford and Tanner and bailiff Frank. My table is currently playing in an 80’s New York action film themed D&D game that has come to a gastric impasse. In the hopes of emulating the video game trope of instantly eating food for health, I, the DM, proposed that instead of healing potions, adventurers in our world would slam back a hot dog during combat. In addition of glizzie realism, I offered that players could make a CON saving throw to see if their character can get an action and a hot dog in the same turn, or if they choke on their own healing. My players immediately began arguing that their characters should not need to make CON saves, as 6 seconds would be more than enough time for their characters to eat a hotdog and perform their action. To prove this, we decided to have the players try to snarf a dog in under 6 seconds. After diligent testing we found that 6 seconds is, in fact, not enough time for my players to consume a pork missile. However, they continued to argue, saying that their characters would be great glizzie guzzlers, given the amount of practice they would have. And, while I don’t expect my players to achieve Joey Chestnut level of hot dog horking in the real world, I still want it to be a challenge to be rewarded with healing and an action. So I ask you, do you think 6 seconds is enough time to hork a hotdog and perform your combat action? We await your judgment.

Dana Kayser

(WILBUR) Honorable justices of the court, and the bailiff (a Jake of all trades) I present to you the case of mommy spoilers. I, the DM, was convinced that our first ever campaign had petered out, we had since moved on to one shots and much to my disappointment stopped playing very regularly. I somewhat impatiently decided to reveal my twist ending to my player and told him that the BBEG of that campaign had been his PCs mom (who he thought was dead) the whole time. He is disappointed in me for spoiling the reveal, saying we could have picked up the campaign sometime in the future, but I maintain that that campaign was pretty much dead in the water. Was I justified in telling him? I was proud of my plot twist that he didn’t see coming and wanted to see the reaction sometime before 2025. See you in Boston!!!!!!

Tails with really supple birthing hips

Here ye here ye to the extremely well dressed and thoughtful Supreme Justices of the court and the lowly like super lowly but in like a cool aloof way kinda like angel from Buffy bailiff ,I present the case of the sleeping giant. I am a member of the adventure league in a pretty large city and we meet at our local game shop at least once a week in order to play modules, for those of you that don’t know how adventure league works it’s mainly like a drop in and drop out system for adventures usually broken up in multiple parts, I recently DM’d a session and one of my pcs was essentially being an ogre of a man and just loudly eating and making quite a mess. As this wasn’t the first time I’ve had this issue with this person I was a bit prepared and being non confrontational I just usually would clean up after them and not say anything, I but this game was different the pc decided about halfway through a very intense encounter with a possessed king that was the culmination of the days adventure began to sleep and snore so loudly that the whole table was alerted and unable to continue normally. The worst part is he never woke up til the end and then proceeded to get upset about how we just skipped him in initiative. Was I in the wrong for continuing the night and just allowing him to sleep? Should I have tried harder to wake him up? As a dm I try to play to the tables wants not one person but I saw they signed up for this weeks game and I am honestly nervous to interact again lest I have to wake a sleeping giant.

Ben_the_DM

To the honorable judges and lowly bailiff John, may I present the case of the assisted DM I run a game for some people online that initially started as an alternative to not being able to find a game to play in myself. Lately with work I have become busier than normal and haven't been able to commit as much time to prep as I used to (it used to average at about 15-20 hours a week in prep, now I have about 5- 10). I have recently become aware of online AI generators. And have started using them to pad out my work, creating monologues, city descriptions and even creating NPCs and storylines. I use them as a guide line but I am unsure if I am cheating my players put of an authentic experience. Do I receive the Crits blessing to continue supplementing my game with AI generated fluff, if not, I humbly submit to whatever punishment you see fit.

Dr. Bearkele

Wow, dick move from your GM...

Danny B.

To the truly exalted Jake and the others, I present the case of the rando. I introduced my friends to dnd and it has gone swimmingly (other than my wife dropping out after our first campaign). We rotate between me and two of the players who are a couple hosting. The last time they hosted something truly wild happened. One of their friends called during the game and said "I'm around what are you doing tonight" the player let him know we were playing dnd and would be busy yet the friend decided to stop by anyway to pick up some crocheting equipment (idk). Upon arrival, this rando decided it was appropriate to sit down at the nearby couch and turn on the TV to watch playoff football (not the Bills I wouldn't schedule dnd during that). After complying to the request to mute the TV he would randomly approach the table with comments such as "you all are writing a lot" in the middle of me giving an expose or interject during role-playing to make "that's what she said" jokes. I was quite upset but held my cool and rolled with it best I could. Should I tell off my players who allowed this rando to crash our game, or am I obliged to accept that it is their house and their guest? For context, our party is 6 players, so only 2 were hosting. I won't be at the show but come back to Chicago (ok I know we are spoiled)

Caroline

WILBUR!! May it please the aspirational court and the charismatic bailiff: I ask for your forgiveness for not reading the rules, and if forgiveness is not granted, my party and I humbly accept our punishment. About a year ago, my friends and I were all new to D&D. Our benevolent DM (who is also my boyfriend, and is here with me - everyone say hi to Patrick!) was running Descent into Avernus. We were trying to clear out a bad guy's manor house, which meant we had to fight a lot of guards. And I mean a LOT of guards. We gruesomely, slowly, made our way through the house and left piles of corpses in our wake. Us players were tired, and feeling morally confused about killing all these guys whose only crime was working for a big bad. I wondered whether d&d was always such a needlessly violent game. As we cut down what we'd hoped would be the last of them, our DM said "You guys know you can do non-lethal damage, right?" Supreme Crit... please forgive us all for not reading the rules. If it helps, I have read the books and learned the rules since that sorry day. And may Dice Christ forgive our PCs for all of their needless murder.   Anyway, I adore you all - thank you for the joy you have brought to both of us!

Dr. Bearkele

Perhaps you should be asking less how long it takes to eat a hot dog, and more what you can feasibly eat in 6 seconds that's funny for your game ;)

Austin Johnson

Honorable Justices and Tucker's most esteemed bailiff pal, may it please the court. A player in my game wanted to run a one shot during the holidays and we said sure. But unbeknownst to us, he was secretly wanting to DM his own campaign and after this one shot he announced that he was going to keep DMing in this campaign. But I thought this was going to be a silly Christmas fight Santa one shot so I made a musical theater themed Barbarian that danced out his rages and sang show tunes and now he shifted the tone of the campaign and the atmosphere is very serious. I asked if I could change my character to something I would want to play for longer than one session and he said no. Was the DM right to keep me playing a ridiculous character I made when he told us this was a one shot or should I be able to change my character?

Josh

Basically we use music to create a sexy mysterious atmosphere and our dm used spooky/sinister music when we first met the high priest of the citadel and so obviously we became suspicious. However when our rogue asked to follow her after the encounter our dm was angry as we made no insight checks while talking and so had no reason too. Justices is it fair to use music to guess if an npc is nefarious or should insight always be rolled?

Sam A.

May it please the weary court and taunt the titular bailiff, I bring you the case of Too Many Rats. Also, WILBUR! I am a DM running a 1-to-20 campaign in a homebrew world. Recently, the level 14 party was invited to the Nine Hells by the warlock's NPC fiance, a beefy cambion named TJ. While staying at TJ's parents' house in Lust, they were awakened by a massive horde of rats & rat-fiends swarming through the windows intending to kidnap them for murdering TJ's rat-fiend ex-girlfriend (normal D&D stuff). I had a mage cast Silence on the small bedroom as it quickly filled up with rat swarms like a rising/writhing tide, and they woke up to about 2' of rodents covering the entire floor. Due to Silence, they couldn't call for help nor cast most spells. What followed was a sloggy, difficult, condition-heavy fight that lasted an entire 4-hour session, ending with them being KO'd and dragged away by the swarm. They never even targeted the mage concentrating on Silence. For weeks afterwards, they maintained that they felt railroaded, saying they should have been given more options to handle the surprise rat swarm, which I countered by telling them that they never tried opening the bedroom door and running. They all survived and we are still happily playing, but was I in the wrong? Should this have been a quick cutscene instead of a terrifying, dynamic fight? I eagerly await your judgment. Also, Bailiff Jake, you look radiant today. Thanks! - Sam (he/him)

Bent Vent

May it please the Crit, the medium-rare Justices, and the well-done Bailiff: I present to you the case of the Overladen Lore. I played in a campaign DM’d by a longtime friend, who had created his own world for the game. It was a fully realized setting: chock-full of nations, factions, histories, and legends. But the problem was, in every session, he was so excited about his world that he would never stop telling us about it. For reference, think of Murph’s city descriptions as the Boobs traveled around in campaign one… but if they stretched on for five minutes. Ten minutes. Twenty. It got so bad that in any given six-hour session, he would talk for so long that we players would sometimes roll dice as few as three times, two times, or even—I swear by Dice Christ’s Sandals of Water-Walking—once. Don’t get me wrong: I know he was proud of all his work, and his world WAS awesome… but I wanted to PLAY in it. So I ask the Crit for a ruling and a precedent: Was the DM wrong to lecture us on the lore of every single item and NPC? And how many times per session must a DM let their players DO something before they’re not attending a game, but a history class?

Bleepers

Greetings Esteemed Muppet Judges and the one human jeff? I bring a case of betrayal. In our table we take turns being dms for holdiays that way our dm (we’ll call him Ken) gets a chance to play and make characters or subtly hint at new npc for the campaign. However these one shots are cannon which is where the trouble starts l. It was my turn for halloween and I thought why not make a cursed traveling carnival and have some games where they can win prizes like a ring with a spider on it that turns into an actual spider, little animal figures that turned into the beast like a wolf, owlbear etc. One item I put on the shelf as top tier ticket item was a Bag of Holding I ran the list by Ken and he said everything was fine just dont make the bag of holding obtainable just sorta dangle it like a top shelf item in every arcade. The problem came when the party decided to grind out the games and after some swindinlg of tickets and a nat 20 to make it seem like they had more they managed to obtain the item much to Ken’s disapproval. After the session Ken told me I went behind his back because I gave the party the bag and how I ruined his game because of it. He then told me that our session never happened and that for that one instance that one shot wasn’t cannon despite all the previous where. Thus ruing some cool background I wove into the one shot to tie into my character in the normal campaign( whos a werewolf echo knight fighter). Everyone in the table was furious at Ken because they all thought it was unfair and it should be considered cannon for the events. Ken was having none of it and we went on a two month hiatus from the main campaign. Was I in the wrong for rewarding some fun hijinks and just trying to have fun with friends in our fun math rock game or should I just have never let the goofs gone too far.

Dylan Voth

To the esteemed justices and the tender bailiff: the case of the problematic name.

Adam H.

Wise elders of the church, Since December I have tarried under terrible guilt. My brother and I bought tickets to your live show in Savannah, and we purchased a third ticket for a friend who ended up backing out. To spread hogliday cheer, we decided to give the third ticket away on the subreddit to anyone who wanted to go. Two people responded immediately. In the spirit of Dice Christ, I told the two responders that I would roll two D20s, one red and one blue, and let the dice decide who got the ticket. I made the roll. And here’s where I messed up: I looked at the profiles of the candidates - one was a guy like me who seemed cool and we shared a lot of interests. The other was a cute girl. Blinded by the fantasy of meeting a cute girl who loves NADDPOD as much as I do, and ignoring the wisdom of Dice Christ, I changed the girl’s dice into what might be the filthiest, dirtiest 20 of my life. The worst part: she never even claimed the ticket, and due to my own wretched horniness, one seat at your fantastic show remained empty. I beg for your guidance - how can I return to the good graces of Dice Christ?

Mara

To the right and honourable Judges and the Bailiff, who’s ego must be kept in check lest he become a crypto guy, Jake. I bring to you the case of the Favoured Traitor. I recently started a new campaign with some childhood friends that have never played D&D before as the DM. I have never DM’ed before but wanted to try writing a story out myself, I asked my players to come up with backstories for each of their characters so that I may write them into the story but only two of the 5 did so. I worked with those two to figure out exactly what they wanted to do and one of them was very set on playing a traitor, I was worried about this as I felt it would be very difficult to do well but given my friend’s excitement at his idea I decided to go with it. Now a couple of sessions in, as part of my friends traitor roll I give him extra tasks to do outside of our session, more one on one type of deal. Each of these tasks have a significant effect on the story including the party being placed in jeopardy and several NPCs dying. My friend absolutely loves doing this and he messages me after every session to ask when his next personal mission will be, I am truly ecstatic that he enjoys playing as much as he does. However, my other players also really enjoy playing but I haven’t given any of them these sort of additional tasks, I am beginning to worry that I am favouring this player over all of my others even if they don’t yet know that it’s happening. Am I in the wrong for not having approached my other players to offer them this type of opportunity or is it on them for having not written a backstory for me to work with? I humbly await your judgement on whether I am a bad friend/DM, thank you.

Zachary Johnson

WILBUR To our most Bostonian Judges and unfortunate Yankee Bailiff, I Bring to you the case of the Drowned Wizard 3 years ago my closest friends and I set off on our first ever DnD adventure together with myself Dming for the first time, and now we find ourselves here in front of the court a weekend before our final Big Baddie fight session. But, early in our campaign our druid was being tested to see if his crime of enlightening his bear companion could be excused because of his prowess as a druid. Halfway through the trial I gave the party a Moonwell, that they could drink from and receive the benefits of a long rest and fight to their full potential. They drank and rested but during the next fight, a wizard was knocked unconscious. Our druid decided that he would pick up the wizard's body and throw him into the Moonwell to restore him to full health. I the DM argued that since he was unconscious he would immediately start sinking to the Moonwell and effectively be drowning. This action ended up killing the unconscious wizard and has hung over the party as a questionably unjust death in their history. So I ask you judges, were my players right is assuming that throwing an unconscious body into the Moonwell would bring him back from the brink, or was I correct in my decision to drown the spell slinger? P.S. I would just like to thank you and my buds around me tonight for starting us off on our adventure together. Both your campaign and mine have led to some of the best memories I will ever have and I cannot thank all of you enough.

Donny

Honorable Justices and the Bailiff who is neither beloved nor reviled until observed, I present the case of the misguided character creation. As someone who first started playing D&D in 4th edition, I was excited to introduce it to my friends in the form of a one-shot with possible room to become a mini campaign. Since my buddies never played any D&D outside of 5th ed., I had asked everyone to wait until the day of the one-shot to guide them through character creation to help them figure out what they wanted to do and how to build characters who could do that. Then My friend "X" showed up with an already built character using the resources he found through random Google searches. So not only did that kind of kill the collaborative vibe I was hoping would come out of character creation, but it also meant X used the d&d next rules (the playtest that then became 5th ed.) to create his character. He proceeded to spend the rest of the session wondering why his character felt so underpowered compared to everyone else. The one-shot itself was fine, but X's disappointment definitely dampened everyone else's interest in continued 4th ed. play. Justices and Jake, am I wrong for letting X use his character made outside my requested parameters, or is X wrong for not following those parameters in the first place and making my retro d&d hopes die?

Adam McKinney

WILBUR I/we will be present at the WILBUR (it’s our honeymoon!) May it pleases the court, and the beautifully bearded bailiff. A year or two back I was DMing a low magic campaign and it was going well. About 10 or so sessions in the new guy in the group had established himself as a meta/power gamer but he wasn’t unmanageable. Eventually though we got into an argument about putting a trebuchet on a longboat. My player argued that a trebuchet should be an easy/cheap thing to build because it’s wooden and should not cost much to put on a boat. I told him this was not the case as I had built multiple large scale trebuchets IRL and sailed boats the size they had in the game. The argument got a little tense and I eventually had to pull the DM card and tell him it wasn’t gonna happen. Was I bringing too much reality into my fantasy game or should my player have been more accepting of my world building choices? I await the courts live judgment. Ps. we sent you a save the date saying we would catch your shows on our honeymoon and we are happy to say this will be our fourth show this tour. [DC, Philly, Wilbur 1&2 ]

Chase

To the esteemed justices and the (insert episode appropriate adjective here) Bailiff as well as the hundreds of jury members in attendance. I am the DM for a D&D group and have been experiencing difficulty with two players who consistently make characters that are hard for me to work with in my campaigns. In a recent one-shot, I designed a hangover-style mystery where the party had to piece together the events of a forgotten night of debauchery while simultaneously dealing with the consequences of the forgotten night. However, both players (coincidentally and completely independently) decided to play elderly characters with Alzheimer's, making it very challenging to advance the plot, which was specifically structured around trying to remember things. The players are very dedicated to RP, which I love, but it left the actual deductive reasoning (read: the bulk of the adventure) to the third party member, a frog folk monk. So I ask of you. Would I be wrong to request my players to like, tone it down a bit on the weird characters? Or is it unfair of me to impose rules that might hurt their enjoyment of the game for the sake of maintaining my precious ideas for campaigns? They do really seem to enjoy just being weirdos running amok after all.

michael

Hello Justices, hello jacob. I humbly come before you today as "That guy" that said, "it's what my character would do" at the expense of others. but in this case, I truley think I was in the right. Several years ago I did a one shot with some collegues late one night. the session started fine, with normal adventuring promts, a wizard sending us to a dungeon to find a high level spell scroll for him. we get to the dungeon and fight a few frogs, and then stumble into a puzzel room - this is where the problems begin. The DM offered nothing, no more than his intially written description of the room, and litterally no hints. It took us over three hours to figure out the rooms design, which was exceedingly stupid, and depended on us making perception checks that our characters failed. Even after getting all the information from the dm after much pleading the solution was some wack shit we would ahve never gotten. In that time of experimintation one of our party got teleported to the treasure room where he found a friendly behemith. once the puzzle was solved, litterally none of the rooms had anything in them. I relized now that our characters, who has learned to open and close huge sliding rock doors would soon be face to face with a beheomtih with no context. I meta games and pleaded the player wih him to warn us, some symbol or sign he was friendly. but he would not. so as we opened the door and th DM narrotated "you see a behemoth rushing towards you" I closed the door and crushed him - to player who knew he was friendly outrage. Years past, and I moved to the otherside of the world, all but forgeting this encounter, untill a few months ago I found myself in a bar and bump into the dm, who has also moved across the world. we caught up, he got very drunk, and I offered to drive him home. On the way, he called me a douch for the behemoth thing, screamed at his friends, and threw up in my car. My question is this, was I write to crush the behemoth after pleading to be warned, or do I deserve the retrubution impressed upon me.

Daniel A.

To the all knowing justices and the himbo bailiff Josh, I present the case of the Stolen Smirk. After our last session, we did roses and thorns and two of my players were bummed that couldn’t do a perception check to have seen an evil NPC who’s been traveling with the party smirk at one of the other PCs. I argued that the party was banging on a door and having a conversation with another npc at the same time, and their passive perception wouldn’t allow them to see something like that. Was i right to have a secret sly smirk stay subtle, or should I have had them roll to see something so small? I await your judgement (and I’ll see y’all at the Wilbur!)

Romlette

To the honourable, Justices Axford, Tanner and Murphy and the underpaid BAILif Jake, may it please the court. I bring the case of the impounded ship. I am playing my first sci-fi campaign set in the Astral Frontier, a play by post. We have a 'space ship' that we go around in, and this is the first time we've ever docked it at a crowded place with actual people. When we were leaving the ship on the second day to go into the sewers of this space station, I asked the DM if it would be alright to just leave our ship alone like this for so long. His answer was 'it was what you did yesterday', and on that day, nothing bad happened to our ship. Cut to us down in the sewer, after a particularly nasty fight and phone call with my characters mother. His sister, who was a political figure on the space ship texted him during out short rest to freak out over the conversation. Their relationship is very contentious, and the day before she even cast Geas on him to try and convince him that the crew was only friends with him to sell his body parts on the black market. She antagonized him, and he taunted her with the fact that their mother never says that she loves her. This resulted in the characters sister IMPOUNDING our ship, with us deep in the sewers and no way to stop it. One of our party seems to keep harping on this fact, but I personally don't think its fair for me to have expected that consequence when I didn't even know impound lots exist. We just found out phones exist in this world, and where the technology starts and ends is unclear, since we've been in space for most of the campaign. I ask, with the due diligence I did before hand with asking about our ship, and the implication the DM gave me that it would be fine, do I deserve to be put out in the airlock? I humbly await your deliberation.

Grisby's Pal

To the esteemed and illustrious judges, and I want to say… Jim? I play a cleric who was raised by werewolves. While camping with my party, our DM rolled an encounter check and the camp ended up being “attacked” by wolves. Attacked is in quotes because during the wolves’ turn it became pretty clear that they were just trying to steal our food. My character was distraught, because wolves are like my whole thing, and during my turn I cast Command to tell two wolves to “flee.” They failed their saves, and both wolves were going to run away on their next turn. But before they could, one of the party members cast Scorching Ray and cooked one of the hungry pups, who admittedly had our dinner in his mouth. The other wolf got away. My question is, who should I be more bitter towards? The PC who killed the wolf who was about to run away with our dinner, or the DM who allowed wolves to attack our camp in the first place? Thank you for your consideration.

Jess D.

That is WILD

Dany (Ryu)

Esteemed Judges, Filmed in front of a live studio audience with their pet Bailiff Jake, I bring my humble case before your magnanimous court. Many moons ago, upon a dark discord night during the pandemic, I was playing a game with a party. We were Vengeance Paladin, Trickster Rogue (me), Life Cleric and Eldritch Knight. The Paladin and I had a feud going (in game, it never got to the point where we broke character), and it progressed to the point where we were plotting to kill each other back and forth, barely avoiding the others shenanigans. He would try to get me arrested and executed, I would slip poison into his potions, etc. One session, we were coming back from a dungeon with loot, and we were going to divvy it up back at our base. It was then I pulled my DM aside with a plan. I secretly took a ring of protection from the loot, and with the DM's permission, I cast enlarge to make the ring into a crown, and then put it back with the loot. Everything was done above board with rolls, although the rest of the crew didn't know what they were for. Knowing the paladin would wanna bump up his AC, I suggested he take the crown. And the moment it was on his head, I broke concentration on the spell shrinking it around his head. We were still badly hurt from our previous fight, and he Nat 1ed the constitution check the DM had him roll, and the paladin ended up dying. While the rest of the crew thought it was hilarious, the Paladin did not. And even though our cleric brought him back to life, the player was P.O.ed and refused to talk to me as a friend anymore. Was I in the wrong? AITA?

Summer Tribe

May it please the whole juicy court This wasn't an issue at my table but it does demand resolution. I was discussing with another player the possibility of riding the Artificer - Atillerist's Eldritch Cannon, NOT mounting it, as that comes with its own rules, merely standing on an object that is capable of moving, and this other player was disputing that it shouldn't be possible. Unless your weight overcomes its strength score (the rules say treat it as tho it has a 10 in each score for checks, provides no details about carrying capacity given that it's an object and not a creature) surely it should still be capable of movement as you stand on it, which would be awesome and tantamount to riding your gun like it was a skateboard. The only benefit this would provide would be potentially increasing your movement speed by 15 on some rounds, which hardly seems gamebreaking. I eagerly await your wise and fair verdict, the skeleton is in the mail from your last one

cmoysey

WILBUR! To the wicked smaht Justices, and the “Poor man’s Ben Affleck”... Josh?Jack?Jim? I bring you the case of the rogue brother in law and the stolen sword I started a new campaign with my sister, her husband (Jiraya), and his best friend (Azazel) who were all new to dnd as well as a few of my friends and I was DMing for the first time. Also, my sister, her husband, and his friend were all playing remotely from my sister’s house in another state. Maybe I put too much faith in myself (and my players), but early in the campaign the players found a “cursed” sword. Turns out it was from a fallen hero that was a part of what I called the Gingerbread Guild. Hansel and Gretel, the leaders, found the party and explained that any non-guild members wielding the sword would be cursed and hunted down. After a battle they asked azazel to join their guild for his heroism. He excitedly joined! Then his character went to sleep. That’s when things started spiraling. Jiraya snuck into his room and stole the sword, passing all his stealth and sleight of hand checks, as well as bypassing the players that were partying downstairs at the inn. He immediately brought the sword to the party’s local rival to barter with her, as she explained that the sword was cursed and he would be caught, he rebelled against reason and just ran away, splitting the party and creating more chaos. After sprinting through forest (with no real end goal in sight) for 3 sleepless days (and 3 levels of exhaustion), he was eventually caught by Hansel and Gretel. And that was the end of Jiraya’s story. We spend the rest of the session playing out the rest of the party’s dungeon delving adventures. Our campaign ended there. Months later, I found out that him and his friend were in a fight in real life. I fall on my “cursed” sword and ask the masters of justice: Should I have shut down my players choas? Or let choas reign?

Dominic Stacey

Dear great justices and the ever humble bailiff, I bring you the case of the one you didn't want to be the very best May it please the court I was making a character for a new game my friend was DMing, who was focusing on summoning monsters. After replying to some messages the DM sent me about my character's backstory, he asked me what my characters goal was for the campaign,  feeling I'd already answered that from previous questions I gave him a joke answer, to be the very best that no one ever was. The DM stopped messaging me after that, little did I know I'd made a mistake Later that same night I saw the DM in person and he was telling me all these rules and extra features he added into the game so that I could have pseudo-pokemon battles and win gym badges. While I liked his rules and thought they were really thought out, I didn't want to do any of that and when I tried to say, "I'm sorry that was a jok-" The DM cut me off stating, "it's too late now, this is happening," So I bit back any further comments and for the few sessions the campaign lasted I fought fake Ash and his not-quite Pikachu monster. I ask the court, was I in the wrong for the initial message, or should the DM have not used these rules when I tried to say I didn't want to do it? I await your verdict

Johny Dude-Kay

As a Naddpole Masshole who wont be making the show, I still wanted to give a shout to the wicked good judges, and the friggin awesome bailiff, I lay at your feet the case of "The One Mile Throw" I was the new guy in a group that had been playing together for a few years already. Our DM was the best friend of the guy who brought me in to the group. It was my 3rd session and I was playing a Rogue; a chaotic good thief, and I was all about the freedom the game offered to think outside of the box. Through a series of crazy events, our party was set to lead an Army against a horde of orcs with a demon possessed general. As a thief, I didn't feel like I had much to offer on that sort of battlefield, and so I played my strengths: stealth and subterfuge. As the rest of the Party Faced down the Orc General and the bulk of his Army, with my DMs permission and a passing roll, I would sneak behind enemy, lines about half a over hilly terrain to their camp. Upon arriving and hearing the DM describe where the orcs were keeping the horses they meant to ride into battle, I decided that I would sabotage their reinforcements by releasing all their horses. My DM asked me to roll stealth and I was blessed with a natural 20. The DM had a house rule that even on skill checks, 20 was an automatic success, no matter what. I might as well have been invisible. And so as I described my character sneaking through the camp and reaching the horses, my DM rolled an attack roll and said something much higher than my AC. Confused, I let out a "uh... hit? But what-" before the DM cut me off and stated that from the chaos of the battlefield, the Orc General had spotted me and had thrown his greatsword at me, impaling me like a ballista. The whole table was in disbelief. I asked him to explain and justify this happening, since I had gotten a Nat 20 on stealth, the general didn't know. I existed let alone that I was headed for his camp, and the distance and terrain the DM had described denied him line of sight or any natural way of detecting me. In the ensuing argument, the best he could come up with was "Well, he's a demon so" where, the worst of his argument was "because I'm the DM and I said so!" The rest of the table tried their best to stay out of it, but did noticeably raise a brow at the attack roll. Things escalated to the point where the DM threatened that if we were all so dissatisfied with his DMing, that he would just quit and we'd be without a game. When no one argued for him to stay, he packed his things and stormed out. Feeling bad that I, as the new guy, ruined their game and possibly their relationship with a life long friend, I offered to try my hand at DMing and did my best to teach myself the ropes of the game. 15 years later, I am a happy forever DM that has run dozens of games, in multiple systems, some having kept on for more than a year and have introduced dozens of people to the magic of TTRPGs. But I always think back to that one session. I humble myself to your authority and ask for a ruling: Was I out of line to question my DM, or was I right to feel that my DM was violating the established circumstances and rules of the table? I will graciously accept any decision from this esteemed court, and honor any punishments ordered. I am at your mercy, Mr. Dude Kay

laura rosen

WILBUR REPOSTING BECUASE MY BF JUST BOUGHT ME TICKETS TO THIS SHOW LIKE FUCK YEAH! I will also be at the how tonight LETS GOOOO! Dearest Balif Jeff and most beautiful judges, my group has been split. 😢 We are currently fighting an Ilithid who took over a halfling's body but has now fully transformed into an all white four tentacled mind flayer. We have been repeatedly out rizzed and have been getting our brains sucked out and losing our intelligence left and right. Our divination wizard (who has just been restored from the feeble mind spell) is dying to use banishment and use a low portent to ship away the BBEG. But the argument has arose whether or not our wizard would banish this illisquid back to the Astral plane or the plane the original body was from which would be the material plane? Help us dearest judges we ended the session screaming at eachother and have not reached an agreement. I humbly await your true and eternal judgement. In dice christ we pray AMEN 🙏  I'll be at the show in Boston tonight! Break a leg!

Andrew A

To the honorable supreme crit justices, and their work friend Jake. I present the case of Mid-Session Coitus. At the beginning of lockdown 2020, I joined an online game where the only person I knew was the DM. When we entered our first dungeon, the Illusionist in our party did some incredible roleplay and creative use of illusions by making an illusory gnome who had us in illusory chains, saying we (the party) were his slaves that he wanted to sell to the dungeon boss. So we bypassed part of the dungeon as we were led inside to meet with the boss. When they finally struck a deal, I figured the jig was up as soon as the bad guys tried to pay the fake gnome with real gold and attempted to take the illusory chains, plus I wasn't keen on being actually sold into slavery. So I said my character, a Battlemaster, would attack the boss when they made the physical transaction. We ended the session there. During the week, two more players joined the party. At the top of the second session, I attacked the boss like I said I would, and we got a surprise round. On the boss's first turn, however, the DM narrated that he grabbed me and teleported us both away. I say "narrated" because there was no attack roll, grapple check, or saving throw involved, it just happened. They finished the fight against the minions and went into the next room, where there was a warden and some guards, as well as the new PCs as prisoners. They introduced the new PCs, RPed with the warden, and eventually had another full combat without me. It was over 2 hours of real time that I was sidelined. While I was waiting, a coworker texted me that I had left something at work, and offered to swing by and drop it off on her way home. I told the group I would be stepping away for a few, and muted my mic. She came over, we chatted for a bit, I invited her inside so I could still hear the group if they needed me. We ended up having sex, a few feet away from my computer, with my mic muted, listening to them play d&d. Because I was still connected, the group eventually called for me and wondered where I was, but we were still naked so I ignored them. Justices, I ask you this: Was the DM wrong to involuntarily sideline me for so long? Or was I thinking with the wrong head? Did I roll a nat20 on kharmic justice? Or have I profaned in front of Dice Christ?

Sam Weiller

WILBUR!! To the most honorable judges and the very nice boy they hang out with from that other podcast “Jerry and Amir”: I present to you the case of the fast-aging dragon. For this case, both the DM and one of the players are present in the courtroom. On the day of the San Francisco live show last year, my three friends and I decided to play a one-shot to get in the D&D spirit. I DMed, and created a short, level 5 encounter for them. We’ve all played and DMed before, so I purposely designed the adventure to give them a bit of variety and a challenge: it opened with rolling initiative, there was ship-to-ship combat, they navigated a crab maze, etc. I had a solid, dragon-based final encounter prepared, but Dice Christ must have smiled upon the players that day, because they ended up bypassing the entire second half of my adventure with some beautiful rolls on stealth checks and on the magic item table. I explained what would have happened otherwise, and we decided to rewind, and go down the path of the final encounter. The encounter centered around a young bronze dragon, which should be tough for level 5, but as we get into it, I start to realize they all made wildly broken and OP characters, and the combat is going to go by super fast. My solution was to age-up the young dragon to an adult dragon, and just…see what happens. I didn’t tell them, but they realized what I had done within a few turns (probably sensed the DM sweat), and spent the rest of the encounter razzing me for this mid-battle swap. The players ended up defeating the dragon in the end, with no PCs dying (though they did all go down a few times) and we all had a great time, but they STILL razz me about my actions to this day. Judges: was I wrong to age up this dragon and be infinitely razzed? Or was this a fun and interesting challenge for my friends’ broken characters that only merits a light ribbing?? I await your judgement in the mezzanine.

Mackenzie DeMello

WILBUR! I'm beyond excited to see the show! I humbly beseech the overwhelming presence of the high crit justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, as well as the adequately whelming presence of bailiff Jake, presences I am joyous to see in person! I've been DMing a campaign with my friends for a few months, and it's been really fun! It does however, come with one major difficulty, I have 7 players. As a pretty novice DM, this being my first real campaign, I knew this was a lot, however, the 8 of us were all friends, and it would feel like I was actively excluding people if I didn't invite them. It was easier at first, as they were new players, still learning the ropes. However, as their skills have improved, so has their creativity and desire for more, which is tough to keep up with. With so many people, everything from combat to puzzles takes much longer to play out, and longer for me to plan. I've talked openly about this difficulty with my friends, but haven't found a good solution. I've mentioned how I don't want to pick and choose among my friends, and joked that the best solution would be a "scorched earth protocol" with a super deadly encounter to lower the numbers without having to choose between people. Fast forward to our most recent encounter, a face off with a powerful enchantress, her skilled warriors, and an entourage of townsfolk turned living statues, protecting a petrifying ray gun at the center of a space-bending hedge maze. This was designed to be a difficult encounter, showing the cult the players are hunting is up to much more than originally thought. Things were going well, until one of my players was hit with the ray, they weren't immediately petrified, and had several turns to figure out what to do, but during this, the player asked "are you trying to kill us off?" To which I responded that I wasn't, and that this was just a tough battle. This didn't seem to convince my players and the rest of the session had an aura of resignation. We left off mid battle, and have yet to reconvene, and in this time, I seek the guidance of the court. Was it wrong of my player to suggest I was actively trying to kill them, my fault for failing to convince them otherwise, or my fault for ever bringing up the idea at all? Furthermore I'm at an impasse as to whether I should ease off the difficulty of the encounter in an attempt to boost player morale, or stay true to my original encounter. I eagerly await your decision from the mezzanine, and hope my presence in the jury isn't considered an obstruction of justice.

Alex Bonilla

To the judges and the one measly Jake I have no case, but a confession. Me and my party were once in a fight with an adult green dragon, and the barbarian dwarf of our group was killed in the fight. The whole group was heartbroken but since I had multi-classed as a paladin, I had revivify. Right as the barbarian died I said that I used revivify on him and since my DM was new he didn’t remember that you needed a diamond to use revivify. I knew I did not have a diamond but kept quiet and said that I used revivify on the barbarian. In the end we won the fight, but I still feel bad of the lie I made to my group and my new DM. So tell me, was I right to keep my member (who I was very attached) alive, or did I lie to not only my DnD group but to Dice Christ.

D'ran Dana

I write humbly to the Esteemed Arbiters of the crit, Emissaries of our Lord Dice Christ, and the necessary officiator. I seek today, not judgement, but guidance. How do I ask a friend to leave my game and not come back, but... like in a kind nice way. 4 months ago, a work friend I will call Janus, asked to be a part of a new campaign after my last one ended. This work friend invited other people we work with I said sure because they seemed and are very fun to play with. None of us work together anymore but we still play almost every week. We've been having a Blast despite the entire party being brand new to TTRPGs. There is a wonderful sense of trust and creation happening with everyone except for Janus. I recommend Janus not play caster for their first campaign, Janus chose druid. Janus insists that having their character sheet at the game isn't important. Janus still needs to be reminded how skill checks work literally every time. Janus has been very disruptive and is a DM heckler, constantly picking at my creations and descriptions, correcting other characters, making the sessions arduous and long for me. It is becoming clear to me that without improvement I don't want to play with Janus, but equally clear Janus feels like this is Her friends group and Her game. I Janus is one of those people who is actually quite brilliant and valuable, but at times not an easy friend. I do not wish to alienate said friend. Do you have any experience with this? Have you ever had to kick a friend out of a hobby group but we're afraid that might hurt the friend/friendship/friends group. What would Dice Christ do?

Thomas Myers

WILBUR May it please the Crit and the martial class addicted Bailiff, I present the case of the strong tongue Our party was stopping some escaping thieves, and our bard cast hold person, paralyzing one of them. We tied him up and upon being released from the spell condition he immediately used his “strong tongue” to pop a tooth that was a poison capsule. We were given the opportunity to stop him but somehow failed the roll (a regular grapple check) yet he was restrained by rope. My question is how was the thief under the paralyzed condition able to prep an action so fast that upon being released we had to wrestle his strong tongue to stop him from releasing the capsule? The follow up is what is the appropriate DC for wrestling a strong tongue? If he was restrained by rope should we have been given advantage? I’m pretty sure I can still smell the DM sweat

LovelyLorelei

To the Justices,the Baliff and the good people of Boston, I present to you a case I call “The False Start ” I was in a Wildmount campaign and had a really fun session zero we rolled off a keepsake and treasure table to get a lot of fun starting equipment. I even wrote into my charcher that part of her mission was to find the mysterious person whose picture was in the locket she had for as long as she could remember. We started the campaign proper on a ship where we were ambushed by a band of sahagin. It was a hard battle but we fought them off, however because over half the crew was killed, the DM narrated that we could not properly control the ship and shipwrecked. We were knocked unconscious and when we woke up we were in the underground cave of the group of sahagin that we had defeated without any of our equipment. After sneaking around and defeating the head shaman he told us that the rest of the tribe found us after the shipwreck and they brought us here to be sacrificed and fed our equipment to a den of rust monsters. By the time we got there nothing was left, and even the picture in my locker was waterlogged beyond recognition. All of us were PISSED. We confronted the DM after this and they admitted they always planned for this to be a survival campaign and for us to lose our first encounter, and all the fun stuff we got at the start was just to make the loss feel more real. I didn’t stick around, and to this day refuse to play in any games with him as the DM. Am I being too harsh, or is this truly the right thing to do? I place my fate in the hands iof the people.

John Miller

Esteemed judges and the bailiff I guess: I present to you the case of the PC arguing against their own interest. I am dming a homebrew wilderness survival thing and one of the players is a divine soul sorcerer. For reasons that aren't important the party was fighting a host of goblins on giant ducks (the goblins were on the ducks , not the party). the sorcerer summoned his holy weapon behind an enemy while said enemy was engaged with another PC. I tried to tell the player that he should roll with advantage on the attack because of flanking and he argued about it with me! He said that r.a.w. that wasn't how flanking worked. I tried to argue that logically the goblin was an easier and more vulnerable target regardless of whether the spear was a sentient creature or not. We spent a minute going back and forth and eventually I caved and he just rolled normally. Judges, I know rules as written he is technically correct, but I am of the opinion that rule zero exists, and that this rules lawyer should have just taken his advantage. So was I being too lenient or was my buddy being a little too sticky about the rules

Shepard Price

Good afternoon judge and the bubbly but meandering bailiff. My table that I DM is a 5e table. One of my players plays a Warforged barbarian but believes he should be able to keep something in his center chest of his choice. I willingly gave him a chest compartment but believe the compartment should follow bag of holding rules, where living things suffocate after a certain amount of time. Please let me know your ruling!

Hannah

To the wicked cool crit justices and the Nantucket summer boy bailiff Jake. We humbly present this case of the obstinate player and the oblivious elf. Half of the party in question is at the Wilbur tonight to prostrate ourselves before the court. We’ve been in this campaign for about a year with our friend who’s a bard/sorcerer PC (not present tonight!). He was brand new to dnd and made his character with our DM. They made the character as a joke with the bard/sorcerer not believing in magic (even going so far as to say he blacked out when he cast spells once) and refusing to believe elves were real and that all humans had pointy ears and lived a long time (despite being a full elf and meeting NPC humans). Despite this we’ve enjoyed being in a party with him and want to continue playing. He ADMITS that he doesn’t like his character anymore, but for SOME reason, doesn’t think it’s an option to just leave him behind. Our DM isn’t taking a side and says the player could keep, leave behind, or kill his character if he wants to. The rest of us are getting pretty tired of having to continuously try and convince this PC that magic is real and he’s not human. So we ask the court, ask if we should be punished for not trusting our player and DM to get this character straight, or should this PC find his unlikely demise at the bottom of a tall tower. We dutifully await your judgement.

David Tatarczuk

To the esteemed supreme extreme crit justices and what's his face. I submit to you the opportunity to judge not upon a case that has already happened, but a case that has yet come to pass. If, in order to smuggle a character into an area, I had an idea to encase a player's character's head and or body in essentially a fish bowl filled with water and cast "water breathing" on them (which lasts 24 hours) and then put them into a bag of holding. Would you rule that this would allow them to breathe longer than if they had just been shoved into a bag of holding or die just the same? I look forward to your ruling on my crazy scheme and potential heist idea.

Samuel Popovich

What’s up? I present to you the case of the goblin child murdering cleric. So I’m playing in a new campaign with my cousin, brother, and two uncles, one being the dm and the other being absent from this session. In this particular session, our dm had a small little goof encounter where we were delivering a dish to a food contest at a festival. It was all going great until 4 goblin children dressed as sheep tried to ruin the dish while also saying things like: “I’m a pretty pink girl sheep” and “grrrrr! I’m a big bad sheep who eats other sheep.” Now me and my brother thought that it was funny and were ready to play along with the children. My cousin who was playing a war cleric of Tritherion (god of freedom, self-defense, and retribution) thought that it was an assault on his freedom and began throwing fire bolts at the children in an attempt to murder them. Since one of my uncles was absent, my cousin was playing his character, who is a human barbarian. My cousin narrated the barbarian walking up to the little goblin child, and with a smile on his face cleaved through the child’s body with his great sword. This prompted me, who was also playing a cleric, to spend my only spell slots to heal the children. My cousin argued that as a cleric of Tritherion he was totally justified to kill the children because they were attempting to attack us with pebbles, and he was only using self-defense. Luckily, the argument that ensued was only lukewarm, and we were able to calm down pretty quickly. I ask you kind folks, do you think that because my cousin was playing a cleric of Tritherion, it was ok for him to murder children, or do you think that me and my brother were correct in saying that he’s an insane cultist? My ears are fully puckered with unrest waiting for your response

yumehop (no. 1 ol' cobb fan)

WILBUR (not for me, but for my player who is attending the show. This case is about her). To the honourable judges and the honourless ballif, I present to you the case of the distracting dolphins. May it please the court :) I'm the GM of an IronswornRPG game in a low-fantasy world where a flood calamity has turned the landmasses in the world all to islands. The party is a pirate crew, and early in the campaign I narrated a scene where they passed through a tropical area. I described a vast ocean, light sunshine, and a few dolphins hopping around. There was an important detail in the scene about some islands which had mysteriously disappeared, but everyone focused on the dolphins. So much so that the scene completely grinded to a halt, even when they were later trying to have an emotional scene, a player was like "I go and look at the dolphins". Eventually I had enough and said "Your ship runs over the dolphins" but my players protested it, saying "my character wouldn't do that", resulting in their death being dubiously canon. To this day, there are no more dolphins in this game. My players love the dolphins, but I HATE their existence. Should I allow these gross smooth ocean dogs? I leave my case in the mercy of the court.

Corbin Sorensen

To the almighty dice christ, I have a confession. I play in an online campaign where we use actual dice, and there are times where, for story reasons or to make things interesting, I will say that the dice roll is significantly lower than what I rolled. I know my Sins are great, and I can only hope that the priests of the wise and powerful dice christ can plead my case to our beloved deity

Cathy Lewandowski

To the most august justices Axwell, Murphy, and Tanner and (choose one as suits the court this week): - the esteemed bailiff Jake OR - the deplorable bailiff John I beg your guidance on a Hut Humbug. I play a Satyr bard in a homebrew campaign where we are currently handling some business in the Feywild. We traveled to a domain called the Court of Stars which is currently lousy with undead fey. Our party was forced to take shelter in a derelict building, with a short amount of time to shore up the defenses and prepare for wave after wave of zombies. You know, like the Call of Duty zombies level. My bard dragged some old furniture outside to block some of the more vulnerable entry points, intending to cast Animate Objects on them to create a Beauty and the Beast-esque army of furniture to defend us. Being a squishy boy, I asked my DM if I could first cast a Tiny Hut for my bard to hole up in, intending for him to poke his head out on his turn to cast the spell since magic can't go through the hut in either direction. He ruled that the wording of spell said the caster had to remain within it, though others could pass in or out if they were inside when it was cast. I pointed out that just poking my head (or hands) out left most of my body still inside, but he ruled that all of the bard had to remain within fit the hut to remain. Justices, was this a shenanigan too far on my part, or was the ruling too strict? The zombies could still have attacked or even pulled my bard out of the hut when he peeked out to cast so it wasn't a bomb-proof idea, but I will gracefully accept your consensus on this matter. Me and my DM are besties and there's no heat behind this, just wondering how far this court feels the rule of cool can be stretched!

Georgia

WILBUR To the esteemed judges, and whatever title befits the bailiff this evening. I have a case of the half-successful-want-to-be weapon thief. I DM a long-running campaign with my younger brother, and we recently invited his girlfriend to join. She's been mostly very fun to play with, but I am realizing they are used to a level of shenanigans that I am not sure I can totally get behind. Overall, the tone of the campaign is goofy with room for rule of cool and all that. The party recently fell into an alternate universe and all got to make AU versions of their characters. My brother's girlfriend made a multiclassed thief rogue and battlamaster fighter. Please note: this build was not discussed with me beforehand. She took the disarming strike maneuver from battlemaster, and the unarmed fighting style. In our first combat, she used disarming strike on the big guy successfully, which was a super cool moment! She then said she wanted to use her bonus action to sleight of hand the crossbow off the guy's back, and I said no. She argued that the thief rogue ability would let her do it, and I agreed it allowed a sleight of hand as a bonus action, but that would be more akin to stealing something in the terrain or sneakily passing an item to another party member, not stealing weapons with no opposed check off an enemy. I told her there are other moves - like the disarming strike - for this very reason. There was some light arguing in which she expressed frustration with the ruling, but ultimately agreed to follow my ruling. So here is what I posit: can a thief rogue steal a weapon off someone mid-combat using a bonus action sleight of hand check? I lay my baddies' weapon's fates in your hands.

LittleLad

To the luxurious and supple supreme crit justices and the handsome but in a totally down to earth and non intimidating way, bailiff herwitz. I bring you the case of momentum malpractice. I was playing a paladin in a campaign with longtime friends and adventuring party. During a skirmish with several wolf-scorpion hybrid creatures I tackled one into a 60 foot pit. Surviving the fall and slaying the beast I was determined to join my comrades above. I told my DM that I wanted to climb the wall and used my action to dash. Given that I did not have a climbing speed I would only be able to make it a total of 30 feet. I said this was fine and that I would finish climbing the next turn. He rejected this claim saying that since my movement had stopped I would fall at at the start of my next turn. I argued that I could simply hold on to the wall and that this was not a matter of momentum since turns run back to back chronologically, there is no actually stoping between them. Eventually I relented, honoring his station, and was able to make it up by throwing in a misty step In order to conquer the wall and our wolvurpion foes. My question is, since combat rounds run in succession, would I not be able to continue climbing across multiple turns so long as I succeed on athletics checks or is my DMs perception of momentum a fair ruling to make? I await your swift and righteous judgment

Hank Cox

To the distinguished judges and extinguished bailiff, I bring forward he case of the nearly-weightless Minotaur. I am in the early stages of running a campaign of all pretty much newbies (3 of the four of us had a prior campaign that fizzled out after session 1). The remaining person, who’s character’s name is Dagglto, is completely new to ttrpgs, but created a fairly interesting and grounded Minotaur Rogue, loosely based on Saul Goodman from Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad. Everything on his character sheet made sense, until we got to the physical characteristics tab on D&D Beyond. Dagglto’s hair colour is “Mintaur Hair”, his skin is “Mintore Skin”, he is 7 feet tall and weighs 2lbs. I can put aside the unusual Hair and Skin colours, as those don’t come up in mechanics, but being that light would allow our Goblin Spores Druid to lift the Minotaur without being encumbered. Am I overreacting to this odd character choice? I await your thematic and comedic verdict.

Gillian Chu

To the noble judges and the unscrupulous bailiff, I bring the case of the needy NPC. This is a complaint from a dnd campaign I have since left, but I’m still plagued by concerns that I was in the wrong. My DM introduced an NPC, Rosie. At first, things were going well; Rosie would give us advice during combat and would occasionally produce free items. As the sessions went on, Rosie’s major daddy issues became more apparent. The DM was insistent we help her work through her insecurities, despite a clear lack of interest from the players. It got to the point where the DM would roleplay peoples characters having heart-to-hearts with Rosie when they had to miss a session. The DM even sent us long letters from Rosie’s perspective about how we weren’t close enough. I tried texting the DM about it, but instead of responding he sent me pictures of cute animals. Eventually Rosie the NPC got kidnapped (by her father) and I convinced the party not to bother rescuing her. Was I wrong to ruthlessly abandon Rosie? Or should I have played along with the story the DM wanted to tell? I rest my conscience in your capable hands. P.S. please my name is Gillian as in giraffe. None of my professors can get it right.

Ethan

WILBUR (Me and the DM I’m charging will be there) To the mighty and beautiful justices and the meek and okay looking bailiff. I present the case of the Debatably Undead. I was playing a cleric in my campaign and we were facing off against an evil king who was the BBEG in a climactic battle when he slit his throat to commence a ritual and turn in a powerful being. After we realized we could not win the fight directly and the room was flooding with lava, we attempted to flee. I asked to use my channel divinity to turn undead on the BBEG to try and hold them back from chasing us but my DM told me they were actually a fiend and not undead. I contended that they had died and thus whatever they turned into was undead but he did not agree. Anyways we finished the session with a truly epic finale but I still feel that my turn undead should have worked on them. Was I wronged?

LeCurve52

To the inimitable Bailiff Jake, long may be reign, and the incredible Naddpoles of the audience, I humbly approach you with what i call the Case of the Black Pudding Cannonball. I’m a relatively new DM and my party was running through a swampy dungeon. The party came across a pool of bubbling black liquid and the Ranger, a homebrew Frog race I created, decided that he wanted to jump right into it… for some reason we still don’t understand. Long story short, the pool was actually a Huge Black Pudding and our Ranger was now fully submerged in it. Shockingly, the Black Pudding statblock doesn’t account for characters swimming in it. I ruled that he was a special kind of restrained and would have to make a DC 13 athletics check each turn to see if he could use an action. As well, he would take a d8 of acid damage each round and every time he moved 5ft within the pudding. At the table, this made for a pretty epic fight that everyone seemed to enjoy. However, the rest of the session was dominated by a very heated argument amongst my PCs regarding why the Ranger would just randomly jump into a swamp. We ended up having to end the session with the party only halfway through the dungeon, and it definitely soured the mood. I ask you, Jake, in all your wisdom, is there ever any reason to jump into a random pool of bubbling, mysterious black goo?

DrakeDiAngelo

I feel like this might be a case that actually comes down to metagaming. If the character gave you no reason to be suspicious and you didn't ask to roll any checks, you're characters don't have reason to follow them. If you can prove, in character terms, why your character is suspicious, apart from the music you listened to outside the game, I think the DM should let you follow. You can see our honorable justices act it out sometimes where they the players realize someone is a bad guy, but their characters have no reason to think so. I mean, Zirk with his mom is a good example

Bebs

I PRESENT the case of “The Ring That Broke Up The Party” A few years ago I played my first session of DnD, and also happened to DM. The campaign was going smooth, except for one player, who kept running to different towns than the rest of the party and murdering civilians. The whole party was starting to get annoyed, so I homebrewed a set of rings whose wearers can’t be more than 200 feet apart or they take damage, and had a merchant give it to them. This caused an UPROAR with some members, who said that was a real item and was worth way more than they got it for. I said “Well it’s just not worth that much in this universe” which did not settle the dispute and ended with the Problem Player narrating that he kept walking with the ring on until he died. And thus the party broke up. I ASK THEE was i wrong to give my players expensive rings for cheap? Should I not have tried to contain the player to the rest of the party?

BassToad

Seated Justices of the Crit, and the Bailiff who is not permitted to sit, I bring you a case of "The Slavery Surprise". In a 1 year old campaign, we just arrived at a new town. The DM began describing the city's amenities, such as the Temple of Melora and the grand Colosseum. Then he got to the cities major export, where he revealed that the city we just arrived in was a major slave trade hub. DM revealed that not only is slavery a problem in this world, it's also completely legal and has a whole economy around it. This upset me pretty bad, and It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. To find this out ONE YEAR into the game is even more frustrating. Their argument is that it provides a good antagonist for players to work against, but I don't think that works if its a legalized practice fully condoned by the government! I ask of thee, should I convince my fellow players to go on a crusade and burn down the city, or should I confront the DM about how this is a really weird thing to have in his fantasy world? I thank you for your judgement.

Patrick Connolly

WILBUR To the wicked awesome Judges and ruggedly handsome Bailiff Jake, I seek your judgement. In my first campaign a player became Chaotic Evil after a tough encounter, which led to him stealing magic items from our party when we were unconscious. We only noticed this when we would try to use something and our DM would say the items were missing, as the stealing had been discussed over text. The player told me what he'd done, and said I could have my things back if I helped him. We were in a dangerous Dungeon and I knew the party would flip out and kill him if they knew, so I agreed and we made it out. When I finally told the party, the player had already sold everything and hired mercenaries to kill us all. We survived and killed the character, but the damage had already been done. We were all so underpowered that we weren't able to survive our next encounter against a dragon without using the Deck of Many Things. It was our last session. Judges, was I wrong to hide this from my party?

Reina Kim

Hi guys! This isn’t necessarily a dice christ confession, but more like a story of when dice christ blessed us. Tonight we played the final session of our two year campaign that I DM, and we had so many absolutely perfect nat 20s and other rolls in critical moments, to the point where it almost felt scripted. I just wanted to share that we praised dice christ before our rolls and seemed to do the trick! Thanks to Murph for being such an inspiration and if they hear this, hi Boston!

JazzyRushesIn

WILBUR Esteemed justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and also Jake whose current status I will allow to be set by the mood of the court— may it please the court, I present to you to case of the giant squid in handcuffs. Our party was enjoying a leisurely day in our home city when our Druid, fully unprovoked, decided to wild shape into a giant squid in the middle of a crowded street of a relatively low-magic setting. Understandably, this led to our party being approached by city guards and having to use political connections to avoid being detained. Justices— it has been 2 years and our Druid still brings this up whenever the DM is looking for feedback, as she feels punished for doing a bit, and wants to be allowed to goof without fear of consequences. Was our DM right for maintaining that a giant squid suddenly appearing in the middle of a city street would cause alarm, or was this the death of comedy? Moreover, how long is this situation allowed to be brought up and rehashed before we ban the topic entirely? I leave this to your wise and careful consideration.

Syed the Story Dude

To the honorable justices and the guy that's mean to Amir. I bring to you the Case of Wondering Eyes vs Fondling Hands. I run a game with 30+ year old DnD newbies who recently reached Level 3. Everyone rolled their hit die, and while the rest of the players explained rules of HP increase for the first time, I noticed my Bladesinger player silently contemplate the 1 he rolled before real-time sleight of handing it up to a 3. Mind you, this goon has been the most curious on how to hack the mechanics of the game and has already become virtually impossibly to hit with an AC of 25. What's worse, the Bladesinger scooped the dice away and told everyone he rolled a 6. My spine had unfortunately slipped out my ass and I jumped back into the session without saying anything. Was I wrong in not growing a pair or shall we punish my player by like shitting in his mouth or something? Dunno, just spitballing, I humbly await your judgement PS he's one of my best friends

Vincent Cortez

To the most honorable judges and that little baliff I suppose. I have a player who asked for 3 mice as companions. Frederick,Francine, and Francisco. They don't help with checks or battle but are very loveable and are being taught how to paint. Recently another player has taken a liking to Francisco, the chubby white mouse, and has taken them to help keep watch. I thought it was a good bit and everyone seemed to be having fun. However the original player is getting worried that one of his companions is getting hijacked by the other player. The other player hadn't shown interest in having their own familiar but says they relate to this mouse. I'm at the crossroads, I am starting to feel like the other player does intend to take Francisco for themselves. Dear judges, who do I punish? Do I forbid access to Francisco? Do I give the other player a new mouse? I will take the sentencing as this is my fault. I shouldn't have made such compelling mice.

Figgy the Cat

To the esteemed and enlightened judges and the guy that shouldn't be touched by a 6 foot pole. I bring the case of the double casting sorcerer. We were playing a combat heavy one-shot with any build. I chose to play a sorcerer with shield master (could cast spells with shield in hand) and war caster feats(adv on concentration checks). With 2 shields & mage armor my AC was 18, then casted haste on myself, now 20 AC. EMILY WOULD LOVE IT! However, the argument comes when I cast 2 spells of 1 action, like fireball. Could I cast 2 spells in 1 turn with haste? We debated this for about 10 minutes before we settled that yes I could (but I mainly did cantrips on the 2nd attack to not be too OP). I leave this to not the rules but the even higher in authority Judges.

Paxton

Wilbur To the esteemed judges and the awesome Bailiff (thanks for the fist bump wish I had more time) I bring a case against all my d&d parties. Over the course of the past few years every single time I try to make a party both as player and dm, people have agreed and either canceled or ignored me whenever I bring it up. This isn’t really a case of needing new friends because this happened with several completely different groups including so several states away. So am I the problem or am I simply cursed to never play d&d or any other ttrpg?

Hardtooth unsureleg

To the beloved judges and that one dude that crashes on your couch I am a dm of a game that’s gone in for 5 years. We recently added a new player( an old friend). Their first game they were fighting an army of golem kegs. After a few rounds they asked if they could use mage hand to “ fondle the kegs tap” to release the beer. I said it won’t feel anything but sure. After the session they had a loud discussion with me in why it should work

Ashley Irvin

I throw myself upon the mercy of Dice Christ and Their disciples here on the material plane. I felt like my dice were wronging me with bad/middling roll after roll and thirsted for those sweet nat 20s. I tried all the usual things before I took my dice to a BDSM social lounge to have dominatrix try and intimidate them to do better. My rolls have been even worse and I fear I’m being punished for my sins against my math rocks and trying to take fate in my own lowly hands. I beg of you, how do I repent?

James Hyde Waymire

Hi and whatever I guess to the people with gavels, and endless pecks on the cheek to the greatest of bailiffs. I got a kinky tragedy in store. I was in a horror campaign as a PC necromancer with a undead crow named Caw Caw (naturally), and my team voted to team up in an "abandoned" village. I clearly voted against that. My friend that we'll call Dilly who voted to go alone decided to go to the basement of a "weapons shop" and two living weapons in the form of whips with the handles being *cough cough* "adult toys* attacked him and after several bad saving throws, well... he got fucked, and hard. The DM them went on to say that the weapons were now "bound" to him until he can find a way to dispell them. These weapons had badass stats and even after they "bonded" and the living weapons had a very comical relief sort of vocabulary, Dilly was so irate at the session that he quit the campaign he'd spent an enormous amount of hours on. Is the DM going to far in a dark campaign the players normally might light of with even darker humor at many parts of it or is Dilly kink shaming too hard on the DM and not taking a joke the way his character took those living weapons? I leave it to the discrepancy of the judge people and may the highest shining of all bailiffs hold no mercy for those who would hold the slightest negativity towards him.

Jon Smith

To the esteemed judge Axford, and friends. We've been playing 5e with some friends for awhile and now my partner has volunteered to run a PF2e one-shot to add some flavor to our games. Most of this group has only played 5e and are nervous at trying a new system. We are also new to 2e, so how do I support her as a player and how can we represent 2e in all of its glory? We're using your podcast, and ones you mentioned, as a voluntary pre-introduction. And to Jake's point, we will still honor Dice Christ and their holy Nat 20 in our games. Praise be!

A Gross Infection

Hello, esteemed members of the court. I wish to bring to the you my most obscene use of rules lawyering. Early into a campaign, a member of our party was be headed. We did not have access to revivify, however an npc we were traveling with did. Our dm stated that revivify does not replace any MISSING limbs. I then argued that the head was not missing." I have it right here." I replied, and simply placed it back on the neck before having the spell cast. My dm, loves stretching the word of spells. With the rest of the group backing me up that the spell says missing not removed, we argued that we should be able to revivify the PC. He allowed it, and seemed impressed, also annoyed. Would you allow this fun interpretation, considering the players all got a kick out of it, or would you leave the PC dead? Thank you for your time.

Eriks Svarcbergs (edited)

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2026-09-05 07:00 WILBUR May it please the court, the prestigious Justices, and the prevaricating bailiff, Jark. I present the case of the Salty sandbox and the In-game Jobs. I DM'd my first game after years of playing D&D, and got a crew of friends and told them all I wanted to run a Sandbox-y game, with multiple possible quest lines that they could choose to engage with or not. The first session went well, and the second started them all in the town they met in, as they hadn't left yet, with clues to 2 possible quests. They decided to go check the last spot in town, the factory, for clues, and rolled middling investigation roles resulting in some not-so-significant info. They decided to stick around, despite my mention they had gotten "most of the info", and asked to apply for jobs at the town factory as a means of prying more. I fully ran job interviews for each of them, individually, then roleplayed them working their jobs while talking to more NPC's. This took almost 3 hours in session, followed by an energetic (mostly good natured) argument when I revealed they didn't gain anything, other than gold, by getting jobs - and I figured they wanted to do it for fun. They moved on the following session and the rest of the game was well received, but they still razz me for "letting them waste time working jobs" to this day, to which I counter I told them it was a sandbox at the start... Was I at fault for not pushing my players to leave out-of-character? Or are they unjustified in razz-ing me since their choices in the sandbox led to their ~3 hour workplace roleplay?
2023-01-22 18:55 WILBUR May it please the court, the prestigious Justices, and the prevaricating bailiff, Jark. I present the case of the Salty sandbox and the In-game Jobs. I DM'd my first game after years of playing D&D, and got a crew of friends and told them all I wanted to run a Sandbox-y game, with multiple possible quest lines that they could choose to engage with or not. The first session went well, and the second started them all in the town they met in, as they hadn't left yet, with clues to 2 possible quests. They decided to go check the last spot in town, the factory, for clues, and rolled middling investigation roles resulting in some not-so-significant info. They decided to stick around, despite my mention they had gotten "most of the info", and asked to apply for jobs at the town factory as a means of prying more. I fully ran job interviews for each of them, individually, then roleplayed them working their jobs while talking to more NPC's. This took almost 3 hours in session, followed by an energetic (mostly good natured) argument when I revealed they didn't gain anything, other than gold, by getting jobs - and I figured they wanted to do it for fun. They moved on the following session and the rest of the game was well received, but they still razz me for "letting them waste time working jobs" to this day, to which I counter I told them it was a sandbox at the start... Was I at fault for not pushing my players to leave out-of-character? Or are they unjustified in razz-ing me since their choices in the sandbox led to their ~3 hour workplace roleplay?

WILBUR May it please the court, the prestigious Justices, and the prevaricating bailiff, Jark. I present the case of the Salty sandbox and the In-game Jobs. I DM'd my first game after years of playing D&D, and got a crew of friends and told them all I wanted to run a Sandbox-y game, with multiple possible quest lines that they could choose to engage with or not. The first session went well, and the second started them all in the town they met in, as they hadn't left yet, with clues to 2 possible quests. They decided to go check the last spot in town, the factory, for clues, and rolled middling investigation roles resulting in some not-so-significant info. They decided to stick around, despite my mention they had gotten "most of the info", and asked to apply for jobs at the town factory as a means of prying more. I fully ran job interviews for each of them, individually, then roleplayed them working their jobs while talking to more NPC's. This took almost 3 hours in session, followed by an energetic (mostly good natured) argument when I revealed they didn't gain anything, other than gold, by getting jobs - and I figured they wanted to do it for fun. They moved on the following session and the rest of the game was well received, but they still razz me for "letting them waste time working jobs" to this day, to which I counter I told them it was a sandbox at the start... Was I at fault for not pushing my players to leave out-of-character? Or are they unjustified in razz-ing me since their choices in the sandbox led to their ~3 hour workplace roleplay?

Rue

To the most humble supreme Crit Justices Axford Murphy and Tanner, and the super smart and intelligent and kind… what’s his name? Oh right, Bailiff Jack, I seek a judgement for myself. About 3 years ago, I played dnd with my dad (this is when I first started playing). While playing with my dad, him the DM, I would continually fudge my rolls. If it was a nat 1, I’d say something better. I sometimes look back at this and feel awful for it. The thoughts still haunt me to this day. I feel I have sinned against Dicechrist, yet Dicechrist will not punish me. I seek forgiveness and punishment for my crimes of fudging the dice.

SwagDog85

To the greatest travel court and entertaining jester Amir. I bring the case of a unresolved broken party. The important characters are myself, DM and the bard Jack. I was new to the group and signed up at the start of a dungeon crawl. I made good friends in and out of game with Jack. When we left the Dungeon Jack had lost his voice and we went on a quest to get it back. This took 2 months of session (once a week), and during this time I gave Jack magic items to help him and even killed my idol by saving Jack’s life. At the end of the quest Jack sold the magic items given to him for money and clothes. This resulted in me not trusting and being antagonistic to his character. I wanted to resolve it in character. But never got the chance due to the campaign ending due to Covid. I talked to him out of character asking why he sold the items and he said “I didn’t need them anymore and I could get better stuff.” I ask was I being petty over the loot or did Jack pull off the best heist of the game. I await to hear the sentence in person tonight. Thank you.

Nick P

Forgive me Dice Christ, for I have sinned. Also, WILBUR. For my first campaign, I played an echo-knight, ancestral barbarian multiclass that took hella advantage of using my echo to proc sentinel on attacks of opportunity to stop enemy combatants from advancing on my party. Often, I'd stand among the squishier party members and have my echo on the frontline, or strategically placed to swap positions with it. I'd leave the echo in a doorway to bottleneck the baddies while we ran ahead. I'd leave the echo in a different room to have a quick escape. BUT, several sessions later, after reading the echo feature text - I noticed it said that if your echo is ever more than 30ft away at the end of your turn, it disappears. Highest Septons of the Crtical Faith, I must confess that my echo was often more than 30ft from my character. In self-flagellation, without alerting party to my trasngressions, I asked my DM to kill off my character - am I right with our Dicey Diety?

Heroic Soul

How was the show for those who could make it? My partner got sick so missed it.

Z Carthy

The show was INCREDIBLE. The cases were great and seeing them interact with the audience was amazing!

Tara Fedele

My humble greetings to the honorable judges and the dutiful bailiff. I bring you the case of the Demon Deal Gone Wrong: my DM, who is also my partner, took away a critical hit. We were fighting a dragon and were hurt badly. The dragon was looking pretty hurt and my character crit for 4d8 plus 2d6 plus 2d4 of damage. At that moment, the DM decides to trigger a deal my character made with a demon. I had no real knowledge of how it worked, I just “owed a moment of my time.” At the DMs discretion, my character is teleported to the demons location for that moment, and then teleported back. My crit is nullified and my turn ends. To further put salt in the wound my DM admits he was going to teleport me earlier but forgot. While I understand my character made a bad deal, I think it’s a horrendous crime to deliberately take away a crit during an important moment, especially when my DM agreed from previous rulings that taking one away is awful. I ask you, did I get what I deserve, or did my DM wrongfully take away an important crit from me and my party? Added note, this hasn’t put any stress on the relationship, and we have agreed to honor your judgement.

Sean (edited)

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2026-09-05 07:00 I wanted to go so bad, but couldn’t find a way to fit in my schedule. Hope we do more live D&D courts!
2023-01-23 14:02 I wanted to go so bad, but couldn’t find a way to fit in my schedule. Hope we do more live D&D courts!

I wanted to go so bad, but couldn’t find a way to fit in my schedule. Hope we do more live D&D courts!

Slay3rGaming

TYRANNY, overthrow the party

Rob's Wit

To the Esteemed Judges and Honored Bailiff of the Highest Court of these lands. I submit the following case: the Digital Dice Devil. I make this confession in hopes for absolution by Dice Christ. While DMing a Spelljammer campaign for my three players, the party was attempting to escape a global catastrophe during session one, as the entire planet started to break apart. With two players down, one of them ~digitally~ rolled three 6's in a row, failing their death saves. Hating to see a character go down during session 1, I chimed in saying that spotty wifi might have caused the odd 666 rolls and suggested that they reroll physically. The player's next roll was a natural 20, which I rewarded by bringing the player back up in place of two death saves. Was I right to step in and save this character against the Dice Devil, or have I stepped from Dice Christ's light by not following through with the character's death?

nbsgamer

How many of these scenarios are now written by ChatGPT? Once upon a time, in a land of fantasy and adventure, two players sat around a table with their Dungeons and Dragons characters. One player, named Sarah, had created a fierce warrior with long, flowing red hair. The other player, named Jake, had created a cunning rogue with short, spiky black hair. As they began their adventure, they encountered a group of bandits. Jake's rogue quickly snuck up behind the bandits and began picking their pockets, while Sarah's warrior charged in with her sword drawn. The bandits were quickly defeated, but as they were looting their bodies, Jake and Sarah began to argue. "Hey, why is your warrior's hair red?" Jake asked. "What do you mean? It's just a cosmetic choice," Sarah replied. "But it doesn't make sense for a warrior to have red hair. Warriors are supposed to be fierce and intimidating, not flashy and attention-grabbing," Jake said. Sarah was taken aback. "I didn't realize my character's hair color was such a big deal. I just thought it looked cool." "Well, it's not cool. It's immersion-breaking and it ruins the realism of the game," Jake said. The argument continued for a few more minutes, until the dungeon master stepped in. "Okay, you two, let's focus on the adventure at hand. The color of a character's hair is not important, and it doesn't affect the game in any way. Let's just move on and have fun." And with that, the argument was settled, and the two players put the matter behind them and continued with their adventure. But from that day on, Sarah made sure to choose more realistic hair color for her characters, while Jake learned not to be so serious and let players have their fun.

Bent Vent

You're Rob. I'm Rob. We're all Rob.

Tammie Foster

Having fun is the most important tenant of all

Rob's Wit

All for one and one for all Robs

spectralotter

Highly overpowered justices of the Court and lowley peasant-statted bailiff. I come to thee with the case of my best Friend and his unbalanced lonely-wolf-fighter. First off, sorry to inform justice Murphy that ending the friendship will not be a viable solution in this case. Eventhough he might feel enticed to suggest it. My friend and I have played together in many homecampaigns. Sometimes I was the DM, sometimes he was. Now we want to additionally join an online group that a friend of ours plays in. The DM of the group was so nice to let us join into her ongoing and well-developed level-4-campaign. I couldn’t be at the session his PC was introduced, because I was on a long-planned bachelor part. But he told me about what happened during his introduction and oh Man! The party met him in a bar, wearing a hood and ignoring everyone until he realized that his magic detector - which is supposed to lead him towards his McGuffin - went wild near them. So he opened up his trench, drew his weapons and threatenend them… I thought that sounded like a weird way to make new friends but wasn’t sure of surprised either. Apparently he also threatened to trash the pub they were in. But what really left me speechless for a while was when he received that the party actually decided to bend to his will and work on a deal for his McGuffin. Not because he had great arguments or an intriguing personality, oh no Sir. He rather reveiled to them that he was well equipped and double their level. That’s something that he had apparently talked about with the DM. I know he always enjoyed playing the lone wolf badass kind of characters and he seems genuinely excited about this one. But I worry that the rest of the established party might not enjoy being outshined by this Ryan-Urphy-kind of creation. I thought about asking the DM if she has any plan on how to keep the fights feeling fair to everyone. But on the other hand my character hasn’t even been introduced and I don’t want to enter the table for the first time, immediately doubting the DM’s decision for her own campaign. What say you? Should I try and bring the topic up or just let my friend have his edgy Vigo-Experience, now that he finally has the chance to? I humbly await your fair judgement.