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Looking for Cases (Patreon)

Published:
2023-05-08 16:08:12
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Greetings! It is I, the disgraced justice from Boston, Jake. The Supreme Crit, which I once presided over in Massachusetts, is convening this afternoon. Please submit your (BRIEF, I beg!) cases on this post and we will bring you your righteous justice.

Love,

Jake

Comments

Mason N.

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

Fraser Reid

Honorable Justices and measley bailiff not worthy of naming I bring to you the troublesome yeti cub Roger. In our currently running Icewind Dale campaign our parties druid adopted an orphaned juvanile yeti that we found. Since then it has on numerous occasions almost gotten us TPK'd and my warlock has wanted it gone/dead since day 1 as he is a monster hunter. In our most recent session the yeti was captured and only I knew where it was. Rather than leave it to be stitched into part of a larger abomination (a fate worse than death) I begrudgingly rescued it and returned it to the party. Have I sealed our fate into getting killed via yeti or was I right to save sweet Roger from the mind flayers that abducted him? I leave it in your delicate smooth hands of the law.

Colin Kilzer

When will the tortles return to the tank bailiff???

Jamjam

If it may please the court, the hardworking justices and the hardly working bailiff, I present: The case of the questionable character choices Last December I played DnD for the second time in my life within a university game analysis course. I was excited, I baked cookies for the table and sat down for a oneshot where we all played premade characters (I was a gnome rogue, there was a human paladin, a halforc barbarian and a halfelf ranger) and it was fun until i noticed the halfelf ranger was using slurs when talking about other races, calling me a footscraper and later a female dwarf something i’d translate to “beard slut”. That second one made me really uncomfortable and when I said so, he pointed at his character sheet that stated the ranger doesn’t trust/like other races and said he was just roleplaying. i dropped it and the dm moved on, but it still felt weird. the only other girl at the table later also said to me that she felt it was crossing a line and thanked me for mentioning it, but both of us don’t really play rpgs, so I wonder: was I in the wrong for objecting to the way this player chose to play his character? Is casual sexism just something I’ll have to deal with when playing dnd? I bow to the court, hoping for mercy. PS: The guy playing the halfelf ranger was also our professor

Dan Healey

To the honorable, beautiful judges, and the hopefully reinstated Boston Justice, Bailiff Jerk. The case of the Big Baby DM! If it pleases the court, During Quarantine, my monthly game moved online and DM decided to make a new campaign with new characters (I was a halfling blood hunter named Jeff). The setting was a massive war campaign but was supposed to be a laid back game. During the 3rd session, we were aboard a ship when our friendly NPC crew started to become hostile, our DM narrated that they were all leering at us and then while we were all eating and drew their weapons to attack. No matter what we did, magical or otherwise, it didn't work. Nat 20 persuasion, nope! Wizard casting sleep, no chance! The DM said it had no effect. It was at that point that the bard had this exchange with the DM, who we have been friends with for over 20 years, Bard- So there is nothing we can do? DM- I dont know. Bard- No, im asking, is there anything we can do to not have to fight them? It doesnt make sense. DM- Are you making an attack or what? Bard- Screw it, if they want a fight, let's kill them! DM- What! Did you say this in chat or in game? Bard- in game, im rolling to attack... DM- No! You're not playing right! That's metagaming! FUCK THIS, I QUIT! He signed off discord and then deleted our campaign on DND Beyond. The next day, the DM called the Wizard and said he worked so hard on this story and we weren't taking it seriously. He claimed we weren't suppose to fight and there was ONE detail we all missed that would have fixed everything but no one saw it. He also admitted he didnt know how Sleep worked. He then blamed the Bard for everything and called the rest of us campaigning for him to be tossed. 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?

Fuzzboxx

Hello Beautiful Judges and equally if not more beautiful Bailiff Jack. I present the case of the deadbeat dad. My cousin joined my campaign, he is a dad of a wonderful daughter. He made his character a dad trying to get his kidnapped 6 year old son back. I thought this was a great story and easy to incorporate. I made his son a major part of the campaign (he's tied to the major god in the universe). After over 6 months he finally BUT CASUALLY mentioned his son was kidnapped. The group was shocked he never mentioned it, they considered it a high priority naturally. He said there was more pressing matters. There weren't. After 6 more months they finally rescued the boy. My cousin immediately tried to pass the kid off to an orphanage, a local magic school, or anywhere (including at the town brothel?), much to the shock of the group. I had made the kid a major part of the campaign story so he was meant to travel with the group. My question is was I wrong to assume my cousin would want to be a dad in game since he was in person? Or am I justified to be shocked by my cousins deadbeat dad decision?

james_in_space

Hi Justices! Hello, Jake. So I'm a first-time DM for a crew of improvisers who've never played DnD before. Second session, my players helped save a halfling farmer from an evil scarecrow. The farmer had a loyal mastiff named Fig Newton who fought alongside her, even serving as the halfling's steed. Of course my players fell in love with Fig Newton the mastiff, as I expected. Having cute NPCs is a treat for your players. But then as they were leaving, the party’s sorcerer tried to essentially steal Fig Newton by attempting to lie to the farmer, claiming the adventurers needed the dog to help save the world. She rolled a 23 on Deception, so I allowed it, but I was sure to describe how sad the farewell was, and how Fig Newton kept whining and looking back to the farm as they left. Fig Newton helped the party on their way, and since he’s friendly and his owner had told him to help them, I gave the Animal Handling checks a low DC, so they were no problem for the sorcerer. But since I kept mentioning how despondent the dog seemed, one of my players (not the sorcerer) finally took the hint and ordered Fig Newton to go home. I immediately narrated how, with a delighted "RUFF", the mastiff trotted off back toward the farm. Happy ending, right? But now my sorcerer is pissed at me! She says if I was just going to "ruin the fun" and take the dog away, I should never have allowed her to make the Deception roll at all. Justices, should I have just told her she couldn’t take Fig Newton in the first place?

Alec Posta

Intro free 2023: There is an heated debate in our group that has me at odds with my (usually) loving wife, and it's over something as petty as the numbering of our sessions. As the DM, I write at the top of my prep notes in big, bold letters which session I'm prepping for. 5th get together, 5th session...easy, right? The players are aware of the numbering system and we use the numbers to keep track of how long we've been playing. The PROBLEM comes in the fact that early on in our campaign, a session ran long, and we ended up getting together the next night to finish up. This extra session ended up being the same length as a regular get together. My wife INSISTS that this was NOT a new session, and therefore SHARES a number with the previous session. I say that's ludicrous because that's not how counting works. Every game now starts with an argument over which session were about to play and I fear our marriage can take much more of this clerical pettiness. Please justices, help us put an end to this. P.S. This is all lighthearted fun, our marriage is rock solid.

Peter Mundell

A Dice Christ Confession A year ago, my family asked if I would run a D&D one-shot for them. My brother has watched some Critical Role, but his fiancée and our parents know next to nothing about the game other than the fact that they know how much I love it. I decided to run A Wild Sheep Chase, the first game I ever played in as a player. We got to the first encounter, and they were all rolling terribly before I rolled a nat 20. They continued to roll terribly and I rolled a second nat 20. And then a third. Not wanting to spoil their first time playing D&D, I fudged the second and third nat 20’s, making my bad guy roll with disadvantage despite the fact that he was supposed to have advantage. But when it came around to the second encounter, Dice Christ came through for my fam. The druid cast Pass Without Trace and no one rolled below a 15 on the die, gaining stealth checks of 25+. The rogue got a 21 Thieves’ Tool check to unlock the wizard’s door, and then they decided to lock the door behind them to keep the guards out. With their continually high stealth checks, they then tied up the wizard so he couldn’t even get initiative started. They managed to bypass the entire final encounter. I hope Dice Christ can forgive me for fudging those nat 20’s, but I thank them for the incredible rolls they gifted my family. Because of this blessing, my family looks forward to playing again.

Georgia

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 fairly light with room for rule of cool and all that, but they are trying to save the planar system, so I also hold that thread of seriousness. 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 battlemaster 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 it. 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.

Samwell54

I don’t have a case but I want to say when you were a justice you were ruthless and could not handle the power. Lowly balif. 🧌

Craig Felt

To the honorable justices and bailiff I have to be nice to so they pick my case: I present the case of the repeat character death. Several years ago I joined my friends' campaign for several sessions. Going in to the adventure I knew it was a more gritty, hard core campaign. The DM and I met before the first session and came up with a front line tanky character since that's what the group was missing. Within the first hour of playing my character was focused by the enemies and killed. I was fairly sad but he said I could make a new character. I spent the next hour making another character while everyone else kept playing. My new character was introduced, and then shortly after focused and killed in combat again. I made a 3rd character, a human fighter named John Doe, in 10 minutes, and asked to rejoin the party. My DM wasn't super happy with my character choices, and the session ended with John's death. I did not rejoin the campaign. Was I wrong for making such a generic character and disrespecting this hard core campaign or was my DM wrong for killing me over and over? I humbly await your judgement.

Patrick

To the venerable Justices and the venereal Bailiff Joke, The case of the pickup player dismissal I moved to a new city last year after graduating college and now volunteer twice a week at my local game store running homebrew D&D 5e adventures. A player has recently been belittling my games (not razzing- belittling). Today, he began ripping on my music choices when (for my first time as a DM) I had made a playlist for the session. He continued to challenge calls I made and tried to take tangents during the game, talking over my descriptions at times. This came to a head two hours in, when I made the players run a combat encounter I’d designed from scratch- crossing a 145 ft rushing river with slick surfaces and avoiding the leaping piranhas that sprung from the river. I based these fish on the legend of the koi fish who were strong enough to climb up waterfalls, and the fish who jump way into the sky in Mario bros. The player was an owlin cofeelock, and flew 60 ft above the fish over the course of two turns, then got visibly upset when he was still attacked by the fish, and, in a non-joking manner, shouted how he “called bullshit on this”. I pointed to what they were based on, and mentioned they were magical fictional piranhas, and he got more agitated. It escalated on his side, and long story short, 5 minutes later I said “you don’t have to play at my table, the door is right there”, and he left. Justices and Bailiff Joke, was I right to show this grown man the door? P.S. The rest of the session went very well with lots of laughs and fun, and our two first time players have returned for more games

Breanna

May it please the effervescent justices and Jake the enchanting bailiff, I present the case of the unsure old friend. This is not a situation where I was wronged, and I'm not sure if I have done wrong. I started playing in a campaign with my boyfriend as the DM about 5 years ago, we had a great campaign that lasted 3 years with a couple of buds that we went to high school with. When we finally wrapped, one of the other players said he'd like to try DMing next, and we obliged. We've been playing his campaign for two years now and we've done next to nothing, it's incredibly tough to gauge whether we're going in the right direction and he never wants to let us level up. 9 out of 10 sessions are just exposition or us just wandering around with no aim. Also, he wants to play EVERY WEEK. My boyfriend and I lament it privately that we want to be playing in a better campaign, and now the other PC (also an old friend has been texting us and looking for reasons to cancel each week. Judges, I ask how do you get out of a bad campaign without being rude, or politely prod an old (but not very close) friend to be a better DM? I anxiously await your judgement.

Gavin DeCroix

To the judicious and jeweled justices and Jill's jilted jabroni, Jake. May I present the case of the kleptomaniac Druid. I DM a campaign for my girlfriend and a few friends from college. My girlfriend, who plays a Druid, has begun using her wildshape ability to steal from any shop they encounter. The party will enter a shop, my girlfriend picks up literally as much as she can carry, and then will wildshape into a spider and scurry away. Since wildshape states that anything worn or carried merges with your new form upon transforming, she says this includes anything she holds while in a shop. The other PCs are on board and participate in this rampant larceny. This has led to the party having a dragon's hoard worth of pilfered potions and packages. Justices, am I wrong for wanting to cease these stealing shenanigans? I kneel before your majesties. P.S. I should have suspected my girlfriend would use her character to steal, considering in real-life she stole my heart.

Lucas

To the lowly justices Axfonk, Monk and Tonk and the ever honkly baliff from Amir's podcast, I submit the Case of the Rain-Walking Horse. I'm running a short level 10 campaign for my group, and as part of character creation I decided they could all choose a magical item or two. One of the players, whose character is a Cavalier Fighter, chose the Horshoes of the Zephyr, which allow the horse to float slightly above the ground. As the item states, the horse can also walk on unstable surfaces, like water. One day, while they were sneaking into a tightly guarded villain's lair, I narrated that it was raining heavily. The cavalier told me that since her horse can walk on water, she should be able to fly up to the top of the tower by having the horse walk on the raindrops! I didn't allow it. Am I in the right here? Should I have asked for an acrobatics check from the horse? The party all seemed dissapointed that she couldn't use the item this way, so I humbly await your omnicient and fair judgement! Lucas, Hater of Flying Horses

Hannah G.

A Wild Sheep Chase was the module I ran my first time DMing!

RefuelSapling

May it please the honorable and venerable Supreme Crit Justices, and the ballin' Bostonian bailiff Mr. Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz. I present the following flavorful fact pattern: A gaggle of law students turned accidental muderhobos. A family of ogres forever shattered. And one Druid’s painfully tone-deaf apology. I am the DM for my classmates at law school. In one session, the party started a fight with a hiding trio of ogres. The party handily and quickly killed them. The disparity in combat prowess—the party was horrified to discover—was because these ogres were refugee civilians fleeing persecution with their three children. After this sobering epiphany, the party attempted every healing spell in the book. The party Druid, however, split his time (1) begrudgingly making medicine checks and (2) creating goodberries as a 'condolence' for the recently discovered children of the ogre. As the two ogres came to consciousness, they were heartbroken. The party sincerely apologized—all except for the Druid: 'I understand that you're angry. I'm sorry what I did made you feel this way. But I have done all I could to make up for this. It was not even my idea. My party members did this, and I just did what they did.' The Druid, attempting a grandiose gesture, pulled out his sword and pointed it towards the Ogres. The ogres recoiled, but the Druid was 'merely attempting to show they could use the sword to kill him.' The ogres and his party demanded he put the sword away. He refused. He, out of character, began ridiculing the ogres under his breath—saying 'they're on their last two braincells' trying to understand the 'noble' gesture. The entire table was uncomfortable. Though I didn't want to, I let the Druid roll a persuasion check. He rolled a 15, but I didn't think that was enough to justify his actions. The Druid became irritated, sulking and blamed the ogres for 'not understanding' the apology. The rest of the party allayed the ogres' anger, and the party ultimately made amends. Your honors: did I contravene Dice Christ's will by not allowing the Druid's 15 to persuade the ogres? Did I erroneously allow table talk to affect my impartial ruling? What should I have done better? I submit myself to the wisdom of Bahumian jurisprudence.

tonytheoneandonly

Brick v. A Dire Rat's Prick I present my case to the Strong, Dexterous, Constitute, Intelligent, Wise and Charismatic Supreme Crit Justices. hey jake. Many years ago, my brother was DMing a campaign for me and my cousin. I was playing a Minotaur Barbarian named Brick. During an encounter with a pack of Dire Rats, I asked my brother if I could roll a CHA check to charm the leader of the Dire Rat pack. Since as a part animal, I can understand their instincts. Reluctantly he agreed and l proceeded to roll a 20, all natural. Elation! But since I succeeded so well. My brother decided that the Leader Rat became enamored by my Minotaur nose, as it is roughly the same shape and color as a Rat. On its turn, the Dire Rat leapt onto my face and started to make sweet Rat love to my nose. I objected. I argued that as a Minotaur I am wearing a septum ring, which would block the entryway into my nostril. My brother ruled that cows have notoriously long and wide nostrils so there would be ample clearance for a Rat's little dick. Reluctantly I seceded, Brick and the Dire Rat went on a few dates but nothing serious ever came of it... jk Brick killed the Rat. But more a decade later and I still believe the Septum Ring Defense would have protected my nostril from the Dire Rats advances, was I correct? I lie supine and humbly await the Supreme Crits decision.

hell

may it please the court at large, be fine to the bailiff, and make justice axford proud: i bring this case knowing i will lose the RAW ruling of justices such as murph, but i must ask regardless. many of my characters come from ideas that tend not to work very well within the D&D rules-as-written. in this case, i wanted to build a support/healer based on the idea of cooking (i.e. healing via food, maybe brewing potions, etc.). however, RAW basically only gives healing spells to clerics, and it seemed to me this character would make the most sense as a wizard (studying cooking, spellbook = cookbook where you learn a recipe and copy it down to add to your repertoire) or maybe, *maybe* a bard, and feats dont really compensate for the difference. i mean, heroes feast is only available to clerics and druids! so my case is this: provided it is true to the character and consistent throughout the campaign and not just for metagaming/ultimate whomping purposes, would you allow a class to borrow another's spell list for use with their standard casting mechanic – in this case, allow my wizard chef to use the cleric spell list without having to multiclass into cleric (and, as happened with this character, put all my levels into cleric to be any good at healing when the religion-y side of cleric didn't really make sense with the theme)? i humbly await my most-likely punishment. may bahamut bless you and the baba yaga not take you this night <3 (this is a heart but patreon does't like that i guess)

Stansky

Forgive me Dice Daddies and Crit Sister for I have sinned. I am a forever DM who started a new campaign last year with some friends who had never played before. One of those friends was particularly thrilled about the prospect of playing. He took a deep dive into his character and the world lore before studying the PHB obsessively before deciding to play a cleric at our session zero. However, I did not yet know that this player was not just forsaken by Dice Christ. He was misfortune incarnate. Over our first five sessions, I watched with growing horror as he failed every single attack roll, check, and saving throw he made. More unsettling, whenever a monster needed to save from his sacred flame or word of radiance, every one of them saved. EVERY TIME. I was dumbfounded. I had never seen anything like it. I had him change dice. I had him use a virtual dice roller. I homebrewed a free Find Familiar magic item, so he could give himself help actions. Nothing helped, and I watched his enthusiasm for the game die with every failure. Eventually, he refused to do anything but cast healing word and give help actions, because "those can't miss." In my desperation, I spoke with a friend who put me in contact with an unholy and unlisted Etsy shop that specializes in loaded dice. One surprisingly expensive purchase later, I used a dice jail to swap the player's d20 for the loaded one - and it worked! His face lit up as he screamed "NAT 20!" on his first saving throw, and he proceeded to have the "luckiest" session of his life. Since then, the player has been enthusiastic and rolling well enough that the d20 of lies has mostly stayed in the jail. I know that I have committed a mortal sin in the eyes of Dice Christ and I have damned not just myself, but my player as well. Please, I beg this holy conclave for penance, and I pray that it is not too late.

hell

additional info left out to, as jake requested, keep it brief: the character was partially inspired by moonshine's heroes feasts and partially inspired by finding the item 'heward's handy spice pouch'; further research also led me to the xanathar's 'cook's tools'. most of what she is equipped with was based on flavor (lol): the dagger of venom is a knife she used to cut raw meat and hasn't yet cleaned, the create bonfire cantrip was so she can start a cooking fire, acid splash cantrip was based on the idea that many spices and seasonings are, ykno, technically poisonous, etc. etc. if you're interested in how the character wound up, here's the link to her dndbeyond sheet: https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/26142437

WindowMan RR

Dearest My favorite bailiff and the indifferent supreme crit judges, I bring to you the case of the yuan-ti rogue and his lantern. The rogue in the party I DM committed a heist and snuck into the criminal part of town trying to sell everything. He asked me if he could kill a group of bandits trying to attack him by lighting his oil lantern and throwing water on it and throwing at the bandits. I let him do it and it worked, but knocking him out as well. The party went to a store and the rogue asked if he could buy a bullseye lantern that directs light in a specific area, I said why. He answered saying that he could be able to either direct the explosion a specific or use it as a way of doing a directed cone of fire like a dragon's breath. I refused, which led the whole party into a long argument. Afterward, we made up, but I am wondering if I am right or wrong in my initial ruling. By the way, the party is level 1. I humbly await your judgment.

Luke Hallier

To the Highest Crit Justices in all the land and lowly lowly lowly (lovely) lowly bailiff Jake, I present the case of Nerf or Nothin’ I am my Parties forever DM or so I thought, throughout the pandemic I ran an entire 18 month long campaign which my players were thrilled with. After the conclusion of that campaign we still met up weekly for game nights, while I was prepping our next campaign which was to be completely homebrew. One of my players asked if he could run a one-shot over the course of 3 weeks, and hungry to be a player again I encouraged him to do so. In the weeks leading up to the one-shot he encouraged us to make the most broken and overpowered characters we could, and informed us we would be playing an evil aligned party and that the one-shot was a heist of sorts. The one-shot was great and my friend knocked it out of the park, one of his “Thorns” as y’all would say, was that my character was too powerful; citing an instance where the rest of the party was forced to flee from an encounter due to being frightened, but my character was able to solo the rest of the encounter due to some last second buffing by my team as they dispersed. However, I didn’t take the thorn personally as I thought he was fine with it, seeing as he encouraged us to make over-powered characters. Flash forward to recently where we have, as a group, decided to take a break from my homebrew campaign for my sake as I’m feeling a bit DM fatigued. He wanted to run a full module and again I encouraged him to do so, but as the group was hashing out who our characters are he specifically banned me from playing a Bard, a Paladin, or multi-classing at all, again citing the solo encounter incident. When I told him I was merely planning on playing a cleric, he outright told me he’d have to nerf the channel divinity abilities that came with the subclass. I petition the court, am I wrong for feeling unfairly singled out being banned from two of my favorite classes,or should I have taken his encouragement to build broken characters with a grain of salt and not gone full min-max on a first time DM. I eagerly await your ruling. NOTE: the character I built for the one-shot of all level 5 characters was a Paladin 2/Bard 3, college of swords. And the Cleric I am wanting to play is a Twilight Cleric. Which admittedly has a strong Channel Divinity ability for low level parties, but one which is quickly out classed by other spells and abilities.

Austyn Donoho

To the whose its and the what’s its, The case of the disorderly DM. An experienced player turned new DM and 3 brand new players start a campaign. We held weekly sessions from last summer to this past winter. Life was glorious. Life was grand. Then chaos struck. The DM gets a DUI and 4th degree reckless endangerment (they didn’t mean to cause harm but they did). Now our campaign is dead. 2 of the 3 players are unsure how to proceed. The 1 (me) is checking in on the DM to offer support. Your judges, should the campaign continue? Has the DM’s choices recklessly endangered our campaign as well?

Travis Rees

Dear Sexy Judges and Handsome/Strong, albeit lowly Jake. I have a problem of never getting to be a player. I've DM'd for my group for years. Currently in a homebrew campaign i wrote, on session 15. But through these years of DM'ing, i have never had the pleasure of playing. Ive tried to convince friends to DM, some say they are excited to play NPCs but don't want to do the pregame work, even for a premade one off. How do i convince or trick them to run a game so i can finally do some player shenanigans?

Anthony S

To the deceptively bricked up justices to the deep voice daddy Jake. I present the case of the blown off head. I was in a campaign playing my first EVER character. He was a hot headed half orc who was known to be very quick tempered. My dm presented a situation where I was on my knees with a gun to my head from an ally. I told him I wanted to brush the gun from the back of my head and he had me roll sleight of hand with disadvantage. I rolled a 12 on the lower which he then proceeds to tell me I pull the trigger and blow my guys head off. I was pissed off beyond belief. Does a 12 constitute immediate death in this situation? I await your humble judgement.

Ophelia Black

Hello honorable supreme crit justices and also Jake from those Geoff the Dumbass sketches, I come to you with a question of logistical fighting! I have been running the same campaign for my friends for about a year now, and they just got to the first overarching BBEG. In an effort to make the finale epic, I created a scenario for mass combat and used Matt Colville’s rules. Matt mentions that the mass combat and the climactic PC battle can happen simultaneously for maximum drama and effect. However, when I brought my players to the doorstep of the enemy, started the BBEG fight, and switched to the start of the war and gave the players their units, my players began to argue with me about whether or not it was possible for their PCs to in two places at one time. This detailed the beginning of the session as I had to eventually end the argument with a simple “do you want to do war or not?” They enjoyed the battle, but after the session continued to razz me about the realism in my fantasy world. Do I deserve the razzing for expecting my players to pretend to be in two places at once?

Noah Goodman

Oh wise justices and likely-adequately-lubricated Baliff Jacob, if it may please the high crit, I present the case of the +10 Weapon. In a campaign, I play Zela, a barbarian whose culture and goals all revolve around strength. I built them to deal damage and made sure that, magic aside, they were the physically strongest member of the party. The DM decided to throw in some insanely powerful, god level magic items, including one that another player received, being a +10 Magic weapon. Suddenly they were getting the same benefits as I received with Great Weapon Master with no sacrifice and blowing anything I could do out of the water. Now, I understand that facing the idea of not being the strongest party member is a moment of character growth, but that was something I was already dealing with with a third (barb/fighter) PC. I felt like my character choices were completely invalidated, and my role in the party removed. Am I wrong to feel that this overpowered weapon was unfair, and that magic items should be given more thought not to overshadow what makes the other characters special? Or should I suck it up and live with a character constantly feeling like her effort and hard work mean nothing? I humbly await the court's decision and will gladly accept any punishments delivered.

Chris Coulier

Hello esteemed judges of the supreme crit, Emily, Caldwell, Murph and Tucker! Also good day to you Jake, I just think you're neat. I bring to you the case of potentially fudged dice rolls and accusations of an overstepping DM. I have been running an online campaign that includes many people, but importantly my best friend and his younger brother "Trent" (19). From the beginning I was suspicious of Trent's rolls. It started in character creation where he came to session 0 with already rolled ability scores, none lower than 14, a Dex of 20, and a Wisdom of 19. (On his level 3 aarakocra ranger he begged to play). After 10 sessions of tracking his combat rolls here's what I found; on his longbow attack he had an average roll of 23.6, 4.1 higher than what should be average. While using the Sharpshooter feat (taking the -5 penalty), he rolled an average of a 20.8, 6.3 higher than average and never missed an attack. With this evidence, I asked him to start using the DnDBeyond digital dice. He said no, because "dice rolling is one of his favorite parts of the game." He then said I had "overstepped my authority as a DM, who is supposed to facilitate the game, not police the players." he then quit the campaign. I feel bad because maybe this was a false accusation. So, I ask the Court, did I overstep my authority by tracking his rolls?

Muqtadaa Miandara

To the fairest and most wonderful Supreme Crit Just-dices - and our homely and cuckolded Bailiff, I present to you the case of the Jurassic World-Breaking Familiar. After 3 years of running a 1-20 campaign in which my players saved the world, toppled the binary dichotomy of the Feywild, extreme-home-makeover-ed the Nine Hells, and fought a god or two, I am finally playing in one of my player’s campaign! He’s painstakingly crafted this world, has spent countless hours world building with me, and was super receptive to everything I came up with for my bugbear shaman (Wally, who is a very good boy in love with the moon goddess and plans to woo her someday). Unfortunately, I’ve since discovered that he was a little too receptive to one player in particular. In a party of six level 3 characters (3.5e btw, not 5e), the balance is already strangely distributed at low level. I have a feat that gave me a bonded mage-bred animal companion, a polar bear named Mauritius who is useful in combat, and I took several flaws to gain the feats needed to have him be so useful. Many of us have animal familiars (a crow, a monkey, and a miniature baby unicorn to say the least), but most of it is just flavor. Another player from my campaign is in this one, and his whole build is wild, with several stats already at 20, a custom-built heavy-repeating artillery crossbow, and oh yeah, a fucking DINOSAUR. His deinonychus has four attacks, two fore claws, a bite, and a tail-whip, nearly 50HP, and has natural camouflage. The reason behind this over-permissive character build is obvious, my DM and my former player are best buds, lived together in college, started dating their current spouses at the same time, etc. But it’s really taking the fun away from the game to have a cool moment where our low-level asses crit and deal max 20 damage to some kobolds, and then get upstaged by this guy firing two fucking artillery bolts and then having his goddamn raptor kill anyone left over. Also, it kind of ruins the atmosphere of this amazing fantasy world with relatively low-magic, and yes dinosaurs are present on some continents but its just wild to begin play with one as your trained familiar. I've seen his character sheet on the shared drive, and he hasn't been forced to take flaws for feats or anything like that. Please, Just-dices, am I being a stick-in-the-mud as a former DM? Should I trust my player to balance the game now as a DM himself? Is my DM too soft-hearted? I beg you, see that just-dice is rolled for my table. I humbly await your judgment.

Stuffandsuchrqg

Honorable justices and Jake who is my favorite disgraced justice, I simply can't join on the bit to be mean to him. I bring you the case of the smart himbo. I gm a game with my two older brothers, my sister, and a couple friends of ours. In every campaign I run, my oldest brother always makes a dumb brute with low intelligence and wisdom which is great!! However my brother is really fucking smart and good at politics, arguments, and puzzles, etc. This means they often he solves all my puzzles and presents great arguments against my npcs and villains to the point that it is hard to roleplay. This would be fine I think if he were high intelligence, but he never is! I've tried to push him to give the solutions to other high intelligence players but he refuses. I've had npcs refuse to listen to him even if he argues well but rolls poorly. He is upset by this and claims my world is full of contradictory idiots. Should I simply accept his not dumb himbos? Or should I punish his wild lack of commitment to stats. I humbly await your ruling.

Martian

Lmao trying it drop the kid off at a brothel is WILD 🤣

Kinzie

The very reverend judges and cake (right?) I am in a dilemma, as a DM I currently have a party of 6 of which 5 I have been playing with for a while, but 1 is new to dnd as they just married into the game night. For weeks I had been prepping all of them to build characters and backgrounds. When we all get together, this new player starts off by telling me their character has amnesia and doesn’t remember her daily life, I said ok, so do you have any background, and she said no. I told her this will make it hard but she said that’s fine. I have since started making her come up with her background through “memories” the character has, she and her husband (one of my best friends for a long time) have started becoming angry with me for making her play the game. Am I in the wrong for forcing her to play the charter she created the. Refused to build a back story for? Ps pls come to KC we’d love to have to have jace (right???) be a justice in Missouri or Kansas

Mr Cat

To the honorable justices and the slightly above average bailiff. I present the case of lvl 2 adventurer party that somehow managed to summon a tarrasque. My friends and I are new to dnd and was our first campaign. My dm has played multiple sessions and has been a dm multiple times. We get to a puzzle and roll good on investigation/ perception check and got nothing. I destroy this statue and proceed to summon a tarrasque and led to a tpk. Judges I ask was this a harsh punishment or was my dm justified in his actions? I await my fate.

Tallerballer

To the gallant justices and the plebeian bailiff (or strong and cool bailiff if that’s what we’re feeling today) of the Crit, I bring to you the case of the panther high jump. Our gnome ranger, Gnomeo, and his faithful panther companion Luna had fallen (or were maybe pushed by another member of the party) into a 10ft empty well, opa-Lassie style. Gnomeo climbed on Luna’s back and attempted to use the panther’s jump to get out of the well. Our DM, not liking fun, ruled that was not possible, spawning an hour long argument about panther jump heights. Our dear friend Gnomeo Googled actual panther jump height, and insanely, they can jump 15 feet in real life. Our DM stuck to their guns and we ended up having to rope and pulley system Gnomeo and Luna out of the well. Justices, was our DM right or were Gnomeo and Luna robbed of an Olympic level high jump performance?

KoboldB0i

A Dice Christ Confession Oh dearest justices and he who receives the razzes, I must confess my sin. About 3 years ago when I was a fresh blood in dnd, I have broken the trust pact. When my dragonborn life cleric/fighter encountered her abuser for the first time since fleeing her old order, I had her frozen for a turn to gain dramatic tension and why wouldn't she be frozen in fear. But next turn and after an admittedly cringy monologs, she dashes forward for a punch. When I rolled and got low, I did an Oscar worthy performance of a nat 20 punch. Since this was online with friends, they bought it. It ended up well for her however as she survived the deadly encounter. Please forgive me for my sins and I put my heart on the scale for your judgment.

Lorcan Jeffreys

Justices of the court, and Baliff James who I understand can sometimes practise law in Boston, maybe. (Please ignore the above if intro free 2023 takes precedence, I am nothing if not a panderer). I humbly bring before the court the case of the war forged submarine. I should preface this by saying the group I play D&D with are all good friends, and still think of this event as funny rather than genuinely an issue. I am not our group’s main DM, but sometimes run the odd one shot here and there, and this case involves one such one shot from a couple of years ago. My players took on the role of members of a (evangelical Christian for some reason) rock band on tour, travelling from town to town in the fantasy world. I had designed a session where to reach their next venue they must cross an enormous raging river, the easiest way to do so being via a causeway. This causeway would take them to an island in the middle of the river where they would be thrust into a spat between a group of undead roommates, the meat of the adventure. However when they reached the riverbank the warforged fighter (the group’s bodyguard) immediately announced that she would like to turn into a submarine and ferry everyone across the river, bypassing the adventure as planned. We established that this was impossible as she was not a transformer, but the conversation eventually turned to whether she could swim across, or walk along the bottom of the river carrying the different party members as she could breathe underwater. I maintained they would drown, because that tends to be how lungs work. This discussion lasted about 45 minutes, and I think some of the other players began to lose interest, but finally we got back on track and continued the session (until another player attacked a friendly npc because he was a vampire and therefore in defiance of god). From the off it was clear that in knowing the plot hook in advance, the first player had created the would be submersible in order to drag me bodily through the underwater raspberry patch with a big metal hand. As a player I was at the time very much guilty of a lot of silly goofs and gaffs in our other games, so in that way this did feel like some well deserved comeuppance for me. I ask you however, how long is too long to sustain a razzing/ disagreement if it starts to interfere with the flow of a session, and do you have any tips for gently steering things back on track without needing to break up the game and have a quick chat with the player?

villager72

Dearest Jakes, there's no way of proving the rest of the judge's names. Anyways I bring before you the Discrimination Challenge. I am running a campaign I've been working on since 2019. For context, this campaign is D&D but set in the 80s with the country inspired by America. Because of this, there is a history of racism against 'racism', basically anything that is not an Elf or Human. I made this clear in November when the party made characters and told them there are challenges with choosing a different race. One person wanted to play a Myconid which I agreed upon and reminded him of segregation. Anyways his character is peaceful but ended up paralyzing a woman who told him he couldn't be in her store. He then got arrested for attacking her. The player was quite upset and messaged me later that he felt targeted and that he couldn't play his character. Feeling as though racism is too big of an issue in this campaign. May I remind you I and three other players are a minority and he is the only straight white man in the group and now experienced segregation for the first time. Everyone else understands the issues and challenges and has experienced their own challenges in this campaign, so he is not targeted. So I ask, do I continue the narrative that I've had since 2019, or do ease up on the segregation that serves as a HUGE plot point?

KennyH

To the Honorable Justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy, and that other guy whose name is Joesh, I think? I bring you the case of the Pissed Priest, and the Cowardly Cohorts. In the first long term campaign I ever played, our party reached the end of a massive arc, which led to 2 players having their characters retire, and roll new ones. The game and overall party energy of the campaign for the past year was great until these player's new PC's entered the fray. These two PC's have evil alignments (unknown to us OOC) and their backstory/lore makes them cowards and/or selfish as fuck (ALSO UNKOWN TO US OOC). So that started the pattern of these two fleeing or hiding at ANY combat that shows any signs getting rough. This pattern of behavior in combat left my character and the party's Life Cleric in countless bad situations where we almost died. Eventually the player who was the cleric gets pissed, and unfortunately a pretty nasty argument happens between him and the players playing the two evil PCs. The DM and I tried to keep things civil, but unfortunately lines were crossed in the argument, and that game died. The question I put to you Justices, who is at fault here? Not for the argument, but rather; The two players who decided to make evil PCs who will roleplay counter to group cohesion, or the DM who allowed them to make characters like this without talking with the group about it first? I await your fair and just ruling.

Morgan

To the honorable justices and Amir; I know not if I bring a case or a confession to my favorite thicc queen dice Christ. I present the case of the stolen world. I was meeting with players I was DMing for a new campaign, and we were deciding which setting we wanted to pursue. When we had whittled down to a lovecraft themed setting or a campaign where everyone played as different bugs, we decided to leave the final decision up to a dice roll. Except that; the moment the dice left my hand, I knew which world I wanted. What had seemed like a 50/50 choice mere seconds ago left me feeling scared of not creating a world for a bunch of little squirmy gremlin bugs to crawl around in. When the dice came up a natural 6, I instead declared a natural 16, and the PCs and I have since had many great sessions as six legged savers of souls. But was I wrong to change that roll at the last second? Have I doomed this entire campaign, and myself, to an eternity in dice hell rolling like Murph? I pray the court finds I’ve made the right decision, unless this question gets kicked down to the church for tax purposes

Dez Magner

May it please the justices Murphy, Tanner and Axeford, and the lowly bailiff whose name I can't remember. I present the case of the ignored character ending. We were going to face the main villain I had come up with for my backstory, but the focus shifted entirely to our fighter. The following session focused entirely on the funeral of an npc who died and every time I tried to do something I was dismissed. When we were done I told my DM I was a bit disappointed that I was pushed out of the narrative entirely, the fighter agreed, saying he didn’t understand why he got the spotlight. The DM got mad at this saying I should have just tried harder if I wanted to do anything. So I ask you noble justices, was I justified in my disappointment or was my DM right that I should have tried harder? I humbly await your verdict.

Jordan O'Keefe

To the honorable judges, and the wrongfully degraded bailiff. I present the case of: inconsistent ability check "crits." In a home game of 5 players, the dm asked me to roll a deception check against a guard, I rolled a 27 (19 on the dice) and the guard rolled a 23 (nat 20 on the dice witha plus 3 to insight) and ruled that the guard knew I was blatantly lying and that it was obvious. I was confused as the dm announced the total of the roll to tell me what the DC was, and argued that on past checks, a natural 20 on other checks had not meant an auto success, and that by that thought process my deception check should have passed. Was I wrong in this train of thought or should I have just taken being told that it failed in stride, knowing I was past the guards total roll? I humbly ask the court for a ruling in this matter.

Dylan Jacob

Dear Supreme Crit Justice Hurwitz and the rest... Maybe axford she seems chill, but definitely not Murphy. I submit to you the Easy Mode Dm. My party and I have just started a new campaign with a friend of ours. We just finished his other campaign by all killing each other in a grenade explosion because we were so frustrated by the direction the story was going. We thought this might be a good way for the dm to start over and try a new story, but no. Our first and second session was fantastic tricky combat a unique hook to the world but then the same pit falls arose. The DM, spends most of the time leading us to areas or things to interact with, with absolutely no result even after getting a nat 20 multiple times from different members on prompts the dm set up for us we got no follow through and instead blindly stumble into situations constantly. This then leads us to the root of the proble which is the combat, we are currently level 5 and combat lasts maybe two rounds at best. Our last session saw us crashing a pirate ship into anoter ship hoping to sink, instead we blew a hole in the side of the ship and we all decided to board hoping for an intense naval combat ahead. Instead, I loosed one arrow and killed 20 pirates, similar situation for my party members leading us to a "boss fight" which I thought was the main reason for this easy cleave rule but no the boss did a grand total of 8 damage and us after missing for four rounds in a row finally hit him and killed him with 49 hp. I feel so let down by these combat encounters every session it's like my DM is blue balling me.

Martian

My lord...

Maggie!

May it please the court, and the bailiff I guess. I don't so much have a Confession to Dice Christ but my group desperately needs help. We have been playing online for 3 years and we've played a variety of TTRP's, though D&D is our go to. We decided to give Pathfinder a try a few weeks ago and made characters (the children of characters we had played in a different campaign) and began to run through the introductory Pathfinder adventure. We were all level one. We nearly died in the first fight. We somehow survived, left, rested, and tried again on a second in universe day even stocking up on healing potions. We re-entered the sewers for a after some relatively fun and calm puzzle solving found ourselves in a fight with a fire elemental rat. The rat crit on us nearly every single roll it made. We, on the other hand, couldn't hit it to save our lives, and crit failed far too many times for our liking. We fled the dungeon, nearly dead (one of us did, in fact, die) and decided this was a sign from the Gods that Pathfinder was not the game for us. Also the rat was not even close to the end of the sewer adventure. It was supposed to be a quick little fight. Our fear is, are we cursed? Were we right to believe that this was a sign that we should not be playing Pathfinder? We throw ourselves at the mercy of the court and wonder if there is anyway back to the gods good favor, though we do not know what we could have done wrong.

Camden Jones

Justice Axford, Justice Murphy, Justice Tanner, and… [*ehem*] I present the case of the Held-back Hammer. Before character creation for my very first session of D&D, my DM told the table we could be pretty much anything we wanted. I asked, “What about a sentient hammer?,” to which he responded with an emphatic, “…No.” I attempted to negotiate, pitching the idea of a talking but immobile hammer that would need to be carried around and swung by a mostly unspeaking manservant. This would have made my character functionally identical to a normal person wielding a normal hammer, but the DM didn’t budge. Was I robbed of a fun and unique character, or was my DM right to deny my shenanigans? I humbly await your judgement.

Party Pat

High Justices of the Supreme Crit, and that dazzling dude Jarnathan, I bring before you a case of the boy scout bunny, and his weird adult friends. My character, a harengon bladesinging ranger multiclass, was an inquisitive boy scout with a knack for magic. Our other party members, a halfling druid and a dragonborn fighter, were not quite as curious as my bunny boy. We were using the Lost Mines of Phandelver module from the DND starter kit, and exploring the first town you head to. As we walked around and met many of the townsfolk, many conversations started, and ended, with the halfing druid character telling my boy scout to shut up nearly every chance they got. They would then insist that every conversation was purely in character, and the adults should be the only ones talking. My Intelligence based harengon was trying his best to utilize his skills of investigation and arcana to explore the village, but at every chance I would take to ask questions our halfing would again pipe up to the tone of “the adults are in charge, just hang out”. This had happened over multiple sessions, and I have since left the group. But still i lie awake some nights wondering if I was truly reading too far into it, and shouldve just rolled with it. I ask the judges, should I have been more chill and “let the adults talk?” Or was I in the right to try to use my skills to help the party? I accept the judgment you may bring down.

Mica K

May it please the court and also the judges and maybe the bailiff if they’re chill today. May I present you the story of Lanya the Leaver, and while this happened a year ago, I’m still unsure if I was right. After a years long campaign ended, one of our party members asked if they could bring a friend, and we all agreed. Their character was a monk named Lanya with a strict moral code. While searching for the reason for a mysterious disease that caused people to slowly physically disappear, we found a member of a cult. We questioned him and, after not giving up information, tortured him. After he gave the information, another party member killed him. During this Lanya said nothing and did nothing. Afterwards, the player said Lanya was leaving forever because our characters don’t follow his moral code. I said that Lanya should’ve said something while we were role playing, and the player said that we “proved who we were” and Lanya wouldn’t stand for it. So, honorable judges, was it wrong for Lanya to leave, or should Lanya have participated? I humbly await your decision.

Jesse De La Rosa

To the clearly Honorable Judges and the questionably deplorable Baliff, I bring this case before you. My group was up against the BBE and one of the players (a gun slinger) uses her turn to sneak up to the BBE before combat starts. I decide to follow suit thinking it was a good idea to offer backup. The DM says that we are both right next to the BBE but still stealthed. The gun slinger decides to shoot the BBE in the face (an epic move). Everyone at the table is excited because good damage was done. I say, "Well I'm right next to them, too. Do I get a surprise attack?". The DM quickly said no and moved on with narrative and rolls. Was I cheated out of an attack or was I just band-wagoning and rightfully casted aside? P.S. DM and gun slinger are a married couple.

Krispy Buns

May it please the court and the honorable, foxy justices, as well as the slightly spicy bailiff. You may remember me from the Pooping Cleric question (thank you so much for all of your humor and tips in that episode, I was so honored). My poop mechanics have been updated and well received, with many soiled suits of armor during combat. I bring to the court a question of how to address a PC who would like to stop playing (not related to the poop I SWEAR). He has a lot going on in life rn and is asking to end his time in the campaign, but would also like to have the option to rejoin at times if he can while we continue on. I’m curious as to what you would recommend for this type of situation, any and all suggestions are welcome. Thank you for you time <3 I'm now realizing this may not actually be DnD court ruling but would welcome your valued opinions if you can share them :) mostly I just wanted to thank you for the poop mechanic improvements

Sam the BT

To the wonderful bailiffs and the reprehensible King John I present the case of “Airlock Sholmes and the Blowgun of Certain Death.” My ranger shot an NPC detective named Airlock Sholmes in the back of the head with the “Blowgun of Certain Death.” The DM said the detective died. I think this was unfair. Hear me out. We’re working through Candlekeep Mysteries and were currently working on a murder investigation given to us by the aforementioned detective. He was purposefully annoying and condescending to us, throwing out crazy “alternative” theories to any speculation we made. We were mean right back as he was making our characters miserable. It was a great time for all of us at the table. After a particularly stupid “But maybe that ghost was actually lying about her murder!” from the detective I wanted to hit him upside the head with some flair. I decided to use my blowgun for this. Now the name “Blowgun of Certain Death” is an ironic title. It is a blowgun that never misses but can never use special ammo. Its damage is always exactly 3. The joke being “with enough time certainly anyone will die.” I fired but then Airlock instantly went down and when I tried to heal him the DM informed us he only had a max HP of 1 and thus the 3 damage instantly killed him. This was a spry young man and my character never had murderous intent. As one who is usually the DM, I’m often the restrained character of the group, holding back my companions more murder hobo tendencies. Straight up murder is very much out of character. The DM wouldn’t budge. When speaking with the DM later I asked if Airlock needed to be out of the story and he was just taking advantage of an opening. The DM said no; that we were supposed to have him for most of if not all of the of the adventure. The DM wanted us to know that Airlock was no good in combat. I guess we learned. Was Airlock really killed by my ranger, or was he more struck down by the DM.

LeCurve52

May it tickle the fancies of the venerable Supreme Crit Justices and provide that fourth guy with whatever feelings he wants I guess, I humbly submit unto you the question of the Goose-Head Tail and the Keebler Iron Man. I play in a homebrewed 5e campaign loosely set in Mythological ancient Greece. In the universe, the world has become contaminated with the Titan virus, which mutates regular DNA and turns people into more classic Greek creatures like minotaurs, satyrs, etc. The virus has been around for generations, so almost everyone has been infected since birth. The Elves, which in this game are based more on Keebler elves or Santa’s elves, have remained uncontaminated by piloting human sized mech suits that protect their super small bodies (think Men In Black 2). I play an Elf artificer and through some awesome homebrewed mechanics, my character was recently exposed to the virus and became infected. To my absolute horror and delight, I developed a long tail that ended in a normal-sized goose head that was quite cantankerous. This was all well and good until i brought up the spell Air Bubble. This spell claims to create a bubble of air that is perfectly fit around the target’s head, and I reasoned that since my Elf is canonically only a few inches tall, and the Goose head is supposedly the size of a regular Goose head, i should be able to put the bubble around its head, and fully contain my entire body within it. My DM decided in that moment that I and all other elves were now actually a foot tall so I was more bigger than my Goose head tail and this wouldn’t work. Am I wrong to feel a bit cheated to have my character’s size so abruptly changed so I couldn’t get my goof off? Or was my DM right in not letting me become a Little Bubble Boy with his Big Bubble Goose? I humbly await your judgment.

James Hailstone

Dearest Cardinals of the Crit, I come to you with a shameful confession which I fear may result in my excommunication from the church. During lockdown 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, would be the number that I announced to the group. I tried no to abuse this power and just womp my players, but sometimes a 7 just seems more interesting than the 18 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 new games, 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.

Luke G

To the eternally honourable judges and the precious new born baby bailiff jake, i bring you the case of C.U.M University. I am currently running a campaign with some friends that takes place almost entirely with a large city. I have named this city Cambria. I decided to host a world-building session, pre-campaign, to get everyone familiar with the setting. One detail i went over, was the local university, The Cambrian University of Magic. One of my players was quick to point out that the initials spell a dirty word (cum) and we all had a good laugh. I then went on to explain that there are a few sub-departments of this school, all pertaining to a different classes, all with similar naming conventions. There is the Arcane Science School (ass), The Bardic University of Music (bum), The Paladin Oathkeepers Organisation (poo) The Druidic Institution and Circle of Knowledge (dick) and of course, The Faiths United Clerical knowledge University (Fuck U). We all had a good laugh. One of my players then asked ‘Are these all actually part of the game? Doesnt that ruin the tone a little?’ The rest of the world is fairly realistic and down to earth so i can see where they’re coming from, but I explained that the C.U.M isnt really a focus of the story and is more of a background detail to flesh out the world. Consider and Joke-y easter egg. Is the player right? Does this ruin immersion too much, or am I allowed to have my silly fun? Ps i couldnt think of an acronym for SHIT, if you guys want to give it a go.

The-Good-Ending

To the honorable, lush and beloved judges, and my homie Jeff. I give you the case of the unlawful beheading. I was a dwarf barbarian in a campaign with my best friend and a few others. This game used XP and not mile stone (this is important).We were playing good characters going town to town saving the day. We all agreed to play hero’s. My best friend was playing a necromancer cleric, which was frightening but we always did the right thing, until one fateful day. We were about 5 sessions In when we made it to a new town where we met a homeless gnome who had been kicked out of town for being too weird. I and the rest of the party loved him and wanted to have him join the party. But my best friend was quite silent, suddenly he asked the dm how much XP the gnome would have. My dm hesitantly said how much and suddenly, with no warning, my best friend attacked our new friend. He almost killed him but I put my axe to his neck and said if he did anything I would swing. He said he casted darkness and I told the dm I swung. My dm was so pissed at my friend that he said I did not need to roll to hit, I just beheaded the cleric, killing him instantly. This led to about an hour of yelling and complaining from my friend saying it should have been a fight. He also said that he wanted to kill the homeless gnome as he contributed nothing to society and that this sort of thinking made sense for his character and that he needed the xp. He never acted like this before this fight. We all argued that he should not have tried to kill our friend and that it was right he was killed. That campaign never continued after that, and I have never played dnd with my best friend again and we never bring it up as it looms dark on our friendship. This was 3 years ago but it still haunts me. Was it wrong that I instantly beheaded him or was the execution rightfully done? I lay myself at the court and will take whatever punishment they see fit for my possible crimes.

Savannah Myers-Gaines

Salutations and good tidings to juicy judges and buoyant bailiff. Today I present to you the posthumous Trust of Kizmet Quig v. DM’s shoehorned Mimic, a wrongful death suit. I represent the gnome cleric Kizmet and her wall climbing gecko mount. Our party was investigating after an explosion in a tower. The plaintiff used her mount’s wall climbing abilities to ascend to the second level where she dismounted and looked out a window to see if anyone fled the scene while the rest of the party explored the bottom floor. The party took turns investigating, percepting, and arcana checking to find out what happened. When Kizmet’s turn came back around she went to rejoin the party, but the DM retconned that when she went to look out the window she would have climbed onto a chest in order to look out, and upon moving away triggered the chest-mimic to unveil itself, where she was given disadvantage on a dex save to get away on account of standing on it. Isolated from the party, getting deep throated by a mimic, she proceeded to be chomped alive one turn at a time, unable to land a hit due to restraint. The party was unaware of the situation and continued exploring while their healer was devoured a floor above. The prosecution argues that Kizmet should have been offered a choice whether or not to stand on the chest, rather than having it added post-resolution of her action. My query is, should the DM have given an option to climb onto the chest, or was this an interesting way to split the encounter? Kizmet is survived by her gecko, Sticky, the sole beneficiary of her trust.

Casey Miles

To the Most Glorious and Supreme Justices of the Land and also the Bailiff. I come with a complaint against my DM and request swift action on this case. I was playing as a Celestial Warlock that is Chaotic Evil with Lawful Good tendencies because of his pact with a forest guardian Unicorn patron that gives my character magic to go do good in the world. With this pact, I had previously arranged with my DM that any time I use a warlock spell, it does non-lethal damage because my Unicorn won't let me kill anyone and my DM agreed that was fine. But there came a time when our party was trying to knock out some commoners because they had been afflicted with a curse that made them attack everyone around them and we were trying to get passed them to destroy the item cursing them. My character goes to attack someone with one of my spells and the Dice Christ blessed me with a natural 20 that my DM suddenly turned into a dreaded roll. I rolled for damage how I was supposed to and reminded the DM that this was non-lethal since it came from my patron and he argued that since I was doing enough damage to go passed the negative hp total of the commoner that non-lethal didn't matter and I killed the commoner. Illustrious Justices please tell me if I have been done an incredible injustice and that my character should be innocent or if my DM was justified in the murder of this commoner.

Dylan C

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

Tubasauraus

To the most honorable justices of the Crit Court, I come to you as a humble beginner DM who started a campaign with my family who are all beginners. The campaign is based of a My Hero Academia-esque adventure. They are all SUPPOSE to be heroes but here lies the problem. My sister is a level 1 human monk who worships the monastery of Beyoncé. She uses a melee weapon called “Queen’s Lemonade” and to my dismay, is a brutal vigilante who takes out justice on who she sees fit. The first session, she went and brutally killed an intoxicated male NPC who greeted her. When I made Agnes face repercussions and suggested she not kill NPCs at will, she commented that Agnes is enacting Queen B’s judgement. She has continuously enacted Queen B’s punishment randomly even when it has negatively impacted the party. How do I stop her mercilessly enacting judgement? Thank you justices! Oh, and I forgot about the bailiff…James?

Spencer

May it please the glorious justices and do something else to that one guy whose name escapes me right now.. I’m sure it’ll come to me soon. I present the case of the dubious luck points. I’m a relatively new DM and I have started a campaign in a homebrew world, in this world there is a shop called ‘the joke trove’ where all of the magic items are kinda busted and don’t work correctly. I invented a deck of cards called ‘the deck of a dozen things’ and one of the cards takes your next nat 20 and turns it into a nat 1, one of my players pulled this card and began using luck points to avoid their nat 20’s. This was fine until they rolled with advantage and got a nat 20, they then used a luck point to re roll that nat 20, saying that mechanically they could roll another d20 and choose any of the three dice rolls. I let this happen at the time but it sparked a conversation about if luck points can be used to cancel out disadvantage/advantage. If by definition you have to take the higher or lower number, surely the addition of a third roll would only be used if they rolled a high number than the previous two for advantage or a lower number for disadvantage. I later said that I’d have to think about this more and see if I’d allow them to just choose any of the three dice rolls if they try to use luck points with advantage/disadvantage again. Am I wrong for saying I’d need to consider this or should I just let them use luck points in this way? I humbly await your judgment. .. JEFF! That one guys name is Jeff, I remembered.

Ben Delahay

Howdy Honorable Justices and disgraced Nepo Baby Jake Hurlwitz! I am currently playing Curse of Strahd. My character is fairly friendly with his Dark Passenger an Eldritch deity trapped in amber. We’re at the Amber Temple where we can finally free these Dark Passengers from their prisons. I’ve been roasted for months because I’ve been open and honest about wanting to free my Dark Passenger (now Dear Passenger). We had a classic miscommunication and he imprisoned my soul for awhile. It happens. However, since arriving here, two separate people have already freed their Eldritch deities upon the world. What the hell am I supposed to do? I still want to free my guy but now everyone’s on edge even though I’m the only one that’s been open with the party about this. Is it still a dick move to go ahead and free them? Further context, my best and now only friend from my backstory has also been cursed by one of these things and this is the only way to save them. My heart tells me to go through with it, but my mind tells me it must be a court approved decision.

Abby Walker

Dearest Darlingest Justices (and Jake), I present the case of the Scorned Sister. I was DMing a oneshot for my mom, my younger sister M, my best friend, and my best friend’s younger brother R. All were first time players. They had just slaughtered several members of an arcane drug ring when they encountered the halfling who had created the drug. M, playing a halfling Druid, tried to befriend him in the following ways: giving him a flower, saying they were both halflings, and asking “why are you mad at me?” (Note: she had just wild shaped into a bear and killed all of his colleagues). I asked her to roll persuasion and she rolled low, but wouldn’t take no for an answer, to the point where I had the halfling explain in-character that he wasn’t interested in friendship. The rest of the table had become openly annoyed. But then R rolled a Nat 20 to convince him to join the party. Later, when they were fighting the final boss, M and R both went down. Since the party had no healer, I had decided the halfling was carrying Goodberries and could bring them up. I had him resurrect R first, since R was within his movement, but M was upset, and claimed the halfling “didn’t heal me because he hates me.” She pouted for the rest of the game. Justices, was I in the wrong here?

Felix Principe-gillespie

To the honourable justices and hip cool bailiff Jack, I come before you with a brief, yet painful case, that of the long coffee. My friend asked if I would cameo as a villain for a week in his group, I said sure, why not, sounds fun. I created my goofy evil circus master and awaited the event. The day arrived and my DM friend told me to wait at a nearby coffee shop till he gave me the signal to come on up. So I had a coffee, and another, and another. I waited for 2 hours before I called it and decided to leave. Another hour later I got the message telling me to come on up. I told him I had left and he was thrown. Later he apologised for making me wait so long, but contents I should have remained waiting as the players "needed time to naturally find me". Justices, have I been wronged, or must I accept that the price of a cameo is more than a few cups of coffee?

Melissa Kamp

Honorable justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner and less honorable former justice Jake. Greetings from Germany! I come to you with the case of yet another problem-rogue. I DM a game for my best friend, her boyfriend, and one of his friends whom I did not know before DMing for them. I let them create their characters by themselves as we are playing a written module that does not rely on character backgrounds all that much. He decided that he wanted to play a rogue and came up with the name Huo Ren Son, which is basically the German equivalent of Sonof Awhore. I immediately told him that I would not forbid him from choosing his own name, but that I would like him to take this campain seriously. He promised me that this name was just a dumb joke and that he would be taking the campain seriously. Against my better judgement, I believed him. At the start of the first session he announced that he had searched for character art online and proudly presented a picture of Kim Jong Un. I reminded him of his promise and he called me a buzzkill, but backed down because the other two players were not on board either. The first few sessions went fine, but now he has started requesting to check each foe they kill for testicles, so that he may take them as a trophy. I told him that I do not want that image in my head, but he will not stop asking for it. Should I just give in and let him have his fun? Or am I justified in wanting to kick him from our group? Please take this decision off my shoulders. Much love

Addie K

Greetings Justices and the other guy, I bring you the case of the corrupt con save. On our most recent adventure, our party of pirates found ourselves battling it out against Ghost Ship and crew. After rolling on high on a history check, we deduced to defeat the captain of this ghostly vessel we needed to destroy the bell he was constantly ringing (or at the very least stop him from ringing it). My Paladin/Bard, Witchteria, cast heat metal on the bell in an attempt to have the ghost pirate drop it. Our DM decided as this bell was magical, that it should get a Con Save to see if I’d hit by the spell. I asked where in heat metal it defines that and his response was “it just doesn’t make sense that you could cast it on a magical object”. He rolled a con save, which he passed, and elected it wouldn’t even take partial damage but that instead the spell would fail, taking my only remaining 3rd level spell slot (I had upcast). The events following this included us losing much of our NPC crew, our boat being in disrepair, and Witchteria dying. I ask you Justices, was I wronged by this con save or am I just salty as the sea by my character meeting her death. I await your decision.

Joseph Goldstein

To the honorable Justices and the ever dutiful Bailiff Jaques, I present the case for the of the (un)mapping. In a home game, my group was taking a break from the campaign that I run to let one of our other players run a campaign. I was a little worried as his style of play tended to be confrontational and chaotic, but agreed to work on the next section of our long running campaign. The game was very much within that style, and clashed with the rest of the group, but we maintained on respectfully. In one session, we discovered a cave that the baddies were hiding out in. We carefully snuck in and mapped the entire cave using invisibility / pass without trace and good roles to get us through the session without tipping our hand. We ended the session by regrouping, camping for the night, and planning on venturing into the cave the next day. This mapping was purely in the game, as we did not actually copy the real map. The next session, the DM started out by telling us he had lost the original map that he had used for the previous session, and that he had created another random map instead. We were fine with this until he told us we would no longer know the cave layout as it had changed so drastically. When we pushed back, he then explained that the cave was actually a mine, and that the layout from yesterday no longer applied. This was just the start of what turned into the only session where I have ever tried to get my character killed. We asked him to leave the group shortly after. But I come before the court now to ask, was it wrong of us to expect that we would have known the layout of the cave from mapping it the day before, or could overnight mining change the map so drastically that it would be like entering a new location? I humbly await your judgement.

Jonah Lipton

To the resilient bailiff and oft discourtious judges, I present the case of The Indecisive Group. I recently started playing again with some longtime friends, but since we're all pretty long in the tooth when it comes to rpgs we couldn't decide what to play. Our session 0 consisted of pitching a few different games and making characters for them. In the end we decided on one of the systems, and got about an hour into playing. We agreed we'd pick the game up again in a month (we can't consistently meet any more often than that), but two players mentioned wanting to start next session by making characters for more systems before we resume play. The quandary I bring before you is this: given our infrequent schedule, should we focus on the game we've already started, or is it okay to indulge ourselves on this exercise and see if we land on something that really speaks to us? I humbly await your decision, specifically the input from my fellow mensch.

Joey Smit

To the magnanimous judges and the degenerate Jake, I present the case of TooManySmites-McGee I'm in a campaign right now where the DM puts in little too no work. Doesn't prep ahead of time, doesn't incorporate players into the story, and frankly, doesn't know the rules. He allows other players to simply "turn in a circle when swinging" to hit nearly every enemy. He gives us way to difficult of encounters then provides a dues ex machina every time. Since I've started to get annoyed at this I don't keep count of my smites anymore. I've tried to encourage the DM to read up and prepare but he doesn't. Am I wrong to put in as much effort at the dm?

Matthew R

Judges and bailiff please offer me guidance. I was in a campaign where we wound up fighting against a kraken. A party member used control water to part the water beneath the kraken while another party member used spike growth to have the terrain cause damage and act as difficult terrain. As a pact of the blade warlock with the deep as my patron, I wanted to also use control water spell to spin the kraken with a whirlpool and therefore cause damage from both spike growth and the whirlpool. my DM did not allow this on my turn saying I wasn’t strong enough alone (even though the kraken had failed it’s save) but allowed it for another party members who also stocked control water, giving them the cool killing blow I wanted. Was I robbed?

Dagur Logi

Forgive me dice christ for I have sinned and has this weight heavy on my heart for several years now. I was running my first campaign with my friends and we started using crit cards (forgive me Murph, I try to make everything fair and taylor the cards desire to the moment/attack so it makes sense). We where having a chase scene where my players where mounted on hippagriffs, chasing a manticore through a fog filled cannyon. My partys warlock cast eldritch blast and rolled a 1. I draw a card and it says "a swarm of creatures appear in the area and are hostile towards the player". My mind went with a swarm of bats because the eldritch blast hit the canyon, stirring the bats awake. The warlock cast another eldritch blast and here is my confession. He rolled a natural 1 and the card said "you and the creature closest to you make a dc 10 wisdom check and if you both fail you swap minds for 1d4 rounds" the warlock rolls below 10 but a single bat rolled a natural 18 on the dice. With my pride nowhere to be found I said " the bat failed" I fudged the dice. I did the cardinal sin and I have been thinking about this moment for the longest time. The moment was pretty funny as his character started to flail about as a bat entered his mind and his mind went into a bat and another character had to leave the chase to help the warlock. I have sinned and I ask for forgiveness Praise dice Christ

Bebs

To whom it may concern, I present a 3 year old case that occurred during my first campaign DMing, which also happened to be my first campaign at all. I did my research, and learned the best I could but caveated to one of our players (let's call him J) I might need help with technical stuff and he agreed. Turns out, we were playing pathfinder, and I had learned DnD. Anyways, after a few sessions, one dragonborn player kept going to random towns and killing innocent commoners. This was difficult as the other players wanted to get on with my story. To solve this, I gave the party a set of rings whose wearers couldn't be more than 100 feet apart or they'd start taking damage. So a PC put a ring on himself and the dragonborn. Other members of the party erupted into anger because those rings were worth more than I had given them to them for. The night ended with J calling me a bad DM and insisting he start DMing and the dragonborn walking away, continually taking more damage until he died. Was I wrong to take the dragonborn's freedom away? P.S. we don't play with J anymore. He DMed 2 sessions and everyone got bored and quit.

Tiago Filipe

Intro free 2023 I played a echo Knight fighter who prefers firearms as their main weapon. On one faithful session, my DM and I realised that my favourite subclass features, Unleash Incarnation, specifies you must use a melee weapon for this feature's effect. The DM enforced the feature RAW from then on with an iron fist, even though we had bit used the rule for the previous year of weekly sessions. My character had a well-known affinity for firearms, was a gunsmith, and even used a wish spell to gain the mastercrafting skills of his legendary artificer father. Was I wrong to feel salty about an unexpected rules correction a year into playing this character?

Boomclaw the Twice-Dead Kobold

Greetings to the honorable justices and also Jake I guess. I would like to consult with the court regarding my own DM ruling in the case of Peed Pants v Guard. One of my players who was casing a museum for a heist got made by an eagle-eyed 8 year old and was detained by the museum guards. The player asked to use the restroom as they are a Changeling wearing Glamourweave and could easily come out as a different person with different illusory clothes. They rolled a Nat 1 to persuade the guard and their request was denied. The player then asked if they could get retroactive advantage by peeing their pants. I allowed this under the following conditions: 1. This would never ever work again. 2. Their Glamourweave would always show them with peed pants until they had it laundered. The player seemed mildly annoyed about condition #2 but proceeded to pee their pants. I ask the court, was this an appropriate ruling for an otherwise normal campaign?

Owen Rath

I truly do not know if this is a case or a confession, but I regardless prostrate myself before the court. I come here today to discuss the matter of lying about a central character trait. In my first D&D campaign, I played a 10 year old boy who was, upon his deathbed in the "real world" transported to a fantasy realm. Once central tenet of his backstory was that my character's father died before he could teach my character how to swim (they had been planning to learn the summer he died, but never got the chance). Cut to about 8 sessions into the campaign, when my party was trying to find a way to sneak into an fortified city and we discovered an underwater passageway/ruins. Guess who conveniently 'forgot' that his character didn't know how to swim? That's right. This sinner. Ultimately, no one else at the table remembered the small character detail and we had a fun time exploring the ruins, but the lies have haunted me to this day. I plead to the court for absolution of my sins. (Ironically, my most recent character, a dog-man named Pandem, heroically died while drowning. So maybe my penitence has been paid.)

Bleepers

To the honorable and esteemd muppet judeges and the one human named Gerald I think? The case of Missing Lore If it pleases the court I bring a case about my friend who’s a first time DM making us miss out on essential story bits because we “missed”. We started a campgain and have been playing through it and in one ark we where tasked to look around a town and uncover clues about a secret cult. My character who was a guard of this town lead the investigation and we searched people of interests, however searching the place despite me rolling high we never found out who the leader was. My friend claimed that because I was just searching the room and not documents I was never going to find the info. I told him that it silly if I rolled high enough(18 investigation) I shoulda gotten it, but he said video game rules where if your only looking in the main section and not the secret areas you’ll never find the lore. I told him that if it was so important it should have been given and if it was behind a roll a very low one at that. Was I in the wrong for thinking crucial lore shouldn’t be behind a roll at all? P.S Luckily this didn’t sour the campaign and we’ve been playing still since I still very much enjoy playing my Jeckyl and Hyde werewolf EchoKnight fighter

Shawn Manis

To the honorable justices and the badass bailiff jake. I bring to you the plot to kill a fellow party member. This was my first time as a dm for some of my close friends. They invited a player named conan to join that I didn't know but he was super into his character and I really liked him. First session went great! Or so I thought cause before the next session I got a message from my 3 close friends saying conan was a "try hard" and they were going to murder his character to teach him a lesson. I felt this was wrong and told them to vote to kick him out or find a way to get along. The vote was 2:1 so I messaged conan and told him unfortunately the players voted and he was kicked out. (This sucked ass to do!). My other friends then went to conan and said they never had a vote and had no idea why I kicked him! This led to a big argument saying I was railroading their campaign and I don't know how to dm. The campaign ended and none of them have talked to me since. Could I have handled this better? I humbly await your judgment

Casey Fenton

Hello to the highest of high supreme crit justices and to the lowlyiest of lows, Amir’s friend Josh. I present the case of the stolen DMship. A couple of friends, and I started a recent campaign where none of us have DM’d before, but one person was willing to give it a try. There were a few early rough spots, but a handful of sessions in and we found a good groove. Leading into one of our sessions the DM told us that they couldn’t make it but rather than cancel, another player could step in and DM in their place. We were a bit reluctant at first, but the friend said they would give it a try so we gave it a go. The substitute DM proceeded to make very wild choices that severely altered the story such as the burning down of our “headquarters” in the main city and introducing a new faction of enemies. The session went well but ended on a cliffhanger far removed from our previous DM’s storyline. The next month we went into the game unknown which storyline we would be continuing. With both DMs back, it was announced that the previous several sessions of story were being wiped away as “a dream” because the original DM liked this new storyline better. Ok, a little disappointing but we were ready to move forward. Not so fast, we were now told all the equipment and level ups to level 5 we received previously “weren’t real” as it was a dream and we were resetting all players back to level 2. Should the dungeon Masters have talked to their players before essentially resetting the campaign? It also feels like the two DMs work together between sessions now and give each others PCs more favorable story arcs and equipment. Is this group done for or should I stick it out even though I feel stuck as a background extra to other peoples main character story?

Cody

Greetings, honorable justices, and the man, the myth, the legend, Bailiff Jake (reinstate him). I present the case of help me please: My party and I (the DM) have just finished Lost Mines of Phandelver to Storm King’s Thunder. It was fun, and honestly, I think we all had a great time as an introduction to DND, this being our first campaign run ever. However, I can’t for the life of me, figure out how to encourage roleplaying on a larger scale. My PCs only role-play a good amount when it comes to shopping or trying to sex up some NPCs. One of my PCs also metagames pretty heavily. So, I ask you, great Justices, how do I encourage better roleplaying and prevent metagaming or am I condemned to live a life of only sexual PC encounters and harsh metagaming? (Not that I have anything wrong with it, just wish they would have an interest in roleplaying in other situations too.)

ChefJustinLane

DM Vs. Player, Honored Justices and Recently Dishonored Bailiff, I play in a streamed 5e campaign that has been running for over two years now. One of the players has a third party subclass that was built with support from the DM due to the player’s desired character arc. The class focuses heavily, almost exclusively on fire damage. The player has even spent resources on Elemental Adept to bypass fire resistance. However, every–and I did not say most, I said every–significant enemy we have faced since this subclass was introduced has been not just resistant to fire, but immune to fire. The player has voiced frustration on a number of occasions. To make matters worse, there is additional context in that this Player DM’d our Strahd campaign, and brutally murdered the character of our DM in this campaign. I ask you, judges: Is this a DM holding a grudge or otherwise intentionally punishing this player/character, or should the player just live with the fact that the whole world seems to be immune to fire damage and take some other damage types? Sincerely, Justin M (@TheBrunchGuild)

Jack Jones

To the Supreme and pristine Justices and to the dirty sniveling man all the way down there, I bring to you the Case of the Sneaking Shields! We're in the middle of a long term game that's been going on for three years. But, there's a bit of a problem when it comes to shields and their AC. Our DM keeps pulling a fast one on our cleric by claiming that the creature attacked from behind, and therefore, the shield couldn't have been used. Unfortunately, this tactic has resulted in our poor cleric being downed quite a few times. The weird thing is, I also wield a shield, but this has never happened to me in the entire three years we've been playing. It's gotten to the point where we joke about tying a shield onto the cleric's back just to make sure the DM can't claim it's unshielded. Don't get me wrong, it's all in good fun and the party gets a kick out of it. But, deep down, it still bothers me whenever the DM pulls this sneaky move. What say you High Justices is this a case of DM sweat or is something more sinister at play?

Horny advocate for Welly's carnal audiobook

Fellows. I am a fairy. Not a fey. A little Tom Thumb sized winged fairy. If I am knocked to zero by crossbow bolts while flying, do I take the same amount of falling damage as a flightless human? or does the same physics that allows spiders to fall harmlessly, aided by the natural wind resistance of my delicate fairy wings mean I essentially feather fall? Perhaps some compromise between? 5e RAW seem to imply not unless the flight is magical, but even here flying fairies are often described as a mixture pf natural insectoid wing flight AND fairy magic a-la pixie dust. (Maybe compensating for the larger humanoid bulk, compared to insects.) This also my first time ever not being the DM, so I'd also like to know should I even question how this is treated, or just wait to see how my DM rules and go with that?

Isa Sharfstein

To the most honorable, exalted, and respected Justices and the not-worthy-of-adjectives bailiff, I bring to you the case of the Squirrel TPK, may it please the court. Several years ago, I was DMing a long-running game during quarantine with some players I met on Reddit. We had really begun to get along, and one of my players asked if we wanted to play in a two-shot he wanted to DM. Most of us agreed, and as I had a bad case of Perma-DM, I rolled up a Gnomish Tempest Cleric named Tonkle Thunderwind. In the first session, all was going well, we were looking for some giants that had been terrorizing the nearby town, and I decided to use my ability as a forest gnome to speak to animals. I called over a small squirrel from the nearby forest, and asked if it had seen or heard any giants nearby. The DM begins to narrate how the squirrel was annoyed at being called over and talked to, and told us off rudely. As we are a pretty comedic group, I said “okay, fuck you” to the squirrel, which became angry and ran back into the forest. Everyone laughed and we continued the session, in which we easily defeated the giants, and I didn’t think much of the encounter. At the beginning of the next session, however, the DM told us he “had something special prepared.” We went into a clearing in a forest five minutes into the session, and were faced with 40 normal squirrels and an enormous monster squirrel, who had all become angry because of my actions the previous day. We then had an hour-and-a-half long battle with the squirrels, which ended in a painful TPK. It really seemed, however, that he had planned that outcome, as he then narrated how we “all woke up in our beds having learned a lesson,” and told us after the session that he had found the Giant Squirrel stat block on a broken home brew website. I ask you: was my response to a rude squirrel enough to justify such a prolonged unwinnable combat? I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

Hector Ortega

To the esteemed judges and the disgraced justice from the Boston Market, I bring forth the halfling turned human. I have played in a campaign with a few friends that started a few months ago. I have been playing a Circle of the Moon druid halfling and have been enjoying the campaign thus far. In our last session, our DM revealed that my character's long lost parents are actually both human and stated that I am not a halfling, I am just an extremely short human boy. Immediately after the session ended, he asked me to go into my character sheet and re-stat my character to reflect my new race as a human. I told him I wasn't completely cool with this change and his response was "I'm just trying to tell a story here, man. Sorry.". To the honorable justices I ask this, did my DM completely subvert my own character's backstory for his own "storytelling" or should I just follow through with this and see what happens? I humbly await your decision.

Ilana Galpert

Honorable Justices and Subservient Bailiff, The forever DM of my friend group finds weird loopholes whenever we try to interrogate an NPC. Sometimes they have suicide rings, sometimes their hearts have tattoos that make them explode. Most recently, we spent an hour grilling a greasy Kobold teen for info on his crime gang. One of my friends decided to try psychological warfare and used phantasmal killer to make the teen think he was in solitary confinement for 6 months without drink or water (dark, I know.) The DM rolled a one on the spell save and proclaimed the teen dead. Here's where things get weird. He allowed us to revive the teen, but immediately the kobold started screaming "send me back! Send me back!" (he went to purgatory) and trying to gnaw his own arm off. At a loss for what to do, we dropped the screaming youth on the steps of a hospital with his arms chained behind his back. It felt like we wasted an hour of game time. How do y'all feel about a teenage kobold (soon to be father, btw) trying to die via arm-gnawing after returning from purgatory?

Darkrisky

The Daddy Killing Patreon To the incredibly badass judges and the plain bad bailiff Jared, I give you the case of the patron-less daddy killer. There’s a lot to this case so I will keep it as brief as possible. I play a sea elf fathomless warlock of a noble background with a surfer/stoner vibe and a distrust of authority. She’s at a school to get away from her overprotective parents who sent her there with a necklace of sending. (I have explicitly said to my DM I am excited to play this class and that I did not want an evil patron.) During their adventures, my character was given a flute by an evil entity. Not wanting the responsibility, she destroyed it. As she did, her patron began to scream into her head something about freedom and “destroying all the sea elves”. Concerned, my character decides to use her necklace of sending to call her dad to ask if he knows anything about her patron. When she contacts her dad in a FaceTime-y way, her dad screams at her that she has doomed her whole city by destroying this flute. Turns out that destroying the flute resulted in her patron being released from the plane her city elders were keeping it. A tentacle then rose from the water and skewered her father. My character ran to the headmaster of the school to get help and he opened a portal to her home city which was being destroyed by my character’s patron. Suddenly, my patron got sucked into the sky without any explanation. My DM then turns to me and says I’ve lost all my warlock levels and had to choose a new class! He was surprised when I said my character killed herself and then I quit the campaign. He quit DMing this campaign after this because he “got bored”. So I ask this of you judges, was I wrong to be miffed and should have waited to see where the cool storyline he supposedly had planned went or did I have every right to be upset? I await your humble ruling.

andrea oaks

Hello Justices and also Jake, I am a PC in a campaign where we recently had to fight a woodpecker god who had been terrorizing us in the beastlands. The gunner had shot the bird out of frustration and set off a very hard fight. Before the session, the DM warned us that it was going to be an extremely hard fight and with a chance of us all dying because it was a literal God (CR 14) and ,the four of us were at level 6, and we had just got out of a different fight. We all took prep extremely seriously except for our parties druid whose character is the embodiment of their dog in character form. When we suggested that this player look over their skills and spells to be sure they were ready, they said they weren’t going to because that’s not how the dog would act. We argued that since the PC just has the personality of the dog an isn’t an actual dog, they would be well aware of all of their abilities. We all managed to survive but only because the DM rolled a random event that let the gods rival act as a healer and help once we all went down. Were we right to be annoyed and insist they prep as their character, or were they right since it would be true to character of a dog not to prep. We humbly await your ruling.

Jack H

May my case expose any false Justices that may be acting outside their jurisdiction. Our party was at a magical tree that required us to solve a riddle to advance to the boss fight. The riddle went as follows: I cast a spell that affects the masses. I am the whisper you hear among the branches. When with many, I face scrutiny. But when alone, I’ve been mastered. I realized that the perfect answer to the riddle was a fart. It satisfied every line of the riddle. A fart is, in fact, a whisper that affects the masses and is scrutinized among others. Everyone knows a fart is mastered when alone. However, our DM did not accept this answer and eventually gave us a hint which led to the real answer, A Song. This brought the party into a frenzy as we felt that fart was a more appropriate solution than a song. I eagerly await your ruling on if my correct answer should’ve been accepted. P.S., to screen for false Justices, what does a Scouter do in Dragonball Z?

ChocolatePI

To the honorable judges, I present a case that happened last week. This whole campaign our party had been followed by an invisible stalker, and we could never get a high enough roll to find him. This session we decided we should try convincing him to reveal himself. Our Bard rolled a 23 on persuasion, and the DM told up that the stalkers was revealed in the croud, but none of us could see him with our passive perceptions. We argued that we should be able to roll to see him, but the dm didn't let us. Was this right or dose our DM deserve punishment. Thank you for the courts time

Ilana Galpert

The purgatory realm was called "Dolurrh" (pronounced dolor) presumably after the latin word for pain

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, 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 initiate 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 friend made such a stupid decision? 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?

Colin Whelan

To the judges of heaven-shaking greatness, and the bailiff of Schrodinger-like favor, I present to you the case of the Pants-less Shit. I am the DM for four absolutely wonderful goofballs, but because of scheduling often only play for about 2 hours at a time due to scheduling issues around work. For this reason, I do occasionally have to reign in side chatter and shenanigans to keep the main plot going. While the group was helping an Ogre witch mimic-farmer get her favorite mimic back, our party's druid (an ever-naked kobold wthout a name who runs around in trees and makes fake milk with mushrooms) said they had "shit themselves" as a joke. I laughed and made the comment "yes, Kobold somehow shits themselves without pants" attempting to acknowledge the joke and move on. However, all 4 of my players suddenly ganged up on me, insisting pants were not necessary to shit oneself. I maintained that the shit had to mostly stay attached to you somehow to be considered shitting "yourself" and pants or another article of clothing would be necessary for such a thing, whereas the druid simply dropped a dump there in the swamp. This continued to be a discussion for nearly 30 minutes, and when I again tried to get things on the rails I was accused of trying to avoid the discussion. In the end, we agreed to disagree and moved on. However, the argument about shitting oneself was never closed. I ask the court. Am I right in holding true to the importance of clothes in this situation, or do I have my facts of defecation misconstrued? I humbly await your judgement. P.S. the player of the Druid is also my cousin, and she had my aunt involved in the razzing for a short time.

Alejandro 'Alex' Martinez

Forgive me daddy dice christ for I have been a bad, bad boy. For my first time DM-ing I ran a Chrono Trigger inspired mini campaign. When my players got to the first boss (Yakra) I swapped out the slug for a giant Ape. My best friend who had more experience at DM-ing than I would spam his Bard's vicious mockery knowing that my giant ape had horrible wisdom save. So in a flustered act I gave my ape a similar move and used it mainly on him. Making a circle under his knee, inspired by Pentagreens, my Ape would yell "DONT LOOK OVER HERE" and if they failed the wisdom save to not look they'd get a nut tap and disadvantage on melee attacks. I await whatever punishment but also feel justified.

Lauren

Greetings to the coruscating justices and the pedestrian but paradisal bailiff. I bring to y’all the case of the un-fucking-hittable sorceress. I’m a first-time DM dming for three friends/first-time players. One of my friends is a fairy from the Feywild, which is a character I love, especially because we have a lot of planar things happening in our campaign (our shadar-kai ranger is from the Shadowfell and our aasimar bard/warlock is from the material plane, so it wasn’t off limits at all). I built a ton of lore around her wild magic use and it’s something we’ve had a lot of fun creating together. Here’s the issue: between her flight, mirror image, the shield spell, and now medium armor through a super smart cleric multi-class, this tiny wild magic sorceress fairy is harder to hit than the sun. As a result, bad guys are generally forced to hit the bard/warlock and ranger, which is all good in my book, but makes it so that her teammates almost always feel targeted (not in a bad way, just in a “yeah, she’s up in the sky so he’s gonna attack you because his sword can’t get up 30 feet” way). It’s really just due to her smart spell casting and flight (everyone has good AC), neither of which I want to punish (I heard Justice Murphy’s complaints about flight in my head while I gave her the go ahead, so this is fully on me.) My question to the court is: Obviously, I wouldn’t just give all the bad guys a fly speed, because that would completely ruin why fairies have that tactical advantage; but, I’ve been debating giving some either a good jump ability or better ranged attacks so that they stand a chance of hitting at all. Would I be wrong to do so? Or, is there a better way to deal with flying PCs that I’m not thinking of since I’m still somewhat new to this? I don’t want it to feel like I’m singling her out for building a good character, but it currently feels like I’m singling her fellow party members out as a result. I eagerly await y’all’s just and illuminating judgement!

Freddie Meraw

To the esteemed Supreme Crit Justices, and to the pitious, oft-libeled Bailiff Jack, I bring you the case of the Nat 1 Party Foul. Last summer I was running a star wars 5e campaign for 5 friends, and one of my rulings on a Nat 1 upset one of my players enough to throw his d20 in the trash. The group was attending the birthday party of a notable crime lord. They had just competed in a gladiatorial competition as part of the festivities, and were saying their goodbyes at the throne room after receiving their rewards. The player in question was playing a Sith (evil space wizard) and one of the npc gladiators was a Jedi (good space wizard). As they were leaving, he cast Force Disarm to steal the Jedi’s lightsaber, and the Jedi failed the save. As the weapon zoomed 30ft across the throne room in plain view, I had him roll a Charisma Check. The Nat 1 landed, and so the crime lord threatened him for disrespecting the other guest and demanded he return the weapon. Since he’d already rolled, and especially given the Nat 1, I refused to let him make a persuasion check (to which he adds a +13) to smooth things over and keep the weapon. He was visibly upset and argued a little bit. The next session he informed us he’d disposed of the offending d20. It was large, made from stone, and definitely expensive, so I feel really guilty about my ruling. Should I have let him try to roll again? I prostrate myself at the mercy of the court.

Andy Kaplan

Hello there Justices Axeford and Tanner, Justice City Pigeon, and the meh Baliff Jake. I bring forth an example of dice christ in action and the dice telling a story. We were finishing up our AL game fighting Szass Tam, Duracles, a dozen barbed devils, and other Thayian knights in Avernus trying to rescue King Hekaton's soul. There were 4 PCs, all lvl 20. and we were going in not on a full rest with many spell slots already used. My sorcerer 17/bard 3 went her first 4 rounds without doing any damage with saving throws succeeding (disintegrate), being counter spelled, or being restrained and having to roll with disadvantage. Finally, I was able to use a spell scroll of far step to get to Hekaton's soul and unbind him. He immediately lets out a power surge doing 100 damage to the enemies. My next roll on crown of stars...NAT F*CKING 20!!! Kill Duracles and since that is just a bonus action I'm able to cast disintegrate on Szass Tam and he fails his dex check and hit him for 81 points. We eventually win, without anyone being killed. That nat 20 never felt so good. All hail DICE CHRIST!!

Carlos Gonzales

Hey what’s up Murph and Co(Jared too) I feel like I robbed my player of his pcs retirement. One of my players was about to retire his pc at the end of her arc, during that arc the pc was about to get revenge on the interim king of the city who killed his pcs family and exiled her. Well during the final session he told me he wanted his pc to rule the city after getting revenge, however they were already pledged to another king to be, so the big climatic fight happens and in needed to progress the story beyond the arc I had the interim king send the pc and another pc to the Feywild from a failed charisma check. The check comes from a magical chest piece Last Stand I believe from when he dies it sends anyone in an area to another plane if it’s failed. I feel like I seriously messed up the ending of the pcs story because I couldn’t adjust and stuck to what I had planned, he’s unsure if he wants to retire the pc now after the crew saves the two that traveled to the Feywild. I just feel bad he cared a lot about this character and I fumbled the bag

Rebecca N

To the Beloved Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and Good Ol' What's-His-Name, I wish to bring to your attention the case of the Indecisive DM, and the Perhaps Too Encouraging Players. I've been part of an online group for about 5 years now, and I do enjoy their company. This is also my first and only dnd group, and based on other cases I must have gotten very lucky. When we do play, it's typically really fun! I enjoy the plots and world's our DM crafts, and the players bring a fun energy to the table. However, at the time of writing, our DM has attempted to start 9 different campaigns in 4 different ttrpg systems (namely DND, Pathfinder, Monster of the Week, and two homebrew systems). Early on, I (and I feel the rest of the party) tried to be encouraging, not wanting to Squash our DM's creative process. However, we've never played a set of characters past level 5 in a DND/Pathfinder game, and we sometimes will go weeks to months without playing, typically for scheduling reasons, but sometimes our DM will set up a date, and then cancel last minute because he wasn't feeling it or wasn't ready. So I ask the court, are we as a party perhaps being too lenient on our DM? Or should we continue to follow our DM wherever his whims may take him? I lay myself at the mercy of the court.

Ebony-Rose Ellis

hello honourable supreme crit justices and the fragrant bayleaf jonk I present the case of the wavey water spell a few months ago we were having an incredible session that involved a mid air dragon fight in which our party soared a giant invisible (dwayne the) roc (johnson) above a junior serpentine dragon in a snowy mountain to get the jump in it before it got to a new PC that was being introduced... I am setting the scene as we had the advantage on the dragon and it hadn't spotted us, i wanted my water genasi warlock to drop our invisibility on the party to cast control water using its whirlpool feature on the clouds as a way of capturing it. I asked our DM what the cloud situation was before I cast to which they responded that there was a thin layer of clouds below the dragon Upon stating my plan, the DM proclaimed that I would not be able to whirlpool the clouds and my spell wouldn't work I humbly accepted this but every so often I find myself thinking about how SLAY and SERVE it would have been if he had just let this happen pls tell me... was this an inventive use of the spell or what i taking too many liberties with the language

Elana

Elana (she/they)-I don't have a case nor confession, though I do seek the wisdom of the church of dice christ. For everyone who has been a DM (so jake, I guess you can sit there and look pretty if you want) how do you get rid of the imposter syndrome, I've been running the same campaign for a little over 2 years and the party just hit level 15 but I still get a sense before and after the session that they just see the campaign as just a thing to do every other Sunday. I don't want to step down from the forever DM, as exhausting as it is sometimes, but how can I assure myself they enjoy the game I built for them, or do I just need to make the story more exciting until they say how much they enjoy it. Praise be to dice christ and may all your crits be clutch

garett144

May it lightly tickle the fancy of the court and firmly shake the hand of that bail guy. I present the case of the contractual broom. Not my own case but from my coworker with permission. He is playing a game with some friends and has a magic broom. This magic item has become sort of iconic to his character. After several sessions of not feeling motivated to play the character he decided to retire him to roll a new one, having the character leave the party for his own journey and fly off into the sunset. The rest of the party felt outraged that he had the gall to take his magic items with him and not bequeath them to the party, but the DM let him. But where things get weird is after he makes his new character to join the party they force his new character to sign an in game contract stating that they do not own any magic items but instead the party does, and upon departing they must keep nothing. I ask the court, are these players too utilitarian to enjoy the rp and character moment or are they in the right?

Pigter_

To the high justices that are sweet and kind, and to the lowly bailiff Jake who I once saw push over a child in a parking lot: I present to you the Case of the Critting Concubines. I was playing in a spontaneous level-20 one shot that was loosely Old Testament inspired. I was playing as Simon son of Jacob, with a build that included 13 levels of Druid. As we descended into hell to fight Satan, the first circle to get past was Lust, which featured Solomon being swarmed by his 1,000 wives, coming in waves of 200. At the start of combat, I quickly threw down a 4th-level Ice Storm that targeted all 200 (per the DM’s ruling), and I rolled my damage. The DM said it didn’t matter, as they all had 1 hp, so any large AoE spell would do the trick. However, the DM then said that since 15 of them had rolled natural 20s, they would escape. I argued that the spell’s wording said that they would take half damage on a success, and even a nat 20 would still damage and thus kill them all. He said that a nat 20 was a nat 20, and they would live. Shortly after the party managed to kill all the remaining wives quite quickly, but I was still slightly upset that my spell didn’t work out how it should, since other players needed to spend their attacks picking off the stragglers. Justices and bailiff, was I in the wrong for wanting the whole group to succumb to my spell, or was the DM right for keeping Dice Christ in mind even when we weren’t following his canon? I humbly await your decree.

Austin Rousseau

Honorable justices and Jake, just Jake.... I play a campaign with my family, and I play as a 16 year old human warlock, pact of the fiend, named Vanita. My patron is a spirit of Vengeance that is possessing my body named Jareb. We often fight over control of the body with a dice roll. In a recent session to an underground black market, a troll offered my character a boon if he could get Vengeance on the lord of the blackmarket , who greatly disfigured her. It being about Vengeance, I rolled the die, and got a 6. I needed a 1 to switch to Jareb. My heart said that the story was too compelling and told the table that a six meant Jareb took over. I could lie, cause the d6 used to be a coin flip until recently. This led to a series of events that ended with the utter destruction of the black market, the death of the troll from before, and worst of all, a PC death. Was I wrong to change the mechanics last minute, or was I right to trust my instincts to tell a better story, even if it meant the death of my sister's PC. I humbly await your decision.

Dr. BoomBoom

To the time honored impartial justices, and the totally biased bailiff Jehosaphat, I humbly bring before you The Case of the Magic Monk Hands. May it please the court, I am a DM running a group through the Waterdeep: Dragonheist module where my party was infiltrating the lair of the Xanathar Guild; a notorious gang run by the titular beholder, Xanathar. In his lair are some metal gear solid-esque "cameras," a magic spell that has an eye on a ghostly eyestalk. The goblin monk, Rob, decided to sneak his way over and try to rip down the eye, as he had recently obtained the ability to have his fists treated as magic weapons. When I described his acrobatic prowess leading to his hand passing harmlessly through the "ghostly eyestalk" he cried foul. Since he could punch ghosts with his magic fists, he argued he should be able to interact with this magic eyestalk. I argued that he can't punch a lightning bolt or fireball back at a wizard, and that his magic fists do not allow him to grab a spell. Judges, am I a mere eye-stalk-in-the-mud who took an interesting moment away from his players? Or is a spell punching monk too powerful for any table? I eagerly await your judgement.

Parasitic rat

To the supreme crit justices and the lovely bailiff who smells like flowers, I present to you the case of the half-party versus the griffins. So basically I had a mid-air griffin fight staged out since three weeks before, but we kept having to cancel the sessions. I eventually introduced some new players so we wouldnt have to cancel sessions if some people couldn’t make it. I originally planned for the players to ride griffins to their next location and eventually spur mid-air combat with the griffins if they continued trying to force the griffins in a different direction than their nests. However, only two pcs showed up instead of the four I had planned. We played as normal, saying that the other pcs were too hungover to participate, but despite them not having their casters, I decided to initiate the in-air combat anyway. Each player was on a griffin and I allowed the npcs to give help actions while the griffins bucked them off and made claw attacks. The characters are only level 3 and I didnt want to get a tpk so I lowered the griffin’s attack damage. When they were still almost going to die, I decided to let them use cantrips from the missing pcs’ repetoir, and then eventually just allowed them to make charisma checks to make the griffins stop attack entirely. So I ask you, was it unfair to go along with the fight when only half my party was here? How should I have done it different?

Nicolas P.

To the perfect, flawless, immaculate judges, and Jake Hurwitz. I was DMing a game and we had just started a boss battle at the beginning of the session. I did my normal routine of asking my PCs to roll initiative and then hold it while I rolled initiative for the NPC in the party and the boss. I would then input the PCs initiative after I had gotten the other ones written down. Everyone rolled, but one of my players, a plantfolk biohacker (Starfinder RPG), rolled his d20 but then said, "Getting all the bad rolls out now", and proceeded to roll six or seven more times while I was doing the NPC initiatives. All the other PCs had only rolled once and stuck to it, as expected. When I came around to the player in question, they rolled the d20 one final time and used that number. I said nothing as it seemed minor, but I think it holds precedent. If I ask to roll initiative and people roll it, should they hold it until I'm ready and not try and pass off a bad initiative roll as "Getting the bad rolls out"? I humbly await the judges and no one else's judgement.

nollie pollie ollie

To the super hot and honorable judges and the equally as hot but not so honorable bailiff Jonk, I present to you the case of the hombrew hero, I once was DMing a campaign when a player asked if they could do this homebrew subclass of fighter they found. It was their first campaign, so normally i would say no but they were really excited about it so we took a look. We read through it and it didn’t seem too broken so I agreed. Fast forward a few session in, this player is doing a crazy amount of damage for the level we were at. After the session (not wanting to kill the vibe at the table) I asked them to show me their calculations to make sure they were doing it right and to my SHOCK they were adding extra dice of damage saying that they “home brewed” it. I told them that that’s not how that works and they said their character is home brewed there for they should be able to home brew. I said no and that we should pick a new subclass from the phb so it’s easier to follow. They said no they were too attached to their awesome character. I said okay but we can’t use their personal homebrew mechanics. They said I was restricting their creative freedom and it wasn’t fun if I was going to do that, and they eventually ended up leaving the group. So I ask, was i right in asking them not to homebrew their own secret mechanics? Or was I restricting their creative freedom. I humbly await your judgment.

Tim S.

NOM NOM CRUNCH Honorable Crit Justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy -- out of the way bailiff, this question is so crunchy only CURRENTLY presiding Justices can possibly weigh in -- I beg of you to answer this most 5E rules-heavy question. In the party I DM for, my group is currently in their climactic battle against an icy god and a frankly unfair amount of minions and events (it's OK, they still womp me consistently). Our Ranger recently gained access to the Hunter Ranger ability "Volley", which reads verbatim: "You can use your action to make a ranged attack against any number of creatures within 10 feet of a point you can see within your weapon’s range. You must have ammunition for each target, as normal, and you make a separate attack roll for each target." While flying into this battle on our Bard's Pegasus steed, this Ranger also cast "Lightning Arrow", which reads: "The next time you make a ranged weapon attack during the spell’s duration, the weapon’s ammunition, or the weapon itself if it’s a thrown weapon, transforms into a bolt of lightning. Make the attack roll as normal. The target takes 4d8 lightning damage on a hit, or half as much damage on a miss, instead of the weapon’s normal damage. Whether you hit or miss, each creature within 10 feet of the target must make a Dexterity saving throw. Each of these creatures takes 2d8 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one." The Ranger then used his first turn to fire a Volley with Lightning Arrow applied. My question is thus: Does the effect of "Lightning Arrow" apply to EACH target of "Volley"? Because "Volley" is a Multiattack option for Rangers, in the heat of the moment I ruled that "Lightning Arrow" only applied to the first target of "Volley". But I believe a compelling case could be made for it applying to every target, and forums online only have me more confused. I prostrate myself at your feet with a lightning rod of justice in each hand. Did I rule correctly? Or did I cheat my Ranger out of making his already cool turn even cooler?

Grimace

I prostrate myself before dice christ in asking for forgiveness. I recently started my first campaign as DM (a prohibition noir style campaign set in 1920s Detroit) and I had two very experienced players and a brand new player. In our first session I had set up a scenario where the players would be forced to run away. As the players were escaping out of the window at the back the new player got attacked by 3 goblins. They were level 3 so not to squishy but I somehow crit on all 3 attacks that the goblins made on the new player. After the first crit I checked in with him about his hp and where he was at on spells. He was ok but still a little worried. For the 2nd and third attacks when I rolled and saw I crit again and again I fudged the rolls and said they were only regular hits. I really did not want to put him off dnd by accidentally killing his first character in his very first session. I lay myself before dice christ was I ok in fudging rolls to make sure that I did not kill a brand new PC?

Adam Baker

May it please the high crit and Balif Amir. I come with the case of the Revenge Piano. I have a crime with potentially multiple victims and perpetrators. I DMd a one shot where players were forced to use improvise weapons and fight back some intruders with items around the players’ cabin. I had a player choose to be a bard and during my prep I didn’t consider to give him an improvised instrument, thinking it’d be unfair to the other players if he got his equipment but they didn’t. The only instrument in the place was a grand piano on wheels (that’s important). I had planned out the session to utilize odd items and I told the bard that he could use the paino as an improvised instrument and could move it around at half speed. The player didn’t seem too annoyed as he had a plan. He then proceeded to sing and drive the piano (i.e. Thousand Miles) off of the back porch of the cabin onto an enemy below. The enemy in question had been dragged to a point via a Grasping Vines spell and was struck by the piano for a 15ft fall. The question is of damage and a roboDM. The caster of the vine then proceeded to pull up chatGPT and ask it what the damage would be. The AIs answer was 5d6 for a 500lb piano. I decided to make it 7d6. The enemy STILL didn’t die. I felt bad because I may have ruined the bards largest contribution to the game. Was I wrong to roll for damage at all and not make it an insta kill? Is the caster wrong for trying to back seat DM with chatGPT? Was I wrong to take the bard’s instrument in the first place even though it allowed for the coolest moment of the game? I await your judgement?

Tada Mouse

Greetings supreme crit justices and the less than stellar bailiff. I present to you today the case of the Squirrel Slayer. A while ago I set up a short encounter to introduce my longtime friends to the Fey Wild where upon their arrival a squirrel in a tuxedo approached them and offered each of them an acorn. This was to introduce them to the rule of reciprocity in the Wild Beyond the Witchlight playbook. The squirrel offered an acorn to each player which was graciously accepted. However, when the squirrel offered our ranger an acorn, the teenage halfling pulls out his bow and promptly shoots the squirrel. Baffled as to why the previously law abiding halfling would kill this clearly sentient squirrel he replies, “Kepli (the halfling) is a hunter and would want to use the squirrel’s pelt for leather.” To this day he maintains that it was reasonable for Kepli to kill the squirrel while I maintain that upon seeing a squirrel in a tux there probably should have been some hesitation. Was this a justifiable homicide or is our ranger friend a little nuts? All in all, this led to some good fun where the ghost of the squirrel haunted Kepli for the rest his stay in the Fey Wild.

Howell

May it please the Supreme Crit and noted SHURE sticker enthusiast Bailiff Jake. I am here submitting the case of the "One Free Item Voucher." My party had entered a gladiator competition in order to earn favor of the king to aid us in our quest. Many battles ensued. It was glorious. In the semi-finals, however, I was paired to fight the DMPC and he forfeited. I was essentially prevented from going further into the bracket because of this. I was however offered an in-game voucher for a "free item." Upon asking for clarification, my DM said "Anything that doesn't break the game." I was cool with this vague but reasonable condition. In the same session, the druid had a similar disqualifying event and was only compensated with some gold. Feeling bad, my artificer (who specializes in forgeries) made a copy of the voucher to give to the druid (I rolled a NAT 20 on a forgery check). The next session we were able to cash in on our vouchers. We started with me, and I asked for a bag of holding. We visit the vendor and I had to do multiple persuasion checks AND still had to pay some amount of PLATINUM to get it. After this, I had received a ratty, old, stained bag of holding. I was okay with this. The druid then asks for a Staff of the Woodlands and some mystical stranger on the road (who was later revealed to be a demigod) just hands it to him. No checks. No Nothing. I was not okay with this. Since then the DM has enabled the Druid to make a small army of Treants with the staff and now complains that his encounters are trounced by said army of Treants. Am I entitled to my own broken item or should I revel in the now struggling DM's fight against a living forest?

Spore Zealot

The the honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the serviceable Bailiff. We would like to submit an amicus brief entitled, OneD&D's UA Fighter (page 20-23) and Weapons Mastery (page 1-4). https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/one-dnd/ph-playtest-5 We believe that the UA Fighter / Battle Master along with Weapons Mastery and the new mastery weapon properties, best represent Hardwon Surefoot's progress as a legendary adventurer with more than two centuries of experience under his belt. We are less confident about Jake's ability to properly represent Hardwon, but do feel like he deserves a fair chance. In closing, Bring it on, come on.

Alec Montemarano

To the Legendary judges and The insurmountable bailiff. I beseech this court on the case of Dice Christ's Disfavor I've DM'd for our group for a little over 2 years now, and there has been a prevalent occurrence throughout these years and three campaigns. One of my players seems to have the complete disfavor of Dice Christ. The issue at hand is that I regularly roll crits on this player multiple times a session. If I were to quantify the crits to one guy in a party of four. He probably receives 70% of the crits. We are now at the point where he is begging me to not use specific dice. I have four sets that I use, One set is known to the party as the crit killer. We've even tested the dice to prove it's fairness. But for some reason this one specific d20 just loves to crit on this player. So I ask judges should I hear this players request and stop using this die against him and only others? Or shall I continue in my fervent pursuit of allowing the die to choose their victim and continue to ignore his agonizing pleas? We await your justice.

Horse Jonathan

Honorable Judges, I know this is usually more of a civil case court rather than a divorce court, but I am in crisis and hope to receive guidance from your wisdom. Jake is welcome to pitch in if necessary. I've been playing with a group for almost a year now, comprised of some friends I've met through my roommate. The group all knows each other from college, and our DM was my roommate's long-term boyfriend when we first started planning the sessions. Unfortunately, he and my roommate since had a messy break-up, but I continued playing with the group. The problem is that my roommate and I have since started dating. I've spoken to the DM and he was very cool about it, but my girlfriend/roommate/best friend has a real problem with it. I totally understand that it's weird for her, but I love playing DnD and I have no other friends who are into it, and I don't want to join an online league with strangers. Am I in the wrong here? Should I stop playing DnD with my girlfriend's ex and find another way to enjoy this hobby? Or should I continue and hope she understands? I understand some members of the court have much experience with relationship advice, so I humbly await your arbitration. Thank you for the guidance.

68rosie419

may it please the judges and nobody else, in a short fantasy high style campaign i played a rich bubble boy halfling named Jeremie. my close irl friend played a sulky tiefling, and our dm was a mutual friend as well. Jeremie and the one other party member clicked immediately, but our DM called that since Jeremie had grown up sheltered he had never seen a tiefling before, and therefore called i would be “tiefling racist”! it was my second time playing d&d so i did what my dm said, and since the characters didn’t get along at all the campaign ended after a few sessions. should i have pushed back against my dm’s racism ruling? p.s. (you might want to keep this in your pocket jake) i have since ended my friendship with the dm, as it turns out he was also problematic irl. beat murph to it. edit just in case the star justice is ruling: i am a virgo, my tiefling friend is a leo, and the dm was a capricorn.

Charles

Most honorable and storied Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner as well as… umm the other guy… something generic... oh well, not important. I bring to you the case of the distracted player. Sometime ago a group of friends and I started an in person campaign, meeting once a month. Before we started, a new DnD player asked me (the DM) if it was ok to keep track of their character sheet on their phone because it was easier for them to stay organized. I said that was no problem but asked if, while playing, they limit use of other apps so as to not get distracted. They agreed and all was well. Cut to: all was not well. Almost immediately into the first session the player was constantly on their phone. When asked what they were doing they said they were looking up how certain things worked since they were new to the game. Ok fair enough. I said if they had questions they were welcome to ask me or some of the other more experienced players. They said they would ask the players but not me because I was “the enemy.” This continued for a couple of sessions until, at one point, they stopped paying attention mid-battle. When asked why, they said a coat they had been wanting just went on sale and they were trying to order it. Again in fairness, it was a nice jacket and they had been talking about for a while. The whole group is friendly so no one seemed to mind and I let it slide but it still bothers me. I ask you judges, should I have been more strict on table etiquette and made a no phone rule for this player? Thanks for your time! PS. This may or may not be relevant: this player is my wife of 10 years and mother of my child.

Aurora Koch

May it please the benevolent crit, mildly inconvenience the “Justice” Jake. I present to the case of Omicron Vs. Free Will. Within a military campaign I was a part of I played a lawful neutral warforged gunslinger named Omicron. As a part of the military themed campaign, He was put in command of the other players due to my alignment and loyalty. The group itself involved a lot of secrecy, and some of the players would talk in private with themselves and the DM. After an argument with the other players over the actions of the military, they decided to reprogram my warforged to change the alignment, without letting me know. At a point in which I assumed the group engineer was installing tech in my head, they changed my alignment instead. I obviously felt betrayed and I disagreed with it happening, but the DM allowed it, as I had to make a constitution saving throw for them to work on my head to stay powered on and I failed. The question I have is what follows: Can a warforged alignment be changed with tinkering in its head? I can see them as sentient beings, though them being created can imply it is possible. Thus, I would like to hear the courts opinion on the matter, and I leave myself to the justices mercy.

Caitrin

To the divinely-favored court and the heathen bailiff, I present the case of the Hag Underground. My party was fighting a coven of hags, and after another member of our party killed one of the three. Our DM, instead of continuing the fight, had both of the other hags flee, one of them disappearing into the ethereal plane, and another turning into a swarm of beetles via Polymorph and burrowing into the ground. He said that unless any of us had anything preventing them from fleeing, combat was over. I said that my Bladesinger wizard cast Dispel Magic on the hag transformed into a beetle swarm, since the spell doesn’t require you to see the effect you’re ending. It wasn’t until I successfully rolled an 18 to dispel the Polymorph that my DM started arguing that I couldn’t do that. First, he said I couldn’t see the beetles, so I couldn’t cast it. Then, he agreed that I could cast it, but then ruled that there was just an un-polymorphed Hag 15ft underground, that she took no damage, and would just escape on her next turn via another spell if none of us could reach her by then. My fellow players argued that she couldn’t cast any spells with verbal or somatic components if she was immobilized under the ground, but were ignored. This wouldn’t have bothered me as much if my DM hadn’t counter spelled a Booming Blade attack AFTER it hit in the previous round, and if I hadn’t burned one of my only 2 third level spells to cast it (we’re only 5th level). I beg your benevolent ruling.

Figgy the Cat

Bonjour beautiful justices and our constantly belittled bailiff. I come to you with a question about focus. My friend made a fun star wars campaign that had us tracking down a scientist that wanted to build a weapon for the empire. My best friends character was a surviving young one from the temple, and me from a family of bounty hunters. (This will be important) We get a job where we have to stop a potential threat from an old man. So when the targets come into range and are about to prank the old man again, my training kicks in and I eliminate the threat in 1 turn, 2 teens under a trench coat. Little to say the party was not happy with my decision. We kept playing and even beat the bad guy, but afterwards before our "and we blast off to the next adventure". My best friend refused to get on a ship with my character again. We made a big moment of our duel and ultimately he had to use the dark side to kill my character. The problem is that the DM was upset that we made the focus of the REAL problem about my character and not about her BBEG. Did we overstep with the cliche "that's just what my character would do" and not put enough focus on the overall bad scientist? I did cry when my character died but I was happy that it felt like the best ending on our side. We don't play with that DM anymore. I humbly await your thoughts

HalcyonicHermes

To those seated at the highest table in the land and their pet, Jake, I bring you the case of too many pranks. My warlock was in a pact with Nathair Sgiathach (pronounced: neigh-er skey-ak), a fey pseudodragon god. Chaotic good, lord of mischief and pranks. As part of my pact I was required to pull pranks and small jokes (never on my friends, to avoid problems), and this was all in good fun, not the crazy youtube prank ideas that go too far. One of our party members wanted in on the jokes but they only did one thing: Mold Earth. As a cantrip they would cast this constantly, creating holes under other PCs, my character the most. They found it hilarious every. single. time. It got to the point where our group would find out of the way modes of travel to avoid walking on dirt so as to avoid this PC's antics, we were sick of it. We spent time in a nomad camp, and took on some missions for them in return for shelter and goods. On a return trip our "Stanley Yelnats" finally went too far, and actually left the whole party stuck in a hole. So upon returning to the village, I called upon my pact god, and we caused some mischief in the village, disguised as the Hole PC. The nomads then went after this PC and refused to help our group anymore unless we offered up our companion. We did, and they took matters in to their own hands, and our friend had to roll a new character. He was furious, claiming we went too far, "It was just a prank bro hahaha". Mighty Justices, did I go too far in getting revenge? Did our DM allow the pranks to go on for too long? I humbly accept your judgement, and wish your fair table scraps bestow great knowledge upon Jake. (P.S. I got new friends.)

Kane Sanchez

May it please the judges and the guy who was a guest on 8-but book club, I present the case of pc family members. I run a campaign where all of my player’s characters have family that my players want to help in battle. It is realistic to create interesting mechanics for each character’s parents and/or siblings to give everyone what they want in a cool way, or am I being a baby about it all? I humbly await knowing if I am getting ant’d. (Party consists of an artificer maniac, paladin from a noble knight family, rogue with no “known” family, and wizard like Harry Potter)

Kristina The Sorceress

May it please the court and the church — I come prostrating myself with a dice christ confessional. I am a DM and when planning my encounters, I often find myself underestimating my players. They often roll so well that they absolutely whomp me. So, behind the screen during the battle, to ensure that the fight wouldn’t end so fast, I buffed the enemy’s HP. This has never caused a player death or anything, but it haunts me knowing I buffed the enemy WHILE the battle has already begun. Should I just have had faith and received dice Christ’s royal whomping? Can I be forgiven?

Bangers and Cash

To the Honorable Justices and the one guy that does an ok job reading. I present the case of scooped opportunity attacks. A little while back my party was fighting some gnomes and I went down next to two of them. One of my party members next to me scooped me up and retreated towards our healer. My DM said we would take opportunity attacks from our enemies and we debated weather or not a downed player who was being carried could fall victim to an opportunity attack. We came to the conclusion that the player carrying me would take both attacks. However, the question still lingers in my mind. Can a downed creature take an opportunity attack if it leaves an opponents range? I humbly await your decision.

zack tompkins

To the scrumptious justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner. And the slightly sour bailiff Jace. I present the case of the jerky jerk and the unsuspecting cleric. I played in a mid-level campaign of casual friends and acquaintances as a lawful good cleric who loves justice and nature. I didn’t try to be too intense about it, but as I was studying law, I wanted justice to be a big part of my character. Enter the party's warlock, whose noble background gave him a cohort of attendants who would do his bidding. That bidding was gathering any corpses from the battlefield and turning them into jerky for the warlock. He would hand out pieces to NPCs and player characters, including my cleric, who would eat it willingly, expecting it to be beef, pork, or void chicken, not human or goblin. I tried to refuse but was told I had to eat it by the other party members because my character would have no reason not to love it. My insight never surpassed the warlock's deception or flavor rolls. This was all fun until one session; the DM told me that my god had stripped me of my powers and abandoned me since cannibalism was not lawful, and I had happily eaten human jerky for far too long. I thought this was unfair and asked to get my powers back, but he said I had to either stop eating the jerky and repent or find another deity. I went through multiple sessions using only melee abilities until my character died on the battlefield after not being able to use spells properly. Was this power-stripping DM on a power trip, or was my character in the wrong for breaking his lawful ways? I await your tipping of the scales.

Chris Healy

I come before the priests of the temple of dice christ to make confession and seek guidance from dice christ's most wise and holy representatives in this realm. In a remote game, in the middle of a climactic battle, I had an opportunity to roll for temp HP. The roll called for a D8, and I had just pulled out real dice for the first time to make this roll. I reached into the box for the die that said '8', and rolled. I got an 8, and sent a picture to the group chat as proof. A few turns later I noticed that the die had not 8 sides, but 10. By that time, the game had moved on and the moment to announce my mistake seemed to be gone. The session ended mid-battle and will resume the next time we meet, so while the temp HP has not yet been relevant, it may become so. With the picture in the group chat, my DM /could/ see that it was a D10 if he were to review it and remember it was supposed to be a D8. But then again, by the end of the session only 3/4 other people in the chat had seen it. Have I already come clean by making my die visible to the DM or do I need to confess my sins to him or otherwise do penance?

Kristina The Sorceress

Beloved justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy; and also lesser, but still loved Bailiff — I present the case of the Undeserving Nat 20. It was my first time ever DMing and I also had first time players. My player, a nature enthusiast in real life, immediately rolled an unprompted nature check during the introduction of his character. He rolled a Nat 20. I told him he didn’t see anything, as he was standing in an open field. He voiced that he felt a nat 20 warranted something. In fairness, I could have told him that it seemed eerily suspicious that there were no wild animals out — as this would come up later in an adjacent BUT DIFFERENT location. Nonetheless, I still contest that the nat 20 was not deserving of spectacular information because it was unprompted, during his character introduction, and how often do you see animals in a wide open field mid day? Set the record straight, I’m at the mercy of gavel.

SmoothJazz

To the gormless justices and the honorable bailiff Jake, I present to you today the case of the sus one shot. My party had all recently hit leveled up to 7 and our fighter took a trait that gave her a rather large amount of HP. She ended up with a total of 82 hp, which was double the rest of us. Fast forward an hour or two, and we're fighting a bad guy, not the bbeg, and our DM proceeds to describe scorching rays effect happening from the enemy, but somehow dealing EXACTLY 82 damage to our fighter. We feel like this was quite possibly done in spite. It's been months and he still won't tell us what the spell was. All of the other "damaging moves" (attacks, spells) were doing normal amounts. A good hit was half our hp (the not super buff fighters) , etc. Are we wrong for feeling as if this was a targeted attack on our excited fighter, or is our pure astonishment justified? Thank you!

Olivia A

Not a case, but instead a confession. I plead with the most crit-ful clergypeoples of the church of Dice Christ: do I need to be forgiven because my character is alive when she shouldn’t be? Or did Dice Christ spare my darling for the good of the party? My friends and I are playing Curse of Strahd, and since we’re getting to be pretty high level, our DM has been giving us some hefty baddies to fight. This last combat, my character—a warlock/cleric multiclass and the only main healer of the party—went down. I failed my first death saving throw, and when it came around to me again, I rolled a nat 1. A couple more characters went in the initiative order, when my fellow player remembered something. Now, here’s where it gets interesting. My DM gives out “DM inspiration” every session to one player who either did something creative, or remembered an important detail. This player can then give out this advantage to anyone they want. This other player asked to give the advantage to me, even though it was no longer my turn and I was technically dead. The DM gave the okay and I rerolled my death saving throw, succeeding this time. The next round, I rolled again and this time got a nat 20. The rest of the fight was me going down again and again and our Aasimar fighter trying his best to bring me up before I died (again), and after I went down literally 5 times total, our party finally managed to win. But I ask the Church—was Dice Christ right in giving me the nat 1? Do I require penance, or did he know there was a nat 20 in my future? I prostrate myself before your holy judgment.

Eric Sousa

To the esteemed Supreme Crit Justices and Bailiff from Wish.com known as Jake, I present to you the case of the geriatric monk. We have been running a Tomb of Annihilation campaign for the past few months. My character, 135 y/o professor who learned the Way of the Living Weapon from an ancient scroll, is spending his sabbatical in Chult. He recently had his first moment of combat and despite having a strength score of 6, managed to do over 50 damage by blowing all his ki points on a terrafolk. While the party loved it, it left me feeling off. despite being RAW following, my character shouldn’t be the dmg breadwinner. My question to you: should I follow my gut instinct and kill off my geriatric powerhouse, or do I stick through this campaign playing this paradoxical figure to his golden-years natural end?

Jordan Jenkins

To the darling bailiff Jake and those other people there, I present to you the case of the Definitely Evil Deed. I play regularly in a game with a bunch of friends. Recently, one of them introduced his new character, a devil dragonborn named Zodd. He saves us all from a really bad combat when he arrived, so we kept him around despite knowing his origins. Cue Zodd sneaking away from the group the first chance he gets, to a temple he was shown in his dreams. This temple is protected by a monk on the staircase leading in. Zodd approached and asked the man entry. The man said he and his people have kept the evil inside the temple locked away for generations, and no one would be let inside. Zodd persisted. The old man said that he was the last guardian, the rest of the guardians having been killed by dark forces attempting to free what was locked in the temple. The monk says: I would have to fight you to my last breath to keep you from going inside. Zodd says okay, and pulls out his sword. Sadly, he kills the monk really easily. Cue our group whispering on the sidelines, "I knew he was evil! We shouldn't have trusted a devil." To this Zodd's player gets upset, saying that by killing the monk he wasn't doing an evil act, "just a neutral, selfish one." Be believed he was doing what his character would do, which is be self serving, and that that wasn't chaotic or evil. This causes a 45 minute argument among all the players and the DM, some occasionally defending Zodd, but eventually all turning against him and saying that killing the monk to enter the temple just because a dream told you to go inside was definitely evil. We thought it was over. We kept playing. But Zodd's player still brings this up occasionally saying his character wasn't evil for doing what he did. My beloved Jake and those others whose names I can't really remember right now, what do you think? Is Zodd evil?

Skyler Morford

May it please the justices and the lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly bailiff joke, I have the case of the deadly disintegration ray! I am the DM for my friends who are traveling through the shadow fell. They were hired to clear out an abandoned chapel/ crypt. The party would soon realize they wandered into the layer of a death tyrant. After an intense battle in a narrow hall way the party was weak and all near death. The fighter Tyr used a magic pendent to Misty step behind the undead creature and barricaded him self in the monsters treasure room. This pull the Death tyrants attention to him and allowed the party to land some necessary attacks. However the death tyrant was able break down the flimsy door, for dramatic effect I had Tyr’s player roll a D10 for what beam would fire. He rolled a 9 disintegration ray, he failed his DC 17 Dex check. This brought him to zero so he died and his body was destroyed so he could no be revived. Knowing this could have been a lethal encounter I planned for a god to offer Tyr a deal to return as a revenant, but this would keep him trapped in the shadow fell. Tyr accepted know this means he could not return to his home with to see his wife or daughter. The party was distraught and was planning to abandon the main mission to find a way to set Tyr free. So when they all rested that night I gave one of the party member a vision which showed the big bad had a ring of wishes in their hoard. This got the party back on track to save the world. But here is my question, was I wrong for immediately giving my player a solution to their problem to get them back on track? Should I have let the party search for another way to bring their party member back to life? I humbly wait for your judgement.

Walls

To the honorable Supreme crit Judges that shine a radiant light wherever they tread, and if there is someone else there good day to you too. I was DMing a fairly high level campaign in which my party was investigating a Cult of Kalzer, a chaos god that rules over entropy. Through a series of good roles and clever play my part had managed to make it to the cult leader Azoth’s room in good condition. After a dramatic monologue revealing a connection between Kalzer and the Paladin’s deity Lorth (goddess of games and puzzles) we rolled for initiative. My Tempest Cleric/Sorcerer got to go second and cast a 7th level disintegrate after the Warlock had cast Hex to give me disadvantage. I rolled a 1 and per house rules a nat one on a spell save meant it counted as a crit (Legendary resistances cannot be used). The Sorcerer used transmuted metamagic and their channel divinity to deal 196 damage right out the gate. Between this and the Assassin in hiding that would get to apply surprise to their first attack I was thoroughly womped. I ended combat by saying that the disintegrate spell essentially destroyed Azoth from the waist down and that while he was alive he recognized that he could no longer win. The Sorcerer then proceeded to gloat and insult my NPC and me while the rest of the party tried to interrogate him. I asked the Sorcerer to roll intimidation against my NPC’s wisdom to see if it made him afraid or angry. Sorcerer 16 NPC 24. I had everyone make a check only the Warlock passed. I narrated how the Warlock felt a chilling hand around his neck as their Patron told them “not to move.” Before Azoth offered up his soul to Kalzer in return for dragging the Sorcerer into the abyss. I asked for a Con save and they rolled a 2. The table was silent as the Sorcerer was dragged by this monstrous being into the abyss. When I was done the player got up, said a few choice words and then left. The rest of the party seemed uneasy by the sudden player death, but when I mentioned that they could go into the abyss to save them everyone left feeling better about the whole thing. Did I mess up?

Matthew R

The case of the vanishing DM: My boyfriend and I decided to find a DM we could pay to run sessions for just the two of us. After a lot of time discussing with the DM things like character creation and backstories (about 3 weeks), we finally got to play session 1! After we played, we set a date and time for the next session and then never heard from this “professional” DM again. We reached out a couple times to no avail. What could we have done wrong to have been ghosted like this? PS - their handle was CordialGhost so should that have tipped us off?

Josh Marshall

Humble greetings to the esteemed judges and yeah I think that's everyone. I bring to you the case of the useless Mass Suggestion. Recently my players encountered a corrupted Reigar who came through a portal to the Far Realm. Maddening energy poured through the portal, forcing Wisdom saves against madness on initiative 20. A portion of the laboratory was encased in special glass that warded against the maddening effects. The reigar cast Mass Suggestion on couple players who were behind this glass. His suggestion, "Come out here to me." On the echo knight's turn, he summoned his echo outside the glass, stating his full movement and Dash action would not have allowed him to reach the reigar, but he could bonus action swap places with his echo next turn, fulfilling the suggestion. He used his action to attack the device keeping the Far Realm open. The sorcerer used his movement to approach the exit door but used his action to attack an enemy on the way, stating "That's what his character would do. He wouldn't be in a hurry." After a minute of heated debate, I dropped it in the interest of moving combat forward. I entreat thee, hallowed justices: should the players have had to use their full movement/action to Dash, etc to get to the reigar since the spell states "they follow the course of action to their full ability." I lay my neck upon the chopping block at the mercy of the court. PS. The sorcerer almost certainly had spell slots with which he could have Thunderstepped down to the reigar.

mars

To the honorable justices, both graced and disgraced, my question is kind of personal so I'm not sure if this is for the courts to decide. My boyfriend and I play an online campaign with some friends that's been going on for nearly a year and a half. Assuming this is a common hobby that we're choosing to do together, I always have a great time - but he never seems to. When I ask him if he's having a fun time he says that he feels like a "side character" and never does anything but then 90% of his turns are "i move and hit the enemy twice" (even with his druid???) and doesn't add any RP flavor. And when I try to talk about campaign stuff with him he told me "I don't think about DND one second outside of when we're playing." But then also states that if "he didn't want to play - he wouldn't." while also treating it like it's a chore and will often tell the DM he'll be a few mins late and never shows -- which I think is fucking RUDE and extremely embarrassing. I guess ultimately my question is: should I keep stressing about him having a good experience or just let him play his way and continue to see it as a strenuous chore until he inevitably wants to dip? ty for your time and i love you all <3 ps: i have twin goblins named Guz Lynn and Suk Lynn :"> (i was very proud of their names)

JC

To the benevolent court justices and guy who guested as JV that one time. I bring to you the case of the anime reference that killed my character. This, my draconic sorcerer, and the rest of the party were infiltrating a bar that served as the front for the mafia as they had stolen one of our beloved NPCs. While infiltrating, our fighter got bored and left the bar, coming back a few minutes late crossdressing and shouting "Tequila" (a reference from JoJo I believe). The DM described as the our cover was blown by this goof and we were attacked. We decided to flee but as we fled the DM narrated how Thia was shot in the back of the head (no attack roll) and was killed (no damage, no saves). I loved Thia and was really sad to see her go so soon (it was session 2) so I ask you, was Thia rightly killed or was the DM unjust in killing her?

LuckyBear

Dear honorable everyman Jake and the other Justices, I present the case of the homebrew monster V power gamer. My table has two long DMs as players and have been able to best every combat without much effort & without contribution from the other 2 players at the table. I thew a homebrewed CR 6(ish) power level pack of turtle-wolves that were defending their cave/den and downed 3 out of 4 players where one of the long time DMs failed their remaining death save after the turtle-wolves got a free crit by attacking his downed player. There was a lot of salt spilled at the table that night where the DM argued that they would not be intelligent enough to target the weakest player nor that I should of have them go after a downed player. I argue that wolves are well known pack hunters and would defend their den where their young are fiercely and that turtle-wolves would be as smart as whatever I wanted them to be and that sea turtles and wolves are both highly intelligent creatures and could use tactics to target the most vulnerable targets (the wizard) if given the chance. Did I err by making an encounter too difficult for a level 5 party or should I buy my friend a big water bottle to deal with his high sodium levels? I await your justice.

Chris Broderick

To the esteemed judges Emily Murphy, Brian Axford, and Caldwell Flubber and whatever unnamed civilian you got to read this case today. I present to you the case of the unfound trap. My friends and I are doing a Tomb of Annihilation campaign and are currently in the section of finding some MacGuffin cubes in temples to open the tomb. In one of these temples we were faced with a cube that was basically out in the open and had an insanely detailed masterful statue of a known bad guy touching it. As a player this was clearly a trap, however, our druid cast “Find Traps” on it and it did not detect any traps and my character’s magic awareness (Path of wild magic barbarian) only detected illusory magic. My character who is overconfident, naïve, and thinks himself immortal, trusts the spells/abilities and goes to grab the cube. With a nat 4 on a con save he was petrified to stone. I spent the next half an hour of the session waiting for the rest of my party to figure out the puzzle of the temple but when they eventually figured it out I was freed (I spent the time finishing up the details of my backup character). After the session I checked the wording on find traps and it's pretty clear to me that it should have detected this. Was I wronged by my DM by being caught in an unfound trap, or were the consequences of my character’s hubris in an infamously brutal campaign justified?

stream doomsday diaries by emily axford

to the honorable, benevolent, and beautiful-in-a-totally-not-objectifying-way justices and the bae-liff John—i come to you with the case of the gravely underpowered grave cleric. i play Kora Nightingale, a level 5 grave domain cleric in a chill campaign that’s been going on for about 2 years over Discord (bae-liff, if it’s too long u can just say the level and class) During the beginning of the campaign I asked my DM if I could switch out my spells after the long rest since as a cleric i got to prepare my spells. he said that I would only be able to change out my spells every time i leveled up. even at the time, i was p sure this was wrong having learned under the tutelage of Dimension 20 & NADDPOD, but i hadn’t played a cleric before and thus did not wish to question my DM. i was vindicated in last month’s D&D Court when Emily confirmed my suspicions, and when i went to my DM, he said “i think we did do that at first and then we just kinda forgot since the schedule became erratic. we can absolutely do it moving forward,” justices, i have no memory of this exchange, nor do i have any proof of which one of us is right, but i do feel a little butthurt that i spent 2 years carefully researching every single spell during my level ups in an attempt to not take a beefer of a spell that i wouldn’t be able to switch out for months. should my DM have caught this earlier or should i just suck it up since all my evidence is circumstantial anyways? justices, i am at the mercy of the court.

Where Bear

Honorable Justices of the Crit and the quantum conundrum of the cool/uncool Schrödinger’s baliff, Jake; may I humbly lay at your feet the case of Werewolf A-were-ness. I’m a relatively inexperienced player, but I love making characters. When I saw the lunar magic subclass for sorcerer I thought it’d be a funny class for a werewolf, but was worried trying to actually play a werewolf might be frowned upon. When my first campaign’s resident Rules Guru invited me to play in a wild sheep chase oneshot they were DMing, I floated the idea and was told to use the MM rules for lycanthropy with their blessing. It was tons of fun and while starting off as a joke I ended up really loving the character and lore I came up with for her (werewolves who use magic tattoos to control their lycanthropy!). When the DM from my aforementioned first campaign said he wanted to do a one-shot that was specifically focused on puzzles over combat I asked if I could use my werewolf, again using the MM werewolf features, and was told that was fine. My assumption was that the DM would’ve looked at these features before giving the ok, but during the session he seemed caught off guard that werewolves had damage immunities from non-magical/non-silvered weapons. He grumbled about it a little after the session, but when he came back a couple months later with a sequel one shot he said to use the same characters to which I replied to confirm that that meant I would be using my werewolf. Once again, both of these one-shots were not combat heavy, so most of her triumphs have been through the clever use of spells and at one point a crowbar, and her werewolf form had been mostly used for intimidation. However after this session, the DM complained that my character was “broken” and “OP” and might not be allowed next time. Both the Rules Guru and I argued that, as a spellcaster with no armor, he could put her up against magic or silvered/magic weapons and she’d be perfectly squishy. Given the level of preparedness of some of the other players (shout out to my brother for choosing to play the premade starter set level 1 wizard in our level 3 one-shot) I feel like the issue may be more that I…know how to play my character? Justices, I love my werewolf as much as she loves the moon, but is she breaking the game? Should I offer up some nerfing compromise to keep playing her? Or a should I shelf this shewolf until I find a different campaign where her lunar light is free to shine? I humbly await your judgement (though if I am to be punished, I remind you I’m immune to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks that aren't silvered).

Cassual Grammer

To the exalted Supreme Crit and balf jock. I just ran a session zero for my first campaign after running two successful one shots. Most of the time was spent in character creation in which we landed on a half elf paladin, a centaur barbarian, hobgoblin druid, human fighter, and drow warlock. All level one. We didn't have a ton of time left as we were all busy, so while I asked everyone to think about back stories to work into the campaign story, I ran a combat encounter so everyone could a feel for their characters. All went well. I couldn't roll for crap, the party cured a sick dog to save it, and took one of the bandits in alive. I rewarded the party with gold and called it a session. Since then I've gotten several questions about leveling up already. I recognize that a lot of classes don't get fun stuff until level two, but it rubs me the wrong way to already have them pestering me for a level up after basically only half a session. Am I being too stubborn to not level them up already, or do they need to chill the hell out and let me set the pace? Thank you for your time.

Please Dont Look at Me

To The Venerable Guardians of Our Imaginations and Dreams—and also bailiff Jake—may it please the court. I come to you not for judgement, but to turn myself in, for I have committed a heinous Coco-Crime. I present to you the case of Kongo Bongo Groundhogs Day. For background, I got a ten month grant to live in Norway and write poetry. My boyfriend and I have been doing long distance with a 7 hour time difference since August. I started listening to NADDPOD in the late fall, and it really helped with the times of extended darkness. I have frequent, terrible insomnia, and I discovered that, weirdly, the Donkey Kong Coco Night Holiday Special puts me to sleep within minutes. So when my boyfriend visited at Christmas time, I asked him if I could play NADDPOD at a quiet volume in bed and he said yes. I put a sleep timer on, but I always fell asleep so fast that the episode played for a while. The next night, I would find the place I left off (usually only a few minutes later) and start again. During the two and a half weeks that my boyfriend was with me, I only ended up hearing about half the episode in total but I think my boyfriend heard the entire thing at least 6 times through. I did offer to switch episodes—he loved the hexblood arc, but he didn’t want to listen to those at night because Jabari got him way too hyped. He didn’t even complain because he’s infinitely patient and was really happy to see me, but that has only made my conscious guiltier. I throw myself at the mercy of the court. In the absence of judgement, I would also accept a medical diagnosis explaining what the hell is wrong with me.

PuppetAnalingus

To the preacher who outlawed dancing: Murph, the DM biased queen: Emily, and the eternal boy prince: Caldwell. And of course to the great entrepreneur and one of the sharpest DND minds: Jacobson. I bring you a confession. While playing in a horror campaign our DM decided to roll in front of the board for an encounter. We wanted a low number. The dice fell off the table, but we have a rule where those rolls still count, I went to pick it up and see what it was, a 4. I was the only one who saw it. But I picked it up and proclaimed it to be a Nat 20. I just wanted to do a spicy and kinda hard session. The results were 2 of my fellow players experienced PC death. But it was too far in for me to go back on my earlier proclamation. I feel guilty. Like the lowliest of villains. Can dice Christ forgive me?

Salil

To the Honorable Justices of the Supreme Crit and the Bailiff who takes a surprising amount of abuse considering he is an owner the network that runs the podcast... I present the case of the Out of Control Bar Fight. I had 3 PCs, a Lizzy the rogue/bard, Dan the warlock/paladin, and Art the artificer. They were traveling between towns and stopped at a tavern. They did Perception checks and Dan, with a high roll noticed someone in the corner, a group of NPCs that I planned to reveal were actually bad guys in a later session. Art rolled really low and so he noticed some patrons harassing a waitress. Art used his mage hand to dump a drink on their heads but because he rolled low on sleight of hand, the patrons noticed and got aggressive. A fight ensued, Art killed a patron with Firebolt and Dan killed another 3 with Arms of Hadar (the patrons had commoner stats). So I had a group of townspeople start a mob to chase after the party. They got away but Art almost was captured, although had he been captured I was prepared to stage his execution so that the others could rescue him. (didn't help that Dan and Lizzy, Art's then girlfriend/now wife contemplated abandoning him and having Art roll a new character). Did I commit the sin of being too harsh? I know D&D is about fantasy, but if 3 people came into my bar and murdered 4 of my friends in a bar fight, I'd probably want justice/revenge. I humbly await the court's judgement

Aaron Beguelin

No intros 2023: I have been playing curse of Strahd with DM devised modifications (think Caldwell’s flint stones fan fiction). One of these included a pvp tournament of champions. The six party members were sent to different arenas to fight each other. We were assured that upon our death in the tournament we would be resurrected, so the stakes were just bragging rights. I, a fight wizard multi class (think Jedi) was facing off with the parties oath breaker paladin. We engaged in rounds of resource draining combat. When the other 1v1s finished the winners appeared in our arena to fight us. The sequence of events lead us to dispatch these new challengers first. However, when we beat them and they were resurrected and sent back to our arena with a long rest. I eventually killed the paladin who was not allowed to respawn, and shortly after I was killed by our party Druid, with me also not respawning, and the Druid killing me to become champion. My question were the paladin and I robbed of our chance of glory or was our DMs ballsy pvp fair. I await your dice Christ anointed verdict.

ittai baum

To the auspicious justices and the conspicuous bailiff, I present the case of The Unreasonable Pizza Order: I was meeting with a group for a session 0, and it was the first time I was meeting many of the people there. My girlfriend, who was also coming, was friends with a couple in the group. Before heading out to the DM's house, the DM was taking pizza orders in the group chat, for 4 pizzas in total. Me and my gf asked for a pepperoni pizza. There was still another pizza left to decide, and I asked if anyone liked olive pizza (my gf doesn't). Another person in the chat voted in favor, so I suggested the last pizza be olive. While on the road, I check the texts, and see the order that had already been placed: A drunken grandma, a salad pizza, an eggplant Parm...and a half pepperoni, half olive pizza. Me and my gf were stunned, unsure why the more usual choices were reduced and lumped together, while the odd, niche choices that only some people wanted were given 3 out of the 4 pizzas. In the end, the actual session 0 was a lot of fun, and we are still going to sessions, but that first pizza order seemed so bizarre to me. Am I wrong to judge their pizza taste, or was their order in fact unreasonable and unfair to our desire to just have a whole pepperoni pizza and a whole olive pizza? I humbly await your judgement

Omvega

Esteemed Justices, and james, my current DM wishes to submit this case from a previous game of his: A few years ago I was DMing for a barbarian who had a very strong connection to their god. Every long rest, the player would go off on their own and commune, asking for advice and guidance. This happened during every long rest, even in instances where there wasn't really much character progression since the previous prayer session. As a result, it led to multiple extended solo scenes that honestly started to repeat themselves, while the other players sat in the audience and watched this barbarian emote. I tried to quietly guide the player away from doing this by having the god tell the PC that it was "time to leave the nest and stand on his own" and making her less responsive to his prayers. This had the opposite effect, and led to the PC praying in vain about how sad he was that the god was no longer responding, turning the Emoting up to eleven and somehow taking up just as much spotlight if not more. I ended the campaign shortly after this development. This wasn't the *only* reason that I stopped the game, but this player's behavior in general was certainly a *big* factor. I throw myself at the mercy of the court as I wonder if my in-game solution was appropriate, or if I should have had a more direct conversation with the player out-of-game. Sometimes I feel like I gambled on finding a non-confrontational solution, and ended up losing the entire game as a result.

Everardo Garcia

Hello fair and equal judges and hi Jake, you're great ! I bring forth the case of the Unmovable Rogue. (unless you can think of a better name.) I am currently playing a 5e Curse Of Strahd campaign, with a group of friends who are all level 3 and my character is a Earth Genassi Paladin named Gran Knight. We entered a haunted mansion and our party encountered a wooden statue holding some magical items. We removed the two items in it's hand using a slight of hand check with no issues, until our jokester Blood Hunter Mortimer Rickus put his own weapon in the hands of the statue and proceeded to move the arms like it was attacking. As soon as he removed his weapon our DM told him that it activated the trap that was within the statue which shadow monsters started to spawn from the statue. Our DM proceeded to tell us that this was one of those encounters where we simply could just run away, low and behold Mortimer did NOT want to, thinking that the statue had more secrets to it. By the second turn w e realized that every turn a shadow monster would spawn out from under the statue and target the closest player which was of course Mortimer. We defeated one monster (after many missed attacked rolls) which then we pleaded with Mortimer to leave this room. The rest of the party decided to leave and explore the rest of the floor while I couldn't abandon him and stayed at the opening of the room. I, not knowing how long Mortimer would stay in the room cast a first level Sanctuary to give him some assistance. Four turns later and five different attempts of him trying different things with the statue such as putting random items in one hand, both hands and then using a whole turn to just "assess the situation" I was at a loss of words. Throughout this whole encounter he was only at 6 health, but the DM kept doing wisdom saves to attack him and just kept missing with four monsters around him. After one last exasperated plea for him to leave the room, he said "okay okay" and used one last action to use a box of tindr to light the statue on fire. The DM said it'll take a few turns to see any big flames from just that small flame. Mortimer finally decided to move and leave the room after that action but the DM told him since he didn't use his action to disengage that he would take a opportunity attack from these four monsters, which he then said "that's fine". All but one monster hit him and finally brought him to 0 health, Mortimer went on to say "See what happens when I listen to you guy!s" and got angry with all of us. Exalted judges and people of the court who is wrong in this scenario Mortimer the unmovable rogue or my DM for allowing it, or me for not coming up with a better way to convince him to leave. I lay myself at the mercy of the court. !! P.s. I used the term 'friends' loosely as I only knew one of the party members and this was my fourth session with these guys, but they knew how Mortimer acts and explains why they abandoned him so quickly.

Luc

To the succulent juicestices and the aromatic bayleaf. My mixologist Alchemist wants to shape water with the cantrip Shape Water but the water can't be shaped since it's not in the artificier spell list. I begged my DM please but he won't let me take the cantrip even if it's just so thematically satisfying. Is it really that unruly to take a cantrip that is not in your class' spell list? Love by Daisy the unwaterbending alchemist.

Nick C.

To the auspicious justices and the dogberrian bailiff, I present the case of the exiting bear. I DM a campaign in which my PCs are trying to solve the mystery of why magic is not working in one small town. For most people in this town, it is as though a large antimagic field is covering the whole area. My PCs are the only people in the town who can use magic (thanks to some god’s blood they drank), but they are choosing to hide this fact from everyone else. In a recent session, a drunken mob had gathered outside a local business, believing that there was a monster inside. The gnome druid decided he wanted to scare the mob off by turning into a bear (a very cool idea). He went up a set of stairs to the second floor, out of sight of all the other characters, and transformed. When the business owner, fleeing the mob, went up the stairs 6 seconds later, there was no sign of the druid and a bear was coming down the stairs, moving toward the crowd. After the mob dispersed, I had the NPC ask the party if they had somehow found a way to do magic in the town. The druid objected, saying that this NPC would have no way of knowing that there was magic involved, and claiming that the bear might just be the pet of the party. I pointed out that you would probably notice if a customer had brought a bear inside your business; still, I allowed the druid to roll a deception check, but told him it would be a very high DC. The NPC was ultimately not convinced, but the revelation of their secret allowed the party to gain a new ally. Still, the druid has not let it go, and I’m worried that he’ll feel reluctant to use his character’s abilities in the future. Was I trying to apply too much logic to a fantastical world? I eagerly await your ruling.

Joshua Willem

Hi Jake and others, I come to you with the case of the spellcasters phone. We were playing DnD with a group of new players. Our parties spellcaster constantly pulled out his phone to figure out his spells on the spot, much to the annoyance of the DM. The DMs stance was that the player should be stocking and writing his spells on a piece of paper. The player saw no issue with having their phone out at the table. Needless to say, this campaign did not last long. Was the DM right to ask the player to prep before the session? Or is finding spells on the spot with a phone okay for a new player? I will await your wisdom and guidance. Follow up question, I cant seem to get a consistent set of sessions going with my friends… where do I go from here? Thanks, Josh

JaytheThey

If it pleases the Bailiff and irritates the otherwise redundant members of the court I bring to you the case of the Backup Breakdown. During quarantine I ran an online DND game over discord with some online acquaintances who all asked me to run a game for them. I thought it would be a fun experience to try my hand at running a game for other players in the TTRPG space outside of my personal friend group. Fast forward months later, the party has arrived at the Theocratic capital of the nation and confronted the leader of the church, a condescending arch mage dubbed “The Hierophant”. Before the session I had asked everyone to make backup characters for this game as the stakes were getting higher and I didn’t want to go through the trouble of frantically trying to inject new characters into the story after a possible tragedy were to occur. The Rogue, a character who had expressed a problem with authority and was in a rough spot with their Ex, began bantering with the Hierophant as I had expected and a hostile dialogue began. What I did not expect was for the rogue to threaten the life of the Hierophant in the middle of their church and escalate the situation. Following the teachings of the deplorable Justice Murphy I decided to use a show of force that didn’t deal any HP damage, casting a spell that was of a substantial level but not one that was immediately harmful. I had the Hierophant cast telekinesis and lift the Rogue off the ground before saying something along the lines of “Your arrogance speaks volumes, do you wish to die here along with your allies for pride?”. At this point the rest of the party has begun to go from in character asking the rogue to chill to out of character questioning of their actions. The rogue eventually relented due to the groups clamoring but their indignation was evident throughout the rest of the encounter. Finally after the meeting with the Hierophant was over and the party had gathered outside of the church I asked the party what they would like to do next to which the rogue began a “we will meet again someday” monologue with the group, with everyone in the game thoroughly confused they player announced that the rogue was leaving the party and began to walk out of the city. I then received a private DM from the player with an attached DND Beyond character sheet for a Order of the Mutant Blood Hunter and a prompt that their backup character was a bounty hunter on the search for their previous character. When I eloquently queried “The fuck man?” The rogue flew into an outrage, saying that I was a horrible DM and that I was ruining the narrative of the story. Before I could really say anything they called me an asshole and left the Discord server. I ask thee, wrathful and baleful members of the court. Was I in the wrong for not giving this player the chance and courtesy to play their backup character or is this total stranger a fucking loser?

Paul kolby

To the noble and True Supreme Crit Justices and to the guest bailiff Jake (glad to see you finally made it on to some naddpod stuff, bud). I present to you the case of the Re-Murdered Mother. A few years ago I agreed to play in a roll 20 campaign with a few old friends in the DM’s home-brewed world. The character I created to play was a vigilante edge lord with a pair of tragically murdered parents just like Bruce Wayne. Upon presenting my character to the dm he complained that everyone in the party made orphans and I needed to give him some living NPC’s to work with in my back story. I understood and felt super inspired. I re-wrote my entire backstory changing my father into a villain that experimented on me and my mother into a victim that I saved after a face off with my father. The dm loved it and gave it the green light. Flash forward to session one of the campaign. The hook my character is given is that I am traveling to visit my mother in a remote camp where she has been staying. So after meeting in a tavern the party travels to the camp together as they are all given similar hooks as well. But upon our arrival we found everyone in the camp ,including my mother, had been mauled to death by wild animals. I was speechless. Had he made me resurrect my mother just to brutally end her again? To make things worse the attack had no real impact on the story and was just a pack of problem wolves the Dm used to introduce some newer players into combat. The campaign fizzled out shortly after this but I still get salty about having to bring my mother back from the dead just to be used in an act of shock theatre. Was it the DM’s right as world builder to decide my poor mother’s fate? Or should my original Robby Pattinson Sad boy backstory have been respected? I leave it in the Crits hands.

John Squirrel

Dear Honorable Justices and that one guy Jake, who's cool sometimes, I guess. I bring you the case of the Suggested Surrender. Near the end of a campaign our party took a short break to fight in a tournament. Beforehand, we were informed that if we wished to withdraw from the battle we need only hold up 2 fingers. During our last fight, our bard cast mass suggestion on the other team to make them surrender, holding up 2 fingers. Our DM states that nothing happens. An intense conversation ensues where the DM states he has no idea why we thought that would work. Should we have just went with the DMs ruling or was he just grumpy because we easily bypassed a fight? I humbly await your ruling.

Molly M.

To the sweeties and cuties of the highest court, I bring you the case of the un-stealthy baddie. I'm running a one-on-one, Indiana Jones-style campaign for my boyfriend where he plays an archeologist wizard (named Obi) exploring all sorts of ancient ruins and exotic cities for lost magic and treasure. I recently ran a chase encounter where Obi was trying to catch an evil warlock escaping in a big parade - every round, I had the baddie make stealth checks to disappear into the crowd. After a few rounds, the warlock rolled a 9 on his stealth check - my boyfriend only rolled a 6 on his perception check, but he pleaded that since Obi's passive perception is higher than 9, he should be able to see the warlock anyway. I ruled that the active perception check would overrule passive perception, and Obi was too distracted by the parade to notice the warlock slipping off in the other direction, but I submit my shaky ruling to the supreme crit for judgment: was I right to let the baddie get away with such a low stealth check, or should Obi's passive perception have saved the day?

James Giesbrecht

The case of the Nat 20 goodberry throw: To keep things brief, one of my party members was unconscious and making death saves in a pit surrounded by fire.. I was 100 feet away. With my turn I bargained with the DM saying “if i stick a goodberry on the tip of my crossbow bolt and shoot it in the air, what are the chances it happens to land perfectly in my party members mouth?” The DM let me roll with disadvantage.. and low and behold, I rolled TWO nat 20’s. The DM then asked me what I got to hit with my attack bonus, which was technically 28 as I have a +8 bonus to attack. The DM said “unfortunately the DC for nearly impossible feats is 30, I’m sorry” I missed, and my party member died the next round. I realize that I did not meet the DC.. but I ask the court- should Nat 20’s still be rewarded, even if they don’t technically beat the DC?

Emory Whitted

To the esteemed Crit Justices and the lowly Jailiff Blake, I present to you the case of the players vs the DM and the elevator. A few years ago my friend was DMing a campaign set in the Star Wars RPG system on Roll20. At one point we were captured by imperials and upon getting out of the jail cells, we were trying to navigate the escape from the multi-level prison while also trying to take out their leader. We came upon a room that had 2 circles in the middle. We, as players, thought nothing of it - they were probably columns or some other decorative thing. We eventually find stairs and are able to make it to the top floor where the command center was, but it took a long time for us to navigate the prison. At the end of the session, our DM laughs, and says “those 2 cylinders that you guys ignored were elevators and would have made your lives easier. You guys just didn’t ask about them” this started an argument, with us as the players saying “they’re fucking elevators. It doesn’t require a special perception check to see elevators in the middle of a room”. Especially in a Star Wars setting in which elevators are ubiquitous in usage. The DM just shrugged and said again “you guys didn’t ask!” So, esteemed justices, was our DM right in withholding information about the elevators without us specifically asking about them? Or are elevators obvious enough that it should just be in the base description of the room? I humbly await your judgement.

DK492

Perfumed justices and stinky bailiff, I submit to you the case of the the bedridden warforged. During session 8 or 9 of a new campaign with a group of people I have been playing with for a few years, one of the party members, a warforged barbarian, had to get a cursed item ritualistically removed - He was cured of the item's negative effects (namely vulnerability to all damage), but suffered 2 levels of exhaustion from the ordeal. We return to an Inn, and decide we can just wait the two full days for him to recover at the end of the session, but our DM seemed very much against the idea. The very start of the next session, we are offered a time-sensitive mission, that has a doubled reward should we complete it within 1 day. Now I assumed the DM had something planned for the recovering member, so we agree and separate, but no. The whole session, our poor barbarian could do absolutely nothing (he was essentially put into standby mode by his creator - another PC forge cleric - to recover). Aromatic judges, were we wrong to split up? Should we have taken the exhausted barbarian with us? Refused our DM's quest? I antsily await your verdict. Xoxo

MikeAllenZ (MAZ Presents Personal)

To the honorable justices Moop, Punchy-Frog, and Newly-Moody Elf Lady… and probably someone else that I’m forgetting about. I bring to you the case of “Two Dead Mentors”. For you see, I once gave my DM a character in a campaign, an Armourer Artificer/ Gloom Stalker Ranger (my first time as a PC, a build I was proud about, and a campaign we actually finished). However, my character had recently lost a mentor, the man who taught him to be a scientist, but had gained another in a vigilante woman who taught him how to fight. I had made it clear to the DM that I was hoping he’d heal over the death of his first mentor and that’d be his arc. (There was other stuff but I was told to be brief) In the first session there was a scene where the vigilante gave him a device to contact her, but warned to only do it if it was absolutely necessary. Later on we had found out that she DIED and when I was upset about it I got a “Well you never called her so you were unable to help her”. But she had directly told me to NOT do it. To this day I keep hearing that her death was my fault for being too prideful to call her for help when I was just trying to be a good student. Am I wrong for feeling upset about this or are friends right that I am responsible?

Joelle H

To the benevolent and honorable court justices, and and tuckers weird friend Josh… I bring you a case from the feywild. My party has been traveling between the courts for quite some time and we have started to roll saves to see if they start to forget anything while they are there. Only one player (the sassy bard) has forgotten anything and I gave him the choice on what he would forget (wanting to give him some agency on his characters story) but he has chosen something that im not sure how to deal with. I’m the beginning of our 2 yr campaign my players dedicated themselves to an ancient order that protects articles given to mortals by the gods. They were given rings of protection and swore themselves to the gods. It is this promise that he wishes to forget…now my question is this, does this oath stand? Does the ring still work(it was a plain ring before the oath). how can someone keep an oath they don’t remember? Or would an contract between a god and mortal not even be able to be forgotten.. please help me deal with this conundrum, I think it has the potential for a great storyline but I’m having trouble executing it..

Ghostedflakes

To the Honorable Crit justices and the [insert adjective here] Bailiff Jake, I present to you the case of DM neglect. Recently in my campaign I have realised that the story would not have changed at all if my character was removed. At the beginning, I was a player who was a bit too nervous to take up space at the table so when my DM started the story line of my Air genasi fey Ranger being the incarnation of Spring, I was ultimately overwhelmed and didn't interact with it much. Now three years later, as the campaign draws to an end, I feel as though my DM took my hesitation personally as now, no matter how engaged I am in the story, he doesn't pay any attention to my character at all. He spends months on end developing other players and loads them up with plot relevant magical items meanwhile I've had to practically beg for the few I've received. I've tried so hard to set up anything, expressing interest in gods, trying to form rivalries with villain NPCs, casually speaking to him about developments I would be interested in, I've even gone as far as switching my class entirely, all of this not engaged with at all. And so I ask the court, now that not a bit of DM facilitated character development is in sight, is this the result of being a shy player at the beginning and is it a just punishment for not fully engaging with the story my DM originally presented to me? I humbly await your verdict.

Aaron W

May it please the most honorable Supreme Crit Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the most tolerated Bailiff Jake. I submit to you the Case of the LARP Tyrant Usurpery. My friends and I lived in a Midwestern state that had a small but vibrant DND LARPing community — a giant monthly game with around 50-100 people, with mini DMs roaming as referees. Unfortunately, the founder was a GM who also was a player, and had installed himself as the ultimate OP overlord — and would use his position to enrich his character and his IRL friends and impose his will on others unless they bent the knee. Even worse, he didn’t totally understand the rules, and would often fudge RAW so he came out on top and no one challenged it. It wasn’t fun and players even complained to no avail. Eventually, some DVD veteran friends had enough, Min-maxed some characters optimized to work together as king killers — using some technically legal rules wonkery to ambush the king and kill him in two rounds. The LARP GM was so angry, he shut down the entire game for good. So my question is — who is at fault here? Should they have just shrugged and said “long live the king”?

Gage

To the delectably honorable justices, and the best little bailiff Jakesworth. I have a dilemma. I DM a Greek mythology themed game with a group of friends. One of my friend’s girlfriend also plays with us, let’s call her Emily (no relation to the almighty justice Axford). The entire group has been begging me to boot this player from my game, on account of her continuously thwarting other party members’ plans and sleeping through large portions of story and fights. Emily will take frequent naps spanning half the session and then complain in a hushed argument to her boyfriend about how everyone else is doing cool things with their class abilities. She has also mentioned that she doesn’t understand how certain other characters have powers or items that have plainly come up while she slumbered or played on her phone. She also come late to many sessions, sometimes up to an hour or two late. I would love to kick this menace from my otherwise fun game, but I am worried about upsetting her boyfriend (my long time friend). Every time I try to bring the situation up, he swears she loves playing and that she won’t sleep anymore. But come the next session she is taking a ride on the dream machine or distracting him from having fun with everyone else. Do I banish her from my game at the risk of offending my friend or do I go on tolerating this disgusting table behavior and bringing down everyone’s night. I await your judgement! <3

ML Allswede

To the judges of the highest most esteemed court in the land, and the sometimes judge of Boston, MA, I play a truly nasty lad of a goblin alchemist artificer in a casual campaign. As part of my character I collect all sorts of goops, alcohols, hairs, and residues that I hope to make into potions. The problem? I am worried that in my creativity I could accidentally make an overpowered character. My DM is relatively new to DMing (not to the game) and just usually says "sure go for it" to all my zany potion ideas and lets me truly make the wildest potions, poisons, and acids even though it isn't strictly in the subclasses' abilities or in the DMs guide. Right now, my character owns 50 Pepper bombs and is half way there to making mustard gas. How do I go about setting limits on myself to maintain good party balance while still being able to be a nasty little potion man?

Cory

May it tease, please, edge and release the steamy justices and the bailiff Hiswitz, who may watch from pretty close, actually. I offer the case of the flakey player with the sickest characters. My group enjoys the idea of me homebrewing different video game settings in 5e because I'm a GMC (Game Master Coward). In our first campaign (a Mortal Kombat setting), one of them played a female Tarkatan (Tar-KAH-tin) with retractable arm blades, whose one weakness was a nearly defenseless NPC in the party with an unstable Dimension Door ability she couldn't control. Combat was crazy, and roleplay was both heartbreaking and uplifting, sometimes in the same moment. Pretty sick, right? Next campaign (a Half-Life setting), they've statted out an equally sick new character. This player, however, can't seem to sit still for long; at their insistence, sessions have reduced from 4 hours, to 3 hours, to 2 hours, and even that duration was a tough sell. Last campaign, they missed 2 sessions in a row *after* we reduced to 2 hours. We've stopped arguing about it since, but I know that next campaign is gonna be turbulent due to them, with lots of making their character "go missing" or whatever I can come up with. My query is this: Am I wrong for trying to keep this player around? Or is this player wrong for insisting that I cut the fun short every session? P.S. I am married to this player, and our kid loves my silly voices. No, he's not in the group...yet. Also Emily and I should collab on a song I'm writing about Fia and the Time Devil.

Dan Malloy

Dear Honorable Judges and (that guy who’s gonna be taking care of Tucker Jr.)/(that dude John who reads the cases) [feel free to use whichever is more appropriate to how we feel about Jake this episode], Is it taking away player agency to surprise your players with quicksand between sessions? A few sessions ago my DM surprised our Bard in combat by revealing he was on quicksand as it broke out. We’d lightly scouted the area beforehand and had a plan set up as we were gonna fight some gnolls, then ended the session as combat broke out so our DM could make a map. When we came back to start the combat session, he revealed that the Bard was on top of Quicksand and started sinking along with an NPC that was part of his backstory. It lead to him being mostly useless and we all nearly died, but we got out of it all alive. Later, the Bard complained to the rest of us that he felt like he had his “agency” taken away, but to be honest, I dont really think he did. Was it wrong for our DM to surprise us with something or did the Bard actually have “no agency?”

NoLifeKitty

May it please the court! I bring to the judges (and handsome bailiff Jake) the case of the sad old Lich. During a playing of Curse of Strahd my wife (eladrin rogue) was told of a old lich losing his memory and becoming lonely from solitude. Being a kind soul irl she immediately decided there’s no need to fight the lich and befriended it. Rolling well and convincing our Druid player to cast minor restoration to help him, she managed to befriend the lich and he walked us through the back half of a dungeon where he shared some gold and told us of the item we needed to kill Strahd. My wife told the lich she wanted to stay in touch (purely for his benefit not for a powerful ally) and our DM (my brother) immediately disagreed out of game and said he’s too powerful to be called up. My wife argued she would never call upon him for anything but company and to keep him in good spirits. Eventually the DM relented and allowed my wife 3 scrolls she could use to contact the lich. She accepted but ultimately never used the scrolls, she simply wanted a pen pal lich but got 3’single use scrolls that she’s too scared to use because she just wanted a lich friend. Should our DM have just given her a cute lich buddy or was he right to stifle this relationship?

Lindsey Schick

To the honorable court and the highly highly highly highly highly highly bailiff. If it pleases the court, this is more a family court situation. There is a local dnd organization that has open games at bars around my city and they just recently started doing games at a bar that’s local to me and my dnd party. We’ve gone a couple of times, not everyone could go every time, but we got to play games with different people and different dms. One time I was the only person who could go and I had the BEST time role playing with different people. That’s where the problem lies. I do love playing with my group and they’re my literal best friends. But I really enjoy playing with new people and not having the expectation of the rest of my group on how I play and roleplay/and having to be the one to initiate roleplay. How do I nicely say I want to play with other people sometimes when we go to these open games together without stirring the pot? I still love playing with them but also want to branch out a little.

JasminE

Is a "Am I The Asshole" (AITA) for my character allowed instead? AITA for sacrifising my estranged father for my friend? I (18-ish F halfling) made a deal with a demon lord of hell to get the soul of my friend back. However, the demon wanted me to exchange the life of my father. Since I had not seen my father since I was kidnapped as a toddler, I felt it was right to go with the deal. Mainly, because I am somewhat responsible for my friend losing his soul. My crew mates seem pissed at me, and a woman who could be my mother is trying to get revenge against whoever killed her partner (she doesn't know it's me thou). So, am I the asshole for trying to save my friend?

Tyler Willits

To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, I present you the case of Telepathic Scrying and Teleportation. At the time of of this case, the party I DM for recently hit high enough level for the wizard to have the Teleport spell. They had learned that the Bard's surrogate mom had been captured in a war. The Bard used Scrying to find her. The Wizard, asking permission from the Bard, used his Telepathy to "see" the location and asked to Teleport the party. I loved it and asked him to roll on the chart for teleportation mishaps, but I let him roll as if he was in the "Seen casually" section. The Wizard said he thinks he should not roll since he can "See" the place through Telepathy. Ultimately, I said no. But they teleported in without mishap, save the surrogate mom, used Wall of Force to deny any attacks, and teleported back out, jumping past a whole city plot line which I was incredibly delighted to have them pull one over on me. There is no anger between us or anything and we often bring this scene up as a joke when we are talking about rules. But that said, was the Wizard right or did I give a generous ruling? Thank you for your consideration.

Ben Bishop

Hello to the honorable bailiff and to you three other goobers. I bring to you the case of the Illusionary Massacre. My players were recently inducted into the ranks of the Lords Alliance as adventurers hired to help the citizens of the Sword Coast. Their first quest was to investigate the mysterious disappearances of villagers in a sleepy hamlet. Once they get there, they find the remaining villagers all huddled together in the local tavern, too terrified to be alone in their homes. Long story short, the party discovers the evil vampiric cleric that took up residence in the local crypt, cleared it of all undead, and marched back into town with a few survivors. They were feeling like the job was done. However, as they get back into town, they hear screams coming from the tavern. They quickly rush into the tavern to find multiple zombies having had completely wiped out all inhabitants. The party easily defeats the 4 zombies, only to find that as the last zombie drops, an illusion pops. They find that the 4 zombies were in fact living villagers and all the other people in the inn witnessed what looked to be their hopeful saviors slaughtering their friends. This led to the villagers all running out of the inn towards the king’s road to find help. The party was then arrested and brought to Neverwinter. This started an espionage arc with a large trial where the party had to prove that they were tricked into killing those people. This is all part of a conspiracy against the Lords Alliance to disband the guild to have less resistance for an evil organization attempting to take over the land. The grievance needing deliberation was the fact that I did not have the party roll to see if they were tricked by the illusion prior to the killing. They are veteran players and did not put up too much of a stink, knowing that I wanted to get them into a roleplaying arc, but I believe they felt a bit railroaded. My argument is that some illusions should require the players to actively investigate. If you walk through a dungeon with an illusionary wall, I should not have you immediately roll a check as you walk in the room. There is some truth to the fact that I did not want to tip my hand in fear that they would avoid the catalyst for the trial, but if they had asked to make a perception check to see if anything fucky was going on and succeeded, I would have of course popped the illusion. Who is right? Should I have prompted a perception check or am I right in thinking it is sometimes up to the players to check for illusions? I hungrily anticipate your ruling.

Roger Cummings

Dear Honorable Judges on the High and the ever so lowly baliff Jam I bring to you the case of a Grung named NuttButt After two campaigns my friends brother wanted to join the group and insisted on playing a Grung named NuttButt, now i am a huge fan of the species but the original way they are written can be a bit broken for the game, they need to be in water an hour a day and have poisonous skin, so i worked with him to adapt it for the game… or so i thought, when we got to the table he panicked looking for water but i told him he didnt need it, but he made his character thirst for liquid to an uncomfortable point of where he was asking PCs and NPCs to piss on him, i truly didnt know what to do with NuttButt so i eventually killed him but it lead to an explosion of the group as his brother and him stopped showing up, so i guess my question is should i just have let him get as wet as he wanted?

Jmarshmallow

To the, like, venerable judges and the in essence disbarred baliff, I present the case of the "Giant" Misunderstanding: I was playing in a home game with a group of close friends, and during one session my Circle of the Moon Druid (who is known for his shenanigans) was razzing a powerful rakshasa, who is a recurring mischievous NPC that enjoys following our party's hijinks. After said razzing, the rakshasa cast what was essentially a 24 hour Enlarge/Reduce curse on my character, which led to a lot of laughs at the table when later I wildshaped into a super cute half-sized bear. This was totally fine, until many sessions later we were fighting a Dragon Turtle, and my Druid (at this point multiclassed with Sorcerer) cast Enlarge on myself and then wildshaped into a Giant Crocodile as a bonus action, for an epic Kaiju-style battle with the Dragon Turtle as a super-giant Giant Crocodile. My DM said that I was just a regular sized Giant Croc as opposed to a double-sized one, and that the Enlarge wouldn't carry over after the Wildshape: only my Druid is enlarged, not his wildshape. I argued with him that several sessions ago the Rakshasa's Reduce carried over so why couldn't mine, but he said that was different because it was more of a curse, and in that case it was two separate spell-casters using magic rather than just me (who is the only spellcaster in the party). My DM ended up having the aforementioned Rakshasa appear in the nick of time to cast Enlarge on my Giant Croc form and the Kaiju fight ensued (with all my party members riding on my back into battle) but I'm still wondering: was I wrong to attempt these spell-combo shenanigans, or was my DM trying to rob our party of some giant underwater hijinks. I await your judgement. -Justin M

Gabriella Pilarski

To the Honorable Justices and Jake, who is the Bailiff. In an old curse of strahd campaign with a group of friends, my party was fighting with a group of werewolves. On my turn I announced that I wanted to to swing my sword at the werewolf leader, aiming at his neck. I rolled a nat 20. The DM narrated that I decapitated the werewolf and we quickly finished off the fight. Afterwards I asked if I was the new leader of the werewolves since I killed their former leader (mostly as a joke,) and the DM said "I guess so." After the session the DM complained to me that I killed the werewolf boss too easily and that it was supposed to be a longer fight. I was confused- did I not deal the damage needed to kill him? The DM told me the boss still had more hp but by saying I aimed for his neck and rolling a nat 20 there was no other option but for me to decapitate him. I argued that he could have narrated the boss catching my blade or dodging and getting hit elsewhere but the session had already ended. The following session the DM had me navigate some weird politics of being the new werewolf leader and the campaign kind of fell apart a couple sessions later. I still feel a little guilty, like my nat 20 ended that campaign. So Justices, did my crit cause a premature end to a campaign?

Roger Cummings

Dear Honorable Judges on the High and the ever so lowly baliff Jam I bring to you the case of a Grung named NuttButt After two campaigns my friends brother wanted to join the group and insisted on playing a Grung named NuttButt, now i am a huge fan of the species but the original way they are written can be a bit broken for the game, they need to be in water an hour a day and have poisonous skin, so i worked with him to adapt it for the game… or so i thought, when we got to the table he panicked looking for water but i told him he didnt need it, but he made his character thirst for liquid to an uncomfortable point of where he was asking PCs and NPCs to piss on him, i truly didnt know what to do with NuttButt so i eventually killed him but it lead to an explosion of the group as his brother and him stopped showing up, so i guess my question is should i just have let him get as wet as he wanted?

Lorne Mintz

Hello esteemed Crit Justices and the dishonoured one time Bostonian judge turned Bailiff Jack. If it please the court I present to you the case of the Curse of Invisibility. So I play a Tortle Divination Wizard in a 5e Campaign named Lightfoot. I am level 7 and have the spell Bestow Curse, this spell specifies numerous options you can inflict on a creature but also states you can use a custom effect With dm approval, in a past campaign I used that option to make a Gladiator throw down all their weapons. Now is the quandary, we were trying to hunt down a creature known as a Yowtcha, yes a Predator from the movies, since it’s from the future we know not of it’s tech which allowed it to remain invisible, however I had a plan to stop that. I couldn’t make my plan happen but we did manage to break its arm band that made it invisible and my character with high intelligence noted this. Later we had to fight two more of these guys, I managed to catch one in a tree and used portents to make it fail contested strength so I could grapple it. Finally with my chance I casted the spell stating it has to remove its arm band, and this prompted an argument from my dm. He said I shouldn’t know that’s how it was being made invisible which I disagreed on, and that it was too powerful a request. I asked for it to just turn the effect off which he said the band can’t. Ultimately I couldn’t plead my case so I casted it to make him re-roll wisdom or do nothing, which to me is much MORE powerful than it losing invisibility. In the end the DM stated it would also take too long to remove the arm piece as it’s attached by wires. Who was right in this situation, is it too much to ask a to use that spell to make it do that, could it have just forcibly ripped it off breaking it, I’m really not sure if this request was in line with the spell or not. I await your judgement.

Bubba in the Bay

To the scrumdiddlyumptious Justices and their crispy, crunchedy bailiff Jake, I bring to you the case of the action economically sound. I was playing in a 5e campaign that had a few players who really made a meal out of deciding what to do on their turn during battles. This gave me plenty of time to think of ways to maximize the potential of the action economy during my turn. During a battle with a devil worshipping cult who had decided to raid our hideout, my Kenku warlock/cleric Tofu was defending the back entrance with another one of our players. The back entrance was on the second floor and let out to a set of stairs which would allow someone to walk down to the alleyways behind our hideout. As the cult members started to reach the bottom of the stairs I said to the table: Tofu casts a sanctuary spell on my partner, fires off an eldritch blast at the baddies at the bottom of the steps, and then jumps down on top of the rest as an attempt knock them prone. The DM stopped me and said that I would need to use my action to make a jump to try and knock down the cultists, but I argued that jumping just costs movement and I was willing to take any damage it incurred. The stairs to the street were parallel with the side of the building so walking off the ledge would lead me directly on top of where the cultists were standing. Ultimately I didn’t argue too hard as I wanted to respect my DM’s authority having DM’d myself before but I still wonder - was I being punished for trying to squeeze every last bit of toothpaste out the tube or was my intent to sow chaos rightly muted?

Connor savage

Dear honorable judges and sub par at best bailiff (unless we like him then he’s my boy so let’s relax on him this sesh) May it please the court. I bring you the case of Antonio’s thiccc cheeks. My party recently encountered a large battle to finish an arc. During the large battle our ranger summoned a large snake (whom we’ve dubbed Antonio) he dealt the killing blow to the big bad of the arc but needed to jump into an occupied space of our bard who was down. We immediately made mommy crush me jokes as is tradition. After the killing blow was dealt our unconscious bard died because he was suffocated by the snake (clearly a joke) our DM determined that since our large creature was occupying his space and after one death saving throw failed that our ranger killed her brother the bard by suffocating him with Antonio’s thiccc cheeks. RAW says he couldn’t occupy the space and he had space in the battle map to be over our bard and our ranger only did it as a joke. So I ask you. Was it right for our bard to have died to some thicc snake cheeks or should our DM have allowed wiggle room for a joke at the cost of his dead arc BBEG. I impatiently await judgement to settle the debate.

M

To the honorable justices and the capriciously honorable bailiff, I come seeking advice. I have played in a virtual campaign with SIX player characters for the last 3 years. While I enjoy the company of my fellow players as they are all good friends, I can’t help but dread combat or initiative-based encounters as it can take up to 30 minutes (sometimes more) between turns because of how many people are at the table. Our DM does his best to move things along, but it can still be extremely slow and is only getting slower as we level up and get more/cooler abilities. In addition, we never really get deep into any characters backstory because there simply isn’t time to cover everyone’s equally AND carry out the main campaign. I’ve suggested breaking our group up into two smaller groups, and I’ve offered to DM a subgroup. We have a another friend who wants to join which would give us 3 PCs in each groups We’ve broached the topic before as a group and one player is very adamant that they want to keep the big group since it’s the only time we regularly all get together. As a conflict averse person, I’ve avoided bringing it up again, but it’s really started to make me dread the sessions as we are getting higher level and have multiple attacks or bonus actions, etc. making the problem even worse. What is the justices opinion on the ideal party size? Is the more always the merrier, or am I right to feel that smaller parties will give each player the chance to shine?

DowdMusic

Nobel court, may it please the high crit, and bemuse the baliff, I bring light to the case of the Underestimated Centuar. I believe that my friends centaur PC should be able to weild a lance in one hand and a shield in the other, in the same fashion as a knight who is riding a horse can. I would argue that they would be able to carry it one handed no problem due to the equine build and weight distribution between 4 legs. The nerds on the internet disagree due to what I think is, frankly, the crap RAW interpretation that "a centaur is not considered to be mounted". I ask you, what is a centaur if not essentially a creature internally in the state of a "human mounted on a horse"? I await your justice and the disdain of countless "but that's not RAW" internet nerds.

Jake Johnson

To the Honorable Justices and the esteemed Bailiff Jake who I am honored to share a name with. I bring to you the case of the blade singing crab. I DM a campaign where one of my players is a goblin wizard who uses the subclass Bladesinger. During a boss fight this player activated bladesong then the next turn polymorphed herself into a huge giant crab. However, this became a problem as 6 enemy soldiers targeted the crab and after enough attacks broke concentration on polymorph. The player tried again the next turn and got a similar result. After this a debate was sparked between her and I. When bladesong is active it gives a bonus to concentration checks based on intelligence modifier. She argued bladesong should remain active while she was a crab while I disagreed, thinking it didn't make sense to carry over. We eventually settled that she could use the buff BUT had to use the crab's intelligence modifier which gave a +1 minimum to the concentration checks. This actually ended up mattering on the next boss fight as she used the same tactic and narrowly succeeded on concentration checks which made the crab a terrifying force throughout the fight. To the Crit I ask you all this: was I foolish for allowing this crab to sing a song of blades, or should I have stopped this stacking of power? I leave the verdict to you. NOTE: In case it matters, we used the huge giant crab statblock from Tales from the Yawning Portal. The crab has an AC of 15 and an intelligence of 1 (-5).

Myc Giaco

Salutations overzealous justices of the supreme crick and the disgrace that says things in between May it displease the court as much as it displeased me: Multiple campaigns ended after one of my two close dnd friends left one before it even started. The two friends (DM and PC), whom I met on roll20, created a character: “Vaughn”, together, that was apparently integral to the campaign. Vaughn’s original creator (PC) drew a picture of her male tiefling with no shirt and large pectoral muscles. During the session 0 we lightly teased her about her admittedly sexy tiefling, another player (DM’s sister) joked about his “man boobies”, and then the DM erroneously compared him to a toxic player that we had banished. None of us clocked how upset this made Vaughn’s creator(via voice chat) and afterwards, she left the campaign, and asked that Vaughn be removed as well, saying the comparison to the banished player had “ruined him” for her. We let her leave, but the DM was reluctant to give up Vaughn, so instead we made a new npc to fill Vaughn’s plot-shoes, but Vaughn-maker is still pissed that the DM still wanted to use Vaughn at all. So the DM decided to start a new campaign to preserve the friendship(turns out neither would pan out). But who should have ownership over Vaughn? If a player leaves a campaign, how much say do they have in what happens in that campaign? Worse yet, they were both players in the campaign that I DMed at that time that we were all having a super great time in but due to their issues, we ended prematurely. Your judgment is humbly awaited. PS Murph will be pleased to hear that I no longer play with these people and am in multiple happy campaigns.

Justin Bermudez

To the hounorable Crit Justices, and the most respectable bailiff Jake, I write in to get some Dice Christ guidance (and perhaps a bit of justice?). I’ll style this, the case of the feral, teen gambler. In a regular campaign my boyfriend DM’s with myself and four of our close friends, I play a teenage Witch turned Cleric with a gambling addiction. My character is Mary Worsley; a “Queen’s Gambit,” Anya Taylor-Joy style teen protegee, with a personal style somewhere at the intersection between Cher Horwitz and Hilary Clinton. Mary entered the regular campaign as a teenager on an exchange program from her magic highschool, finishing her studies by doing “field work” for school credit. Despite being a highschool student, though, Mary always found a way to con people into playing a game of chess for cash, a tavern where she could probe locals into betting high stakes money during a game of poker, or just generally find ways in which she could gamble recklessly with her own self at any place in our adventures. So, despite being a devout Cleric, Sister Mary has her problems. During one of our later adventures a fellow party member found a morphed version of a Deck of Many Things. In the lore of this world, the deck was a tool used by a crazed, circus themed deity, who ultimately used it as a tool to corrupt and destroy an entire underground civilization. My fellow player rolled an insane perception check to find the deck, and had to make crazy athletics and survival checks to swim down into a subterranean cave to retrieve it. However, once the deck was retrieved, the player refused to talk about the item, or entertain the idea of looking at the deck, and bound the item to her person—during the day, and at night while she slept—so that nobody could use the item, whatsoever. As an impulsive, divinity obsessed teenager, with a CRIPPLING GAMBLING PROBLEM, I needed this deck, and I NEEDED to pull a card. And this is where I need guidance (and possibly, justice?) One night in the cave I convinced another party member of mine (who also felt slighted by the refusal to have a conversation about the deck, or its use) to steal the deck off of our fellow players sleeping body. As a rogue, I knew it was next to impossible to steal this deck of her person, so I cast a 5th level telekinesis on her while she slept and had my fellow player steal the deck while she was immobilized. This, I know, is absolutely feral behaviour. But what was I supposed to do? With no conversation at all to be had about using the deck, or any discussion about why this player was the best person to keep a cursed item safe and to herself (instead of talking about it openly with the rest of the party), Mary went a little bit too chaotic, I think. So, I ask the court, and the church, was I wrong in immobilizing and stealing a cursed item off of my fellow party members sleeping body? Is this something Dice Christ can forgive me for? I’m simply a teenage cleric with a gambling problem, waiting on your judgment.

Pat N.

To the esteemed Justices and the other guy in the room, My campaign crew has recently tried to play a couple of our sessions at local breweries and bars that promote and host “game nights” in which people are encouraged to bring and play their favorite games with their friends at a given establishment. One of the places is even a D&D-themed brewery. On both occasions, each place has played super loud modern pop music (imagine our poor DM narrating an intense Strahd scene with Kesha blasting overhead) and neither has had a dedicated space or tables for gamers. In fact nothing was different from a normal night at either place. Dear Justices, am I right in discomfort and disappointment with what “game nights” turned out to be? What SHOULD a place do to facilitate a good game night, ESPECIALLY if they’re a D&D-themed brewery? Were our expectations simply too high? Thanks, Pat

Robert tellez

Dear high council of high and grand inquisitor Jake in his comfy chair. I bring a case against myself. In my very first time playing dnd I found myself in a one shot as a changling rogue (a practice run of sorts). The party came upon a bone dragon that I killed with badger gravity. All well successfully rolling to keep my changling origin a secret from the party I turned into a bird flew very high above the dragon and turned into a dire badger. In a few turns I proceeded to people's elbow the dragon into oblivion while successfully arguing that I should take no damage as badgers have loose skin allowing them to be badass. The dm allowed it but me being a more cultured man from listening to dnd podcasts for the past year knows that this was all insane and should not have been allowed. Should I be severely punished or does me being a new player mixed with the badassery of badger physics give a single free pass to pull this insane move off? (This was 3.5 dnd)

JustAScramblin’Man

I humble myself before the alter of DiceChrist. I present the confession of The Nervous (Crit)ter. I am I brand new DM who runs a game for a group of friends that is a mere 5 sessions in. During the first few sessions it became clear that a player at the table likes to keep track of Nat 1s and 20s for everyone at the table. I’d been rolling rather well for the sessions in general and have stacked up a few 20s already (and some 1s). They made a joke about weighted dice during a session (which I did not take offense to) but a few good rolls later and upon my next Crit I become self conscious and fudged the roll. Was a wrong to deny the blessing of DiceChrist and fudge the roll or was I right to self balance the roll? I await your sound judgment

Zach Collier

To the persistent judges to dice christ and...is that hardwons old body. Either way i instead not bring my old group of players but a puzzle i devized for them. I ran a superhuman campaign and at times we didn't have everybody to continue with story plots and so with them being in a government funded operation; built a training room holodeck so if they wanted to upgrade their abilities or test around with they're powers. (I should note this wasnt 5e or mutants of mastermind. I made my own system of days to maintain fairness and to keep track on how everyone leveled. It involved str.wis.power.speed.and a fifth if blanking on cause its been a couple years) The problem lays in the holodeck itself as I added a wis puzzle where in meta terms; had to break the puzzle.-jake if you want some fun you can run them through this quote I have but plz don't do what I did and wait for them to solve! "You appear in a marble room with a spiral staircase in front of you. There's some minor decorating like a red velvet rug, a chair made of mahogany and a 1800 Victorian painting. A hallway cuts the room left and right. With a quick peak it looks like the other rooms are identical to the last one. As you turn around to the door you walked through there is just one blank wall. What do you do?" The answer was to pick up any 2 items and throw them out of the room BEFORE they proceed the next room. Essentially crashing the holodeck and noclip out. As angry as my group got with me they enjoyed the puzzle and I got my fair share of razing when they finally figured out the answer. Judges I ask if this answer was too difficult as they were all stuck in this puzzle for hours. It wasn't meant to be an actual puzzle I was hoping from sheer frustration or the hope of luck they would throw a chair and then something else. Storm off into the next room and find that they won. I kid you not it was almost successful several times but they didn't throw the second object around but passing by my excuses of a difficult puzzle;I humbly await your response and if Jake made you rage like my group did.

Aiden

Howdy fuckers, and to Jake I hope your coffers doth runneth over and your harvest bountiful. I play at a table with my stepdad and a few other people, and basically he's an item hog, and a thieving bastard. His character is a Dragonborn Fighter and regularly steals our pouches or other items just to get himself off. He will, suddenly and unannounced, roll a die, declare the number outloud, and at this point the DM knows whats going on and just nods his head. Obviously this is fucking annoying and I want to know, do I have the right to brutally maim his character to the brink of death the next time he does this? I await your stupid fucking "judgement" and hope the astute paragon Jake is blessed with showers of flowers and gold till Death rips his Musclebound, Statuesque body from our warm loving grasp on this mortal plane.

jacob brewer

Dear honourable, Judges Tanner,Axford, and Murph, and as I am in Boston, dear scandal ridden, former judge jake, I am running a one-piece DND game with some of my friends and everything is mostly going well, except the fact that most of the crew are fish men ship combat generally just devolves into them going under water and blowing up the bottom of enemy ships with satchels of gunpowder and bombs this was done about 4-5 times so I’ve changed The ships they’re fighting to have an armoured keel underneath and some of my players say I’m now meta gaming and trying to make them fail So judges am I being a dick in not letting this insta-ship killing plan continue to work or am okay in wanting ship combat to be more dynamic P.s Judge Tanner if you could make up a devil fruit to put in the game, I would appreciate because my players are actively hunting for devil fruits and I need more options for them to find

Jared G

To the mighty and terrible justices and Jonk. I present the case of the smoked elf. I DM a political intrigue campaign and my players trapped several members of an enemy faction in a cabin they were meeting in. The then lit the cabin on fire and ran away before authorities arrived. The next day the party discovered one of the enemies had survived due to a magic item that granted him immunity to fire damage. They argued that even if he didn’t burn to death he would have died from smoke inhalation. After some debate I did a light retcon and said he lived but was in a coma which gave the party time to sneak into the infirmary and assassinate him. Justices should I have stuck to my guns does fire immunity also grant smoke inhalation immunity. I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

Cody Irby

Dear Esteemed and Honorable Bailiff Jake, and I suppose the Crit Justices as well. I’m in a home game where my brother-in-law is the dm, for the most part the campaign has gone well and he has done some fantastic character building, however, he has a movement rule that I find a bit weird, you can only move half your movement if you wish to take an action (15 feet out of my total 30) now I’m fine with his ruling but when I initially asked about it he treated me as if I knew less and that there was no way he could be wrong about it. My issue is that he acted as if because I’m younger then him that I couldn’t possibly know the rules better then him (even though he’ll ask me for rule clarification from time to time). Am I right to still be upset by this? Or should I have let it go months ago. I humbly await your response

Skillful Ferret

I confess my feigned averageness. When I first played online years ago, I would get up and go to the other room for snacks or to pace while playing D&D, since I had wireless headphones and could mute as needed and we didn’t use video. Sometimes when I was asked to make non important rolls like the occasional perception check while I was away from my dice, I would just say I rolled an 11. I chose 11 so that I wouldn’t succeed at anything but wouldn’t fail anything that was meant to be very easy to pass. It never came up and I have almost only dm’d since.

Zoe Chen

To the venerable judges and Jake Horowitz, star of the sci-fi mystery Vast of Night. May it please the court, I present to you the case of the “advanced” player that has no idea how to play DnD. My best friend is in a campaign that I have run for the last 4 years. He plays a Dwarven Paladin named George and is generally a fun player to have at the table. The problem? He has absolutely no idea how to play DnD. Even after 4 years, he nevers smites and doesn’t know how to cast spells. My other players have tried to teach him how to play his character, but he never listens. His character sheet was an absolute mess, so with his permission, I even took it upon myself to make it easier to read for him. It didn’t help at all. Recently, the party was fighting a vampire in a hedge maze. The encounter was going south for the party, and a few characters were already down. On George’s turn, he took his classic action of “I hit him with my non-magical pick." No spells, no smite. Feeling the DM sweat and worried that this encounter would be a TPK, I suggested that he could smite because his character would be able to see that the vampire was undead. He snapped at me and responded, “I’m an advanced player, I know how to play” and that I was trying to railroad his actions. He did not smite for the rest of the fight, and even refused to heal a downed player. The party barely survived the encounter, in no small part because of a clutch Plant Growth by the party’s bard, but they did suffer one character death, the character that George refused to heal. My question is: Was I wrong to suggest moves for my player? How should I deal with this “advanced” player that has no idea how to play Dnd? I submit myself to the mercy of the court.

Anibal Davila

To the annointed dice deacons, and that saintly choir boy, I have a confession: Our group started up during the lockdown and we play exclusively on roll20. we have two GM's that each run a session on a different day of the week, so... Two parties, in the same world, happening simultaneously. I wanted to drop in for a few sessions on the game I did not usually play, and our GM offered me a dark bargain. -be the villian for this story arc- I was to infiltrate the party posing as a lost adventurer, while secretly being an undead black monk (kurobozu), with some magical disguise and charm abilities. I was feeding off of the villagers one by one, and the PCs were a tempting meal. I would mechanically gain power if I managed to kill a PC with my disease ability, but of course I could not take on all of them at once. The idea was for me to weaken them over a few sessions and then to have the finale be a P-V-me boss fight. I had been playing with these guys for two years, and I knew every foible and flaw, I knew how to split the party, how to distract them, I poisoned their food, gave them bad directions, framed NPCs for my murders, and even disguised myself as one of the PCs and slept with the husband of the sheriff to turn them against the party. It was truly a masterpiece of betrayal, my friends had no idea I could be such a dirtbag, the big finale came up, I had prepared a lair with devious traps, I had charmed their heavies, I had poisoned them, I had them at their most vulnerable... and then I flinched. I could not go through with it. I really DID have a work thing that night and could not come to the session, but in my heart of hearts, I know I could have told my boss no. I exploited two years of friendship to learn their weaknesses, but made the DM run my baddie, and pull the trigger. He killed one of them, and left the rest reeling from so much ability damage they had to take a month of down time. That group of friends have not trusted me since, (which frankly, I am proud of) but the real sin was bailing on my GM and making him twist the knife. It's been a year and I still think about this every time I roll a sense motive check. How can I atone for this spineless sneakery? -The chicken monk.

Andy W.

May it please the High Crit as well as the respected bailiff. I bring you the case of the tall elf vs DM. I DM a long running group with my little brother and a couple of friends. My brother is currently getting his PhD in literature and is constantly having me read books from the Forgotten Realms series. I have felt pressured to read these books as he constantly tries to correct my lore whenever I use this setting. However this is not why I bring him to court, the issue came when we started a new campaign. Characters met in a tavern and players started to describe them, first was a human fighter: 6’6” jacked and drinking ale. Immediately afterwards my brother’s character walked in: a 6’8” elven wizard who ordered wine. Normally I would not care about small details, but something inside of me snapped. I recalled that in every one of those books elves were described as shorter than the average human, their average height being 4’7”- 5’5”. When I brought this up my brother claimed that Tolkein elves were taller than humans and this is the cannon we should be following. It is his character and ultimately does not matter so I begrudgingly allowed it, but my eye twitches every time it is mentioned. Would I be right to give him an item with a curse that makes him shorter? P.S. my little brother is 2 years older than me, I am a quarter of an inch taller than him.

Lizard Breath

I offer a Dice Christ Confessional: In the first campaign I ever played in, I made a mistake with my ability score modifiers. I misread the corresponding modifiers and wrote them down one number higher than they should have been (for example, I had a +4 modifier to wisdom instead of a +3, etc.). I was a lucky roller, and this made my good rolls even better than they should have been. I realized my mistake part-way through the campaign, confessed to everyone in the group that I had been wrong, lowered my ability modifiers, and finished the campaign. Ever since, I've rolled like dog shit. No matter how I roll (by hand, with a dice tower, with an online dice roller, using someone else's dice) my rolling is notoriously unlucky. People won't let me touch their dice and refuse to borrow dice from me in fear of getting my bad luck passed on!! I used incense in my last session, to only mild success. Have I been forsaken by Dice Christ? What can I do to restore my good standing with Him? I confessed my sin, but still seem to be suffering.

Adam Michael

To the honorable judges and the soon-to-be-dad, My "West Marches" campaign has a homebrew lingering injuries table using this website: http://farlandworld.com/injuries.html . The combat is already brutal (my DM (who I'm also married to)) is not afraid to hit us hard, which we all agreed on. However, when you add these linguring injuries, it makes it difficult. My Ruinesmith Fighter has one arm and is no longer able to hold a shield. It makes the game waaaay less fun, especially now that she has a story. I feel like I have to retire her or else the rest of my party down because she isn't viable. How do I convince them to stop the pain train?

Megaroni

To the wondrous crit justices and the bailiff who gets a “hey”. I have had a bit a drama that has leaked into my D&D game and would like to present the case of The Bloody Break Up: Our cleric and only healer died. This was a planned death as an irl break up between the party’s cleric and warlock halted the campaign for almost 2 months. They both agreed they could continue the campaign, but as their characters were also dating, the cleric felt their character had been effectively tainted and wanted to switch characters. She was killed with a nat 20 attack in an ambush by an assassin rogue. Our cleric was dead before any of us knew she was in trouble, unceremoniously shanked in a dark alley. The warlock couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t want to continue the cleric’s story. She disagreed with the DM for allowing it and she’s also mad at me because she found out that session that my bard had no healing spells. While it isn’t the direction I want to take my PC, I told her when we level up next, if I absolutely have to, I’ll take a healing spell. This is our DM’s first campaign and now she’s second guessing herself if she did the right thing as the warlock has more DM experience.

Lobbying for another Atlanta Live Show - Mr. Adams

Honorable Justices, and what do you call that one guy in the courtroom who announces stuff and is usually sweating from carrying too much body weight? Oh right! Bailiff Jake: May I present the case of the Disappointed Dragonborn. I DM a campaign that does have some homebrewed items and rules, but sticks pretty much to RAW. Early in the campaign, and during that awkward stage where everyone is still getting to know each other, we ran into our problem. During an encounter, our Dragonborn Paladin (who had two attacks at the time) used their attack action to swing their sword once, dealing decent damage and leaving the target on Death’s stoop. He then attempted to use his breath weapon as his second attack. I told him that he could not do this, as the attack action is used for weapon or unarmed attacks, and the breath weapon is its own action. After a few tense moments, the Dragonborn conceded and made his second attack, killing the target (I also allowed him to narrate the kill). Was I wrong in my ruling? Should I have let him use his breath weapon since it would’ve killed the enemy anyway? I humbly await your opinion.

Connor K

To the honorable justices and Jake who I heard might be on the next ep of 8 bit book club, I present the case of the Dream desertion. My campaign is heavily influenced by pc backstory. One of my players characters recently found her mom who was possessed by technology elves in an attempt to make her a part of their hive mind. Working with an artificer the party created a device to enter the ethereal plane and relieve her of this possession. The artificer (who it was clear should not be trusted) told them that they could get hurt if they were killed in the dream, and they most likely would not die. Little did they know I was planning on the artificer betraying them the second they woke up. In the first encounter in the ethereal plane, things went terrible and three of the PCs left behind the other two to die at the hands of the protectors within 3 rounds of combat. Those that ran never once mentioned a rationale for why they left in or out of character. The 2 PCs left behind were pissed at being abandoned. They turned their cameras off the rest of the session. I ended up lowering the difficult of both the dream encounter and the fight with the evil artificer waiting outside in the real world as I didn’t want to kill the two PCs who had been abandoned. That said it still doesn’t feel like Justice has been served even though everything worked out for the best and all the PCs lived through a cool split location combat. Was it okay for my PCs to abandoned each other without the consequence of death? How can I dispense a more satisfying Justice to those who ran away? Best SpeakNo

Mesa W

To the beautiful justices and interesting bailiff, I present the case of the healer turned bbeg. I joined a campaign that was under a time limit, as the dm and two of the players were going to be moving away soon. The campaign concept was a plane hopping campaign using a special plane shift device to "fast forward" a campaign to higher level settings at low levels. I had work, so I was late to the character creation session, but came up with a cool idea for a zealot barbarian named Shay who was a follower of Kord. However, when I arrived, the other players had already made their characters: two rogues, and a ranger. Realizing such a squishy party with no healer was not long for the world, I reluctantly tweaked my character concept and made her a war cleric instead. Fast forward a couple months, and I had to miss the second to last session session due to traveling for work. Not wanting to lose momentum or risk not finishing the campaign given the time limit, I told everyone else they could play Shay in my absence. I arrive for the final session, and the DM tells me my character spent the previous session in secluded prayer while the rest of the party did a mission. Everyone arrives, and we get started on the BBEG fight. The DM starts describing the scene, and says that we have finally arrived to face the entity responsible for all the troubles we've encountered thus far: the god Kord. The DM then asks "Shay, will you stand with your party against the god you've devoted your life to, or will you stand against them with Kord?" Not having any context for why Kord was apparently evil, and being pretty sure if Shay went against Kord she'd lose her powers, I said "Obviously I side with Kord." Shay and Kord got absolutely womped, in no small part to some very powerful magic items the party found during the session I'd missed, and I felt like I'd been railroaded into turning on the party for playing a character devoted to a god. The whole experience soured me on clerics, and I have been very reluctant to play one since. I ask the justices, am I wrong to feel like I was railroaded into betraying the party and being punished for playing a healer, or should I suck it up and accept that the DM has control of the story, and playing a servant of a fickle god comes with risks? I humbly await your verdict.

Penfield

To the Honorable Justices and the Bailiff, who’s as good as the char on New Haven pizza, I present to you the case of the Dubious Drowning. The fateful encounter took place along a narrow passage between a cave wall and the subterranean lake. My cheerful but oblivious goliath cleric was knocked into the water by a creature on the path, where in full plate armor I quickly sank 25 feet to the bottom. Upon my turn my DM informs me that I will have to make athletics checks to try to swim to the surface otherwise my character will drown in only a few turns as I didn’t get a chance to get a full breath before I fell in. My first role is a 4, where even with my +7 to athletics keeps me firmly on the bottom of the lake. The next turn I roll a 19 (12+7) and I’m still unable to swim. My next turn, following the DM’s hints, I try to find the wall of the lake to climb back up. I roll a natural 20! My DM tells me I make it 10 feet, and if I fail again, I will fall back to the bottom. Lo and behold the next turn I fail, and fall back to the bottom. My player ended up drowning as I couldn’t roll above the DC 25 athletics check enough times in a row and my friends were unable to help me in time (they were in combat and unable to see me in the dark waters). Was I done dirty by the destructive and displeasing DM? Or am I just a pouty player paying penance for poor planning? Note (if the Bailiff determines it relevant): We were not a serious group. In the previous campaign, of the same vibes, we had players named Boop and Poob, and a lizard folk monk that seduced (and followed through) with every serious NPC she could.

HGB

To the honorable justices and the bailiff who gets distracted by little stickers. Near the end of our 3 year campaign, we banished the aspect of a god from the material plane. with a lot of preparation, good planning and some crazy improvised moves we were more successful than anticipated, banishing the aspect without sacrificing anything. Or so I thought. The session after we banished this aspect, it was revealed that the warlock, who we were already a little suspicious of and even more suspicious of their patron, had siphoned some of the aspects power to their patron. The non warlock characters definitely did not want this to happen, but we had no chance in game or out of game to know it was happening, let alone stop it. The campaign ended soon after and it feels like our biggest achievement was tainted. We were just told what happened after the fact, with no way of stopping it or even knowing about it, in or out of game. Should I and the rest of the party have had an opportunity to prevent this tainting of our greatest achievement?

Ryan Vaughn

To the Honorable justices and the somehow more honorable Bailiff Jake, I have a case of mixing game systems. We have been playing in a homebrew setting campaign for almost a year now with my longtime group. For this campaign we have a first time DM from the group. So far everything has been running smoothly and we recently hit level 7 and he said he wanted to make encounters more difficult which we were fine with. In our last session we were in a fight with some pirates we were hired to kill and when he said he wanted the fight to be more difficult we didn't realize how big the jump would be and we got our butts whooped. The pirates ended up killing my PC which I was bummed about but was not a huge deal to me at the time. The thing is that during the encounter some of the AC of the supposed challenge rating 5 to 8 enemies were well over 20 and we struggled to hit. There were also some abilities the pirates were using that I did not recognize until after he read from some of the text on the stat blocks. I realized that he was using stat blocks from Pathfinder instead of D&D 5e. Apparently he has been using Pathfinder stat blocks for enemies the entire campaign where we were all playing 5e characters. Pathfinder is tuned much differently to D&D 5e and enemies and PC's become much more powerful at lower levels that in 5e. I was a little mad that my PC was killed in an unfair and from a game play perspective very unbalanced fight. I brought this up to the group and the other players agreed with me that having my PC die in an unfair fight was not cool and that the DM should work something into the story to not have my PC die during this encounter and the DM refused. Am I wrong to be mad about this or should I just roll with what the DM says? I have since rolled a new character and have continued playing but losing my other PC still annoys me.

Tom Edgerton

To my 3 favourite dnd players I submit to you the case of the stolen crits. I had been playing DND online with strangers during covid with an old school DM. We had been playing decent to Avernus. During our whimsical trip to hell we had encountered plenty of fiends and demons, one of our players ( a Paladin) gets a glorious crit! Hell yeah we all think as he pumps in a 3rd level smite, reads out the damage and we all cheer. (The DM hasn't said anything unusual yet). There is an audible pause and the DM smugly says the fiend is immune to radiant damage. Confused I protest asking why a fiend would be immune but get a flakey response saying it's a special fiend. This precedes to happen 3 MORE TIMES! Each time against a monster that typically wouldn't be resistant. In the end the group disbanded but I'll never forget those stolen crits taken from their homes! So I ask, should I have been more defient to the DM? Called him out on his bs or is it a case where the DM knows best? PS: I am now part of an amazing group with the perfect DM so I can't complain anymore!

Will Tucker

Most Honorable Justices and the Bailiff Jake whose malignant presence haunts the court, I present you the case of the NPC oneshotter. Currently, my group and I (the DM) are playing Waterdeep Dragon Heist, and my party consists of 4 players, each of whom decided to try and one-up each other with, in their opinion, the wackiest characters possible. The most fitting to the setting is a wizard faking oracle-like prescience for money, and the least fitting being literally Tucker Carlson, who rambles on about how the liberal government has ruined the once glorious city of Waterdeep. (In my defense, his rants were funny enough in session 0 I decided to let this player go with it). As the players delved into the first dungeon of the module, they were accompanied by essentially a level 3 NPC to their level 1 party (who saved them many times over). Upon my NPC only suggesting they not simply barge into the next room, Tucker Carlson decided to stab him, despite the entire party telling the player it was a bad idea. As the DM, I informed him this would result in the NPC fighting him, and they had already seen that the NPC was much more powerful than any of their characters individually. The player went for it and successfully stabbed the NPC, who then promptly attacked. The NPC could do multiple sword attacks, but I decided to take it easy on the player and only have them make one attack. The NPC handily one-shot the player, even rolling mediocre damage. The party had no healing potions or a healer, so the player was basically out of the rest of the dungeon crawl after they were stabilized and their body was hidden. I ask the court, should I have used restraint on this player to allow them to continue joining in on the dungeon-delving adventure, or did they have this coming? Should I have allowed Tucker Carlson into my game despite my better judgment? Should I get new friends? I lay my testimony before the court and accept your judgment.

Star_Drek

To the magnanimous court and ascendant bailiff: I am the player (he/him) and my DM (she/her) threw a lord of snails at us. We have another paladin (he/him) in this story. We ran into this giant snail in a cave, who the DM described as “intelligent” and could speak in primordial. His name is Tecuziztecatl, Lord of Snails, if you happen to want to look up stats, good luck pronouncing it. I, a wild magic sorcerer, ran up to it and attacked it via melee (don’t ask). The snail attacked me with two swipes of his pseudopods, and the paladin cast Shield of Faith on me to give me +2 AC. The snail then chose to cast Spit Acid on me to get around my AC (dex save) and downed me, leading me to my eventual death, and to the DMs credit, dramatic plot armor revival. The DM posits because the snail is intelligent (int 13), he would see the shimmering wall around me and decide to acid spray instead of swinging at me like he was to get around my AC boost. I argue that this snail lord was metagaming, because regardless of any lands or titles he may have claim to, he has lived in a cave his whole life and wouldn’t know what shield of faith looks like. He also would not know to change strategies from attacking AC to using dex saves just because a shimmering wall surrounded me, and I argue a more reasonable strategy would be to attack someone else or just hit me harder. We both await your swift judgement and long for our worthy punishment. P.S. we were both at the trinyvale dog and pony show in Chicago, great stuff.

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.

Lilybet Gates

Hello to the adverbly adjective judges and the oft-gaslit John, I present the case of the badgsacre (pronounced like badger and massacre, which is basically what happened) I was a fairly new DM, and did not balance an encounter properly, leading to the unplanned and brutal death of my party’s lvl 3 wizard. I was sad to kill the PC, who was very central to the plot at the time, and over-corrected a lot while trying to find ways to save her- offering chances to find healing potions, potential to reroll death saves, and even granting a Divine Intervention roll. My desperate scrambling did nothing to stop Dice Christ’s desire for this PC’s death, but it did remove a lot of stakes for the campaign going forward. Unfortunately, because of the wizard’s death, a big part of the plot focus fell to NPCs, and the campaign has suffered for it ever since. What should I do, to mitigate these aftereffects, and how bad should I feel for robbing my player of a quick and glorious death-by-badger? Also, any advice on how to kill my next PC- hopefully intentionally this time. -Lilybet Jones (She/Her)

Bukvar's Assistant Isy F

May it please the court as well as my favorite sometimes streamer / painter Jake. I was playing a home-brewed campaign as a void sorcerer. I had spent many sessions sacrificing role-play in order to learn void magic, as the DM said if I was studying I wasn't here. During a battle the party accidentally travelled through the void via a mirror. Once on the other side I asked to investigate as I had not cast anything. I was ignored and the DM asked our barbarian to roll for an attack. He rolled and he passed. The DM informed us the barbarian had smashed the mirror and I could not roll for an investigation check. I ask the court, I know I am being bullied but was the Barbarian wrong to roll and go along, given I had clearly asked to roll and was ignored. PS: The Barbrian is my fiancee of 10 years and we no longer play with this DM, due to loosing interest as I couldn't actually play. My fiancee now DMs a new campaign for 4 out of 6 of the party members.

Jack M

Dear Disbarred Unworty Jeremiah, and the Worthy Justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy, I ask what does up to the dice mean? I bought a cool looking die with a hobbit hole inside of it off Instagram. Looks great, definitely isn’t evenly weighted. I argue that I should be able to roll it as long as we don’t know what way it is weighted. My DM is sceptical. Should I be allowed to roll this because of uncertainty or should it be thrown at my head? (It weighs 10 ounces) P.S The sue is missing the 14, just a blank triangle, we just use that as a re roll spot for fun.

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. - Tara the Faithful Nerd

Jordan Jones

To the highest crit in the land (and that guy that reads their mail), I present the case of the Overlooked Book-man. I am currently running a game for a group of players that I've been DMing for for about 3 years. In this particular campaign, I've begun incorporating various quest-lines (very video game-esque, think dragon age inquisition) that if followed through provide certain players with custom boons. One of these quest-lines has led to the druid interacting with an ancient and powerful godlike entity which gave the druid the ability to Wildshape into dinosaurs, and I allow him to take exhaustion points to modify the forms (making the a size class bigger, adding fire damage, etc) with the added cost of only being allowed to turn into Dinosaurs for balance. One of the other players has complained that this boon is way cooler than his (which has amounted basically to an expanded spell list for his wizard), but he opted to switch characters at level 13, throwing the awesome boons i had planned for his Drakewarden Ranger out the window. Should I have put more time into boons for his new character? Should the player have expressed more than one session in advance that he wanted to completely change characters? I lay myself at the mercy of the court.

Legion

If it would please the Court of Crit, to the lovely Supreme Crit Justices, long may be their reign of evenhanded justice handed down to on from on high and to the lowly, lowly bailiff who reads Sun Tzu and knows the importance of appearing weak when he is, in fact, strong and coiled like a venomous snake ready to strike, I present the case of… nothing. I just love hearing these cases. Thanks for the entertainment!

Stale bread on salad, aka Crouton!

To the vibrant and downright jolly bailiff and the justices who depending on the day love or bully him. I'm a forever dm for three groups and in one I have a problem player. His PC is a tiefling named Rigby in reference to regular show (and yes he does the voice for him) and plays a rogue. Rogues get a bunch of steel metal balls that he used one time as a difficult terrain Tom and Jerry style so the enemies would slip on them. I allowed it delighted with an actually clever idea but this quickly backfired. He tried doing this to every enemy from then on and when they encountered some dwarven ironfoot in steel mechs (who he pissed off). He wanted to throw the balls underneath them, but I ruled that they crushed the balls hence their name or at least ignored the difficult terrain and he greatly protested saying I was mad he found a clever way to mess up my baddies and was "drunk with power". Judges, was I wrong to deny this cartoony work around or should this tiefling been a smear underneath ironfoot boots?

Zaxbeez

To the adorned and adored Justices and the Bailiff who would probably not mess up too badly if he were allowed to be a guest on 8-Bit Bookclub, I present the Case of the Too Cool Contemptable Character: In a campaign, I created a sad, pathetic man as a character (Mix Gilear and Cuckold Jake). The world was very loose and silly, and my 45 year old divorced man was working the counter at the Mall Burger King, located next to the dojo where he was taking monk classes. His bully, an 11 year old from an actual dojo, took extreme joy in beating him up – particularly in front of his ex-wife (the bully’s new step-mother). I was expecting and discussed with my GM a long-term arc where my monk would adventure around, gain confidence and eventually come back and at least hold his own against the bully (But never really win, because come on, he’s 11). After the first intro arc where the party kinda saved the city, the bully challenged my guy to a fight. I was not expecting to obliterate this child like I did. My ex-wife was impressed and told me we should catch up some time with a wink. Having completed what I had hoped would be a campaign-spanning arc in a few sessions, I grew bored with the character and dropped him off somewhere a few sessions later. Judges, was my GM being kind in giving me a win or being neglectful of my fun by resolving my character’s base desires so quickly? I humbly await your judgement.

Omar Mtz

To the ever lasting Judges who will live for all eternity and bailiff Jayke. I'm currently in a campaign that mostly role play and very little combat which i will prefer. I'm not that good at roleplay but I tried, the problem is that we have almost 6-8 players depending on the session but the story seems to center more around the veteran players who message the Dm their actions and leaves the rest of the party to just listing to Dm explain what happened. After some time I notice that mostly continue to join because we were playing D&D, but should I stay or should I leave?

Alexander Mullarkey

To the esteemed Justices of the Crit and the eager Bailiff, I present the Case of False Flyby Death. I am a DM in almost every game I run, often with heavily homebrewed monsters, and so I was happy to play in a friend’s Tomb of Annihilation game. It is a brutal module, and I acknowledge that. I expected my character to die. However, in this case, this was mot fair. My friend, the DM, gave flying enemies flyby, a feature which enables them to never have attacks of opportunity made against them. As we were almost entirely a melee party, this was frustrating. In this assault, my character was downed by a nat 20, then she attacked me again. The DM was unaware that an attack in melee against an unconscious opponent was two failed death saves. I died, and all the enemies flew off, leaving my surviving party members frustrated in and out of character. I love my new character, and I accept character death. However, the issues compounded. She ignored the random encounter mechanic, which is core to Tomb of Annihilation. She expresses disdain when we ritual cast detect magic to solve puzzles because she “doesn’t know the schools of magic.” She often does not know the rules for core abilities, such as sneak attack when her husband is playing a rogue. This person has been DMing for 4 years. At this point, my question is, am I in the wrong for being upset that my characters and enjoyment are being killed by her lack of knowledge, and how can I approach talking about this with her?

Zaxbeez

To the adorned and adored Justices and the Bailiff who would probably not mess up too badly if he were allowed to be a guest on 8-Bit Bookclub, I present the Case of the World Building Player: A dozen or so sessions into a campaign, I decided to switch up characters. In talking with the GM, he mentioned he was really interested in exploring the conflict between the Old and New Gods, but no one was really taking the bait. Seeing my chance, I created a character who was apart* of a secret society dedicated to restoring the old Gods to their former positions of power. After meeting the party and getting along on the adventure, I eventually revealed my position in the society and my goals to eradicate the New Gods. I spun some stuff about how the world was bad because the New Gods were siphoning devotion from the Old and thus the Old couldn’t keep the world as good as it was. I just made it up, because that seemed like a reason to be against the New Gods. I had a fun laugh about it, but My GM told the party that I was right and that was, in fact, the problem with the world. He privately asked me to: build out the pantheon of Old Gods, make some myths about them, figure out what New Gods would replace which Old Gods, create myths about their interactions, build a history of my organization, and explain how the organization hierarchy worked. He was in my regular position as GM so I could take some time to finish up my semester and move states. Justices, is this bogus or did I ask for this by creating a character that was so invested in something the GM wanted to explore? I await your judgement with a little pride.

Unfitmoviebuff

Hello America’s favorite Justices and Boston’s least favorite Justice Bailiff Jake. I come to you with the Case of the Deceitful Dream and the Disgruntled Demigod. I play an Eloquence Bard multiclassed Hexblade Warlock Drow named Maya in an Odyssey of Dragonlords campaign. I had discussed with my DM and we chose the evil Titan of Dreams, Lutheria, as her patron. About a year into the campaign we were on a mission to replace the queen of Amazons with her exiled sister, both of whom are Medusas, and in exchange she and her Amazonians will fight with us when it was time to fight the Titans. So we did this the only way we knew how, Navy SEAL style. I had abused my half hearted affiliation with Lutheria multiples times in the past for the party’s benefit. However, the night before we were set to infiltrate the castle, the DM pulled me into private chat on discord during session and said that Maya has a dream. At this point in the campaign Maya hated Lutheria and she had been tortured by Lutheria mentally from time to time. However, this dream was an offer. Release the true queen of the island in the prisons and Lutheria will free Maya’s oldest friend from her dream domain who was captured when the two first arrived in the setting. Maya with much heartbreak chose the party and the realm over her friend as I suspected this True Queen was some powerful servant of Lutheria. I eventually told the party of this offer leaving out the part that Lutheria would free my friend in exchange. I convinced them to not go into the prison at least until after the queen is dealt with as we might burn too many resources and whatever was in there isn’t getting out anytime soon. Our Medusa NPC wasn’t telling us either. After a multi-session showdown with the queen and her formidable followers, our NPC enacted her scheme during the chaos of the fight and sent some of her Minotaur reinforcements up to the prisons. By the time we had slain the queen and half of us rushed to the prisons, we saw three dead Amazons, one of them beheaded. Apparently the beheaded Amazon was a potential leader of the amazons but she opposed Lutheria and was imprisoned. The DM narrated Lutheria cackling in Maya’s head. The NPC didn’t tell us about her fearing correctly that we would’ve preferred her as queen over the NPC and had her Minotaurs break into the prison and decapitate her so we could’ve revive her so easily. This soured our win a bit, but really annoyed and angered one player who, in our party discord chat without the DM, was giving me the business. Saying that it didn’t make sense for us to not go into the prison and should’ve gone into the prison before the queen fight because Lutheria had influence on the island already and wouldn’t imprison her subject. I told him that I was only going with what I was told and he responded with “and how did that work out for you”. That pissed me off a bit. Yes in hindsight and after the fact it makes sense but we didn’t know everything yet and I even told them that we can check the prison out after. Did I make the wrong move or should I have paid better attention to the details sprinkled throughout out Keyser Sozei style? I was happy that the DM got a win especially since we’ve dominated the last few missions and encounters. The sneaky NPC also swore an oath to follow through on our deal afterwards and we rolled a high insight to know she was truthful. P.S. My DM and I are planning Maya’s purge of her warlock class as this was her last straw. Planning on chucking her warlock weapon into Vulkan’s forge and walk the path of a Peace Cleric multi.

Rachel K

Fj cousin UPDATE Fair tidings to the wise and sanguine judges and that little cutie that finds the cases.The campaign I was dming for my cousins fell through (without my cousin ever getting his FJ) and now we've decided to try playing again, but this time with my younger, non FJ obsessed cousin dming instead of me. Everything seemed fine for this campaign until I discovered that my older FJ cousin has decided that the reason our campaigns fizzle out is because the "rules" of d&d are too restrictive, and he's actually designing the story, monsters, and arch of the campaign with a distinct focus on a loose interpretations of the rules. The biggest problem with this is he doesn't know any of the rules in d&d, and when I say ANY rule I mean he doesn't know what stat you use for initiative after 8+ years of playing on and off. I've suggested we try other games like monster of the week that has a much less complex set of restrictions, but FJ cousin has seriously committed to trying to essentially design his own system. What do I do judges? How do I convince this man to sit down and learn an actual rule of the game? Should I just play in his silly campaign, or should I shun my family and make Thanksgiving awkward this year? P.S. before Murph says I need to find a new friend, he's my first cousin so I've got him for life.

Johny Dude-Kay

As a Naddpole Masshole who wasn't able to make the show, I still wanted to give a shout to the friggin awesome bailiff, and then also guess the judges are wicked cool too. Today I lay before you, 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 authprity 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

Tre K

To my homies Jake and the gang, I submit the case of The Pious Pilgrimage. In a campaign that started out as a two-shot, a friend and I decided to play as fraternal twin goblin rogues, Multo and Rickett. Playing as two rogues wasn’t much of an issue in a short setting, but the two shot turned into a full campaign, and we’ve run into the issue of having 0 healing capabilities on the team. My goblin, Multo, had already been leaning into some religious themes I’d put into his backstory, so after we had all almost died to a giant fiery demon and leveled up, I asked my DM if I could ignore the multiclass requirements and take a level of cleric. Multo isn’t the wisest goblin in the world, be he isn’t dumb, he was only 1 point below the threshold for multiclassing, so I figured it wouldn’t be too big a problem. Our DM however, thought it would be to powerful, and told me if I wanted to multiclass, my character would have to make a holy pilgrimage to a temple of his goddess, and either interrupt the quest to save “the realms most powerful wizard” we were on to bring the whole party, or be off by myself for who knows how long. Am I being a petulant Peter complaining about not getting my way? Or is a pious pilgrimage to much to ask a player? I humbly await your verdict

Lux

To the Supreme, Curt (not a misspelling) Justices. May it please the court, for what pleases the court should please the bailiff. I was playing a campaign with the usual crew (friends, brother and sister). Our friend was dming, and we ended the session in the middle of a dungeon (kind of a steam punk lab, very rad). When we returned the next session, I, as the cleric, said that I was out of spells and needed to rest if we wanted healing for the second leg of the dungeon. The DM announced that we could not take any rests of any kind in the dungeon. Since we were all pretty tapped out, we decided to leave the dungeon, and return and pick up where we left off after taking a long rest. The DM became visibly annoyed with me, and asked if I really, seriously wanted to leave the dungeon. I know what it means when the DM asks you that, but we were about to suffer a TPK, so we voted as a group to leave anyway. As soon as we left the dungeon, the BBEG showed up and killed me. Straight up took my head off from horseback as I came through the hatch (he did roll for it, but it was with advantage and killed me outright with one hit). My question is not whether or not killing me was ok. I think everyone involved saw that it was a punitive murder. My question is: should I have taken the DM's hint and just carried on with the dungeon, risking the TPK, or was I right to persuade the group to take the long rest against the DMs wishes? The Right Honorable Lux

Alex^2

Hello most esteemed and honorable judges of the court. Oh and that other guy who begs to be a judge I present to you the case of becoming feebleminded I have been running a campaign with two of my friends and my boyfriend. It’s a sea faring campaign to fight against the tyrannical colonization of the Pirate King. While on a desert island, two of the characters were outside of 165ft tall walls standing on a 30ft sand dune. My boyfriend, an echo night/warlock/Rouge mix, and our friend, a triton monk, wanted to get into the city while an angry mob who was already aware of them was charging up the dune. I explained they can try but it would be incredibly difficult. My boyfriend, who has an uncanny ability to roll ridiculously well, sent out his echo to distract the angry mob. On a nat 20 stealth check, my boyfriend successfully went around the charging mob and got to the gate in the wall. The monk decided to fly using his magic boots I gave him in the beginning when I was still learning the ropes and gave them a butt load of cool magic items. He rolled for stealth and failed. I had already planned for mages to be looking out and they spotted him as he flew. 2 of the mages casted feeblemind on the monk and he saved against one, but not the other and thus had an intelligence of 0 and could only identify friend and foe. Our friend got all butt hurt. He said his phone was about to die, but he would be back. He never came back. The next day he continued to ghost us and then sent a long text saying he feels like I penalize him for creativity, instead of rewarding him. Was I wrong to feeblemind him? I had multiple ways for him to be healed and he is such an amazing role player I felt that if anyone could play an incredibly feebleminded person, it would be him. I humbly (and slightly anxiously) await your judgement. P.S they weren’t in initiative and the monk said he flew towards the wall making him with range of the 150ft spell, and a map that showed dimensions.

Lilyannifer

I bring to you a somewhat long held grudge. I played an old school B/X style game for over a year and a half. We completed the campaign, took out all three big bads, good stuff. One of the characters had aligned with an ancient evil god for both power and Nagi-Ti alliance-making. We all joked about how our next campaign would be going and finding this guy and killing him after he set himself up as a god and started wreaking havoc. Long story only slightly shorter-- the evil elf says "I teleport out" after we finish off the biggest bad. But then our thief says "I throw the heartseeker dagger at you" which was a magical item we'd been holding on to, that unerring strikes and kills whoever it is thrown at. The DM ruled that the thief succeeded, even though he spoke second. But he also said afterwords that he'd kind of planned that kill with the thief before we started the session. Anyway. I'm currently in a game run by the evil elf player, who still brings up once in a while how much it sucked that he wasn't allowed to teleport out. What say you? Was the narrative satisfaction of killing him off worth the rules massaging it took to get there? What about DM and player conspiring in general?

Em Charlie

Hello to my all time favourite road-trip radio companions (and I guess the bailiff too) - I bring to the court a case that, to this day, still haunts me and my fellow players. My partner, myself, and some of our mutual friends met up online several times a week during lockdown in 2020 for a home brew dnd campaign. We played this game for almost a year, growing quite attached to these characters. It was pretty roleplay heavy, which was fine at first. That was until our DM started to force their own story ideas and character arcs onto our PCs. We began to lose agency over our characters and kept having the story and goals changed on us, at one point even having the campaign name changed several times over different sessions to match the DMs new vision. Our characters had no goals, nowhere to grow or develop anymore. We were so far from the original idea and inspiration for the original story that we all felt stuck. My fellow players and I eventually decided to bring this up to our DM. The resolution we were cornered into involved ending the current storyline and retiring our beloved PCs so we could start fresh. This lasted one session of the new game before acting as the crux of the dissolving of this friend group, with the DM going off and finding new players to run this renewed game for instead. Judges, I humbly ask if there is a way this should have been resolved, or if we were even right to have brought up our grievances in the first place?

3 Minions in a trench coat

To the illustrious and noble Crit Justices, and the disgraceful former justice who now just reads cases, if it may please the court I present the case of “despicable PC”. I DM a game for friends, and as happens, a PC died in combat. There were hurt feelings and some arguments about how I ran the encounter, but ultimately they decided to roll up a new character. They came to the next session with Kevin, a yellow skinned goblin in overalls with big goggles, and were adamant that it be allowed. The other players sensed a chance to razz me and also agreed they all wanted Kevin in the party. My game has become a total joke, Kevin is always asking about bananas and getting distracted and derailing the sessions. What makes this worse is that the player in question is my girlfriend, and she has started using the Kevin voice at *very* inappropriate times outside of the game, and when I bring it up tells me, “you made this choice by killing my other PC.” I even went as far as to introduce an NPC in the next town capable of reincarnating the previous PC but they declined in favor of Kevin. Am I within my rights to disintegrate Kevin (and risk maybe an even worse PC/getting dumped) or do I simply get whomped and accept this perpetual razzing until the end of the campaign? I humbly await your judgement.

BassToad

Justices and also Jake, our DM made us do a Jumping Puzzle after seeing the Mario Movie. He presented us a tower with 12 floors of floating rotating blocks. Each floor had several blocks, one of which would bounce you up to the next level if you land on it. The other blocks would have hazards like fire, or bumping you down a level. All the boxes were identical, so there was no way. IN ADDITION, we had to make a DC 15 (I think?) Dexterity check to jump safely between each level. As a -1 Dex Artificer Alchemist, I would never be able to make 12 Dex checks, so I did us all a mercy and drank a flight potion, floated up to the top and turned off the puzzle so we could get on with the mission. How do we stop our DM from doing this to us again? I think he was upset at me for bypassing the challenge. Thanks Justices and also Jake

RoleforThat

If it pleases the most honorable and level-headed judges, and that beautiful son-of-a-bailiff Jake, I present you the case of the ruined pants. Recently, I was DMing a game where the PCs were ambushed in the middle of the night by assassins. I had a mechanic for the fight where the assassins were using stick-on patches that if successfully applied would give the PC a random status effect (poisoned, paralyzed, etc), the effect would either last for 10 minutes, until the PC passed a check to remove the patch, or if an ally removed the patch for them. The bard of the party after being tagged by a blindness and frightened patch asked if she could take off her clothes to remove the patches. I not wanting the fight mechanic to be so easily bypassed, told them I thought a PC being naked was weird, and said no they couldn’t do that. There was some playful arguing but then we quickly moved on with the rest of the fight. The issue comes up later, when the same bard had been captured by the assassins, who were going to hold her hostage to get they rest of the party to comply. The bard devised a plan to get out, in which she asked if she could fall down and play dead, with the added caveat that to sell it she would shit her pants. I told her if she rolled a CON check and performance check she could do it. After using 2 LUCK POINTS on the CON check to shit herself, and making a successful performance check, the bard was able to fool the assassins into thinking she was dead and leaving her alone. When she was finally able to get out of her bindings she brought up taking off her shit-stained pants, which I jokingly agreed with. The players then dogpiled on me about not allowing her to take her clothes off before, but allowing it now. I think the situations are different, but also see where they are coming from here. Judges was I wrong for not for not letting the bard remove her clothes pre-shitting, but saying okay after the browning event, or are my players right in coming after me for an inconsistent ruling? I humbly await your judgement. P.S. The pants-shitting bard in question is also my fiancé if that matters.

Spore Zealot

Are we allowed to respond to these? If not, ignore this. First, ask Jake to talk to Jill for you. Second, I think you lean into it and introduce a Thief Rogue and his Artificer assistant that lead an entire clan of yellow goblins, and there's just something about the Rogue that Kevin finds himself drawn to. They need Kevin for a very special and dangerous mission (the rest of the party can assist) to steal the local monarch's crown jewels (spoilers, the monarch is a dragon in human form).

Terran Benedict

Illustrious judges and the lustful bailiff whose name will not be mentioned until the judges deem it, I bring to you both a case and a confessional. I was DMing a campaign and early on our Paladin’s brother (and favorite NPC) Benji was killed by the BBIG in an encounter that was almost a total party kill. After that our Paladin took the path of vengeance and everyone became really invested. In the final battle with the BBIG, our fighter expended all of his attacks and actually landed the killing blow. But everyone had been talking for months about our Paladin getting the kill, so I lied and said the BBIG was barely still standing, giving our Paladin a chance at dealing the vengeance she so wanted. Her next roll was a Nat 20 and the table erupted with cheers. She smited with everything she had and our campaign was complete. Was I wrong for lying and saying the BBIG was still standing? Will I ever be able to bask in the light of dice Christ again? I lay myself at the mercy of this court.

Toxic Yobo

Greetings thy gods of judgement, my group was playing Deadlands. A weird Wild Wild West game with monsters, but not the Deadlands everyone else plays. After a successful mission to save a small town from bandits my character takes a rest from being shot at. He sits at the poker table in the local tavern, which played blackjack for some reason and after losing a small sum he walks away. While he walks away someone at the table is caught out at cheating, angry my character flips the table like one is to do in attempt to steal later. One of the gamblers pulls a gun and threatens to shoot everyone in the bar. My friend with a shotgun steps in and tells them to take it outside, they insist my character joins them outside. With the shotgun trained on them we walk outside when the angry gambler starts threatening that he’s going to kill everyone here including the second npc that was at the table. The angry gambler pulls his gun up to shoot but since the player had the shotgun trained on him he was allowed to shoot first instead of rolling to draw. After the man fell the sheriff of course rocks up on horseback only seeing an execution. The second gambler that had a gun waved in his face multiple times by the angry one falls to his knees, shouts that we killed his best friend and then draws his pistol before that was shot out of his hand by another party member. The street described by the Dm was busy but everyone only saw a man being killed and not the outburst beforehand apparently, the Dm swears that we killed an unarmed man with no mention that he hoisted his weapon. As our characters are walked to jail to be judged I ask thy. Were our actions of self defence or do we deserve to be hanged out to dry like the dirty dogs we are? (Right after we secured the only supply route for the train.)

Zerolott

Greetings perfectly acceptable judges and the really cool Bailiff Jake, I bring you the case of Me Abandoning My Party Members and Leaving Them to Die. I was visiting a friend for a weekend, and they asked me to join a session of their campaign just as a one off. Theirs was a homebrew setting with Dark Souls like rules where if you die you come back just without your unspent XP. I didn't have a ton of time to prepare, so I just made a quick Bard to have fun with, and just decided they would be mysteriously androgynous because that's fun and hot. Big mistake. Within five minutes of starting to play my character was sexually harassed because they wanted to know if I was a boy or a girl. After getting them to back off, their next idea was to have me drink a mysterious potion from their last campaign. I didn't want to do it, but my friend, (the DM) made me roll a charisma save, which I failed. It ended up being something that turned me to stone and killed me immediately. I came back, but was not feeling any camaraderie to my new party. Anyways, after finally getting on with the adventure, we ended up in a pretty unwinnable fight, but the other members insisted we could win. I, being able to see the writing on the wall, quickly drank a polymorph potion I had found earlier. I turned myself into a bird, and flew back to the respawn area. Everyone else quickly died, and was pretty pissed that I left since they had lost a lot of accumulated experience. I felt that me personally and my character owed no allegiance to those rapscallions, and I don't feel bad for abandoning them. Judges was I right to leave my party to die?

Percy

Greetings honorable judges and esteemed Baliff Jake The DnD group I was part of in 2020 broke up in 2021 but continued being friends. Or so I thought. On saturday, I was hanging out at my friend's place. As we were talking, they mentioned plans for a new campaign. I sat on the couch and stayed quiet. Good for them! It hurt that I wasn't invited, but I didn't mind. That is, until, they said they're going to plan around the normal "home campaign." With all the members of the original group. They've been playing together this whole time. I went to the bathroom and cried, washed my face, and calmed down. I told them I was tired and went home. Dear judges, am I right to be upset? I haven't said anything to them about it, but it really hurt. It was one thing when they made 3 grpup chats without me, it was another when I found out they had bowling once a week for a year and never invited me. I've let all that slide and havent commented besides asking to join bowling once (which they said they didn't have room for more) since friends aren't required to spend everyday together. Am I being dramatic? I'm autistic and bad at social cues. Maybe it just hurt me extra because DnD is my special interest and they're the ones that introduced me to NADDPOD in the first place. I dunno, I thought I'd ask. Love you guys! I wear the Pawpaw lawyer shirt all the time and it's basically just a plain blue shirt at this point with how worn out it is.

Cain Bowman

To your Honors and the On-par, I present the case of Possess-tree-ion. Every year, I run a holiday-themed one shot for my party, the Fantastic Band of Idiots. One of the challenges they faced during this year's game was that their antagonist had tapped into the spirit of holiday joy and was using it to power his magic sleigh, by way of Will Ferrell's (Murph knows him from Anchorman) movie, Elf. To stop the sleigh, the party had to bah-humbug it up. I'm not going to get into how the teen sorcerer melted an entire skating rink and then convinced the Nazgul Park Rangers that he was the police commissioner, or the actions from the white elephant gift exchange that had me questioning the morality of both the characters and players. Instead, this case focuses on Marcellina, our Victorian ghost-girl, played by my beautiful girlfriend, a relatively inexperienced player. Marcellina's festivity to ruin was the decorating of a giant community tree, minutes before they powered all the lights on it. My girlfriend asked if she could possess the tree and start throwing the balls and wreaths at the merry-makers. I told her no, since her ghost's possession ability can only target creatures. She asked me what defines a creature in DnD, and I told her that pretty much anything that can take actions is a creature, which a tree cannot, so is not. She disagreed, and started listing all the things that trees can do, like move, grow, shake, before blurting "You don't think trees fuck?!" I powered through, put my foot down and said that trees don't have a turn in initiative, and that was that - until the final encounter. You see, when I had planned this one shot, I didn't realize the question of whether trees have a turn in initiative (or could fuck) were going to be such hot topics. So hours later, when the Christmas-treants joined the present-mimics and beholidayer in the final fight, my girlfriend leaped up, pointed at me, and yelled "I THOUGHT TREES DON'T GET A TURN IN INITIATIVE!" Things got heated as the rest party (that pack of bloodthirsty piranhas) egged her on as I tried to explain that they are not actually trees, but tree-like peoples. She spent the rest of the fight researching treants and finding evidence saying that they were basically trees, as well as pointing out that there are other plant monsters in DnD, and that because she could possess them, I should have let her possess the other, non-animate tree. She held this grudge for long after the fact, to the point of telling me three months later, completely unprompted when I came in from work, "I'm going to be a big, beautiful tree, filled with evil power, and you're going to have to deal with it." Your honors, was I wrong to say a tree isn't a creature? Was I right to deny harbor to her arbor fantasy? Or should I have let that tree fuck? I await your judgement, unless it's against me, in which case I'm not home right now.

Basem H

To the 'makes my girlfriend want to listen to podcasts' justices, and the 'waIt, nevermind' bailiff. I present the case of 'Engulf V Fear'. I DM a 5th edition game for some friends at work and my little brother, a rogue of course. They were in combat with some water elementals on a boat that used their 'Whelm' ability to restrict my little brother. Because of the way that it's written, I flavored the ability as surrounding my little bro completely, as in 'in the elementals space'. Similar to a gelatinous cube. The problem came when the bard cast 'fear', forcing the elemental to run. I ruled that because the player was just floating in a magic pool-creature, the monster would instinctively run without 'dropping' the player. Though after some arguments from the players I gave the player a free saving throw to escape while the enemy was feared (which he failed). Is this an active restraint like a normal grapple and they should have been dropped, or was I right to give my players a hard time to scare the crap out of them. I will say that as they approached the side of the ship, the water elemental may have become a little-bit-of-pee elemental. I await your judgement(s)! (ps, also don't feel bad if you say my name wrong.)

Sciz

To the ever-present justices and the occasionally nearby bailiff Jiggles, I present to you the solo space solution. Ina space 5e game in a virtual tabletop, we were assisting in the liberation of a planet from a sect of robots trying to convert the whole planet into other robots Dr. Nefarious style. We all at one point had agreed to help one country who was opposed to this but outgunned with our power to rise up and defeat. Before any revolution oculd begin, One of the party members, a space neutral evil elf (which we didn't know their alignment at the time, they were a dick but didn't do anything truly rude to anyone) who was in fact a hidden noble decided to do a series of sending spells in private messages with the DM, asking their family to come and GLASS THE PLANET to eradicate all robots and robot supporters, without our knowledge, be that in game or out of game. After a few sessions and the rest of us non the wiser, the climax of us storming the citadel happened and out one of the windows an elf armada comes in and starts bombarding the planet and we are all dumbstruck and then the elf revels their plan. We are all dumbstruck and just continue on thinking we cant let the robots escape wile this is going on. The DM did however make a show of it and had the robots also call reinforcements and destroyed the whole elf armada which it was revealed here that the robots who had taken over were actually much more powerful and the BBEG. We all did survive after the whole situation, but the whole planet was either dead or robots. My issue however I am quite mad at this and don't know who to take it out on, would it be the DM even though he did bring consequences to the elf? Just the elf for doing this? Help me direct this anger in some sort of direction oh please wise lords.

Probably an NPC

I have a confession for Dice Christ, i hope to be absolved a while ago my family and i started a campaign. I know quite a bit more about DnD from listening to this show and others (shoutout gilear) then they do but I was not the DM. while playing we set fire to a town in a bid to let the rogue steal an important piece of information, and it went poorly. the guards were called and we had to run away. I casted command to distract the guards who were coming for us. I knew the spell only lasted for 1 round, but when the DM, my dad, asked I said that it lasted for a minute. this helped my siblings characters escape, and we stole the item we needed, but we only did it because the guards were distracted by one of their officers screaming for a solid minute. I ask for forgiveness from the church and the court.

Jenifer Joseph

Obviously I’m not the judges but as an autistic person, please please please get new friends

Jake Letourneau

To the Honorable, Fearless, and Most Beautiful Justices and the guy I share a name with who is pretty cool I guess. I write to you to settle a dispute I am having with my own self. I fear I have give my party too much freedom but also love and am super anxious about how to proceed. My party was in the middle of a fight in a colosseum when it all stopped and they noticed one of the minor villains, a legendary Githyanki pirate captain named the Cosmic Specter, took control of the governors box office with a very powerful homebrewed weapon and several of his pirates spread around the stands effectively taking the place under control. I rolled and the city guards were starting to get through to rescue the Governor and so they Teleported away to their ship above the arena before receiving their ransom. In a series of lucky and unlucky rolls, the spelljammer he uses was damaged by a fireball spell and was slowly being repaired as the party rushed up to try and reach the ropes hanging from the ship. They successfully grabbed the ropes aand started to climb. Two failed and fell. One that fell saved to grab on to the side of the colosseum and the other (a Barbarian) failed, used rage, and was not immediately killed upon impact. She failed 2 death saves in a row before an unknown person helped stabilize her. I ended it here to try and figure out what I am going to do. I am a DM virgin and this is my first game running and only second game of DND I've ever been a part of. So here I am with my party split three ways and at a lose for what to do. Should I have been more rigid and said the ship got out of range to jump but they could attack at range before it was gone or is this just how Dice Christ fated this to come to. I await your verdict and if you wish to grace me with some advice on where to go from here I will gladly and humbly accept. Love you all and Fuck Mothership

Ya Boi Troy

To the beautiful Judges, and the awesome bailiff Cameron. I am playing a collage of swords bard in a Spelljammer Campaign. My team and I were in a battle arena fighting Braxat, a huge rhino monster. During the battle I used hypnotic pattern to try to incapacitated the beast. My DM rolled the saving throw, and declared that he failed the save. So, thinking that the monster was incapacitated, the barbarian went out of his rage to prepare a coordinated attack with the rest of the teams. However when it came to the big baddies turn he moved and attacked the unraged barbarian. I reminded my DM the creature was under hypnotic pattern. He then said that the creature was immune to being charmed, so the hypnotic pattern I had cast did nothing. I argued that I would have seen that the spell didn't work, but he said the spell does not say that it tells you when the spell isn't effective. We ended up barely surviving the battle, and moving on to the next match. So, I ask the court was I right to be upset having no clue if the spell had an effect on a creature right in front of me, or would the spell or monster give no indication if it worked. I humbly await to hear your wisdom.

Dylan Meyer

May it please the justices and make the bailiff compelled to bring this case before them, I bring before you the case of the cliff edge and the ogre. I'm currently playing a dragonborn barbarian in an Acq. Inc. module. Our lvl 2 party was battling an ogre at the edge of a cliff and I decided it would be smarter to do shove attacks and force the ogre to fall to it's death. I pushed it to 5 feet from the edge. Our bard then used thunderwave to push the ogre 15 feet expecting it to make it fall off the side of the cliff, but our DM had the ogre roll a dex save to cling to the side. It ended up being so intimidated by us that it gave us info on who had hired it to wreck our new HQ in Phandalin and promising to leave the area and stop killing local livestock, but our bard was still a little salty arguing the extra distance pushed beyond the edge should have made a dex save not possible. My question, was our DM correct to have them save and have the ogre survive and give us information or should our bard have been allowed to make the ogre go splat? I humbly await your ruling? -Abazigal, the dragonborn barbarian

Nicholas Elmitt

To the justices blah blah blah I present the case of the D&D trivia host with a badly phrased question. At my partner's work the do trivia each week. A few weeks ago the theme was D&D. While she is not a die hard like me, she has played in a few campaigns and knows enough that she got 7/10 for her team. I was very proud until she recited some questions that she got wrong at which point I became incensed. The question which still grinds my gears was phrased as such: "Which class does not get their abilities from a higher power? A) cleric, b) paladin, C) warlock, d) druid." The "correct" answer given was druid, but I contend that paladin is more correct as a Paladin's power comes from their Oath, not the God they are aligned with. I also think that it could be a warlock, because a devil is not a higher power, it is by definition a lower power. Furthermore, if you are as loose with terminology to allow warlock to be included, then surely the primordial powers that grant a druid their abilities through their connection with nature would be included in this definition, thus making the question have no correct answer. Your honours, am I right in being appalled by this question and answer, or should I let it go?

quolby jack

To the venerable judges and besmirched judge Jorsh, I present the case of the Tipsy DM and the Bejeweled Drake, may it please the court: Recently, my party was raiding a duergar fortress in Icewind Dale, and our DM was having a chill Sunday and imbibed several beers during the session. Apparently, the Austin craft beers had a higher ABV than he was used to. By the time we broke into the king’s room and found his treasures, our DM was pretty drunk. Among the loot, there was a nonmagical smoking jacket encrusted with gems. Though it did not fit any of the party members, the DM allowed that my ranger’s drake companion could wear it and that it would even give a plus one to AC for all the gemstones. By the next session, the DM no longer recalled this interaction and was surprised by my decked out drake and her increased AC, but he ultimately allowed his impaired decision to hold despite the dwarvish smoking jacket not actually being a great fit for a quadrupedal drake. So I ask, should I have returned my drake to it’s normal stats, or was the drunken decision okay to uphold? If it matters, my ranger and thus his drake, did die that same session at the hands of the king.

Ryver Nakayoshi

To the highest revered, well beloved court, and GT Cruiser enthusiast, and only person that we can prove is on the podcast, Jake. I come to you with the case of the New Player and the Unmet Expectations. My girlfriend went to play her first game, DMed by my friend. Since this was my GF’s first time, I helped her create her character. She wanted to play an angelic character who had to slay unworthy creatures for the person granting her power. For this, I made her a protector Aasimar eldritch night. She was enraptured by the idea of having wings. And I explained to her that she wouldn’t get them until later. Flash forward to the session, we are arriving at the first town, the dm describes rented rooms at the inn that were upstairs. She says, “I fly up the stairs to go into the room…” there is a pause. She gets asked how she has access to flight so quickly, and she said, “Well my character has wings right?” After much discussion, about ways we can reflavor an Aarokocra (“I don’t wanna be a person with a beak!”), her being allowed to levitate for flavor (but not allowed during combat), she finally decided that the game was “Stupid” and that “we are all just playing pretend, so why can’t I fly if I want to?” So I ask you, judges, did I go into this with her expectations too high? She refuses to play this game any more because of this experience, and I’m very much afraid that it’s my fault she didn’t have a good time.

Jamison

To those on high where they are by right, and thou lowly, cast into the depths, I come before the crit with a simple but significant tale. Years ago, when my friend group and I were still a bit new to DND, our party was in the underdark and came to a lava river. I, a nice little Gnome Wizard named Sheeve (like the emperor) thought I had solved the lava puzzle by casting fly on our Goliath barbarian. The barbarian then proceeded to pick up each party member and simply fly us across the river. Our DM, a very good man and friend, however began making the barbarian roll athletics checks to carry each member. I put forth that the spell was doing most of the work and all the barbarian had to do was literally hold us for a minute or two, something a Goliath with the powerful build trait shouldn't have any trouble doing. Our DM disagreed, our barbarian eventually failed a check while carrying an npc our party and DM enjoyed, and he died outright. I querry the crit, should our super strong powerful build barbarian have needed to roll check to just carry people? Even small sized gnomes? I prostrate myself before the crit and beg you deliver justice. - Jamison

Mistah Watzitoya

May it entertain the justices and the bailiff to this court of hilarity, fair and just rulings, and good times, I present the case of the bitter fighter and the rogue goblin. I am a novice DM, I’ve been playing 5e with my friends for about two years. I have so many friends who want to play I’ve split them up into multiple groups (don’t worry, I may be new but I’m pretty sure I was born to DM). In one of these groups I have an self proclaimed dumbass fighter, a deranged wizard necromancer utilizing a shitty homebrewed subclass of my own invention, a cleric who prays to the “Dhmmm” for guidance and strength and looks an awful lot like a hololive actress, and of course, the rogue goblin, whose first actions upon meeting the party for the first time were to pickpocket everyone, get caught while doing so, and deny any involvement in any kind of theft. Keep this in mind, it will be important later. The party found themselves on a quest on behalf of a dryad of the forest, who sent them to a mermaid lagoon to retrieve her staff that was stolen by mischievous mermaids. The party had no issue getting out to the mermaid hideout with their foldable boat, as it was in the middle of the lagoon. But sailing there proved to be a bit of a hazard, especially as a siren song caused multiple party members to get stunned, leaving them vulnerable to getting their belongings stolen by the mermaids using long whips of algae. One of these items stolen was an immovable rod, which the party vowed to get back at all costs. Later, inside the hideout, the party couldn’t go below the waters as it was too dark. They told the goblin to do it, who would not do it without a significantly larger cut of the looted gold as payment for getting it back. The party would argue about this, and come under attack from the mermaids again and again, until they agreed they’d discuss it later after they got their belongings back. They gave a portable hole to the goblin, he held onto the ship’s anchor and dropped all the way down to the bottom, getting back the goodies without much incident. This is when it happened: The debacle between party members started out with the fighter immediately telling the goblin to give the gold to the cleric who was onboard at the time. The fighter refused to go anywhere until the loot was in the cleric’s hands. The goblin inquired why and the fighter cited a lack of trust in the goblin for stealing the party’s gold upon first meeting them, they were going nowhere until the goblin gave up the portable hole which held all their findings, which he refused to do so. The cleric even stated that she didn’t mind letting him hold the gold, despite being a fresh arrival herself (they only just met her before this encounter at the lagoon.) This bickering continued on long enough for the mermaids to come back with a nat 20 on initiative check, stealing the portable hole that held all their loot and the party’s stolen loot, and disappeared back into the fathoms below. What do the judges make of this? Should the goblin have given the gold as demanded by the fighter or should the fighter have sailed back to sort it out later?

Mistah Watzitoya

Follow up in case of interest: The party knew they had to get their belongings back, especially after I roflmao'ed saying "All you fools did was go down there, wrap up all their and your goodies into a nice and neat little package, and now you've got even less than what you started with!" So the cleric decided what to do next, she (blindly) fired a guiding bolt down at the mermaids to try and get them to drop the neatly folded cloth that was the portable hole holding all of their crap. Unfortunately she rolled a natural 20, and completely obliterated one of the mermaids, bloodying the waters and sending the mermaids swimming frightened into immaculate hiding places. Fearing for their lives as they couldn't see the reactions of the mermaids, the party got to shore as fast as they possibly could and found the wizard laying on the beach. When the cleric obliterated the poor mermaid, the damage was reflected back to the cursed wizard who was on the shore at the time, and he dropped dead instantly. They resuscitated him, then got the hell out of dodge, hoping that the dryad nymph creature thingy who gave them the quest in the first place wouldn't rip and tear their bones and blood. If yall thought this story was funny for whatever reason I think I'll post another one following the same group and their misadventures. Thanks court!

John-Paul Vetter

Greetings esteemed Justices and their friend Jack. I DM a maritime swashbuckling pirate campaign, and early in the campaign, my party had been shipwrecked on an island that was surrounded by an unmoving magical storm. They had come to the island to find a dangerous cursed sword they were told to retrieve by a mind flayer pirate captain. The party found the sword and set up a meeting with the pirate captain to make a deal. Nervous that the pirate might try to take the sword by force, the party decided to leave the sword with their Druid who would hide a little way away and wait for the signal to bring the sword while the rest of the party negotiated. The captain agreed to get the party off the island and give them a brand-new ship in exchange for the Sword. Finding the deal to be fair, the party gave the signal, to which the Druid replied, “I’m not there”. The Druid then narrated how as soon as the party left for the negotiations, he sprinted to the shoreline, wildshaped into an octopus, and attempted to escape the storm all on his own. Confused, I asked him why he was doing this. He explained that his character believed that the sword was powerful enough to slay the evil sea monster that had killed his family in his back story, and he was ready to abandon the party to escape the island with the sword. I then explained that trying to travel through the magical storm as an octopus would require him to beat a nearly impossible skill challenge and it would almost certainly end in his death. He said he understood, and he was going to try anyway. Predictably, the skill challenge ended with the sword-wielding octopus being smashed against the rocks as he attempted to abandon his crew. Panicking, I then began to describe to the rest of the party how they noticed their unconscious druid floating just offshore. They dove in after him and brought him back to consciousness. When the party questioned him about what happened, he said that he had gone out into the water to flank the pirate captain from behind when he was pulled out to sea by the storm. Our Cleric then asked to roll an insight check to see if he was lying. The Druid then accused the Cleric of meta-gaming, as the party would have no reason not to believe him and the Cleric was only asking for the role because he had known what really happened outside of the game. This was the Clerics third ever session of D&D and he immediately backed down and said that he didn’t have to make the roll. I disagreed and made the Druid roll a deception check against the Clerics insight. Begrudgingly, the Druid rolled the dice and got a nat 1. At this point, the Druid grew despondent and did not contribute for the rest of the session. I beseech the court; was I wrong for making the Druid roll after the Cleric said he didn’t have to? Did I go too far and kill the vibe? Or was I in the right to stick up for my friend who was new to D&D? I throw myself on the mercy of the court.

T3r hx

May it displease the justices and bring light to the bailiff, I bring forth the case of the “Under Powered BBG”

T3r hx

I recently started my first campaign, and this case covers the start. My players get caught up in an old keep after getting chased there by a goblin army. After several encounters of unholy beings the stumbled on a demon summoning ritual. After the Goliath barbarian drank the blood used for summoning the boss and becoming the bbg for a bit they absolutely demolished my boss. They where super happy at killing my boss in like 8 turns. So instead of giving them the happiness they got I (on the spot) made a second phase that almost resulted in a tpk. Was what I did underserving of dice Christ’s blessings? Please help me cause I think dice Christ is mad…..

fletcher

Hello esteemed justices and lowly bailiff, I bring forth a case that I will call the Benevolent DM vs The Malevolent DM. I am DMing a campaign with a short timeline that will end in two sessions. My friend who has also dm-ed and is a player in this campaign, thinks I go too easy on the players, because in about 10 sessions we've only had a few times when someone went below 0 hp. My arguments are: 1. I don't want the PCs to die with 2 sessions left, it would suck for them to make a new character and 2. They have one healer who is a 5th level paladin who only has lay on hands no other healing spells. He thinks that if the PCs don't drop to zero the stakes aren't high enough and I need to make combat harder. I will add that I have only had one other player say that a fight was too easy but that was the second session and I agreed and made every fight after much harder. Should I make the next two sessions much more difficult, or should I keep doing what I'm doing which is make the combat interesting but not particularly deadly?

Harry

Greetings juicy justices and bottom of the barrel bailiff, I bring to you the case of the crime-encouraging DM. It was one of our first sessions playing dnd a few years ago going through the mines of Phandelver adventure. It was going pretty well and people were having a good time. When the characters were having a long rest, the dm suddenly turned to the rogue and word for word said "so do you want to, like ,steal something from the other players? You're a rogue afterall". Then the rogue, who was quite a shy guy, just said "yeah I'll take *my characters* gold". When I protested, the dm just told me to "deal with it". My character asked to duel him for it, and he accepted. When I was going to strike a killling blow, the dm described a literal God coming down to save the rogue. By then, I had lost my temper and started shouting at him out of character. So I ask justices, was I right to be annoyed, or should I have respected the dms wishes?

Rhea

To your graciousness, the former judge of Boston and current judge of our hearts, John And the others. I come to you with a plea, recently I have been re-listening to campaign one and whenever I envision the unfolding story I can only ever see Paw-Paw as Momo the flying monkey from Avatar, I know this is sacrilege but my mind won’t seem to change its perception, how can I reckon with my mind and rejuvenate my recollection of Behumia? Thank you for your time.

Mynne Maxine

May it please the buff and beautiful baliff Josh and his sexy sidekicks, I present to you the case of the player hating DM. I'm in a campaign where my backstory is I'm a bounty hunter who works for the mob and I teamed up with the rest of the players in hopes of coming across my main bounty. I take other bounties here and there when we arrive at new cities. We entered a new city and my character was approached by some local thugs who wanted me to bring my group's cleric in alive, which I agreed to. At the start of the most recent session we roleplayed me subduing the cleric and taking him to the drop off location. After getting paid I then asked my cleric if he would like to hire me to take care of his captors for him for 1 gold. My DM lost his shit and started yelling at me, informing me I can't go back on a bounty, to which I reminded him I'm only loyal to the mob and I didn't go back on a bounty, I finished it and started another separate one. After some yelling back and forth the DM decided to let me play my character, and he drily narrated the rest of the session. My question is: does the DM have the right to tell me what my character would do in a situation, and did I ruin the session by not informing my DM ahead of time that I was going to help the cleric? Sincerely Ron Burgundy

vrtx

To the demeaning crit justices, and the under appreciated baliff, i bring to you the case of the under appreciated baliff! Your honors can’t treat our sweet Jake like this. He’s a delicate flower, he can’t protect himself from such harsh words. I beg of you, he’s just a lowly Baliff, release him from such humiliation!

daniel e

May it please Jake, Jake, Jake and the guest from 8bit book club. I bring you the case of untrusting barbarian. I dm a party of two players a wizard and a barbarian. After the party pulled the deck of many thing the wizard pulled the balance card and we came to the conclusion that the wizard will reroll a new character as his wizard will become a new villain in the campaign. Now rolling a bard the party sets up for war. When war time comes to the barbarian abandons the new bard in the middle of the battlefield saying and trying to justify by saying " oh well my character would just be suspicious of him because of the incident from the deck of many things ruining the fun for my wizard/bard and quitting the campaign. Was I wrong for letting the barbarian get away with that was there anything I could of done to prevent that I am at your mercy

yeow

Massachusetts is always welcome for you to preside, Bailiff Jake

thatoneguy

To the Imperial Justices who wield the mandate of heaven and the treacherous eunuch Jake. I present to you the case of the burning gear. My first ever TTRPG campaign was set in Pathfinder using a pre-made pirate module. The basic premise was that the players and a bunch of other customers at a pub would be drugged and shanghaied onto a pirate ship where would would be force to work for an evil captain and crew until we were strong enough to take over ourselves. Most of our starting equipment was stolen from us and stored in a ship store, where essentially we'd have to buy back our own property. I and a couple other characters had managed to buy/steal back some of our gear after a couple of days, but none of us were fully equipped. Enter, our parties cleric/warlock (I forget which) who we shall call Seeker. Seeker got the bright idea to send his familiar into the store in the middle of the night to set fire to some barrels of rum we were forced to drink. His plan worked and his little fire spread to the the store and the gunpowder stored below deck, setting our ship ablaze. The crew was forced to work all night putting out the flames, we were all flogged to shit when the culprit wasn't discovered, and most importantly, I lost my fucking armor in the blaze. Seeker's defense for destroying our shit? Well because he was an evil cleric of a Pirate God "It's what my character would do!" Was my friend right in sticking true to his character or does he owe me a new suit of armor? I await your divine justice.

A Spicy Lad of the Shadowkeep

To my beloved Justices and to Jake, I bring you the case of the coworker who immediately 'went there'. I'm running a club at my workplace for brand new players, lots of coworkers who fancied trying their hand at D and D. Sounds fun, right? Well, it is; for the most part. In our very first actual play session, one of our new players decided that on their very first turn, they'd make a weirdly heated racist remark about goblins. Fictional creatures, yes, but right out of the gate, it was a bigotry remark. As this is someone I work with, I don't know how to handle it, as I don't want it to spoil the other new players' experience with D and D, and I really don't think that goblin racism falls under our HR policy, so they're out of the picture. I beseech thee, fair Justices (and fine Jake), how do I handle this anti-PC PC?

Crits

Also as an autistic person, seconded

Jelly

May it please the sweeties and also Jake, I humbly come to you with an issue that I'm sure many tables know all too well. I am in a group that now wants to play every week, which is unsustainable for my work schedule. At first this wasn't an issue and we would play every other week. The issue is, the DM is roommates with one of the PC's, who pushes him to schedule weekly. They will play even if two of four PC's are missing. This is resulting me to feel a little left out, and not as engaged in the campaign. I understand needing to play without me due to scheduling conflicts, but am I wrong to feel a little left out at this point?

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

High bishops of Dice Christ, I come with a confession. It was my first full campaign after a handful of one shot sessions, and I was playing a cleric (life domain). I was the designated healer, and chose lots of different healing spells to fit a variety of situations. One of these was Prayer of Healing, which at the time I thought was broken. 2d8+8 HP to up to six creatures? Why would I ever need Healing Word or Cure Wounds again?

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

Unfortunately, it was not until the final session, when I was looking at my character sheet to retire it, that I saw a vital error: casting time. While other healing spells cost one action or a bonus action, Prayer of Healing needed 10 minutes to cast. I cast it in combat as an action multiple times, and my DM never said anything, but I still feel the guilt to this day. If it helps my penance, I have since started a campaign in a home brew setting of permanent night, and the former DM, now a PC, went Gloomstalker Rogue and has insane advantages for the setting. Please wash me from my sin!

Ian juarez

May it please the honorable crit justices and some guy who’s name escapes me at this moment to hear the tale of the Gunslinger’s Goof. I run a home brew 5e campaign set in a nautical world and this story comes from a few years ago but it still haunts me to this day. The party were all level 3, a fighter, a barbarian, a rogue, and a wizard and this was our second session of the campaign. After arriving back in port they were looking to get up to some antics before turning it in for the night and the fighter suggested that he know a place to have some fun. For context in this characters backstory he had a checkered criminal past and had been kicked out of a gang under threat of death (his writing, not mine) The fighter suggested that they head to a bar he knew about that was owned by that gang (neglecting to tell his fellow party members about that fact) and after stealing some clothes off a homeless person as a disguise headed over there. They all had a bit of fun but after a short amount of time with what I thought was a flimsy disguise I had one of the members of the gang recognize him and begin to make threats about revealing him to their old boss before breaking a bottle over the counter in an attempt to initiate a bar fighter, the fighter rolls high initiative and on his first turn proceeds to pull out his gun, dump all of his grit points into one attack, and blow the lowly bandits head of his shoulders… this quickly spiraled from a fun bar brawl into an all out battle for their lives that culminated in the fighter being knocked unconscious and the entire party being strong armed into a several session long mini arc to rescue him. After of which the fighter told me privately that due to the fact that the entire party was quite angry at him for this in character he would like to switch characters to a new character and start fresh. I’ve always felt bad about making him not have fun playing the character and ask humbly of you, Should I have punished this player for getting a little bit too excited about his backstory right of the bat, or should I just have let his transgressions against the gang slide and went on with my original plan for the story, maybe to cause him to continue playing the character he was so excited to play.

Kevin Alman

Hello honorable justices and the (insert appropriate adjective here) bailiff. I come to you with a case of possible self robbery? I was DMing a heist at an auction and one of my players decided to cast suggestion on another auction goer, Thaddeus, and asked them to give the party all of his money to help reimburse them for the money they had to spend to win the auction and claim the artifact they were originally there to steal. Long story short a teleportation mishap cause Thaddeus to take force damage twice his hp, killing him before he could give anyone any money. But the question is, can you cast suggestion on someone to make them give you all of their money, about a total of 15,000 gold, or would this be considered a harmful act against themselves? I await your fair and just ruling.

Cameron Davis

Hello and Calloo Callay to the venerable judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner—as well as [REDACTED]! I present to you a case that I hope both pleases you all, as well as sparks some debate to the topic of: which is more important, Rules as Written or Rule of Cool? I DMed for a campaign with 3 players, who were all level 6 at the time—a Halfling Barbarian named Bizkit (spelled like Limp Bizkit on purpose), a Tiefling Warlock named Amino, and a Half-Elf Rogue named Ozzy, as well as my DMPC, a dumb but well intentioned meathead (very much like Luna from C1) who is a Dragonborn Fighter. My party was in a combat scenario against a group of Half-Dragon Marauders (I’m using Half-Dragon stats from the Monster Manual, so these guys are beefy). Long story short, Bizkit the Barbarian was brought down by the Marauders, who—after being provoked by her very constant but admittedly funny shit-talking—were 100% willing to kill her if the party didn’t surrender their valuables. They were in dire straits as well and no one was backing down. Amino, on his turn decided that he wanted to use his movement to go into the fray between two of the marauders, put his hand on Bizkit (who is at 2 failed death saves currently) and cast Misty Step, taking her out of the fray. I looked up the spell’s wording, and ruled that because it had both a Range and Target of Self, that it could not be used this way. Amino (who is being played by my longtime best friend) slyly looks at me and asks, “I mean…but could I do something like that anyway because rule of cool?” It was all in good fun, but I told him no and said that I was firm on my ruling. They ended up saving Bizkit anyway through healing potion spam and taking a few hits themselves, but Amino and I go back and forth about this every now and again. Honorable Judges, I ask: has my adherence to the rules brought upon us a tyrannical, anti-fun reign that must be ended and brought to justice? Or shall Amino suffer the wrath of the court for his flippant disregard for the laws we follow as D&D players? I await your just decision.

Rose Smith

Dear Honorable Judges and lowley to infinity bailiff, I present to you the case of The Do-Over Player. I was new to playing D&D and joined a group of 4 roommates in starting a new campaign. I was really excited and decided to play a rouge to offer utility to the group. As part of my backstory I wanted my character to by trying to join a secret organization i helped designed. My issue is this. My player character throughout the first few sessions was trying to join this order and once I did join the organization. One of the other PCs decided to roll insight to see if I was lying. I rolled deception and beat his roll. The issue being after he failed he said, "Oh I roll again to see if she's lying." We ended up doing this five times until eventually I rolled low enough. I begged my DM but he sided with the other player (his roommate). This ended with the entire party joining my secret organization and my character losing their cool plot line. Honorable Judges: I throw my case at your feet. (P.S. I ended up getting new friends to play with)

Matthew Rudland Barfoot

Dear esteemed adjudicators of the court and the bog-standard bailiff that looks like he might work out. I have the quarrel of the chaotically aligned party. I'm playing a Harengon monk-druid in a witch beyond the witch light campaign with 4 other players. Being a monk druid, my character is relatively good and lawful, he tries to help others, honour his god and balance nature. We have another Harengon cleric, that is True Good denying combat and violence in pursuit of peace. Our problem is two chaotic players. Where one is a neutral fairy druid; that like kirby, wildshapes based on characters it has eaten and is based on Fat Bastard (Austin Powers), including, trying to eat NPCs and PCs (me) to obtain their powers. The main issue is the Evil Elf Wild Magic Sorcerer that *spoilers* immolated a camp of Harengons in Act 2 of the game, he speaks like a mock Christian bale batman and keeps demanding a war galleon for unknown reasons whilst railroading the party into hairy situations where the outcome is wholly uncertain and has lead to me going to death saving throws twice. The dynamics of this party is hilarious and broken, I am stumped as to how to navigate a game where the characters are completely misaligned and the story is narratively not making any sense, as everyone we meet we either double cross or try to kill. I have resorted to bapping the evil PCs with my quarterstaff when they try to eat or threaten innocent NPCs, however the loudest voice wins and I don't want to be a problem player. I await your judgement and advice to progress forward with the campaign.

Matthew Rudland Barfoot

Also forgot to say, our DM does not appear to understand initiative, action costs or HP. As he often allows NPCs to auto-die on a crit as well as letting the chaotically evil player cast Aganazzars scorcher and 2x firebolt in one turn, allowing for the immolation of the Harengon NPCs. They are a new DM and I don't want to step in and throw my weight around, as I have DM'd alot previously

Matthew Rudland Barfoot

Aside from this and for your own interest, it is interesting to note that with the exception of myself, the players are devoutly Christian, upstanding lovely people. And for some reason their characters are personifications of all their repressed evil. It is excellent and somewhat terrifying.

dat_rogue_baddie

To the divine and ever fair and just supreme crit justices murphy, axford, and tanner and the modest bailiff hurwitz, i submit the case of PvP and metagaming. i am playing in my first ever campaign via a discord chat and roll 20 as our virtual table top. we are a year into the campaign and are level 8, we all know each others abilities pretty well after dozens of combat encounters. the setting is a magical university and there is a mechanic for students to duel to settle conflicts. one of my party members challenged me and we began our 1v1. during combat, i was confused on how my opponent was able to do so many attacks and use his breath weapon and fly in one round as a level 8 Monk, Way of the Ascendant Dragon. when i was trying to ask about it, party members who were not in the combat said that i was metagaming and i shouldnt comment on what attacks my opponent can do. (worth noting: i was also trash-talking a good bit and mentioned how many Ki points my opponent had and this sparked the debate). when i tried to explain my confusion and get clarification, i kept getting talked over in a very condescending way and got really upset and ended up leaving the discord chat and not finishing the 1v1. later, i discovered i was right and that my opponent was able to do way too many attacks, wasnt using his ki points correctly, and was using incorrect damage die during the entire fight. he was rolling the incorrect die for unarmed attacks (a d8 instead of a d6 for his martial level) and his breath weapon (2d10 instead of 2d6), he wasn't using a Ki point to fly using his Wings Unfurled (which is his subclass version of Step of the Wind), and he was able to do 4-5 attacks each round without using Ki points but the most he should have been able to get was 4 with using a Ki point for Flurry of Blows. i spoke with the DM after and he said he would talk to the other player and audit everyone's character sheet. we never revisited the 1v1. i come to you today to ask: was i really metagaming and if i shouldnt have left the combat and just kept going?

OvrCaffWarlock

To the ever radiant Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner. and the lackluster bailiff…Jack maybe? I submitted a case of suspected level tweaking. I play in a wildness beyond the Witchlight campaign that my good friend and DM set up. This is his first time DM and is in his own world “Not knowledge about the ins and outs of the different subclasses”. The problem arose in the first session. Our party consists of Me (Eladrian Fey-wander Ranger), Ty Lee (Human Storm Sorcerer), Lark (Fairy Lore Bard) and the point of my concern Slithertwist (Lizardfold Wildfire Druid with an amnesia storyline) all of us starting at level 3. While exploring the carnival we had the chance to participate in a cake eating contest. Myself and Slithertwist signed up as contestants. We did some pre-game shenanigans where I was trying to charm the other competitors into loosing. Slithertwist on the other hand wildshaped into a fire elemental to try and burn the cakes instead of eating them. I thought this was strange knowing that wildshaping into a fire elemental wasn’t possible until Druid level 10. I brushed it off and figured it had something to do with his amnesia backstory. That was until the next session when got into a fight with a giant stage puppet of a Tarrasque and used Guardian of Nature (which he should learn until 7th level) as well as wildshaping into the Fire Elemental. My DM has made some comment about how powerful Slithertwist has been but hasn’t questioned if the player has been playing him wrong. My question is, Do I bring this up to my DM at the expense of the tables fun or do I just let it slide knowing the rule bending ways of this player. I humbly await your verdict

Joshua Levy

Sounds like a HARE-y situation indeed. Faced with the same I might have my chHAREicter commit HARE-i kari. As an amicus brief though, you’ve done nothing wrong and simply need to find new friends. I’m sorry and good luck. (Or do a session 0 so everyone is on the same page, then try to get a more chaotic campaign going to act as a release while you can try to keep “good” chHAREacters in the “good” campaign)

Daniel Griffin

Intro Free 2023, I bring you the story of how one bad apple spoils the bunch, I played in a homebrew world for a friend who was attempting to create a world that he would later write as a comic. He asked a group of us if we would play in his world, and he would take aspects from our campaign and incorporate them into his story to make the world feel more lived in. The setting was a Lovecraftian inspired cityscape, separated by a working class, and an upper class. The upper class being spearheaded by this Bezos-esk genius inventor, wail in the shadow of the the lower-class, "undesirables" meddled with the occult in order to strike back at the power imbalance of the cruel world they lived in. There were 5 of us players, and we all picked races or features that made us stand out as "undesirables". A barbarian who had been marked by the old gods with huge scars covering his body, a dwarf who's arms where so large he just walked on his hands instead, a well respected doctor who was actually a giant bird/bat monster in a trench coat with a plague Dr. mask on to hide his identity, and two brothers (I played the older one) who's only decerning features was that we had tan skin, white hair, and red eyes (like the Ishvalians from Full Metal Alchemist). Me and my in game brother hailed from a country where our people were often captured and enslaved, so seeing two free slaves often made our lives difficult. This prompted us on our journey to find safety and power, gathering the other players as we went. I was a bullshiter, who maxed out charisma and had virtually no combat skill, my only goal being to protect my brother. Through some insanely lucky roles, and some wonderful DM improv, my character somehow became the leaders of their very own cult. My character didn't believe in any of it, by my fellow player characters where completely bamboozled by my incredible bluffing skills, and the fact that we were making money hand over fist a a glorified gang. Eventually the Bezos-esk character was having a ball, and my ever growing cult decided we should infiltrate and steal some of his tech. After some even more luck we got an almost private audience with Mr. Bezos where he admits to having had an eye on us for quite some time, and being impressed with our abilities, offers us jobs and more money that we could ever rightfully spend. This is it, the whole goal of what my charactor has been trying to acomplish, safty for my brother

Meagan Malone

May it please the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the understated Bailiff Jake. Several years ago, I was playing a half-Drow fighter/druid multiclass named Pyrrha Pridesworn (who had a Steller's sea eagle named Braxx as an animal companion--not relevant, I just think more people should know about Steller's sea eagles). My party was being pursued by a group of bandits (not in initiative, but we knew we were headed toward a fight). We ducked into a cave with a Hobbit-hole-esque door to try to escape, and I wanted to rig a trap to go off if the cave door was opened, hopefully softening up the bandits a little. My DM (also my now-husband) asked me to describe the trap. Not being a survivalist or engineer of any kind, I gave a general explanation of the materials I wanted to use and the way the trap might work--a rope affixed to the door that would pull the trigger on a crossbow if the door was pulled open. He said he couldn't picture it, so I couldn't even attempt it. I feel that Pyrrha, who was an Outlander and scout, should at least have been able to attempt a roll to make the trap, especially since the result would only have been a single bandit possibly getting hit by a single crossbow bolt. Was I unfairly punished for not being as knowledgeable as my PC, or was my DM right to shut the idea down?

Brian Gifford

Fodder for discussion. There are multiple accounts of archers at the battle of Agincourt removing their pants and having diarrhea on the battlefield due to dysentery… so there is truly historical precedent

Pat N.

It’s messed up that your DM would pit PC against PC! PCs shouldn’t be able to take unwanted actions on each other

Rainemaker

May it please the magnificent Justices and He of Ever Shifting Adjectives, jake. I made my players cry and I don't know if I should feel bad about it. We've been playing off-and-on for a year or so in this homebrewed campaign, and at one point, the Party had ended up in a small coastal town, besieged by fishfolk. After saving the town, they learned the fishfolk were trying to collect a young girl- a tiefling in a town of entirely humans. They learned with a little bit of context clues and her very dismissive parents that they did not like the girl, and were hoping to get rid of her- willing to sacrifice her to the fishfolk. The party, of course, didn't like that, and "adopted" this child, deciding to take her to somewhere that she can be safe. They gave her a home to live in in the monastery of the Cleric. Afterwards they proceeded to continue doing the Adventurer Party thing and got tangled up into things way bigger than themselves. At one point in the feywilds, and the death of a beloved NPC of theirs (that was partially their fault) they found themselves needing to make a deal with a Fey Queen. The Queen followed classic Faerie procedures and asked for their first child. Thinking that it would just be a thing in the future for their character, the Cleric offered her child. The problem was, a couple months back, I had asked how they had seen the tiefling- if she was like a child, a niece, a younger sister, etc. She answered that she was exactly like a daughter to her. The call was silent as I described this young tiefling being plucked from her home and appearing before them- her body shifting to become more faerie-like (sprouting antlers rather than horns, etc.) And then? The cleric sniffled. I had made them cry Real Actual Tears. And i felt Terrible. So, Justices (and jake), I ask you. Should I find a way to give them back their child and break the Fae Queen's Promise? Or should I take their tears as a compliment to my character writing? I humbly await your judgement. (sorry i do not know what brief is.)

The one they call Barlo

To the "equally" wonderful justices and bailiff. I bring a case of character building that I think needs a precedent. Two of my players have tried to create characters with their, arguably, most important stat as a dump stat. A paladin with 10 CHA and a barbarian with 10 STR. Querying this, at session 0 they both said, akin to, we figure you'll just give as a magic item to sort that out. Now, I'm all for giving items to shore up character weaknesses, but this is taking the biscuit. Right? I humbly throw myself before you. X

Elana Hastie

Dear exalted justices and um, is his name Lake? I have a rather short case for you. The other day during my party’s session. I was rolling nat 20’s like crazy. It was awesome, by what must have been my 5th nat 20, my dm/boyfriend (Who was playing in the other room cause we were online) came over to really see if I rolled a Nat 20 and noticed that I kept all of my dice in the dice tray. He said that while he’ll accept the nat 20, I really shouldn’t keep the dice in the dice tray because they can bump against each other and change the results of the dice. I just kind of laughed it off since he allowed the roll. But it got me thinking, how would the other dice in the tray actually change the results of the die? It’s not like that’s something that would change the outcome of the roll and certainly nothing I could have any control over. I hope you guys can shed some light on this low-stakes dilemma.

Trans Rights

Most esteemed Cardinals of Dice Christ (and their beard oil guy), I have sinned. This is the worst thing I've ever done in a game of D&D. I was playing a warforged bard in a campaign that I was unsatisfied with, since the DM had arbitrarily chosen the sorcerer to be the main character and everyone else's characters were sidelined. During a random encounter, I had accrued a failed death save and seemingly the party didn't care enough to bring me back, so on my next turn, I changed the result of my next death save to a nat 1, killing my bard. What followed was the rest of the party, in character and out, realizing how much my bard mattered to them, a far cry from the dismissive attitude from before. The resulting funeral/resurrection quest and character interactions was enough that I went from planning to leave the campaign after that session, to staying until the campaign was done. I know what I did was wrong, and that I was looking for attention. I await your judgement.

Xavior

Dear almighty and powerful justices and the swift hand of punishment Jake. I bring to you the case of the discord Prince. My group were playing every Saturday but some wanted to play during the week (small things here and there) so we started a discord channel. I couldn't join in because of work. Well two weeks later one of the other players turns out to be a prince. Wouldn't be bad, but when faced with a challenge they try to use their wealth or army to get out of it. Mighty judges I ask what do I do?

Riley Nielson

Intro free 2023. I come to you with the case of the blasphemous westmarches style session that may have gotten me kicked out of a different campaign. A year ago, the members of my regular campaign decided that we wanted to run a concurrent westmarches style game so that our other friends who could not commit to a full campaign coukd still play with us. Three other players DM'ed sessions, the first of which resulted in a TPK (including my own character). The vibe of the campaign was that that many characters would probably die throughout, and the group had a vibe of not taking things too seriously (i.e., one character was taken over by an intellect devourer and chose to continue playing the same charcater until the campaign ended). It is important to note that while we all live in the same city, we played via discord and roll20 as it is easier to schedule for both campaigns. I offered to host the next session, and gave the group quest in which an elven woman's human husband had disappeared while on a job in kobold-controlled caves, and she wanted the party to recover his body or at least something of his to bury. After a crawl through the caves, the party discovered a small shack near an underground river. Knocking on the door, they discovered a human man, who revealed himself to be the guy they were looking for. They also discovered his kobold wife and three half-kobold children. He told the party that while he had been initially hired to help clear out the caves of kobolds, he had fallen in love and had started a second family, later leaving for good and hoping his wife would just assume he died. Immediately, one of the PCs attacked and killed all five of them with burning hands, stating that as this hybrid monstrosity family was an affront to their (evil-aligned) god, he had to rid the world of them. As I had planned a more role-play heavy ending for this session, having all five of these NPCs murdered immediately left me with 30-45 minutes left with nothing to fill it with. I chose to instead have there be other kobolds nearby who came and attacked the party, which was listed as an easy-to-meduim encounter based on CR. Long story short, good rolls on my part and bad roles on theirs, all but one party member (who fled early on in combat) died. While it wasn't their first encounter that session, they were all at or near full HP and had more than enough spells to handle the encounter. Everyone told me that they genuinely enjoyed the session, and laughed about the human-kobold twist. I joked back that they did have the option to just talk the husband, get an item from him, and return for the reward, but they had to go full inquisition and kill a 3m old baby, which everyone laughed about. I also let it slip that the final encounter was not planned, which changed the mood entirely as some players seemed upset that they lost their characters (some of them on their third already over the first three sessions) to such a low-level encounter that wasn't even planned originally. I commented back that they killed a baby and other children, the locals would hear it happen and probably not be too happy about it, so the encounter was logical to occur, joking that having race-mixing as an RP explanation for their murder was weird since the man in question was human and his original wife was an elf, and noting that the dice gods decided their fate, not me. The westmarches game went on for three more games before everyone seemed to lose interest. Not long after that, my regular game ended as the DM "lost interest" in the story he was telling. A week later I learned that a new campaign was in the works, but when I asked about it, I was told that the DM wanted to shrink the party down from six to four as he was strugging managing six character arcs, which I understood and let be as i had joined the previous campaign a few weeks after eveeyone else. A week later, I was in the friend group discord to see all of the campaign members playing in voice chat, and noticed that it included a fifth party member, another member of the original group. They started a new campaign with everyone but me. I called them out, saying that if they didn't want to play with me they could have just told me and I would have at least respected that, but to tell me that there was no more room, only to invite another player later, was just gross. Two of the members whom I've known the longest reached out, apologizing for the situation, but not explaining what happened. I chose to fully leave that friend group, only staying friends with one of them who continues to play in a campaign that i DM to this day. He stated a few weeks after everything happened that he personally doesn't know what happened and just was going with the flow, and I believe him, but he did tell that the one player I made the race mixing RP comment to was miffed, both by the comment and to the TPK encounter happening in the first place. He also said that he doesn't think it was any interpersonal issues either, which is back by some of the other players, including the one whose RP I commented on, have since expressed that they thought I should have remained friends with them regardless. I maintain that what they did was something I'm justified in being upset over as the situation wasn't worth kicking someone out for, and that they could have just spoken to me like adults instead if there was a problem to address. I humbly throw myself before the court and ask: 1. Was the joke about the player's RP too far; 2. Was the unplanned, accidental low-level encounter TPK something I should understand them getting upset about, and; 3. Am I right about the lack of communication/not wanting to remain friends with this group?